Free Flat Water Tuesday by Ron Irwin

rolling racks and grunted. “All right. Saves me some work.”
    “I didn’t mean it like that.”
    “I sure do know you didn’t.”
    We unbuckled the cradle. He had put cotton pads under each buckle, tied them with string. The scull looked great, there weren’t even faint scuff marks from it moving on the cradle. It had been kept perfectly still for five hundred miles down that road. He worked methodically and slowly as usual, laying back each strap one by one, making sure I saw him do it. He pulled the riggers from under the boat and walked them into the boathouse while I untied the bow ball. “I saw some pretty girls while I was driving through town. I expect they haven’t slipped under your radar.”
    “They haven’t.”
    “You’ll want to be careful.”
    “I’m always careful.”
    “You got your mother’s looks on you and girls are going to take notice of it. I’d imagine a fellow can get in a whole lot of trouble not thinking straight, and trouble isn’t what you need right now.”
    He helped me lift the boat out of the cradle, set his jaw and inched it into the house, then opened up the passenger door to the truck and pulled his tool belt out, strapped it around his waist and picked up the riggers from inside the boathouse door. Kneeling by the boat, he selected a wrench and pulled out a bottle with the screws inside. He handed me a palm of screws and another driver. “You take the right-hand one.”
    “Starboard.”
    “What is?”
    “On a boat right is starboard.”
    “We’re not on a boat.”
    “I’m just saying.”
    “All right. And what’s left?”
    “Port.”
    “And the front?”
    “Bow. You know, bow ball.”
    “I didn’t make the connection.” He held the rigger to the splashboard, began screwing in his side, smooth, quick turns that didn’t scratch the protective plate.
    “The back’s the stern.”
    “I know it. And you’ve got the bow deck and the stern deck and the slide and the seat. The oars are called sculls, right? But the boat’s a scull, a single scull. Explain that.”
    “I can’t.”
    “But you know the difference between all of it.”
    “I do.”
    “Good man.”
    *   *   *
    We sat in the truck’s cab while he ate part of the lunch he hadn’t bothered to eat on the drive down. He’d lost weight since my sister’s death. Three years ago he would never have skipped lunch, would definitely have stopped for it. He’d brought along a bag of my mother’s sandwiches and a thermos of black coffee, both of which he passed to me. When he was finished he lit a cigarette, pushed the pack back in his pocket, lifted his chin. “I know, I know, go ahead, make sure the door’s open. You don’t need any of this smoke in your lungs.”
    I rolled down the window instead, looked out over the water. It was getting plenty late. Channing was going to start to miss me already, not that I truly gave a damn. My father reached under his seat, picked up a copy of The New York Times , set it between us. “I bought this in Mohawk, on the thruway. There’s not much news you need outside The New York Times . Take it. I looked at it already, got the general gist of things.”
    “I appreciate it.”
    He rummaged under the seat again and shook out a brown manila envelope, the kind he sent invoices to his customers in, Carrey’s Joinery up in the corner. He placed it on the dashboard. “That’s cash for your bookstore account.”
    I reached out, placed a finger on the envelope.
    “You don’t need to fall over yourself thanking me.”
    “Thank you.” I looked at him when I said it.
    “I went to the dean and we had a little talk. He told me they give you an option to buy tuition insurance. You pay them some extra money and they give back the balance of what you’ve paid in if your kid manages to get himself thrown out for any major infractions. You want to hear what they consider to be major infractions?”
    Here it comes , I thought.
    “Drinking’s up there at the