The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay (22 page)

“I'll fix up the cabin on the bateau and sleep there,” Byron said. “You know it's not big enough for two, but it's perfect for me. And I like my privacy.”

Clay protested. “It's very generous, but—”

“Where else we gonna stay, Clay? And how we gonna jack it?”

“Clay, of course you're staying with us,” Matty finished. “End of discussion.”

“Really,” Kate said, as if exasperated. She walked over to Matty and put her hand in his hair. “We both insist.”

Clay looked at Byron.

“We're good to go, ain't we, Cap?”

“Well?” Matty said. “When?”

“Today's Thursday,” Byron went on. “We do need to figure a way to replace some pots.”

“Need money for that,” Clay mumbled.

“Need crabs to make money.”

“Weather holds, we could run down Monday, I suppose. If we stop today for our license.” Clay's voice cracked, still unsure.

“Beautiful.”

“Monday, Monday.”

“Well, goddamn.”

“Matty, tell Clay about your father,” Kate urged.

Matty stood. “You know it's a long shot, Clay. I wouldn't get hopeful. He did say he'd look at the financials, though. On the wharf. Mostly because he likes Kate, I think.”

“We brought a copy with us,” Byron volunteered. “Clay got it from the bank.”

“I did do that,” Clay said. “The banker told me there's not much here, though. Pappy didn't keep his records so good. Cash business and all.” He shrugged. “There is an appraisal, though. I suppose there's no harm in your father looking at it. I certainly appreciate you all asking him. And him taking the time. Please tell him for me.”

On their way out, Clay retrieved the packet of information from the glove compartment and gave it to Matty. “Tell him thanks again,” Clay said.

Friday evening Laura-Dez came by and picked Byron up. She was taking him out for a farewell dinner, and they were going to spend the weekend together. They left Clay the pickup for hauling. On Saturday, around midday, she called Clay.

“I'm just worried, that's all. He started last night. He sat at the kitchen table with a whiskey bottle and drank it and wouldn't come to bed. Twice he woke me screaming from the kitchen. I finally got him on the couch, but when I woke up this morning, he was back at the table with a bottle of Seagram's he found God knows where. I know you all are going. He made that plain. It's not that.”

“What's he doing now?”

“I take care of him, Clay. But who's going to in Virginia? Sometimes he's not right.”

“Is he there?”

“He's watching the Orioles and cussing like a Cubano.”

“Just stay with him, Laura-Dez. Put him to bed when you can. I'll pick him up Monday, early in the morning.”

“You're not hearing me, Clay.”

“I'll look after him, Laura-Dez. We won't be there but a few months or so. You come down as much as you can. But the work is good for him, I think.”

“You don't sleep with him. I see it in his face at night. I feel it when his body starts shaking. It's not over for him. Whatever happened to him. It's still happening.”

“I know what you're saying.”

Laura-Dez didn't respond.

“I'm not sure what else there is to do right now. I'll be with him. You come visit often.”

“Damn it, Clay.”

“I know. I'll pack up his stuff and pick him up Monday. And thanks for the call.”

That afternoon the wind died. The air seemed to grow warmer with the dusk, and a fine mist crept up from the creek, like the river's breath, wet and quiet, stealing over the fields. Clay went out and sat on the picnic table, smelling and feeling the air.

He tried to call Laura-Dez back but got no answer.

He had ridden the bateau that morning around to Barker's and filled two barrels with salted menhaden.

“Can't in good faith charge you,” Barker had said. “Ain't no need for crab bait round here.”

Clay thanked him. “I'm good for it. Check'll be in the mail,” he said smiling.

“You're good all right there, Hoss. Just remember your manners down there. And by the way, Jed Sparks is lookin' for you, down at Pecks.” Clay thanked him again, pleased that he had enough bait to get started.

Back at Pecks he had found Jed Sparks. Jed had given him an envelope.

“What's this?”

“Open it, Clay.”

Clay tore apart the top. He counted out three hundred dollars in twenties. He held it out. “What?”

“Hugo Brigman. Me and Barker had a talk with him. About your pots. He's all glad-handin' and nothin' underneath, that one. Eyes of an eel. Made a contribution, though. You know Barker. Hard to refuse. Nowheres near enough. But something.”

Clay started to hand it back.

“Save it. I ain't takin' it back. You earned it. Something else too.” Jed motioned for Clay to follow and led him around and inside the boat barn. A stack of crab pots rested against the wall. “There's forty there, Clay. We can't use 'em here. Take 'em. Consider it a bonus for your help.”

“Jed. No way,” Clay protested.

Jed held out his hand to stop Clay. “Clay. We'll square up when you're rollin' again. And you will be.”

Clay again started to speak, but Jed interrupted. “You need to learn to accept help, Clay. Not just give it.”

He didn't know what to answer.

“Be careful down there, son.” Jed turned. As he was walking away, he turned back. “Be smart and come back with money for the next round, now.”

Clay spent the better part of the evening on the
Miss Sarah,
loading the additional pots, checking the engine and instruments, stowing his and Byron's gear, which he had packed, and rechecking the stacked and tied crab pots he had moved that afternoon from the garage. About half of those he had stored in the boat. The others were stacked and tied in the back of the pickup.

He had packed a cooler with beer, Maryland biscuits, and sausages, and stowed it in Jed's refrigerator for Monday morning. He wondered at himself preparing everything so far in advance. Walking out to the dock, he patted his pocket and the folded twenty-dollar bills inside. He noticed the
Mood Indigo
was not in her slip. She was gone from the black buoy as well. Good riddance,
he thought. He climbed aboard the
Miss Sarah,
a Budweiser in his hand. Turning on the marine radio, he found the weather channel. The report was for several calm though overcast days. He found a channel being used by some boats down south, out night-fishing for shark. The reception was unusually clear. One of them was jamming about having caught a five-foot hammerhead off Hooper Island. “Got it to the side,” the fisherman went on, “and we was scared shitless. Had to shoot four times into its brain with a nine-millimeter Beretta to calm the fish down.”

Clay turned off the radio, thinking about the thrashing hammer-head. He wondered what lay in store that far below the salt line. He felt uneasy about moving a water operation into strange grounds. But he saw no other choice. Except to give in. Give up. His sense of the water would not desert him, he knew. He had an instinct there. It was a different state though, and it was the people he wasn't sure he knew. Watermen had particular ways and could be hasty to judge. And there was Kate. And with her, a foreboding. An inability to be honest with himself. He tried not to think about her but had not been able to help it. He stretched out on the cot in the cabin of the bateau. Without undressing, he fell asleep. He dreamed again of living and breathing beneath the surface, floating in the element of a sun-graced aquamarine universe.

He had agreed to have lunch with Bertha on Sunday. But Laura-Dez called around noon, upset. Byron hadn't quit, and he'd broken loose and was heading up Front Street to the pool hall.

Clay called Bertha and explained the situation. He took the pickup into Easton. The entrance to the pool hall was a side door, unlit and umarked by any sign. A regular crew was sitting at the bar. Clay knew their faces and a few names. Men who were un-shaven, eyes empty. He ordered a beer.

The building was an old bowling alley, long and narrow, built
when boys were needed to set up the bowling pins after each throw. It had been converted into a pool hall and bar. Successive tables receded into the dimness at the rear of the rectangular structure. Each table was lit by an overhead lamp hanging on a cord. A few shadowed figures were sitting on the old church pews that lined the wall, grim and silent like paid mourners at a funeral. In the back were stairs leading to the second floor, where card games would be going on. A cracked jukebox was playing Hank Williams.

“Your boy Byron's upstairs,” the bartender, Clifton Dodd, mentioned. “He's a mess again.”

“I heard,” Clay said.

“Mac Longley just lent him another fifty to play. Made him promise his guitar as collateral.”

“Shit,” Clay said. “His Martin?”

“Yeah. Made him write it down.”

Upstairs there was a pile of money in the center of the table. “Ten to you,” Longley said to Byron. Two others were in the hand.

“I'll see you all, goddamn it,” Byron answered, slurring his words and fishing in his pocket as he leaned his chair back. He unfolded several crumpled bills. His hands shook. He saw Clay. “Yo!” he called, losing his balance, his chair nearly tipping over.

“Real charity,” Clay said to Longley.

“Man's been down on his luck lately.” Longley fingered the deck in his palm. “Few pearls in hard crabs these days. You learnin' that yet? Hell, you should have taken that job with Mr. Brigman.”

Clay glanced at Byron, puzzled.

Byron held up his hands, turning them as he shrugged his shoulders.

Longley dealt out another card to each of the players. He sat back smugly. “I make it my business to know what's going on.”

Byron unsteadily placed his new card under the others he had
stacked. Then he picked them up and looked at them, cupped in his hand, one at a time. The man to his left said, “I'll go five.”

“And five more,” Longley said.

The third man cussed and met the raise, calling.

Byron uncrumpled three more dollars. “I'll call you boys,” Byron mumbled. “Got to go light seven, though.”

“Sorry.” Longley put his hand out to stop him. “On the table or out. House rules.”

“Jesus, Mac,” Byron said. “Fifty's gone. You know I'm good for it.”

Clay reached into his pocket and from his wallet pulled out seven. “You got a winner, Byron?”

Byron closed his eyes and bobbed his head up and down. As though it were obvious.

Clay set the money down on the table.

“Bullshit,” said Longley. “Man plays with what he brings to the table. Piss off, Clay.”

“Wrong,” Clay countered. “He's staked by me. Money on the table. House rules.”

“Money's money,” the third player said. “Show the cards.”

Longley hesitated. “Three queens,” he finally announced, turning up his hand.

“Shit,” the third player answered, throwing down his.

“Aces and eights,” Byron slurred out. “Dead man's hand. But not exactly.” He belched for emphasis. “'Cause I got three a these eights, makin' a full boat.”

“Goddamn you,” Longley muttered under his breath. He started to say something else.

“Pay the man his fifty, Byron.” Clay's voice was flat.

Byron acknowledged him, bobbing his head again. Then he clumsily counted out the money.

“Debt's paid,” Clay said.

“Here's your seven back too,” Byron offered. “With interest . . .”

“Interest is coming with me, Byron. We got some things to do.”

Clay helped him up from the table and then down the stairs. “I'm taking you back to Laura-Dez. She wants to be with you before we leave. You can sleep it off there.” He got no protest and took Byron back to Laura-Dez, who never said a word but helped him inside.

Once back at the farmhouse, Clay called Bertha to say goodbye. While he was on the phone, Curtis Collison and his girlfriend came home. An argument turned into a fight. Having heard enough, Clay left and drove back to Pecks. He slept again in the cabin of the
Miss Sarah
. It felt right.

With the dawn, he drove back to Easton and knocked on the front door of the town house where Laura-Dez lived. Byron was up and answered the door. He stumbled as Clay followed him down the hall.

“Whoa there, now,” Byron whispered to himself. “Don't go woozy on me.”

They stood in the kitchen. Byron's eyes were still bloodshot.

Clay turned and heard Byron retching in the bathroom behind him. Byron emerged, wiping his face with a towel. He went over to the sink and rinsed his mouth out with water cupped in his hand. “I have a surprise for you, Cap.” He spoke in a hoarse wheeze.

“What's that?” Clay responded.

“I'm riding with you in the
Miss Sarah
.”

Clay looked puzzled. He poured and sipped some coffee. It was lukewarm. “How's that? You got to drive the truck.”

“Laura-Dez is going to drive the pickup, and her sister Carmen is going to follow her down in her car and bring her back. I gave them directions. They'll meet us at Bavon. Is it pronounced
Ba
von or Bay
vonne?
”

Clay watched his friend.

“It ain't French down there. I know that.” Byron pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his shirt pocket. He pulled open a kitchen drawer, found a match, and struck it. His hand shook as he got it to light his smoke. “Had a few too many snorts yesterday,” he said indignantly. “Did get my mind up there. Higher'n a wedding prick. Thanks for gettin' me. Anyway, they'll drop off the truck and go on. They're going to stay a night at Virginia Beach.”

Clay nodded. “Nice work, Buck.”