The party was over.  

My annual, Come as You Are  (but not unless you really have to)  Christmas Champagne Gala, Oyster Roast and Pet Rodeo was in  hibernation another year.

 The Bocas del Toro, my 48' 'gentleman's cruiser', live aboard home and continuing restoration project, was groaning against her lines quietly complaining.  Slip S- 64 looked like first light after the home coming game.  

But the day before Christmas was a beautiful, cobalt blue Sunday, heading for high's in the 70's. Variable high cloudiness with a good chance of  perfection.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.... 

However, all of last night's crew hadn't yet disembarked. A sinewy and lovely stranger named Miss Katie Marie Lane was still alseep below in the captain's quarters. That she had not managed to find her way home was only a hiccup.  Morning's after being what they were.  

Anticipating, well, her most likely contingencies, a choice of recessitants - strong spirits, greasy food or black coffee - was soon to be served top-side and should avert any awkwardness pending.

 I twisted up the stair rails from the galley to the sun-deck, a syrup bottle hooked in my pinky,  arm's full of hot panakes,  cold pitcher of juice, assorted condiments and utensils;  and a heavenly plate of Bavarian sage sausages – these, I'd recently received in trade for services rendered.

The sausages arrived last night, gift wrapped in crinkled and colorful funny pages aboard  in the elegant grasp of Greta Hausman. A lady of Austrian graces who's welcome aboard my boat anytime.  She's also the sole proprietor of the last great delicatessen of it's kind in F-L-A.

The woman's a true natural resource.

Her problem began a few weeks ago, when she'd wandered into a type of good 'ol boy shake-down the average viewer at home would dismiss as completely impossible, in this day and age.

Florida remains, the land that time forgot. Never forget.

Greasy, sleazy or even rightfully elected to public office, the local Bubba's still stand their ground, and pump the cold viper blood passed down undiluted from their ancestors.  Nobody's yet to drain the swamp.

Four years ago, the latest version of the Greatest Real Estate Boom in History, finally staggered, bloated and punch drunk, to out a gasp, and fell like Godzilla into the deep black water of Sarasota Bay.

Since then, the local Bubba's have been forced by economics back to basics.  Including, clawing deeply as possible into the haunches of financially well  toned women, biting down hard, and feasting on their attendant fortunes when they fall.

 The Florida shakedown is a tradition going back to the post-freoniscuous period, those first halcyon days after the advent of  air conditioning and neat stucco bungalows offered at 4% interest,  produced row after row.

When an ambitious health inspector showed up at Greta's Wild Goose Cafe with his paws out, the lady knew better than to try and out-run him, instead, she asked me if there was something I could do.

There was. 

In every practical way,  I'm in the restoration business. I rejuvenate houses to hobby horses.   Over the past few years though - an atavistic sign of these troubled times - my services have occasionally included restoration projects of a more personal nature.  These, deviating from my original articles of incorporation by a good margin.

My fees are negotiable, but they usually apply, depending how many rungs down the friend of a friend ladder,  the afflicted happens to occupy.

I managed to pry Greta's problem off of her back with quick counter-punching and determined leg work. As it turned out, our health inspector had an assortment of creepy crawlies of his own he prefered to keep out of the sunshine.

“Nick, are you sure? There's nothing else I can do?” She smiled her smile. Mona Lisa could take some lessons.

“Nope, apple sausages and your attendance tonight, payment in-full. But if I get into a jam someday, quid-pro-quo?”

“Nick darling, you exist in a perpetual state of jam-ification, how would I know the difference?”

Playing bartender at the fish cleaning sink,  hence convereted to wet bar for the evening, I watched Greta precisely negotiate the 'Toro's steps and stairs in extravagant heels, slinking around languid in the moonlight,  while wearing what appeared to be only the upper half of a sparkling-stone covered evening dress.

I began to regret my current fee structure.

Up on the sun-deck, JP Stoneham had done a very respectable job putting things right after my annual  gathering saw a record number of the 'Toro's foamy life rings unhitched from their scuppers and flung person-ho into the bay.

The low teak tables and the faded canvas chairs now formed a neat semi-circle around a newly arrived flat panel TV. A small one, easily stored below.

There was , the odd addition of a grassy matt of green polyester sod being used as a an area rug. I suspected, to hide an ugly patch of salsa-stained deck paint.  

A blurry, tomato-y miasma came to me. A stainless bowl jumping from the delicate mitts of Kuku Pearson, pinging like a school bell on the steel deck. Much convivial commotion. Cilantro smells flying, people laughing. 

Stoneham helped unload our breakfast onto the tables and poured  tall glasses of OJ from a pitcher rattling with icebergs .

“Where'd the TV come from?” I adjusted both pancake and sausage directly into the fall of a shiny cascade of warm maple syrup.

“I picked it up last week. Nicky, our world's an amazing place! 26 inches of modern marvel purchased at a garage sale down on the Key for only fifty American dollars. And, now, presto!"

He was stepping back, admiring his work, punching at a remote and controlling something or another.

“Maybe that's the reason.” I nodded at the screen, sipping my OJ.  A purplely-black bruise the width of a gun belt was pulsing along the bottom of it's screen.

“But look how great everything else looks."  He thumbed the remote for a ball game, not finding one in progress, a pre-game show went onto mute.

John Patrick Stoneham was a fellow live aboard who occupied the Habeus Corpus, the much flashier Bertram '55 tied over in J section. Lawyer non-extant, retired young in his forties, he was now following a second career guest lecturing on criminal defense.   A gentleman convincingly good natured and gentle in all situations,  a spine made of steel.

The kids were waiting patiently side by side, perched on the top-rails. It was well past meal time. Harry was staring my way and pacing the bow deck. I tossed several strips of hotcake into the air. Cacaphony and feathers erupted.

“Why do you do that? You know feeding seagulls in the marina is not a way to win friends, and, technically, illegal.”

Another handfull sent the gulls diving over the edge, scooping and fighting at the water line. Harry pushed a piece landing at his feet suspiciously with his beak. He stared back at me non-plussed.   Blue heron's aren't vegetarian. Or, easily amused. 

“Why not? A victimless crime," I said.

Stoneham watched me explain,  listening laconically,  like an AA sponsor filtering out excuses from the pathetic man charge.

“One reason, I enjoy their company in the morning,” I said.

"Watch Morning Joe.  Mikka's fun."  Stoneham refilled his coffee from a thermos dispenser he'd filled and  brought up while I was mixing and frying in the kitchen. 

I said, “My sea gulls are never confused about the subtle boundries of our mutually benefitting relationship, they're infinitely easy to please, and... they know when to leave. The very definition of quality companionship.”

This time, I tossed Harry a chunk of frozen mullet from the little top-side butane powered cooler I used for that purpose.  He chomped it at the top of it's arc, then lifted off with a raspy squawk, re-adjusting the fish in his beak as he flew,  low,  out over the water coming to roost in a clump of mangroves, waiting for the fish-cube to become manageble.

“You know, Nicholas my good friend, Kuku asked me last night after a few drinks, why a great looking, amiable and almost charming guy like youself doesn't have a wife or a girlfriend.”

“Kuku used the word 'amiable'?”

“I'm paraphrasing for effect. Anyway, I get it now, thanks for concisely clearing away the conundrum.  I'll know what to say the next time, if...anyone else ever asks again.”

Allegory was Stoneham's way to communicate with me. He stayed away from the landmines, but still managed to get a salient concept explored.

He then asked, “What about the noise...and the poop everywhere?”

“I've trained them all to be on their best behavior, you see any accumulation of snow monsters anywhere?”

I had actually trained them...of a sort. 

I rifled the last of their breakfast over their heads,  and picked up the high-pressure hose from it's hook on the gunwhale. Then,  I blasted them - and the freshly made guano - off of the boat.

The birds  screamed and complained, a feathery chaos formed in the air, They circled once,  still squabling among themselves, then disappeared into the sapphire colored day.

JP gave me a look like I'd just sucker punched a midget off a barstool. 

"You're a real mench Nick. What if they learn to rely on you, stop their natural feeding habits." 

"Now that's just dumb. First off,  I can't even rely on me to be that habitually consistant, my feeding habits are in constant peril, and, good God man! Who could eat pancakes every day? The very idea..." 

Stoneham demonstrably gave up, squeezing hard at the TV remote in his hand,  as if it could transport the actual football players themselves to magically appear on deck.

Here's the The Thing about Nature: People tend to not fully appreciate. Wild animals don't take things personally. The self-image gene is simply not present for them to contend with.

They came, they ate, they left.  They know when the show's over. 

We sat.

We were still in our canvas chairs, enjoying one perfect morning in ten thousand falling from the sky.

Just then, two Yamaha Bombadier 750 Jetski's hit the end of the no wake zone just beyond the sandbar, they were  suddenly screaming like delirious kamakazi's just before impact.

Spontaneously, as if under attack, I  whipped out an invisable rocket propelled grenade launcher, serendipitiously equipped with hollow points filled with flesh splattering napalm,  and I calmly squeezed off two perfect shots.  A pair of smokey gray mushroom clouds erupted on the horizon.

And it was like that for a while. 

 *

Capt. Teddy Rings idled past, steering from the flying brige of the Moveable Feast with a charter of beaten down northern tourists burned the color of raw steaks,  sagging and undemanding before even leaving the harbor. What Teddy calls the perfect half-day charter trip. 

Soft rollers of wash peel away from his bow, echoing through the slips, bumping the hulls and pulling at lines.

"So, have you decided anything about Katie Lane yet?"

I had decided quite a number of things about the emotionally distant, yet particularly well endowed personage of Miss Lane. I didn't share these particular particulars with JP. Not yet. 

"What I've decided is,  I should let her tell the story again. These things usually sound a lot different in the morning."

"She made a believer out of me." This time my friend's tone was all business and professional lilt.

We both knew last night probably hadn't been aberation and tequila talk. Too many details. She had seen a few things, monsterous and cruel things.

“Look, it's almost noon, let's get her up here and hear it again. If she's in the talkative mood, it means she still wants some help. If not, well...that answers that." 

The barefoot lady in question took her cue at that precise moment,  and was stepping top-side just as JP hand finshed his words.

“Good morning all. Coffee's up here?” She pulled the bulk of her shirt sweat shirt up past her elbows, suddenly feeling the rays.

"Good morning likewise.  Thermos's  next to the gin and tonic. Or, the gin and tonic is next to the coffee thermos, depending..." 

"Just the coffee...for now."   

The woman in question, had arrived aboard Jonny Ohio's wooden hull ketch he kept on the  hook  in the bay near the marina. That was three weeks ago.  She'd confined herself to small talk with the dockmaster, Walt Keener, and picking up mail. Beyond that, none of us had heard more than a polite good morning.

Then  two days ago when I literally bumped into her as she turned the corner coming out of the transient showers building.

After we both said mutual 'sorry's, I told her I knew Johnny O, old friends in fact, and he'd be offended on her behalf if I didn't make sure she made it over to the 'Toro and introduce her around.

Yes she said, she'd heard about the my party from...well, somebody she said.  She'd  been thinking about coming,, she still was, she'd let me know. Like I didn't already know she was perfectly prepared to volunteer in Bangladesh at a malaria hospital should her choice come down to that, or seeing me again.  

I assured her it wasn't a potluck..no covered dishes reqired. She smiled her smile and that was it.

Until last night.

Just before six, she appeared pulling at the oars of Johnny's oversized dingy, and then tying at the end of pier S.  If there was a surprise guest of the evening, she definitely was it.