Full Measure: A Novel

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Patrick felt history falling into place behind him, followed by a strange liberating pleasure, like looking down from a cliff but feeling fully capable of flight. “Not sure what to say, Dad.”

  “The upshot is I couldn’t do anything for Ted. His seizures or fevers, or his feet, or his odd inabilities. And over the years I went from hope to forbearance to disappointment to annoyance to resentment to hostility. The headshrinkers assigned him different mental maladies, some of which seemed accurate. Others not. No consensus. Your mother has always worried that he’d do something bad to himself or someone else. There’s an anger in him he rarely lets show. I don’t think he’s a bad person. I don’t think he’s severely retarded. I did love him and I will learn to love him again. And I’ve punished him enough for disappointing me. I know that, and I intend to stop.”

  Patrick let all this rattle around his brain. He took another slug of the bourbon and felt the good warm passage of it. “You’ve never told Ted?”

  “He asked me when he was eleven years old if I was his father. Once. I lied once and that was that.”

  “You should tell him the truth. And forgive him for disappointing you.”

  “I will. I hope he can forgive me for being such a pure and unalloyed son of a bitch for so many years.”

  Patrick nodded and Archie poured more bourbon into their glasses and they touched them. “He’s got a good heart,” said Patrick.

  Archie nodded and stared out past the things around him. Patrick knew what his father was going to say before Archie said it—like he’d seen what would happen to Sheffield and Lavinder. “I hope I don’t have to sell all this,” said Archie. “Your mother and I would walk away with almost nothing. Nothing for us and nothing for our sons. Sixty years of Norris blood, sweat and tears come to nada.”

  “We’re doing what we can. It’s up to the rain and the trees now.”

  “Farm Credit bank in El Centro turned me down today. We’ve got enough money in savings to pay the bills for four months. That’ll take us through February. No more. If we get a good survival rate, the earliest we could start selling would be two whole years from then, but we would be able to borrow against the surviving trees. Even the Farm Credit banks can’t say no to living avocados. We’ll see signs of life by February, on any trees with life left in them, and we’ll know where we stand in the eyes of God. If His curse continues and all the trees are dead, your mother and I will sell off our modest investments with Anders Wealth to buy replacement trees. That would make real a forty percent loss in the current market. Or, of course, we just sell the whole damned place and walk away.”

  “I didn’t know it was this bad.”

  Archie sipped. “Time is running out. This makes me fearful and angry. So I take it out on the people I love. I’ve never felt this way before, Pat. Never this low for this long. I never thought that I would prove to be a miserable failure, and turn into a furious little man. I detest my reflection in the mirror. I despise my God. I often have dreams now where Caroline has simply vanished.”

  “What’s it take to stay afloat for a month, Dad?”

  “Six grand or so for the basics.”

  Patrick looked at his skiff and saw almost two months of living expenses for his family. He figured his pickup truck was worth maybe seven, given the low mileage. Another month plus change. So he could contribute three months. And what, ride his bike to Domino’s and deliver pizzas on it? Although, he thought, there was the old red Honda 90 over in the corner, a beloved Norris family relic. Not much more than a scooter, but it was street legal and he could rebuild the engine in a few hours, rig some sort of pizza rack to the back. He wondered how Iris would like being a passenger on it. “I’ll sell the boat and kick in eleven grand. That would give you two more months.”

  “I note you don’t say give us two more months.”

  “I don’t want to farm, Dad. I never did and never will.”

  The silence was abrupt and complex. “No. Then don’t sell your dream to float the dreams of your mother and father. That would be ass-backwards.”

  “I’ll do it if it makes a difference.”

  “I pray every night it won’t be necessary. To a god that I—” Archie refilled Patrick’s glass then carried his own and the bottle to the big open door of the barn. “I see light in the bunkhouse. Maybe I’ll have my talk with Ted. I’m on a roll tonight, aren’t I?”

  “We’re fishing Glorietta Bay tomorrow. You’ll have to do without us for a day.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  Patrick fished out the carburetor parts and let them dry on the bench. He poured the solvent into a bucket so labeled, snapped the lid, and set it back with those for motor oil, two-stroke oil, gasoline, and diesel. He hoisted himself up on the bench and sat for a while, drinking the liquor and pondering things. He wondered how Myers, following so meticulously in his own footprints that night on patrol, December 10, 2200 hours, had tripped the IED but he, Patrick, did not? Then again the flash and for the thousandth time Patrick saw Myers come apart in all directions and Zane flayed in the light. He hoisted the memories into the hatch in his brain and tried again to close the lid forever.

  After getting the carburetor back in place and their fishing gear together, Patrick stood at the workbench with a pencil in hand and his new pad of graph paper. His “business plan,” lacking college finesse, was a series of short sentences pertaining to how he’d like his guiding career to evolve. He read through some of them: By age thirty you will have three boats, and by forty, four, and by fifty, five boats and that will be enough.… Remember as a guide you must be optimistic but predatory and never lose track of your purpose, which is to make sure your clients have a good time on the water.… Be generous with casting tips and instruction but don’t micromanage.… Remember that the fishing can be good even when the catching is bad.… Invest 30 percent of your profit to build your business, and save 30 percent for when you can’t work.

  This all seemed well and good but Patrick was too tired to add anything now, so he took two blankets from one of the rough-hewn storage cabinets built fifty years ago by his grandfather, folded one lengthwise twice, and laid it on the deck of the skiff. He turned off most of the barn lights but left the door open, then set a wide sheet of plywood from the low point of the boat to the floor. He climbed in and laid down and covered himself with the second blanket. The dogs came up the ramp and curled up beside him for short while, then clambered back down the plywood and trotted off. He thought of Zane and how he had loved him purely, how the war had demanded that pure love, then refused to let him take that love home. Another good reason to hate the war. And he thought again of Myers and Pendejo and Sheffield and the others, how his heart was heavier for Zane than for any of them. This was one of his several shames, and one for which he judged himself harshly. He heard the coo of a pigeon high in the beams, a flutter of wings, then nothing.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  At sunrise Glorietta Bay was a silver mirror and Fatta the Lan’ glided confidently upon it. Patrick swung into the bay and looked out to the Coronado Bridge arching from mainland to peninsula, the night lights still on, traffic steady. The eastern sky was indigo over orange. He gunned the Mercury, felt the propeller bite and the bow lift.

  Ted stood on the foredeck, legs braced on the railings, a fly rod at the ready. “This thing rides sweet!” he called back to his brother.

  “We’ll see how it does offshore!”

  “Are we going outside the harbor?”

  “After we fish the bay. You’re good with that?”

  Ted turned his big body and looked back at Patrick. “Guess I better get my sea feet.”

  “We’ll take it easy.”

  Frowning, Ted turned and squared himself against the railing. Patrick brought the boat west and anchored almost under the bridge. He logged his coordinates on the GPU then into a small notebook he planned to keep in a plastic bag near the radio. It felt good to be inventing a future. Cars thrummed high
overhead.

  Ted cast out a perch fly and Patrick watched the sinking line slide deeper and deeper out of sight near one of the bridge caissons. Sea bass were ambushers and tended to cruise structure, so the caissons were a good bet. There were halibut, perch, corvina, mackerel, barracuda, occasional bonefish and sharks, and the lesser skates, rays, dogfish, lizardfish. The bigger game fish were mostly offshore and not commercially accessible in Patrick’s seventeen-foot skiff. His business plan called for a new boat, double the size and range of this one, by his twenty-seventh birthday, five years from now. He planned to keep the Mako so that a partner, or even an employee of his, could continue with the bay clientele. The offshore sharks, dorado, and tuna promised tougher fishing and bigger money, but the client base was smaller. The bay was where he’d find clients, run up some numbers, build a base and a reputation.

  “I just got bumped,” said Ted.

  “Bring him back.”

  Ted stripped in his fly, paused, then stripped in again and the line tightened straight. “Oh, yeah … come to Theodore!”

  Ted set the hook, then let the fish take line. Down in the blue Patrick watched the animal flash and be gone. “Trophy, Pat?”

  “Monstrous. A Web site fish!”

  “Yeah, baby!” Ted looked over at Patrick, his face merry. The tip of his uplifted rod dipped with the strength of the little fish. He was up on the balls of his substandard feet, back straight, his left arm tucked formally behind him, his right arm raised like a conductor. Patrick smiled at the simple pleasure a fish can bring. Gift from a hidden world, he thought. A fish on the line keeps the demons gone, and that’s what he would offer his clients. It was a mystery to him why all people did not fish.

  Ted let the bass take the line for a sound, then brought him up in long, firm strips. Patrick looked down at the animal still trying to break free, gills pumping, its freedom cut down to inches. Ted lifted the fish out and swung it into him, gently catching its lower jaw between his big forefinger and thumb. He set his rod against the railing and held the fish up to the new sunlight and removed the perch fly with a pair of hemostats. He turned to Patrick with a conspiratorial wink then lifted the fish to his lips and kissed it. He kneeled and set it back into the water. Patrick watched it hover for a second, there then not.

  “Tastes kind of fishy, Pat.”

  “What if we catch fifty?”

  “Remember that lizardfish that got me?”

  “I thought you’d learn after that.”

  “You going to fish or what?”

  “Immediately and right now.”

  “Pat, when I’m out here with you I’m as good as I get. Maybe that sounds dumb.”

  “Good is good, brother.”

  “Out here nothing gets into me but the good stuff.”

  “Don’t start all that.”

  “Out here the bad things never even start, is what I’m saying.”

  Ted turned and leaned into the rail and Patrick took his five-weight from the rod holder. He pried off his sneakers and stepped aft, flicked out his fly and patiently stripped line onto the deck while he watched Ted cast. For all of his big brother’s bulk and general gracelessness he had a nice delivery, side-armed and languorous, with hard stops on both the back cast and the fore. Patrick thought of last night’s revelations from Archie, and of Ted’s biker father, and as Patrick watched, the damaged beginnings of his brother made Patrick love him in a new and different way.

  As the sun rose they caught and released bass near the bridge, and later perch near Marina Park and bonito off Shelter Island. Patrick used the electric trolling motor for stealth. He caught a legal halibut and let it go with a glancing thought about tonight’s dinner. Ted tied on a steel leader and landed a nice barracuda, cavalierly kissing its dangerous snout while Patrick watched, vowing to disallow such foolishness on his guided trips. That shouldn’t be hard.

  Ted carefully unhooked the fish and dropped it back into the bay. “I’ve kissed women more dangerous than that!”

  Patrick wondered. Not far from the Nimitz Marine Facility they each caught bonefish that sizzled off like rockets and made long runs. Bones were picky eaters, but fast, durable, and experts at throwing a hook. They were shaped like projectiles and had goofy faces and were probably the most coveted game fish in the bay. Patrick knew a good percentage of his clients would want to target them, though their numbers were small. He felt the strength and wild purpose of the fish as his line hissed through the flat water, opening a wake and throwing a plume of mist into the air. Pound and a quarter, he guessed: a nice one. He stood rocking gently with Fatta the Lan’ and felt the joy of fishing, which for him had always been the bringing in of a wondrous thing from an alien place. He’d been trying to explain his love for fishing in more detail for most of his life but had failed, even to himself. As he knelt and set the bonefish free Patrick heard the sea lions croaking in their pens over at the training center where the Navy taught marine mammals to detect mines and enemy swimmers. He wondered if the mammals were drafted or if they volunteered. The ghosts inside him stirred and he pushed them back into their places. Be gone, not now. Ted seemed to sense his brother’s struggle. He turned around and looked at Patrick with concern, then grinned and shrugged, as if asking Patrick to throw off his problems and get with the day. Patrick saw something in him that Archie had probably never owned and that Caroline had long ago imprisoned. Crazy joy? Abandon?

  * * *

  Outside the harbor the Pacific was gray and heavy with chop. The wind came from the west, cool and weighty. Fatta the Lan’ hit the open water and recoiled like a puppy sensing danger. The swells moved her easily, her weight vanished, and at speed she was skittish. Ted sat on the bench facing aft, hunkered in his windbreaker as the boat dipped and rose and the cold spray lashed his back. “I hate it out here in little boats like this,” he said.

  Patrick cut their speed, which did little to improve things. It was a long charge north along Fort Rosecrans and Patrick knew the Navy could run him out at will but they usually didn’t. He steered toward the rocky cliffs of Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and by the time he dropped anchor fifty yards offshore Ted was up with his rod, bracing himself on the railing as best he could while Fatta the Lan’ rose and fell in the swell. Ted swayed, dropped to one knee to hold the rail, then heaved himself up again and turned to Patrick. “If I fall over and drown, tell Mom I loved her and tell Dad I’m sorry. I’m not sure what for, but I sure am sorry! Naw, second thought, tell him life is hard so tough shit, old man.”

  “If you fall over, just swim! Shore’s a hundred and fifty feet that a way.”

  “Anything can happen at sea.”

  “If you’re dead set on drowning then, do I get all your critters and the computer?”

  “Yeah! And tell Dora at the stables I didn’t mean to scare her. And tell Mayor Anders I hope she loses the election and never builds those lighted crosswalks we don’t need!”

  “Catch a damned fish, Ted.”

  Ted turned and raised his rod and false cast to build line speed in the wind. He was rocking mightily but still managed to keep plenty of line in the air. Patrick heard him bellowing: “Fish can tell when you don’t have the mojo, Pat! Even from a hundred feet away. It’s something to do with the way your personal vibrations travel down the line and affect the fly. Which is directly related to the way ideas get into my brain. But I’m not sure how they’re related. Geronimo!” Ted double-hauled briskly and let the line go and Patrick watched the loop unfurl and eighty feet of line and leader turn over to place the fly over the rocks.

  Patrick cast too, the wind carrying his fly toward shore. He let the weighted fly and fly line sink as he rocked with the boat. Ted had a harder time balancing in the slightly raised bow. He took a knee to ride out a strong swell. Patrick felt the hump of water moving under him, and he saw it lift the bow as it rolled toward shore, where a long moment later it exploded on the rocks.

  When the boat had settled enough, Ted stood u
p and leaned into the railing, slipped, and fell overboard. Patrick heard his quick yelp and the snap of his rod against the boat and the splash of him hitting the ocean. Ted reached his free hand over the gunwale but the next swell pried him loose and carried him toward the rocks. Patrick pushed his rod into the holder and got the gaff and scrambled fore. Ted was side-stroking toward Fatta the Lan’ with the broken rod and reel still in one hand but the swells pushing against him. He was already half sunk in his heavy clothes and coat. Patrick leaned far out with the handle end but Ted was out of reach. “It’s cold in here, Pat!”

  Patrick stashed the gaff and got the rope from the bow compartment and hurled it to his brother. It slapped over him and the next swell lifted, then dropped the boat into a watery bowl. The same swell lifted Ted and carried him fast toward the rocks. He was riding lower in the water now and breathing fast. He found the rope with his free hand and tried to haul himself forward but the rope was long. “Drop the rod, Ted! Drop it and use both hands!”

  But Ted held fast to the rod, grabbing short lengths of rope with his left hand while the surge moved him faster out. Patrick swayed greatly on the casting deck, stripping rope with both hands. A swell dropped him so steeply that his feet left the deck and for a moment he was midair, then the deck jumped up under him and he crashed to his knees, jaw crunching, but still hauling. When the rope was tight he stood again and put his back into the tug-of-war. The swells pushed Ted toward the rocks, then Patrick pulled him closer. Ted still held the rod butt and reel. After a long minute Patrick had him halfway back. Then the fly line flew off the stump of the broken rod and the reel screamed. “I’m hooked up, Pat! I’m hooked up!”