by Bryn Roar
Joe Rusty, looking puzzled and hurt, had stood there on Ham’s front porch for a moment more, unsure on how to respond to his best friend’s outburst. He blinked a couple of times, then calmly placed Ham’s birthday gift on a rocking chair by the front door. He looked over once more at Ham and then walked away.
Jessie, who’d seen the whole miserable thing take place from inside the cabin, realized his mistake in not talking this business through with his son.
“Sammy,” he’d said, pulling Ham to the backyard, where they’d had a seat on top of the picnic table. “If’n you chased that boy from here because of what you saw in Beaufort today, then I’m ashamed of you.”
His daddy ashamed of him? Ham couldn’t believe his ears! “Daddy, you let those men treat you like dirt! I hate white people! And I hate Rusty O’Hara!”
“Hate? Boy, what you know ‘bout hate?” Jessie had spat. “I spent my whole life dealing with rednecks like that heifer in the John Deere hat. I suppose if anyone ‘round here has the right to hate, it’s your mama and me. But don’t you see, son; if’n I let that emotion into my heart, then I’d be no better than those pitiful scared white boys.”
“Scared?’” Ham had scoffed. “‘Daddy, all due respect, the only one scared today was you!”
For a second Ham thought he had taken it too far. A dark cloud passed over his father’s leathery face. His eyes narrowed into angry slits. “All due respect, huh? Shoot, if that’s your idea of respect, then I’d surely hate to see you disrespect me! Sam, every day but Sunday I take my load to them docks. Now, if’n I be the scaredy-man you think I am, why would I do such a thing? I make more than enough from the rents for us to live just the way we is. Tomorrow, come rain or redneck, I’ll set up my stand like I always do. Sell my wares, and like the Good Book say, I’ll turn my cheek if need be. Ask me, that takes more courage than throwin’ down with some fool who wasn’t raised right!
‘So, tell me, mister loud talkin’ man! Do you really think your daddy’s a coward?”
Ham blushed right down to his boots. He had made his old man angrier than he’d ever seen him before. And yet despite what Jessie said, Ham couldn’t let it go. “Then why’d you let that fat man kick our shrimp bucket off the dock? Had to be close to fifty dollars worth in there!”
Jessie nodded glumly. “I know how that must have looked, son. But let me ask you this…if’n I did step up to that fat fool, what you think happen next?”
Ham looked down at his work boots, refusing to reply, despite knowing full well the answer. He’d been in enough playground scrapes to know how bullies worked.
“That’s right, boy!” Jessie exclaimed, smiling. “That there battle wouldn’t have been between Mr. Heifer and ol’ Jess Huggins. No sir! I would have had to fight mos’ every white man on that dock! And to what end, pray tell? Just so my son could see me stand tall to a stupid jackass that don’t mean nothing to me, no how? Sam… do I have to prove I’m a Man to you?”
“No, sir!” Ham had sobbed. He’d thrown himself into his father’s arms and hugged him tight. The smell of the sea infused every fiber in his father’s flannel work shirt. “But why those white men treat you like that, Daddy? Like you’s the dirt on they shoes?”
“It all comes down to that word you so thoughtlessly tossed about, boy. Hate.”
“But why they hate us?” Ham had insisted on knowing. “What’d we do to them?”
“Because it’s what they’ve been taught, and it goes back a ways, too. That redneck mos’ likely learned his hate from his daddy, his daddy from his daddy, and so on and so on. And if he has a son of his own, you can bet that poor child hates us too. That’s their loss, Sam. Not ours. A man can’t get to Heaven with that kind of spite in his soul. They’ll spend eternity twistin’ on the devil’s pitchfork, while we bask in the glory of God. Praise Jesus!
Jessie laughed and rubbed his son’s head. Just remember, Sammy. The only victory a hateful man gets is teaching his hate to others…
“Be they his sons or his enemies.”
“So, when I hate them…”
“Then they win. And the hate…it goes on and on…”
And so life had continued peacefully on Moon. Ham, now that he knew how the real world worked, avoided the mainland for as long as he could. But he knew his self-imposed exile was only temporary. For he couldn’t step into his daddy’s shoes until he’d found the courage to stand tall in them. Someday he’d have to brave that ugly world over there again. Until then, he was content on just being a boy—living on an island he considered his very own playground. Eventually Ham made that trip back to the mainland, and to his great surprise, the world had indeed changed. Oh, racism was still alive and well—Jessie had told him it was one of the devil’s favorite tools, and therefore would never go out of style—but it wasn’t nearly as overt anymore. And for a short time, Jessie and Son sold their wares side-by-side on the Beaufort docks.
And oh boy, life was good.
But like Ham’s childhood on Moon, this idyllic period with his father ended much too soon.
The same sea that had given Jessie so much over the years finally called its marker due. After getting no response on the radio one blustery spring morning, Reva Huggins called on her son and his best friend, both of whom had recently gone into business together on Ham’s new boat, to go out and look for Jessie.
One hour later, nineteen-year old Rusty O’Hara called back with the bad news. They’d found the Moon Maiden idling some three hundred yards off Crater Cove, with no sign of Jessie…on board or off.
In the background, Reva could hear the anguished cries of her only child, calling out to his father:
“Daddy! Daddy!! D-A-D-D-D-YYYYY!!!”
Two days later Jessie’s body washed up on the sands of Crater Cove. A sand dollar’s throw from the log home he’d built with his own hands. Every citizen on Moon attended his funeral; even that white trash, the Noonans,’ felt obliged to show their respects. Working the sea has always been one of the most dangerous professions known to man. There are a hundred-and-one ways to lose your life on the open water, but Jessie Huggins had succumbed to the number one killer: He’d fallen overboard. And since he employed no mates, not since his son went out on his own, there had been no one to help him in his time of need. This just added to the weight of guilt and grief Ham carried on his shoulders. He felt like he should have been there with his daddy, rather than on his own boat. But the decision to go out on his own had always been Jessie’s, not Ham’s to make. His daddy had insisted he go his own way! And to insure that his reluctant son did just that, Jessie had given Ham his own shrimp boat as a present on his wedding day. Besides, Jessie Huggins preferred to fish alone; everyone knew that. The man had a solitary soul that only the lonely sea could appease.
Nevertheless, Ham was unable to forgive himself for not being there when his old man needed him most. Sadly enough, it was a feeling he would know again, in the not too distant future. As if God was piling it on, three weeks after his father’s death, Ham suffered another devastating blow. His mother passed on in her sleep.
Jessie’s sudden death had left Reva heartbroken and unwilling to carry on. The cabin Ham and his new bride had been sharing with his parents was now theirs alone.
As was Jessie’s growing fortune.
Unlike his father, Ham didn’t have any romantic notions about the sea. He knew her to be a killer, lying in wait for those who didn’t take the blue bitch seriously enough. That’s why, when he went out on his own, he didn’t think twice about making his best friend, Joe Rusty O’Hara, a full partner. It didn’t matter that Joe Rusty didn’t have any money to invest in their partnership; his worth as a man more than made up for his lack of funds. Some things you just can’t put a price on. Because when a man such as that has your back…well, that there, as the commercial says, ‘is priceless.’
Rusty and Ham had gone to the same two-room schoolhouse on Moon. Back then the school only went to the eighth grade. If you wa
nted to attend high school, you had to take the six a.m. ferry to the mainland. Rusty and Ham chose not to. Their whole lives they’d known what their futures held, and they’d eagerly awaited the day when they could begin them in earnest. By the time they dropped out of school, both boys were just literate enough to get by.
In The Body, Stephen King’s seminal tale about friendship, the author reminds us that the best friends we’ll ever know are those we make as kids. Never was this more true than with Ham Huggins and Joe Rusty O’Hara. Their childhoods were as one. Their coming of age a shared experience. Together they explored the island’s woodlands. Playing War in the many sinkholes pockmarking the forest floor. They knew where the largemouth bass liked to hide in Lizard Lake, and which oyster beds still produced offshore. Together they plumbed both marine and fresh water depths in the two-man Jon-Boat they’d built together, learning early on their life’s calling.
The two boys did everything together.
They even met their future wives together.
Three years after finishing school on Moon, Rusty called on Ham for a favor. It seemed he’d met this young buxom blonde, Shayna Petterson, and had asked her out on a date to the new Drive-In movie theatre.
The girl had said yes, on one condition: that Rusty find a date for her good friend Betty Anne Atkins.
Even though he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, Ham agreed to take her out. He’d seen this Betty Anne back when he was in school. She was a year younger than Ham, and was, the last time he’d seen her, skimpier than a beanpole’s shadow. A mere wisp of a thing
To Ham’s happy surprise, Betty Anne was no longer skimpy or wispy! In fact, the girl had filled out altogether nicely. With his mouth hanging open like he’d lost all sense, Ham watched her walk out of her home, on the newly developed West Side, where the finest houses on Moon stood overlooking the sea. Her beauty had so flustered him that he’d neglected to get out of the truck and open the passenger door for her! It was a lucky thing he’d decided to pick up Betty Anne first. If Rusty had seen how stupid he’d looked, with his mouth unhinged like that, he never would have heard the end of it.
Except for a nervous glance her way, when Betty Anne first climbed into his truck, Ham barely acknowledged her presence. Not even after picking up Rusty and Shayna, both of whom crammed into the front seat beside them, forcing Betty Anne to slide right next to her blushing date. In fact, Ham didn’t say a word until he’d backed up the truck into a slot at the drive-in, whereupon Joe Rusty and Shayna hopped out and jumped into the bed of the pick up, the movie being the last thing on their minds. The Moonlite Drive-In had opened the previous summer, and was the only spot in town where the young people could hang out with their parents’ blessings—the other two locations being notorious lovers’ lanes. The owner, grumpy old Mr. Grimes, didn’t take into account the scarcity of cars on Moon, but the islanders had made do.
Ham looked around at all of the blankets laid out in the large lot. There was an unspoken rule at the Drive-In: Couples laid their blankets on the left side of the field, families the right. A playground in the center was the Mason-Dixon line. Ham parked on the left.
“Can I get you some popcorn, Betty Anne?” Ham had asked his date, finally getting up the courage to speak, even though he still couldn’t look her in the eyes. In a bold move, he’d parked facing the snack stand. Like his pal Joe Rusty, Ham had no interest in watching the picture show.
If Betty Anne noticed, she didn’t seem to mind.
She put one finger under Ham’s chin and lifted his head until their eyes locked. He melted under the soft gaze of those honey brown eyes, falling head over heels in love at that instant. “A Coke and a smile would be kinda nice, too,” she’d purred in return.
One year later, Ham and Joe Rusty were doing yet another thing together: walking down the aisle with their best girls on the very same day.
Joe Rusty’s wedding was first, and Ham was of course his Best Man—Betty Anne, Shayna’s Maid of Honor. Then, after a quick change, Rusty and Shayna returned the favors, escorting their friends to the front of the church, where the Reverend Milo Tipple waited to unite them in Holy Matrimony. Sometime after the wedding Betty Anne’s parents, who had given their happiest blessings to the union, sold their home on the West End, and retired to a senior citizen community in Arizona.
They’d both since passed away.
Jessie Huggins, never a fellow to throw around his money, made the Moon Island grapevine buzz like seldom before when he gave his son a brand new shrimp boat, almost twice as big as the Moon Maiden, the paint on her lovely bow still wet. For Joe Rusty O’Hara, who Jessie and Reva had come to think of as a second son, they had deeded over the house his family had been renting for nearly twenty years. Rusty’s mother had passed away the previous summer, his dad when he was just fourteen, so the present of the home, from a man he respected more than any other, touched him very deeply. Rusty promised Jessie Huggins that as long as he lived he’d never let any harm befall his son. And Joe Rusty was as good as his word.
The first time Rusty O’Hara saved Ham’s life was on a day you’d least expect for such theatrics. It was a calm spring morning. The sea as flat as Lizard Lake back home on Moon. Rusty had the wheel, while Ham hoisted in the catch. He emptied the net of its bounty on the deck and prepared to separate the flotsam of the sea from the shrimp and money fish. They employed no other mates, so they often did the work of four men, on what was the biggest shrimp boat in Beaufort County.
Ham had taken over his dad’s old spot on the Beaufort docks, right beside the very same rednecks who’d once taunted Jessie—now over a year in his grave. God rest his soul. Buried right beside his beloved Reva, in Moon’s only cemetery, deep in the heart of the piney woods. Nobody dared kick any of his catch back into the drink! For as Ham liked to say, when driven to anger: “Hear me well! I ain’t half the Christian my daddy was! I ain’t got but one cheek to turn and I won’t be turning it for the likes of you!”
Ham, usually a cautious man, was thinking on this curious turn of events instead of the job at hand when calamity struck. Unaware that a line had coiled around his ankle, he dropped the huge net back into the drink—only to find himself being dragged right along after it.
It happened so fast Ham didn’t even have a chance to call out for help. Just enough time to hold his breath before the Atlantic swallowed him whole.
He tried untangling his foot but it was no use. If the boat had been idle he might have stood a chance, but with the line pulled tight from the surging seas, Ham couldn’t make any headway with the knot.
As the heavy net sank ever lower into the briny depths, the light coming from the surface dimmed…
Ham couldn’t recall how he got back on the deck of the Betty Anne. By then he was already technically dead.
The first thing Ham saw when he came to was the worried face of Joe Rusty, looking down at him.
Despite the fact he hadn’t witnessed Rusty’s heroics, nor would his friend talk about it in any detail (It was nothin’, Hambone. I didn’t see you on deck, and I just got a feeling. So I pulled up the net, pushed some salt water out your lungs, and here you are, boyo! Easy peasy, teasy squeezey), Ham could still picture it just as clear as day.
The second time Joe Rusty saved Ham’s life the Atlantic was showing a lot more attitude. The morning run from the docks of Beaufort had been mild and uneventful. Not so their return trip. The blue bitch showed her nasty side without warning. The clouds above her head turning black in the wink of an eye. With the violent crash of a lightning bolt, rain pelted horizontally into the windshield of the Betty Anne’s wheelhouse. Rusty fought the sudden heavy seas at the wheel, while Ham radioed his wife to let her know they would be late getting home. He told Betty Anne to pass the on news to Shayna O’Hara.
He was racking the radio’s mike, when through the windshield he saw a line had given way on their crab traps. Three of the wooden traps skittered wildly across the deck, hit the port side, and f
lipped overboard. The rest were a wave away from following them over the side.
“Leave ‘em be, Hambone!” Rusty had shouted, even as his thickheaded friend was heading out the hatch.
