Scrappy Little Nobody (28 page)

M
y friend Whitney is obsessed with the ocean. She decorates her Christmas tree with seashells and starfish and says things like, “Logically I know they’re not, but I just
feel
like mermaids are real.” Whitney invites me sailing shortly after I turn twenty-one. She and her family make an annual trip to Catalina, a truly tiny island off the coast of California, for an event called Buccaneer Days.

I’ve heard Whitney talk about this event before—it will be Alex’s second time going—but I still don’t understand what it is. Is it a costume contest? Is it a boat race? “It’s an excuse for people to dress up and drink all day,” she says.

Every year for a three-day weekend, Catalina plays host to about five hundred people (in about one hundred boats) who dress in elaborate pirate costumes, fly skull-and-crossbones flags, and refer to every beverage they consume as “grog.”

To participate in Buccaneer Days, you sail to a port on Catalina called Two Harbors. You can spend the days on land or sea, and you sleep on your boat, tied to a mooring about a hundred yards from shore. Unlike Avalon—the adorable tourist town on the far side of the island—Two Harbors is not a community.
There are no structures to sleep in, only a flimsy outdoor bar (because you don’t need a roof, but you do need beer). The moorings in Two Harbors are limited and there’s a wait list to lease one. Apparently applicants can wait thirty years for a spot. It’s all very exclusive and old money. Whitney and her family strike me as far too normal to enjoy this kind of thing, but I’m grateful I’ve been invited along to witness the mayhem.

On the day we leave, Alex and I are still confused about the concept as a whole, but very excited. We scour our closets for anything on theme, pick out every article of clothing with so much as a ruffle on it, and stuff it into a bag. We stop at CVS to pick up a bandanna and an eye patch each. Neither of us has problems with motion sickness, but we grab some Ginger Trips, a holistic alternative to Dramamine, just to be safe. Upon inspection, the eye patches are a light gray, which makes them look distinctly medical and sad, so we toss them out. But we throw on our bandannas and take our Ginger Trips and drive to Long Beach.

We arrive at the marina and spot our hosts, looking spectacularly nautical. (I would describe the size and style of our vessel, but I don’t know anything about sailing, so I’m trusting you to picture a boat.) The rest of the party is already onboard: Whitney and her new husband, Brian, and her childhood friends Katie and Cecily. Whitney’s father tells me his name but I forget it immediately and hope that referring to him as “Captain” for the rest of the trip will be endearing. Then Whitney introduces me to her brother. Oh, unrelated: You know that thing when
you meet someone and you’re immediately like,
Huh. We’re totally gonna have sex
—anyway, his name is Luke.

We throw our bags belowdecks and get settled into a cozy little section of the cockpit to enjoy the fresh air. Being from Maine and not knowing how to sail is one of those things that earns me lots of incredulous looks. Yet being
from
Maine is not the same as being someone who
summers
in Maine—so I don’t want to ask too many questions right away. Whitney’s father does appear to be the captain of the ship, and I surmise that Luke is a kind of default first mate. Oh, crafts this size don’t have a first mate? Cool, I’m gonna call him that anyway so us poor kids can keep following along.

The Captain is having a conversation with someone on the dock about high winds. It sounds ominous, but we are so excited to take our trip that we choose to interpret the phrase “not quite gale force” as a green light. The family—except for Whitney’s husband, Brian, who is on the bow reenacting scenes from
What About Bob?
—finishes readying the boat, while the passengers with no sailing experience chat and pass around a bag of chips. Luke is fiddling with something just behind me and leans down to whisper in my ear.

“Listen, I’m sure those chips are delicious, but this weekend you’re the only girl I’m gonna see in a bikini that I haven’t known since I was five. I’m counting on you.”

This is presumptuous and rude, but I am twenty-one, so instead of jamming my keys through his calf, I find him incredibly charming. I make a big show of eating another handful of chips,
then put the bag away and resolve to restrict myself to alcohol-based calories for the remainder of the trip.

We get out on the water and it is beautiful, but we are met with high winds as previously threatened. We try to take photos but most of them are blurred as the boat is tossed from side to side. The water is so choppy that a cooler of beer falls overboard and Luke leaps to action. He jumps into the dinghy and goes after the cooler. Everyone onboard watches with bated breath as he rescues the cooler and a couple runaway beers. He lifts the final can of PBR over his head and we cheer from the deck for our returning hero. I have a couple blurry photos of this, and that’s where my pictures from this day stop.

Once Luke and the cooler are safely back onboard, the wind gets progressively worse. The boat is being thrown more than tossed now. We get past the breakwater, and I don’t know it yet, but that means shit is about to go down. We take our electronics belowdecks and wrap ourselves in sweatshirts and jackets. Luke trims the sails—which is a thing you do on a boat—but it doesn’t feel like it’s made a difference. The conditions are a little distressing now and we look at each other with goofy, surprised expressions, the way you do when an elevator jolts. It’s scary but it’s fun and we can already imagine ourselves telling the story later. We make roller-coaster noises to confirm that
yes, this is fun, we’re having fun.

The water gets rougher and starts crashing over the sides of the boat. I’m worried about my hair getting wet and having that “attacked by a raccoon” look in front of this new boy, but I don’t want to seem high maintenance at a time like this. The swells
only get higher, and soon what’s coming over us isn’t foamy spray but thick sheets of blue water. I want to ask if this is normal, but I don’t dare. I’m afraid of drowning but more afraid of looking ignorant and hysterical. Now that we are wet, I am unbearably cold. I go belowdecks to change, and maybe to do the cowardly thing and stay down there for a while. Turns out the feeling of motion sickness is fifty times worse belowdecks, and I run back up, still in my soaked hoodie.
That’s fine
, I think,
better to be up here anyway. Solidarity and all that.

The wind gets worse. No one is joking or making roller-coaster noises anymore. In fact we can’t remember how we could ever have been so cavalier about the sea. The Captain is at the helm with a tight smile, reassuring us that he’s not worried; he’s seen worse. Luke is crouched down, bracing himself. He looks serious and ready for a fight. The rest of us are stone-faced, white-knuckling anything that’s nailed down, as wave after wave comes over the boat. Then, before I even realize it’s happening, I am throwing up.

I manage to thrust my body toward the side of the boat but I’m still clinging to the center of the cockpit with one hand, so my breakfast, the handful of chips, and the hippie Dramamine go all over the deck. I stay in my awkward position, not wanting to face the group of seasoned sailors. I know that under the circumstances no one will be angry, but I’m still humiliated. With waves coming over us at ten-second intervals, the evidence is washed away almost immediately, but I still don’t turn around.
I am a pathetic, weak-stomached crybaby and I’ve never been so embarrassed
.

Then, before I even realize it’s happening, Luke is throwing up beside me. For one moment I am relieved but it is short-lived. The first mate is violently throwing up next to me. This is a terrifying development.
I’m a girl about to die on a boat, who just moments ago was a girl embarrassed about throwing up on a boat.
I long for that simpler time.

I turn back to the Captain. He is no longer smiling.

Whitney throws up. Brian throws up. Cecily goes belowdecks to throw up. She returns cradling her cell phone to her ear, risking its destruction to call her fiancé and say “I love you.” I think about the last time I had to swim hard, but I’ve lived in LA for years, where no one actually goes to the beach unless they’re staging a romantic paparazzi shot to dispel gay rumors. It’s been a very long time. I throw up again.

Who had we been an hour before? Who were those goons laughing and joking about the high waves? How could we have ever been so arrogant in the face of this inexhaustible power? We must be nearly there, we must be.

I still feel sick so I try to focus my gaze on a fixed landmark. I look back toward the California mainland but it’s nowhere to be seen. I notice the Captain’s galoshes are full to the brim with seawater, dark liquid splashing over the tops as we lurch. I stare at his overflowing boots while we hear mayday calls come over the radio. I don’t care about my hair anymore.

The journey goes on and on, and just as Whitney starts apologizing to us, the waves start to get smaller. The Captain puts his tight smile back on to tell us it’s getting better and he was never worried; he’d been through worse before anyway.

When we see land we behave like children who just found out the neighbor’s scary dog is chained to a pole. Take THAT, ocean! You can’t get us now! With no immediate threat to my life, I remember that I am in the presence of a hot guy and deflate a little knowing that I look like a drowned rat and probably blew it when I threw up the second time anyway.

The weather lets up completely by the time we get tied to our mooring. We take the dinghy to shore and dramatically kiss the ground because we think we’re funny. There are little campground-style showers, where we get cleaned up and I do my best to fix my hair. Without a blow dryer, braided pigtails are my only style option. If pigtails could become a really fashionable look for adult women, that would make my life so much easier. That or “attacked by a raccoon.”

As soon as we are in dry clothes we head to the one structure in the harbor: the bar. The handful of other sailors who also crossed through the rough water are easy to spot because of their thousand-yard stares and the fact that we are the ONLY patrons not yet drunk off our faces. Everyone else is in full buccaneer garb, using over-the-top “Argh, matey” accents and drunkenly groping what I hope are
their
wives. Debauchery is clearly best executed in a costume, and everyone seems to have forgotten this is real life. Alcohol might not be the best remedy for seasickness, but the inebriates are in markedly cheerier mental states, so we hurry to catch up.

We spend the night on the boat, and by eight the next morning, even through the thick hull, we hear the mating calls of functioning alcoholism. The sun is still low but the good people
of Buccaneer Days are already up and harassing each other. Groups of aspiring marauders are piled in dinghies and weaving between the sailboats, throwing plastic coins and bellowing, “Prepare to be boarded!”

This is a lot. I’m not much of a morning drinker, but Luke has weed, so I gratefully smoke as much as he offers. It’s like I’m at Mardi Gras but it’s balding and in the middle of the ocean. I am getting a window into what it means to be an adult. Sometimes, being an adult means getting some friends together and whizzing around in a tiny boat shouting jocular threats at the passengers of slightly larger boats. It’s quite a thing to watch grown men and women brandish fake swords and climb aboard the vessel you are standing on to demand beer. The environment (and probably the weed) bring me to a few surprising revelations:

1. People need escape and fantasy at every age.

2. Maybe we are all most free when we are playing make-believe.

3. At least five people here have buried a stripper in their lifetime.

My most pirate-y shirt happens to make my boobs look awesome, and twelve hours have passed since I last threw up, so I’m on the prowl. We get dressed and go ashore, and in the daylight I notice we are truly the only people here who are unmarried and under the age of fifty-five. Well, this changes everything.
Put me
on an island with a cute guy and give him no other sexual options? This must be how socially adept women feel all the time! I won’t even have to get that drunk!
But I do anyway.

The next forty-eight hours are a haze. We dance, we take the dinghy around the island, we drink more. We consume nothing but overcooked mystery meat and the bar’s signature drink: a mixture of Kahlúa, Baileys, banana liqueur, and whipped cream known as Buffalo Milk. The combination of sugar and alcohol is probably shutting down vital organs, but we feel invincible.

On our last night, some of us go ashore for a last hurrah, but Whitney and Brian stay on the boat to call it an early night. Luke and I sneak away from the party and make out in the grass under the stars. It would be romantic if we weren’t dressed like off-brand theme park entertainers.

I am drunk, and very young, and sharing a near-death experience makes me feel like I can say anything to Luke. I tell him that watching Whitney and Brian stay on the boat made me depressed. Then I say of course they stayed on the boat; why would they bother coming out? Just to hang out with each other? Once you’re married there’s no more excitement or possibility. I say settling down sounds like death. I say I feel sorry for them.

I can’t imagine anything more important than chasing that “butterfly feeling.” I can’t imagine what would drive a person to get out of bed in the morning if you knew you’d never have that new-crush feeling again or ever dance on a table, or get so drunk you try to fight a stranger. To not come ashore on the last night of Buccaneer Days? It’s tantamount to giving up on life.

Maybe because he’s a little older, or maybe because Whitney is his sister, Luke scoffs. He’s right; it’s stupid. I just don’t know it yet.

We get back on the boat and go to sleep. I bunk with Luke but we don’t have sex after all because we haven’t known each other very long, and his family is on the boat, and I haven’t taken a shit since we left LA. The journey back is easy and beautiful. When we arrive in the marina everyone sets to work getting the boat back in order. Alex and I have no idea what to do but it seems like asking would slow the process down. We move objects around at random to give the appearance that we are helping. The second it becomes acceptable to say good-bye we run to my car, drive straight over a partition, and race home to the comfort of indoor plumbing. At home, we come out of our respective bathrooms, flop on the couch, and luxuriate in our freshly scrubbed bodies and vacant bowels.