Newport Bay was all pale greens and greys this morning, a chop here and there as the tide flooded in from the sea, the water murky and cold. He had ten minutes before he was to ride back in the other direction, back to the Balboa Peninsula, back with Mr. X.
It was still early. He was the only passenger. An old captain with a grizzled beard watched him from the tiny wheelhouse, mostly admiring the Jag. He had a dirty white captain’s hat atop a mass of matted dark hair streaked with grey, crinkly eyes from a lifetime of squinting at sun and tide, and a deep tan.
A college student with acne was the deckhand, perhaps 19, dirty jeans and faded red T-shirt. He slid blocks under the Jag’s wheels, carefully, respectful of the Jag’s age, or perhaps the Judge’s. It was hard to tell. Then the young man lowered the car gate down at the stern.
The Judge crawled out of the Jag as the ferry lurched further out into the Bay. It was tricky to get out of the car. He had to throw his enormous bulk skyward at just the right second to free his frame from gravity and regain a standing posture from inches off the deck next to the Jag’s low seat. He damn near scraped the ground with his knees these days. There was no elegant way. Not for him, not in some time.
He walked to the stern of the ferry to watch the mist folding around the wake, the shore line becoming indistinct. The Balboa Pavilion, framed by the motionless Ferris wheel and moored boats, lost color and then form as the mist closed in mid-channel. He felt movement of the ferry in the water, vibration of the engine under his feet, heard the lapping of waves to starboard against the hull as tide challenged the forward progress of the flat scow. He took in the smell of the sea and faint fumes of diesel. He loved boats, he loved the sea, and he loved this old ferry. It’d been a fixture in his life since he was very young and racing on his uncle’s schooner in the Bay.
