Fishy's Wedding_Part 1

The day started out in the usual way for me at this time of my life and considering where I was at the time. The sun was already up enough to heat the oily canvas tarp over my head that I had propped up with an oar after I fell asleep the night before. The smoky, wet heat had woken up the other guests on board and I could hear their faint, scratching and shuffling as they woke up hungry, too. Rats. Large, brown, hairy Norwegian sea rats. I dropped the canvas, smashed it with the oar and, just for good measure, pounded the sacks of shells and fish bones all around me to keep them away as I got ready for my daily swim to shore to retrieve my clothes from their hiding spot under the concrete dock of the Customs House. I certainly had no idea at the time that I would be attending a private wedding at the nicest hotel and resort in the harbor that evening.

Tom Crowley, Roadtown, Tortola, BVI, November, 1968