THE CURSE OF THE JOHN HENCH

 

THE CURSE OF THE JOHN HENCH

By Gerard Thornton

 

              

               The ship graveyard was a somber sight, even in daylight.  Here was the place where the dinosaurs of shipping lay dead and dying.  Every manner of vessel, from wooden barges and lighters to tugboats and once-swift ferries lay crowded together, some leaning into each other as if to offer support.  Masts and spars stood in tangled disarray, nevermore to hoist cargo or sail.  This place marked the graveyard of the iron elephants of a lost age.  The ships were left here, forgotten, their massive engines long cooled and rusted into solid iron blocks. 

The two boys put down the handful of rocks they had collected when they heard the old man begin to shout.  The sound had startled them, as they had expected the old ship graveyard to be completely deserted.  The boys had been throwing stones at the sad-looking hulks that lay rusting and rotting in the flats of the cove, tucked in behind the edge of the sprawling garbage dump that stood at the river’s edge. 

The boys made their way back along the shoreline towards the wreck of the old green tugboat.  The boat looked as though it were being reclaimed by nature.  Weeds grew in tufts from the rotted decks, everywhere the steel was rusted, with holes eaten through all the side rails.  The hull was similarly wasted through at the waterline, and swirls and eddies played in the gashes in the shattered steel plating.  On the boat deck, the once-proud tall stack stood askew, its steel guy wires having parted years ago, and the thing threatened to topple over into the water.  And what water it was that surrounded the old boat!  It was the color of loose stools and smelled just as bad. 

The boys saw the silhouette of a man in the wheelhouse.  They could see the man fussing around behind the grime-streaked windows, but they couldn’t make out what he was doing.  They heard the man shout again; his voice hoarse but energetic.

               “What the fuck is he doing I there,” the boy named Scott asked, not really expecting an answer.

               “Is that old man Edwards,” the other boy responded, one hand held up like a visor to his eyes, trying to keep the sun glare away.

               Scott turned to look at his friend.

“Who the hell is old man Edwards?” 

The other boy, named Kirk, nodded as he made the positive identification. 

“Yes, it’s him, for sure.  Old man Edwardds used to run a tugboat business down out the south end, near Perth Amboy,” he began, sounding wise beyond his fourteen years of age.   He continued. “I remember seeing him at the corner store when me and my dad went to get some batteries for the clock radio I have.  Anyway, he got to talking to my dad and it turns out dad knew him from years back when he worked on one of the old man’s boats.  At one time Old Man Edwards had five big tugs and was making a good chunk of change doing it.”

“What happened to him, I mean like why is he here in this old junkyard?” Scott asked, pulling his sweat-soaked ball cap from his head and waving it at his face in an attempt to cool himself.

“My dad said Old Man Edwards got into a tiff with the owner of one of the real big companies in the harbor, they got into a bidding war over some job.  The owner of the big company decided he would do whatever he could to break old man Edwards, so he called all the other tug companies in the harbor and got them to agree on dropping their rates so low that Edwardds could never compete with them.  Then they started calling the shipping lines and the cement docks and told them a lot of stories about how Edwards had been overcharging them for years and that Edwards’ boats had been doing a lot of damage to everything they moved, and that they’d be crazy to hire that guy’s boats.”

“Was any of that true,” Scott asked.

               Kirk paused before answering and pulled a warm pack of gum out of his back pocket.  He pulled out a stick and offered the pack to Scott, who also took a piece.  They both started chewing, their jaws working on the dry sticks.

               “No,” Kirk said, “It was all just bullshit.  But it worked.  After a while, no one used Edwards’ tugs.  He started selling them, one by one, until he was down to his last boat.  The boat was named the John Hench. That tug was real special to him, because he started his business with it, and he wanted to hang onto it for as long as he could.”

               Scott cast a glance back over to the old tugboat, but the old man was no longer visible in the wheelhouse.  He tugged his ball cap onto his head and looked back at his friend.

               “Yeah, and then what happened?”

               “Well, he had lost all his money, and I heard his wife died of cancer or something, and he hung on to that boat until the bank was about to take back his house.  He knew he had to get some money, so he wound up selling it.”

               Scott’s face looked uncharacteristically concerned, as though the story about the old man had truly bothered him.

               “Who bought that old thing?”

               “Noone wanted to buy it, seeing that it was an old, run-down steam tug, and no one wanted a steamboat anymore.  Everything in the harbor was run by diesel power.  My dad told me that the old man was so sad after losing his company and his wife, that he was probably fixing to kill himself, but finally someone did call about the old boat, and they made an offer.”

               “Who bought it?”  Scott looked back at the tug, his eyes running up and down the thing, trying to catch a glimpse of the old man.

               “Believe it or not, it was Carl Fink, the owner of that big company that put him out of business called him and told him he knew the man had fallen on hard times and would help him out.  Isn’t that some shit?” Kirk shook his head in disgust, even as he recounted the story.

               “Yeah, that sure is some shit,” Scott agreed, his voice low and a little shaky.

               “So the guy Fink tells Edwards he’ll pay him one thousand dollars for the boat.  My dad said the boat was probably worth ten times that amount, but whatever, the point is, the guy not only fucked over old man Edwards, but he gives him pennies for the boat that meant so much to him.”

               “Did he sell it?”

               “Well, yeah, like I said, it was either sell it or lose his house.  He hated to sell it; I mean it was like adding insult to injury to sell it to the last person he’d want to have it.  But he had no choice, he needed money and so the other company wound up buying the tugboat.  They renamed it and came and towed it up to this old yard.  They ran it into the mud and stripped all the brass off it.  My dad said they tried to burn it to get all the rest of the metal out of the hull, but for some reason, they couldn’t get it to burn.  I mean, some of the wood caught fire, but the flames would always go out, either it began to rain, or the wind was too strong to light a fire.  Something always kept the tug from burning up.  So, they just left it here to rust away and fall apart.”

               Scott stared at the boat in silence. 

“Is that the tug, I mean is that John Hench?”

               “Yeah,” Kirk nodded, “I think so.”

               The heat pressed down on the boys like one of grandma’s smelly old comforters and gave the putrid cove an oppressive and altogether unpleasant ambience.  From far off in the tall reeds came the crazy call of a loon.

               “Let’s get out of here,” Scott said, suddenly wanting to be rid of this place, with its foul-smelling water and teeming jungle of weeds.

               Kirk nodded and the two boys headed back for the rusted chain-link fence that ran alongside the road just outside of the yard.  Had they looked back just then, they would have seen the old man step out onto the foredeck of the tug and begin to coil down a length of a tattered mooring line, careful to make sure the line did not tangle as he stacked one layer on top of the other.  But neither had looked back towards the tug, and instead they took turns clambering through the hole in the fence, careful not to snag their jeans on the sharp edges of the broken wire.  After crossing the street, they turned south and made their way back towards town. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               Scott and Kirk had planned to visit the ship graveyard the next weekend, but it rained from Friday all the way until Monday, so by the following weekend, they were more than ready to go back and get a look at the old tug that had once belonged to old man Edwards.  This time, they brought another friend from the neighborhood.  It was a girl.  They actually hadn’t really wanted her to come along because at their tender age, they felt that girls had the propensity to ruin anything that was fun.  But since she had overheard them talking about the old man and his boat in the school cafeteria, she had decided to invite herself along.  Nikki was a little too tall to be pretty,

 and lacking the finer graces of the women that the boys knew, but the boys found her to be funny, that is as far as girls were concerned, so they finally acquiesced.

               The day they visited the yard was overcast, as the stubborn front that had passed through the week before seemed unwilling to move out into the Atlantic.  Thankfully, aside from a sporadic sprinkle during the early morning, the remainder of the day promised to be dry, if not sunny.

               The three friends met at the gate and Scott quickly established himself as the de facto leader of the organization.  He explained the dangers of the derelict vessels to Nikki, emphasizing the need to watch one’s footings, as there were rusty spikes that stuck up out of the mud.  There were also spiders and ticks in the weeds. And there were also snakes.  Big snakes. (There weren’t but he knew Nikki hated snakes and liked watching her squirm when he described what species abounded in the ship graveyard).

               Finally, when the safety briefing concluded, the three threaded their way through the fence and started down the bank towards the old shipwrecks that lay in the distance.

               The three chatted amicably until they came around the bend that led them to the first big boat that lay in the horseshoe shaped cove.  The group fell silent at the sight, as if they had entered a place of reverence and sanctity.  The hulk was hideous in its size and age.  There was no paint remaining anywhere along its wooden hull, the timbers silvered with age.  The beast had probably been a sidewheel ferry in her former existence.  The wheelhouse had collapsed onto itself, and much of the deck had crumbled, leaving huge holes that opened up on the dark expanse of the bilge below.  It was obvious that this craft was too far gone to explore.  Trying to climb aboard would have been reckless.  It would have been madness.

               The second boat was a steel hulled derrick, its enormous tripod mast rising above the height of the nearby sumac trees.  Way atop the A-frame was a large, empty osprey nest.  The hefty boom that once hoisted heavy cargo aboard ships from the derrick had fallen at some point in time, and now lay askew on deck, its bulk having smashed down onto a cabin, which now lay splintered underneath.  Nikki pointed to the remains of a name that was painted on the transom.  The weathered white letters read CAPITOL.

               The three  kept walking until they came upon a cluster of wooden scows that were rafted up side by side.  These appeared sturdy enough to climb aboard to reach the other side of the cove, where the really interesting boats were located. 

               Scott turned to face the others, his face cautious and alert. 

“Alright, we’ll go over these barges but be careful and watch where you step.  I’ll go first.”

Without waiting for further discussion, Scott deftly forded the 3’ gap between the bank and the deck edge of the barge.  Nikki looked down into the shadows under the barge.  Had Scott mis stepped, it would have been a 10’ fall onto some ugly looking stumps of old pilings that protruded from the mudline.  She followed next, and was surprised when Scott took bother of her hands as she made it onto the barge. She gave him a bemused smile and he quickly looked away, although she could have sworn his face had flushed a little.

The two beckoned at Kirk, who looked a little unsure of himself.

“C’mon, it’s a piece of cake,” Scott called to his friend.

“I know, it’s just…” Kiek’s voice trailed off.

“It’s what – are you scared of heights?”  Scott teased.

“That’s not very nice,” Nikki chided him, her eyes suddenly harsh.   This time Nikki was sure Scott had blushed, and she stared at him, disappointed at his behavior towards his friend.  He quickly looked away.

“Okay, here I come.”  With that, Kirk leaped over, and landed awkwardly, his foot landing on a piece of debris on the deck, almost rolling his ankle.

This time it was Nikki who reached out to steady Kirk, to keep him from toppling over.

“Whew, thanks,” Kirk said, glancing down at those broken pilings below.

“Don’t mention it,” Nikki said.

Scott glanced around, getting his bearings, then turned to the others. 

“Okay, now once we get over these other two barges, we can get to some of the really cool boats that are in this graveyard.” 

The other two nodded and they took turns climbing from one barge to the other.  The other barges were all pressed up tight, so there wasn’t more than a foot or so of space between them.  Finally, they made it to the shore on the opposite side of the cove.  From here, they could see the old green tugboat, as well as a large steel ferry and another tugboat that rose above the cattails in the distance.

The three came to a halt by the green tugboat and surveyed the wreck.  Old automobile tires hung down along the side of the tug, once used to protect the hull from contact with the ships and barges it had moved back in its lifetime so many years earlier.  Impossibly old ropes were draped along the deck, their strands and fibers so deteriorated by age and the elements that they would likely fall to pieces if they were moved.  The thing looked much worse up close than when they had seen it the first time.  It was obvious that the old hull was breached in numerous places.  Large brown crabs peeked in and out of the holes, as if surprised to see anyone on this side of the yard.  Kirk strained at the bow of the tug, trying to make out any letters that might show its identity.  Rivulets of rust and tendrils of old rope partially obscured the name but it was clear that ANNIE F.  was emblazoned on the bow.  It was hard to say for certain, but he thought he could also discern the remains of two yellow letters, just visible below an old tire fender that hung over the rail, the almost rubbed-out imprint of the letters CH.

Scott looked up at the tall stack, its black paint was almost completely converted to a sheen of rust now.  A breeze had picked up now, and the wind blowing through the broken wires that hung from the stack made an eerie chattering sound.

“Well, what are we waiting for, let’s go aboard,” Scott said, trying to sound more confident than he felt at that moment.

Nikki traded glances with Kirk, then shrugged.

“Ok,” she said, “let’s go.”

There was a pair of wooden planks that extended from shore to the rail of the tug.  It appeared that someone had used them as a makeshift gangway.  The lumber looked heavy and in pretty good shape.  Scott walked a few feet out on the boards, bounced up and down a few times to test their strength, then gave the others a thumbs up.  He walked the rest of the distance to the tug and jumped down onto the deck.  Nikki came next, then Kirk.  Kirk had a very hard time controlling his knees as he walked the planks, they quivered and spasmed as he inched along the planks.  He was certain the gangway was about to fall in, so he leaped the last few feet down towards the deck of the tug.  This time, Nikki caught him in midflight and held him up for a moment.  His eyes caught hers and she gave him a big smile. 

“Um, you can put me down now,” Kirk said timidly.

“Oh, sure,” Nikki said, and gently deposited him on the deck.

Scott gave the two a puzzled look, and then he made his way aft towards the stern of the tug.

Scott paused at one of the watertight steel doors that led into the deckhouse.  The door was secured with four steel handles that had to be turned clockwise to lock it down tight against the weather.  He tugged at one of the steel handles and tried to turn it.  It was frozen in place.  He went to the next door down and pulled, and this time the handle turned.  If gave with a groan.  Nikki and Kirk stood at each of Scott’s shoulders as he twisted the other handles and pulled the door open. They peered inside.  Their eyes were met with a sight that struck them as totally incongruous with what they were expecting.  Instead of filth and decay, they saw that the inside of the cabin was painted white.  By the smell of the fumes, it was obvious that someone had recently painted the inside of the house.  Not only were the walls painted white, but the decks were painted a brick red color.  Scott reached a hand in to test if the paint were dry or if it were still tacky.  The paint was dry to touch, but Scott had done enough painting around the house for his uncle to know that this must have been only dry by about one day.

The three filed into the deckhouse, looking around to get an idea of the layout.  The room appeared to be a stateroom for some of the crew.  Two narrow bunk beds were on one side of the room, a small steel writing desk and an old folding chair made up the remainder of the furniture.  There was no other passageway out of the room, so the three went back out on deck.

Scott hooked a thumb towards the forward end of the boat. 

“Let’s get the rest of these doors open and see what else we can find.”

Kirk was able to open the door at the front of the deckhouse.  This door led into the galley, and the place was also painted up like the stateroom.  This space was much larger, and a huge black iron stove squatted in one corner.  The galley also contained a table surrounded by fixed-base stools, a large stainless sink and an enormous wood-sheathed ice box that had to be over 100 years old.

“What the fuck is going on here,” Scott asked to no one in particular.

The group went back out on deck.  The only other door they could open entered the upper portion of the cavernous engine room.  This place was not painted and had the distinct odor of decay and death inside.  The paint in the engine room was badly scaled.  A steel grated catwalk encircled the engine and casing of a huge boiler.  From this vantage, it was obvious that the entire bilge was foiled with water.  The light from outside filtered in from holes in the hull, casting eerie shadows that danced and swirled. 

“I have to get up into the wheelhouse,” Scott announced.

“Good idea,” Kirk replied, his eyes excited at the prospect.  The wheelhouse was where the captain steered the boat, where the charts were kept for navigation, and where the crew kept lookout.  It was the brain of the tugboat.

The three friends climbed the ladder to the upper deck.  The wind had increased, and there were white caps forming out on the river.  Each gust made the tall marsh grasses sway in unison, their stalks making a dry scratching sound.  Nikki got to the door of the wheelhouse first.  She climbed the small staircase and peered inside the window.  Through the dirty, grime-streaked windows, she could see the large wooden steering wheel.  The back of the space was crammed with milk crates and cardboard boxes stacked up from one end to the other.  The cartons were piled high with all kinds of fittings.  There were brass faucets, clamps, turnbuckles, wire rope clips and small shackles.  Nikki tugged at the door but saw the door hasp had been secured with a padlock.

“Ah, shoot, it’s locked,” Nikki said with a shrug.

“Let me check the door on the other side,” Scott announced, and circled around to the port side.  Nikki watched the top of his head as he walked around, and saw him climb up the short stairs.  He looked down at the door, then looked up at her through the window.  He gave a thumbs-down gesture, his face reflecting the disappointment they were all feeling.

Nikki gave the inside another glance, then she heard Kirk mutter something behind her.  She turned to face him.

“What was that,” she asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically.

“It’s him! It’s old man Edwards!”  Kirk stretched out an arm in the direction of the old ferry they had passed first on their way out to the tug.  Nikki followed the path of his index finger and saw the figure of a man approaching.

“Oh crap,” she called out to Scott, who was still on the opposite side of the boat.  “It’s the old man.  He’s coming back.”  Nikki was careful to keep her voice just loud enough for Scott to hear.  She dreaded the idea of the old man catching them aboard the tug.  Scott looked over, looked back at Nikki, then did a double take, as he also spotted the man trudging his way towards them.

“Time to jet!” Scott announced, being the first to make a move towards the lower deck.  The other two followed close behind, the sound of their footfalls banging on the ladder rising above the quietude of the cove.  Scott, then Nikki scampered down the improvised gangway.  Kirk looked at them from the rail, his face apprehensive.

“C’mon man,” Scott called, “Now’s not the time to get cold feet.”

Kirk looked towards the old man, who had stopped, and was pulling at something on one of the other wrecks.  The boy took this as his chance to flee, and bounded down the planks leading ashore, his weight causing the wood to flex dangerously.

The three took the long way around, back past a stand of scrub pines that lined the shore, their twisted, corkscrew trunks affording them some cover from the view of the old man.  Feeling themselves safe from detection, the three crouched down behind some discarded oil drums and watched as the old man toiled on the wreck of one of the barges.  At first, he worked an old shackle out of the blank, spongy, foul-smelling mud, depositing this into a milk crate he had brought along.  Then, he stooped and worried a length of pipe out of the mud.  He held it up to his face, peered through its length as though it were a telescope, tapped it against his foot, and dropped that into the crate.   And so it went, the old man picked over the wrecks for any scrap of wire or fitting he could find, and collected these as he went along.  It was obvious the man had picked over these hulks in the past, but the moon tide had exposed another layer of debris that was usually covered by soupy gray water.

Once satisfied with his haul, the old man climbed up the plans towards the tug and disappeared around the deckhouse.  The three friends motioned to each other that it was high time to depart, lest the old man suspect they were picking his metals and turning them over for quick cash at the neighborhood junk yard.

When Kirk returned home, it was almost time for supper.  His mother made a cross remark about him being out all day without checking in, and how she was becoming worried.  From the bathroom, Kirk could smell the tantalizing aroma of pork chops sizzling in the cast iron stove.  He hadn’t realized how famished he had become, and was looking forward to eating.  To appease his mother, Kirk made sure to set the table, and promised that he’d do the dishes after their meal.  This was a rarity for the boy, but his gesture seemed to settle his mother’s cross disposition.  By the time the family was gathered at the table, the mood had returned to normal, with Kirk explaining to his little sister Eva about his days adventures.  As usual, she had sat enraptured, almost forgetting to eat.  She wanted to join her brother for one of his explorations but, being only seven, her mother always forbade her from tagging along.

By the time dessert was served, Kirk’s dad had pricked up his ears at listening to his son’s description of the old, wrecked boats in the ship graveyard.  He peered up at the boy from above his glasses as he drove a spoon into his warm peach cobbler.

“You know son, you have to be careful climbing around on those old ships.  You know Mark from the volunteer fire department was called in once with a squad to rescue some guy that was walking on one of those boats and his leg had broken through the rotten deck.  He was lucky someone heard him shouting for help.”

“I don’t know what it is everyone sees in those shipwrecks,” his mother hissed as she landed a cobbler in front of Eva. “One day someone’s going to get killed in there.”

Kirk felt this was a trigger for him to say something. 

“Don’t worry mom, I’m aways careful, and I never go alone.”

Somewhat mollified by this, Kirk’s mother just shook her head, then sat down.

“Dad, remember when you were telling me about old man Edwards, you know, the guy who owned the old tugboat?”

Kirk’s dad screwed up his face wistfully, as he tried to recall the occasion.

“Oh yes Kirk, yes I do.”

“I saw him today around the wrecks.”

Kirk’s father swallowed, then picked up his napkin and dabbed at his mouth.

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah, me Scott and Nikki were out there, and he came by and was pulling stuff off the other wrecks.  The funny thing is, we went aboard that old Hench tug, do you remember the one he used to own?”

Kirk’s father nodded, staying quiet so as not to interfere with whatever nugget of experience his son was about to impart.

“Well, we went aboard, and you know what we saw?”

“I can’t imagine what,” Kirk’s father replied, seemingly genuinely interested.

“Well, we opened up some of the doors in the house and found the walls were painted white.  One of the staterooms and the big old galley, both painted up better than this house.”

Kirk’s father’s brows clouded, taking slight umbrage with what he felt was a dig at his own upkeep of the family home.  His eyes quickly surveyed the walls in the kitchen.  They didn’t look that bad, he consoled himself.

“Well why on earth would he paint that old thing,” Kirk’s mom interjected with a hiss.

“I don’t know, but it looks like he’s trying to fix up that old boat.”

“Fix it up?” Kirk’s father put his glasses on the table in front of him.  “Fix it up for what?  That thing hasn’t floated in years.”

“I know dad, but we all saw it, he was stashing all these old boat parts in the wheelhouse, hundreds of them. “

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Kirk’s mother clucked.  “I remember his wife, what a sweet lady. We used to attend mass together every Sunday.  Was such a pity when she died.”

Kirk’s father nodded sincerely and dug back into the dessert.

Kirk leaned towards his father hopefully.

“Dad, do you remember when you told me that old man Edwards was down to only one boat just before he went out of business?”

“Yes, I remember when it happened.  Everyone that worked in the bank with me tried to put together a collection on his behalf to help him out of the jam, but Edwards wouldn’t have anything to do with it.  He said he had been a working man his whole life and wouldn’t accept any kind of welfare under any circumstances.”

Kirk beamed at his father, suddenly extremely proud that his father had had the presence of mind and the compassion to attempt to help out an old seaman who was down on his luck.

“Dad when the other company bought the tug, what did that guy Carl Fink name it.  Do you remember?”

Kirk’s father pushed away from the table slightly, deep in thought as he tried to remember the details.  It had been twenty years ago, at least.

“Yes son.  That Fink fella named it after his wife Annie.”

Kirk raised one fist in a silent cheer of victory.  He had been correct in identifying the old boat as the John Hench.  Forget that silly woman’s name.  The real name was the original name.  John Hench.

“Dad, one more question,” Kirk asked, watching the mound of cobber melting into a blob of crumbs and ice cream before him.

His father nodded then pointed a spoon at Kirk’s dessert.

“Okay, one more question, but then you better eat that.  It’s starting to resemble that defective volcano you made as your fifth-grade science project.”

Kirk ignored the reference, more interested in the subject at hand.

“Who was John Hench?”

“That I don’t know son.  No one that I know ever asked.  At one time someone said it was a silent partner that had helped Edwards start his business.  But again, that was a long time ago.  Why don’t you ask Edwards yourself, next time you see him that is.”

“Neil Edward Harris,” Kirk’s mom chided his father by using his full name.  “Absolutely under no circumstances with our son talk to that old fool.  He’s gone mad, some people have said.”

Kirk’s father seemed nonplussed and waved a dismissive hand in the air.  “He’s harmless Carrie,” his voice sounded relaxed and almost condescending. “He’s just an old shipmate trying to get by in his autumn years.  I mean how old is he now, eighty?  Ninety maybe?”

With that exchange, dinner had formally ended.  Kirk’s mother glowered at her husband, then rose to put her empty dish in the sink.  It clanked down heavily and sounded as if it had come close to shattering.  Eva followed suit, her face timid and apprehensive from the turn in tone of the dinner conversation.  Kirk scoffed down the dessert, heaping the soft mess into his mouth as fast as he could.  Afterwards he rinsed off the dishes and stacked them neatly in the washer as he had promised.  He put a cube of detergent in the little compartment, closed the door, and pressed the start button.

Kirk felt a certain sense of closure, as though he had pressed the last piece into the puzzle and stood back to marvel at the image it had created.  Little did he know, in the days ahead, that puzzle would be picked up by an unseen hand, dashed down and the thing would be returned to a chaotic mess of disjointed sections.

 

 

 

Andrew Edwards worked for the next week like a man possessed.  Maybe he was possessed, but he had never thought of himself in those terms.  He just knew he had a job to do, and he wasn’t getting any younger.  He could feel his limbs beginning to fail him, and it took longer each day to get out of bed and get going.  That morning, he spent four hours replacing pipes in the engine room, or the parts of the engine room he could access.   He had to work at low tide, when he could put his hands and his wrench on rusted-through steel piping and frozen gate valves.  He scrounged whatever he could from the other hulks that lay in the stretches of the mud surrounding the tugboat.  His tugboat.  The tugboat that he had sworn an oath to both God and the devil to get running again.  He didn’t have much time to lose.

The following day, he brought a spade down into the engine room and began to muck out the fire box that had heated the boiler back in the day.  The door to the box hung lopsided on one hinge, the thing looking like the cavernous maw of some enormous mountain troll.  He drove the shovel blade into the opening over and over, turning the shovel each time to deposit the muck and mud into 5-gallon pails that he had lined up on the deck plates beneath the boiler.  He would have to pause every half hour to hoist the pails topside, where he upended them, letting the foul black muck fall with a sickening plop into the water next to the tug.  With each deposit he renewed his contempt for the man that took away his company.

He cursed Fink and all the contemptuous, smug fools that filled the office at that company.

PLOP!

He cursed the Coast Guard, who had failed his tug during their inspections just before he sold the boat to Fink.

PLOP!

He cursed his old, withered body, and it’s growing decrepitude, leaving him enfeebled on the bad days.

PLOP!

Edwards stood at the rail of the tug, the upended pail in his hand, when the bulk of a huge white tugboat streaked across the mouth of the cove.  The superstructure painted a dazzling white was set off by the tug’s red stack with a large white F painted on its side.  It was one of the big seagoing tugs of that son of a bitch Carl Finch.   The tug was soon out of sight, having turned the point heading south.  The beast’s enormous wake rolled into the cove, upsetting some dozing mallard ducks that had congregated near the shore.  The waves slapped up against the old, rotted hulks, producing a wet, muddy splashing sound.  Edwards cussed under his breath and spat over the side.  The sight of one of his nemesis’ tug’s sparked new fire in the man’s heart.  He hurried back down to the engine room to continue cleaning out the boiler’s furnace.

He worked another hour, drawing out the filth and depositing it overside.  Finally, when he was satisfied that the fire box was sufficiently cleared of the ooze, he sat on the large pipe that ran to the steam condenser and fished a foil-wrapped package from a brown paper sack.  His hands trembled as he revealed the tuna salad sandwich he had made earlier that morning.  The hands, fingernails brimming with muck, brought the sandwich to his mouth and he ate.  Once he was finished, he poured a cup of coffee from his old tin Thermos and was glad to see the black liquid was still hot.  A simple meal of sandwich and coffee always tasted best in the midst of hard work.  To the old man, it was far better than anything a snooty five-star eatery could produce.

Once he was finished with lunch, he wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers and once again started on the piping.  He coated the threads with a silver-crusted brush of Never-seize compound, then picked up a large Stilson wrench and a 2” union joint.  He carefully spun the union on the end of the pipe, cranked it down until it wouldn’t budge, then broke apart the fitting, putting the other end on the pipe.  Once he mated those two pieces, he put the wrench on the union and pulled.  The wrench slipped off, causing his fists to smash against a rusted steel bracket that protruded from the boiler casing.  He grimaced in pain, dropping the tool, which fell heavily into the rising bilge water. 

His hands were in agony.  Looking down, he saw the points of his knuckles had been skinned off, the flesh underneath gleaming white.  He grimaced, watching fine tendrils of blood seeping to the surface of the injured digits.  Moments after, the blood began to weep down into the water.  He jammed his fists into his mouth, trying to staunch the blood flow.  The blood was metallic on his tongue.  When this failed to stop the flow, he shook one hand, then the other, and droplets spattered onto the boiler and then the engine behind him.  That’s when it happened.  There was a slight sizzling sound.  He paused, arms slung out front as though he were a prize fighter entering the ring.  He stepped over to the enormous triple expansion steam engine and bent in to see what had happened.  The blood appeared to have crackled and fizzed where it struck the cold iron.  If he didn’t know better, he would have thought the engine was hot.  He gingerly pressed the back of his hand against one of the cylinders, fully expecting to be scalded, but the iron was only warm to touch.  Warm.  But how could that be, he asked himself.  The machinery hadn’t been under steam for decades, yet it felt as though it had been working off a day’s activity.

With this, he tore apart a filthy undershirt rag and wrapped the shreds hastily around his hands, the blood mixing with black oil and grease stains.  He now redoubled his efforts in the engine room, turning wrenches, fitting more sections of pipe and lugging more junk parts from the other wrecks.  It was nearly dark by the time he was finished for the day.  As he slid in behind the wheel of his old Scout, he sat for a moment just staring out at the dusk beginning to lower over the tree line.  It had been a good day, he acknowledged. 

As he put the truck in gear, he saw a large tanker ambling by the cove.  Tethered alongside were two large white tugboats, with prominent red funnels.  The tugs were shepherding the beast to the Exxon dock to the north.  The Finch tugs were everywhere in the harbor these days, like a plague. 

This should have been his work, the old man bristled, his cold eyes levelled on the tanker procession.  It would be his work again.  Soon, very soon, he promised himself.

 

 

Kirk ad his friends went back to the ship graveyard the next weekend, and watched from the distance as the old man continued his toil, making trips from his car back to the tug, carrying various crates and pails.  Most of the time, the old man just clambered over the other wrecks, rummaging whatever scraps he could pry free. 

Scott swatted a mosquito that had been ducking under his ear, his palm making a meaty thwack!  He shook his head and turned to the others.

“Man, the old man’s been at this for a month.  What is trying to do, doesn’t he see that the boat’s bottom is blown out?  I mean, that thing is done for.”

Nikki regarded the old man in the distance with a wistful look in her eyes.

“I don’t know, we all need something to believe in, even if everyone else thinks we’re crazy.”  Her voice was so low, it was almost as if she hadn’t intended for the others to hear.  The sentiment wasn’t lost on Kirk, who had grown somewhat inspired by the man, who seemed so undeterred, even in the face of what was surely a doomed prospect. He nodded at Nikki.

“I know, it’s kind of cool that he has a mission.”

“You guys are nuts, maybe the heat’s getting to you, or maybe that old man’s crazy is contagious.”

Nikki shrugged, unwilling to pursue the matter further, especially when it came to Scott, who could be very opinionated and headstrong.

“You know what’s weird?” Kirk asked, his eyes fixed on old man Edwards.

The two didn’t answer, only waited for the boy to continue.

“The one odd thing is that the first time we were here, there were weeds growing on deck, and the thing was completely trashed.   A week or so later, the inside is painted, then the hull is painted…”

Kirk held up a hand, cutting his friend off.

“Well, the guy’s been at it nonstop morning noon and night, so why wouldn’t the thing be looking better?”

Nikki picked up where Kirk had left off, suddenly understanding the anomaly.

“Don’t you see Scott, the tug is getting fixed up much faster than one man can work.  I mean, we see the old fellow hump one can of paint aboard, and suddenly, like that,” she snapped her hand for emphasis, “the whole tug is painted up from bow to stern.”

She looked over at Scott, who had fallen silent, seemingly beginning to consider this fact.

“Yeah, and we’ve never even seen him with a paint brush.”  It was Kirk’s turn to follow Nikki.  A lightbulb turned on over Scott’s head, and he darted his eyes back over to the tug.  As if to corroborate the theory, the old man was just standing on the stern of the tug, arms akimbo.  Presently, he pulled a bandana from his back pocket and dabbed at his head, which was glistening with sweat.

“Shit, come to think of it, you’re… right,” he agreed.

Kirk nodded.  “Yeah, it’s almost like the tug has begun to restore itself.”

 

 

Kirk went to the wrecks again the weekend after, but this time he went alone.  He figured that he would do as his father suggested and try to speak with the old man.  What could it hurt?  To his disappointment, however, the tug was barren, with no signs of old man Edwards.  Still, Kirk approached the tug warily, almost expecting the man to materialize on the bow of the tug, rummaging around in one of the old buckets that lay strewn everywhere.  Kirk looked up at the silent vessel.  Was the stack standing straighter today, he wondered.  No, it was just that he was looking from a different angle.  He had to admit, something looked a little different about the boat that day.  He fumbled for an apt description, but today It looked somehow, energized?

He mounted the gangway, this time without more than a moment’s hesitation, and found himself standing on a deck that was no longer covered with trash.  It was now more orderly, shipshape even.  When had the man found the time to paint the whole span an even coat of haze gray, he wondered.  Kirk ran a hand over the enormous steel bow bitts that rose like an iron hobby horse.  The steel posts, used to secure the enormous hawsers when moving barges and ships were once covered with scarred, scabbed paint but were now a shiny black. 

Kirk climbed the steel rung ladder at the front of the house and stood in front of the wheelhouse.  The windows had been washed clean, and the glass reflected the midday sun.  The steel sun visor that wrapped around the front edge of the house made the tug appear powerful, as though it were ready to work, waiting for its next assignment.  Kirk felt a slight bubbling within his chest.  He felt uneasy as he walked back towards the stack and looked up.  It was now that he felt certain the tall steel smokestack stood perfectly erect behind the wheelhouse.  The steel guy wires that had hung limp the last time, now were stretched taught, secured with heavy turnbuckles that were bolted to the boat deck.  There was no doubt that something was happening.  He climbed the three stairs to the side door of the wheelhouse and pressed his nose to the glass.  The inside of the house looked much the same as last time, with the milk crates of parts nested one atop the other.  The feeling of unease faded somewhat, but not entirely.  He did note that the big wooden wheel was now polished to a high luster.  He let out a soft whistle between clenched teeth.  What the hell was going on here, he wondered.

He went back down to the main deck and tugged open the door to the engine room.  No.  It couldn’t be.  His eyes must have been deceiving him.  The upper engine room, just a mass of shattered pipes and scaling paint, was now painted and in a state of good repair.  Old asbestos lagging which had unraveled and hung in filthy black ropes just weeks earlier, were neatly wound and appeared to be replaced with new wraps.  How could the old man have brought this old wreck back from the brink of oblivion? 

The boy carefully sidled down the angled ladder towards the lower hold of the engine room.  He could see the water in the bilge still rose to the bottom of the fire box on the boiler.  As before, light shone in through the rusted-out hull plates.  The sight of the compromised bilge brought a sense of relief, of normalcy, back to the boy.  Whatever activity old man Edwards had been involved in, his efforts were thwarted by the broken hull, and this was a mortal wound for the vessel that no amount of muscle could hope to undo.  It was too bad, Kevin admitted to himself, he would have loved to see the old steam tug restored to working condition.

Kevin left the tug that day, figuring he wouldn’t return.  The old man was obviously busying himself in a project that was doomed to failure, as the boat would never again sail upon the waters of the harbor.  In a way, he was glad that he had not net the old man that day, for it would have been heart breaking to hear the man’s plans for the ruined boat, plans that old man Edwards couldn’t possibly live long enough to see come to fruition.

 

Over the course of the month, old man Edwards toiled on, collecting junk from the other shipwrecks, and working at a dangerous pace for such an old man in the sweltering engine room.  Day in and day out, his feet climbed the stairs to the engine room.  How many trips had he made on the ladder since he had begun his work, he wondered? It didn’t much matter. He could feel the tide of his fortune beginning to turn.  And then, something incredible happened.  It was a Wednesday in August, just after a brief, intermittent thunderstorm, where the ground is mottled with raindrops, but not quite wet.  The rain had given the old wrecks an earthy, dank scent, a smell that the old man knew well.  He carried on his shoulder an enormous 40-ton capacity towing shackle.  Minding the slick boards underfoot, the man clambered onto the tug and set one foot onto the deck.  That’s when he felt it.  The boat shuddered almost imperceptibly, as though nodding a greeting to the old man.  He laid the shackle on the deck, and looked at the water surrounding the tug, his eyes taking turns looking forward, then aft, then forward again.  A low, rolling wave entered the cove just then and the sensation came again.  Damned if she wasn’t floating.  But how could it be?  A person in their right mind would have wondered that, but the thought hadn’t occurred to the old man.  He didn’t question the fact that the boat was now floating, in fact, he somehow expected it.

 

 

The large seagoing tugboat Carl Finch Jr. meandered up the river towards the company yard to await the next assignment.  The captain checked the tide book then took a sip from his coffee cup.  He leaned back in the wheelhouse chair scanned the waterway for any traffic.  Aside from a small cluster of jet-skis circling around by the marina, there was nothing else moving.  He took a glance over at something that caught his eye to starboard.  A waft of smoke was coming from the cove where the old ship graveyard was located.  Getting out of the chair, the man stepped over to the side windows and slid the binoculars from out of their case.  He pressed the glasses to his eyes and wheeled the focus knob until the image became clear. 

He looked from one wreck to the other, then spotted the column of smoke.  Yes, he was right, it was smoke, and it was coming from one of the old tugs that were jammed up into the mud.  From the angle the tug was moving, it was hard to tell for certain, but it sure looked like the smoke was coming from one of the old steam tugs that had laid idle there for the past 20 years or so.  Fires in that old yard weren’t that uncommon, sometimes the fires were set by metal pickers who burned the wood to get to the much more valuable copper, brass or lead that had been used in the vessel’s construction.  These components could fetch a few dollars per pound when they were brought to the local junkyard.  Sometimes, however, the fires were set by vandals that just lived to see something burn.  Either way, there wasn’t much in the surrounding area that could catch fire, so he wasn’t alarmed.  Besides, the nearby volunteer firehouse was used to putting out fires that occurred amidst the wrecks. 

The captain was going to return the binoculars to their case when something unusual about the smoke made the man look again.  It looked as though the smoke wasn’t emanating from some random pile of debris amongst the wrecks.  Instead, the smoke seemed to be coming from the funnel of the tugboat.  Just then the tug’s cell phone rang, returning the attention of the captain to his own vessel’s operation.  He sheathed the glasses and picked up the phone.  The dispatcher was calling.  The captain jotted down notes on the yellow scratch pad next to the compass.  The tug was to head back to the Exxon dock to sail a tanker at slack water, about an hour from now, when the current was at its minimum strength.  He nodded and confirmed the orders as relayed by the tug dispatcher.  At that point, the ship graveyard and the smoke had been completely forgotten.  The big white tugboat proceeded north on the river, its large wake spreading wide out astern like a pair of white wings.

 

Old man Edwards spent the morning painting the bow of the tug.  He only had one gallon of black paint, so touched up where he could, dabbing it on sparingly.  He was glad to finally paint the tug’s name back on the tug, its true and proper name.  John Hench.  However, he had run out of black paint, so he painted white ex’s over the remains of the old Finch name.  When he was finished, he stepped back to admire his work.  Once he was satisfied, he went back up to the wheelhouse and stood at the big wooden wheel, his body sore, the muscles in his arms throbbing from the day’s labors.  He was certain that he didn’t have anything left to give that day, as he had been at it since sunrise, some twelve hours earlier.  He had run out of parts.  He had run out of paint.  He had run out of everything, and he couldn’t, for the life of him. Remember exactly what he had busied himself with all day.  Why was he so worn out?  Picking up his old thermos, he poured out the last of his coffee and drank.  The long shadows of dusk were assailing the cove, and the rising tide began to lap at the hull of the tug once again, as it had for the 25 years it had sat in this godforsaken hole.

He straightened his stooped back and looked out at the shambled wrecks that lay before him.  Wooden scows, their decks slanted and collapsing, a small oil barge, its hull reduced to shards of steel razors, an old, covered railroad barge its hose broken into splinters, revealing a steel cage inside that had once contained valuable goods.  The graveyard was pulling all the old hulks down, down, down into its black mud.  Everything here was dead and dying.  Everything, that is, besides his tug. 

 

The captain of the tug Carl Finch Jr. checked the clock in the wheelhouse.  It was getting close to midnight.  He had another fifteen or twenty minutes to go before the mate would come upstairs and take over the watch.  It had been a busy day, and the man was looking forward to stretching out in his bunk for a few hours.  The evening was balmy, and the windows were damp from the combination of cold air conditioning air against the warm plate glass of the windows.  The captain picked up the knurled ack of cigarettes from the console and shook it with a practiced hand.  Nothing.  He tossed the pack into the wastebasket with a scowl. 

The captain turned to face the bow again and scanned the black water for the quick flashing green light of the buoy that marked the sharp turn in the channel.  He caught a glimpse of the green light but a white light on the other side of the river diverted his attention.  At first, he thought it may have been a pleasure boat or a lone fisherman trying for some night stripers.  However, the light was way out of the channel and would have put the boat right in the middle of the old wrecks that lined the cove of the ship graveyard.  He suddenly remembered the weird cloud of smoke he had seen earlier that day on his way to the tanker job.  What the hell was going on in that cove, he wondered.  He clicked the small steering lever to the left to bring the tug closer, towards the cove.  He was about to reach up to turn on the big searchlight when he heard footsteps on the staircase.  A voice called out of the dark.

“Hey Cap, good evening.”  It was Phil, the tug’s mate.  He was punctual as usual.

The captain turned back to face the other man and called out a greeting.  It would take a few minutes before the mate’s eyes would be accustomed to the darkness, so the captain returned the tug to the middle of the channel in preparation of turning over the controls to the other man.  Historically, most accidents aboard ship occurred at the turnover of the watch, usually if incomplete or inaccurate information regarding the position of the vessel, the location of other vessel traffic or other important factors affecting navigation was given.  The captain knew that now was not the time to be dicking around exploring lights coming from that hole where the wrecks lay.

The captain pointed out the green buoy, which was by now passing alongside the tug, and identified the lights of an approaching ship as a tanker that they were going to escort up the river to the #2 Steamer Dock at the old tank terminal.  He told the mate the time of high tide and asked him to get the deckhand to pick up a few groceries when they returned to the yard later that morning.  He pointed to a scrap of paper next to the log book.  It was the grocery list.

“So Phil, are you good, you got it?”  The captain studied the other man, to see if he seemed confident in the upcoming job.

“I got it cap, have a good night.”

The captain nodded with a smile and headed below.  As he went down the stairs, he craned his neck to see if that white light was still visible.  It was.  Weird. Sleep was calling to him now, and he turned on the first landing and went to his stateroom.  As soon as he laid his head down, sleep was upon him.

 

The old man rubbed the back of a grease-streaked arm across his brow.  His face was drenched with sweat, and his breath came in great wheezes.  He knew he would need to take a break soon.  The day had been sweltering, as had the entire week.  One blazing day had merged into the next, with only the slightest relief coming during the evening, when the temperatures had moderated to a swampy 80 degrees.  The man trudged the last ten feet and landed the paint cans on the deck.  He straightened his stooped back with an effort, then sat down on the rail of the old tugboat. He knew he had a long way to go before he was finished, but he had managed to get a good amount of the painting completed inside the house.  After a few minutes, he felt some of his strength had been restored, so the man climbed the ladder to the upper deck and stepped into the wheelhouse. 

               The old man took hold of the spokes of the large wooden wheel in each fist.  He peered out from the wheelhouse windows towards the river.  A large oil tanker lumbered past, headed for sea.  Soon, he promised himself.  Soon he would be back on the river, helping the large ships in and out of the harbor, and soon his tugboat would be moving barges of sand and stone from the quarries to the cement docks around the city.  He reached a hand down and grabbed a small brass handle that was secured to the bulkhead beneath the side window.  He pulled the handle upward and he heard a bell sound from deep down below in the boat’s engine room.  There was a pause, and then, it happened.  He heard a bell jingle in response.  At first, he thought the heat had caused him to experience some sort of sensory hallucination.  Surely there had been no bell, and he was only mistaken.  He grabbed the handle and pulled again, once, then two more times in rapid succession.  This time the answer came quicker.  One bell, then two more rings.

               The old man felt something begin to course through the boat.  There was no doubt about it, the boat was coming to life.   Just then, a plume of smoke wafted past the wheelhouse, coming down from the high stack.  The old man could smell the unmistakable scent of coal embers in the smoke.  To his glee, the steam pressure gauge on the wall registered 150 PSI.  A grin stretched across the od man’s face, and he reached up for the cord that was stretched along the ceiling.  Jerking it downward, he heard the mournful voice of the tug’s whistle.  He began to call out.

               “Yes! Yes! Here we go.  I need steam up here, give me steam!  Steam I say.  Steeeam!”

               The old man opened the door and stepped down onto the boat deck.  He worked his way down to the door to the engine room, which stood latched open.  He peered down into the depths.  A mist of steam and coal smoke obscured some of the view, but he could make out the figure of a black man, stripped to the waist.  The man had a shovel in his hands, and he used the tip of the blade to flip open the latch to the fire box.  Inside, a healthy orange fire blazed, the draft from the tug’s funnel feeding air to the fires.  The man stooped down, shoveled coal into the box, then slapped the door closed with a deft motion of the shovel.  The man started mumbling some old toneless melody which began as a moan, then grew in strength, until Edwards recognized the song as some old negro spiritual.

               “Cap,” a voice behind the old man startled him.  He spun to find a tall, wiry man standing at the stern.  The man was clad in old dungarees and a plaid shirt.  He wore a ball cap with the visor pulled down low, so his eyes were not visible.

               “Yes…?” The old man asked, trying to identify the man.

               “Are we ready to get underway?”

               The old man grinned and swiped a bandana across his forehead.

               “Yes, let’s get underway.  We’ve got work to do.”

               The tall man nodded and sauntered astern, turning the corner and disappearing behind the back of the house.

               Edwards mounted the steps to the boat deck, the grin frozen on his face.  Today was the day, he promised himself.

 

 

 

Kirk, Scott and Nikki cut school the following day.  They had first expected to see a movie, but nothing good was playing so they eventually found themselves wandering along the chain link fence that surrounded the ship graveyard.  The three took turns pressing their bodies through the hole in the fence, and they walked in single file towards the water’s edge. Scott was the first to notice something was very different that day.  Something was missing.

“Wait a minute,” the boy called out, one arm outstretched, the pointer finger suspended in midair.

Nikki and Kirk followed the boy’s gaze and tried to comprehend exactly what they were looking at.

               “It’s gone,” Scott announced, his voice half panicked.  “The tug is gone.”

               The three came to a stop along the crumbling wooden bulkhead where the old steam tug had laid for the past 25 years.  The only thing remaining that gave a hint of what had once been there was a jumbled pile of planks that had served as a gangway. 

               Kirk scampered down to the waterline as if he would somehow find the tug to have sunken in place, but the water was only about six feet deep here.  A cluster of calico crabs looked at him from the stump of one of the old pilings which still protruded from the greasy waters.

               He peered up at his two friends and shook his head solemnly.  Despite his mind trying to convince him that there had to be a sensible explanation, he knew there was no explanation.  None that would make sense.

 

               The tug Carl Finch Jr. was tied up at the sand dock at Perth Amboy waiting for the tide.  The boat was to bring two loaded barges out to the Whitestone mooring buoy that afternoon, and they needed to wait another hour before getting underway, so that the tow would have the strength of the incoming flood tide up the river.  The crew ate a lunch of steak sandwiches and French fries. After the meal, the crew rested, some sat in the galley watching television, the engineer fiddled with a capstan control on the stern deck.  The captain’s watch had ended, but he didn’t feel sleepy, so he reclined in the wheelhouse chair, his hands clasped together behind his head.  He had been only seated for a few minutes before he heard a commotion out on deck.  He recognized the voice of the deckhands.  They were shouting at something.  The captain sat forward, his feet landing on the deck as he rose to see what the trouble was.

               Glancing out of the side window, the captain saw something that took a moment for him to interpret.  The scene was nothing short of surreal.  A tugboat was approaching at high speed.  It wasn’t any tug he recalled ever seeing before, at least none he had seen sailing before.  This boat was coming on at full speed, the water under the bows cut into a white wall that pushed ahead of the craft like an ivory wedge.  The tug was painted green, its tall smokestack belching black smoke and red cinders that tumbled down onto the boat deck. 

               The captain’s mouth opened but his lips only mouthed the words

 

What the fuck?

              

There was no time to do anything except to alert the crew.  The captain reached for the small, red-painted handle that was mounted on the wall of the wheelhouse.  The general alarm bell sounded its high urgent peal throughout the boat.

               Down on deck, the two men who had sighted the approaching vessel first scattered to get away from the imminent impact.  The engineer, hearing the alarm, was now aware of the threat.  He dropped the ratchet he had been holding to the deck. 

               In the wheelhouse, the face of an old man was visible.  His eyes were fixed and filled with a resigned madness, his mouth frozen in a horrid grimace.  Just then, the ancient looking tugboat let loose a screech of steam from the whistle which jutted out from the front of the stack, the sound reverberated like a tormented howl.  A billow of steam streaked back, mixing with the black smoke and the fire.  It was like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.  The last thing visible as the tug smashed into the Carl Finch Jr. was the name of the tug painted on the bow. 

               JOHN HENCH XXX, the three exes still covering the previous name it had worn.  The name of Carl Finch’s wife.

               There was an explosion of rending steel, steam and smoke as the vessel collided with the Finch.  The bow of the steam tug cleaved its way into its victim with vicious force.  Gear and ropes came adrift in the impact, and one of the tall radiotelephone antennas broke at the mount and toppled into the river.  The Finch rocked hard against the pier, and a large section of 6 x 10 waling timber broke and cascaded onto the deck of the tug.

               The stack of the Hench broke free and tumbled forward, landing on top of one of the deckhands.  The broken steam line that ran up the stack to the safety valve on the Hench became a pressure cooker as steam flashed over the deck of the Finch. 

               After the blow, the Finch leaned heavily to starboard, and the Hench drifted back away from the dock.  It took some moments for the crew of the Finch to recover from the shock of the collision.  The engineer vaulted down into the engine room.  The mate, alerted by the alarm, appeared on deck and tended to the one deckhand who had been crushed and scalded horribly by the falling smokestack.  The other deckhand walked in an aimless circle on the bow, his eyes glazed, seemingly stunned and in shock by what had just happened.  The captain came down onto the deck to survey the situation.  He felt as if the vessel had just suffered an attack in battle.  The man who had been injured was in grave condition.  He lay prone alongside the flattened side rail.  His shirt had been burned completely away, revealing a back that was burned to the muscle.  The captain and mate attempted to move the man to the stern, so he could be checked over properly, but when they tried to lift him under his arms, sheets of scorched flesh sloughed off.

               A dock worker had witnessed the Finch rolling heavily at the dock and came over to see what had happened.  He had at first thought the tug had suffered some kind of explosion.  When he peered down at the men who were congregated on the tug, the mate called for him to contact the fire department and police.  The man gave an informal salute and trotted back towards the small dock shack where the phone was located.

               Water had begun to creep up through the freeing ports in the tug’s rail.  She was definitely making water, the captain regarded with grim finality.  Just then, the engineer’s face appeared at the door in the side of the house.

               “Hey, Cap, we got it bad, water’s up to the deck plates under number 1 main engine.”

               The captain nodded, although he had already figured this to be the case.

               “Make sure you get all the bilge pumps online,” he barked.

               “They’re already on, Cap,” the engineer said, his voice grave, “but the water’s gaining all the time.  We better get off the boat.”

               The captain looked over to where the deckhand lay.  The water was now lapping at the injured deckhand’s feet.  The man wasn’t moving.

               “C’mon, Karl,” the captain said to the engineer, pointing to the injured crewman.  “Let’s get him over to the other side of the tug.”

               The three men got a tablecloth under the injured man to serve as a makeshift gurney, and clumsily hauled him away from the water’s edge.

               By that time, a pickup truck had come down from the main dock office, and two men stepped out.  The faint strain of a siren was heard in the distance.  The captain turned his attention back to his tugboat and scanned the river to see where the other vessel was.  He was sure the thing would be limping out in the stream.  No boat would have survived that impact without breaking its propeller shaft or suffering some other serious damage.  He was surprised to see no other boat on the river.  He wondered if maybe she had opened up her own hull and had foundered herself, sinking somewhere in the vicinity. 

               The Finch was now listing heavily away from the dock, the water rising steadily further up the hull.  The captain knew the crew would have to act quick to save the stricken tug.

               “Karl, let’s get the watertight doors closed, quick.”

               The men tried their best to keep the tug afloat, but just as the fire department arrived and retrieved the injured man, the tug began sliding down into the river.  The mate got the attention of the other deckhand, who was still on the bow, now just standing in a type of resigned daze, and the two climbed up the wooden ladder that was angled from the tug’s deck to the dock overhead.

               Five minutes later, as the crew of the Carl Finch Jr. stood in mute shock on the dock, the tug slid down into the river.  A belch of air forced its way up through the engine room vents, and the boat settled on the bottom.  The water was about twenty feet deep, so the tug sank up to the boat deck before it came to rest.  With the injured man on the way to the hospital and the police beginning to take statements from the crew, the captain retreated to the dock office to call the home office.  The captain told the dispatcher to get hold of Carl Finch himself.  Yes, it was important.  No, it couldn’t wait.  Finally, after a few moments, the old man’s gruff voice came on the line.

               “Well, I heard you had something urgent to tell me. What is it Arhtur, are you quitting?” Finch asked without pretext.

               The captain ignored the question.

               “Carl, we were tied up at the sand dock and another boat hit us.”

               He could hear the old man mulling over his words,

               “Well, how bad is the damage?”

               “Carl, we lost the boat, its down.  We did our best, but the damage was too heavy.”

               Another pause. The two men briefly discussed the incident, and the injury.  The paramedics were bringing the injured deckhand to University Hospital.  Yes, he was expected to survive.  Barely.

               The next question came finally. 

“Who hit you?”

               Now it was the captain’s turn to pause, carefully forming his response.

               “Carl, the boat was one of those old steam jobs.  It was the John Hench.”

               “The...Hench?” the old man’s voice croaked, unbelieving.

               “Yes, that’s right.”

               “That’s…impossible.”

               One of the officers had cut away from the others and made his way to the dock office, where he found the captain on the phone.  He motioned to the man that he needed to speak with him.  The captain nodded, then spoke into the phone.

               “I have to go Carl. I’ll give you a call when I can get back to the phone.”  He gave a curt farewell and followed the officer back to the dock.

               Carl Finch stood amid the clutter of the tugboat office, the normal bustle of activity suddenly hushed by the news of the accident.  Finch retired to his office and shut the door.  He sat heavily in his desk chair, his eyes staring ahead, seeing nothing.  He pulled out a photo album that sat on the bookshelf next to his desk and flipped through the faded pictures contained within, the images trapped under stiff cellophane paper.  The photographs contained all of the boats he had acquired over the years.  Finally he cam upon a grainy, slightly out of focus shot of a green steam tug, its tall smokestack towering over the deck.  The picture was taken just after the thing was taken on its final one-way trip to the ship graveyard.  The boat was lying next to the remains of an old derrick barge.  The tug’s hull was streaked with rust, one of the pilothouse windows cracked.  His eyes moved down to the bow of the tug, the old name still visible.

               JOHN HENCH.

 

               A report was filed with the Coast Guard and their team of inspectors came down to view the wreck of the Finch.  Another hearing was held, where Captain Arthur Grove recounted the details of the incident.  Despite the description of the vessel which had mortally wounded the large tug, the Hench was never spotted in the harbor.  It was the general consensus of the Coast Guard board of inquiry that the collision had been a hit and run. Word was sent to several of the surrounding marine districts to keep an eye out for the tugboat John Hench, but none of the other bases reported seeing the vessel. 

The Carl Finch Jr. was raised several weeks later by a marine salvage firm, who used an enormous floating crane to patch up the tug, after which it was returned to the Finch yard. The company engineers determined that the tug was a constructive total loss.  After the vessel was stripped of its engines and all valuable gear, the hulk was towed to the shipbreaker’s yard.  Had anyone from the Finch’s crew been aboard the tug during its trip to the scrapyard, they might have noticed an old steam tug sitting in the shallows of the ship graveyard, its weathered green house and hull streaked with rust and scale, the once-tall stack broken off at the deck and laying on the boat deck.  The hull was shattered below the waterline, and the tides of time continued their endless course through the innards of the once-proud vessel, as the boat joined the other hulks in their decay and collapse into the black mud of the cove, where nothing lived, except for the crabs that clambered over the broken pile stumps.

 

THE END