Voyages of the Vicky Mary. The Drunken Sailor.

[oneighty]

Vicky has completed working some clam grounds near North Carolina. I leave the area heading south down the inland waterway with one crewman and a pocket full of hundred dollar bills. We have a couple of bottles of Wild Turkey with which we amuse ourselves. It is a long journey in a slow boat we are making. Along towards dark I elect to lay over at a marina just south of Myrtle Beach.

At the marina my crewman leaves to catch a ride home. I am sorta had too much to drink, but I bum a ride to Myrtle Beach anyway. I used to live there, I will look up some old friends. In a bar there I have a few more drinks, make some phone calls. Have a few more drinks. Time to go back to the Vicky comes. I leave the bar, sit down on the curb to adjust my socks which have slipped down inside of my white fisherman's boots. As I lean forward to remove the boots, I tilt way forward fall, smash my face against the black top. The blood pours forth.

I stagger my way to a Pizza place, order a large pizza to go. The people there look kinda funny at me. I retire to the restroom, clean up the blood pretty good. Back at the counter I pay my bill, the clerk is kind, he calls a taxi for me. Clutching my large pizza to me I wait outside for the taxi. When he arrives he is very reluctant to take me to the marina. He wants his money up front. I peel off a twenty tell him to keep the change, make him feel good. At the marina he was glad to get me out of his car. He had been looking funny at me in the rearview mirror. I ask him if he would help me down to my boat, maybe keep me from falling off the dock, drowning. "No effing way man." he says.

The next morning I wake up on the Vicky Mary, pizza untouched, still pretty drunk. Lucky I got my money still. I crank up the diesel, continue on south alone. Just Vicky Mary and me.

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