publication from the Federation of Concerned Economists, a bill from American Express, a catalogue from the Vermont Country Store, and a bank statement. Also, I talked to Irv. There's a thirty-one-foot Rawson made in Panama City, Florida, moored over at B-Eighty. Apple-pie shape. They went out of business a few years ago because they made them too good. GE diesels, air, recording fathometer. The old couple that lived aboard, he went into the hospital in March, and then into a nursing home, and he died last week, and she is looking to sell privately before she puts it in the hands of a broker. She wants thirty days to move out and go back to South Dakota. She's talking fifty-eight five. Walter says you'll get thirty-nine or forty out of the insurance."
"I don't want to think about it yet."
"It's a good price and a roomy hull."
"When I do get another boat, I'll have to think of a name. I couldn't call it the same thing."
"Well… stay in touch."
So I walked over to B-80 and met the old lady from South Dakota. She showed me the boat. She was proud of it. She said she knew one of them would have to die, sooner or later, and they had each hoped it would be themself instead of the other one. "But George won, I guess," she said. "Tell your friend how nice it is, how nice we kept it."
Six
WHEN I got the mail on Wednesday, there was a buff envelope with Brandy Davis and her address embossed on the flap. It was heavy stock, with a bright yellow tissue lining, and the two prints were inside, with no note or comment.
I glanced at the two prints just long enough to see the transom and the name and the stubby vessel tilting under a lead-colored sky, white crests rolling on a dishwater sea.
When I was back aboard the Flush I looked at them more carefully in bright sunlight. The first print showed the Keynes at fifty or sixty feet, going away, and the second at about a hundred feet. Assuming an average six knots on each vessel, they were diverging at about fifteen miles an hour, or a little better than twenty feet per second. So about ten seconds after the second picture was taken, the three people were blown to bits: the tall slender woman with the brand-new tan and the vivid orange string bikini, standing at the starboard side near the rail, one hand braced against the bulkhead, waving arid smiling, teeth white, black hair snapping in the wind; the burly figure of Hacksaw Jenkins at the sheltered wheel, in silhouette against the sea beyond the windshield, Greek captain's hat on the back of his head; and Evan Lawrence, bent over so far in the cockpit, working on a line, that in the first picture only his back and denimed rump showed, then caught in the second picture beginning to straighten up, beginning to turn.
I accepted it as Evan Lawrence, the man with whom I had broken bread, drunk wine, told the tales. And suddenly it was not Evan Lawrence. In the act of starting to straighten up, starting to turn, it became a different person, younger, not as broad, with skin that took a better tan, hair longer, tangled, sun-streaked. Once it became someone else, I could not by any exercise of imagination or will turn it back into Evan Lawrence. But it did turn into somebody I knew from somewhere. I looked at the line of the brow, and the slant of the jaw as seen from the back, from off to the left side. The print was sharp. There was a glint of something on the left wrist, a watch or a bracelet. I found the magnifying glass in the drawer, but I couldn't make it out. I looked at the hand, then, and I could make out something very specific. The pinky and the ring finger of that left hand were stubs little better than a half finger long.
And then I knew who it was. Along Charterboat Row he was known universally as Pogo, God only knows why. Maybe because he was as cheerful as that immortal possum. Meyer had once pointed him out to me as an example of the perfectly happy fellow. He had a functioning IQ, Meyer guessed, of seventy-five. He
"I don't want to think about it yet."
"It's a good price and a roomy hull."
"When I do get another boat, I'll have to think of a name. I couldn't call it the same thing."
"Well… stay in touch."
So I walked over to B-80 and met the old lady from South Dakota. She showed me the boat. She was proud of it. She said she knew one of them would have to die, sooner or later, and they had each hoped it would be themself instead of the other one. "But George won, I guess," she said. "Tell your friend how nice it is, how nice we kept it."
Six
WHEN I got the mail on Wednesday, there was a buff envelope with Brandy Davis and her address embossed on the flap. It was heavy stock, with a bright yellow tissue lining, and the two prints were inside, with no note or comment.
I glanced at the two prints just long enough to see the transom and the name and the stubby vessel tilting under a lead-colored sky, white crests rolling on a dishwater sea.
When I was back aboard the Flush I looked at them more carefully in bright sunlight. The first print showed the Keynes at fifty or sixty feet, going away, and the second at about a hundred feet. Assuming an average six knots on each vessel, they were diverging at about fifteen miles an hour, or a little better than twenty feet per second. So about ten seconds after the second picture was taken, the three people were blown to bits: the tall slender woman with the brand-new tan and the vivid orange string bikini, standing at the starboard side near the rail, one hand braced against the bulkhead, waving arid smiling, teeth white, black hair snapping in the wind; the burly figure of Hacksaw Jenkins at the sheltered wheel, in silhouette against the sea beyond the windshield, Greek captain's hat on the back of his head; and Evan Lawrence, bent over so far in the cockpit, working on a line, that in the first picture only his back and denimed rump showed, then caught in the second picture beginning to straighten up, beginning to turn.
I accepted it as Evan Lawrence, the man with whom I had broken bread, drunk wine, told the tales. And suddenly it was not Evan Lawrence. In the act of starting to straighten up, starting to turn, it became a different person, younger, not as broad, with skin that took a better tan, hair longer, tangled, sun-streaked. Once it became someone else, I could not by any exercise of imagination or will turn it back into Evan Lawrence. But it did turn into somebody I knew from somewhere. I looked at the line of the brow, and the slant of the jaw as seen from the back, from off to the left side. The print was sharp. There was a glint of something on the left wrist, a watch or a bracelet. I found the magnifying glass in the drawer, but I couldn't make it out. I looked at the hand, then, and I could make out something very specific. The pinky and the ring finger of that left hand were stubs little better than a half finger long.
And then I knew who it was. Along Charterboat Row he was known universally as Pogo, God only knows why. Maybe because he was as cheerful as that immortal possum. Meyer had once pointed him out to me as an example of the perfectly happy fellow. He had a functioning IQ, Meyer guessed, of seventy-five. He
Similar Books
