Connect the Dots
I got lucky. I took a job at a Marin County architectural firm without realizing it would change my life. Now I needed to commute across the Bay from San Francisco. At first I drove a borrowed Fiero. A few months in, my borrowed car developed an intractable electrical short: the engine quit at random moments, leaving me stuck at the side of the road. The car then needed to sit for a few hours before it would restart. No one could figure it out. As I drove home to San Francisco one evening, the engine cut out just after I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. By pure luck, I was far enough off the bridge to roll out of traffic to the side of the road. That was it! I’d had enough. My next commute track, still by land: the cross-town journey by bus to the transfer point for the Marin County bus to Larkspur.
Some months into this bus routine, I was in my local bike store, looking to buy a bike, mostly for getting around town and riding in nearby Golden Gate Park. A friend of the clerk burst through the door, completely elated. He had taken the ferry to Larkspur, in Marin County, and spent the afternoon exploring the bike trails of the Marin headlands.
My ears perked up. Ferry? Marin County? I promptly looked into it. After a trial run to Larkspur, and finding out how to ride from the ferry terminal to Larkspur, commuting to work by bike and ferry began. It soon became the best part of my day.
Imagine a sparkling morning, out on deck, air fresh from the Pacific, the Bay beautiful in every direction, and the boat going in the reverse commute direction, almost empty. Sometimes I just enjoyed being on the boat crossing the Bay, and seeing its many moods. Other times, I pretended I was underway to more distant lands. A favorite “voyage” was to imagine we were steaming between Greek islands.
But never doubt: sunrise, fog, storm or flashy sunset, the Bay is beguiling, all by itself. I came to really love the ferry, the view, the quiet moments on the water.
Then I got laid off. Ferry rides ceased. I focused on getting a new job. It just so happened that an architect I knew in my neighborhood was starting up an office shortly. Soon I started my new job, working with someone I liked, a two-minute commute to the next block. I was lucky again. But I couldn’t help missing my early morning “Gladiator” bike ride down Market Street to the Ferry Building, blasting through the empty downtown, to my escape on the Bay.
Yet and still, life works out in ways we are powerless to foresee. Some months into this great new job, my boss’s husband made a lousy remark to me. No one else was around. I made the usual mistake: I was embarrassed; I said nothing. Like many before me, I hoped it wouldn’t happen again. After he made the second comment, I recognized that it wasn’t going to stop. I spoke up. Over the next few weeks, my job proceeded to disintegrate in a small-time, pre-#metoo debacle.
This was toward the end of the dot-com bust, and it is at the end of downturns that architectural offices begin to run out of work. I was back scouring the want ads, writing cover letters and sending out resumes. And, I was getting no response. After two months of this, I was a teensy bit sorry for myself.
Well, I thought, Give it a break. How about a ferry ride? You haven’t been for a ferry ride in over a year. A cruise on the water will cheer you up.
I checked my old ferry schedule, hopped on my bike, and made the familiar ride down Market Street to the Ferry Building, a bit more prudent in the mid-day traffic. Waiting to board the ferry, I inhaled that exhilarating air that exists only near large bodies of water. Thrilled to be on board, sailing majestically through the Bay, I walked around the forward cabin and gazed out. On a cool grey day, the Bay was as captivating as ever.
Onboard that day, I had a double-happy feeling as I nodded hello to the same crew I knew from my commute days: two men and a woman. As the woman walked past, I realized something: She’s older than me! (I was in my mid 40s at the time). If she can work on the ferries, I can work on the ferries!
In that instant, my future set sail. As we returned to the city, I asked the lady deckhand a few questions about work on the ferries. It was all very encouraging. At the Ferry Building, I chatted with a ticket agent I knew from my commute days (back when there still were helpful ticket agents, not the cranky ticket machines in use now). She gave me directions to the Union Hall, which wasn’t far, and encouraged me to go ahead. I went straight to the Hall. On my way there, I reminded myself that I was only “looking into the ferries.” The fact is, my heart had committed to this overhaul of my life as soon as the scheme hove into view.
At the Hall, I got the do’s and don’ts of joining the union and signed up for the required introductory class. Six months later (spent sending out a weekly pile of resumes that secured no replies), I found myself up early of an April morning and at the Union Hall, waiting for class to begin.
The consequences of this abrupt course change continues to ripple through my life. Number one, as mentioned, the first dot com bust was underway, and interior design/AutoCAD drafting jobs were sparse. In the union, jobs may be sparse at first, but this improves as you gain seniority. Initially, the jobs available are to replace a deckhand out sick or on vacation. As you progress up the seniority list, work becomes more stable year by year. In the architectural and design world there is no stability, no secure work.
Number two, deckhanding is a good union job. Unions aren’t perfect, but the other options are worse. Deckhanding includes decent pay (full-time work equaling the same pay I received sitting at a desk); in the Inlandboatmen’s Union, health care is provided if you work at least 80 hours a month (previously? No health care); a pension (previously? No pension); you can also start a 401K.
Number three, instead of sitting at a desk all day, you get some exercise and meet a broad range of interesting, international co-workers. And there’s a lot to learn.
Number four, work can be flexible. You can take a planned break, if you need or want it, and come back with your same seniority.
And most important, Number five: time to write. Looking back now, I realize my work on the ferries provided the background for Murkey’s, A Rabbit Noir. From earliest days on the water, my working life contributed colorful ideas and detail to this story on the waterfront.
One earlier stroke of luck must be mentioned. Bunzini the rabbit, star of Murkey’s, entered my life shortly after I moved to San Francisco. Around Halloween of the same year, his pal Webster, the intellectual spider, joined us. This rabbit and his pals are the lively focus of their own universe. By the time my life as a deckhand began, I had already written several short stories starring Bunz and Webbs.
Bunz doesn’t think small. Late in 2004 Bunz said, “Bubb, I’m your long-eared Edward G. Robinson, see? Short stories are alright, but listen. Where’s my best-seller? Where’s my movie? Where’s my-y website?”
Where was his website, indeed. Personal websites were more common by then, and Bunz knew several artists and musicians with their own websites. Bunzini was getting impatient. In a great moment of forethought, my friend and internet guru had already registered bunzini.com, preserving the name for the future website. Had I ever looked at the website where he had registered it? No.
It turned out that the registration company had a ‘drag and drop’ website builder. Voila! In few months, the basic website was up. (Haha—putting your first website together is more frustrating than that sentence implies. Our first try is not perfect and there are plans afoot to redesign the site.)
Now that there was a website, I needed Content. Bunz said, “Star me in new story, Bubb. Make it noir this time.”
Okay!
I figured I would be able to squeeze in time to write a chapter a month for the new website. My decision process: if Charles Dickens could publish a chapter a month, why not me? Haha—I found out why not me, but in I jumped, starting with Chapter One of Murkey’s, A Rabbit Noir.
The drawing at the left is my original inspiration: a little sketch of a donut floating above a cup of coffee. I imagined it was a doodle on a paper napkin from a diner named Murkey’s. Where should Murkey’s be located? On Pier 13 (which exists only in the story). Next, Bunz came walking along the San Francisco Bay waterfront on the foggiest night of the year, in his fedora and trench coat. Why was he out there? Where was his pal Webbs? Who were the mysterious moose asking suspicious questions about Murkey’s Diner? It was fun!
The story developed and plot lines interlaced. Three chapters in, it became quite clear (news flash) that I was not Charles Dickens. Without a blueprint for the plot, writing the story straight through was a can of worms.
So it began. I took it off line and wrote when I could. Twelve (!) years flew by. My adventures on the ferries got woven in to the story: morning commute runs across the Bay, through fog so thick it obscures the Bay Bridge even as you sail beneath it. Currents so strong, boat engines struggle against their dominance. Daily tides receding, to reveal the dark forest of ancient pilings crowding the undersides of the old piers along the city front; people rowing their tricky-to-see wooden boats, traversing the same waterways as speeding ferries and huge container ships, neither of which will stop on a dime. Without a sharp lookout, how easily that insignificant blip on the radar can be steamed right over—in the night, in the fog!
A captain I work with grew up sailing the Bay. When I was looking for a hideout for the bad Guys, I asked him if he had an idea. He suggested “Sh*t’s Creek.” I laughed. “It’s called that because it used to be totally polluted,” he said. Perfect! Otherwise known as Channel Street or Mission Creek Channel, I adapted the nickname to Sipp’s Creek and dreamed up a prohibition story to go with it.
Another ferry Captain had lived a thousand stories while sailing all over the world. He told one about escaping through the tunnels under the city, to avoid the cops after he and a friend had pulled a certain stunt. Tunnels under the city? Perfect. I asked what stunt, but he only laughed and wouldn’t tell. I made up my own stunt in the tunnels for Webbs and his friend, Marilyn the Librarian to try.
This same captain also lent me two very useful books. Vanished Waters, by Nancy Olmstead, a local author he knew. This book describes Mission Bay as it once was, and the slow infill of it over the years, so that now it is only a place name. The other book, Recollections of a Tule Sailor, was written by Captain John Leale. While still a boy, Captain Leale sailed into San Francisco and landed at Mission Bay, when it was still a bay. He grew up to sail ferries across the Bay and up the rivers that empty into the Bay, to places no longer accessible by anything larger than a small canoe.
The seagulls who make their living at Pier 41 gave me the idea for another character, Nosey Parker. Like all seagulls, Nosey pays aggressive attention to everything around him, and he is invariably hungry. He earns his bread and butter by flying around the Bay, picking up information to trade for snacks. He always carries his fork!
At work I met someone who had run her own fishing boat. Her story became woven in with Captain G.G.’s story—a sea dog down on her luck. The Coast Guard boat, the fire truck, so many story ideas began as events and people and birds I’ve seen along the waterfront or sailing around the Bay.
Early on in my mariner career, I figured, if it didn’t work out, I could always go back to another desk job. Not a chance! I never looked back!
