John D. MacDonald
A Day in the Sun
On Sunday morning Vince got up and went down to do some more work on the Croaker. Simmons had let him tie her up at his dock until Vince could get a place of his own. Everybody had been decent about it. He guessed it was a sort of game with everybody to see if he could actually get her running. Over at Garnell’s Basin they had hauled her out for him. He’d scraped the bottom, done a good paint job on it. Micky Garnell was the one who’d got the old marine engine running, charging him only for parts. You take a twenty-foot tub about twenty years old, and it needs a lot of work if nobody ever took good care of it.
It was hot in the April sun. He stripped off his shirt. He was seventeen, sun-baked, lean, stringy and towheaded, with pale eyes and square brown hands that looked too big for him.
Simmons’ place was just inside the inlet, other side of the highway bridge. Cars roared by, rattling the bridge boards. Tough place to sleep at night, he thought, but he guessed old Simmons was used to it. Probably didn’t even hear it any more.
He became aware that a car had stopped, and he guessed it was bridge fishermen. He kept on sanding. Put on some paint, and later in the day, if it dried fast enough there on the cabin roof, he decided he’d take her out into the Gulf and see if he could hit some of the macks. The Gulf was flat calm. No wind. Far out, clusters of gulls circled. Boats were already out there.
A shadow fell across him and he looked up. Two men stood there, two big beefy men with half-balding heads, bright shirts, slacks.
“This your boat, boy?” one of them asked in a Northern voice.
“Yes.”
“Croaker, eh? That’s a kind of a fish, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Named it that way on account of the noise the engine makes.”
“Run good?”
“Yes, sir. It runs real good now I’ve fixed it up.”
“What’s biting out there in the Gulf, boy?”
“They’re getting macks and blues and ladies.”
The heavier one was asking all the questions. He stood spread-legged, his hands jammed in his hip pockets. “How about taking us out there, boy?”
Vince stared at him. “I couldn’t do that. I got no license to run a charter boat.”
“You ever take your friends out, boy?”
“Sure, but—”
“This is Dave. Shake hands with Dave, boy. What’s your name?”
“Vince.”
“Okay, Vince. I’m Jerry. We know him now, don’t we, Dave?”
“Sure. We’re all friends,” Dave said, speaking for the first time. He had a thin high voice.
“So you take your friends out, Vince. Show ’em how your boat runs. When we get back, why, maybe we give you a little gift. Friends give presents to each other. Give you this, maybe.”
He took a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet, held it in the sunlight for a moment then put it back.
Vince knew it was less than half a charter-boat fee. But it would be a nice thing to have. Get a new anchor rope right off. Rig up running-lights.
“I don’t know,” Vince said. “You’d have to have tackle. Stuff like that.”
“Hell, we got boat rods and reels and line. What kind of lures you use out there?”
“Spoons. Number two and number three. And wire and swivels.”
“Okay, we’ll be back in about forty minutes, boy. We’ll bring some stuff. Have a day of it. Sure you got gas enough?”
Vince nodded. “More than half full. That’s enough.”
They walked back to their big car. As it turned on the highway he got a look at the plates: Michigan plates.
They were back in a half hour. They had rods, tackle, beer, a small suitcase. They’d had a drink. “Hi, old pal,” Dave said in his high voice. As they came aboard the Croaker it rocked under their weight. They stepped heavily and clumsily.
“Now go find those fish, Vince, old boy,” Jerry said. Vince turned her over. The exhaust made a sputtering, mumbling sound. He went to the bow and cast off the line. He went to the stern and cast off the line. The Croaker began to Swing in the tide. He hurried to the wheel, pushed the throttle ahead and the Croaker waddled out into the channel, chugged under the bridge and headed for the open Gulf. Vince felt he had performed the maneuver quite smartly.
He heard the men talking in low tones by the stern. Dave laughed shrilly. He looked back. Dave up-tilted a bottle, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, handed the bottle to Jerry. Jerry wiped the neck of the bottle on the palm of his hand, took a long slug, slapped the cork back in. His bright shirt was stuck to his broad back.
Once Vince was satisfied with the heading, he slipped the noose over a wheel spoke and went aft.
The gulls were working about a mile out. As the men paid out the line he made a course correction, then turned, standing in the shade of the cabin roof to watch them. Fellow could make a nice thing out of charter boating. Be your own boss. The tip of Jerry’s heavy rod dipped. The man reeled in rapidly, easily. A tiny blue runner about twice the size of the spoon had impaled itself. Jerry pulled it up out of the water and jerked the rod, snapping the tiny fish off. It glittered in the sun and fell fifty feet away.
Dave got the next two — macks, about three pounds apiece — and then things quieted. The gulls had dispersed. The men passed the bottle back and forth until it was empty and then heaved it over the stern. Their speech had thickened. Their heads were turning red in the harsh sun.
“What’s the matter, Cap’n Vince? Where’s all the fish?”
Vince made a long turn southward toward a distant clot of gulls. “They’re out here,” he said. “Just got to catch up with them.”
Dave was holding his rod loosely. He got a hard strike. It was a small-sized crevalle jack.
“Boy, we want something big,” Jerry said firmly.
“Not much big stuff out here. Cobia once in a while. Not often. That line you got is pretty heavy for this stuff.”
“You didn’t say anything about that before we left, boy.”
“I didn’t see the line until you came aboard.”
“You made yourself a mistake, Cap’n Vince. Wouldn’t you say he made a mistake, Jerry?”
“That’s just what he did. Open up a couple cans of that beer, Vince. Take one yourself if you’re thirsty.”
“I got a water bottle, thanks.”
Vince made a slow turn, following the gulls. The turn let the spoons sink a bit. An unexpectedly adventurous black grouper banged into Dave’s spoon, put up his brief objection and came wallowing in with his mouth open. Dave horsed him over the stern and slapped him on the deck.
Suddenly a vast patch of water began to boil fifty yards off the port bow. Vince yelled, “Here we go!” He circled the school. Dave and Jerry both tied into respectable mackerel at the same time. They whooped and got them aboard and let out line and again hit a pair almost simultaneously. Between them they got about fifteen aboard before the school ducked and disappeared. They celebrated with more beer.
The men took off their shirts. Their beefy shoulders were as white as the underside of the mackerel.
Vince said, “You can get sick from sunburn on a day like this.”
“Open me a beer, son,” Dave said. “How the hell we going to get a tan down here if we don’t get any sun?”
Vince shrugged. He handed them the beer. The white skin was turning pink before his eyes. They were both more than a little drunk. When Vince handed Jerry his beer, he could see the tiny water blisters that had appeared on the man’s bald forehead.
The next strike was so hard and fast and vicious that Dave’s rod nearly went over the stern. He recovered and set the hook. Vince raced to the wheel, turned hard toward the fish, yelled to Jerry to reel in.