Women might find him attractive, Inky thought. And men wouldn’t trust him.
Maybe, Inky told himself, that wasn’t such a bad way to be.
“And over there on the dock,” Cecile said, “that’s Annie Landry.”
Inky saw a small thin face under blond hair. Just a kid he thought. She had something of the funny pinched look around the nose that kids often have.
“Hi,” Inky said, “I didn’t see you back there.”
Annie grinned and didn’t say anything.
“She shy,” Cecile said, “don’t pay any attention.”
“You sure cause a mix-up,” Hector said.
Inky scratched the side of his head. “None of it was my idea.”
“The damn tooth,” Cecile said, “that what you told me yesterday.”
“Rivé, now, he going to be right glad to pick up that extra money running them over there.” Hector said.
“He ought to be.” Inky climbed out the ladder and sat down on the hot bare boards of the cockpit. “He charged them enough to live a year on.”
Hector shrugged.
“Look,” Inky said, “don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a damn how Arthur spends his money. Right now, he’s spending some of it on me.”
“Dan can use some of that, for sure.”
“Me, too.”
Hector came aboard and walked slowly forward. He was wearing heavy work shoes. They scratched over the boards.
Inky thought: He’s walking harder than he needs to.
But he did not turn or look or give any sign that he noticed. To hell with the decks, Inky thought: If that’s deliberate it won’t bother me.
Hector walked the full length of the boat and turning settled himself on the pulpit rail. “This is a fancy one, for sure,” he said.
Inky looked over his shoulder. “Sure it is.”
“Teak decks.”
“Yea,” Inky said, “I noticed.”
“Sure looked pretty sailing out there yesterday.”
“We had a fair breeze.”
“All that white canvas … prettiest thing.”
“Yea,” Inky said, “I like it all right.
Hector didn’t answer, so Inky turned back to Cecile who was still stretched out in the cockpit.
“What do you think about it?”
“Me?” She lifted her heavy eyebrows. “I don’t know nothing about boats.
“You think it looks pretty?”
“I do,” Annie said from her perch on the wharf.
Inky turned around—he’d forgot she was there. “So pretty you don’t want to come aboard?”
She lifted up her chin. He wondered if she was nervous or if she only needed glasses.
“It won’t sink if you get on,” Cecile laughed.
“I got hard shoes on,” Annie said, “and I don’t want to cut up the decks like Hector’s doing.”
The kid surprised them, Inky thought. And he rubbed his nose to cover a smile.
“You want me to jump overboard,” Hector said, “place of walking back?”
“No,” Annie said. There were nervous red splotches across her chin now. “You just got no right to stomp along.”
Hector left his seat on the pulpit rail and tiptoed back across the deck, arms stretched out at his sides in an exaggerated balance.
Annie looked off across the bay. Her lip was trembling, but her eyes were dry and staring.
Inky took a quick look at Cecile. She was still sitting draped out across the back seat; she did not even seem interested.
Hector climbed back on the dock and squatted down alongside Annie. “Now you satisfied, no?”
“I didn’t say come off.”
“Like hell you didn’t.”
“I just said take off your shoes.” She was following the clumsy heavy flight of a brown pelican.
Hector looked over at Inky. “Something, ain’t she?”
“I don’t know,” Inky said cautiously, “you tell me.”
“I got a mind to push her in the bay,” Hector said.
Annie swung herself out of reach.
“Quit,” Cecile said, “she got on a new clean dress.”
“That a fact?” Hector tilted his head looking at Annie, “you got all dressed up.”
“It’s stuffy down there, huh?” Annie said to Inky, pointing below.
“Hot as hell.”
“You’re going to sleep there?”
“It’ll be better when I get the air scoop up.”
“What’s that?” Cecile said.
“Goes up by the forward hatch—you’ll see.”
“Where you going to sleep tonight?”
He pointed to the side seats.
“We got mosquitoes,” Hector said.
“I got mosquito-netting.”
Cecile said: “You could find a place to stay on the island.”
“I don’t know,” Inky said, “I don’t think so.”
“We got an extra room at my house,” Annie said. “You could have that for free.”
“Thanks,” Inky said. “I don’t want to put you out.”
“It’s no trouble,” Cecile said. “They got this empty room.”
“Thanks,” Inky said. “I just think I’d rather stay on the boat.”
Annie was buffing her fingernails against her skirt. “You got the best part of that deal,” she said.
“If I had a boat like this,” Cecile said, “I’d want to stay on it.”
Annie said: “It’s just a little old back room that my cousin used to sleep in when he lived with us before he went away. And you can still smell the turtles and the rabbits he used to keep back there.”
“Now that just ain’t true,” Cecile said.
“I live there,” Annie said. “I can smell it.”
“Hush up, now.” Cecile said.
“You wouldn’t like this room,” Annie said, “I don’t know why I ask you.”
Two more boats were coming in, heading for the stretch of dock just to the Pixie’s stern.
“The whole house got to be scrubbed out,” Annie said, still holding her hands in front of her, “only I don’t want to ruin my, hands doing it.”
“Lord, how you talk,” Cecile said and stared straight up at the bright blue sky.
“The dirt is just that thick,” Annie said, “and I never did look to see what’s under the beds.”
Cecile began to whistle softly.
“If you don’t believe it,” Annie said, “just you come see.”
“Look,” Inky said, “I like living on the boat. I know where everything is and I can put my hand on it. And I can do whatever I want and there’s nobody around to get bothered.”
“I don’t know why I ask you,” Annie said, “now that I come to thinking about it.”
“There’s all sorts of gear on board,” Inky said, “that needs looking after. And if anything went wrong, I want to be right here.”
Cecile said suddenly: “You tied where the Bozo always comes, you know that?”
“Rivé said they’re so low they could tie up right here.”
“Alongside?”
“I got the fenders out there, if they want to.”
“I see, for sure.” And Hector rubbed his upper lip hard.
Cecile started to say something, then changed her mind.
“Hector, man!” a voice called.
Hector walked over to that boat. When he had gone, Inky said: “That’s a good-looking man you’re married to.”
“Me, I think so,” Cecile said.
Inky looked around. “Where’d she go?”
Cecile grinned. “Annie? She just up and disappeared.”
Hector called over: “Bozo’s coming back.”
Cecile said: “You can hear them engines a mile off.”
“I got the fenders out,” Inky said.
Cecile grabbed a circling mosquito out of the air and peeped cautiously in her clenched fist. “Sure you got fenders,” she said.
“No
w what’s so funny about that?” Inky said.
Hector wandered back, stopping finally with one foot on the stern mooring-line.
Inky looked up at him.
“You got a fixed keel and no centerboard?” Hector asked.
“Yea,” Inky said. “You can come see if you’re interested.”
“How much?”
“Huh?”
Hector scratched his eyebrow. “How much lead you got?”
“Two tons.”
Hector stared at the stern of the boat. “Looks pretty from back here.”
“You like it, huh?”
“What you draw?”
“Near five.”
Hector shook his head.
“Four eleven.”
“There ain’t much water that deep around here.”
“If you stay offshore.”
“Sure,” Hector said, “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“That’s why we had to be so careful with the channel.”
The sound of engines was very loud now. The Bozo must be nearing the dock. Inky turned around. For a minute he stared at the rough paint-blistered hull of the fishing-boat.
“Jesus Christ,” he yelled, “stay off!”
Cecile rolled over slowly and looked at him. She was grinning.
Along the side of the Bozo, acting as fenders, was a row of old rubber tires.
“Don’t come in here,” Inky yelled. “Keep the god-damn tires away.”
Hector laughed. “Going to be a big smear for sure.”
Inky was jumping up and down, waving them off. The men on the Bozo did not seem to notice. One of them waved calmly to Hector. “Hi, Hector man,” he called, “what you say?”
Hector waved back.
“Keep the fucking god-damn tires out of here,” Inky yelled. He was standing on the cockpit seats now, stuttering with rage.
“All that pretty white hull,” Hector said softly, “just all going to be smeared up.”
The Bozo’s bow came around and her engine reversed and she swung gently in. The two hulls touched very gently, the smaller canvas fenders useless against the thick tires. At that precise minute the Bozo’s engine went into forward and the line of black tires dragged and scraped along the sailboat’s freeboard. Then the engine was idling and two men were calmly fastening the lines.
Inky was very quiet now; he stood watching them, his mouth pursed. Then he leaned over and looked at the side of his hull. The white freeboard was a smear of black rubber.
Inky straightened up. “That was real funny,” he said, “and now who’s gonna help me clean off the freeboard?”
There were three men on the boat. They looked so much alike they might all have been brothers. Inky looked from one to the other.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, “who’s gonna help me clean that off?”
They went on with their jobs, appearing not to hear.
“There’s a whole day’s work cleaning there.”
One of the men, the shortest one, with light brown hair cut so short it looked almost shaved, said: “You yelling at us?”
“You god-damn right I am.”
“You got you fenders out,” another man said. He was older, fifty-five or so, and his hair had balded away to a bristly fringe around the edges. “It wasn’t none of our fault they wasn’t enough.”
“Son of a bitch!” Inky said softly.
The third man, who was tying his shoe on the caprail looked up. “What was you calling us?” He was just a kid, Inky noticed; and he had a kid’s pimply face, big red splotches across his cheeks and down his neck. He had long thin arms with streaks of muscle and criss-crossing veins.
“What was that now?” the brown haired man said.
The three were looking at him—two were hostile, a clear fighting look; and the older man was looking at him appraisingly, not hostile, but not exactly friendly either.
In its hook by the side of main hatch was the long bronze winch handle. Inky’s fingers closed on it softly. He grinned to himself: that would make the fight more even.
He could feel the muscles in his stomach tighten and he hunched his shoulders slightly. He had the silly desire to giggle. He could feel his mouth move around, trying to stop it. The three were staring at him, and he realized he must be making faces.
He forced himself to take deep slow breaths. Inside his shoes his toes curled downward—to get a better hold on the deck.
Slowly the indecision in the older man’s face faded. When he makes up his mind, Inky thought, they’ll come.
He waited.
Then it changed. All of a sudden. He saw it change.
It was the pimply-faced boy who did it. Inky was watching him. The face that was angry one minute turned confused and then, all of a sudden, guarded.
With that same careful strange expression on his face, the boy straightened up and laughed, a sharp little laugh that made the others turn to look at him.
Inky saw it and wondered. He’s remembering something, he thought, you can see him remembering. And it’s changing everything. And he doesn’t want anyone else to know.
Inky told himself: He’s not going to fight. He’s not afraid, but he just made up his mind.
“Jesus,” the boy said, “it got to be the heat.” He gave a shrug with one shoulder. Cut across the Pixie and climbed on the dock.
For a minute the others just stared after him. Then the older man said quietly: “Nothing here that won’t wait for tomorrow, Chep boy. … Lets us go.”
“I got to get the cigarettes.” Chep got them from the wheelhouse and, with the other, crossed over the Pixie to the dock. As he went, he lit a cigarette, dropping the match, which flickered for a second on the deck and then went out.
The two of them headed down the dock. Inky picked up the match and tossed it to the water. “Jesus,” he said, “everybody takes it out on the decks.”
The pimply-faced boy had not gone. He was standing a couple of feet back on the dock, talking to Hector.
Inky picked up the chamois and rubbed the spot: there was a small burned mark. He threw the cloth through the open hatch, angrily.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Cecile said. She was still stretched out on the cockpit seat, looking as if nothing had happened.
“Everything’s swell,” Inky said. “Now who were they?”
“Livaudais,” Cecile said. “Eddie Livaudais, the old man, and his boy Henry there,” she pointed over her shoulder, “and his brother-in-law.”
The boy finished talking to Hector and started off. After a few steps he turned and asked: “You know the date?”
“Who?” Cecile said. “Me?”
“It’s the ninth,” Hector said.
“You sure?”
Cecile said, “I wrote a letter yesterday and I looked at the calendar—that’s what it is, for sure.”
The boy lifted one hand to rub his cheek, remembered the pimples and dropped the hand again. “Just what I wanted to find out,” he said with a little grin. “The date was bothering me.”
“How come?”
“I been working enough these days here,” Henry said. “And I’m figuring to take it easy for a while.”
“Hell,” Hector said, “wish I was doing it.”
“Can’t go getting in a fight,” the boy said with that same nervous laugh. And he deliberately didn’t look over toward Inky. “Can’t go getting bashed up when I’m taking a couple of days off.”
“Wish I was doing that,” Hector said.
“Going hunting, maybe.” And the boy left.
“What I don’t get,” Cecile said quietly, “is why they changed their minds.”
“You got me,” Inky said.
“Ain’t like a Livaudais.”
“You saw it,” Inky said.
Cecile shook her head. “And they fighters, them. Tough as nobody’s business.”
“They could toss you in the bay,” Hector said. “Any size pieces they want to.”
“Something stop
ped Henry, for sure.”
Hector chuckled and began to move away. “Crazy Livaudais,” he said, “that what we always say around here. Whole bunch always been crazy.”
“See you,” Cecile said.
“I’ll be here,” Inky said.
Hector was halfway down the wharf. Cecile ran to catch up with him, turning once to wave.
Inky sat down on the sun-warmed cockpit seat and stared at the winch handle. And he felt just a little twinge of regret for not using it.
All the rest of the evening young Livaudais’s face bothered him.
AS THEY HAD PLANNED, Perique and Hector began drinking after supper. They worked on the whisky, sitting in the little screened-in part of the Boudreau porch. Cecile put the kids to bed and went over to the Monjures, next door, visiting. Every now and then they could hear her laughing. Finally she came back, passed by with only a look for them, and went to bed.
They found another bottle and kept drinking, steadily. Shortly after ten they finished all they had. And Perique left, walking slowly along the gravel paths, until he saw the light in the Landry house. He went over and let himself in the gate. The dogs knew him, and whined around his legs. He walked up to the window which was just slightly over his head, and called: “Hey!”
He heard the rustle of the paper as Annie put down the magazine. “Hey!” he called again. She did not answer. But the whisky was singing behind his ears, so he said: “You got company in the parlor.”
And went around the front and let himself in.
Annie had been curled up on her bed, her clothes off in the stuffy night, reading magazines: a copy of House and Garden that was four months old, and five or six back issues of the Ladies’ Home Journal.
When she heard Perique she pulled up a couple of copies to cover herself, in case he could climb up on something and look in the window.
She was surprised. She really was. And her skin prickled with a shiver even in the heat. It was a pleasant feeling. She was glad he had come, gladder to see him than she had been in a long while. She slipped a dress on, hurrying, not bothering with panties or a bra. It was a heavy chintz cotton, and there wasn’t really any need for it, she told herself. She stopped to put on some lipstick, and brush her hair, and smear a little perfume down the sides of her neck.
He had put on only a single light in the living-room, and for a minute she didn’t see him. “Goodness,” she said, “it’s dark.”
The Hard Blue Sky Page 5