Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger

D. A. Ratliff

Every family has one eccentric relative who might be quirky, meanspirited, or perhaps a loner. I had heard tales of that relative in my family but met him first when I was nine. From that moment on, he became larger than life to me.

Great-uncle Roger, my paternal grandmother’s brother, left home at sixteen to sail on the tide. He joined the merchant marines, and from whispers I overheard, the men in my family said he was a bit of a scoundrel. My Uncle Lawrence suggested Roger may have been a mercenary. For a young boy, not knowing what that meant, Uncle Roger became Uncle Jolly Roger, flying a pirate flag.

Roger was injured at sea and retired, and my grandmother learned he was the keeper at the Hayden Point lighthouse. She hadn’t seen her brother for nearly forty years and asked my dad to take her to visit. I begged to go with them, and my dad finally agreed.

The short drive down the coast was an adventure, as I imagined the stories he would tell. When we arrived, the lighthouse was smaller than I expected and nestled into the rocky shoreline. We arrived unannounced, and my grandmother got out of the car, strode down the wooden path to the front door, and barged in.

Roger sat at a table by a window overlooking the sea, having a simple dinner. He motioned for us to sit and poured coffee for my grandmother and dad and a cola for me. It was quite a treat.

My grandmother’s anger was palpable. She asked why he deserted his family, visited only once, and rarely contacted their parents. He only nodded, and I still hear his words in my head to this day.

“I never felt at home on land. I needed the rolling deck of a ship and the salty sea air to feel whole. I loved all of you, but you were never enough for me. My heart and my home were always on the ocean.”

I realized I felt the same. I was happiest when I was on our boat with my dad. In the summers, I spend most of my time at the nearby marina to be around boats. I, too, felt alive when breathing in the salt air and the smell of the ocean. We sat with him until the sun began to sink in the sky as he told us about his life on the sea.

Over the years, until his death when I was seventeen, I spent many days with Uncle Jolly Roger, hanging onto every word of his exploits. His influence spurred me to apply for the Naval Academy, and today, I am captain of a US Navy destroyer.

I keep a photo of Jolly Roger in front of the lighthouse and a small Jolly Roger flag on my desk aboard ship to remind me of our mutual love of the sea. And now, I have my own tales to tell.

~~~

This flash fiction was written for a prompt found on the Facebook group, Writers Share Your Stories.