CHAPTER SEVEN: A Boat, A Boat, A Boat, They're Riding on a Boat
"A boat a boat a boat, we're riding on a boat, a boat a boat a boat, we're riding on a boat, a boat a boat..."
Ezra put his hands over his ears and edged closer to Jim. "How do you stand this?" he whispered.
Jim smiled. "The upside of being me. I have to ignore sounds all the time; right now I've got my Stevie sifter on maximum."
"A boat a boat a boat..."
William Ellison, sitting next to Maude on the opposite side of the 34' vessel they'd chartered for the day, opened his mouth to say something probably not very understanding or supportive to his younger son; the owner, 'Captain Mel,' picked that moment to start the engine, drowning both Stevie and his father out effectively.
"And you don't mind the engine either?" Ezra had to stand on his tiptoes to reach Jim's ear.
Jim shook his head. "Naw... no big deal, really," he answered loudly. "My mom can't deal so well, though."
The dock retreated; 100 yards out, Captain Mel upped the throttle and the boat turned out of the small harbor and into Puget Sound proper. Stevie left them to scramble up next to the captain, and Ezra wondered if it would be beneath his dignity as a not-quite-10-year-old to follow. It took him about 90 seconds to decide that maturity was over-rated, leaving Jim to stare out across the water at the passing shoreline. Backyards, docks, trees, kids and old men fishing - it was a rare opportunity to really see how well he could see small things from a distance, as opposed to up-close. Of course, he didn't know how much normal people could see, but he bet, for instance, that only he could see the momma mallard with her ducklings in the inlet they were passing, or the colors in the kite a little girl was flying in the field beyond.
A hand on his shoulder startled him - his father. "Don't stare at anything too long," he murmured into his ear. And then his father was back with Maude. It was disconcerting, these infrequent bursts of concern from his father.
Soon they were far enough from land that even Jim could barely make out the houses. Up into the Strait of Juan De Fuca, his dad had said they were heading. After a few minutes, the boat was brought to a halt and Mel and the smaller boys came down to the fishing deck. "A fish a fish I'm gonna catcha fish," sang Stevie. Ezra groaned and sank into one of the chairs; Jim was just grateful Stevie hadn't paid attention to the name of the waterway they were bobbing in.
Ezra was looking at the horizon dubiously. "We're pretty far out," he said. "And the sky is a lot darker than when we left."
"Aye, matie," said Captain Mel. "We'll be looking at some right choppy seas soon enough. Won't perturb the salmon none, though."
"Aye, matie!" said Stevie. "Matie check matie! Oh, look, there's the spear gun!" He lunged for the dangerous-looking contraption; fortunately, Captain Mel seemed to be anticipating Stevie pretty well - better than his dad ever seemed to manage - and deflected the boy with a Batman fishing rod.
"And here I left my tranquilizer gun at home," hissed Ezra. Strange; usually Ezra was the one with infinite patience with Stevie.
Before Stevie could take his rod apart, Maude set about teaching him how to bait the hook. William stood back a bit and smiled, pretending, Jim assumed, that he was ready to jump in at any time and take over. As if William really had time in his life for fishing! But Maude had thought it would be fun, and so here they were.
"You okay?" Jim asked; Ezra was starting to look a little strange.
Ezra nodded, but Jim could see him swallowing. "I hate being out in open water," he said in a low voice. "It's okay when we're moving, but I can't take just bobbing. Makes me feel sick. I thought Puget Sound was noted for its tranquility."
Jim shrugged, helpless. "Does your mom know?"
"Probably. Excuse me." And Ezra, very calming and deliberately, walked to the railing and threw up.
"Jeez, Ez!" said Jim, coming next to him as soon as he realized what was happening. "You okay?"
"I will be," Ezra said, then spat into the water.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"No," said Ezra. "I just have to cope."
Jim turned and looked back at the others on the little vessel's deck. Maude had wrinkled up her nose, so she'd clearly noticed, but made no move to join them. And it didn't even really smell; he'd have noticed if it did!
"Well, maybe the water will get calmer soon," Jim offered, needing to say something.
"Doubt it," said Ezra, returning to his chair and huddling down into its fold, looking miserable and small.
"Come on over and look at this thing," his father called, holding up the spear gun.
"But..."
"Go on," said Ezra. "Stop hovering."
So Jim let himself be taught about the various local types of trout and salmon. As soon as he thought he could get away with it, though, he returned to Ezra. "I could ask dad to bring us back in."
"Yes, you could," said Ezra. "But don't bother. Please. He already hates me as it is."
"Leave the boy alone," his father called. "He'll be fine."
Reluctantly, Jim joined his father and Maude, now at the stern. Mel, with a smile towards Jim, ducked into the cabin and emerged with a canteen and some Saltines, which Ezra was eventually coaxed into nibbling.
"He's just trying to get attention, you realize," said Maude, nodding towards her son.
"The best thing we can do is let him be," said William.
So Jim stood with the adults and Stevie. To his relief, nobody gave him a job or made him hold anything - he supposed that the unspoken understanding was that he was on Ezra duty, though to acknowledge this would be to admit that the boy was suffering.
What bastards they all were.
Lucky bastards, though. William, with some direction from Maude, managed to reel in two coho salmon and almost spear a lingcod.
The sky continued to darken into a deep gray, and the shore became a smear, then vanished entirely. Boring, so Jim looked down into the water instead. Could he see deeper than other people?
Stevie pulled on his sleeve. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the west. A squall was approaching, like a bathroom shower gone bionic.
"Beau-ti-ful, isn't it," said Mel. "It'll be on us soon, but don't worry, the line will be past us in an hour. But, we'd better see about getting the gear back into the cabin in a moment."
The wind picked up as the rain neared, and the water changed from being merely choppy to rising and falling in turn. Ezra gave up the pretense of eating the crackers and moved to lean over the side of the boat again. Mel handed Jim a pair of heavy raincoats, nodded Ezra's way, and then finished securing the boat.
It was fascinating how the water under the squall reacted to the rain. The shorter, more chaotic chops seemed to be beaten down, but the swells got higher and more energetic.
Mel climbed up to the bridge and grabbed some gear, then moved into the cabin, followed by the other adults and a struggling Stevie. "I don't want to be in there! There are dead fish in there!" he started to shriek.
The engine fired up and the boat headed forward and into the waves - safer, Jim reckoned, but no less rough than their previous orientation.
It was now easier to see the rain-splattered water than the rain itself; the disrupted surface rushed at them, and then the boat was being splattered. "I'm cold! I'm wet! I need to go to the bathroom!" Stevie was announcing loudly, his voice only slightly muffled by the engine.
Jim put on one of the too-large raincoats and draped the hood of the other over Ezra's hunched back; the younger boy wordlessly wove his arms through the sleeves, then went back to leaning over the edge of the boat.
"You still throwing up?" Jim asked, feeling stupid.
"Thinking about it," said Ezra.
"Stephen, if you don't sit down and shut up RIGHT NOW, I'll tan your hide!"
Why did his daddy have to be in such a bad mood all the time? Didn't he know that he wasn't feeling good? And he REALLY didn't want to be too close to those three dead fish. It had been so exciting when his dad had brought them on board. But then he'd seen their blood, and that had made his stomach do a clench.
Maybe if he just didn't think about them, he'd be okay. He was good at not thinking about things.
Stevie looked out at the older boys. Poor Ezra was really sick, and nobody except Jim seemed to care. Not like how Sally took care of him when he had the flu, or like his mommy had, when she'd lived at home.
He wanted his mommy.
The boat had been making big, big rocks for a while now, and at first it had been fun. Better than a ride at Mount Blue Park. But now he thought that the big rocks might be why he was starting to feel really pretty sick. Though the bloody fish didn't help.
His mommy would never make him sit next to dead fish.
Suddenly, he knew he was going to throw up. But where? Out in the rain with Jim, like Ezra? The deck looked wet and slippery. What if he fell? Instead, Stevie lurched forward towards the little bathroom, or head, or whatever Captain Mel called it...
His father grabbed him. "I said, SIT DOWN."
Well, that did it. Without his quite even knowing it was happening, the puke was coming up his throat and out his mouth and nose and heading straight for his father. William, finally clueing in, grabbed him and turned him mid-stream; not his brightest move ever, as this meant that fully half of Stevie's lunch landed on Maude.
Captain Mel reflected that this was why he wore wet-weather gear.
Sick and scared, Stevie started to cry. And wail. "Mommy! Mommy! I want my mommy!"
"Your mother is in Seattle," hissed William.
Maude, remembering why it was that she liked to leave much of the parenting of her own son to other people, found herself with a lap-full of vomit-covered newly-eight-year-old. "There, there," she said, trying find a clean spot to pat maternally.
Her glance strayed up and out, hoping to see things clearing up. Ten feet away, Ezra had turned and was now leaning against the aft rail.
He saluted.
This was not how William's day was supposed to go. They were supposed to be spending an afternoon doing some serious salmon fishing, something that William had hoped would compare well to the tuna fishing that Maude had talked about doing as a girl on the Gulf of Mexico. He was also supposed to be enjoying passing on this skill to his sons; that he didn't actually know anything about fishing was only a minor inconvenience, as he was paying Mel cold cash to both drive this boat and make sure they caught stuff.
Huddling in a small semi-enclosed cabin drenched in puke was definitely not part of the plan.
He reached into his left pocket and checked that the small box hadn't gotten dislodged. Should he still give it to her today? He'd bought the ring a few days previous on a whim, but its importance had been growing in his mind all week. It was going to serve as a token of his love and affection where, perhaps, words failed him. It was not an engagement ring, no, it wasn't time for that yet, especially since his divorce wouldn't be finalized for a few more months. And there was no way he could swing an expensive engagement ring right now anyway. But this ring would mark Maude as his, and he found this very appealing.
The rain stopped a half-hour after it started, leaving the sea calm. Mel had a reenergized Stevie strip down to his underwear, then hosed him off. Maude and William cleaned themselves off as best they could with damp towels. The rods re-emerged, and even Ezra tried his hand at baiting a hook and casting a line out.
After getting as fresh as she could manage, Maude decided to give the spear gun another go. "Um, darling," said William, looking uncharacteristically tentative.
Maude stopped what she was doing. This was going to be amusing, whatever William had in mind. She affixed her favorite smile and waited.
William pulled the ring box out of his coat pocket. "Ummm..." he said, "I don't want you to think I'm being too forward too quickly, but..."
How many carats would it be? Two? Two and a half?
William opened the box. It... was a quarter-carat diamond surrounded by tiny, pale green emeraldss. "It's lovely," Maude managed.
"I want you to think of this as, as more than a friendship ring. And a promise of more to come..." William stammered.
Oh. "That's so sweet," Maude said, mustering considerably more enthusiasm. She slipped it onto the ring finger of her right hand; it fit perfectly, bless him. She rose and gave him a long kiss. William really was a sweetie sometimes.
Jim noticed the ring-giving but didn't pay it much heed. Neither Maude nor William seemed to be making too big a deal of it, so he mostly occupied himself with enjoying the now-mellow motion of the boat and studying the interplay of the sunlight and the water's surface.
Ezra, on the other hand, was nervous. Nobody had ever given Maude a ring before, well, not one that wasn't hot. What game was she playing? Surely she was going to give up on Jim being potentially useful for petty con work any day now.
Once home, William insisted that the boys watch while Sally set about gutting and cleaning the copious quantities of ice-packed salmon and halibut they hauled into the kitchen. Then Maude and William ducked out for a late dinner, and Ezra couldn't find an excuse to stay up late enough to catch his mother after her return.
The next day, Sunday, William left mid-morning for "a few hours in the office." Ezra held his curiosity in check until Jim and Stevie went out into the yard to toss a ball around, then grabbed a pad of paper and tracked his mother down.
/What's the significance?/ he wrote, nodding at the ring Maude still wore.
/Just friendship/ Maude wrote back.
/Oh good - I was afraid you'd gotten engaged./
/Well, that's now Plan B/
/!!/
/He's perfectly tolerable. I'll drop hints I'm interested in marriage. I doubt he'll put on any preconditions. In a year or two, we leave./
But... /Haven't you complained he's practically indigent from alimony already?/
Maude shrugged and gestured at the house and its furnishings. /Equity, dear boy/ she wrote. / Don't worry, darling. I'm getting the hang of social climbing and passing as wife material. My next husband will be an improvement on William./
She smiled. "And you always accuse me of not planning far enough ahead," she said aloud.
TBC
