“Okay. Okay. Find my boots for me, will you?” He waves at me like I am a mosquito and stares at the ceiling. He is thinking. That is how Keith thinks.
I run around the house searching for his boots and find them under the coffee table. My stomach is queasy. I look for a Tums in my jeans pocket. There are two tablets left, covered with foil. I unwrap one quickly and pop it into my mouth.
“Keith! Hurry. Put these on!” I drop his boots and socks on the desk.
Keith pulls on his socks and smooths the wrinkles carefully with his hands. He sticks his feet into his boots and wriggles his toes. I can see him feel for each boot string, poke them through the holes, and one by one, slowly lace them up.
My hands are sweating and my heart thumps even louder. What if John comes back early? I am in so much trouble. Their house is a mess. I want Keith to hurry up.
“Hurry!” I cry.
And then I know. I know how other people must feel around me and I am ashamed. I chew my last Tums and swing my bag of clothes over my back. I walk out the door. Keith follows behind carrying a sack of bottles.
“Hey, Keith, isn’t that stealing?” I ask.
Keith pulls the door shut behind us with one hand.
“Nah. I’ll ask him next time he comes over to your place,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, and we drive home.
24
Gary and Keith are hard-talking. It is like they are fighting but not mad. Gary thinks everything will be fine and calls Keith cynical and overexcited. Keith’s pants slide down and show his crack and he paces around the small back office. There is only room for three steps each way. We are both supposed to be unpacking boxes. Instead, I hang just outside the door and eavesdrop. That is like being an auditor without permission.
“One, John is telling creditors and clients he expects to get cash soon and look at this!” Keith waves papers in Gary’s face. “He’s got four ex-wives screaming for money. What if he tries to get guardianship? What if he does any of that legal shit?”
“How can he do that? The courts would have to declare Perry incompetent and he’s obviously not.” Gary sits up.
“Gary, don’t be naive! They’re a bunch of lawyers! They’ll figure out a way!”
When they see me standing there they stop talking.
“Per, you’ve got to be careful around that family of yours!” Keith speaks slowly, but each word gets louder.
“Yeah, Per. He’s right. You’ve got to be careful,” Gary echoes.
“Okay,” I say but they do not look convinced.
“No, I mean it. You don’t even have to do what I say!” Keith is not making any sense.
“Okay,” I say again. It is better to agree. Keith does not understand. Sometimes it is a good idea to do what people say. Like if a building is on fire or the line at the grocery store is shut down. They put that little sign up that says CLOSED. And then you go over to another line. Like that. For times like those, a list does not matter.
Keith pulls a tiny stool over and sits down across from Gary. His bottom hangs over each side like a big W. I have never seen Keith so excited. Well, maybe last July, when those girls from the yacht jumped naked off their aft deck into the Sound in broad daylight.
“Broad daylight, Per! It was so cold they were practically blue!”
The Sound is never warm, plus it is dirty. Keith had to help drag them out. That made him happy.
“I get rock hard just thinking about it!” he will say. “Rock hard!” And then he will grin. He is not grinning now.
“Gary, we have to do something.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to my lawyer about bringing Per in as an investor. Maybe I’ll see if there’s something we can do to protect him from that family of his.” Gary squeezes his spray bottle into one nostril. He shuts his eyes and inhales.
“Oh boy!” I say, and bounce against the doorway.
“No promises, Per. We’ll run the numbers, and then see what the lawyer says,” Gary warns.
I hope the numbers will be good.
Keith leans back, farts, and falls off his stool.
25
Keith and I decide to take Friday afternoon off. It is cold even though the sky is blue. So cold it gets in your head and nose even with the sun out. We are on
Diamond Girl.
Boats are always girls. You call them
she
no matter what.
The sky is so bright I can see it in the water. I can also see huge sea anemones attached to the dock. They look like big white dinosaur flowers. They are really animals, Gramp told me. Keith turns the key and pushes a button to start his engine.
BROOOM! Brooom! Brooom! Brooom! Clunk. He tries again.
BROOOM! Brooom! Brooom! Brooom! Clunk. He says the F-word.
BROOOM! BROOOM! BROOOM! The engine starts. It sputters, pings, and sounds sick to me, but Keith laughs like he has just heard a good joke.
He tells me to toss him the aft lines. I know all about lines. I do not need to be told. I help boats into the fuel dock all the time. I love to sit on the bow of Keith’s boat. I stretch out on my stomach as we head out into the Sound past the spit. I see a seal.
“Hey, Keith, a seal!” I point.
“Harbor seal, Per, that’s a harbor seal.”
I knew it was a harbor seal, but I didn’t tell Keith that. I know the difference between sea lions and harbor seals. You can tell because one has earflaps and the other doesn’t. Of course, you have to look real close. I lean down and put my hand into the water. It is so cold it hurts.
The engine quits. CONK! Keith says the F-word again.
Diamond Girl
is a sloop, which means she only has one mast. She has two sails. The one in front is called a jib, or foresail. You can even call it a jenny. That is also a girl’s name. Keith looks like he wants to use the jib and starts to unwind the sail from the forestay.
“Why are you pulling the sheet? There’s no wind,” I say. Gramp made me call everything on a boat the correct name. A sheet is a piece of rope that is attached to a sail and not something on a bed. Keith pulling the sheet is not a great idea because I do not feel the wind anymore. The sail just hangs off the stay.
“Shit!” Keith cannot see to steer with the sail hanging down like that. “Fucking line!” Keith calls everything lines.
“Hey, Keith, I’ll get the oar.” I try to be helpful.
He says the F-word again and growls while he furls the sail back up. Keith tells me he hates the guys to see us scull back. It is embarrassing. His inboard engine gives him trouble. We will go out, and the engine will quit. If there is any wind we can sail back, which is okay. If there is no wind, we have to paddle, or scull. We use a heavy long oar, which is a bitch, Keith says. It insults a sailor to scull, he says.
Every time I go out with him, I am the one who does the sculling. It looks like I get to scull again today. I am a very good sculler. The other thing that happens when we go out is that clouds come out of nowhere. I see them in the distance.
The water is flat and calm. That means it will be easier to get back, because there will be little current. We go faster with me sculling than we did with the engine. Keith smokes a cigarette while I work the oar. I dip it in and out of the water. The drips run down the pole and get my hands wet and cold. I am hot, so I take off my jacket. My shirt is damp from work sweat. Clouds cover up the sun and it starts to rain. I stop sculling for a minute and put my jacket back on.
“I need to get my tank scrubbed. I must have dirty fuel.” Keith says this each time his engine quits.
“Why don’t you get it repaired?” I ask this each time too. Right after he says he needs to get his tank scrubbed or his fuel polished.
“Money, Per, it costs money.”
“Oh.” Then I get one of my good ideas. “Hey, Keith, I have money now. Let’s get the engine fixed.”
“No, Per, that’s not necessary.”
People say it is not necessary when they really want to do something but think it may be a problem. It is not a problem for me. I get excited because it means we can go out on more sailing trips. It also means we might not have to scull anymore and embarrass Keith. Fixing up
Diamond Girl
was on Keith’s lottery list, so it must be a good idea.
It takes two hours to get back to the slip. I jump off the bow, tie the line to the cleat, and catch the aft line. Gram used to say that sometimes I could be stubborn. I feel this is one of those times.
Lots of people do inboard engine repair in the harbor. My favorite is Marty. Mr. Martin really, but everyone calls him Marty. He is sixty-seven years old. I know this because he always tells me each time I bring him filters. He calls Gary on the phone at least twice a week.
“Holsted! I need Racor filters. Put it on my account!” He always expects me to bring them.
“I’m sixty-seven years old with a bum hip!” he complains. “I can’t walk down the dock every time I need a damn filter!”
His shop is at the far end of the pier. It is dark and full of metal pieces and old motors.
He laughs when I ask him to fix Keith’s engine.
“That’ll be the day. What’s he gonna use for money?” Marty asks.
“I’ll pay for it. I want us to go out farther, maybe to Whidbey Island or all the way around Camano, but not into the flats.” I know all about the mud flats. Gramp had to rescue people from flats and sandbars all the time.
“That’ll be a job.” He grinds his cigarette out on the dock. I worry about this because the dock is wood.
“Won’t that catch on fire?” I ask. I always wonder about people who smoke, like Keith, Marty, and Gram, because their cigarettes go everywhere. Gram’s trash can caught on fire once and Keith burns holes in every shirt he owns. I do not worry about Gram anymore because she is dead. I still worry about Marty and Keith.
Marty does not answer me and gets up. He puffs, huffs, and limps after me over to Keith’s boat. We have to walk around mussel shells and seagull poop. Marty walks slow and uses a cane carved out of the rail of a boat he used to own. This gets me thinking. There are lots of slows and Marty is the walking kind. I have to stop and wait for him. Thinking slow is the worst slow, then there is the talking slow, and last is the walking slow. That is what old people have.
“Okay, Keith, turn her over.” Marty leans forward and steps onto
Diamond Girl.
She sinks like a dog with a sore back. That’s what Gram used to say. Marty weighs a lot.
I hear Keith mutter. Marty and Keith always growl at each other. It is hard to tell if they like each other. They bum cigarettes from each other and argue all the time, so they must. Gram always told me that smokers usually like each other.
“A goddamned filthy habit, Perry! Us smokers got to stick together, ” she always said.
I do not smoke. Gram would not let me. I do not drink either.
If Marty is going to fix Keith’s engine, and they are going to argue and smoke, I do not need to be there. Keith and Marty have cigarettes hanging off their lips and do not notice when I walk away.
I decide to go to Marina Handy Mart and visit Cherry.
26
I think about Cherry a lot. Keith calls her a plus-sized girl with giant tits, and laughs. Gary says she has too many tattoos and earrings. I think she is neat, and beautiful, and smart.
I put my hands in my pockets to warm them up. It is not far, but it is still a cold, wet walk.
“Hey, Cherry.” The bell tinkles when I walk through the door. I shake water off my hair and get dizzy.
“Hey, Perry. How you doing?” Cherry is reading a magazine behind the counter.
I try to think of something to say. My mouth is dry so I decide to buy a Coke.
“What are you reading?” I ask, and set my drink on the counter along with two dollars. I want to say something funny. Something that will make her laugh, but I cannot think of one thing.
“
People
. It’s a good one this week. Hey, you should be in it. They do stuff about lottery winners. You could be famous.” Cherry stands and rings up my soda.
“I am famous now. The guys at the fishing dock said so,” I say.
“No kidding. You’re the first person I ever knew who won anything. I don’t even buy MegaBucks anymore,” she says.
“Why not?” Cherry always plays MegaBucks. She even sends away for tickets to Powerball.
“Well, Perry, just think about it for a moment,” she says. “What are the odds? A million or more to one, right? What are the odds that I win, and I have a friend who wins? That’s practically impossible! You just saved me a pile of money. There’s no point to playing anymore. No way I’d win now!”
“I’m sorry.” Because of me, my friends have no chance at winning the lottery. I feel sad for them. I look at Cherry’s face. She has black lipstick today and it matches her eyelashes.
“Where’s your nose ring?” I can think of nothing else to say. I am sweating under my pits. Maybe I forgot deodorant. I quickly lift up my arm and smell when Cherry bends down to put her magazine under the counter.
“At home. Sometimes I don’t feel like wearing it. I have my tongue one in, though.” And she sticks it out to show me when she stands up. “My dad hates them.”
Cherry’s mouth shuts and makes a deep frown as she hands me my change. I try to think of something else to say as I pop open my Coke. It fizzes up and Cherry has to take a cloth and wipe my spill off the counter.
“I don’t have a dad. I mean, I think my dad’s dead,” I say.
Cherry raises her brows and looks at me with interest. “You’re lucky,” she says. “I wish mine was dead.”
I just nod, smile, and hope I do not look too goofy. I cannot think of anything else to say.
Shouts echo in the parking lot outside. Three guys stomp into the store. Their heavy sweatshirts hang down their arms. They look like motorcycle men, except they do not have helmets or bikes.