Chapter 14: Terms, Thrown Back

The harbormaster brought pasties, and the whole crew came to look at the pages.

We spread them on the long bench in the shop, under the work lights, with a mug on each corner.

The yard had stayed open late for it.

Nine boatbuilders stood around a legal pad full of boxes and arrows, and none of them could read a line of it.

"What am I looking at?" said the youngest hand, who had a pasty in each fist.

"The first thing I ever built," I said. "Before boats."

"It's a map."

"It's how a truck finds the shortest road to eleven stops."

"You drew that?"

"In green ink, at a kitchen table, in an apartment with no heat."

He looked at the pages, and then at me, and then at the newspaper clipping of my launch pinned over the stove.

"That's the guy who knelt down on our dock," he said.

"That's the guy."

"And he took credit for this."

"For eleven years."

"Can I punch him?"

"Get in line," said the harbormaster, and the whole shop laughed.

It was the first time since Chicago that I had laughed all the way down.

Somebody put a plate in front of me, and I ate with my elbows on the bench.

The harbormaster, who had a gray braid down her back and had never once told me her opinion of anything, tapped the top page with a salted finger.

"You sign this?" she said.

"There's no name on it. Just initials. M.R."

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