John Casey - Spartina

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.

P arker 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.”