gingerbread

Of course it had to be in drydock. It's tricky these days with the big ships. A draft too deep keeps them from going into more shallow ports, making some really exciting small transactions, but of course offers a lot more stability, more amenities, more freightage, economies of scale.
On the side I worked on a dove-winged nautilus balloon I planned to take up the Appalachain Trail. I would walk it some days, the balloon tethered to my wrist, and fly on days when the wind was right. I wouldn't have to set up camp but instead tie or stake off the balloon and climb up for the night. It broke up the monotony of having to hike every day, and gave my knees time to recover. And I had a compact studio up there. Last time I planned such an adventure, there was a following. People said I did it for the attention, but that wasn't true; I did it to see what would happen and for my own delight. Only now do I think that maybe I should have paid more attention to the people. I only worked until I had enough money to be away. Save for a very few, people drained me. A certain type worked me like a handpump until the water stopped running clear, then cursed me for taking their attention.
Then there was some other stuff. I had a habit of "taking it back to first principles" that I knew drove everyone else crazy, but I couldn't stand working on a small section of the problem, cutting all the facets right there for some precision optical piece, to reflect back maximum sparkle from light coming from an expected angle of incident that in truth would never occur in this hemisphere. Frankly, I didn't trust anyone. There were times when I'd dive right in, saying, "I will suppose everything you say is true and complete; here we go …" But other times, I'd check the reasoning, Then I'd check the math. Then I'd look hard into his eyes, trying to fathom why he'd think he'd said enough for anyone to go on. "Are you shitting me?"
"That's not what it's about!" William would yell at me.
"What do you mean, that's not what it's about?" I'd say. "You're telling me that doing this project will somehow make the sun shine from the North?"
"It's a drawing; just a little razzle-dazzle. We're just trying to get everyone on board."
"On board with the sun coming from the North, and then we'll just change everything around?"
These things were left to me. William would "yes" the project into total untenability and then bring me in, toward the tail-end. Wagging the dog. Later, the client would be belching my phrases at me out of context, historically technical terms coming back with smarting, personal connotation. "Gingerbread!" I would know William tried to straighten-things-out-without-really-straightening-things-out. He was a boneless mask I spoke through, desperate to be the "good cop," out of his depth but demanding the authority of his position, so frightened to make necessary corrections that the issues were pushed to absolute absurdity. And I wasn't the "Bad Cop," I wasn't "being negative," I was just going through the caveats and necessary steps to make the thing really real. Was it or wasn't it the goal? We'd make the thing, no? Or should I get off of your cloud?
There was some other kind of necessary step I wasn't getting. That's why my balloon had to be built up from salvage, scrap-wood, and used building paper from a demo site. I considered myself a genius of making-do.
I envied William, but I didn't understand it, that part where he'd do a little dance, shine the client's shoes with fresh donkey-dung, inhale and sigh, pull a silk cord and have an anvil land on his head, waddle forward, de-accordionate himself, bow, and take a money shower.