Growing up is never easy. It's not repetitive movements or memorization. There is no laid out track to keep you heading in the direction you need to be. It's more like taking a small sail boat and releasing it out into the chopping waves. The sail will catch the wind and ocean will take you, but without a rudder you can't steer.
That's what Jerry was, a rudder. My rudder specifically. Whenever the waters got too rough he was there to push me through. I was more the sail drifting whichever way the wind wanted to blow.
I think you kind of know the day when a person like that enters your life. A person that someday will become as solid as the ground you kiss.
We were probably both about ten when that day happened. My father was a trawler on a ship that went belly up. Financially so to speak, and he had taken a spot on the "Lobster Pot". A stocky brick of a ship that unsurprisingly never caught lobster. Jerry's dad was also a trawler on The Pot and he and Dad clicked. They drug nets faster then any other boat.
I spent a lot of time on the docks. I got to know the yardmen and they kept an eye on me.
Not that day though.
I had spotted what I thought would be a nice place to spend the afternoon on the other side of the bay. A small beach with just the right amount of sun. At ten years old you get crazy ideas. I had decided to take a swim across a sloshy ship filled bay. I had stripped down my slacks and was telling my toes that the water wasn't that cold when Jerry spotted me.
He suggested that we take one of the oar boats from beside the main dock. I hadn't even thought of the oar boats. They were something like a safety code. Man overboards and such. We clicked.
We untied that oar boat dropped into the bay, and I swear to god we never got back out.