“Was a bad year,” Thomas Hudson said. “Rain gave the crop hell.”
“Whole thing sounds unwholesome,” Johnny drank. “Only saving aspect is you still take a drink. You boys gone in for religion? Has Tom Seen The Light?”
“Tom?” Roger asked.
“Relations with the Deity about the same,” Thomas Hudson said.
“Cordial?”
“We are tolerant,” Thomas Hudson said. “Practice any faith you wish. Got a ball field up the island where you can practice.”
“I’ll give the Deity a fast one high and inside if he crowds the plate,” Roger said.
“Roger,” said Johnny reproachfully. “It’s after dark. Didn’t you see twilight fall and dusk set in and darkness come? And you a writer. Never a good idea to speak slightingly of the Deity after dark. He’s liable to be right behind you with his bat poised.”
“I’ll bet he’d crowd the plate, too,” Roger said. “I’ve seen him crowding it lately.”
“Yes sir,” Johnny said. “And he’d step into your fast one and knock your brains out. I’ve seen him hit.”
“Yes, I guess you have,” Roger agreed. “So has Tom and so have I. But I’d still try and get my fast ball by him.”
“Let’s cut out the theological discussion,” Johnny said. “And get something to eat.”
“That decrepit old man you keep to tool this thing around the ocean still know how to cook?” Thomas Hudson asked.
“Chowder,” Johnny said. “And a yellow rice tonight with plover. Golden plover.”
“You sound like a damned Interior decorator,” Tom said. “There’s no gold on them this time of year, anyway. Where’d you shoot the plover?”
“On South Island when we went in to anchor and swim. I whistled the flock back twice and kept knocking them down. There’s two apiece.”
It was a fine night and after they had eaten dinner they sat out in the stern with coffee and cigars, and a couple of other people, both worthless sporting characters, came over from one of the other boats with a guitar and a banjo and the Negroes gathered on the dock and there was some sporadic singing. In the dark, up on the dock, the boys would lead off with a song and then Fred Wilson, who had the guitar, would sing and Frank Hart would fake along on the banjo. Thomas Hudson could not sing, so he sat back in the dark and listened.
There was quite a lot of celebration going on at Bobby’s place and you could see the lights from the open door over the water. The tide was still ebbing strong, and out where the light shone fish were jumping. They were gray snappers mostly, Tom thought, feeding on the bait fish that fell out with the tide. A few Negro boys were fishing with hand lines and you could hear them talking and cursing softly when they lost a fish, and hear the snappers flopping on the dock when they landed one. There were big snappers out there and the boys were baiting them up with chunks of marlin meat from a fish one of the boats had brought in early that afternoon and that had already been hung up, photographed, weighed, and butchered.
There was quite a crowd on the dock now with the singing and Rupert Pinder, a very big Negro who was said to have once carried a piano on his back, unaided, from the Government dock all the way up the King’s Highway to the old club that the hurricane blew away, and who fancied himself as a fighting man, called down from the dock, “Captain John, boys say they getting thirsty.”
“Buy something inexpensive and healthful, Rupert.”
“Yes sir, Captain John. Rum.”
“That’s what I had in mind,” John said. “Why not try for a demijohn? Better value, I think.”
“Many thanks, Captain John,” Rupert said. Rupert moved off through the crowd which thinned rapidly and fell in behind him. Thomas Hudson could see them all heading toward Roy’s place.
Just then, from one of the boats tied up at Brown’s dock, a rocket rose with a whoosh high into the sky and burst with a pop to light up the channel. Another went whooshing up at an angle and burst, this time, just over the near end of their dock.
“Damn,” said Fred Wilson. “We should have sent over to Miami for some.”
The night was lighted now with rockets whishing and popping and, in the light, Rupert and his followers were coming back out onto the dock, Rupert carrying a big wicker demijohn on his shoulder.
Someone fired a rocket from one of the boats and it burst just over the dock, lighting up the crowd, the dark faces, necks, and hands, and Rupert’s flat face, wide shoulders, and thick neck with the wicker-covered jug resting tenderly and proudly alongside his head.
“Cups,” he said to his followers, speaking over his shoulder. “Enameled cups.”
“Got tin cups, Rupert,” one boy said.
“Enameled cups,” Rupert said. “Get them. Buy them from Roy. Here’s money.”
“Get the Verey pistol of ours, Frank,” Fred Wilson said. “We might as well shoot up those flares and get some fresh ones.”
While Rupert waited grandly for the cups someone brought a saucepan and Rupert poured into it and it was passed around.
“For the little people,” Rupert said. “Drink up, unimportant people.”