The Wooden Nickel (46 page)

Fifty feet to starboard, with its lines off, the whale lifts its long white side fin up slow like it can’t believe it’s free.
Suddenly the head drops diagonally under the boat, the tail lifts to the level of the wheelhouse roof, twists and slants down
so close to the starboard rail that the hull shudders with a sharp scrape and crack, then the thing is gone.

Ronette says, “What the hell was
that?
”

“That was fifteen thousand fucking dollars.” He turns and yells in the direction it dived in:
“Cocksucker, kiss my ass!”
Then to Ronette: “You hadn’t of trashed the gun, we could be towing that son of a whore into Whistle Creek.”

“Come on, Lucky, he would of been towing
us.
You wasn’t going to win that one. But what was that
noise?
It sounded like we hit a ledge.”

“Tail nicked us on the way down. It don’t matter, we’re out of here.”

He throttles the engine up a bit in neutral and slams her in reverse to throw off the rest of the line. It spins a couple
of revolutions, then shuts down. “What the fuck.” He starts her again and puts the shift forward but it’s not going into gear,
must have line wound tight around the shaft. In calm water you might swim the knife under and cut the wheel free, but in the
eight-foot swell you’d get your brains knocked out before you ever saw the line.

“Wheel ain’t turning,” he says.

“What’s that mean?”

“Means we got to get ourselves a fucking tow.”

She lights two cigarettes between her lips and hands him one with a string of blood on the filter end. “I shouldn’t give you
nothing,” she says in a small voice. “Never again.”

“You better start saving up for a four-sixteen fucking Ruger when we get in. They don’t come cheap.”

“Lucky, there’s nobody out here. Even the whale-watchers ain’t around. This radio don’t reach back to Orphan Point. How you
planning to get us towed?”

“Get on channel sixteen and call the fucking Coast Guard. They’ll hear us, they got a hilltop antenna. That’s what we pay
our taxes for, ain’t it?”

“We’ll have to get rid of them lobsters in the live well.”

“Coast Guard’s all from Kansas, they wouldn’t know a lobster if it was clamped onto their nuts. Only thing they care about
is drugs.”

She bends into the companionway to set the radio on channel 16, then turns back around before she even touches the dial. “Lucky,
the floor’s wet down there.”

He looks down the hatch past the engine box into the cuddy. The piss bucket’s floating over the cabin sole.

“Must of took some when the rail went under.”

He cuts in the power takeoff for the bilge pump and revs her up to 1800 rpm. Down under the platform the pump sucks hose air
for a few seconds, then takes hold and a steady stream of water pours over the starboard rail.

Ronette’s already down in the cuddy and calls up, “Jesus, Lucky, the water ain’t going down.”

He cranks the engine to 2000. “She’ll go down.”

“It ain’t, Lucky. It’s
rising.
”

“Shit. Must of cracked a seam when the tail hit.” He cranks the engine to 2400, high as the Olds wants to go. Meanwhile, Ronette’s
back on the radio poking the channel 16 key and handing him the mike. He squeezes the switch and says, “You on there, Coast
Guard?”

He waits about thirty seconds, then yells in there loud enough so he’ll reach them, radio or not. “Breaker, Coast Guard, you
on this one?”

A girl’s voice answers, she sounds about sixteen, Kansas accent, the idea of water seems brand-new to her.
VESSEL CALLING COAST GUARD, THIS IS COAST GUARD NORUMBEGA GROUP
.

He pokes the mike button. “You got anybody there that knows anything?”

VESSEL CALLING COAST GUARD
,
she repeats,
THIS IS COAST GUARD NORUMBEGA GROUP
.

Down in the cabin Ronette says, “It’s wicked deep, Lucky, and it ain’t going down.”

“Come up and talk to this Coast Guard girl, I’m going to find that fucking hole.”

He can’t see any leaks down there but it’s three inches deep over the cabin floor, the foam mattress is washing around among
the loose floorboards like a water bed. The tunnel-of-love pillow has floated into the overturned yellow piss bucket, which
bangs into the empty life jacket box every time they roll. It’s good the engine’s mounted high or she’d drown out. He opens
the shaft cover behind the engine box where the bilge pump is cranking but it’s too dark to see.

He calls up over the whine of the bilge pump: “Give me a flash-light, Ronette.” He aims the beam back past the pump and the
frozen shaft, and there’s a garboard plank stove in with the sea spouting through the hull like a fire hose. Already the water’s
mostway up the shaft. Another six inches and the block will start going under, the bilge pump will shut down and then they’re
fucked. He reaches back into the empty life jacket locker, that’s where she keeps the nylon quilt, turns back and drags it
with him while he crawls under the cockpit floor. The power takeoff and bronze bilge pump are scraping his left side, the
pump bearings are screaming like they’re going to explode right in his ear. He gives the grease cup a half turn and she quiets
down. He pulls himself over the shaft to the plank where the seawater’s blasting in like an open hydrant. The hole is under
a fuel tank so he can’t get right up to it, but he shuts his eyes against the stream and pulls the wet heavy comforter past
his face. He reaches forward to feel for the busted plank, then presses the fabric in a long line against the flood, trying
to find the center of the opening. He’s jammed in a crawl space a foot and a half high with a foot of water in it. Every time
he breathes he’s got to raise his mouth over the oily surface then put his face in again. His heart pounds like a pile driver,
stops for a cigarette break, then starts up again. He feels for the long rectangular crack and rolls the quilt tight as he
can make it, braces his feet against the bulkhead and jams her in there with all his strength. The nylon fabric grabs and
catches in the opening and for a minute it seems like the sea is stopped, then he hears the water coming in at the aft end
where the comforter’s not tight enough in the slot. He backs up towards the cabin to get Ronette’s sweatshirt and stuff it
in the gap, then, just as he’s feeling the fresh air with his feet, the quilt pops out from between the planks and shoots
back against the bilge pump in the flood. He can’t go back in there, the wet unfolded comforter fills the crawl space and
the water’s too fucking deep to breathe. Thank Christ that Olds is still high enough to keep turning the pump around.

He wipes the oil off his face and lies there for a moment with his ear right up against the engine box like old Dr. Burnside
when he put his stethoscope down and laid his ear on your chest and had you breathe. Even with his boat filling up with water,
for the time being he relaxes and listens to her hum just like she was on the test bench in the shop: camshaft balanced like
a tightrope walker, power takeoff turning, valves like tap dancers, nice GM engine in the finest kind of tune, just a little
gurgling now as the seawater reaches the shaft oil seal. Fucking Harley Webster, he did come through, she’s running 2400 rpm
in neutral with the bilge pump sucking like a blind French whore. But it’s still coming in. He shifts his ear to the pump
shaft spinning off the PTO, something’s not right, a rubbery slamming sound like an impeller blade loose. The V-8’s trying
her hardest, you can hear it, but the busted impeller’s putting her behind.

He pulls away from the engine box so he can hear Ronette working the Coast Guard. She yells into the mike, “This is a nine
one one. We got a cabin full of water, when can you get here?”

PLEASE GIVE US THE LOCATION OF YOUR VESSEL
.

“It’s out here in the god damn fog.”

Lucky yells up, “Read it off the loran.”

“OK. Four four three one point two seven. Six seven four nine point zero three.”

ROGER THOSE, MA’AM. CAN YOU GIVE US A DESCRIPTION OF YOUR VESSEL?

“It’s half-sunk.”

ROGER THAT, MA’AM. I NEED THE LENGTH AND COLOR. WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF YOUR VESSEL, AND THE HULL COLOR?

“Thirty-six-foot lobster boat. Wood. White hull, blue cabin, red bottom. Red, white, and blue, lady, the country wouldn’t
want to lose a boat like that.”

ROGER THAT, MA’AM. MOW MANY PERSONS ABOARD?

“Two.”

ROGER THAT, MA’AM. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ALL PERSONS ABOARD PUT ON THEIR PERSONAL FLOTATION DEVICES AT THIS TIME
.

“I don’t think we got any,” Ronette says.

There’s a long pause on the radio. Meanwhile, the water’s reached the engine box, the mattress is drifting from side to side
with the sea roll, and there’s a long brown used Magnum rubber from the old days, head up and tail down, swimming after the
mattress like an eel.

Then the voice comes back.
WE’RE GETTING A BOAT UNDER WAY TO THAT POSITION. PLEASE LOCATE AND PREPARE THE EMERGENCY FLOTATION DEVICES, SURVIVAL SUITS,
OR INFLATABLE LIFE RAFT
.

“We ain’t got none of those,” she yells. “We had a life ring but it come off in the blow.”

He’s over his ankles in ice-cold seawater, standing between the engine and Ronette. His boots are full, it feels like they’re
screwed down to the cabin floor. Under the engine cover the block hisses when the water hits it. A cloud of steam bloats out
around the exhaust pipe and the back cylinder misses. He grabs the throttle cable and pulls it harder but it’s no good, crippled
bilge pump’s already maxed out. He lifts the cover off the engine box and gets a faceful of choking steam. The 307’s running
with its oil pan underwater but it’s slowing down fast, and as it slows the pump slows. In a few minutes the water’s over
the carburetor float level and the carb puts out a wheezing little screech like a scared animal as it sucks water and one
by one the cylinders die out. He’s amazed how quick this happens, he’s never watched a motor drown.

Up in the wheelhouse the Coast Guard lady sounds like she’s painting her nails while she talks.
ROGER THAT, MA’AM. AT THIS POINT I WOULD REQUEST YOU TO LOOK AROUND YOUR VESSEL FOR ANYTHING THAT MIGHT SUPPORT A PERSON IN
THE WATER
.

“When are you coming to get us?” Ronette screams.

AUXILIARY SEVEN SEVEN ZERO ONE IS GETTING UNDER WAY, MA’AM. ESTIMATED TIME TO YOUR LOCATION IS TWO HOURS FIFTEEN MINUTES
.

“We’re going to be dead by then. Can’t you get a helicopter?”

OUR NEAREST HELICOPTER IS ON CAPE COD
.

Then a thick yellow spark arcs back of the engine box and the radio hisses out. “Batteries gone,” he says. “No more radio.”

“Least we got the word out.”

“We ain’t going to be here in two hours.”

“You heard her, we got to find something to hang on to.”

“We can try floating the bait barrels.”

“They ain’t got tops to them, Lucky.”

He’s up in the wheelhouse with both boots off emptying them over the rail. Ronette’s clinging to the steering wheel like it’s
a car and she can drive them home. The cuddy’s full of water halfway over the engine box and the big coils of heavyweight
pot warp are loose and sloshing around. Engine must be up to the cylinder heads, power gone, radio dead, loran screen black
as night. The fishfinder found the seabed it had been calling to all its life. Oil-slicked water spreads over the cockpit
floor, as the stern slants downward it’s coming up through the scuppers that are supposed to drain it out. “Going to flood
the live well, them lobsters’ll swim right over the top.”

Ronette shrieks, “Oh Jesus, the cigarettes!” She reaches down behind the gun rack where she keeps hers and looks into the
box to see if they’re wet. She takes two out and lights them both with a Bic lighter in the lee of the wheelhouse window.
The boat’s drifting free now, not attached to anything.

“Might as well have a smoke,” he says, “ain’t going to make no difference now.”

His watch says two-fifteen. The Coast Guard lady said her last roger at one fifty-five. That leaves most of two hours and
the boat’s not going to float for half that time.

“Hope them assholes hurry up,” she says.

No use telling someone what they don’t need to know. “This was a glass boat,” he says, “she’d be on the bottom by now. Engine’s
trying to pull her down, wood buoys her up, same as the fucking gun.”

“And look what happened to that.”

He reaches for the pint of Wild Turkey squeezed in with his stash of Marlboros behind the radar mount. The water on the platform’s
coming over his trawler boots as he pours Ronette’s whiskey into a coffee cup and drinks his own right out of the pint. The
lowset bronze steering wheel of the
Wooden Nickel
is touching the surface with its bottom spoke. The live well’s flooded over and the first lobster has already found its way
over the top, it’s taking an underwater stroll across the cockpit floor.

“The lobsters,” she says. “They’re all coming out.”

“They all got pardoned and they’re going home. But it ain’t going to do them any good, they’ll starve with them fucking claws
pegged.”

“Can’t we take their bands off, Lucky? They ain’t going to survive like that.”

“No chance. It’s four feet deep back there.”

They can’t keep their footing on the flooded platform. They take the pint and the cigarettes and hoist themselves around the
wheel-house to sit on the cabin trunk and watch the rest of the mammoth lobsters paddle over the side of their cage and down
to the flooded cockpit floor. Few more minutes, they’ll be floating right over the washboard and down to the bottom, handcuffed.
The free ones will find them in the thirty-fathom darkness and have a meal.

It’s getting to be a decent afternoon, nice and quiet without the engine or the seawater pump or the fishfinder’s squirrelly
chirps. The big swells of the morning are flattening out from the northerly breeze. A few points off the starboard bow he
spots one of his DayGlo buoys. “Cocksucker missed one,” he says. Then the buoy disappears as the breeze lightens and the ocean
fog bank creeps back over his offshore ledge.