No Stinkin' Cell Phone!

Captain Stud Butcher stood ready right at the crack of dawn, if you can call 5:00 AM in mid August in Alaska dawn? His small craft "Bloody Mary" was bound for Flat Island about 40 miles north east of Homer where his five passengers were ready to catch the big Halibut and possibly win the Homer seasonal derby.

The cigar chewing…cuss kicking…whiskey nipping captain already had his engine warmed and purring when his day's fishermen showed up and within a few minutes had barked out his demands. "Drink all the booze you want, smoke anything but dope and tell all the dirty jokes you know, but the one thing I won't allow on this boat is NO STINKIN CELL PHONES buzzing, beeping or pissing noise on my boat." He shot the paying passengers a scowl, spit a chunk of his cigar onto the deck and said, "Now if that is agreeable with you South American panty wastes, we'll get going, okay?"

The five expectant fishermen humbly nodded in surprise and wondered on what the heck kind of a captain we got here. Old Jim Decker thought, "Hey, I knew that these Alaskan captains were tough but this is a little bit ridiculous and settled back for a most interesting day.

Stud pulled out first, "flipping the bird," yelling and cussing at all the lazy good for nothing fishing crews readying their own boats and he heard many of them cussing him back, a lousy days voyage. Without notice old dirty Stud hit the throttle before he was out of the small harbor throwing a wake across the smooth surface and two of his passengers slipped and fell and he let out a wild yell of, "SHEE-EIT!"

Jack Coach reached down for his uncle Chester who was sprawled out on the slippery deck and slowly worked him into a seat where they hung for dear life. All this while Captain Butcher bounded off every wave he came to and all of them thought that this poor boat was surely going to break in half any second; but the "Bloody Mary" pushed on without even missing a wave and stubbornly headed towards a blue gray rise on the horizon.

After an hour of being tossed, bounced and hurled around the cabin the captain slowed and began several turns looking for a certain point to line up with and then it suddenly happened! The only thing Fredrick Macool could think of was, sure enough the poor boat broke!

There came some kind of a thud from under the hull or possibly the under deck but no matter where it came from the entire boat went silent. Stud Butcher began to swear up a storm so bad that the waves themselves seemed to go flat. He turned the knobs, pulled the levers and beat the instruments but not a sound came from the engines.

The funny thing was that old Jim noticed that even the radios went silent; nothing moved or made a sound. Then Captain Butcher came out and told all of us to get the"you know what" out of the way as he pulled up a latch from the deck and opened up the motor cover.

With at least a thousand dollars worth of cuss words, Butcher peered down into the engine area and went silent for the first time. However, in no less than a few seconds he snorted and sucked in his breath and began whistling a few cuss words to higher powers in what seemed to be Russian or French. Out of curiosity we all bent over his shoulder and took a look down into the pit where the motor was and we all now saw what he was swearing a new language over. It was a deep square area where the engine set but it was now about half full of water and it seemed to be filling up real quick.

The captain hollered out to us to get the bucket and start bailing as fast as we could, it didn't look too good. So Fredrick found the bait bucket and went to work as the rest of us searched around for more buckets. No matter how we bailed, the water rushed in faster and soon the entire boat began to slowly sink in one corner. "Hey try the radio Captain Stud," Dilin Harper called out in a mild panic.

"Screw you, my name is Butcher, and if you are going to talk to me you better get my name right," Stud Butcher replied as he stood there thinking and spitting out cigar chunks all around.

"Hey, this is getting serious captain," hollered out Jack as he made sure his uncle Chester was seated comfortably inside the tilting deck house.

"Sheeeeit," Stud drew out the word as he looked up into the sky, "this ain't nothing, been hear like this a hundred times and never did die yet."

"That ain't my worry, my worry is, did any of your passengers live," Jim questioned old Captain Butcher with a serious tone.

Captain Stud rubbed his rough growth for a few moments, as if trying to remember if anyone did ever survive, but his contemplation was broken by a groan in the hull.

"Well, you better get on your radio for now, for this is our first time out here in these icy cold Alaskan waters and we might not be so lucky as you," Fredrick spoke up as he was bailing water out of the over flowing engine hole.

"Ain't got no stinkin radio, its gone, no power and the whole dang electricity thing has gone south on me."

"What the heck we going to do then, these waters are freezing cold and unless we get some help real quick, we are surely going to be frozen soon," Jack reasoned with Stud as he scanned the horizon for another boat.

"You got some flares aboard," Jim inquired of the captain.

"Nope, don't believe in no city flashy flares, they stink up the air too much," he said this as he spit out a chunk of his cigar.

"Well, what are we going to do cap," Jack asked with some fear building in his words.

"By law I got to carry that donut float and some life jackets so if you want to you go ahead and get that float untied and put on your jackets and get ready to do some swimming," Cap was indicating direction towards the distant island as he laughed.

"You got to be kidding," cried out Fredrick, "that's the most insane thing I ever heard of, we wouldn't last in that water ten minutes!"

"Oh yeah, you got a better idea you dumb turd," Stud placed his huge bruised fists on his hips and jutted out his gnarly jaw at Fredricks remarks and just then the 30 foot fishing boat, "Bloody Marry" tilted backwards a little and the small swells began to roll over the back and move up the deck towards Fredrick. Instantly he tossed the bucket down into the rising waters which were now sloshing over the engine and frantically began to bail.

"Come on you guys, let's get on those jackets and see what we can do about saving ourselves," jack stepped up and began to tear at the ropes holding down the large life float.

"That's a good bunch of concerned citizens now," Captain Butcher mocked as he pulled out a half empty fifth of Cutty Sark from a holder alongside his rolling wheel and took a long swig and motioned for everyone else to help themselves.

"No thanks, everyone nodded except for old Chester, who staggered along the wall and took hold of the bottle and drew a good one and handed it back with a real nice smile spread over his face. Captain Butcher slapped him on the shoulder and said, "You old timer, you still got something in you yet."

The Bloody Mary's stern was now a few feet under water while the bow was slightly lifted. At this rate, Jim estimated that they had about a half hour before she went down and paced around the cabin looking for something to possibly change their predicament. He twisted the dials on the radio, clicked the mic and searched for something to send a message but found nothing.

Captain Stud finished off his fifth and went forward looking for another and the boat now began to settle to the port side and Jim had the large float device over the side and tied up ready to go if necessary. The water was dark and icy cold, and the island was off about three miles but it looked like sheer cliffs and if they listened close they could hear breakers along the cliffs.

Captain Stud came back out holding two fifths now and handed one to Jim telling him to take a sip and warm up a little for once they got into the water, it was going to take more than some Cutty Sark to keep them alive. Jim took the bottle and handed it to Fredrick who slowly opened it and sniffed and then took a swallow and passed it around. When it got to Chester, he took two or three good pulls and smacked his lips a few times and held on for dear life. Things were not looking good, no boats were to be seen, this was one of the captains secret places and had caught two big winning fish here last season but told no one where.

Stud stood with his cigar butt and rocked back and forth with his bottle being raised now and then but still had no life jacket on. The "Bloody Mary" didn't have much time left and the five weary souls hopefully kept eyeing the horizon, and Fredrick even tried banging a pan against the rail to maybe attract something to their rescue but captain told him to either shut up or get off.

" Well we got to try something," Jack cried out in frustration.

"Yeah, I should have brought my cell phone along, maybe that would have done us some good," Dilin stated with some regret.

"Hey, that reminds me," old Chester showed his gums in a half snookered smiled, "I think I might have brought my wife's by mistake."

"What the heck you talking about old man," snapped Fredrick as he moved to a higher spot on the tilting boat.

"Yep, I am not sure, did not want to say nothing to upset good old cap, but I thought it was a sandwich or something left on the counter this morning and tossed it into the lunch box along with a few other things you young in a hurry folks didn't want to bring."

"If you brought that phone Chester, I'll buy you a new set of false teeth this very week," Jack declared as he moved towards the lunch boxes.

"I told you southern fried scrimps not to bring any device aboard my boat, didn't I," Captain Stud yelled out while raising his near empty bottle. "I hate those damm things and I ain't got no stinkin' cell phone," He took a step towards Jack who was just working his way out of the cabin holding the cell phone in triumphant glory! But Butchers arm like lightening flashed out and caught Jacks wrist and twisted the phone loose and it fell back down into the cabin as everyone rushed forward in utter astonishment. Fredrick dove past the captain, while Dilin brushed the captain's leg trying to get by and old Stud lost his balance and slipped onto his back and went sliding down the tilt of the deck right over the back rails and splashed into the icy waters.

Chester leaped up and began to call out, "Stud over board," but Jack set him down abruptly and took hold of the cell phone and with four worried men uttering a hundred prayers, he hit the power button and altogether they first heard that lovely beep of "Signal" then a faint dial tone. One big yell went out until Jack asked with a really stupid look on his face, "Hey, who the heck should I call?"

"911 you idiots came the words from Captain Stud who was now holding onto the float alongside the sinking "Bloody Mary" and Jack followed the freezing captain's suggestion.

Truly this was the longest pause in any of their lives…"Hello, how can we help you please," the sweet words came through.

"Yes, I am calling from a cell phone and our boat the "Bloody Mary" is sinking, we are off Flat Island about three miles on the south side, please send help right now, we got one man in the water now and the boat has only a few more minutes to stay afloat," Jack shouted out this message all in one breath, thinking the battery was soon to be dead.

"Please repeat that message, I want to make sure I heard you right and calm down a little," the voice made its request.

Jack repeated the message and the coast guard acknowledged his call and told him to stay on the line as long as possible, they would try and get a chopper out there as soon as they could. Jack heard a voice in the background saying something about that "Bloody Stud Butcher again" but Jack kept on talking, and handed the phone around to the others to keep them busy as the "Bloody Mary" slowly settled down into the icy waters.

It was an hour or more before the first sound of a boat was heard and by then they were all in the icy water, but the boats bow was still sticking out about four feet straight up with Stud Butcher sitting right up top. The first boat on the scene was the "Abstinence" and everyone laughed at this, but old Captain Butcher was too cold to do anything but cuss through his chattering teeth.

Captain Stud Butcher, due to his "exposure" had to be air lifted by the chopper and flown to a Homer hospital where he did recover. Yet, still to this day, he has not nor will he consider acknowledging, how a STINKIN CELL PHONE SAVED HIS MISERABLE LIFE! In fact many a brawls have been reported along the Kenai Peninsula because someone has told that story at the wrong time. So if your ever in Homer Alaska, make sure you don't tell this story around old Captain Stud, I mean Butcher!

Isn't TECHNOLOGY just wonderful and yes, old Chester did get a new set of false teeth!

Contact Author at:

michael@ticktalk.net