piece of rotten rubber trim like off a refrigerator. They passed around the vinegar and took a few bites from the refrigerator thing and eyeballed us, sniffing as if they found either us or fresh air foul and disagreeable.
Hey!
said Lonny.
How come
we
didn’t get any of that whatever-it-is stuff?
and Lonny set to cursing me, promising to whetstone his axes promptly.
While we are all gathered here together I want everyone
to sign the ship’s log
, said John. He had an old book bound with the hide from a palomino pony. The book was passed around and men made marks in it. I did not know how to spell my name but I stood ready to make my mark. It did not matter. John passed the log around, and the log passed back and forth over my birded head but never did it reach my hands. I turned away when John began to read the new marks from the book of men.
X!
said John.
Here
, said Lonny.
X!
said John.
Here
, said Ira Dench.
Goddamnit
, he added, pulling off his fortune string and webbing it on again.
X!
said John.
Fuck!
spit out the man who said that, his foot paining him.
XX!
said John and the men in prison blues held up their shackled wrists.
Triple X!
said John and Black Master Chief Harold took his boiler monkey and fire lackey below.
Get up steam
, said John after them, we
want to set the nets at daybreak
.
This last signature is illegible
, said John.
There are severe penalties for poor penmanship
. He studied the signature, one eye closed.
O!
he said.
O?
said Lonny.
No, X!
said John, motioning to the Idiot.
I’ll sign for the sheriff, invoking power of attorney and all that
, said John, making a mark and closing the book.
John said
If any come aboard and hate not his father and his mother and his wife and his children and his brothers and his sisters, and his own life too, he can not be a shipmate serving on this ship
.
I hate anything
, Lonny said, and the crew was dismissed.
I took a cup of finish fish stew forward, my heart beating hotly in the darkness of the passageway.
I
was coming to understand that Mr. Watt was a prisoner of the wheelhouse, a place kept cool by frigid air fans and darkened in the day by the smoked glass windows. Nighttime was daytime for Mr. Watt, when he could open the portholes and cross-ventilate the place, take off his thick khaki shirt and trousers he wore to protect his flesh from the sun that filtered in, hang thekhaki to dry from the oozings of his muscles the day long.
When I came into the wheelhouse through the dog hatch my eyes weren’t quite adjusted to the dark, and Mr. Watt was in pieces, his shirt hung on a porthole screw, his pants draping the captain’s chair, and Mr. Watt himself leaning on the wheel in a way that all I could see was his disembodied floating head shrouded in silver hair. When he turned to me to take the cup of stew and I could see him without his clothes I was wishing my eyes were a little more nightblinded, because Mr. Watt was chewing a piece of hardtack, and with his shirt off you could see a section of blue tunnel-like muscle squirm up his throat to the back of his mouth to feed there from the bits of hardtack ground by the clattering teeth and corraled by the obvious tongue. I handed up my cup of stew and I couldn’t tell if Mr. Watt was smiling at me or if everyone’s jaw muscles run under our cheeks and hook behind our ears like spectacles.
Thank you, Fishboy
, he said.
Mr. Watt lifted the cup to his mouth and sipped, and barely had a little trickle of my finish fish stew gone down his throat when his whole gut heaved to stop it, his gut squeezing the stew upward, drizzling through the side teeth and canines.
That’s … that’s delicious stew, Fishboy
, Mr. Watt said,
and I think I’ll save mine for later
. He set down the cup on the bridge and took up his hardtack again.
The men in prison blues had put a bone in the Idiot’s bowl that the Idiot could not swallow, and now we could hear him braying and choking, and we could
Hey!
said Lonny.
How come
we
didn’t get any of that whatever-it-is stuff?
and Lonny set to cursing me, promising to whetstone his axes promptly.
While we are all gathered here together I want everyone
to sign the ship’s log
, said John. He had an old book bound with the hide from a palomino pony. The book was passed around and men made marks in it. I did not know how to spell my name but I stood ready to make my mark. It did not matter. John passed the log around, and the log passed back and forth over my birded head but never did it reach my hands. I turned away when John began to read the new marks from the book of men.
X!
said John.
Here
, said Lonny.
X!
said John.
Here
, said Ira Dench.
Goddamnit
, he added, pulling off his fortune string and webbing it on again.
X!
said John.
Fuck!
spit out the man who said that, his foot paining him.
XX!
said John and the men in prison blues held up their shackled wrists.
Triple X!
said John and Black Master Chief Harold took his boiler monkey and fire lackey below.
Get up steam
, said John after them, we
want to set the nets at daybreak
.
This last signature is illegible
, said John.
There are severe penalties for poor penmanship
. He studied the signature, one eye closed.
O!
he said.
O?
said Lonny.
No, X!
said John, motioning to the Idiot.
I’ll sign for the sheriff, invoking power of attorney and all that
, said John, making a mark and closing the book.
John said
If any come aboard and hate not his father and his mother and his wife and his children and his brothers and his sisters, and his own life too, he can not be a shipmate serving on this ship
.
I hate anything
, Lonny said, and the crew was dismissed.
I took a cup of finish fish stew forward, my heart beating hotly in the darkness of the passageway.
I
was coming to understand that Mr. Watt was a prisoner of the wheelhouse, a place kept cool by frigid air fans and darkened in the day by the smoked glass windows. Nighttime was daytime for Mr. Watt, when he could open the portholes and cross-ventilate the place, take off his thick khaki shirt and trousers he wore to protect his flesh from the sun that filtered in, hang thekhaki to dry from the oozings of his muscles the day long.
When I came into the wheelhouse through the dog hatch my eyes weren’t quite adjusted to the dark, and Mr. Watt was in pieces, his shirt hung on a porthole screw, his pants draping the captain’s chair, and Mr. Watt himself leaning on the wheel in a way that all I could see was his disembodied floating head shrouded in silver hair. When he turned to me to take the cup of stew and I could see him without his clothes I was wishing my eyes were a little more nightblinded, because Mr. Watt was chewing a piece of hardtack, and with his shirt off you could see a section of blue tunnel-like muscle squirm up his throat to the back of his mouth to feed there from the bits of hardtack ground by the clattering teeth and corraled by the obvious tongue. I handed up my cup of stew and I couldn’t tell if Mr. Watt was smiling at me or if everyone’s jaw muscles run under our cheeks and hook behind our ears like spectacles.
Thank you, Fishboy
, he said.
Mr. Watt lifted the cup to his mouth and sipped, and barely had a little trickle of my finish fish stew gone down his throat when his whole gut heaved to stop it, his gut squeezing the stew upward, drizzling through the side teeth and canines.
That’s … that’s delicious stew, Fishboy
, Mr. Watt said,
and I think I’ll save mine for later
. He set down the cup on the bridge and took up his hardtack again.
The men in prison blues had put a bone in the Idiot’s bowl that the Idiot could not swallow, and now we could hear him braying and choking, and we could
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