Under the table is okay if you don’t tell anybody. Keith and I make a lot of money under the table sanding and varnishing for people who are too lazy to do it themselves.
The boat we are working on is called
Playboy II.
People have no imagination, Keith says.
“No fucking imagination. You know how many
Playboy
s there are, Per?” He does not wait for me to answer. “About a gazillion!” He says this about every boat name.
“You know how many
My Prozac
s there are?”
“You know how many
Sea Dream
s there are?”
People sometimes hook together the first two letters of their wife and kids’ names for their boat. This really annoys Keith.
“
Jo-bo-ha-ga-li?
What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Per? They’re just lazy. That’s what they are. Just fucking lazy!”
People either lack imagination or are lazy, according to Keith. He says the F-word more than anybody else I know. I do not say the F-word.
Keith has to drink beer and watch me work while he tells me about his adventures. He was a ferry captain until he ran his boat into a terminal. He told me the true story. It was not his fault. It was a passenger with really big tits.
“Tits so big, Per, they were more than boobs. They were tatas. They were jugs. They were so big, the end of the world could come and you wouldn’t even notice.” His eyes are very round and do not blink when he tells me this. “It was not my fault.”
That is another thing people say when they make a mistake.
Not their fault.
It is like rethink.
“Well worth it, Per. Well worth it. Big. Big. Tits.” Keith makes his hands look like he is itching somebody’s back. Then he farts and laughs.
“Just doin’ my part as a loyal citizen of Everett,” he says.
5
Every morning I get up, go to the bathroom, shave, and comb my hair. I wear jeans and a flannel shirt with an undershirt.
"You have an undershirt on, Perry?” Gram asks.
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
I lift up my shirt and check.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Gram says only low-class people go without undershirts. I definitely like undershirts. Everett is too cold to be naked under a shirt anytime of the year even with a jacket.
I am a good cook. I make oatmeal and other stuff too, like macaroni and cheese, hamburger casserole, and toasted tuna sandwiches. Gram used to do all the cooking, but now she sits at the kitchen table, works on her crossword puzzle, and tells me what to do. She likes me to stretch. That means try new things.
“Don’t get in a rut, Perry. Stretch yourself. Do something new,” she says.
When she told me to make stew for dinner, I cut the meat in long strips. I never made stew before.
“Cut them up smaller. Once more across. Then again. That’s right. Make them the same size so they’ll cook even.”
She always tells me to read instructions carefully.
“What’s braising?” I ask. Cookbooks are like dictionaries. They use hard words.
“Cook in liquid,” Gram says.
“Why don’t they just say that then?” I complain.
“Don’t be smart!” Gram does not even have to look up from her puzzle.
Oatmeal is easy now. It used to be difficult. Difficult means you have to work hard and sweat. Gram says life is difficult.
“Life is tough, Perry. It’s full of rude surprises and obstacles to overcome. Sometimes misfortune just smashes you upside the head. It’s difficult. Most things in life are difficult.” She tells me this while she picks tiny balls off her wool sweater and throws them into the trash. They stick to everything, those little balls.
While I eat my breakfast, I do my words and write.
Gram gave me my own writing book when I was small. I used to write my words on tiny pieces of paper and lose them. She would have to bend down and pick them up. They would be scattered all over our house. Gram hates any messes she does not make herself.
“This is for the birds!” she complained.
I always laugh when Gram says this. It does not mean you will feed the birds, only that you would like to. She buys me big black books from the school supply aisle at Kmart. I remember the first one I got.
“What’s this?” I asked. “It has nothing inside.” The pages were blank. I thumbed through each one to make sure. Nothing.
“It’s a journal. A scrapbook for words. You have to do the writing. ” Gram poked her skinny finger deep into my shoulder.
“What a gyp. Did it cost less than a book-book?”
“No, as a matter of fact, it costs more.” People use matter of fact when they mean something is highly unlikely or probably untrue.
“You need to write, Perry, it will help you remember, develop your mind. Improve your thinking.” Gram jabbed her finger again and it hurt.
“Oww!” I yelped.
“Quit your bellyaching! Now, write!” Gram said.
So that is what I do. I write. I do my words. I think. And I listen. I am an auditor.
There are times I forget I am slow. When I am riding my bike to Holsted’s. When I scrub teak on the deck of a sailboat with Keith. When Gary lets me fill out paperwork in the office. When I am by myself. Without other people. They are the ones who are fast. They talk fast and think faster.
“Turning themselves into butter!” Gram thinks regular people are too speedy. “Around and around and around they turn. Watch, Perry!”
Gram is right. I see them on the bus as I look through the window. Driving, talking on their cell phones, eating a breakfast sandwich, all at the same time. I see them at the marina, clicking into tiny computers that they carry around. Gram calls them pets.
“Goddamn metallic pets! Look, Perry! Like they’re attached to the end of their fingers.” Then she will cackle and do her witch laugh.
There are times I am glad I am slow. I see things. I hear things. And there are times I don’t think about it at all.
6
Holsted’s Marine Supply is a two-story white warehouse between the big commercial harbor and the brand-new Everett Marina. We sit right next door to Carroll’s Boatyard. Keith says the new marina will force regular guys out of boating and make it only for rich slobs.
“They squeeze us tight like a horny guy’s hand on a pretty girl’s boob. That’s what we are,” Keith says, “the boobs,” and he scrunches up his fingers.
I think this is funny and laugh. This makes Keith wriggle his eyebrows at me.
“Perry, can you inflate these two fenders?” Gary asks. He stares at Keith. “Some people have a job to do.”
Keith goes back to the register.
People come into Holsted’s to buy things like lines, which are ropes, and hatches, and fenders. Whatever they need. We have a lot of stuff packed into shelves and hanging up on walls. I have worked here longer than anybody, except for Gary. I am good at inflating fenders. It is my newest job and I have to concentrate. My hair gets in my eyes and I have to push it back. I need a haircut. A fat man with a cigar looks over my shoulder. I can see two spots of dark wet on his blue shirt under his armpits. I am afraid his ash will drop on me and sizzle a hole through my skin. Burns hurt and they leave a scar.
“You sure you know how to do that?” The man chews on his cigar. I think that is a very stupid question, but people ask stupid questions all the time.
They ask Keith, “Can I tie up here?” in front of the post labeled NO MOORING.
They ask Gary, “Can I fish here?” by the marker NO FISHING.
They ask Manuel, “Can I leave my car here?” by the sign NO PARKING.
Most people do not read. I read all the time.
The man asks me again if I know what I am doing.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!” he says.
“Yes, I know what I’m doing.” It is the only answer I can give. When I talk, I talk slow. This worries people.
“Hey, is he okay?” The man looks at Gary. Being okay is very important.
“Yes!” Gary and I say this at the same time. This seems to worry the man even more. When people watch me, I go slower because it makes me nervous. All I have to do is hold the fender from moving, but the man stands very close. I smell his smoky breath. He pants in my ear. When I finish, I hand him his fender.
“Here you go, sir.” It is important to be polite to customers so they will come back and spend more money.
The man chews his cigar, looks at his watch, squeezes his fender, and talks to Gary, all at the same time. “I need to get to the San Juans . . . Friday Harbor . . . Three weeks’ vacation . . . Can we speed this up?” he asks. “I need to get going.” He looks at his watch again.
Vacations are when you stop being in a hurry to go to work and start being in a hurry to go someplace else.
“My idiot son threw a fender off the stern and it wasn’t tied on. Got all the way up here. You’d think he was retarded! Oh, sorry.” The man looks at me.
Retarded. Idiot.
These are words I know. They mean foolish or stupid. I am not foolish. I am not stupid. I am not retarded. I am slow. Gram says we are all idiots really, and that idiot comes from the Greek word
idios.
“It means private citizen, Perry, a loner, someone just concerned with himself!” Gram says. “That pretty much sums up everybody I know.” She first told me this the day I came home from school crying. Somebody called me an idiot.
“Teasing is a cross we all bear,” Gram said. “A cross we all carry and suffer. It will make you a better person. Name-calling just proves the other guy is ignorant. Who called you that?” When she found out it was my teacher she spit nails. That is what she said.
“I could just spit nails!” and then she threw a dish. I remember I laughed at spit nails and the dish, and cried because I wanted my old teacher Miss Elk.
It was my last day of school. I was thirteen years old. I never went back. Gram taught me herself then. I learned more from Gram than anyone else in the world.
7
Gram died on Tuesday, August 12. She did not linger, she just did not wake up. Gram said in an emergency to call the number 911 on the phone. It was our drill and we practiced.
“What do you do if I don’t talk to you in the morning or can’t wake up?” she would ask.
“Call nine-one-one,” I would say.
“What do you do if I am lying on the floor and don’t move?”
“Call nine-one-one,” I would answer.
That morning she did not wake up or talk. I called 911. Her face was white and her cheek was cold when I touched it. Her mouth was stretched flat and her lips were blue. When the paramedics came, they covered Gram up in a cloth and took her away. They did not use their siren. I called Holsted’s first.
“Gary? Gram died and I can’t come into work today.” I was shaking and crying so hard that snot came out my nose. Gary had to ask me three times what happened. My fingers would not work right. I could hardly hold the phone. It was all slippery from my snot.
It is very important to let Gary know anytime I cannot come to work.
Gram’s address book sits right by the phone. It is blue and has mountains on it. She put every number we ever needed inside. The back cover has our family emergency phone number list. Emergency means something bad has happened or something you did not expect. Like the lights going out. Or a person dying.
The top number is my mother, Louise Crandall. She makes me nervous because she waves her hands around and does not ever look at me. The last time I saw her was when Gramp died. No one answers, so I leave a message. I hate that because machines go too fast. I just say
Call Gram
, but get confused because Gram is dead.
I am scared of calling because I do not know these people, not like I know Keith and Gary. My cousin-brother John is number two, but there is no answer, not even a recorder. Number three is my other cousin-brother, David. He answers on the second ring.
"David, this is Perry L. Crandall.” It is important to identify yourself on the phone. If you do not it makes people mad. After I told him about Gram, he swore.
“Oh, hell!” That is what he said.
It sounded like he had a blanket in front of his mouth. I heard him talking to his wife.
What happened?
It’s Perry. Gram died. Where did we put Mom’s new number?
David comes to pick me up in his car and we go to get John and Louise. They say we are going to an arrangement place. Everybody talks except for me.
I become a problem.
This is a real problem.
That is what I hear them say.
What are we going to do?
What are we going to do about Perry?
I hear them ask.
It’s going to be a real problem now without Gram,
they say.
I am it. I am a problem.
They thought Gram took care of me, but I was the one who took care of her. That is what she said. That is what I know.
“The two of us. We make a good pair. Just the two of us. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you to take care of me, Perry.” She said this every single day since Gramp died.
They say things behind my back. They think I do not understand what their words mean, but I am an auditor and I hear them clearly. Louise, John, and David are making arrangements
.
Arrangements are something nobody wants to do, and cost money nobody wants to spend.
In the arrangement place, I sit alone against the wall and wait. I am like those Greek people. An
idios,
I think. I can see what they are doing from my chair. I have two good eyes. I hear them talk. I have two good ears. Gram told me she wanted to be buried next to Gramp at Marysville Memorial Park. We made plans to buy the plot, but it cost over two thousand dollars, and we had to fix the roof instead.