The Young Man and the Sea

by Rodman Philbrick

  When the old man finishes his pipe he goes back to his bench and takes out a different plane. He explains that the new plank needs a beveled edge so it will fit up tight against the keel.

  “This is the tricky part,” he says, showing me what he’s doing. “Fortunately I know that particular keel pretty well, and remember where it curves.”

  “You want me to do it?”

  “Rather you watch and make sure I don’t make a mistake.”

  The old man is pulling my leg, of course. I bet he ain’t made a mistake in a long time. You can tell the way he holds the plane and skates it over the edge. The way he makes the shavings flutter down into thin little pieces of wood that look like curly wings.

  “Smell that?” he asks. “Fresh-cut cedar, like they’ll put in a chest or closet to keep the moths away. This particular plank has been seasoning here in the shed for near on twenty years, but it still cuts fresh. Nothing like it.”

  It takes us the rest of the day to get the new planks ready. When they’re done, Mr. Woodwell suggests we stand back and admire our work.

  “Not bad,” he says, nodding with satisfaction, “not bad at all, for a young boy and an old geezer with bad eyes. I think we’re a pretty good team, Samuel, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. “Finest kind.”

  PUTTING on the new planks takes two whole days. I learned my lesson with the mud worms, so I drug out an old piece of plywood and lay on that. Then I clamped the plank to the ribs like the old man told me, and drilled holes for the new screws. Then I put the screws in, all one hundred and ten of them, and that took forever. Then I had to put in the plugs that covered the screws, and that took forever, too.

  Got to know the bottom of that boat real good. Every dent and seam, every place it had ever been repaired.

  “Won’t be long now,” I keep telling her. “’nother day or two you’ll be floating on your own. Maybe the engine ain’t ruined and you’ll take me fishing and make us some money, hey Rose? You were always good at finding fish.”

  One time Captain Keelson rows over and checks out the job. He used to be a tugboat captain, and tugboats are made of steel, but he knows a thing or two about wooden boats and gives me a thumbs-up on what I done so far.

  “Heard from Amos Woodwell on the telephone,” he says. “Asked me to set the cotton when you’re ready, with your permission.”

  That makes me laugh, a fine and proper gentleman like Captain Keelson asking my permission to help. Setting the cotton has got me worried, because the old man says if it ain’t done right, the boat will still leak, even with new planks.

  The day we’re ready, Rose and me, they both come by, Captain Keelson and Mr. Woodwell, together in the captain’s red Ford pickup truck. The old man has brought a canvas tool bag that holds caulking irons and a big wooden mallet, and a coil of fluffy white cotton. He hands it all over to Captain Keelson. “Make her ring true, Alex,” he says.

  The way it works is, you shove cotton into the seam between the plank and the keel with a caulking iron, which is like a dull chisel with a wide blade. Then you womp on the chisel with the wooden mallet and drive the cotton home. If you do it right, the caulking iron makes a ringing noise as the mallet strikes. Then later, when the wood swells up in the water, it will press the cotton tight and keep the plank from leaking.

  Mr. Woodwell says they been doing it pretty much like this since the first wooden boat was built, and not to worry, it’ll work just fine.

  My job is to move the caulking iron along the seam while Captain Keelson hits it womp! with his big wooden mallet. “I will try my best not to miss,” he promises.

  He don’t miss, not once in two hours, and I’m grateful for that. But still, my hands hurt from gripping that iron. By the end it feels like the ringing of the mallet comes from deep inside my bones.

  After the cotton is set, Captain Keelson crawls out from under the boat and dusts himself off. He goes, “I leave the rest to you,” and he and Mr. Woodwell sit on the dock and watch me fill the seams with tubes of caulking compound. They holler stuff like, “This is the life, watching a boy do a man’s job! Stick to it or the caulking will stick to you!” and so on, but I don’t mind. It’s not like Tyler Croft ragging on me or nothing. Old guys like them only tease you if they like you.

  When I finally crawl out, Captain Keelson shakes his head and goes, “Young man, I hope you got as much caulking on the hull as you got on yourself,” but I’m too tired to joke back.

  Tired as I am, I can’t wait for tomorrow. That’s when we’ll see if the planks hold and keep the water out. That’s when we’ll know if the Mary Rose is ready to go fishing.

  I decide from now on if my dad don’t bother asking about the boat, then I won’t bother telling. I’m sick of pushing stuff on him that he don’t want pushed. All it does is put me in a mood, and believe me, that ain’t a pretty sight. When I’m in a mood I get all sulky and just want to be miserable. It’s like when I’m in a mood, being miserable is the only thing that makes me happy. Weird but true.

  So, no moods, thank you. Just make Dad his supper and see he eats some of it. Take out the empty beer cans and hide ’em in the shed so the guys who pick up the trash won’t have nothing to talk about. Go to bed early and read my stash of comic books, the ones I found in the shed about The Flash and Green Lantern and Batman before he was a movie. Except I’ve read ’em so many times, I’m not really seeing the page, I’m seeing the Mary Rose and worrying she’ll leak as bad as she did before, and sink again. And I’ll keep trying to fix her and she’ll keep sinking, and that’s when I know I’m asleep and dreaming, but there’s nothing I can do to make myself wake up until the alarm clock finally goes off.

  Brinnnnng, brinnnnng.

  Bring me some luck, please. I sure could use it.

  WHEN the morning tide comes in, I’m ready. Got the winch rigged at the deep end of the dock, to pull the Mary Rose free of the shore. Got lines fixed to tie her alongside the dock so she don’t drift away. Got my fingers crossed, and my toes crossed, too, hoping she won’t leak too bad.

  It’s one of them soft and misty mornings on the creek. Happens in the summer when the water starts to warm up. Ain’t thick enough to be a proper fog, mind you, just a thin, wispy mist that leaves everything kind of blurred. You can’t quite tell where the shore lets off and the water begins, and the tall pines look like they’re melting into the sky.

  There’s almost always good fishing when the mist comes on the creek. Fish like to feed in the soft light. Normal times, a day like this, I’d be out in my skiff looking for striper swirls. Instead, I’m waiting with my stomach all clenched up like somebody punched me. Wanting to get it over with, the not being sure.

  Can’t hurry the tide, though. Tide has a mind of its own. Eventually it does cooperate. When the water’s lapping around the high marks on the pilings, I give the winch a couple of cranks until the line goes tight. Then I wait a few minutes and do it again. And again.

  That’s how the boat comes free, a few inches at a time. About as much fun as watching ice melt — until all of a sudden the winch line goes slack and the Mary Rose is floating free.

  It seems too easy somehow, and that makes me worried what I’ll find. But when I hop aboard and crawl into the bilge to look, the boat is dry inside. No leaks to speak of. I run my hands over the new planks and find a few beads of moisture at the seams, but from what Mr. Woodwell told me, it don’t amount to nothing.

  “Thank you, Rose,” I tell her, “for not giving up.”

  I’m thinking maybe I should jump up and yell “hurrah!” or something when I hear footsteps coming along the dock.

  My dad is standing there, pale as milk.

  “I’ll be darned,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “You did it.”

  But he don’t sound happy. And he looks like he’s seen a ghost.

  Mike Haley, the diesel mechanic, comes by in the afternoon like he promised when I found his number in the book.

  �
�Big Skiff around?” is the first thing he says.

  “He’s got the flu,” I tell him.

  “The flu, huh?” Mike looks up at the house like he don’t quite believe me, but then he lets it go. “Heard the Mary Rose sunk at the dock. Figured your dad would call me.”

  “He don’t much like the phone.”

  Mike gives me a funny look. “Is that right?”

  “I can pay you to look at the engine.” I show him the envelope. Same envelope I offered to Mr. Woodwell.

  Mike shakes his head. “No charge for a consultation. Hope you aren’t expecting good news on an engine that’s been submerged in salt water.”

  “But you can fix it.”

  “Depends. Let me have a look.”

  He climbs into the cockpit with his wrench box. The engine cover is stuck where it swelled up. That makes him sigh and shake his head, like the whole idea of a sunk boat turns his stomach. He goes at the hatch with a pry bar. The hinges sound like a cat with a stepped-on tail, but he gets it open.

  “Here goes nothing,” Mike says. Talking to himself, not to me. He climbs down beside the engine. I can tell he don’t like me staring at him, so I go sit on the end of the dock and wait for him to finish.

  It don’t take long.

  “Skiffy? That what they call you?” He sits down beside me, clears his throat, and spits into the creek. “Wish I had better news, son. I’m just an old grease monkey, but I’ve been climbing around boat engines for long enough to know the score.”

  “So can you fix it?”

  He looks at me kind of sorrowful. “You mean like add some oil, turn the key, and off she goes?”

  “Whatever,” I say, embarrassed that he read my mind.

  “That would be a miracle, kid, and in my experience, miracles don’t happen to boat engines.”

  “So it can’t be fixed.”

  “Hang on now. Hear me out. It’s not as simple as can it be fixed or not. The exhaust manifolds were about rusted through even before she sank. They’d have to be replaced. Starter is shot, and diesel starters are pricey.” Mike’s talking faster and faster, like he’s getting rid of words he don’t like. “All new wiring,” he goes, counting on his fingers. “New batteries. It may need new pistons — can’t tell until I pull the head. New main bearings, that’s a certainty. So the answer is, yes, I can fix it, but we’re talking a major rebuild, okay?”

  “How much?” I ask, thinking of my pitiful little envelope.

  Mike sighs like he’s the one been sunk. “Even with the fisherman discount, you’re looking at a five-thousand-dollar job. Minimum. Could go higher, I start tearing her down and find something else.”

  I don’t know what to say. Five thousand dollars is a mighty big chunk of money. If my dad was fishing, he might get lucky and make that much pretty quick. Once when the tuna were running he made enough in a month to buy an almost-brand-new pickup truck. But he can’t fish without a boat. So it might as well be five million as five thousand.

  “Tell you what,” Mike says. “Have your father call me. I’ll tell him myself.”

  Probably he says some other stuff before he leaves, but I’m not listening. I’m scheming how to find a way to make five thousand dollars before the summer is over, and that about fills up my whole brain.

  “SO what did Mike say?” my dad asks.

  I tell him the short and sweet of it.

  “Five grand, huh? I figured a lot more.”

  “Do we have the money?” I ask.

  Dad shrugs himself around on the couch, so he’s staring at a different part of the ceiling. “You know we don’t,” he says.

  “Then it don’t make no difference, does it?”

  He shades his eyes and looks at me. “Don’t be mad at me, Skiffy. I couldn’t stand it if my own son was mad at me.”

  That makes me feel pretty rotten, because it’s true. But I know it ain’t fair to be mad at my dad because we’re poor, so I go, “Ready for some lunch? Today is grilled cheese day.”

  By the time the sandwiches are ready I’m over feeling low. Because I got a plan to get the money and solve all our problems.

  All along I been concentrating on Rose, getting her fixed. I been thinking so hard on that, I forgot she ain’t the only boat in the world. There’s the skiff my dad built me for my ninth birthday. I been up and down the creek in it a million times, and all over the harbor, too. It’s a good little boat, and the outboard runs most of the time. No reason the skiff can’t be put to work earning money.

  After lunch I get out the calculator.

  Okay, here goes. Figure my skiff is big enough to hold me and three lobster traps. Three at a time. There are two hundred perfectly good traps stacked on the dock right now, all licensed and tagged, not doing nothing since my dad quit fishing. If I bring ’em out three at a time I can be fishing all two hundred traps in a couple of weeks.

  This time of year they’re paying two bucks a pound for lobster at the co-op. So figure two thousand five hundred lobsters equals a rebuilt engine for the Mary Rose. Sounds like a lot, but that means each trap has only got to catch about thirteen lobster and we’re home free.

  Thirteen lobster. That’s all. That’s the magic fix-the-engine number. Thirteen for each trap and I got all summer to catch ’em. That’s like two lobster a week in each trap! This is going to be so easy, I can’t think what I was so worried about.

  Best thing of all, I can start right away.

  There’s really no point letting Dad know, but I’m so excited, I tell him anyhow. He looks at me waving a sheet of paper with all my calculations on it and he closes his eyes and sighs.

  “It ain’t that easy,” he says. “You’re forgetting what it costs for bait and lost traps and gas for the outboard. And sometime the lobster don’t cooperate, you know that.”

  “The point is, I’ll be making money.”

  “Boy your age should be playing with his friends.”

  Like I said, no point telling him. All he looks at is the bad side. Like why bother if things are going to go wrong? He’s been like that since Mom got sick and stays that way no matter what I say or do.

  It ain’t an easy thing, but I got to forget about Dad on the TV couch and concentrate on my own stuff. Maybe he’ll come around and maybe he won’t, but in the meantime there’s lobster out there just waiting to crawl into my traps.

  Money by the pound. Easy pickings.

  First day after lunch I work like a demon dragging traps to my skiff. Lobster trap is an awkward thing to handle because the weight is all in the bottom. That’s to make it sink, of course. But it means I need to be careful how I load the traps into the skiff, so I don’t tip the boat over.

  Once I get the first three traps into the skiff, I fire up the outboard motor and take us down the creek and into the harbor and up to the wharf at Murphy’s Bait & Fuel. I leave five dollars in the jar for a bucket of bait and try to skedaddle before anybody thinks to ask what I’m up to. They’re pretty busy salting down a new load of herring, but Devlin Murphy, the boss and owner, he gives me the eye and comes over before I can get away.

  I can tell he wants to talk and I’d rather not.

  “Bucket of bait? If your old man is back fishing, he’s going to want it by the barrel.”

  I go, “Yes, sir. See you later,” and try to scoot out the door.

  “Not so fast!” Devlin says, laughing through his beard. He’s this huge guy with a big chest and belly and legs that look like tree stumps. He hooks a finger in my shirt and slows me up. “What are you up to, Skiffy? This bait for your dad or what? Heard you fixed the Mary Rose, is that it? He finally getting back into it, is he?”

  Devlin Murphy is a fiend for gossip. Always wants to know everything that’s happening on the creek and round the harbor. My mom used to say he was better than a radio station for having all the local news, and he’ll keep at you until you tell him every little thing, even if you don’t mean to.

  I finally have to tell him the bait is for
me.

  “Oh,” he says, “you going to fish a few traps this summer? Good for you, son.”

  He follows me out to the wharf and spots the skiff tied up at the end. “Hey, I remember when Big Skiff built that! Lovely lines. You think you can haul up a trap all by yourself?” He laughs and squeezes the muscle on my arm, and that gets me riled.

  “For your information, I’ll be fishing all two hundred traps,” I go, bragging on my own idea. “If you don’t think I can pull ’em, just watch me.”

  That shuts him up, but only for a second. All of a sudden he’s looking serious. “What about the Mary Rose? I heard you and Amos Woodwell fixed her up.”

  I shrug. “Bad engine. We’re saving up to have it rebuilt.”

  He scratches at his thick red beard, wrinkles his fat nose, and studies me. “Uh, yuh. That makes sense. Let me think on this. Two hundred traps from a ten-foot skiff. Mmm. That’s a whole lot of traps to be hand pulling, young Skiffy. Your dad worked that many with a full-size boat and a hydraulic puller.”

  “I got the skiff,” I tell him, “so that’s what I’m using.”

  He rubs the top of my head, which I hate more than anything. “Tell you what,” he says. “We’ll set up an account for you, like I did with your father. Give you the fisherman’s discount. You can charge the bait and gas you need, and we’ll settle up at the end of the summer. That okay with you?”

  “Sure it is. Thanks, Mr. Murphy.”

  “My customers call me Dev. Now you go on and catch a ton of lobster, son. And tell your father Dev Murphy says hello.”

  He stands there at the end of the wharf, big as his own bait shack, and watches until I’m out of sight.

  THINGS go real good the first two weeks. I’m up with the sun every morning, raring to go. Have my toast and cereal and then run for the dock. Check to make sure Rose ain’t leaking — nope, dry as a bone — and then drag traps out to the end of the dock and lower ’em into my skiff.