Fishboy Read online

  You talk too much, said the deck officer to the Medicine Man. The deck officer unlocked the gate to the brig and led us in.

  I was in the theater before I got drafted, said the Medicine Man to John.

  Somebody must not have liked your skits, said John.

  NO! NO! Please, no, I beg you! said the cook when the deck officer told him his brother was there to claim him. Anybody but my brother! said the cook, and he ran his head into the bars of the brig and then fell to the floor rolling in his strapped and buckled jacket.

  Hello, my brother! said John, and the cook stopped his ranting and lifted his head to look us over.

  You have your arms, you’re not my brother, said the cook.

  Of course I have arms, said John, the better to embrace you.

  That is not my brother, the cook told the deck officer.

  He’s just a little silly from banging his head, said John. You know, the head banging, the dim light, that’s all it is.

  There’s not much resemblance, said the deck officer.

  That is NOT my brother, said the cook.

  Well, look at me and then look at my son, John said to the deck officer and John pushed me forward.

  I guess resemblance doesn’t run in your family, said the deck officer. Will you accept custody and sign for him? and John said that he would.

  I have no idea who these people are, said the cook.

  We’ll have to have that straitjacket back, said the deck officer. He comes the way we found him, no clothes. Sign here, he said.

  The deck officer and the Medicine Man went into the cell and brought the cook out into the light.

  Wait a minute! said John. In the light you could see that the cook’s face and bald head were bumped with thick red welts.

  This man has the pox! said John.

  The white officer smiled. Here is your receipt, he said.

  No, really, this man really has the pox! said John.

  The Medicine Man released the cook from the straitjacket. Brother! said the cook to John and John fled the brig with the fat naked cook chasing behind him.

  Actually I don’t know what he has, the Medicine Man said to me. He says he has bee stings but I’ve never seen so many bee stings before, if that is what it is. Of course, I’ve really never seen pox before either. I was in the theater before I was drafted to be a Medicine Man. Sometimes I can set a broken bone and sometimes I can’t.

  As the white-hulled ship with its clicking blue light cast off from us, John stood on deck and shook his fist up at the white officer. Behind him Lonny, Ira, and the weeping man who said Fuck were watching the cook flail around in a fit. Watch out for your brother! the white officer shouted to John. Watch out for his fits!

  It’s just bee stings! said the Medicine Man, and they laughed at us as the white-hulled ship heeled over and plowed the black water under a fresh plume of exhaust.

  As the wake of the white-hulled ship rocked us I ran forward to the wheelhouse, dodging the scuffling men on deck. Twice the rumored cook had made it to the rail to leap overboard and twice Lonny and Ira Dench pulled him back and put him in headlocks and half-nelsons. They held the cook so tightly that his eyes egged out, and then his head vibrated with the noises he heard in it. The cook flung Lonny and Ira Dench off, rolled off his big belly, and made for the rail.

  Let him jump! said John. He’s got the pox.

  We’re hungry! Lonny said as he tackled the cook again.

  They said it was just bee stings, said Ira Dench, kicking the cook’s legs out from under him.

  Forward in the wheelhouse I found Mr. Watt on his side in a dark corner, the floor slick with his muscle mucus and blood. Mr. Watt had been knocked down by the boarding party and had fallen on the shards of black smoked glass broken out by their hasty exit. Propping up Mr. Watt, my hands left perfect seeping prints in his shirt where I touched him.

  What was that all about? he said, and I said that the white-hulled ship had come for somebody, and when he said Somebody who? I told him they had come looking for somebody who had done something bad to somebody black.

  Somebody who had done something bad to somebody black? That’s rich, said Mr. Watt.

  Who did they arrest? Did they arrest Lonny? said Mr. Watt and I shook my head no. Did they arrest Ira Dench, or the Fuck-saying man, or John? and I said that they hadn’t arrested anybody, but they left us a cook who had the pox. Mr. Watt laughed so that my worry for him fell away a little and I started to pick up pieces of the broken glass and put them in my shirtfront.

  We always get the cook we deserve, said Mr. Watt.

  Mr. Watt had been burned by the sunlight that the boarding party had let in; the red meat of his muscles looking scalded. John came forward and said God, Watt, and turned the wheel a few spokes so that our ship faced away from the setting sun.

  Go get the men we hung over the side, John said to me, and I left John to tend to Mr. Watt.

  I went away wondering what Mr. Watt had thought was so funny. Didn’t he think Big Miss Magine had been good enough for me to kill?

  The knotted rope holding the men in prison blues hung useless over the side of our ship like a broken rosary. The plank and rigging they had been sitting on had been bitten off by something that had come swimming up from the deep. The two men had saved themselves, their devil’s claws dug into the years of layers of paint and hull rust. There were long scratches down the side where the ship had pitched and the men had slipped, slipping farther down so that occasionally they could kick at the snout of the thing that was swimming patient laps beneath them.

  Help! one of the men said. His voice was hoarse and without expectation.

  I untied the broken rope and leaned over the rail. I dangled the bitten-off end around the men’s heads and faces, but they still pressed themselves to the side of the ship and did not look up. I could see that if they lifted their faces from the side of the ship and leaned back to look up, they would fall from us into the water.

  Hello! they said. Somebody’s up there, said one of them, and John! said the other. Help us, they said. You said you would save us! We’ll confess! they said.

  I was not John, and I could not have pulled them up even if they did grab hold of the knotted rope I dangled around them. They held themselves to the skin of the ship with their claws and they could not let go.

  Help! the men said.

  The knotted rope I offered was useless to them. If they had grabbed it I would have let go of it. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t going to let the dead weight of these men pull me over the rail. I offered them the knotted rope as a sort of hope until help would come, but John was in the wheelhouse and the hungry men were still butting the cook with their heads and trying to knock him out with shovels.

  Only the Idiot came over, jealous of my new rope toy.

  A swell washed the men’s feet and the devil’s claws slipped with the sound of fingernails raking slate.

  I bounced the false promise of rope against the men. I tried to make the Idiot understand that he had to hold it tightly if the men grabbed it.

  All right, John, I’ll tell it, said one of the men. But then you got to save us like you said.

  This isn’t the normal us, said the other man. It’s just something that happened.

  Shut up, said the first man, I said I’d tell it.

  Then hurry up and tell it.

  The house was unlocked, said the first man. The door was wide open.

  We broke a window, said the other man.

  We couldn’t see, the room was dark.

  Dark? The whole city burning outside?

  I fell over a busted chair.

  It was a turned-over table.

  There’d been a struggle in the room.

  That’s true. There was a cut-off arm in the fireplace.

  Nothing to do with us.

  That’s right, we never cut off no arms.

  We was only hungry and scared.

  And we was looking for the king.

>   Shut up about that.

  I’ll tell it right if you don’t.

  Shut up. I’ll tell it.

  They had an election every year.

  I said I’d tell it. Every year the richest man got elected king.

  He was supposed to spend all his money.

  All at one time.

  For a big feast.

  Music and drinking.

  All his stock butchered and cooked up.

  Free love on his wife.

  I didn’t know that.

  That’s what I heard.

  I guess it was a small country.

  The feast would last a week.

  And after the feast he’d be poor.

  But he’d be king.

  I never heard that about the wife.

  It was supposed to be a great honor.

  Except the new king didn’t want to be king.

  They was having a riot about it.

  They was running all around.

  Looking for the new king.

  They was burning the place up.

  We was in town, unexpected like.

  We’d busted out.

  Shut up I said.

  Sorry.

  Coming in, people on the road said the new king had fled.

  Just took off.

  First they said he’d took his silver.

  Just a couple of pieces, it being a small country.

  But closer in town people said the king had fled with a bag of gold.

  Then people said rubies and emeralds.

  People running around, looking for the king.

  They was pissed off.

  They wanted to have their festival.

  It was the law.

  They wanted to feast and dance.

  I didn’t go for their music, though.

  And free love on the king’s wife.

  Are you sure on that? I never heard that.

  The toll collector said it.

  He said that? Before you —

  Shut UP, I said.

  We never saw the king’s wife.

  We saw the king though.

  I said I’d tell it. We saw the king.

  In the house we broke into.

  The door was open.

  We broke a window.

  We thought all the natives would be out running wild in the streets.

  He didn’t look like a king.

  Nothing kingly-looking about having a ruby caught in your throat.

  His face was purple, I guess.

  He was up in the bedroom.

  It didn’t seem like a king’s house.

  It’s a poor country.

  I don’t think it was the king’s house. I think he was just holed up there.

  Trying to swallow his loot.

  Trying to make his getaway.

  He was holed up, all right.

  There was a boat waiting for him at the end of the pier.

  He was holed up, turning purple.

  I gave him a bear hug.

  Out pops the ruby.

  Size of an egg.

  Personally, I can tell you, it’s bigger than an egg.

  Shut up, I said. The king was grateful I saved his life.

  Just to take it back.

  Shut up, I said. The king wanted to tip me but he didn’t have any money on him.

  Not ON him. That king jingled when you gave him the bear hug.

  I didn’t hear it.

  Sure you did. I saw your eyes.

  I never heard it.

  Not even running to the pier?

  The king said he would reward us later.

  We ran down to the docks.

  We had the king between us, a shawl over his head.

  That must have been his girlfriend’s house.

  He knew it in the dark, all right.

  That must have been his girlfriend’s arm in the fireplace.

  The natives must have done that.

  Probably to get her to talk.

  It was a woman’s arm.

  Those natives was pissed off, that’s for sure.

  Those natives was barbaric. You should have seen the things they threw at us.

  The natives spotted us running down the pier.

  Longest pier of my life.

  It was a big mob of them, torches and hollering.

  Throwing them big things they had.

  The king kept falling down.

  Big long sticks with opened razors lashed to the ends.

  The king said there’d be a boat waiting for us at the end of the pier.

  They were throwing them things like spears.

  I didn’t know whether to trust the king.

  A couple of the spear things landed around my feet.

  I saw the king take out his knife.

  One stuck right in the plank ahead of me where I was to take a step.

  The king pulled his knife out under the shawl.

  I looked down where the spear almost stuck right in my foot. It had a big red feather tied to the handle with a chain of bubble-gum wrappers.

  I was starting to think the king was going to double-cross us at the end of the pier.

  It had ARCHIE carved in the handle.

  We was almost to the end of the pier and still I didn’t see a boat or a mast or nothing.

  Somebody spent a lot of time on that spear.

  That’s when the king fell on his own knife.

  Do what?

  It was dark at the end of the pier and the king fell, and he fell on his own knife.

  You heard the king jingle and jank, and you slit open his belly for him.

  He fell on his knife.

  Then up pops the head of the sheriff, he’s got the official town boat idling underneath the pier.

  The king fell on his knife.

  See, they was in it together, the king and the sheriff.

  It was dark, the wharf was wet, he fell on his knife.

  Up pops the head of the sheriff just in time to see you slice open the king’s belly like you think it is a bank bag of silver, you slicing and holding out your hands to catch the money like a slot machine spun three cherries.

  The king stepped on a corner of the shawl and tripped.

  Only thing you got was handfuls of guts. Boy, was you surprised.

  It was real dark.

  I could see your eyes by the light of the burnt-up town and the torches here come the natives was bringing.

  The pier was full of rotten places.

  You promised the sheriff the ruby to help us escape.

  Big knotholes in the pier, places where the tide had pushed the planks up.

  Except I was smart. You say you the brains, except I was smart and swallowed the ruby myself.

  The pier was slick with dew.

  Good old me, just swallow any damn thing.

  King’s always got people around to keep an edge on his knife blade for him.

  Guess I’m lucky you and the sheriff didn’t gut me right there like you done the king.

  Kings get nice knives, gifts mostly.

  Man that’ll gut a king in front of God, sheriff, and the general population throwing spears will just about gut anybody, I’d say, even a good old friend.

  That knife the king fell on must’ve been like a stiletto, no fìnger guard on it.

  You like to gut and cut, gut and cut.

  Nice mahogany handle on that blade.

  That’s you, Old Gut and Cut.

  Maybe it was laurel.

  Next day you and the sheriff waiting for me to shit that stone. That sheriff was on to you by then.

  What are you talking about? I don’t cut no sheriff.

  And I don’t shit for nobody, understand?

  Wasn’t me who cut the sheriff.

  You scared that sheriff, after what he seen you done to the king. That sheriff was smart, put us in shackles so you don’t cut and gut me.

  Sheriff was going to turn us in and get that stone.

  You scared the sheriff and you s
cared the Idiot driving the mule wagon getaway. You a scary person.

  I am not!

  Yes you a scary person. Scaring that poor dumb Idiot, breaking his rabbit.

  He was in with the sheriff! Waiting with the mule wagon getaway! The sheriff was going to turn us in!

  You didn’t have to break his rabbit.

  I didn’t break his rabbit. I thought it was for our supper. I was hungry, you was hungry.

  I won’t hungry with a big ruby stuck in my gut.

  Just a idiot with a rabbit.

  I bet it was his pet. You a scary person all right.

  I am not!

  Yes you is, you even scare me, you king-killing rabbit breaker.

  Shut up.

  Yeah, go ahead and hit me, see where it takes you.

  At that, the king killer lifted his devil’s claws from the skin of our ship to strike the ruby eater, and the ruby eater made a grab at the knotted rope to save himself. The Idiot gripped his end of the knotted rope and braced himself against the rail. I held the Idiot’s shirttail between my thumb and finger.