The Wooden Nickel

by William Carpenter

  He takes a hit of the rum to warm up and wash the screech out of his mouth.

  Carleton says, “Guess we won’t be seeing you down to Stoneport next year. Not on that sled anyway. Figure on trying to raise her?”

  “Can’t raise a boat out here,” Harvey the Hook says.

  Carleton Trott says, “Why not? They raised the fucking Titanic,she was two miles deep. They did that with a robot sub.”

  Harvey rubs his ear with the hook. “Hey Lint, think you can get ahold of one of them?”

  “I ain’t thinking about it right now.” He gets up to go forward and find out what’s going on with Ronette in the crew cabin, but his clothes are so cold and heavy he can’t even stand up. Harvey and Carleton Trott get on either side of him and hoist him to his feet. He’s barefoot on the fish guts and scallop slime, every piece of clothing is soaked, his pockets are full of oily seawater and he can’t move so fast. Suddenly his feet go out from under him and the two Trotts have to catch him on either side. Big Anson’s got her on autopilot now and he steps down from the wheelhouse to the side deck just outside the steel crew cabin door. “Hypothermia,” Anson says. “Carl, give him another drink.”

  “Let’s get them fucking clothes off of him first.”

  “Take him in the crew cabin,” Anson says. He goes for the steel door lever right beside them.

  “No, Zeke’s in there with the waitress. Take him up forward.”

  “What the fuck,” Lucky says, “I guess I can fit in there too.” He ducks past Big Anson and opens the door lever himself. Harvey puts the hook up to stop him but he shoves it aside.

  Inside the crew cabin it’s so dark he has to blink his eyes. He feels for a light switch alongside the steel door but he can’t find one. Soon as his eyes adjust, there’s bald-headed Zeke in a black T-shirt on a plastic chair with his feet in trawler boots up on the mess table. He’s got a beer in one paw, with the other he’s smoking a thick hand-rolled joint. Dirty light from the porthole catches the blue cloud around his head. He sticks the joint in his mouth for a minute so he can scratch his nuts, then takes a long suck and blasts it out in a sudden dense coughing puff like he’s thrown a valve. When he recovers, he looks at Lucky in his wet oilskins, barefoot, and says, “Jesus, look what they pulled out of the trawl. Thought there wasn’t nothing down there.”

  In the close heat of the crew cabin with the black rum in his throat and this asshole smoking like a grass fire, his heart settles and his shivering stops. He can’t make out anyone but Zeke Trott in that shadowy space. “What the fuck’d you do with her?”

  “Who, your sternlady? Guess she’s gone sound asleep. I must of wore her out. Har har.” He points a boot at the darkest corner, where there’s a human body lying under a grease-colored blanket on a bunk. “We got them wet oilskins off of her and put her in one of Anse’s union suits. It ain’t exactly Victoria’s Secret, har har.”

  He’s about to go over and check her out when Harvey the Hook comes in through the steel door and bolts it shut with a side lever. They must all have the crawling crabs, cause the minute Harvey sees Zeke over in the corner he starts scratching his own nuts with the hook. “Zeke, ain’t that the waitress at the Blue Claw?”

  “I thought I seen her somewhere,” Zeke says. “Just didn’t recognize her in them clothes. Her mouth ain’t right neither.”

  “Looks like she got beat up. You get rough with the crew, skipper?”

  Harvey takes another Styrofoam cup in the hook and pours it half full with his good hand. He holds it under Ronette’s nose but she doesn’t sit up, just turns away from the alcohol fumes in her sleep. “Wake up, honey, you ain’t going to believe what we picked up in the drag.”

  Lucky says, “Leave her be, for Christ sake.”

  “What do you give a shit, you got a wife, ain’t you?”

  Zeke’s still over in the corner with his big hairy hand on his crotch. He says, “Get out of the way, Harv, you’re blocking the view.”

  “You want a view?” Harvey says. He puts the drink in his good hand and draws the blanket down with the hook almost to her waist. She’s sleeping on her side facing the room and the union suit’s half unbuttoned, so you can get a pretty good look. “That’s a decent view, ain’t it, Zeke?”

  Lucky says, “What the fuck you up to?”

  “Zeke thinks maybe she’s hot.”

  Over in his corner Zeke says, “She’s hot all right.”

  Lucky says, “She ain’t hot. She’s been in the fucking water. Cover her up.” He feels the steel hull shake and twist a bit as the skipper revs her up and changes the heading to port, seaward, he knows from the way she strikes the oncoming swells. The big broken-down Caterpillar rattles like a chain in a washing machine, you can’t hear a thing. He doesn’t know where Anson Trott’s taking her, they may be going back fishing for all he knows. Harvey’s not pulling the blanket back either. He’s standing right there with the union suit falling open and half of Ronette’s tits showing right down to the tattoo. Harvey Trott dangles his hook in front of her like he’s about to reveal a little more. Lucky says, “Put the fucking blanket back and let her sleep.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Zeke says. “Don’t he sound like the fucking skipper? Well, you ain’t. Your boat’s on the fucking bottom. You’d be fucking fish food if Big Anse didn’t pick you up. Way we look at it, we kind of figure you owe us. Seeing as you would of fucking drowned.”

  “Nobody’d know the difference,” Harvey Trott says, looking over at Zeke. He follows Harvey’s glance and Zeke’s not scratching his nuts anymore. He’s got one of his short dwarf legs cocked up on the other and a single-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun across his knee. The gun’s pointing over towards Lucky while his eyes are directly aimed at Ronette’s tits. There’s two of them and one’s got a gun and the other one’s got a hook ground sharper than a tuna gaff.

  Without moving his head Lucky checks the room for weapons. There’s a red fire ax on one wall and a short wire-handled ash poker hanging by the kerosene cookstove. It would be a nice feeling to bury that fire ax in the center of Zeke’s wide blubbery back, but if he moved towards it he’d get shot.

  He gets up slowly to go and pull the blanket back over her shoulders. Harvey lets him cross to the bunk, lets his hand almost touch the blanket, then the cold stainless steel of the hook is around his wrist. From over in his corner Zeke says, “Back off, Charlie. Don’t go fucking around. You ain’t nobody on this boat. We could fucking throw you back, nobody’d give a shit.”

  He pulls his arm out of the hook but Harvey gives a little twist while he’s pulling it out and it comes off bloody. Harvey says, “We was just thinking of a little payment for that rescue work. Kind of like tit for tat.”

  Bald-headed Zeke roars, “That’s good, Harv. Tit for tat. We got to get something for all that work and, mister, you ain’t got nothing we want. Pull the blanket down some more, Harv. I want to see that union suit. Don’t look half so good on Anson as it does on her.”

  He stares over at Zeke to see if he’d really pull the trigger. Zeke’s got little black pig’s eyes under the bald head, a gold ring in one ear, shit-brown Abe Lincoln beard with the mustache and lip areas shaved, neck like a swamp tire. His boots are still cocked up on the cabin table and the gun across his leg points straight at Lucky’s chest.

  He’s worked himself closer to the fire ax on the wall over Ronette’s bunk, but he’d be down before he got a hand on it. It would be a good idea to back away.

  “Looks nice, don’t she, Zeke?”

  “I seen a lot more than that fore you busted in.”

  Anson’s got the Cat diesel running hard right under the steel cabin floor, it’s slapping like it’s about to swallow an intake valve. You want to say anything in there, you have to speak up. But Ronette’s sleeping right through it. She could be dead except every once in a while she shivers and tosses her head like she’s in a bad dream saying no.

  Harvey looks at him standing over her bunk and says, �
�Big Anse’s got another union suit up in the head, why don’t you go check it out. You’re going to freeze your ass in them wet clothes.”

  His brother Zeke says, “Take your time, skipper. Maybe you’ll find something to do while you’re in there.”

  “Fuck you. I ain’t leaving her alone.”

  Zeke says, “I told you, Harv, we never should have picked this asshole up. We could of took the waitress on a fishing trip.”

  “Still can,” Harvey says. “He ain’t going to do nothing.”

  “He’s the one that shot Prissy Shaver.”

  “That’s right. We could just drop him off to Shavers’ wharf, let the dogs have him. He don’t look so hot anyway.”

  His heart’s skipping and pounding like the fucking diesel. He spreads his legs so he can stay upright on the vibrating steel floor.

  “Finest kind,” Zeke says. “Drop the cocksucker off to Shavers’ wharf. Then take the waitress fishing. Harv, pull the fucking blanket down, let’s see what she’s got. The big guy can watch or not.”

  Lucky says, “Anson know about this?”

  “Anson’s family. He don’t give a shit.”

  Harvey Trott hooks the blanket and draws it down to Ronette’s waist. She makes a little sound in her sleep and tries to draw it back up but the hook stops it. She twists again, one of her tits slides out of Big Anse’s white union suit and Zeke sucks in his breath like he’s been shot, but he keeps the gun steady, right on Lucky’s belly, and the twelve-gauge barrel follows his movement as he sways with the boat’s roll. Harvey’s still leaning over her, the hook’s drawing the blanket down along the sharp high curve of Ronette’s hip, then it stops short and pulls it back. All of a sudden Harvey sounds dead serious. “OK, Zeke. You seen enough.”

  “What the fuck, Harv? You gone chickenshit? You afraid of this asshole? We got the armament.”

  “I said that’s enough.”

  Now Zeke swings the shotgun barrel on his brother and says, “Candyass faggot. You ain’t even got a hard-on. Pull the blanket down.”

  Harvey draws the blanket edge down over her hips again and says, “Take a look, Zeke, you want to fuck around with that?”

  The whole crotch area of Big Anse’s union suit is red with blood.

  Zeke sets the gun butt on the deckhouse floor and stands up so he can look, though he still keeps a couple fingers around the barrel. After a minute he says, “Rag come off, that’s all. You ain’t never seen minstrel blood before?”

  “It ain’t,” Harvey says. “They don’t bleed that bad.” Harvey still has his stainless steel hook over the brown blanket edge. Ronette’s body shivers with the chill, she reaches down in her sleep again to pull it up. Harvey jerks his hook back from her hand like a corpse is going after it. Now Zeke’s staring hypnotized at the bloodstain, he’s leaning towards his brother and Ronette for a closer look. He’s forgotten all about the shotgun.

  Lucky bends down over the bunk as if to see better, but he’s got something else in mind. With both of them focused on the stain, he takes one big stride across the crew cabin and swoops his hand down on the gun. Once he gets his fist around the barrel it’s easy to spin it out of that dwarf little bastard’s grip. In an instant it’s over, he’s got the gun in both hands, his back to the steel wall. Bald-headed pervert, he must have raped her when she first came in, now he sees blood and he’s freaked out.

  The gun’s a stainless steel single-barrel Mossberg, the kind you carry on boats so they won’t rust. He can feel from the weight there’s a shell in it. The safety is off and the hammer’s cocked, fucking Zeke meant business. “So now you assholes back off from her,” he says.

  The bald-headed one’s scared shitless and starts slowly working his way towards the black steel cabin door. The other, Harvey, he’s an ex-con and smart. He stays right in front of Ronette’s bunk. He’s thinking, you got a shotgun, shoot me and you shoot her. He doesn’t care, let him keep her company. It’s Zeke that was in here alone with her.

  Harvey Trott says, “Don’t get excited, skipper. Fucking gun’s got a flare in it anyway.”

  “That’s right,” Zeke says. “She ain’t got shot in there, she’s loaded with a parachute flare. I seen Big Anse put it in there myself.”

  Harvey doesn’t move. He turns to his brother and says, “I told Anse we shouldn’t of picked them up.”

  Zeke says, “Should of picked the girl up and stopped while we was ahead.” While he’s talking Lucky’s looking right through the ratty Megadeath sweatshirt covered with fish scales, just like an X ray, and in there he’s seeing a little round heart black as pig liver and jumping with pure fear. That bastard was in here alone with her for just enough time to rape her bloody. He’s never shot off a flare before, but a shotgun’s a shotgun, don’t matter what’s in it, even a flare will blind the cocksucker and set his clothes on fire, he won’t fuck with women anymore. Ronette’s bleeding to death, the boat’s gone, license, house, wife, kids, what the fuck. He raises the gun point-blank and fires it right into the d of megadeath so it will explode in his liver-colored heart. The blast echoes off the steel crew cabin walls like an atomic bomb. The flare comes off slantways out of the barrel and hits Zeke’s arm and knocks him up against the wall. It’s not like a bullet, he can see it as it cracks off Zeke and angles into the port rear corner across from the cabin door. The chute pops open and the red flare hisses and ignites. The cold dark crew cabin goes blinding red-orange like the inside of the sun. Zeke stands up staring at Lucky and rubbing his elbow like his arm’s come off. Harvey puts his good hand around Zeke’s waist, raises the steel door lever and leads him out on deck. Ronette’s eyes are wide open, she’s watching the whole thing.

  The flare keeps burning with a screaming hot light in the aft corner but it’s not hurting anything and the heat feels good. When he turns his eyes away from it, Ronette is sitting upright on the bed. She has the blanket drawn around her and she’s trying to say something but the noise of the flare and the diesel make it impossible to hear. Lucky yells at her, “That son of a whore lay a hand on you?”

  She yells, “The hook?”

  “No, the bald-headed one.”

  “Come over here and I’ll tell you.” He sits beside her as they watch the flare die, like a couple of campers by the glowing coals. “He wanted to watch me change clothes. He said we owed him. I said I’d wait till you came in, then I’d change, so he went in the head. I put the union suit on, crawled into the covers, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

  “Fucking pervert could of done it while you slept.”

  “Done what?”

  “You take a look at yourself down there?”

  She pulls off the blanket and looks down. “Jesus H. Christ. I ain’t supposed to be bleeding like that. I ain’t bled since April the twenty-sixth. Oh Lucky, it’s the baby.”

  “You sure it ain’t that bald-headed fuck?”

  She’s got her face buried in her hands, opening the fingers so she can look down, then closing them again. “He didn’t do nothing, Lucky, it’s the baby.”

  “Got to get your ass to the emergency room.” He opens the steel door and there’s Big Anse with a long-barreled target revolver in his hand. Carleton Trott is close behind him with a shark club. They look at the dying flare, not much light to it but it’s putting out black smoke now like a steak pit. Used to be bright as noon but now no one can see a thing. Carleton finds his way through the smoke and picks the gun off the side of Ronette’s bunk where Lucky left it.

  Big Anson’s waving the pistol around and saying, “You crazy bastard, we fish you out of the fucking sea and you start shooting. What the fuck’s wrong with you? You got a war going on?” He keeps the pistol on Lucky while he turns to Ronette. “And what’s with you, sweetheart? You wearing the rag? Carl, get her some paper towels.”

  Lucky says, “Leave her alone, Carleton. She’s pregnant.”

  She doesn’t even cover herself while Big Anse takes a long stare at her, like she’s in
the hospital already and he’s the M.D. looking her over, telling her there ain’t going to be a child. Anse says, “She waspregnant, you mean. Bad enough taking her offshore in a shitheap like that. Woman in that condition, you got no right taking her out at all. I got six kids back on the island. My wife wants to travel, she takes the fucking plane.”

  Ronette’s just looking at him, her eyes glowing from tears reflecting the last of the red flare. Big Anse puts the pistol in his belt and spits on the flare smoldering in the corner. It hisses and steams and then goes out. “Carleton,” he says, “hose that fucking mess down and clean it up.” He turns to Lucky. “You take care of your woman, like you should of done before. Lie her down and get her quiet. We got a busted arm up in the wheelhouse. We’re supposed to be fishing and we’re running a god damn hospital. I don’t know why the fuck I stopped.” He shoves the pistol in his waistband and slams the steel door shut. Carleton goes off for a mop and a bucket of water from the head. The old Cat diesel farts and whines when Anse puts the throttle to her and turns her hard to starboard. In a minute the engine’s at its upper limit and the hull yaws and complains from the sharp turn. Wherever they were headed before, seaward or home to Shag Island, right now they’re steaming towards the mainland fast.

  He covers Ronette with the blanket and lays a hand on the hill of her hip while he watches Carleton Trott clean the flare up on the other side of the room. They haven’t gone ten minutes when the diesel slows down, maybe she’s running too hot. They’re nowhere near land yet. Big Anse is shouting up on deck. The smoke is gradually clearing out of the crew cabin, long rays of red sunlight streak through the dirty fixed window on the port side. Just as he thought, Anson’s been heading north. Now, though, they’re dead in the water and he hears a second big diesel throbbing nearby, this one a Cummins six, good deal healthier than the Trotts’ old Cat. He hears another shout, then another. He leaves Ronette and heads for the starboard door. Carleton stands in front of the door and says, “Anson said you wasn’t supposed to leave the cabin.”