Ahoi listeners and welcome aboard selected shorts too hot for radio.

The show on which we deliver lightly perverted and or provocative short stories that might be too much for the public radio audience.

Although, you just never know.

Maybe fusty landlubbers who stay ashore in the safe harbor of the live airwaves just might have their eyes open by a short voyage on the SS

Smudderati. And Hotheads, maybe my nautical references sound less than subtle and more like one of those really

loud, overbearing whistles that boatswains use on boats. If so, you have seen right through

my transparent motif and you sense correctly that today's story takes us on a great sea journey.

It is part Fire Island Fantasia, part

melancholy rom-com, part biblical epic. It's fun, funny, sad, and playfully apocalyptic.

And before we go any further, no, I do not know what a boat swain is. Neither do you, except for Dave.

Of course, freaking Dave knows. Every trivia night, Dave is a guy who goes on about how

y'ar his 10-speed bike is, but I'll be damned if Dave isn't a lifesaver when attempting to calculate

distance in nautical miles.

Also, know some weird stuff about President Truman.

Boatswains, though.

They were important maritime figures at some point.

Important enough, they needed loud whistles to get everyone's attention.

This story, though, needs no further touting.

It's by Rachel B. Glazer. She is a poet,

novelist, and short story writer whose titles include Pea on Water and Paulina and Fran.

Her stories move along clearly and cleverly, though they always have a playful poetic touch, too.

Reading the story is Jeff Hiller.

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