by Jim Markson
Beyond Lemon Bay was an expected easy sail through Placida Harbor and then passage through Charlotte Harbor, a task they both assessed as one of the most potentially dangerous sections of the entire trip. Decisions on how to proceed at that point would depend greatly on the weather and, as there was no way to know what the weather would be like when they got there in the afternoon, further discussion was deferred until they made it through Lemon Bay.
The park warden was opening up the gate to the parking lot as the brothers shipped out and sailed across the front of the boat ramps. As they had assumed, there was little recreational boat traffic now that the weekend had passed. The morning was cold, but the sun was coming up bright. There would have normally been a strong “land breeze,” but the steep banks of the Venice Canal conspired to deprive the sailors the benefit of this gentle form of propulsion.
Mike and John agreed to take one-hour shifts rowing, both knowing the other would row until dark before he suggested his turn was up. They wore large wristwatches that served multiple functions, and Mike had teased John about the size and brand of his watch, calling it a “wrist clock.” The police forces surrounding Tampa had an abundance of military reserve personnel, many of whom were associated with MacDill Air Force Base, which, sitting in the middle of Tampa Bay, served not only as the home of US Central Command, but also Special Operations Command, both of which had seen more than their fair share of duty during recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mike had observed that guys coming back from war-zone tours inevitably seemed to all wear the Suunto brand watch his brother was now wearing, an oversized watch made in Finland and reportedly the most useful and reliable when your ass was on the line. Mike would never make fun of a full-time soldier wearing the watch, but a fellow cop coming back from reserve duty, even if he was in the same shit-hole tour of duty as the full-time soldier, somehow seemed fair game. And the same twisted logic also prevailed when it came to teasing his brother.
“I’ll take the first turn,” Mike had said. “Make sure you’ve got the sun dials on your wrist clock all lined up so you know when it’s your turn.”
“You lust for this watch,” John had replied, “but you know you can’t wear it because it’s designed for soldiers, not Miami Vice detectives concerned about fashion.”
“Oooh, the quiver… it flies true and pierces my core …” Mike answered with feigned offense. “Just make sure your fancy wrist clock knows when an hour is up and it’s time for my nap, soldier boy.”
With the lack of wind, the sail was completely trimmed and wrapped vertically along the length of the mast. The oar locks were placed into their mounts and Mike, facing the rear of the small boat and trying to alternate looking over his left and right shoulder to make sure of his course, deftly pulled the two eight-foot oars through the smooth surface of the Venice Canal. John leaned back in the bow of the small boat, silently admiring the skill evident in his brother’s rowing technique, knowing that it was not near as easy as Mike made it look. The sun was now stretching out and, with the lack of any breeze, the chill of the prior evening was evaporating and it would soon be warm. Both brothers were wearing full dry suits, which zipped up the front and were designed to keep out all water, even if fully immersed. But they also held in incredible amounts of heat, and both had once again unzipped the suits and pulled off the upper half to let the body heat escape.
They had both retained most of their personal gear after the capsizing on Tampa Bay and, while the first issue was protecting themselves from potential hypothermia associated with the March waters, a close second was protection from the sun. John still had a floppy cotton hat he had brought back from Afghanistan, which had served him well in the desert heat but was slow to dry out once wet. Mike’s hat was one of the things he had lost in the darkness of the capsizing. It was an expensive piece of equipment, and one of the few things he had really given much thought to in preparation for the adventure. It was made of special nylon blend that was light, flexible, quick-drying, and included some sort of built-in U.V. sunscreen material. It even had a flap that could be rolled down and protected the neck from sunburn. In its absence, he had bought an over-sized straw tourist hat in Ana Maria and, despite its low-tech qualities, he had become quite enamored with it, believing that it did a better job of allowing the heat from his head to escape through its weaved palms.
Unlike his hat, one piece of gear that Mike had retained was a set of gloves, which he had put on earlier that morning in preparation for rowing. He had bought them on a whim at Walmart the day before the race and, while he didn’t know exactly what sport they were designed for, he suspected they would come in handy during the adventure. They were black leather on the inside, a woven blend of cotton and nylon on the outside of the hand, and they stopped at the second knuckle. Mike had cut off the Velcro retaining strap thinking it would chafe if he did any serious rowing. He would offer them to John when his turn for rowing came up, but was not sure his brother would use them. Mike was embarrassed at the softness of his hands, the manifestation of a profession where typing reports was typically the most physical use of his hands during the course of a day. John’s hands were rougher and calloused, hands that had regularly been used in fighting for survival.
It was a long row. Venice Canal was as flat as melted butter, like the pool water that insects could walk on without breaking through. And it was quiet, the morning light shimmering in a silence broken only by the sounds of Mike’s oars cutting through the water and pushing the boat forward, six feet at a time. The rhythm of the oar strokes reverberated gently off the canal’s steep retaining walls, and John quickly fell asleep in the front of the boat to the lullaby of his brother’s toils.
Not a significant word had been said since they folded up the maps and launched the boat into the canal. Mike looked over his shoulder at his brother and thought of the verbal sparring of the night before. Assuredly John suffered from PTSD, and as he watched him curled up asleep in the front of the boat, Mike could not help but wonder what terrible and unspoken events his brother had lived through. It came so easy to handle issues in jest, and maybe there was some second purpose hidden in their taunts that helped them both to cope with the issues, but Mike had vowed to find a moment during the trip to tell his brother how proud he was of John’s service to the country, how grateful he was for the sacrifices John and his military brothers had endured on behalf of those who remained safely back home. But while the thoughts came easy as he stroked through the water and glanced upon his older brother sleeping, the words would not be spoken now, but he vowed again he would find the strength to say them aloud before the trip was over.
It was a long row. The sun was fully awake and the sweat ran down Mike’s face underneath the cheap tourist hat as he stroked the oars, pushing the boat slowly down the canal. He rested for a minute as he took an old bandana and tied it around his head underneath the hat to stop the sweat from dripping into his eyes. He had pulled out one of the gallon bottles of water and told himself to rest the oars and drink every hundred strokes. He did not bother to count the strokes nor look at his watch. There was rowing to do, and neither the number of strokes taken nor the time elapsed seemed to have much significance. He wondered what had been the most difficult aspect of war for his brother. He guessed that if any of John’s men had been killed while under his supervision it would be the greatest pain of all. Mike had long been in law enforcement, and while he had handled a few fatal traffic accidents, and had pointed his weapon in the line of duty, he had never seen anyone actually die, and had never been involved in any form of shooting incident.
His brother had always been a natural leader, the type of man other men want to follow during difficult times. He seemed to exude increased calmness the worse situations became, but at the same time, was able to effectively assess the situation and come up with the best course of action before anyone else even realized what was going on. He never yelled or panicked, his instructions delivered so effortlessly that their s
ignificance was sometimes lost on those who didn’t know him well.
When they were still in high school, there were regular summer family reunions at beach locations typically in northeast Florida. Distant family relatives would come together and put the “fun” in a dysfunctional family. Bonfires would be lit on the beach and great quantities of beer consumed, as stories grew louder and laughter and challenges filled the air. Mike could still remember the time when, with the sun going down and the air filled with talk and laughter, John had quickly stood up and coolly instructed Mike to call 9-1-1, their cousin was caught in a rip current. Without another word, John ran to the surf and swam the 100 yards to his ten-year-old cousin, pulling him out of the current and back to the beach coughing up foam. Mike had raced to the house to call 9-1-1 as instructed, and it was only as he went racing back to the beach to help his brother that anyone else in the family realized what was going on. Of course, John was the hero of the party later that night, but it was the fact that he had seen what others hadn’t, known immediately what to do, and did it without hesitation that made him different than other men. It was often hard to discern this quality in men, especially if they were snoring in the bow of a small boat, but Mike knew what his brother was made of, and respected him more than any other man he knew.
It was a long row, but finally the man-made Venice Canal opened up to the northern end of Lemon Bay. While the bay would slowly grow in width, it was still too narrow to allow enough wind for the sails, so Mike rested for a minute, drank some more water, and then resumed his rowing.
John had seemed naturally bound for the military since as far back as Mike could remember, although there didn’t ever seem to be a defining moment or influencing incident; it just seemed where he was intended to be. There weren’t any close relatives in the military and, when John had joined, it was not a very popular place to make a career. But it didn’t seem like he ever had any doubt. On a regular basis in high school, and then in college, he discussed his entry into the army as if it was already a done deal.
He had applied to the military academies, but the family lacked the political connections and there was nothing that could be put on paper to make John stand out from the many other qualified candidates. He had received a significant scholarship offer from a prestigious military school in South Carolina, but it would still cost much more than he could afford, and the combined scholarship and in-state tuition offered by the University of Florida proved irresistible. He studied engineering and was one of the few native-born males in most of his classes, which were typically dominated by foreign students who were much more serious about their educations than most American kids. He loved his studies, did well, and struck a fair balance between schoolwork and his extracurricular pursuits, which, of course, included ROTC.
While John had been interested in becoming a Navy SEAL, he had pursued the Army upon graduation, as the opportunities to get involved in Special Operations seemed greater. He successfully pursued and completed Ranger training at the first opportunity and, while he never talked about it, there were additional periods of unspecified training that Mike assumed must have been related to additional Special Ops work associated with his ranger duties.
Like many soldiers, John didn’t like to talk about his work and, although Mike had no point of comparison, he hoped it was just a matter of not talking about the topics with those outside of the Service, those who couldn’t understand the dynamics of the situation. Mike prayed his brother had talked more about his job to his military brethren, because he had sure been mute on the issue with his own blood brother.
John had seemed headed down the road to Special Ops work when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan broke out, and he had apparently switched over to conventional duty. He had occasionally made a passing comment that there wasn’t anything all that special in special operations, and it was better to have the clarity and predictability of conventional warfare when you were responsible for other men’s lives.
Whatever his assignments and commands, and John spoke rarely about either, he had apparently done well and earned the rank of Lt. Colonel shortly before returning home for rest and relaxation in the form of a little boating adventure with his wayward younger brother. Despite the lack of communication, Mike did regularly think and worry about his brother, and was happy when he saw the change in rank inconspicuously noted on an email asking for assistance for an injured soldier relocating to Tampa. Mike had thought that the heightened rank must surely have moved his brother further from the hostile front—it certainly worked that way in police work.
As the breadth of Lemon Bay gradually expanded, Mike could feel the breeze start to pick up. Soon, the chop of waves would similarly increase and, before he raised the sails, Mike knew it would be a good time to release some of the water he had been so conscientiously drinking. The “bucket” was something John had taught him about long ago, lecturing on the number of solo sailors who lost their lives in the apparently simple act of evacuating their bladders or bowels. Appearances can be deceiving John had warned, and even the simplest acts can have disastrous consequences when you were in a small boat on a big bay in a bigger world. The trick, John had said, was to think in advance about how you would feel seeing the boat sail away by itself with you stuck in the dark cold water trying to remember the prayers they had taught you in grade school. Was it worth the convenience of hanging your ass or pecker over the side of the boat?
And so Mike pulled the bucket from under the center plank and placed it immediately in front of his knees on the centerline of the boat. With his wet suit uncomfortably zipped down as low as it would go, he waited for his stream to begin.
“What the hell…” John said groggily as he turned over from his slumber in the front of the boat. “I thought I was dreaming that I was a firefighter and someone had opened up the valve for the hose.”
“You’re just jealous because you can still remember when you could piss like this. In a few more years, even the memories will pass,” Mike responded with a chuckle as he started to worry that he was going to overfill the bucket, an event that he definitely had not thought of in advance.
After dumping the contents overboard and rinsing the bucket out, Mike began letting the sails out. “Damn, that was a sweet sleep,” John said. “Can’t remember the last time I got that deep; how long has it been?” Mike smiled but gave no indication it had been almost 4 hours, not the single hour they had agreed upon. While he said nothing, he was overwhelmed with contentment that his brother had slept, and slept well, while he was at the oars.
With no answer to his question, John looked at his watch and grunted with disgust. “Yo, let me take my turn,” he said as he moved to the back of the boat and tried to assert himself in rigging the small sail.
“Sit back down old man,” Mike said as he rebuffed the approach. “I’ve got the helm, and all is well. Enjoy the view as this master sailor shows you how it’s done.”
“It is a helluva view,” John agreed as he looked around the empty bay, enjoying the soft breeze that was kicking up, watching the birds work along the mangroves.
“Did you have sweet dreams during your nap?” Mike asked. “I’ve often wondered what dogs and old men dream about when they’re sleeping. Were you chasing some rabbits, or maybe you go back to days of youth, when you were strong and bold?”
“I don’t remember, but pretty sure I wasn’t chasing any rabbits … and I’m not sure there was ever a time when I was strong and bold. Well, maybe … before the Army beat it out of me.”
“Speaking of which,” Mike responded, “are you getting laid? I mean, anything regular? I guess I should ask first if you’re still able to even do it—maybe I should first ask if you remember what sex is?”
“Right out of the box with you. Every day. Right from the get-go. Is there anything you think about other than sex, drinking, and arresting bad guys? I don’t even want to think about the content of your dreams. Do your thoughts ever rise above the basest ins
tincts? Are you able to communicate, even briefly, in a fashion that doesn’t immediately reveal your complete self-absorption and preoccupation with the lowest forms of self-entertainment?”
“Okay,” Mike said, “let me rephrase it: Brother, I was wondering if, since last we met, you have become engaged in any serious relationships—perhaps a companion who has brought you joy and contentment?”
“That was better. But alas, the answer is no. It is a sad state of affairs; the Army has yet to issue me a girlfriend, let alone a wife. I was thinking about that on the flight home. I have to admit, it is a pretty poor situation. There have been a couple of occasions where I think there was a spark, but it was always with uniformed subordinates, and there is nothing good that comes of that. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but the last time I was with a girl was over a year ago. You just get focused on other things over there; it doesn’t seem to cross your mind as much. And you’re always so damn tired whenever you get some down time, all you want to do is sleep.”
“Tell me about the year ago if that’s the best you have,” Mike said.
“It was nothing. We were on R&R in Germany. We met at a party, and she just seemed … I don’t know … comfortable. Didn’t ask a lot of questions, was smart and confident. Maybe she just felt sorry for me,” John said as he thought back.
“What was her name?”
“Allison. I was supposed to stay with her for a couple of nights a few months ago when I was transiting Germany on a TDY, but she had to go to some conference. She’s a teacher at a university in Germany. I was thinking I should call her and visit on the way home for this trip, but I didn’t want to be late for this big adventure. I could be lying in her soft bed right now instead of this hard plywood.