DoG (3 page)

“Speaking of hookers,” Frank said as an older man with a long, white ponytail slid into the chair next to him.

“What’d you call me, you little turd?” the man asked with a smile.

“I didn’t call you nothing, Worner. McGillicuddy was just talking about the hookers in Flint, and I thought you could tell us all about the hookers in Saigon.”

“Hell, a hooker’s a hooker,” Worner replied. “It doesn’t make any difference where she’s from.”

“You ever hear such profound wisdom, Culann?” Frank asked.

Culann shook his head.

“So you must be the pervert Frank’s been talking about,” Worner said.

“That’s me,” Culann said. “I’m the pervert.”

“Don’t worry about it, buddy. This saloon is chock full of perverts. How you liking it up here?”

“I have to say it’s been a truly edifying experience so far.”

“Edifying experience,” McGillicuddy repeated with a chuckle.

“Not everyone’s an illiterate asshole like you,” Worner said.

“Look who’s talking. You ever read a book that didn’t have pictures of naked ladies in it?”

“Hell, I got more books in my cabin than all the rest of you put together.”

16

“Boy, that’s something,” Frank chimed in. “You must have, what, two books?”

Worner threw his arm around Culann’s shoulder. The old man had an antiseptic smell, like harsh cleaning products, though he did not appear to have bathed recently.

“Ignore these philistines,” Worner said. “They have no respect for wisdom. I’m glad we finally have another educated man out here.”

“Educated my ass,” Frank said.

“Didn’t you know I went to college?”

“You did?”

“I’ve never been what you’d call civilized,” Worner replied. “I’ve tried to fit in with polite society, but I’m better suited to life up here. That was made quite clear during my one whole semester in college. Those city boys were always laughing at me for dressing wrong or talking wrong or just plain being wrong, and then I’d haul off and slug one of ‘em. I got to be on a first-name-basis with the dean of students. So I popped three or four rich kids in the mouth, but you know what got me booted? Chewing tobacco in class. They didn’t have any signs posted or anything, and I even brought my own can to spit in. I lost my deferment after that and got shipped off to Vietnam.”

“What did you study?” Frank asked.

“History. I’ve been interested in it since I was a little kid. My granddad gave me an old Civil War cannonball he’d gotten from his granddad. It’s like a good luck charm. I always bring it with me when I fish.”

“What were you going to do with a degree in history?” Frank asked.

“I wanted to be a high school teacher.”

“Hey, just like Culann here,” Frank said.

“Is that right?” Worner said. “What do you think, kid? Would I have been better off being a teacher?”

“It’s not for everyone,” Culann replied.

“Yeah,” Frank chimed in, “but Worner’s not a pervert, so maybe he’d of been fine.”

“What do you know?” Worner said. “I’m at least as big a pervert as this kid. You repressed little church mice have no business sitting in this groghouse if you’re so worried about another man’s appetites. Right kid?”

Culann raised his glass in reply, and they both downed what was left of their beers.

They stayed at their section of the table well into the evening. Most of the bar’s patrons—which amounted to nearly every man in Pyrite—came over to introduce themselves to Culann at some point; only a couple of them called him a pervert. The rest courteously welcomed him by squeezing his hand, pounding his back and forcing a shot down his throat. A couple of grizzled, old coots in faded overalls sat side by side at the end of the bar the whole day without rising to greet the newcomer.

17

“What’s their deal?” Culann asked. “Don’t they like us?”

“It’s nothing personal,” Frank replied. “This town doesn’t exactly attract social butterflies.”

Indeed, the two men did not talk to one another or even to Alistair. Each simply raised a finger to the barman when a refilled was needed. He’d hobble over, fill their glasses, and receive a grunt of gratitude for his trouble.

Nearly every man in Pyrite would be working on the
Orthrus
. Culann would be the only greenhorn on the voyage, so everyone teased him. This was how he began to appreciate the daunting nature of the challenges ahead of him: the physical strains, the lack of sleep, the horrific smells.

“First voyage is a real bitch,” McGillicuddy said.

“It’s not easy being greenhorn,” chimed in Worner.

“I still remember when I popped my cherry,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Gus grunted. “You were even more worthless than you are now.”

“You really rode my ass, you old prick.”

“You got off easy,” Worner said. “Gus stabbed McGillicuddy on his first

voyage.”

“Bullshit. I didn’t stab him.”

“What are you talking about?” McGillicuddy said, tilting his head to reveal a thick, white scar along his jaw line. “Look at this.”

“That’s just a scratch,” Gus said with a smirk.

“You stuck a gaff in my face.”

“I was just trying to yank that finger out of your nose so you could get some work done.”

Culann didn’t know what a gaff was, but he’d been teased enough already for being a shit-for-brains greenhorn, so he didn’t ask. He was astonished to hear these two men joking about what sounded an awful lot like assault with a deadly weapon to him.

Drunk as Culann was, it was clear that he was dealing with men of a very different sort here. Maybe big, wilderness-loving Frank could fit in with them, but Culann doubted he ever would. No matter how this voyage turned out, he could not imagine himself on either end of a stabbing, much less joking about it later. More importantly, he kept envisioning himself writhing around in agony after one of these wild creatures disemboweled him for a laugh. Perhaps he’d have been better off facing his fate in Schaumburg.

“Hell, Gus,” Worner said, “these little turds don’t know how easy they had it.

Remember the Cajun? That guy did not mess around. Two greenhorns died when he was first mate.”

“Died?” Culann said

18

“This ain’t Club Med,” Worner replied, his face suddenly serious. “One kid got tangled up in the nets and drowned. The other one slipped on the deck and cracked his skull.”

“He didn’t slip,” Gus said. “The Cajun kicked him in the back.”

“Why?” Culann asked.

“Because the kid wasn’t pulling his weight,” Gus replied. The old man stared at Culann as he said this, and everyone else got quiet for a moment.

“Don’t worry about it,” Worner said. “You just do what Gus tells you to do, and you’ll do fine.”

Then they all drank another shot.

19

20

Diary of Culann Riordan, Day 3

I pushed myself too hard today and am paying the price for it now. Winter will be
here before I know it—assuming the season’s still change—so I need to be ready. Today I
finished a long-overdue inventory of just about everything worthwhile on the island—

tools, clothing and, most importantly, food. There was a lot of food stashed in the cabins,
and I’d let some of it go bad. That was stupid – the dogs are running pretty low. I’ve also
noticed that they don’t obey me quite so well when they’re hungry. If I can’t keep the
dogs well-fed, they might just decide I’d make a good meal.

Maybe I’m just getting paranoid – I am high, after all. Don’t judge, it’s just that
the only reliable pain reliever on the island is growing behind Worner’s shack. But even
that is of limited utility because I need to be able to think clearly to get anything done, so
I’ve been waiting until my work is done to smoke. I’m pretty much in constant pain
during the day (which could be the middle of the night for all I know), then I have to
shove a wheelbarrow all over the island with a broken hand and a broken kneecap. So I
overcompensate when I’m done working by smoking too much and then I find myself
jumping at shadows, nodding off or eating too much of my limited food supply.

Sorry if I’m rambling, but the fault really lies with Worner’s impressive
horticultural abilities. I’d have never pegged him for a guy with a green thumb, but you
don’t really know anything about anyone, do you? I’m sure none of those guys would
have believed in a million years that I’d still be alive. Makes you wonder what kind of
surprises they had in them…especially Frank. When push came to shove, Frank was the
only person in my life I could count on, and I didn’t really know him at all. And I guess
he didn’t really know me either. Hell, I didn’t know me. I suppose I still don’t, which is
why I’m writing this, right? No epiphanies yet, but I’ve got plenty of time…or at least I
hope I do…

21

1

Culann awoke to a crucifying headache and a mouth that tasted like a litter box.

His head lay on Frank’s couch, while his body splayed out across the soiled carpet. He was covered with a towel for warmth. He didn’t know whether he’d gotten it himself or Frank had draped it over him. He pushed up to a sitting position, and Alphonse growled from a few feet away before dropping his chin back to the floor and scrunching his eyes shut.

“You ready?” Frank said from his bedroom doorway.

“What time is it?”

Once again, the sky was neither day-blue nor night-black, but Purgatory-white.

“Time to work.”

A month at sea stood before them. Culann brushed his teeth and washed his face.

He considered calling the whole thing off just to get a couple extra hours sleep, but figured Alphonse would probably eat him if they were left alone together.

“Who’s watching Alphonse while we’re gone?”

“Marge McGillicuddy – McGillicuddy’s wife – is going to feed him. She’s the resident animal-lover. We all pay her a dollar a day to put out food for the dogs, but they otherwise pretty much run wild when we’re gone.”

The cousins loaded their knapsacks in the truck and drove the quarter mile to the dock. The other men of the
Orthrus
—and they were all men—milled about, looking just as hungover as Culann, which gave him a little satisfaction.

The same Hawaiian-shirt-clad ferryboat driver from the two nights before nodded at Culann as he boarded. The little boat sank almost to the waterline with all the fishermen aboard, but their jolly pilot didn’t seem to notice. The boat splashed across the choppy, black water to a small town on the mainland called Three Fingers, named for the shape of coastline upon which it rested.

As they approached, Culann caught his first glimpse of the
Orthrus
. It was half a football field in length and nominally white, though rust had eaten through much of the paint. Frank gave Culann a crash course in nautical terminology.

“The ass-end is called the ‘stern.’ Our nets are cast off the stern, so this is called a

‘stern trawler.’ That bigass thing over there is called the ‘net drum.’”

The bigass thing Frank was referring to looked to Culann like a giant sewing bobbin, though he didn’t dare give voice to such an unmanly analogy. The ferryboat docked, and the cramped crew spurted out onto the dock, before scurrying aboard the
Orthrus
just seconds later.

“Frank,” Gus shouted, seemingly out of nowhere, “show this pantywaist where he sleeps and then bring his cherry ass back up here.”

And so began Culann’s stint as a greenhorn. In the still waters just off the mainland, the deck stood fifteen feet above the water line. Once the ship reached the open 22

waters out beyond Pyrite, however, the Bering Sea crashed waves up and over the rails.

Culann was soaked within minutes of clearing the island.

He spent the next hour scurrying out the way of Gus’s boot, as he struggled to quickly learn the ways of the sea. Culann stopped to vomit over the railing as the ship lurched up and over twenty-foot swells. A decade spent teaching
To Kill a Mockingbird
to a bunch of whiny, little nosepickers had done nothing to prepare him for life at sea.

The combination of a hangover and seasickness cost him a good bit of stomach lining.

Plus, the ship smelled like a can of tuna that had been left open for three days. He was sweating from the exertion and heat of the sun, but shivering from the frigid water that rolled over the deck. He didn’t think it could be any worse until Gus grabbed him by the collar and hurled him to the deck.

“Puke on your own time, greenhorn. We got work to do.”

“But I’m sick.”

“You can get sick all you want, just pull your own weight. Otherwise, I’ll toss you over.”

Culann rose unsteadily and returned to his place beside Frank, who shook his head. They were untangling the fishing nets and loading them into the net drum, a fifteen-foot diameter hydraulic spool used to pull in the nets. As soon as Culann resumed work, he felt the bile rise in his throat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Gus staring at him.

Culann turned around and vomited on the deck. Then he went back to work.

“Attaboy,” shouted Frank with a pat on the back.

Culann threw up again. He was convinced he’d made a terrible mistake. It wasn’t just the seasickness. His rubbery arms could barely lift the nets, torn skin hung from his soft palms, and his soggy boots were full of blisters.

And then there was Gus.

“My fifteen-year-old daughter is tougher than you,” Gus shouted with a slap to the back of the head. “If I see you nurse those delicate, little fingers of yours one more time, I’m chopping ‘em off.”

Culann wiped his oozing palms on his shirt and reached up for the net. When it slipped through Culann’s wet, raw hands, Gus pounced. He grabbed Culann by the shoulders and kicked his feet out from underneath him. Culann crashed to his stomach on the deck, and Gus pressed the greenhorn’s face into the net, slimy and foul-smelling as it was from the thousands of loads of fish it had hauled from the sea.