Free Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos Page B

amused him. He began a new round of wild laughter. The compass light illuminated his face so that he looked like a carved pumpkin. If I had any hope of reaching shore, I’d jump overboard.

    I stood up and went downstairs. But I didn’t sleep. Hamilton had read my mind—I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just afraid of the punishment.
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    July 20 : The sea is like unrolled velvet under the half moon. Fell asleep at my watch. Tilted forward and hit the edge of the compass with my chin. Blood streamed down my neck and chest. Thought I had severed my carotid artery. When Hamilton saw me he shook his head. After he had a cup of tea he cleaned out the gash and put a bandage on it. I should be fine. Had a headache all day.
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    July 21 : No birds. No music. No noise. No clouds. No wind. Hamilton pacing in circles like an angry clock. In the sky the jet streams crisscross from east to west and west to east like ICBMs. Perhaps when we reach New York it won’t be there. No city. No country. No people. We’ll just travel around the globe like the navy in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, searching for survivors and waiting for the radiation cloud to cook us.
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    July 22 : Ate too much hash. Stared up at the full moon’s blemished face. Thought of men walking on the moon. During the first moon walk I was watching television at a friend’s house in Florida when a car ran off the road and hit the side of the
house. Scared the crap out of us. The man had been driving with his head sticking out the window, staring up at the moon, looking to see the spaceship.
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    July 23 : Not well.
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    July 24 : Same as yesterday.
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    July 25 : I was sitting at the cabin table eating some dried prunes when Hamilton looked over at me from the kitchen. “I haven’t seen you take a shit yet,” he remarked.
    â€œSo?” I replied. My face reddened. Taking a shit was private business.
    â€œJust curious,” he said. “It’s a small boat. If you don’t shit in the crapper I can only hope you’re not doing it like a sneaky cat behind the hash.”
    â€œWell, I’m not shitting in the fo’c’sle, if that’s what you mean.”
    â€œWhere then?” he asked, raising his nose like a shit detective and sniffing loudly.
    â€œOverboard,” I said. “Like the old-time sailors.”
    â€œThose old-timers had seats out under the bowsprit. What do you do? Just hang off the bowsprit and shit down the back of your legs?”

    â€œNo. I jump into the water and hang on to the towrope and shit in the ocean.”
    â€œBloody hell!” he cried out.
    â€œBloody hell!” I cried back, mocking him.
    â€œYou know what can happen to your ass if you shit in the sea?”
    â€œGet arrested by Jacques Cousteau?”
    â€œNo. Worse. You can get your ass bit off. Sharks will chum your links and bite your arse down to the bone.”
    â€œYou’re putting me on,” I said.
    â€œSeen it happen,” he said. “A fellow named Guy went to fertilize the sea and after he did his duty a shark took his legs.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œBelieve it,” he said.
    â€œSo how do you do it?” I asked.
    â€œThe crapper,” he said. “That’s what it’s there for.”
    â€œAre you telling the truth?” I asked.
    â€œOf course,” he said. “I still need help sailing the boat otherwise I wouldn’t give a shit about your ass.”
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    July 26 : Started using the crapper.
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    July 27 : All the bread is old. Furry with medallions of blue mold. Hamilton toasts it. Each time we take a bite clouds of
mold spores drift across the table. We slather the bread with jam in an effort to keep the dust in place. It helps, but as soon as the bread splits open it coughs out another cloud. We have to eat it on deck with the wind to our backs to keep ourselves from gagging.
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    July 29 : Another night