The Plover: A Novel (19 page)

Nah.

You serious?

Yup.

We just spent
weeks
at sea, and you are not going to even set foot on this island.

Correct.

What’s the matter with you?

Nothing’s the matter with me, man. Just not leaving the boat. Calm down.

What
is your problem? says Piko, and for once he is angry; he is
never
angry and in the way of guys who never get angry, when he gets angry he is slightly too angry. What are you running away from? Why don’t you want to land? Are you going to live on a little stinking boat the rest of your life?
What
is your problem?

Little
boat? says Declan, trying to cut the moment. Stinking? Don’t call my boat little. This is a fecking cabin cruiser. This boat is almost thirty feet long. This boat is an island, man.

This is chickenshit, Dec, says Piko.

Long pause.

Who are you to talk? says Declan, real quiet; dangerous quiet. Who are you to bark at me? Who ran away from home to throw fecking firesticks? What are you, ten years old? Everything is going to be better in the fecking swaying fecking palms of the tropics?

I left because Elly died and everything was finished, you dumb fuck.

So did I, you stupid ass.

They stare at each other, furious.

What’s to go home for? says Declan. What home? And what’s to land for? Where the hell would I live? What would I do? This is what I
do,
you stupid ass. I run a boat. At least you
had
a home where someone loved you and you loved them. I
know
you loved Elly. I know it hurt when she died. I am not a fecking idiot. I know it hurts, what happened to Pipa. But get a fecking grip, man. You
can
go home. You
have
a home. You can go back and get a job and have fecking neighbors and a fecking mortgage. At least you
have
a daughter. What would
I
go home for? What home? What fecking job would I do? I fish. I have a boat. This
is
home. I live here. You don’t want to be here, don’t be. Fecking run away like you did from your life. Jerk.

Piko comes real close and sticks his nose about half an inch from Declan’s nose and says real quiet, fuck you, Declan O Donnell. You don’t know what you are talking about. You never got married. You never had a kid. I am playing in the big leagues. My wife wasted away and died and I live in that hole every day. My baby girl got smashed and she’ll never come back and I live in that hole every day. Fuck you. Don’t talk to me about what you don’t know a fucking thing about. Stick to talking about fish. You know fish all right. Don’t talk to
me
about running away.
Your
wife dies,
your
kid’s crippled,
then
you talk to me.

Declan shifts his right shoulder and Piko tenses his whole body like the string on a bow.

Listen, man, says Declan even quieter than before. You wanted a ride. I gave you a ride. You are my brother and I love the pip. But don’t give me shit, Piko. Don’t do it. You want a ride, you need a place to stay, there’s bunks for you anytime. But do not, do
not,
give me shit. I got enough shit already to last me a lifetime. I got twenty years of shit at home. I am not taking shit from anyone again, ever. This is where I live and how I live and it’s not up for debate. Get it?

Pause. Boat creaking. Taromauri and Pipa just visible at the far end of the beach, a big dot carrying a little dot with terns whirling all around like snowflakes in summer.

Fuck you, Dec, says Piko just as quiet as Declan. We’ll find somewhere else to go. Fuck you. You don’t want to talk about real things, fine. You want to be alone on your boat, fine. Thanks for the ride. That was real generous and we are very grateful. We’ll get our gear off before sunset. Thanks for the ride. If Pipa could talk she would say thank you too.

*   *   *

That night Declan pays a kid strolling by the boat to go get him a bottle of whiskey and he gets so drunk he slips in the stern and sprawls in the slosh. The starry heaven. That’s old Ed Burke. Éamon de Búrca. Never used his Irish name. Poor old Ed. Two sons died. Never a penny. The story of the race. The sea of sons. The silent She. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling something something the shilent sea. The thtarry thee. Scuttled o yes scuttled. Piko not coming back. Pipa not coming back. Taro not coming back.
Declan
came back. Good old Declan! God gold Declan! Declan O Lonely. Captain of nothing. I have to pee like a horse. One hand for me and one for the boat. Oldest adage on the She. Up we go, captain! One for the boat and one for the dolt. Oldest adage on the She. Ahoy, mate! Present yourself, Mr. Johnson! Avast your waving and man the pumps! Sure yes sir! Bless my soul that is the single greatest feeling o my God in the history of feelings. No fecking novels about
that,
are there? Back to quarters, Mr. Johnson! Sir yes sure! One hand for the skipper and one for the zipper! Sir yes sir! Permission to stand on the cabin roof and imitate the gull who used to be there, captain! Permission granted, sir! Gull not coming back either. Must be a dull gull, sir! Pooped on the poop deck, sir! This makes Declan laugh so hard he loses his balance and he lurches and shoots out a hand for the mast but misses it and falls to port and smashes his arm on the railing as he falls and then he crashes into the water, the stabbing pain in his arm so immediate and huge he opens his mouth to scream and the Pacific Ocean, which has been waiting patiently for many years for exactly this chance, rushes into his mouth as fast as it can go.

VI

4° NORTH, 160° WEST

THE TWO YOUNG ISLAND RATS
,
kiore,
and the tiny warbler,
bokikokiko,
had long ago come to an understanding, a tenuous peace, something like a truce on the boat; one of the rats had made a gesture toward attacking and eating the crippled warbler, but the warbler had bristled and cocked its one good wing like a grim fist, and the other rat had intervened to calm things down, and an arrangement had been negotiated whereby the rats were masters of the lower reaches and the warbler master of the deck, ruling from her headquarters under the water tank; all three were respectful but wary of the gull, and generally leery of the human beings, especially the smallest one, who knew everything about them although she did not move on her own but was carried about by the other three. It was the warbler who saw the
kai,
or trees, as she called the human beings, in their most active modes, working the boat, fishing, talking, laughing; the rats, on the other hand, saw the human beings active only when they were cooking in the tiny galley kitchen; inasmuch as the human beings came below only to sleep or shelter in their bunks from wild weather, the rats had concluded that they were a generally somnolent and nocturnal species, and, for all their epic size, probably harmless. But they too felt the thorough attention and curiosity of the smallest of the human beings, the one who was carried around by the others; no matter where you hid on the boat, no matter how far
that
one’s body was from your body, as one of the rats noted to the warbler,
that
one sees you.

*   *   *

Declan falling down and down and dark and down.

Well, you useless rat bastard, I see you’ve come to your sorry end at last, says his father.

Declan is so shocked to hear his dead father’s voice in his ear that he opens his mouth wider and more of the ocean roars in snarling.

Poor boy, says his dead mother. Close your mouth and stand up straight. You look like a trout. God alone knows what to do with that hair. You’ll never be handsome but you are a clever boy and if you work hard you’ll get by somehow.

Drowning while drunk, says his father. What a surprise. What a shock. Fecking sorry bastard. His sister is a better man than he is.

You’re too hard on that boy, says his mother. You drench that boy in your own bile.

He’s a useless flop of a child and he’ll end up a rudderless drunk, says his father.

Because you are a failure he has to be one also? says his mother, grim and cold.

You’re an icy bitch, says his father, and he steps toward her suddenly but Declan jumps up faster and closes his mouth and swings as hard as he can at his father’s bony white face and his hand slams against the rudder and he hauls himself desperately up and his head breaks the surface and he retches and coughs and hauls in air and retches and sobs and coughs for longer than he can later remember. After a while he tries to grab the rudder with both hands but his left arm screams and refuses to answer the bell. Some parts of him are screaming and raging but the seagoing parts are calm and patient. As long as he is touching the boat all will be well.
Misneach.
Find the anchor cable, first of all. How deep is the moorage? Not so deep. It’s a sandy bottom. Stay with the boat.
Misneach.
No passion so effectually robs the mind as fear: Burke. The water is warm. There are no sharks in the lagoon. With two arms he could haul himself up on the stern step and so reach the railing from which hung Taromauri’s tent; but with one arm dead he could only wait, or swim to shore. Probably the arm is broken, which means shock and loss of blood. Which means try for shore now while you have the gas. Jesus. Drowning while drunk. Misdemeanor. Misneachdemeanor. It’s not like there’s a choice. Swim. Jesus blessed Christmas. But just as he lets go of the anchor cable a hand grabs his collar and he sees Piko’s rope beard swaying silvery in the dark and hears a voice say
my turn, man
.

*   *   *

The feck are you doing here, says Declan, after Piko hauls him in over the stern and examines his arm and splints it and wraps it tight in duct tape. Thought you were gone, man.

Felt bad about abandoning ship.
Misneach
. Can you walk, you think?

Yeh. Not drunk anymore.

You got drunk? Tonight?

Yeh.

Jesus.

Yeh.

Piss-poor idea, that.

Yeh.

You swore you wouldn’t touch a drop the rest of your life.

Yeh.

So why did you get drunk?

Because I did.

What the hell does that mean?

I’m a drunk, man. Why do drunks get drunk? Because they can.

We have to get that bone set right or you’re screwed.

Yeh.

On the beach Declan staggers a little but he’s not drunk anymore, he’s stone sober. The trees are like bones all pale and jagged. He can hear a dog whining in the woods. The shadows have weight and teeth. He can hear dreams and whispers. He staggers again; the land has a different tilt and tide than the sea. He can hear the seethe and hunger of what lives on the land; it snaps and quivers in the wind; everything clamors in the razored air; nothing is muted by the merciful and murderous waters, nothing damped, shrouded, muzzled; on the land there is a blizzard of noise, pulsings and moanings, barking and groaning, coughing and gulping, growling and praying, thickets of sound, a wilderness of music so dense and loud that Declan staggers again; he felt like his feet were plowing through snow he couldn’t see, an avalanche of noise he never heard afloat; at sea, he thought distractedly, all I hear is the sea. Then they were in a small tin building where a balding man with spectacles missing one lens silently unwrapped his arm, examined the break, wrenched and snapped the bone ends into place again, and rewrapped the arm. Take this pill now and tomorrow take that pill, he said. Come back in three days and let me see your arm. Pay me whatever you can. Sleep on your right side. Avoid saltwater. Do not drink alcohol. Alcohol is the demon child of the east wind. Try to face west whenever possible in the next three days. Drink as much freshwater as you can hold. Note the first bird you hear or see every morning for the next three days and report them to me when you return. Remember to face west and drink as much water as you can hold. Questions? No? Good. Pay me whatever you can whenever you can. That is the way of things here. Questions? No? Good.

*   *   *

The burned man is sitting up in his bed in the clinic. He is more bright pink than black now, most of his former skin having peeled away and fallen to the floor like shreds of bark.

I feel like I am in a tighter suit, he says to the tall thin nurse. I feel like I have been poured into a new and smaller vessel. This is refreshatory but also uncomfortable. I think I am slightly too fat for this skin.

How did you come to be on the raft?

I believe I was placed there by unfriendly forces.

Pardon me?

Various contingents on the island where I used to live were uncomfortable with the direction in which I wished to suggest we as a society should proceed, and I was ejected.

Assaulted? Beaten?

Not that I remember.

Pardon?

I remember walking down the street and the next thing I knew I was on the raft.

You were kidnapped?

Kidnapped is a very interesting word, said the minister for fisheries and marine resources and foreign affairs. Meaning not at all what you would think it would mean. It sounds innocuous and even pleasant, a kid taking a nap, but no. I would say in my case that it’s more that I was bundled off stage, in a manner of speeching. Perhaps exile is a more accurate term, considering that my return is unwelcome. I would imagine that physical violence awaits, and following that, my demise, although my demisery would be a criminal act, of course, with possible repercussions.