“…I-I love you!… Shit!… I mean, love cast-nets. That’s an eighteen-footer, isn’t it? Must have cost a hundred.”
“Hundred fifty.”
“Yes, sir. You have great style. Not many men can handle an eighteen-footer. That didn’t sound right, did it? I’m completely behind Roe v. Wade. Can I try?”
“You want to throw?”
Serge smiled.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Of course.”
The woman shrugged. “Okay, just don’t get it all fuckin’ tangled.”
Oooooo, sassy, too! She could be the soul mate, thought Serge. Don’t blow this. I’ll impress her with my cast-net mating dance.
They all stood back as Serge bunched the net in a flurry of motion. Once it was ready, he counted off large steps to the opposite side of the bridge. He leaned with his back against the far railing, closed his eyes and took a rapid series of deep breaths.
“Serge,” said Sop Choppy.
“Not now.”
“But, Serge—”
“I’m concentrating. I have to prepare the mental place.”
“But I’m trying to tell you…”
Serge opened his eyes and took off running. He reached the middle of the bridge and began pirouetting with tremendous centrifugal force like a discus thrower. Painful grunting noises, spinning faster and faster. Finally, he reached the railing, sprang up and released with a mighty “Hiiiiiiiiiiyyyyy-yahhhhhhhhhh!”
The net deployed perfectly, sailing higher and farther than anyone had ever seen before. They ran to the side of the bridge.
“I was trying to tell you,” said Sop Choppy. “The wrist cord—”
They watched the net splash into the water and sink to the bottom of Bogie Channel with the retrieval line.
Captain Florida’s log, star date 384.274
Old Wooden Bridge Fishing Camp, Cottage #5. Today we launch a new Captain Florida feature: Serge’s Word Corner. Here are a few
bon mots
on the state of the language.
Milieu, Zeitgeist, Ennui:
these belong to a group called “the asshole words.” People who use them are compensating for something deeper.
Bolt:
a simple word, except in fabric stores when it becomes a
bolt
of cloth. Can’t get enough of that.
Picaresque:
always a compliment, as in, “Who’s my picaresque bastard?”
Babbittry, tautology, sophistry:
All mean the same thing, and it isn’t important. Skip over them when you read…. Any-hoo, it’s midnight. Women everywhere pissed at me. What did I do? All I ask is an average relationship and in return I get burning eyes and now own a cast-net at the bottom of the sea. The gang tried to cheer me up back at the No Name before I had to rush Coleman to the emergency room after a bar bet that somehow resulted in a small seashell getting pushed all the way up his nose until it went through the hole in his skull and fell down into the nasal cavity. I didn’t even know what was going on until Rebel and Sop Choppy were shaking him upside down behind the pool table. They asked Coleman if it was helping, but he just said, “I can feel it rattling around behind my eyes.” The doctors got it out with these incredible probes and sent him home with a bottle of painkillers. I can’t tell you how old these overdoses are getting. Back to the hospital, where they pump his stomach, yielding the medicine, some corn chips, a half pint of Yoo-hoo, five-alarm chili, small chicken bones and a shirt button. Then they told me to take Gomer home. I said his name’s Coleman, and they confided a little hospital slang:
