Hawkes Harbor Part 7

But then there was always the hope of having it again.

Jamie didn't want to think about the bad ones. The ones that left him screaming; sometimes he had to be sedated, and sometimes that got rough.

Probably half of them are about being in a hospital, Jamie thought.

Dr. McDevitt noticed his faint smile but didn't question further.

"Yeah," Jamie said, frowning slightly now in concentration, rubbing his jaw. "I can remember one, I have it a lot. It's always the same. It's bad, it bothers me a lot, because I keep thinking about it."

Jamie sighed. "But it's probably not as bad as the others."

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, because I can remember it."

The doctor received a look he often got from patients, the one that said, "I'm crazy, not stupid."

"What happens in this dream?"

"Well, me and Kell are on this boat, it's a small boat-not a ship-like the one we had in the Andamans, and we're in a storm, a North Atlantic storm, but I can't figure out why the h.e.l.l we'd be in the North Atlantic in a boat that small.... I don't much like the North Atlantic, it ain't my favorite sea."

Jamie stared off.

"Me and Kell ran that transatlantic route four times with those G.o.dd.a.m.n guns. He kept telling me we were going to New Orleans, and we kept taking guns to Ireland."

"In your dream?"

"No. No. We really were smuggling guns-out of Boston, Gloucester, really-but we always got paid in Boston-the Irish mob was sending guns to the IRA and Kell got gung-ho into it."

"I've understood Northern Ireland has been quite peaceful in the last few years."

"Yeah, but it ain't gonna last much longer, they're getting organized-I never paid too much attention, really. It was just a job.

"I hated it. Those Irish gangsters scared the s.h.i.t outta me, anyway, the way they could be all smiling and friendly one minute and blow your head off the next-I saw one- "Anyway, Kell got just like them when he was around them, made me nervous.

"'One more run, Jamie,' he kept saying. 'Just one more.

Then it's off to a fun kind of place-maybe New Orleans.'"

Jamie paused. "The money was good, though. The money was real good. And I finally did get to New Orleans."

"In your dream, you're in the North Atlantic in a small boat with Kell."

The doctor looked at his notes.

"Oh yeah, the dream ... and it's cold, real cold, that ocean always seems cold to me-some places on it really give me the creeps-and we're in this mother of a storm, thirty-foot waves, the ocean just dropping out from under us, the sea and the rain getting all mixed up together in the wind, like it gets sometimes- makes you feel like you're upside down or something-everything is just wet gray haze and the wind howling like a wild thing....

"I'm behind the wheel, trying to keep us headed, but I can't believe we're going to make it, me and Kell yelling at each other, and a wave hits and Kell's gone, just washed out to sea.

"I'm yelling, 'Kell! Kellen!' because I think he's still close somewhere, I'm even thinking maybe I should try to get out and save him-I can swim in pretty rough water, have lots of time, but then, I hear him yelling, 'Go on, Jamie' or 'Keep going, Jamie!' something like that, and then he yells 'Steer by-'"

Jamie stopped. He wiped the tears from his face, and for a minute didn't speak.

"I never hear what it is I'm supposed to steer by," he said. "There's no instruments, no stars, a boat like that, a storm that big-there's nothing.

"But Kell's telling me to go on...."

Dr. McDevitt still looked down at his notes. He'd been in practice many years; Jamie had no idea how disturbed he was by the dream.

They both sat silent for many minutes.

"Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to ol' Kell after he got run outta Hawkes Harbor."

"Perhaps you'll see him again sometime."

"I don't think so," Jamie said. "It's just a feeling I got."

North Atlantic November 1964 "Your friend, Quinn, he's really funny," Steve Malloy commented.

"Yeah," Jamie said, proud that on a ship full of yarn spinners and bulls.h.i.tters, Kell still stood out.

"That story he tells, about you and the shark and the pirates-is that true?"

"Mostly," Jamie answered. Kell had a couple of different versions of it by now. One gave you nightmares, one made you wet your pants laughing.

"How about the one where you get raped by a royal princess?"

Jamie clenched his jaw. G.o.dd.a.m.n Kell, I'll kick his b.u.t.t.... "He don't tell that one around me."

Steve quickly changed the subject. He'd seen Jamie in a fight. He didn't know it was almost routine for Jamie, a fight on every ship. Because he was small, someone usually thought he could be bullied-he'd correct that misconception and everything would be peaceful again.

"You're lucky you've got your military over with. You see any action?"

"I was in the South China Sea, you had to be battle- ready, but no, nothing you could call action. There's always a bunch of guns there, though. Every G.o.dd.a.m.n country in the world wants to claim that sea. There's all kinds of gunships strutting up and down, playin'

'who's got the biggest d.i.c.k.' Lots of trade routes. Me and Kell went back there after. Same ol' stuff going on."

Jamie dealt another hand of cards. He and Steve had to be the worst card players on this ship, so they usually played each other and kept a paper score. Even in the mess room it was bitterly cold, and Jamie had his navy watch wool cap pulled down tight on his head and folded back over his ears.

Jamie usually kept to himself on a ship. It was easier that way. Besides, he had lived most of his life with a complete lack of physical privacy-the orphanage, the navy, close crew quarters; he tended to overcompensate with intense personal privacy. He had no need to get close to anyone. The usual banter of insults and brags that pa.s.sed for conversation on a ship was fine with him.

Still, there was usually one guy or another you hung around with more than the rest, eating, playing cards.

He wasn't seeing much of Kell this trip. Kell had grown up with some of the crewmen; they were full of old stories and in-jokes. One minute they'd sing songs so sad you'd want to throw yourself overboard, and then they'd dance a d.a.m.n jig the next.

Steve Malloy, who was the closest to his own age, seemed determined to be his friend. It was okay with Jamie. Steve was a nice guy. This was his first time out as a deckhand. His father had told him to make sure he liked it before joining the merchant marines.

"You like the navy?" Steve asked.

"Learned a lot, but I got sick of taking orders. You get a bad officer, it's h.e.l.l. Regulation haircut, regulation shoes, felt like people were watching to make sure you took a regulation p.i.s.s. Soon as I got out of there I went to the South Pacific. Didn't cut my hair for a year, went barefoot, and p.i.s.sed anywhere I d.a.m.n pleased. You ever been to the South Pacific?"

"No."

"You'd like it. The girls are real friendly. Real friendly.

Great place to surf. Kell got bored there, but I liked it.

Gonna go back sometime, restore a little ketch, do some trading island to island." Jamie was having doubts about he and Kell ever scoring big enough to get a yacht, and anyway, you'd probably have to hang around with rich people, and Jamie had had enough of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"I wouldn't mind going back to the South China Sea, either. I had a job on a cargo liner there for almost a year. Best job I ever had-best captain. Captain Harvard.

He was Dutch, most of us couldn't say his name-we called him Captain Harvard. Most of the crew was Kiwis. Harvard said sea captains went back in his family four hundred years, and I believe it. He sure knew what he was doing. It was a h.e.l.l of a fun route-if you could load it, Harvard would carry it. And room for about eight pa.s.sengers, too. You got a lot of odd ducks in that part of the world."

"Why'd you quit?"

"The ship caught fire and sank. We all got off, thanks to the captain."

Jamie wished he could tell the ship's burning like Kell could. Sometimes Jamie forgot Kell hadn't been there. "We were waitin' around in Borneo, to see if Harvard was getting another ship, when Kell shows up with his bright idea about smuggling jewels outta Burma. You heard how that turned out.... They still got cannibals in Borneo, you know that?"

Sometimes Jamie thought about going back, seeing if he could sign back on with Harvard. There hadn't been a man onboard who didn't trust that guy with his life, and some had crewed the ship for fifteen years ... but there was always a list of people wanting those jobs.

The only reason Jamie got on in the first place was that Kell knew someone....

"You're s.h.i.ttin' me, man." Steve wasn't hard to please.

Jamie liked that about Steve-for once Jamie got to be the talker. And he didn't have to make anything up, just told the truth. Steve hadn't been around too much.

"I'm going to get a little powerboat for the weekends.

Tracy likes boats."

Tracy was Steve's girlfriend. He was planning on getting married. Between the powerboat and the marriage idea, Jamie decided Steve was about the most boring person he'd ever come across, even if he was a nice guy.

"Oh man."-Steve voiced his most common worry-"I hope I don't get drafted. It just don't seem fair, something can swoop down and change your life like that."

"Aw, join the navy-at least you know you don't get seasick. You'd be surprised how many guys have a real problem with that. I heard they might get the New Jersey outta mothb.a.l.l.s. I could even stand to take a few orders, if I got a chance to be on a battleship."

"You ain't hearing me, man. I don't want to be in the navy, I don't want to be at sea. I'm quitting after this voyage. Glad I listened to Dad, no way I could do this the rest of my life."

"Why?"

"I get homesick. Don't you ever get homesick?"

"Never had a home to get sick for. Grew up in an orphanage."

In a way, Jamie thought, the ocean was like home to him. If be was away from it for very long, he missed it.

And no matter where in the world he was, he felt at home when he saw the sea. Homesick...

A grim smile pa.s.sed across Jamie's face.

"That place burned down while I was in high school.

Wish the f.u.c.kin' nu-"

"Now, Jamie."

Kell came in with his good pal First Officer Alan Gregory. "That's no language to use about nuns. It's bad luck on any ship, and I won't hear it, besides."

Most of the crew would soon be drifting in. The mess room was the evening gathering place.

"Aw, Kell, you don't believe in that cr-stuff, do you?"

Jamie had often seen Kell cross himself in dangerous situations. He thought it was habit or superst.i.tion or something. Even for a seafaring man, Kell was very superst.i.tious. Jamie himself took note of omens-you had to, if you wanted to live at sea-but that was about as far as it went with him.

"It's mother's milk to some of us, lad," said Gregory.

The captain was half drunk, half nuts; First Mate Gregory ran things on the ship. Kell thought he was very clever. He set Jamie's teeth on edge.

"Hasn't stopped Kell from much," Jamie pointed out.

"Yes," Kell said. "No doubt I'll spend a good long while in purgatory. If I go first, Jamie, light a candle for me, say a prayer for my soul."

He laughed and went to get a cup of coffee.

Jamie said nothing. He hadn't said a sincere prayer since he was eight years old; it was unlikely he'd start now, even for Kell's soul.

Gregory paused for a minute, studying Jamie. He had cold eyes, Jamie thought. The color of guns.

"I see who 'tis you're remindin' me of now-it's the coloring that fooled me. Young Timothy, Kell's brother."

Jamie said nothing.

"He was a quiet little hothead, too."

When Gregory was not quite out of hearing, Jamie remarked, "He's so full of s.h.i.t."

Steve looked nervously after Gregory.

"G.o.d, be careful, Jamie. You don't want to p.i.s.s that guy off." "He can kiss my a.s.s," Jamie said.

"I heard stories."

In spite of the cold, Jamie began to sweat. He wiped his hands on his sweater. What did Steve suspect? "Stories like what?"

"Like he's killed people, back in Ireland, and one on the docks in Boston and was too smart to get caught."

"Yeah. Maybe so," Jamie said. He relaxed a little.