Free Bought His Life by Aleka Nakis Tia Fanning

listening to Popeye go on and on about the latest big one that got away.
    “Big as a Buick, I tell you. If I hadn’t cut the line, she’da pulled me whole boat under. Yep, wouldn’t be here now. But that was nuthin. No, dearie, there was this one time…”
    Oh God. Not another story .
    She held up her hand. “Mr. Murphy, please, I want to ask you some questions about—”
    The old fisherman clucked his tongue, “Now, young lady, what did I tell you?”
    “Call you Captain?”
    “Yep, that’s what everyone calls me. Been captaining my own boat, Muirgen , for over sixty years. Yep. My father, God rest his soul, was a fisherman, too, as was his father and his father’s father and so back many generations. The Muirgen came to me when my father died, yep, killed by those Nazi bastards in the Great War.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been hard,” she offered as she lit another cigarette, grateful that the shitty ass bar had obviously never heard of the Florida Clean Air Act. Otherwise, she might not have made it through the last half hour without losing her mind.
    The old man nodded. “Yep, it was. Those were difficult times. I was only twelve back then and the eldest son. Still remember the day like yesterday. It was a sunny afternoon when the postman brought my momma the letter tellin’ us Papa was dead. Now my momma, being the strong woman she was, read the letter, but she didn’t shed a tear.”
    Captain Murphy took a hefty swig of whiskey. Kimber moved to speak, but he shook his finger in front of her face.
    “No, little lady, she didn’t. She crumpled the letter up, threw it down, looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Son, you’re the man of the house now. It’s up to you to see to your family. Take your papa’s boat and do like he taught you’. And that’s what I did, and have so ever since.”
    He finished his drink and slammed the glass on the bar, signaling the burly barkeep. “Another, Frank. Oh, and another beer for the lady.”
    “Oh no, that’s okay. I haven’t even finished the first one you insisted on buying—”
    The bartender placed another beer in front of her and refilled the captain’s whiskey glass.
    “Now the Muirgen has changed much from the fishing boat I inherited when I was only fifteen.”
    Didn’t he say he was twelve?
    “Through the years, I added to it, refurbished it, and—”
    “Captain, were you on the Muirgen when you saw the plane go down this morning?”
    He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Matter of fact, I was. But it wasn’t an airplane. Now that’s an interesting story. I didn’t tell everyone, you know. Don’t want people to think I belong in the loony bin.”
    Kimber put her smoke out and picked up her pen and pad. “Please, Captain, tell me all about it.”
    “Well, it was the wee hours of the morning—”
    “What time?”
    “Oh, I’d say around four. I was on the Muirgen trying to get me some snapper. Now snapper, whether it be yellow-tail or mutton, it’s always best caught—”
    “Captain, please, the plane.”
    “I was getting there, young lady. So I was out fishing me some snapper when the sky, which was clear and dark when I left the dock, began to spit fire. Lightning speared the heavens, but not white lightning, nope, it was red and purple.”
    Kimber put her pen down and sighed heavily. “Really?”
    “Yep, the very air sizzled with them bolts. Then the wind kicked up, and my boat began a’rockin. I lost my footing and fell.” The old salt raised his hand in the air and gazed at the ceiling, staring as if reliving the moment in his mind.
    Shaking her head, Kimber picked up her first beer and held it up in a silent toast. To the stoic Mrs. Murphy, wherever you might be. You raised an imaginative son. Though you’ve made my life more difficult by doing so, may you rest in peace. Amen. She took a deep gulp of the tepid liquid.
    Captain Murphy lowered his arm and continued, “Now I was on my back, gazing