Escape
By Brian Hinkle

My cheeks turn cold as the chill New England wind whistles past, obscuring the sound of the blaring television in my home. Its incessant calls to buy! buy! buy! fade away as I walk to the end of my block, then turn right. Finally, I have a chance to escape modern life. Why don’t they understand the need to escape the relentless consumerism of the television world? Everybody thinks that I am strange, and for some reason they choose to treat me as if I was an alien, or a refugee from a foreign country who still doesn’t understand the ins and outs of American life. I grasp my worn leather coat tighter around my body, turn my hat down as far as it will go to keep the wind-driven rain from assaulting my face. I’ve come to the end of the street, where I must cut across the park to reach my destination. The wet grass sucks in my boots, and it becomes increasingly hard to slog across the open turf. “Why are you going out on a night like this?” my mother asked. “It’s too dangerous – why don’t you just take a walk?” But walking exposes me to billboards, fliers, advertisements in windows. There is nowhere around the neighborhood free of capitalism, unsullied by the almighty dollar. But in the steely gray waters of the ocean I can find my release, for they remain as yet uncapitalized. Ahead I can see my goal, where the fishing boats slowly roll back and forth, their masts pointing across the bay. With the cod season long over, no one comes to visit them, and so barnacles run free across their rusted hulls. Down pier two, third from the right, I find my personal vessel. With only ten feet of faded gray body, it does not impress like the multi-million dollar yachts that sometimes deign to visit our forgotten town. But today, it is all I need. Pausing for a moment, I look across the bay and see the nor’easter is gathering its tremendous fury out towards the ocean, and the hard drops of rain pelt the blue tarp covering my boat. Ripping the covering away, I shake off the pooled rainwater and loosely fold it, then place the bundle underneath the worn vinyl seat. My hands grasp in the small compartment just behind the stained felt, and I find a laminated map of the bay and my old set of binoculars. The map finds its home beside me, the spyglasses dive underneath my shirt to dangle on a thin piece of lanyard. I sweep aside more rainwater that covers the faded fuel gauge, which reveals a three-quarter load. Finally my hands grasp at the tattered starter cord for the outboard engine, and I pull twice, only to be greeted with a hopeless sputtering. My fingers deftly twist and turn the choke in long-practiced motions, and my third pull is rewarded with the roar and then rough idle of the 3-HP Evinrude. Where to go first? The screech of a overflying bird gives me pause, and I follow its outward flight towards the vast ocean that lies beyond the bay. Why not? The engine greets the twisted throttle with a roar of savage life, and I move out of the deserted marina into the dark blue waters of the bay. Slowly, but surely, the small houses and towering church steeple sink beneath the edge of the water. At last I am free, unable to discern any signs of civilization around. Even the massive container ships that sometimes ply the bay’s paths are absent today, the rumble of their massive marine diesels stilled in this one fateful night. There is only me, the boat, the sea, and the ominous clouds on the horizon.

Several minutes more pass as the wind buffets my face and the outboard whines in the background. Eventually, though, the seawalls that protect the bay surround my vision like the closing pincers of a crab. I feel trapped once more, for I know such a small vessel as mine could not possibly survive the immense breakers and howling gale that will soon haunt the open ocean. As I draw closer to the one inlet that allows passage between the bay and what lies beyond, I know that now must be the moment of my choice. Should I turn my back in defeat and return to my home? Or should I choose adventure over reason and leave the bay? The moment of no return approaches, and then passes. I zip through the small opening of the seawall, and ride up to the crest of a large breaker. My heart is in my throat now, for the violent clouds stew in fury above my head and the shrieking wind threatens to lift my puny body out and carry it into the sky. Yet even as I face certain death, I feel more alive then I ever have. My nerve endings are seared with the visceral fury of the storm, and its electric energy crackles through my body. Raising up in the back, I raise my voice in a primal caterwaul, which, though lost in the cacaphony of the nor’easter, seems to pierce my eardrums with intense fervor. I know now that no one can conquer me, that no one can restrain my ambition! I crank the throttle on the Evinrude, and start to climb up the face of a twenty-foot wave, feeling immortality that I do not possess. I AM FREE! But just as I reach the top and look down into a deep-black trough rimmed with froth, the pressure of the shrieking wind on my face lessens, and the waves slowly subside. My boat settles back down, and my id lessens along with the force of nature that spawned it. I now realize the immense depths of recklessness to which I had abandoned my consciousness, and how badly I could have been hurt, or killed, had the storm not ceased before my fury did. Feeling sapped of energy by my close brush with death, I swing the tiller around, waiting until the prow of my boat points the way towards home – and safety.