by Jack Riggs
Partee smiles, pulls out onto the highway just about the same time Teddy flies by. He recognizes the car, flashes his lights, hits his siren. He holds a six- pack of Pabst out the window.
“Think he's going to drink that before he gets back to the station?” I ask. We're laughing hard when the Mustang accelerates.
The rednecks in the Roadrunner soften on our mind until they are just a shadow. Still, every now and then, a car comes up from a side road, a logging truck passes going the other way, and we just have to shake our heads, look at each other and say, “Unbelievable.”
WHEN WE GET TO THE HOUSE, I don't go inside. There's nothing in there waiting for me but empty air. The johnboat sits in a shed that I can enter from an outside door. Partee helps me carry it to the dock, the barrels that float it up nearly sitting on mud. I pull the small motor from the wall of the shed, hurry to carry it and the gas tank down while Partee holds the boat in shallow water. We've got to move quick to get to the clam beds. It will be hard making it back to the house at low tide, but there's enough water to move through if you know where to steer the boat.
The marsh is quiet because of the drought, the wind weak as we push off with oars past browning grass to follow the shallows to deeper waters. The best clams are found on the other side of the marsh, and once we are deep enough to use the motor, we're over quickly, the tide lowering to reveal clam beds all around us. They sit along the edges of the grass where the water is shallow. When it recedes the clams reveal themselves as little lumps in mud so thick and deep that the minute we step out of the boat we will sink to our knees.
I have watched the prison crews come through here over the years on big pontoon barges that put the men right up in the mud. They clean out oyster bars, the piles of dead shells that build up and clog the creeks. They gather clams for restaurants along Mur-rells Inlet, keep some for themselves, and eat better than any other prisoners in the state. They walk in the mud shirtless, wearing prison- issued pants, and stick long rakes into the muck. The backs and shoulders of the black men absorb the sun, leaving a deep richness like coal freshly plucked from the earth, while white men burn red raw. They move fast, stay just ahead of a low tide that could strand them for hours in the hot fetid muck.
My johnboat is a baby compared to the prison barges, and what we are after here today is just a spit of what they do every few years to keep the creeks open and the clam and oyster beds healthy. I try to maneuver in as close as I can, cut the engine and drop anchor to hold us there. “We need about six dozen,” Partee says.
“Six dozen?” I say. “Damn, Partee, who all's invited to this thing?”
“Everybody,” he says, “now get pickin.”
We slide into waders and then into the water, black mud sucking at our legs. Our hands feel for lumps, then we hoe with small potato rakes until we can yank the clam out. It's dirty hot work as we go fighting off the few midges and deerflies that seem to be hanging in with the drought. I almost don't mind them because I know they're just trying to survive like everything else until we can get some rain.
We work fast floating the boat from bed to bed until Partee is satisfied with what we have. Then he picks a couple out of one of the buckets, slices the shells open with his knife, offering them up as just reward for the hard labor. We share the clams, tipping the shells into our mouths, the soft, sweet meat of the marsh slipping down our throats. “Goddamn, show me something better than that,” I say. Partee just laughs out loud.
All around me small crabs peek in and out of holes in the mud, much like insects. Shrimp, translucent ghosts, ripple the surface. Partee finds three fat flounder, gigs them quick to add to the bounty. Egrets stalk the shallows along the grass, their necks cocked, ready to launch arrows stabbing their prey. Even in the height of this drought, there is life here—the briny water taking care of its own, waiting for the rest of the world around it to catch up.
I think about this morning sitting with my cup of coffee studying the creeks. Now here I am up to my ass in black mud and mucky water pulling clams for my own party. There's got to be something wrong with this picture, I tell Partee. I just don't know exactly what it might be. Partee laughs.
I'm muddy from head to toe when we finish, ended up with water and a crab in my waders somehow. My socks are ruined. We use oars to push out into water deep enough where I can start the engine again. On the way back across, we spot Annie Lee, the crab lady of Garden City Beach. She's been in the creeks for years, left South Korea during the war and has been crabbing for a living as long as I can remember. She's all of five feet tall and is dressed head to toe in orange rain gear, waders, and a knit hat. It's the way everyone knows her, never changes winter or summer, a constant like the tides. She's like a channel buoy bobbing up and down in her small skiff while struggling to pull crab pots off the bottom. It's late for her to be here, low tide the least agreeable time to be pulling pots out of the marsh.
We come alongside Annie's boat, her eyes dancing around us suspiciously. I've heard talk of those who steal her crabs, taking them right off her boat if she's out alone, or emptying her crab pots before she can arrive. I imagine she's out here in low tide for just such a reason. She's making sure no one gets what is rightfully hers, and I can tell Annie's concerned about our approach until she recognizes Partee. He waves, calls out her name and then his own. It's all smiles after that, a round moon face peeking out from under the knit cap.
I stay quiet as we pull up beside her, wave a friendly greeting, let Partee barter some of our clams for a bucket of her blue crabs. Annie's boat is loaded down with bait, frozen fish and fish heads. She has buckets full of crabs, flounder in the bottom by her feet. The boat seems top- heavy with all the weight, and I don't see a life jacket anywhere within her reach. It's another law being broken, just like at Pacman's.
All the locals seem to live by their own rules, and I don't mind really. It's part of the low country, an ingrained sense of right that holds everyone together. Annie and Partee singly have been on the marsh longer than I can claim, and their years together leave me no right to say anything to either one about rules or regulations, so I sit with the engine in neutral until the deal is done. Partee trades a pail for a pail, tells her it's my birthday. The news draws a smile my way and the only words to me while we are there. “You enjoy my crab,” she says. “Good birthday present, best one ever.”
I thank Annie, tell her to be careful with the tide, but she just throws up an impatient hand to my words. We leave her standing, straddling her catch, arms reaching over to let loose a crab pot she has just baited with a fish head fixed to the bottom of the metal cage with wire. She watches it sink out of sight, the line slipping through her tiny hands until she knows the pot is safely planted, a small white buoy bobbing on top of the briny water to mark its place.
When we return to the house, the tide's still out, so we have to wade through mud pulling our catch up to the dock. We secure the boat so it won't wash out on the rising tide, the motor hung and locked up in the shed. It's necessary that we go inside this time to use the sink and clean the mud off our bodies, but I don't wander around. Don't feel like being inside any longer than I have to. The air carries a familiar grief that's hard to breathe. Besides, it's nearly noon and we're riding the hump. We got to get going if there's to be any time for a party.
When we pull into the station, everybody's already there. J.D., Lori, Roddy, and some boys from Surfside are standing near the back door smiling. A fifty- gallon drum has been split down the middle longways to make a barbecue grill, and Teddy's hovering a hand over the charcoal to feel the heat of the fire. The pot for cooking a low country boil is heating up on the other side of the parking lot, the propane tank safely secured and marked. A few of the boys from Surfside come by Partee's Mustang while we're unpacking the ribs and clams, their hands full of blue crab and shrimp for the boil, Teddy's Pabst to throw in too. They can't wave so they just tip their heads, smile real big and yell Happy Birthday.
&nbs
p; I'm thirty- five yesterday. It went right past me and I didn't even notice it until I pulled in this morning and remembered Lori saying they were throwing me a party. It's all reminding me of the one thing I don't really care to celebrate.
Teddy walks over to the truck, ignores my gesture to shake his hand, and grabs me in a bear hug, lifting me off my feet. “Happy Birthday, bro,” he says. “You boys all right out there on that road today? I almost turned around to check on you.”
“Nothing to check on,” I tell him. I'll speak to Teddy about the Roadrunner later. He probably knows those boys from trouble and I don't want to bother him right now with something like that. He's been drinking already, so I keep quiet and say, “Getting the beer here was more important than turning around.”
He hugs me again. “If you weren't so ugly, I'd kiss you,” he says.
“I'm glad I'm ugly,” I tell him, pulling at his cheeks like a baby.
Lori's next. She gives me an easier hug. “Hey Peck,” she says, sounding apologetic, “I'm sorry I'm making you go through this, but it's your day.”
“Yesterday,” I remind her, but she'll have none of that.
“Close enough,” she says. “No matter how much it hurts.” She winks at me so I won't take her words the wrong way. They're meant to tease and that's the way I take them. I let her kiss me on the cheek, and then return the same before letting go.
J.D.'s standing behind everyone smiling. I look out over heads to catch his eye. “And you, boy I know you encouraged her to do all of this, but don't come over here expecting me to kiss you too.”
J.D. just laughs at that, shakes his head. “It's not in my nature,” he says.
I give Lori another hug because it feels good to hold on to a woman again, say, “You did good, girl. Guess I need the distraction.”
“Of course you do,” she says, holding on a little longer than both of us know she should. Everybody's excited so no one sees that Lori keeps her arm around my back.
I don't think it's so much that it's my birthday, but that it's a party. The station is off- line. Surfside is rotating crews in shorter shifts so those off duty can come by and enjoy the party too. Teddy's off until midnight and shouldn't be drinking, but he's got a beer in his hand every time I look over and catch his eye.
Strachen's here too. He's okayed the brew as long as we keep the empties in trash cans and cold ones in coolers. Teddy's trying his best, but my bet is he'll have to call in sick tonight. He's got the music started, stole Partee's eight- track of the Temptations. A couple of the boys get pulled out onto the cement drive with their girlfriends or wives because everyone's been invited and everyone wants to come to a party whenever there's one going on.
I don't know what it is about firemen, but they like to hang it out when they can. We keep so much bottled up, so much pressure when we go out there to fight a fire or save someone in an accident that when we get the chance to party, we bring the whole family along. I watch the dancing, Teddy over by the stereo singing so loud and off- key that people start to yell at him to shut up. I want Kelly to be here to enjoy all of this. I want Cassie here so we can dance like we used to early on before living together became such a burden. I tighten my arm around Lori, the feeling achingly familiar. She looks up and smiles, says, “It's your birthday, you need to enjoy yourself.”
I let her pour me a beer. “I'm still trying to figure out why I let you do this. I could have gone on without any fuss.”
Her eyes turn down to my cup, carefully watching the brew pour in. “Well, I guess sometimes I just know what's better for you, Peck.”
We still have our arms wrapped around each other's waists when we turn to watch Teddy. He's over by the tunes in another world, drinking and singing, dancing with Roddy's wife, then with Billy Perkins's girlfriend, taking them off their man's arm each time one or another gets close enough for him to grab a hold. He twirls them, shags as good as anybody half his size.
The air is sweet with the smell of Partee's grill and the low country boil, the music loud, kids running around inside the Quonset where J.D. has wandered with his plate of food looking for a little more peace and quiet. He gives up on finding any and stands next to the front door of the Pirsch holding his plate in one hand while boys and girls, the sons and daughters of these firemen, jump up into the driver's seat turning on the lights and siren. It's that first taste of what already exists there inside each, bone and blood, the old pull toward smoke and fire.
“Where's Partee's family?” Lori asks.
I look over to where he is working the grill, pulling ribs off to serve people who are already waiting in line. He's working harder than anyone else here. “He doesn't bring them around the beach,” I tell her. “It's not all that right down here yet, so he won't let them come.”
“He knows we're all family. He doesn't need to do that.”
“Most of us get it,” I say, “but there're still some boys inland that have a hard time getting past color. Strachen's crews are all right. Garden City Beach is a good spot for Partee. He worries more about the people down here on vacation. I ask him to bring his family along all the time, and he always politely declines. I don't think I need to go any farther. It's up to him.”
J.D. comes out of the Quonset with three little boys in tow. He's down on one knee taking orders, relaying them to Partee, who fills paper plates full of ribs, throws on some clams on the half shell for J.D. He gets the boys Cokes from the tub of iced drinks, takes a beer for himself.
“You should go talk to J.D.,” I tell Lori, trying to change directions, the sudden shift taking her by surprise.
“Now Peck,” she says, “mind your own business.”
“Well, it's just, you know, you aren't married and J.D.'s not married.”
“Neither is Billy Perkins,” Lori says, pointing with her beer to where Teddy's twirling Billy's girlfriend around on the cement, “but I'm not going over there and taking him away from Janie.”
“You might get him while Teddy's here,” I say. “Janie looks like she's enjoying herself.” Lori hits my arm, spills beer all over me.
“Serves you right,” she says, and then goes to find a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess.
When she brings me another beer, I tease her some more. “Look, you wouldn't be taking anyone away from J.D. He's not attached.”
“Peck,” Lori says, “I really haven't thought about it.”
“Well, maybe you should,” I say.
Lori finally stops, looks at me hard like she's had enough.
“Okay, I tried, Peck, some time ago. It didn't work.”
Now that surprises me, it really does. Lori is a fine woman, finer when you really get to know her. She comes from a good family over in Georgetown, a local all her life. If I didn't have a ring on my finger, I'd be asking her out in a heartbeat, no doubt about it. I don't tell her this. I just tell her not to worry. J.D.'s got to get his head out of those books he reads all the time. He needs to find someone to come home to. “J.D. doesn't know what he's missing,” I say. “He's got smarts growing out of all the wrong places, if you ask me.”
Lori comes into me again, puts her arm back around my waist. She squeezes just enough that I can feel her shoulder on my rib cage. “Thanks, Peck. But I shouldn't have done it anyway. Work romances never work out, do they?” Before she leaves, Lori pulls me down to her size and kisses me on the cheek again, the smell of her hair sweet, like coconut and beach. “If you weren't so old, I might ask you out. You're a sweet man, Peck Johnson. Cassie should know better than to let you loose. Happy Birthday.”
I watch her walk away. The wetness of her kiss makes me want more. I'm lost without the touch of a woman, though Lori's almost young enough to be my own kid. She's J.D.'s for the taking if he wants her. I need to talk to the boy about that sometime. I think of Cassie then, what we had when it was good. I still want more of her if she would have me, if she would ever call, if she would ever come back home. It doesn't matter what she's done. You
can't erase fifteen years over something like this. If we can talk, I think we can figure it all out.
Partee is some kind of barbecue man, a magician with hickory. He could make an old shoe taste good if you gave him enough hickory chips and charcoal. I swear to God the ribs we bought from Pacman melt off the bone, sweet and juicy, heaven in your mouth. I almost cry when I eat that first bite. It's been so long since I had a good meal that it's almost criminal how good this tastes. I eat potato salad and baked beans, Texas toast and homemade fruit salad that Lori has whipped up from her momma's recipe. I'm so full from ribs and beer and beans that I nearly forget the boil that the boys from Surfside have been watching for Par-tee. But I find a way to get that down too, the sausage and corn, shrimp and crab, baby potatoes. Teddy brings out the birthday cake with thirty- five candles burning hot, compliments of his wife, Mo, who, of course, is not here. She's never around for these kind of parties either, but I imagine it has nothing to do with who vacations on the beach. Teddy just never tells her she's invited.
Strachen heads back over to Surfside after the food is eaten. And when the music starts to repeat itself, when the last sparks of the party seem ready to be extinguished, someone suggests that we go surfing, and the spirit is revived. I ask Partee to go with us, to stop working for a while and enjoy himself. He seems reluctant at first until Lori starts pulling him along, tells Partee there's no reason for anyone to sit in an empty station if it's going to stay offline. When he says yes, we get him in a pair of swim trunks out of Teddy's car and then all pile into my truck.
It's blazing on the road, the whiteness of the light blinding, the sun bubbling tar seams, black scars that crisscross the asphalt. On the way down, Teddy makes me stop so he can buy more beer, ice it down and stow it in the bed of the truck. He changes clothes in the back while I'm still driving. Lori holds a hand across her eyes when his exposed butt comes up and lies flat against the back window, Teddy's off- key voice singing loudly, “I see the bad moon rising.” Partee's back there shaking his head, probably wishing he'd stayed at the station. It's all crazy and on the edge of being out of control, but we get to the beach without incident, without losing Teddy from the bed of the truck, and for the rest of the afternoon, we're on the water.