The House of Secrets

Love of the Sea

by Martin Maenza

A rotund man in a blue suit with greasy black hair peeked out on either side of his head sat before dining room table in a dank mansion. The wallpaper around him was spotty and smudged with dirt, tears visible here and there in the light of brass chandelier above – three bulbs burned out and one flickering violently.

The man didn’t care about the condition of the room nor did he mind the stains on the white tablecloth that covered the old oaken surface. No, he was focused intently on a covered plate that was placed before him. His eyes watered literally at the thought of pulling off the silver cover, though his huge nostrils already had an idea of what lay underneath. He had an impeccable sense of smell and taste when it came to food.

“Oh!” he glanced up with great surprise. “I didn’t hear you come in! I was just about to sit down to dinner!”

Then Abel frowned slightly. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were coming. If I had, I would have made sure there was enough to share.” He looked forward again. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Good!” Abel clapped. “Then if that is settled, I’ll dive right in!” He pulled the silver lid up and tossed it aside with a loud crash. He ignored that and focused on the rather large, at least ten pound, stuffed trout before him. The fish was lying a bed of steamed rice and was garnished about the edges with parsley. A cooked, stuffed green pepper had been placed in the fish’s mouth.

Abel inhaled deeply. “Ah, fresh fish! A joy!” He picked up his fork and knife, and was about to dive in when he paused.

“Oh, how rude of me!” he said. “Since I cannot share my dinner, perhaps I can tell you a tale while I eat! That might satisfy any hunger you might have.” He plunged his fork into the fish.

“And I know just the story. It is called ‘Love Of The Sea’…”
***

 

It was the middle of autumn, and the cool breeze blew across the waterfront into a small port town on a western bay. Seagulls squawked as they flew overhead, eventually perching on the large round posts of the various docks. There they would stay, ignoring the bustling workers that hurried back and forth with large boxes on carts in tow, until another freighter came up requiring someplace to tie off. Then, the birds would just move on to another spot and start their cycle anew.

The seaport easily served a hundred ships a day, though no one other than the dock-keep ever kept an official tab. Some were boats that just traveled up and down the coastal way, while others took longer voyages across the ocean. Yet no matter the originating port of call, no matter the type of cargo, no matter the size of the ships big or small, they all shared one thing in common. The men who worked on them.

The lonely sailors would often pass the time away, talking to one another about their homes. They would talk while they worked, loading and unloading the cargo, and they would talk after hours at the small tavern just past the end of the shipping yard.

The tavern was average sized, with many tables spread about the main floor. There was also a long bar with stools along the back, and the owner of the bar, Manny, served as the chief bartender as well. For twelve hours a day, seven days a week, the man in his late fifties shuffled back and forth between the counter and the stocked bottles, pouring drinks and lending an ear.

Manny ran a good place, an honest place. The lights were dim, relaxing. The seats firm and steady. A sign by the door clearly stated that fighting would not be tolerated; Manny only had to enforce that once with the help of a rather large bat and word got out that rule was enforced.

He had served over thirty years in the merchant marine himself, so he knew how hard life on the sea was for the sailors. They sometimes needed a place they could relax and call ‘home’ while away from home. Manny opened up the bar with just that in mind.

For a number of years, Manny did everything himself. He was a proud man, a hard worker. But when the bursitis started in his left leg and he found it wasn’t as easy for him to move about the place, he realized quickly he had to hire some help.

Luckily, as he often said, the gods smiled down upon him the day a beautiful brown haired young woman answered his help-wanted ad. She was in her early twenties with a shapely figure and a pleasant disposition. She added a bit of life, a breathe of fresh air to the place.

She grew up in this harbor town herself. She had family in the shipping trade, brothers and uncles, so she was accustomed to being around sailors. She wasn’t the shy kind of flower who would recoil at the start of an off-color joke. In fact, she often joined right in with the men, stopping at one of the tables with a tray of empty bottles and glasses still in one hand to ask them if they had heard the one about the man who brought an elephant into the doctor’s office or some such thing. Everyone loved her.

She worked hard, laying whiskey down night after night.

“Brandy!” Manny called out from behind the bar.

“Yeah?” she said with a smile.

The bartender finished pouring the last of the drinks. “Fetch another round!”

She moved through the crowded floor, sashaying as she walked in three inch heels. Every now and then, one of the men would go for a quick pinch of her short skirted behind. She never complained. She would throw the culprit a knowing look later, and they often compensated by leaving her a large tip afterwards at the end of the night.

Brandy placed her tray down on the bar, allowing Manny to load it up with four glasses. “Who these for?” she asked.

“Table to the left,” the graying-haired bartender indicated.

The waitress nodded, made her way back across the room of conversations and stopped at her destination, all the while balancing the tray perfectly in her hand. She glanced at the four men seated who were happy to see her arrive with the drinks. “So,” she said checking out the tray, “who gets the whiskey and who gets the wine?”

The guys gave her smiles and laughs as they got the drinks to the right parties. “Brandy, you’re a fine girl,” said a dark haired man with a beard and mustache.

“Yeah,” chimed in another with red hair. “What a good wife you would be.”

Brandy laughed. “If I had a dollar for every patron who made proposals to me, I wouldn’t have to keep slinging drinks to you lot!” The four guys laughed at that.

She returned back to the bar. Manny had been watching the exchange. “We’ve got us a good crowd tonight,” he said.

“Good crowd most nights,” she concurred. She then told Manny about what the guys had said.

He smiled as he listened to her recount the conversation. “Yeah, I can see that,” he said. Her eyes, they could steal a sailor from the sea.

Still, Manny knew better. He knew this girl as if she were his own daughter. Sure, she was pleasant and slightly flirtatious with most of the clientele, but that was really just for show. She made the men at ease while they relaxed after a hard day of work. It was good for business.

But despite every proposal, every advance, they didn’t mean anything to Brandy.

Manny was reminded of that every night when he looked at her. The braided chain she wore about her neck was a telltale sign. The necklace was made of the finest silver from the North of Spain. At the center hung a locket which bore the name of the man that Brandy loved: Erwin.

Manny had never met the man, or more specifically they had never been formally introduced. So many sailors came into the bar. Some were regulars, on cycles that often passed through the harbor town. Others, no so much. Still, he knew the story because it struck a cord with him when Brandy first told it to him.

“He came on a summer’s day,” Brandy had explained not long ago. She described him dressed as a typical sailor: a longshoreman’s dark coat and a hat, with wavy blonde hair underneath it. Erwin had seen Brandy on previous visits, and this time he had something for her. “He brought gifts from far, far away.” With some sadness in her voice, she then had added: “But he made it clear that he couldn’t stay.”

Manny recalled asking her, “if you loved him so, why didn’t you go be with him?” Manny knew about love lost, having regrets of his own. He never married himself, never had a child. He spent too much time going from port to port to port. It was only when he moved to the town and opened the bar did he establish some roots again.

Brandy had explained with sadness in her voice as she fingered the chain he had given her but a few days before. “He said,” she started to say, then had to clear her voice for she was getting as choked up as she had when he first said it. “He said…my life, my lover, my lady is the sea.”

Manny had heard accounts from others that Brandy used to watch this man’s blue-green eyes when he told his sailor stories. He was a very passionate storyteller; she even said that she could feel the ocean foam rise and saw its raging glory as he spoke. The man had been honest with her about how he felt yet why he could not commit to her, and Brandy she tried her best to understand.

But understanding was one thing, and accepting was another.

Every time the bell over the door of the bar would jangle, Brandy would turn about to see who was coming. Sometimes, for a brief second, those blue pools that were her eyes had a twinge of hope. Yet that hope would crash like a wave upon the rocks when she realized it was not her sailor who was walking through the door again.

Manny wished there was something he could do to comfort the girl, to make it hurt less. But he could not. With a sigh, he returned to wiping out the glasses he had just washed in the sink behind the bar.

Eventually, closing time came that evening. Brandy went to the back room to fetch her coat. As she buttoned it up tight, she called to her boss. “See you tomorrow, Manny,” she said.

“Sleep well,” he replied.

The bell above the door jangled as she walked outside.

Brandy walked through the silent town, down across the waterfront area before she would have to turn north to the small street that lead to her little apartment. A slight fog was nestling above the water and the harbor area, not enough to completely block her vision but more like a gentle nestling blanket tucking the town in for a night of slumber.

The boats tied off bobbed up and down slightly, and the water sloshed up against the wall with a slap-slap-slap sound.

When it was quiet like this, when there weren’t others around talking and laughing, she could still hear his voice in her head after months apart. “You’re a fine girl,” it echoed like a song’s refrain. “Such a fine girl. But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea.”

Tears started to form in her eyes. She shook her head violently to knock them away. “Why?” she said to herself again as she often did. “Why?”

There was a small stone in the path before her on the wall. Brandy felt a sudden wave of anger, and she advanced forward and kicked at it. “Why?” she said louder. The small stone flew out across the water, skipped twice and then sank with a sploosh sound.

There was silence for a moment save the slight sobbing of the young woman.

“Brandy?” a voice called.

The brown haired woman whirled around and saw the outline of a person in the fog.

The person spoke to her again. “Brandy, don’t cry.”

She blinked. That voice… she thought. …I know it…

The figure suddenly turned and darted off.

The realization of the voice caused Brandy to take pursuit. “Stop!” she called out ahead of her as the fog got thicker. “Wait!”

The figure was heading for the waterfront, down one of the docks. Brandy ran after him. Could it be? she thought to herself. Surely he would have come to the bar? Her hope, her desire for it to be the man she loved, drove her onward.

A slight wet patch on the wood caused her to loose her footing. “Whoa!” Brandy caught her self before slipping off the side of the structure. In the distance, she could hear the rumbling of thunder.

Brandy pressed on. If the man had come down this way, surely he would have to be ahead of her. The only thing on this dock were some tied off freighters. Perhaps he had come in one of them?

Her heart was racing as she hurried on, full of excitement and passion and maybe just a bit of fear. If it was her man, why would he run? Why did he not see her?

Her thoughts filled her head, and she almost got too distracted to see the end of the dock approaching. She stopped herself just in time and started to catch her breathe. The fog was thick but rising. There was another rumble of thunder, this time a bit louder.

“Where…?” she started to ask aloud, then stopped. She noticed something near the end of the dock.

Brandy bent down to inspect it further. What she would was a longshoreman’s dark coat and a cap, crumpled in a pile. “What the…?” She started to pick them up. They were familiar to her. And she felt a bit of a warmth to them.

She brushed the fabric of the coat against her face and closed her eyes. They were just like those he wore. But a coat was here.

Her eyes sprang open as a scent reached her nose. Brandy sniffed the coat’s collar. It was his after shave, a scent he wore. One he had gotten from France that he liked so much. It was very distinct! Not like the Old Spice most of the men in the bar wore.

“Erwin?” Brandy called out aloud.

The fog almost seemed to be thinning as the wind kicked up. A burst of lighting crossed the sky and a loud boom of thunder roared. The water off the end of the dock began to churn and swell.

For the first time tonight, fear swept over her. “Erwin?” she called out.

The clouds exploded, and heavy rains poured down upon the dock.

Brandy shielded her eyes and spit away water near her mouth as she was caught fully in the sudden storm. Her coat grew heavy as it absorbed the falling water. She tried to rise and move, but wind knocked her back to her knees.

“Erwin? Anyone? Help!” she called out in a panic.

Lightning and thunder crashed again. The wind began to howl through the rain, slamming the huge drops into her.

Brandy buried her head between her knees, trying to shield her face from the onslaught.

The wind howled again, and this time it had a more distinct sound to it.

“Dooooooo yooooooouuuuu looooooooooove hiiiiiiiiiiimmmmm?”

Brandy blinked. Had it been her imagination. “What?” she yelled out over the howl.

The wind howled again.

“Dooooooo yooooooouuuuu looooooooooove hiiiiiiiiiiimmmmm?”

“Yes,” she said softly. Then again, louder. “Yes!”

The water surged up again, this time in a huge wave over the edge of the dock.

Brandy screamed as the mighty wall of water towered above her, hovering, then crashed down upon her. She grabbed for something to hold on, trying not to let the mighty wave roll her off the side of the dock and into the choppy current of the harbor.

As the wave subsided, running back into the sea, she shook her head to clear her eyes again. Brandy coughed once, then again. The soaked coat was still in her grasp. She started to gain her footing again when she saw it: a figure lying prone on the edge of the dock.

It was man, naked.

Brandy’s eyes grew wide. When she saw the figure was not moving, she gathered up her courage and approached it. Bending down, she went to touch the body, to turn it over. It was cold to the touch.

Brandy let out a gasp when she turned the face over. She knew the face. “Erwin?”

The man’s body jumped and his eyes fluttered open. “Brandy?” he said in a weary voice. “Brandy?”

“Erwin!” she cried. She didn’t know what all was happening, but seeing him again brought forth a well of emotion in her. Those eyes, those beautiful blue-green eyes. “Baby, don’t move!” Brandy started to take the soaked coat from her arms to lay across his body.

Erwin shook his head. “…no…” he said. “…my life, my lover, my lady is the sea…”

Brandy tried covering him. “No, you can stay here,” she said, “with me.”

Erwin shook his head. “…no…” he groaned. “…no harbor is my home…”

Brandy reached forward to touch him, to comfort him. Surely he was in some kind of state of shock.

As her hand brushed against his cold cheek, his body melted away! His whole body collapsed into a pool of water that then fell down through the cracks in the dock’s surface.

“No,” Brandy cried. “Nooooo!”

Erwin was one with the sea once more!
***

 

“And, so, my friends,” Abel said as he put down his fork. Before him on the plate was a small pile of bones from the fish he had just consumed, “ends our little tale. Erwin once told Brandy that his first love was always the sea, but she didn’t understand that he meant it literally. The young sailor with one with the oceans in more ways than one.”

Abel pushed his seat back from the table and stood. “And with that, I bid you good night. After a feast such as that, a nap is in order.” And with that, the storyteller started for the door of the room, humming a little tune. “Dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda….”

 

inspired by the song Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl), performed by Looking Glass