Free Big Bad Love by Larry Brown Page B

try to find that boat. And not just any boat.
That
boat, where they were selling them for $1.35 a pound medium jumbo, cutting out the middleman and passing the savings on to the consumer. I decided I’d be best off booking for the local hotel, so that’s what I did, like a fat man’s ass.
    It was hot as hell in the parking lot the next morning. Some firemen were having a convention in the Holiday Inn, and they had ladder trucks set up in the parking lot, and they were giving rides to the general public. Since I was general public, I got on one. I had the fear of maybe getting up there and puking down on somebody a hundred feet below. But it was really impressive up there above the roof of the Holiday Inn. For one thing, you could see all those shrimp boats out there in the water running their nets. The sun was shining, but the sky looked smoky. It looked like they were just dredging ton after ton of little shrimps up. It made me feel a whole lot better, looking out over all that industry. I sort of got the big picture sitting up there and realized how small and unimportant my quest was, in light of the tons of available seafood already destined for restaurants all over the South. I decided to just find a shrimp boat docked with a fresh load, jew them down as much as I could, load up and haul ass.
    I had a little difficulty manipulating in the traffic. There were two lanes going seventy miles per hour and the white sand beaches were loaded with women in bikinis. I wondered if any of the little beaverettes from the Gold Nugget were out there sunning but then realized they were probably in American History class reading about Benjamin Franklin. I wondered what he would have thought about all that shit, women running around nearly naked and all. I passed the Gold Nugget, which was on the ocean side of the road. It looked deserted, empty, boarded up. It was only eleven a.m., though. I started to pull in and then I said Naaaaaaa. I went on down the road until I got to the harbor, where gulls were flying, and masts were sticking up everywhere. I parked as close as I could and got out. The sun was burning down, and the beer started running out of me. I didn’t know how many I’d had the night before. It must have been some kind of ungodly amount, judging from the stuff that was pouring out of me. I couldn’t hardly see for the sweat in my eyes.
    I started walking down the dock, checking everything out. I didn’t know which section I was in. I knew I had to get to the right section, but I didn’t know if I was in it or not. There were some neat sportfishermen lined up smartly along the dock with names like
Judy
and
Becca
and
Mama’s Dinghy.
I kept walking and looking.
    I was wanting a cold beer. I could feel the weight of all that expectation on me. I knew something bad must have happened to my friend, and I didn’t feel real good about it. I didn’t know how I’d be able to explain it to his wife and all. It had all started out so innocently anyway. We were just goingto go down there and goof off a few days, make a shrimp run. Be back at work on Monday. There it was Monday and I didn’t have shit to show for it. I knew they’d can me. The job I had wasn’t worth a damn anyway, just putting washers in little holes. It wasn’t anything that made me feel real fulfilled.
    I was lost, and people could tell it. There were people with caps on, and old women weighing plastic baskets of shrimp, and other people with tanned skins and sunglasses watching me stumble around on the dock. Millionaires, probably, some of them, up from Orlando or Jacksonville or Destin, just taking a week off. I kept walking, and was grateful for my own shades. If the eyes were the mirror to the soul, I didn’t want anybody to see inside mine. I kept walking. I knew all this was just a temporary setback. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t ever be saved from my life, or that I’d never find