82

 

 

Andy hauled Mitchell up into the morning sunlight then lowered him into the helmchair. They extended Mitchell’s leg and piled the life jackets under his knee. There’s a strangeness about him Mitchell thought, watching Andy’s face, with its sparse beard growth, its implacable youth. I couldn’t possibly have known him. Where did he come from, what culture? Who were the people who chose to cut him off? Who was that desperate?

"You said you know this place?" Mitchell’s voice sounded like an interrogator even to him. He squinted against the sun.

"I’ve only biked through it with some friends when I was in college, but I remember a floating dock below a seawall." Andy started the vents. "That’s probably our best chance to get you off the boat."

"What’s the story on the monolith?"

"It’s a monument to the Pilgrims."

"In a gay vacation capital. What a ridiculous fucking world."

Motoring past the jetties and in behind the breakwater Mitchell turned the sloop into a broad cul-de-sac between two towering brine-blackened piers. Sailboats to port lined the floating docks along the pier’s tall pilings. To starboard an old weathered-grey warehouse sat out on the height of that pier. Three big blue-hulled whale watching boats were made fast to the pier’s floating docks near the seawall, a cement bulkhead twice as high as the sloop’s mast.

The dock that Andy remembered was a ten by ten foot wooden square afloat at the bottom of a steep ramp angled sharply from the top of the seawall. Mitchell counted six dinghies tethered to the dock where a tall broad-shouldered man stood straight as an admiral in his starched green uniform and tan ranger’s hat. He had a VHF radio in hand. Everything about him said, "This dock is mine." The harbormaster.

"You think he’s here to give us the keys to the city?"

Andy brought up the fenders from below. Is he ignoring me? Mitchell wondered. I have to shake this off he thought, if I’m going to live aboard with this guy.

Andy made the fenders to the starboard side and then cut the engine. Mitchell drew the tiller across his body to drift the sloop toward the dock.

The harbormaster took a stride forward. "You can’t tie up here." His voice was stern, eyes at the ready.

"I use a wheelchair," Mitchell said. "I’m going ashore."

The harbormaster took a moment to grasp it. "I can give you ten minutes. Ten and no more. I’ve got a cruise ship coming in."

Andy tied off the sloop’s bow line then hurried below for Mitchell’s wheelchair and seat cushion. He hauled them onto the dock. Climbing into the cockpit again he reached around Mitchell’s back and under his knees and Mitchell hooked an arm around his cousin’s sweat-soaked neck. Andy heaved Mitchell up chest high then turned and stepped cautiously onto the starboard bench. The harbormaster was quick to help him balance as he stepped onto the dock and lowered Mitchell to the chair.

Mitchell placed his feet on the footrests. He looked up at the harbormaster. "Can you give us a hand up this ramp?"

"You can’t leave your boat here."