Water Lessons

by Chadwick Wall

  Then Walter slapped his hands on his kneecaps, inhaling deeply and perking up his chin. "So are we ready to tackle it, my boy? Whaddaya say, sailor?" he boomed, smiling.

  "Aye, aye, cap'n!"

  "You're gonna take this operation to the moon, I know it, son! I'm so pleased you took me up on the offer." The old man was on his feet.

  Before Jim had risen fully to his feet, the gnarled but still powerful hand was outstretched for a handshake. "Let's do it! 'For God and the Navy!'"

  Jim gave the hand a firm shake. "'For The Union, Indissolvable and Eternal!'"

  Walter chortled. Jim kissed his girlfriend on the forehead and followed the old man's fervent pace out into the hall. His own gait was giddy with anticipation. He couldn't wait to see the old man's shop and his boats.

  With a pang of guilt Jim wondered how Walter would react if Jim flourished in the shop but became paralyzed with terror while out on the open water. Would Walter then retain him in the job? Jim imagined his own father's words over the phone, that August night outside Snug Harbor, and quickened his pace down the hall behind the old man.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As Betty Sue rolled down the cobblestone driveway and the oyster shell road with her windows down, the Commodore sat within, puffing thick curls of smoke from his pipe. When the road forked, he directed Jim to turn left. The shell lane curved up over a few hills and around a great sugar maple.

  Soon the massive warehouse came into view. Strikingly tall, it was set maybe a hundred feet from the dock, boat launch, and the lapping waters of the Nantucket Sound. Beside the warehouse stood a few piles of tires. The large diesel truck used to tow smaller craft sat parked near the warehouse at the edge of the tall seagrass.

  Rusting stilts supported an old lobster boat McTierney had worked on from time to time. Mac had convinced the old man to buy it the year before at a Providence auction, but he had failed to restore the vessel in time for the onslaught of winter. Mac had ripped off all of the shrinkwrap several days ago just before he had been canned. A bird had built a nest in a little nook on the side of the cockpit.

  Jim parked before one of the four great doors of the warehouse. The old man leapt out, stepped to the building, and punched a keycode on the pad adjacent to a door. After a beep, Walter started to open the door, but then paused. Jim walked toward him.

  "Six four and then nineteen forty two," the old man whispered, mischievously grinning. "Now, whassat, son? What's that code for?"

  "Hmm, six four nineteen forty two?"

  "If you get this, I have a bottle of vintage 1962 Macallan for you in my study. Never opened. Brought back from a trip years ago to Edinburgh."

  "June fourth, nineteen forty-two. It probably wouldn't be a land battle… it's the Battle of Midway! The turning point of the Pacific Theater in World War II."

  "Keep it down, son!" the old man whispered as he slapped Jim's shoulder. His eyes flashed, like a wolf near the point of attack. "A man after my own heart," the old Commodore added.

  He looked Jim hard in the eyes, raising a hand in emphasis, as if about to launch into some fascinating old sea yarn. "I wasn't there. But my oldest brother Mickey was. He was decorated for service in that battle, you know. Distinguished Flying Cross." He then looked down at his boat shoes. "Old Mick didn't survive that war. I was still at the Academy. He was shot down, lost at sea at Tarawa. Now that was truly a horrendous battle. Namely the way we kicked it off." The old man yanked the door open. He gestured for Jim to enter first.

  "I'm sorry, Walter," Jim said.

  Inside the door, Jim stepped aside and panned the spacious interior. He gave a shrill whistle and raised his eyebrows at what was before him: a single craft, and a large one at that. Never had he glimpsed something so arresting at such a close distance.

  "Her name's the John Paul Jones, son. Now I know you know who that was."

  "Patriot, founder of the U.S. Navy."

  "Yes, lad," Walter stomped his foot with pride. "Now tell us what you think of that beaut! Your first project."

  Jim couldn't form the words. Spanning much of the length of the warehouse was what had to be the very same Hereschoff schooner he and Maureen had seen a week before in Boston Harbor.

  "Not many people know about this one, Jim. The Hereschoffs didn't build many schooners. This might be their only one. This is actually their second largest craft, second only to the Belisarius. That vessel resides in their museum over in Bristol, Rhode Island. Captain Nat himself built this one in 1912. Superstructure originally done with mahogany and spruce pine, with a teak deck. Mac spotted this baby for me at a show in Portland. It was affordable, relatively speaking, because it was not in the best of shape. It needed some repairs along the deck and on the aft mast. She took on water once with the previous owner, a judge up in Casco Bay, Maine. Fella just wanted to jettison the old girl, get some decent money for her. Kathleen blew a gasket when she found out what I'd done. After the sale I was still on top of the world, but about a day later, mainly due to Kathleen's powers of rhetoric, what I'd done set in. I've really gotta tweak a few more things on this boat to turn a profit."

  "I could swear I saw this right off the North End, in Boston Harbor. Maureen and I were hanging out on my balcony just this last Sunday. I knew it was a schooner. The three masts, the fore and aft sails with the foresail being the smaller, the design of the hull… I was almost convinced it was a Hereschoff."

  "Jimmy boy, that was this one, all right. I had her dry-docked in Maine for the winter until I sold a few boats here to make room. As scandalous as McTierney turned out to be, he did help me flip several good deals in the last few months. Anyway, the original owner had her taken from dry-dock, readied, and delivered this very week. Part of the deal went that he'd pay for the wintering and he would have her in his possession, but he'd ensure she would make the voyage down, that she'd be seaworthy. Or he'd be bound to return my money. A few of our guys joined me in working on her the last two days. And I've been spending more and more time working here, as Kathleen has really lit into my own hull for my little transgression. She cut out this ol' tar's grog ration, hid my Scotch for two weeks!"

  Walter motioned for him to follow. "We'll check on ol' John Paul Jones later. First I'll show you your office." Walter gestured to the small sliding window near the top of the opposite wall.

  They walked around the dry-dock in which the schooner was set, hugging the perimeter of the warehouse, past plastic cans of chemicals, mounds of dirty rags, a few random chairs, an old portable stereo, a few boom lights, and a rolling metal cabinet of tools. Walter plodded up the stairs, his six-feet two-inch frame shaking the wooden planks.

  Jim followed behind. He spotted yet another keycode pad. What could the password be? The Battle of Agincourt?

  "I did this one for you, mate," the Commodore said in a poor British accent. "One eight one eight fifteen. Okay, what is it?"

  Jim pondered the question. The Napoleonic War had stopped in 1814, and had restarted in March 1815. Was it an election or an assassination? No, it must be something military, knowing Walter. A battle fought in the dead of winter?

  "You almost got me, Commodore. The Battle of New Orleans. Old Hickory Andrew Jackson and the pirate Jean Lafitte teamed up. Jackson's horses and oxen brought cannon down from Tennessee, right past my hometown…. they went right through Covington and Mandeville. The ox lots are still there."

  "My boy. You make me proud," Walter said. "But I can't afford any more trivia prizes." He punched the code and opened the door. Inside lurked the smell of old papers with a faint smell of spilt beer. "This here's the office. Mac spilled a Guinness on that table last week. No one can fault him for a lack of good taste."

  The Commodore flipped on the light. "Your new office is where we keep the articles, records of ownership, and the receipts of sale in that file cabinet. It holds records for taxes paid on various vessels. And that one contains all our subchapter-S records and documents of incorporation. In that drawer there you'l
l find the documents on all the races we'll compete in."

  Jim felt his heart rise slightly and fall back in place within his chest. He couldn't recall hearing anything about races. How often would he have to practice on the open water for these?

  "And this here's your computer. An Apple, no less! Anyway, on the desktop you'll find a digital rolodex of prospective and past buyers, and in the documents section there's a file on each regional show: the Providence Boat Show in winter, the Newport International, of course, and a few ones in Boston. More on all that later."

  Walter clapped his hands once. "I'll give you an introduction on Monday, when everyone's here. I'm ultimately running this venture, but you'll oversee most of it. And of course there are the other men living on the Cape who work here full-time. They help mainly with the labor. You can learn a lot from 'em, but they answer to you," Walter said with gravity, pointing at Jim's chest.

  "Now get a load of this, sonny boy," Walter motioned to another keypad on the wall.

  "Walter, you've got this place rigged tighter than Fort Knox."

  "With good reason. Years ago some local cretins burglarized it. They made out with a load of tools, and vandalized the hell out the place. I ratcheted up security after that one, when I built this addition here. Your new digs." The Commodore's hand hovered over the keypad.

  "Whatcha got, Commodore?"

  "Ten twenty one eight zero five," Walter eyes flashed. "I know you'll get this."

  "The Battle of Trafalgar, and the death of England's greatest naval hero, Lord Nelson. His victory reaffirmed Britain as the ruler of the high seas for over a century afterwards."

  "Great show, my boy!" the Commodore thundered in a much more convincing British accent. "Now, tell me, for a hundred points, and the hand of my daughter in marriage, and for full ownership of the John Paul Jones down there… just kidding… in what two liquids was the great Admiral Nelson's body preserved for the trip home to England?"

  "Brandy… and wine. Not such a bad way to be honored."

  "Excellent! Your most challenging question yet," Walter said as he punched in the code and yanked open the door. "After you, Lieutenant."

  Walter flipped the light. The apartment, swept and mopped, was devoid of furniture. Jim smiled at the black marble countertop, refrigerator and well-furnished kitchen. The walls had been painted a neutral white, and were without blemishes. A bay window stretched nearly the entire height of the wall. Two French doors, revealing an exemplary view, opened out onto a balcony. The parking lot and boatyard lay below, and the entire Nantucket sound lay beyond.

  "I really like the place! Excellent view," Jim said.

  "You'll get used to this just fine," Walter said. "Welcome home. Ya dawn good, sonny bo-ah. Ya dawn good. Now let's get back to the house to see what my sweet girls have in store."

  For a second, Jim stood musing on the empty apartment around him. He wondered what the flooded, ruined house of his grandfather looked like. Jim had refused for months to see any photos of the mold, mildew, and gutted ceilings, floors, and walls, the obliterated heirlooms and thus the annihilated family past. His father had sent a team to strip the house, but Jim had several times made it clear he didn't want to hear any details. Freddy had passed on its roof, and the entire edifice might as well be cursed.

  Jim followed the old man toward the door and felt the guilt return once more. Jim had survived and flourished. His friend had vanished from the earth, murdered by the storm days after it had passed, and the old Jim had died there on the roof with Freddy.

  The new Jim was born—and in turn borne up through the air from the city that raised him into the helicopter—and that new Jim had died to the past with its restless travels and struggles for money and been born into a bright new life of many triumphs. But had he betrayed his roots by leaving the city of his birth and heritage at its darkest hour, and abandoned his old life and passions, and forged their replacements in a new land?

  As Jim walked out into the sunlight he recalled his father's words from the phone call days before. "One day, sugar, you will wake up and years will have flown by. I'll be gone. Mother will be gone. And it'll be too late to enjoy the rest of your youth and all you could have enjoyed down here."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The mahogany table was laid out with the old pewter flatware of a semi-formal Henretty lunch. Jim sat to the right of the Commodore, who filled his chair at the head of the table. Across from the old man sat Kathleen Henretty. At Kathleen's right hand, and directly across from Jim, sat Maureen.

  The two women debated shoe styles. The old Commodore had completely disengaged. He stared past his wife toward the Atlantic, watching the two racing motorboats and farther beyond, the lone sloop.

  Jim sipped Sauvignon Blanc and leisurely spooned the heavenly chowder into his mouth. Kathleen prepared the seafood chowder before their arrival, but had gone to the market only for more dill. Jim suspected the old man had been keen to leave Maureen behind at the house by any means so that he and Jim could talk business and Walter would be free to relate a bawdy or gore-filled joke, tale, or pun.

  Listening with half an ear, Jim stared at his bowl. The women switched their discussion to jewelry. The contrast in voices caught his attention. Kathleen's Rhode Island accent carried inflections borne of Italian and Portuguese immigration and a location between Massachusetts and New York City. Her voice was more mellow and lower than her daughter's. Maureen's voice was younger and more lilting, but just as authoritative.

  Jim shot two successive glances at the duo, taking in their faces, hair, clothes, and positions at the table. He chuckled inwardly as he contemplated that he did indeed harbor some guilty but nevertheless understandable attraction to the mother, a dead ringer for a middle-aged Raquel Welch, with the same nostrils that often flared sensually, the same lynx-like eyes harboring an inner fire. That last feature she had passed on to Maureen.

  Kathleen Silva Burgoyne must have wielded that allure when, as a girl of twenty-seven, she snagged Walter, fifty-two, lightly graying, tall and strapping, and newly retired. Half French and the remainder mostly Portuguese with a dash of Wampanoag Indian, Kathleen first met Walter at a coffee breakfast at the Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Osterville. Jim had forgotten how the rest of it went.

  "So Walter, Kathleen," Jim said. "Can someone tell me the story of how you met at church?"

  "Well, Walter had just been discharged," Kathleen began, "and had returned to his father's estate here on Cape Cod."

  Jim noticed she omitted mentioning Walter's first wife had passed a few years before the move.

  "Walter rarely missed Mass, rarely missed an opportunity for a doughnut, so he inevitably found himself in the parish hall, where—"

  "I was chatting with my new friend, Father Higgins, who suddenly mentions he needs 'to give in to the sin of gluttony and find those doughnuts.' He whispers for me to follow him, that he wants me to meet this young parishioner here for the summer. I see this twenty-something, beautiful, somewhat exotic woman, arranging the doughnut tray on the table. Kathleen starts blushing at me, and—"

  "But what did you say to me to make me blush?" Kathleen said.

  "Can you help a poor sailor?!" Walter yelled and pounded the table with his fists.

  Jim and Walter and Kathleen laughed in unison. Maureen looked at them, from one to another, with an expression of bewilderment.

  "Then," Kathleen said, raising her beautifully arched eyebrows, "Father goes, 'This captain returned from a long voyage and needs some breakfast!' I offered Walter a doughnut, and then another one. We spoke of my summer job at this Hyannis boutique and of my Osterville friends I was staying with for the summer. I'd come to the Cape a month before to learn sailing. My father had taught me to motorboat on the Sakonnet and the Narragansett in Rhode Island but I knew little about sailing. I had said the right thing—but as Walter often jokes—I could have said anything."

  Jim took another spoonful of the chowder.

&nbs
p; "To your liking, eh, Jim?" Kathleen said. "If only you could see your face!"

  "I've seen him eat it at two different restaurants in a single day," Maureen said. "But I know Jim and all his funny mannerisms. He's really enjoying that right now."

  "It's amazing, Mrs. Henretty, really."

  "Please call me Kathleen! I'm not that old yet! But Walter?" Kathleen said. "Address him as Mr. Henretty. He's crossed the line into old."

  The old man rolled his eyes.

  "Now, Jim, which version do you like better?" Kathleen directed her large, dark eyes with their long curled lashes at him. "The white-broth Maine style or the red broth, tomahto-based Rhode Island and Manhattan chowder? And do you prefer seafood, clam, or fish chowder?"

  Either Kathleen Henretty's Maine-style dish or her home state would be snubbed. Jim aimed to navigate this discussion with stealth. "I love them all. If I was on a desert island with only one of those to eat, it would be a seafood chowder, Maine style. But my tastes change. Maybe in a few weeks it'll be the red chowder."

  "Good answer," Kathleen said.

  "Are you smooth! Ever consider law, diplomacy, politics?" Maureen said.

  "Couldn't have stated it better," the old man winked. "And don't let her make ya sweat, son. I was watchin' you!"

  "Walter, behave!" Kathleen said. "Aren't you going to disclose the little surprise you have in store?"

  "Well, after lunch, we could sit around. Let this delicious food settle and snooze here at the house. Then we could take a trip out on the water. We'll cap it all off with a little cocktail party. Sharon can hit the grocery for hors d'oeuvres. I can round up some guests."

  "That sounds wonderful, Walt!" Kathleen said. "As long as I don't cook, that is."

  "Or I, for that matter," Maureen said.

  "Don't worry about cooking." Walter nodded at them. "This meal was excelente."

  "So, Jim," Kathleen said, "tell me your thoughts on the new job. Excited?" She raised her eyebrows in expectation.