John Casey - Spartina

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 walked 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?”