He would make the dentist think that God was intervening and answering his prayer, when the truth was, Fonny Boy wanted to take Dr. Faux up on his offer of employment on the mainland. Fonny Boy got up and made not a sound as he left the storeroom, then turned around and walked back inside and shut the door so the dentist could hear him enter.
“Who’s there?” Dr. Faux said with hope. “That you, Fonny Boy?”
“Yass.”
“Oh, thank God. I’m cold and need to go home, Fonny Boy. How’s your tooth? The lidocaine wear off?”
“Yass.”
“What about the cotton you swallowed? Any problems with that?”
“Yea!” he talked backward, meaning he’d had no problem yet. “I’ll carry you ashore,” he added. “There’s neither time to get the spyglass and searchlight offer my daddy, and it’s right airish out, and you don’t have a coat. But we need to scud along now afore all the bateaus head out to fish-up the pots!”
“I don’t care about a coat, and we can certainly make do without binoculars or a flashlight!” the dentist exclaimed with joy.
He had tears in his eyes, although Fonny Boy could not see them because of the brackish-smelling bandanna that was still tied around the dentist’s head. All these years the dentist had been reimbursed for working or pretending to work on that boy’s mouth, and never once had it occurred to Dr. Faux that Fonny Boy was an angel.
“God bless you, son,” Dr. Faux whispered as they silently made their way out of the clinic.
“Shhhh,” Fonny Boy warned him. “Keep quite.”
The island’s streets were deserted and dark, and there wasn’t a light on in a single house as every Islander slept soundly and golf carts recharged. But Fonny Boy knew that soon enough it would be 3:00 A.M. and the watermen would be heading out to their bateaus, so he and the dentist had best hurry along. If Fonny Boy got caught rescuing Dr. Faux, there would be trouble. For sure, Fonny Boy’s mother would march him straightaway to Swain Memorial United Methodist Church, and she would rat on him to Reverend Crockett. Fonny Boy had been in trouble with Reverend Crockett before, and was sick and tired of memorizing Scripture to pay for his sins.
The family bateau was docked only several blocks from the church, and with every step, the silhouette of the church steeple seemed to watch Fonny Boy and follow him. The people of Tangier were God-fearing, and disobedience to one’s parents was not tolerated. Although Fonny Boy might be an angel to Dr. Faux, Fonny Boy was openly disobeying his father and mother by sneaking out of the house and letting the dentist go. Furthermore, when Fonny Boy’s father arrived to putter out to the crab pots, he would have no means of doing so and would be extremely out of sorts because of his missing bateau.
As Fonny Boy and the dentist descended rickety wooden steps leading down to the bateaus, Fonny Boy worried aloud and nonstop. He was having second thoughts and was terrified to go down that last step, which would surely lead to an entirely new, scary world. The dentist tried to comfort Fonny Boy by telling him that he was feeling the same way the men and boys had felt in December, 1606 as they’d filed down the Black-wall stairs on the Isle of Dogs and boarded the ships. Little Richard Mutton of St. Bride, London, was only fourteen, the same age as Fonny Boy, and no doubt froze on the bottom step, too.
“His family, was they with him?” Fonny Boy whispered.
“Little Richard was the only Mutton on the list of settlers, at least that we know of.”
“Then what for did he do it?” Fonny Boy whispered as he imagined Richard Mutton all alone and shivering in the dark as he stared out at three tiny ships that were going to sail all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to an unknown, dangerous world.
“Gold,” Dr. Faux replied. “The little Mutton boy, like most of our country’s first settlers, felt sure they would find gold or at least silver, just like the Spanish were in the West Indies. And of course, they would be assigned great parcels of land so they could begin farming.”