Characters

Wherever you go, there you are. This statement is enough to create a character and I would travel long and far to meet them. Yet I found out to find characters I only have to look around me. I embarked on this journey to meet them and the circumstances that created them. On occasions I find characters I’m not so sure I wanted to meet, but they make good story material and so do others but there is not much to tell about them, most likely because I did not get to know them well enough to tell a story about them.
They appear to be the kind of folks that are middle of the road, although I’m sure their lives are just as interesting as anybody else’s but they act and behave a way that is not provoking ideas to write about.
And then there are the others. Some are funny, some dramatic, others sad and again others slap my thigh, double over, and being in stitches kind of folks which make travelling so much of a pleasure that it is nearly impossible to stop it. And of course there are others that want me to give up any hope for human kind but I guess they are needed to create a contrast and we may see how much we enjoyed the first kind.
I’m sure there are stories about me also, at least in forms of rumours, gossips and maybe even the truth but I have not seen anything in writing yet and given the nature of most people, they find it easier to talk about me when I’m not around hence this story is on characters I observe around me. I will write about me when they’re not around.

In the anchorage where I tied up “Symbiosis” are several boats at anchor a little ways off, mainly without anybody on board and a few of them are live-aboard vessels. Those are boats occupied by their owners with sometimes living beings walking on two legs unless something or someone has forced them to consume unpaid amounts of alcohol, which they swear, they will never, ever do again until tomorrow. One of them has a life size toy dog, stuffed and often more alive looking than his owner and definitely better behaved than him. Unlike his owner, he never barks at anyone and is al least passive with other living beings, doesn’t mess the boat and is not asking for anything. What I like about this dog is the fact he does not command god’s blessing on anyone with a forked tongue. He also is well groomed and looks clean and I never saw him behaving like a human, but rather humane, very much the opposite of the captain, his owner.
This individual’s vessels is an old-timer, a wooden hull boat that has seen better times with a dock attached to it. Yes, you read correctly, the dock is attached to the boat. The boat is at anchor and where the dock came from is only the boat owner’s interpretation of legal but it serves him as a work platform and what else he deems fit.
I met him some time back and he greeted me in a gruff way, then proceeded to chat about his ear that was split in half from the back to front from a fall he had and now proudly displays like a war hero a lost leg in the old days where man were man and swords and cannons a way to make money. He likes to call himself “Captain Split ear” (“Schlitzohr” in German language and it denotes someone cunning, sneaky and crafty) and although nobody calls him that, I heard talk about him and he’s been called anything else, non-very complimenting, but was curious to see what kind of person he really is. He continued telling me what he is doing and asking if there is anything he could do for me because he needed money. Being broke myself I could not use his skills and told him so and he told God to bless me. Being a suspicious person about these kinds of folks, I kept contact to a friendly hello and the occasional tow of his dinghy when I saw him labouring with oars on windy days and each time I got a “God bless you” for it.
The towing itself was not a bother but when he brought up his problems and complains about his friend with whom he drunk daily until he fell down, I suggested:
-Work out your problem with him and not with me. It’s your friend; he needs to know what you don’t like about him. And if he is your friend and you talk about him in terms that are used for enemies, how do you talk about your enemies?
His face turned a hue of purple and he cried:
-Posh you! All of you. I don’t need you. I live alone and leave me the #*±! Alone. Posh you!
I got an earful of curses and dropped offering a tow.

A few days later I hear from my mechanic’s wife that “Captain Split ear” was rude and insulting to her husband. He confronted him while drunk, calling him names and in return was told to stay away from the shop or will be kicked out from there. The owner of the shop has assisted “Captain Split ear” with tools and other things and now that gone, “Captain Split ear” blames him for undermining his business and keeps “blessing “ him.
-Shootskees, he said. -I did a lot of work for them and they hate me. Everybody hates me, Posh them all!
I wanted to know if there is perhaps a possibility that maybe he is the one who hates everybody.
It seems I have a knack to make myself a target for mentally deranged, lonely sailors because his face twisted into an expression as if he unexpectedly bit into a lemon, his eyes like slits, he pulled his lips tight over his teeth and snarled:
-I don’t care! I love everybody. I don’t care what they think of me. I live on my boat; I’m captain split ear. See this? And produced a middle finger to demonstrate his love.
I was convinced.
A day later he asked me to lend him my generator for two hours so he can do some sanding on his boat and I asked him to bring it back when he is finished with a full tank, the way he’s got it.
In the evening I went to his boat to save him a rowing trip and to pick up my generator. He was full of gratitude and blessings and we talked for a little while before I returned to my boat with the generator and empty tank. The following day he asked me to help him to find a generator to buy and I directed him to another sailor who had one for sale.
-I don’t have the money now but will have it when I sold my property in Montana.
-Okay, I said. -When you have the money, you can buy it from him.

For a few days I did not see him and enjoyed the peace of a settled anchorage with a friend and we prepared “Symbiosis for a short sailing stint on the bay, when he came to my boat and telling me that he now bought an older generator, noisier than mine but more power and then began “blessing” me with so called four-letter words, waving his hands at me, which I would have loved with all of the fingers, not just one, and put a healthy distance between me and his dinghy. Was he worried my laughter would lead into an all-out madness and I would hurt him? It was a relief to have him off my back and not have to worry about lending him tools and getting it back empty and dirty. Why would I not be happy?
The next day while I answered some emails he came to me as if nothing happened, reaches his hand out for a handshake and was surprised when I asked him what the hell was that yesterday all about. First he pretended he did not remember a thing and then the amnesia lifted and he told me I was like all the others who hate him. My surprise was complete.
I thought he liked to borrow things for free and have people giving him jobs and support him with beer and share their catch with him but I stand corrected. Maybe some folks must like to be charged, insulted and treated harsh or they never feel validated. He continued to blabber on about his opinion about me, all the others who are like that and that I know what he was talking about, (I wish) theatrically dropped on his knees, hands raised toward the sky and begging for my forgiveness at the same time coursing me. Passer-by’s stopped and wondered if this was perhaps an open-air performance and started digging into their pockets for coins to reward us for the show.
Suddenly he remembered that he is “Captain Schlitzohr” who bends his knees for no one, jumped to his feet and shouted, he needs nobody, lives alone and posh you all, made his exit.
Curtains.
The by-standers, stuffed their coins back into their pockets and dispersed slowly, stunt by the authenticity of this sailor, they even forgot to applaud.
That made my day because it reassured me that I’m okay. With a relief I realized, how scary it would be to imagine people like this would love me.
Personally I think if there were no folks like him, we’d better invent them. They really bring out the contrast and make travelling interesting.
Once I watched a soccer game with a great player out-dribbling the other teams players, zigzagging around them, stumbling, getting up, still in possession of the ball then kicking the winning goal into the net, his own. Blame dizziness!
This sailor reminded me about this game and on some days when I’m swamped with things to do and I’m pressed to do many things that all seem urgent, I score like that too, but thank heavens, not every day. Could it be that this “Captain Schlitzohr” is a very busy man?