by Paul, Lawton
"Orange lanyard! Find it!" he yelled. He loved to get all excited about something and not tell me what the heck was going on. If he wanted to freak out, that was fine. I sat down on the side of the boat, crossed my legs and folded my arms and waited. He was throwing stuff around frantically. Then he was on his knees probing the skunk water at the back of the boat with his big fingers.
"Let's fire up the five horse," I said.
"Can't!" he yelled again, "without the kill switch connected to the orange lanyard!"
"What's the rush?" I was still in the dark. Before the little motor would fire, you had to connect a kill switch connected to a cord. So if you fell overboard, the switch would shut the motor down. Without it, the motor wouldn't start.
Then without saying a word, without even looking up, he pointed out toward the channel. The boat was much farther from the Eastport line than I realized. The pelicans were gone. No seagulls overhead. We were floating right into the channel where the huge ships roll through. And they can't make evasive maneuvers to miss little crab boats. I looked North, where the ships come in. Way down past the fire department dock there was a blue ship with a white top. One of the car carriers from Japan, heading our way.
I grabbed the broken box of crabs and slid it out of the way, then started throwing all the other junk into the bow so we could see all of the stuff better. We both rummaged around for awhile but couldn't find the orange lanyard. I looked up again and we were even closer to the channel than before and the ship was bigger. I could see the windows, little black dots in the white upper deck. Then a seagull dove down near us. I looked in the water. There was some old bait and other junk floating along with us that had been thrown out of the boat when the wave hit. There was one of our old buoys, a red cigar box that said "Roi-Tan" on top, and further out, towards Eastport, a bright orange fishing float with a yellow top.
"Hey, did you put a float on the kill switch?" I said.
"Yeah, orange," he said, still kneeling in the back.
"I think I found it," I said.
Suddenly he jumped up. "Give it here!"
"Well, that's the problem." I pointed to the orange float. He stood for a moment staring out at the float, bouncing on the water about thirty yards out, then started to take off his boots.
"What are you doin'?" I asked.
"What the hell does it look like?" He asked, one bare foot now bathing in crabby water. He started to take off the other boot, but I stopped him.
"I'll do it."
"Like hell you will. You're afraid of the water," he said matter-of-factly, one foot on the rail like he was going to jump. I pulled him back a bit and he put his foot back into the boat. Then I slid out of my too-big-boots easily, and just like the rat, jumped into the river.
Even though it was late summer the water was cold. My jeans and shirt got real heavy and made it slow going. The current was pulling everything--but me, the boat, and the key were all moving in the same direction so it didn't matter. So I settled in, neck deep, paddling like a madman. When you are in the water, not on it, all safe in a boat, everything is bigger, the water suddenly reaching out infinitely. My whole world was reduced to water and sky. My anger at the old man's words carried me about half way, but then I started to feel the blackness surrounding me. It always came: fins and teeth and the feeling that something was coming from behind. I don't need this shit now, I thought. But the instinct to curl up into a little protective ball, to put my hands over my eyes, was about to overtake the instinct to stay afloat, to keep paddling. Then I heard the old man.
"Why didn't you punch that McCready boy when you had the chance?" he yelled. I kept swimming. I could see the little orange float bobbing. I wondered if this is how the rat felt, heading for shore. He seemed so confident and determined. The rat was in control. Meanwhile gray fins, white teeth and round black eyes loomed ahead of me. The image flashed into my head again and again, so I closed my eyes. I wasn't going to make it to the little float in time.
"Everybody was watching. I woulda jacked his jaw!" the old man yelled. And for a moment my mind went back to the cafeteria. He was doing it again. I opened my eyes and the float was flashing yellow and orange, bouncing on the top of the water like it was alive. I reached for it, missed, then got it on the second try and instantly turned for the boat. I clutched the key in my left hand, then realized it was tougher to swim if you had a tight fist, so I held the lanyard between my teeth, slightly salty in the brackish water.
"Does she think you are a scared, little boy? When are you going to step up?" he yelled. I could see him now, looking down, both hands on the side of the boat, leaning out towards me, goading me on. I thought about Hailey. The only thing I'd said to her was something a little mean. I accused her of being one of the snotty kids who lived in Northshore. She did live there, but I had a feeling about who she was. I could tell about people. The old man was leaning over the side of the boat, banging the hull with his hands. "Come on! Come on!" he yelled. He kept looking up, then back to me. The white crab boat hull got bigger. All I could see was white. And then I was right on it. I couldn't reach up high enough to pull my self to safety. I just wanted to be inside the boat. Nothing could get me there. The old man reached down and grabbed me by the back of my jeans and pulled up, and right then a small wave hit us and the edge of the boat rocked down just a bit. It was all we needed. I grabbed the edge and the old man kept pulling, and suddenly I was laying in the bottom of the boat.
The old man grabbed the key and turned to the little kicker. "Don't look up," he said. So I instantly looked up. When I was swimming my back was to the channel and I'd sort of forgotten about the ship bearing down on us. Now the bright blue hull was towering over us like we'd parked the boat next to a skyscraper. The old man pushed the key into its slot, squeezed the primer bulb connected to the fuel line to prime the engine and pulled on the cord. The engine sputtered, then died. He pulled again. And again. I reached for the primer bulb. "No!" he said. "She'll fire." He pulled again. Nothing. "Well shit," he said. "You might have to swim. Head straight for Sand Island. You've got to get far enough away so you don't get sucked back into the channel when it passes. Don't go until I tell you!" He kept pulling.
"What about you?"
"I'm fine. Do what I say!"
He pulled again. Still nothing. There was Japanese writing on the hull of the ship. It said Nichitoh Maru in English underneath. Two giant, black anchors hung from either side way up high. A handsome white stripe at the top set off the royal blue. The hull blocked out everything. There were little markers at the bottom with numbers like a ruler to measure how much water the ship was drawing.
Then I heard a high pitched whine as the little motor came to life. The ship was blowing its horn--a deafening roar. There were men on the deck of the ship leaning over a rail, above the white stripe yelling in Japanese. The old man had the 5-horse kicker wide open, full throttle, but we were crawling along. The bow of our boat was pointed at Sand Island. We crept forward. The ship was moving water ahead as she came and that gave us a push. All we had to do was get out of the channel.
"How deep are we? I think we're good," he said. I jumped up and checked the depth finder.
"Thirty-four feet. Still in."
After a few seconds he said, "Now?"
"Twenty-eight feet." We puttered along. I could hear the men on the ship yelling down at us in sharp, staccato, Japanese. I checked again. "Eight feet. We're out." The Nichioh Maru passed by and the men on the deck stopped screaming at us. I waved and a few waved back.
So we putt, putt, puttered alongside Sand Island, the little kicker sounding more like a blender than a proper outboard motor. But when I complained about how long it was going to take to get to the market the old man laughed and said, "You wanna paddle?" With the blue hull of the Nichitoh Maru finally out of the way we could see across the river. The apartments still there, waiting for me. People fussing and hollering on the dock. Someone had brought a big 4-wheel drive truck wit
h a winch.
When we finally made it to the market it was nearly noon. The old man had cussed pretty much the whole way home, talking about how he was going to make sure the captain of the big ship was going to "hang by his toes." But by the time we'd made it into the market and each of us was sitting on a bucket behind the cash register, we were too spent to complain. I had a Yoo-hoo and he had a coffee and some crackers and we just enjoyed our first moment of peace. I could've laid down right there on the dirty floor and taken a good nap. Pretty soon Danny came up with a blonde girl. I couldn't stop looking at her. She was a typical Florida beauty: tan, tall and curvy with a little too much makeup. And I wondered why she was hanging out with a loser like Danny.
When Danny asked if we'd heard about the incident in the channel, I thought the old man was going to go off again. But he just said, "Yeah, it nearly capsized the boat."
"Good thing y'all got that big 20 footer," Danny said.
"That ain't what saved the boat," the old man said, taking a sip of his black coffee.
"Then what?" said Danny.
"Seagull saved the boat. Twice," said the old man.
"Seagull? What's he do besides take naps and dump perfectly good crabs into party boats?" Danny started snickering like the first-rate redneck he was. His girl, though, did not follow his lead. Maybe there was hope for her.
Then the old man launched into a fantastic story of how we averted tragedy twice that morning. Once when the wave hit, and then again when the car carrier was bearing down us and we were dead in the water, drifting in the channel. A small crowd had started to gather during the story as the old man told of how the boy called Seagull had saved the boat both times and neither of us would be here right now if it weren't for him. It was strange to live through something, then have it retold in such grand fashion. The old man could spin off a tale about how you went to the 7-11 for a pack of Ding Dongs and make it sound like you had ascended Mt. Everest. I kept thinking, wow, did I do that? Well, I did alert the old man about the wave, and I did really swim out for the key. In real life I was so scared I had to close my eyes, but in the story I swam strong and confident. When the old man had finally finished everyone was looking at me.
"Way to go, Seagull!" Danny yelled.
Squeek was grinning so I could see all the gaps where teeth used to be. Gerta gave me a hug. There were pats on the back, and hoots and hollers. Mr. Carroll was there and said something about the importance of a good striker on board. It was all a bunch of blah, blah, crap. But they genuinely enjoyed the story and were impressed. I wanted to jump up onto the counter and tell them that I wasn't really a hero. That I was about to pee myself when the wave hit, and almost stopped paddling in the channel because phantom whales and sharks were attacking and the old man knows I'm warped but you guys don't.
But I didn't. Instead, I tried to imagine how a normal person would react, so I plastered an aw shucks, dopey smile on my face and waited until it was over.
fail
"I've crafted this hair dryer holder from two wire coat hangers," said Matty, reaching for the tweezers he'd laid out on a white towel next to half a credit card, a pocket knife and a pack of wet wipes. We were in Matty's room, the day after the wave nearly took us out, trying to get the sticker off the picture of my mother.
"You gonna operate or take the sticker off?" I said. But he didn't respond. He was in the moment.
"Now I've got perfect control. Just enough heat..." He was wearing magnifying glasses strapped to his head like jewelers wore. A pink hair dryer that said Ultimus 550 PRO on the side was held in place with his coat hanger holder.
"Dang. You're a dork, dude," I said. That broke his concentration for a moment. He looked up at me over the top of his magnifying glasses like an old man. Now I wished I'd kept my mouth shut and let him work. I could feel he was gearing up for a counter strike.
"Yeah, I'm a dork. I embrace my inner-nerd. I use my brain. Much rather be a dork than a jock, or a dumbass redneck river rat..." He stopped and adjusted his magnifying glasses. "...or you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He held the edge of the photo sticker side up next to the end of the hair dryer. "You are sorely afflicted, my friend. Sorely afflicted." He paused for effect, then turned on the dryer. He was waiting for me to argue, to beg him to tell me the nature of my affliction, but I didn't take the bait. Just like when McCready put the dead duck in the trap.
He held the sticker near the heat, then gingerly tried to get the corner of the sticker to come up. He turned off the hair dryer and continued anyway like I knew he would. "You, my friend--" he started to say.
"Ok, lose the "my friend" shit. Geesh," I said.
"...are a closet dork," he said, eyeing the heated corner of the sticker. Both his eyes were twice their normal size behind the stupid magnifying glasses.
"A what?"
"Closet dork. You fail to embrace your dorkness."
"I'm not a dork," I said.
"My point, exactly. You are a dork and don't even realize it. Worse than simply trying to hide it, you are in denial. You ain't a jock. You ain't a dumb ass river rat like you pretend to be. You are a dork. Admit it. Embrace it, and you will be free. Kinda like what the old man was telling you the other day about your animal when we were boxing. Gotta let the you out." He turned on the hair dryer and started picking at the corner again with the tweezers. I sat in front of the sparkly fish tank. One of the female guppies was swimming upside down near the top.
"I got it!" Matty stood up from his desk and his chair fell back. He still had the photo in the tweezers. "See, right there!" he said, staring up at me through the magnifying glasses with big, bug eyes. His red hair stuck up at an angle behind the head band. I grabbed his hand that was holding the tweezers that was holding the photo. I couldn't see anything.
"Why am I not as happy as you?" I asked.
"I got the corner. That's step one," he said. "Now it's just heat and peel." I laid down on his shaggy, freshly raked carpet with my head near the tank. Matty turned the hair dryer on and went back to work. A few minutes later he stopped, turned off the dryer and lifted his glasses. "You know, if you were a first-order dork, you'd have been happy about that."
"Aw geesh. Now I got no dork cred? I'm a dork reject who's in denial," I said.
"No. Maybe you are something else. I'll have to think about it."
"Do that. I won't. I need to stay focused."
The next day was Monday, and after school we all met in the basement again. We'd been meeting a few times a week, and today the old man said he was going to teach us how to slip punches. The last few weeks we worked on footwork but now he said we were in Phase two. I was happy to be doing something else than shuffling my feet around in the basement--three dorks waltzing barefoot, led by some old dude in cut-off dress slacks that were popular twenty years before. "This is where you learn how not to get your face bashed in by some ignorant meathead. You'll still look pretty after a good fight and your girly will be so happy, I'm sure," he said, looking at Tyler.
On the boat, the old man was quiet. Sometimes when we were circling he'd put the tips of his fingers into the water. They'd glide over the surface like little skiers and he'd keep them there until we started heading for the next trap. Sometimes we'd go for an hour without a word between us, just pulling traps, dumping crabs, bait and go. We knew what to do and could enjoy the pink and purple sunrise; the brown, orange, and blue crabs glistening wet in the morning light, and even the smells, good and bad.
But during our boxing sessions the old man was suddenly edgy and talkative. It was another side of him that I didn't know. I wondered if this is who he was in the boxing picture. Suddenly serious. On the boat he'd grunt and point, but here he full-on lectured: "A few weeks ago at our first session, when we pulled Jesse out of his shell a little, he couldn't hit me. None of you could. That's because I know how to slip punches. Imagine a line running straight down the center of your body: from the top of your hea
d, straight down, splitting your nose. When someone throws a punch to your face, if you move your head just a few inches to the left or right of that line, he'll miss every time."
He lined us up and we practiced moving our heads to either side of our centerline. We'd been working on stance and footwork so we all were left foot forward, hands up, and knees bent. "When a punch comes, most people are gonna make big, uncoordinated movements that are slow and waste energy and throw off your balance. Don't do that. Just a tiny move to the left or right of your center line is all you need. Keep your feet under you. Legs bent. Now side to side just a tad. Do it right and you look like a boxer," the old man said. He walked around, eyes narrowed, stopping to adjust the height of our hands or the width of our stance.
Then he put me and Tyler face to face in the center of the basement floor. "Now Tyler, you're gonna go about one-quarter speed and pretend to hit Jesse with a left jab. Jesse, you are gonna slip right just a little and his hand will pass right by." So we did some slow-mo practice. Then we went half speed. A few times Tyler's fist grazed my left ear, but it didn't hurt. I was just happy my nose was getting out of the way.
"That's the way to do it!" the old man said as Tyler's 3/4 speed jab missed my left cheek by a hair. "Next time that McCready boy tries to bust your nose, you'll know what to do."
"Yeah, but that ain't the way Johnny fights," said Matty, watching from his favorite spot on the peach box.
"What do you know about how Johnny fights?" said Tyler.
"More than you, I imagine. I had a front row seat a few weeks ago when he hit Tyler, and I started to suspect something then, and two days ago in P.E. I watched him pick on Percy Timmons till he cried. He did the same thing both times," Matty said.
"What did he do, Matty?" asked the old man.
Matty jumped down and motioned Tyler out of the way. "Ok, I'm Johnny," Matty said. He screwed up his face into a sneer and started walking towards me, both hands were balled into fists about chest level. I started laughing.