Childhood Memories and The Sudden Disappearance of My Father

I remember those fishing days like it was yesterday. Dear Dad would fire up his old Seagull outboard late on Friday afternoon, which told me that the weekend was about to be filled with watery expectations. A test run was always done in a tall bin, half-filled with water, on our driveway. The engine burbled into life, plumes of blue smoke filling our driveway and floating across the neighbourhood.

Everyone knew about Dad’s plans. How could they miss them? That familiar smoke and two-stroke stink signified the Seagull was alive and ready to go. It meant two days of fishing, crabbing and camping.

These are the days I remember best. It’s hard to forget them. Every time I draw in the odour of any two-stroke exhaust, my mind returns to those special times with my dad. Of course, that old Seagull was always reliably unreliable. A test run in our driveway never helped. What happened on the water was always contrary to land. Sometimes it’d run with minimal issues, and then it’d refuse to work at all. There was never a pattern to its misbehaviour.

It’d get us out to our fishing spot, okay, but stop when we’d be stuck miles away from our launch site, and he’d have to row us all the way home — he was always so pissed off when that happened!

Dad must’ve pulled on that cord a thousand times before deciding it was better to row. He wrapped the tatty thing around the flywheel a few times, then gave it some mighty yanks, swearing and cursing each time the Seagull didn’t respond. Do you know what it’s like to have the knotted end of a starter rope whip by your head over and over again?

He always apologised for my busted face.

So while I bled out and he rowed again, I’d listen to stories about how he and his father fished these parts using the same smoky Seagull outboard on the stern of Grandad’s old boat. According to Dad, the fish practically jumped into his dad’s boat. ‘They wanted to be caught,’ he said. Back in those days, I bet the engine worked better. It was newer. Instead, I had the gasping, geriatric version that should’ve died and been buried at sea a long time ago.

He’d suddenly think of something in mid-row, stop chatting, lift the oars out of the water, tip the wretched motor up from the waterline and go through a new inspection routine like it would make some kind of difference. With a half-smoked fag stuck to the side of his bottom lip, he’d speak in part mumble, part filth. He’d remove a spark plug, clean it and blow some air through the gap at its end.

‘Twenty-five to one ratio, boy. It’s an old motor. That’s what keeps them reliable and working.’

Working? When was it reliable?

‘Ok, try this again,’ he’d say to himself while lowering the prop back into the water. ‘Where’s that rope boy?’

I learned to duck years before. There were two things that I figured out real quick: how hard that rope would be pulled after each failed attempt, and where the least dangerous place in our small boat would be to sit. It never guaranteed my safety, though.

I don’t know why he didn’t get a more reliable motor. He had the money to buy one. I could’ve asked, but he was never in the mood for his boy-child to speak such obvious things. It was all about the memory of fishing days of old, that stupid Seagull motor, and his dad. Common sense had nothing to do with it.

One day, I’d had enough of that stupid motor, the knotted rope, his stories and him.

While he was checking the spark plug, I rose and hit him over the head with the boat’s anchor. I pushed his body over the side of the boat, and then I used that shabby starter chord to tie the old Seagull to his neck. I watched both of them go down and disappear into the murkiness. That motor did something good and useful for a change.

There was no more smoke, no more injuries, no more vitriolic language, no more listening to his foulness that was followed by blood and better times from his past. It became a quieter day on the water, just like any fishing day should be. I rowed myself home and told my mother that he had gone out for ice cream and probably wasn’t coming back later. She winked, and we never said anything more about it.

When I smell two-stroke exhaust today, I smile for a different reason. So does my mother.

-A

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