The Whiskey Sea

by Ann Howard Creel

  He picked up a piece of clamshell littering the pier and tossed it out to sea. “Not for me. I’ll stick to what’s legal.”

  She watched the boats heading into the fading daylight, and God help her, a burn, a strange excitement bloomed inside her chest. Those boats were going out after a different kind of catch. They were shredding through these seas for a new purpose and new riches. It took them out on the ocean, way out, much farther than she’d ever been before. She’d never been beyond sight of land. What would it feel like to look in all directions and see nothing but a watery world? Stars stretching from one horizon to the other? She closed her eyes and imagined it.

  Her heart banged hard, her breath drew short, and she opened her eyes. Going against the liquor law was kind of exciting, too. Everyone hated this stupid new amendment. It hadn’t changed anything; in fact, people seemed to be drinking more than before. The law had made it exciting, rebellious, and more alluring than ever to get drunk. And the money!

  But it felt as distant as the dance clubs in New York City she’d heard about, the fancy verandas on the hill houses, and the hotel rooms with clean, white, scented towels. She had no way to join in. Even with the wakes of those contact boats making silvery ripples that rolled to the water below her and the new knowledge that the big rum boats were out there beyond the three-mile limit of United States jurisdiction, dancing around on the water like lures, she never guessed that it would have anything to do with her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1923

  Over the next two years timing and Lady Luck were on Frieda’s side. Highlands was the closest New Jersey town to Rum Row, and more and bigger boats with faster, powerful engines were harboring in Highlands and making night runs to buy booze and bring it back to sell both locally and in the city. Those men needed engines they could count on, engines that wouldn’t fail them when chased by the guard.

  Frieda had been a dedicated student of Hicks’s and had become the trusted mechanic to many of the men who ran against the law. She could keep the old boat engines in top shape, as well as the war surplus airplane engines that many of the lobstermen had refitted for their boats for extra speed. She had been hired to work on a new Liberty, still in a crate; a fisherman had bought it for a hundred dollars from the government, and she had converted it to marine use.

  In addition, new boats, built strictly as shore boats, were being launched every day, most of them flat thirty-footers with fast Sterling or Liberty engines. All the engines needed alterations to get more speed, and Frieda had a knack for making adjustments that could coax out more power. She was as highly skilled as the men doing the very same thing, and yet her customers paid her less simply because she was female. She’d had to accept that, even though it struck her as vastly unfair. Plus some of the fishermen’s wives didn’t want her working around their husbands. She had built a decent business since going out on her own, but she still needed more work. She had competition from another new mechanic. Despite fishing full-time, Hicks was still trying to help her. Some fishermen continued to seek his advice about their boats, and often he gave them her name. Every day she went to Bahrs Landing, which sat by the water and had become a base of operations, and she scoured for business.

  Inside the restaurant well-dressed buyers from the city waited around one or more of the iron stoves for warmth, chatting, playing poker, or reading the newspaper until they received a signal that the boats were coming in. But it was the local men who made the dangerous sea runs—good seamen, lobstermen, and clammers who apparently didn’t see anything wrong with breaking a law that was mostly unpopular, largely ignored, and brought in more money than they’d ever seen before.

  She was pleased by her work and status as a boat mechanic, but that old longing for the sea had never left her. She knew that someday, some way, she would find a way out there. An opportunity would present itself, and she would know it when it came.

  I will watch and wait. I will be ready.

  A windy winter morning. Frieda packed a school lunch for Bea and tended to Silver, who’d been down with a cold. Wrapped in blankets, he sat on the divan and blew his nose into an old handkerchief. “Got work for today?” he said as he folded the handkerchief and set it in his lap.

  She turned and studied him. His face was grayish, his nose red and raw, and his eyes rheumy and tired. “Not yet. Have to go see if I can rustle up a job.”

  “Winter’s tough on the boats. Ought to be some fishermen needing repairs.”

  “Yep,” she said.

  “Yep,” Silver replied, then adjusted his position on the couch and suffered through a coughing spell.

  Concerned, Frieda filled the Thermos that Silver always used and brought it to him. “I might not be gone long. I’ll come back and check on you, even if I land something.”

  “I’m OK,” he said croakingly.

  Frieda stood still.

  Silver gazed up at her through bloodshot eyes, as if some new knowledge had just come to him; as if something had shifted. His voice soft now, he said, “Did I tell you I’m proud of you?”

  She gazed down. They weren’t the sort of family to heap praise on each other. Many things were known but not said.

  “I hear tell you’re the best mechanic out there these days.”

  Frieda shrugged as if it meant nothing. Only it meant a lot.

  “I’m proud of you, what you’ve made of yourself.”

  Frieda studied her boots and finally whispered, “Thank you,” before leaving.

  Dockside, she asked around, but no one needed any repairs or maintenance that day. Bad weather was slowing things down. The winter had been brutal so far, and many of the smaller shore boats had been unable to go out. It was as if the weather itself knew strange business was stirring.

  She spoke to all the locals, with the exception of Hawkeye. She’d been able to avoid talking to him for two years now, because he didn’t own a boat any longer. Lost it somehow, and so he worked as relief man for the other dockmaster, something he had done before, and he crewed on other fishermen’s boats. But his demeaning interest in her and in everything she was doing had not waned. Often he followed her around with his piercing eye, as if he were judge and jury presiding over her life. She’d heard from some of her customers that he’d asked how well she was working out as a mechanic. The nerve! His nickname was perfect; he was like a circling hawk, waiting to attack.

  At Bahrs she sat on a stool, ordered Florence Bahrs’s clam chowder, and then looked around. The tables were covered with sheet metal, and there were no tablecloths, menus, or napkins. But some of the clammers’ wives sported new fur coats against the cold of winter and wore diamond rings on their weathered fingers.

  When Hicks came in, he took a seat beside her. Dressed in his fisherman’s coveralls, a woolen jacket and muffs on his ears, he brought with him the briny smell of the sea mixed with the scent of sweat seeping through wool. He took off the muffs and set them on the table.

  Improbably, Frieda had come to like Hicks. They’d grown close over the past two years, like siblings or best friends in her view. But she had the uneasy feeling that he still had a crush on her. It came during awkward silences, when their hands accidentally brushed against each other, and when he did things like drape his coat over her shoulders when a cold wind began to blow. Sometimes she glanced up and saw that old longing in his eyes, and it made her both sad and a bit scared for him. But she pushed her concerns aside. They had so much to do, and when they worked together, which was rare now, they often found they were thinking the same things. They finished each other’s sentences. Being around him made her feel warm, as if a coal lay in her core. During a few peculiar moments Frieda had felt a momentary burn, as if the coal could spark to flame, but the sensation slipped away as fast as it had come. She wondered if she was now immune to the lure of love. Her girlhood fantasies about romance had faded away over two years of grueling work. There was no room for daydreams when her mind was filled with everything about eng
ines and building her business. Even as girls from her high school were marrying and having babies, she let her starry-eyed imaginings slide away and concentrated on learning her craft. Her focus had been on gleaning everything she could from Hicks, working beside him, and nothing else.

  “You’re in early,” she said.

  He tore off some ragged gloves. “Too rough out there in the bay. I’ve been fishing flounder and fluke in the river. Not much biting.”

  She shoved her chowder in front of him. “It’s still hot.”

  Picking up a spoon, he stared into the steaming chowder and then at her. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?”

  She gazed around and then gathered her sweater across her chest. She cocked her head in the direction of Hawkeye, wearing a water-stained jacket and moth-eaten woolen cap and having sat down at a table nearby. She said, “I lost my appetite.”

  Hicks looked over at Hawkeye. “Never understood what you have against him.”

  “You don’t need to understand.”

  His eyes swam with a stricken look. Here it was again—another instance of him revealing his feelings for her. No! She could so easily hurt him. Damned if he didn’t still care in the wrong way. She had to be careful and tread lightly. She wished there was a kind way to flush his attachment to her out of his system. Quickly she said, “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I only meant that it’s personal. Between him and me. I’m not much for talking about it.”

  Hicks shrugged, then slurped down the chowder, and Florence Bahrs came by to ask if Hicks wanted more. He shook his head, and Florence left them alone. She was the maternal type, with a smile that warmed a round and fleshy face. She wore old-fashioned blouses and skirts, always covered by an apron, and her hair piled high on her head. An excellent cook, she fed the waterfront. Her husband, John, had bought the two-story boathouse and built bunks, filled the mattresses with straw and cornstalks, and made a living renting boats and selling bait, beds, and meals.

  Hicks asked Frieda, “What else is wrong?”

  “What makes you think something else is wrong?”

  “I can tell when you’re thinking hard on a matter. You start grinding your teeth.”

  She kept her eyes averted. “Do not.” Then she smiled.

  Their gazes met and held. Frieda had to look away.

  “So, come clean. Out with it.”

  She sighed and breathed in, then slowly exhaled. “I’ve been thinking. Come better weather we should go for the liquor, too.”

  “Oh no you don’t.”

  “I could work for you on the boat. We could do it together.”

  Hicks wiped his mouth on his sleeve and shook his head firmly. “It’s not for me.”

  Leaning forward, she inched closer, not bothering to lower her voice. Everyone knew about the business being conducted here. There was no need for secrecy. “Everybody’s doing it.”

  Hicks scraped the last of the chowder from the bottom of the bowl. “Not interested. And even if I was, the Wren ain’t big enough to bring back a large load.”

  “It could bring enough.”

  He sat back. “Enough for what?”

  She didn’t answer. She thought it was obvious.

  “What do you need that you don’t have?”

  “I have responsibilities. Bea’s in high school now, and she’s going to graduate in another couple of years. I want to send her to a real college, in the city. She’s been looking for a part-time job, but so far no luck. She has no practical skills, and I’m worried . . .”

  She didn’t say she feared Bea would fall into her mother’s footsteps someday, that she needed to get Bea away from the town’s memories and lasting gossip, but Hicks gazed at her as if he understood.

  She continued. “And Silver—well, you know. He’s too old for this life now. He can’t hardly take going out with his buddies on the good days. I got both of them to take care of.”

  “You’re getting by, ain’t you?”

  She shifted in the chair. “Yeah, I’m getting by. That’s the point. I’m getting by and managing to put a little money away, but it’s not much. I have no security, no safety net.” An image of that awful room above the bar flashed in her mind. Neither she nor Bea could end up there!

  Hicks fixed her with a stern glare. But as always he spoke softly to her. “You’ll worry a whole lot more if you’re running against the law.”

  “Even the guard doesn’t care. I hear the in-charge officer on the Hook gets a call that the rum boats are coming, and he sends his patrol boats and runners to look in another place, like Perth Amboy. Those men find nothing, but the officer finds a case of prime Canadian whiskey waiting for him on the dock.”

  “They aren’t all like that, and the guard keeps moving men around so they don’t get too comfortable and tempted in one spot.” Hicks rose. “Want some coffee?”

  “Wait,” she said.

  He stood still. “They’re getting better. The guard. Mark my word. They’ve made a few big arrests. And they’re learning how to spot the decoy boats, and they can light up the darkest night with tracer bullets. Some have even taken to firing warning shots across the bow of the boat they’re after, and some of those shots have come mighty close. Someone’s going to die, Frieda.”

  Around her she saw no signs of danger. She saw no death, only new lives as more people in Highlands joined the fray. Men who’d fished, worked as seiners, crewed on oyster boats, hauled lobster pots, and tonged for clams were now eating well, dressing better than they ever had before, and providing for their families as never before. Simple people who’d never been able to afford homes or new cars were pulling up in front of their just-built frame houses in cars off the showroom floor. The fishermen’s children were for once as well dressed and well fed as the hill people’s kids. Women could go to the hospital to have their babies. The city was growing and building up around them.

  She’d never had much interest in the trappings of wealth, but the opportunities it could buy for Bea . . . ? The protection it could provide so that neither of them ever faced the predicament their mother must have faced? And the fact that it meant crossing the sea, sometimes several nights a week—that thought bloomed inside her chest. “If it’s dangerous, then everyone wouldn’t be getting in on the action and the money.”

  “No. Not everyone. Look at the Bahrs here”—he gestured around—“still making an honest living. And Hawkeye, though you hate him; he isn’t doing it, either.”

  She glanced away. The evening was coming on, but despite the weather and sea conditions, some of the larger contact boats were still running. There was no moon, so it would be pitch-black out there, as they preferred. She had picked up on just about everything about running. The local boatmen going out to the foreign-registered, big rum boats and bringing back the liquor were essentially the middle men. They bought, ferried, and sold the offshore boats’ contraband to the city men. The city men kept a lookout over on Highland Beach, where they’d get the signal from high-powered flashlights when the shore boats were coming in, and prearranged signals would tell them where to meet the drop men and the boats in Highlands, Leonardo, Belford, or other places. The city men drove to the drop site, bargained with the captain or his drop man, made their purchases, and then jumped into REO Speed Wagons or long sedans outfitted with heavy-duty springs to carry fifteen or more cases of Canadian booze into the city. The captain’s drop man would take any surplus and store it in hidden barns and sheds until it could be sold.

  “And me,” said Hicks slowly. “I’m doing what I’ve always done.”

  Frieda straightened as she listened to some rigging clang against a mast outside and another idea hit her. “We could talk to Bahrs. If you don’t want to use the Wren, he’s got that skiff out there we could hire from him and give him a share of whatever we rake in. He’d make a lot more money than the pound-net fishing he uses it for.”

  Hicks shook his head. “I’ve heard others have tried to talk him into it. He wo
n’t rent the boat for running.”

  “Aren’t you ever tempted?”

  His face set firmly, he gazed off with a faraway look. “I fought in a war for this country. Being in the service and overseas remakes a person. I’m not going against the US, no matter what.”

  “But it’s a stupid law.”

  “No matter. I’m not breaking it.”

  Later, still hoping to acquire some engine-fixing business, she took a walk along the piers. Pleasure yachts often pulled in at the end of the longest one, and just then a man caught Frieda’s eye on board a lovely sailboat with two polished wooden masts. Startlingly handsome, the young man had sandy-brown hair that was a bit wavy and unruly, his face finely boned, his lips full and expressive. Smooth, unblemished skin like tanned chamois leather. Wearing an expensive-looking jacket and gloves, he moved about the deck working with the dock lines. Frieda’s body went still. He was exquisite. Elegant and fluid. Smooth. Sophisticated.

  Frieda couldn’t tear her eyes away. He glanced up, and embarrassed to be caught ogling, she shot her gaze downward, turned around, and walked away. For a moment, however, she knew nothing but the feel of his eyes on her during that split second. Something precious had flowed from them and landed on her.

  Mentally, she shook it off. As she strode down the pier, she wondered why the people who owned that beautiful boat would have it out in this cold weather. Probably pulling the boat on land for the winter, she surmised.

  Despite an inner battle to stop it, for the rest of the day the handsome man’s image kept swimming into view in her mind. If she were one to daydream about romance, he would be the perfect focus of those imaginings.

  That night she fried the flounder Hicks had given her for dinner. Bea had gone upstairs to study right after school. Always studying, that girl, or flipping through discarded Vanity Fair magazines and dreaming of things she’d likely never have. Despite her intelligence Bea was way too idealistic. She thought that one of the fancy shops catering to the tourists would hire her to work on Saturdays, but the owners could get hill girls to do that. She could’ve been hired as a hotel housekeeper, but Frieda, nervous about men trying to take advantage of Bea, had talked her out of it. She also thought all she had to do was go to college and then every possible door would open for her. But Frieda knew she was the only one who could make the college dream come to fruition. She had to keep things true and tangible, and it haunted her. How was she to do it?