Kleptocracy, the Rule of Thieves

By Jonathan Bates

The story of a man searching for a new identity, living on a boat high and dry in the yard, in a town very much like Port Cypress, Washington.

There, he becomes tied to a boatyard community of like souls. These widely divergent characters find in each other the catalyst to move on from their personal doldrums to a new sense of purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Bates
• Release date: Oct 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985554804

Jonathan Bates

Jonathan Bates excelled as a tenured Professor of English at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California. He received an M.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing at San Diego State University. He devoted his non-work time and energy to classic wooden boats, notably Gamin (38' sloop), and Blue Eagle (40' troller). Jon's sense of humor, lively progressive politics, and roles as dedicated friend and family glue will live on forever. Also by Jonathan Bates In Collective Hysteria (stories) Masque The Blueprint for Life (stories) Kleptocracy, the Rule of Thieves

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Kleptocracy

the Rule of Thieves

A novel by

Jonathan Bates

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Daniel Bates

[e-mail]

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-0-9855548-0-4

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Also by Jonathan Bates

In Collective Hysteria (stories)

Masque

The Blueprint for Life (stories)

Emmy’s Frenzy

Chapter One

Kleptocracy

Porter Walker climbed down the wooden ladder that leaned against the side of the boat’s hull. The fourth rung from the top cracked; he struck his chin against the fifth rung and bit his tongue. His body twisted to one side and he held it there for a moment, as if he might right himself, but his grip slipped and he fell eight feet, landing on his shoulder in the cold mud and raw gravel. He was climbing down from his boat, Poco, high and dry in the yard, and he had known for a month that the rotten rung was going to break. He knew it was the fourth rung because he counted them each time, ten rungs up and ten rungs down, always gingerly touching the fourth step; he had counted them since January when he had hauled the boat out of the water to repair a plank in the hull and give her a quick painting. A week, two-week job at the most. It was now the end of April. He looked up at the boat from the ground. Porter was sore and his tongue was swelling. Laying on his back, the coat covering his lanky frame absorbing the cold, gray water, he felt as if Poco had pushed him.

The worst part about falling off, or through, the ladder was not that he really hurt himself, although he was stiff. It wasn’t even that he would now have to fix the ladder, or just take a bigger step at that point to cover the gap between the rungs. The worst part was blinking his eyes and looking up and seeing the missing planks in the hull that he still had to do something about. And the rudder’s edge, which was rotting along the bottom. And the punked-out frame that needed to be replaced. Then he heard them laugh, George and Mel, the two dock rats that had been ridiculing him all winter. They were both tall, balding, and overweight, traits that allowed them to feel pleasantly intimidating. They wore overalls and plaid shirts and a bad attitude.

I’d give him a ‘two.’ Mel stepped back and looked into Porter’s mud splattered eyes. He took a sip from his styrofoam coffee cup. A ‘one-eight,’ no grace, no style, no form. His cigarette hissed when he flipped it into the puddle that Porter was in, and they laughed and walked away.

As usual, George said.

They had started off seeming like friends back at Christmas time, offering advice when Porter first bought Poco, offering their used equipment at prices to help him out. Then they realized his bank account was leaking out of control like his boat, and so they began to mock him.

The day Porter took the head out of Poco, George and Mel started in on him. Porter couldn’t pump the toilet without it spraying whatever was in the bowl everywhere, and water constantly seeped out even when it wasn’t in use. While the boat was still in the water, he had managed to close the sea-cocks to stop the water flow. Once Poco was out of the water he broke all the rusted threads on the thru-hull pipes and removed the plumbing, the base, and the porcelain bowl, lowering them with a rope over the side to the ground. Removing it had taken Porter most of the day, but it was one of the projects he had vowed to take care of while the boat was hauled out.

There’s something about your head that’s personal, Porter soon learned. He spread out a small tarp and started to disassemble the pump and handle--all the bolts were frozen--but as he got them loose, he laid out each piece in order, hoping he could remember where they went when the time came to put it all back together. An extraordinary number of pieces kept coming out as if the head were breeding: gaskets, screws, bolts, nuts, washers, other pieces so corroded he could not identify them. Each cast bronze piece came apart into smaller pieces, and he was up to his elbows in rusty corrosion.

Can you imagine how many fat, smelly-assed fishermen have shit in that thing? Mel was standing behind Porter, who was bent over, straddling the toilet bowl between his legs and tugging at the end of a cotter pin.

Boat was built in what, 1949? George asked. Porter didn’t respond. Crew of four or five for well over half a century, that adds up to a lot of shit, George continued.

A whole lot of shit, Mel agreed.

Pretty disgusting.

Breeding ground for hepatitis, tetanus, all kinds of nasty bacteria.

Porter ignored them and kept pulling on the bronze pin with his pliers.

Should’a soaked it in hydrochloric acid before he touched it. Or at least bleach. Too late now, though.

Should have.

Too late now, though.

Too bad we didn’t come along earlier to help out.

Yeah, too bad.

I ain’t getting too close to it now, though, George said.

Me neither--the fumes alone, especially the ones you can’t smell, can kill you. He tossed his cigarette butt under Poco.

He’ll be growing a third eye by tomorrow. They both laughed and walked away.

Porter had started the day wearing rubber surgical gloves, but they had disintegrated in the first few minutes because of the chemical solvent he was using. Now he had a rusty brown smear across his face and he felt as if the muck that stuck everywhere was jumping on to him, coating him and his clothes. He sat in the middle of the tarp, surrounded by parts, exasperated, feeling grotesque. The pieces of the head circled him like sharks. He looked around at the tall pine trees that surrounded the yard and the odd, eclectic collection of boats stretched in a row to the south of Poco.

Then, in a sudden moment of insight, Porter realized he really couldn’t get much dirtier; every filthy slimy germ that was in the vicinity was crawling on him and there was not much he could do about it. Mel and George’s caustic appraisal of his work was over and they were gone. And so he felt suddenly relieved, as if he had been baptized and immunized by the rusty water, strangely cleansed, almost immune.

He found a can of paint thinner and some ratty old t-shirts and started to clean each piece, methodically. He no longer knew where they went, but it somehow didn’t matter; they just had to be clean and ready to reassemble.

Well before nightfall, Porter had started to put some parts together by following the directions he had found in a boating magazine article. He replaced the things he could figure out, then decided to take a break to think the rest through. He climbed aboard Poco, grabbed a warm beer, and as he came out of the cabin, he saw George and Mel looking at his project on the ground. They heard him, and looked up quickly. Porter thought he saw Mel slip something into his pocket, but he couldn’t be sure.

Looks like you’re coming right along, Mel said, and the two of them scurried away.

Porter climbed down and stood on the tarp. He finished his beer, looking around at the assemblage of parts. He began to piece the rest of the head together and sure enough, thought Porter, there was something missing. It was an odd-shaped spring with two wire ends that fit into the bronze casting. It held the rubber flap up in the base of the bowl, a rubber seal that allowed the whole thing to work, sending water in the direction intended. Without it, the water would only pump in, not out. They had stolen his spring, and with it his last shred of dignity. He would have to order one if he wasn’t willing to confront them, wait to get it in a couple weeks, wait while he knew they were laughing, again.

Porter Walker was living his dream, at least the first few weeks he owned Poco. He was on the water, aboard a retired fishing boat he planned to convert into a powerful, go-anywhere cruiser. He had used the very same dream to escape his own actuality since he was a little boy. He pictured himself in the pilot house, bashing through the swells of the North Pacific, or cutting neatly between the Gulf Islands in Canada. Now Porter walked the deck, torn between the love of his sort-of realized dream and the daunting task of restoring leaking oak planks in the hull, leaking fir decks that dripped on the berths below, leaking oil from the engine, and his own leaking spirits. Each caulked wooden seam and every rubber engine gasket terrified him.

Now the boat was standing high on wooden blocks, supported by jack stands in the yard; Poco hadn’t been in the water since three weeks after he bought her, when she started letting what looked like the entire Strait of Juan De Fuca into the bilge. She had to be hauled, everyone told him. She had to come out of the water now, they said. That’s how he found himself making his home that cold winter in a boat yard outside of Port Cypress, Washington.

Porter woke early, as usual. He walked the aft deck--his ritual--and stretched. He liked the fact that Poco stood higher than any of the other boats; he could look out over them all, neatly lined up in a row on the other side of the yard. Poco sat off, away from the others, in line but separated. She was the heaviest and the oldest vessel there. After the first week out of the water, and the realization that the shipwright would have to remove eight planks at the garboard seams, the yard owner picked Poco up again with the travel lift crane and moved her to the cheaper, long-term end of the yard, farthest from the water. Exile. It was like a sentence to do solitary hard time.

Porter climbed down the ladder--nine steps--and walked along the gravel road that the travel lift used to haul and launch the boats. At the end, two long rails led out over the water so the giant, four-wheeled crane could lift boats out and put them back in. A big barn for inside storage walled off the right side of the road, and Luke, the marina tenant who fancied himself a prophet, stood before it. He was short but solid; young but dressed old; his hair was plastered flat to his head and neatly parted. His eyes were large and attentive. He wore a white minister’s collar, black shirt and slacks, and knee-high, bright yellow foul-weather boots. As Porter passed by, Luke spoke, just as he did every morning.

Fear me, stranger, for I am thy life blood, he said. He looked up, deep into Porter’s eyes.

Yesterday you said I should ‘know you,’ for that same reason. Porter stopped to look at him, because he always felt some sort of obligation. Luke needed an audience.

I said that?

Yes. Would you like me to know you or fear you? Or both?

Well . . . . You need not fear me, I guess. He looked around, then pointed at Mel and George as they passed by on the other side of the road. They need to fear me . . . . Hey, you two. Luke moved toward them. ‘The devil showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.’ He jumped forward a bit when he said devil and moment.

Shove it up your ass, George said. They barely acknowledged him.

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Luke shook his finger at them.

Oh, fuck off. Mel didn’t even look back.

Luke turned to Porter. I do have words of scripture for you, though.

I’m sure you do, Porter said.

As you came forth of your mother’s womb, naked shall you return to go as you came, and shall take nothing of your labor, which you may carry away in your hand.

Okay, Porter said. He didn’t like the fact that many of the things Luke said sort of made sense, just enough so that Porter would have to think about the comment, rather than just dismiss it.

Luke pointed at Mel and George again. ‘In all labor there is profit; but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury,’ he said to Porter.

Penury?

Extreme poverty.

Like, bankrupt? The thought made Porter shiver.

In several different ways.

You know, Porter said, thinking aloud, those two sinners could really use your help.

How so?

You were sent here for a reason, no doubt.

‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho,’ Luke said, nodding his head, ‘and fell among thieves.’ His head kept moving.

This is your calling, Porter said.

‘Your old men shall dream dreams . . . ,’ Luke straightened his posture, ‘your young men shall see visions.’

Go forth, Porter said, with a sweeping hand gesture.

Luke raced after Mel and George.

Porter, proud of himself, kept walking toward the yard office that sat at the end of the lineup of boats that were out of the water on the left. Across the gravel area, the building’s windows faced the yard on one side of the corner and out onto the marina on the other side. A wooden walkway lay below the window and stretched down the breakwall. Floating ramps to the docks for the marina connected to the white pier.

Porter turned the corner, looked in the window, and saw the office manager, Lila, sitting at her desk and filing her nails. She was in her fifties, slender and blonde, still attractive because of the constant makeover she gave herself while seated at her command station. She was married to the owner of the yard and marina, Henry, and she controlled everything, including her husband. Porter waved at her through the window and she blew him a kiss back. He stopped and leaned over to buy a newspaper from the machine, dropping the coins and rattling the blue box hard until it finally popped open. He could feel her watching him. Well, at least Lila’s been friendly, Porter thought. At times, frighteningly friendly. He looked back into the office and Lila winked and puckered her lips.

Next door, along the white, wooden walkway, was a whitewashed clapboard restaurant with a large sign over the door, Lou Palmer’s International Cuisine. It was the only place close by to eat. Porter opened the screen door, walked in, and took his usual seat at the counter. Lou was behind it, standing at the cash register, the only person there. He was big, imposing, wearing a clean, white chef’s coat, white apron, and tall hat. He blinked often behind his large round glasses; he rarely spoke. He looked to be in his mid-to-late sixties, Porter thought, due more to his bear-like, reflective demeanor than his outward appearance. Lou and Porter felt comfortable around each other because Porter only wanted coffee so he could read his newspaper and Lou only wanted to be left alone. He did not seem to care much about making an income from his restaurant. He had made it clear to all that he did not like to make too big of a mess that he’d have to clean up.

Porter sipped his coffee and opened the paper. A young couple walked in behind him and took the first booth under the window. Porter could see them in the mirror above the back bar behind the counter. They were attractive, though she seemed more mature and sure of herself, showing the man where they should each sit with two quick pointing movements. She wore a red cashmere sweater and tight jeans; he wore a Boston Red Sox sweatshirt and baggy pants. They smiled at each other across the table, holding hands, and their wedding rings stood out like new gold teeth. Porter had never seen the couple before, and he decided they had probably walked down from a bed and breakfast in town.

Lou sighed. He sauntered over to the table and hovered over it without speaking. The man looked up at him. They waited. The woman looked up.

Can we get some menus, please? she finally asked.

No, Lou said.

No?

No.

Why not? She laughed a bit.

I only have one thing,

One thing? How can you only have one thing? she asked. She looked at her husband and then back at Lou. He did not respond. They waited.

Well, she finally said to Lou, what do you have?

Spinach and brie omelette, he said, with a muffin, blueberry.

But I don’t want breakfast, the husband said. We already had breakfast at sunrise.

I only have one thing. Lou shrugged.

They looked up at him, considering their options. Then we’ll have two, the wife said. I guess that’s just what we wanted. She seemed content.

Lou went back behind the counter and started cooking.

The door opened again and Porter felt his coffee churn in his stomach when George and Mel walked in. They sat down at the last of the five booths in the corner.

Well, look who’s here, George called across the room. How’s the germ-fest? He leaned out into the aisle and looked at Porter.

Mel turned around and hooked his arm over the back of the booth. You get your head fixed, Porter? he asked. Your head fixed, he repeated