The Slacker

I stood on the deck and raised my hand to shade my eyes from the glare of the sun, low in the sky now, but leaving it slowly these long June days.

"Rebecca", I said, to the long-legged  eleven year  old beside me, "Who do you think that could be?" There was no reply. Rebecca was lying on  her belly,  her head hung over the edge of  the dock,  absorbed in the antics  of a rock crab, wavering in and out of the brown and yellow weed below the pilings.

The bright  yellow,  double-ended  dory  came efficiently  through  the shimmery haze on the water,  the oars dipping cleanly  with  the  long pull of an experienced fisherman. It might be David Hirtle, but  the dark  back  was too  slight.... It  might  be... "Oh, it's Peter  Baker."  The boat  was  close enough now  to  reveal the silhouette  of  a small thin man bending  to  the oars. I was glad Rebecca was there. The summer folk called him "Pinchin" Peter", and he himself, 85 but still spry and still fishing, said, "I ain't done  with  the  women yet."

He had come over, the second summer I'd been up to the islands after my husband left me, with a bottle of whiskey and some fresh mackerel, "courtin"'. The recollection of it made me smile again, now, as I remembered the little man, not more than a hundred pounds of him, I'd guess, his sharp eyes and foxy face at  about the level of  my chin, "A good lookin' woman like you, Huldie, you oughter have a man."

"No, Peter," I'd said, amused and surprised, "I don't think I want anyone else right now."

"Well, Peter," I said, hooking the painter around the post for him, "How nice to see  you."

"Fine night, Huldie", he said, clambering up the ladder. I brought you some corn herrin'. You ever eat corned herrin'?

"No, I never did."

"Wal, now, you just cook 'em up wit' a little water and eat 'em wit' new potaters.   Brought  you'  some potaters too.  They're right nice. “

 He set the pail down, carefully, and I could see the silver scales reflecting on the irridescent skin. Lovely weather we been havin', but it wants showers for tomorra'"  And then, peering blindly at Rebecca, "Who's this now?"

"This is Rebecca", I said, with that quick flash of pride I felt at the mention of any of my children. "The others are coming later."

He turned his head toward me, one ear raised as though to catch the sound better, and said, "Beg pardon?"

He's getting really deaf, I thought, and raised my voice to a shout.  "This is Rebecca. Did you have a good winter?" Rebecca turned her head for a momentary smile of acknowledgement and then went back to crab antics.

"Oh, not too bad, not too bad."

"Come up and sit awhile. Would you like a beer?"

He grinned at me. "A little, if it ain't no trouble. I just come out to have a yarn wit’ you. You don't need a'  be afraid of me, Huldie.  I just come out  for a yarn."

I dispatched Rebecca for two bottles of beer and an opener, and led the way up the grassy embankment  to  the deck on the front of  the house. The mosquitos weren't too bad at this time of year, and sitting there we could watch the sun set behind the old Berrigan house across the cove. I sat on the edge with my bare feet buried in the long grass, and wondered idly how  we were going to  get it cut this year. He settled close beside me

- only to hear better, I hoped. The sky was rosy now, making the pointed

firs on the Berrrigan land nearly black. If the scale were different they might well be ferns whose lacy indentations against the deepening dusk created a border between earth and air.

“So, Peter, what's new?"

"Nawthin' much, Huldie. Had a real bad storm this spring. Took out my whole wharf, yew. Me and Wergil had to go over to the Cape and get all new poles for her.  You never saw the water so high."

Why was it the old generation on the islands always put a w where a y_ should be and never said the th? Was it something left from their German origins?   A dialect that refined and perpetrated itself?

Peter was telling me how to cook the herring. "Just a little water in the bottom of the pan.  You can put in a few onions if you like, an' you simmer 'em up, and then you' eat 'em wit' new potaters and they're some good."

As I thanked him I watched the sun slipping down, half of that gorgeous orange plate already gone behind the trees - that's right, it wouldn't set behind the old house until much later in the summer I reminded myself, - and then I remembered what I really wanted to ask him.  "Were you ever in the army, Peter?"

"Wal, now," he grinned at me, "I wasn't never. I was one of them fellers they call slackers."

"Was that the first war or the second?"

"The  first. It  ain't  that I was afraid, my good woman”,  and he put his hand on my knee - for emphasis perhaps? I let it stay; what harm could it do?

"I was out in the boats, in all weathers, in the winter, way up to the banks, yew,  I was shipwrecked..."

"Yes, I know," I interrupted quickly, "that's a wonderful story, but tell me about the slackers." My husband ? ...absent husband?... soon to be ex­ husband? had already recorded that story in what had once been a joint endeavor to capture and cherish the fisherman's yarns.

"Ayuh", switching gears smoothly, "We was out to Wancouver for  the halibut harvest." He straightened and shifted, as if setting his back to the pleasant task of yarning through these familiar waters. "We was out to Wancouver, me an' my mate, for the harvest.  The halibut harvest. Ye

See, they was takin' the fellers about two months  earlier out there then back here. Wal, one day this feller comes up to me, and he puts his hand on my shoulder, see..." he turned sightly to indicate the weight of a hand on his shoulder, "an' he says 'We gotta go for the army.' He wants to see our papers and everyt'in'.  So we went down to the boat  and got 'em, an' he says we gotta' sign up. Then I says, "Where you gonna'  send us to drill?" An' he says, 'Dunno, maybe to China."

We both chuckled at the joke. "Then I says, cain't you send us back home, 'round Halifax, to drill?" an' he says, 'Wal, I'll tell you in the mornin'."

In the morning he says 'Wal, we can go back home, and when we get there they'II tell us what to do. So we went back to Halifax, two nights on the train, an' we got in early in the mornin'. I didn't see nobody to tell me what to  do,"  he winked slyly, "so I went for home. Then all summer I was out wit' the boats, and come fall, I quick skipped on a boat down to the Grand Banks."  One hand sliced across the other and through the air to indicate the swiftness of that skip. "I never spent too much time to home."

"Then it was all over, you know, but they was after some of us fellers, slackers they called us, to  pay a fine."  He shook his head.  "But when they come out to the islands I wasn't never to home. They'd come in one door and I'd be out the other." He winked again, including me in the conspiracy.

"One day I was to Bridgewater wit' my father and I see'd this feller comin' down the street, a secret service man, yew. So I leans back", putting the words to action, "an' he has this picture of me in his hand." He cupped his hand and held it  at arm's length to  peer at it,  "an' he says to  me, 'You ever hear of a feller called Peter Baker?"'

An' I says, I t'ink I heared that name afore."

"Well', he says, 'we're lookin' for him, but every time we go down to the islands he ain't there. They say he's up to Bridgewater, but up here in Bridgewater they say he's down to  the islands. You t'ink he's home now?"'

'I dunno, I says, you could try. I t'ink I heared of him down there.' They didn't recognize me, yew, 'cause l had on city clothes  then.  I looked some swell when I was dressed up in those days. I had these fancy pants..." His hands indicated the sharp crease and the fancy shirt. "Oh," He shook his head, I was some swell lookin' feller in those days."

"When I got home my mother says, 'They was out here lookin' for you again, and they're gonna get you sooner or later. They lef' a note sayin' you hafta be to Lunenburg, to  the Silver Hotel, Room 12, tomorrer mornin'  ten o'clock.   You better go and get it  over wit', she says'."

"So the next mornin' I put a t'ousand dollars in my pocket, and I up to Riverport, and took a taxi to Lunenburg. Then, ten 0 1 clock, Silver Hotel, Room 12".   He knocks firmly on the dock, "The door opens and the officer says,  'Who're you?'"

"I'm the feller  you bin lookin'  for and cain't  find, I says."

He stands back, an' he looks at me an' he says, 'Was you to Bridgewater yestiddy?'"

"Ayuh, I says, but you didn't know me then."

"'Wal, you're here now,' he says, 'and you'll have to go to Halifax wit' us tomorrer  and you'll have to  stand your suit."'

''We goes to Halifax the next day and the secretary she wants to know all about me, an' these two officers lay a' halt of me, like they're gonna lock me up, yew."

"Then the secret service men say, 'Oh, he's O.K. He' s gonna pay his fine and all.  We'll take care a' him  tonight."'

"They're stayin' at a boardin' house, yew, so they say, 'Look, you come along wit' us, and we'll say you're a new man on the job, helpin' to pick up slackers  along the shore, an' you can sleep wit' us tonight."

"We goes to the boardin' house, and there are these two women there. One plays the pianner real nice, an' the other sings, an' I t'inks, I'll get one a dem to  go out wit' me.  So I asks the pianer lady to  show me a bit of the town.”I’m new here, I sez,

just breakin' in, an' I'd like to see a bit a' the town.'

"'Wal, there couldn't be a safer man to go out wit"', she says, an' so we go to town, an' I'm playin' green. So green.." He shook his head and grinned disarmingly, "She's showin' me this, an' pointin' out that, an' I'm pretendin' I never saw none a' it afore in my life. We comes in around 'leven o'clock,  an' I goes up wit'  the other two to sleep.

'"I hope you'll look me up if you ever come to town again,' she says, but I never did."

The next day, the judge wants to know alt about the boats i been on an’ every little t'ing. I was shipwrecked, I says an' I lost all my papers." He made the motions of  turning out  a set of  empty pockets.

"'Wal, if you' won't tell us, we knowed anyways,' he says, “real mad, and they opened up a big book, an' there's everyt'ing, all the ships, the cargo, an' the capt'ins  and everyt'ing.  'So,'  he says, 'we see you got two brothers  was fightin'  an'  one stayed over there an' dat's lucky for you.

Your fine should be a t'ousand dollars, but since they was in the fightin' it'll only be seven hunnerd."'

"Seven hunnerd dollars, that's more n' enough, I says, an' then he gets some mad."   Again, the quick flash of his grin beamed out to me.

"After I paid my fine we went into this other room, wit' these two cops. One a them reaches into a drawer an' pulls out two rewolvers. What's them for? I says."

"We're goin' out to the shore for them other slackers, an' you knowed 'em all, so you can tell us where they are."

"Oh, no, I ain't gonna blow on them, I says," and then to  me, "'cause one a'  them would a' shot me for sure."

"But, I says, I'll tell you where one feller is, down to Dublin Shore, if you'll give me a ride down there. So they gives me a ride, an' all the way home, goin' along the shore, they're shootin' crows out of the trees wit' them rewolvers.  We comes to this house where Rupert Baker lives, yew. I’

see'd him down there, in his white shirt, rockin' in front of the winder, an' I knowed he wasn't no slacker so they couldn't pin it onto him so I says, “there's your man, an' then I hops out the back an..." again, he made a swift slice through the air, one hand across the other, and winked at me.

The sun was well gone now, leaving jet streaks of gold in the low clouds behind the dark, fir-jagged edge of Berrrigan's Point. Rebecca had disappeared somewhere, probably back into Anne of Green Gables. "Oh, Peter," I said, laughing, "that's  a wonderful story."

"Ayuh," he said, "I was a wild one once, but I never done nuthin' real bad. An' now I ain't so wild but I enjoy everythin'.   The flowers on the bushes, an'  the nice days,  an'  the color in the  water, an' everythin'.   Probably never stopped to notice 'em afore, yew."  He stood up.  "Wal, Huldie, I gotta go afore it gets dark. You ain't lonesome out here, all by yourself, a good-lookin' woman like you?"

I wondered how he could tell. "No, I'm not lonesome."  And indeed I wasn't. There was, as he said, so much to notice. The birds, for instance, as a cloud of black crows, their wings stirring the air with a soft hushing sound  flew eastward over the cove, the way did every night, going "home"  to  roost.  They'd be back in the morning, as regular as commuting office  workers. He interrupted my thoughts again, rising slowly to leave. "Your husband now, he got hisself another woman back there to  home, I bet."

Yes, he has, I thought ruefully, with a wave of the old pain, "Yes, I suppose he has."

"Wal, now, you're free then."

"Yes, Peter," I said, smiling down at him, "Yes, I'm free now." - pushing down a flood of questions and emotions; whatever did "free" mean? " Yes, I'm free now." He was still watching me. "But I don't want anyone else right now."

"Wal, It's gettin' dark. No offense?"

"No offense", I said, laughing, as we walked toward the dock. "Thanks for the herring."  I handed him the painter.   "And come again sometime."

"Wal, you're a good woman, Huldie," he said, peering up at me from the dory. "If you ever get lonesome,  come in  an' I'll give you a glass of whiskey."

2018