Photo by Brandon Russell on Unsplash
by Kyle Weik
Old man Bruce, bad-backed and boozy, pulled a splinter from his four-fingered palm and analyzed his progress––aged oak, thin sails, slightly asymmetrical––leagues ahead of his previous attempts.
After the navy, Bruce had spent the remainder of his career on the dock; mooring and unloading, loading and unmooring, and while women waved handkerchiefs, it was Henry who made him blush.
For dinner, Bruce microwaved chicken pot pie and watched an entire boxed set of Gilligan’s Island before brewing a pot of coffee and leaving the kitchen light on––messy workbench, sore fingers, both made him feel like a captain charting a new course and even though he jotted down notes and measured thrice, he never strayed from the original design.
Bruce always ended the night on the left side of the bed, where he’d dream of steering a rudderless ship into the eye of a storm and by his side, a wooden-legged skipper, either laughing or crying he could never tell; come morning, he’d find wooden shavings or sprinkles of sawdust in between the sheets, the taste of salt on his lips, and smile.
The day of the christening, Bruce dressed up and downed rum, fiddled with the mast and polished the hull until it shone, then gave the U.S.S. Henry a sloppy sendoff with extra tongue.
Bruce slid the finished ship into the bottle, mast raised, sails unfurled, then stumbled towards the far end of the garage and gently placed it on the shelf, next to a thousand Henrys.
Kyle Weik is a Queer Japanese-American writer based in Los Angeles. His work appears or is forthcoming in Vestal Review, Bending Genres, New Flash Fiction Review, and elsewhere. You can find him on X at @kyleisamu.
