8
The hangover did not help Howell’s attempts to make a start on the autobiography of Lurton Pitts. He had followed Scotty’s advice and soaked in a hot tub, but he had gotten through another six ounces of the bourbon in the process and had fallen asleep quite drunk. The dream had come again, most vivid just at the point of awakening, but as soon as he was conscious, it was gone, just as always.
A beer for lunch quelled the hangover enough for him to listen to more of Lurton Pitt’s tapes, but what he heard did not inspire him to write. He was getting the picture, though, getting through the tapes, figuring out what sort of book Pitts wanted. He could blast through it in a hurry when he finally got around to writing, he was sure of it.
He lasted until two o’clock on the tapes, then gave up. He needed air. He drove to town with nothing particular in mind, then, on impulse, pulled into Ed Parker’s service station.
“How you doin‘?” Benny Pope asked, scratching his snow-white head.
“Not bad, Benny. Listen, I want to get Denham White’s outboard out of storage. Is it ready to go?”
“Give it a test run, Benny,” Ed Parker said, coming out of the station’s little office. “It’s been sitting around all summer, John; let’s see if it’s running good.” He sat down on a cane-bottomed chair and pulled up another. “Sit yourself down for a minute. Want a cold drink?”
Howell accepted the chair and a Coke. The two men leaned against the whitewashed station wall and soaked up the afternoon sun.
“Hear you and Bo had yourselves a shoot-out yesterday out to Minnie Wilson’s.”
“Well, sort of, I guess.”
“They ain’t been talking about nothing else over to Bubba’s all day.”
“Wasn’t much to it, really.”
“I hear Minnie put a hole slap through that fellow.”
“She sure did that, Ed. Just about scared me to death.”
Ed laughed. “Yeah, must’ve got pretty noisy around there. What sort of book you working on, John?” Ed hadn’t missed a beat on the change of subject.
“Oh, nothing I can talk about for the moment, Ed.”
“I guess it’s like that if you’re a writer. You get superstitious about talking about it, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess sort of superstitious.”
“A novel, is it?”
“Yeah, a novel.”
“And you plan to be up here just two or three months?”
“About that.”
“I always thought a novel took a long time to get written; maybe years.”
“Well, if you’re Flaubert, maybe. I hope to work faster than that. Anyway, all I want to do is get a start up here. I’ll finish it in Atlanta, I guess.”
“How you like it out at the cove?”
“Pretty good. Got everything I need out there.”
“Pretty place, ain’t it? Prettiest place on the lake.”
“Sure is. Say, Ed, how many lots has Sutherland let out to people over the years?”
“Oh, I don’t know, forty or fifty, I guess.”
“How come nobody else has built out at the Cove except Denham? Like you say, it’s the prettiest place on the lake.”
“I don’t know. I tried to get a lot out there once, myself,” Parker said, “but old man Sutherland wouldn’t lease it to me. I got a place over on the south side of the lake, though.”
“Did he tell you why he wouldn’t let you have a lot in the Cove?”
Parker shook his head. “Wouldn’t even talk to me about it. Just flat refused. I didn’t want to get him riled, so I took the other one.”
Howell heard the outboard start up in the test tank behind the station.
“Sounds pretty good,” Ed Parker said. “Running real smooth.”
Howell got up. “I guess it’ll go in the back of the wagon all right, won’t it?”
“I’ll send it up there in the truck with Benny. You’ll need a hand getting it on the boat; that’s a pretty big hunk of iron. There’s the battery, too. That’s been on a trickle charger.”
“Thanks, Ed; what do I owe you?”
“Oh, Denham paid when he laid it up. You can give Benny five bucks for helping you, if you want to. You headed home now? I can send him right on with it.”
“Yeah, that’ll be great. I’ll go straight there.” He didn’t go quite straight to the cabin, though. He picked up a couple of bottles of bourbon and a bottle of brandy. The booze seemed to be going pretty fast.
Benny was waiting for him, sitting in the truck, when Howell got back to the cabin. The two of them stripped the tarp off the boat and wheeled it from under the house into the water on its trolley. Benny rolled the heavy outboard down to the lake’s edge on a hand cart, set a gas can down next to it, then pulled off his shoes and pants. “Reckon we’ll get our feet wet doing this right,” he said.
Howell shucked off his trousers and shoes, too, and waded into the cold water with Benny, wheeling the outboard. Benny stopped at the right depth, then pulled the boat toward them. In a moment, the motor was fastened securely to the boat’s stern, and Benny was connecting the control cables which led forward to the throttle and steering. He set the battery in its box and hooked it up.
“You like it up here?” Benny asked. He had been very quiet. Howell remembered how chatty he had been at the filling station.
“Yeah, it’s real pretty. Quiet, too; just what I need to work.
Benny straightened from his work and looked out over the little inlet on which the cabin was situated. “You ain’t, uh, seen nothing?”
“Seen what?” Howell asked.
Benny worked his jaw for a minute, but didn’t answer the question. “Get in there and see if she’ll start okay. Battery’s all hooked up.”
Howell climbed over the stern of the boat and tried the starter. The engine roared to life. “Sounds great; want to come for a spin?”
“No, sireee, not me,” Benny said, backing out of the water, his skinny white legs sticking out of his shorts. He got into his trousers and started for the truck, shoes in hand, walking tenderfootedly toward the vehicle.
“Hey, Benny, take five bucks out of my pants for your trouble…” Howell shouted, but Benny didn’t seem to hear. A moment later he was driving away. Howell shrugged; he would drop the money by the station next time he was in town. He looked around him; it was a beautiful, summer day, hot and sunny. The engine idled quietly, waiting his bidding. He sat in the driver’s seat and shoved the throttle down. The boat shot forward, and shortly, he was in the middle of the lake, flying along at what he reckoned was thirty or thirty-five miles an hour. He had flown for not more than five minutes when the engine coughed, then coughed again, then sputtered and died. The boat slowed to a stop, rolling, caught by its own wake.
Howell tried the starter a few times, but nothing happened. Then he remembered the gasoline can sitting ashore. He made his way aft and checked the two fuel tanks which had been in the boat all along. Both empty. Swell. He checked the boat for a paddle, but there were only some life jackets and a couple of old beer cans. He looked around him. He was drifting about equidistant from both shores of the lake. He could see the outline of the town of Sutherland a couple of miles down, the water tower hovering over it, but no boats. He looked toward the other end of the lake. There was a boat coming fast from that direction, perhaps half a mile away. It would pass close to him if it didn’t change course. He started waving.
He could see four people, two couples, in the boat as it grew closer. The driver returned his wave and turned toward him. “Having problems?” he called out as they pulled alongside.
“Yeah, I’m out of fuel, and I’m afraid I’ve left my gas can ashore,” Howell explained.
“That’s not all you left ashore,” the young woman next to the driver laughed.
Howell followed her gaze and found that he was wearing only jockey shorts. “Oh, Christ, you’re right. I was wading…”