by Boyd Craven
“I tied rope on them. You throw that way,” he said, pointing.
“How far?” I asked him.
“How far you throw? You throw that far.”
“Don’t have to worry about breaking the traps?” I asked, getting that he wanted me to just chuck them as far as I could.
“No, when Irish John younger, could throw far-far. No break, just replace wire or wood when needed. It’s all good.”
I took the trap and saw that a rope had been tied to the end. I pulled on it, seeing there was a coil and both lines were tied to a tree. I walked to the waterline, noting that this side of the island was rocky and had shells. I would have to be careful if barefoot, but I wasn’t yet, so I twisted and then chucked the first trap, then did the second.
“Good, now we have breakfast for tomorrow, and big Tony can leave island.”
“Sure thing,” I told him.
I followed him back, noting the fire was already going low. Irish kicked a little sand over it, sending smoke up in the air, and then made a motion for me to follow him. I grabbed my backpack and water bottles and followed Irish. It was pitch black inside the hut, and I saw that two of the corners of the inside were supported by trees, before I blocked out the moonlight from the doorway.
“You sleep on mat. I have hammock. It’s Irish John’s hanging mattress!”
“That sounds good to me,” I said, dropping my backpack on an open spot on the sand floor of the hut and knelt down until I felt something woven.
“Yes, there. Now go to sleep. If you snore, I might have to put you in next trap! Hah!”
I laid down, feeling sticky from the heat, and gritty from the sand and the sweat, but on top of what had to be a palm frond mat, I was comfortable. A gentle breeze made it in the doorway—
Chapter Four
I was dreaming of the fight. Mina was screaming obscenities, but more than anything else, she was screaming stop. A lucky punch knocked me down, and a foot started kicking me in the stomach—
“What?” I said, rolling awake.
“Time to make breakfast,” Irish said, jabbing me in the stomach again with his bare foot.
“Okay, I’m up,” I told him, rolling to my feet. “But I have to go find a tree to kill first.”
“Bah, go swimming!”
That actually didn’t sound like a bad idea. It would get rid of the night sweat and grime from cooking over the fire. Still, I had to find a place to go to the bathroom. A little bit later, I went looking and found Irish John on the beach near where we had parked the boat. He saw me and smiled, rubbing at the raw spot where the sun had burned his nose from the constant exposure.
“Pull,” he said, pointing to the lines.
I started pulling the crab traps back in. The first one wasn’t all that heavy, and I was rewarded with seeing a few things scuttling around inside. I tried not to shudder with how spider-like the crabs were, but they were sort of a dark color, almost blue. The second trap was heavier, and I found it looked as if it was half-full.
“Breakfast is served,” I said, plopping the trap on the beach.
“Is not, dummy asshole. Can’t eat raw. You get a belly full of worms and spiders. We steam.”
That is when the sun broke over the horizon. I stood there transfixed as I watched the birth of a new day.
“How many you want?” Irish asked.
“I’ve never had crab before,” I admitted.
Irish rubbed his chin with his thumb and finger, then snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “We eat them all and use what we don’t eat as bait for more!”
“I… sure.”
“You go build fire. I get my cooking pot.”
A fire I could build, but I looked around and, not seeing anyone, stripped to my underwear and jumped into the clear water. I rubbed my hands across my body in lieu of a quick scrub down. Then I was back on the shore, carrying my clothing. I hung them over a bush so they wouldn’t get dirty as my body air-dried and started the fire like I had yesterday. In the daylight, I could see that the pile of firewood appeared to be driftwood. I was sort of surprised, but as I looked around, I could tell that if he cut down the wood around his camp, the island would be bare in no time. I’d seen when I was having my dip that the island was, at most, maybe a couple of acres, a good third of it just rocks.
“Need big coals. Throw big stuff on,” Irish said, walking up with a pot that had probably been a water bath canner.
I did as he asked and marveled at where it had come from. It wasn’t the hut, because he had come out of the bush with it, like he had the traps. Maybe this really was his island, and he was an eccentric self-made millionaire. And maybe I would have crabs fly out of my ass if I truly believed that. Still, I watched as the wiry man settled the pot right on top of the freshly laid wood on the fire. I pulled the lid off and saw it was a third full of what had to have been sea water and twenty of the liveliest crabs ever.
“Is this legal?” I asked.
“Legal for what?” he shot back.
“The crabs… are they in season?”
“Why? You want to breed with crabs? What kind of freaky shit did Irish John bring to his island? Oh my sainted Mother,” he said, making the sign of the cross.
I smacked the side of my head in exasperation. “No Irish, are the crabs in season to fish for?”
“You mean you don’t want to breed crabs? You in your britches. Irish John might have made a mistake.”
I let out an annoyed grunt and stomped over to the tree. I pulled my shirt on roughly and brushed my feet off and then pulled on yesterday’s blue jeans, leaving my socks and shoes in the sand. When I made it back, Irish was pointing at me.
“Got you again!”
Oh lord help me.
There was a proper way of cleaning a freshly steamed crab, and I didn’t know how to do it still. After cooking, Irish dumped the pot of crabs out onto a layer of those broad green leaves. They’d gone in blue, but now were a red color. I watched and imitated Irish as much as I could, my fingers nearly burning as I devoured the flesh. I quickly learned crab meat was good, but you had to work to get at it! Still, it didn’t take long for the both of us to devour everything, leaving the offal on one of the broad leaves.
“Save for later on,” Irish told me. “You want to go to town now? Maybe catch Irish a fish for later on while paddling?”
“That sounds good,” I told him, grinning.
The FWC wardens passed us on the way back in, giving us a wave. Irish flipped them off. I could hear their laughter as he stood up and doubled down his gesture of civil disobedience and kept paddling. He cursed for a good twenty minutes, twisting the F word into so many combinations I felt dirty even remembering them. I wasn’t opposed to swearing, but this man had it down to an art form. Still, we were heading back to town as promised, and it was time for me to start looking for work.
“What you do next?” Irish asked me after he had calmed down.
“I need to find a job, then a place to stay,” I told him.
“What work will you do? What is more important than living off sea? All things from sea are good. Brings me wood for fire, fish to eat, crabs to clean messes, and crabs to eat too. What can you do that is good for sea or sea good for you?”
That sort of made a little sense to me. “I’m a mechanic. I’m hoping to hire on to fix motors and boats,” I told him.
“No tools, just a bag with shitty noodles. That’s all you got!”
“You’re right; I don’t have any tools. I lost those a long time ago.”
He must have sensed my mood shift because he went silent too. We paddled another half hour until he pointed.
“‘Dere.”
“There?” I asked, turning the canoe.
“You stupid, not deaf; yes, there.” He punctuated his point by pointing again.
It looked like it had been a marina at one time, but there was a large commercial fishing boat docked, and every other spot a boat could go on that dock was empty
. Further up shore I saw what looked like cyclone privacy fencing walling off what I could only describe as a boat graveyard. Hulls of boats of all sorts sat on trailers, some on the rocky ground. There was a forklift with knobby off-road tires and long padded poles, if I could see that clearly, parked up next to a corrugated metal building that had once been a dark blue in color. Now it was a baby blue from the fading the sun had done on it.
“Pull up here and tie my boat. I go talk with. You get job, you see.”
“I, uh… what?” I asked as we bumped the dock near the shoreline.
The skinny Caribbean man was off like a shot. As soon as he got one bare foot on the dock, he started walking in the direction of the metal sided building where a roll up door was left open.
“Tie the boat off; he’ll get me a job,” I murmured to myself and then saw that there were shorter ropes where he’d had me land, hanging off the dock. “Great, Tony,” I said to myself. “Your first friend out of prison is a crazy man.”
I tied the canoe off and got on the dock, careful not to overbalance and flip into the water. Not with my backpack and all of my worldly possessions. I saw Irish disappear into the building ahead of me and sighed. Was this somebody’s private property he had just let himself into, or was this some sort of business? I didn't know. I heard raised voices and took off jogging.
The thing about being a big guy, even strong, it doesn’t always equate to having a lot of stamina. At least for me. On a good day before jail, I was a good two-hundred thirty, maybe two-hundred forty pounds. I had leaned up some in prison because food was tight, but I found that hadn’t helped much either. I was soon sweating and nearly out of breath.
“…And ‘dere he is. I tole you he a big dummy asshole, but he fix it good.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, coming to a stop.
“Hi.”
The man was in his late sixties or early seventies. He was completely bald and clean shaven, but his eyebrows were shockingly white compared to his tanned skin. He was Caucasian, but you could hardly tell because of how deep his tan was. He smiled at me with his greeting, wiping his hands on oil-stained overalls.
“Hi, um… Irish, you okay?” I asked him.
“Told you, big dummy asshole, but he fix good,” Irish whispered.
“How do you know if he’s any good, you ain’t got no motors on Deadman.”
“He told me,” he said, putting his fingers together on both hands and then making an exploding motion till his arms came full circle to come to rest at his waist.
“You’re a mechanic?” the man asked me.
“Yes, sir. Just got into town. Was going to spend some time looking for work.”
“What are your pay expectations?” he asked.
“He work cheap! Got no home, no womanz, no bills!” Irish said helpfully.
I winced, and the man laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got some cold Cokes in the fridge in the office. Also, the church ladies dropped off two boxes of clothes. See if you want any; otherwise, I’m going to throw them away.”
“You don’t waste gifts such as those holy ladies give,” Irish said seriously.
“They won’t fit me. I’m too old and fat. If you don’t want them, and nobody else can wear them,” he said and then looked at me and dropped a wink, “and Sister Josephine left you a present on top of the second box.”
“That woman, she is beguiling. I am wary to her ways, the devilish fool woman.”
“Foolish for falling for an old salty, crab-ridden, sea-flea bitten, rotten ornery son of a—”
“Okay, okay, I go before you make me blush.” Irish left, and we both watched him go.
“So do you really need the work?” he asked.
“I do, but I figure I should tell you up front, I’ve got a record that’ll show up on a background check.”
“What’s it for? Drugs? Murder?”
I wanted to lie. “Assault with a deadly weapon.”
He grunted. “What’d you use? What’s the story?”
“My girl wasn’t as much my girl as I thought, and when her new boyfriend pulled a knife on me, I busted a chair over his arm.”
“That’s it? They sent you upriver for a broken chair from a bar fight?” He was incredulous.
“I wouldn’t lie about that. The records they keep… It’ll all check out,” I assured him.
“And you’ve got no place to stay?” he asked.
“I… no. I’ve got a tent.”
“Come here, boy,” he said, and although I seethed at the word, I soon saw he didn’t mean it how I took it.
I had to remind myself that, to him, I probably was a boy. I was almost thirty-four, but he was more than twice my age. He probably had grandkids, or even great grandkids. I kicked myself for thinking the worst and then followed him over to a pair of saw benches that had two small outboard motors clamped to it. That was when I got a chance to look.
The warehouse, which was the only thing I could think of, was an uninsulated metal building or barn with a concrete pad for the floor. Much of the space was dedicated to fishing gear, and there were mountainous piles of traps. In one large section, a net had been laid out and it looked like the man had been making repairs to it. The other part of the shop held boats in various stages of teardown and disrepair.
“I’m Franklin, by the way.”
“Anthony Delgado. Tony,” I told him, holding out my hand.
“Tony, this here motor has rings that seized,” he said, pointing to an old Johnson. “This one over here won’t stay running. Make me one working motor out of these, and we’ll talk about pay.”
“What about a garbage can of water so I don’t burn out the motor when I get it running?” I asked him.
Franklin smiled and made a shooting gesture at me then pointed. There was a large rolling tool chest, and next to it was one of those round trash cans that were prevalent everywhere. It was on top of a furniture four-wheel dolly. I walked over, seeing a light sheen of film on the surface of the water inside, and then I pulled open a middle drawer on the toolbox at random. Gleaming wrenches and sockets greeted me, though I was alarmed at the slipshod way they were thrown in there. Absolutely no order. My OCD recoiled in horror.
“Use those tools and show me what you can do. I need to catch up with Irish John. He used to work for me, but he doesn’t come around here much any more.”
“Is he … okay?”
“Yeah, he’s a little funny upstairs. I think the doc says it’s PTSD and something else from his past. He survived a hurricane in a little fishing boat. He floated in the dinghy for a few days till he was picked up. Been a little kooky since then, so the story goes… But honestly, I think he realized that he really didn’t need much any more. Tourists always make a stop near his island and he tries to run them off, but the legend of Irish John grows year by year. Hell, I would love to have him back on my charter boat… Anyway, I’ll be back.”
I chewed on that and then wheeled the toolbox over. It was heavy as hell, but I made short work of it, then pushed the trash can full of water over. I decided to test out the one that wouldn’t stay running. I unmounted it, pushed the trash can in place and remounted it. Then I hooked up the gas line to the tank that was on the bench behind it, squeezed the bulb and pulled the rip cord a few times. It sputtered and coughed and fired for about half a heartbeat before dying again. It wasn’t long before I lost track of time and went between the toolbox and the motor. After another good ten minutes of polishing, adjusting, and getting the carb tuned, the first motor fired up and ran smoothly.
I turned to the second one and tried pulling the pull cable. I couldn’t even turn it. I took the cover off and figured out how to get the pull reel off this one, and it wasn’t long until I was lost in my work again. It took me a little while, but with injecting some kerosene into the spark plug hole and using a wrench, I was able to work the crank back and forth just enough to break it free. I grinned to myself, remembering how strange and mysterio
us diesel motors had been after gasoline engines. I later realized everything sort of worked on the same principle. I put it back together and then mounted it over the trash can and fired it up. Smoke came from the exhaust in the water, and little plume of oil rose up briefly, but the motor ran; choppy at first and then a little better.
“So you got the one with the carb all set?” Franklin asked, stepping beside me.
“That one too,” I told him and stepped back.
“Told you he had good juju,” I heard Irish John say.
“You don’t believe in voodoo,” Franklin said, turning to his friend.
“He doesn’t know that,” he said, pointing at me and then dropped me a wink. “So he got Irish John’s motor running. Don’t be running out all my gas, big dumb asshole,” Irish told me then cackled and headed for the open doorway.
I laughed and pressed the kill switch.
“So do I get the job?” I asked.
“Yeah, right after you put this on his boat. Anything bigger than this has too much thrust and isn’t safe to use.” Franklin patted the motor that had the seized rings.
“It might not last long. I just broke it loose,” I told him, already working the clamps loose.
“That’s okay. Irish knows how to paddle, and with you working here…”
Chapter Five
The next few weeks I got to know Franklin a bit, and Irish a little bit more, as he stopped into the junkyard, as I called the faded blue warehouse on the water. I learned how to run the forklift to pick up some of the smaller boats, and after pestering Franklin to spend a little money, I had new hydraulic lines ran on it so it wouldn’t spray me with fluid every time I moved something around.