Jonesy

I saw the scar down his calf long smooth and white standing out against his tan in the bright summer light; whisky surgery he told me, seeing my curios glance and I got him talking while I had the chance. We both settled down with a beer and he told me how it had been just so casually describing, to me, an horrific dangerous scene. Fishing in a storm off Iceland trawling for the cod risking their lives under a fickle sea god. Then the steel warp parted catching just him alone, whipping back to gash his leg right down to the bone. The whisky forced down him until he really didn’t care, the skipper producing a needle to sew him up then and there. And the crew carried on fishing with no time to waste every second’s fishing necessary in the profit’s chase. He said it really didn’t hurt with the whisky in his gob and he reckoned the skipper had done quite a neat job. Very soon after that he decided to come ashore, said the lure of the sea didn’t pull so much anymore, and with a wife and child didn’t want to push his luck. As an ex deckie he fairly easily obtained his docker’s book. A very quiet person, very pleasant and shy but I go to know him well as the years rolled by. Never again mentioned his leg which I only saw by chance, that long smooth white scar having just caught my glance.