Spartina (43 page)

“Is that right?” Dick said. “Just a dull good girl—no more to it than that?”

“Of course there’s more to it than that,” she said agreeably.

“Then don’t exaggerate,” Dick said. “Don’t swing back and forth so hard.”

“Okay, chief. Whatever you say.”

She was now as tucked in as a tern on the water, rising and falling with the waves that pillowed her.

“Just a good Girl Scout,” he said, trying to keep his distance. He couldn’t resist her when she settled down.

“Uh huh.”

He said, “You aren’t sick or anything, are you? Mornings?”

“No, I’ve been fine. I guess I’m lucky.”

She held her hand out for him to help her up. After she got to her feet she shifted her weight and sagged a little. She held on to his arm and bent over at the waist, let her head hang down. After a moment she stood up straight. “Just a dizzy spell,” she said.

“You want to sit down again?”

“No, I’m fine.” She kept her hand on his arm.

“You want a drink of water?”

“No. I’m fine, really.”

He looked over at the yard. He saw some of the visors of the workers’ caps point toward Elsie and him.

“I know you from years ago,” he said. “Coming through this very yard here. I know what you’re like now. I think you’re as good as Mary Scanlon or Miss Perry. Of course you’re your own wild bird too.”

He felt her draw back. Was she on guard against him, against his saying his feelings? Or maybe she was, you know,
pained
he wasn’t saying it just right.… To hell with that. Then he thought she might be afraid he was setting her up for a final word. But at last he couldn’t see any way to go but dead ahead. He said, “The thing is, there’s a lot that feels … incomplete. I don’t mean the physical side.…”

“It’d be hard to call that incomplete,” Elsie said. “I mean, taking the point of view of the egg.”

“Stop fooling around for one goddamn minute.” He looked at the yard. The crew had got back to work. “But in a way that kind of answers something I was wondering about. Which is, I used to wonder if we could’ve just got to know each other. Like Mary Scanlon and me.”

“Just a couple of good scouts?” Elsie said. “Or is class prickliness the problem? Or do you wish I’d have let you go on being the wholesome boy you were?”

“No.” He was going to tell her to shut up, but she became still. He said again, “No. I’m talking about something else. I like Mary a lot, but if I don’t see her for a while it’s okay. Forget Mary. What’s hard to see is how to keep seeing you, that part of you I got to know
besides.
The part that’s like getting echoes.”

She didn’t say anything. He wanted to say more, but he couldn’t. He turned to see if she was going to say something, but she’d turned away. He had no idea. He’d just as much as said he could read her mind, and now he couldn’t tell a thing she was thinking.

At last he said, “Okay. I guess all that doesn’t cut one way or the other. It doesn’t let us out of trouble.”

She turned back to him, her face drawn down. She shook her head. “No. Still in trouble. I’d better take the dinghy back.”

Maybe he’d been wrong when he’d been grandly picturing the way she felt for the natural order of things. Maybe she was way ahead of him, thought he was a fool when he talked about echoes, thought he was whining when he talked about trouble. She was the one used to not living in her everyday bones, used to flying above the rules. He wouldn’t wish them on her—Get some rules, Elsie. Get back in your everyday bones.

He said, “Yeah. I got to get back to work too.”

He took her hand to help her into the dinghy. She cast off but
floated nearby for a bit, just holding the oars in the water. She said, “I meant to make it easier. Just tell you I was all set. About my job.” She slid the blades out of the water. “Will you be able to come see me?” She took one little stroke. “Mary and me. Maybe you could come see Mary and me.”

He had the rest of the afternoon to let it sink in. No matter what he said or how he said it, no matter if she misunderstood him or understood him, he wasn’t going to make anything better for her.

D
ick went out on
Spartina
two days later. Even with Eddie and Charlie helping, it took longer to get her ready than he’d planned for. Dick took Charlie along. He also got Keith college-boy, since Parker wasn’t taking him south just yet.

It was clear breezy weather, not too choppy to spot the buoys, though a little tricky to haul the trawls. As he feared, he’d lost a lot of complete trawls to the hurricane. No buoys to be seen anywhere near where he’d left them. The pots were down there somewhere, probably with lobster in them, and trash fish. Little aquariums of starving creatures at the bottom of the sea.

He brought as many of his extra pots as
Spartina
could carry below and on deck, but it wasn’t near enough to fill in the blanks. Even when he found a buoy and hauled the trawl, there were a few pots stove in, or missing where they’d snapped the gangion.

But all in all it wasn’t the worst he’d feared. The good news came
when he got back to port and sold his lobster. The price was way up, higher than it had ever been. Lobster were scarce—everybody was missing pots, and half the offshore lobstermen were fixing their boats, if they still had boats to fix.

Dick wanted a quick turnaround. He had to let Charlie off to go back to school, which had finally opened two weeks late. Dick sent word with Keith to ask Parker if he’d care to come along while he was waiting for his insurance money.
Mamzelle
was a total loss. Dick took over her berth near the Co-op. Parker said yes, but a few hours before
Spartina
was to leave, Parker showed up on the dockside with a very small Vietnamese man.

“I got some business to tend to,” Parker said, “but this fellow’s willing to work for a half-share. Save you some money.”

Dick said, “Just how green is he?”

The Vietnamese man spoke up. Dick didn’t understand him, thought he was speaking Vietnamese. The man repeated himself. Dick understood that the man was trying to introduce himself. Dick looked him in the face. The man said his name a third time. Something something Tran. Tran something something. Dick liked that the man said it just as slow and patiently the third time. Dick said, “I’m Dick Pierce.” Tran’s hand moved at his side and Dick stuck out his hand. Tran’s hand was as small as Elsie’s. “Well, look, Tran. You understand English?”

Tran said, “Yes, sir.”

“You been on boats?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know what a winch is?”

Tran pointed to the winch.

“You know what a self-tailing winch is?”

Tran shook his head, said, “No, sir.”

Parker said, “He knows all kinds of stuff, he just don’t know the names.”

Tran said, “Yes, sir.”

Dick said, “So how am I going to tell him what to do?”

“I can learn the names, sir.”

Dick said, “Parker, what’s the deal here? You got something going?”

Parker took Dick to the wheelhouse.

It turned out Parker had set up a lobster-pot factory near Westerly. He employed all of Tran’s family. Parker had rented a truck, and was selling pots from Wickford to Westerly as fast as his Vietnamese assembly line could turn them out. The family wanted one member to get work on a lobster boat. Maybe just to see how the pots actually worked.

Dick said, “What are you paying these guys?”

Parker smiled. “It’s piecework. They’re still paying me off for the tools and material, so I ain’t paid them nothing yet. I gave them a loan to get through the month. And I’m getting a job for their boy here. Look. Give him a try. The boy don’t work out, send him back. I done you plenty of favors, think of all them pots you’re hauling.”

“Half of them busted loose.”

“And you figure that half must be mine.”

Dick didn’t want to have any more deals with Parker. He could go to the Neptune that very evening, pick up a good hand from a broken boat.

But there was something about the little guy he liked. Dick said, “I could use some pots.”

Parker said, “I’ll sell you a hundred at two bucks over my cost. You can’t get them cheaper.”

“That’s just a couple, three trawls. I got to take that many each time I go out.”

“Okay, I’ll sell you a hundred and fifty. When you come in, we’ll see what else I got on hand for you. I got this family going six days
a week. We’ll make some for you this Sunday. I figure for the next month we won’t be able to keep up with demand. All these skippers are fixing their boats, no time to make pots. They’re itching to get out while lobster are sky-high. You ought to be glad you know me well enough so I’ll sell to you on credit. Everybody else is paying cash, and everybody else is happy.”

Dick said, “You put them hundred and fifty pots on board by tonight, I’ll take your boy half-share.”

Tran turned out to be quick with his neat little hands. First haul he emptied and rebaited pots almost as fast as Keith. Next haul he was just as quick. He had good eyes, could spot a buoy between swells at a fair distance. Dick let him take the wheel some. The kid had a feel for it.

He picked up the names for things, a lot of them on the way out. Keith was a better teacher than Dick, and could understand what Tran was saying. And Tran understood what Keith said. Dick had to say everything twice. Dick gave Keith credit, though he still didn’t like him. Dick did like Tran.

Some cold weather moved in, and the little bugger nearly froze. He hadn’t brought but one change of clothes, and the warmest thing he had was his denim jacket. Dick suited him up in old foul-weather gear, rolled up at the cuffs three times. If he kept Tran on into the really cold weather, he’d have to buy him a survival suit. He wondered if the Co-op had one small enough.

Dick had enough pots set to stay out seven days. He sent word through the Co-op to May and Parker that
Spartina
was coming in. Parker met them at the dock in his huge rented truck. Parker would only sell him another fifty pots. Dick looked at the stacks of pots still on the truck. Parker said, “Those are already bought at a price you wouldn’t want to pay.”

Parker came into the wheelhouse while Keith and Tran unloaded the lobster and stacked the fifty new pots on board.

“How’d my boy work out?”

“Another couple times out, hell do.”

“His brother’s a good boy too. Hard worker.”

“Not on my boat.”

“I’m taking Keith south pretty soon.”

“Fine with me—I need someone with a little more time in. What is this, anyway? Your conscience bothering you about your Vietnamese? Another two months it’ll be winter, a lot of folks’ll have time to make their own pots—you explain that to them?”

“I’ll tell you, Dick, they’re real bright people, real bright—but they can only take in so much at a time. I’m not their employer, you understand. I just set them up. I rented an old barn, sublet it to them. They sleep in the loft, work down below. Their house is gone, they were living at a Catholic church, crammed in with a lot of other folks. Bunch of old Army cots where they used to run the bingo game. They looked a little aimless there. I’m giving a little focus to their energy, is all I’m doing.”

Parker poured himself a mug of coffee. He glanced at the picture on the thermos. “They changed the White Rock girl again. I remember when the White Rock girl and
National Geographic
and Venus de Milo colored-pencil sets was the only place you could see bare tit. Nowadays …”

Dick found he was furious. Repelled by Parker. At the same time he kept on liking him, kept on knowing that Parker liked him. Parker had told him all along—Parker was a player. What that meant was that Parker could cheerfully cut Dick out of five thousand dollars and keep on liking him. It was a game, nothing more than playing cards. Parker obeyed his own golden rule. He did unto others as he figured they’d do unto him. And he kept on feeling friendly. Feeling just as friendly as when he was doing a
favor—taking Dick to see an alligator, swinging the fancy yacht in toward shore so Dick could see pelicans. Parker had no idea that turning on the intercom while he was fooling around with his English girl was anything but a joke. And screwing Schuyler’s wife.

Dick shook his head. “You’ll do anything, you get the chance.”

Parker looked up. “You still want to argue about those Vietnamese? You feel so bad, you pay Tran a full share. As far as I’m concerned, I’m doing the same by them as any businessman would. The only difference between me and a bank—and you know what banks’re like—is I don’t hide behind rules and middlemen. It’s just me. I’m doing it right out front, and in this particular case I’m doing more than a bank would do. And a hell of a lot faster. But maybe it’s not the Vietnamese. Maybe you’re still smarting over your five thousand, now you lost some pots. You think I went out and busted the pots I gave you?”

“No,” Dick said, “I’m not griping about the pots. I’m not griping at all. I hope you get all your insurance money for your sunk boat, and I hope you get your fancy new boat. I’m just seeing what runs you. You could no more keep from working a deal than you could keep from eating. And I got to say, you do keep busy. A nibble here, a nibble there.”