The Saga Of "Hang-on Harry" Part 9

Mongeaux · Post by **Mongeaux** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:00 pm

The Saga Of "Hang-on Harry"
Part 9

The Idiot buddy scrambled up the rungs screaming. Harry drifted under the brige and out of sight. Adrenaline surged into my blood, cancelling the effects of all the cheap beer and I started up after him. Then I heard something familar.

Sirens.

I stopped for a moment and searched my memory. Sirens? Had I not been hearing them for a while? I closed my eyes and concentrated, willed through the fog of panic and searched my short term memory.

Yes. Yes, I had been hearing sirens for at least five minutes, but in the drama of the moment I had ignored them as the usual urban static. Only they were quite loud now, and getting louder.

Arcs of blue light sizzled from above. The roiling tide below shimmered actinic and foamy. I heard car doors slamming. I heard yells.

Cops. Cops were here!

I started up the first few rungs, then stopped. A thought tickled at the back of my mind. Cops. Cops were here to take charge.

Did they really need ME? I mean, there wasn't anything I could do now. The authorities were in charge - who was I? Some shithead with a snootful of cheap beer and a knife who cut Harry free and turned him into a navigation hazard?

How INVOLVED with this fuck up did I really want to be?

SO I sat back down and did what any civilized man would do: I lit up a cigarette. I sucked in the sweet brown smoke, savored the flush of nicotene and gathered my thoughts. I didn't even bother listening to the shouts and howls coming from the downstream side of the bridge. None of my business - I was just some nearby angler, right?

So I smoked my butt, secure in the knowlege that Harry and his idiot Buddy were garnering all the attention. After a decorous period of time I climbed back up the rungs and slipped onto the bridge nice and quiet and unobserved. Three cruisers were parked in the lane, doors open and lights blinking. The strobe effect was surreal - concrete and rails and black seawater all winking frosty blue. My syste, flushed with booze and fatigue and panic toxins had me staggering between cop-bumpers like an epileptic as I worked my way across the brige. The seagull-shit crusted railing took my weight as I surveyed the human wreckage below.

Under the bridge, in various stages of undress were six town cops. They stood in the tidal muck with assorted aquatic rescue gear draped over their shoulders or poised in their outstretched arms. It was like a tableau from a 17th century painting: "The Saving Of The Drowned Drunk". All of them had their cop-lights out and focused on a single point about thirty feet away in the water.

Harry.

He had fetched up on a sand bar. He was standing in water up to his chin, long hair in his eyes, unmoving. I could not see more but I sensed that below the tide his hands were clenched at his side in defiant fists. It was a standoff.

One of the cops yelled. "YOU GETTING PULLED OUT?"

"No." came the sullen reply.

A confused silence as the cops processed the response.

"Well, then COME IN!" One yelled.

"No. Go away."

The cops looked at each other in exasperation. "We can't go away! You have to come in you stupid fuck!"

"I'm fine. I'll come in when you go."

"Either you come in or we go out and get you. If we have to do that then we WILL arrest your dumb ass. So come in!"

Harry saw the light then and came in. He squelched into shore the perfect picture of sullen defiance. The cops dragged him up to the bridge to a waiting ambulance. He protested "I'm WET, not HURT!". They tried to coax him into the ambulance but he refused over and over. Finally they forced him to sign a waiver and let him go. I watched from a decorous distance, but not far enough away, because the cop in charge noticed me.

He came over and stabbed a finger at me. "Who the FUCK are YOU?" he demanded.

"I'm just a guy fishing off the bridge." I said.

"Did you see all this cluster fuck?"

"Yes."

He deflated, all the anger puffing out like gas from pricked balloon. "Can you explain to me what happened?"

I opened my mouth to talk, but stopped. I thought about what I had seen. I tried to arrange it in some sort of sensible order. But the words didn't come.

"Well," I said "no. I can't EXPLAIN it."

"All I can do is describe it."

So I told him. "There were no fish, then they came in with the tide, but we couldn't catch them because we didn't have the right bait. So Harry thought he'd improve his chances by lowering himself off the side of the bridge from a rope. And it didn't work out so well. He got stuck."

The cop sat on a slick boulder and took off his hat. He looked tired: too many months on night shift, perhaps. No sleep, kids making noise all day. Too much bullshit. Nothing making sense anymore. I felt the confusion radiate off him like heat from a kerosene lantern. He burned with misery.

"He lowered himself on a rope." the cop said. "To catch fish."

I nodded. "And it didn't work out for him."

The cop held up his cap and examined the silver insignia on it like it was an ancient, inscrutable rune carved on a rock wall in a a pleistocene cave. I felt bad for him, nothing made sense anymore. We were at that moment brothers in puzzlement.

He looked up. "How many fish?"

"Zillions. They're still out there."

The cop grabbed my comment like a drowning man grabs a life ring. "Really? That many?"

"Yeah. Come see. It's amazing."

So we went up and I showed him all the fish. He was amazed. He called up all the other cops to see. They were amazed. They pulled a million candlepower spotlight out fo the trunk of one of the cruisers and beamed it into the water. The fish thrashed obliviously in the glowing water, doing whatever fish do when they are in like that. Amazing.

Then the cops went home. Everybody went home but me.

I gathered up my rods and my buckets and tacklebox. The eastern sky glowed a shade lighter, promising dawn in an hour or so. My buzz was gone. I strapped my shit to my touring bike and took a final survey of the bridge to make sure I had not forgotten anything.

Then I saw something under a rail. Something white.

A forgotten six pack. Harry must have tucked it away for later. It was cheap suds - and warm, but the first 16 oz can went down like a draft from the fountain of youth. The second and third too. The fourth, fifth and sixth were a bit gassy, but suffered the same fate as their brothers.

My buzz back, I climbed onto my bike and wobbled home.

Who says fishing is boring?

Bob Dylan's Moustache · Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:10 pm

I've been WAITING for the end to this thing! Thanks man! Brilliant!

daphne · Post by **daphne** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:28 am

Dammit, Mongeaux, how am I supposed to follow this act?

You rock. Great story.

Mongeaux · Post by **Mongeaux** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:35 am

daphne wrote:Dammit, Mongeaux, how am I supposed to follow this act?

You rock. Great story.

Just do your thing too. It's not a competition. We are all out to amuse each other.

daphne · Post by **daphne** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 1:25 am

Well, I was totally amused. Really was a wonderful story. But, all the same, I will always read things like this and say to myself, "I wish I could write that well." It's just a compliment.

(However, I'd be even more amused if the guy in your avatar gets his arm wripped off.)

typeset · Post by **typeset** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:43 pm

What is a proxy chain?
A Proxy chain is a connection of 2 or more proxy servers. ProxyWay allows to work with any Internet service through a proxy chain of SOCKS or HTTP proxies. Using the program you can create proxy services (cascades/chains) with any number of proxy servers (supports HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5) to provide IP address security and tunnel Internet activity through proxy servers.

http://www.checkproxy.net

Malkor · Post by **Malkor** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 6:25 am

typeset wrote:What is a proxy chain?
A Proxy chain is a connection of 2 or more proxy servers. ProxyWay allows to work with any Internet service through a proxy chain of SOCKS or HTTP proxies. Using the program you can create proxy services (cascades/chains) with any number of proxy servers (supports HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5) to provide IP address security and tunnel Internet activity through proxy servers.

http://www.checkproxy.net

fuck off you Idiot!

Mongeaux · Post by **Mongeaux** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 1:09 am

Malkor wrote:
typeset wrote:What is a proxy chain?
A Proxy chain is a connection of 2 or more proxy servers. ProxyWay allows to work with any Internet service through a proxy chain of SOCKS or HTTP proxies. Using the program you can create proxy services (cascades/chains) with any number of proxy servers (supports HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5) to provide IP address security and tunnel Internet activity through proxy servers.

http://www.checkproxy.net
fuck off you Idiot!

Thanks - why did he choose my story to fuck up?

Palinka (RIP) · Post by **Palinka (RIP)** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 1:24 am

MongoTheRedNosedBoozer wrote:...why did he choose my story to fuck up?

Sorry. Our bad. Some sort of random sales thing (especially judging by the posts made). It should not trouble us again. By the way, the e-mail address that was used in order to register, was [email protected] . It could well be a fake but do feel free to write to whomsoever may monitor that address and express yourselves fully and graphically.

Mongeaux · Post by **Mongeaux** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 1:58 am

No problem. I was being dramatic anyway. :)