Chapter 7: The Video

The room over the shop had a bed, a hot plate, a window and a smell of old rope.

I put my bag on the bed and stood at the window.

Below me, three men were pulling a hull across the gravel on rollers.

Past them lay the harbor, gray and flat, with a lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

Ingrid stood in the doorway behind me.

"The video has two million views," she said.

"I know."

"The youngest one found it at breakfast. He showed the whole crew."

"Of course he did."

"I told them if anybody says a word to you about it, they're doing the bilge on the Karlsen boat for a month."

"Is that bad?"

"It's the worst job in the yard."

I turned from the window.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I want my docks fixed."

She put a key on the dresser.

"I said no stories. I meant it. I just wanted you to know where the lines are."

She left, and I heard her boots go down the stairs.

I spent the afternoon walking the east dock with a tape measure.

It sagged eighteen inches, just as she had said.

Three of the pilings had rotted at the waterline.

The cross-beams were bolted with hardware that had been cheap when it was new.

I drew a rough layout on the back of a paper bag.

At noon the crew called me into the break room, a closet with a refrigerator and a coffee maker.

The oldest of them, a thin man with a gray mustache, handed me a bowl of fish chowder.

"Ingrid's," he said. "She makes it Thursdays. You eat or she gets insulted."

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