A New Song (36 page)

He denied to himself that he had to urinate, as doing that would require going through the cabin where this thing first snared and suffocated him. He wouldn’t go back in that cabin if they tried to drag him in with a team of mules.

Occasionally, a kind soul visited his chair and stood for a moment in silent commiseration.

“Sorry, Tim.”

“You’re going to make it, buddy.”

Even the captain came down from the bridge and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Hang in there, Father.” Their concern was a comfort, he had to admit, though he was hard-pressed to get over the humiliation he felt.

At one point, someone assured him he wasn’t going to die, which he found altogether lacking in comfort, since he didn’t much care either way.

“Did you hear about th’ guy got dragged off th’ boat reelin’ in a marlin?”

“No way.”

“It was in th’ paper, said th’ marlin was four hundred pounds, said it pulled th’ guy over th’ stern.”

“He would’ve been sucked into th’ backwash.”

“Wadn’t. Somebody went in after ’im, saved ’im. But that’s not th’ half of it. He got th’ marlin.”

“Bull. That never happened in this lifetime.”

“I’m tellin’ you it’s th’ truth, it was in th’ paper.”

“I’ve heard of fish takin’ first mates over,” said Pete.

“There is no way I want to listen to this mess,” said Madge.

He was shocked to find himself kneeling at the rail again, with no power over this thing, none at all. He felt completely out of control, which frightened him utterly; he might have been a piece of bait himself, without will or reason to alter his circumstances.

“Number five,” somebody said. “That’s th’ fifth time.”

“Seven. He heaved over th’ bridge rail twice.”

“You ready to eat? I’m half starved.”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about what I made last night. Tuna salad. On French bread! Oh, and there’s late tomatoes out of my neighbor’s garden. Delicious!” said Madge. “I’ll cut ’em up so we can all have a bite.”

“Tuna out of a
can
?” asked Otis. “That’d be sacrilegious.”

“Are we goin’ to just leave ’im out here?” wondered Sybil.

“Father?
Father!
”

Why did people think the sick automatically went deaf?

What?
He couldn’t say it audibly, so he thought it, which should be sufficient.

“Do you want to go inside?”

“Don’t take him inside,” said the first mate. “You lose th’ horizon when you do that. That’s usually what makes people seasick, is losin’ th’ horizon.”

“But he’s been sittin’ out here since it quit rainin’. I think we should at least put sunscreen on his arms. Look at his arms.”

He felt several people pawing over him, and tried to express his gratitude.

“Lookit. He doesn’t have socks on. Rub some on his ankles.”

“Th’ back of his neck,” said Ernie. “That’s a real tender place, slather some on there.”

“He’s an
awful
color,” said Madge.

He realized he should have been more specific in his will; now it was too late to say that he did
not
want an open casket.

 

He slept, or thought he might be sleeping. Perhaps he’d slipped into a state of unconsciousness, his mind vacant as a hollow gourd. If there was anything he distrusted, it was an empty mind. He forced himself to open his eyes and saw only glare, a shining that moved and heaved and shuddered and danced and tried to force entry to his stomach. In truth, he’d never been especially aware of his stomach. When it was empty, he put something in it; when it was full, he was happy. Now he felt it as a raw and flaccid thing that swung in him like a sheep’s bladder with every swell that tossed the boat.

He wanted his wife. Lacking that consolation, he pulled his jacket around him and squeezed his eyes shut and dreamed a dream as vacant as mist.

 

Thank God! He might actually be feeling better.

His eyes seemed clear, some strength was returning; but he didn’t want to count his chickens, no, indeed. He rubbed Chap Stick on his lips and hunkered down under Otis’s hat, wondering about his sugar, which must have dropped straight to the floor of the Gulf Stream. He wished he’d brought his tachometer . . . no, that wasn’t it. What was it, anyway? Could he possibly have suffered brain damage from this terrible assault?
Glu
cometer, that’s what it was.

Weak . . . terribly weak. He realized he was thinking of Ernie’s Snickers bars, iced down cold. A small flicker, a flame of hope rose in his breast.
Thank You, Lord. . . .

He looked out upon the restless water and saw other boats on the horizon—one there, two there, like family.

“We had the worst nest of yellow jackets in our church wall-l-l!” said Sybil.

“What’d y’all do about it?”

“Swatted ’em with our hymnals and bulletins.”

“Why didn’t you kill ’em?”

“They only flare up once a year, late April or May, and only on th’ side where hardly anybody sits, anyway.”

“Yesterday a hero, today a zero,” muttered Pete, hauling up bait that looked like a glorified Christmas tree.

Father Tim waved his hand to Ernie, who came over and squatted by the chair.

“What can I do for you, buddy?”

“Snickers,” he said, hoarse as a bullfrog.

“Snickers?”

He nodded, feeble but encouraged.

 

“We got us one!” yelled Ernie. “Otis! Where’s Otis?”

“In th’ head. You take it!”

Father Tim had heard of total pandemonium, but he’d never seen it ’til now. Six people erupted into a full horde, and swarmed around him like the armies of Solomon.

“We got a fish here! Yee-hah!”

“Got another one right here. Take it, Madge!”

He looked at the throbbing lines crisscrossed over and around the stern like freeways through L.A.

“That’s a keeper!” Pete gaffed something and pulled it in.

“Way to go, Roger!”

He saw the rainbow of color that shimmered on the big fish as it went into the box, where it thrashed like a horse kicking a stall. Pete pulled out the gaff and hosed blood from the deck.

The captain was fishing off the bridge; everybody was fishing. He heaved himself from the chair, out of the fray, and huddled against the cabin.

In the fighting chair, Madge was crouched into the labor of hauling in something big.

Otis had his thumb on her line, helping her raise and lower the rod. “You got to pump ’im, now,” he said, clenching his cigar in his teeth.

“Oh, law! This must be an eighteen-wheeler I’ve got on here!”

“Keep crankin’!”

Captain Willie called over the speaker, “Please tend to the left-hand corner, Pete, tend to the left-hand corner, we got a mess over there.”

“A fishin’ frenzy,” muttered Pete, streaking by in a blur.

Madge cranked the reel, blowing like a prizefighter. “This fish is killin’ me. Somebody come and take this bloomin’ rod!”

“Don’t quit!” yelled Sybil, aiming a point-and-shoot at the action. “Keep goin’, Chuck would be proud!”

“That ain’t nothin’ but solid tuna,” said Otis. He helped Madge lift the rod as the fish drew closer to the boat.

Father Tim rubberlegged it to the stern and looked over. The black water of the morning had changed to blue-green, and the fish moved beneath the aqua surface, luminous and quick.

He thought it one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen.

“Here it comes!”

He stepped back as Pete darted to the right of the fighting chair, lowered the gaff, and hauled the tuna onto the deck.

“Way to go, Madge!”

“Beautiful!
Beautiful!
”

Whistles, cheers, applause.

“That’ll weigh in seventy, seventy-five pounds,” Otis said, as Madge staggered out of the chair, grinning into Sybil’s camera.

The captain was catching fish, Ernie was catching fish, Roger was catching fish.

“Got a fish on th’ line!” yelled Pete. “Who’ll take it?”

“I’ll take it!” As Father Tim thumped into the fighting chair, hoots of encouragement went up from the entire assembly.

He was back from the dead, he was among the living, he was ready to do this thing.

 

“How was it, darling?”

“Terrific!” he said, kissing her. “Wonderful fellowship,
great
fellowship—fellows in a ship, get it?”

“Got it. And the weather?”

He shrugged. “A little rough, but not too bad.”

“What’s for supper?” she asked, eyeing the cooler he was lugging.

“Yellowfin tuna and dolphin! Let’s fire up the grill,” he said, trotting down the hall, “and I’ll tell you all about it!” By the time he hit the kitchen, he was whistling.

She hurried after her husband, feeling pleased. He’d come home looking considerably thinner, definitely tanner, and clearly more relaxed. She’d known all along that buying him a chair with Captain Willie was a brilliant idea.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Turn around a minute and don’t look,” Roger said.

Father Tim turned and faced the book room, where Elmo sat on the windowsill, licking his paws after a meal of thawed finger mullet.

“OK, you can look now.”

Roger had positioned the carved head on the body of the green-winged teal; the duck was gazing at him in a way he found positively soulful.

“Aha,” he whispered.

“I set the eyes a while back and forgot to show you.”

“It’ll be as close to th’ real thing as you’ll ever see in this life!” Ernie Fulcher was grinning as if he were personally responsible for the whole deal. “Fact is, you can compare it to th’ real thing right now, if you want to. We got one we keep in th’ freezer for when he needs somethin’ to go by.”

“That’s OK,” said Father Tim, not eager to see a dead duck in a Ziploc bag.

“Until I set the eyes,” said Roger, “it didn’t have any character at all, there was no personality. The eyes lying on the worktable are nothing, but set them in place and this piece of wood becomes a duck.”

“Amazing! Just amazing.”

“I’ve got to burn all the feathers, now they’ve been chiseled, then I’ll gesso everything and start to paint. See these speculum feathers on the wing? They’ll be green, and the under-tail coverts here, they’ll be a champagne color.”

Roger passed his handiwork to Father Tim, who took it, feeling oddly reverent.

Though he didn’t know why, and he certainly didn’t know how . . . this was his duck.

 

He was getting ready to leave when Junior Bryson came in, looking as if he’d lost his last friend.

Lucas’s tail thumped the floor in greeting.

“I done it,” Junior said.

“Done what?” asked Ernie.

“Talked to Ava’s daddy.”

“Come and sit down,” said Ernie, pulling out a chair. “You want a Pepsi, have a Pepsi! Or get you a root beer.”

Junior shook his head at Ernie’s offer and thumped down at the table, looking, thought Father Tim, considerably pale around the gills. He changed his mind about leaving and sat down with Junior.

Roger placed the duck in its carry-box.

Roanoke lit a Marlboro.

Silence.

“Well?”
said Ernie.

Junior sighed. “Well, I finally worked up th’ nerve to call ’er daddy, so I got th’ phone book that has Swanquarter, and found a Goodnight listed in it.”

“Smart!” said Ernie.

“It wadn’t too smart,” said Junior. “I was thinkin’ her daddy’s name would be Goodnight, but then, when th’ phone started ringin’, it hit me that Goodnight was prob’ly her married name an’ she might answer th’ phone.”

“Right!” said Ernie, hoping for the best.

“I was about to hang up, when a man answered. That kind of th’owed me. I thought it might be, like, you know, a boyfriend. But it was her daddy, Mr. Taylor. He lives at Ava’s.”

Roanoke blew a smoke ring. Lucas’s yawn sounded like a squeak from a door hinge.

“Well, I’d practiced what I wanted to say, but when he answered, I forgot everything.”

“Right,” said Ernie. “It usually works that way.”

“So, anyhow, I said, ‘This is Junior Bryson from over at Whitecap, Ava might of mentioned me.’ ”

“That was a good start.”

“He said, ‘Are you th’ fella plays Scrabble and fishes?’ ” Junior’s face brightened momentarily. “I said, ‘Yessir.’ He said, I like a fella says yessir, most people’ve forgot about sayin’ yessir.’ ”

“And what’d you say?”

“I said ‘Yessir, you’re right about that.’ ”

“Common ground!” exclaimed Ernie. Roger and Father Tim nodded their agreement.

“So I said I was hopin’ Ava might go out with me, I do Sound an’ ocean fishin’ both, an’ have a little boat I take crabbin’ an’ all, I could offer her a variety of fishin’ options.”