Farewell, Starsailor

In February, 1976, Judy told me a very touching story on the telephone. She said she and her son, Taylor, Tim's conga player, Carter Collins, Tim's mother, Elaine, and a friend named Wess Young were sitting in her living room, trying to decide what to do with Tim's ashes. . .

"I own a pleasure yacht," said Carter. "Maybe we could take him out to sea in that."

"I own one too!" Wess joined in. "Why don't we invite Tim's friends, and hop on both yachts and throw a party?"

"Sounds terrific. We could sail out and have a ceremony and scatter his ashes. You know — bury him at sea."

"Tim hated those kinda boats," Taylor said.

All heads turned toward the blonde-haired boy who, until then, had not spoken. He was only 11 or 12, but he had come to love his adoptive father, Tim, as much as he had once loved his deceased natural father, Darrell. Now both were dead.

"The only boat Tim ever sailed in was the little dingy him and Wess and me used to ride the waves in, sometimes at night. That was the only time he ever had fun in a boat. He hated yachts. I'll take him out myself."

Elaine and Carter turned to Judy, "You're not actually considering letting Taylor do that, are you?"

Judy raised one eyebrow and smiled, elegantly exhaling cigarette smoke. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe."

"And what about us? Aren't Tim's loved ones and closest friends to be included? Maybe you should be a little more considerate. We'd like to share this last ritual, too, you know."

"Tim would never have wanted that," Taylor insisted. "No way he would have wanted a big circus-production, everybody partying and hauling him out to sea on a yacht. I'll take him out in the dingy myself. Just me and Wes."

"That's illegal."

"I don't care."

"The Coast Guard will arrest you."

"I don't care."


The sun slipped below the horizon, casting a yellow-orange tapestry across the sky. Wess and Taylor's dingy bobbed on the ocean, a tiny black speck rising and falling on the swells.

With tears in his eyes, Taylor scattered Tim's ashes slowly across the waters, then set the urn back in its container. He raised the signal flag and waved it so his mother back on shore could see it.

The ocean sighed.