A New Song

by Jan Karon

  “We’d like to pray for th’ owner of th’ marina and his wife, Angie, too,” said Captain Willie. “She’s got breast cancer. And Cap’n Tucker’s daughter, we don’t want to forget her, name’s Sarah, then there’s Toby Rider, lost his daddy and we feel real bad about it. Course we’d like to ask God’s mercy for every family back home and every soul on board....”

  Captain Willie turned to the helm, grabbed the red knob, and cranked the engines back to idle.

  In the sudden quiet, the waves slammed against the hull, dulling the gurgling sound of the exhaust. They seemed to be wallowing now in the choppy sea; they might have been so much laundry tossing in a washing machine.

  His heart was hammering as if he’d run a race. But it wasn’t his heart, exactly, that bothered him, it was his stomach. It seemed strangely disoriented, as if it had moved to a new location and he couldn’t figure out where.

  “Our Father, we thank You mightily for the beauty of the sunrise over this vast sea, and for the awe and wonder in all the gifts of Your creation. We ask Your generous blessings upon every captain and mate aboard every vessel in this fleet, and pray that each of us be made able, by Your grace, to know Your guidance, love, and mercy throughout the day. . . .”

  The names of the people, and their needs, what were they? His mind seemed desperately blank, as if every shred of thought and reason had been blown away like chaff on the wind.

  Lord! Help!

  “For Sarah, we ask Your tender mercies, that You would keep her daily in Your healing care, giving wisdom to those attending her, and providing strength and encouragement. . . .”

  More than three decades of intercessory prayer experience notwithstanding, he found it miraculous that the names came to him, one by one. He leaned into the prayer with intensity, feeling something of the genuine weight and burden, the urgency, of the needs for which he prayed.

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Oh, Lord, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters, we thank You for hearing our prayers, in the blessed name of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  The captain took the microphone and keyed it, thanking him.

  He noted what appeared to be a look of compassion on the captain’s face as they shook hands.

  “Blue Heaven, Salty Dog, come back.”

  “Blue Heaven, go ahead, Salty Dog.”

  “Just want to say we really appreciate Father Kavanagh’s prayers, and sure hope he doesn’t succumb to the torments of a rough sea. OK, Salty Dog back to eighty.”

  “Blue Heaven standin’ by on eighty.”

  As the captain gunned the engines, Father Tim careened to the rail and leaned over.

  The goodwill and fond hope of Salty Dog had come too late.

  Twice over the rail should nip this thing in the bud. Already his ribs hurt from the retching; it was probably over now and he could go down the ladder and have something to drink, maybe even a bite to eat—that was the problem, going out on rough seas with an empty stomach. . . .

  He was amazed at his agility on the ladder, as if by the earlier practice shot he’d become a seasoned sailor. No big deal, he thought, looking down at the waves hammering the boat.

  Good grief ! He scrambled off the ladder and leaned over the rail, the bile spewing in a flume from his very core, hot, bitter, and fathomless.

  It was his head. He seemed to have lost his head the last time over the rail. He reached up feebly and felt around. No, it was his hat he’d lost. It had slithered off and dropped into the sea, and his scalp was parching like a Georgia peanut.

  “Let ’im set there, we ain’t findin’ any fish,” he heard Otis say. He opened his eyes and realized he was sitting in the privileged fighting chair. The fighting chair. What a joke.

  “Hat,” he said. “Hat.”

  Nobody heard him, because he found he couldn’t speak above a whisper. He had no energy to force audible words through cracked lips.

  Fine. He’d just sit here until they dumped him overboard, which he wished they’d do sooner rather than later. He’d never known such suffering in his life, not from mayonnaise that had nearly taken him out at a parish picnic, not from the diabetic coma brought on by Esther Bolick’s orange marmalade cake, not from the raging fever he had as a child when he saw his mother as a circus performer who made lions jump through hoops.

  “What I don’t like about th’ Baptists,” Otis was saying, “is they won’t speak to you at th’ liquor store.”

  Laughing, shuffling around, general merriment—people living their lives as if he weren’t there, as if he were invisible, a bump on a log.

  “That’s th’ way it is, some days,” said Pete. “You’re either a hero or a zero. Yesterday, we were haulin’ ’em in faster than I could bait th’ hooks; today, I don’t know where they are.”

  “You got to pump ’em,” said Ernie. “Like, say you’re reelin’ in a fifty-pound tuna, you got to raise the rod up real slow, then drop down quick and crank.”

  Conversations came and went; it was all a kind of hive hum, he thought, as when bees returned from working a stand of sourwoods.

  “Now, you take tarpon,” said Otis. “I was down in th’ Keys where they grow too big to mount on your wall. Tarpon you just jump a few times and then break ’em off before you wear ’em out, you wear ’em out too bad, th’ sharks eat ’em.”

  “I never fished any tarpon,” said Ernie.

  He opened his eyes and shut them fast. Pete was showing Madge and Sybil how he prepped the bait.

  “See, you pop th’ eyes out like this . . . then you break up th’ backbone ...”

  “Oooh,” said Madge.

  “Don’t make ’er faint,” said Otis.

  “I have no intention of fainting, thank you!”

  “Then you squeeze their guts out, see. . . .”

  “Lord help,” said Sybil.

  “Thing is, th’ more they wiggle in th’ water, th’ better they catch.”

  “Clever!” said Madge. “That is really clever.”

  Without realizing how he got there, he was at the rail again, on his knees.

  “On his knees at th’ rail,” said Madge. “That is very Episcopalian.”

  “Or Luth’ran,” said Sybil. “Can’t that be Luth’ran?”

  He didn’t know who it was, maybe Otis or Ernie, but someone held his head while he spewed up his insides and watched the vomitus carried away on the lashing water.

  “We been out every day for forty-one days straight,” said Pete, who was currently varying the bait, trying anything.

  “Sometimes you just pray for a nor’easter so you can get a break, but if th’ weather’s good, you have to go.”

  The weather today is not good, he tried to say, but couldn’t. Why in blazes did we go today if you don’t go when the weather’s not good? Answer that! Plus, plus . . . he wished he could discuss this with Roger . . . his math told him that, discounting the crew, he represented more than any twelve blasted percent.

  He declined the fighting chair in case anyone got a strike, and sat feebly in an adjacent chair.

  “What do you think the winds are right now?” asked Roger.

  “Oh, fifteen, sixteen miles an hour. This ain’t nothin’. I know somebody was out all night last night in forty-mile winds.”

  General, respectful silence. Diesel fumes.

  “We need to think positive,” said Madge. “Smoked loin of tuna! That’s how I’m thinkin’!”

  “Must be lunchtime,” said Otis. “Believe I’ll have me a little shooter. Want one?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Thank you, you go on, but I wouldn’t mind shuckin’ a few peanuts with you.”

  He was baking, he was broiling, he was frying, he was cooked. Sunscreen. He remembered the sunscreen in his jacket pocket, but he wasn’t wearing his jacket. Someone had helped him remove it earlier.

  “Look,” said Sybil. “Th’ poor man needs something.”

  “What?” said Madge
. “Oh, mercy, look at his head, it’s red as a poker. Where’s his hat?”

  “He went to the rail and came back without it.”

  “Here you go,” Otis was patting sunscreen on his head and followed it with a hat

  “Bless you,” he managed to whisper.

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said bless me.” He thought Otis sounded touched. “Father, you want some water or Coke? Coke might be good.”

  “Nossir,” said Ernie, “what he needs is ginger ale. Anybody got ginger ale?”

  “Fruit juice,” said Madge, “that’s what I’d give somebody with upset stomach.”

  “No deal with th’ fruit juice,” said Pete. “Too much acid.”

  “How about a piece of ice to just hold in his mouth?”

  “I don’t know about that. They say when you’re real hot you shouldn’t swallow somethin’ real cold, it can give you a heart attack or maybe a stroke.”

  “He’s moving his lips. What’s he saying?”

  Otis leaned down and listened. “He’s praying,” said Otis.

  They had veered east, then south, but weren’t finding any fish. Neither was the rest of the fleet. Occasionally a boat would get a couple of strikes, radio the news, and everybody would head in that direction. But so far, Blue Heaven had taken only two dolphins, and thrown back a few catches that were too small to gaff.

  They were currently idling the boat several miles south of Virginia, and trolling a spreader bar. The chop was as bad as, or worse than, before; they were wallowing like a bear in cornshucks. He thought of looking at his watch, but why bother? The misery was interminable. There was no hope that anyone would turn back to shore for a sick man, much less send a helicopter. He was in this scrape to the bitter end.

  He denied to himself that he had to urinate, as doing that would require going through the cabin where this thing first snared and suffocated him. He wouldn’t go back in that cabin if they tried to drag him in with a team of mules.

  Occasionally, a kind soul visited his chair and stood for a moment in silent commiseration.

  “Sorry, Tim.”

  “You’re going to make it, buddy.”

  Even the captain came down from the bridge and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Hang in there, Father.” Their concern was a comfort, he had to admit, though he was hard-pressed to get over the humiliation he felt.

  At one point, someone assured him he wasn’t going to die, which he found altogether lacking in comfort, since he didn’t much care either way.

  “Did you hear about th’ guy got dragged off th’ boat reelin’ in a marlin?”

  “No way.”

  “It was in th’ paper, said th’ marlin was four hundred pounds, said it pulled th’ guy over th’ stern.”

  “He would’ve been sucked into th’ backwash.”

  “Wadn’t. Somebody went in after ’im, saved ’im. But that’s not th’ half of it. He got th’ marlin.”

  “Bull. That never happened in this lifetime.”

  “I’m tellin’ you it’s th’ truth, it was in th’ paper.”

  “I’ve heard of fish takin’ first mates over,” said Pete.

  “There is no way I want to listen to this mess,” said Madge.

  He was shocked to find himself kneeling at the rail again, with no power over this thing, none at all. He felt completely out of control, which frightened him utterly; he might have been a piece of bait himself, without will or reason to alter his circumstances.

  “Number five,” somebody said. “That’s th’ fifth time.”

  “Seven. He heaved over th’ bridge rail twice.”

  “You ready to eat? I’m half starved.”

  “I’ve been thinkin’ about what I made last night. Tuna salad. On French bread! Oh, and there’s late tomatoes out of my neighbor’s garden. Delicious!” said Madge. “I’ll cut ’em up so we can all have a bite.”

  “Tuna out of a can?” asked Otis. “That’d be sacrilegious.”

  “Are we goin’ to just leave ’im out here?” wondered Sybil.

  “Father? Father!”

  Why did people think the sick automatically went deaf?

  What? He couldn’t say it audibly, so he thought it, which should be sufficient.

  “Do you want to go inside?”

  “Don’t take him inside,” said the first mate. “You lose th’ horizon when you do that. That’s usually what makes people seasick, is losin’ th’ horizon.”

  “But he’s been sittin’ out here since it quit rainin’. I think we should at least put sunscreen on his arms. Look at his arms.”

  He felt several people pawing over him, and tried to express his gratitude.

  “Lookit. He doesn’t have socks on. Rub some on his ankles.”

  “Th’ back of his neck,” said Ernie. “That’s a real tender place, slather some on there.”

  “He’s an awful color,” said Madge.

  He realized he should have been more specific in his will; now it was too late to say that he did not want an open casket.

  He slept, or thought he might be sleeping. Perhaps he’d slipped into a state of unconsciousness, his mind vacant as a hollow gourd. If there was anything he distrusted, it was an empty mind. He forced himself to open his eyes and saw only glare, a shining that moved and heaved and shuddered and danced and tried to force entry to his stomach. In truth, he’d never been especially aware of his stomach. When it was empty, he put something in it; when it was full, he was happy. Now he felt it as a raw and flaccid thing that swung in him like a sheep’s bladder with every swell that tossed the boat.

  He wanted his wife. Lacking that consolation, he pulled his jacket around him and squeezed his eyes shut and dreamed a dream as vacant as mist.

  Thank God! He might actually be feeling better.

  His eyes seemed clear, some strength was returning; but he didn’t want to count his chickens, no, indeed. He rubbed Chap Stick on his lips and hunkered down under Otis’s hat, wondering about his sugar, which must have dropped straight to the floor of the Gulf Stream. He wished he’d brought his tachometer . . . no, that wasn’t it. What was it, anyway? Could he possibly have suffered brain damage from this terrible assault? Glucometer, that’s what it was.

  Weak . . . terribly weak. He realized he was thinking of Ernie’s Snickers bars, iced down cold. A small flicker, a flame of hope rose in his breast. Thank You, Lord. . . .

  He looked out upon the restless water and saw other boats on the horizon—one there, two there, like family.

  “We had the worst nest of yellow jackets in our church wall-l-l!” said Sybil.

  “What’d y’all do about it?”

  “Swatted ’em with our hymnals and bulletins.”

  “Why didn’t you kill ’em?”

  “They only flare up once a year, late April or May, and only on th’ side where hardly anybody sits, anyway.”

  “Yesterday a hero, today a zero,” muttered Pete, hauling up bait that looked like a glorified Christmas tree.

  Father Tim waved his hand to Ernie, who came over and squatted by the chair.

  “What can I do for you, buddy?”

  “Snickers,” he said, hoarse as a bullfrog.

  “Snickers?”

  He nodded, feeble but encouraged.

  “We got us one!” yelled Ernie. “Otis! Where’s Otis?”

  “In th’ head. You take it!”

  Father Tim had heard of total pandemonium, but he’d never seen it ’til now. Six people erupted into a full horde, and swarmed around him like the armies of Solomon.

  “We got a fish here! Yee-hah!”

  “Got another one right here. Take it, Madge!”

  He looked at the throbbing lines crisscrossed over and around the stern like freeways through L.A.

  “That’s a keeper!” Pete gaffed something and pulled it in.

  “Way to go, Roger!”

  He saw the rainbow of color that shimmered on the big fish as it went into the box, where i
t thrashed like a horse kicking a stall. Pete pulled out the gaff and hosed blood from the deck.

  The captain was fishing off the bridge; everybody was fishing. He heaved himself from the chair, out of the fray, and huddled against the cabin.

  In the fighting chair, Madge was crouched into the labor of hauling in something big.

  Otis had his thumb on her line, helping her raise and lower the rod. “You got to pump ’im, now,” he said, clenching his cigar in his teeth.

  “Oh, law! This must be an eighteen-wheeler I’ve got on here!”

  “Keep crankin’!”

  Captain Willie called over the speaker, “Please tend to the left-hand corner, Pete, tend to the left-hand corner, we got a mess over there.”

  “A fishin’ frenzy,” muttered Pete, streaking by in a blur.

  Madge cranked the reel, blowing like a prizefighter. “This fish is killin’ me. Somebody come and take this bloomin’ rod!”

  “Don’t quit!” yelled Sybil, aiming a point-and-shoot at the action. “Keep goin’, Chuck would be proud!”

  “That ain’t nothin’ but solid tuna,” said Otis. He helped Madge lift the rod as the fish drew closer to the boat.

  Father Tim rubberlegged it to the stern and looked over. The black water of the morning had changed to blue-green, and the fish moved beneath the aqua surface, luminous and quick.

  He thought it one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen.

  “Here it comes!”

  He stepped back as Pete darted to the right of the fighting chair, lowered the gaff, and hauled the tuna onto the deck.

  “Way to go, Madge!”

  “Beautiful! Beautiful!”

  Whistles, cheers, applause.

  “That’ll weigh in seventy, seventy-five pounds,” Otis said, as Madge staggered out of the chair, grinning into Sybil’s camera.

  The captain was catching fish, Ernie was catching fish, Roger was catching fish.

  “Got a fish on th’ line!” yelled Pete. “Who’ll take it?”

  “I’ll take it!” As Father Tim thumped into the fighting chair, hoots of encouragement went up from the entire assembly.