Swim That Rock (21 page)

When I turn, Jay’s looking at us, and he motions to Janna. There we are, both naked as can be. They can’t be more than twenty yards away, just staring. Tommy shrieks and we both hit the deck, and I can hear Janna laughing with her father.

Tommy dries off with this rank towel that’s been in the boat since the beginning of the summer. It smells so much like mold that I decide to just sit on the cooler box and dry off in the late afternoon sun. The Millers’ boat is well behind us now, and I can see Janna still looking up once in a while to check us out.

“I think she’s just as curious about us as we are about her,” I say.

“Dude, I think you mean curious about me.” Tommy is still scrambling to get his clothes on.

“Whatever.” My mind drifts back to this morning and the kiss from Darcy. I can still feel it. “You know, Darcy kissed me good luck this morning.”

“
Kiss
kissed you?” Tommy is looking at me with his jaw hanging open.

“Yeah. I’m not sure if it was a good-luck kiss, but I’m pretty sure she likes me.”

“Darcy?” Tommy is still dumbfounded.

“Yeah, Darcy. What’s wrong with Darce?”

“Nothing.” Tommy is scratching his head. “No, she’s awesome. I just never thought . . .”

“I know. It was kind of unexpected, but I really dig her.”

“That’s cool.” Tommy starts pulling the anchor line as I get dressed, and I can tell the conversation is over. Time to get back to work.

Suddenly Jay Miller’s boat pulls up right alongside ours.

“You guys okay?” Jay yells over.

“Yeah. We’re good.”

“Good, ’cause I thought I saw two naked guys climbing into your boat.” Jay’s laughing, and Janna slaps him on the arm. “Thought you might have been stowing refugees.”

“Just quahogs,” I call back, a little red in the face.

Tommy lifts the rake from the rail, tosses it into the wave, and begins pulling the rake to show off, but the poor guy doesn’t know what he is doing. He’s just mimicking what I do, and it’s funny. Jay Miller is laughing out loud as Tommy is doing the herky-jerky all over the place like a comedian. Janna is laughing and I’m cracking up too. Tommy starts putting on a show, making faces, and pretending he’s me by standing on a bucket while he’s raking. I think Janna is checking him out.

The sun is painting the bay, and everything in it, with a warm amber glow. There are only a couple hundred guys still out here working, and only five or six boats where we are. I take the rake from Tommy and fill it with quahogs for him when Janna’s not looking. Then I let him pull it to the surface. He must be working on adrenaline combined with passion, because he breaks that rake out of the mud and snakes it up to the surface like Gene himself. Janna claps as the full rake comes to the surface, and Tommy bows like he’s onstage. Tommy can’t stop looking over at Jay’s boat. I can’t blame him.

My body is numb. I’m exhausted and hungry and my hands are raw and bleeding, and part of me wants to head in, but I know I can’t. Not yet. I can still catch more.

I look toward Rumstick Rock and see Tommy’s dad bashing toward us in their small Whaler. He’s got the engine punched, and I can hear it winding out as he bounces across the waves. He pulls up on us fast.

“Your dad’s here, Tommy!”

Tommy stands up, smiling, happy to see him. “Yeah, I called him at work before I came out here, and he said he’d go to the diner to get us some food if he got off early enough.”

“Wow, that’s cool. I can’t believe he found us. So wait a minute, you planned to help me all along, didn’t you?”

“Of course. You think I’m going to let you have all the fun?”

I wave to Tommy’s dad as his boat settles right next to us. “Hey, Mr. Clancy.”

He doesn’t answer. He’s just staring at the pile of quahogs on board, his mouth wide open. “My God, that’s a lot of littlenecks. Did you catch all these?”

“They didn’t just jump into the boat,” Tommy says, smiling at me.

Mr. Clancy climbs aboard, carrying two shopping bags stained with grease.

“Thanks, Mr. Clancy. This is great.” I look into one of the bags, and it’s got everything: burgers, fries, fried chicken, and lots of ketchup.

We start chowing down, and Mr. Clancy notices Tommy glancing over at the Millers’ boat.

“Who are your friends?” Before Tommy or I can stop him, he stands up and calls out to them, “You want some food? We have plenty!”

“Daaad!” Tommy is embarrassed.

“What? We do,” he says, hefting the other bag. I can see Jay talking with Janna, and she’s nodding. Jay stows his rake and moves to the console.

“They’re coming over. . . .” I tease Tommy.

“Great. Thanks, Dad.”

Mr. Clancy takes another look at Jay’s boat and sees Janna, and suddenly he smiles and slaps Tommy on the back.

The Millers’ boat approaches, and we lash all the boats together like a raft.

“What a day, huh, Jake?” Jay smiles at me. “You know my daughter, Janna, right? Janna, this is Jake. I used to work with his dad.”

“Hi,” I say, with a mouth full of burger.

“I’m Tommy.” Tommy’s voice cracks.

“Hi.” Janna
sounds
like a mermaid too.

Mr. Clancy shakes Jay’s hand, and the two of them crack open beers and get into a discussion about fishing. The three of us climb onto the bow and I dole out the food.

“You guys are good at this,” Janna says, inspecting our catch. “I think you almost have as much as my dad.”

“We got lucky, I guess,” I say.

“My dad said that you’re gonna be a great fisherman.”

“I don’t want to be a fisherman.” I’m surprised at myself for saying it, but it’s true.

“You don’t? Why are you out here, then?”

“The money’s good and we need money,” I say, biting into my second burger.

“What do you guys need money for?”

“I don’t need money.” Tommy points at me with a drumstick. “Jake needs money.”

“I’m trying to save the diner where me and my mom live,” I explain.

I say this knowing I left out a lifetime’s worth of stuff in between, but I figure she doesn’t want to hear about my dad going missing, the loan from the Mafia, and everything else, so I just come out and ask her if she wants to come to the cabaret tomorrow night.

“The what?” Janna looks puzzled.

“A cabaret,” Tommy says. “You know . . . music, dancing, food? It’s for a good cause.”

I’m surprised because Janna jumps to her feet and bounces over to her dad. “Jake and his mom are having a cabaret tomorrow night. . . . Can we go?”

Jay takes the pipe from his mouth. “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, they’re trying to raise money to save their diner.”

“It’s at seven. Right in town on Water Street, near Blount Seafood,” I add.

“I know where it is, Jake.” Jay puts his arm around Janna. “I thought you were going with your girlfriends to the movies.”

“I can go with them on Saturday. Please?” Janna takes a fistful of Jay’s shirt in her hand in a pretend threat.

Jay turns to me and says, “Yeah, we’ll be there.”

Janna smiles at Tommy, and he nearly falls out of the boat.

Jay knocks his pipe clean on the side of the boat and stuffs it into his shirt pocket. “Well, we got to get back to work.” He shakes Mr. Clancy’s hand and steps into his boat. “Janna?”

“I’m staying with the boys.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m joking, Dad.” She hops on board like a gazelle.

“I’m in love,” Tommy whispers.

Tommy’s dad anchors his Whaler and comes back on board to help us out. I begin pulling the rake, and he’s stacking bags, tidying the boat, cleaning the bow area, and pulling seaweed from the deck.

“Keep that up, Dad, and you’ll put me out of a job,” Tommy says.

“Me too,” I say.

Mr. Clancy just laughs and keeps on working.

The last hour turns out to be the best of the day, as the wind slows down just right, and we add another five bags of littlenecks to the pile.

“Forty bags of littlenecks and eight bags of chowders,” Mr. Clancy announces, slapping his hand down on the huge pile. “I can’t imagine what that’s worth.”

“A lot,” Tommy says, reaching up to give me a high five. I stick out my elbow and he slaps it.

Mr. Clancy looks at Tommy, and he’s leaning against the railing with barely the energy to stand.

“I’d better get you and your kayak back home.”

“I’m not leaving, Dad. Jake needs me, even if it’s to haul this stuff up the dock.”

“I guess your mother will understand. You guys going to be all right getting in?”

“Yeah, we’ll take it slow. Last couple of rakes, and then we’ll be in right behind you,” I say reassuringly, throwing the rake up on the holder and starting the engine. It coughs and spits back to life.

“Gene’s outboard sounds as tired as you are right now,” Mr. Clancy says.

We load Tommy’s kayak onto the Whaler, and Mr. Clancy climbs aboard. “We’ll see you at home, Tommy. Good luck selling out. Hope you get a good price.”

“Okay, Dad,” Tommy says. I hear that word
Dad
and I start to feel it inside.
Look at me, Dad, with forty-eight bags of quahogs on board. Look at me today, Dad. Look at what I did today.

Twenty minutes later the sun starts to settle on the horizon as I dismantle the rake and pole. Tommy begins rearranging the bags around the boat to even out the weight. Just off our bow I can see Cliff in his garvey, heading toward us. His gray boat is heaped with red bags.

“How’d you hit ’em, Jake?”

“Hey, Cliff.” I sit down on the gunwale.

“Oh, my God, you crushed them today. Christ, you must have fifty bags.”

“Forty-eight with the chowders. Isn’t everyone catching forty-eight bags?” Tommy says, pretending to sound naive.

“Not everyone.” He laughs. “How old are you, anyway?” he asks, looking over my gear.

“Fourteen.”

“Me too,” Tommy adds proudly.

“Fourteen years old and you’re catching forty-eight bags — that’s gotta be a record.” Cliff is shaking his head. “Only in Rhode Island.”

“Where are
you
from?”

Cliff mumbles something under his breath.

“Where?” I ask.

“Well, there’s no point in lying to a kid, probably a kid without a license, right?”

“No, I have a license. Gene always buys a license for me in case we catch over our limit.”

“I’m from Patchogue, Long Island.”

“Long Island . . . cool. How’d you get here? Did you take your boat here?” Tommy asks.

“No, I trailered up. I’ve been here all summer.”

“I haven’t seen you out here before.”

“I’ve seen you in this Hawkline before. You were with someone else, working that mud drift out east of Prudence, right before the hurricane.”

You can hear Tommy groaning as he lifts the last white bucket and flips it into the red onion bag. He looks like he’s going to collapse any second.

“Is your picker okay?”

“No,” Tommy blurts out, holding his back.

“We are both hurting actually, but we’ll be okay in a few days.”

“Sorry to hear that. What’s your full name, Jake? I know you told me earlier, but I couldn’t hear you with the noise and all.”

“Jake Cole, and this is Tommy Clancy.”

“Well, Mr. Jake Cole and Tommy Clancy, I’ll follow you into the dock because you’re riding kinda low, not much freeboard there in that old Hawkline. Are you selling out at Easton’s? That’s where my truck and trailer are.”

Selling out.
I’ve been so busy trying to catch the quahogs, I haven’t thought where I would be selling them. Gene usually sells out at Gilbert’s, but it’s a long haul from the dock to his place. At Easton’s you can tie up right next to the scales.

The old engine starts up and grinds into gear as I move the throttle forward slowly. Cliff is behind me, sitting in my wake a hundred yards back. I can feel the setting sun over my shoulders as I make the turn around Rumstick Rock and head into the Warren River.

I can see the lights from the parking lot at Easton’s Seafood. There are a few red-faced quahoggers standing around a cooler, laughing and drinking beer. I see Bainesy pissing against the seawall as I kill the engine and slide into the dock space. Tommy lashes the bowline. I grab the stern line and pull us in tight. The guys standing by their trucks continue drinking and telling jokes. I think they’re laughing at Tommy and me at first, but after a minute I realize they’re all just happy because they have a pocket full of money now.

I start to load the bags onto the edge of the dock, stacking them flat so they won’t fall over into the water. I have two rows of ten bags each on the bottom. I start working on the second row. One guy, Michael Stanzione, comes over to look at our catch.

“Hey, Toad,” he calls out to this buddy, who they call Toad because his name is Todd and he’s always licking his lips. Toad ignores him and continues drinking and telling stories. Tommy and I are just stacking bag after bag on the dock, pretending we’re not seeing or hearing any of this. I’m stacking slowly because my hands are a mess.

“Toad, come down here and check out Jake’s catch.” A few of the quahoggers stop talking and begin making their way over to the dock. One of the men counts the bags with his index finger.