The Boatbuilder

by Daniel Gumbiner

  “We were fooled, I’ll admit it,” Woody said. “But many people were fooled. Like 30 percent of this town are former members.”

  “This is the thing with the Morrises?” Berg asked. “The people who thought they were Venutians?”

  “No, no, no,” Woody said. “That was only a handful of people. This was a totally different thing. Much bigger. Like I said, 30 percent of the town are former members. Maybe even 40. Who knows? They don’t do polling on this type of stuff so we’ll never know but it could be as high as 40.”

  “When did you know it was a cult?” Berg asked.

  “When everyone shaved their heads. That’s when I got out. One day they were like: ‘Warren shaved his head and now everyone else is shaving their head!’” Woody tapped his temple. “That’s when I thought, Aha, cult.”

  On occasion Woody’s neighbor Diego would come over and hang out with the three of them. He was six foot six and two hundred fifty pounds but he always drank Coronitas, the little seven-ounce beers, because he said they stayed cold and carbonated the whole time you drank them. Diego was the manager on Al Garther’s ranch. He was the one who helped Woody secure jobs around the county. His wife, Esme, kept several birds as pets. A few months ago, Woody had found an injured snowy plover and brought it to their house and Esme had nursed it back to health.

  “She fed it… What did she feed it?” Woody said.

  “Mashed-up crickets,” Diego replied.

  “Mashed crickets,” Woody said, wonder in his voice. “Mashed crickets, that’s right. And then all of a sudden it was better. Incredible. She’s a genius, that woman.”

  Woody was in his early sixties. He lived with his girlfriend, Claudette, who usually came home late in the evening and joined them on the porch. She was a little younger than Woody, with brown hair and warm, hooded eyes. She had come to Talinas in the ’90s after the two of them started dating. They had met at the Six Flags in Vallejo, where Claudette used to work.

  “I was a big fan of Six Flags back in the day,” Woody said. “Big, big fan. Addicted, some would have said, no doubt, but look at me now: do you see me at Six Flags these days? No. So I think… What I’m trying to say is I was not addicted. I have a passion for the place. That I will grant you.”

  Woody often spoke about his friend Leonard, although Berg had yet to meet him. He claimed that they were going to make a documentary about Leonard’s family for Shark Week this year.

  “Leonard has been saying that every year since Shark Week started,” Claudette said. “Which was like, what, 1994?”

  “Doesn’t mean this year won’t be the year,” Woody said. “Leonard thinks it will. I think so, too.”

  “Leonard’s father is Sharkman,” Claudette explained to Berg.

  “Who?” Berg said.

  “You don’t know who Sharkman is?” Woody exclaimed. “Sharkman!” he said, and raised his eyebrows at Berg.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Berg said.

  “Sharkman is a guy who studies great white sharks out at the Slide Islands,” Claudette said. “Been doing it for many years. He’s famous around the county because he has survived over three shark attacks.”

  “Some say he himself is a shark,” Woody added.

  “He uses a piece of rug cut out to look like a seal to lure the sharks toward his boat,” Claudette said. “When he was younger he would swim around out there but then he got attacked three times so he stopped that.”

  “He’s getting honored at the annual Dance Palace thing this year,” Woody said. “He’s almost retired. I want to go but I’ve been unofficially banned from the event.”

  “What about your ban is unofficial?” Claudette asked.

  “I haven’t signed a contract.”

  “You don’t need to sign a contract. They banned you,” Claudette said. Then she turned to Berg: “Last year Woody got too drunk at the Dance Palace award ceremony and grabbed the mic and started lecturing everyone about how there are aliens living among us.”

  “A lot of people agreed with me, for the record. They came up to me afterward and said, ‘Woody, I found your comments sensible and instructive.’”

  “The problem was more with the yelling and the profanity,” Claudette said.

  “Well, people need to wake up,” Woody said. “People need to open their eyes.”

  CHAPTER 15

  ONE EVENING, BERG AND Uffa were sitting on Woody’s porch drinking beer and Berg mentioned that he was still working at Fernwood two days a week.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you worked there,” Woody said. “You said you were doing maintenance so I assumed you were down at Vlasic’s Boat Yard.”

  “No, Fernwood.”

  “So you know Garrett then?” Woody said.

  “Yeah, how do you know him?”

  “He used to work at the restaurant with Claudette. He was one of the shuckers but then he sliced open his hand real bad. Or maybe he sliced someone else’s hand? I can’t remember. Someone was sliced. Anyway Conotic fired him.”

  Woody asked Berg if he would talk to Garrett about getting him some work.

  “You think they’d hire me?” Woody said. “I know they’ve got a ton of money up there. I’ll do whatever, man. Ask Diego. I’m not picky. I’ll wax the boss’s car, whatever. Detail that shit. I don’t care.”

  Berg meant to talk to Garrett about Woody the following day, but he didn’t have time before their charter began. It was an early-morning trip, an ash-scattering out by Horse Island. The client was a winemaker from Napa named George Wagner. He was in his fifties and he was accompanied by his wife and two children. The whole time they motored toward the island, George Wagner talked about how much his mother loved Horse Island. She’d grown up in Muire County, in Western Valley, and she’d sailed on the bay as a young girl. Garrett asked a lot of questions about the mother as they motored. This was something he would never do on a trip that was not an ash-scattering, but he was very respectful during ash-scatterings. He took an interest in the deceased and he rang a solemn bell seven times when the ashes were poured over the gunwales, always on the leeward side, to prevent the ashes from blowing back into the client’s face. Berg found this side of Garrett endearing and, in a strange way, he looked forward to ash-scatterings.

  But today, Garrett had fucked up. As they neared Horse Island, Garrett said what he always said, which was: “Let me know when and where you’d like to begin the ceremony for your mother.”

  Unfortunately, it was not the man’s mother who had died. It was his sister. Garrett blanched when he learned this and remained silent for the rest of the charter. When they got back to the dock, Garrett checked the text message Mangini had sent him about the charter, hoping to find that Mangini was responsible for the mistake and not him, but the information was clear:

  “Horse Island Charter. Dock time: 11:00 a.m. Four passengers. Client name: Wagner. Ash-scattering for client’s sister, Jane Englander.”

  After Berg and Simon finished putting the boat to bed, Berg walked over to Garrett’s office. He found him squeezing a stress ball, flipping through a motorcycle parts catalogue. On his desk were timesheets and paper coffee cups and a book called How to Win Every Argument.

  “Do you think I’m a bad person?” Garrett said, the moment Berg walked into his office. “Am I bad?”

  “What?”

  “You know what I mean, Berg,” Garrett said. He had yet to look up from the motorcycle parts catalogue.

  “Are you talking about that charter?” Berg said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Garrett. Everyone messes up.”

  “When I was thirteen I stole a pager from the Circuit City in Pine Gulch,” Garrett said. “Does that change your opinion?” He was looking at Berg now.

  “A pager?”

  “When I was fourteen I convinced my little sister that my mom was going to give her up for adoption. Send her to Thailand. Then, when I was fifteen, I pantsed this kid in front of the whole class. His name was JBaum. Well that was his n
ickname. He was the easiest target. Everyone went after him. Had this skinny little body and this really big head. A few days later I started a rumor that JBaum was having a party and I looked up his address in the directory and put it on a bunch of fliers and plastered them around school.”

  “Did people go to his house?”

  “Some, yes, and his father turned them away at the door. Or so I’m told. I didn’t go.”

  “Where is JBaum now?”

  “He’s around. Pours concrete with Freddie Moltisanti.”

  “Who?”

  “The kid who lived in a cave. But the point is that JBaum and I never talked about it. And I imagine he still hates my guts. And I was thinking, when I saw these school shootings happening, I was thinking: I’m the guy that would’ve teased the shooter. I’m the guy that would’ve driven him over the edge and the first guy he’d come looking for when he barged into the school.”

  “Just because you teased someone doesn’t mean you deserve to get shot…”

  “I get to thinking about death sometimes, you know? Like, what will it be like? When I’m there, lying in some hospital bed, waiting to leave the world. Or I’ve got a bullet in my gut. Or I’m drowning in the bay, choking on salt water. I don’t believe in God. Used to, but don’t anymore. My mom believed in God till the day she died. That’s how she explained all the shitty things my dad would do. ‘The Lord has a plan for us,’ she would say and I would think: the Lord is really planning things poorly. This is the best plan the Lord came up with? Why didn’t the Lord just have us win the lottery? Well, we did try and win the lottery. Bought Scratchers like every weekend. But you see what I’m saying? I just couldn’t make it fit together. I lost God and he never came back—or she—I know you’re one of these politically correct guys. You probably think God could’ve been a woman. I’ve heard these theories. It seems unlikely to me, but what do I know? The point is that I’ll get to thinking about death and the possibility that there’s nothing beyond this world and I’ll wonder, What did I do with my time? Why did I ever cause anyone pain? But I have, and I continue to, even when I don’t mean to, like today, with that charter… I feel badly about that charter… You can’t tell Mangini what happened. I hope they don’t report it to Mangini.”

  “I doubt they will. It was an honest mistake.”

  “Even when you try to do right… And sometimes you can’t even get up the courage to try to do right, but even when you try to do right, you…”

  He was staring out the window now. His eyes were wide and glazed over, like he had just undergone some kind of hypnosis. Then there was a knock at the door. Mangini leaned his head into the room.

  “Garrett, you’re getting me those time sheets today, right?”

  “Yep, Chief, on it. They’re basically all done.”

  “Well finish ’em.”

  “Okay, Chief.”

  Mangini closed the door and Garrett began opening the drawers of his desk, looking for time sheets.

  “Shit,” Garrett said. “I gotta get this done. Why did you come in here? Did you need something?”

  Berg explained how Woody had asked him if there were any jobs available at Fernwood.

  “Woody?” Garrett asked. “Oh right, Woody, yeah, I know him. I dunno, sure.”

  “Sure?”

  “You want less hours anyway, right? So you can abandon us for the boatbuilders. So yeah, sure.”

  “He says he’s down to do whatever you need him to do.”

  “Yeah, okay. Let me check with Mangini. But it’s probably all good.”

  Berg stood up to go and Garrett stopped rummaging through his drawers.

  “By the way,” he said. “That talk we just had… that was between you and me.”

  “Okay, Garrett.”

  “Goes no further.”

  “You got it.”

  CHAPTER 16

  WHEN MIMI RETURNED FROM Bali, Berg moved into the cubby on the lofting floor. The cubby was a triangle-shaped space that slanted downward with the slope of the barn’s roof. It was exactly wide enough to fit a queen-size bed, a small lamp, and a few books. You had to crouch down to enter the cubby but once you were inside, it was relatively comfortable. Berg’s main concern was the lack of ventilation, but there was a small, one-by-one window on the right that could be opened, and this proved sufficient. It didn’t really matter anyway because he spent all of his time working in the shop.

  The Alma was basically ready to go. The rig had been finished, the seams caulked, the bottom painted, the cabin top varnished, and the zincs prepared for sacrifice. In the few weeks before the launch, they equipped the boat with a self-steering system and GPS. Alejandro also finished installing a used propeller shaft, which he’d attached with a rubber pipe, two wooden washers cut from black locust, and several tightening bands. He often improvised systems like this to avoid purchasing new products from marine-supply stores.

  “It keeps the cost of everything down,” he explained.

  Helping build the Alma, Berg had felt good for the first time in years. When he was working with wood he could get outside of himself, escape whatever it was that was dogging him. His mind no longer jumped from place to place, as it had when he first began sharpening chisels. It was quieter. It stayed in the room. It let him work peacefully, chisel and hammer in hand, light stealing through the tall shop windows.

  “Enjoy every cut,” Alejandro would say. “Why not enjoy every cut?”

  Alejandro said he liked boatbuilding because it involved the self but it was not selfish. There was room for creativity, but the realities of the physical world also had to be accounted for. And there was little ambiguity in terms of execution. The joint either fit or it did not fit. The blade cut well enough or it needed to be sharpened more. Berg learned how to do things properly and, with each success, he felt more confident, more connected to the world. Alejandro observed this one day when Berg showed him a hollowing plane he’d made on his own out of a piece of pepperwood.

  “See, it’s nice to do things right,” he said. “You do this one little thing right, in this moment, you fix this one little thing, and then you think, Maybe I can fix my life.”

  Alejandro had been an anthropologist before becoming a boatbuilder. He’d lived with Rebecca in Mexico and studied the matriarchal society structure of the Zapotec. He had also studied native cultures in Utah and Colorado. He never did any official anthropological work in California, but he was familiar with much of its indigenous history. He was particularly interested in the Chumash, who had built redwood canoes and sailed them to the Channel Islands. The redwood planks were sewn together and caulked with asphaltum, from the seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel.

  “But the most spectacular thing,” he said, “is that the Chumash had never seen a redwood. They got it all from the sea! It was driftwood. They understood it as a gift from the sea. The ocean had given them the wood so they could travel across it. Isn’t that beautiful? I think that’s just so damn beautiful.”

  Over time, Berg learned about Alejandro’s father, about his childhood growing up on Hoku Lewa. He learned about Alejandro’s first gale at sea, about hanging bags of stinking fish oil from the catheads, about the lightning and the burning, salty cold. And he learned about another gale in which Alejandro’s father stayed up for thirty-six hours straight, guiding the schooner through every swell, yelling at him to heave coils of manila over the stern to slow the boat and prevent it from broaching.

  On occasion, he told stories about apprentices who had worked in his shop or people in town. This was how Berg first learned about Pat the Pilot. Alejandro referred to him as JC’s “vice president.” He said he had known Pat for years and taught him how to sail and build. Pat coordinated JC’s trimming operation, in those days, but in the offseason he’d work for Alejandro in the shop. Apparently Pat was the one who had introduced Alejandro and JC and laid the foundation for their business relationship. Over time, as JC’s operation became more nautically focused, Pat rose u
p in the ranks. Nowadays he handled the majority of JC’s deliveries. Most recently, he had been on a trip to and from Belize.

  Berg met Pat for the first time that January, at the launch party for the Alma. He was a clean, fit man who seemed equally ready to head up an army or give a speech on the Senate floor. Uffa said that he had grown up in Albany, Texas but moved out to Talinas many years ago. Apparently, as a child, he’d flown crop dusters, which was where his nickname came from.

  At the launch party there was cake and champagne and jugs of Rebecca’s house wine. Alejandro’s whole family was there, along with Uffa and Nell and, surprisingly, Garrett. Berg had told him about the event but he hadn’t expected him to come. When he arrived he slapped Berg on the back.

  “Check out this boat, homes,” he said. “Hell yeah. Where’s the booze?”

  The vessel sat low in the water, like most of Alejandro’s boats, with less than a foot of freeboard amidships. For its christening, Uffa smashed a watermelon over its bow. Alejandro hated the ritual of breaking a champagne bottle over the bow, so boats from their shop were always christened with watermelons. Afterwards, Uffa, Berg, and Alejandro hopped on the boat and Rebecca took a photo of them.

  “Berg, smile,” she said. “C’mon, give us that thousand-watt smile.”

  Once the photos had been taken, Alejandro introduced Berg and Pat. The three of them talked about the boat for a while, and then Alejandro asked Pat who was going to be the captain for the Alma’s inaugural trip to Mexico. Pat said that it would be him, and that they were leaving next week.

  “Next week?” Alejandro said. “Why so soon?”

  “That’s what JC wants.”

  “Is it Michoacán?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, make sure you check for northers near Baja. You might get hit by the jet stream coming over from Hawaii, too.”