John Casey - Spartina

“Yes,” Elsie said. “What’s that in your hand?”

“Jesus, Elsie, you’ve seen a harpoon.…”

“Explain how it works.”

“You’ll get to see how it works. That is, if we ever get going.”

“Dick. Come on.”

“When we’re steaming somewhere with nothing much to do—”

Schuyler said, “Captain Parker tells me you got mad at the phone company once, you tore your phone off the wall and threw it out in the middle of Route One.”

Dick said, “You worried about your camera?”

Elsie said, “Oh, for God’s sakes!” Schuyler laughed.

Dick put his harpoon by the bow pulpit, pigeon-holed his charts and notes in the wheelhouse, then moved around checking the bait barrels and spare pots. Schuyler asked Parker what he thought of Rhode Island. Parker said, “Cute little state. First time I heard of it, I was running a charter boat in the Gulf, had a couple of Texans on board. One says to the other, ‘I hear you picked up that land next to yours. You must have quite a spread now.’ The other one says, ‘Middling. Just over two and a half Rhode Islands.’ ”

Schuyler laughed. Elsie said, “They don’t really.”

Dick said to her, “He’s only here summers with his bullshit.”

“You mean Rhode Island gets bigger during the winter?” Schuyler said. He and Parker laughed.

“We’re leaving before long,” Dick said. “I’m going to pull a few pots and go to bed.”

Schuyler and Elsie followed him to his house.

May was in her garden. Elsie waved and followed Dick toward the wharf. Schuyler went over to May and introduced himself. He got his camera going and pointed it at the ramshackle shed Dick had rigged. It had a wood roof, but the siding was mostly old sheets of canvas and vinyl.

Dick shouted to Schuyler, “Don’t go in there!”

May yelled down to Dick, “When do you want your supper?”

“When I get back.” Dick cranked the outboard and cast off. Elsie jumped in. “Can’t you wait a second?” Dick started down the creek.

Elsie said, “Are you going to be like this the whole trip?”

Dick didn’t answer. They got going faster when they passed Sawtooth Point. Dick couldn’t believe Schuyler had made so much money just taking pictures that he could have bought the Wedding Cake.

Elsie got cheerful when Dick pulled a pot and a huge eel was curled up in it — made a big S from one corner of the parlor to the other. When Dick swung the pot up, the eel squeezed out between the slats. Three feet long and as thick as his forearm and it was flowing through a chink the width of his thumb. Elsie zoomed in on it with her camera. Dick turned the pot so the eel fell inside the boat. The eel wiggled between Elsie’s feet as she filmed the rest of the junk in the pot — a large whelk, a starfish, and a spider crab. Dick turned the whelk so Elsie could film the single moist foot as it sucked itself into its shell.

“Fruits de mer,” Elsie said. “Two of ’em, anyway.”

Dick rebaited the pot. “The lobster have mostly gone from in here. Used to be you could make a living from within sight of land. Now you got to go way the hell out.”

“But I get the feeling you like going to sea,” Elsie said. “You like being way out there.”

“That’s right,” Dick said. “I like the time out there. I hope having movie cameras along doesn’t screw it up.”

Elsie lowered her camera and looked hurt.

“I don’t mean you,” Dick said. “I mean that recording everything, having those things whirring like clocks … that might change the nature of time.”

“Oh shit,” Elsie said. “I wish I’d got that part. I suppose I shouldn’t ask you to say it again.”

“Schuyler have rules?” Dick said. He threw the pot over. He thought he’d better not let her get him talking again.

“There are rules,” Elsie said. “I’m not sure what Schuyler’s relation is to them.”

When they got back, May was serving hamburgers and peas to the boys and Schuyler. Dick said, “Hope you didn’t mind being left. Be sure you get to Parker’s boat.”

May served Elsie and Dick. Schuyler said, “We had a very pleasant time.”

After Schuyler and Elsie left, Dick went into the bedroom and set his alarm for two. May came in and sat on the bed. “He seems nice,” she said. Dick snorted. “I hope you’ll get along with them,” she said. “It certainly beats spending time with Parker and his crew.”

“I am his crew,” Dick said.

“I mean his pot-head college boys. That man and the Buttrick girl are just a nicer sort.”

“Right this minute I’m not looking to improve my social life,” Dick said.

“I wonder sometimes if you’ll be able to fit in with anyone even after you have your own boat.” She touched his head in a way that made her remark more sympathetic than nagging. Her touch also reminded him he was going to be at sea for the better part of a week. “Maybe you’d like to take a nap too,” he said.

May stood up. “When you get back,” she said. “Same as when you wanted your supper.”

T hey left the dock just after 2:00 a.m. It was a late-June night that felt more like midsummer. As they slipped past the breakwater, Parker’s boat began to work hard in the swell. Dick tried different speeds until he got her to move a little easier.

Dick had taken a nap. The others turned in. Dick could hear Elsie and Schuyler exclaiming and laughing over how grungy the bunks were.

She was a grungy boat, but Dick was content to be putting out to sea, slanting under the arc of the waning moon.

Elsie got up first. It was still dark.

She said, “It stinks of something in there. I can’t tell what.”

“If it stays calm you can air it out.”

Ahead of them the sky was growing pale — at first just a smudge on the horizon and then, arc by arc, the stars were put out by light.

“It’s calmer than it was,” Elsie said. “But here we are in the middle of the ocean.”

“Not in the middle,” Dick said.

“Well — nothing but water. ‘Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’ ”

Dick turned on the radio-direction finder. “Here,” he said to Elsie. “Get me a station in New York.”

“You want music?”

“I want to show you how to find out where we are. It’s easy now with just a few all-night stations on. Get New York, Boston, and one in Providence. Take a reading from each one, draw the line on the chart and where the lines meet, that’s us.”

Elsie said, “Like a back-azimuth with a compass.”

“Yup,” Dick said. “You got the idea. Here. You try it.”

“Why not do just two lines?”

“You’ll see. When you get that done, get some coffee and juice.”

Elsie laughed at him.

Dick said, “After breakfast I’m going to tell you and Schuyler the name of everything on board.”

Elsie said, “I don’t want to know—”

“So you’ll know what it is and where it is if I ask for it. You can laugh about it when we get home. You can take all the movies you want when there’s not something else to do. It’s not my way of being a son of a bitch. It’s the way to run a boat. There are some things we can discuss, and there are some things we can’t.”

Elsie didn’t say anything. She got her readings and drew them in. Dick looked at the chart. “Not bad,” he said. “But it’s a pretty big triangle you got. It’ll do for now. You see why you do three? With two you can make yourself think you’ve got it. If you can make three agree, you know you’re right. We got just enough time for you to do it again if you want.”