path: root/arbella/lee-arbella.txt

Lee woke up in a sleeping bag in the Louisiana sun. The familiar shimmer of nylon against her skin as she curled her legs back into the cool shade of darkness. The smell of brackish water and damp metal swirled around her. She stared at rivets on the ceiling, letting the graffiti come into focus in the dim light at the top of the car. She rolled over on the cold steel floor groped the smooth metal until she found her headlamp lolling with the gentle sway of the train. 

Already the darkness was lifting off the world out the door, but inside the box car, away from the open door, it was still dark. She slid back into the shadow and searched through her pack for her stove and fuel. 

Later she dangled her feet off the side of the car and sipped coffee as the mid morning heat began to steam last nights rainfall off the marshes. The train cut through a humid fog.



Lee had been sailing under the black flag for so long she had long since ceased to be bashful about it. She did not, as she once had, strike it in favor of the stars and stripes when she pulled into harbors like this one on the leeward side of tk

Lee raised the black flag the minute land was out of sight.

Lee had first seen a boat on a scouting trip down south, trailing some anarcho-freegan hooligans from San Francisco out to Boulder and then, when the weather in Boulder made squating in never completed warehouses with no windows an unbearable proposition even for the heartiest of freegans she tagged along down the Florida to see what the other coast looked like. 

The trip was a long one, half spent in smelly frieght cars with questionably sane individuals like the thickly bearded rarely washed man who called himself Root, claimed to have tramped with Jack London and would, when the occasion necessitated, grab his own feces and pitch it out of the railcar. She abandoned Root and the freegans both in Jackson and lucked into a single hitchhiked ride with a trucker named tk all the way down to tk. After that is was just a couple short rides with some college kids to the Appalachia Bay.

It was here that she first saw a boat. It was not the first boat she had seen of course, she had looked at pleaty of them before, but saw a boat for what it was -- an actual thing in the world. Previously boats had existed for her as solely background noise or props around some scene that primarily involved, well, other things.

If she had thought of boats at all it was likely in dismissive terms, with visions involving rich white people in terrible shoes, something she wanted nothing to do with. 

Later she would learn that she was not alone in this assessment of boats and that in fact this assessment of boats was indirectly the thing responsible for boats like Arbella, that is, fiberglass hulled boats. 

Once upon a time the boat was wooden, heavy, expensive and a work of art typically captained by someone named Tad or Parker or at the very least someone with a III at the end of their name and probably a blond named Buffy on his arm. Then came tk.

Tk took everything that was art-like about shipbuilding and buried it in a pile of molten wind-blown glass. The now ubiquitous fiberglass was not created until the mid 1950s. This single event forever changed the world of sailing. For several hundred years of western culture, recreational sailing had, as most things involving white people tend to do, become a highly elitest stratified world of Parkers and Tads. With one well applied swipe of resin and glass fibers tk returned sailing to its more democratic roots. It would be a stretch to say anyone can afford a sailboat. In many respects sailing remains an elitest, overwhelmingly white uppers class passtime, but, as Lee discovered that did not need to be the case.

The democratiation of sailing was little more than an accidental technological advance colliding with a man who stubbornly believed anyone should be able to buy a boat. 

And boy did they. 

The rapidly emerging historically unique species of whtie america known as the consumer needed fiberglass things of all stripe with which demostrate social status. Like the travel trailer, Frank Lloyd Wright two-car suburbs, lake house and tk, the fiberglass hulled sailboat arrived just in time to prop up an otherwise unmaintainable set of social signifiers.

Fiberglass boats were cranked out by the thousands, hundreds of thousands. And the wonderful thing about Fiberglass is that it will, barring puncture wounds, more or less be around for millennia yet. Like the travel trailer, Frank Lloyd Wright two-car suburbs, lake house and tk, modern America is still littered with fiberglass hulled boats.

Despite the affordability of sailing thanks to tk, consumerius americanus did not, by and large, have the appetite for sailing that it thought it did. Boats turn out to be cramped, difficult and not without a modicum of danger, all things that consumerus americanus is conditioned to avoid. So they sold them. If they could. If not they just abandoned them. Easy come easy go. The sails rotted, the lines crumbled to nothing, the masts rusted and toppled bring the rigging down with them. But the hulls live on. This is what Lee noticed the minute she arrived at the Florida coast -- there are a ton of cheap fiberglass hulls lying around. 

Lee hitchhiked east until she got dropped off in Apalachicola. A billboard near the bridge across the harbor, said Oysterman Wanted. Lee wasn't entirely sure what an oysterman did or how much it paid, but she liked oysters and figured that learning to find them wouldn't be such a bad way to spend a few weeks.

The May sun was already hot, though on the blackish blue horizon, out across the bay and beyond the barrier island of ST. George, she should see the puffy heads of thunderstorms that just might offer some reprieve. For now though even her well browned arms felt like they would soon be blistering with some kind of radiation sickness if she stayed too long in the direct sun. She walked down the main street of tourist storefronts in search of a side alley, somewhere a beer could be had for less than $5 and one might meet someone that actually lived in Apalachicola. Eventually a blinding white glare of scattered oyster shells caught her eye and after crunching her way across the oyster remnant's, she found herself at Steamers. She sat out back at the open air bar and ordered a plate of oysters and a pint of the Oyster City Brewing Company's Witches Brew," which the bartender claimed was flavored with white pepper and prickly pears from the yard a few houses down. Whatever the case it had an edge that went well with the oysters.

The bar had high-backed barstools that allowed you to turn and face out at the upper reaches of the marsh. She finished the last oyster and turned back to look out at the islands of cattails and reeds that broke up the blue brown water of what was otherwise a clearly well dredged channel, judging by the size of the fishing trawlers that were tied up just up the waterfront from where she sat. She noticed a blue hulled boat on the far side of the channel and had the same passing fantasy of disappearing on a sailboat that had been chasing her ever since she was a little girl sitting in a sabot with her father. 

Can't we just keep going forever? 

What would we eat? 

Sushi. And seaweed. 

Even an outing in a sunfish that nearly killed both of them did not shake her firm belief that the ocean was home. 

The bay in front of her was still mostly salt marsh. Further up the fresh water would take over, but here the air still smelled of salt and the water was still just blue enough to betray its origins. This was, she could sense, right around the point of convergence, where the river mingled with sea to form the brackish slurry that made Apalach famous, back in the days when there were actually oysters out there. 

Lee thought of a similar convergence point in her past, different rivers, different bays, different oceans even, but the idea was the same, the recognition was instant and with it came that familiar nostalgia for what some would call home, though Lee wasn't sure that was the word, or even what that word meant. What is this notion, home? Is it where we are at any one moment? Is it where you grew up? Where your family lives? Your favorite places of your past? Was it just  the place you were nostalgic for right now? Lee had spent an entire night staring out a boxcar window, watching the stars of Wyoming, considering the notion of home only to decide that home is everywhere. There is nothing that is not home. Earth is home. The sea is home. The rock, the mantle, the magma, the hydrogen and helium condensing. Home. Nostalgia is the unrequited pain that comes of being unable to be everywhere at once. Time bound, trapped by geography in a sack of meat, we dream of being stars.

"Nice flag"

The voice startled her out of her oyster-drunk revelry, forced her, she thought with a smile, back into her current sack of meat. She turned and saw a man of indeterminable age, a sun lined, salt weathered face that could have 50 or 70, to pick an age would have been to short change it. She smiled, "you know it?"

The man chuckled. "Do I know it? Rather unmistakable flag isn't it?"


She smiled again. "Yes it is. I imagine there are a few around these parts."

"Flying? No, not really. Though there's more than few that would like to. It attracts attention though you know?"

"Does it?" She laughed. 

He laughed. "Can I buy you a beer?

"Sure." 

The tattoo wasn't very big, it was nestled between her shoulder blades, low enough that even most tk's covered it, but this afternoon she was wearing a tattered Guinness brewery shirt with a whole in the middle of the back that made it visible, just above her bra strap. She had purposefully chosen a place on her body that she could not see, that most people could not see but that would, just like this, come up unexpectedly and, like the ideas it symbolized, randomly. It served its purpose anyway.

Midway through a second beer, she stopped Doug's endless stream of story long enough to enquire about the large "Oysterman Wanted" billboard just across the bridge in East Point. Doug went silent for a bit. Took a long swig of beer and exchanged a look with the bartender.

"That's not an ad looking for oystermen. Or women. If that's what you were thinking. That's an ad for a government assistance program. See, since the 'cane five years back and the oil spill a year after that, the small timers like me or Unk or any of the rest you might meet down at Steamers, we mostly had to give up the plots. I sold mine to some oyster conglomerate out of Maryland. Anyway, government makes unemployment benefits for oystermen. Most of 'em became corrections officers from what I recall. That billboard, pretty sure it's just a long running government contract, I don't think there's been a local oysterman out there on the bay for at least two or three years. Sometimes I see a boat over toward the St. George bridge, so a few people must have held out, but I doubt they do it for a living, might just be a family plot they keep for special occasions.

Lee stared glumly at her beer. "It's all fucked then is what you're saying?"

Doug chuckled. "Well I hate to hear someone as young as you say that, but, hmm. Well, compared to what I remember, yeah it's all fucked. Fishing wise anyway. But you weren't here for all that. You don't have the history see. It just is what it is for you."

"Thought I might try being an oysterman, seemed like a good story or two might come out of it."

"Well, yeah, you're fucked on that." Doug laughed. "Still a lot to do around here though. And there's plenty of oysters coming up locally anyway. Industry may be dead, but we still got them in the bars right? So fuck it, let's eat oysters."

Lee smiled, but she still felt fucked. Always too late. 

Doug ordered a round of oysters. Lee sampled the local hot sauce, told him she liked it even though it was far to vinegary for her tastes. Besides, she didn't really like hot sauce on oysters, there was something crisp and clean about them plain, like eating a tiny bit of the mystery that is the sea."

"Thing about Apalach my dear is that it gives up what you need. Take the oysters and fish. Sustenience right? All you need to do is know where to look. If I say to you words like Porter’s Bar or Cat Point, Cabbage Top, Picaleen, Paradise, that means nothing to you, see. To me, it means I can east oysters whenever I want. Or drop a line and pull in enough mullet to get by see."

She nodded and pulled out her notepad to write down the names.

Doug chuckled. "You don't need to write them down Lee, they don't exist on any map I know of. They'll just be words to you."

"I like words; I collect them." She smiled sharply at him. "And I've found that having the right ones makes all the difference."

"Bit of salt in you yet see. That's good." He leaned in looking over her hand at the tatter black book. "Don't forget Picaleen, that's my personal go-to."

She added it and a few notes for context to herself. Normally she left context for later, but she wasn't sure yet were she would be sleeping or if she would get a chance to review her notes tonight. 

"Are you a writer?"

"No. Just a note taker. I have a bad memory."

"I'd guess you have a great memory, writing things down like that."

"Well, that's the idea anyway."

"Well, let's see, you want my full in-depth guide to Apalach then?"

"No. Or yes, but not all at once. Give me one more."

"You need to find some Deertongue. Wonderful tonic tea. Prevents malaria. Smells like vanilla. Stick it in your bag and your clothes will never smell. You can find it up in Tate's Hell". She stopped writing. She looked at her blankly, she returned the blankness. "The state park, up the highway, back out past East Point. Wait, you came in from the west? Huh. Anyway, Apalach, it has pretty much everything you need. A few things you don't, but everything you do."

Doug left before the sun was down, but he gave her his phone number and promised to take her to Picaleen. Lee 






It offers up everything anyone needs, from sustenance and an honest living to natural cures and signs of faith. But, as with most things, this magical Eden in the Florida panhandle is not immune to the changes brought by regenerating natural cycles or the ills of human folly.

Or if I want 



She asks about the sign, oysterman wanted. Doug tells her that it's for a government assistance program, that there are no small time oysterman anymore, that the big companies bought up all the plots back when the hurricanes and oil spills killed everything off. He agrees to let her man the trailer for him, she meets people that way, connects with someone who knows of an old de-rigged fiberglass monohull that she can buy on the cheap. The use the rigging story from marlinspike. 



Several days later, as arranged, she met Doug for a milkshake at the burger king in Carrabella. He looked older under the florescent light, but he was still  




~~~
From amy evans: http://bittersoutherner.com/the-oysterman

"Wary of government regulators and anyone who might have a hand in compromising their livelihoods, they’re generally not very quick to share, well, anything. At least that’s what I found on my first trip to Apalachicola. I had a couple of leads and a few contacts, but I was charged with documenting a wide variety of people and professions, so I had to pound the pavement looking for more. As with anything having to do with getting a story from a stranger, when you have the opportunity to visit with one person, you ask them to suggest someone else, which leads you to another story and another and so on. I’d been eager to interview an oysterman, but I hadn’t yet gained a foothold in the community.

Then I met Albert “Corky” Richards, an oyster tong maker in Apalachicola. I visited his workshop up on Bluff Road and got a crash course in tong making, mullet fishing and custom cabinetry. Since Corky crafted tongs for practically all of the oysterman in Franklin County, I asked him how I might connect with someone for an interview.

“Go down to the dock at Steamer’s. That’s where all of the oystermen are coming in this time of year,” he said. “Tell them Corky sent you.”
~~~

She asked around at tk, and soon found herself 

So she bought one and set about fixing it up.


Lee went by Lee because Lie sounded bad and her mother had been too creative to pick a normal name and too dumb to spell Leila right.

She hated only two things with anything approaching passion, air conditioning and electric light. She made concessions, Arbella had runnig lights. She used a computer from time to time, a ancient tiny plastic thing that was capable of booting a shell, a web browser and networking app. She even had a headlamp she used nearly every night to read by. But she avoided lamps, disliked street lights and preferred the darker recesses of shadow whenever she was out at night. The harsh glare of the electric light made the world a dangerous place of well lit edges and sharp, fictitious shapes. The world was in fact soft and fluid, shape-shifting minute to minute with the ever-changing light of the sun.

She had never voluntarily suffered the moisture sucking oppression of air conditioning. It never ceased to amaze her that the mass of people considered things like lamps and air conditioning an improvement over the cool absence of the sun, that they never took the hint that at night it is best to move slower, with greater care and caution, perhaps even not move at all, perhaps even sleep. As for air conditioning, it simply makes reality hotter. The world had no air conditioning, which left two choices, use it and sit on the couch in oblivious comfort or live in the heat. She likewise despised heaters. Wood stoves were acceptable, but it had been years since she was in a place that heat was necessary. Too much of the planet is so pleasantly warm there's just no need to endure the cold parts. She was saving the cold parts for later in life, when she had lost her edge and no longer cared so much about whether head came from burning wood or tk coils. When she had gone soft, a state she was currently incapable of imagining.



This story was inspired by actual events in actual places and is I hope, true to the spirit of things if not the actual facts. I am in that regard endebted to a number of people, most of whom are wholly unaware that I owe them a debt. Nevertheless, I would like to thank the following:

* Amy Evans, who wrote one of the most beautiful accounts of oystering in Apalachicola that I've ever read. http://bittersoutherner.com/the-oysterman, was the source of many details about businesses that had long disappeared before my first trip to Apalachicola in 2008.

* Andre Gallant, who has written extensively about Oystering in Georgia and who, through his blog and book, provided much of my understanding of the industry in the south.

* Lisa, Allie, Kirsten and Moxie, the anarchist crew of S/V Pestilence.

* P.O.S., for getting me thinking about my anarchist past.

* Doug of Doug's Seafood trailer, St. Georgia Island. 

* tk guy we met at museum

* The people of Apalachicola and St. George Island

* My parents, for teaching me to sail.