“I would,” Pima said. “She’s got nothing to lose now.” She nodded at Nailer’s luck gifts. “You better find a good place to stash all that. She’ll probably try to steal it. Maybe she finds some sugar daddy down there to take her under his wing, but no one else is going to deal with her. Grub shacks won’t take her because the ship breakers won’t buy anything from someone with slashed crew tats. Smelter clans definitely won’t touch an oath breaker. Liar like that, she’s out of options.”
Moon Girl said, “She could sell off a kidney. Maybe tap out a couple pints of blood for the Harvesters. They’re always buying.”
“Sure. She’s got those pretty eyes,” Pearly said. “Harvesters would take those in a second.”
Pima shrugged. “Medical buyers can slice and dice her like a side of pork, but after a while everyone runs out of pieces. Then what?”
“Life Cult,” Nailer suggested. “They’d buy her eggs.”
“Just what we need.” Moon Girl made a face. “Bunch of half-men that look like Sloth.”
“Dog DNA would be a step up for her,” Pearly said. “At least dogs are loyal.”
They all laughed darkly. Started joking about which animals would enhance Sloth’s genetic makeup: Roosters at least woke up early, crawdads were good eating, snakes were perfect for duct work, and they didn’t have hands, so they couldn’t stab you in the back. Every animal they considered was an improvement over the creature who had betrayed them. Ship breaking was too dangerous to not have trust.
“Sloth’s about to hit a dead end,” Pima said, “but we’ve got the same problem. Maybe not this year, but soon.” She shrugged. “My mom’s feeding me extra, trying to get me so I can compete into heavy crew.” She hesitated, looked down the beach again to the bonfires and the men. “I don’t think I’m going to make it. Too big for light crew, too small for heavy crew, what happens then? How many clans are taking kids who aren’t their own?”
“It’s bullshit,” Pearly said. “You shouldn’t have to quit light crew. You do better scavenge than anyone on the ship. You could take Bapi’s job in a second, take out slack and double quota.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. You could take Bapi’s job for sure.”
Pima smiled. “There’s a long line for that job, and it don’t start with us. You’ve got to buy in big-time, and none of us has that kind of cash.”
“It’s stupid,” Pearly said. “You’d be a better crew boss.”
“Yeah.” Pima grimaced. “That’s where the luck comes in, I guess.” She looked around at them seriously. “You should remember that, all of you. If you’re just smart or just lucky, it’s not worth a copper yard. You got to have both, or you’re just like Sloth down at those bonfires, begging for someone to find a use for you.” She took another swig from the bottle and handed it back. Stood up.
“I got to get some sleep.” She headed down the beach, calling back over her shoulder to Nailer, “See you tomorrow, lucky boy. And be on time. Bapi will cut you for sure if you don’t show up and sweat with the rest of us.”
Nailer and the rest of the crew watched her go. The last log in the fire crackled, sending sparks. Moon Girl reached into the flame, quickly turning the log deeper into the coals. “There’s no way she’ll make heavy crew,” she said. “No way any of us do.”
“You trying to spoil the night?” Pearly asked.
Moon Girl’s pierced features glittered in the firelight. “Just saying what we all know. Pima’s worth ten of Bapi, but it don’t matter. Another year, she’s got the same problem as Sloth. It’s luck or nothing.” She held up a blue glass Fates amulet she kept around her neck. “We kiss the eye and hope things turn out, but we’re all just as screwed as Sloth.”
“No.” Tick-tock shook his head. “The difference is that Sloth deserved it, and Pima doesn’t.”
“Deserving doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Moon Girl said. “If people got what they deserved, Nailer’s mom would be alive, Pima’s mom would own Lawson & Carlson, and I’d be eating six times a day.” She spit into the fire. “You don’t deserve anything. Maybe Sloth was an oath breaker, but she was smart enough to know you don’t deserve things, you gotta take them.”
“I don’t buy that.” Pearly shook his head. “What have you got without your promises? You’re nothing. Less than nothing.”
Nailer said, “You didn’t see that oil, Pearly. It was the biggest Lucky Strike I ever saw. We can all pretend like we aren’t like Sloth, but you never saw so much oil for the taking in all your life. It would turn anyone into an oath breaker.”
“Not me,” Pearly said vehemently.
“Sure. None of us,” Nailer said. “But you still weren’t there.”
“Not Pima,” Tick-tock said. “Never her.”
And that killed the discussion, because whatever other lies they told themselves, Tick-tock was right. Pima never wavered. She never broke and she always had your back. Even when she was bitching at you to make quota, she always kept you safe. Nailer suddenly wished he could give all his luck to her. If anyone deserved something better, it was her.
Depressed by the turn of conversation, people started gathering the leavings of their meal, dousing the beach wood with sand, and getting ready to return to whatever families or caretakers or safe flops they had.
The wind blew over them and Nailer turned into the freshening breeze. The storm was coming, for sure. He had enough experience on the coast to have the sense of it. It was out there, coming in. A good big blow. It could shut down work for a couple days at least. Maybe give him a chance to rest up and heal.
He inhaled the fresh salty air as it poured over him. Other campfires were dousing out, and there was an increasing scurry of activity as the beach residents started tying down meager belongings in preparation for changing weather.
Out on the horizon, another clipper ship was skating across the Gulf’s night waters, running lights glowing blue. He took a deep breath, watching it rush for whatever port would protect it. For once, Nailer was glad to be on shore.
He turned and trudged down the beach toward his own hut. If he was really lucky, his father would be out drinking and he’d be able to slip in unnoticed.
Nailer’s home lay at the margin of the jungle surrounded by kudzu vines and cypress, made of palm sheathing and bamboo struts and scavenged sheet tin that his father had tagged with his fist mark to make sure nobody scavenged it while they were away during the day.
Nailer set his luck gifts outside the door. He could almost remember times when this door hadn’t seemed dangerous. Before his mother went feverish. Before his father turned drunk and high. Now, opening the door was always a gamble.
If it weren’t for the fact that Nailer was wearing loaned clothes, he wouldn’t even risk the return, but still, his other set of clothes lay inside, and if he was lucky, his dad was still out drinking. He scraped open the door and padded through the interior darkness. Opened the jar of glowpaint and smeared a bit on his forehead. The phosphorescence gave dim shadows-
A match flared. Nailer whirled.
His father leaned against the wall behind the door, watching him, a nearly empty bottle of booze gripped in one fist.
“Good to see you, Nailer.”
Richard Lopez was a rib-thin conglomeration of ropy muscle and burning energy. Tattooed dragons ran the length of his arms and sent their tails curling up his neck to twine with the faded patterns of his own long-ago light crew tattoos. Fresher, and far more ominous, a whole series of victory scars gleamed on his chest, showing all the men he’d broken when he’d been a ring fighter. Thirteen red and angry slashes there. His very own baker’s dozen, he would say, grinning. And then he’d ask Nailer if he was ever going to be as tough as his old man.
Richard lit the storm lamp that hung overhead, setting it swaying. Nailer held still, trying to guess his father’s mood as the man pulled a scavenged chair around and straddled it. The lamp’s swinging glare cast shadows across them both, looming and swooping shapes. Richard Lopez was sliding high, burning with amphetamines and liquor. His bloodshot eyes studied Nailer carefully, a snake waiting to strike.