Inflating a Dog (The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy) Eric Kraft (beautiful books to read .TXT) 📖

I throttled Arcinella down to an easy glide and tied the wheel so that she’d scribe a broad arc across the widest part of the bay. I was on my way out of the wheelhouse to lend a hand in the attempt to keep the guests supplied with food and drink, when Winky Wills, ace photographer, leaned in and said, brandishing his impressive camera, “Think I could get a picture of you behind the wheel, kid?”

In a flash, a mental image formed in my eager little adolescent brain: the image of young Peter Leroy, me, on the front page of the Reporter, guiding Arcinella with a steady hand. “Sure!” I said, but a glance at my mother showed me how overworked she was. “Um, but, can we put it off a little, just till things calm down? I’ve got to help with the hors d’oeuvres.”

“Sure,” he said. “Do what you gotta do. But — tell me somethin’ — if you’re gonna be handin’ out hors d’oeuvres, who’s gonna be driving the boat?”

“Ah!” I said, feeling like a very clever lad indeed. “I tied the wheel. She’ll just scribe a broad arc across the widest part of the bay. Should be a nice smooth trip.”

At that point, one of the guests stuck his head through the wheelhouse window and asked, “Hey, kid, any more champagne?”

I shrugged at Winky and hustled off to pour champagne. Winky snapped a picture of me on the job, as a waiter.

The boat was crowded to the very edges of the deck with guests. “Freeloaders,” muttered my father as I passed. It was hard to squeeze through the crowd without disturbing people, who disturbed other people, and so on, so my passage caused a ripple, and when the ripple reached the edge of the crowd at the edge of the deck, the ripple effect made people grab at the nearest someone to keep from falling overboard. In one group, while I was refilling glasses, a corpulent braggart telling a golfing story mimed the motion of a swing and the resulting ripple nearly knocked a woman overboard — on the opposite side of the deck.

Fog began to creep in. It grew thicker and thicker. My mother and Patti and I were busy serving and amusing the guests, but I think we were all aware of the fog. I know I was. I kept peering forward apprehensively to see if there was anything like an iceberg in our way. There wasn’t, so I stayed on the waiting job, pouring and passing.

Then, from a group standing in the bow, came cries of alarm.

“Oh, my God!”

“Oh, no!”

“Look out!”

A channel marker had suddenly materialized on the starboard side, so close that it could have been another person in the group.

The fog had kept me from noticing that the current of the outgoing tide had drawn us off the course that I had set, out of the broad and open part of the bay and into the archipelago beyond the clam flats, where the shallow waters were cut by channels for larger boats that drew more water than Arcinella did. These channels were narrow, not the aquatic superhighways that are marked by bell buoys, but the equivalent of two-lane blacktop roads, maintained by the county. They were marked with wooden posts, painted black along their shafts and white on their rounded tops, which resembled the miters on the bishops in my plastic chess set. Panels painted white and carved to resemble herring gulls’ wings projected from the sides of the posts to indicate the direction of deep water.

As the marker slid harmlessly by, Mayor Gerber shouted, “Iceberg!”

His group laughed at that, because he was, after all, the mayor.

“A regular comedian,” muttered my father.

Before the laughter died, and before I managed to squeeze through the crowd to the wheelhouse, another channel marker emerged from the fog on the port side. Arcinella struck that one, not quite head-on, making contact about two feet back from the bow, sending the boat veering violently to starboard and pitching the mayor’s wife overboard.

Flash! Winky Wills was in the right place at the right time, and he got a shot of her going bayward to port.

“Sweetie?” said the mayor as she vanished. “Oh, my goodness. Sweetie! Somebody do something!”

Flash! Winky got a shot of Porky White, gallantly, fearlessly, and unhesitatingly diving in to save Sweetie while the mayor cried for help. Flash! Winky got a shot of Porky standing in about three feet of water holding Sweetie in his arms. Flash! A shot of Sweetie back aboard and clinging to Porky.

“My darling Sweetie,” cried Mayor Gerber, “are you all right?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, batting her lashes at Porky. “I’m quite all right — thanks to this gallant corsair.”

“This is really outrageous,” said the mayor, smarting, I think, more from having been put in a position where he looked indecisive and cowardly than from Sweetie’s attentions to Porky. “Mrs. Leroy, you really ought to have hired an experienced bayman to captain your craft — rather than entrusting the wheel to a — a — witless incompetent.”

He glared at me so that there would be no doubt which witless incompetent he meant. I hung my head.

My father, standing tall, said with a sneer in his voice, “Just a minute, there, ‘Your Honor.’”

All eyes were on him. I was surprised and pleased that he was going to defend me, and I wondered, fleetingly, whether Mr. Beaker would have done so had he been there.

Throwing a protective arm over my shoulder, my father said, “He may be a witless incompetent, but he’s doing the best he can.”

That brought him some laughter and applause. I almost laughed myself.

Noticing that he had everyone’s attention, my father went on. “When it comes to being at the helm, if you want my opinion, the voters of Babbington should’ve entrusted the governance of the town to a man like — ”

For a heady moment I thought he might say “my son, Peter,” but he didn’t, of course.

“ — Chester White!”