{"id":585,"date":"2017-06-19T16:36:11","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T16:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=585"},"modified":"2017-06-19T16:36:11","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T16:36:11","slug":"elis-ships","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/elis-ships\/","title":{"rendered":"Eli’s Ships"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couch was to the left, the bed place to the right;
\nmy writing desk and the chronometers\u2019 table faced the door.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Joseph Conrad, \u201cThe Secret Sharer\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019d been talking at the bar for a while when she finally told me her name, Angela. \u201cIt\u2019s Angel with an extra A, for attitude.\u201d She heaved forward in a laugh, a dark sheet of hair whipping over her face. Silver jewelry glinted in the blur.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGreat mnemonic. I learned a lot of them on the Tammy Sue<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSo was the trip worth it? Research-wise, I mean.\u201d She arched one eyebrow, as dark and precise as a swoop of calligraphy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure what to say.\u00a0 Already, my experiences aboard the Tammy Sue<\/em>\u2014the tense silence of the night watch, the sudden squalls, the odd sense of being outside of time when we were on open water\u2014seemed on the cusp of dissipating, as if they\u2019d never occurred. I\u2019d recorded extensive notes, but I had trouble capturing how close I\u2019d felt to Conrad, how oddly serene I\u2019d been as rain pelted my foul-weather gear. This sensation, I\u2019d noted at the time, was like that of a man in possession of a beautiful idea, impervious and even invigorated by the inevitable cascade of doubts. But now, back on land, I could hardly remember the feeling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was extremely fruitful.\u201d I lowered my voice in an effort to sound more certain. \u201cI understand Conrad\u2019s work much better, especially his use of his first command, the Otago<\/em>, as a metaphor for time, social class, the body, relationships\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what? You\u2019d love my son Eli\u2019s work.\u201d She handed me a pamphlet from a box at her feet. \u00a0Sun-faded and curled at the corners from humidity, it featured a smudgy watercolor boat and a photo of a dark-eyed young man staring at the camera through a ship-in-bottle held up to his face.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHe does them all. Galleons, barkentines, schooners\u2014he\u2019s crazy about boats. Go to almost any harbor on the East Coast, if there\u2019s a sailing ship hauling tourists, you\u2019ll find Eli\u2019s ships in the gift shop. She reached over and unfolded the pamphlet. \u201cJust read the description. He\u2019s a true artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Serenity Ships: Sail into Your Dreams!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each Serenity Ship-in-bottle is custom handmade work of art, precisely scaled, using only the finest authentic materials,
\nincluding teak, steel, brass, copper, fiberglass, sisal, hemp, and a number of exotic woods upon request.
\nThe bottles are hand blown and every ship sails forever on a sea of diachronic glass, which sparkles with the dynamism of sun-streaked waves.
\nWe can create any ship\u2014from miniatures of real vessels to fanciful ships seen only in the mind\u2019s eye\u2014
\nand bottle their aesthetic and emotional power for evermore. <\/em><\/p>\n

Look in my bottles and feel yourself swayed by the light chop of dreams.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I looked up, Angela was arranging several ships in bottles along the bar. They were small\u2014no bigger than my thumb\u2014and each was attached to a silver chain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to love what I brought today, Simon,\u201d she said to the drunkard at the corner of the bar, sliding a bottle toward him. He pressed his eye to it and made swooshing sounds to mimic waves splashing on the tiny boat. \u201cDamn, it looks just like my uncle\u2019s old shrimp boat, Lorilei<\/em>. How\u2019d Eli even know\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A heavy-built tattooed woman let the door to the kitchen swing closed behind her and headed toward us. Angela turned to me and whispered. \u201cCheck it out. She\u2019s famous for insulting customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The wall behind the bar was jammed with crude hand-painted signs, full of boozy epigrams and boasts. The largest sign\u2014Gloria Be Thy Name!\u2014<\/em>was surrounded by dozens of caricatures of Gloria, all depicting her as a spiritual figure\u2014sitting on a cloud with a cocktail shaker, plucking a feather off her angel wings to garnish a drink, anointing a drunk with a whiskey bottle. A poster of a man with missing front teeth had a small sign beneath it: Snapped his fingers to ask for a refill. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d Gloria slid over to us, leaning over the bar, taking in the lined-up bottles then fixing her eyes on me. Her head was shaved except for a bleach blond swath drawn up in a high ponytail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGloria, meet Julian. He\u2019s a scholar and a sailor. He was just at sea, part of his research.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAt sea. Of course. Looks a little wet behind the ears \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGloria,\u201d Angela cut her off. \u201cHow \u2019bout a Briny Squall for Julian?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cA fine idea,\u201d Gloria said. She came back with a large glass, swirling with dark liquid and what looked like flecks of gold. The rim was salted and garnished with a single desiccated lime. It spilled as she plopped it on the bar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe world famous Briny Squall.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The drink rolled down my throat as if it were a syrup vapor, like nothing I\u2019d ever tasted. I hardly needed to swallow and a full one-third of the drink was gone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPlease. Just have a look,\u201d Angela prompted, sweeping her hand above the tiny bottles on the bar. I picked up the closest one, the Golden Hind<\/em>. I expected a crude plastic jumble, but the ship was so finely detailed and scaled that I thought at first it was a line drawing pasted to the back. As I turned the bottle, the shadows of the sails and spars moved across the deck.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The hull was constructed of the thinnest slivers of wood, bent and notched and shaped into an uncanny replica. The sails resembled silk, with edges that appeared finished\u2014though I could not detect a single stitch of thread. All the lines of a real galleon were there, but they were cobweb-thin and translucent, only manifesting when the light hit a certain way. A crow\u2019s nest, smaller than a ladybug\u2019s shell, was dark and swirled as if shaped from the smallest piece of burl wood. A jagged pattern, like the profiles of faces, edged the bowsprit. The galleon sat in dab of blue glass so pale that I could see a deepening field of bubbles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I pulled the bottle away from my eye. All the shapes around me appeared huge and undefined, as if I were peering through a smudged telescope. I blinked twice and everything returned to normal proportions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing? Am I right?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are\u2026\u201d Tiny winches, portlights, locker latches, even the compass cards were rendered with exquisite accuracy. I could detect only one tiny flaw when the boats were level on the bar. Each horizon was askew. Not one of the boats floated on its proper plane. Old Ironsides<\/em> tilted slightly forward; Pride of Baltimore <\/em>listed to port; the clipper Flying Cloud <\/em>was weighed down unnaturally in the stern. Somehow this small defect made the ships even more alluring.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOops, one more.\u201d Her focus shifted to the smooth crease between her breasts, where several silver chains terminated in the neckline of her plum-colored dress. She pulled one of the necklaces over her head and handed it to me. The bottle on it still held the warmth of her body. I lifted it up to the light to get a better look. It was the barkentine Otago<\/em>, Conrad\u2019s ship, the name clearly stenciled on the bow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing\u2026\u201d I muttered as I stared into the bottle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the one you were talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is.\u201d Like the others, it was rendered perfectly\u2014and it floated, only slightly cocked, on a perfectly still sea. I could almost sense the slow, almost imperceptible heaving under her hull as Conrad and his crew drifted on the windless South China Sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAll his ships are completely authentic. Even the interior stuff that can barely be seen with the naked eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful rendering of the exterior.\u201d I said. \u201cBut I hope you\u2019ll forgive me for saying that no one can faithfully recreate the Otago\u2019s<\/em> interior plan, at least not when Conrad sailed her. This I know for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There exists only one good photo of the Otago<\/em>, a blurry image of her under sail near Australia. Her salvaged helm adorns a museum ship in London, and what is left of her hull lies rusting in New Zealand, but the interior arrangements of the Otago<\/em> have baffled Conrad scholars for years. My mentor, Dr. Marvin Kendricks, long maintained that the labyrinth of rooms and passageways within the Otago<\/em> helped shape Conrad\u2019s notion of human psychology. In fact, Kendrick\u2019s unpublished paper described how the stowaway \u201csecret self\u201d in the \u201cThe Secret Sharer\u201d was actually Conrad\u2019s id flitting around the frontal lobe, trying to avoid discovery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Angela stirred her drink. \u201cYou might be surprised. Eli\u2019s ships are like nothing else you\u2019ve known\u2014flawless, and not a detail left unfinished. Maritime museums all over the world have his number on speed-dial. I bet he knows the Otago<\/em> inside and out.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I took a sip, not wanting to offend her with my skepticism. And, of course, it was <\/em>possible Eli had stumbled on some obscure maritime records, information that might guarantee my dissertation would leave a mark. I\u2019d heard stories\u2014Kendricks sometimes told them\u2014about scholars who would find paradigm-shifting research in the most unexpected places. Interviews with elderly neighbors of a canonical author. Old letters hidden in a barn loft. Brilliant marginalia languishing in a box of deaccessioned books. The fact that she had a replica of the Otago<\/em> could be a sign.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou should come meet Eli. He works a boat show in Jacksonville every Monday. I can take you there tomorrow.\u201d She opened the chain in her hands and leaned forward, placing it over my head. \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be worn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

A heavy after-rain fog hovered in front of me, cleaving as I walked to the waterfront park across the street. I relieved myself behind a bush and teetered a bit when I zipped up my pants. The St. Marys River was calm and empty\u2014just like the sea Conrad describes in \u201cThe Secret Sharer.\u201d I tried to picture the Otago <\/em>in the grips of such stillness. I pulled the miniature out from under my shirt and held it in front of my eye, lining up its hull with the real horizon behind it. The ship was luminous against the moonlight, each of its filament lines lit up. My vertigo transferred to the boat, which began to bob in its glass swell. A small yellow shape flicked up out of the crow\u2019s nest. The tip of my thumb slipped into a small divot in the base of the bottle as I turned it to get a better look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Startled by footsteps from behind, I turned to see the silhouette of a man, no bigger than a toddler. The next thing I saw was his pipe\u2014a wild squiggle of burlwood with a hot coal pulsing in the bowl. A fine mist of what smelled like seawater\u2014salt, fish, seaweed\u2014burst forth with each puff. He stepped into the moonlight, illuminating his yellow sailor\u2019s suit and the metal eyelets of his leather, lace-up boots. His face was cramped, wizened; his crow\u2019s feet ran down his cheeks and pushed up against the accordion folds of his smile-lines. His irises, as he met my eyes, were a shifting shade of blue, turning from nearly white to deep navy as if they were portholes to a sea behind him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I reached out, but he jumped back and gave a tsk-tsk motion with one finger. There was something familiar about him. I blinked once, expecting him to vanish, and it hit me. He was a color version of a woodcut I\u2019d seen in a book titled Legends and Superstitions of the Sea<\/em>. He was a kobold, a sprite of German folklore meant to assist sailors at sea. How curious, I thought. Just another specter of my thesis research, conjured from whatever chemicals circulated in my nervous system. The sea-going kobold had a special name\u2026what was it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The kobold coughed and small iridescent flakes issued from his nose. A few landed on my hand. Fish scales. He drew a piece of gray netting from his breast pocket and wiped his nose.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOrange garbage bag by a mile-marker sign. Gets me every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My body was shaking as I awoke. The side of my head was resting on the passenger window; the thick glass vibrated and blurred my vision. At first I thought I was still on the Tammy Sue,<\/em> waking up for early morning watch, but then I saw the mirror of the Volvo and a slice of moving highway in its view. Angela\u2019s voice startled me when she spoke again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSee that orange bag? State-issued. Makes me think of this guy I dated, Owen.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sun was just edging above the clouds, and a bright glare from the west intermittently blasted out the view through the windshield. Auroras blurred the edge of my vision. I dropped my head and rubbed the back of my neck as Angela explained how she and Owen met on a highway cleaning crew. They\u2019d tried to stab the same fast-food bag with their trash pickers, met each other\u2019s eyes, and laughed. \u201cAnd that\u2019s how the whole Owen mess began\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She hit the accelerator and swung into the passing lane. Every few minutes, something along the road would remind her of another man who\u2019d come and gone from her life. A billboard for a Christmas d\u00e9cor depot reminded her of T.J. and his cat, Glinda, who needed emergency surgery for eating tinsel\u2014something Angela had to pay for, the mooch. I nodded, trying to follow, but her voice soon faded out. My worn copy of Norbert Sherwood\u2019s seminal Conrad Adrift <\/em>was lying open and face-down on the floor. I flicked through the pages, causing Kendricks\u2019 accusing marginalia to shudder and twist like a flipbook cartoon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then guess what Crater did? Just guess?\u201d Angela voice got louder and higher, and it seemed perilous not to follow what she was saying. \u201cHe left me for Uma Kline, that meth-head farmer.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou had a boyfriend named Crater?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYes. Suited him. The asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure Eli understands. You might have made a few bad choices, but no one is perfect,\u201d I finally said, trying to respond to the main theme of Angela\u2019s story\u2014how each one of these failed father figures had driven Eli deeper into his ships-in-bottles, and further from her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cShit, AC\u2019s out.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela went quiet as she turned the car\u2019s blower knob, cocking her ear toward it, as if trying to unlock a safe. I was glad for the break. That morning, I\u2019d awakened to the sound of Angela knocking on my hotel room door, with no recollection of getting there. One of a dozen rooms in the clapboard hotel next to the bar, it was a small, slightly grimy space stuffed with antiques apparently plucked from the curbs of St. Marys. I\u2019d never blacked out drinking before, and the morning felt like a fragment chipped away from the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to meeting Eli,\u201d I said, rubbing my eyes. \u201cI\u2019m sure Kendricks would like to hear about him too. And if he knows as much as you say he does, he\u2019d get a prominent mention in my acknowledgements, at the very least.\u201d I checked my watch, four p.m. London time. \u201cDo you mind if I call Kendricks?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My cell phone worked poorly ever since leaving the Tammy Sue<\/em>\u2014the captain said the salt air wreaked havoc with circuitry. Kendricks was inscrutable face to face, but 4,000 miles away through a salt-soaked phone, he was barely intelligible. He\u2019d just presented a paper on Conrad\u2019s \u201cChance\u201d using babushka dolls as an organizing metaphor (\u201cThe dolls are stories in stories. The dolls are repressed selves within repressed selves. The dolls are meta.\u201d) It had gotten a cold reception.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOh, so now every carnival barker thinks he\u2019s a Conrad scholar,\u201d Kendricks sighed when I told him about Eli\u2019s Otago<\/em>, \u201cas if the field wasn\u2019t already crowded with clowns and charlatans.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kendricks was in one of his moods, I could tell. It was probably best to save talking about the Otago<\/em> until he cooled down. I changed the subject. Kendricks had an encyclopaedic mind for sailing folklore, so I told him about the kobold in my dream. The line was silent for such a long time that I thought I\u2019d lost the connection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHow well do you know this woman, this\u2026Angela<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I glanced at Angela, who was picking at something in her teeth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI met her at The Eagle\u2019s Nest, a sailor\u2019s tavern in St. Marys. She\u2019s great.\u201d The words were out of my mouth before I\u2019d realized what I\u2019d said. Angela smiled, ever so slightly, but kept her eyes on the road.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cA bar? The fishing boat stint was your chance to get a true sense of the sea. Now you\u2019re talking about toy ships and bar floozies and a damn Klabautermann\u2014that\u2019s the kobold you\u2019re describing, by the way\u2014and I don\u2019t hear a word about your dissertation\u2019s progress. You\u2019ve got to stay focused. Remember what happened to Nathan? All it took for him to abandon his work was Sherwood leaving that singed puppy dog on his doorstep\u2026You\u2019ve got a target on your back now.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d heard all this before. Whenever Kendricks was upset, he\u2019d talk about Nathan, his lost superstar student. Nathan had become so involved in caring for a burned puppy that he dropped out mid-semester to work at a pug rehab center. He never came back. Kendricks maintained that one of his rivals\u2014Sherwood, he assumed\u2014had planted the maimed puppy on Nathan\u2019s doorstep to ruin Kendricks\u2019 chances of having a star prot\u00e9g\u00e9e. I hated when he brought Nathan up. It made me think that he was the true nadir of Kendricks\u2019 mentorship, and that I was just a pale second act. I shook away the thought. Kendricks was just tired and upset.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is fine, Dr. Kendricks. I\u2019m fine. Wait until I tell you what I saw on the Tammy Sue.<\/em> The boat had a rope ladder just like the one in the \u2018The Secret Sharer,\u2019 and it made me think about how Conrad disorders his narrator\u2019s perceptions\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cJust be careful. Don\u2019t leave your drinks unattended. And call me if anything\u2026 goddammit<\/em>.\u201d A sound of shattering glasses and a chorus of cussing and voices overwhelmed the line. Kendricks came back on, panting. \u201cGoddamn cheap limey glasses! You can bleed<\/em> in a bar over here and no one cares! Hey, Redcoat, can I get a damn rag?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The line went dead.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traffic piled up as we approached Jacksonville, and the Volvo kept stalling out as we idled, creeping forward every five minutes or so. Up ahead, cars were slowing down and stopping as they reached the margins of a growing traffic jam. Angela hit the brakes suddenly and swore as the back of a pickup truck seemed to rise up to meet us. Cars in the left lane whizzed past us, then slowed and stopped.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A green sedan idled in the right lane, its window lined up with mine. At first, the car seemed to be empty except for the driver, a harried-looking church matron with a grim, forward-facing expression. But as I gazed in the car, the muted leopard print of her cardigan swirled and resolved into the kobold\u2019s small, hunched body. I blinked and the kobold\u2019s face was pressed against the window\u2014mashed, really\u2014as if he were some kid mugging for his friend. The window flattened his lips as he rolled his face to the side so I could see him wink. Then he ducked from view.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A small square of fabric slowly rose up in his place. \u00a0A thin wooden stick followed; it was a small flag divided diagonally into two colors, one half yellow, one half blue. I immediately recognized it as an international maritime signal flag, but I had to think for a moment before I could identify which one. It was the Kilo flag: I wish to communicate with you<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The flag lowered and the kobold\u2019s face appeared, his eyes on mine. His blue irises curled up like an old Japanese print of a wave, his pupil tucked in like a surfer. His face was wan and his smile lines loose. I nodded, since he seemed to be waiting for a reaction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now he lifted a simple blue flag with a white cross above his head and wiggled it. Not one I recognized. I reached toward the back seat, grabbed the maritime signs and signals book from my bag, and flipped through it, my hands shaking. Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The line of traffic shifted and we shot forward. I put my hand to my chest and took a breath.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have reached the voicemail of Dr. Marvin Kendricks. I\u2019m not here right now, because there is no \u2018here\u2019 and there is no \u2018I,\u2019 since this is simply a digital reverberation of my voice in an infinite temporal loop. Leave a message or not.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Dr. Kendricks? Call me back, okay?\u201d The gas station doors slid open, and Angela strode out, flicking her hair and turning as if the laconic glances of the old men smoking by the ice machine were flashbulbs. I hung up the phone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHere you go. Red Alert Gatorade. Fixes everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019d told her that I was feeling sick, and hoped that\u2019s all it was. A fever. Too much stress. A rare variety of delayed-onset seasickness. I shook the Gatorade and suddenly thought of Kendricks\u2019 warnings. I stared at the thin plastic filaments that joined the cap to the no-tamper ring.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMind if I have a sip?\u201d Angela grabbed the bottle and opened it, taking a long chug. I looked around the gas station. Everything looked normal. I felt normal. There was no need to assume anything was terribly wrong. An old man passed in front of the car, scratching his paunch and turning toward us to flash his yellow teeth at Angela. He climbed into a pickup with mudflaps of busty reclining women, a sticker of Calvin peeing on a Ford insignia, and a pair of metal testes hanging from the trailer hitch. I tried to come up with a clever comment about trucks as loci of American machismo, some comment to restore normality, when one of the mudflap silhouettes curled upward, as if the woman were doing a sit up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As her knees moved toward her breasts, the black shape melted into a profile of a small figure, her breasts now the brim of a hat, her legs folding over to become the kobold\u2019s nose. The black silhouette of the kobold\u2019s face then spread out and pixelated, resolving into a red and white checkerboard flag. This one I knew\u2014any sailor would. It was the Uniform flag: you are running into danger<\/em>. The flag rippled before it blinked to black and seeped, like batter in a pan, back into the shape of the busty woman.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I grabbed the door handle and pulled. The handle swung loosely on its hinge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDid you need something else from the store? The passenger door gets wonky, you can\u2019t open it from the inside sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLet me out. I\u2019ve got to get out of here.\u201d I jerked the handle several times then<\/p>\n

mashed the power window buttons. Angela grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Julian. Calm down. What\u2019s the matter?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSomething\u2019s really wrong with me. I need a doctor, or something. I think I\u2019m hallucinating.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela put her hands on my shoulders, turning me to face her. She leaned forward so our eyes were only inches apart. The heat of her presence and her smell\u2014overripe and hot, like composted berries\u2014made me woozy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEyes look fine. No dilation.\u201d She moved her hand down my arm, pinching my forearm hard and then looked down at my skin. \u201cNormal refill and color.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I felt the heat of her skin and the thin cool swaths of her silver rings as she took my wrist in her hand. She watched the dash clock and counted under her breath.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPulse 73. Healthy range. You\u2019re fine, Julian. Don\u2019t panic. Long car rides can have weird effects. Motion sickness, low blood sugar, tricks of the light.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not a doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cTrue. But being around so many users and drunks made me an honorary paramedic, practically. I know when someone\u2019s about to crash, and you\u2019re not.\u201d She was still holding my wrist, still locked on my eyes. \u201cCan I just say something, Julian? Thank you for listening to my whole sob story about Eli. I\u2019m really glad our ships crossed.\u201d Angela leaned forward then scooted upward, pressing her lips to my forehead. Her t-shirt slipped open and I could see that her nipples, half obscured in shadow, were pale and pointed. Something about their shape, their pinkness, made them poignant to me. Innocent. Angela finally pulled away, squeezing my wrist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI think your heart is working fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s probably just taking a lunch break,\u201d Angela said, rising up on her tiptoes so she could scan past the crowd and the few dilapidated trailered boats. She sipped from a tropical cocktail she\u2019d purchased at the entrance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u201cboat show\u201d was nothing like I imagined. It was more of an ad-hoc flea market in an abandoned mall parking lot, with some booths seeming to be official\u2014all with the same sized black fold-out tables\u2014and some completely makeshift, like the man sitting in a director\u2019s chair with a single Rubbermaid container of jumbled hardware at his feet and a hand-painted sign that read \u201cAll Offers Considered.\u201d Even the more formal booths were basically selling junk\u2014dirty old chains, ripped sails, waterlogged old chart books rife with countries that no longer existed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eli\u2019s booth was striking in comparison. A blue velvet cloth covered the whole table, serving as padding for a large, beautifully made display case. Beneath the glass, at the bottom of the case, stretched a sea of bunched blue satin, subdivided by a grid of small docks, coated white like the soft rind of Camembert cheese. There were dozens of miniscule ships in the display case, each neatly aligned in the scaled down marina slips, each held in place by hair-thin docklines hooked on silver cleats the size of earring backs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Strangely, only a few of the ships were in bottles. A small sign noted that Eli would place the ship in the bottle upon purchase. The strain of performing this final act before an audience, I reasoned, was what caused the skew of each horizon. A wooden box, filled with impossibly small but recognizable tools (screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, even a hammer the size of nail), lay open, next to the pile of pamphlets. Each tool sat in a velvet compartment, as much works of art as the ships.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela suddenly put her drink down and rushed forward. \u201cEli,\u201d I heard her say, as she hurried toward a young man who walked with a slow gravity as if each step constituted a separate decision. He wore a loose pair of multi-stripe harem pants and a plain yellow t-shirt, the kind one would buy in bulk. Angela reached out as if to hug him, but he held up a hand and the two spoke for a few moments, occasionally glancing at me before walking over.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEli, this is Julian. He loves your boats. He\u2019s a sailing scholar! And a good man.\u201d She linked her arm with mine. I blushed, flattered and surprised.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cJulian,\u201d Eli said, moving his mouth as if the word were a delicacy. He looked like Angela, but his face was wide and blurred, his small features submerged in baby fat and stubble. Dark hair hung past his ears in a tangled fringe like seventies-era drapes. He moved toward me and looked me in the eye, cocking his head and squinting as if my face were fine print.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to meet you, Eli.\u201d I put out my hand, and Eli\u2019s hand alighted on my wrist like a bird, his fingernails lightly perched.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve been at sea,\u201d he murmured, lifting his hand and looking upwards as if he could see Tammy Sue<\/em> cutting through the clouds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Eli, Julian had just come ashore when I met him. Enlightening and educating a fishing crew, in fact.\u201d She squeezed my arm as she said this. Enlightening a fishing crew?<\/em> That\u2019s how she saw me? Warmth rippled through me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEli, your ships are exceptionally rendered. I\u2019m especially curious about the Otago<\/em>.\u201d I released myself from Angela\u2019s grip to pull the bottle out from under my shirt. \u201cIf you don\u2019t mind, could you share your sources?\u201d I held it up to the sun for Eli, but when I did all I saw was the kobold, mashed into the bottle, blinking a large eye at me, the blue iris swirling like a funnel cloud. I dropped the bottle, feeling suddenly weightless and distant, an outside observer looking in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eli stared at my sternum where the bottle rested and raised his eyebrow. \u201cAh, my friend, the kobold. What a surprise.\u201d He glanced at Angela. She was obviously pleased.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou see? Julian gets along fine with the kobold. That\u2019s how I knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fine? <\/em>Kendricks was just a call away\u2014911, too. But it was as if I was paralyzed and the phone in my pocket miles away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no. Let me tell him,\u201d Angela was saying. She reached for the bottle, looked briefly into it, then let go. It hummed against my chest. \u201cJulian, I have to explain something. You are perfectly fine. The kobold isn\u2019t a hallucination. Eli has conjured\u2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eli held up a palm to Angela\u2019s face. \u201cSummoned.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSummoned, yes. Eli, because he is such a caring soul\u201d\u2014she glared at Eli, droning the last bit like a teen employee reciting corporate patter\u2014\u201chas summoned for me a warding spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cBetter.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the next several minutes, Angela spoke, with Eli breaking in. Men who fell in love with Angela saw the kobold, a sea troll \u2026 no, a protective spirit, a Klabauterman.<\/em> Each one of them eventually left her, and a few of them lost their minds \u2026 absented themselves from Angela, thereby giving her a chance to grow<\/em>. Freddie disappeared after having a square-rigger tattooed on his calf because the kobold told him to. J.J. broke into an electronics store to steal a white-noise machine to try to drown out the kobold\u2019s voice. And Crater? The love of her life? The most corrupting of corrupting souls<\/em>. Crater saw the kobold sitting in the sidecar of his Harley, right next to his black lab and drove off the road. \u2026 no, it was a yellow lab<\/em>. For seven long years, the kobold had wreaked havoc on her life \u2026 if by wreaked you mean prevented<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPrevented,\u201d Angela pronounced the word slowly, just as Eli had. \u201cMaybe so. Especially if it led me to Julian,\u201d she said, squeezing my hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eli rolled his eyes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEli! You said yourself that a good man, a man who could see inside the ships, would not shrink from the kobold. Well, I\u2019ve found that man.\u201d Now Angela dug her nails into my palm. She began to give off a heat, and a sour smell wafted from her. \u201cIt\u2019s over, isn\u2019t it? Please, Eli. It\u2019s time for the kobold to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYour Julian looks unsettled,\u201d Eli declared. \u201cHe\u2019s just another imposter, and the kobold toys with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The floor swayed and I took a deep breath, hoping it might help steady my feet. But all it did was draw Angela closer. The sweat on her hand mingled with mine. Warding spirit? It was insane talk. But they\u2019d seen the kobold\u2019s blinking eye just as clearly as I did. Was there such a thing as a shared hallucination?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kendricks would know. I had to talk to him. He always told me to interpret Conrad\u2019s sea stories as if only his narrators were real. His theory was that Conrad\u2019s art mimicked the trickster mind of a sailor on night watch, conjuring whole worlds to avoid confronting the featureless darkness of a calm sea. \u201cBecalming,\u201d Kendricks had said, \u201cis worse than any storm. In a storm, you\u2019re preoccupied with keeping your ship afloat. In a calm, anything can take hold.\u201d Could becalming happen on land? In the mind?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela turned to me, speaking in honey tones. \u201cJulian, can Eli look into the bottle?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I felt myself reeling back, my hand on the bottle. At that moment she and Eli seemed no more real than the kobold. And only the kobold, with his semaphore warnings, seemed on my side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI’d better go\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eli lifted his hand. \u201cWait. Don\u2019t be afraid. Let us just see what the kobold has to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela lifted the bottle over my head, and the motion was so proprietary\u2014as if I were casually hers\u2014that I was too surprised to react. For a moment it got snagged around my ear, and I felt her fingers press my earlobe to free it. Eli took the necklace from her, walked around the booth and came out with a jeweler\u2019s loupe. He looked into the bottle, turning it under the sunlight and squinting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t find him.” He muttered. “Not in the berth, not on deck, not in the galley, not in the bilge\u2026.\u201d He rattled off nearly every part of a ship, then looked up. He turned the loupe around and peered through it at me, his face cocked if I could only be apprehended in the peripheral. \u201cHow strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d Angela said, turning to me. \u201cThat\u2019s wonderful.\u201d She looked relieved, though I felt more unbalanced than before. I put my hand on Eli\u2019s table to steady myself. Angela touched my shoulder; a tracer of sensation trailed down my back and petered out. I could feel the same undertow that I\u2019d experienced beside the St. Marys River pulling at me again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll get you some water, Julian. Don\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fine. I just need to step away and\u2026\u201d I managed, but she\u2019d already disappeared somewhere among the other vendors\u2019 tents. Eli was suddenly in front of me, holding the bottle at eye level. He raised his soft voice to an announcer\u2019s volume, though somehow still in whisper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDid you notice? I hope you did. The ship you were wearing is the rarest version of the Otago<\/em>. I\u2019ve only made three.\u201d He frowned. \u201cCrater, that idiot, smashed the other two.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I put out my hand to brush the bottle away, but I couldn\u2019t resist one look.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Otago<\/em> had been transformed. It now floated absolutely straight on the horizon, almost unnaturally balanced. And the topsides were gone, cut away so that the cabin, as depicted in the map, was fully exposed. As my eye followed the L-shaped cabin that fascinated Kendricks, it twisted and fragmented into a labyrinthine jumble of more L-shaped cabins, mirror images within mirror images. My eyes seemed to be capable of focusing on smaller and smaller objects as they moved into the ship, so that the indistinct blurs of details too small would blossom into clarity the more I looked. There were infinite sleeping bunks and infinite dinners of soda bread and infinite broken sextants the captain had laid out to fix, and as my eye continued to move deeper into the cabins, I noticed that each new one had a small detail out of place, a different colored blanket, an unlaced boot on the floor where in the last cabin it had been laced, and so on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s spectacular,\u201d I murmured. I looked up and the light had shifted. Angela\u2019s abandoned cup had sweated through to the tablecloth, and her cocktail umbrella had sunk into her melted drink. How long had I been looking? How long had she been gone?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWait until you see the very center,\u201d Eli whispered.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I looked back into the Otago<\/em>\u2019s bottle, following the cabins from the beginning, half hoping I might see the sprite again. Just as the last cabin opened before me, and my eye seemed to brush the curtain from the sleeping quarters inside, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Kendricks\u2014I was sure\u2014but let it ring. There, in the bunk where the murderer from the \u201cThe Secret Sharer\u201d had been secreted away, lay Angela\u2019s sleeping body. She wore the same striped dressing gown that Conrad described. She opened her eyes, and I saw my own face, gasping in astonishment, reflected in the blue sheen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCan you see her? It\u2019s the smallest, animatronic replica.\u201d Eli breathed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMy masterpiece. I think it\u2019s time to finally show her.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The figure turned with a small mechanical ping. My eyes settled on the curve of her shoulder, which shifted as if from her breathing. I reached out to touch her but found myself pulled in again, inward and inward, until the fabric of the dressing gown filled my view. The threads expanded then loomed like I-beams; a single fiber widened into a constellation grayed out by too many stars. Feeling my knees weaken, I willed myself back up to the main deck, thinking perhaps the kobold might yet be hidden among the anchor rode. Nothing stirred.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I turned to look for Eli, but could not pull myself free of the ship. An orange sun trailing light through the clouds blotted out the sky. The horizon line crumbled and what I had interpreted as a sunset was now a mass of color, a circular pattern moving across my visual field. The bright wad pulled away with a squeak, revealing a blurred and massive hand and Eli\u2019s head\u2014a distant monument. I stood on the teak deck of the Otago<\/em> and watched as Eli polished the sky from the outside with a chamois the size of a thunderhead. I leaned over the rail and my glasses fell to the glass sea below, skidding and spinning before going still.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAngela?\u201d I called. Her name rose up and pinged around the bottle, echoes begetting echoes, compounded by the bottle\u2019s sudden motion. Eli\u2019s fingers, like some kind of stretched-low and ominous moon, draped the sky. He nestled the bottle into a dark pouch, into the depthless velvet pile, into the miniature slip. The silence was beyond a hush; it shrunk every sound. The sunlight diminished to a tenuous thread. Faintly golden, it illuminated the fish scales I coughed up every time I laughed or screamed or called her name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019d been talking at the bar for a while when she finally told me her name…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":587,"template":"","categories":[9,48,49],"tags":[272,273,274,275,276,277],"class_list":["post-585","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-fiction","category-literary-features","tag-joseph-conrad","tag-klabautermann","tag-kobold","tag-ships-in-bottles","tag-the-otago","tag-the-secret-sharer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEli's Ships - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/elis-ships\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eli's Ships - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We\u2019d been talking at the bar for a while when she finally told me her name...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/elis-ships\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2017\/06\/nicholson_mcfawn_havana_lores-small.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"996\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"33 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/elis-ships\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/elis-ships\/\",\"name\":\"Eli's Ships - 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