Thomas Hudson asked him if he had tested the lines since the boat had not been out for big fish in quite a while and Eddy said he had tested them and taken off all the line that was rotten. He said they were going to have to get some more thirty-six thread line and plenty more twenty-four thread and Thomas Hudson promised to send for it. In the meantime Eddy had spliced enough good line on to replace the discarded line and both the big reels had all they would hold. He had cleaned and sharpened all of the big hooks and checked all the leaders and swivels.
“When did you do all this?”
“I sat up last night splicing,” he said. “Then I worked on that new cast net. Couldn’t sleep with the goddam moon.”
“Does a full moon bother you for sleeping too?”
“Gives me hell,” Eddy said.
“Eddy do you think it’s really bad for you to sleep with it shining on you?”
“That’s what the old heads say. I don’t know. Always makes me feel bad, anyway.”
“Do you think we’ll do anything today?”
“Never know. There’s some awfully big fish out there this time of year. Are you going clean up to the Isaacs?”
“The boys want to go up there.”
“We ought to get going right after breakfast. I’m not figuring to cook lunch. I’ve got conch salad and potato salad and beer and I’ll make up sandwiches. We’ve got a ham that came over on the last run-boat and I’ve got some lettuce and we can use mustard and that chutney. Mustard doesn’t hurt kids, does it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We never had it when I was a kid. Say, that chutney’s good, too. You ever eat it in a sandwich?”
“No.”
“I didn’t know what it was for when you first got it and I tried some of it like a marmalade. It’s damned good. I use it sometimes on grits.”
“Why don’t we have some curry pretty soon?”
“I got a leg of lamb coming on the next run-boat. Wait till we eat off it a couple of times—once, I guess, with that young Tom and Andrew eating, and we’ll have a curry.”
“Fine. What do you want me to do about getting off?”
“Nothing, Tom. Just get them going. Want me to make you a drink? You aren’t working today. Might as well have one.”
“I’ll drink a cold bottle of beer with breakfast.”
“Good thing. Cut that damn phlegm.”
“Is Joe here yet?”
“No. He went after the boy that’s gone for bait. I’ll put your breakfast out there.”
“No, let me take her.”
“No, go on in and drink a cold bottle of beer and read the paper. I’ve got her all ironed out for you. I’ll bring the breakfast.”
Breakfast was corned-beef hash, browned, with an egg on top of it, coffee and milk, and a big glass of chilled grapefruit juice. Thomas Hudson skipped the coffee and the grapefruit juice and drank a very cold bottle of Heineken beer with the hash.
“I’ll keep the juice cold for the kids,” Eddy said. “That’s some beer, isn’t it, for early in the morning?”
“It would be pretty easy to be a rummy, wouldn’t it, Eddy?”
“You’d never make a rummy. You like to work too well.”
“Drinking in the morning feels awfully good though.”
“You’re damned right it does. Especially something like that beer.”
“I couldn’t do it and work though.”
“Well, you’re not working today so what’s the goddam problem? Drink that one up and I’ll get you another.”
“No. One’s all I want.”
They got off by nine o’clock and went down the channel with the tide. Thomas Hudson was steering on the topside and he headed her out over the bar and ran straight out toward where he could see the dark line of the Gulf. The water was so calm and so very clear that they could see the bottom clearly in thirty fathoms, see that sea fans bent with the tide current, still see it, but cloudily, at forty fathoms, and then it deepened and was dark and they were out in the dark water of the stream.