Swim That Rock (5 page)

“They’ve got them insured up the wazoo. They’ll just buy another one tomorrow,” Johnny Bennato says without even looking up from his paper.

“You sure that wasn’t your boat, Johnny?” Red says with a nervous laugh that makes everyone uncomfortable.

“My sailboat has been on dry land since Saturday. I’m well-off, but I’m not an idiot.”

Johnny Bennato’s parents died in a plane crash and left him millions. He could spend the rest of his life on a beach somewhere, but instead he gets up early every morning and goes out digging quahogs on Narragansett Bay like the rest of us. He says he just likes the adventure of it. Most people don’t understand why he does it, but I do.

“Are you just about done down there?” Trax is looking at me as I rearrange the coffee mugs for the third time. “You better get out there and help the girls, ’cause you’re just getting in my way, Skipper.”

“Yeah, sorry, Trax. I was just looking for something.” I get up slowly and head out from behind the counter. I start making my way from table to table, clearing plates and placing them in a large black tub.

Darcy leans over and whispers into my ear. “Maybe all this extra business today will convince your mom to keep this place.”

“Doubt it.” Darcy doesn’t know about the loan sharks from the Italian-American Club and the ten grand that’s due by the end of the month. I want to pull her outside and tell her everything. I want to tell her I was out in the middle of that hurricane last night, stealing engines with some crazy dude who might know my dad. I don’t know if she’ll think I’m nuts or heroic or just plain stupid, but part of me really wants to tell her.

I push the thoughts of last night out of my brain and continue to clear tables. I notice Gene sitting alone at a small table near the jukebox where my mom usually sits when she does the ordering, and another pang of guilt rips through my gut. With all the commotion in the diner, I almost forgot he was there. I lift the black tub in my hands and give him a look that says
Too busy to talk now.
Gene adjusts his chair and lifts his mug. I acknowledge him and continue my rounds.

Then I happen to look outside. On the sidewalk, peering into the window of the diner, is a DEM officer, a clam cop. No, two of them!
Oh, crap!

I dash back toward the kitchen, through the double doors, and place the tub down by the sink.
They figured it out. How did they know it was me last night?
My heart feels like it’s going to burst from my chest.

I look through the order window, hiding between the slips hanging from the metal clip. One of the clam cops walks through the front door. His shoulders are so wide he almost has to step sideways. He looks to be almost my height, with a bald head, mustache, and a pinched, angry, red face. He’s like the strongman from the circus, only wearing a khaki-green uniform and a gun holster. His partner, a scrawny, nervous, blond-haired guy, stays outside, pacing in front of the window. A hush of silence spreads through the diner as the bald-headed man walks over to the TV, watches for a second, and then clicks it off.

“Some storm last night,” he says aloud to everyone in the diner, still curiously staring at the blank screen with his hand on the switch of the TV. He’s close enough to me that I can almost read the numbers on his badge. Above the badge, embroidered on his shirt, is the name
DELVECCHIO.
I’m thinking I should run out the back door, but if he already knows where I live, it’s pointless to run. My knees are shaking so much I don’t think I could run anyway.

“I know most of you in here are quahoggers.” Delvecchio is looking around the diner, enjoying the attention as his hand slips away from the TV and he turns to his audience of diggers. “And most of you do the right thing . . .” He pauses for effect. “But some of you have been drifting the line, working in polluted waters. And that’s just not nice. Some of you even have the nerve to work out there at night.
At night!
”

“Oh, give me a break,” someone yells from the back.

“Don’t worry,” Delvecchio continues. “I won’t be writing you any tickets anymore. No, my doctor said my tendonitis has been acting up, and writing all those tickets hasn’t been helping. I’ve got a new pen.” He pulls his gun from his holster and holds it up for everyone to see.

“You can’t come in here and start threatening us with guns.”

Delvecchio steps over to Charlie Crosby, sitting at the counter, and pats his back like an old friend. “I’m not threatening anybody, Charlie. I just want you to understand that there are some lines you don’t cross. It’s like the edge of this counter. One side, legal.” Delvecchio slaps his hand down on the Formica. “But once you cross over that edge . . . I gotta write you up.” He runs his hand over the edge and pats his gun for emphasis. “Say, is that an egg sandwich?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says.

“Bacon?”

“Yeah.”

Delvecchio lifts the bread, tosses the bacon to the side, and takes a huge bite. He continues to talk to Charlie between mouthfuls, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I heard you came in with twenty bags the other day. Twenty bags at eight thirty in the morning! You must get up pretty early in the morning, Charlie. How’s the coffee here?”

“Good,” Charlie says, his head hung low, looking at the floor.

Delvecchio takes a loud slurp from the coffee. He sets the mug down on the edge of the counter and lets it fall, spilling coffee onto Charlie’s lap and smashing on the floor.

“Ow! What the hell?” Charlie jumps up, wiping the hot coffee off his pants.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Delvecchio sneers, throwing a few napkins at Charlie’s chest. “I guess I didn’t see where the
edge
of the counter was.”

I’m shocked as my mom walks over to him with a fresh pot of coffee held threateningly in her hand. She gets right in his face and says, “You either sit down and order some food or leave.”

Delvecchio takes a long, hard look at my mom, tilting his head to the side. You can tell he doesn’t want to back down, and she’s not backing down either. They are inches apart.
Is he gonna shoot her? She’s definitely over the line.
I’m scared for my mom, but kind of proud, too.

“You heard the lady.” Suddenly Gene is standing next to her, nodding toward the door. “Don’t make her repeat it.”

Several other guys stand up, and soon everyone in the diner is on their feet. Delvecchio looks at his watch, and then throws his hands up in the air as if surrendering. “I’d love to stay. You make good coffee, but I have some other visits to make.” Delvecchio backs up all the way to the door, and as he pushes through, he takes his gun and taps it twice against the bell above the entrance. “I’ll be watching.” He lets his voice trail off as he pulls the door closed. He grabs the other officer by the shoulder and shoves him toward their truck. Nobody says a word until they pull away.

I take a slow, deep breath and let out a long sigh of relief.

“All right, where were we?” I hear Robin yell out. “Who needs more coffee?”

Within seconds the debate turns back to the weather, as if someone has just turned up the volume again. Charlie’s trying to explain his twenty-bag morning that brought Delvecchio on top of everyone. I grab the tub and head back into the diner to help out, snaking between tables and picking up dishes, glasses, and snippets of conversation along the way.

“There ain’t no way they’re gonna open Barrington Beach after this,” Brendan Tooley says, pounding his fist on the table so his coffee cup jumps, making the spoon rattle around like an alarm clock.

“It was mainly wind blowin’, not much rain to speak of,” another voice calls out.

“They’ll use any excuse to keep that beach closed,” Brendan shouts back.

Johnny Bennato folds his paper and looks up now, much more interested in where this conversation is going. I can see that my mom, Darcy, and Robin aren’t sure what they’re talking about, but I am.

“I didn’t know you quahoggers cared so much about going to the beach. Have you got some kind of sand-castle contest going on?” Darcy asks with a smirk as we meet up at the coffee machine.

“Not the
beach
beach.” I look at her. “Barrington Beach. It’s the hottest quahogging ground on the entire East Coast. Hasn’t been opened up for quahogging in almost twenty years ’cause the Providence River has been dumping so much pollution into the bay over there. The littlenecks are stacked up on top of each other like candy in a gumball machine.”

“Wow, Stretch, that’s . . . really . . . exciting.” Darcy is looking at me cross-eyed as she pushes the button on the coffee grinder.

“Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“It’s not that,” she says, laughing over the high-pitched grinder. “I just had this sudden twisted vision of all you guys down at the beach rubbing suntan lotion all over each other.”

“You’re one sick puppy, you know that?” I head back through the diner, trying my best not to trip and fall.

“I worked that beach in sixty-two,” Ben Dunn shouts out above the noise. “Caught four thousand pounds of littlenecks in three hours. Sank my boat coming in.
Sank my boat!
” Ben shouts with his mouth full and spits food everywhere. I know he’s never quahogged a day in his life, even though he’s always in here talking about it. He’s not homeless, but he sure looks that way in his stained sweatshirt, reeking of gasoline. I heard he even drinks shots of the stuff.

Everyone in the diner has an opinion on the fate of the beach, and you can barely hear anything over the noise. I’m just glad the television is off and they’re not all staring at sunken boats.

“
Wait a minute!
”
Brendan shouts out. “Bennato, you have a girlfriend over at the DEM. Can’t you call her up and see what gives?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Johnny holds his hands up in surrender. “That would just ruin the surprise.”

Brendan fumbles deep into his front pocket, throws a coin onto Johnny’s table, and says, “Make the call, Johnny!”

“Yeah, make the call!” others chime in. “Make the call. . . . Make the call. . . . Make the call!” I’m chanting with them. My mom shakes her head and moves from table to table with a pot of coffee in each hand.

Johnny moves slowly over to the pay phone with a look of defeat, smiling as he picks up the receiver. Everyone cheers. My Mom and Robin cheer, even though they still don’t have any idea what they’re cheering about.

As Johnny makes the call, the Riptide goes silent. The only sound is a lone spoon stirring in a coffee cup.

“Lisa Stewart, please.” Johnny speaks calmly into the phone. “Yes, I’ll hold.”

After a few seconds of silence, Johnny puts a finger to his ear and turns his head away from the crowd. Nobody in the place dares to move while he murmurs into his cupped hand. Robin drops a dish from behind the counter, and it shatters as loud as a gunshot.

“Soooorrry!”
Robin draws it out jokingly.

Johnny sadly places the phone back on its cradle. He puts both hands down on the back of the bench seat as if he’s the boss, and now he has to tell everyone they’ve just been fired. Johnny looks around at all the faces mournfully.

“Well?” Brendan barks.
“Well?”

“Tuesday, August 24!”
Johnny shouts, breaking into a smile. “They tested the water this morning and said we are good to go as long as there isn’t any more rain!”

The whole place erupts into cheers. Guys are slapping Johnny on the back and mussing up his hair. I look over at Gene, but he is still just stirring the coffee in his cup. I see a small smile creep onto his face, so subtle most people wouldn’t even see it. But I know Gene well enough to know that he is smiling on the inside. I slam down into the chair across from him, drumming my hands on the table, excited about the news.

“What’s got into you, Jake?” Gene’s teasing me a bit with that soft bird voice of his, and I can barely hear him over the ecstatic chatter of the rest of the quahoggers.

“Are you kidding? Barrington Beach! This is what we’ve been waiting for.” I let my voice go soft and birdlike too. “You’re the best quahogger in this place. Heck, you’re the best on the whole bay. We’re going to crush ’em out there! Think of it, Gene, you and me at Barrington Beach!”

“Don’t go getting your hopes up too high, Jake.” Gene leans in close and moves his big, calloused hands onto the table. “There are a lot of quahogs out there, sure. But every guy with a boat and a rake will be there trying to make a payday, and just because we’re all catching a bunch of quahogs doesn’t mean people will be eating more of them.” Gene must see the confused expression on my face. “The price is going to drop like a rock. We get twenty-four cents apiece now. Once that beach opens, we’ll be lucky to get half that. Sure, Tuesday we will make a big score, but we’re not just Tuesday quahoggers, Jake. You and me, we’re six-day-a-week quahoggers, sometimes seven. That means we’ll have to catch twice as many quahogs the rest of the week just to come out even with the low price and all.”

I didn’t think of it like that, and I can feel my shoulders slouch and my head crawl back into my chest like a turtle. I look around at all the other guys laughing and smiling about the beach like they just won the Rhode Island lottery. They don’t think things through like Gene does.

Gene sips from his coffee and laughs. “We
will
slay ’em, though — I’m sure of that. Come with me for a minute, Jake. I want to go outside where it’s quiet and we can talk.” Gene puts two bucks under his coffee mug.

“Okay, that’s cool, but I gotta get back and help out. . . .” My ears go hot and my palms get sweaty and I think he might ask me about last night. I know it’s not likely he will, but the thought of it stings.

“It’ll just take a second, come on.”

I follow Gene through the blasts of high fives that are still rippling throughout the diner. Standing on the street, we both lean against his pickup truck. Gene uses his shirtsleeve to rub some dried mud off the tailgate.

“I’ve heard about your predicament.” Gene stares at the pavement and kicks a few loose stones into the sewer grate. “Your mother told me about her debt, and I know what we’re gonna do.”