Spartina Read online

  By evening the boys felt better, but May was still sullen. After supper, when he was smoking a cigarette on the porch before the mosquitoes came out, he found out why she was still so mad. “Parker stopped by to see you,” she said. “He was here when the Natural Resources officers came by. He made it worse, his being here. Eddie Wormsley’s one thing, but Larry Parker!”

  “I should have told them to wear long pants. I am sorry about the boys, May.”

  Dick was amazed that didn’t do it. He apologized to her once a month at most. May said, “I need some money to get the phone back.”

  Dick didn’t say anything.

  May said, “They want a fifty-dollar deposit.”

  Dick peeled it off the roll, let her settle back in her chair, and said, “I’m going down to the Neptune to see the ball game. Maybe I’ll run into Parker.”

  He felt bad about that as he drove past Galilee, then he remembered he only had forty dollars left, and twelve hours before he’d had $112. He put a five-dollar bill in his left pocket and swore not to spend more than that even if he had to buy Eddie a drink. Of course, if he ran into Parker, Parker would buy.

  Parker had always scared Dick a little. Parker would do anything, that was part of it. And Parker seemed to know things about Dick that Dick didn’t. Parker said he’d never get Dick into anything that he himself wouldn’t do. That didn’t strike Dick as much of an assurance.

  Dick had gone off on some wild-ass rides with Parker. One time a few years back, Parker got hold of a motor yacht that the owner wanted moved from Newport to the Caribbean. The owner gave Parker a credit card for fuel, berthing fees and food, and two plane tickets back to Boston. The guys at the Neptune who knew Dick and Parker were surprised the two of them got along. But with just the two of them running the fifty-foot yacht, they didn’t see much of each other the first week. After four hours on, one of them would wake the other up, say a word about the weather, and that was it. Each had a cabin of his own the couple of times they tied up at night. Parker was eager to get south, so they usually ran all night. With the owner’s credit card on board, fuel economy was not a big item, so they ran as fast as the seas would allow.

  Dick had loved the trip south. The boat was good, even in a half-gale. He liked getting a look at Chesapeake Bay, Cape Hatteras, the islands off Georgia. It was there Parker took him on a side trip in the dinghy. They went up a salt creek that cut into Ossabaw Island. “Lookee there,” Parker said, “I’ll bet it’s the first time you saw one wasn’t on a shirt.” Dick looked. He saw the eyes blink first and then took in the body floating in the muddy water. He’d always liked Parker for taking the time to show him an alligator.

  Parker got less amiable when he started looking for fun in the islands. He railed at Dick for turning in early, for getting cold feet at padding the expenses. Parker thought Dick was having a case of social nerves, that Dick was intimidated by the fancy bar life. Dick had to admit he was thrown some by the accents of the West Indians, the English, let alone the foreigners. Parker got into the act, even dressed the part. A pale sweater woven so loose you could just about see through it, no shirt. Cream-colored topsiders, no socks. But Dick could tell him apart from the carriage trade. Parker leaned forward, his eyes moved fast, and his mouth, with his bad teeth and gray fillings, was held in small and tight, even when he was having a good time. Parker did have a good time. Dick saw that, envied him his nerve, and admired it.

  It was funny—when Dick was with his friend Eddie Wormsley, Dick was the wild hair. When Dick was with Parker, Dick was the fuddy-duddy. But it wasn’t just that, or the foreignness of the people or the sleekness of some of them, that put Dick at half-speed. It was the place that knocked him for a loop. The air, the sea, the islands. Dick had fished off Cape Cod, Maine, and Nova Scotia. All that was more or less the same, or at least understandably different. The West Indies was another planet. The air smelled different, touched his skin like silk. The water was the same salt water, but the colors were different, greens and blues he’d never seen. The movies and magazines hadn’t prepared him. And it made him uneasy that he had very little idea what kind of bottom or what kind of deep the waters hid. The whole thing left Dick in a daze. They’d finally worked it out that Dick would put in the first part of the evening with Parker, then he’d turn in early and have the first part of the day to himself. Dick most often took the twelve-foot dinghy and just poked around, caught a few fish, turned them back.

  Dick went along happily when Parker took on a couple of tourists he’d met in a bar. They paid five hundred bucks for two days and a night of fishing and gunk holing. Parker gave Dick 40 percent. That was fine with Dick, Parker was the ace at dealing with strangers. Dick did the work of keeping things shipshape, set up the fishing rods. Parker did the patter.

  Parker and he finally delivered the boat to the manager of a yacht club. A day late, no problem. But then Parker cashed in the plane tickets, got them passage to Florida with another guy he met in a bar. Parker showed Dick the bus station in Miami and split. But Dick had four hundred cash in his pocket and all he had to worry about was May being sore at him because he got back a week late.

  Though there was that one other little detail. A month passed and Parker had showed up on Dick’s front porch. Dick knew what Parker wanted. Dick said, “I threw those old boots out, if that’s what you’re here for.” Dick had discovered them in the bottom of his sea bag, the name Jimenez, J. stenciled in ink on the canvas lining.

  Parker laughed and said, “No, you didn’t.”

  “I tried them on, they didn’t fit, I chucked them.”

  Parker nodded and smiled.

  Dick said, “Besides, the heels had broke off.”

  Parker said, “There you go, you got the right idea but you came out wrong. Bring the boots, I’ll show you.”

  Dick got the boots and Parker slit the canvas lining and fished out a handful of flat plastic pouches.

  Dick said, “What is that? Because if that’s heroin—”

  “Dickey-bird. Never go near it. This is just a little toot, is all this is. If anyone had’ve looked, these here boots belong to Jimenez, I’d’ve spoken up. As it is, we’re still sixty-forty, and I’m here to pay my debt.”

  Dick said, “No thank you.”

  Parker thought a while. He said, “Look, one out of three, maybe one out of two crews has someone doing coke when they’re out there pulling pots ten, twenty hours straight. You know that. I’m not hanging around some schoolyard with this stuff. So that couldn’t be the problem. Now, I did use you a little, you’ve got a fair gripe about that, but on the other hand I know what I’m doing and you were being what I’d have to call real slow. So I used your rugged good looks, you know, your grim Yankee manner. But I’ll tell you, I’m not crazy and I’m not greedy. Keep it simple, keep it small.” He pulled out a roll of twenties and counted out ten of them. Dick did the math in his head. “Five hundred bucks for that?”

  Parker said, “Roughly. I don’t sell on the street. You want to come along when I—”

  “No. I wasn’t doubting you.”

  “Oh, I get you. Yes, it is amazing. That’s what does people in, it’s so goddamn amazing. That’s why I don’t do more. This little, even if someone mentioned it to someone, it could be just a little recreational use. Now, dealers, dealers get eat up, and not just by the Coast Guard. They eat each other. Users are small fry. So we’ll stay small.”

  That “we” set off a caution light. Dick hadn’t gone south again. He’d helped Parker move boats—motor yachts, sailboats—anywhere along the Northeast coast. Parker knew the damnedest people, he seemed to specialize in careless rich people. One guy called him up from Nova Scotia. He’d got his ketch down there and run out of vacation. Parker and Dick brought her back up to New York. On the way Parker got up to his game again, picked up a family off the dock in Rockland, Maine, made a quick deal with the father, took the whole family including the three kids out for a long afternoon. Parker had just w
alked up to their recreational vehicle and started chatting. He let the kids haul the sails, take the wheel, gave them certificates saying they’d passed their offshore crew rating, signed it “Lawrence Parker, Capt.” It didn’t seem to be the money, though Parker had picked up a couple hundred bucks. It was just that he needed to be up to something.

  Parker had actually owned boats of his own. Dick didn’t understand how Parker got the first one. Somewhere along the line Parker got one boat that was barely afloat and worked it a whole summer with two green college kids. First week in September her engine caught fire, she burned and sank. Parker and the two college kids came in in the dory. Ran the outboard until it was out of gas and then took turns rowing all night. Parker collected the insurance, a good amount, but no more than a sound boat of that same size would have been insured for. Sensible Parker. Don’t get greedy.

  Dick couldn’t explain to himself why he went along with some of the stuff Parker got up to. Most of the time Dick didn’t like people who were slippery. Parker wasn’t just slippery, though Dick had heard him slither around until Dick didn’t know how Parker himself knew which way he was headed. Dick didn’t think it was the fun of being in on it that made the difference, but maybe that was part of it. It was Parker’s light touch too, made it seem he’d never do any real harm.

  May said Parker was a bad influence on him. True enough. But in another way Parker kept him straight, Parker was the channel-marker, shoal water on the other side of him.

  Dick stuck up for Parker when May complained, or when someone at the Neptune made a crack, but Dick wouldn’t have called him a friend, not in the sense that Eddie Wormsley was a friend. Eddie would cut off his hand for Dick and Dick would do the same for Eddie. Eddie and he saw eye to eye on most things. Eddie once had some words with Miss Perry but, that aside, Dick felt Eddie and he were dumb the same way, capable the same way, set the same way. Parker, now, Parker liked to change his skin and, what was more, tried to get you to change your skin. One night in the Bahamas Parker had come back with a girl, an English girl. Dick was still on deck smoking a cigarette. Dick went up to the bridge to leave them alone on the afterdeck. Parker and the girl went below. Dick stayed on the bridge. Dick was startled to hear the intercom come on. He and Parker hadn’t ever used it, so it took Dick a while to find the cutoff switch. He heard enough to get that the girl was English, enough to get prickly. Dick didn’t go below until they left.

  Next day, after they put to sea, Parker laughed about it. So it hadn’t been an accident. “Those English girls love to chat, don’t they? No matter what, they’ll just chat along.…”

  Dick said, “Jesus, Parker.”

  “It’s a whole different way they have—”

  “You do what you want, but don’t do that again.”

  “Okay. But it’s all part of seeing the world, Dickey-bird.”

  On the whole they got along. Parker was a good cook, deferred to Dick’s edge in boat handling and navigation. Parker knew a lot about the islands—who lived there, what they did, what was in the sea. If you didn’t let him tip you off balance, you could have a pretty good time. Once a year was about right, enough to run your engine fast, shake out the sludge.

  When he got to the Neptune, Dick found Parker at a table. The first thing Dick noticed was that Parker’s right forearm was in a cast. Otherwise he looked healthier than before, relaxed, all spruced up. New shirt, red and white checks, the collar still stiff.

  They had a beer, watched the Sox go ahead, hold on, put it away on a pop-up to Yaz. Parker collected a five-dollar bet at the bar, bought the loser a beer, and brought back two more for Dick and him.

  “I got a boat,” Parker said. “I got a college kid. I could use someone else. The kid don’t know much. And my arm’s not right yet.”

  “You going to be around here or you on your way somewhere?”

  “I’ll be around a while.”

  Dick didn’t press just yet. He was thinking he didn’t like Parker’s boats when Parker had college boys along. Parker played with them a little too hard, worked them too near the edge when they weren’t used to it. Halfway through a night of hauling pots Parker would say in a TV announcer’s voice, “It’s time for … Captain Parker’s Pep Pills for Sleepy Sailors!”

  Some of Parker’s college boys didn’t get to sleep for a day or two after they got ashore. You could see them at the Neptune or the Game Room playing Space Invaders till closing, zombies with ten bucks’ worth of quarters.

  Parker said, “I could use some more pots.”

  Dick said, “I can find you some pots. I got a few heavy-gauge ones myself. Your college kid’s likely to bust up wood ones.”

  “I got a few days. The boat needs a little work. You want to help out? Maybe make a run when we get her back in the water? Stick some swordfish. I hear there’s some around.”

  “Can you handle the wheel with your arm? No use trying to nose up on a swordfish if you got your college boy at the wheel.”

  Parker smiled. Dick saw that Parker’s front teeth looked good—all square and white. Dick said, “You been making some money?”

  “Here and there. I could use some more. I want to get a boat, not the one I got, a good-looking boat I can use for charters. Winter down in the islands. Spring, work out of Virginia Beach. Come up here summers for the tuna derby. Take out some sportsmen. You know what a charter boat gets for a three-day run from Virginia Beach to the Gulf Stream? Twelve hundred dollars. The mate works for tips. Minus fuel, that’s three hundred a day. The sports pay whether you get fish or not. ’Course it’s better if you’ve got a reputation for finding fish. That and good food, some good stories. An all-around good time.”

  Dick laughed. “Sounds like your sort of deal.”

  “But it’s got to be a class boat. Fast. Maybe twenty, twenty-five knots. Loran, sonar. All that good stuff. Going to cost, though. That boat I got in the yard’ll only pay for a fraction.”

  Parker spun his beer glass in his fingers. “I got friends in the islands. I got a real good friend in Virginia Beach. But my crystal ball tells me this is the place for this summer. Haul some pots—I got a barge load set a week or so ago. But mainly get some swordfish. I know some about that, but I figure you know even more. You’re undervalued around here. You ever hear rich people talk about stocks and bonds? That’s always what they’re looking for, is something undervalued. I could make something out of you. You could make something.”

  Dick changed the subject for a while. Told Parker about how he’d dug clams with a tractor, made a few quick bucks.

  Parker was amused by the story, but came back around to his boat in the yard. “Tell you what, Dick. You take a look at her. I’ll pay you to fix one or two things on her. Pay you two bucks an hour under yard prices, that’s more than you’d make if you did it working for the yard.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “The yard fixed her up some, a plate or two was loose.…”

  “What’s wrong with her now?”

  “I ought to take a look at the stuffing box.”

  Dick said, “Damn. I hate messing with that. That’s a real shitty job.”

  “Uh huh, a real shitty job.”

  “Okay, I’ll take a look at her.”

  Parker said, “Only thing is, I can’t have an outside worker. You know the rule. I’ll have to sign you on as crew for you to work.”

  Dick said, “You going to use a spotter plane? I don’t want to go out and wallow around in the swordfish grounds, just me and you.”

  “Maybe a spotter plane. Got to make some money, I owe the yard. Maybe second time out. You go down, take a look at her, and consult your horoscope. I’ll be here.”

  Dick ran his skiff out with a half-dozen pots he’d repaired. He pulled his pots, rebaited a few. Brought in all the heavy-duty ones. He probably would go with Parker. He sold his basket of lobster, fifteen bucks. Groceries, nothing to put by. If he went with Parker, the boys could pull these few pots he’d le
ft in less than an hour. May didn’t much like the boys’ going out alone if there was any sea running. She got a little bit grim if Dick took them out when it was blowing hard or foggy.

  Dick checked the water temperature. Sixty-six degrees. Might be sixty-five out on the swordfish grounds. Sixty-five to sixty-eight was what they favored, and mighty picky they were about it. Dick wished Parker would hire a spotter plane. The rate was fifty bucks an hour plus a bonus of a hundred dollars per fish, no matter what size. The price at the wharf for swordfish was $3.50 a pound. Probably going up as the summer people came in. If Parker and him got just one 150-pound fish they’d pay for the spotter plane and his bonus. With a good fish, two hundred pounds, they’d start to make some real money. With a plane they’d spot the fish ten, fifteen feet down, not just the ones finning. Two, three fish wasn’t out of the question. And if they stuck a real good fish the first day, they could keep the spotter plane working for a couple more days. Parker was generous about shares—of course he did have a busted arm. Dick was supplying the pots for lobster—or red crab if Joxer Goode’s price was good—and Dick was bringing the harpoons, a little more experience, good eyes.

  Dick got to the yard early enough so he didn’t have to argue with the yard manager about whether he was working on Parker’s boat or just looking at her. He got down inside to the stuffing box. Rotten wood and the stuffing all clumped up. Tear it all out. One of the few decent things about the boat was easy access to the stuffing box. And the propeller shaft was true. The hull was fair to poor. Not a design he’d seen around—shallow draft, hard lines. Parker must have bought her down on the Gulf Coast. The half-dory on board was local, but not much good. Dick lined up a couple more strings of heavy pots, one in Westerly, one in North Kingstown, dropped them off alongside Parker’s boat. Mamzelle. Dick wasn’t sure the right way to spell it, but he knew it wasn’t Mamzelle.