"Didn't know that, son." He puffed hard and looked off at the water.
"He has only three people in his church who tithe, and he hasn't given himself a raise in five years."
"That so?" muttered Beaufaine, blowing nasty smoke my way.
"Yessir, that's so ... and the expense of rigging this boat with new reels and poles would be an awful burden on the poor preacher."
"Son, you ain't gonna get no sympathy from me, but if it's the reels you're wanting, I was including them in the deal anyway. I don't fish. I sit up on the top level and use this boat to chase the ladies, not tuna. Y'all can have those reels."
"Oh."
"Much obliged," said Asbury, smiling big.
"That's mighty nice of you, sir," said Steve.
Clayton Beaufaine leaned close and told me I'd never catch a good deal on a boat using my poor sympathetic negotiation skills; then I told him he'd never catch any women what with that cigar smoke fouling his old Charleston breath.
"That's right," said Maurice. "That smoke will kill ya dead. So will red meat and-"
"We know, Maurice," said Ransom, wiping his surfer shades.
Steve and I untied the ropes as Asbury and Maurice climbed aboard. They walked to the rear of the boat, then leaned over the stern to examine the name.
Shoulders slumped, Asbury shook his head and stared out to sea.
The boat was called 4th Marriage. Asbury sat in the co-captain's chair and told Beaufaine that a Baptist preacher could not be seen in a boat called 4th Marriage.
Beaufaine snickered and started the engine. "Preacher, after we agree to the deal, you can call her anything you like ... and I'll even buy a quart of red paint for you to do the renaming."
"Thank you, sir," said Asbury. And he turned and winked at us.
"You'll have to get your own stencils, though," cautioned Beaufaine.
"We can afford stencils," said Maurice, inspecting the fishing reels.
On the bow of the 4th Marriage, I sat between Steve and Ransom as we left the dock, waving at ladies twice our age. They sat on the backs of huge sailboats, sipping fruity drinks with tiny umbrellas and looking, quite honestly, a bit bored.
The sun slid west of noon. Preacher Smoak had the controls, steering us through Charleston Harbor like a teenager with his first car. Restless, I climbed around the side to check out the interior. Maurice crowded in between the preacher and Beaufaine and said to check out this GPS stuff, it'll let you steer by numbers.
I whispered to Maurice, "What does GPS stand for?"
"Haven't got a clue," he whispered back.
"Global Positioning System," said Beaufaine. He said the words slow and careful, as if tomorrow there'd be a quiz.
We passed a similar-sized boat-The Blooky-as it motored back to port, its sunburnt crew waving back as if we were now accepted members of the boating establishment.
"What's that little flag they're flying?" I asked, squinting into the glare.
"Called a catch-flag," said Beaufaine. "That one is for a sailfish. There's a different flag for each desirable species. They'll raise it so other boats can tell what's been caught."
Maurice tapped Beaufaine's shoulder. "So then, you would raise a different flag for blondes, brunettes, and redheads?"
Beaufaine puffed on his cigar, flicked ashes over the side. "You people ain't from around here, are ya?"
Rhythmic splashes soaked the bow, the spray salty and cool against our faces. We approached Fort Sumter, where I pictured Beaufaine's ancestors fighting with the Confederacy while puffing on nineteenth-century cigars-for surely a man with a French name like Beaufaine would've been blackballed from the Union, although Sherman just may have used a cigar to start the big fire in Atlanta.
Steve said he thought Sherman used a torch, but Ransom agreed it might well have been a cigar.
"That of Civil War," said Maurice, one hand on the rail, "what bickering it do stir in our state."
"Amen," said Asbury, his eyes on the depth finder.
Their comments were met with silent acceptance, and nothing else was said of it. Maurice just requested that he be allowed to steer before we returned, that he'd never driven such a fine vessel, and that he thought a thirty-six-foot boat with all the fishing gear included plus undisclosed cash was a great swap for Asbury's valuable land and historic house.
"The land, yeah," said Beaufaine, flicking ashes into the wind. "But that house ain't historical, it's a piece of ... um, sorry, Preach."
"Watch your language around clergy," warned Maurice.
"Quite all right," said Asbury. "I'm sure it would've been an appropriate description."
Maurice took the helm, grabbed a navy captain's hat off a peg, and put it on his head. In a wide, liquid orbit, he circled Fort Sumter, our wake lapping against history.
We neared the marina, and Asbury had the wheel again, Beaufaine talking him through a very precise method of docking the 4th Marriage. Asbury slowed the boat to a wakeless drift, then backed us into the slip on his first try. No bumps, starboard or port.
Ransom peeked over the railing and said, "Not bad."
"Not bad at all," said Beaufaine, who looked relieved that his boat was dent free.
We had docked between two yachts, a triple-decked white one named the Lenny Dru and a dazzling blue-and-silver vessel called Dana's Darling.
Asbury was first off the boat.
"What's the matter, Preacher?" asked Beaufaine.
"Gotta think up a new name," said Asbury, hands on hips, staring at the rear end of the 4th Marriage.
Maurice climbed from the boat to join him, and they rubbed their chins to help summon the proper moniker.
Beaufaine watched them for a moment, then flicked the stub of his cigar in the water. "So, Preach, do we have a deal?"
We left Beaufaine squirming overnight. Dusk lowered over the slasher grass as we returned via McClellanville, the twisty dirt road, and the preacher's gray powdered driveway. After parking next to his dilapidation, Asbury grabbed a pair of pruning shears from underneath the seat. Ransom had slept most of the way home with a towel folded up for a pillow, and we left him sprawled out in the pickup bed along with our take-out dinner. We'd eat soon enough-after a bit of home maintenance.
Preacher Smoak snipped high weeds and low weeds, then attacked the bushes spilling over his porch. "I've sorta let it go lately," he admitted, pruning away. "But I'll have it livable momentarily."
"Can we help?" asked Steve, his head cocked to one side, watching in amusement at this hasty form of Baptist hospitality.
"Nah, almost done."
"Got a door key?" I asked, not certain that I wanted to go inside.
"Don't need a key," said Asbury. "She's open."
The hinges not only squeaked, they were downright ornery. Maurice tiptoed in behind me, his hand on my back, his breath on my neck.
"Mercy ..." he whispered.
Cobwebs drooped from the wall corners, thick and dry like old shrimp net, pulled from the depths to come haunting. The floors were thick with grit, the air musty as old luggage, and from the roof hole, angular streams of light pierced the kitchen.
"Think the Addams family lived here?" asked Maurice.
"It certainly wasn't Jed, Granny, or Ellie Mae," I replied, toeing my initials in the dust. On the far wall we found a light switch. Nothing.
"Told ya," said Maurice.
Heavy footsteps pounded across the porch. Boards creaked. In rapid succession, the snip of pruning shears came fast and harsh. We rushed out of the house for a look, and coming around the corner was the preacher with a black snake between the blades.
One more snip and the head fell off. Snake blood stained the shears.
"Moccasin," announced Asbury, using his shears to fling the body in the woods. "Third one I've killed this year."
"Y'all wanna go get a hotel room back in Charleston?" asked Steve, ever hopeful.
We nixed that idea but decided not to explore the house any further. I sat
in a faded white rocker and said, "Let's ask Maurice if snake meat is worse than red meat."
"Do not pick on the janitor," said Maurice, taking the seat beside me. "He might put something in your pipes."
Ransom woke hospitable, distributing dinner from two sacks of burgers and fries, plus orange drinks for all. He had insisted we try the orange. Preacher Smoak asked a blessing, both for the meal and his ongoing negotiations. He prayed with reverence, and I could not help but note his calm, unhurried pace.
We sat on the porch in the fading light, rocking in rhythm and eating a cheap supper in celebration of Asbury trading the house of dilapidation for a fourth marriage. "Whatever happened to that girl you brought to my church?" he asked, washing down his last bite.
"Actually, she brought me. But she's in South America now. Full-time missionary."
"Missionaries are only gonna be interested in other missionaries," muttered Steve.
"Well, Mr. Cole," said Maurice, lifting his drink from the floor, "I say a man who can't tell a can of Krylon from a can of bug spray ought not be giving relational advice."
Steve just shook his head.
Asbury laughed and said, "You been to see her, Jay? Go drifting again?"
"Haven't been invited. Plus, I've accepted a new job in Manhattan."
"No! You moving to the City?"
"Six weeks away."
Darkness descended over the lowcountry, the night unfolding through the narrow rectangle of our porch view, a sliver of night now alive with bugs and the ghosts of dead snakes. A manly silence had ensued, interrupted only by the occasional slurp of orange, the wadding of wrapper.
"I heard they don't even serve sweet tea up in New Yawk," said Maurice, munching his cheeseburger.
"No sweet tea, what a shame," said Ransom. "And you're eating red meat, Maurice."
"Don't tell my wife."
After dinner and a burp, Ransom prompted us for entertainment. "Dudes, we need another story."
"Steve might have some stories," I said.
Steve chewed his straw and said, "No, I don't."
"Go ahead, Maurice," said Ransom, egging him on.
"Naw, naw, y'all don't wanna hear no poor janitor's story." Maurice rocked in the twilight, paying Ransom scant attention.
"Yes, we do," said Steve. `Just leave out the floating heads."
Maurice took one last sip of orange soda. "Don't have no ghost story; no floatin' head tale, either. But y'all wanna hear about the worst whuppin' I ever got?"
"Tell it," said Asbury.
Maurice set his drink under the rocker, then looked at each of us before he began, making sure-now that he was on stage-that our full attention was his.
"We lived in the nicer half of town, the half with the dirt road and running water. Had a dirt field beside the house where my two older brothers and me played stickball. Every day. They would saw off an old mop handle for a bat and roll up some maskin' tape for a ball. They were nine and ten. I was six. We were forever having arguments after a good hit, 'cause the paper bases would blow away-we could never tell where we were supposed to run. The fielder would say out but the runner would scream safe. Momma would say not to yell, to behave, or we'd end up a foul-mouthed drifter like our daddy and someday abandon our kids like he did.
"I wanted to do something to please Momma, to stop all that arguing between me and my brothers. One afternoon I beat them home from school, and while sittin' in the dirt, I thought of it, how I could make everybody get along.
"I knew the good baseball fields had stripes running from home plate to first, and more stripes from third base to home. We just needed ourselves some stripes. First I found some sand in a ditch. But there weren't enough, plus the sand was too brown. Then I had myself a revelation-Momma had a new sack of flour in her cupboard. The sack was big. I was little.
"But I was determined. So I wrestled that sack out the house and onto our dirt field. Then I poked a hole in the sack with a stick and lined the bases straight as I could. I even lined between first and second and between second and third. It was like Wrigley Field ... without the ivy and the bleachers, of course.
"When I got done, there was still some flour left in the sack, so I made us a batter's box, too. One on each side, since my oldest brother was left-handed. After that I stood and admired the field, proud of my work. Soon my brothers came up the dirt road and saw the field and yelled, `Maurice, you lined them bases!' They were so happy that they dropped their schoolbooks in the yard, and one grabbed the mop handle to start a game. I was about to throw the first pitch when my oldest brother saw the empty flour sack. He laughed and slapped his hands together; then my middle brother stuck his finger in the flour for a sample lick, then laughed so hard he couldn't swing the bat.
"Five minutes later Momma got home from the neighbor's house. She didn't laugh.
"First she screamed, then she hollered and did something with her hair net, then somehow she had my shirt collar, dragging me to the house while my two brothers insisted they had nothing to do with it. She stopped on the stairs and beat my behind with the empty flour sack, then used her hand 'cause the sack didn't hurt enough. Then she switched hands, showed the family she was ambidextrous. Then after ten minutes of beating me for my own good, she beat me for my brother's good, my sister's good, my uncle Otis's good, and for the benefit of all our descendants.
"I said, `No more, Momma, please Momma, ooh, ooowee Momma, not there, no, not there, Momma, oh please.'
"But she wouldn't listen. Said it was humiliating for her to have to borrow again from neighbors. Said she lost a whole quart of her dignity that day, never mind those fifty pounds of flour. Momma musta loved her dignity, 'cause my fanny didn't heal for a week."
Maurice grimaced at the remembrance, scrunching his eyes and mouthing, "Ooowee."
Asbury rose from his rocking chair, kicked a loose board off the porch, and pushed open his ornery front door. "Gettin' beat for Otis's good ... mercy sakes. It's bedtime, gentlemen. We're going out deep tomorrow."
The preacher and Maurice had already left when we woke at midmorning. On weathered porch stairs we stretched our backs and tried to gauge the quality of sleep blankets on dusty hardwood floors being a poor excuse for a bed, although blanketed floors were slightly better than black inner tubes, but slightly worse than sandy beaches with embarrassed missionaries, so who was Ito complain.
En route to Charleston, we sipped take-out coffee and headed for the Cooper River Bridge. Enormous cranes were visible across the water, setting foundations in place for Cooper's replacement. Apparently the citizens had nearly worn out the current two bridges, one section for the small and agile, then a wider, more spacious section for the risk-averse. I took the agile route as Ransom yawned and said he was glad Clayton Beaufaine and his foul cigars were staying in port today.
"What's the preacher gonna name his boat?" asked Steve. He had sprawled across my backseat, munching clusters of cold fries for breakfast.
"Couldn't decide," said Ransom, finding his shades in the glove compartment.
"Something like Jonah's Big Revenge," I offered.
"Or My Walk on the Water," said Ransom
"Too long a name," said Steve.
"No, it ain't," I said.
"It's too long."
"Why are you suddenly the expert on boat names?"
"Yeah, dude," said Ransom, "why are you suddenly the expert on boat names?"
"Boat names are rarely more than two words," said Steve. "Never more than three."
Charleston's boating elite raised tomato-juice drinks in greeting as we strolled past their yachts and sailboats, the salt air diluted with faint whiffs of diesel fuel. Skies were clear, and a flock of optimistic gulls flew circles around the boat masts.
A dozen boats ahead, Asbury and Maurice squatted at the stern of the 4th Marriage, stencils scattered at their feet.
"Any last guesses?" I asked, our view blocked.
"Haven't a clue," said Ransom. The two artisans rose
and turned at our arrival. Then they stepped aside and asked us what we thought. The new letters were only half the size of the old ones. But in an upside-down triangle, in bright red, they had renamed the boat:
Steve stared at it for a moment and said, "That's not a name, it's a paragraph."
"Maurice thought of it," said Asbury, pleased with their fruited verse.
"You're quite the poet, Maurice," said Ransom.
"Rather be quite the poet than quite the janitor," Maurice replied, wiping his hands on a rag. He checked the paint and pronounced it dry.
I helped Asbury gather his stencils, and he accidentally kicked the L and the A into the water. The beige letters landed beside each other, and we watched them drift from the dock. "They served their purpose," said Asbury. "And besides, we used the whole quart o' paint."
"Too long a name," said Steve. "Although I kinda like the lime part."
Maurice disagreed, said it was pure poetry, a nautical haiku, then told Steve he'd never qualify as a boat namer, what with his short little nouns and fear of piranhas.
Preacher Smoak went aboard and checked the fuel level. "How far y'all wanna go out?"
"Faaarrr," said Maurice. He untied the starboard ropes; I handled port.
`Just remember the flare gun," said Ransom. And he took a seat on the bow.
"I'll rig the other two poles," said Steve, waving me off. Brother Cole was perched on a large cooler and seemed to possess a talent for rigging, tying complicated knots from line to leader.
I reckoned his life was chock-full of complicated knots.
Thick, rolling waves slammed the port side, splashing Ransom on the bow. I studied the gauges, our depth increasing from 90 to 120 feet, Charleston and its old money a mere speck on the horizon. Preacher Smoak seemed a natural at skippering boats. With a steady eye on the GPS screen, he sipped coffee with one hand, turned the chrome wheel with the other.
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 20
