Denis Johnson - Fiskadoro

“I took four men. Bob Wilson. The person called Holy Apples. Michael Torres. And a sailor name Smith, that’s all anybody know now, Smith. We went in my fisher, the Guerrilla.

“After one half morning we come around the Twicetown Key to the Ocean. The Ocean side ain’t put there for our boats — they tell you that, but we never said it that day. We took the Ocean, brother. We took the Ocean, my pal. We sailed the fog full of ghosts. We was hear them talking but we wasn’t understand the words, because of they were the Ocean ghosts who we never knew them, not any ghosts from around here, who one time they used to be our friends. Then when the fog let loose of us, we have the wind and rain.

“A storm been our mother all the way. She pick us up — sometime the boat she flying. The hands of the Ocean come out and took Smith. There wasn’t nothing we could do, we wasn’t see it coming. But we see it coming for Holy Apples because of Holy Apples started to glow as loud as this”—he picked up a coal, holding it with complete serenity in the palm of his hand, and blew on it to make it flare. “We knew he gone be next, Holy Apples, and we clutch onto him, Bob Wilson and me, while Michael Torres kept up screaming at the wind.

“The person called Holy Apples was glowing so loud Bob Wilson and me was look at the bones glowing inside of our hands where we holding him. Then the mighty wind yelled words like, ‘Rock an’ Rooooll! Bop-a-loooola!’ and it turned the boat around three times, and the tail of the sea come up and stole Holy Apples out of our little arms. We knew that was all. She agua won’t take a crew, or even half a crew, without she taking the whole boat. We knew she wasn’t reach up for no more others of us.

“The storm cracked open right in the middle and fell down the sides of the sky. Way out at the edges of the east, now, we watch the water boiling. On the west we saw the city Miami. Just like the Ocean been boiling on the east, the storm been making the city Miami remember the old war again. The air stand black and boiling all around it, but the towers they come on fire from the sun. Some buildings in the south they still there. Some buildings they high as fifty fish-boats put together, some buildings they look like made out of a thousand mirrors, some buildings they black and shiny as a person’s eye. I try to remember but I really ain’t can’t, because of that day everything I watch been bigger than my mind. The city goes from all the way in the north to all the way in the south. The North Deerfield, that’s a part of it. You know when you get to the North Deerfield because of after that you ain’t can’t never go north no more. The Ocean take you in and beach you. The biggest sail we got over in Twicetown ain’t can’t fight the struggle against that corriente.

“Me and Bob Wilson talking while the boat move in, and Michael Torres cried a little bit, until when we told him what we talked about. We said, Fugdat shit, now, that’s all. We said, Whatever happen go happen.

“I didn’t know the name of Allah then, but I said, ‘I think I hear one word from God’s mouth, and that word is Courage.’

“Bob Wilson said, ‘I think I hear a word, too, and it’s a different word and that word is Obey.’

“When we telling that to Michael Torres, he say, Fugdat shit, too. He say, Whatever happen go happen, too.

“The Guerrilla , you understand me now, the Guerrilla she beach there, right up against the North Deerfield face, and we go sleep right in her. Let them come! All night we heard whispering all around us that we wasn’t figure it out — water-ghosts whispering another language. And rain-ghosts came. Let them come! Fugdat shit! But I never slept for one breath, though, I admit it, it’s true.

“And then a strange morning. Rain all night disappeared with the dawn, like dreams, and the sun soft on the North Deerfield two hours. We hiding in the boat and watch the North Deerfield fish-men. Next thing, cool arms been in the air touching us. By the time the North Deerfield fish-men ropes toss on the boats and them put out, such a cold fog come unrolling like a prayer mat, off the Ocean side. The fish-men they just only let that fog chase the boats out to the Ocean. Didn’t let it stop their journeys.

“I never did felt a town so cold. Almost of everybody in the North Deerfield stayed in by the stoves. If you walked about, ghosts going in and lick the juice of your lungs. Their tongues they rough like a cat’s, but cold. They hide in the fog. You cough up pink fog and die. We got off the boat and march around— cold water in that harbor! We shook like baby canes and had a stupid thought — we thought we gone walk around, no problem. We thought nobody never gone go out but a thief or a vagabond from far away, on a cold day like that, which we never saw before in our life. Rubbage, rubbage — hey, watch me now — in the North Deerfield, they ain’t can’t feel the cold. They walk around inside it, and say, Oh, what a hot day it is!

“And when they find a vagabond like us, they throw him down in chains before the big gamblers.

“Cold town,” he said. Sweat ran down his face. He was out of breath. “Cold town. In deep.”

Abruptly Cassius Clay Sugar Ray produced a pipe. He took a minute to fill it from a pouch on a string around his waist, and tamp it down and find a good brand in the fire and light it. “Cold town. In deep. Last chance coming down!” They smelled the smoke of Israelite marijuana moving across the fire. They all knew how he’d escaped. Fiskadoro knew, but he waited, like the others, to hear how it would turn out.

“Mostly,” Cassius Clay Sugar Ray said, “the mercy of Allah cleans out my brain of those terrible time. And it don’t make no sense telling you what those gambling men of the North Deerfield look like,” he said, “I tell you why. Because of those big gamblers have change their faces and their bodies when I be go back the second time, and ever since from that time until now, they have never did return to the way they looked the first time I looked my eyes across them. Just this much: they show long teeth coming out here, like big mean dogs: show claws on the end of their fingers. They push breath coming out in my face like a dead animal shit on their tongue. The mercy of Allah cleans out my brain of those terrible time, so I ain’t can’t remember did I weep and beg like a coward, but I know this, which I say without no shame, when I dream about it, I wake up and I weeping and begging like a coward, all right, well well, yes Cap’n.

“Our arms and legs lock up in chains. Bob Wilson crying, too. Michael Torres just curl up on the floor all stiff in front of the North Deerfield gamblers and try go die. I been breathing so hard I might make myself faint unconscious. I try go look at those big gamblers, and they turn blue, with yellow sparks. I wasn’t know who was Allah then, but I prayed to God, God, without knowing nothing.

“The biggest big gambler come walking right up to me. He choosing me for the leader. Bob Wilson he bawling like a seagull. Then to remind Bob Wilson what we say, I say, ‘Whatever happen go happen. Fugdat shit!’ Bob Wilson hear me, but he keep bawling out.

“Gambler say, ‘I am the Hootchy Kootchy Man!’

“I say, ‘Shit!’

“He say, ‘I control all the games down unto the shores of Cue-bar!’

“I say, ‘What games? What games?’

“He say, ‘ All the games.’

“I say, ‘You control the Twicetown games? I see those Twicetown gambler-boys yesterday. They spending every coin at the still-house.’

“He got mad and he say, ‘End — of — discussion!’

“I say, ‘Every coin at the still-house. They don’t save out no coins for you.’