down with the ship

so the bastard has this uncle...

and he's not doing so well.

well, he's dying really.

and now the mind reels

when captain nemo used to live in shirley which may as well been in florida anyways,

sitting on his barstools as a kid.

him sneaking us point fives which wasn't my first taste of beer but it was more sanctioned than sneaking a sip of dad's bottle of schmidts on a friday night.

nemo sneaking the mofo onto grandpa's boat knowing full well that the dinghy was overloaded past capacity.

nemo spinning tales of sticking his fingers in the mash to piss off my aunt.

nemo sharing the attic with dad because they were 7 under one roof.

the magnificent seven as mom refers to them.

here's a tale. 

dad and nemo are sleeping in the attic on the hottest night of the year and all they have is a fan.


the fan blows between their beds to keep both slightly less than sweltering. and doing it badly.


dad falls asleep.


wakes up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat  to find the fan had been turned away from him.


begrudged, dad decides to sleep out on the porch instead.

upon the retelling of this tale, nemo lets out a throaty laugh that sounded like an old prospector.

but louder.

so loud.

so infectious.

captain nemo laughs like a man who loves living and now that he's dying the bastard can't help thinking that he'd give anything to be able to dish more dirt.

tell more stories.

make us all laugh about how well he fucked with his siblings.

and how much...

despite it all...

they'd love love to hear him tell it right now and laugh about it along with him.

—the bastard