Then he realized hewasn’t alone. In fact he was blocked physically from getting out of the bunk bya body between him and the boat’s passage way. This was Lila, he remembered.

He saw that with somecareful maneuvering he could slink up through the open hatch and come around ondeck and re-enter the cabin from the cockpit.

He lifted himself upcarefully and then got through the hatch without disturbing her.

Nice work.

The cold deck on his barefeet really woke him up. He couldn’t feel any ice, but the fiberglass coachroofwas the next thing to it. It helped to shake off all the alcohol fumes in hishead. Nothing like walking around bare-naked on top of a freezing boat to wakeyou up for the day.

Everything was so quietnow. The dawn was still so early the turn of the creek in the distance wasbarely visible. Hard to believe what Rigel said: that around that turn acoal-barge could go all the way to the ocean.

He went over and checkedthe lines going over to Rigel’s boat. They were a little loose and he took upon one of the spring lines and then tightened all of them. He should have donethat before he went to bed. He’d been too drunk to take care of details likethat.

He looked around and, despitethe cold, a dawn mystery took hold of him. Some other boats had come in sincehe had, and were rafted ahead and behind him. Possibly one of them was the boatLila had come on. The harbor looked scuzzy and old in places but showed somesigns of gentrification in others. Pseudo-Victorian, it looked like, but notbad. Off in the distance was a crane and other masts. The Hudson River wascompletely out of sight.

It felt good not to berelated to this harbor in any way. He didn’t know what was above the banks ofthe river or behind the harbor buildings or where the roads led to or who thehouses belonged to or what people would appear here today or what people theywould meet. It was like a picture-book and he was a child, watching it, waitingfor a page to be turned.