Paolo Bacigalupi - Ship Breaker

Out on the horizon, another clipper ship was skating across the Gulf’s night waters, running lights glowing blue. He took a deep breath, watching it rush for whatever port would protect it. For once, Nailer was glad to be on shore.

He turned and trudged down the beach toward his own hut. If he was really lucky, his father would be out drinking and he’d be able to slip in unnoticed.

Nailer’s home lay at the margin of the jungle surrounded by kudzu vines and cypress, made of palm sheathing and bamboo struts and scavenged sheet tin that his father had tagged with his fist mark to make sure nobody scavenged it while they were away during the day.

Nailer set his luck gifts outside the door. He could almost remember times when this door hadn’t seemed dangerous. Before his mother went feverish. Before his father turned drunk and high. Now, opening the door was always a gamble.

If it weren’t for the fact that Nailer was wearing loaned clothes, he wouldn’t even risk the return, but still, his other set of clothes lay inside, and if he was lucky, his dad was still out drinking. He scraped open the door and padded through the interior darkness. Opened the jar of glowpaint and smeared a bit on his forehead. The phosphorescence gave dim shadows-

A match flared. Nailer whirled.

His father leaned against the wall behind the door, watching him, a nearly empty bottle of booze gripped in one fist.

“Good to see you, Nailer.”

Richard Lopez was a rib-thin conglomeration of ropy muscle and burning energy. Tattooed dragons ran the length of his arms and sent their tails curling up his neck to twine with the faded patterns of his own long-ago light crew tattoos. Fresher, and far more ominous, a whole series of victory scars gleamed on his chest, showing all the men he’d broken when he’d been a ring fighter. Thirteen red and angry slashes there. His very own baker’s dozen, he would say, grinning. And then he’d ask Nailer if he was ever going to be as tough as his old man.

Richard lit the storm lamp that hung overhead, setting it swaying. Nailer held still, trying to guess his father’s mood as the man pulled a scavenged chair around and straddled it. The lamp’s swinging glare cast shadows across them both, looming and swooping shapes. Richard Lopez was sliding high, burning with amphetamines and liquor. His bloodshot eyes studied Nailer carefully, a snake waiting to strike.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Nailer tried not to show fear. The man didn’t have anything in his hands: no knife, no belt, no willow whip. His blue eyes might be crystal bright, but he was still a calm ocean.

“I had an accident on the job,” Nailer said.

“An accident? Or you were being stupid?”

“No-”

“Thinking about girls?” his dad pressed. “Thinking about nothing at all? Daydreaming like you do?” He jerked his head toward the torn image of a clipper ship that Nailer had tacked to the wall of their shack. “Thinking about your pretty sailing ships?”

Nailer didn’t take the bait. If he protested, it would just make things worse.

His father said, “How you going to pay your way around here, if you’re off your crew?”

“I’m not off,” Nailer said. “I’m back tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” His father’s bloodshot eyes narrowed suspiciously. He nodded at the rag sling holding Nailer’s shoulder. “With a gimp arm? Bapi doesn’t do charity work.”

Nailer forced himself not to back down. “I’m still good. Sloth got cut, so I got no competition in the ducts. I’m smaller-”

“Smaller than shit. Yeah. You got that going for you.” His father took a swallow from his bottle. “Where’s your filter mask?” he asked.

Nailer hesitated.

“Well?”

“I lost it.”

Silence stretched between them. “Lost it, huh?” was all his father said, but Nailer could tell that dangerous gears were turning now, fueled by the rattle of drugs and anger and whatever madness caused his father’s bouts of frenzied work and brutality. Underneath the man’s tattooed features a storm was brewing, full of undertows and crashing surf and water spouts, the deadly weather that buffeted Nailer every day as he tried to navigate the coastline of his father’s moods. Richard Lopez was thinking. And now Nailer needed to know what-or he’d never escape the shack without a beating.

Nailer tried an explanation. “I fell through a duct and into an oil pocket. Couldn’t get out. The mask couldn’t breathe, anyway. It was full of oil. It was done for.”

“Don’t tell me it was done for,” his father snapped. “That’s not your say.”

“No, sir.” Nailer waited, wary.

Richard Lopez tapped his booze bottle idly against the back of the chair. “I’ll bet you’ll want another mask now. You were always complaining about the dust with that old one.”

“No, sir,” Nailer said again.

“No, sir,” his father mimicked. “Damn, Nailer, you’re a smart one these days. Always saying the right thing.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth all splayed out like a hand, but still the bottle tapped against the back of the chair. Nailer wondered if his father was going to try to hit him with it. The bottle tapped again. Richard Lopez’s predatory eyes studied Nailer. “You’re a smart little bastard these days,” he murmured. “I’m almost thinking you’re getting too damn smart for your own good. Maybe you’re starting to say things you don’t mean. Yes, sir. No, sir. Sir .”

Nailer could barely breathe. He knew now that his father was mapping out the violence, planning to catch Nailer, to teach him some respect. Nailer’s eyes went to the door. Even with his father sliding high, the man had a good chance of catching him, and then everything would be blood and bruises and there was no way he’d get back on to light crew before Bapi cut him.

Nailer cursed that he hadn’t just gone straight to the safety of Pima’s shack. His eyes went to the door again. If he could just-

Richard caught the flick of Nailer’s gaze. The man’s features turned cold. He stood and pushed his chair away. “Come here, boy.”

“I got a luck gift,” Nailer said suddenly. “A good one. For getting out of the oil.”

Nailer kept his voice steady, trying to pretend he didn’t know his father was planning on beating the hell out of him. Playing innocent. Talking normal, like there wasn’t about to be pain and screaming and a chase. “It’s right here,” he said.

Walk slow. Don’t make him think you’re running .

“It’s just right here,” Nailer said again as he opened the door and reached outside. He grabbed Moon Girl’s luck gift and offered it to his dad. The bottle gleamed in the lamplight, a talisman.

“Black Ling,” Nailer said. “The crew gave it to me. Said I should share it with you. Because I’m lucky for you having me.”

Nailer held his breath. His father’s cold eyes went to the bottle. Maybe his father would drink. Or maybe he’d take the bottle and hit him with it. Nailer just didn’t know. The man had become more unpredictable as he worked less on the crews and worked more in the shadow world of the beaches, as his drugs whittled him down to a burning core of violence and hungers.

“Let me see.” His dad took the bottle from Nailer’s hand and checked the level of the liquor. “Didn’t leave much for your old man,” he complained. But he cracked the screw and sniffed the contents. Nailer waited, praying for luck.

His father drank. Made a face of respect. “Good stuff,” he said.

The violence seeped out of the room. His father grinned and toasted Nailer with the bottle. “Damn good stuff.” He tossed his other bottle into the corner. “Way better than that swill.”