There's things that happened out there that I've never told Kath. Never told anybody. And I'm going to keep them. I don't think that's a secret, exactly. I think it's just mine.
What I'll give them is this. The night watch. On the way back from the gunline, you'd come off watch at four, and I'd go up on deck before I turned in. And it's black, and there's no land anywhere, and the stars come right down to the water on every side. Every side. I'd stand at the rail twenty minutes. That's where I fell for the ocean. Right there. Of all the places. That's what I want the kids to know. The ocean was the good part.
1977, the fall. Kath and I, we're down on the Cape, Wellfleet, and I'm walking down a road back of the harbor and there's a boat in a field. In a field. Up on blocks, with weeds growing through the cradle. A catboat. Twenty-two feet. And I go up and knock on the door of the house, and an old man comes out, Mr. Atwood, and I say, is that boat for sale? And he says, son, that's not a boat. That's a lot of firewood shaped like a boat. And I said, how much for the firewood? And he said two hundred dollars, if you take her away by Christmas.
And then, February, the blizzard came. The big one. The Blizzard of '78. And the shed roof came down. On the boat. I went over on the second morning, an hour, through snow up to here, and the shed's flat. And I thought, well, that's that. Firewood after all. Mr. Atwood was right.