The sun is going to come up in 4 hours and I'm as frightened as I've ever been. I’m sitting on the deck of my old man's sailboat, the "Don Quijote". A 41 foot, blue, double mast Morgan, which is anchored in the middle of the bay. From here I can see the lights of the port, the Torre Blanca hotel and the cross, of the Peace Chapel, built by the Trullet's in the 70's. They are the only lights I can see.
The Main and Genoa sails are at the bow and the moonlight turns them into the silhouette of a siren. She has made of the ship her temporary home. The definition is haunting, I can see her face, breasts and the rest of the sail makes her fishtail, I can see her staring at me. Sudden wind gusts blow from the west and as it travels between the boom, the mast and the steel tension cables it makes a low key whistling noise. Slow and lazy, daunting and almost baritone, like an owl from a Bradbury cemetery.
Chills roll down my chest and my back like cold sweat drops. While I tell myself she's not really there and I know it's nothing more than two sails and the wind, but she's staring at me. Then the moonlight shines on her again, and I have nowhere to run. This has been going on for almost 2 hours now, and the early morning tide softly rocks the ship up and down. I'm only eight years old and this would not be the last I'd see of her.
The siren appeared again several times after that night, but she would wait a few years. The next time I saw her it was in the same bay, same time of the night. The year was 1984 and I had just finished talking with my old man. He was over six feet tall, thin and tan due to the constant exposure to the tropical sun. He wore a goatee and mustache and two gold hoops on his left earlobe. Once a prominent businessman who used to fly to London only to have his suits custom made, born to Swiss-German immigrants, bought this boat after his second divorce and became what he always wanted to be; A seawolf, a rebel, traveling around the world. He even had a monkey as a companion for some time and I will never forget his steel blue eyes and his daily diet that consisted of seven packs of non filter cigarettes and a bottle of tequila.
I had asked him if a girl I met that day at the pool could spend the night with me. She was a beautiful Chilean brunette, athletic and toned, with perfect high cheeks and delicate lips, sunbathed like a top sirloin, she filled her one piece, solid black bathing suit like a seal, I think about her when I hear Bon Jovi's "slippery, when wet". Anyway, she was vacationing with her mom and she was about a year older than me. The old man looked me straight in the eye and said "This is your ship, son. Here you do as you please, just as I do".
The very next day I brought her and her mother on board, and that would be the first and last time I would bring someone to meet my dad in order to get permission for my romances. To my surprise permission was granted, by both of our parents, and after returning her mother back to the hotel, well, my guest stayed for the night. It would be the warmest I ever felt that cabin, with a mix of sweat, diesel and salty sea air. Inexperience fell on the floor, shattered like fine china, and her Chilean accent.. think of it as Tennessee Spanish. For some reason that memory will always live with me, and the siren was my witness and that cabin became and would remain mine for years to come.
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