by John Rocco
“He’s spotted us, Tommy.”
“Who?” Tommy asks, arranging some of the leftover quahogs on the bottom of the boat.
“Vinny.” I nod over to the Whaler as it starts to pick up speed. I look back at Tommy, and he looks like he’s going to blow a gasket.
“Don’t worry, Tommy, they’re not going to do anything,” I say, standing up in the middle of the rowboat, using the bags of trash for balance.
“He’s got that chooch Jim Allen with him,” Tommy says.
I can hear them laughing as they approach. Vile’s boat comes to an idle, and the motor shakes like it’s trying to release itself from the stern.
“Jim, look, it’s Trashman and Unco.” Vile’s words spew from his mouth like grease from a grease gun. Neither of us says anything. “You two Boy Scouts trying to get a merit badge?”
“Girl Scouts,” the chooch says, and they both start laughing out loud. The motor revs; Vinny jams it into gear and starts circling us, making a big wake. The trash starts knocking back and forth, and our boat is leaking badly.
A quahog shatters on the bow of their boat, and pieces of shell fly like shrapnel. I look over, and Tommy is standing up with two more quahogs and taking aim at the guys. One zings past Jim’s head as he ducks, and Vinny cuts the wheel hard, guns the engine, and flees from Tommy’s onslaught.
The Whaler is halfway up the river, and Tommy is still slinging quahogs at them.
“They’re gone, Tommy! They’re gone.” But Tommy is still throwing quahogs at the fleeing boat and biting his lip. When the last quahog splashes into the water, Tommy sits down. His fists are clenched and drumming on his thighs. “Jesus, Tommy, what the hell was that? You could have killed one of those guys.”
“I wanted to. They’re complete scumbags, and they would have deserved it.”
“I can’t blame you there. But I’ve never seen you like that. You were possessed, man,” I say, straightening the bags.
“Let’s just get home. I don’t want those jerks coming back.”
“Yeah.” I pull on the oars. “We’d have to start throwing bottles at them, and they’re worth five cents apiece.”
Tommy is still pissed but he starts sputtering, and then he laughs and begins to look like himself again. We get to shore and decide to leave the bottles and cans in the boat for now. Maybe we’ll come back another day and sell them. We quietly place the oars back in the truck that is still parked at the Italian-American Club, and throw the trash in the Dumpster behind the building near the bocce courts.
As we come back around the corner, I grab Tommy and shove him down behind a black four-door sedan.
“What the hell?” Tommy complains.
“Shhhh.” I point to the green-and-tan Chevy Blazer pulling up to the front of the Italian-American Club. Tommy sees the DEM logo on the side of the truck and quickly understands.
As we peek through the dusty windows of the sedan, the Blazer comes to a stop, and who gets out but that guy Delvecchio. I can see huge sweat stains on his uniform as he cautiously opens the back of the Blazer.
“What do you think he’s doing? You think he’s going to bust the guys at the Italian Club?” Tommy asks in a hushed whisper.
“I don’t know.” I continue to watch, waiting for Delvecchio to pull out a shotgun or a bazooka or something. I can see his skinny blond-haired partner twitching in the front seat. Delvecchio definitely pulls something out of the back of the Blazer, but from where we are, I can’t see what it is until he gets to the door.
“What’s he doing bringing quahogs to the Italian Club?” Tommy asks.
“I’m not sure.” I watch as a big guy with the name CAZZO embroidered on his black satin jacket sticks his fat head and chest out of the half-opened door. I immediately recognize him from the diner, and my heart races. Delvecchio hands him two onion bags filled with littlenecks, and they exchange nods. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Delvecchio gives him a wave, and Tommy and I both duck down as he turns back toward his truck. We stay like that until we see the Blazer pull out of the parking lot.
“What’s up with that?” Tommy asks as we head back to the marsh to collect our skateboards.
“That clam cop was the one who came into the Riptide and started busting chops last week.”
“What’s he running, a quahog delivery service part-time?”
“Who knows? Maybe he owes Vito ten grand too.” I say this, knowing it’s probably something a whole lot worse. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Good idea,” Tommy says, brushing off his skateboard.
“So really, what did Vinny and Jim do to you to make you want to kill them?” I ask Tommy as we head back up Kelly Street.
“You don’t want to know.”
“What?” I ask, coming to a stop. “I told you about all the crazy stuff going on with me.”
Tommy kicks his skateboard up and walks over to me. “They locked me in a Dumpster.”
“They what?”
“Those bastards locked me in the Dumpster at school. You know the one behind the cafeteria near the bike racks? It was full of grease and all kinds of nasty stuff, and I threw up all over myself. By the time the janitor opened it up, there was a crowd of people standing around and laughing at me, and I just ran.”
“God, if I had known, I would have been chucking chowders at them too.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we save the diner.” He’s poking me in the ribs now, and I can see tears welling up in his eyes. “We have to save that diner, because if you move away and leave me here alone with those jerks, I will kill them.”
I don’t know what to say.
Tommy quickly wipes his eyes and takes off.
Great. Yet another reason I have to go out in the middle of the night and work for a pirate and risk my life to pay off some Mafia loan sharks so that I can keep living in a tiny apartment above the diner — so Tommy doesn’t kill Vinny Vile and Jim Allen and go off to prison.
Thanks, Dad. This is getting better all the time.
At a little past ten I walk down to Kenyon’s Bait Shop and take the wooden stairs down to the small sandy beach. It’s pitch-dark, with no moon; it even feels like a night for pirates. I wonder what we’re going to “salvage” tonight. A splinter from the railing rips into my finger as I get to the last step. Definitely a sign. Turn back. Go home. Forget the money and the diner and just suck it up and move to Arizona.
I can’t see, so I just leave the splinter lodged in my hand and sit down in the sand at the edge of the water to wait.
The water glistens from the reflected lights of the houses across the river in Barrington. I begin to think about Darcy and her jet-black hair, and her blue eyes that sparkle every time she makes a joke. I wonder about her arm, and I understand why she hides it. Kids are mean. Guys like Vinny Vile and Jim Allen are too damn stupid to know how much they hurt people.
Ten minutes later I can hear Captain’s engines rumble in the distance, like growling bears biting through the darkness. The growl turns to a churning scream as he trims the engines up and the hull of the boat crunches onto the shell-covered beach.
I rise from the sand, grab the bow rail, and swing my leg on board as we silently back away from the beach without speaking a word. It’s creepy and exciting and I know there’s no turning back.
“Take the wheel,” Captain demands, and I do what he says, using the lights of the houses onshore to guide me out of the mouth of the river.
“I can’t see anything.”
“That’s the idea.” Captain pulls out a rolled-up black cloth. He grabs the wheel and uses his hip to shove me aside as he pulls the cloth over and snaps it around the console, instantly blacking out the light coming from the instrument panel. He takes one last look around at the lights on land, and then dips his head underneath the shroud.
Holy crap, he’s going to steer this boat using only instruments. I’ve heard of guys having to do that in a thick fog, or in a sn
owstorm, but I’ve never actually seen it.
We’re moving past Barrington Beach, and my mind wanders to the opening next week. I’m wondering if Captain is going to work the beach when it opens. The boat slows to a crawl, and suddenly I’m thinking that Captain is going to work the beach right now. He doesn’t have any bullrakes or poles or any other quahogging equipment on board, so I’m not sure. He does have a large davit anchored to the deck and the gunwale, like the kind Gene uses to haul lobster traps. I think we’re going to steal lobster traps, and I’m starting to break out in a cold sweat. In Maine, lobstermen will shoot you dead for stealing traps.
“Get the grappling hook out of the anchor well.” Captain shoots his instructions from underneath the shroud. “When I give you the signal, lower it over the starboard side till it hits bottom.”
I follow his instructions, but I wish Captain would clue me in. Are we salvaging again? What’s down there? At least on Gene’s boat, I know what the drill is.
The grappling hook clangs onto something, and the rope jerks and nearly pulls me overboard. Captain grabs the rope from my hand and threads it through the pulley at the end of the davit. Looping the rope around a hydraulic winch near the base, he pulls a lever and the rope goes taut.
“What are we pulling up?” I whisper.
“You’ll see.” Captain’s eyes stay fixed as the rope snakes into the boat.
He reaches over and shuts down the winch as a rusty metal cage breaks the surface of the water. He swings it into the boat and brings it down quietly on the rubber mats.
“What is that? It looks like a bullrake built for giants.”
“You ever see anything that catches ten thousand quahogs in less than three hours?”
“No,” I answer.
“Well, now you have,” he says with a proud smirk on his face. “Easiest money you’ll ever make, kid. Just you wait and see. Keep your mouth shut, work hard, and at the end of the week you’ll be flush with cash,” Captain says as he nervously adjusts the top button on his shirt.
I stare at him as he dips beneath the black shroud and leans into the throttle, pointing the boat toward the Providence River.
Minutes later the engines wind down, and I am feeling like a real pirate now. Here we are in the polluted Providence River, about to dredge the bottom for quahogs. This is even crazier than salvaging engines in the middle of a hurricane.
Three hours, flush with cash. Three hours, flush with cash. That’s what I keep telling myself.
The night shadows seem like ghosts behind each wave. Random noises pierce the air. A barbecue grill being closed, a car door slamming shut; it’s all crystal clear as the sounds travel across the Providence River from the eastern shore. Each time I hear a noise I don’t recognize, I’m sure it’s the clam cops, and it seems like they’re right on top of us.
It’s the third night in a row I’ve been out here with Captain, dredging the bottom of the Providence River for quahogs. Captain was right; I’ve never seen anything like it. We caught about ten thousand quahogs in a little over two hours both nights. Ten thousand! I put two hundred and fifty in each bag, and the secret storage compartment underneath the deck only holds forty bags, so when it’s full, we leave, no matter what.
Each night we take the bags and string them up far out in the ocean so the quahogs can clean themselves; that way, no one gets sick when they eat them. Captain’s got this whole operation figured out pretty good. I’m still waiting to get paid. The quahogs have to sit in clean water for two weeks before we can sell them, so I probably won’t get paid for a while. I just hope nothing gets messed up before I get my money. Last night, I told him I needed to get paid by the end of the month, and he didn’t hear me, or he acted like he didn’t hear me because he didn’t say anything. Most of the time he doesn’t talk at all. I just get picked up at Kenyon’s Dock every night around ten, come out here, do my job till my fingers are raw, and get dropped off around one a.m. Then I sleep until five a.m., set up the diner, and go back to bed for the rest of the day. Now I know why Captain is so pale — I haven’t seen the sun in days.
Tonight, we haven’t been out here very long, and I’ve already got thirty-two bags in the well. I push the button on my digital watch and the blue-green face lights up, but before I can read the time, Captain has my wrist in a death grip. He twists it hard, and with a swipe of his thick index finger, breaks the plastic clasp of my watch.
“What are you, stupid or something, kid?” He grunts through clenched teeth, waving the watch in front of my face. “You might as well be shooting flares into the sky. You think they’re not out here? You think they’re not looking for us?” I think he’s going to throw my watch overboard. Instead he tosses it into the small cabin below the console. “Never bring that out on the water again. Not even in your pocket, you understand?”
I’m shaking all over, and my wrist stings where he grabbed me. “Got it, Cap.” I face the deck with my head down.
“Good,” he says, wiping white spit from the sides of his mouth.
The boat is moving in a wide arc, and Captain grabs the wheel, checks his bearings, and gets us back on course. I’m still shaking from the encounter, and Captain looks back and says with a grin, “If you have to know, it’s eleven thirty-five.”
“That’s cool.” I exhale. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath. “Is this the last haul?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“Could be. I’m looking for my hot spot. It’s right up ahead. The quahogs are all jammed up against one another, like little bowling pins ready for us to strike. You’ll hear it soon.”
Suddenly the boat shudders and I’m thrown off balance.
“Is this it?” I ask.
Captain throws his muscular arm over my shoulder and pulls me in close.
“Hear the engines straining? See the post? See how it’s twitching?” He grabs my hand and pins it down on the gunwale. “You feel that? We’re stuffing that dredge like a Thanksgiving turkey.” He slaps me on the back, and I can tell this will be the last haul of the night.
“I can feel it.”
“Good! Now don’t tell me I never taught you nothing.” Captain ducks back under the shroud and starts muttering to himself.
After a couple minutes, the engines idle. Captain comes out and scans the horizon in all directions.
“They out here?” I ask, about the cops.
“They’re always out here.” He pulls the lever, and the winch comes alive as the rope snakes its way onto the deck. “When this haul comes on board, sort everything fast, and get the quahogs below deck.”
“Got it, Cap.”
“Get caught with this stuff on board and we’re screwed.”
The dredge begins to rise from the bottom of the river, and Captain’s right leg is jumping up and down, like a little kid waiting to get on the bumper cars at Rocky Point amusement park. As it breaks the surface, the dredge looks like the open mouth of a shark, dripping with water and mud and quahogs spilling out, its metal teeth glinting from the lights of the city. The rake drops to the deck and lands with a dull thud on the rubber mats.
“Okay, get her open, quick,” he whispers sharply.
I open the stainless-steel clips at the back of the dredge, and the quahogs dump into a pile. “Nice haul.”
“That should do it.” Captain nods at the pile and turns his attention back to the empty dredge and dumps it over the side.
I wash the quahogs with a stream of pressurized water from the flexible hose connected to the water pump. The boat lurches forward as I drop to my knees and begin to count quahogs into a half-bushel basket. I do it by feel in the dark, three in my right hand and two in my left. When I get to two hundred and fifty, I dump them into the mesh bag, close it, and get it below deck as quickly as possible. My knees ache and my back cramps only minutes into the work.
Thirty minutes later, I snap the metal clip on the fortieth bag and wedge it into the storage compartment and lock it shut.
“Ar
e you sure you want me to dump this?” I say, nodding at the rest of the uncounted quahogs on deck.
“We got forty bags below deck?”
“Yeah, it’s all there.” I hand Captain the small key.
“Dump the rest.”
This part is torture. It’s like throwing money out the window, and I need every dime right now. I have to force myself not to count as I toss shovelfuls of quahogs over the side of the moving boat. When that’s done, I spray the decks and place fishing rods in the pole holder so we look like two guys going out to fish on Block Island.
Captain stops the boat just beyond Beavertail Point, leaving the helm as the boat sits adrift in the moving swells. I know what’s next.
“Turn around.”
I turn and face the bow as the black cloth comes over my eyes, blocking out all light. Captain cinches it behind my head and pulls on the knot, making sure it’s secure. The thing is so tight, my eyeballs are pressing into my skull. He’s so freaking paranoid he even ties my hands behind the leaning post, so I can’t take the blindfold off.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say to him.
“The less you know, the better. I’m just keeping you innocent. If someone steals my stuff, I don’t want to have to think it was you.”
The boat rolls to the south and slams the waves between each swell as my insides begin jumping around. I bend my knees to absorb the shock, but with every unseen wave I feel like I’m in a car accident that won’t end. Most people would be puking their brains out, but I never get sick. I’ve been in a boat since forever.
“You all right?” Captain shouts above the noise of the engines and the pounding hull.
“I’m still not used to it,” I scream. “It’s my hands. I need my hands to brace myself.”
“Hang on, we’re almost there.”
“Where? Where are we going?”
“Places, kid, places. We’re going places.” I can hear him laughing as he says these words.
