"And he never got married?"
"Divorced, just like me. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away," he added, thinking of her Han Solo remark earlier.
"Just like peas and carrots!" she said, and laughed again. "Okay now, no more movie references for today!" Then she turned serious. "Never been, myself. Things just never worked out for me that way. I can't have kids anyway, but I got a niece and nephew up in Manteo. Not exactly the same thing, I know, but I guess it'll have to do." She sat up a little straighter and rubbed at her eyes. "Whoa! Where's my glass? I better finish my dinner, I'm babblin', sorry 'bout that! Oh, here it is." She drained it in one gulp. Ketch picked up her plate and handed it to her.
"So," she added, glancing around the deck. "It looks like Len and Diana, and Mario and Barb, and maybe Don and Joette." She held her empty glass out again. "So there's just me and you left."
"Yes, I guess so." He refilled her glass and stood. "Well, excuse me for a moment please, I'll be right back." It was time for a pit stop, and another bottle as well; good thing he'd bought a half-dozen of them.
"Hey Ketch," Len called. "How about fetchin' that git-tar a yours while you're in there?"
Ketch considered attempting to demur again, as he was in fact nervous about playing in front of people and always had been - but he guessed he'd probably had enough to drink, anyway more than the couple he'd anticipated this afternoon. His fingers still seemed to be working well enough, so what the heck. It certainly wouldn't be the first time he'd embarrassed himself if he botched it - nor was it likely to be the last, he thought, with the foam block floats stacked outside his kitchen window in mind.
~ ~ ~
6. He'd sung at night when he steered alone back in the old days.
When Ketch returned with the guitar, Len switched the radio off and gave everyone a brief introduction. Ketch made himself comfortable, and the dog came over and settled beside his chair. He liked it when Ketch played music.
"It's just a silly little song," Ketch explained further as he adjusted the tuning, "that grew in my mind out of an old joke you might have heard, about a first mate who wasn't the brightest bulb in the shed, or whatever. It's called 'Port Starbird', like it says on yonder ring. Here we go:"
"Well I mate for a charter boat captain,
He's a heck of a mighty sailin' man,
With just a compass, and a twelve-pack,
He will take you anywhere he can.
Every day just before we set sail,
He reads the same piece of paper again,
He says it's a private inspiration,
That's worth more than most of his friends.
He says he's been around the world, he can't remember all of the girls,
But if he can just remember Port Starbird, he can die a happy man.
Port left, starboard right, ships that pass, in the night,
When you don't know where you're going, any course will take you there,
Port left, starboard right.
Somehow, we always seem to get somewhere,
Though I've never seen him use a chart,
He must be a great navigator,
An expert at some old lost art.
But every time we pull up the anchor,
He reads that same piece of paper again,
He says it's a private philosophy,
That helps the means justify the ends.
He says he's been around the world, with lots of true-hearted girls,
And if he can just remember Port Starbird, he will die a happy man.
I want to go, to Port Starbird, I want to blow, this particular harbor,
I want to sail around the world, like my captain did,
I want to go, to Port Starbird.
Well he passed on just the other day,
We buried him at sea,
The way that he would have wanted,
That was where he always wanted to be.
But I felt like there was something missing,
That prayer for safety that he never read to me,
Or maybe it was an old love letter,
That belonged with him down in the sea.
So I retrieved the paper from his locker, and finally saw what the old man had read,
Every day for all our years on the sea, and here's what the paper said:
Port left, starboard right, red left, green right,
When boats pass in the daytime, or in the night,
Go port-to-port, and you'll be all right.
Port left, starboard right, ships that pass, in the night,
When you don't know where you're going, any course will take you there,
Port left, starboard right,
Port left, starboard right,
Port left, starboard right."
He finished with a flourish. "Well, that's it," he said. He set the guitar aside and reached for his beer. His hand was shaking just a bit, but he felt good - he'd gotten through it without making any major mistakes. The laughter and applause started as he tipped the bottle up.
"I get it!" Len exclaimed. "You sly son of a gun!" the Captain laughed. "Hey, that was excellent, man, really!" Mario declared, and the beach bunnies concurred. "Do another one! Do you have more originals?"
Kari gave Ketch's arm a pinch. "I had no idea you were so dang clever!" she said. "Did you really make all that up by yourself?"
"I did," Ketch answered. He saw that her glass was empty again. "Here, let me top that off for you."
Len said, "Ketch, y'all mind if I play a little somethin'?"
Thank you again, Len, Ketch thought with relief. He'd had enough of public performing for tonight. "Not at all, please do, be my guest," he replied, passing Len the guitar.
Len wasn't much of a singer, but he was a good chicken-picker. "So, me and you," Kari mused while Len played, finding her way back to her earlier train of thought. "Kari and Storm, Storm and Kari. Sounds weird. Ha - Ketch and Kari! We could open a live bait shop!" She laughed and took another drink. "Where'd you get that name, 'Storm'? I know you don't like it, but I don't know why."
"Like Bruce Willis said in Pulp Fiction, this is America, names don't mean anything." Ketch chuckled. "Sorry, you said no more movie references."
"Come on, I'm serious."
"Okay. Well, my parents were a little odd. Not in a bad way, but they were definitely on a tributary off the main stream. They were big fans of pulp fiction and those old noir mysteries when I was a kid. I think they hoped I'd become either a movie actor or a famous detective, so they gave me something they thought I'd need, what they thought was a glamorous name at the time. And no middle name either, just 'Storm Ketchum'. But I became a scientist."
"Are they disappointed?"
"Not anymore. They're both gone now."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "Huh... Well now, don't we make a pair? A failed noir detective, and a jug of syrup." At Ketch's puzzled look she explained, "You know, for hotcakes, like Karo syrup, you ever had that? Your folks were just ahead of their time. I was born when a lot of folks were startin' to screw around with spellin' and makin' up new names to try to be different. I guess I'm lucky, though, it could've been worse. I could've been named Moon Unit or Dandelion or Lafawnduh or somethin' like that, I guess."
After Len, Barb took over - and surprisingly, she turned out to be a something of a virtuoso, obviously classically trained. You never can tell about people, Ketch thought. He hoped his own performance hadn't been too offensively amateurish for her.
"Hey, y'all got any of that wacky terbacky stashed around here?" Kari abruptly inquired.
"What?" Ketch chuckled. "No, I don't keep any here. You'll have to ask, uh, someone else about that." He'd almost said 'Mario', but loose lips can sink ships. Not that he didn't trust her, but who knew who she might mention it to sometime, and so on down the line. "Besides, I think you're doing fine without it."
"Oh yeah? Well, mister smart guy, you don't know everything."
"Everythin' 'bout what?" the Ca
ptain's voice suddenly projected from right behind them. Kari almost dropped her glass. Ketch hadn't noticed him returning up the steps from his cooler. "Never mind, none a my beeswax. You dawg!" the Captain leered at Ketch. "Hey, we're talkin' 'bout truckin' this party on down to the boatyard, where they got some, shall we say, additional resources, you know? We're gonna clean up here first, though. Y'all want to join us?"
"Thanks, but not me," Ketch said. "It's been a long day for me."
"Me neither, but thank you kindly," Kari immediately added, to Ketch's surprise given her recent query. "I've got to get goin' soon."
The others were starting to collect plates and bottles. "You guys don't have to do anything, don't worry about it," Ketch said.
"Hey, it's the least we can do for a great musician like y'all. In fact, it's a dang honor!" the Captain pronounced. "Don't worry, won't take long with us all doin' it. By the way, okay if I leave my truck here? Ain't in your way, I don't think. I'll walk down with the others and pick 'er up tomorrow, and just crash on board tonight."
"Of course, that's fine. And thank you. Just do what you feel like doing, I'll take care of the rest later."
The Captain went off to help in the kitchen. "I should help out too, I guess, but I don't know if I can stand up," Kari giggled. "So, what are y'all gonna do with me? I guess I shouldn't be drivin' right about now, and neither should you. Should I go on down there with the rest of them? Maybe I could crash on board somewhere too," she teased.
"Well," Ketch said. He hadn't thought about this, but in his defense he hadn't known she'd go through two bottles of wine either. He wondered what was behind that; she hadn't behaved like this when she'd been here in the past. "I have that second bedroom. It isn't very fancy, but there's a bed and it's made up. I have a new toothbrush I haven't opened yet."
"Yeah? No, wait, I'm sorry, I shouldn't put y'all on the spot like that," she apologized. "I might could ask the girls if I could stay with one of them. If they aren't gonna be busy later, that is, I don't know about that."
"No, you don't have to do that. You're welcome to stay here tonight. I honestly don't mind." Ketch got up from his chair and bowed. "In fact, Jack and I would love to have you, really, and we insist." He smiled down at her, sincerely enough to reassure her, he hoped. The dog joined him and wagged in agreement, with a doggy grin on his face as well. He loved company.
"Well, okay then!" she said, smiling back at both of them. "Thanks!"
The others shortly began exiting the house and reassembling on the front porch, having finished the cleanup. "Hey man," Mario said, "what's with all that stuff you got piled up out back there?"
"Yeah," Len said, "we couldn't help but spot 'em out the window when we were loadin' the dishwasher. What are they, floatation blocks? Y'all fixin' to put up a floatin' dock or somethin' like that?"
Ketch had hoped no one would notice the blocks; he should have covered the kitchen window. He'd gotten lucky when the truck had delivered them - no one he knew had been around at the time, and as his neighbors were largely vacation renters he hadn't worried about any of them. But he supposed they'd had to have found out eventually anyway. Still, it was getting late and he didn't want to go into all the details tonight. He didn't think he had the energy to both explain everything and defend himself against accusations that he was losing his mind; which maybe he was.
"They're for the house," he said. "I want to attach them underneath it so the house will be able to float, just in case."
"Really? Wow. I've heard of people doin' that," Mario said, "but not anywhere around here."
"How come I didn't know about this?" the Captain asked. "When did you get the dang things? And what about Ingram and that lot, I thought you were gonna have to sell the place? You got a engineer?" He stopped talking and raised his arms. "Okay, sorry, too many questions." He pulled a chair up by Ketch and cast a glance around the group. "Do you know somethin' 'bout the weather we don't? Should we be thinkin' about movin' our boats?"
"No!" Ketch hastily replied. "I don't know anything, there's nothing for you to worry about." The rest of the group started settling back into their chairs, and he carefully continued. "It turns out I won't be selling the house," he began. Though this was technically true, it was of course not the whole truth. And technically speaking, were these white lies he was engaging in, or lies of omission, or just plain lies? Maybe he was just building up to the whole truth gradually, the way Emily Dickinson had advised in a poem of hers he happened to recall some of: Tell all the truth but tell it slant, success in circuit lies, too bright for our infirm delight, the truth's superb surprise. Yes, that worked for him, for now.
"I guess you must a just found that out, since you didn't tell me about it this mornin'," the Captain said. "But you had to've ordered them blocks some time ago, right?" He crossed his arms and put a look on his face that made it clear he was waiting for an explanation.
"They were delivered on Saturday. I ordered them when you were out of town. I'm sorry, I just didn't feel like going into it this morning," Ketch said. "We didn't have much time to talk anyway." That didn't fully explain Ketch's outburst regarding Ingram and his grandiose plans on this morning's charter, among other inconsistencies, and the Captain didn't appear satisfied - but then Kari cut in.
"Why were you gonna sell the house?" she asked. "I know Bob Ingram's gonna take the boatyard and some other nearby properties, but was he after yours too?"
"Yes," Ketch answered, and then Len rescued him once again. "How are they supposed to be attached? How much do they weigh? How do you know you got enough of 'em?" he asked.
"Well, they weigh ninety-one pounds each, and I got twenty-five of them," Ketch started to explain, grateful for the reprieve. "They're top-mount, and they attach with lag screws. Put together they're supposed to provide enough buoyancy to support a sixty thousand-pound house, which is the high end of the estimated weight of this house at sixty pounds per square foot of living space. And I did verify my figures with an engineer at the company." And the solid EPS foam blocks were polyethylene-encapsulated, making them highly UV-resistant and impact-resistant and impermeable to water as well as to marine organisms, solvents, and fuels; he hoped the others wouldn't realize tonight that this was overkill for their stated purpose. He hadn't yet worked out the logistics of getting the house into the water when the time came, but when that happened these blocks would be able to hold up under permanent immersion.
"I still don't see why y'all are feelin' the need to do any a this," the Captain muttered. "Seems to me you're spendin' a bunch a money for nothin'."
"You sure all that extry weight won't just pull the bottom right off the house?" Len persisted. "Maybe you'll have to jack it up here and there. And you'll have to anchor it somehow in case it ever does get to floatin'."
"It looks like you got plenty of freeboard under the house, but it's still gonna be tough workin' under there," Mario observed. "Probably have to get at least a couple jacks too to hold up the blocks while you're screwin' 'em in. Who's gonna do that? You got somebody lined up? You sure can't do it yourself, right?"
"You're right," Ketch agreed, "it's too much for me to do alone - and no, I haven't hired anyone yet."
"Well heck," Len said, "I'd be willin' to help out. I'm gettin' tired of that shit job I been workin' anyway."
"Hey, we could both do it!" Mario said, getting enthused. "I got nothin' goin' on right now. We could work out a cut rate, cash under the table. We'd get us some income, and we'd be helpin' our good friend here at the same time!"
"Sounds good to me," Len said, and the girls murmured their approval as well. "Ketch, what do you think?"
He couldn't answer immediately; there was something caught in his throat. He took a sip of his beer. "Ahem! Well - yes, I think that's a fine idea, and I think it's really great of you guys to offer to do that for me. Thank you." Thinking of his possibly severely limited timetable, he tried to sound casual as he asked, "When do you think you could start?"
"Well, maybe in a couple days or so if you want?" Mario said. "Okay by me," Len said.
"What about your job, Len?" Kari asked, from the perspective of a potential employer. "Don't you have to give notice? Would you be putting them in a bind? What if you need a reference?"
"I ain't worried 'bout all that," Len said. "I'm a good worker, but there's lots of folks needin' a job, and a monkey could do mine. I'll tell 'em I have to go back home to Tar Heel for some family thing or other."
The Captain, who'd remained atypically silent through the remainder of the exchange, stood up. "Well, now that's been settled, I guess we best be moseyin' along," he said. The others agreed, got up, and started down the steps, and Ketch stood to see them off.
"Ketch, you want these torches out?" Mario called.
"No thanks, they'll burn down on their own soon."
"Take 'er easy, you ole dawg," the Captain said, clapping Ketch on the back. In a lower voice he added, "I know you don't want to talk right now, and that's okay. But next time we meet, Lucy, you got some splainin' to do." Raising his voice again as he walked away, he called to the others, "Hey you guys, do me a favor and stick that cooler in the back a my truck!"
Trailing a profusion of thank-you's and various permutations of farewell, the group finally trundled off through the yard and down the road.
"Well, what now?" Kari asked as they disappeared from view. "Hey, there's still a little of that wine left. How about we just set out here for a spell longer? It's nice and quiet now, and it's a beautiful night."
What now, indeed? Would there be no end to this long and winding day, this confoundingly good and bad day? Should he confide in Kari now- or in anyone, ever? He knew the Captain would pry it out of him; he realized he no longer had a choice there, and really the Captain deserved to know the whole story if anyone did, no matter what he ended up thinking about it. But as for the others - it was his problem, not theirs, and he didn't see how anyone could do anything to help, certainly not in a legal sense at any rate. He didn't need their advice, either; advice was just something people asked for when they already knew the answer but wished they didn't, and adding everyone's well-meaning but impotent outrage to his own wouldn't accomplish anything. But he supposed he was only delaying the inevitable; they'd all end up knowing eventually.
Port Starbird (Storm Ketchum Adventures) Page 7
