Man-In-Sea

Scene 12

CLAY

In 1954, Dad got stuck on Christopher Columbus. Bill and I were still in school, and my parents were sailing around the Florida Keys. Using Columbus’s own log book, my father felt he’d identified key landmarks to track the exact route Columbus took on his first trip through the Carribean. He’d convinced LIFE magazine to accompany him and document what he’d considered to be his greatest contribution to science so far. General Precision Equipment Corporation still felt that was Link Aviation. They bought out the last of my father’s shares, and officially retired him, so we had plenty of money to do as we pleased. After Dad broke his toe on the deck of Sea Diver, doctor’s orders kept him out of the water, and left my mother with the biggest discovery of the expedition.

MARION

I just spoke to the boys. Bill was more interested in the cannon, but Clay can’t wait to see the anchor. He made me promise not to get rid of it until they arrive.

ED

A relic like this should be turned over to a museum as soon as we can.

MARION

It’s my anchor. I should get to decide when we turn it over.

ED

Look at these pictures. The flukes and ring are gone, but the arms are a crescent. The Spanish weren’t even using anchors like this by 1500. There was no one else in these waters that could have lost this anchor but Columbus.

MARION

Where was the Santa Maria then?

ED

Columbus’s log said the ship was scuttled upriver. A fisherman must have recovered the anchor and used it to weight a trap. If this anchor had lain on the bottom of that harbor for 500 years, it would have been completely cemented to the reef.

MARION

Well, we have a discovery. That means I want you spending time with the boys when they get here. The LIFE people are happy, you should be too.

LINK

Years later, I was in Haiti on business and visited the museum. This valuable piece of history had been left to rot. No measures had been taken to preserve the anchor, and it was corroded and broken. I almost wept when I saw it, thinking, ‘What will I tell Marion they did to her anchor?’

 

Continued 1/12/15

Man-In-Sea

Cast of Characters:

LINK
An inventor. Also, Ed’s father.

ED
As Link remembers himself himself.

MARION
Ed’s wife.

CLAY
Ed and Marion’s second son.