Bob says, “I’m going to tell you the truth. And then I’m going to ask you a hard question that I expect you to answer with the truth. Fair?”
Ave looks over at his friend, who is staring upward, the fighting chair tilted back, at the night sky, a wash of stars overhead. “Yeah. Fair.”
“No. I didn’t fuck Honduras,” Bob says, still looking at the dark blue sky. “Did you fuck Elaine?”
“What?”
“I said, ‘Did you fuck Elaine?’ ”
“Jesus Christ, Bob! Why do you ask a thing like that?”
“She told me you fucked her. That’s why. Four years ago, back in Catamount. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s like it was last night, you know?”
“Women are crazy, man,” Ave says. He exhales noisily. “Crazy.”
Bob sips slowly from his beer and watches Ave over the top of the can. “Did you?”
Ave says, “Listen, I like Elaine a lot. A whole lot. But if she says I fucked her, she’s lying.”
“That so?”
“Yeah. We … okay, we talked about it once, you know, kind of flirting with the idea. I guess I’d had a few too many, and maybe she had too, I don’t know, it was a long time ago. I don’t know where you were.”
“Out on the boat. Fishing. I remember where I was. I was a couple miles off the Isles of Shoals outside Portsmouth. It was summer, late July, early August, the bluefish were running, and you had some kinda excuse for staying home.”
“Okay, okay, I don’t remember what it was. But anyhow, she didn’t exactly come on to me, but it was sort of clear that if I made a move … well, she’d respond in kind. But honest to God, Bob, I said no. Hey, she’s a good-looking woman, but no way I was going to fuck my buddy’s wife.”
“So why’d she tell me you did?”
“Beats the shit out of me! Women are crazy, man! Like Honduras. I mean, why’d she tell me you fucked her?”
“I didn’t,” Bob says quietly.
“I know you didn’t, man! But why’d she say you did?”
“She was pissed at me for turning her down, I guess.”
“Well,” Ave says, “there you go.”
“I guess so,” Bob says, and he sighs. “I guess so.”
For a while, the men say nothing. Fireflies dart past them and go out, and the pelicans shift their weight, turn and watch a boat on the opposite side of the pier. Bob says, “Ave, I have got to make more money than I’m making.”
“No shit. I’m glad you noticed.” Ave gets up from his chair. “ ’Nother beer?”
“Yeah.” He collapses the empty can and hands it to Ave, who heads forward to the galley. When he returns and passes Bob a fresh can, cold and solid as ice, Bob says, “I’m stuck in a fucking rut, Ave. My wheels are spinning. I can’t make enough from my share of the Belinda Blue to live on, let alone save up a few bucks every month so I can buy a larger share so I can make enough money to live on. It’s what you call a vicious circle. And it’s making me crazy, it’s making Elaine crazy — for Christ’s sake, she’s gone and taken a job working nights at the Rusty Scupper up in Islamorada. I just dropped her off there a while ago. Hafta pick her up at one.”
“Jesus. What about the kids?”
“Baby-sitter. Tonight. Woman across the way. Otherwise, me.”
“Jesus.”
“It’s worse. Ruthie, she’s got … she’s got some problems, emotional problems, and now the school says she’s got to get some kinda special treatments at the mental health clinic down in Marathon, and who the fuck can afford Blue Cross these days? I used to have a great health insurance plan when I was fixing oil burners, but working for yourself like this, you know, you just say forget it, I’ll take my chances.”
“Yeah. I don’t have any health insurance.”
“You don’t have any kids, either. That’s really what I’m talking about. I got to make more money.”
Ave says, “Well, Bob, there’s ways.”
“Yeah, I know. But I got kids and a wife, like I said. I can’t take the kinda chances you take. Anyhow, what I’ve been thinking is, there’s a way I can get a bigger share of the boat, which would let me keep a bigger share of the profits. But I need you to help me.”
Ave listens carefully, like a bank director, as Bob unfolds his plan: Ave will loan Bob forty-five thousand dollars, which Bob will then pay over to Ave for the rest of the boat, and then, with Bob’s increased share of the profits, he will pay Ave back, say, a minimum of five thousand a year, or whatever Ave thinks is right, with interest, which should also be whatever Ave thinks is right. Bob will pay for all repairs and maintenance, operating costs and so on, everything associated with the Belinda Blue, just as if she were his own boat.
“It would be your own boat,” Ave points out. “That’s the trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
Ave sighs heavily. “I owe a lotta money, Bob. A shitload. And the Belinda Blue’s my collateral. I can’t sell her without paying off the bank what I owe. They got the title. For the apartment they got it. If I hadda come up with that kinda money, to buy the title back, plus loan you forty-five more, I’d be talking close to a hundred grand. More, maybe. I haven’t checked lately what I owe on the apartment. And even if I could come up with that kinda money, look where I’d come out. You’d own the Belinda Blue for a total of sixty grand, and I’d be out fifty grand minimum plus my three-quarters of the profits she turns, which ain’t much, I know, but it makes a difference.”
“Well, there’d be five thousand a year, plus interest …”
“You don’t call that money, do you?”
Bob sinks lower into his chair. “Shit,” he says. “I thought you owned the boat outright. I didn’t know …”
“No, man! The bank’s got me by the nuts. Just like everyone else around here. Why the hell do you think everyone with a boat is running dope, for Christ’s sake? It’s not to live good, pal. It’s just to live. It all ends up going back to the banks. I couldn’t run anything with the Belinda Blue, she’s too fucking slow, so I hadda borrow money to buy a boat fast enough to make enough money to pay back the money I borrowed in the first place. That fifteen grand you gave me for your share of the Belinda Blue, man, that gave me the down payment for the Angel Blue. You talk about vicious circles. We’re all in one. Circles inside of circles.”
Bob lights a cigarette, inhales deeply and slouches further down in his chair. “How come the bank let you sell off one-fourth of the boat, if you’d gone and borrowed against it? I never dealt with any bank, I just dealt with you. I got that bill of sale you wrote out, that’s all.”
Ave gets up from his chair and stands at the stern, looking over at the broad bow of the Belinda Blue rocking lightly in the water. Then, his back to Bob, he says, “I suppose you could get me into a heap of trouble with that bill of sale.”
“Jesus.” Bob feels himself falling backwards and down, as if down a well. In front of him and inside a small circle of blue light is Avery Boone’s back, getting smaller and more distant, while he himself descends faster and faster and waits for the crash when he hits the bottom, for that’s all that’s left to him now, a backwards plummet and then a crash, and then nothing. It’s over. He’s ruined everything, he’s lost everything, he’s given away everything. There was the house in Catamount and the Boston whaler, their furniture, shabby and mostly secondhand, but theirs, and his job at Abenaki Oil and promises of an eventual office job there — there was a life, and because it was under his control, it was his life; and then he traded a big part of that life for one with more promises and less control, but even so, it felt much of the time like his life, for there was still a part of it that he controlled; and then he made another trade, giving away control for promises again, property for dreams, each step of the way, until he’s ended up tonight with nothing but promises, dreams and fantasies left to trade with. And no takers.