Ahem, sir: JUST THEN, AS IF ON CUE
Attaboy. ’Bye, Dad.
T.
N: Todd Andrews to the Author. A series of 21’s and an intention to bequeath.
Skipjack Osborn Jones
Slip #2, Municipal Harbor
Cambridge, Maryland 21613
Friday, August 29, 1969
Sir:
Numbed by a certain letter, I am moved to this letter by a certain number.
21 Fridays ago, in early March, I declined “for the present, at least,” your request to “use” me in a projected new fiction. More specifically, I believe I promised to consider your strange proposal over Easter and let you know if further reflection should change my mind. You’ve heard no more from me since, because until today I gave the matter no more thought. It has been an eventful season.
21 days ago, on August 8, I was to have boarded Osborn Jones at Todds Point for a final cruise of my favorite Chesapeake anchorages — which number, as it happens, just about three weeks’ worth. O.J. & I got off a day late, and our itinerary suffered two major diversions, with the result that certain snug and splendid coves I shall not get to say goodbye to. Even so, we traversed a considerable stretch of tidewater, and just this morning — Day 21 in O.J.‘s log — we rearrived at Slip #2 to check in at the office and collect the mail. Tomorrow we shall move down to our starting place and complete the circuit.
21 hours ago, more or less, at our final overnight anchorage (Sawmill Cove, off Trappe Creek, off Choptank River, one of my favorites of my favorites), I began drafting the ultimate and newsiest installment of my ancient Letter to My Father, to bring him up to date on the 21 days since I’d written him last. But after an hour’s scribbling I put it by: there seemed at once too much to tell and too much of consequence not yet tellable — at least till I should get home, check in at the office, and review my mail.
For symmetry’s sake I should like to say that 21 minutes ago, in that office, I opened among that accumulated mail a letter-bomb, and was mortally injured thereby. But in fact that noiseless, flashless, unshrapneled blast went off three hours back, in mid-muggy afternoon — since when I’ve closed up shop till after Labor Day, walked back down High Street to the boat basin, and sat under O.J.‘s awning, fairly stunned by the concussion of that letter (a simple wedding announcement from my longtime secretary Polly Lake, with a note on the back in her familiar hand).
The wound is fatal, but not instantly: another 21 days or so ought to do the trick; I had been dying already. Meanwhile my head has cleared enough for me to get on with the business of putting my affairs in order. Hence this letter, to report to you that — as on your Floating Opera in 1937—I have changed my mind. A codicil to my will will bequeath to you my literary remains: i.e. (as I mean to destroy all other personal papers), my Letter to My Father, of which you may make whatever use you wish, and certain letters from other characters in the little drama of my life’s recycling.
To that former Letter, in the three weeks (or so) left to me, I’ll add my account of the Last Cruise of the Skipjack Osborn Jones, amplifying for Dad (and you) what in my log, and in this letter, are mere terse entries: E.g.:
Day 1 (Sat 8/9): Choptank R. (Broad Creek/Harris Creek/Dun Cove). 1700 hrs: Anchor in 8’, Dun Cove. Omelettes w. Caprice des Dieux & Moselle: gd. 2200: Commit 1st incest, Missionary position: so-so. Winds calm, air 79 & humid. Could last night’s call have been from Polly? From Jane?
Day 3 (M 8/11): Magothy R. (Gibson I./Red House Cove). 1200: Jeannine to Airpt & back to Buffalo/Ft. Erie, under silent protest, after final incest & no bfst. A tergo, shameful & memorable. Wind WSW 10. My my my. Chester R. (Queenstown Creek): 2400: Perseid meteors, mostly obscured by clouds. Worry abt J. Illumination re Mack v. Mack: Where is Harrison’s shit? Could Author possibly go so far as to rerun that? Mosquitoes.
Day 5 (W 8/13): Chester R. (Langford Creek, off Cacaway I.). 1600: Wind WSW 15 & rising. Reef main. Cacaway = Caca + away?
Day 14 (F 8/22): Miles R. (St. Michael’s Harbor). 1000: Call office: investigator’s report. Lord Baltimore is “Baron” André Castine of Canada, ½ brother of A. B. Cook, and possibly CIA. Continue cruise or get home fast? Will flip (coin).
