The Forty Fathom Bank and Other Stories by Les Galloway Page B

unfounded suspicions that had begun with my first relationship with May and that had culminated in the lethal envy of those malevolent night dreams of mine.
    Yet this shocking recognition, this beholding of myself stripped naked and defenseless, instead of destroying me as it could well have done, or driving me deeper into even more secure defenses, was like a resurrection or a new birth into a world devoid of evil.
    The yellow flames in the kerosene lamps had begun to pale. Imperceptibly the black shadows on the painted bulkheads faded into the amorphous shades of dawn. The long night vanished, and in the cool morning light all my confusion and guilt, my deadly dreams and hallucinations seemed to vanish with it. I felt suddenly free, and, I believe for the second time in my life, buoyant. From above I could hear the scratchy sound of a bait box being dragged across the deck and then the familiar, sweeping cry of gulls, no doubt circling and swooping over the stern.
    As I stubbed out the cigarette that had burned, unsmoked, almost to my fingertips, I thought of my share of the sharks and the unbelievable fifty-five hundred dollars. The upsurge of pure joy was almost more than I could bear. I went into the galley, scrubbed my hands with scouring powder and brown soap, then gathered up the dishes and washed them quickly. Filled with a marvelous new energy I hurried up on deck concerned now as to how May might have reacted to my strange behavior.
    As I’d expected, he was sitting on the hatch, busy with his baiting. His skull cap, cocked jauntily to one side, gave his face a kind of carefree, almost cavalier air that was made even more pronounced by the shadow of a beard.Only the tassel, which by now had acquired a personality of its own, hung limp on its string like a little dead puppet.
    By the tubs which were already baited, I knew I must have been sitting at the table for more than half an hour. Considering the phenomenally high value of the catch aboard, the lonely anchorage and the still lonelier sea on which we’d soon be fishing, most anyone, and especially May with his acute perception, would have found my prolonged and sullen withdrawal at breakfast, at the very least, suspicious and been on guard. But in the quiet smile that greeted me as I stepped out on deck, I could sense no fear whatever. Not even a slight uncertainty. He seemed pleased to see me. And in his thoughtful green eyes, darker now in the early light, I thought I detected a kind of affectionate concern and understanding which later, oddly enough, I chose to interpret as forgiveness.
    Yet whether I was again projecting my own special needs into an omnipotent personality I could well have created myself, or whether May, in truth, was all my panicked conscience had revealed him to be, I have never been quite sure. One way or the other, it didn’t matter. The last obstacle to my new found joy seemed to have vanished as completely as had my agonizing night thoughts when dawn came. And, for the moment, I thought no more about it. As I went below to start the engine, the tormenting question of how many fish we’d catch or who would make the profit seemed suddenly of no importance. All I could wish for I seemed already to have.

9

    I had always taken pride in my ability to get the engine started. But that morning I had trouble. I pulled on the heavy flywheel until my arms were numb. I could not get a single cough out of it. I removed the igniters and cleaned the points with a file, primed the cylinders with raw gas, blew out the fuel line, checked the carburetor, cleaned the sediment bowl and pulled again. But in the pig-headed way old engines have of demonstrating their independence, and always when they’re most needed, the fool thing remained as inert as though it were a solid block of iron.
    Finally, sweating and exhausted before the day had even begun, I went back on deck. The sun was up and the air kind of muggy. A white haze covered