#22 The Captain and his crew

      #22 The Captain and his Crew

Then another boat came up the river. The big jon boat was heavily loaded and coming in too fast. When they beached her, everyone in the access area could hear the sickening screech of aluminum on concrete. It was an expensive, beamy boat with two older couples and lots of fishing and picnic gear. This was a heavy boat for its style and purpose.

The Captain sent his first mate to get their big four-door pick up. The man backed the trailer onto the ramp a little crooked. His partner started yelling at him to straighten it out. Both women took it upon themselves to relay the Captain’s order to the man driving the truck. Apparently everyone in the boat understood the man in the truck to be deaf except the driver himself.

Up until that point this operation had been fairly normal. Now we were starting to see a little kink in the armor. Apparently the old fellow driving the truck was deaf as a post. As far as the gentleman who was running the motor in the boat was concerned, I was beginning to realize he didn’t see so well. I was getting the idea that a show was in the making.
The captain had backed his boat back out into the river and waited for the trailer to be positioned properly on the ramp. Once the trailer was lined up ninety-degrees to the river, his job was to gun the motor and drive the boat up onto the partially submerged trailer. In most instances this was not a problem. There were only two things to keep in mind. One, don’t hit it so hard that the nose of the boat would crash into the boat wench at the other end of the trailer. Two, keep her straight so you line the boat up. It did take a little practice to build confidence but it wasn’t that big a deal. However, as usual, when dealing with the upper White River one had to take into consideration the considerable amount of current. As he approached the boat he would be fighting a side current of some five or six miles per hour. That side force would be doing everything it could to make the Captain miss his mark. At this time, I was giving the Captain a fifty – fifty chance of hitting the trailer no matter where it was parked, current or no current.

I am going to try to tell what I saw. I hope I do the scene justice. I was sitting on the edge of the ramp about even with the truck driver’s position and about ten feet away. I had a great seat for the show. No popcorn, but I did have my nabs and agua.

The trailer was crooked but not too bad. The main problem was that he had missed the ramp with the right wheel of the trailer. The submerged wheel had gone off the ramp and into a depression next to the concrete. Even the Captain, who didn’t see so well, could tell something looked very wrong. Once more, he yelled for the driver to pull up and straighten out the trailer. Again, the two ladies repeated what he said in voices that were becoming louder and shriller with each attempt at communicating with the driver. Almost predictably, the old man in the truck said, “What the hell did he say?”

The ladies had gotten out of the boat and were presently at their battle stations. One sun hat-wearing lady was near the river’s edge some three or four feet from the submerged wheel. The other lady was on the driver’s side of the trailer near the tailgate of the truck. I began to understand she was the spouse of the truck driver and the lady facing shore must be married to the “El Capitan” himself. Exasperation began to show in the face of the woman I had assigned to the driver. I assumed her to be with the driver because she looked at him as if she was about to take a club to his head. Her eyes began to squint and her face was turning a shade of red. I thought she was holding her breath there for a minute. She must have thought she was standing in the perfect relay position. I thought someone in that family needs to learn how to read lips or sign or something. Even if the driver did know how to read lips, it wouldn’t have done him any good unless he could read lips backwards through the truck’s side mirror. Whatever her position, it didn’t seem to help his hearing one bit.

The other lady had obviously seen this act before. I noticed she started to look around to see who was watching. She was wearing a large brimmed sun hat and seemed to be shrinking back into the hat somehow. I remember thinking if that lady pulls that bonnet down around her face anymore, she won’t be able to see. Then I realized that might be the idea. As she gripped the sides of her hat brim she started edging backward into a little stand of trees at the river’s edge and next to the ramp. It looked as if she was seeking protection from the tree trunks. I didn’t quite get that one figured out before my attention was called back to the boat’s stern again.

The man was still sitting in the river idling the motor and keeping his boat lined up against the light current. Every once in a while, out of impatience, he would gun the boat and make a big circle in the river. Then the Captain would come back to give orders and wait again. He hovered out into the river twenty feet or more. It was obvious from his position and posture he meant business. He fully intended to get a good run at the trailer when he got his chance. He repeated for the third time for his partner to pull up and straighten out the trailer then back down the ramp straight this time.

The relay lady gave up her position and came to the driver’s cab door. Again I am at ringside and can hear every word even if they are whispering. Whispering they were not. In a very loud voice and in a tone only one’s wife of many years could muster, she said. “He said pull up dammit!” By this time her mouth was no more than six inches from her husband’s left ear. He turns to her just as ticked off and says, “Well why didn’t somebody say so in the first place.” With that he gunned the pickup.

As she jumped back, she started a backwards stumble that only ended with a heavy sit down no more than a foot from my feet. The tires squealed for a few feet leaving black marks on the ramp. The lady looked up at me from her upside down position. As I extended a hand and began to help her up, I asked if she was OK. She had skidded a little on her more than ample posterior, so I was concerned about a broken hip or something. She said she was fine, just a little skinned up but mostly embarrassed. She then got up, rearranged her clothing, as if pulling her dignity back into place. She walked away without a limp. She did rub her rump a little. I bet it stung. She was fine. If it had not been for her age, I would have thought her “bouncing booty landing” was funny. Aw heck, I might as well admit it. It was hilarious but not near as funny as the lady with the sombrero Grande over in the trees.

When the trailer lurched forward, the wheel in the hole came right straight up in the air like it had been shot out of a catapult. For just a moment it seemed as if the trailer was in a freeze frame, one side four feet in the air with the other wheel dancing on it’s edge. Gallons of water splashed harmlessly upward with the tire came out of the hole. However, even more gallons splashed sideways toward, you guessed it, the lady standing or maybe cowering is a better word for it, just feet away. Her hands were still attached to the sides of her hat brim, pulling it ever tighter and downward. Her face could only be seen through something of a cone or tunnel created by the bend of the hot brim. When the sheet of water went over her it looked as if a transformation had come over her. She went from a surprised look to a drowned rat in a matter of seconds. One second she was there holding her hat with her eyes bigger than saucers and a sheet of water about to engulf her. The next picture in my mind is one with the lady standing there still clenching the hat brim but dripping wet from head to toe. She could not have been any more soaked had she just walked up out of the river. Did I mention how cold the water was? Cold, damned cold. It was way too cold for wading or swimming. It was trout-river cold.

I don’t know if she had visions of the future or this was an everyday occurrence, but I swear she just looked like someone who was expecting catastrophe and when it happened was almost relieved. She looked at the truck and trailer and then at the Captain. At that point she just sighed and when she did, it looked like all the air went out of her. Her shoulders slumped as she walked away from the ramp out into the sunlight of the parking lot.

The Captain was yelling, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Just back that thing back down here so we can go home.” I don’t think he saw his wife over there dripping on the parking lot. I’m not sure how much of the truck and trailer he could see. But I do know he sure could yell.

The truck was now stopped in its own skid marks. I guess he liked stopping fast as much as peeling rubber. The relay wife walked up to where the driver was sitting and calmly said to him, “OK, now back it straight down the ramp.” The driver said, “What’d he say?” She yelled, “He said back the son-of- a-bitch into the river.” Our driver said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to do but everybody keep stopping me.” And with that the man backed the boat trailer down the ramp as pretty as you please. The trailer was perfectly aligned with the bank and was just a little short of being ready for boarding the boat. I thought I was going to fall over by this time. Needless to say, a crowd of fishermen had started to reel in and come to watch. This was not something you see every Sunday.

The lady relaying orders could see the trailer needed to come back a few more feet in order to be under water far enough for the Captain to run the boat up on it. The Captain could see the scene but probably not too clearly because he yelled for the driver to come on back about fifteen feet. Now fifteen feet might have looked right to him but it was going to put the entire truck, front wheels and all, in the water. We were just about to have a drowned truck. I guess this was the last straw for the lady in the wilted sun hat. She came back from her exile on the parking lot and asserted herself into the situation. She was ticked off more than just a little bit. She yelled at the relay wife and told her not to repeat that order. She yelled at the Captain, whom I think was her husband, and told him to shut the hell up. She then walked around the front of the pick up truck and slapped the hood with the heel of her hand. That got the deaf guy’s attention. I think it scared him.
When she got around to the driver’s side she became very calm and yet very loud at the same time.

She said, “ Back ‘er up about six or seven feet, watch my hand, when I tell you to stop, I mean stop.” He looked at her as if he had never seen any one as intelligent in his whole life. Then he said a quiet OK and backed up with his eyes never leaving her face or hands.

They backed up about six and a half feet. The fenders of the trailer were covered in water. The trailer was aligned perfectly for a run by the boat Captain. Now we have to remember that when this all started, the Captain was very much in charge and let everyone within earshot know it. Now it was his turn, and all eyes, the crowd now had grown to about fifteen bystanders, were turned to the boat. The Captain was not one to shirk from the limelight and seemed to be enjoying the attention. He backed the boat out into the river just a little, took aim at the trailer guides, and gunned the twenty-horse hard straight ahead. Now what looked like a straight shot to him must not have been what other people would have thought was a straight course. As a matter of fact he would have done well to have traded jobs with his better- seeing, hard-of-hearing partner.

When he came roaring in from abut fifteen feet out, his eyes must have crossed or something because not only did he miss his mark and run slap over one of the trailer fender guides but he kept the motor going at full tilt boogie for about five seconds too long. He hit the guide with the nose of the big twenty-foot boat, clipped it off, and ran the boat up on the fender of the trailer, thereby turning the boat on its side ever so slowly. Just as he got the motor shut off, the bow of the boat crashed into the trailer wench knocking it backward into the tailgate of the truck.

The truck driver heard the metal boat wench hit the tailgate, or felt it, I never will know which because it hit with a huge wallop. The boat leaned off the trailer fender and the right side went into the water. That meant the left side was almost straight up in the air. And we can assume where the Captain is by now. Yup, in the water. Thank goodness he had clipped the kill switch cord to his left wrist. When he was being unceremoniously dumped into the water, his left hand went skyward similar to a bull rider at the Mesquite Rodeo. That killed the sputtering motor as it laid half in the water and half out.

The two women looked at what had just occurred with mouths wide open. The crowd had to shut their own jaws. The Captain struggled to his feet standing in two feet of cold, cold water and sputtered and fumed, but he could not figure out how to blame anybody but himself. The crowd saw he was OK and started to giggle, then laugh, then belly laugh. The two women turned around and walked quietly together toward the ladies’ loo. The old fellow in the driver’s seat kept trying to turn around to see just what the heck was going on. I walked over to him and put my hand on his left arm. He looked at me with questions in his eyes. I told him to put her in park and get out to see about his buddy. He got out, took one look and started laughing like crazy. He then turned to me and said, “ My brother’s been doing this craziness for over 60 years and it gets funnier every time.”

The last I saw of them, the wives were still out of sight and the brothers were putting all the pieces back together. The guys in the crowd were helping them get the boat on the trailer and everyone was in a great mood, even the Captain.

After they were taken care of, I shoved off for Norfork town where I would see my boating future.