Gary V. Powell, Author

Boat to Build

By

Gary V. Powell

Copyright Gary v. Powell 2006 All Rights Reserved

(This story was a finalist in the Briar Cliff Review 2006 Fiction Contest. It originally appeared in the 2007 Spring Edition of the Briar Cliff Review. It is a sequel to the story posted below, "Delivering the Goods.")

Harley was laid off last week. I’ve come to see him today, because for years we drove truck together and I’m worried about him. Two years ago his wife left to join a Wicca commune in New Mexico. Now he's lost his job. Who knows how that combination might affect a man.

He lives up near the lake, off of Highway 115. God's Blue Bird Lane. It sounds strange, but all the roads have names like that. Resurrection Way. Peace in the Valley Road. Blood of the Lamb Court. The Southern Baptists and Evangelicals are not to be denied up here. It's been a while since I've visited and I miss my turn. I drive ahead a quarter mile and make a “Y” in some good old boy’s yard. The dogs, three big-mouthed hounds, bay like I’m prey on the run.

God’s Blue Bird Lane is just that—a rutted red clay lane, lined with uncut grass, bull thorn and kudzu. About a quarter mile down, the lane opens into a cul de sac. Harley's new modular home occupies the center lot, flanked on both sides by older, run down mobile homes. His grass is neatly trimmed and edged along the sidewalk. To the left of the sidewalk, a bathtub Jesus hangs from his crucifix. On the other side, a smiling Madonna holds the Babe against her own backdrop of gleaming porcelain. Throughout the yard, wooden, glass, and plastic blue birds perch on metal stakes. They cling to flowers and bushes or rest in imitation bird baths. The blue birds were Harley's wife's idea, during her Baptist phase, and I guess he doesn't have the heart to throw them out.

He's working in the yard when I pull up.

"What the hell, Harley?"

"I'm building a boat." His head’s down, eyes focused. He bites an eight-penny nail between his teeth.

I stand back, take it in. Sure enough, he's got lumber and plywood stacked on the lawn. He's got a chain and winch set up in that big hickory tree.

"How you going to build a boat?"

"Lookie here." On his picnic table he rolls out the instruction manual he ordered online.

The manual describes the building procedures and options for setting up—proper hull assembly sequence, tank construction, insulating methods and materials, joinery work, electrical, and finishing. It shows how to fabricate most of the usual "store bought" parts. Detail sheets display hatch and mast construction, rail and rudder fittings. Shaft tube and stern bearings, chain plates, decking, and cabin-hull junctions are laid out.

I find a tree stump, light a Winston. "It's a helluva undertaking, Harley."

He takes a pull on his beer, reaches in the cooler and pitches me one. "Gotta’ do something with my time."

"You might consider looking for a job."

He gives me a hard look over the beer. "I work for no man."

Harley's a big guy. Over six foot, maybe 250, most of it mashed potatoes and beer. His words carry all of his weight behind them.

He motions for me to follow him into his shed. He explains that he's building a plywood boat. He'll fiberglass it after he's framed it out. The Poxy-Shield epoxy resin consists of two parts. These are to be mixed according to the ratios given on the containers—five parts A (resin) to one part B (hardener). A sign on one of the barrels warns DO NOT VARY THE RATIOS.

"See," he says, "the fiberglass cloth used in fiberglassing a plywood boat has to be compatible with the epoxy resin. You apply the resin using these disposable brushes and foam rollers. You need a squeegee for working out excess resin when applying the bond quote. You need a power sander for finishing and sanding operations. I bought one of those disc and belt types because they're faster."

"I'm impressed."

"Yeah, well." He sits his empty on a shelf next to several others. "You come up this way to see Sandra?"

I grind out the butt of my Winston with the heel of my boot. "I reckon. As long as I'm up this way."

"Aven onto you yet?"

I shake my head. "It ain't that big a' deal. I ain't leaving Aven to be with Sandra."

I follow Harley back into the yard. "Poontang," he says over his shoulder. "It'll get you every time."

Like he would know. "How 'bout you, Harley? You still seein' Marla?"

"Nope?"

"No? Why not."

He places his hands on his hip and looks at me like I'm crazy. "’Cause I got a boat to build, that's why."

* * *

Sandra's a waitress at Bill's Diner. She's tall and lean, blonde and blue-eyed. She's probably fifteen years younger than me, in her early thirties. She's been married twice, but never had kids. It started with the apple pie and her knees—woman's got the sweetest knees I've ever seen. Then we started talking. Then we started talking about the Motel 6. It scared me to death. I hadn't been with another woman since before Aven and me got together when we were still in high school. But I’m still in decent shape, still have my hair, and as it turned out I didn't have to worry about, you know, the performance.

Now, Sandra and me get together every time I make a run up to the lake.

"You want another piece of that apple pie?" It's code for do I want to go to the motel.

"I reckon I've got the time, if you've got the time."

She sets her elbows on the counter and gets right in my face. Ten miles of cleavage stretch before me. "Baby Doll, I've got a lunch break in fifteen minutes. Why don't you go on over and check us in, so we don't waste a minute."

There's mint on her breath like the chewing gum my grandma used to pass out in church. My belly flutters like a diesel going uphill on a six percent grade. I give her a smile, the smile that started all of this. That and Sandra's knees. "Honey, I'm a cloud of dust."

I leave $3.50 and a tip on the counter and don't look back. It’s one fine spring day. Sunshine, Carolina blue sky. And although I'm trying my best to fight it, I'm thinking that instead of spending the afternoon in bed with Sandra, I could be home helping Aven with the spring planting. It's time to put in the tomatoes and green beans. Time for the sweet corn and watermelons. But I've planted all my life. And there's this great sweeping logic, probably the same logic that convinced Harley that now's the time in his life to build a boat, that says this is the time in my life to harvest, not plant. Ten years from now I'll be pushing sixty, ten years after that I’ll be older than my daddy was when he died.

Wayne at the Motel 6 knows me as Mr. Reynolds, not Jim McLean. "Well, howdy there, Mr. Reynolds," he greets me. "You want your regular room?"

I nod and pay in cash. He's all business, but he's got me figured. About my age, he’s been around. Claims he was a sniper in Viet Nam, but can’t say was it Chu Lai, or Da Nang, or Khe Sahn, or up along the Song Tra Bong. Said it slipped his mind. But a thing like that doesn’t slip a man's mind. I didn't know what to make of it at first, a lie like that, then I figured he was jealous of me being with Sandra.

I never watched daytime TV before Sandra. Now I'm a fan of CNN, ESPN Classic, Judge Judy. Sandra likes Oprah, but we're usually finished by the time she comes on. I'm stretched out on the bed, flipping through the channels, when Sandra arrives. I've left the door ajar and she pushes in, locks it behind her and lays a kiss on me. Her waitressing dress is off and on the floor before I can manage hello how are you. She unhooks her bra, slips her arms through the straps, and allows her breasts to spill into her hands. She squeezes them, bites her lower lip, and gives me a wink. But it's the red thong I've got my eye on. I’m not used to women in thongs. She winks again, turns around, and bends over.

"What do you think?" she looks at me between her legs.

She's been tattooed since I saw her last. And it’s not a small thing. It's greenery and serpents and butterflies and birds tattooed across her ass and lower back. It's almost more than a man can absorb at one sitting.

"My God, Sandra."

She turns around, kisses me again. She steps out of that wisp of a thong, slingshots it across the room, and straddles me on the bed. "It's the fucking Garden of Eden," she says.

"Yeah?"

"Welcome to Paradise, Baby Doll."

* * *

Aven shows me her truck patch. She's laid out onions, radishes, and greens. "I'm putting in tomatoes and green beans next week," she tells me.

I don't doubt her. This is a woman who does what she says. When we married twenty-five years ago, she weighed all of eighty nine pounds. I don't know what she weighs these days, but she still looks pretty good for a woman her age. Her hair's flecked with gray. There are a few wrinkles around the eyes and her body is best described as sturdy. But you'd look sturdy too, if you'd given birth to and raised three boys. You'd look sturdy too, if you'd put in and raised a quarter acre truck patch for two decades.

"God willing and the creek don't rise,” she says.

If she knew about me and Sandra, she'd think it's because she's aged, because Sandra's younger and leggier and curvier in places you want a woman to curve. But it's more about this turn Aven’s taken in her head than about Sandra’s looks. After the terrorist attacks, Aven started attending a church where they believe in The End Times. She's going on all the time about The Tribulation and The Rapture. I don't even know her anymore.

"How was your day?" she asks, wiping dirt on her apron.

"Saw Harley. Made a delivery up to the lake this afternoon."

"It's Bible Study tonight. Come on in, we'll have some dinner."

We're in what she calls Pre-Tribulation. All these volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis and plagues, they're God's way of getting us ready for the Second Coming. Israel and Iraq figure in it, too, but I can't say how. I know this though—things are only going to get worse. Then there's The Rapture. Then one day I’ll come home and Aven will be gone. Jesus will have plucked her up and sent her straight to Heaven, sparing her and the other believers of the Tribulation. The real bad times. Me and Harley and Sandra and the rest of the sinners will be left behind to deal with a load of shit, Anti-Christs and the like.

Early on, I told Aven I hope she turns off the stove before she's Raptured, because I don’t want the house burning down. She didn't think it was funny in the least and we joke about it no more.

In fact, over dinner she tells me she's decided to give up driving. Why, if she's Raptured out of our Expedition, the damn thing'll spin out of control and maybe crash into someone else. She says I have to drive her to church tonight and on Sunday, too. She forks a piece of pork chop and looks at me stone cold serious. "Jimmy, I pray for your soul. Can't you feel the nearness of the Lord?"

It's this pitying tone she takes with me that I can't tolerate. "I reckon,” I tell her over my sweet tea. But the only Rapture I'm thinking of is the one between Sandra's legs.

* * *

“Not that fellow runs the desk at the Motel 6?"

Harley winces, works his bevel. He's bare-chested in the early spring sun. "Him and a couple of other fellows."

It never occurred to me that Sandra was seeing other men. Well, maybe it did. If she was willing to hook up with me, it's a stretch she wouldn't hook up with other men. But that lying sonofabitch works the desk at the Motel 6? I wonder what lies he told Sandra.

"A couple of other fellows?"

"One guy's a painter at that NASCAR shop north of town. The other old boy, I think he's a doctor. He's got a kick-ass boat that's for damn sure. One of them cigarette boats."

She knew this was a big deal for me, slipping around on Aven. I told Sandra I'd never been with anyone else all the time I’d been married. It would’ve been one thing if it was a lie, but it wasn't. I feel my face go red. I'm not sure if it’s from the anger or the shame.

"You're boat's taking shape," I tell Harley.

"Yeah, I'll have her framed out in a couple weeks. I can start the fiberglass work then."

Harley sets his tools down and reaches into a cooler for two beers. In spite of the drinking, he's lost weight. He looks more rested than I've seen him in a long time. He twists the tops and passes me a bottle.

"You calling it off with her?"

"Who, Sandra?" I've dreamed about her tattoo every night since we were together two weeks ago.

"Yeah. Her."

"I don’t know. It's not like I was looking for love."

Harley swills his beer. "Well, what the hell were you lookin' for?"

"I don't know. You know."

"Yeah," he says. "I don't think about it much anymore."

“You've got your chat room women."

He winks "I got some."

We drink in silence for a while. The blue birds left behind by Harley’s ex-wife flutter in the breeze.

After a while he asks, "Is Aven still countin' on The Rapture?" The wrinkles in Harley's face seem to have disappeared. He looks ten years younger.

"So far as I can tell."

"Wouldn't that be something? All those folks Raptured. Just us sinners left to wallow in it.”

“Yeah. Hell on earth.”

His boat looks fine in the sun. Aven and me used to talk about buying a lake home, getting a boat, after the kids were out of the house. But now she doesn't care about boats. Now, it’s just The Rapture.

"Well," Harley says. "I reckon you need to make that delivery and I need to get back to it."

But I've lost interest now that Sandra's seeing other men. And it's not like I can go back to Aven, because she left me for The Rapture before I left her for Sandra. I fuss in the dirt with the toe of my boot.

"Well," he says again. It's my cue to hit the road.

Instead, I reach for the plans to Harley’s boat. It figures to be a thirty footer, cabin underneath. "Think I could build a boat like this?"

He stares at me. The man’s wife believes she's a witch. He's lost his job. He doesn't even try with real women anymore, just women he meets in chat rooms. “If you put your mind to it.”

“I don’t know.”

I can’t look him in the eye, my friend who works for no man. After a while, he sighs. "Well, I could use some help.” He reaches for a hammer and hands it to me.

Across the yard bathtub Jesus sizes me up. A humming bird dances in the air before The Madonna, drawing nectar from a Morning Glory that snakes beside her breast. I like the hammer’s heft in my hand.

He stands, gets an arm under my armpit, and lifts me to my feet. “Come on,” he says. “Help me finish blocking out the cabin.”

But the truth is I’m a little shaky. “I don’t know, Harley.”

“Nah, come on. Just start hammering. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Where?”

“Put a nail right there.”

I line it up, cock my arm, then bring the hammer forward. There’s no denying that satisfying impact of metal on metal.

“See. Hit her again.”

“Where?”

“Right there. Go on.”

The sound echoes through the trees like a gun shot. “There you go. See, it’ll be all right”

I draw that hammer back. “You think?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Why not?”