The Middle Watch

My hands smelled like puke and my feet hung over the edge of the bed. Lucas' bed: he lay next to me, sleeping like a dog, or like one of Nelson's sailors might have slept. Not awake, not really asleep, but in that dozing state where the sound of a cat on the roof or the drum beating To Quarters would cause one to snap to, eye boogers be damned. He'd been throwing up since midnight, every 15 to 20 minutes. He'd long since upchucked the solid contents of his stomach and was reduced to retching out a viscous yellow goo. He'd nibble on the pretzels and sip at the club soda, doze off, wake up, heave, repeat. It was now 2:30 in the morning. 

Earlier at dinner, the discussion was about Pirates. Specifically, what Pirates ate. Mostly biscuits, I said, Ship's Biscuits, not like the kind that we make. Nasty stuff, like flour hockey pucks. He wanted to know more about living on a pirate ship. Where did they keep the food? When did everyone go to bed? I told him what I knew, culled from getting through the first ten volumes of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin Series. The ship's crew stood watches. Four hours on - working the sails, eyeing the horizon, and the never-ending swabbing of the decks - and four hours off, usually spent sleeping  in hammocks (this, he thought, seemed fun) or eating. There was never really time off; a sudden squall or the sighting of enemy sails and everyone was manning their posts. I told him that this went on for months at a time, and during those months you were always on duty. I'm pretty sure that didn't dissuade him from wanting to live the Buccaneer Life, although he did clarify that he would not be a Scurvy Pirate, because they're the bad guys. He'd be a Good Pirate.

I left his room at 2:30; he was snoring lightly and it had been a half hour since his last barfing session. Four hours later and I was up at the usual time; reflexively, no alarm clock needed, an instinct born of younger days when I'd be up before the sun to chase waves, honed after five years of being up before the kids to do my duties: bottles to be warmed, baths to be drawn, pipe the crew to breakfast. He wandered out a few minutes later, swaying a bit - exhaustion and nausea a six foot sea running under his feet. He let me know that he had woken up and threw up again sometime after I'd left. I walked him back to his bed, tucked him back in, grabbed the metal bowl he used as a catch-bucket. It smelled like dereliction.