King Philip

The crashing waves broke over the petrified wood of the shipwreck King Philip.  Seagulls flew in circles over the long dead bow, a half dozen jet black Ravens had landed on the solid wet sand just east of  the remains of the long ago shipwrecked boat and inched there way slowly, ever slowly to the boat.

The naked body of a white man, face-down, lie partially buried in a swirling tide-pool of seawater and sand within the ribs of the boat.  The crashing waves of a fall storm recently exposed the remains of the once proud King Philip and the returning tides were quick returning.. The body, the object of the birds, was not a preserved crew member exposed with the retreat of the sand entombing the ship but that of a white man in his late 20's, his marble white skin contrasting sharply with the dirty sand and blackness of the petrified wood of the boat.  The body was partially buried in the wet sand and appeared save for its face down position much like a weekend beach goer might. One who had buried himself  to the waist to amuse his kids.  Its rigidity in repose belied any such idea.  The birds saw a meal, the largest of them landed on the bodies buttocks and in a quick motion tore into the fleshy left buttocks and flew away.   It new nothing of the man, that he had a wife who would begin to worry about his  being gone in a few hours,  nor about the drunk janie who having prepared herself so carefully, wearing the sheerest nightie she owned and who drank a bottle of Vodka when she decided he had stood her up, nor of his other friends who continued to call his cellphone tossed into the seagrass in the Sandunes,  he was missing another mindless house party full of  an endless parade of Cal Fire employees and they needed him to continue the party.  They called and called, the messages buzzing on, the battery wearing down until the cell went silent.  The voice-mail had been filled hours ago by dozens of calls from  a frightened former john  named Addige who had overheard a drug dealer at a sex club stonily talk of a gay for pay hooker having been overdosed by another drug dealer who had provided him pure white heroin mixed with special K  rather than the usual mix of heroin and fluff.

Few others knew of his existence and two who did  had caused the overdose to occur.  Fewer still would mourn the man, he was not a very sympathetic individual.  His wife would, not so much out of marital happiness, for there had been little of that,  but out love of the material life they had together. Her life had been so unrelentingly hard and deprived before he married her that his end meant the end of that world and  as no other path would be open to her, a room in a shared rented mobile home trailer park on Santa Rosa Avenue would be her next home.  There were no children to ask why daddy how drowned in San Francisco 90 miles from home in Santa Rosa and the life of the junkie was such that if his absence was noted at all it would be with relief by many as he'd become  the daily train wreck to be avoided.

That might happen but as there were no clothes there was no identification and he most likely would not be found.  The sea was relentlessly reclaiming the wreck as weak dawn gave way to full light the boat and body would be sleeping together under tons of sand.   He had walked to the beach from what he called a molester van after allowing his cherry to be popped by his drug dealer.  The X fed to him was pure enough that the humping had been intensely pleasurable.and the promise of  yet more free heroin had lured him  naked to the beach for a swim. The stormy night and the discovery of the remains of the King Philip had excited them both and they sat naked side by side on of the boat's remains.  The drug dealer grabbed him, deeply kissed him and pro-offered the lines from his hand, the man, ever glad of a free line or two inhaled greedily the mixture of special K and heroin. The burn in his nose had barely ceased when he fell forward from what had been the port side  of the ship into tide pool of seawater and swirling sand.  He was paralyzed by the drug cocktail and was unable pull himself up out of the half foot of icy water. The drug dealer aided the angel of death in its flight by standing on his victims neck and back within three minutes the man had drowned.

 An end place fitting as scene of death, the Clipper ship King Phillip had been transporting a cargo of Pigeon feces for fertilizer when shipwrecked in 1878 and the dead man,  like all addicts had become a  flightless Pigeon.