“I should hope!” exclaimed Alice. “I help at the Federal Hill booth. Before that at the Roland Park booth, before we moved downtown. Remember Peabody over there, Hank? You surely went there Saturdays like the rest of us.”
“I did. I did. Two years of fiddle lessons from hell before I persuaded Mom to give up on me. I might have stayed if they’d given me drums.”
Pleasant laughs all around. But no amount of talk could quiet Hank’s trepidation.
Farther uptown they passed the front of Johns Hopkins University. The slopes lay brown and empty now in winter, turf where he’d lolled in May green and sunshine with his head comfortably in the lap of who? Nancy? Sally? Names even vague but their faces . . . Married now? Kids? Gone fat? Was he remembered? Would they gasp at the news that Henry Crawford now owned a 108-foot million-buck Bering Sea crabber, skippered a bigger-yet longliner in the Gulf of Alaska, and commuted to Japan? (Never imagining the underside of all that.) Hell, they wouldn’t understand any more than Alice. He watched two kids with trailing bright scarves who wandered hand in hand past the library doors. Others now owned the place, himself forgotten. Nearly twenty years ago, was it possible?
“Hopkins lacrosse. They winning these days?” he asked to keep the conversation going.
“You don’t follow?” exclaimed Alice. “Alaska must simply be a wilderness!”
“We generally keep the polar bears off our front porch,” Hank said mildly. He stretched. What had he given up by leaving? Without that first Alaska jaunt he might now be king of something like the sneaker trade in Baltimore. Ship-related at least. White shirt and office, but doing business with Brits, Germans, Russians, even Japanese—eye to eye without being screwed behind your back. He watched the big homes they now passed, with their spacious lawns, handsome trees, and tended shrubbery. All that lost to his children, the East Coast’s whole surrounding style of history and comfort. But not going north would have meant never meeting Jody. He’d be married now to a cheerful ditz like Alice. Get yourself home soon, he told himself.
Inevitably, the road snaked down through trees toward the hospital. “I don’t have the details of Dad’s . . .” His tongue stalled at the word.
“Just must have happened, Hank,” said Bobby. “That’s the best we know. Immediate family only at the hospital. We haven’t seen him since we had hard crabs on the patio last July, when he was in fine shape.”
“You’ve got to promise to call us with a full report,” added Alice. Her voice turned husky. “Uncle Harry was so straight and handsome, it’s just inconceivable he won’t be all right. Oh, Hank.” Her hand touched his shoulder again.
When he entered the hospital lobby a faint smell of antiseptics oppressed him at once. He took the elevator as directed. On the patients’ floor the medicinal odors turned heavy. A sinister machine with tank and dangling mask stood in the gleaming scrubbed corridor. The sight brought him close to panic. He ran to reach the door, tapped, entered, and stifled a cry at the haggard old man connected to tubes. “Dad?”
“Who are you?” A startled woman peered from behind a screen.
It was the wrong room. In the one adjacent, the recognizable head lay on a pillow, eyes closed. Before he could advance, his mother rose from a chair beside the bed, hurried over, and hugged him with her head on his shoulder. Her hands clutched his arms. They both began to cry.
“How is he? When did it happen?” She only gripped him closer. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s okay.”
“That you, Hank?” Dad’s voice was remarkably clear.
His mother released him and Hank hurried over. His dad’s hand was weak but still had a grip. On impulse Hank bent over and kissed him, something he’d not done since he was a kid of about five.
“Hey, fellah. Good to see you. How’s fishing?”
“Good, Dad, good. What’s this you’re pulling here?”
“I wasn’t getting enough attention.” The mouth stretched slightly in a smile, but the voice turned thin. “Look now. Lots of. . . atten . . . shun.” The eyes closed.
“Dad? Dad?”
His mother’s hand took his arm. “He drifts in and out. Dr. John Murphy says it’s normal with this particular . . . He’ll recover and be fine. John assured me.” Her voice caught. “But he’s so weak.”
Hank touched his father’s face. Stubble on the chin, unlike always-shaven Dad. Lips pale and dry. The dim yellow of his forehead and cheeks was the most unnatural part. At least the gradual graying of Dad’s hair and mustache, both once so dark, had occurred gradually enough that he’d seen it before. Yet Dad’s face—suddenly the beloved face—retained its grace even though it now showed vulnerability.
Hank sat on the edge of a hard metal chair, hands clasped at his knees. He watched his mother’s face. It had aged smoothly, but was puffy and tired. Dark blotches had begun to appear on her hands. “How did it happen?”
“We’d finished supper, I remember that. We’d headed upstairs to the study for a TV show. Without a word Dad sat on the steps. Not like him at all. And he didn’t answer when . . . It took me a minute to understand. He’s always so healthy. I’m the one who gets sick at times. I never thought . . .” Her voice wavered and she stopped, looked away, then collected herself firmly. “Well, thank goodness I phoned nine-one-one. It all happened so quickly. The men with the stretcher—and one woman, that was interesting—they were all efficient but were still kind, I thought. One was even black, but very kind.” She sat back, now in control. “In ten minutes the whole world changed. I’m glad you’re here. Now tell me about the children.”
He gladly shifted to talk of Dawn, Henny, and Pete, but glanced often at the still figure in the bed. “Henny’s gotten taller since you last saw him. Very serious. Likes to stick around the boats.” He felt pride in adding, “So does Dawn. You know how she talks a blue streak. But underneath there’s real work savvy, and she pitches in everywhere. I’ll make both into fishermen yet.”
“I suppose you will with Henry Junior, dear, whatever anybody says. He is a sturdy young fellow. But Danielle? Please don’t expect me to call the child Dawn after we persuaded you and Jody to give her such a fine old family name. You and Jody should be grooming her to become a young lady.” His mother waved her hand to imply enough of that now, then thanked him for a coffee-table book of Alaskan scenes and asked about gifts she had sent. “How does Jody look in that green-checked jacket I mailed last September? It seemed so perfect for her in the store that I couldn’t resist. She wrote and thanked me, of course. And apparently Danielle loved the party dress I’d shipped earlier. The child is a girl, you know. And Pete’s alphabet blocks? It’s never too early to start.”
“Pete. Really likes the blocks,” he improvised. “And Jody. Looks great in the jacket. Great.” But he knew nothing of any gifts, nor the book apparently sent by Jody. He’d barely seen his family for months. So they exchanged stuff not only at Christmas? How much else didn’t he know, had missed by life at sea and the rounds of fish?
“Let’s talk about details, Mom. Bills for the hospital. What about expenses at home?”
A pause. “Well, I’m sure your father can see to any of that as soon as he gets well.”
“Hey . . . Hank.”
Hank rushed to the bed. “Dad! How’re you doing?”
His father’s eyes showed a moment’s spark. He held up his right hand with thumb and forefinger joined in a circle of okay. Then he drifted back to sleep.
Hank watched, still frightened, but relieved.
“I’m sure he’s pulling through,” he told Jody that night when he called before she left her office in Kodiak. “Might take a while, but. . . Kids all right?”
She reassured him, then added: “I wasn’t that close to my father. But I’m glad whenever I think of it that I got myself to Colorado before he died.”
“Dad’s not going to die!”
“No. Of course not.”
“Now, Terry,” Hank continued. “I told him to call you every day. I have a m
essage for him.”
“When I talked to him last night, after I got home to the marine radio, it was all going fine. I’ve already told you that, when you phoned before your flight from Anchorage. I’ll have an update tonight when we get home.”
“I need you to tell him this: Keep fishing deep water, that’s where the black cod school. Don’t obey orders from Gains or Japan to go shallow. I trust Kodama, but maybe Tsurifune’s playing tricks. How you pass that to Terry without the whole fleet hearing I’m not sure. Try.” He told her the suspicion that Swede had raised. “I’m not sure yet how I’m going to handle it.” As he told it his anger returned. “Damn them. Treating me like a chess piece! I need to get out from under.”
“If we’d talked this over back then, before you signed—signed even our house away!” Hank tensed, and was relieved when she continued reasonably: “Let’s not go over this now on long distance, Hank. Fix yourself a drink and go to bed.”
His voice softened. “I miss you.”
“And I miss you. We all do.” But her voice remained steady. “Kiss your dad for me. And . . . I’ll try to warn Terry. And—don’t get upset—I’m being practical. God knows how your mom would fit into Kodiak without her garden clubs, but she’s a good egg and she’d be welcome.”
“Dad’ll be fine,” Hank said hastily. “But thanks.”
In his old room on the third floor, preparing for bed after wishing his mother a good night, he looked around and grew nostalgic. During the few times over the years that he’d visited with his brood he and Jody had stayed up here, but he’d been too occupied to re-wander its corners. He now noticed that the room remained intact as he’d left it two decades before, and dusted at that. A lacrosse stick hung on the wall over books whose spines read Dumas, Twain, Kipling, and Julius Caesar (the only one of those famous plays everybody claimed were so great that had ever grabbed him). A high school trophy for track with its gilt worn to brown at the edges. Even a faded paper lei from some dance, draped over the Winslow Homer print of men in a dory. He’d forgotten the stir that picture once had given him, long before Alaska.
He patted the carefully stitched flowered quilt on the bed, the work of Mom’s grandmother, stroked the polished old headboard with scrolled posts from some Crawford generation, and slid open a drawer from the chest whose carved handles resembled lion’s heads. Each piece bore family history from households and people vanished before his time. When he settled into bed, familiar odors surrounded him. It all brought memories.
Three hours later the phone rang and his mother called up, “It’s Jody for you, dear. Don’t scold her. She probably hasn’t counted, to know the time back here.”
Jody got to the point at once. “You’re not going to like this. Those Tsurifune people in Tokyo must have set it in motion even before you left Anchorage. They ordered Puale Bay to Seward, and Terry thought it was to unload even though their hold wasn’t full. At the same time they were flying over a Japanese captain. This afternoon they sent him on a charter boat to meet the ship halfway down Resurrection Bay so that Puale didn’t even dock in Seward. It’s already happened.”
“I’m calling Tokyo, then flying home first thing tomorrow to settle this!” Hank exploded.
“No, you’re not.” Jody’s voice was firm. “Stay with your folks or you may regret it. Call Tokyo if you want, I suppose. But frankly, I think you ought to simmer down before doing anything. Terry didn’t sound that upset. He may even be relieved. We’ll still get paid for your share of the catch.”
“Treacherous bastards!”
Jody called something to Dawn on how to work the chopped onions into the hamburger. Her voice was lighter when she returned. “Sorry, I didn’t hear, but I assume you were just cussing. Remember, you don’t want to shock your mom if she’s in earshot. Go back to bed and sleep on it.”
After he hung up Hank struggled with his anger, and finally dressed and slipped out of the house to sprint along deserted tree-lined streets while he tried to think. They even controlled his Jody Dawn! Fly to Tokyo and have it out? Need money, money for that. He remembered Swede mentioning that the Tsurifunes were coming to Anchorage for the next Council meeting. Take them on there, then, in eight or ten days, check the date.
What if he could find enough to buy back the Jody Dawn? Loan from Dad? No, terrible timing even if he had it.
What about Seth? A bachelor, not a heavy enough drinker to blow his savings, surely he’d saved money from the good crab years. It was time that Seth began to commit. Then what about Terry?
Back at the silent house he kept his voice low as he called Jody back. “Radio Seth on the Jody Dawn. I assume he’s still off the Aleutians. Tell him to call me from Dutch or whichever next port he reaches. Give him Dad’s number at the hospital as well as here. I need to talk!”
Seth reached him at the hospital late the next day. “Better be important, man,” came the deep voice. “Like Jody said it was. We were headed to Dutch but we pulled out of our way into Adak. What’s up?”
Hank glanced at his dad asleep. His mother had gone to the gift shop. He decided not to break the call to find a pay phone for privacy, but he kept his voice low. “Think about this. I know you’ve saved. What would you say to buying a piece of the Jody Dawn? Say ten to fifteen percent.”
“No way, man! I decided long ago I don’t want that strain of owning things. Paperwork shit, and . . . No offense, but look what it’s done to you. Japs have you jumpin’ on a string.”
Hank felt himself flush. Was that how it appeared? “Hey, just half joking. Forget I brought it up. Thanks for calling. Safe trip.” He vowed to ask no one else.
Three days later the doctors reported the worst crises had passed. Multiple tests had defined the limits of the attack. Medications and future procedures were being mapped. The senior Crawford now sat up in bed much of the time, and conversed or read for at least an hour before his eyelids shuttered down.
“You dodged the bullet, Harry,” said Dr. Murphy heartily. The two knew each other from the golf course. “We’ll make some clicks in your lifestyle, send you home to rest, and by spring, maybe, we’ll see you back on the green.”
“And when can I return to the office?”
“Ohh . . . that might be a different story, buddy. Depends on the pressures there, doesn’t it?”
“Come on, John. I’m only sixty-three.”
“A mighty healthy sixty-three except for this little thing. Let’s see how it plays.”
The elder Crawford frowned. He doesn’t like doctor condescension any more than I do, thought Hank, and was about to press for specifics when his dad demanded, “What about my evening highball? Are you going to say that’ll hurt me?”
“This is a hospital, buddy.”
“But not a damn monastery.”
The doctor studied his chart without looking up. “This son you brag about. Alaska fisherman, probably half pirate, so I don’t know how we could stop a skilled smuggler, eh? But in that case I’ll cut down any sedative for sleep. And I’ll tell the smuggler that one stiff shot’s the max, got it?”
Hank laughed for the first time in days. “You’ve got it, Doc.”
19
SHAFTSMANSHIP
BALTIMORE, EARLY DECEMBER 1983
Another three days and Dad was home, walking about at least from chair to chair. Mother wore an apron more often than her painting smock or going-out clothes while she fussed over pots and baking dishes to fix what father and son liked best. Sarah, the household’s part-time cleaning and laundry help for decades, moved about them discreetly, although her admonition, “You oughtta be spanked for livin’ so far from your folks,” came from distant times when he’d been a toddler.
Hank took his mother to lunches—saving dinners for home with Dad—and trailed her at the supermarket to take in bulk sizes she would not otherwise have bought. He forced himself to watch her objectively. She’d always cared for herself, and her hair and clothing remained impeccable even when directing the
grocery cart he pushed. She walked deliberately but favored one knee. Could she still dance? (He remembered his childhood savor of perfume and swish of silk when she’d wave gaily from Dad’s tuxedoed arm as they left for a big party.) He knew she was anxious for the future, probably frightened, but her cheer never waned. She’d have called it good breeding.
Bobby and Alice insisted on entertaining him one night at their country club among some of their friends. Clearly he was on display, complacently accepting their jokes about his life in the wilderness, while still enjoying the well-being of the place. Walking back from the washroom, Bobby suddenly said, “I sure envy you, guy. You’ve made your life an adventure. This here is all mighty nice, but. . .” Hank started to invite him expansively to come ride on his boat and pull a line or two (joke and bully his ass into a sweat he wouldn’t forget), then glanced at his cousin’s tubby middle and thought better of it. “You’ve got a good world here, man. Enjoy it.”
He looked forward to the five o’clock highball ceremony he’d started at the hospital. He and his father sat in the living room as the day’s last light filtered through the curtains, their outlines darkened.
“You’re still successful in Alaska?”
“Doing real good, Dad.”
“Finances steady?”
Hank hesitated, then said, “Steady.”
“Your mother keeps daydreaming that you’ll bring Jody and our grandchildren back East to live. By now I suspect that’s a dream.”
“I think you have it right, Dad.” He started to say that Jody was bonded to Alaska, but knew it wasn’t honest to let her carry the blame. “I’m doing the only work I ever wanted to do, and in the place where fishing’s in the bone.”
“I’ll be devil’s advocate. New England’s famous for fish and fishermen. So is Chesapeake Bay. Both closer to your roots.”
Hank took enough time so that he appeared to consider, although his impulse was to declare ‘no way!’ He’d seen Gloucester fishing boats only as a summer tourist long ago, but even so. The bright wooden boats had attracted him at once but they were quaint, quaint. And their cargoes were limp fish without the dash and fight of salmon or even black cod. As for Chesapeake Bay—an elegant book of Bay photos lay on the coffee table in front of him. The cover showed a man standing on the rail of a scuffed boat with a cabin the size of an outhouse, holding a pair of long poles that disappeared into the water. “Sure. I could tong like this for oysters. Be like harvesting rocks. Pretty exciting.” His dad waved a deprecating hand. He understood.
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