by Kirk Jockell
Tales from Stool 17
Finding Port St. Joe
The Nigel Logan Stories #1
By Kirk S. Jockell
Copyright 2015 Kirk Jockell
Kindle Edition
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The Tales from Stool 17 series is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.
KirkJockell.com
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Episode 1: Numbers
Episode 2: Landfall
Episode 3: Red Shucks a Yarn
Episode 4: A Little Something from the Keys
Episode 5: A Ransom for Maxine
Episode 6: Brown
Episode 7: No Cream ... No Sugar
Episode 8: Red’s Ride
Episode 9: Thirteen
Episode 10: The Card
Episode 11: The Question
Thanks for Reading
Acknowledgements
Port St. Joe and the surrounding areas that create Florida’s Forgotten Coast are real. The same can be said about Brian Bowen. He is real and portrayed for what he is: a talented troubadour entertaining folks up, down, and across the Forgotten Coast. He’s being brave by allowing himself to be associated with the likes of Nigel Logan and the craziness found on the following pages. While real, all the above are used fictitiously throughout these stories.
Also real, but used fictitiously, is Oyster Radio, WOYS 100.5 FM out of Apalachicola. The station is always on when I’m close enough to dial it up on the radio. When I’m away, it is streamed on my blackberry (YES! I still carry an old BlackBerry) via the TuneIn radio app. And truth be told, I’m listening now as I type this. You can listen too via the live stream at www.OysterRadio.com.
This is my first published work of fiction. It has been a fun and crazy ride getting here, but I didn’t do it alone. It is difficult to express in words how grateful I am to the many folks that have encouraged me along the way and, quite often and unknowingly, picked me up and moved me forward during times of self-doubt. It is true. We are all our own worst enemies. Thank you everyone.
Special thanks go out to my bride, Joy. She has, with little complaint, pored over every word multiple times in an attempt to proofread and help edit all my shitty drafts. Her assistance and advice such as--Hey, Jackass, this sentence might work better if it actually had a damn verb!--has been invaluable. Love you, baby. I couldn’t have done this without you.
For Randy “RanDaddy” Everett
They say folks come down here to find themselves or hide;
I suppose I’ve done a little of both and managed to find some peace of mind.
--Brian Bowen, Indian Pass
Numbers
They’re ubiquitous, numbers I mean. From their use in counting and calculations, to the less mathematical application of labeling things, numbers are everywhere. Think about it, if you stopped reading right now and looked up, chances are you will find at least one number, probably more. You may need to turn your head to the right or the left, but they are there.
My name is Nigel Logan. I’m a retired Chief from the world’s finest United States Navy. I spent the best part of twenty-three years as a Quartermaster, a navigator. Lord knows, I dealt with numbers everyday: latitudes, longitudes, azimuths, compass headings, speed, time, distance, sight tables, and soundings. Those only scratch the surface.
In the Navy, we number everything. It’s our favorite labeling system. From bow numbers to buildings, everything gets a number, even bar stools. Mine was stool seventeen. Let me explain.
There were twenty-three barstools at the enlisted club on the Little Creek Amphibious Base. Each stool had a number on the back, a brass plaque engraved with its number spelt across the center in cursive. Each morning the barkeeps made sure all the stools were neatly placed in order: number one through twenty-five. Stools five and eleven were missing, perhaps retired after years of faithful service, or more probably, broken after the occasional fight.
I was a wet-behind-the-ears sailor with plenty of time left on my contract and no clue as to what the future held. I was fresh out of boot camp, Great Lakes, Illinois. Unlike most of the shipmates I graduated with, I was a late bloomer ... sort of. I entered the service at the age of twenty and enjoyed my 21st birthday while standing the mid-watch. So, the day I graduated, I was ready for a drink.
Stool seventeen’s fifteenth position placed it right in front of the draft beer station. On most days after work, I could be found there enjoying a libation or two. Liberty was a privilege I always did my best to make the most of. It was 1987. Pitchers of draft beer were a buck eighty, the perfect price for a budget-minded squid. Those were the days.
Over time I earned a stake, a homestead claim, to that spot at the bar. For all practical purposes, stool seventeen was mine. The bartenders would keep it open for me, for a reasonable amount of time anyway. Hey sailor, you can’t sit there yet. That’s Logan’s seat.
The number seventeen became an inside joke on the ship amongst enlisted and officers alike. It didn’t matter what the question was, the answer was always the same. What’s going on tonight? Seventeen. Has anyone seen Logan? Seventeen. What cha think’n bout? Seventeen.
One morning our division was standing at quarters, the morning muster. Our Chief was giving us a quick inspection. When he got to me, he studied me with an eye of scrutiny. He could tell the previous night had been a little long in the making. He asked, “How are we feeling this morning, Logan?”
“Four-oh and improving, Chief.” Four-Oh ... a reference to the highest score one could get on a performance evaluation.
Chief laughed. “You look like shit. Are you going to be alright today?”
“Don’t try and keep up, Chief. You’ll be panting all day.”
He liked that. “Logan, you’re so full of crap it’s running out your ears. Just how many beers did you have last night?”
Before I had an opportunity to say anything, all my shipmates piped up in unison and shouted, “Seventeen, Chief.”
It hurt to smile.
My first ship was the USS Ponce, LPD-15. She was berthed at Little Creek and I spent over four years aboard her. I was an undesignated seaman, meaning I had no other naval profession but chipping old paint and slapping on new. It serves as a great motivator to encourage initiative to improve one’s naval career.
It would be my watches on the bridge that exposed me to navigation. I was later authorized to strike for the Quartermaster rating. Strike ... the term used to indicate one’s on-the-job-training into a naval rating, a profession. By the time I left the ship, I was a Second Class Petty Officer, a QM2. I had a promising career, the respect of my shipmates, and glowing references from the chiefs and officers over me.
With new orders to Mayport, FL in hand, I departed the ship for the last time as ship’s company. I was met at the ship’s brow by the Officer of the Watch. I saluted, “Permission to go ashore, sir.”
He
saluted back, “Permission granted.” We dropped our salutes together. Then he asked with a smile, “So Logan, where are you going to do your drinking now?”
“It doesn’t really matter anymore, sir,” I said with an even bigger smile. “Any stool in any port will always be number seventeen.” I reached in my back pocket and produced the brass plaque from my old bar stool. “The bartenders gave it to me. They said it wouldn’t be right for me to leave without it. I didn’t argue.”
I put the plaque back in my pocket and turned with a snap. I saluted the ensign flying at the stern. I held it a bit longer than I normally would have. Then I turned and headed down to the pier, stool seventeen in my back pocket.
Almost two decades later I can be found on a slice of rural coastal paradise, Port St. Joe. It is located on the Florida panhandle and serves as the big city for Cape San Blas and Indian Pass. It is a small town, but it’s upscale too. We even have traffic lights, two of them. And, to top things off, we have a Piggly Wiggly. Who could ask for more? The one thing we are not is your typical gulf coast tourist trap.
My arrival wasn’t totally accidental. My retirement from the Navy came sudden and premature. I never planned to leave service as soon as I did, but the one thing my new freedom instilled was a need to get away.
I was stationed on a ship that made berth in Norfolk, Virginia. I wasn’t running away, but given the circumstances, it was best that I left. If others wanted to find me, it wouldn’t be impossible, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for them either.
My home away from the ship is Mischief, a 1966 Pearson Vanguard, a 32-foot blue water sailboat of classic design. With a moon that was new and the cloak of darkness on my side, I fired up the diesel, untied my dock lines, and eased out of the marina with no running lights. With her dark blue hull, she was almost invisible in the night. If someone was still watching, they would have needed to pay very close attention. Aside from some surface lighting from shore, it was pitch black. But with the aid of my night vision binoculars, I could see well enough.
The wind blew a steady 12 to 15 knots, perfect conditions but on the nose all the way to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Under sail, it was a beat the entire way. Mischief loves these conditions and sunk her teeth into every wave that met her bow. It was effortless to her.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is an engineering marvel. It has been in operation since 1964 and covers seventeen miles from shore to shore. Here, the movements of shipping traffic can be monitored and controlled in and out of the massive bay area. It also keeps enemy submarines from slipping into our waters unnoticed. Except for the bridges used by smaller fishing and motor yachts, there are only two ways in and out of the bay, by navigating over the one-mile tunnels that are linked together by each of the five-acre manmade islands.
The shipping traffic was pretty heavy and I had to stand off a bit before tacking the boat to exit the bay. A super-sized container ship loaded down with cargo was entering. She was pushing a lot of water and I wanted to give her all the room she needed.
Once outside the bay and into the Atlantic, I could see naval ships resting at Lynnhaven anchorage. It brought back memories. I had spent many days and nights anchored there on my first ship, the Ponce. It was a favorite location to conduct flight training. Helicopter pilots spent days and nights doing touch and go’s off the large aft flight deck. However, on that night, there were no birds in the air; everything was quiet and still. I went down below and flipped the running lights on and came back on deck and held a stare at the ships. I smiled and turned away.
I settled into the cockpit and fell off the breeze to a fast close reach. I set the autopilot for an east southeast course, 115 true.
Numbers. You can’t escape them.
Landfall
It was a beautiful spring morning and still quite early. Red and I were fishing the bay. We had a fair, light breeze and the tide was running, both of which helped us drift over a series of holes and grassy spots. The water was clear and there was a chilling bite to the air, but it would warm up fine by mid-morning.
Three minutes after tossing out the drogue to control our drift, Red caught the first fish, a nice flounder, eighteen inches. It went in the cooler with the beer. Then he caught the next five: three trout and two more flounder. Two of the trout and one of the flounder qualified for the ice treatment. I caught three bait stealers, pinfish. It was embarrassing.
As I was taking my last pinfish off the hook, Red provided valuable words of encouragement. He said, “If you don’t start catching something, the network is going to cancel your fishing show and all your sponsors are going to drop you like a bad habit.”
“Thanks, Red. That really helps.”
Red said nothing, chuckling under his breath.
“So I guess what you’re saying is I shouldn’t try and make it as a fishing guide, huh?”
“It wouldn’t be something I’d recommend. That’s for sure.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You don’t do enough fishing, Nigel. That’s all. How long you been here now? Going on two years, maybe?”
I thought about it. Had it been that long? Really? Time flies.
“Man, Red. It only seems like yesterday when you and Trixie invited me to stay at your house that night. Remember?”
Red said, “That’s where your recollection gets a little foggy. We didn’t invite you. We didn’t know what else to do with you, so we brought you home. Like a dog at the pound nobody wants. Trixie is a sucker for strays.”
“Damn, Red. Do you think you could say anything else that could make me feel any better?”
Red chuckled. But it was true. It wasn’t like they offered and I accepted. We were perfect strangers the night we met. More accurately, the night they met me. Before I had a chance to lay eyes on either one of them I had slept away about thirteen hours on their couch.
The first thing I remember from that afternoon was seeing and smelling a shot of whiskey. My eyes were just opening, trying to focus against the brightness of sunshine coming through the sliding glass door. It was slow, but I began to take in my strange surroundings, all of it unfamiliar. Then I saw a guy with a double shot of bourbon, Jim Beam. He held it under my nose. “Hair of the dog?” he asked.
I turned my head away. A stiff shot may have made me feel better, but, at that moment, it was the last thing my pounding head was willing to accept. The room was spinning. The harsh light was hurting my eyes. I felt I was going to be sick, but fought it off. I rolled over on my back and that is when I saw a woman standing with an unlit cigarette between her fingers. She was looking over the shoulder of the guy with the whiskey. I blinked hard to bring her into focus. That’s when she lit her cigarette. She took a deep draw and exhaled through her nose and said, “Morning, hotshot. Where did you blow in from?”
Even though I knew I was amongst strangers and foreign surroundings, I didn’t care. I wasn’t in a position to care. I didn’t have the mental faculties to care. I was horizontal. That was all I knew; that, and my going vertical wasn’t an option yet.
I hadn’t had a hangover like that in years and the details of how I ended up in that condition remain fuzzy. But based on what I remember, and the details I have been able to extract from my new friends, I redefined the expression tearing up the town.
Just twenty-four hours earlier I was sober, tired, and the newest guy in town. I was transiting through, going to destinations unknown, a place not yet determined. I was in unfamiliar territory, a guy trying to start a new life, a life away from a past that in all likelihood would again haunt and catch up to me.
When I sailed out of Norfolk, VA, I left nothing behind except a bad situation and a Navy life I held dear. There is no way of selecting which memories make the trip. They all come, good and bad. They’re a package deal. I’m fortunate the good ones outweigh the bad. I’m unfortunate that the bad is very bad. I wasn’t running or hiding, just going, not wanting to be found. There is a difference.
&nbs
p; I sailed up from Key West after making a two day stop at the Boca Chica Marina on the Naval Air Station. I needed to top off with diesel, take on provisions, and fill the potable water tanks, valuable commodities during any extended underway period.
On my last night I strolled into the Goat Locker, the Chief’s Club, for a little Kentucky brown water, a favorite when not drinking beer. I walked straight to the bar and grabbed my favorite bar stool, number seventeen. I looked around at the others scattered about and received a protective stare from the barkeep. The Goat Locker is reserved for Chiefs and their guests. I was a stranger, so the cool reception was expected. I reached my hand out, “The name is Nigel, QMC out of Norfolk. How are you?”
QM was my rate in the Navy, Quartermaster. I’m a navigator. I make sure ships get from point A to point B. In short, my division had all the charts and kept track of the ship’s whereabouts and movement.
He took my hand, a firm handshake. I liked him already. He maintained his grip a moment longer than usual as he studied me with a deep look at my face. “My pleasure,” he said. “The name is Steve Bales, SMC, retired. I’m the manager around here.”
SM, a Signalman, an all but lost art of the Navy. They specialize in visual communication, flashing lights, semaphore, and halyard flags. That was real Navy stuff, not to be confused with all the high-tech communication gadgetry of today.
He also said he was retired. That was something I realized I had omitted from my introduction. I guess I should start getting used to the idea. Next time, maybe. I let it go.
I looked behind him to see what they had. The bar was well stocked. “I’ll take a Woodford Reserve, neat; make it a double if you please.”
I liked the way Steve worked his bar. He reached up and pulled down an old-fashioned glass, but it wasn’t clean enough for him. He took several moments rubbing it out, polishing the glass with a clean bar towel. He held it up to the light, inspecting it, and then placed it in front of me with definition, anchored it to the bar with some attitude. Then he turned and grabbed the bottle off the shelf, pulled the cork, placed it in front of me and walked away. “Pour your own, Chief. Do I have to do everything for you?”
