The Wooden Nickel

  He idles off the turbo and checks the Chevy to see if she survived the race. It’s overtorquing the valve shafts, he can hear one of the valves hit just a cunt hair off the beat. He won, though, so he will get to race again.

  Race five is the powder puffs, women taking their husbands’ and boyfriends’ boats, for the most part, though these days some of them drive their own. Mostly the guys stay on board back in the stern so they can jump in if there’s any trouble. These are slow races, the girls don’t want to eat shit if they burn the engines out. Lucky usually takes his lunch break during the powder-puff race, now he’s cruising behind the starting line, checking to see who’s letting their wives race this year. He can’t quite make out the names on the stern, but every boat carries its trap colors on the wheelhouse roof and Lucky knows most of them by sight. There’s a Split Cove boat, Jason Astbury’s Red Dog, it’s a Walker Johnson 33 with a Yanmar diesel and a tuna bridge. That’s a strong motor but they’re carrying too much superstructure to go fast. Jason’s got a young girl he wants to fuck so he’s letting her drive the boat. Art Pettingill’s old yellow Bonanza is in this race, new Lugger diesel’s pissing out brown fumes cause it’s not yet broken in. Art and Clayton are both in the stern to balance off Big Alma at the wheel, the three of them set the Bonanza down a foot below her lines like an oil barge. There’s a full field in this race, he sees the Big Mack out of Norumbega with a whole family aboard, kids and all, and a Volvo-Penta Walker Johnson called Hog Heaven,this one out of Three Witch Cove.

  At that point he grabs Travis’s arm and says, “That’s them.” One of the boats crossing his bow to start the powder-puff event is carrying the zebra-striped buoy right up on its roof. The boat is a Wing Brothers Goldwing 29, fast little glasser, brand-new, running what sounds like a 230 Isuzu diesel, no smoke at all visible, dual vertical stacks tuned like a couple of organ pipes. Unlike the other powderpuff boats, she’s not carrying a man aboard. He gooses the Wooden Nickel a bit and comes up close behind her so he can read the name. Doesn’t look much like a woman from behind, but it has to be if she’s in the powder-puff, unless they’re using morphodites like the Chinese Olympic team.

  Across the Goldwing’s stern it reads

  BAD PUSSY

  Shag Island

  Lucky says, “Who the christly shit is driving that island boat?” Most of the powder puffs aren’t being pushed too fast but they’re full race vessels making a lot of noise and wake. The Bonanza is wallowing back under the weight of its ownership, but the Red Dog and the Bad Pussy are up there neck and neck, the Pussy showing that zebra buoy on the roof. “That one,” Lucky repeats, “that’s the cocksucking striped buoy that was on our ledge.”

  Before Travis can answer, the Bad Pussy is over the line and the powder-puff race is hers.

  They tie up alongside the Pisscat to resupply. As Travis gropes into his cooler for a couple more Rolling Rocks, the Bad Pussy’s speed comes over everyone’s radio at thirty-four point six. “Ain’t bad,” Travis says. “Art and Alma must have done around fifteen.”

  “Ain’t bad,” he echoes, “for a cunt that doesn’t know where she’s supposed to set her traps.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “See that fucking black-and-white-striped buoy she’s carrying? That’s the cocksucker I found on Toothpick Shoal.”

  “Know who that is, Lucky? That’s Priscilla Shaver, you slammed her brother the other night at the RoundUp. You met her. You don’t even remember, numb peckerhead, you was drunker than shit.”

  “Sweet fucking Jesus, Travis. I thought we made it clear to them cocksuckers not to move in.”

  “I knew they was coming,” Travis says, “just a matter of time. You cut their warp off?”

  “I gave them a bullet and a rubber and set it back down.”

  Travis opens another Rolling Rock. “Tell you my opinion,” he says. “Them fuckers are here to stay, like it or not.”

  “That’s cause they’re counting on chickenshits like you.”

  “This ain’t the old days, Lucky. Things change. Them Gloucester son of a whores come up and vacuum their christly territory out there, what are they supposed to do?”

  “What are you, their fucking PR agent?”

  “No, Lucky. I’m a realist. So they don’t set right on Toothpick Shoal. Maybe they’ll set half a mile out. There’s a shitload of fucking lobsters out there. Nobody’s starving at Orphan Point.”

  “Nobody’s starving on Shag Island either. That bitch has a brand-new Eye-zoo-zoo diesel, brand-new Wing Brothers boat. Hundred fifty thousand right up front. That ain’t exactly the face of poverty. Greedy fucks, why should they need more?” He looks hard at Travis Hammond’s narrow-set eyes and mustached little mouth, trying to see where he’s coming from on this, but it’s the same old hollow face that got a dick shoved into it back in the ninth grade. People don’t change. “I ain’t racing with you, Travis.”

  He puts his half-drunk beer on Travis’s washboard, gets into the Wooden Nickel and casts off by himself. Stoneport’s the one race they let you run solo, as long as you have a kill switch so your boat won’t keep going if you flip off.

  He can’t go forward cause they’re running another race and there’s six high-cube diesels pissing right towards him, neck and neck. He backs up behind the spectator boats, wheels around, and cruises seaward for a minute; then he remembers he’s got another race coming, the class winners’ runoff, and the Bad Pussy’s going to be there too.

  They run the last race in two heats. The winners of the slow and small classes start off first. Antiques, powder puffs, one-cylinder diesels, and sterndrives. Then the big glass gas and diesels finish the day, including the winner of the first runoff. He’d like to save his nuclear weapons for the second heat, but with the Bad Pussy running thirty-four point six he’ll need to feed the propane to her in the first. With his turbo breathing pure gas he’ll swamp that zebra-striped witch and join the serious racers for part two. That should end the antique category once and for all and get the wooden boats back in contention where they belong.

  He has one quick second thought as he recalls for a moment the look on Harley Webster’s face when he put the propane fitting in, then he thinks: That’s old age talking, don’t pay no attention. Harley used to burn nitro but now he’s an old fart with a Taurus who guzzles Poland Spring water all day long. He digs the five-pound propane canister out of the life jacket box and screws the propane hose to the turbo intake so this time when that turbocharger calls for air it’s going to find itself breathing LP gas. Surprise, surprise.

  Six boats come into line at fifteen knots, including a fast little Volvo sterndrive that’s up to speed and planing right away. On the other side he sees the Shaver woman, size of a cow moose, with a blue bandanna around her head, a cigarette in her teeth, and a whiskey bottle in the binocular rack next to her wheel. Jesus H. Christ, she won’t even look his way. She’s swift too. A half-second before the line she redlines the Isuzu, her stern drops, a tongue of purple smoke flares from each stack. She pulls ahead and goes for the Volvo stern-drive in the starboard lane. Lucky’s turbo is screeching since it can’t get any air from the screwed-in valve. Fuck it, you only live once, and some bastards don’t even get to do that. He reaches down with his left hand and opens the propane valve and there’s an instant smell of gas, his Chevy howls like an F-16, the tach goes up over the 5000 point and snaps off its needle at the pin. He blows past the stern of the Bad Pussy and buries that blubber-headed whore with the wake of an aircraft carrier, thirty-six knots on the loran and he’s only at the halfway point. Off course to port he hears Stevie Latete blowing the dragger’s horn to speed him on. He’s in sight of the finish line when down in the cuddy there’s a noise like a blown tire and a spurt of yellow flame out of the turbocharger, then the whole engine box fills up with black-and-orange fire like a volcano. Sweet fucking Jesus, he thinks, why now? Why me? There’s less than a hundred yards to go. He doesn’t give a shit, he throttl
es up to take her through the finish line on fire but the propane’s not making her go faster, it’s just burning in the cabin air. He backs down the throttle and dives for the fuel valves. He grabs the big old gas-fire extinguisher beside the helm and pulls the pin and throws that son of a whore down there like it’s a grenade, while meanwhile the boat slows so fast the stern wave comes over the transom and everything’s fucking drenched. That helps. The fire extinguisher has not been inspected since 1985, it could go in there and explode like everything else, but it does what it’s supposed to do and the cuddy fills with brown steaming foam and the flames turn to black smoke that coats his lungs like boiling creosote.

  Just up ahead he hears the Bad Pussy’s Isuzu screaming across the line, then it’s the whole Shag Island fleet blowing their christly horns like a herd of elk.

  His H&H cap is black and his hands are burned red by the blast from the companionway. His clothes are smoking and the hair of his arms is burned off. The mad-dog siren of the Coast Guard twenty-six-foot lifeboat is on top of him now, they’ve got a hose out and they’re spraying the whole boat with seawater, including Lucky himself because someone has yelled, “That son of a bitch is on fire!”

  He yells back, “I ain’t,” and they stop spraying and come alongside. Pretty soon there’s five or six coasties over the rail shooting fire extinguishers in every corner like they’re fumigating his boat for bugs. They lash the Wooden Nickel onto the twenty-six’s side, preparing to take him in tow. “Ain’t nothing wrong with the boat,” he tries to explain. “Scrub her down with some Ajax, she’ll be clean as new.”

  The lifeboat skipper comes aboard and orders him out of his boat. “You’ll have to ride with us, captain.” He’s about eighteen years old. Then he starts sticking his head into the engine compartment, which is still half filled with brown carbon dioxide foam. He looks right at the propane bottle and hose but they’re so wet and blackened the kid doesn’t know what they are. “These older vessels,” he says, “no sense pushing them too hard.”

  Over the lifeboat’s radio he can hear Shep Hallett on the race channel announcing the winner’s time: BAD PUSSY, WING TWENTY-NINE, ISUZU-POWERED, DRIVER PRISCILLA SHAVER, SPEED THIRTY-FIVE POINT ONE. SECOND PLACE, BODACIOUS, MERCURY-POWERED. THIRD, WHITE ELEPHANT. DID NOT FINISH: ONE BOAT, WOODEN NICKEL, DUE TO ENGINE TROUBLE.

  Then he hears the big diesels circling around for the final event.

  The Coast Guard reads him their fire sermon off a printed card, and after he signs a paper saying he won’t sue them for any damage during the tow, they give him back his boat and turn him loose. He grabs onto an old kelp-covered Stoneport mooring to check things out. Down below, the new turbocharger unit’s cremated beyond recognition and the inside of the cabin is a black hole with a leftover stench like roasted cowshit, all the paint charred, gray sludge over everything, six inches of fire foam over the floorboards, coils of floating pot warp and half-melted mattress chunks drifting beneath the ashes of Ronette’s blue curtains. Doesn’t smell of gas, though, so he disconnects the propane hose and fitting and heaves the five-pound cylinder over the stern.

  It seems impossible an engine would run after such punishment, but on a hunch he tries. He opens the gas line to see if she’ll kick over, gives her a squirt of ether, and after a little cranking a couple of cylinders answer the call. Fucking Saginaw engines, they are a miracle, kick the living shit out of them and they ask for more. Running on three cylinders, he engages the mechanical bilge pump off of the power takeoff and watches a few hundred gallons of black foamy scum pour over the transom into the crystal-clear waters of Stoneport Reach.

  He’s with Reggie and Danny Thurston and Clayton Pettingill and some of the younger guys, waiting for the dark of the Stoneport evening to settle so the street dance can begin. Already the band is up on stage, they try a guitar lick, shorting out one amplifier with a clap of stage lightning, then try out some more amps and speakers. Their drumhead reads the dead crabs. Used to be decent country-western at the Stoneport races, now it’s nothing but rock and roll.

  Reggie’s got a quart of Old Mr. Boston apricot brandy in a brown paper bag, he’s passing it out to Travis Hammond and Danny and Clayton, then Norton Gross walks up and Reggie hesitates a minute because everyone knows there’s something wrong with Norton, he gets some kind of seizures and he’s not supposed to drink, but Reggie Dolliver says, “What the fuck, Norton, it’s race day.” Norton makes a funny noise when he slugs on it and his eyes bug right through his Coke-bottle glasses as the stuff goes down.

  Lucky takes a hit for his engine and another for the woman with the Goldwing 29. “I seen this cocksucking striped pot buoy right on the south slope of Toothpick Shoal.”

  “Shag Island,” Danny Thurston says. “I figured one of these days they’d be spreading out.”

  “Lunt gave them a rubber and a bullet,” Travis adds.

  Reggie Dolliver doesn’t give a shit because it’s not Split Cove territory, and he’s not even fishing anymore, he’s into home security. He’s still urging them on. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to get them ass-holes, while you still got some territory left.”

  “Ought to go after them,” says Norton Gross. He’s reaching for the apricot brandy again, this time his eyes are popping out before he gets his hands on it. “Teach them a damn lesson.”

  “It ain’t the old days,” Danny Thurston says. “I got three hundred thousand sunk in this business. I can’t afford to lose it. You guys see any trouble, call the Marine Patrol. Let the state handle it, that’s what we pay our taxes for.”

  “What the fuck are they going to do about it?” Reggie says. “They’re cops, they cruise around all day counting life jackets, what do they care who’s fishing on whose ledge? Lobster territory ain’t law anyhow. It’s tradition. You want to get something done, do it yourself.”

  “Them Shavers are trouble,” says Art Pettingill’s giant kid Clayton. He’s around sixteen, but he’s hammering down the apricot brandy like it’s Prohibition. “I heard one of them bastards shot down the mail plane out there, just like they was shooting crows.”

  Lucky says, “It’s the woman that’s carrying that striped buoy up on the wheelhouse roof.”

  Norton Gross says, “I’m getting me a four-ten shotgun and keeping that son of a bitch aboard.” Norton has a walleye like all his family on both sides. Just like a fucking flounder, one eye looks at you and the other’s looking at something else. Old man’s the same way. He’s just a kid with his voice breaking but he says, “I see one of them cocksuckers setting inshore, I’ll shoot first, ask questions later.”

  “Shoot with what,” Clayton says, “your dick?”

  “My four-ten. I’m getting it.”

  Lonnie Gross shows up now from out of the row of blue porta-johns, hitching up his pants. He’s a square-shaped husky guy, built like a bear. Lucky’s seen him lift a half-ton mooring block off the bottom with his bare hands, hooked her right over the cleat and reset her without using a hoist. Lonnie Gross grabs the brandy from his kid and slurps on it, then shows his hand around, same way he used to show the hairs he got from jerking off. Now he’s got a whole thumb missing, not even a stump, looks like the hand of a fucking raccoon. They say the thumb is what makes us human, and Lonnie Gross has only got one left. “Dynamite cap,” he says.

  Norton Gross follows his old man with his straight eye like he ought to get the Purple Heart. The two of them look at each other with their good eyes, the wandering eyes meanwhile search the ground like metal detectors, looking for something else. “I’m getting me some of them dynamite caps,” Norton Gross says, a chip off the old block.

  Reggie Dolliver’s got another bottle out now, getting the kids worked up over the territory. He loves it, reminds him of his convict days. Then he points behind Lucky with his big shit-eating grin. Lucky turns to see Reggie’s old jailhouse buddy Ronette Hannaford driving right up to them in her chartreuse Probe. She rolls down the window and says, “Jesus, Lucky, look at them clothes
. You look like you got struck by lightning.”

  She parks and hops out in cutoff jean shorts and Nike sneakers and a green tank top she could be arrested for. Reggie Dolliver turns to Lucky and says, “You let your sternman dress like that?”

  Ronette says, “He don’t let me wear nothing on that half-assed boat, but he ain’t the captain on dry land.”

  He takes her over to the big Stoneport municipal wharf, where the Dead Crabs are into their first set already and the kids are starting to choose up partners and dance around. They get two beers and a plateful of chili dogs with peppers and onions and head out on the long pier. From there they can see the last rays of sunset over the lighthouse on Jackoff Point. The light switches on for the night while they’re watching it, three red flashes just like thirty years ago, though he doesn’t have to decode it like he used to with the Stoneport girls, it’s already done. The sun sets fire to the Virgins for a moment, then it’s gone and another race day is over, a year’s worth of blown engines and broken dreams. He can’t figure why anyone does it, except that when you think of it, nothing else matters. Once you know who’s got the world’s fastest lobster boat, everything else kind of falls into place.

  Ronette separates their two hot dogs under the mound of chili, takes her own and scarfs it down. She’s starting to eat for two. She looks him over as if something’s missing. “Hey, you’re not holding no trophy, are you?”

  “No need to talk about it,” he says.

  Half the lobstermen are staying for the street dance, half are headed home, they turn on their running lights as they pass the Narrows and head out into the darkening water. Some of them have a three-hour ride, but they’re used to it. They switch their radars on but don’t bother to look in the hoods, they can all see in the dark. Most of their life’s spent in the pitch-black hours before the sun comes up. They’re off, drinking and laughing. In the dead calm of evening the sound carries all the way back to town.