hear Lonny say how he could not stand hawking noises at the table when he was trying to eat.
You better go back to the galley and clean up
, Mr. Watt said.
Try to make yourself useful to John, find something you can do. Can you tell him a story?
and I shook my head no. I didn’t know any stories, I hardly knew my own.
I wanted Mr. Watt to know I had not been allowed to sign the log, so I asked him how my name was spelled, just in case. He said my name was spelled F-I-S-H-B-O-Y. I listened as hard as I could and understood it sounded like IF I JUST ACHE, BEER OR WINE.
In the galley the only person left was the Idiot, the Idiot making the horrible hawking noises and tearing at his throat, thrashing around and kicking. I saw the men had left in a hurry, their empty bowls on the table, one of Ira Dench’s fortune strings, the palomino-bound ship’s log. I climbed up on the stove and looked inside the pot. For all their complaining they had finished the stew,leaving some carcass heads and broken tuber rinds stuck to the pot’s bottom. I pulled out the spoon like a boat paddle and went over to the Idiot red and frothing on the floor. I shoved the spoon into his mouth and reached down his throat. I had done this once before for a stray dog at the fishhouse and had gotten bitten for my thanks. I pulled a thick piece of fish spine from where it was wedged, in the Idiot’s gullet, the bone edges pink where they had begun to cut, and made sure the spoon was free before I stepped back and cleared the table. I put the bowls in the spittoon sink, collected the piles of fishbones, and wiped the eating places with a wet rag. I shoved the ship’s log that I had not been allowed to sign so roughly to the end of the table so that it struck the wall.
The Idiot lay on his back hawking softly once or twice before he got up and sat at the table. He sat there braying stupidly and blubbering until I made sure no one was looking and I gave him a sound broadstroke on the side of his head with my boat-paddle spoon. That seemed to shut him up so I could think, and I climbed down inside the stew pot which was littered with beautiful carcasses. I piled a few up against the side to sit on and fed myself from the little gutter running around the pot’s bottom.
In a while I heard the Idiot shuffle out and I heardsomeone come in and prop open the dog hatch. It was John. I could hear him talking with Mr. Watt. He wanted Mr. Watt to read the chart that ran over his shoulder and up his neck, but Mr. Watt said his eyes were worse than ever. Mr. Watt said by dead reckoning he figured they were pretty much in the same area where they left off dragging John’s net the last time.
How many of us are there this trip?
said Mr. Watt and I heard John come back in the galley to fetch the log.
Goddamnit, look at what that little cook has done to the log!
and I thought maybe I had roughed it up a little sliding it across the table. I didn’t know at the time that the Idiot had been sitting there while I was eating, marking up hundreds of pages of X’s with Idiot scrawl.
There’s twelve of us counting the Idiot and the sheriff
, said John. When Mr. Watt said why wasn’t the Fishboy signed on, John said because he wasn’t sure he wanted me aboard.
He can’t work the nets, he can’t cook, Lonny’s already after him, and Ira thinks he’s bad luck, like some rogue wave magnet
, said John.
And now look what he’s done to the lōg because I didn’t let him sign on right away
.
Maybe you’re right
, said Mr. Watt.
I’m going for a swim
, said John and I heard him pass through the galley and out the aft cabin door.
I sat in the bottom of the cooking pot, picking at the last of the best batch of finish fish stew I had ever made, but what my trembling hands could put to my mouth didn’t seem to have much flavor, and failed to give me strength.
O
n the aft deck the men slept in the piles of net, their bellies full from what I fed them. John had jumped
You better go back to the galley and clean up
, Mr. Watt said.
Try to make yourself useful to John, find something you can do. Can you tell him a story?
and I shook my head no. I didn’t know any stories, I hardly knew my own.
I wanted Mr. Watt to know I had not been allowed to sign the log, so I asked him how my name was spelled, just in case. He said my name was spelled F-I-S-H-B-O-Y. I listened as hard as I could and understood it sounded like IF I JUST ACHE, BEER OR WINE.
In the galley the only person left was the Idiot, the Idiot making the horrible hawking noises and tearing at his throat, thrashing around and kicking. I saw the men had left in a hurry, their empty bowls on the table, one of Ira Dench’s fortune strings, the palomino-bound ship’s log. I climbed up on the stove and looked inside the pot. For all their complaining they had finished the stew,leaving some carcass heads and broken tuber rinds stuck to the pot’s bottom. I pulled out the spoon like a boat paddle and went over to the Idiot red and frothing on the floor. I shoved the spoon into his mouth and reached down his throat. I had done this once before for a stray dog at the fishhouse and had gotten bitten for my thanks. I pulled a thick piece of fish spine from where it was wedged, in the Idiot’s gullet, the bone edges pink where they had begun to cut, and made sure the spoon was free before I stepped back and cleared the table. I put the bowls in the spittoon sink, collected the piles of fishbones, and wiped the eating places with a wet rag. I shoved the ship’s log that I had not been allowed to sign so roughly to the end of the table so that it struck the wall.
The Idiot lay on his back hawking softly once or twice before he got up and sat at the table. He sat there braying stupidly and blubbering until I made sure no one was looking and I gave him a sound broadstroke on the side of his head with my boat-paddle spoon. That seemed to shut him up so I could think, and I climbed down inside the stew pot which was littered with beautiful carcasses. I piled a few up against the side to sit on and fed myself from the little gutter running around the pot’s bottom.
In a while I heard the Idiot shuffle out and I heardsomeone come in and prop open the dog hatch. It was John. I could hear him talking with Mr. Watt. He wanted Mr. Watt to read the chart that ran over his shoulder and up his neck, but Mr. Watt said his eyes were worse than ever. Mr. Watt said by dead reckoning he figured they were pretty much in the same area where they left off dragging John’s net the last time.
How many of us are there this trip?
said Mr. Watt and I heard John come back in the galley to fetch the log.
Goddamnit, look at what that little cook has done to the log!
and I thought maybe I had roughed it up a little sliding it across the table. I didn’t know at the time that the Idiot had been sitting there while I was eating, marking up hundreds of pages of X’s with Idiot scrawl.
There’s twelve of us counting the Idiot and the sheriff
, said John. When Mr. Watt said why wasn’t the Fishboy signed on, John said because he wasn’t sure he wanted me aboard.
He can’t work the nets, he can’t cook, Lonny’s already after him, and Ira thinks he’s bad luck, like some rogue wave magnet
, said John.
And now look what he’s done to the lōg because I didn’t let him sign on right away
.
Maybe you’re right
, said Mr. Watt.
I’m going for a swim
, said John and I heard him pass through the galley and out the aft cabin door.
I sat in the bottom of the cooking pot, picking at the last of the best batch of finish fish stew I had ever made, but what my trembling hands could put to my mouth didn’t seem to have much flavor, and failed to give me strength.
O
n the aft deck the men slept in the piles of net, their bellies full from what I fed them. John had jumped
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