Tooner Schooner Read online

  “My heart is pounding its way right out of my breast,” Miss Tinkham murmured. “It’s the most moving spectacle…”

  “Just you wait.” The captain was holding Mrs. Rasmussen’s hand on top of the table. The ladies stared at the scene in wonder as the rain on the roof made the full cycle of tropical downpour and achieved a perfect trailing off into silence. Slowly and naturally the lights came up to create the effect of blazing sun on the blue water and lush greenery. The blue green turned yellow green under the sunlight. There was not a sound in the bar.

  “Sure swell,” Mrs. Rasmussen murmured.

  “You should see the real thing,” he said. “And hear Samoans sing! Lots of the palanggys—that’s foreigners—complain about how loud an’ how long they sing, but me, I love it. They come down to the dock when you leave an’ sing ‘Tofà, Palanggy!’ That means ‘Goodbye, Foreigner, I hate to see you go.’ They don’t do it for everybody.”

  “They did for you,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Ayah, they did.” The captain looked up as a middle-aged woman with closely cropped gray hair came up smoking a small Spanish cigar. “This here’s Velma. She owns the joint. Meet my friends.”

  “Treating you right, skipper?” she said.

  “Never better.” He shoved over in the booth to make room for her. “How’s things?”

  “Right straight out,” Velma said. “Known him long?” She addressed the ladies as one.

  “Long enough,” Mrs. Feeley said warily. Mrs. Rasmussen eyed Velma’s good gray flannel suit and handsome linen blouse with the concentration of a general estimating the number of troops over the ridge. She flicked a nonexistent bit of lint off her own dark blue shirtmaker.

  “An ingenious contrivance.” Miss Tinkham gestured towards the harbor scene.

  “Has one thing to recommend it.” Velma smiled. “It brings this lug in here once in a while.” The captain looked embarrassed.

  “‘Scuse me. The bilges need pumpin’.” He shoved back the table and left the four women to fight it out.

  “You married?” Mrs. Feeley believed that the best defense is a strong attack. Velma nodded.

  “He here?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Velma shook her head. “Alcatraz.”

  “What for?” Mrs. Feeley was impressed.

  “Life,” Velma said. “Did a Brink’s.”

  “You’re doin’ okay,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Surely an attractive woman like you will marry again?” Miss Tinkham inquired.

  “A scalded cat runs from even cold water.” Velma put out her cigar. “I’d always be uncertain in my mind whether it was me or the Pango Pango Club he loved.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen breathed again.

  “You know his wife?” she said.

  “Do you?” Velma said. Mrs. Rasmussen shook her head. “You will,” Velma said. “You will. Chartreuse will be down on you like a brick smokehouse.”

  “What for?” Mrs. Feeley demanded.

  “Dog in the manger,” Velma said. “She don’t want him, but she won’t let anybody else have him.” Velma got up as she saw the captain coming through the crowd.

  “Our interest in the captain is a comradely one,” Miss Tinkham said coolly. Velma looked at Mrs. Rasmussen.

  “Ayah?” She leaned forward. “Maybe yes. Maybe no. Anyhow, I hate that woman’s guts.” She smiled pleasantly at the captain. “Glad you brought ’em in, Tooner.”

  “She’s settin’ ’em up,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “She’s a gentleman, Velma is,” he said. Miss Tinkham studied Velma’s stocky back as it disappeared behind a red leather door marked OFFICE.

  “I don’t know but what you’re right,” she said. “She would give a good account of herself in Buckingham Palace or in a barroom brawl.”

  The waiter placed large steins of beer on the table. “Compliments of the house.”

  Mrs. Feeley hoisted hers.

  “Drink, boys, drink!

  Drownd all sorrow!

  Git drunk today!

  Sober tomorrow!”

  “G’luck!” The captain set his mug down empty. “One little matter before we settle down to the serious business of the evenin’…” He laid three twenty-dollar bills on the table. “My expenses was next to nothin’. I’m beholden to you. Is this square?”

  Mrs. Feeley looked at Mrs. Rasmussen’s stricken face. Miss Tinkham retreated into glacial aloofness.

  “I can raise it,” he said.

  “Do you think we done it for money?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  The slow red crept into Elisha Dowdy’s face and he picked up the money.

  “Save it for Chartreuse.” Mrs. Rasmussen’s voice was the thin dry scrape of an empty pen.

  “I didn’t go to insult you,” Captain Dowdy said.

  “With your experience of women,” Miss Tinkham said, “it is hard for you to believe that there are people alive who believe that love is the supreme duty and good.”

  “But you gotta live, same as me…or her, for that matter.”

  “We’re livin’, ain’t we?” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ eatin’ pretty high up on the hog, if you ask me! Sailin’ round the bay on a yacht in the daytime! Classy joint like this at night!”

  “But you scarcely know me.”

  “I may be a stranger to you, but you ain’t no stranger to me,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t be stuffy!” Miss Tinkham said. “You know

  very well that some people can bridge the gap of a lifetime in thirty minutes.”

  “Maybe you’re right, I’m sorry about the money. I was hopin’ you could work along with me.”

  “Any time, boy, any time!” Mrs. Feeley slapped him on the back. “The reason she was weepy was ’cause she was bettin’ her kidneys against the brewery. C’mon!” Mrs. Feeley dragged Mrs. Rasmussen off to the ladies’ room to repair her damaged face.

  “I can’t figure you women out,” the captain said. “A fellah can say anythin’ he’s a mind to around you an’ you never bat an eye. Mrs. Feeley comes out with some ah…thumpahs now an’ then.”

  “Wait till you know her better,” Miss Tinkham laughed.

  “Anybody can see you’re a refined woman, somethin’ kinda im-physical in your face, an’ still rough sailor’s talk don’t upset you.”

  “It’s part of life. Swearing is the seamy side of prayer,” Miss Tinkham said. “Realism and truth we must have. Honesty, purity and nudity. Dear me! The beer’s getting to me, too!”

  “Chartreuse, now…You wanta hear somethin’ funny? She thinks the Bible’s vulgar!”

  “She probably thinks Shakespeare is, too. She has never heard,” Miss Tinkham said, “that vulgarity, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that your wife’s dressing table does not lack mirrors.”

  “Velma’s real nice,” Mrs. Rasmussen said when she came back.

  “The cook’s making Chinese fried shrimp for us,” Velma said. “Nothing much doing tonight.”

  “Nothing much doing?” Miss Tinkham looked about the crowded bar.

  “No trouble or fights.”

  “I thought you meant holy Joes at a convention,” Mrs. Feeley said, “a ten-dollar bill in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other an’ ain’t about to break either one of ’em.”

  The captain lifted his glass:

  “Down the gulch.”

  “Oooh,” Mrs. Feeley squealed blissfully as the lights went down and the rain on the tin roof started again. “Ain’t it lovely an’ shivery?”

  Tooner Schooner sat back and put an arm around a pair of women on either side of him.

  “What’s a fellah gonna do, ennahow, with four dolls?”

  “Cheer up!” Mrs. Feeley banged him on the back. “Plenty for all of us!”

  Chapter 5

  ABOUT FIVE O’CLOCK Sunday afternoon Miss Tinkham stuck her head out of her bunk and quickly pulled it back in again.

  “Tooner’s ou
t there with that damn guitar!” Mrs. Feeley stuck her head in a pail of water and swished her white curls around in it.

  “Old-Timer and the jug!” Miss Tinkham moaned.

  “They got beer out there,” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ it ain’t their neighbors that needs it!”

  “I haven’t heard ‘The Chandler’s Wife’ since I was in college,” Miss Tinkham said. “The longer he sings the more colorful the verses get.” She followed Mrs. Feeley out of the trailer to join the group sitting in the shade on empty boxes. Mrs. Rasmussen and Velma listened respectfully as Captain Dowdy sang to his own accompaniment and Old-Timer provided the bass by hooping into an empty clay jug.

  “Anybody remember where we buried the body?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “It was worth it,” Velma said.

  “Somethin’ cookin’ over at Darleen’s,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t that Oscar’s car?”

  “Who’s Darleen?” the captain said.

  “She’s a gal we fixed up. Oscar boarded with us durin’ the war, him an’ five other guys. Good spud,” Mrs. Feeley said. “B’lieve I’ll live after all. Open up some Nervine for Miss Tinkham.”

  “We gotta build a decent kitchen,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Ain’t enough room in the trailer to cuss a cat. Hey, look…”

  Oscar and Red, his companion, cruised up.

  “This a private fight,” Oscar said, “or can anybody mix in that wants to?”

  “This here’s Velma an’ that there’s Captain Dowdy,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Where’s Jasper?”

  “That’s what we come about.” Oscar dusted off a hard bit of earth and sat down. “How’s it goin’, Gabby?” He shook hands with Old-Timer.

  “Jasper got married,” Red said.

  “Incredible!” Miss Tinkham said.

  “And divorced,” Oscar said.

  “Some streel, I’ll be bound,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “You know how them women are: all they wanna do is get married,” Oscar said. “These days they don’t even ask you your name.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen changed the subject to less painful territory. “We’re workin’ aboard the captain’s charter boat.”

  “That’s a hot one,” Oscar said. “Jasper an’ me got a proposition for you.”

  “We will not consider anything less than a proposal,” Miss Tinkham laughed.

  “Nothin’ in this town is right without the Ark,” Oscar said.

  “That’s no crock,” Mrs. Feeley agreed.

  “Bein’ your home, so personal an’ all,” Oscar said, “we know we couldn’t mix in on nothin’ like that.”

  “You know how it is, Oscar.” Mrs. Feeley handed him a fresh beer.

  “Yeah; I wouldn’t want to suggest anythin’ you’d be objectionable to. We chipped in an’ got ’em for you.”

  “You can talk plainer than that,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Seven buses,” Oscar said, “nice ones.”

  “Oscar dear, you’ve flipped your lid.”

  “They was gonna haul ’em to the dump. Make you a motel out of ’em. We’ll do the work. You got three of ’em rented already: Jasper an’ Red an’ me. You ladies need one. Old-Timer could hold kinda Liberty Hall in another of ’em.”

  Mrs. Feeley’s eyes squinched up and she went into a trance of structural imagination that would give an architect the shuddering horrors.

  “Take the wheels off? Mount the buses on cinder block foundation? Paint each one of ’em a different color?”

  “That’s my girl!” Oscar banged her on the back. “I got two weeks’ vacation, Jasper’s due back from Reno, and a guy promised me the loan of a scoop-scraper for diggin’. Let’s celebrate.”

  “Be nice,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “but we promised him.”

  “I wouldn’t stand in your way,” the captain said.

  “I know you wouldn’t, love,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Miss Tinkham an’ Mrs. Rasmussen will work for you. I wasn’t really doin’ nothin’ but gettin’ in the way.” She got up and went over to the edge of the sidewalk. “Me an’ Ol’-Timer…we’re the best damn construction maggots in the West!”

  “Right here we’ll line ’em up,” Oscar said. “Keep ’em close together to save on the wirin’ an’ the plumbin’. We’ll put the back door of ’em right on the sidewalk, next the street. Then we’ll run a nice ash-fault driveway in front of ’em.”

  “Each one with his dooryard garden! We’ll have plenty room for the Ark right over there. Oscar,” Mrs. Feeley cried, “I love you.”

  “Maybe we can begin to live a little,” he said.

  “Miss Tinkham, I want to learn to play the piano by ear.”

  She put her hands to her fevered head.

  “Dear Oscar! Not that! A man with your manual dexterity? You can learn to play properly.”

  “Sure,” Captain Dowdy spoke up. “Just like caulkin’ a ship. Nothin’ to it. You just learn how. Then you can do it.”

  “Hope you’re right,” Oscar said. “Seems like you wimmen kinda spoil men.”

  “We like company,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Trailer’s too little.”

  “Modden-ize the kitchen,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Yeup!” Mrs. Feeley laughed. “Put in a sink! A light in every room. Real refined place: never rent the cabins more than once a night.”

  “Set a shower in, an’ a ’lectric hotplate,” Oscar said, “so we can move in right away.”

  “I ain’t forgot that ’lectric’s what burnt the Ark down,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “That wirin’ job,” Red shook his head, “it was spit-an’-matchbox.”

  “We done it ourselfs,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “I’m a ’lectrician, ma’am,” he said, “and there’s laws. But we’ll take care of that.”

  “We got a plumber friend that’ll do a moonlight job,” Oscar said.

  Mrs. Feeley grinned. “Looks like we’re in business.”

  “Over at the Western Wreckin’ Company we picked out the plumbin’ an’ a lot o’ nice metal surplus war stuff, like file cabinets and bookcases; cost next to nothin’,” Oscar said. “Then of a Saturday night, if somebody throws a table or desk through the window in high spirits, won’t be no damage done.”

  “What is it Mrs. Rasmussen says?” Red said quietly. “The best is not too good enough for us?”

  “It’ll be fun to watch this project,” Velma said. “Mind if I kibitz?”

  “Just be careful you don’t find yourself with a paintbrush in your hand,” Mrs. Feeley laughed, “or tackin’ up insulatin’ wool with a stapler.”

  “Let’s go down to the boat an’ boil up a bait o’ lobsters,” the captain said.

  “They’re nothin’ but crawfish here,” Velma said. “Come on down to the Club. All of you.”

  “Don’t forget, Tooner!” Mrs. Rasmussen cautioned as they piled into two cars. “Tomorrow morning, minus sinus!”

  “Ayah,” Elisha Dowdy said, “this is how it always fetches up, ent it?”

  Chapter 6

  “RED, BLUE, YELLER, GREEN, pink, purple…” Mrs. Feeley surveyed the neat row of ex-buses fondly. “Short one color.”

  “Orange!” Miss Tinkham said.

  It was Sunday afternoon. The ladies stood on the asphalt driveway with the three tenants, Captain Dowdy and Velma.

  “If I hadn’t seen it happen, nothing in the world could have made me believe it,” Velma said. “Three weeks to the day.”

  “When Mrs. Feeley starts designating volunteers,” Miss Tinkham laughed, “things are apt to get done…and quickly.”

  “The buses was in good shape; no holes in the floors or on the sides, no broke windows. We didn’t have to do hardly nothin’ to ’em,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “What you need is a fittin’-out patty,” the captain said.

  “What about next Saturday night?” Mrs. Feeley shouted.

  “Suits me,” Oscar said. “I’ll have my interior decoratin’ done by then.”

  “Too bad Miss Tinkham ain’t home durin�
� the week to help you,” Mrs. Feeley said. “She coulda had a big career as a interior desecrator.”

  Miss Tinkham smiled proudly. “When we are finished, Blue Two will be charming.”

  “I’m in Orange Seven.” Oscar caught on. “I like that.”

  “You deserve the one farthest from the street, ’cause you thought up the units,” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ besides, nobody can hear you practicin’ the pie-anna.”

  “Green Four for me,” Red said. “Traffic light color scheme.”

  “Port and starboard,” Mrs. Rasmussen corrected.

  “Since that damn skipper showed up,” Red grumbled, “you ain’t give me no molasses pie. Fickle woman.”

  “Anybody who gets married again,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “didn’t deserve to lose her husband.”

  “That sentiment calls for a drink,” Velma said. “There’s two cases of the heavy wet in my car.”

  “You’ll have next Friday ashore, Miss Tinkham,” the captain said. “Rope-yarn Sunday for Mrs. Rasmussen, too, if she’ll just put up a bite o’ lunch for the crowd.”

  “Whaddaya mean?” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Not go with you?”

  Miss Tinkham wailed. “Have we failed you in any way?”

  “Hell, no!” the captain roared. “Loaded to the gunnels! But it’s a bunch of old codgers, crazy oscamarrions, that want to go fishin’ to San Clemente, won’t tolerate no wimmen on board. Not nohow.”

  “Yeah,” Mrs. Rasmussen grated. “Some damn fool always wantin’ to fish.”

  “I must confess,” Miss Tinkham said, “I am a little disappointed in Mr. Cobb. There was only a line or two in his column last week.”

  “Nothin’ for nothin’ an’ damn little for a dollar,” Mrs. Feeley reminded.

  “Yeah. You an’ him was stew for beans, all right,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “I mustn’t be unfaithful to Hope.” Miss Tinkham smiled.

  “I’ll get you a real nice lunch, anyway,” Mrs. Rasmussen murmured.

  “One of the cooks from the Club can come and help with the party,” Velma said. “If you’ll give me a list of the big supplies, like the meat order, I’ll get it from my wholesaler.”