Dead in the Water

by Nancy Holder

  Good men didn’t leave in the first place. And Glenn was the best, the very best there was.

  “Ah, the woman,” Ramón said huskily. He brushed his fingertips against Donna’s forearm. “Señorita? Are you watching?” Though she kept her face impassive, she wanted to chuckle at his pseudo-intensity. Far be it from her to wound his male ego, but with this action, he’d now hit on every woman aboard. Ruth had been first, flattered but taking him no more seriously than Donna did now. She’d treated him kindly, like a wayward child. But Elise van Buren-Al-phabitch had practically taken his head off. Dumb-dumb should’ve known he was circling a shark when he’d moved in on her.

  So now it was Donna’s turn, and she waited for the rest of his routine to purr forth, as if she were watching a stand-up comedian.

  “Are you? Watching?” he murmured into her ear. His hot breath made her lobe tingle. What the hell. She was single.

  Alone.

  “Yes, yes, I’m waiting for your flash.” Big guy; how he puffed up at that. Christ, sometimes men were awful simple.

  There was some commotion on Donna’s right, closer amidships, where Phil and Elise had been sitting on deck chairs, reading their books and not speaking. Donna had no idea how Phil had finessed the situation, but the couple had stayed aboard the Morris. During the hour Donna and the others had chatted and watched the ocean, she’d also watched Phil. Now and then he leaned toward his wife, as if watching for a chance to engage her. Steadfastly she kept her gaze on the pages. The love on his face, and the yearning, struck a chord; Donna prayed she’d never looked at Glenn that way, especially not in public.

  “I’m going inside,” Elise announced, slamming shut her book. She swung her legs onto the deck and rose in a graceful motion. She was tall and lithe; as Carlos in vice would say, “Bien preservada.”

  Phil opened his mouth—probably to ask permission to come with her; c’mon, man, don’t be such a weenie—but shut it at the last minute and stayed where he was. Looking sad. Donna thought about inviting him to join them but shit, he was a big boy, and if he wanted to come over, he would.

  “So you were saying?” she said abruptly. Everyone stopped talking and looked at her.

  She shrugged. “Sorry. I was drifting there.”

  “Easy to do,” Ramón offered gallantly. Please, dude, maintain, she thought. As far as she was concerned, a little Latin lovejive went a long way.

  No one spoke, and Donna never did find out what topic they’d shifted to after the poem. Now they stood in a line, studying the horizon. Mr. Saar had sent everyone out to see the fabled green flash, when the ocean lit up with phosphorescence at the precise moment of twilight.

  After a time, the ocean punctured the sun and syrupy crimson oozed onto the water. Triangles sloshed in prisms of acid-green, turquoise, orange, deep purple—tropical cocktails garnished with slices of crystal whitewater. Donna thought about having a beer.

  The group stood at the stern, gazes obediently trained on the horizon, while beneath them the wake luffed and gurgled and a fine spray misted their faces. A distance away, Kevin, a young, hairy surfer who was working in the galley in exchange for a lower fare, muttered at a crew member and glanced nervously at Donna. Drug deal, maybe, but probably for something benign like a lid of marijuana; Kevin wasn’t the type for hard stuff. Everyone aboard knew she was a cop, and the guilty were prancing around like ballerinas.

  The sun melted into a semicircle.

  “Okay, it should happen any second,” Ramón announced. The onlookers held their breath. Donna sighted down his outstretched finger and squinted.

  “There!” he shouted, jabbing the air. “There! Do you see it?”

  “Oh!” Ruth cried. She laid her forefingers on either side of her chin. “Yes! It’s beautiful!” She smiled at Donna and John.

  The doctor cocked his head. “I think I did.” He laughed. “What was it supposed to look like?”

  “A thin green line,” Ramón told him, gesturing with his hands. “Glowing, like.”

  “Mmm.” John lifted his chin and considered.

  “Yeah!” Kevin called from his place. He waved at Ramón.

  Ramón touched the back of Donna’s hand. “You saw it?”

  “No.” Donna lifted her shoulders, shook her head, dropped her arms to her sides. “I guess I missed the magic moment.”

  Ramón’s brows knitted as he pointed out to sea. “But it was there.”

  “I saw it,” Ruth repeated. John was still craning his neck. One for sure, one uncertain.

  Donna made a peace sign and pointed it at her eyes. “Not for these. Sorry.”

  Without missing a beat, he took her hand and held it. “There is always tomorrow, as you say. Three more nights.”

  Smoothly, she snaked herself out of his grip. “Now that’s something to look forward to.”

  “Where’s Matt?” John asked abruptly, looking toward the van Burens’ abandoned chairs. “I thought he was over there.”

  “I saw him go off with Cha-cha a while ago,” Donna said.

  He pursed his lips. “Damn it,” he said, and took off.

  As he brushed past her, she wanted to give him a pat, tell him not to be so smothering, that his son was fine. Hell, he was nine years old. But she had a feeling he knew better than she that Matt wasn’t fine, and wasn’t likely to ever be.

  He jogged away, unsteady on the deck. Watching him, Ruth clicked her teeth and shook her head in sympathy. Donna knew what she was thinking: Though it was Matt who was ill, it was his father who seemed more needy. It must be terrible to contemplate losing your child.

  To lose one …

  … spinning in a slow circle …

  “Hey, Matt!” John cried in the distance. “Matty! Where are you?”

  “I think I’ll go get my sweater,” Ruth said to Donna. She seemed jumpy. “It’s a bit breezy, don’t you think?”

  Donna nodded absently. Kevin and the crewman were scattering like ducks on a pond. “I think I’ll stay here.”

  Ramón remained beside her. She and Ruth passed a glance and the old lady covered her smile as she turned.

  Kevin ambled over, moving on tanned, scarred legs with knobby knees. Ah ha, the innocent expression of the naughty boy. She waited while he approached her.

  “Hiya,” he said. He nodded in Ramón’s direction. “Hi, dude.”

  “Buenas noches,” Ramón replied. “Did you see the flash?”

  Kevin pulled a happy face. “Yeah. It was cool.”

  “Sí.” The first officer paused, glanced at Donna, cleared his throat. “Well, I have to get back to work. I have the watch tonight,” he told her. “Would you like to come up and see the bridge?”

  Ho ho, said the spider to the fly. “If I’m still awake,” she replied. “Sea air always knocks me out.”

  “Take the companionway on the other side of the ship’s office,” he told her. Then he grinned and pointed. “Or you can use the catwalk.” He pointed to a ribbon of metal that switchbacked all the way to the top of the superstructure. It reminded Donna of a roller-coaster track.

  She made a face. “No elevator?”

  He laughed. “Not on the Morris. On newer ships, yes.” He touched his hat. “Hasta luego.”

  “Okay.” She waved at him in parting, giving her attention to Kevin.

  “What’s up?”

  Furtively, he looked back over his shoulder as if to satisfy himself that Ramón was out of earshot. “It’s that Cha-cha dude,” he said under his breath. “Man, I’m really worried about him.”

  She rested her back against the rail. “Oh?”

  He raked his sun-streaked hair with both hands. It fell long and unruly over shoulders riddled with freckles. His bare chest was muscular, his pants low-riding his hips the way surfers’ pants did. A pang jabbed her; must be nice, the endless summer of youth; riding the curls and smoking some weed. Worst problem you have is that the rent’s due.

  “That dude is certifiable, man. I mean, no shit. He’s b
een in a VA hospital. You know what? He talks to King Neptune. He says the king is going to tell him to sink the Morris someday.”

  Startled, Donna pulled in her chin and raised her eyebrows. “Say again?”

  Kevin stuffed his hands into his pockets. He slouched into a classic S-curve and shuffled his feet. He wore thongs; his toenails were dirty. “That’s what he told me today. I was peeling potatoes when you guys were in the dining room—the galley’s on the other side of that door he opened, and I could hear you talking about the bottle on the wall. When he came back in, he told me King Neptune had loved the captain’s son so much he took him. Then he said that the king loved everybody on board the Morris, except he hated the Morris itself ’cuz it was in Viet Nam, like, ferrying ammo up the Delta, and he couldn’t bring himself to let it—I mean her, he calls the boat a her—to let her down into his kingdom.” He pulled out a cigarette and said, “Got a match?”

  “Sorry.” Donna frowned. “Does the captain know about this?”

  Kevin was distracted, searching through his pocket for a match. Donna noted the tip of a hand-rolled joint in the wadding of the pocket lining. Sensing her eyes on him, he peered through his lashes and said, “Huh? Oh, oh, yeah. I freaked. I went and told Mr. Saar. He just laughed. He says Cha-cha’s been going on like that for years. No one listens to him anymore.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Cha-cha also said the Morris might sink all by itself someday, because it’s got too many souls on board. Like, war dead.” Kevin rocked back on his heels. “That old dude is way scary, Officer Almond.”

  “Okay,” she said authoritatively, since that was what he seemed to want from her. She could also tell he’d a nodding acquaintance with cops before: his deferential posture, the careful way he called her “Officer Almond.” Drugs, probably. Ditching school. He seemed pretty harmless. Surfing and worrying about the rent. Shit. “I’ll check into it.”

  He relaxed visibly. “Thanks.”

  She crossed her arms and gazed up at him with a steely cop gaze. “But just in case something strange does go down, don’t you think it might be a good idea to be straight when it happens?”

  More feigned innocence. He opened his eyes very wide. She pointed to his pocket.

  “I don’t really care if you do it,” she said, “but frankly, I’m not real thrilled about the crew doing it. Tell them I have a nose like a bloodhound. And tell them I already know there’s lots of drugs going down on this boat, but I’ll be reasonable if they stop right now.”

  Kevin had the good sense to blush. He flashed a guilty grin at her and dangled the cigarette between his lips. “No prob.”

  “And if I catch anyone doing anything around that little kid, I’ll personally throw them overboard.”

  The cigarette clung to his lower lip as his mouth dropped open. She left him at the rail, satisfied that she’d gotten through to him, and looked out at the sea.

  Water, water everywhere. And she was sailing with the Ancient Maniac.

  Great.

  Below, on the main deck, the containers made eerie sounds in the wind, low moans, crescendos of scraping metal and vibrations that seemed to alternate in an elusive rhythm as John searched among them for Matt. As if they were talking to each other: Let’s make the break tonight.

  “Matt!” John shouted, but the cacophony drowned him out.

  Goddamn it, he thought. His heart beat hard and his ulcer stung him. He ran a hand through his hair and took a step forward, slamming painfully into the corner of a container.

  He kept going, threading his way toward the bow. And then he heard voices, and relief flooded over him with the satisfying sensation of a good jolt of coffee in the morning, or a nice long pee after you’ve been holding it through surgery.

  “And then there’s your starfish,” the old guy was saying.

  John came around the corner as Cha-cha took a bite of a candy bar and held it out to the boy with his grimy fingers.

  “Matt!” John stumbled into the corner of one of the containers and grabbed his shin.

  “Hi, Dad,” Matt said happily, calmly. Not a clue that his old man had been burning with fear over him.

  He and Cha-cha were sitting on oil barrels stenciled with the words “DANGER. CORROSIVE. KEEP DRY AND COOL.” Salt spray misted them; alarmed, John took his wrist and said, “Get off of that, honey.”

  Cha-cha waved his hand. “It’s okay, doctor man. Every trip, these barrels come out and sit here. At the end of the voyage, they disappear. Been going on that way for five, six years.”

  “Nevertheless,” John said. Christ, Cha-cha looked the way he used to, bandanna, embroidery, peace and love. He felt stuffy in his Dockers and sneakers. He and Gretchen used to laugh about becoming bourgeois. Now here he was.

  Was that why she’d left him and Matt?

  “Listen, Dad.” Matt sighed and slid off the barrel as John gestured for him to do so. “The starfish have this stomach that sticks out of their faces and it digests its prey with stomach acid because its stomach is inside out! Isn’t that cool?”

  “Butterfinger, doctor man?” Cha-cha asked, indicating that Matt should share with his father.

  “No, thank you.” Stuffy, stuffy. “On second thought, thanks.” He took a bite and handed it to Cha-cha. He had a brief flash of the two of them passing a joint.

  “And there’s these, what do you call them?” Matt’s eyes shone as he spoke to the old man. “Lumps?”

  “Limpets.” Cha-cha cleaned the chocolate off his jagged front teeth—practically the only ones he had—with sucking noises.

  “Yeah, they shi—poop—all over oyster beds and the oysters suffocate in it.”

  “That’s right,” Cha-cha said. He cleaned under his thumbnail with his front teeth, sucked in. “Kee-rect, love baby.”

  “Really.” John took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt, pausing because he didn’t know what else to say. This was the kind of thing little boys loved to hear about, but why did it sound like something he should forbid Matt to discuss? Hell, he was getting to be a pompous ass, wasn’t he.

  Behind them, the boxcar containers rose like patchwork castle walls, yellow, red, metallic, Rust-Oleum. The superstructure loomed above them. The running lights blinked on, Christmas red, Christmas green, sparkling against the dark sky. John thought of the blinking light atop the hospital back in San Francisco. He’d made the mistake of telling Matt it was to warn any low-flying aircraft; that night, the nurse had found Matt cowering underneath his covers, certain a 727 would come crashing through the window at any moment. What to tell a child? What not to?

  You were dying, but now you’re not, but you might get sick again?

  That your mother really loves you even though she split on you?

  “The sea is not a nice place, love baby,” Cha-cha observed, breaking John’s mental tape. He spit a wad of tobacco into an empty Coke can. “Captain don’t allow the crew no alcohol,” he said. “Everyone drinks anyway, just not in public. Why, they pitch their cans in the sea, too. I wouldn’t desecrate the sea in any way, no way, José. King would have my hide.” He whipped his head to the right. “Wouldn’t you, Your Highness?”

  John started. Matty jerked on his fingers and muttered, “He talks to King Neptune.” Stifled a giggle.

  “Ah. Nope.” Cha-cha looked at John and said, “The king wanted to know if Matt’s the cabin boy.” He pivoted back to face the bow. “No, sir, this here’s my love brother. He’s going to Hawaiah with his old man.”

  “Um, Matt, I think we’d better go in now. It’s getting dark.” Firmly he took Matt’s hand and stepped away from the withered old cook. The withered old crazy cook.

  “Okay.” Matt started walking without a word. Then he stopped at the end of the leash that was his father’s reach and said, “Thanks for the Butterfinger.”

  “Hey, be cool, baby. Peace and love.” Cha-cha flashed a peace sign.

  Father and son entered the maze of containers. Matt bobbed along a
s if there were springs on the bottoms of his shoes.

  “The sea sounds really great,” he said.

  “Mmm.”

  “I think Cha-cha’s totally cool. I want to learn how to spit tobacco.”

  “No way.” John rattled Matt’s hand.

  Matt tittered like a girl, obviously pleased to have him on. “He looks like Willie Nelson, huh. He knows so much cool stuff.”

  “I’m not sure you should bother him,” John said slowly, navigating through tricky water. Jesus H. Christ, the guy was nuts. A sweat of chill heat shook John. Nuts, and he’d left Matty alone with him. God, that bastard could’ve done anything to him. Anything. What kind of shitty father was he, anyway?

  The kind that let his baby get sick.

  “Do you know about lampreys?” Matty queried.

  “I love you.” John bent down. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Matt screwed up his face. “Don’t go weird on me.”

  John sighed. He wanted to tell his kid he loved him, and that made him weird. Cha-cha talked to the king of the sea, and he was totally cool.

  A long time, buckwheat, since the Summer of Love.

  They walked along. John read the shipping labels as they went: Kavco, Alawai, Smith & Barnett. Matson. Matson. Matson. What was in them? He made a fist and rapped one gently. Solid and thick. You would be history if one of these things fell on you.

  The ship tilted. Matt stumbled against a container, then into him. The ship rolled the opposite way, and John slammed into the container behind him.

  “Whoa.” He held Matt’s shoulders and waited for the ship to stop rocking. A metallic cold seeped into his clothes as the night came on. It was getting dark; a breeze off the water ruffled his hair and added a layer of sheen to his cold sweat. He smelled the ocean and the ship, redolent of the odors of a gas station.

  John rubbed his arm with his right hand and shivered hard. The breeze strengthened, whistling among the posts and towers that blinked above them. Wires thrummed; a gust of spray billowed above the rectangular landscape. The sky directly above them grew darker, as if a shadow had crossed it—he found himself thinking of a massive spiderweb, stretched from one side of the vessel to the other—and an unsettling sense of pressure bore down on the crown of his head.