Many people know that the albatross — shorthand for several different subspecies of large seabird — is a symbol of bad luck for the maritime set.
But did you know that the albatross was originally a symbol of good fortune?
The albatross' venerable career as an analogy for life turning to shit has its origins in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's oft-referenced but little-read epic 18th-century poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." In it, a vessel is blown off course far to the south by a freak storm; the feathered friend in question appears out of the fog and is accepted by the crew as a sign of life, a mascot, a familiar touchstone and an assurance of better things to come.
And come they did:
"The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!"
"And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The albatross did follow,
And every day for food or play,
Came the mariners' hollow!"
Then, the titular Ancient Mariner pulls out his crossbow and, out of anger at the freeloading beastie (or, more likely, the sort of stubbornly pragmatic alpha-male control-freak-ness that's fueled everything from The Old Man and The Sea to Jaws), kills the creature.
And everything goes right back to hell.
The crew makes the Ancient Mariner wear the dead bird around his neck as an act of atonement, but it's too late for them and especially him; "Rime" is an archetypical the-guy-who-lives-is-actually-the-worst-off kind of story.
These days, like so many other persistent bits of mythology, the albatross has come to mean more than one thing. In addition to its bad-fortune associations, an albatross is half-jokingly said to represent the reincarnated soul of a sailor lost at sea. It's a nice Catch-22 for an animal to embody: Man, those birds are bad luck, but leave 'em alone because they're also our lost compadres.
I am Joey Cocktail's albatross.
And for the last four or five years or so, every time I've stepped into his boat, something's gone wrong.
It didn't start out that way. It started out with our respective bands playing together at former St. Pete musicians' clubhouse The Voodoo Lounge 10 years ago and me horning in on a drunken conversation about fishing. I shamelessly bullied him into a decorous invitation to join him on his folks' boat and graciously accepted.
Several successful trips followed. Beautiful snook were snared in the backcountry. We went to the Keys, lost a big dolphin, caught a few small ones and fucked with the great big barracuda until we got sick of it. Somewhere in there, we formed a band.
Our trips weren't always ragingly successful. We often had trouble starting the old ski boat and once had to get out and pull it up a mangrove creek by rope against a strong falling tide. Another time, a kingfish broke Joey Cocktail's rod after I missed it with the gaff. But more often than not, the excursions were satisfying AND productive; everything worked like it was supposed to, we caught fish and enjoyed that singular, cliched-but-honest experience of getting away from it all, shooting the shit and bonding.
But somewhere along the way, something happened.
It doesn't jibe exactly with the legend of the albatross. Joey Cocktail didn't shoot me with a crossbow because I grabbed the last Bud Light out of the cooler or got a little tinkle on the gunwale while pissing over the side. Something happened, though, and while the trips have continued to be great male-bonding episodes, I've obviously been the reason why things have gone all fucking whoopsie just about every time I've stepped into whatever watercraft he's helmed since the turn of the millennium.
Joey Cocktail bought a bigger boat, the Two Dogs; we landed a 45-pound cobia before realizing we didn't have a fish box and nearly ripped off the anchor chasing birds feeding on the surface; we broke down during a shark-fishing trip and spent the night outdoors in a gale.
He sold Two Dogs and bought a smaller boat, the Wake of Destruction. One time, we nearly capsized discovering what trim tabs actually did and got hung up on a flat at low tide for more than an hour in windy 46-degree weather, and nearly sunk that little skiff in the surf while I figured out how to back the trailer down the ramp without seeing it in the rearview.
When Joey Cocktail bought Wake of Destruction II, I thought the curse might well and truly be too lazy to keep up with our occasional trips. The first time out was a bust, but nothing went wrong with the craft. The second time out, we boated boasting-size Spanish mackerel and broke off half a dozen unseen lunkers, probably sharks.
Then last Wednesday came.
The second I stepped into the boat, the electrical system went dead. We landed enough mangrove snappers to make a decent fish fry for Joey's family, but we missed out on the mackerel, had to anchor on a bridge strut because we didn't find anything on the bottom and found no bait beyond the two dozen shrimp we bought at the shop before putting in.
We've gotten used to it, Joey Cocktail and I. And I'm forever appreciative of his willingness to take me out — by now, he probably knows something's going to go wrong whenever I step aboard.
But I can't help wondering how long it'll be before he greets new fishing friends at the dock with a human skull hanging around his neck, explaining it away as his bad-luck charm with a smile and a gunning of his engines.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 4, 2006.