ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

“Damn bad thing about that fish,” Bobby said, handing them the whisky sours and taking one himself. “Let’s drink to a bigger one.”

“No,” Roger said. “I don’t want to ever see a bigger one.”

“What’s the matter with you, Roger?” Bobby asked.

“Nothing,” Roger said.

“I’m going to paint a couple of pictures of him for David.”

“That’s wonderful. Do you think you can get it?”

“With luck, maybe. I can see it and I think I know how to do it.”

“You can do it all right. You can do anything. I wonder who’s on the yacht?”

“Look, Roger, you’ve been walking your remorse all over the island—”

“Barefooted,” he said.

“I just brought mine down here by way of Captain Ralph’s run-boat.”

“I couldn’t walk mine out and I’m certainly not going to try to drink it out,” Roger said. “This is a mighty nice drink though, Bobby.”

“Yes sir,” Bobby said. “I’ll make you another one. Get that old remorse on the run.”

“I had no business gambling with a kid,” Roger said. “Somebody else’s boy.”

“It depends on what you were gambling for.”

“No, it doesn’t. You shouldn’t gamble with kids.”

“I know. I know what I was gambling for. It wasn’t a fish, either.”

“Sure,” Roger said. “But it was the one you didn’t need to do it to. The one you didn’t need to ever let anything like that happen to.”

“He’ll be fine when he wakes up. You’ll see. He’s a very intact boy.”

“He’s my goddamed hero,” Roger said.

“That’s a damned sight better than when you used to be your own goddamed hero.”

“Isn’t it?” Roger said. “He’s yours, too.”

“I know it,” Thomas Hudson said. “He’s good for both of us.”

“Roger,” Mr. Bobby said. “Are you and Tom any sort of kin?”

“Why?”

“I thought you were. You don’t look too different.”

“Thanks,” Thomas Hudson said. “Thank him yourself, Roger.”

“Thank you very much, Bobby,” Roger said. “Do you really think I look like this combination man and painter?”

“You look like quarter brothers and the boys look like both of you.”

“We’re no kin,” Thomas Hudson said. “We just used to live in the same town and make some of the same mistakes.”

“Well, the hell with it,” Mister Bobby said. “Drink up and quit all this remorse talk. It don’t sound good this time of day in a bar. I got remorse from Negroes, mates on charter boats, cooks off yachts, millionaires and their wives, big rum runners, grocery store people, one-eyed men off turtle boats, sons of bitches, anybody. Don’t let’s have no morning remorse. A big wind is the time to drink. We’re through with remorse. That remorse is old stuff anyway. Since they got the radio everybody just listens to the BBC. There ain’t no time and no room for remorse.”

“Do you listen to it, Bobby?”

“Just to Big Ben. The rest of it makes me restless.”

“Bobby,” Roger said. “You’re a great and good man.”

“Neither. But I’m certainly pleased to see you looking more cheerful.”

“I am,” said Roger. “What sort of people do you think we’ll get off that yacht?”

“Customers,” said Bobby. “Let’s drink one more so I’ll feel like serving them, however they are.”

While Bobby was squeezing the limes and making the drinks Roger said to Thomas Hudson, “I didn’t mean to be wet about Davy.”

“You weren’t.”

“What I meant was. Oh hell, I’ll try to work it out simply. That was a sound crack you made about when I was my own hero.”

“I’ve got no business making cracks.”

“You have as far as I’m concerned. The trouble is there hasn’t been anything in life that was simple for such a damn long time and I try to make it simple all the time.”

“You’re going to write straight and simple and good now. That’s the start.”

“What if I’m not straight and simple and good? Do you think I can write that way?”

“Write how you are but make it straight.”

“I’ve got to try to understand it better, Tom.”

“You are. Remember last time I saw you before this summer was in New York with that cigarette-butt bitch.”

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