Leaving Again

It was the end of the last month with an “R” in its name, and oyster season would soon be over.  On the bridge between the two bays, a truck was hauling a small oyster boat north. In the harbor, most of the other boats had already hung it up until next year- not enough legal sized oysters this late in the season to make it worthwhile in fuel and labor to try.  A few still ventured out with hopes of getting paid for undersized oysters without getting a visit from the game warden, but even that would be over in the next few days.  The night before in the waterfront restaurant, the Gypsy Couple talked about it being time to leave- the dozen-on-the-half-shell they ordered were so small they didn’t even come close to filling the plate.

They had already begun making preparations to leave.  She was in the process of saying goodbye to clients and wrapping up loose ends in her work.  It was stressful for her- she always became so close to the people she worked with that it was difficult to break off those connections.  His leaving came easier to him.  He’d had two major goals when he came back to Texas, and both were close to being accomplished.

“Will you need the truck tomorrow?” she asked. “I’ve got one last trip to Corpus to make, to finish up with my clients there.  If you need the truck, it’ll have to be early.”

“Nah,” he replied, “the only place I’ll need to go is up to the bait shop to make a phone call.  I’ll just ride the bike.”  The bait shop was less than a mile away, at the foot of the bridge- it was the nearest place they could get decent cell phone reception. This had been a blessing much of the time, but an inconvenience when trying to conduct business.  “I just need to make sure everything is set for Friday.”

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Spring had fully arrived, and the bike ride to the bait shop the next day was gorgeous.  The wildflowers were different from the ones he’d grown up with, tiny and low to the ground, but their colors were intense and vibrant.  It was easy to feel hopeful when surrounded by all the new beginnings. 

They had been fortunate (again) in having someone offer them a place to live there.  Just five miles from their old home in the harbor (you could actually see the harbor across the bay from the bait shop, if the humidity wasn’t too high), but it was a completely different environment.  The peninsula at the north end of the bridge was untouched from the development on the other side- a dense thicket of live oaks and low ponds.  After sundown, the air was full of the swampy sounds of night birds, crickets, and the low thrum of bullfrogs.  Occasionally, a bull alligator would let loose a mating call, raising the hair on one’s neck. 

An offshoot of the main bay lay at the end of the road they lived on. The other side of that narrow bay was part of the wildlife sanctuary where nearly extinct Whooping Cranes come every year to spend the winter.  The cranes ignored the sanctuary’s boundaries, and during the daytime, they would fly across the water to invade people’s yards (to be fair, these people baited their yards with feeders, to attract the cranes, which attract bird-watchers from all over the world, who pay good money to get close view of the birds).  On one of their evening walks to the end of the road to pay a visit to the “Whoopers”, the Gypsy Couple visited with birders from Europe and England; on the walk home, she remarked as to “how wealthy we are that we can walk less than a mile to see what people have made a once-in-a-lifetime trip for. “  Indeed.

The Whoopers were gone now, having migrated back north six weeks earlier.  Now it was time for the Gypsy Couple to do the same, and in order to finish the things he had to do, he rode his bicycle up to the bait shop to get a cell signal.

There was nothing special about the bait shop.  A truck and trailer were always parked in front, but he had never seen anyone working there, nor any customers coming or going. A breakwater and small marina sat next to the bait shop- the marina had been decrepit and run down long before the hurricane came- other than some twisted metal roofing, it looked no different after the storm than it had before.  The wind blew straight across the bay into the breakwater, building waves along the way and making occasional plumes of baywater crash over the top.

The parking lot was so pot-holed that he got off and walked the bike through it, to the boat launch ramp next to the marina.  There was a State Historical Marker at the boat ramp, telling anyone who cared that this place had been built in the 1930’s by a man named Mills, and had been quite the hot-spot for fishermen and duck hunters.  A duck caught there had been included in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” because it had a fully mature oyster permanently attached to its foot.

He didn’t care much about any of that- he just liked this spot.  There was something about the desertedness  of the place that beckoned to him, and made him feel at home. It had its own way of marking time that did not sync with the rest of the world.  It was a good place to make a phone call to a man about selling some of your stuff to fund the next leg of an adventure.

To be continued…