Spartina

by John D. Casey

  “I got some business to tend to,” Parker said, “but this fellow’s willing to work for a half-share. Save you some money.”

  Dick said, “Just how green is he?”

  The Vietnamese man spoke up. Dick didn’t understand him, thought he was speaking Vietnamese. The man repeated himself. Dick understood that the man was trying to introduce himself. Dick looked him in the face. The man said his name a third time. Something something Tran. Tran something something. Dick liked that the man said it just as slow and patiently the third time. Dick said, “I’m Dick Pierce.” Tran’s hand moved at his side and Dick stuck out his hand. Tran’s hand was as small as Elsie’s. “Well, look, Tran. You understand English?”

  Tran said, “Yes, sir.”

  “You been on boats?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know what a winch is?”

  Tran pointed to the winch.

  “You know what a self-tailing winch is?”

  Tran shook his head, said, “No, sir.”

  Parker said, “He knows all kinds of stuff, he just don’t know the names.”

  Tran said, “Yes, sir.”

  Dick said, “So how am I going to tell him what to do?”

  “I can learn the names, sir.”

  Dick said, “Parker, what’s the deal here? You got something going?”

  Parker took Dick to the wheelhouse.

  It turned out Parker had set up a lobster-pot factory near Westerly. He employed all of Tran’s family. Parker had rented a truck, and was selling pots from Wickford to Westerly as fast as his Vietnamese assembly line could turn them out. The family wanted one member to get work on a lobster boat. Maybe just to see how the pots actually worked.

  Dick said, “What are you paying these guys?”

  Parker smiled. “It’s piecework. They’re still paying me off for the tools and material, so I ain’t paid them nothing yet. I gave them a loan to get through the month. And I’m getting a job for their boy here. Look. Give him a try. The boy don’t work out, send him back. I done you plenty of favors, think of all them pots you’re hauling.”

  “Half of them busted loose.”

  “And you figure that half must be mine.”

  Dick didn’t want to have any more deals with Parker. He could go to the Neptune that very evening, pick up a good hand from a broken boat.

  But there was something about the little guy he liked. Dick said, “I could use some pots.”

  Parker said, “I’ll sell you a hundred at two bucks over my cost. You can’t get them cheaper.”

  “That’s just a couple, three trawls. I got to take that many each time I go out.”

  “Okay, I’ll sell you a hundred and fifty. When you come in, we’ll see what else I got on hand for you. I got this family going six days a week. We’ll make some for you this Sunday. I figure for the next month we won’t be able to keep up with demand. All these skippers are fixing their boats, no time to make pots. They’re itching to get out while lobster are sky-high. You ought to be glad you know me well enough so I’ll sell to you on credit. Everybody else is paying cash, and everybody else is happy.”

  Dick said, “You put them hundred and fifty pots on board by tonight, I’ll take your boy half-share.”

  Tran turned out to be quick with his neat little hands. First haul he emptied and rebaited pots almost as fast as Keith. Next haul he was just as quick. He had good eyes, could spot a buoy between swells at a fair distance. Dick let him take the wheel some. The kid had a feel for it.

  He picked up the names for things, a lot of them on the way out. Keith was a better teacher than Dick, and could understand what Tran was saying. And Tran understood what Keith said. Dick had to say everything twice. Dick gave Keith credit, though he still didn’t like him. Dick did like Tran.

  Some cold weather moved in, and the little bugger nearly froze. He hadn’t brought but one change of clothes, and the warmest thing he had was his denim jacket. Dick suited him up in old foul-weather gear, rolled up at the cuffs three times. If he kept Tran on into the really cold weather, he’d have to buy him a survival suit. He wondered if the Co-op had one small enough.

  Dick had enough pots set to stay out seven days. He sent word through the Co-op to May and Parker that Spartina was coming in. Parker met them at the dock in his huge rented truck. Parker would only sell him another fifty pots. Dick looked at the stacks of pots still on the truck. Parker said, “Those are already bought at a price you wouldn’t want to pay.”

  Parker came into the wheelhouse while Keith and Tran unloaded the lobster and stacked the fifty new pots on board.

  “How’d my boy work out?”

  “Another couple times out, hell do.”

  “His brother’s a good boy too. Hard worker.”

  “Not on my boat.”

  “I’m taking Keith south pretty soon.”

  “Fine with me—I need someone with a little more time in. What is this, anyway? Your conscience bothering you about your Vietnamese? Another two months it’ll be winter, a lot of folks’ll have time to make their own pots—you explain that to them?”

  “I’ll tell you, Dick, they’re real bright people, real bright—but they can only take in so much at a time. I’m not their employer, you understand. I just set them up. I rented an old barn, sublet it to them. They sleep in the loft, work down below. Their house is gone, they were living at a Catholic church, crammed in with a lot of other folks. Bunch of old Army cots where they used to run the bingo game. They looked a little aimless there. I’m giving a little focus to their energy, is all I’m doing.”

  Parker poured himself a mug of coffee. He glanced at the picture on the thermos. “They changed the White Rock girl again. I remember when the White Rock girl and National Geographic and Venus de Milo colored-pencil sets was the only place you could see bare tit. Nowadays …”

  Dick found he was furious. Repelled by Parker. At the same time he kept on liking him, kept on knowing that Parker liked him. Parker had told him all along—Parker was a player. What that meant was that Parker could cheerfully cut Dick out of five thousand dollars and keep on liking him. It was a game, nothing more than playing cards. Parker obeyed his own golden rule. He did unto others as he figured they’d do unto him. And he kept on feeling friendly. Feeling just as friendly as when he was doing a favor—taking Dick to see an alligator, swinging the fancy yacht in toward shore so Dick could see pelicans. Parker had no idea that turning on the intercom while he was fooling around with his English girl was anything but a joke. And screwing Schuyler’s wife.

  Dick shook his head. “You’ll do anything, you get the chance.”

  Parker looked up. “You still want to argue about those Vietnamese? You feel so bad, you pay Tran a full share. As far as I’m concerned, I’m doing the same by them as any businessman would. The only difference between me and a bank—and you know what banks’re like—is I don’t hide behind rules and middlemen. It’s just me. I’m doing it right out front, and in this particular case I’m doing more than a bank would do. And a hell of a lot faster. But maybe it’s not the Vietnamese. Maybe you’re still smarting over your five thousand, now you lost some pots. You think I went out and busted the pots I gave you?”

  “No,” Dick said, “I’m not griping about the pots. I’m not griping at all. I hope you get all your insurance money for your sunk boat, and I hope you get your fancy new boat. I’m just seeing what runs you. You could no more keep from working a deal than you could keep from eating. And I got to say, you do keep busy. A nibble here, a nibble there.”

  Parker said, “You got something on your mind?”

  “Yeah. I was wondering if you screwed Marie on account of Schuyler was greedy about selling your coke.”

  Parker looked at him. Parker smiled, and then laughed out loud. Parker shook his head. “I’ll tell you why I’m enjoying that. It’s sort of peculiar.” Parker rubbed his chin with one hand. “How’d you find out? I didn’t figure she’d talk much about it. But
maybe she got together with Elsie. That’s okay. So long as she don’t talk about drugs.”

  “I saw your car at her cottage.”

  “You saw my car.”

  “I saw your car and I heard her.”

  Parker laughed. “Hearing things again, Dickey-bird? You can’t say I tuned you in on this one.”

  Dick didn’t say anything.

  Parker said, “What was peculiar was—I’m getting back to your question now—was this: She’d sort of been a bitch all along, you know the way she was with us that morning, all depressed but snotty to everybody. When I ran into her after the hurricane—she and Schuyler moved up to the inn in Wakefield—she was all revved up. She was still being snotty about Schuyler”—Parker mimicked Marie—“ ‘How’d you like the big city with Schuyler? Did he take you out on the town?’ But she was laughing about it. Then she said, ‘Did he treat you fair on your deal?’ I said, ‘He got a little more than his share, but I’m not complaining.’ She looked at me and I just knew. Even if it might take a while, we were on. She was one of them who like to pretend nothing’s going on till it’s too late. So we drove down to look at their cottage. She kept talking the whole time. I was getting interested enough. We’d get going some, and then she’d spin away and go look at something else. It was okay, sort of a tease to keep me on my toes. But when it came right down to it, she shut up. It needed a little something, so I whispered in her ear, ‘I’m only doing this ’cause Schuyler cheated me.’ She loved it. So I said, ‘He didn’t cheat me much. About a thousand.’ She got into it some more. So I said, ‘Maybe less.’ How’d I know that was the stuff? It was just a lucky guess. I mean, the idea had come up. But, to get back to your question, Schuyler gouging me a little or my doing a little rag-doll dance with Mrs. Schuyler Van der Hoevel, neither one has been what you’d call preying on my mind. I’ll tell you what it is—I’ve got lots of energy, I can’t wait around like this without getting up to something, it’s the kind of boy I am.”

  “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.

  Captain Goddamn Pierce. His saying “Goddamn” wasn’t the worst thing—it wasn’t necessarily the hard-ass sons of bitches that humiliated you.

  Dick wasn’t all that worried about the old man, but he was sorry about Tran. The way things had gone, Tran would have rather pedaled home on his bicycle.