“I know Dennis Conner. Dennis Conner is a friend of mine.” Said a patron at the tavern I bellied up to. His friend from Scotland older and more subdued knew Dennis too. The two men offered by way of beer induced barrier reduction their back of the envelope opinion on this current incarnation of sports oldest prize.
“Not going to work. It is going to ruin the sport. Ellison is ruining the prize.”
I’d spent the day just north of the historic Midway now in repose in San Diego and open for business as historic artifact to tour. Seated with feet dangling over the piers edge I chewed the racing fat with nomadic armchair sailing types from such distant ports as Santa Cruz, Austin, Seattle, Newport, Yorba Linda, and San Francisco.
These are boomer men. Nearing the abyss of retirement they fend off the day of their uselessness by finding one way or another to remain in the game. But, a boomer man needs a good foil and lining the dock is a wide assortment of women. They won’t let on how much they know while the men can’t help revealing how little they do. This is the real fun. We don’t need to know who won or who lost. We just want to learn the truth by way of a thousand tangled fallacies. It is good for blood pressure.
As spectacle Friday worked better than Thursday or what I saw of Wednesday’s races. The French and American boats fight it out today for first place. Those of us on the edge of thePacific Ocean yesterday witness to the sports most technologically advanced racing machines vanquish their competitors with the brutal vengeance of such earlier masters of the match racing art as the esteemed Mr. Conner.
We bickered among ourselves over the start. Who had the advantage and who screwed up, each of us knew nothing while making up our opinion from whole clothe of pure speculation. And this is the thing. God knows how much it costs, but yesterday for the cost of some time and gas money I was permitted for free to appreciate a few fateful moments between boats on water. Because of the history of the cup we suppose significance, and there must have been something to that. But, in fact it came down to watching two boats and ten sailors see who can best the other. I’ve never had so much knowing so little and having it turn out that I would enjoy myself so much.
BANKRUPT HEART THE SECOND NOVEL
Dawn was pristine. The air crisp, clean, the sky empty, the sea was true, chasmal…blue. No chop on the water; no cloud in the sky. Limantour Beach was alone, still, breathless. Not another soul had set foot here this morning, but for Ry and Finn. It was the first day, the New Year. They walked barefoot in the sand at the surf’s edge, acquainting their thoughts to the booze-soaked resolutions they’d taken the night before. The least waves arrived. The Pacific was in repose between storms. The surf’s soundtrack was a languid slow curling muffled splashing that reverberated up and down the beach.
Bankrupt Heart Copyright © 2011 by Dana Smith
