Free The Wooden Nickel by William Carpenter Page A

name for dumb music. Kyle spotted it one day on the
Wooden Nickel
’s fishfinder and floated her up with inner tubes. He borrowed five hundred from his old man and put a 60-horse Merc on the
     transom so it planes in a flat sea though it pounds like a bastard if there’s any chop. On a calm day he might have a chance
     in class B outboards but the kid’s too lazy to sign up. He’s got one of his Burnt Neck buddies with him from the other night,
     half Indian probably, schoolmate of Kyle’s but he looks about thirty with his skull shaved like George Foreman along with
     a snake’s head tattoo on the left arm and two or three earrings in each ear. They’re taking their dive tanks off, smoking
     cigarettes, pawing through a big black plastic bucket of urchins.
    “Ain’t you supposed to be in school?” he shouts.
    “School got out at noon today.”
    “Bullshit.”
    “Bullshit, nothing. Ask Darrell. It was teachers’ day.”
    Darrell looks around and shoots a big weasely grin earring to earring but he doesn’t say anything.
    “You ain’t going to graduate,” Lucky says. “That guy Leavitt called your mother. You’re flunking two courses. I don’t give
     a shit myself, but you got your old lady all wound up.”
    Kyle stands up in the boat, grabs an urchin and cuts it open with his dive knife, rubs the meat of it between thumb and finger,
     then spreads the eggs out on his palm. “Black gold,” he says. “Price is going through the roof. Urchin divers don’t need no
     diploma. Besides, when’d
you
drop out? Eighth fucking grade?”
    “Another thing,” Lucky says. “You ought to watch your language. Your mother heard you talking like that, she’d lock your ass
     right in your room. You wouldn’t see your friend here for a fucking week. Wouldn’t
that
be a shame.”
    The Burnt Neck kid, Darrell, picks an urchin out of the bucket, stares into the cunt end of it, then takes the dive knife
     off his belt and jabs at it like he’s testing a clam. He brings the urchin up to his face and touches his tongue to it, makes
     a face, spits in the bilge and throws the urchin over the side. He looks into another one and throws that up to Lucky. “Here,
     Mr. Lunt. You want some lobster bait?”
    Lucky catches it and smells it. It stinks OK, but it’s got a different stink to it than lobster bait. “They ain’t going to
     go for that,” he says. “Might as well put a bag of horseshit down there.”
    “Never know till you try,” the kid says.
    Lucky kills the engine, takes a quick hitch around the midship cleats to raft onto the urchin boat, which they’ve got anchored
     with light line. “Hey Kyle,” he says to his son, “you giving all them urchins to Clyde Hannaford?”
    “We don’t give,” Kyle says. “We sell.”
    “Well, Clyde ain’t going to buy none after this week. Urchin season’s over. He’s got the sign up already. Starting Monday,
     if you ain’t in school, you can come out as sternman.”
    “Clyde ain’t the only guy that buys them,” Kyle shoots back. “There’s others.”
    Down in the bilge, Darrell gives him a kick on the ankle to shut him up. “It don’t matter, Darrell. He’s my old man. He ain’t
     going to tell no one.”
    Darrell cuts a rotten piece off an urchin and throws it over the side. “Don’t say nothing about it.”
    Lucky feels his heart missing a beat, then pumping to catch up. He puts a hand on the pot hauler to steady himself, then says
     to Darrell, “I don’t give a shit what you do. Half your fucking town’s stamping license plates, other half’s on welfare. Just
     don’t drag my kid into it or I’ll kick your ass.”
    “Too bad,” Darrell says. “I hear they’re paying top dollar for lobsters too.”
    “Top yen,” Kyle adds.
    “Go ahead, tell him,” Darrell says, “Tell him about Mr. Moto. He might be interested.”
    “If it’s Italian I ain’t dealing with them,” Lucky says. “They got the fish mafia up to Boston, frig around