We would think constantly about what it was that we wanted. What I wanted. I wanted you to feel me in the fullest. What it was like to be me, see me and my eyes and arms and legs little and curled up next to containers of Pan peanut butter always afraid of storms and waves and water. There was something about that always, the lamb of a child so innocent.
I remember the Techverks taking me out on their boat, and I wanted to go so bad and be a part of their family, like this is what you do on a normal day. They had a boat and we had a boat. And they were going out on theirs like a family. I pleaded with them. Pat called the house but there was no answer, but she saw how bad I wanted it so she said some weird shit about not having a food enough for me. I went home on my bike and got my own food. I really did. A can of tuna fish, some bread, mayonnaise and a can opener. Who does that at eight? Who does that? It felt so good and perhaps I got a little cocky.
Joey and I were up on the bow spread and the sails were catching wind, and I grabbed on and hung myself over bow like a gargoyle, Leo, windsprite. Joey laughed and tried and he was a robot. I tried again and I was a lion. Joey tried again and was bazooka Joe, I tried again and we hit a wave from a passerby and I flopped into the ocean.
At first there was me, then there was a green light and I distinctly remember the hull of the boat bouncing off my head. Then I thought of the propeller and started kicking.
I must have bobbed up about 20 feet behind the boat and them all looking at me, at first worried and then smiles breaking across their face like the sun in Kodiak.
where were my parents, do they know?
Me, James Spillane… making bad times good ever since.
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