by Dan Ames
“Who you workin’ for?” he said. He still had the knife in one hand, the apple in the other.
I sort of scrolled through my typical responses, the ones I’ve spouted maybe a few hundred times in my career. That’s confidential. An interested party, etc. They suddenly seemed like they would sound hollow and flimsy in this man’s presence. So I went with the truth.
“Clarence Barre.”
His face registered nothing, but he did give a slight nod. He worked the knife through the apple and popped a chunk into his mouth.
“I’m leaving in thirty seconds,” he finally said. “You can talk to me when I get back.”
“How long are you staying out?”
“Eighteen hours.”
“Are you sure you don’t have a minute to talk?”
He shook his head no and stared at me.
“Randy called in sick,” he said. “More work for me and Rollie.”
“What if I came along?” I said, thinking eighteen hours was a motherfuck of a long time, but if I had to do it, I would.
Hornsby nodded as if he’d known all along that was going to be my response. “If you stay, you work,” he said.
I didn’t like the sound of that. I had a feeling the lumber-recovery profession was a pretty dangerous job, probably second only to road construction workers in Cairo.
Of course, Hornsby could stay out for a lot longer than eighteen hours—days, even weeks—or just motor up to some other harbor in some other town and I’d never see him again. Or at least not for a long time.
“Ten seconds,” he said. He flipped a few switches and looked back at me.
“Aren’t we going to talk about my hourly rate?”
“Zero dollars an hour. Anything else?” He revved the engines for emphasis.
“Do you have a 401(k)?” I said.
His response this time was to jam the throttle down. I stumbled backward, knocking his Styrofoam coffee cup off the low shelf next to the table.
“You better have workers’ comp!” I yelled over the screaming engines.
I struggled to my feet to say something to him, but he was gone. My eyes were drawn to a picture on the wall that he had been blocking.
It was old and hung in a cheap frame, but there was no mistaking the woman caught on film.
It was Jesse Barre.
15
“There she is,” Hornsby said, his voice a dull growl, not quite as deep as the sound of the ship’s engines.
I looked out through the streaked windshield and saw the second ugliest water vessel known to man.
This beast looked like a giant concrete block with an angled front and square back. Its surface was virtually empty save for the roughly fifteen-foot crane standing in the middle. It sat on top of the dark greenish-brown water, rocking gently in the three-foot waves, the sky a solid sheet of gray overhead. Not exactly a Norman Rockwell scene.
Looking back, I couldn’t see any signs of land. We were a long way out.
It had been nearly an hour since Hornsby’s sudden burst of acceleration had thrown me off my feet. He’d said little more than to tell me we were going out to a barge he used to retrieve sunken lumber. The rest of the ride, he’d ignored my questions.
Now, Hornsby and his worker, Rollie, lashed the boat up against the barge. A few minutes later, Rollie emerged in a wetsuit. I watched him spit out his giant ball of chewing tobacco. It landed in a little metal pail. He set it against the side of the cabin. Ooh, leftovers.
Rollie then went over the side into the water while Hornsby jumped between the two vessels and immediately began hauling a chain and rigging harness to the side of the barge. When Rollie reemerged from the water, Hornsby fed him the chain.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I said. After all, he’d given me the big lecture about working.
“Yeah, keep out of the way,” Hornsby said.
Right. I could do that.
So I watched, waiting for the right moment to begin questioning Hornsby about his relationship with Jesse Barre. I was here to get some goddamn answers. I would be pretty pissed if I spent all day on the S.S. Piece of Shit with nothing to show for it but the vague smell of dead carp.
After a few minutes of feeding the chains into the dark water, Hornsby stopped. He stood there, looking down for several minutes. Finally, after Rollie disappeared back into the olive-green depths, I took my opportunity.
“So you know, Clarence thinks you killed her.” I figured what the hell, he wasn’t answering my questions, maybe I could goad him into talking.
The wind ruffled his dark brown hair, and he smirked. Well, there went that plan. Pissing him off wasn’t going to be easy.
A flock of gulls screamed overhead, and Hornsby stepped closer to the edge of the boat.
“He loved his daughter, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But he never understood her.”
“What didn’t he understand?”
He waved me away like it was a question not worth answering. After a few minutes of staring into the water, though, he did give me an answer.
“He thinks she wanted to leave me, right?”
I waited, not wanting to divulge anything he didn’t already know.
“You don’t have to answer. I know I’m right.” He walked along the deck of the barge to the base of the tower, with me right on his heels. He put his hands on some of the crane’s levers and made a few adjustments. Overhead, I heard the creak of old machinery beginning to awaken.
“So maybe you’re right,” I said. “Do you want to deny it?”
“I want to tell you and Clarence to go fuck yourselves, but I can’t,” he said. “Well, you I can. But not Clarence. She was crazy about him. I wouldn’t want to do anything that would upset him. If Jesse were here, that’s what she’d be saying.”
I took a closer look at him, at his eyes, and for some reason, I believed him. Maybe it was the way he said it. Maybe he was just a helluva good actor. Or maybe it was the dark circles under his eyes, the tired, beaten look in his face. It rang true. It looked like the face of a man who’d just lost the woman he loved.
“So why does he think she was leaving you?” I said.
“Who says she wasn’t?”
Okay, he had me there.
“Can we stop playing games?” I asked. “Was she leaving you?”
“She was and she wasn’t.”
I sighed and looked out toward the lake. The wind shifted a bit, and a giant wave crashed over the side of the barge. I looked down and the front of my Dockers were wet, like I’d pissed my pants. I glanced at Hornsby. He was dry.
“She was and she wasn’t?” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I walked to Hornsby’s left, trying to get a glimpse of what he was doing. I heard a noise overhead and then Hornsby grabbed me. I thought he was going to throw me in the water. But he pushed me forward just as a large pool of heavy chain dropped onto the deck from the crane overhead. It landed right where I’d been standing.
“Shouldn’t I be wearing a hard hat?” I said. “I’m a bleeder.”
Hornsby appeared not to have heard what I said, nor did he seem to notice the fact that he’d just saved me from grave injury.
“She was taking a sabbatical,” he said. “From the shop. From Grosse Pointe. And from me. But she was coming back. She said so. I think she told the old man too.” He laughed. “I just don’t think he believed her.”
“What was she going to do on this . . . sabbatical?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re done,” he said, gesturing toward the water. I looked down, and the first log was ascending to the surface, like an ancient submarine finally coming to port.
“Stay out of the way,” he told me. No problem, Ahab.
The chain around the log was hooked to a winch, and Hornsby crossed the deck, released the chain from the winch, and Rollie, in the water, backed away from the log then disappeared.
Hornsby walked back to the crane’s control center, fired it up, and slow
ly maneuvered the big arm out over the water. He spread the clamping mechanism open, brought it down on top of the log, closed it, and hoisted the three-ton, four-hundred-year-old log onto the surface of the barge.
It lay there, still, like a harpooned whale. It was dark brown with a tinge of green on it. Hard to believe beautiful wood could come from that.
This procedure repeated itself over and over again, so that by the time an hour had passed, I felt like I’d learned all I could about the fascinating world of lumber recovery. In other words, I was ready for a nap.
I walked back across the barge, jumped onto the deck of the ship, and went into Hornsby’s cabin.
Protected from the wind, it immediately felt warmer, and I helped myself to a cup of coffee from the pot next to the captain’s chair. I was so tired the caffeine stood no chance of keeping me awake.
I took the opportunity to look around. There wasn’t much for me to snoop through. Some topographic maps of the lake’s bottom. Pictures of Hornsby and his crew. A newspaper article on Superior Salvage Company. A few photographs taped to the wall. In one of them, I saw a grinning Hornsby with his arm around Jesse Barre. They both looked comfortable with each other. Relaxed. Maybe even in love.
I found the head, which was surprisingly clean, and took a leak. I went back to the cabin and drained the rest of my coffee. I looked out over the water; a fine mist was thick in the air. It had gotten colder as well. No time to be out on the deck of a barge, that’s for sure. You know those guys who loved to be out and fighting the elements? Looking Mother Nature in the eye? I was not one of them. I figured my ancestors worked hard to figure out that it was safer to hide in caves. It would be an insult to their hard work and dedication to be outside right now.
A small cot lay along the opposite wall of the cabin. I stretched out on it, zipped my coat up all the way to my chin. The coffee had momentarily warmed my insides, and I figured that I wouldn’t miss much if I took a quick nap.
Besides, I reasoned, I’m a light sleeper.
•
I dreamed of a nice gnocchi dinner, served by my wife whose attire consisted of fishnet stockings and a jaunty beret. She was just about to suggest dessert when something odd happened. Instead of a pleasant garlic aroma, the gnocchi smelled like gasoline.
My eyes opened, and I was suddenly wide awake, scared, and disoriented all at the same time.
I was on Hornsby’s boat, in the cabin, and my mind tried to take in the fact that it was nearly dusk and that I must have been sleeping for nearly five hours. Holy Christ, what a fuckup I was.
The early morning had really done me in. I vaulted over the deck of the ship onto the barge. I jogged to the crane control and the area where the chain and harness were, but I saw no one.
I walked to the edge of the ship and looked into the water.
Rollie was on his back, a thick length of the chain tied around his neck. His face was bobbing in and out of the water. His lifeless eyes were bulging, his mouth an open container. Water poured in, water poured back out. A huge log was in the water next to him, and the chain seemed to be holding Rollie alongside.
I looked around the barge, out toward the water. “Hornsby!” I called.
Just as the last echoes of my voice were carried away by the wind, I heard what sounded like a small explosion. More of a whooshing sound. And then the deck of the barge was a column of flame headed right for me. A motor gunned, and I saw a shadow crouched at the throttle of a small outboard, and then I was leaping from the barge, out into Lake St. Clair.
I hit, and the shocking cold of the water made me nearly want to scream.
I went straight down into the water, the sudden silence shocking me as much as the knifing cold.
My jacket weighed a ton, but I kept it on; instead I kicked off my shoes and pants, holding my breath for as long as I could before I had to surface.
When my lungs were burning and I was on the verge of inhaling a mouthful of water, I broke through to the water’s surface. Smoke was everywhere. It was like night had come and thrown a stinky blanket over everything. As I struggled to get my bearings, a huge explosion rocked the air. I looked and could just make out through the smoke that Hornsby’s boat was now on fire.
I swam toward Rollie. When I was close enough, I put a hand on the log and tried to get a grip on its slick surface. It was difficult, but at last I found a small notch that served as a handhold.
I tried to think things through.
They had killed Rollie and were trying to destroy the ships. So the question was: where was Hornsby?
Despite the situation, I felt a tug of relief. They, whoever that might be, probably weren’t after me. If they didn’t know I existed, they probably wouldn’t come back to try to kill me.
Which was good.
The bad part was, I had no way of getting back to shore, and my body was already going numb from the cold. I had to get out of the water, and get out fast. Then I had to figure out a way to signal someone back on shore.
And there was still no sign of Hornsby.
Part two of the good news was that I knew the barge was virtually indestructible, unlike Hornsby’s ship. So when I spied the chain leading from Rollie’s neck to the side of the barge, I knew I had a chance. My hands already felt like frozen claws, so I would have to go as quickly as possible. I kicked off from the log, my clothes pulling me under, my body underestimating the strength it would take to keep me afloat and propel me the twenty feet I needed to cross to get to the chain.
I pushed and kicked, the water tugging at me, the cold washing over me. I felt the chain brush my fist. I grabbed for it and missed, immediately going under and getting a mouthful of Lake St. Clair. The parallel with water going in Rollie’s mouth inspired me to panic. I flailed back to the surface and got both hands on the chain. I pulled myself to the barge and tried to lift myself from the water, but my jacket and sweater weighed me down. It was going to be impossible. I was going to die, clinging to the chain for a while, like Leonardo de Caprio in Titanic, and then I was going to lose my grip and slip to the bottom, landing in a pile of wooden logs.
A giant motherfucker of a wave knocked me against the side of the barge, and I lost any oxygen that was left in my lungs. I gasped for breath, clawed at the chain, and maybe gained a foot or two.
But it was enough.
A red lever hung just below where I needed to get in order to haul myself out of the water.
It was the power switch for the winch.
My body shook with cold, and the exertion of swimming had left my muscles numb with fatigue. I thought of Anna and the kids back home, probably sitting down to dinner, oblivious to the fact that Daddy was hanging on for dear life in the middle of a freezing cold lake, clinging to a boat that was on fire.
The lake seemed to surge beneath me, pushing me toward the winch’s control panel. My hands slid up the chain. I grabbed the lever and brought it down, instantly sending the chain into action. The winch pulled it to the surface of the barge, me along with it. I rolled onto the deck and gasped for air. I couldn’t believe I’d made it. That I was alive. No life insurance check for Anna. She’d be pissed.
A sudden loud thud made me get to my hands and knees and peer over the side of the barge.
It was the log that Rollie had been attached to. The winch, still winding, had brought it all the way to the side of the ship.
But Rollie was nowhere to be seen.
Something was pinned to the bottom of the log, had been trapped out of sight beneath the water.
Nevada Hornsby.
16
I’d always wanted to meet someone from the Coast Guard. Somehow, I figured it would be a Saturday field trip with my daughters. I’d call ahead, arrange a tour of the Coast Guard place with some guy called Captain Happy, the girls could pretend to steer the ship, we’d get some fake medals, and then we’d all take pictures and drink cocoa.
Alas, Captain Happy turned out to be a grumpy, middle-aged man, who, after
a bumpy ride across Lake St. Clair with two men wearing sidearms giving me the cold stare, unceremoniously deposited me with the St. Clair Shores police. Apparently emergency calls regarding an abundance of dark smoke on Captain Happy’s lake didn’t inspire a warm, fuzzy feeling in the Coast Guard official. No cocoa, and he never even let me steer the ship. Good thing I hadn’t brought the girls along.
The cops escorted me to an ambulance that took me to a hospital, where, after a blatantly cursory inspection, doctors determined I was fine. They didn’t even give me the ‘twenty-four-hour observation’ demand.
The cops then escorted me back to the station where all kinds of phone calls were made, some in my presence, most occurring, I’m guessing, while I waited in a conference room. A couple of St. Clair Shores cops took my statement. Then they re-took it. And then, to qualify for the hat trick, they took it again. I kept it not pretty much the same, but exactly the same.
After they left, I took stock of my situation. The hospital had given me some doctor’s scrubs, and my wet clothes were in a paper bag that was now soggy. I had a blanket around my shoulders and was trying to stay warm. I was also trying not to think about Nevada Hornsby, the sight of him lashed to the bottom of the log, his dead eyes staring up at me—
The door banged open and my sister walked in.
She took a moment to look at me. Not a glance. A slow, thorough assessment. When she was done, she turned back toward the door.
“Let’s go,” she said.
•
I’d found it a pretty good idea when dealing with my sister that if you were not sure what to say, keep it zipped. So I sat in the front passenger seat of her cruiser, looking out the window as we left the hospital parking lot, heading back, I assumed, to my house.
“Listen, I can explain,” I said, ignoring my cardinal rule. Why do I even bother to make them up when I so rarely follow them?
