On South Street

By Captain Arthur Samuel Swift

The sea, the vast, calm, rolling, placid, tempestuous, frothy, deep, shallow, wind-capped, translucent, murky, smooth-as- glass, how-was-I-supposed-to-know-the-trunk-in-the-hold-was-filled-with-Cuban-cigars, sea.

In drydock here as I am at St. Margaret’s (no respectable clergyman would consider canonizing anyone named Maggie) at the foot of Wall Street and South Street in the great seaport of New York, I puff my pipeful of Borkum Riff. This seaside tavern is a perfect place to share thoughts of my thousands of hours on the sea.

It is good to be firmly back on the land, with my feet not moving beneath me. I think of the wisdom I have from my thousands of hours on the sea.

Pulling my draft, my bartender, Mr. Arthur Benoit — obviously with such a name, good Huguenot stock, searches my salt-spray weathered eyes for the wisdom I have from my thousand hours on the sea.

My barstool here is comfortable, making me think of the new TV show I saw last night, The Chair. What a combination: Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Fear Factor combining two such powerful forces. It is similar to that freighter load of Hugos that I brought into Newark for an eager American public fifteen years ago. Two things made for each other.

Poseidon-like wit, as I have, has me ponder other combinations. Enron and Kmart together. One company has no product and lots of people with money, the other lots of product but people without money. The name for the company should be Entropy. What a sunami of an idea. People without money would line up for the chance to buy electricity, oil and gasoline at Blue Light prices.

My attorney says that it will be months before my trial begins. Mr. Benoit hands me another sea-foam covered draft and I muse on double-hitch knotting football great Bill Parcells and Hillary Clinton, into a public figure that no one wants and can not have at the same time. Of course, this figure would have to be called Tuna Casserole (sorry about the nautical humor) or more seriously Pillary.

“Yes, Mr. Benoit another of your finest,” I say. Arthur is so hanging on my every word and deed. “Can you trace your roots back to a seafaring family”, I ask. The good fellow slides me another.

Likely another excellent coupling would be the good Reverend Jerry Falwell and Saddam Hussein, which of course would result in Jerry Seinfal. This combination would make a perfect political talk show host, it would fill the time by hating itself out loud.

Why not combine Ebay, and Oracle corporations, develop a website with voice recognition capability (which is allowing me to put this missive together here with the help of a micro-cassette recorder) and call it Earacle. It could be used by former internet executives to discuss their latest backyard gardening projects or newly found interest in the novels of Herman Melville, Jack London or Barbara Cartland. It would be a great service to people such as the good Mr. Benoit here. Fewer whining unemployed information technology executives.

“Mr. Benoit, another and I will put out my pipe,” I say with the respectful formality of my rank, to the woman who obviously is distracted from my thinking out loud by the sensually aromatic swirls of my Borkum Riff. “And please buy the lovely lady one of those stemmed red cocktails that she is drinking on me please,” I say with a tip of my Exxon Captain’s cap.

Young deck hands are just as in need of new coalescences, Pokemon and Harry Potter together would make Harry Mon or Pottoker or Poker.... Actually children should learn the basics of sailing before they go one to complex ones.

For adolescents though, a good compositing of things would be the celebrity editor Tina Brown of Talk magazine with the great inventor Ron Popeil (I never go anywhere without his Pocket Fisherman). The ensuing person would be a shoe-in as editor of Tiger Beat magazine: Tina Peil.

Why yes, I suppose that since you are closing my good man, Benoit, I should head to my berth at the Merchant Marine Motel. It has been a good evening and I will enjoy my stroll up the East River past the sea, where I have gained so much wisdom from my thousands of hours on the sea.