Chapter Seventeen: Time after Time
On August 14th, 1988, following a two-year-long decline in my health, Erin and I got the Smurfy idea to take out my father’s canoe and try to paddle to Boston Harbor to see the Sox play the Tigers. The Sox were on a tear at home and were strong favorites to win the American League. We figured that if it took one hour to drive to Boston then it would take no more than four hours to paddle there, which would put us on the Charles River just before game time.
We packed a lunch of corn chips and wine coolers and then carried the giant metal canoe up Elwyn Ave, across South Street, and down Bone Harbor Road to my old elementary school. We hauled the canoe clumsily through the empty playground, past the slides and the tie swings, and managed to push it over a chain-link fence. The tide was going out, of course, but Erin said, “How bad can it be to push it on the mud?” We found out, pushing and dragging at exactly the same rate as the tide was going out. For what seemed like hours we were twenty feet from deep water and always standing in two feet of horrible, foul smelling sea sludge. With the help of the wine coolers, we pushed through the mud, pulling the canoe with a rope, laughing and singing and slogging through the mud, stepping on sharp clams as the slime oozed through our toes. Finally we reached the water, but it was only a foot deep. We had to wade for two hundred more yards before we could actually sit and paddle, exhausted, into Bone Harbor. After three hours, our torturous trail wound back through the exposed mud to the still visible elementary school. On our way to the ocean we took a wrong turn and ended up in the shallow Sagamore Creek. It was there that we ran into Toddy Bonigan, who was fishing for striper and smoking a cigar alone on a dock like Huck Finn.
“Well if it isn't Hall & Oates,” he laughed. “What kind of trouble are you two tools getting into now?”
“We're going to see the Sox beat the tar out of Detroit,” I said.
Bonigan laughed and spit into the water with an air of superiority.
“Is there a freighter out there with a tow line?”
“We're gonna paddle. We can make it if we hurry, right Kodiak?”
Erin was sucking the juice out of some chewing tobacco. He spit over the side of the canoe and nodded. What a soldier!
“You two would swim to hell and back for kicks,” surmised Bonigan correctly.
Before we departed, Bonigan offered a long set of directions involving the depth of Boston Harbor, proper signaling technique, right-of-way rules, and the location of the harbormaster in Boston.
“And don't forget to point the bow into the swells,” he added. “And take notes, Oggy. I want to hear about this out at the Point.
In the time since my first meeting with the Bullwhip Wraith in January 1987, I'd grown accustomed to hearing Bonigan ask for another song. He was only a little more insistent than the rest of the tribe. Following another adventure with Erin, the Tribe no longer had to drive to Ordione's Point to have a fire. Our new location was near the Jones Ave. dump, on a nub of land called Ogden's Point. It was to this Point that Bonigan referred to now, and I smiled. Some progress had been made toward the striking out of Ray Knight, but not enough. I had invested so many songs now that one more wouldn't make much difference. Maybe Erin and I would reach Boston Harbor, or not. Either way, I already knew what I would sing when the time came before the flames.
With this in mind, we paddled as far as the Wentworth Bridge, within sight of Fort Stark, before the fog came in. We were exhausted and hungry so turned around for the long haul back to land through considerably more mud. The game was in the sixth inning when we threw the canoe onto my lawn and ordered pizza from Papa Ginos. The Sox were losing 15-2 in the 6th inning. Clemens had allowed 8 runs and only got 4 people out for a nifty game ERA of around 70.00! Maybe Roger thought it was his bowling day! I went to bed with a belly ache, clutching Darcy's freshly violated sock and my damp Sox hat.
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