Going to Church in the Strawberry Patch

Trying to Grow Up In Spite of Myself

A Memoir by Tom Bessette

Copyright 2009 BessetteBooks

Chapter 15
Drunks, Idiots, and Parasitic Behavior

I am lost.  Lost in darkness.
There is nothing I can see, taste, hear, smell or touch.
Total sensory deprivation.
I think of nothing, can remember nothing.
I am at the edge of something, something deep.
Now I feel dampness wafting up from below.
I reach out with my hand, trying to feel…nothing.
No past, no present, no future.
I am lost.

I pulled into the Albany Greyhound Station, called my father and he came down and got me.  We got home and my mother said, “Thank God, I was so worried.”  It occurred to me that I hadn’t so much as called them once over the last three months, so they had no idea what was going on with me, brainless idiot that I was.  That would have been a hard thing to do, call home once in a while. Asshole.

I had to find something to do. I was feeling stupid and thick headed and both my parents were giving me that look, the one that says it’s time to figure out what you are going to do with your life.  I thought of trying the craft show circuit again, but one of the promoters had gone out of business, and the other one was booking shows in the sleaziest venues, so I dropped that idea.  I considered registering with Manpower again, but the memories of chickens and pissy amusement rides set my skin to crawling.  I looked at the want ads and saw nothing that ignited even a flicker of interest, and there weren’t many jobs anyway.

My father called someone he knew and found out about a seasonal opening on the canals.  Now, this was a possibility, a cool idea. I went to see the boss and the opening was a laborer position with a shore crew, the guys who, based on shore, support a dredge as it deepens and widens channels in the canal.  It was a state job, only good for the remaining three months before likely freeze-up, but with a possibility of winter work if I wanted it, or at least the ability to draw unemployment.  The boss said it wasn’t a real backbreaking job as the dredge did most of the work, and I took the job.

I needed a car and wanted something that got good gas mileage, still smarting from the high prices and long lines of the oil embargo a few years ago.  A guy in Latham was selling a VW station wagon that was about eight years old and I could get it for $500.  I went to see it with my dad and it looked fine to me, although dad was grumbling a lot.  The car had had rusted areas filled in inexpertly and instead of a conventional heating system, had two long adjustable metal tubes that blew engine air wherever in the cab that you aimed them.  I didn’t need heat anyway, so I bought it.

The current dredging worksite was up in Comstock, north of Fort Ann and Lake George, about an hour or so north of Waterford altogether, and I showed up at 7AM the first day and reported in to Captain Johnny Bellerose.  He was a rugged and scarred, but very affable guy, happy to get a new hand, and introduced me to the rest of the guys; I have to say a more motley crew I had never met.  They were all seasonal workers who generally worked spring, summer and fall and then drew unemployment all winter. It was just plain what they did and expected.  The jobs were all compartmentalized, and I have no idea how they determined staffing levels for any particular position.  There was Captain Johnny who was in charge and, as far as I could see, held court on the shore barge all day long.  There was the dredge captain who generally drove the dredge, except when he was on break and his second in command took over.  I never knew their names.  They had additional dredge crew of about four or five guys, depending on who showed up that day, and I have no idea of what they did, having never seen them do much of anything.  There was a mini tugboat called a Tender; its job was to ferry men back and forth from the dredge and shore for lunches, and at the start and end of work days.  Captain Tommy drove that boat, his full time job; he had no other duties, so he got to read a lot.

Then there was the crew I was assigned to, the shore crew.  Our job was to manage the levee where the sucked up material was pumped to, making sure that its walls were sound and un-breached.  Also, the dredge was anchored to shore on either side by long cables fastened to stout trees. The dredge would swing back and forth over the width of the canal, the augur biting and sucking bottom, pumping muck, water and whatever else it sucked up out to the levee by means of a daisy chain of huge pipes. The pipes left the rear of the dredge on floats and then were built on braces on land, leading up to the levee where the stuff would spill out. When the dredge was ready to move downstream, we would unfasten the cables and drag them along shore downstream and refasten them to a new set of trees. 

That first day, I could see why so many crew members were needed as this was clearly a lot of work, but my perception changed pretty quickly as the days progressed. In fact, the dredge was usually good for two to three days in one spot where we were, having lots of silted up channel to gouge out.  The boss worked the bulldozer that built the levee and he had done a great job building it in the first place, so no repair was needed the whole time I worked there.  So, we would have days on end where we literally had nothing to do.  In general, we ended up with probably two to three hours worth of work to do per week, and it seemed to me that four guys could have easily handled it, maintaining a lot of leisure time, without getting behind.  Interesting…

The shore crew foreman was Frank Albert, probably a bit over sixty years old, and was a simple but very nice guy.  He sure was expert with that bulldozer, the few times I saw him work it.  Now and again, at urging from Captain Johnny to look busy, he would herd us up to the levee to clear brush or some damn thing, nothing that needed doing; it was busy work. Because of that, he was pretty much ignored by everyone on the crew.  He was genial and we took an instant liking to each other. I liked him because he was so easy going, and he liked me because I liked the woods and we could hike around when there was nothing to do, which was usually.

The shore crew’s base of operations was the pipe scow, a handy thing during the occasional rainy days.  It was anchored near the levee, held a stack of the extra pipes that transported the muck from dredge to levee, and was accessible from shore by a wobbly plank. The tender would drop us off there in the morning and come back for us at lunch time, etc.  It would creak and roll when a tug and barge went by, and we spent a really unhealthy amount of time there.

The rest of the crew was as into avoiding work at all costs as I have not seen before or since.  The tacit leader and supposed second in charge was Bob Mackie.  He was one of those tough looking guys with a huge belly that you just figured wouldn’t slow down his punches one bit.  He had a long beard, wore a pork pie-like hat, sported a red drinker’s face and held court in the place of honor in the pipe scow atop a pile of burlap sand filled bags. Then there was Billy Silver, a self acknowledged drunk and alcoholic, who had the shakes and bloodshot eyes to prove it.  Next in the pecking order was little Jimmy Frederick, shorter even than me, who was a prime example of passive aggressive behavior, always smiling to your face but nasty when you weren’t around.  His ‘man’ was Elvis and he lived in a trailer in Johnsonville, was divorced, all that.  Rounding out the group was Louey and Dewey, not their real names of course but they went together hand in glove, maybe even hand in pants.  Louey was a big little kid, about eighteen or so, and dumb as the universe was vast.  He thought slow, and his opinions came out of his petulant mouth as if from the roughest, vilest, most foulmouthed and uncouth idiots who ever ventured an unlearned opinion. The people he respected were ‘good people,’ as he called them, and he was exactly the type of uncivilized, sullen, dangerous lout that I had tried to avoid all my life.  His idea of good people were lawless, godless miscreants, or, at least, anybody rougher and tougher than he. His other half was Dewey; older but no wiser, who was living in a house he inherited from his parents; a house which was decomposing at an alarming rate, though Dewey wasn’t alarmed one bit.  He had a slattern girlfriend, a junk food and beer diet, was coarse, dirty and disinclined to decency, and Louey and he made a real pair.

These guys would sit in the pipe scow all day, passing the time.  Pretty much anytime Frank asked them to do anything, Bob would mumble a ‘fuck you’ under his breath, and that would escalate into Loueys’ mouthing off a ‘fuck you Albert’ anytime Frank spoke.  They would play cards and drink beer, and when they got tired of cards, they would simply sit senseless on the burlap.  It was dark and damp in the scow; we were having some beautifully warm, gentle days, and I couldn’t stand sitting inside in the dark when it was so nice outside.  I already hated this job, not for what I had to do but what I had not to do.

After my first week, Billy Silver suggested that for a really reasonable fee, I could meet him in Stillwater, only about ten miles from my house, and ride up with him and the guys.  It worked out great for me because it would keep the wear and tear on my old VW down and what he was charging me was less than what gas would cost.  So, starting the next Monday at 6:15AM, I met him and Jimmy, Louey, Dewey and Bob at the Admiral’s Marina in Stillwater, parked my car there and we rode up together the next forty miles to Comstock.  Billy had a Jeep Waggoneer so there was plenty of room and he stocked up with beer and scotch from the marina bar and we all got in the car and were off.  Billy and Bob worked on the scotch as we drove and Louey and Dewey would each have a beer.

Billy would already be half shot and his driving was already a bit wavy.  We’d stop at a gas station convenience store in Schuylerville, same one every morning, and Bob would lumber into the store for another sixer of cold beer to see them through the rest of the drive.  Billy’s eyes would be well bloodshot and wavering, just like he looked all the time I knew him, but he would drive doggedly on.  I thoughtlessly asked over the first few weeks how he could drink and drive like that and he always gave a smirking answer, like that he had to drive drunk because he had forgotten how to drive sober, things like that.  He was married, and in fact had only remarried fairly recently after his previous wife had left him due to his drunkenness, and he told us that his new wife knew he was a drunk and loved him for it and so he was all set, no worries. 

So, week after week, we made the drive up and back, stopping for a pick me up every afternoon after work in Fort Edward at the Burgoyne Inn.  Billy and Bob would belly up to the bar and the rest of us would play pool.  We’d give them a half hour and then it would be a job to pry them loose and tumble them into the car to get us back to the Admiral’s.  Sometimes we did it easily; more often it took another half hour just to get them moving.  They always wanted one for the road.
One day in the pipe scow, as the boys laid dully, Frank talked of how nice the forest hereabouts was; I was the only one listening.  I suggested a walk in the woods and Frank was immediately up for it.  We wandered for a few miles in a circuit around our area, identifying trees and shrubs, spying on squirrels, watching caterpillars crawl up trees, all the stuff an outdoorsman might do to wile away the time in the woods.  We spent all morning traipsing around and when we got back around lunchtime, the guys looked like they hadn’t moved a muscle, but I could sense a change in attitude.  There was a sullenness and meanness in the air.

When the tender came, they all got up and got aboard, but Frank and I had both brought our lunches out that morning and decided to go eat on a grassy bluff overlooking the water that we had found downstream a bit.  We watched the dredge swing back and forth while we ate and when we saw the tender returning, we went back to the pipe scow to meet the guys.

It was another afternoon of cards, beer and lying around, Bob and Billy belting scotch from a paper bagged bottle.  It seemed normal on the surface but there was a new tension roiling underneath.  Before, I had been tolerated and mostly ignored as the new guy, and even though I played cards a bit, I wasn’t really part of the group, especially since I refused beers, as did Frank.  My excuse was that beer put me to sleep, which with them wasn’t much of a reason, but it was all a lie anyway. The truth was that I didn’t drink with them because I thought they were all scumbags for drinking and laying around on the job all day and saying ‘fuck you’ to Frank.  Now, starting this afternoon, I was catching looks of genuine hatred out of the corners of my eyes, clearly directed at me.  Even Elvis (that’s what I called him in my mind), still smiling insincerely to my face, hated me when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Frank suggested another walk, and I went, and we passed the afternoon in talk and woodlore, both absolutely content. If I had to goof off on a job, this was the way I’d rather do it.

That night on the way home, there was a definite chill in the Jeep.  We stopped at the Burgoyne as usual and no one wanted to play pool, so I sat at the bar, trying to be patient, while all the rest of them chugged one beer after another.  Soon they were staring at me with open animosity and I started to feel the hair on my neck prickling up.

Louey started first.  Through a tirade of vulgarity, he told me graphically what he intended to do to me any minute now, how I was a dog that didn’t deserve to live, how he’d rip my fucking arms off and stamp on them and cut my balls off and slit my dick; all those loving, thoughtful comments.  Jimmy started in, sitting safely beyond Louey with “you son of a bitch, you think you’re better’n us, you bastard, fucking kick your Canuck ass” and so on.  But, he stayed behind Louey, who was still spewing his invective with a dull, loutish look on his face.

Bob looked everywhere but at me, Billy looked into his drink and Dewey kept whispering to Louey, “Easy, calm down, it’s no big deal.”  I really felt like I was about to be pummeled and trampled; I was no fighter and wouldn’t have had much of a chance, even if it was only Louey doing the pummeling.  He was one big, powerful looking oaf.  So, I started talking, not scared-like but matter of factly, saying, “sure go ahead and punch me out, asshole, you’re twice my size and you’re likely to kill me and then spend the rest of your stupid, shit for brains, nothing life in prison getting fucked up the ass by bulls bigger than you, you fucking idiot.”  I held off on the Jesus Kee Ko as not appropriate to the situation.  I figured I was a goner anyway, might as well try to talk my way out of it.

Dewey said to Louey, “He’s got a point you know,” and Jimmy weaseled out of it too, saying, “Jeez I didn’t know you’d be so tough.”  Louey sat there looking totally confused, wanting badly to pound me into next year but worried his friend might be making sense, if only he could get his mind around it.  What was that about getting fucked up the ass in prison?  Billy said, “Time to go,” and we went out and piled in the car. Nothing was said again for the month left on the job.  No mention at all, although I talked privately with Frank and said our jaunts together had caused me problems with the guys and, although I hated to do it, I better spend my time with them and not be a traitor.  He looked sad but went with It and he sat all the rest of the days on an upended barrel, sadly watching us play cards and sit around.  I even had a few beers.
The season ended, Frank retired, and we all went our separate ways to our respective unemployment offices.  Before I got to mine, I got a call from the guy that knew my father and he said that Frank had recommended me for winter work and did I want it; I said sure.  Suddenly I was doing cool stuff; maybe these state jobs weren’t all bogus.  For three days I worked as a hand on what was called the buoy boat, a flat scow-like boat with a fast motor.  It was run by Captain Bobby Acoin and the first day, we raced off and started picking up the buoys from the Mohawk River, the bouys that marked the narrow channel in the wider sections of the river.

We were all issued yellow state rain coats and pants and the same kind of rain hat associated with Maine fishermen, at least to my mind.  Captain Bobby would scream up to a buoy and operate the crane to pick the buoy up out of the water.  A few workers would swarm the buoy and unhook it from its anchor chain and replace it with a float.  Then the crane would swing the buoy up onto the deck and stack it at one end and we’d race off to the next one.

The boat had no railings, just a flat barge style surface, so anyone standing anywhere near an edge of it had to be constantly on guard for Captain Bobby’s sudden jerky turns so as not to be schluped off overboard, something which happened a number of times every day among us newbie’s.  When someone fell in, assuming Captain Bobby or someone else noticed, we’d go back and he’d be picked up out of the frigid waters and we’d get back to work.

It got good to me after awhile and I made it a point to be near an edge of the boat so as to be part of the throng getting the buoy aboard.  This group seemed to not mind work and didn’t hate someone who wanted to work, so I got on OK.  No looks of hate, no threats of bodily harm, and no drinking on the job, holy cow! We worked.

The job lasted a week until all the buoys were collected and stored at the dry dock area in Waterford.  It was announced that there were only two openings for winter work for seasonal guys and I applied, not expecting much, but again Frank’s final recommendation carried some weight and I was hired to work in the welding shop.  Out of a potential fifty or so seasonal guys who could have applied, I think only about ten of us did, the rest content to draw unemployment, so I guess the small applicant pool helped me too.

This winter position was great because the headquarters and dry dock area where I would be working was only a few blocks from our apartment, so I could walk to work.  I reported in on the first day and was introduced to the lunch table, where most of the guys sat around most of the time.  These were our professional welders and braisers and they lorded it over all of the lesser beings, carpenters and helpers and such, being the skilled men.  They would talk to us but would never do anything in any way outside their job classification.  Just like the shore crew, they also didn’t want anyone else doing anything when they weren’t, so as to avoid looking like they were goofing off when anyone else was working.

Buoys needing repair would be brought in and the helpers would set it in place and then the welders would saunter over and inspect the situation and assess the damage.  Then they’d sit at the lunch table and formulate what needed to be done.  Then they’d have lunch.  Then they’d get one of us grunts to set out their tools and materials, usually changing their minds a few times in the process.  Then they’d work on the buoy for a while and then it would be time for break.  After break, they would meet to formulate what still needed to be done; often having us grunts re-arrange their tools and materials again.  They’d work again for a little while, and then it would be quitting time.  Quitting time was at four PM but to be able to fly out the door at exactly four PM, they had to stop work up to an hour beforehand to properly prepare for quitting time, giving us grunts plenty of time to put everything away so that we could run right out at four PM too.

The days were all the same, they’d mostly sit at the lunch table and occasionally do some welding.  They complained bitterly to the bosses about their workload, pointedly asking how anyone could expect them to get so much done with no time and no help.  The bosses, being completely out of touch and unknowledgeable about the requirements of welding, bought their story, and passed the complaints on upstairs to the big bosses.  A ladder of deception was maintained that allowed the welders to play cards, read magazines, and relax for close to eighty percent of each working day.  It was a racket for sure.

By mid December it was decided that the upper gates on Lock 7 in Niskayuna needed to be worked on and that more helpers would be needed.  The project was assigned one welder and three helpers on a voluntary basis.  I immediately volunteered as a way to get some variety into my life, and since no one else did, citing medically serious aversion to cold or whatever, the pool of seasonal workers was re-canvassed and two volunteered for the duty, Bob and Billy from my old shore crew.

We weren’t expected to drive ourselves to the site, rather we were provided with an extended cab State-owned pick up truck to use.  The crew was the welder, Mike Boudreau, Bob, Billy and me.  Mike was the youngest welder in the shop, and so got stuck with the outside welding work.  He was a pretty good guy and we got along just great; he didn’t seem to mind work at all.  We had worked together on the buoy boat crew, weeks before, so we kind of knew each other.  It was decided that Billy would drive, him being the drunkest one there. Every morning, after starting work at eight AM and making many and various preparations, including using the ‘slow as molasses’ gas pumps at the shop, we would head out to the job site at ten AM.  We stopped at the first corner grocery to pick up a few sixers of Bud and then Billy would drive at twenty-five miles per hour along all the back roads that would eventually lead us to the Lock.  We never made it there in less than an hour.

Once there, we were cold, so had to warm up for a half hour in the lock house, Bob and Billy fortifying themselves with a few beers, kept cold in a snow bank outside.  Then, at about 11:30, Mike would say it was time to head outside to do some work.  He’d say he really only needed one helper, so Bob and Billy would stay inside to rest and strengthen up in case they were needed.  Mike and I would head outside, me carrying his welding stuff, and we would get to the Lock and step onto the rickety hand lift already attached to the gate.

This hand lift was a contraption clearly built before the turn of the century.  Four six inch boards secured together made the floor.  Safety consisted of two ‘A’ shaped metal rod sides, culminating at a waist high loop that the ropes were tied to.  The ropes led up and were attached to a pulley system hanging precariously over the gate.  We’d hop on, untie the ropes that kept it steady and, using the pulley, lower ourselves, swaying and creaking, down fifteen feet or so to the work level.  There we would dangle, Mike doing his welding, me attempting to keep the lift as stationary as I could.  On days of heavy wind, that would be a job.

It was cold as hell out there, and I was constantly staring down into the base of the lock, twenty or thirty feet down.  The lift floor was very crowded with the two of us, and sometimes Mike would shift, getting into position to weld a tricky angle and his hip would bump mine and I would have to grab onto the rope and pull myself back in, legs dangling.  Mike was a climber and, instead of going through the trouble of pulling the lift back up to lock side, would just shimmy up the rope when he needed a break, leaving me to follow or wait down there in the wind and cold alone.  That wasn’t the manly thing to do, of course, so I bucked it up and clumsily shimmied up after him, scrabbling up onto the gate and then walking, cool and nonchalantly, to shore.  He would grin and we would head in to check on Bob and Billy to see if they were passed out yet.  They were always well snockered by mid afternoon and usually snoring at quitting time.

Mike refused to work out in the freezing wind for more than a half hour at a time, so we shimmied up to many breaks.  That said, he did get the work done; there was a lot of welding to do and we were congratulated on a job done quickly and well when it was all done, and sent to other Locks to help the laggards along, all of them using copies of that same decrepit hand lift.  I got really good at shimmying, I tell you. Even Bob and Billy were lauded and congratulated for their part in our grand and magnificent achievement.  We stopped for beer on the way back to the shop.  They were thirsty.

The winter thus passed.  Bob DuPuis and I had hooked up again and went on a number of winter hikes, climbing Marcy, this time without me getting hypothermia, and also Algonquin, and one spectacular trip up Mt. Colden.  It was a gray swirly day with pieces of sunshine glinting off snow-crusted gray peaks.  We did the whole trip on snowshoes as a day hike, and it was long, difficult, and exhilarating as hell.

We were both also sought after as unofficial hiking guides. No business, no license, just people who knew someone we knew would call and ask to go on a hike, and we would.  One of these was the brother of a guy that worked at the dry dock that winter.  This brother, Jerry Oathout, worked for a local distribution center and wanted us to guide him and his boss, Joe Morton, up Algonquin Peak in February.  We said OK and planned the trip.

Jerry was a heavy, sloppy guy with a very transparent macho attitude.  He was a tough guy, or so he thought, and ready for anything.  His boss, Joe, was a lot more mannered and unassuming, seeming just happy to be getting out doing something new with people who knew how to do it.  He was pretty fit for an office guy and we figured that he’d make the mountain easily.

As we started the hike, Jerry pushed off ahead, chugging over the flats, setting an impossible pace for winter.  I ran to catch up with him to slow him down and he said, “What’s a matter, too fast for ya?”  Déjà Vu of that attitude-filled day in Indian pass where Bob set me straight.  Bob and I grinned at each other and said what the hell and picked up the pace to stay with him, Joe keeping up well.

As the climbing started, Jerry went slower and slower, and before long was stopping to hyperventilate every ten minutes or so.  To his credit, he got all the way to the Wright Peak trail junction, but at that point was all but crawling, wheezing steadily, clearly on his last legs.  Bob, Joe, and I conversed about what to do.  Jerry said, “leave me here and finish the hike,” but we knew that even from this far along, we’d be gone a minimum of three hours to get up and down Algonquin, back to this point.  He’d freeze to death.  Joe still wanted to make a mountain, so we went up Wright, figuring we’d do it in less than an hour and Jerry should be OK.  We left him sitting in a snowdrift at the trail junction, wrapped in space blankets and with drinking water.

We could hear the winds up above but didn’t think much of it.  When climbing Wright, you have to ascend a very steep thirty foot or so pitch before you are out of the trees and just a few minutes from the summit.  The wind noise got louder and louder as we got to the pitch.  I went first, carrying my frame Kelty with all the extra stuff we felt we needed when guiding people; first aid kit, tent, sleeping bag, snow shovel, extra clothes, extra food, all kinds of stuff.  I climbed up the pitch and over the brink, feeling the wind now.  I stood up, faced the wind and, without transition, suddenly was lying thirty feet below, on my back, pack under me, with absolutely no idea what happened.  Bob was yelling and Joe was yelling and I was wondering what the hell.  They said that a gust blew me bodily off the top.  Thank God for that Kelty Pack, packed properly, breaking my fall.

We wisely turned around, Joe understanding instantly that sometimes you had to just turn back or risk serious problems.  We got back to Jerry before he froze and got him up and walking back down the trail.  He was a bit rested when we started but was quickly tired again and by the time we got down to the flats he was just about done.  He said, “Just go and leave me, I can’t go on, just can’t go any further.”  We explained that we were back on the flats, only about a mile and a half from the car but he sat on a snow covered log and told us again to leave him.  It took us a while to get him back up again after convincing him that there was no way in hell we’d leave him alone out there, he’d be dead in hours and freezing was a bad way to go.  Hours later, well after dark, we got him to the car and turned up the heat, his boss Joe looking at him with new knowledge.

Joe called us a few nights later, said the forecast looked good and could we try Algonquin again next weekend, this time without Jerry.  We had a great hike and got pictures of a very proud Joe standing on the summit with the iconic view of Colden and Marcy behind him, deep blue sky, fresh snow crust everywhere, a classic day.  Suddenly Jerry’s brother from work was pissed off at me because Jerry had been humiliated, and it was all my fault, and I was a son of a bitch.  Typical!
Back at work, the boss came to me and told me that the deck hand on the tug Waterford had retired or fell off the boat, I can’t remember which, and they needed a new deckhand for the season.  Actually, that’s not true; he got a promotion onto a bigger tug.  Here was something I had been thinking of for years, ever since I was a little kid, working on a tugboat on the canals.  At the start of the season in mid April, I was first assigned to buoy duty for the three weeks it took us to get them all out. Then was re-assigned to the Tug Waterford and showed up at the dry dock where it was going through final prep for the season.

The captain was Merton ‘Brownie’ Ferguson. He was on the shady side of seventy years old and the word was he would retire after this one last season.  I asked permission to come aboard and introduced myself.  Tug Waterford had been in service for about forty years, one of the youngest tugs on the canals.  It was also small, not like a tender but too small to push a regulation barge or anything like that.  Our job was to escort state supply barges to serve dredges and any other chore that came up.

The crew included Captain Brownie, Engineer Stan, Oiler Mack and me.  Brownie drove the boat and kept order.  Stan kept the engine and other utilities going.  I was never sure what the oiler was supposed to do, I do know he spent a lot of time in the bunks below.  I’m not sure I ever heard him speak. The former deck hand, Gerald, stayed on board for the first few weeks to teach me how to do my job.  He was another of these guys that was single, had inherited a house from his parents and was letting it rot beneath him.  He had that kind of personality that you just knew could, and did, explode at every imagined slight, and working with him was precarious indeed.  He didn’t look like he could be talked out of mayhem over a few beers.

Before too long he had me tossing hawsers onto pylons without crushing my fingersbetween these huge, two inch ropes that were being strained to breaking by the tug’s momentum as we docked.  He showed me the engines and other mechanicals and even talked to me about how Brownie would often let the deck hand pilot the boat.  For all his attitude and apparent disinterest, he was a good teacher and I was soon doing pretty well.

Within two weeks I had shown such ability that the captain was letting me pilot the boat up the canals and through the locks.  Stan and Mack would handle the hawser duties, although I would always manage to jump out and help with the last few when I stopped the engines as we tied up, a habit that they appreciated. The captain looked on serenely, puffing his pipe and telling his quiet stories about the early days on the canal.  He had started as a deck hand when he was fourteen in 1925 and had worked all his life on these tugs, coming up through oiler to engineer and then captain.  Maybe it wasn’t a stellar, money earning, sexy career, but he raised a family and rose to the top of his profession and was a legend on the canals, mostly because of the raucous behavior he was responsible for in his youth. There were stories about him and the other guys, women in various canal towns, cuckolded husbands, and fistfights in alleys behind saloons.  Now he was a stately, soft spoken, even tempered man, but the old timers said he was a hellion when he still had his piss and vinegar.

I spent an idyllic summer cruising in the tugboat.  I brought books with me on the boat and caught up on my reading.  The tug had a galley and we would stop in some town at a store and pick up raw materials for meals.  Stan liked to cook, and I would handle the cleanup after.  The best days were when we would be cruising a number of miles up the Hudson or Mohawk Rivers.  I would steer the boat along the channels, sounding our huge-voiced horn as greetings to pleasure boats we passed, all of us comfortable and stress-free. I especially liked the overnight trips we would have to do about once every other week, a trip to Syracuse or up to Ticonderoga, places from which we could have driven home but we enjoyed the solitude of spending the night on the boat, having a few beers, telling stories and generally being on an adventure.  It was a far cry from Bob and Billy and Louey and Fuck You Albert.

Even though it was mostly a leisurely job, it was never boring: talking to lock tenders, kidding with the other canal workers we would meet, and heading off to help private boaters with problems.  We pulled boats off snags, got people off boats that had had mechanical problems in the middle of the river, and rescued maidens in distress.  Mostly, though, we cruised the canals or tied up at work sites to be available for a dredge or other work boat.  We had a lot of time to just hang around.  Stan and I chipped away some old flaking paint and repainted in the state yellow and blue, but we didn’t have to, Brownie would never require anything like that unless it was immediately necessary.

I was now twenty five and still living at home, but I had gotten a job, low paying as it was. My mother was starting to flirt with happiness because I was showing signs of growing up, and out.  Mom was always hoping that I would grow up, straighten out, and become a good provider to some deserving wife.  I resented her the whole time, like the stupid, ungrateful cuss that I was.  I just wasn’t ready to become totally respectable yet, and also was a far cry from mature enough to be a steady anything to anybody.  I knew it, even if I wouldn’t go so far as to admit it.

Then my uncle’s mother-in-law died and her apartment, on the first floor of the big family house next door, became available and I decided to take it, not having to pay my uncle a deposit or prepay rent, an obvious deal worked out with my mother, his sister.  The apartment had a good sized bedroom, very good sized living room, an ‘eat in’ kitchen, serviceable bath and a really nice back porch overlooking the big yard.  It was my first place and I didn’t have to be scared because I was surrounded by family and could run next door for dinner whenever I wanted, which was pretty often.

My uncle built two book cases for me to house my newly started collection of used books.  I had started to buy some books mostly because Tom Ballargeon had found used book stores to be a great place to pick up your favorites for very little money.  More than he was, I was lured by the collectible aspect of it, always liking to own nice things and display them.  Uncle John and I painted the whole place, and he asked me to help him create a new upstairs apartment in the converted barn next door that housed his and my parents’ places. 

So, I dusted off my shaky skills and over the course of two months, evenings and weekends, we turned an attic space into a two bedroom apartment.  We laid out the rooms, framed, sheet-rocked, taped and painted, put in sub-flooring and wall to wall carpet, installed counters and cabinets, installed all the electric and heating, did the finish work, all ourselves, and did it all pretty damn well.  Uncle John was the able planner and I was the able helper.

The canal season was winding down, Captain Brownie was retiring, and I was getting antsy again.  I had been doing my photography and had been going to the New York Photo Supply store in the local mall. I had gotten to know all the people working there and my interest in photography was still strong.  The manager, Rick Murphy, told me that any time I wanted a job, he’d get me in.  I could get a discount and be pretty much safe with a year round job working in a field I loved.  So, after the last ‘buoy picking’ run, I thanked the bosses at the canal and took a job at New York Photo.

I wondered briefly if I should stay on the Tug Waterford and work in the shops off season, but to my parents, and, I guess, to me, the lure of a steady job, possibly even one with a future, sealed the deal.  They campaigned for me to take it and I caved in.

I would buckle down to a career, put my nose to the grindstone, and pursue and attain the Great American Dream.  I would acquire a new car every three years, marry a good-hearted, steady woman, get a dog and a cat and sire 2.3 children; my difficulties, notwithstanding.  I would become a pillar of my community, organizer of fund drives, and join the Lion’s Club. I would buy a home in a nice neighborhood, close to my wife’s parents, and get into thirty years debt, consuming goods with my discretionary income.  I would be a credit to my employer and work all the hours necessary to increase the corporate bottom line, while developing a retirement plan, a heart condition, and an ulcer.  I would plan for my future and save for my kid’s college education.  I would be a leader of men, an honoree, a mentor, and the man everyone looked up to. I’d be all set now. 

Yeah, right.

But…

I did want things.  I wanted a house, a home, and a family of my own, sort of.  I wanted to be respected, I guess, as long as it didn’t require too much respectability of me.  I wanted to be a good man, and a strong man, but the books I read gave me advice on how to behave that never quite seemed to work out for me as well as it did for the suave characters in the narration.  I would have to think about it some more, to see if I could figure out how these things were done.  How to work at a steady job.  How to make a woman happy.  How to be content with a steady life.  How to get along.  How to acquire the stuff.

But…

So, I bucked it up and started work at New York Photo, determined to put my nose to the grindstone and commit myself totally to learning my job and becoming indispensible. Mom was happy, dad was noncommittal, and I was absolute.

But…

So, I started my attempt to be a grownup.  I had a terrible feeling that I would mess it all up, as I had messed up most everything that I had attempted in the past, one way or another.  I had made great strides in avoiding anything steady and respectable so far, and knew in my heart of hearts that I was likely to continue on that same path.  I knew I was weak.

But, It was time to grow up, right?

Yeah, right.

The End