Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
She laughed out loudly again, “Well, I'd say you certainly evened the score, Jon. I hope no
one saw you. Mmm, is that coffee I smell? Permission to come board?”
I helped her aboard, tied her dinghy up, and ruffled Zephyr's pointy little ears. I warmed
up some of the coffee in the pot and had a good laugh. We talked about the possibility of
sailing to Lanai the next long weekend.
Liz knew a place down the road that served very good breakfasts for next to nothing, run
by the local Alcoholics Anonymous. She asked if I would like to go with her as it was her
weekly habit on Saturdays. Gavin was welcome too but had not returned from seeing the
car. I arranged to meet her in the yard at nine o'clock and, as usual, she was very punctual.
We had planned on going with a girlfriend of hers who had a little pickup truck. We were
waiting for this friend when Gavin drove up in a bright, yellow, little Datsun. He was grin-
ning from ear to ear as he jumped out and proudly showed us the car he had bought for the
surprising sum of fifty dollars.
“Are you sure you weren't ripped off, Gavin?' I asked, looking at the obvious hand paint
job.
“Well, for fifty bucks, I'd say so what!” laughed Liz. “It runs, doesn't it?”
“No, it actually goes very nicely,” he retorted indignantly.
I believe Gavin felt a little out-of-sorts living on my boat and feeling like he owned nothing.
This was a step towards independence. I would only realize this years later, being so
wrapped up in my own affairs. I felt ashamed when I thought of how blind I was and how
self absorbed I had been.
Liz explained to her friend with the pickup and arranged to meet her later at breakfast; she
would drive with us as we did not know the way. We all piled into the yellow bomb and
roared off to the heart of the industrial center and to the soup kitchen, in a cloud of white
smoke, gears gnashing most awfully, and with a strange, clacking sound coming from the
front hub caps. The shock absorbers had long since given up the ghost, and the car thumped
and bumped its way down the lumpy road.
This was quite a sobering experience, mingling with all the sad luck people that had washed
up onto the charitable shores of the local Alcoholics Anonymous. I guess we looked the
part too, for no questions were asked; in fact they all knew Liz and heartily welcomed her
and endorsed her two new lambs to the fold. Gavin and I sheepishly followed her into the
brightly lit, noisy room. We sat down at a line of large picnic tables not unlike those seen
in the movies of jailhouse dining rooms. The humble folk around our table were well-worn
from life's little hardships but took a keen interest in our sea stories, egged on by Liz, her
yellow braids falling softly around her shapely bare shoulders and girlish neck. The people
