Friends,
Ezra sang as he reassembled the broken mainspring. Quietly, as he always does when working with fine pieces, as though the gears might listen and approve. The tune was familiar, one of his own, no doubt, though it bore the rhythm of a capstan chanty, slow and dragging, full of ghost-shadow and salt.
He calls it “Blackcoat Shade.” It’s about Captain Thorne.
“Blackcoat Shade”
Boots like bells on the devil’s deck,
(Low tide, hush now, sailin’ slow)
Coat all black and eyes like wrecks,
(Where he’s been, no stars will go)
Folks all scatter when he walks by,
Barrelmen shake and bosuns cry,
But he looked at me and winked one eye—
Gave me half his bread and pie!
Blackcoat Shade, sails made o’ thunder,
Laugh like a blade but his heart’s down under,
Scares the sharks and dogs the rain,
But he’d never let a boy feel pain.
He don’t talk loud ‘less the crew’s gone wrong,
(Rope burns sing like a sinner’s song)
But he sings to himself when the moon’s just right,
And he hums like me when he sleeps at night.
Blackcoat Shade, cloak like sorrow,
But if you're kind, he'll lend tomorrow,
Storm in his step and fire in his grin,
But he lets a kid like me sit in.
The verses are strange, half fearsome, half fond. In them, the Captain is a figure of awe and shadow: boots loud as toll bells, coat “all black and eyes like wrecks.” Yet Ezra sings of pie shared on a cold day, of a wink, of a hum that matches his own. The melody is lilting but mournful, like a lullaby sung too close to the fire.
I let him sing. I always do. The boy learns with his fingers, but he remembers with song. And when he sings of Thorne, I remember too.
Captain Thorne brought Ezra to me in the rain. The child had no shoes. No name, at first. Thorne wouldn’t say where they’d come from, only that “the boy needs someone who sees how things work.” I thought it was a strange thing to say.
The Captain, imposing even in silence, stood in the middle of my shop like a gun loaded but not cocked. I recall the way the oil lamps flickered behind him, making his long coat blend into the shadows on the walls. But then he knelt beside Ezra and adjusted the boy’s scarf. No words. Just a tug, gentle. Then he stood and handed me a timepiece—an absurdly fine French repeater, cracked down the case.
“I’m not leaving him until you tell me this can be fixed.”
It could be. He knew that.
He’s returned often since. Always with coin. Sometimes with a question about springs or signal flags. Never in a hurry, though he looks like a man always fighting time.
Ezra still watches the door when the wind shifts. I think he knows Thorne will come again. And he sings as he waits. Not a song of fear. A song of memory, of thunder softened by kindness, of something good wrapped in shadows.
There is more goodness in that man than he allows the world to see.
I saw it once, in the rain. Ezra sees it still.
The next one was more joyful, but still reverent.
“Cap’n Shade”
Oh the cap’n wears black but his smile’s all gold,
(Heave a-way, haul a-way!)
He’ll spare you a rope if your story is bold,
(Heave a-way, haul!)
He don’t shout loud but the crew stands tall,
With a wink o’ the eye and a fist if you stall,
He’s the shadow at dawn and the breeze at night,
But he’ll give you a biscuit if you treat folks right!
Cap’n Shade, Cap’n Shade,
Steals the wind but pays what’s paid—
Swore to the moon he’d break no child,
And the sea just grins when he gets wild!He sang those songs all day, and re-built a ship’s barometer Thorne had ordered.
Mysterious man, The Captain. But he does right by me and, more importantly, he does right by Ezra.
M. Vogel