Captain Clam Defies Hurricane Andrew



Captain A.P. Clam

For a number of years, I lived in South Miami, Florida. My sailing and diving buddy down there was a rogue I’m going to call Captain A. P. Clam. I’m granting him a pseudonym because he frequently exhibited a rather relaxed attitude toward laws he deemed inconvenient.

Captain Clam claimed to be a reincarnation of the comedian W. C. Fields*. He spoke like Fields and possessed many of the actor’s mannerisms. He also had a rather casual regard for the property of others and, as this story will demonstrate, a somewhat cavalier attitude toward his own as well.

As an example, on one occasion we were whipping down a street in a wealthy part of the suburb of Coconut Grove in Clam’s MG sports car. “You’re going too fast for this corner,” I remarked as we hurtled toward a ninety degree bend at around fifty miles per hour.

“Pipe down Lawson,” says Clam. “I know this road like the back of my hand.”

Well, I guess he hadn’t observed that particular appendage for some time because at that point we spun out, mounted the curb, sliced through a meticulously groomed hedge and ploughed our way onto a perfectly manicured lawn. A large, obviously expensive house, scowled at our intrusion.

“Good place to install a gate,” Clam offered casually as we drove out through the opening he’d created.

When Hurricane Andrew was approaching the east coast of Florida in 1993, I was living in Fort Lauderdale and Clam was in South Miami. I phoned him around two in the afternoon to enquire as to whether he’d prepared his house for the onslaught of the hurricane. In his typically haughty manner he replied, “Hurricane? What hurricane?”

“The one that’s approaching,” I reminded him patiently. I could tell by the tone of his voice that rum had been consumed.

“Let it come! Let it come!” Was his arrogant retort.

Well, it came all right, and with a vengeance.

Initially it was supposed to make landfall around Fort Lauderdale so I prepared for the worst. But its direction changed—perhaps due to the hot air Clam was exuding. The phone lines went down around six that evening so we lost communication. The next day I drove south to see how he’d fared.

Although I’d lived just around the corner from him for a number of years, such was the destruction and chaos that it took me over an hour to find his house. All the landmarks that I’d unconsciously used to navigate the area were gone. Huge ficus trees had been ripped out and lay around helter-skelter, blocking roads and perched atop crushed houses. There were no street signs. It was as if a bomb had flattened the whole area.

I eventually found Clam standing on his front lawn looking forlornly at the ruin of his house. The only undamaged part was a bedroom he’d added. A trail of garden implements led off to the west but there was no trace of the shed that had once housed them. While we walked the property he related the events of the previous evening and morning.

“All night the wind was screaming and rain was lashing down,” he told me. “Then, around two in the morning it went suddenly quiet and I went outside to see what was happening. Well, the rain had stopped and I could see stars in the sky. I could also see that the situation wasn’t going to remain peaceful for much longer—we were in the eye."

“I went back in the house and climbed into bed just before the storm returned. It seemed to peak around three in the morning at which time there was a loud crash. I climbed out of bed and went into the living room to see what had happened. Well, the first thing I noticed was that the roof of the main house was gone. It must have lifted like a lid and gone sailing off into the night. So I went back into the bedroom, closed the door and told Joan (Clam’s wife) the situation.”

“Oh my God! What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

“What do you want me to do, dear? Bridge the gap with my body? I’m getting back into bed if you don’t mind.”

That was typical Captain Clam.

*A. Pismire Clam was a name conjured up by W. C.