Chapter 12 - HONEYDEW


Jumbo was still flying high at noon, leaning against the Co-op railing. The tide was up, and he was fixated on the bright sun glittering off the water in the anchorage, his mind racing.

When he and Buster had wrestled the drum into Sonny's barn, they'd unthreaded the pump bung again, then plunged Buster's filleting knife into a bag of powder. They licked the blade, then poked it into the opened bag repeatedly, wiped the adhering coke on their sleeves, and snorted up the chemicals.

"Finest kinda flake," Jumbo had declared. And he ought to know.

Jumbo had been lucky in his Army duty. Just a little too old for Vietnam, he'd done a tour in Korea, guarding the treaty line, playing tag with the North Koreans. But he'd lit back in California just as the whole drug scene was busting wide open. Bought himself a chopped Harley, and run all over the Bay area with his cousin Herbie, hair down to his butt, tattoos up the wazoo. Full tilt boogie.

But after he'd been busted for dealing amphetamines in Berkeley, and done some time inside, he'd realized he was headed for a wall, full throttle. Set off for home on his chopper with a stash of primo blow and a bag of black beauties, only to get set on by a gang of bikers in a campground in Southern Illinois, of all places. Jumbo'd been knocked unconscious in the scuffle, and when he woke up, found they'd cleaned him out. He'd had to sell the Harley, and limp home on a Greyhound. Gone back to ground in Smithport, where the wildest behavior was getting shitfaced at the Legion on Saturday night. Maine was way behind the rest of America in the late 70s, and Jumbo found he kind of liked it that way.

But this barrel of blow had him hotwired again, and he was scheming wildly about the fishboat he'd buy and the way he'd run his own operation with the easy money. He looked down on Slaughter Alley bridling the HONEYDEW up against the Co-op pilings and setting a crab alongside. Now THERE was a boat. He figured Slaughter was planning to ground out his fishboat on the next low tide to get at her hull and propeller. The bridles tied around the pilings and the shoring contraption (crab) he was wrestling into place would keep the boat upright as the tide went out from under her.

"Gonna race 'er?" He called down to Slaughter.

"Thinkin onnit," Slaughter called back over his shoulder.

Every Fourth of July Smithport has the World's Fastest Lobsterboat Races, and the serious competitors go to great lengths to outsmart the competition. Changing propeller characteristics, reconfiguring hull dynamics, shifting ballast, using positioning tactics. The boats have to be set up as if to fish lobster, but everything else is variable.

Bernie Carver had taken home the big racing prizes for years, with the boats he'd had built to be the fastest fishboats afloat. And it all made sense. The big tidal currents way downeast had always put a premium on fast hulls, and "Smithport" lines were traditionally long, and lean, and fast. Chasing lobster offshore was just another impetus to make a swift boat, to run home in. Bernie had started the goldrush on Georges in a Smithporter, and turned a chunk of his earnings into racing hulls.

Slaughter had been in Bernie's suicide squad, along with Sonny and Wild Bill and them, and the HONEYDEW was built along the lines of Bernie's best model. Slaughter was going to flush her down with clorox at low tide, scrub off any marine growth, then swap his working prop for a racing "wheel."

"Sonny racin?" Slaughter asked.

"Yeh, for what it's worth," Jumbo replied, and they both laughed. The SUZY-Q had been a bit of a screwup in the swift department. She was Stanley's first try at a glass hull, and he'd used the same lines he'd evolved for his wooden boats, among the fastest and most sea-kindly on the coast. The only problem was that a glass hull rides much higher in the water, and in order to get SUZY down to her marks where she was stable they'd had to fill her bilges with cement. Lots of cement. SUZY was a fuelhog, and a great heavy thing to shove through the water. But she could probably slam flat out on a ledge without concern. Sonny raced her in the 40 foot class, just to make a showing, but she usually finished dead last. Jumbo had helped put SUZY on her mooring after they unloaded their catch, and Sonny wouldn't bother to prep her for the race.

While Jumbo was talking to Slaughter, he hadn't seen Slaughter's girlfriend, Honey, striding along the wharf toward him. She was right beside him before he noticed.

"Give a girl a ride, sailor?" she called down to Slaughter, invitingly.

Jumbo started, and went into overdrive. He thought Honey was about the best-looking woman in a hundred miles, long-limbed, blond and green-eyed with high-cheekbones and chiseled features. She also had breasts to die for, and, as usual, was wearing tight jeans and a lowcut frizzy pink sweater which emphasized her assets. Jumbo stared at the merchandise.

"Honeydew," he murmured longingly. Honey tossed her mane of hair.

"Don't get into it, Jumbo," she warned.

"If only," he said. "Why don't you give up on that smelly fishkiller and try on a real gentleman?"

"Why don't you mind your mouth, and keep your teeth?" Slaughter called up in an amused tone.

Jumbo probably had a hundred pounds on Slaughter, but he wouldn't have dared face him in a fight. Slaughter hadn't earned his name on the fishing grounds, although he was a killer there, too. He'd gotten the name in the schoolyard, where he'd never lost a fight, from the first time he bloodied a grade school bully who'd mistakenly picked on him. Slaughter was know as a one-punch fighter. If you got up after the first one hit you, you didn't go back for a second. He spent Saturday nights as a bouncer at the Muddy Anchor out on Route One, the roughest bar in the county, and it was always very well-behaved when Slaughter was on duty. Then he and Honey went to the Third Baptist on Sunday, and prayed for forgiveness.

"Maybe Honey's worth losin your teeth over," Jumbo called back.

"Whacha mean 'maybe'?" Slaughter replied. Honey smiled wider, and wiggled. The smell of her perfume just about drove Jumbo up the wall. But their rough banter was interrupted by the sound of Wild Bill's tractor-trailer backing out onto the wharf.

"Sidearm's here," Jumbo relayed to Slaughter.

"Comin up," Slaughter replied, and he jumped for the ladder.

Sidearm watched Honey's backside in the tractor's big west coast mirrors as he threaded the trailer between obstacles on the wharf. The cigarette between his lips jigged up and down dumping ash. She looked over her shoulder, and shook it at him. Sidearm reached up and blew a blast on the airhorn.

"Honey, you sure know how to make a man horny," he observed, swinging down out of the cab, and everyone laughed.

Sidearm released the locking lever on the trailer doors, swung them wide, and folded the doors back along the sides of the trailer. Then all three men began loading the catches from SUZY and the HONEYDEW. Honey took Sidearm's clipboard and logged totals. Slaughter would drag a tower of stacked tubs up to the tailgate. Jumbo hoisted each tub up to the trailer floor, calling out its contents to Honey from the attached tag. Sidearm would pile the tubs in the trailer, then drag and shove them up against the product already packed. He had the better part of a load aboard, secured with belts and binders, and these fish went on fast. Jumbo was sweating hard and huffing, but he jerked the tubs aboard doubletime.

"Cranked up, are we?" Sidearm winked at Jumbo. "Don't get all ovahBLOWn, deah." Jumbo hesitated, and gave Sidearm a surprised look.

"Heard you had some luck this trip." Sidearm teased.

"What? Jumbo get lucky on a pitstop?" Slaughter asked. SUZY-Q's romantic sidetrips along the coast were no secret on the docks.

Jumbo reddened a little, confused. "Who knows what?" He wondered to himself. And he went back to lifting tubs.

"I should think so," Honey put in. "Great big handsome brute like that." Jumbo just groaned, and they all chuckled.

The loading was done quickly. Sidearm secured the tubs with binders, leaped down, closed and latched the doors. He retrieved the clipboard from Honey, taking her hand and giving it an elegant kiss.

"Thank you, mamselle," he proclaimed looking down her sweater, "melons by another name wouldn't be as sweet." She pouted. Slaughter made as if to punch him, and Sidearm scuttled for the tractor.

"You're sweet, too, toots." Sidearm quipped. "But I gotta go." He climbed up into the cab. "Tootswit," he concluded, revving the diesel. As he engaged the gears, Sidearm hit another blast on the airhorn. Jumbo, Slaughter and Honey shook their heads.

Slaughter swept Honey under his arm, "Come on, dahlin. We got other fish to fry." And they headed for his pickup in the lot.

"See ya, Jumbo," Honey giggled over her shoulder. "Maybe you'll get lucky again."

"Maybe I have, and maybe I will at that," Jumbo thought as he wandered off the wharf. He noticed Buster's kid Annie running across the bridge toward the island clutching a carton of cigarettes, and it made him think of Sherman's store.

"Hey, this IS my lucky day," he said to himself. "Maybe I'll buy me a lottery ticket." And he set off along the waterfront.

Inside Sherman's it felt gloomy and closed in after the bright sunshine and freshening wind. Jumbo gazed idly at the readymade sandwiches in Sherm's illuminated coolers, and thought about getting something to eat, while Sherm cashed out a woman at the register. He didn't recognize her at first, until his eyes adjusted. Then he saw it was Honey's sister Janet, and his breath started going all funny again. When she turned, her eyes met his, and a foolish grin spread across his face. Janet laughed, and smiled back.

"Why Jumbo Smith," she said, "I haven't seen you in years. You back fishin now?"

"God, she's as beautiful as Honey, and twice as smart," Jumbo thought.

"Yeh, yeh," he replied, "You back from Portland for the summah?" Last heard, Janet had gone off to nursing school. He'd assumed she was long gone from Smithport, probably married to some doctor upwest.

"Maybe for good," Janet replied, with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"You just back from a trip?" She asked, changing the subject. She looked down at his soaked jeans and boots.

"Yeh, just unloaded. Thought I'd grab a bite." A silence hung between them, and Sherman smiled quietly behind the counter, pretending to be busy with some papers.

"Well, nice to see ya," Janet spoke, and clutching her paper bag she walked past Jumbo, smiling at him again.

"Phew," Jumbo blew out a lungful. "How 'bout a lottery ticket, Sherm?" He asked.

"What numbers?" Sherm asked.

"Whatever the machine gives," Jumbo answered. "I'm feelin lucky."

"You shoulda been quicker to follow your luck with Janet," Sherm thought, but he replied, "Could be your day, Jumbo." He handed Jumbo the ticket, gave him his change. "Did you want something to eat?" But Jumbo's appetite had gone out the door with Janet, and he shook his head.

"Dammit," he thought, and he turned and dashed out the door. There she was striding out gracefully toward West Smithport. Jumbo started to gallop after her.

"Luck is what you make it, " he said to himself.