John Casey - Spartina

“You don’t worry about it, do you?”

“I told you, it don’t prey on my mind.”

“What if Marie tells Schuyler?”

“What if. But I don’t figure she will.”

“Why’s that?”

“For one, she couldn’t be bothered. That’s the way she is, kind of inert. That’s part of her charm, if you choose to take it that way. For another, one thing women have is a sex imagination. The whole thing is more in their heads. And what that means is it does prey on their minds — they dress it up, they replay it in their heads. So they naturally figure a man is going to do it the same way. And it wouldn’t do to give someone you’re married to a script like that, something they’re going to keep on imagining about. I’ve never had a married woman to tell on me. It’s not just an act for them, it’s a whole soap opera. You understand what I’m saying?”

With bleak distaste, Dick had to admit Parker seemed to know what he was talking about. As Dick applied Parker’s theory to his own coming problem with May, his good mood from several clear days at sea covered over with gloom. It angered him that Parker could get things figured in that slick way of his. It angered him that he was tempted to ask Parker what he should do. It angered him that there was so much confusion, so much thrashing around, in his own efforts to think. Buy her a dishwasher. Good, Dick, take care of everything. He was unfit for this kind of duty. He pictured himself talking to Eddie about it. Eddie wasn’t any fitter than he was.

“I’m off,” Parker said. “I got to make a delivery. I’ll be in touch.”

Dick got Spartina squared away, put her in her berth, paid Keith and Tran. He sat by himself for a bit in the wheelhouse. When he got on the road, he overtook Tran, who was on a bicycle. He told Tran to put his bike in the back of the truck and climb in.

Dick thought again how Parker was on to something about women’s imagination, even a plain-thinking woman like May. The boys away all day. No surprises in her work, no little puzzles. No boat, no sea. Nothing to take her mind off it.

One of the pleasures of being at sea was you didn’t think about sex much. Hardly at all. It just disappeared. That’s why it had been so disconcerting to have Elsie on board Mamzelle. In a way that had started that whole line of trouble. These last two trips had been good; making money was just part of it, another part was the gentle oblivion.

He asked Tran where to turn off. Tran was embarrassed, finally said, “Another ten miles.”

“Jesus, Tran. You can’t bicycle all this way. The weather’s going to turn cold. You understand? I’ll pick you up day after tomorrow. You be all ready to go, I’ll come get you.”

Dick went into the barn with Tran. Parker was right, the whole family was in assembly-line stations: banging together the frames, bending the wire mesh on a jig, tying in the entrance cone and wall of the parlor with needle-nose pliers. Even with all that wire, the pots had to be weighted. At one of the stations the smallest kids were lining the bottom with newspapers soaked in cement. They sloshed some more on to bond the little slab of newspaper-concrete.

When Tran came in, the family quit one by one to come up to him. Then each one stepped back on line.

In the time Dick stood there, a pot came out the end of the line. The old man came up to Dick. Tran spoke to him, then introduced him in English to Dick. “Father. Captain Pierce.”

Dick said, “I never seen a pot built so fast. Looks pretty good.”

The old man nodded. “Good, thank you.”

“Tran did okay on the boat. I’ll take him out again.”

“Good, thank you. Tran is able-bodied.”

“Yeah, he’s okay. Look. What does Parker pay you for your pots?”

“Captain Parker pays us. Then he drives the truck, and the men wanting pots pay him.” The old man smiled. “Tran is okay on your boat?”

Dick figured he could get the price out of Tran next trip out. Get rid of Keith, get an older hand, keep Tran. Then work on a better deal on the pots through Tran.

Dick said, “Who’s going to sell the pots when Parker goes south?”

The old man looked puzzled.

Dick said, “Who’s going to drive the truck after Parker has gone away?”

“Driving a truck will not be a problem.” The old man spoke carefully. Dick was now sure the old man was just being careful, not dumb.

Dick said, “When I come back to pick up Tran day after tomorrow, I’d like to put another thirty pots on my pickup. You get Parker to call me tonight or tomorrow.” Dick wrote Eddie’s number down.

“Captain Parker is a old friend of yours?”

“Oh yeah, Parker and I go way back. You don’t mind if I take a look at what you got stacked up there?” Dick nodded at the rows of pots near the double doors of the barn, six pots high, six pots deep, and at least ten pots long. A lot of good cheap pots.

Dick relaxed some. He’d had a couple of jarring nervous impulses. One was a worry about Parker gouging these guys and leaving them in the lurch. The other was a hot spurt of greed seeing the stacked-up pots — not just to replace his missing trawls, but to get a hold of all these pots before the other boats did. He opened and closed a couple of the pots on top. He imagined the barn door opening, Eddie’s flatbed backing up to the pots.…

Spartina could just carry all these, if they stacked them high and lashed them down. But he couldn’t afford this many, not cash money. He could manage a hundred each time he turned around. Of course, in November he’d have to start moving all his trawls in closer so he could duck back into someplace safe if the weather turned.

The old guy and Tran hovered by him. Dick said, “I’ll try to get Parker to agree to a hundred of these. And, Tran, you get yourself some wool clothes, you understand? Summer’s over. I’ll get you a survival suit at the Co-op, but when I come get you, you better have a sea bag full of long johns and sweaters. I can’t teach you much when your teeth are chattering.”

The old guy said, “When do you pay Tran a full share?”

“The more he learns, the more he earns.”

“Christmastime?” The old guy said.

Dick hoped the old guy was as pushy when he was dealing with Parker. Dick said, “He’s still the boy. That’s just one week he’s put in.”

“Twenty years old. You call him boy?”

“He’s the boy till he can do all the stuff needs to be done. I’ll teach him. He pays attention, he’ll be full-share in a year.”

The old guy spoke softly, but he kept coming. “Tran spent time on fishing boats, more than a year, three years.” The old guy held up three fingers. “How long you have your boat? Captain Parker says your boat is brand-new.”

Dick said, “Goddamn.” Tran spoke to his father in Vietnamese. Dick said, “Goddamn!” more angrily, but he kept his temper. He looked at Tran and shook his head. “You tell your old man not to screw up a good thing. I’ll see you day after tomorrow. You get them wool clothes, and you stand by to load my truck with pots.”

Dick left. He gunned his truck some so they’d hear it. He saw in his rearview mirror he was burning oil. He said out loud, “Goddamn! Next thing, I’ll need a new truck.”

He thought of what Elsie would make of all this. It made him laugh.

It wasn’t surprising the old man came on the way he did. He’d been dealing with Parker, didn’t know any better. Dick recollected he himself had some greed in his mind, maybe it’d showed in his eyes. The old man was foreign, probably didn’t know there was some things you push back and forth, some things you don’t.

With a little jolt Dick saw himself as Captain Texeira when Captain Texeira fired him. As the loan officer at the bank pursing his mouth. As Joxer Goode asking about collateral.