“God, they must be fat,” Eddy said. “I’d like to see them alive sometime. Here nobody ever butchers a cow till just before it’s going to die from starving. The meat’s bitter. People here’d go crazy with meat like that we got. They wouldn’t know what it was. Probably make them sick.”
“I have to finish these letters,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I’m sorry, Tom.”
After he finished the mail, answered two other business letters that he had intended to put off until the next week’s boat, checking the list of the next week’s needs and writing a check for the week’s supplies plus the flat ten percent the government charged on all imports from the Mainland, Thomas Hudson walked down to the run-boat that was loading at the government wharf. The captain was taking orders from the islanders for supplies, dry goods, medicines, hardware, spare parts, and all the things that came into the island from the Mainland. The run-boat was loading live crawfish and conches and a deck load of conch shells and empty gasoline and Diesel oil drums and the islanders stood in line in the heavy wind waiting their turn in the cabin.
“Was everything all right, Tom?” Captain Ralph called out the cabin window to Thomas Hudson.
“Hey, get out of this cabin, you boy, and come in your turn,” he said to a big Negro in a straw hat. “I had to substitute on a few things. How was the meat?”
“Eddy says it’s wonderful.”
“Good. Let me have those letters and the list. Blowing a gale outside. I want to get out over the bar on this next tide. Sorry I’m so busy.”
“See you next week, Ralph. Don’t let me hold you up. Thanks very much, boy.”
“I’ll try to have everything next week. Need any money?”
“No. I’m all right from last week.”
“Got plenty of it here if you want it. OK. Now, you, Lucius, what’s your trouble? What you spending money on now?”
Thomas Hudson walked back along the dock where the Negroes were laughing at what the wind was doing to the girls’ and the women’s cotton dresses and then up the coral road to the Ponce de León.
“Tom,” Mr. Bobby said. “Come in and sit down. By God where’ve you been? We’re just swept out and she’s officially open. Come on and have the best one of the day.”
“It’s pretty early.”
“Nonsense. That’s good imported beer. We’ve got Dog’s Head ale too.” He reached into a tub of ice, opened a bottle of Pilsner, and handed it to Thomas Hudson. “You don’t want a glass, do you? Put that down and then decide if you want a drink or not.”
“I won’t work then.”
“Who gives a damn? You work too much as it is. You got a duty to yourself, Tom. Your one and only life. You can’t just paint all the time.”
“We were in the boat yesterday and I didn’t work.”
Thomas Hudson was looking at the big canvas of the waterspouts that hung on the wall at the end of the bar. It was a good painting, Thomas Hudson thought. As good as he could do as of today, he thought.
“I got to hang her higher,” Bobby said. “Some gentleman got excited last night and tried to climb into the skiff. I told him it would cost him ten thousand dollars if he put his foot through her. Constable told him the same. Constable’s got an idea for one he wants you to paint to hang in his home.”
“What is it?”
“Constable wouldn’t say. Just that he had a very valuable idea he had intention to discuss with you.”
Thomas Hudson was looking at the canvas closely. It showed certain signs of wear.
“By God, she sure stands up,” Bobby said proudly. “The other night a gentleman let out a shout and threw a full mug of beer at the column of one of the waterspouts trying to break it down. You wouldn’t have known she’d ever been hit. Never dented her. Beer run off her like water. By God, Tom, you sure painted her solid.”
“She’ll only take about so much though.”