Gone to Drift

by Diana McCaulay

  “We ask the barman for Black Crab or what?” Dwight whispered.

  “Shh! Just cool,” Lloyd said. “Make us wait a little and see what happen.”

  Nothing happened. The man on the phone ended his call and wandered outside. The barman closed his eyes and his head fell forward. A mouse ran across the packed dirt floor. It was hot in the tiny bar—the sea breeze had not yet come up.

  Lloyd rapped the bar and the barman jumped. “You know a man name Black Crab?”

  The barman’s head came up and he met Lloyd’s eyes. “What you want with him? You not from ’round here?”

  “Bournemouth,” Lloyd said and instantly regretted it. It was best not to tell anyone where you lived. “Just want ask him a question, boss.”

  “Black Crab don’t so much like question. But you young still. CRAB!” he shouted over the music. “This yout’ here want a word.”

  The boys turned to see the thin black man who had been on the phone walking toward them. He did not look scary in the least. As he walked up to them, Lloyd saw he was older than he had first thought. He had a seagoing look around his eyes, which were scored with wrinkles. His arms were ropy, as if he spent hours drawing a net. His skin was black but it had the fisher’s tinge of salt. “You askin for me, yout’?” His voice was soft but Lloyd heard an echo of menace in the simple words.

  Lloyd slid off the stool and stood in front of the man called Black Crab. “Boss,” he said. “Me is Lloyd. Lloyd Saunders. This my friend Dwight. We from over by Gray Pond fishin beach. Me—”

  “How you come to be lookin for Black Crab?”

  The truth or a story? Lloyd decided on the truth. “Me is lookin for my granddaddy, Maas Conrad him name. Him lost at sea. Him go the Pedro Cays, eleven day now, and him don’t come back. Nobody heard from him. So—”

  “What that have to do with me? Where you get my name from?”

  “We hear,” Dwight said. “We just ask around and we hear. We hear say you know about the foreign people what come here to buy dolphin. We hear you is a big man so we come find you.”

  Black Crab did not react to Dwight’s voice. His eyes remained fixed on Lloyd, who became aware that the two old men were leaving the bar. The barman followed them, shaking his head. The music pounded and the bar was too dark. “Boss,” Lloyd said. “Me don’t mean no disrespect. Please. Me don’t care if dolphin catch for whatever reason. Catch them all, me say, long as man can eat a food from it. But my granddaddy, him is an elder. Him hold to the old ways. All me want know is if him see sumpn him not suppose to see and if him is hurt somewhere, alone somewhere. That’s it. It don’t go no further than me and Dwight. Me can’t hurt you, me know how to keep my mouth shut. Me is not a informer.” Lloyd stopped. He had not said the right words, the words that were in his heart. Is he dead? Will his body ever be found? Will I ever know who killed him?

  Black Crab stared into Lloyd’s eyes. “Informer to dead. Right, yout’?”

  Lloyd nodded. No one spoke and the music blared. Finally, Black Crab said, “Where you granddaddy fish from?”

  “Gray Pond beach. That’s where him keep his boat.”

  “What him boat name?”

  “Water Bird.”

  “You have a cell?”

  “No, boss.”

  “WINSTON!” Black Crab bawled and the barman came running over. “Pass a paper and pen.” Winston looked under the counter and Lloyd saw his hands were trembling. He handed over an exercise book of the kind the boys used in school and a ballpoint pen. Black Crab tore out a piece of paper and wrote on it shaking the pen to make it write. “This my number. Call me in a week—”

  “A week!” Lloyd said. “Suppose him is hurt, starvin, no water, somewhere on the coast or lost in the boat with no engine.”

  “You love you granddaddy, yout’. That a good thing. Me did have a granddaddy too. Awright. You call me tomorrow. Then you throw away that paper. You forget the name Black Crab, you hear me? You go school, you play a little ball, you help you mother, you go sea, you do whatever you do. Me don’t want see or hear from you again, seen?”

  “Yes, boss. Thank you, boss,” Lloyd said. “Tomorrow.”

  The boys turned to go. “Me can ask you one thing, boss?” Dwight said. Lloyd pinched his arm but the words were out.

  Black Crab said nothing but his eyes narrowed and moved to Dwight’s face. Lloyd was suddenly afraid for his friend. “Why them call you Black Crab?” Dwight asked.

  The man called Black Crab laughed. “But see here now. Why you think? Them call me that ’cause me love eat black crab!”

  We became poor. It seemed to happen overnight—smaller catches, the empty market. The two women squabbled day and night: who had lit a fire too close to the line of washing, who had failed to clean up after themselves, which man was the better fisher, whether or not the little money Luke and I brought home should be split equally. The house I grew up in became a place of strife.

  And then Jasmine got pregnant. It was not an easy pregnancy—she vomited day and night for nine months. We were constantly at the Black River Hospital. We owed Maas Lenny for taxi fares we could not pay, the clinic was free but the medications were not. And the advice of the doctor was always the same—Jasmine needs good nutritious food, protein especially, and rest. My woman became thin with a round high belly like a smoothed beach rock. The schoolgirl who sat with me in the Arawak cave and held my hand was a flickering memory.

  The fishing was especially bad after Hurricane Flora and the heat was a torment. I saw the reproach in Jasmine’s eyes when catches were bad and we ate only rice or dumplings for supper, maybe with some pear when it was in season. Cordella swore at Luke and he stopped coming home. I went to sea alone and came back with a few small caesar fish, day after day. I did not know whether to sell the fish or give them to Jasmine to eat.

  The word Kingston became a chorus in our house—Kingston-Kingston-Kingston. Jasmine said there were jobs in Kingston, opportunities, progress. And there was a harbor, Kingston Harbour, so if Luke and I were bound and determined to continue fishing we could do that. Maybe the fish were biting there. But the word Kingston always sounded heavy to me, like something falling, something that would do damage when it landed.

  Then one day Luke came to me as I readied Silver for sea. Where you going? he said.

  Guinea Shoal, I answered.

  Don’t make any sense. It fish out clean.

  I shrugged. What else me going do? Plant skellion for Maas Gladstone? Cut bush for the Parish Council? Break stone for Public Works?

  Luke looked behind him and dropped his voice. We need one good catch, he said. To tide us over ’til the fish start bite again.

  Ee-hee, I said. Tell me sumpn me don’t know.

  He reached into his pocket and took out two sticks of dynamite. This is how we going get a good catch.

  You lick you head? Where you get that?

  Man in Alligator Pond. Them say them do it all the time. One time, bredren. One time.

  I wished for my father then. He would tell us not to do this thing and we would listen. No, Luke, I said to my brother. But together we pushed Silver into the sea.

  29

  Lloyd spent the next morning in Liguanea with his mother, wrapping fish, thinking of Maas Conrad, Black Crab, and Portland Rock. He and his mother talked and the stiffness between them eased. “Gramps was from country, true?” he had said to his mother. Talking about his grandfather kept him alive.

  “Ee-hee,” she said. “St. Elizabeth parish. Treasure Beach. Great Bay.” She stopped to deal with a customer. “I used to like country,” she said, when she had finished.

  “Which country?”

  “St. Elizabeth.”

  “Same like Gramps?” His mother nodded. “But not near the sea. Your granny had a small farm near Lititz. Grew skellion and pumpkin. Used to go there in the summer.”

  “There was a river?”

  “No river. We had to cut guinea grass to put around the plants to ke
ep water in the dirt. Is a dry place, St. Elizabeth.”

  Lloyd knew his mother’s mother had died when she was a young woman. “What happen to the farm?”

  “Oh, one of the outside children got it. Was okay with me. Me was done with farmin by then. Fine when you is a pickney, runnin up and down inna the hot sun, but . . .”

  Lloyd wanted to keep his mother talking. He racked his brain for a new subject. “You like being in Kingston then?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew how stupid they sounded, like something the son in an American family on TV might say.

  Miss Beryl looked amazed. “If me like Kingston? What kinda question that? Me here. We here. Doing what we have to. That’s it. Mornin, Miss,” she said to one of the uptown people. “What for you today?”

  They packed up at lunchtime. Without Maas Conrad’s fish, they were making much less money. “Tomorrow,” Miss Beryl said to her son. “Tomorrow this foolishness with your granddaddy is done, you hear me? You go sea. You bring home fish or money. Time for you to be a man.”

  Lloyd walked to Gray Pond beach. It was late afternoon and he hoped to find Maas Benjy or Maas Rusty under the divi-divi tree. Maybe one of them would have a cell phone with credit, so he could phone Black Crab. He was anxious. He wanted to know the truth, but he was afraid of it too. The shade under the divi-divi tree was empty and there were few people on the beach.

  Lloyd walked east, facing the low sun. He passed the few vendors’ shacks at the end of the beach. He saw Miss Violet from the Tun-Up rum shop leaning on the counter of one of the fish shops, chatting to the owner, Miss Selena. “Miss Violet, Miss Selena,” he greeted them.

  “Wha’appen, Lloydie?” Miss Violet said. “You hear from Maas Conrad?”

  “No. Nuttn.”

  “Is what, a week now?”

  “Eleven—no, twelve days.”

  “Um-hmm.” Violet shook her head and said no words of hope.

  “Miss Violet, you have credit on you phone? You think I could make a call?”

  “You callin a girl, Lloydie?” Miss Violet and Miss Selena laughed. “I tell you, young bwoy these days, them good!”

  Lloyd smiled as if they were right and took the phone she handed over.

  “Don’t stay too long,” Miss Violet said.

  He walked away from the women and sat on a rock. Maybe Black Crab would not answer, would never answer. The sun was going down and the gray waters of the harbor began to glow with its light. Another day over, pulling back like a wave. He fought back his sense of defeat, his fear. He called Black Crab’s number, and heard him say, “Yes?”

  “Boss. Is me, Lloyd, from Gray Pond fishin beach. Lookin for my granddaddy, Maas Conrad. You said you gonna ask around. You gave me you number.”

  “Yes-yes. Listen me, yout’. Two things. Number one: you granddaddy not comin back. Is rough, life hard, but so it go. Him gawn and that is the end of it.”

  “Boss, wha . . .”

  “Me say to listen. Number two: those two woman you talk to ’bout dolphin—you tell them from me is time to find some other line of work, seen? Argument done.”

  “Why you never tell me this at the bar?”

  Black Crab swore. “You think me know every man go a sea? You think me know every starving fisher, every hustler inna Kingston? You ask me to find out, me find out.”

  “What happen to him, boss? Please, me is beggin you, just tell me what happen.”

  “Yout’, you mix up inna big man business. Dangerous business. Lef’ it alone now. You hear me? Or you the next one lost at sea, seen?”

  Lloyd said nothing. He was tired of hearing that. He held the phone tightly and his palm was sweaty. He was alone on the beach, facing the harbor. “Yout’?” said Black Crab. “You still there? You hear what me say?”

  “Yes, boss. Me hear.”

  “Tek care then, yout’. Tell the dolphin woman find sumpn else to do,” Black Crab said. “And me don’t want hear from you again. Never, you hear?”

  Luke and I argued about using the dynamite as we pulled our pots and when we went home that night we carried only two juvenile yellow tails, wrapped in newspaper. Two small fish to feed four adults. I wanted to hide them from Luke and Cordella. I could cook them on the beach, get Jasmine out of the house; maybe Miss Adina would trust me two slices of hard dough bread and I would watch Jasmine eat. I thought about the Bible story of the feeding of the five thousand—five loaves and two small fishes. But there were no miracles to be had in Great Bay and I hated my willingness to take food from my brother. I had to do something—we had to do something. One time, I told myself.

  The next morning Luke and I left Great Bay in the dark. It was rough and we fought our way through the waves. We were soaked as soon as we cleared the shelter offered by the curving coast. Silver swooped up and down, sometimes her engine racing when it was clear of the sea as she hung on the crest of a wave. Luke and I did not speak. We knew the fishers of Alligator Pond used dynamite. The fishers of our villages looked down on them for that because they did not commit such crimes.

  When the sky lightened we were near our father’s favorite pot set, on the reef where we set reef traps as boys, where we dove for conch and spearfished for lobster.

  We do this before the sun come up, Luke said.

  You know what you doing? I asked.

  Yeah, man, he said. The man from Alligator Pond tell me.

  I stared into the water. We right over the reef, I said.

  Luke did not answer. He pulled the sticks of dynamite from his pocket and tried to light them but the matches were wet. Once, twice, the matches caught, sputtered, and died. Luke cursed and threw each dead match into the sea. I counted them, six, seven. I did not know if the pack of matches was full.

  You have any newspaper? he said.

  No, I replied.

  Luke kept on striking matches. Eleven, twelve.

  The fifteenth match caught and held and he shouted at me to help him. I cupped my hands around the tiny flame. It was such a fragile thing. The smallest of breaths would have blown it out, but I held my breath. Luke held one of the wicks to the flame and the flame danced with it. And then it caught. And the dynamite fizzed and I wondered how long it would take to explode and if perhaps this was how we would die, blown up by construction dynamite. Luke waited a long few seconds and then he threw it into the sea. At first nothing happened and then there was a crump and a swelling from the sea and then a white splash in the dark. Luke started the engine and we went to a second spot and this time the first match caught and Luke handed me the lit dynamite. Our eyes met—we were together in this. I threw the dynamite into the sea.

  As the sky lightened, we saw what we had done. Fish of every size slid this way and that on the roiling sea, but not as many as I expected. I had thought the fish were there, just hiding in the reef; now it seemed they were not there at all. Bits of coral rose and sank. We scooped up the fish in dip nets taking no time to sort out the ones that were too small to eat. Some slid through the holes in the net.

  The fish we took from the sea lay still in the bottom of the boat. There was no flapping, no fight for breath. There were few of any decent size. Then bigger ones started to float up and through my shame I felt relief. As I worked, I held Jasmine in my mind.

  The sun rose and we rested. The bottom of the boat held fish and other things—eels and rays and pieces of sea fans. We going to take all these back? I said.

  Why not? Small ones can make fish tea.

  People going know about the dynamite if we take them all back.

  Nobody care anymore, said Luke.

  I wondered if this was so. I looked at the dead fish, a silvery mass with flashes of every single fading color, all killed in a few seconds, most of them what we would have called trash fish only a few years ago. They were whole and catching them had been much easier than fishing with pot or net or line. We would eat tonight and there would be money in our pockets. The laws of men had been broken, and that was bad, but
we had also broken the laws of the sea, and that was worse.

  Luke started the engine and just as we turned Silver in the direction of Great Bay, just as the pink of sunrise faded from the sky, we saw what seemed to be a large log float to the surface. Wait, I said. What over there?

  Where? Luke said, looking in the direction I pointed. Shark, maybe.

  He slowed and turned toward the thing the waves covered and revealed. I saw blood in the water. I saw an eye without brightness and a dead smile and I saw the sleek body of a young dolphin lying lifeless on the surface of the sea. Perhaps it was the calf we had once seen with its mother; that day, it was the dolphin Luke and I killed together.

  30

  One more place, Lloyd told himself. The sky burned in the west; night and bad weather were on their way. He borrowed Miss Violet’s phone again and called Jules’s number. She answered on the first ring. “You ever been to Portland Rock?” he said.

  “What? Who is this?”

  “Miss Julie. Is me, Lloydie.”

  “Oh Lloydie. Jules, remember? How you doing? No news, huh? You find Black Crab yet?”

  “You ever been to Portland Rock?” Lloyd said again, avoiding the question.

  “I have. Good place for dolphins. That’s where I do a lot of my surveys.”

  “Me think Gramps is there.”

  “Portland Rock? Why?”

  “So me hear,” he lied.

  “Fishers go there. If he was there, somebody would have found him.”

  “Fisher not there all the time, though?”

  “No, that’s true. They can’t stay for long. It’s bare rock. No water. Nothing except birds.”

  “And crabs,” he said, thinking about how an injured fisher would catch and eat a live crab.

  “Yes, crabs too. But how long now since your granddaddy missing?”

  “Soon be two weeks.”

  “That’s a long time, Lloydie.”

  He wanted to shout at her, yes, I know is a long time! Stop tellin me that! Everybody, stop tellin me that. Is a long time but is not eternity. Is not impossible. He cast around for something to tell her that she would like, that she would believe.