by Boyd Craven
“How about you cook, and I’ll give you a taste?” I said holding up the empty.
“…hats, shitting… now… get my own… dammit!” Irish muttered under his breath as he swung into the boat.
Chapter Nineteen
Time flew as Irish John and I prepped the boatyard for the tropical storm. Carly and her parents had come out to help. I got plywood over the glass windows and, using the tractor, moved three pallets of sandbags out of a corner, something Franklin had used once and probably set aside for the next time things really looked dire. Leaving the tractor in the barn, we stacked the sandbags in a semicircle in front of the overhead door. The news had predicted the blow to start in two days from now, later than the FWC agents had thought, but folks trust news anchors as much as they would trust a politician. So, we hustled. The last thing I did before Carly and her parents left was to hug everyone.
“Call me,” Carly said, giving me a kiss.
“You worried?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. My parents are going up through Georgia just in case. I’m going to stay at my place. It’s on higher ground. They say this is just a tropical storm and if there’s any storm surge, it’s going to be minimal. I think you’re more worried than anybody else is.”
“I think Irish John is more worried than I am,” I admitted.
“If you get into trouble, just let me know.”
“Honestly, Carly,” I said, not meeting her gaze, “Irish John and I were talking about heading up the coast, going more toward Alabama and Louisiana. You could join us if you want?”
“Wait, you’re taking the boat, aren’t you?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I’d love to but…” she looked at me, touching my cheek, “I have to stick close to the store. I’m going to keep it open until the last minute.”
“Do you need a hand getting the storm shutters on?” I asked her, suddenly feeling guilty knowing everybody had spent time helping Irish John and I get the boatyard ready, hauling his boat out and storing the motor inside the barn.
“No silly,” she said smiling, “my roll down anti burglar curtains double as storm shutters. I just lock up and I’m all set.”
“But don’t you need to nail plywood—”
“No,” she said, stopping my words with a kiss. “When are you leaving?” she asked, nodding to the boat.
“I’m getting supplies tonight, gassing up in the morning and then heading out.”
“Ok… I… be safe,” she said, kissing me one more time. “And call me!”
“If I have signal. Irish John snagged a ton of parts from the barn and has been tinkering with the electronics the last couple of nights. I hope he has some sort of way to boost cell phone signal. I know for a while I’ll be out of range while we do some tuna fishing.”
“You’ll always be looking at ways of keeping gas in that thing. Ok, I’m really going this time.”
“Ok. Carly, I… er… you be safe too.”
I ended up parking the panel van in front of the gated doors and hung the keys on a nail by the roll up door with a note taped to the inner window. Basically, it was giving my name and phone number. I didn’t think Carly, her parents or Franklin would be needing to be in here, but if they did, they could move the van without me if needed. Then I headed to the boat.
“You give dis baby a good tune up?” Irish John asked, deep in the engine compartment.
“Yeah, while you were working on the dash,” I told him. “It wasn’t in bad shape, just needed a few parts. I got spares from the scrap pile inside in case something doesn’t work.”
“Good ‘tings, Tony. Better to have it and never need it, ‘dan be needing it and not having it,” he said. “Hand me flathead screwdriver.”
I dug through my tool bag and found one, handing it to him.
“What are you doing anyway?” I asked him.
“Irish John found parts in wrecked sailboat one time and gave ‘dem to Franklin. Not have everything needed, but found a pump in scrap pile. We’ll see if this works soon enough.”
“But… what is it?” I asked him, barely able to make out his dark skin in the even darker engine compartment.
“Tapped into inlet through hole for sea water. Goes through small booster pump. ‘Den four chambers. One empty, den three filters before it hits big pump,” he patted something in the darkness, “and ‘den ‘da big pump pushes water through these two membranes. Water that can’t go, goes through ‘da exhaust water discharge through hole, and good water comes out drinking.”
“Wait, what?” I asked him.
“Fancy term for water maker. Irish John just gave Tony all ‘da fresh water he’d ever want, as long as motor has fuel to run, or you find a way to power ‘dese 12v pumps with either generator or solar.”
“A water maker?” I asked him, surprised. “That… I was really wondering how much we should take for this trip. As it is, I think we’re going to have to get a few hundred gallons of diesel.”
“At least,” Irish John said. “Now, shut your face so I can finish work, I’m wiring in float switch.”
“Float switch?” I asked him. “For the water tank?”
“You really are big dummy asshole,” he grunted, then popped out of the hole. “Irish John is going to wash hands. You get us unhooked and let’s go to town. If we hurry, maybe docks still open.”
“Sure thing Captain!” I said jokingly.
“Irish John not the captain, you are. Your boat, and I’m just here, a poor islander, all alone in the world. Destitute, nowhere to go. My hat between my hands, begging—”
“Oh, cut it out.” I had to chuckle, he was hamming it up, his facial expressions priceless.
“Good. If we can fuel, Irish John will do supply shopping. I know ‘jest where ta go.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I unhooked us and fired up the diesel. It roared to life after a couple of tries, and I closed the doghouse cover up and slid the big white coolers out of the way. The boat drifted sideways enough that it was right where I hoped it would be when I put it into reverse and turned it into the river to head out to the market. Everything seemed to be going smoothly and for laughs and giggles, I turned on the GPS. Irish John had already marked our home waypoint. We had a vague idea of heading west and then north until we were within a few miles of land. Once out on the water, we would make a plan and head out.
Tuna fishing wasn’t just an excuse to get out of town though, Irish John was worried about this storm, which didn’t look like it was going to spin out of control, but this was also an opportunity to do a shakedown run of the boat. If something happened, we wouldn’t be too far offshore to call for help. I had gone through the engine, done maintenance and checked all the through the hull lines to make sure we had no leaks, and the bilge pump would turn on automatically or by manual switch. I ran my finger over the instrument panel. Irish John had labeled underneath the switches with permanent marker and I saw a new digital gauge. Fresh water. I piloted the boat slowly upriver, watching the number climb.
Boat traffic was almost nonexistent before the storm, but the light was on at the marina.
“Tis a good night to be on the water,” Irish John said from behind me.
“It’s always a good day or night when you’re on the water,” I told him.
“Hey Tony, is that you?” a voice called from the fuel dock I was maneuvering to.
“Yeah, me and Irish John,” I called back as a couple of the marina’s dock workers stood up.
“When did you go and get yourself a new boat?” one called. “I thought it was Franklin’s at first, but his is docked over there.” He pointed.
“Long story. Got time to fill me up?” I asked as Irish John threw them lines and I cut the motors, drifting the rest of the way.
“The boss likes money, so it looks like we have the time. You need ice too?” he asked, looking at the coolers.
“Yeah, one with shaved, two with blocks,” I said, making su
re the motors were idling smoothly.
“Sure thing,” the second guy said.
“Tony, need some money for supplies,” Irish John said.
I pulled out a wad of bills. Our payday for the Kings had been really decent. Decent enough that I had set seven hundred dollars aside for Irish John, half our payday. I handed him a thousand.
“‘Dis is too much for what I want to buy,” he said, peeling a hundred off and tried handing me back the wad.
“No Irish, I… Listen, you haven’t asked for any pay and you haven’t taken any when I tried to offer it to you before. I couldn’t be doing this without you, your help, your teaching. This won’t make me broke.”
“No Tony,” he said, peeling one more hundred note out of the wad and handed it to me, “You hold ‘dis. Irish John might buy something damn foolish if he has too much money on him. I don’t need much.”
“You two headed out for a long trip?” The deck hand asked us.
“Few days. Going for Bluefin,” Irish John said, “but this big dummy asshole has no groceries. Irish John figures he can get enough food to let us survive in case he’s as bad a fisherman as he is ugly.”
“I… you…” I sputtered as he hopped off the boat and onto the dock and cackled as he took off.
“Wait, isn’t he supposed to have on shirt and shoes?” I asked the dock hands as he ran up the steps.
“Most shops around here are used to him. Comes in a couple times a year to load up on supplies. Everybody thinks he’s got a screw loose, so nobody wants to tell him the no shoes no shirt requirement.”
“I get that. Because he’ll make you take off your hat…”
“and shit in it,” they both chorused and then we all busted up laughing.
“Here’s the fuel port,” I said, but they were already doing their job like a well-oiled refueling machine.
“Got it. You want it full, or is there a dollar figure you want us to cut it off at?” The worker, Mark, asked.
“I’ve got six hundred set aside for fuel for this trip,” I said, feeling faint at admitting that. “If it looks like we’re going to go over, let me know.”
“Ok.”
The other guy took the coolers on a dolly to the ice filling station and worked on those while I watched gauges on the boat. Everything was running smoothly. The engine temps idling in the brackish water were fine, something I hadn’t been sure of. The freshwater number kept ticking upwards so that was working. I hadn’t thought to ask Irish John how much this held, or how much our blackwater tanks held.
“How much freshwater do boats this size generally hold?” I asked Mark.
“Couple hundred gallons. You need a top off?” he asked.
“No, I got a water maker running on this thing. I’ve got a few gallons for sure in case Irish John’s parts don’t work out.”
“He installed it?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, he had some spare parts and got it together. I haven’t tested the water out. Now I’m kind of worried. Should I be?” I asked.
“No, if Irish John installed it, it’s probably fine. He might be crazy, but he knows his boats.”
“I figured he knew some things, heck he rewired my panel here for me and worked on the radios.”
“Not just electronics, he could probably tear apart that motor and put it back together in half the time some of the boat jockeys’ mechanics can on those cigarette boats.”
“What?” I asked, surprised.
“That’s how he came to stay in Crystal River. He used to work for Franklin at his boatyard. Once Franklin figured out he could fish, and knew what he was doing, he switched his jobs up.”
“When did he quit working for Franklin?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe eight to ten years ago? Moved to that little island a long while back before then my dad told me. He just quit coming to the mainland. I’m kind of surprised to see him on a commercial boat at all lately. He’s been deep in the business with you for a bit now.”
“Yeah, he has been. I honestly didn’t know he knew how to wrench…” my thoughts went back to the day he’d wanted me to come fix THIS boat and get it away from his island.
Had that been a setup? Had he seen an opportunity and nudged me in this direction? I didn’t share the dock hand’s opinion. I didn’t think Irish John was crazy; crafty maybe, and a bit eccentric. Not crazy. I thought that was mostly a persona he put on so people would leave him alone. I caught him at times dropping the act entirely when it was the two of us alone on the island or fishing.
“Yeah, he’s something else. It is good to see him opening up though. That man has a lot of knowledge. He’s taught half of us around here about the sea, about fishing…”
“How long has he been in Crystal River?” I asked.
“I honestly don’t know. My dad said he was around when he was getting out of college.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked him, surprised because he was about my age, so his dad had to be older.
“Oh, thirty years ago?”
“I didn’t think Irish John was that old,” I admitted.
“He’s timeless,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re his buddy, how come you don’t know this already?”
“Sometimes… I mean… I don’t want to push him. I think being around people irritates him and I don’t talk much. It’s probably easier for him to be friends with me because I don’t push him too much.”
The boat was fueled, and coolers filled with ice long before Irish John returned. He was pushing a shopping cart from one of the local stores a few blocks away. It was overflowing. There was no way he was getting the cart down the stairs to the docks, so I went up to meet him.
“Good. You not sleeping. You know you supposed to wear shoes and shirt at grocery store?”
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
Chapter Twenty
Irish had asked to borrow my phone while I motored the boat out to sea. I tried to ignore his conversation, but it sounded like Miss Josephine’s voice on the other end. He assured her that he wasn’t staying on the island and that he was taking me fishing in the gulf, far from where the storm was going to be. Then he went on to describe all the food he’d bought, because he had no faith in my fishing. Fifty pounds of rice, twenty pounds of beans. Lard, coffee, canned goods, oils, breading, seasonings and a million other things - including a few frozen blocks of chum. Then he assured her that he would check in on her in a few days, because we were going out offshore where there wouldn’t be a signal.
That had been two days ago, and although Irish John might have been pulling her chain on my fishing abilities, we had been catching fish. A few of the rods in the hold were tuna rigs, and between what had been abandoned with the boat and all of my fishing gear, Irish John had two of the rigs going all the time while I used a smaller rod to troll a lure on the surface. We had had good luck with the blackfin tuna the first morning after we’d left, getting close to filling one cooler. We’d gone near shore several times to cast for bait, or the shallows when we found them. Having a fish finder, a real one, turned out to be indispensable.
Our meals had been simple but amazing. Irish John would soak the beans the night before, dump the water the next morning and refill it before boiling them. Beans, rice, blackfin tuna and a mixture of seasonings and hot sauce completed everything. I’d asked Irish John if he knew how to make sushi rolls, and he had just laughed at me. We would sleep in shifts, so somebody was always awake to watch the rods, the radar, sonar and, in general, the boat. Irish John was teaching me how to read the maps. They seemed intuitive, but then he went into detail about how the depths and currents on the maps could help him predict where the fish were.
It was the most amazing and instructive two days I could remember. Today though, was when the storm was hitting. We were in the gulf, somewhere south of Mississippi. We had to dodge and weave through the commercial fishing traffic and shipping. It was something my boat seemed at ease to do.
“You know boy, your boat needs a new name,” Irish John said while we both listened to the weather report.
“It’s already got one,” I said, remembering the painted name ‘Water Bug’ on the back of it.
“Not the name you give it. New captain, boat needs new name. How it goes.”
I was about to reply when one of the downriggers started screaming.
“Fish on,” Irish John said ironically.
Nearly three hours later, almost lunch time, we were racing east. The storm in Florida had mostly hit lower in the state, and what the national weather service said on our radio was that other than some wind and rain damage, most of the state was in good shape so far. Still, we were going at full speed toward the pan handle. It had taken me two hours to get the large tuna up. Irish John had harpooned it and tied the rope off on two cleats before trying to get a line around its tail. He’d used the gaff hook on the gills and made two slices on the tail while I motored slowly, then we’d rigged a block and tackle off the overhead supports in the back of the boat and used that with a ratchet strap to pull the fish in. Nose to tail it was almost six feet long. What it weighed, I had no idea, but it was more than I could deadlift and pull myself with just the block and tackle.
“So where are we going?” I asked Irish John.
“Just east of Pensacola. Not much commercial, so private guys like us can go and sell fish. I’m going to get on ‘da radio though and find out more,” he said, going below decks.
Now for a fishing boat going all out, that meant I was going slowly. We’d used two of the three coolers to hold the tuna to the rear of the fishing deck, and tied the coolers tight against it before Irish John scooped one of the coolers full of ice over the top of the fish, and covered it with some of the canvas from the hold. I had no idea what this fish was worth, but for a guy who turned down money all the time to suddenly be excited at the worth of a single fish, I had a feeling I’d just paid for my fuel. I hoped.
