Deeper

Deeper

by

J
a
m e s
 
 
A.
 
M o
o
r e

1

My grandfather
used to tell me that the oceans knew all the secrets the world had to
offer.
 
He said the biggest problem was
that no one ever seemed to know how to listen for those secrets.

That stuck
with me over the years.
 
I've never been
a man of science.
 
I've never had the
patience to go through all of the studies and tests that are required to be a
proper man of science, but I have always paid attention to what the
oceanographers and weather people had to say about the world that lurks below
the water's surface.

It's a damned
big world under there, and even with everything we've learned about the seas,
there are a million more mysteries to be solved.
 
For me the notion of actually solving them is
laughable.
 
I just like to contemplate
them from time to time when I've had a few too many drinks and I'm looking out
over the harbor.

My name is
Joseph Alexander Bierden.
 
Most people
just call me Joe.
 
I've lived in the same
place for most of my life and I haven't been in much of a hurry to get anywhere
else.
 
I like the sea and I like the town
of
Bowden
's
Point.
 
It's no
Black
Stone
Bay
, but it'll do in a
pinch.

Anyone who's
ever been to a seaside town knows the drill.
 
There are people who live there year-round and there are people who come
to visit.
 
I'm one of the year-round
residents.
 
I make most of my money
during the summer months, when there are plenty of people who need to hire a
boat, mostly for fishing and sometimes just to have a party here the neighbors
aren't going to complain about the noise.
 
I have three boats all told.
 
One
old wreck called the
Marianne Winston
— after an old girlfriend who dumped me not long after I bought it — is used by
me when I feel like actually going out for a little crabbing.
 
I have a twenty-foot galleon, called
Lisa's Hope
, I use for smaller parties
and I have a sixty-foot yacht,
Isabella's
Dream
, for the parties that feel like spending a small fortune and don't
mind the hefty security deposits.
 
There
have even been a few wedding performed on the
Isabella
, and a few honeymoons as well.

It's a living
and the only one I really want to have.
 
My job — I can't really call it a career, because I just don't take it
seriously enough — provides me with a roof over my head, a good deal of free
time to spend with my wife and kids, and allows me to work around my first love
whenever I feel the need.

My first love
has always been the ocean.
 
Isabella knew
that when I proposed to her, and still she accepted.
 
I guess that's the reason I've always been
faithful to her, despite the numerous temptations.
 
Don't get me wrong.
 
I don't think I'm anything special, but you
mix the summer weather enough alcohol, and a party on a yacht together and I've
had a ridiculous number of offers.

It isn’t all
peaches and cream as the old saying goes.
 
There are a lot of things that have to be taken care of during any year
to ensure a comfortable living, and there have been a few times when I wasn't
very proud of myself for some of the work I did.
 
Back when I was just starting out, I did some
rather shady work bringing in bundles of drugs that I picked up offshore.
 
If my reputation in town hadn't been as solid
as it was, I might well have been caught, too.
 
I didn't do it too often and I only ever took on the extra work when I
needed the money to pay the bills and make a decent living.
 
I stopped dealing with any part of the drug
trade around the same time one of the other captains I knew would up with a few
bullet holes through his body and his head missing.
 
It wasn't easy to get out of the business,
but I managed, and the man I was picking up for was a good sport about it.
 
If he hadn't been, I wouldn't be writing this
down now.

So, yes, a few
things I'm ashamed of, a few marks on my list of the seven deadly sins, but
nothing extreme.
 
Funny
how that works.
 
We can almost
always justify our actions if we take the time to explain them to ourselves.

I'll let you
in on a secret, though.
 
Sometimes we
don't know that what we're doing is wrong until it's too late.
 
Sometimes the most innocent things, the
safest things, can turn like a snake and bite you on the ankle, and when that
happens, there's only one choice left.

You've got to
try to fix what you did wrong and pray to whatever gods you might believe in
that you aren't too late.

I should have
known things would go wrong on that little venture.
 
My guts were telling me that taking the job
was a bad idea, but I brushed it off because the money was nice and because
Belle
wanted
 
a
vacation that was worth noticing.

All you can do
in life is
make
sure you do things for all the right
reasons.
 
There's nothing else in the
long run, except to hope the things you do don't come back to kick you in the
jaw.

It started at
the end of the busy season.
 
I was just
about ready to pull out my little crabbing boat and go lay some traps and call
it done.
 
The tourists were mostly gone
and the air was starting to get its early morning winter chill.
 
The girls wandering around in bikinis had
graduated up to wearing jeans again — always a depressing thing for an old
letch like me:
 
married but not blind,
you know.
 
And God help me, there were
already signs popping up for the end of summer sales and the new fall fashions
in the windows of half the stores in town.

I wasn't
really trolling for new business.
 
It
hadn't been the best summer ever, but it was far from the worst, and I had
earned enough to keep the bills paid.
 
Charlie Moncrief
,
 
my
trusty right-hand man, was double-checking all of the nets and
cables and I was polishing the brass railing on the
Isabella's Dream
when the offer came my way.

Charlie is a
big man, with an easygoing smile and a permanent tan caused half by the sun and
half by the wind.
 
Even in the winter,
when there's no way in hell to get the boats out for a long trip and the sun
doesn't much peek its face out of the clouds, Charlie has that dark tan.
 
And his eyes, Lord
Almighty
,
his eyes are almost exactly the same color as the sea on a stormy day.
 
Women seem to love them.
 
I could spend days telling you stories about
Charlie and his numerous adventures on the water and in different ports, but I
will say this:
 
he is a perfect example
of what has been said about sailors for years.
 
There's a girl in every port, and in most of them there are probably two
or three.
 
Charlie always had a way with
the ladies, and could drink most men under the table without even trying.

Charlie
noticed the people first, of course, because there were women involved.
 
Four people came toward the yacht and looked
at it carefully.
 
I nodded my head and
left them in peace, because most of the times when you have a small group like
that, they're considering whether or not they want to rent your ship out for
the day and trying to decide if the rates are fair enough.
 
The rates are never fair enough, but most
people are willing to pay them.
 
I'll
negotiate most times, and now and then I'll even let them win a good haggling
argument, but only if the coffers at home have enough money to see me through a
few more days.

None of them
looked like the seafaring type.
 
There
was a couple who was obviously together and looked like they shouldn't have
been.
 
I guess I should describe them
properly just so
you
 
can
get a good picture of them.
 
There was a stick of a man with salt-and-pepper hair, and a girl of
around twenty hanging at his side.
 
She
was more handsome than pretty, and had a smile that was pure confidence and
good feelings.
 
She had more muscles than
he did, and I assumed she was big into sports.
 
Her hair was cut short so it wouldn't get in her way, and if I'd been
asked by someone I would have labeled her an athlete.
 
They both looked like they belonged on a
college campus.
 
The stick man had
professor written all over him.
 
I'm sure
you know the type, the sort who only feels right in his classroom, where he's
practically the king, but take the classroom away and suddenly he looks a
little confused about where he is and why he's there.

The stick man
spent a few minutes staring at the boat and then came closer.
 
He walked up the causeway until he was almost
on the yacht proper and then froze like a rabbit caught off guard by a
human.
 
He was dressed in a three-piece
charcoal suit and looked about as comfortable at a thief in a confessional.

"Excuse
me?"
 
He looked directly at Charlie,
who was busy wrapping a mooring cable back into a manageable mess.

"You
looking to hire out?
"
Charlie said, barely
looking up.

"Yes, I
think.
 
We'd like to hire your boat and
services."
 
The man looked
uncomfortable about the entire affair, as if he'd rather have been sitting in a
nice safe library reading the newspaper.
 
Nothing wrong with that mind you; just he seemed very uncomfortable with
the notion of hiring out a yacht and even more uncomfortable with the idea of
actually getting on one.

Charlie
pointed his chin in my direction.
 
"Need to talk with Joe over there; this is his ‘boat.’"
 
A lot of sailors will take a person to task
for calling a yacht a boat or a dinghy a ship.
 
Charlie might have liked to have done the same, but I had simple rules
when it comes to dealing with any potential customers and those included not
being an ass about nautical terms.
 
Still, Charlie couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
 
I'll answer questions if they'd like me to,
but I won't correct them and I surely don't chastise them for being
ignorant.
 
I expect the same courtesy in
return when it comes to doctors and lawyers.
 
I don't understand what they do and a lot of them don't understand what
I do, but there's always common ground somewhere along the way.

The man looked
over at me and smiled apologetically.
 
I
guess he figured I'd take offense at him approaching Charlie instead of
me.
 
If I'd been wearing a captain's hat,
I might have.
 
I put down my polishing
rag and wiped my hands clean on my jeans before heading in his direction.

Up close he
was just as skinny.
 
It wasn't a starved
puppy sort of thin, just a slight build.
 
I knew several men with that sort of frame who could hold their own in a
bar brawl.
 
This particular gentleman
wasn't one of them.

"How can
I help you?"
 
I tried to keep my
voice cheerful and neutral.
 
The girl who
was with him gave him a light push to urge him onto the yacht.
 
He didn't actually burst into flames when he
set his foot on the deck, but he looked like he expected to.