So there I was on Christmas Eve, naked cold and crouched knees to chest, beside Harry the Heron perched on a one-inch dock line. Yes it was chilly and quite discomfiting, but silent Harry the sage had taught me much in terms of patience, endurance and humility. Our spot was wisely chosen beside a light post whose glow attracted the shiny swarms of estuary minnows which served us with sustenance. A quick splash and up I would crawl with two three or four dangling and squirming from my clenched teeth. A quick snap back of the head and down the gullet they went. How, one must ask, did I find myself in these circumstances, and how did I balance and grip that line with my toes? The latter matters were merely a question of practice, and I had had plenty of it, a month or so of evenings such as this. In fact, I was not even perched upon my own dock line. My boat had to be chartered and all my possessions pawned, my friends and family solicited to the utmost and beyond had all abandoned me and so it had gone—all to cover the cost of my diesel mechanic. The litany of work I had done, water pump, hoses, glow plugs, exhaust elbows, belts and impellers… and on it went until all reserves were spent. At one point, we were actually ready to cast off the lines and it was at that precise interval that I noticed a thin diesel leak that seemed to be coming from the governor on the injection pump. Immediately, I knew whom to call—Marcus, the mighty Marcus was the only one competent and skilled enough to expedite the matter and bring it to a successful conclusion. Now it must be said that I fully recognized his fees were a bit exorbitant, but, I reasoned, they were commensurate not only with the skills involved but also with the economic reality of the Bay Area. Times are costly for everyone there. Why a mere cup of coffee might be six dollars, a brake job two grand, a day at the ‘49ers stadium beyond the cost of a night at the opera and let’s not talk about gas and tolls and rent and kids’ tuition and…you get the picture. It’s a costly world out there and in recognition of said did I thus rationalize my exorbitant outlays to maintain my marine diesel engine. Mechanics work hard and given their household overhead, their fees are understandable. Why, of necessity they live lives of restricted means and great parsimony Miracle upon miracles, I had managed to get through to Albert, the butler of Marcus, a man to whom my pleadings were familiar, who answered the phone and assured me that Marcus, once he flew in from Miami on his Learjet and concluded his round of golf, a meeting with his financial advisor and his luncheon with Crystal, his twenty-one-year-old  pole-dancer mistress, he would see if he could squeeze me into his schedule. I was thrilled! Meanwhile the switchboard was alight with competing pleaders such as myself and Albert had to cut me off. Some time later I was able to secure an appointment and, of course, it turned out that it would not be an easy or needless to say inexpensive fix. Once one opens up a twenty-year-old injection pump, apparently the entire thing has to be rebuilt—and added to this would be the cost of the labor, the precious labor of Marcus who would have to defer departure to Capri in order to deal with it. And so the charter, the nakedness, Harry and the perch on the dock line. The only problem with the minnows is the texture and pungent flavor. No it is not akin to that of a fine fresh Hamachi. No. It’s more like a mixture of estuary stew, burnt particulate of coal and diesel mixed with brake pad dust, cleaning products and industrial residue, heavy metals, effluent, micro plastics and radioactive isotopes from the now defunct navy base. The taste is rather slimy, dense and lingering but I’ll have to deal with it until I morph like all the heroes seem to do these days, and I’m trying very hard, maybe into someone like Harry who doesn’t seem to notice because there are really only the minnows and such a paucity of choices also applies to the number of competent reliable diesel mechanics in the Bay Area.