John Casey - Spartina

Dick shook his head.

“Dick,” Elsie said, “maybe the roof of that shed.” She really did put her hand on his forearm. “I want to be sure to get May in.”

“Fine,” Dick said. “Anywhere out of the way.”

He saw the skiff at last, coming up the channel. He looked up to the parking lot and saw Charlie drive in. Parker was with him.

Dick said to Eddie, “Have Tom stand by with the skiff right here.”

He walked up to the parking lot. The manager was rounding up his crew.

Parker slapped Dick on the shoulder.

“How you doing, old buddy? Goddamn, look at that! There she is, your own genuine, self-financed, offshore boat, fully guaranteed for five years or fifty thousand miles, whichever comes first. Who-ee!”

Charlie laughed.

“Now, that is a boat, son.” Parker shook Charlie’s shoulder. “And your old man’s the one that built it. What do you think of that?”

Charlie was embarrassed.

Dick said, “He knows the boat. He did some work on her too.”

“Well, there you go,” Parker said, releasing Charlie’s shoulder. “Say, Dick, I hear you took Mamzelle out while I was gone.”

“That’s right,” Dick said. “Somebody had to check those pots.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Parker said. “I’m obliged to you. Maybe we can have a little talk later on in the day, catch up on each other. After you get squared away.”

Parker strolled off to look at the boat. Charlie’s gaze followed his wake. Dick felt the air was filled with secrets.

Charlie said, “He was on board when we got there, so we explained, and he just got in the car with me.” Charlie sounded dubious.

“That’s fine,” Dick said. “Your mother just sees the one side to him. I wouldn’t want you boys to ship out with him, but he’s … got his good side.”

Charlie said, “I guess he’s got a sense of humor.”

Dick looked sideways at Charlie to make sure it was his son who made this remark. Nothing to it really, but it came out so flat, saying just so much.

Elsie came fluttering around the corner of the office. “Dick, come on! And here’s Charlie! Good. You go stand by your mother when she breaks the bottle. Tom’s already there.”

Dick said, “Jesus, Elsie. I just want to put the boat in. See if she leaks. I don’t want a side show.”

“The trouble with your father,” Elsie said, “is that he takes gloom pills.”

Charlie laughed.

“It’s a Yankee superstition,” Elsie said. “You think if you’re grumpy enough you’ll have good luck. But just this once, Dick, don’t be a wet blanket. Everybody else wants a little celebration.”

Elsie went back toward the boat. When Dick and Charlie came round the office they saw there was a crowd. Elsie strapped on her camera and climbed a ladder to the roof of the shed.

Mary Scanlon had rigged a bottle of champagne on a yard of ribbon and was holding it out to May. May said to Dick, “It won’t hurt the paint, will it?”

Mary Scanlon said, “No, I’ve practically sawed the bottle in half with a glass-cutter.”

May said, “What do I say?”

Mary said, “You say, ‘I christen you Spartina. ’ ” Mary turned to Dick. “Is that right, Dick? It’s what Elsie told me.” Mary turned back to May. “And then you let loose with the bottle. You can’t miss.”

Mary waved to the manager, who was at the controls of the marine railway. He gunned the engine and then cut back to idle.

Dick said, “ Spartina-May is what she’s called.”

May said, “I can’t say my own name.”

“Come on, May. Say her full name.”

“You do it, Charlie.”

Mary Scanlon said, “It’s got to be a woman.”

Mary held her arms up over her head.

Now that everyone was quiet, the crowd seemed even bigger. Captain Texeira with his hat in his hand. Joxer Goode. Elsie’s sister and her husband. Eddie Wormsley down on the dock holding one of the lines. Parker grinning at Schuyler and Schuyler’s wife.

Dick looked away from the people, down the harbor. The southwest onshore breeze was just picking up, a cat’s paw flickered toward him, relieving the dull surface of the channel.

May held on to his arm, took a breath, and said in a high voice, “I christen you Spartina-May. ”

The boat was already moving when May finally let go of the bottle, which broke neatly in two on the bow, gushed, and then dribbled foam from the dangling neck.

Charlie said, “Way to go, Ma.”

For the time it took the boat to run in and float up from the carriage, Dick felt squeezed tighter and tighter, and then released as he came loose with her. Now it was just the two of them. He felt her press up from the water, felt her colors bob into order: her gray hull, her royal-blue waterline, and a slice of her rust-red bottom as she rode light in her first taste of the sea.

D ick didn’t remember speaking to anyone, or even having lunch. It was only when May reminded him to thank Mary and Elsie for the champagne bottle and the picnic basket that he figured he’d eaten. Dick let Charlie and Eddie Wormsley show people around for a while. Then he moved Spartina to her mooring. Dick kept the boys’ skiff and stayed on board for the afternoon. He didn’t do any work. He just looked at everything, touched everything, listened to the soft creak of the hull in the wake of passing boats. He went home for supper, but went back on board with a mattress for one of the bunks and spent the night. In the morning he turned on the bilge pump. She’d taken on a little water, about right for the first day. By the third day she was bone dry in the morning, completely made up. In his time on board Dick had rigged the antennas and the crow’s nest.

He took Charlie, stopped off to pick up Parker, and went out for a quick shakedown cruise.

Even with full fuel tanks she rode high. Dick could feel her dance as soon as they slipped through the breakwater. He hadn’t filled the water tank or taken on any ice for the fish hold. He pumped some sea water into the lobster well, and that settled her a bit.

Dick let Charlie take the wheel and went below to listen to the engine. Parker came along.

“Plenty of power,” Parker said, “and, my God — look at your lobster tank — you’re pretty optimistic.”

“Seven thousand pounds,” Dick said. “It’s about half of what Texeira’s boats’ll take. But, then, they stay out twice as long. I figure I’ll be staying out ten days when the weather’s right.”

“And you figure what for crew?”

“I’d like two, and a boy during summer.”

“And how many pots?”

“Well, now,” Dick said, “let’s talk about pots. You and I started out with just about fifteen hundred, maybe a thousand of them yours. But every time we lost or busted one, I replaced it. So by now we’re even.”

“Hold on, Dick, just a second there. When we lost a pot, who says it was mine and not yours?”

Dick said, “It was me put out a new one.”

Parker said, “But if it was one of yours got busted, you don’t gain a pot. Don’t you see that?”

Dick said, “Let me put it this way. You owe me money.”

Parker said, “That’s right. You got a little money coming to you.”

“Not so little.”

“Well, Dick, here’s how that works — once I had to bring Schuyler in to help out when your first run didn’t work out, that kind of rearranged things. You can see that, can’t you?”

“You’re heading south,” Dick said. “You don’t want pots. You don’t want to hire a tender to bring in all them pots. It’d take you a month to bring them in on Mamzelle. And, selling them dockside, you wouldn’t get much even if you were willing to sit around waiting for the different skippers to come in. Now, I’m willing to take over your pots and call it even.”