The Wooden Nickel Read online

  “Who? You still ragging on the whales?”

  “You talk about whales, take a look at them fatass pigs, you think they ever done a day’s work?”

  “Christ sake, Lucky,” she screams over the engine, “they’re on vacation. This is supposed to be Vacationland, ain’t it?”

  “Ain’t no vacationland for the ones that live here, it’s Work Your Ass Off for Nothingland. They should have the cons stamp that on the license plates.” He heads right for the stainless steel barbecue grill smoking off the stern rail, no doubt full of stolen lobsters.

  “Lucky,” she screeches, “what are you doing?”

  He steams the Wooden Nickel right at them till he gets about fifty feet off their stern. He comes so close he can read the name off the transom in big gold metallic letters, probably fourteen-karat leaf like the church steeple. Zauberflöte, whatever the fuck that means. Then he swerves hard to starboard so they’ll catch a nice fat quarter wave and turns away. “Fucking Krauts. Should of finished them off when we had the chance.” He pins the throttle so they won’t be able to read his boat name in the cloud of spray, smokes eastward across the harbor towards the Split Ledge beacon at twenty-two knots on the loran. Ronette has got the binoculars and she’s looking back over the stern. “Jesus, Lucky, you destroyed them, their table’s fell over, they look like they’re drenched, and now they’re all going down below.”

  “Fucking bloodsuckers, it’s a good place for them.”

  He gooses the engine and swings east, they’re past the Split Ledge can in about two minutes, out of sight of those bastards, so he throttles down now to thirteen knots as they pick up the Split Cove channel buoy sequence. Then he spots a plastic lobster boat he’s never seen before, little one, looks like a Vern Eaton twenty-two with a Merc outdrive and a pink-and-white buoy speared on the radio whip. “Ain’t that cunning,” he says. “Pink and white.”

  “What’s the matter with that?”

  “Ain’t a fisherman’s color.”

  “It is now.”

  Not only that, they’re setting traps in two fathoms just north of Split Ledge. Vern makes a decent boat, ruins it with a stern drive, then he puts a little bathroom in them so they can wash their hands after handling the catch.

  The name on the transom is:

  ALICE B. TOKLAS

  Split Point

  “Don’t seem like a name from around here,” he says.

  There’s a couple of squared-off rugged figures on board setting and hauling, both of them women. They’ve got matching yellow aprons so new they still have the factory creases in them, they’re waving at Lucky and shouting what sounds like “Ahoy!”

  Ronette waves back. “I know them, Lucky, they’re the two summer ladies from down on Eastern Head.”

  “But how the hell are they setting on Split Ledge? That’s neutral territory between Split Cove and us, been that way for fifty years. Nobody sets there. It’s all sand anyway, ain’t no catch to speak of off of sand.”

  “I heard they bought Split Ledge.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. Split Ledge is a landmark. Can’t buy a fucking landmark.”

  “Money can buy anything, Lucky. You ought to know that.”

  “Couldn’t buy you.”

  She leans up close to him and whispers, “Want to know something else? I hear they’re lesbians. That’s what Reggie Dolliver says.”

  “How would he know? He inclined that way himself?”

  “Course he ain’t. Reggie’s a man.”

  “Spend a while in the joint, anything can happen.”

  “Reggie wired their home for a security system. That’s how he knows. That’s Reggie’s new job, residential security.”

  “No shit. Ain’t that the fox in the henhouse?”

  “He can wire your whole house and connect it direct to the sheriff’s office. He was telling me.”

  “He’s connected direct himself, ain’t he?” Then he looks over and one of the women’s pulling a big snapping lobster out of the trap, then another, even bigger, flapping its tail, bending ass backward trying to bite off her hand. They’re pulling them in as fast as they can band them. “Bottom must of changed,” he says. “Didn’t use to be no lobsters on Split Ledge.”

  Ronette stands close to him now and takes his hand down by the fuel switch as if she didn’t want it to be seen. She puts the other hand on a wheel spoke, so they’re both steering in. “I ought to learn to drive this thing, case anything happens to you.”

  “Ain’t nothing going to happen.”

  “Watch your heart, then. Don’t get so mad at things. And stop smoking. We may be needing you around.”

  “What the fuck. You smoke.”

  “Not anymore. I thrown them away. From now on, I’m breathing for two.” They’re in the channel now, Split Cove boats all around, they’re all giving him the finger from under the gunwale where he can’t see it, otherwise he’d blow their fucking windshields out. Then she says, “Hey Lucky, we’re almost home. We ain’t even talked about it yet.”

  He lets her steer and backs off to lean up against the hauler so he can give her a long hard look, he’s getting farsighted. He can see the horizon sharper and sharper but when he gets close onto something it blurs up. “You spend considerable time with that Reggie Dolliver,” he says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means what it means. Something could be his, well as mine.”

  Slap.

  With no warning she lets go of his hand and whacks him so hard across the ear he has to hang on to the pot hauler so he doesn’t go over the side. When he opens his eyes and looks at her she hits him again. “You are lower than a snake’s asshole,” she says. “You’re even worse than that fucker Clyde.”

  Then with his good ear he hears a double horn blast like it’s right on top of the boat.

  “Christly fuck.” He grabs the wheel out of her hand and jams it hard over. The Wooden Nickel just misses bashing a big rusty Split Cove scalloper with four screaming bastards on the rail, every frigging one of them pumping the finger at him while the huge blackhaired captain dives down below for his deer rifle. Then they realize Ronette was steering and they double up laughing and turn back on their course. The scalloper’s wake throws half the water out of the saltwater tank. Three or four nice lobsters splash onto the wash-board, bounce off and they’re gone. Ginger’s barking like she’s gone rabid, Ronette tries to grab the exhaust stack to steady herself and backs off with her hand smoking, everything slides off the radar shelf: cigarettes, lunch pails, socket wrenches, crashing onto the cockpit floor. He turns back from the wheel to read the name Big Lizzie on their stern as they steam off. All the Split Covers are still on the transom, three of them doubled up laughing and the fourth one hanging onto the drag vanes while he takes a leak over the stern.

  “You ain’t going to steer no more,” Lucky rules. “That’s it.”

  “Don’t be so nervous. We didn’t hit them, did we?”

  “We came pretty god damned christly close. Cunt hair closer and we’d of been stove in.”

  “What was you saying about Reggie Dolliver?”

  “Nothing,” he says.

  “That’s cause there ain’t nothing to say. You may think I been running around, Lucky, but I ain’t. I exercise Ginger, sleep, listen to Rush Limbaugh, watch a little TV. That’s it. Couple days I work for Doris. And I work for you.” She pauses. “Only it’s going to be different now. I don’t give a shit if Clyde gets the dog or the Probe or whatever the fuck he wants, cause I’m going to have me a little family of my own.”

  “A woman don’t have to have no kids if she don’t want them. It ain’t like the old days when me and Sarah had to get married. Whole matter could end right here.”

  “What do you mean, end?”

  “You know what I mean. End. Like it never begun.”

  “Jesus H. Christ, Lucky Lunt. Mr. Pro-Life himself. He sure had us fooled, didn’t he, Ginger?”

  “Don’t get
me wrong,” he says. “I ain’t for them partial births. Them kids are already alive, got a brain and everything, right in the hospital dumpster.”

  “I got news for you, Lucky. This one’s already alive too. It’s half you, so’s I don’t know about the brain part, but it’s in there and it ain’t coming out till New Year’s Day.”

  “New Year’s?”

  “That’s right. It’s due in January but they come out faster if you drink in the last month, so we’ll make it the New Year’s baby and we’ll get a trailer full of stuff, they give you everything, crib, toys, diapers, most of what we’ll need for a whole year. Come December I’ll just start having a beer or two a day, they say that loosens them up.”

  “You ain’t supposed to,” he says. “It could get deformed.”

  “It ain’t going to get deformed in the last couple weeks, it’s all done by then. Anyhow, what do you care?”

  “I don’t. I’m just saying it, that’s all. If you drink, it could come out deformed. It says so right on the fucking bottle. Then would you feel like shit or what?”

  “OK. Only if I don’t drink, we stand to miss on the New Year’s stuff.”

  “You’re saying ‘we,’” he says, “but I ain’t decided nothing.”

  “You don’t have to,” she yells. “I decided for both of us.”

  He swerves quick to port to avoid a couple of wet-suited scuba divers in an outboard with the striped diver’s flag. He looks twice to see if it could be Kyle and Darrell Swan, but it’s a pair of long-haired Split Cove guys that look like Navahos. He gives them the finger. “Right in the fucking channel, nice place to park.”

  “I got you figured,” she shouts over the engine noise. “You’re pro-life for everyone with one big exception. You.”

  “It ain’t me,” he shouts back, “it’s a medical condition. I got a bad heart.”

  “I got news for you, Lucky. You don’t even know it, but you got a good heart. One of the best.”

  “The fuck I do. This thing last winter, if that don’t work I may be going in for a valve job. And if that don’t work...”

  “I ain’t talking about that heart, Lucky.”

  “I got news for you. I ain’t only got but one.”

  At this point they’re through the Split Cove thoroughfare and throttling down as the Wooden Nickel comes up on the waterfront. The sun’s still high and the tide’s down. The summer algae bloom hasn’t struck yet so the water’s still clear. As it shallows up near the float he can see under the surface, big square granite pier blocks with blasting scars and starfish all over them, three or four old engines rusting on the bottom, a railroad wheel, an outboard, a toilet, a snowmobile, a refrigerator, a couple of bikes: god damn Split Covers just drive up and throw their lives off the fucking pier. Over on the co-op’s stone wharf a big Oregon-style trawler is getting its hold sucked out by the vacuum pump. It’s from someplace down east, Cape Maliseet. He’s never seen her before, it’s probably a one-time fling cause Split Cove’s paying a better price. He’s heard they don’t pay shit for nothing down there, fog all the time, Canadians steal your lobsters, nothing but French TV. “At least we ain’t there,” he says out loud, but she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

  “You still going to fire me, Lucky?”

  “I’ll figure that out when I call you. Four a.m.”

  “Don’t call, cause I ain’t going to be home. I’m going to be down here waiting.”

  Up on the pierhead a rusted-out Mazda B-200 pickup sticks its tailgate over the side, big red bumper sticker saying,

  UNLESS YOU’RE A HEMORRHOID

  GET OFF MY ASS

  “Hey Lucky. Check that bumper sticker out. Tell me they ain’t clever around here.”

  “They just bought the god damn thing, Ronette, they didn’t write it.” On second thought, it would have been a good one to slap on the loaner before giving it back to Virgil Carter, but it’s too late now, he’s got his GMC back.

  Before leaping off, she puts her arm around him and gives him a wet kiss right on the mouth. Her hair smells of lobster bait, her purple tank top is soaked with fish guts, but inside she tastes like a warm live strawberry and for a moment he forgets graduation, pregnancy, the wrath of Sarah, his lost children, the staring brain-dead Split Cove fishermen, and just lets his head dive below the surface for a while.

  Then he hears a bunch of the local unemployed, which is most of them, gagging and giggling at the scene. He puts his finger up in the direction of the biggest one and kisses it. Ronette grabs the finger and folds it back into his fist. “You got to act civilized around here,” she says. “Them’s your relatives now.”

  Except for a funeral or two, he hasn’t had a tie around his neck since he stopped going to church after his prayers were finally answered and Reagan sent Jimmy Carter back to the peanut farm. He can tie a sheet bend between a one-inch hawser and a piece of fishing line, he can tie a rolling timber hitch, he can tie an anchor bend under water, a tugboat hitch with one hand in pitch blackness, but right now he’s standing in front of the mirror bloody from three shaving cuts, one end of the necktie in each hand and he can’t figure out how to make the fucking knot. No matter how hard he tries, the big end is up around his collarbone and the small end dangles down to his crotch. Finally his wife comes in and says, “It’s not an eye splice, Lucas. It’s just a necktie.” She takes the two ends in hand and in two or three strokes she’s tucking the short piece where it belongs under the JC Penney label and he’s ready to go. “Remember, we’re meeting the Hummermans tonight.”

  “I know that. But how come? They ain’t got kids in that school.”

  “Kristen has invited them, that’s how come. She and Nathan have grown quite close, and I think it’s good for her, he’ll give her a little taste of college life.”

  “Hope that’s all she tastes.”

  “Lucas. They are a very refined family, so for God’s sake try and put a leash on your language, especially at the table. And just because the Hummermans made the reservations, be sure not to let them pay the check.”

  “Why the hell not? They already got all our money, they might as well hand some back.”

  “Lucas, they don’t have our money.”

  “Thing about you is, Sarah, you ain’t got a head for economics. Once you start giving to the medical profession, they all share the pie.”

  “You haven’t given anything, Lucas. All those cardiology bills are still unpaid. You are a tax write-off as far as the medical profession goes.”

  “Fucking vultures.” He digs out the black wool sport coat he got for Stubby Gross’s funeral, but the moths have got to it and it looks like he got shotgunned in the back. “Surprise, surprise,” Sarah says. She’s got a box with a brand-new size 48 blazer in it, and it fits his chest and shoulders smooth as shrink-wrap. She pats the coat into place and pulls the collar out over the tie. “No two ways about it, you’re still a very handsome man. You ought to dress up more often. Too bad you stopped going to church. Dr. Nichols has some very thoughtful sermons, not boring like Reverend Platt.”

  “Biggest god damn racket in the history of the world. They’re up there telling you how to live, next moment they’re in the back room with the altar boys.”

  “Lucas, there aren’t any altar boys in the Methodist church.”

  He drags his wristwatch out through the blazer sleeve. “Let’s go. I’ll follow you, cause I ain’t even sure where the damn place is.”

  “Lucas, it’s your children’s high school.”

  “They should of kept the school right in Orphan Point. Ever seen the cars around there? Range Rovers. Audis. They wouldn’t let a fish truck in the parking lot.”

  “At least you don’t have that awful black one that Virgil Carter lent you, with the muffler scraping the road. Say, maybe you could get your sternperson to lend you her little Mustang or whatever it is.”

  “Come on, Sarah, let it alone. We got a daughter to graduate. We ain’t going to see it if w
e don’t haul ass.”

  He wakes up to this huge noise like a ship is holed and there’s water roaring through the bulkheads both fore and aft. He clears his eyes and steadies his spine in the folding metal chair. He’s not at sea, he’s in a high school auditorium and everyone’s clapping so he starts clapping too, Sarah right beside him with Nathan Hummerman on the other side of her, then Mrs. Elsie Hummerman, a cute little lady with rust-stained hair and diamond earrings and nice plump freckly tits peeping out over the rim of her summer dress. It’s not clear to Lucky how such a bald owly little guy is married to that red-haired sexy low-cut woman. Maybe it’s money, you can see she’s a spender. Kristen says she’s remodeling her whole kitchen in polished granite. Tonight she’s got more jewelry on than Princess Di.

  He whispers to his wife, “What’d I miss?”

  “It was a very good speech,” she whispers back. “He talked about global warming.”

  He puts his hands in back of his head and stretches, cracks his knuckles, tries to glance sidewards around his wife’s neck and get a better angle on Mrs. Elsie Hummerman’s sleeveless dress. You can see a lot of cleavage any Saturday night in the RoundUp but it’s mostly on fat women, which doesn’t count. This one has skinny tan arms, probably from tennis, and bony shoulders like Sarah’s but she’s built like Ronette on top, maybe her husband slipped some of the saline in. Then for no reason his heart misses a beat, just stops in midair, waits about three seconds, then kicks in hard. He remembers he skipped his pill this morning because he was getting ready to fire his sternperson and that medicine can soften his will power like ice cream in the sun. Now he could use one but the pills are in the truck. He closes his eyes and thinks of taking a carburetor apart, step by step, till the heart rhythm goes normal and he can breathe. Hummerman squints over at him for a moment, then straightens around again. Short guy like that, hands like a little kid’s, he doesn’t look strong enough to saw your chest open. He must use a power tool.