I don't know why I was surprised when I first saw him. His name, maybe. A bone is white, and I guess I expected a white man. He was black. The color of milk chocolate, actually. A Bahamian native, I found out later, from Nassau Island. Big man, not so much tall as broad and solid, beefy through the shoulders and torso and across the hips, with short legs and heavy thighs, like a tree split at the crotch into a pair of thick boles. There were flecks of gray in the grizzled beard he wore; otherwise you wouldn't have had a clue as to his age. His skin was smooth and unlined except for a few sun wrinkles around his eyes. He had two gold-crowned teeth, one upper and one lower, that glinted whenever he smiled. Which wasn't often, and not at all on our first meeting. Mostly his expression was flat and unreadable. I took this to be the usual stoic native reserve until I got to know him. In fact, he was neither stoic nor reserved; the expression masked an almost fierce dignity. Bone was an intensely proud man, and smarter than ninety-nine percent of the white men circumstances now and then forced him to serve.
I introduced myself, told him that Marsten had referred me and why I was there. He studied me for half a minute, squinting in the sun glare, taking my measure, before he said in his lilting Bahamian accent, "Where you come from, mon?"
"Chicago," I said. "But I live here now."
"St. Thomas?"
"Yes."
"Own a boat?" He pronounced it "bow-ut."
"Not yet. I intend to buy one, but not until I'm ready for the responsibility—not until I'm a good enough sailor."
Bone studied me again. Then he said, "Come over in the shade," and went ahead without waiting for me. He sat down on the mushroom bitt that the ketch's bow was tied to, took out a stubby briar and a cracked oilskin pouch, and loaded the bowl with tobacco as black as tar. The aroma, when he set fire to the shag, had a molasseslike sweetness. His movements were deliberate, economical, efficient. He used words the same way, as if he had a limited supply stored up and was parceling them out a few at a time.
"How much you been on sailboats?" he asked.
"Not much. Taking private lessons the past two months."
"Who from?"
"A couple of boatmen at Red Hook." I named them.
"Why you want somebody else?"
"They weren't teaching me what I want to know."
"What you want to know?"
"All there is about boats and the sea," I said. "I told you the kind of sailor I want to be."
"Let me hear what you learned so far."
"Everything?"
"Everything you know."
I told him that, too. I thought it would take some time; I thought I was crammed full of basic knowledge. But when I laid it all out, it sounded pretty thin. Just the bare rudiments.
"I know I've got a lot to learn," I admitted. "That's why I'm here. I'm serious about this, Mr. Bone."
"Not Mister," he said. "Just Bone."
"Will you work with me?"
"This ketch," he said, "she's a fussy old woman, sometimes. Hard to get along with. Some say the same about her cap'n."
"I'm not looking for an easy time of it. When I buy a boat of my own, it won't be new and it won't be fancy."
"So you say now."
"I mean it, Bone. What do you say?"
"You take orders from a black mon, no argument?"
"You're the master, I'm the new hand. I know my place."
He sucked on his pipe, thinking about it.
"I'll pay you well," I said. "More than whatever you usually charge for lessons."
"What I charge depends."
"On what?"
"How hard you want to work."
"As hard as I know how, for as long as it takes."
"Might take a long time," Bone said. "Might take more time than you or I got."
"Meaning I might never be a sailor?"
"Some men born to it, some not."
"It's in my blood, Bone. I honestly believe that. I just never had the opportunity until now."
He almost smiled. "We'll find out," he said.
***
I could not have hooked up with a better sailor or better man than Bone.
He didn't just live on that ketch of his; he treated her the way I tried to treat Annalise, as a friend, a lover, an extension of himself. He pampered her, handled her with great care and gentleness. Growled at her now and then when she didn't cooperate, but never with any real anger. He knew more about sailing and the sea than any man I've ever met; now and then he'd surprise me with such obscure facts as the origin of the term starboard (a corruption of the Norse word steerboard, from the days when Viking dragon ships had right-side rudders). And he had an aptitude for practical instruction. He taught me more in a week than the others had in two months.
I spent full days with him once or twice a week when he was in port and not working at one of his other sources of income. Every now and then he'd sail off by himself—"going out," he called it, the real meaning of the ketch's name—and stay away for a week or two, one time for more than a month. He never said where he'd been or what he'd done on these trips. Long, solitary cruises, probably, and visits to his native Nassau. But I never asked him. It was his business, not mine or anybody else's. His own man, Dick Marsten had said. That was Bone in a nutshell.
Some days we'd go out on a sail. Short practice runs around some of the little islands like Thatch Cay and Hans-Lollik Island that surround St. Thomas; longer trips to Great Tobago or Jost Van Dyke or around St. John. In all kinds of conditions except for heavy-weather seas. Other days we'd stay in the harbor and work on the ketch—sanding, painting, reeving new main and mizzen halyards, cleaning the head and the bilge, checking oil, gas, and water lines, doing a hundred other small chores that go into the maintenance and smooth operation of a sailboat—
He was doing what? Using me as a workhorse and taking pay for it?
No. Hell, no. You couldn't be more wrong.
After the first couple of weeks he wouldn't accept a dime for the dockside days, even though I kept offering—and he did most of the chores himself, with little enough help from me. He let me pay him the going rate for lessons on sail days, and buy gasoline and other provisions, but that was all. Money didn't mean much to Bone. Almost all of what he got from me or from his other labors went into the ketch, and what was left over into the few small creature comforts he allowed himself.
Mostly, he taught by example rather than words. He'd perform this or that task, or series of tasks, and he expected me to watch carefully and internalize what I was seeing and understand the reasons for it and be able to perform the same task on my own when the time came. The Red Hook boatmen had insulted my intelligence; Bone accepted it and counted on it. He didn't talk down to me, or look through me. From the first he treated me with the same respect I accorded him.
Over a period of several months I learned the proper way to rig and trim sails and the fine points of docking and anchoring. How to read geodesic charts and tide tables, how to use compass roses and track a course—easy for me because of my mathematical turn of mind. How to read water depth and gauge the weather and navigate by shooting sun and stars and by dead reckoning. How to whip the ends of manila line to prevent raveling, make an eye splice, tie a clove hitch. The right and wrong ways to dock a boat under power and under sail. All the running rules and safety rules. All the little things that could go wrong on a boat and how to safeguard against them. What to do in this or that type of emergency. What essential tools and repair materials to keep on board. These and a hundred, a thousand more.
Often he'd spring a question on me, by way of a test. Is a jib the strongest pulling sail per square foot of area? (No. A jib's main function is to increase the power of the mains'l.) If you're running downwind, how do you prevent a dangerous jibe? (Rig a secure boom vang.) What's a long fetch? (The fetch is the distance the wind blows over unobstructed water; a long fetch can create dangerously high waves.) Why should a sail be set smooth and at the same time as stiff as possible? (The
wind doesn't just flow onto the sail, it flows off it as well. Every little wrinkle or hard spot sets up eddies on both sides that break up the wind flow and reduce the sail's efficiency.)
Bone also taught me about sharks. He had a thing about them, an odd mixture of hate and reverence. "A shark, mon, he's all stomach and never full. He don't care what he eats and he's always hungry. Sailor falls into deep water and can't get back on board, chances are he'll be some shark's supper." Another time he said, "Sharks, they like to race a boat sometimes. Some mon keep a rifle on board, every time he see a fin he shoot at it. Think it's fun to watch other sharks tear up a wounded one. Don't you do that. Bad luck to kill a shark for fun. Bad luck to kill anything lives in the sea you don't plan to eat."
He had amazing patience to go with his fierce dignity. When I made a mistake, as I did often enough in the beginning, he'd shake his head or growl in the same mild way he growled at the ketch. That was all. He never once raised his voice in anger. Not even after the worst of my screwups, the day I was responsible for blowing out the ketch's mains'l.
That day we were over in the Virgin's Gangway, the narrows between St. John and Tortola, and a squall began making up to eastward. Bone decided not to shorten down any more than we had to, so we left all the sails on and turned in a couple of reefs in the main and mizzen. Just as we were finishing the main, the squall hit us and Bone ran back to the wheel to keep her into the wind. My job was to tie in the last few points and raise sail again, and I had the halyard taut and was throwing it on the winch. The wind and drumming rain kept me from hearing Bone's shouted order to slack off. I slid the handle into the winch and took a turn, and all of a sudden the mains'l split all the way across. I realized what I'd done wrong before Bone had to tell me. I'd mixed up a pair of reef points, tied one from the first row to another on the opposite side in the second row; that had pulled the sail out of shape and put all the strain in one place.
One growl and a quick hard glare was all I got for my stupidity. Bone had another mains'l on board, fortunately, and the squall passed and we didn't have any trouble getting the new one up. Afterward, ashamed of myself, I kept trying to apologize, but he wouldn't listen to it. All he said was, "You'll never do that again, Mr. Laidlaw." It was a statement, not a question. And he was right, I never did anything that sloppy again.
After each day with Bone I wrote out a list of what I'd learned, to make sure I didn't forget even the smallest detail, and on the days I didn't see him I pored over the lists and star charts and geodesic charts that I'd bought myself. I plotted courses and made increasingly complex calculations—a whole new set of equations—and then embarked on imaginary voyages and dealt with various kinds of situations. I approached these studies with the same intensity as I had my accounting courses at Golden Gate University and the Amthor crime. The only difference was that this time, what awaited me on graduation wasn't a well-paid job or $600,000. It was a boat of my own.
Day-to-day living on a tropical island is not the same as it is on the mainland. Time slows down. The heat and humidity induce torpor and indolence. You don't keep regular hours or eat balanced meals. You have a tendency to drink too much, lie around too much, and when you play, to play too hard. Routine translates to boredom, unless it involves something you're passionate about. So you make an effort to see new places, develop new interests. And in my case, to be more social.
Our first year on St. Thomas, and most of the second year, we took the ferry to St. John a couple of times a month to eat and shop in Cruz Bay, to soak up sun on the powdery white sand beaches at Maho and Trunk and Hawknest bays. Now and then we took the longer ferry ride to Tortola, where we visited the Arundel Estate distillery and Annalise bought an antique music box and I bought a small brassbound mahogany chest that was supposed to have come from a Soper's End pirate's den. She didn't seem to mind riding on the larger ferryboats; it was only the pitch and roll of small craft that made her seasick.
We flew to Puerto Rico and spent five days exploring San Juan and the outlying areas. We took interisland flights to St. Croix, Culebra, St. Martin. We went snorkeling and tried scuba diving in Coki Bay. We attended parties, gave a couple of parties of our own. At the Royal Bay Club I played handball with Verriker and she played tennis with Maureen. One or two evenings a week we ate out and then went to Bam-boushay, Annalise's favorite nightclub, named for an old Calypso tourist phrase that means "Have yourself a fat old time"—a dark, noisy place that featured steel Calypso and Fungi bands and exotic native dancers. In April there was Carnival week—music and dancing, masquerades, costumed stiltwalkers representing the legendary West Indian spirits called jumbees—and the St. Thomas Yacht Club's annual regatta.
Some afternoons when it wasn't too hot and the trades were blowing soft, we played sex games. In one corner of the living room there was a daybed that Annalise had piled high with white throw pillows trimmed in blue. We opened the jalousied doors in that corner and moved the daybed over close to the sill, so that it commanded a view of the harbor and the sea beyond. Then we'd take turns sitting propped up naked against the pillows, while the other—
Christ, why did I bring that up? I don't want to talk about that.
Some things—
No, forget it, I'm not going to say any more.
Annalise liked the beaches more than I did; too many tourists to suit me. On the days I worked or sailed with Bone, she'd go to Magens or Coki or Sapphire alone or with Maureen or one of the other nonworking wives; swim, sunbathe, sit under an umbrella with her sketchpad designing swimsuits and beach attire. Occasionally she and Maureen would take an off-island trip together, or spend an evening at Bam-boushay when I preferred to sit home with an iced Arundel and watch the sunset and the harbor lights.
No one asked any questions about our past life that we couldn't answer with a few simple lies. No tourist or island resident looked at me as anything but another well-to-do expat. We spent money, but not as much as you might think. The cost of living wasn't all that high on St. Thomas in the late seventies and early eighties. And the return on my investments had exceeded expectations, so much so that I added another $100,000 in blue chip stocks to the portfolio.
I can't say exactly when Bone and I stopped being just tutor and pupil and became friends. It was a gradual thing, built on mutual respect and ease in each other's company and our shared passion for boats and the sea. One of those curious, not quite explicable, almost symbiotic relationships that occasionally develop between like-minded men of different races and cultures. But I can tell you when I first realized it and knew that he felt the same way.
It was a day near the approach of hurricane season in '80. The kind of humid day where you can almost see the moisture dripping in the air, feel it wet in your lungs every time you breathe. We'd been belowdecks on Conch Out all afternoon, installing a rebuilt chemical toilet and a new water Une in the head, and when we finished we were dehydrated and sweating like pigs. I suggested we head over to one of the waterfront taverns for a cold beer, as we'd done a few times before. Bone nodded, but when we were up on the seawall he asked if I'd brought my car today. I said I had, and he said, "How about we go to another place I know."
The place was on the edge of the native quarter, a rust-spotted Quonset hut that must have dated to the early years of World War II. The only indication that it was a tavern was a painted sign over the entrance that read "Bar"; if it had a name, I never heard Bone or anyone else mention it. And if any curious tourist had ever walked in, he'd likely have turned right around and walked out again. The interior was dark, with a plank bar and mismatched tables and chairs and a pair of vintage ceiling fans that did little to stir the sluggish air. The customers were mostly Thomian blacks, one of whom turned out to be an Obeah woman who dispensed charms for love and luck and to ward off jum-bees. You had the feeling that trouble brewed there now and then, and that you wouldn't want to be around when it did.
The dozen or so drinkers that day wouldn't have tolerated me h
alf so well if I hadn't been with Bone. They all knew him; a few spoke to him; the bartender called him by name. This was his regular watering hole. I understood that was why he'd brought me there: he'd decided to let me into a corner of his private world. For a native black man to do this for a white expat was not only an expression of friendship but a privilege, and I didn't treat it lightly. He bought the first round and when I bought the second he raised his glass in a toast and for the first time called me Richard instead of "mon" or Mr. Laidlaw.
The Crimes of Jordan Wise Page 10
