Chapter 8

By the end of the week I had gotten a call from Roberto’s about a boat the Coast Guard had dropped off in my name. I thought they were going to call me to pick it up, not bring it to me!

I drove over after school, Alan and Debbie riding along with me, and they were full of questions.

“You have a boat? Why is it in the shop? How big is it? When did you get it? How come you didn’t say anything? Is it as big as your uncle’s?”

It was hard, sometimes, to keep up the lies, but I really didn’t want my status all over the school and Debbie was a sweet girl with a motor mouth. So, my cat was Dean’s and this boat was a blind bid win on a Coast Guard auction. I refused to say how much, but told them it cost me less than one year of in-state tuition at FSU and that impressed them.

The boat was a twenty-four-foot Pavati wake boat, made for speed and maneuverability. It had been stolen from a shop who was doing repairs and repainting it, so there was a spot on the top of the bow where an aluminum patch had been expertly welded, but hadn’t been smoothed or finished, and the entire boat was in scratched up primer which meant It looked a bit run down.

The nice seat covers and colorful dash and accents were all mostly present and covered in plastic, so what I really needed was the repair finished, the bullet holes fixed, new electronics (stolen without most installed) and a paint job.

This was never going to be a long-range boat and was really intended for lakes or for close in to the shore. It needed basic pleasure boat electronics and radios, a nice stereo and some loving care. Roberto quoted me at twenty-six to put it back into shape, another seventeen for the electronics. The motor was good, but a thorough going through wouldn’t add much.

These sold new for two forty but the paint job would not be factory and the included trailer was long gone, so I told Roberto to do it up nice, then slap a price tag on it for two and see if he could sell it for me.

“You don’t want? It is a very nice boat! Very fast!”

“I have that cat. I like distance and comfort, for fast I can fly.”

He turned and stared at the boat for a minute, rubbing his chin. When he turned back, he stuck out his hand. “I pay one fifty right now, I keep boat.”

I thought about it for a moment. I gave up a hundred and twenty to get it, it will cost fifty to fix up. At two I would have netted thirty. If he buys it for one fifty before repairs, I still net thirty. Works for me! Still, I had to bargain! He gave me a hard time for not bargaining on the cat fixup job.

So...

“I bring my cat over June first, you do the yearly. Top to bottom, I need it by June fifteenth.”

“No problem. One forty-five, plus yearly.” Roberto said grinning, holding out his hand.

“What? No way! One fifty-five plus yearly!” I said, pretending to be offended.

“You would have my children starve? One forty-seven, fifty and yearly, but no hull scrape.”

“Bah, you are a thief! One fifty and I take all my business somewhere else from now on.” I scowled at him, fists on my hips.

“AAAH ... I cannot believe you! Never was there such a heartless boy in all the world. If you were a man, I would thrash you but, since you are just a boy, one fifty and I do your yearly. That is too nice a boat for the likes of you and yet you would take it to an inferior mechanic when I am a specialist? Go, get out of my shop.” he was almost shouting, but made sure I shook his hand and pulled me into the office.

“Quick, sign papers so you don’t change your mind. Then you can marry my sainted sister since I like you.” Roberto was a card and, if he saw Alan and Debbie on the other side of the room, laughing with his son at the old man’s antics, he never let on. We had a cup of strong Cuban coffee to seal the deal and Roberto was all smiles.

“I have perfect customer for that. He pay me two forty after I fix it up. You make money, I make money, everybody is happy, no?”

“Everybody is happy, Roberto. I’ll bring the boat over Saturday, you can pay me then.”

“Good! Now go away, I am a very busy man!” he exclaimed while patting me fondly on the shoulder.

I joined Alan and Debbie and a kid named Jorge who went to our school. It turned out that Jorge was Roberto’s grandson and sometimes worked here for some extra pay.

“Hey, Jack, right? You own that aluminum boat with the bullet holes?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Nope, your grandfather does! I got it in an auction for cheap, it was going to cost a lot, well, a lot for a kid, to fix up. He said he has a client that would like it so I sold it to him. I make money, he makes money, his client gets the boat he wants. Win Win, right?”

“Nice. You could do that thing ... um ... Broker! That’s it, you could totally be a boat broker. They go around and find boats for sale, and customer who want boats, get both sides to pay them ... cool, huh?”

I just nodded. “Well, you two ready to go?” I asked Debbie and Alan.

When we got in the car, Debbie was up to her old tricks.

“Jorge said you were cute and he is single.”

“Jesus, Debbie! First, I am not gay. Second, I am not looking for anything right now, I told you that.”

“You were hurting when you moved here, I get that. Some girl broke your heart. But it has been almost a year! How can you still be pining away? I bet she is spreading her legs for number three or four since you left.”

If I hadn’t been so annoyed, I might have laughed. She was unrelenting!

“Who are you dating, Debbie? What guys are you crushing on? Maybe I can help you get hooked up so you quit trying to play matchmaker. You will be too busy getting busy.” I teased, trying to deflect her questions.

“SHUT UP! Even if I had a boyfriend right now, I wouldn’t be some slut who spreads her legs to the first guy to come along.” she said petulantly, crossing her arms under her breasts and slumping down in the seat.

“First guy, huh?” Alan asked slyly from the back seat.

Debbie turned white at first, then blushed furiously when she realized what she had admitted.

“SHUT UP ALAN. Don’t make me tell people about...” But whatever it was never made it as Alan lunged forward and put his hand over her mouth, whispering furiously in her ear.

“Fine.” she said when he let her go again. “You keep your mouth shut, I keep my mouth shut, deal?”

“Deal.”

Well, that put an end to matchmaking for today. SUCCESS!

On the topic of dating, I had continued my sessions with Dr. Jacoby. It was pretty clear to both of us why I felt the way I did and why sex had such negative connotations for me. Where we disagreed was what to do about it.

She wanted me to date. To pick a girl, let her set the pace. I would learn that a little groping, some making out, could be a lot of fun and was not something to be feared. Eventually, if I put myself ‘out there’, I would meet a woman I trusted enough to go further, someone who I could trust to make myself vulnerable with.

Me? I thought we should just ignore it. Hell, celibacy couldn’t be all bad, millions had done it over the ages, some even voluntarily.

When she brought up masturbation, well, that was. It was. Um ... see, I don’t. Ever since, ever since then, I don’t mess with stuff, down there. I wash, I pee, that’s it. Even thinking about it made me feel uncomfortable.

Yes, I got erections sometimes, mostly waking with them, but they never lasted long. All I had to do was look at it and, in my mind, it was ... not mine. If you can maintain an erection while scared and reliving the memory of a tremendous amount of pain, then you are a stronger person than I am.

It was bad enough that she actually suggested it might be possible to burn out those particular memories or, to be more specific, the brain cells housing those memories. While people have talked about ECT, or Electro Convulsive Therapy as a horrible, medieval torture disguised as treatment, the reality is that it could actually be useful. There were modern techniques using hair-thin, surgically implanted probes that could select minute sections of the brain and target that area only, leaving the surrounding tissue unharmed. Mostly.

That was the only time I have ever walked out of a therapy session. It took her a month to get me back in her office and then only if she promised to never discuss that or any other medically invasive treatment ever again.

Anyway, we were at kind of an impasse.

I finished my sophomore year with honors. I was number 11 out of three hundred and twenty-two sophomores so not too bad. My 3.98 was topped by those students taking AP classes for the extra college credits and a couple of kids way smarter than I am, but I was totally cool with that.

Two days after the last day of school, Dean and I were on a chartered plane to Galveston. I had invited Mary Sampson, her family, her second in command’s and that person’s family and Martin Schipe and his family to all come out to Pelican’s rest. Dennis LaRous, the caretaker out there, assured me that they would be ready for the influx of guests and had a number of staff that they could bring in. I wanted to make this a nice holiday, though a working one, for the Deckhouse people.

We got to Galveston and went out to the house to settle in. Our guests would arrive on a chartered plane the following morning, but we had the night to just relax a bit.

Dennis and his wife greeted us with smiles, introducing us to the staff they had hired for the week. It turned out that most of them were family to the older couple and that was fine by me. They all seemed like nice folks and, when I told them that I was hosting business folks I wanted to impress, they seemed to understand.

Dennis even said he had made sure there were plenty of liquid refreshments ready for the asking. As I had requested, Dennis had a local company come in and make sure the boat was ready so we could all go out if they wanted. I definitely wanted to take the cat out now that I had some experience.

After we unpacked and came down to just relax in the family room, I was surprised to see Elsa, Dennis’s wife, walking into the room with a small cake holding a single lit candle.

“Happy birthday, Mister McCoy.” she said with a smile, setting the small cake down on the table.

“How could you possibly know?” I asked, shocked. Hell, I had forgotten so how anyone else remembered, much less someone I had met only once, was a big surprise.

“Mister Dean, he told us.” Elsa said with a grin. “You best be blowing it out before it melts all over the cake.” she ordered.

A quick puff and it was out. Just as quickly, Elsa was slicing and laying out slices for all of us. Dean came out with a small, wrapped box and handed it to me.

“Dean, this wasn’t necessary.” I said, peeling the paper off.

“It kinda was. Besides, it will be fun and educational.”

Under the wrapping was a small box that rattled. Inside, under some padding, was a set of keys with a Harley Davidson logo. When I held them up and looked questioningly at Dean, he grinned.

“It’s a basket case. Needs a complete rebuild. One thing lacking in your education so far is mechanical aptitude. If your car broke down, you would be helpless. I am not even sure you could change a flat, but you might be smart enough to figure that out. You and I are going to rebuild that bike, and a second one I bought. You are going to learn about metal work, about welding and electrical wiring. You are going to learn what makes an internal combustion engine work and how to diagnose problems. More importantly, how to fix them.”

“If we do this right, we can be riding our bikes next summer. Heck, maybe sooner, depends on how much time we devote to the projects.”

“A Harley, huh? Sweet, when do we get inked? Matching tattoos! Bro Tats.” I joked, dodging a playful punch. “This sounds very cool, Dean, thanks.”

The Sikorsky S92 sat down right on time at the Galveston Air Port and I watched as the passengers deplaned. Is it still deplaning when it is a helicopter? The helicopter had been set up with a hybrid luxury seating option. It had the equivalent of a dozen first class seats instead of the nineteen seats normally seen in passenger versions.

Martin was down first, followed by a man I hadn’t met but, by the way he was clasping Martin’s arm, I think they were a pair. A woman in her late thirties, early forties, followed a big, bearded fellow and was followed, in turn, by two teens, one boy and one girl. The last people off were an older man, late fifties I would guess and a woman who was, without a doubt, his wife. He was very solicitous of her on the stairs and practically carried her down!

If the Sikorsky had been just a bit smaller, it could have landed at the house but still, in this day and age, private aviation had some major advantages. We were able to bring the two Suburbans right to the plane to get the passengers and the luggage. While the crew moved baggage to the vehicles, we got the introductions out of the way.

‘Martin, so glad to see you again, thank you for coming!” I said, shaking the CEOs hand.

“Mister McCoy.’

“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, it’s Jack. If you insist on calling me Mister all weekend, I’ll have Elsa serve you bread and water.” I joked, pleading with the man.

“Of course, Jack. This is Phillipe, my husband.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Phillipe. I hope you have a wonderful time this week.”

“If it is anything like that ride in the helicopter, it will be fabulous! That was so much fun.” Phillipe gushed, shaking my hand warmly.

“Jack, this is Mary, you spoke to her on the phone.” Martin passed me off to the middle-aged woman with the big smile.

“Jack, it is good to meet you! You are taller, and much wider in the shoulder than I would have guessed after talking to you on the phone. You do look older, but you really are sixteen. How about that. Anyway, this is Cliff, my long-suffering husband and these two are Stacy and Mike. Stacy is sixteen and Mike is fourteen.”

Cliff grinned at me and didn’t say anything. Stacy looked at me with an odd expression on her face and kind of shook my fingertips. Mike was more openly curious and gave my hand a big squeeze. Not a dominance thing, just a “This is my manly handshake.”

Last but not least, Martin stepped forward and directed my attention to the older man.

“Jack, this is Edwin Williams, our CFO for the Deckhouse group, and his wonderful wife Eulie.”

“Mister Williams, it is a pleasure. I look forward to talking to you about the companies and the future.” I said, shaking his hand. He had an odd expression too, slightly disapproving I would think, but his wife was warm and kind and had a big smile on her face.

We piled in the Suburbans for the ten-minute drive to the house.

Once everyone was introduced to Dennis and Elsa, and settled in their rooms, I asked Dennis to give them the same tour as they gave me, assuring them that the history of the house was absolutely fascinating.

While they got the tour, I was returning a phone call from Jake. I had invited him but he had a business function already scheduled and couldn’t make it. The message he left said that the event had been canceled, some kind of SNAFU or other, and he would be in this afternoon.

“Don’t bother to meet me, Dave knows where the place is. You stick with your guests.”

After lunch, Mary and Martin, plus Phillipe and Cliff, took off to go visit the Marina. Mary admitted that even as the head of the Charter and Rental arms, she rarely made it out to the sites more than once a year and, since she was here, she might as well do the right thing.

The kids, Stacy and Mike, wanted to hang out and play pool in the parlor or just goof off in front of the television, while Edwin Williams had a briefcase full of files he wanted to go over.

Once the others left and Elsa’s helpers had cleared things up, we took a seat at the dining room table. Elsa brought in coffee and tea in a very nice tea set that Eulie seemed fascinated with.

“So, Mister Williams. You have the unenviable task of explaining all facts of life to a teenager?” I joked, but he didn’t seem to think it was funny.

“Yes, quite. Is Mister Miller not joining us?”

“Mister Miller is my head of security, Mister Williams.”

He looked a bit unsure, looking around for a moment before looking back at his papers.

“Mister McCray. May bobble street salmon tissue bowl. Caption crossfire never depth in Eucharist.” he said, his eyes unfocused and sheen of sweat on his brow. He continued on for a couple more sentences, then petered out as he stared at our, no doubt horrified, expressions.

Oh hell. This could not be good!

“Edwin? Edwin? Speak to me, darling!” Eulie looked almost panicked, but Edwin seemed completely unaware that she was even there.

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, telling the operator I needed an ambulance as soon as possible. Dean, meanwhile had loosened Edwin’s tie and laid him flat on the ground.

I explained to the operator what had happened and Dean called out, “It’s a stroke, Jack, tell them it’s a stroke!”

The ambulance arrived quickly and they had Edwin on a gurney, and back in the ambulance, almost faster than you can describe it. They roared off, with Eulie sitting next to Edwin in the back. Stacy and Mike, Mary’s children, looked shaken as they stood on the steps with Dean and me, watching the ambulance pull away.

“What happened? What is a stroke?” Stacy asked, her hands trembling. Mike had his arm around his sister, which I thought was pretty cool of him.

“A stroke is when a blood clot gets loose from wherever it is sitting and works its way to the brain. It cuts off the blood supply and oxygen to that part of the brain because the veins up there are so much smaller. It can be a speech center, vision, often a stroke victim has very little muscle control on one side of the body, it all depends where the clot gets stuck.” Dean explained.

“Will he get better?”

“A lot depends on his health, how fast they can find it and treat it. There is no way for us to know right now.”

“I feel bad for Eulie. She is sweet, but I don’t think he ever let her think for herself. She was very submissive to him.” Stacy said, surprising the hell out of me. When she saw me looking at her, she blushed and looked away. Our own little budding psychologist? Wait, our own? When did ... no, stop! You know what? Not going there.

I pulled my phone and called Martin, telling him about his CFO. In the meantime, while we waiting for the marina crew to come back, I went in and straightened up the paperwork that had been scattered when Mister Williams had his stroke.

The pages were covered in numbers and abbreviations, most of which meant very little to me. I just set them aside for Martin or whoever Edwin’s second in command or, heaven forbid, successor, might be.

Jake and Dave arrived at the same time the Marina crew came back, causing a little confusion.

I introduced Jake and Dave to everyone, then explained to all of them as a group what had happened to Edwin Williams.

“I called and they wouldn’t tell me much, but I was able to speak to Eulie. She said they administered a drug to break up the clot and a blood thinner. Now they are doing cat scans to find the clot. His condition is listed as critical, but stable. She asked me to have you call the office and have someone named Susan get a hold of their children. She said this Susan would know how.”

Martin nodded and turned away from the group, pulling out his cell phone. Jake and Dave excused themselves, Jake giving me a quick one-armed hug on the way by, and entered the house to let Dennis guide them to their rooms.

The rest of the Deckhouse party came into the house and we got them refreshments and just chatted about everything they saw, staying away from the topic of their CFO for now. Stacy went to her mom for hugs and reassurance while Mike went to sit and talk to his father, Cliff.

When I suggested a cocktail, Mike chimed in asking for a whiskey sour, which earned him a good-natured cuff to the ear from his dad and a laugh from his sister. The rest put in their drink orders and a young woman I recognized as a niece of Elsa played bartender and cocktail waitress. She didn’t even blink when I asked for Lone Star.

In fact, I thought it was funny that the only ones who even appeared to notice were Stacy and Mike. Mike was giving me a thumbs-up and Stacy was giving me that weird look she gave me at the heliport.

I think Mary and Martin were the only ones who recognized Jake. If others did, they didn’t make it obvious. Mary had some questions for the man though and invited him to sit with her and her husband to chat.

Martin and Phillipe came to chat with me. Martin was pretty torn up about Edwin and Phillipe wasn’t much better.

“Edwin worked for my father, many, many years ago. When I started Deckhouse Designs, right out of college, I already had an award-winning design to my name and was making money, hand over fist. Yet I still found myself in financial trouble. Edwin was the son of my father’s business partner, and one of several CPAs in the company.”

“He didn’t want to be accused of nepotism, he wanted to make it on his own merits so, when I offered him a job, he took the pay loss and came to work with me. He kept us rolling through several setbacks, finding ways to economize without sacrificing quality, ways to bring in more money. In fact, when I was all wrapped up in my divorce, and I started gambling, Edwin was the man who found an investor to save the company.”

“I wondered about that, why you didn’t own your own company any more. I checked and I have sixty-five percent of Deckhouse itself, but that includes a hundred percent of the rental, charter and property spin-offs.” I said, shaking my head.

“Yes, the investor offered to pay off the debts, repay the money I had taken from the company and even buy off my ex-wife so I could finally live with Phillipe. He believed in me or, at least, in Edwin’s ability to make the company profitable again.” Martin said, sounding a little less depressed.

“So, what now, Martin? Did he have a protégé, or a couple of them, who could take over and keep things going?”

“Oh certainly. He was big on training the next generation, but we did this together, he and I. Do you know, he was the first person I told about Phillipe? This was a decade ago and things were not as open as they are now. Know what he said, what his only reaction was? He asked if he should amend the company health coverage to cover domestic partners, then admitted it had been an oversight on his part.” Martin shook his head, a tear on his cheek.

“I always got the feeling that he might not have approved, on a personal level, but he always went out of his way to make me feel welcome because I was important to Martin. You have to appreciate someone like that, who will bend over backwards out of love and loyalty to a friend.” Phillipe said, kissing Martin in the cheek. “Come, let’s go to the hospital and comfort Eulie until her children arrive.”

After they left, Mary pulled me into the conversation she was having with Jake.

“Jack, what is your link with Jake? I tried to get him to admit that you were a love child but he wasn’t budging.” She said with a laugh.

“Jake is my mentor. His kids are all grown and immensely successful in their own right and don’t need advice from the old man any more, but I sure do. I think I am a surrogate grandson or something.” I said that last in a stage whisper, giving Jake a wink.

“More like a real pain in my ... er ... back.” Jake said, stumbling a bit when he saw the kids listening in.

“The truth is that Jack started off as someone I owed because of circumstances beyond our control, but we became friends, as odd as that sounds. I am older than dirt, he is barely old enough for solid food, but we became friends anyway.” He said, getting a laugh from everyone.

“Anyway ... I mostly came down to see Jack because it’s his birthday.” Jake said, making me bury my face in my hands. I had exacted a promise from Dean and the staff that they not mention it to our visitors.

“What? What did I say?” Jake asked, confused.

“He made me promise not to tell anyone.” Dean chimed in with a laugh, that traitorous jerk.

“Mom, does this mean you work for someone my age?” Stacy asked with a grin.

Mary looked at her then surprised me when she stuck out her tongue. “Yes, miss smarty pants, I work for someone your age.”

“Jack, how does a sixteen-year-old own a company as big as the one Mom works for?” Mike asked, sounding puzzled.

“The old-fashioned way, Mike.” I said, then paused. I had everyone’s attention so I buffed my fingernails on my shirt and stuck my nose in the air. “I inherited it.”

The laughter I expected but I totally didn’t expect the pillow that clocked me upside the head. Mike had a good arm!

When the laughter died down, I suggested we all go get cleaned up for dinner. Elsa said she had a surprise and Dennis assured me that I did not want to miss Ms. Elsa’s cooking.

Dinner was an unbelievable fish fry! Catfish, fritters, hush puppies, a home-made gumbo that was to die for ... this is the kind of meal you would get down in New Orleans, not in Galveston Texas! It made more sense when we learned that Dennis and Elsa were from a place called Magnolia Plantation, just down the road from Thibodaux Louisiana! Could there be a more Louisiana sounding town name?

By the time they rolled us away from the table, I think everyone had eaten way too much, so I announced a no-business rule for the evening. Tomorrow we would go out and play on the boat and talk some business.

I was awake early as always and it was neat to have Dave out there with Dean and I on the back lawn. We stretched and went through forms together, then stretched again because Dean wanted to spar.

Dave had taken a different route to his hand-to-hand skills and Dean said he liked sparring with people trained in other disciplines, it made him a better fighter. What surprised me was that he wanted me to go first!

I am 200% sure that the reason I was able to put Dave on his ass was that he hadn’t taken me seriously and was half-assing it. I say that because I don’t think I touched him the rest of the time we sparred and spent as much, or more, time on my ass as I did on my feet.

When Dean called time, I backed off and bowed to Dave, then collapsed. He had run me ragged in a little ten-foot circle of grass.

“Jack, you surprised the hell out of me and I thank you for not hurting me when I was being an idiot. I assumed and it bit me on the ass. You are actually pretty damn good considering it has been a little less than a year since you started. I am impressed.” Dave said, reaching down to shake my hand.

If I could have moved, I would have been dancing. As it was ... ow.

I watched closely as Dean and Dave faced off. Dave was a little bit tired, he had to be. I weigh a hundred and eighty-five pounds and I was sure that Dave had been bench pressing me before hurling me to the ground. That had to tire him out, he is only human.

Still, he didn’t look all that tired. He and Dean were trading tosses and locks, punches, counter-punches, kicks and blocks. They were moving so fast that I know I missed a bunch. What I did see convinced me that Dean had been taking it way easy on me this year.

By the time they called it a draw, I was feeling better physically. Not enough to stand under my own power but, once they helped me up, I did manage to toddle into the house and use the elevator to get upstairs.

The hot shower and half a tube of analgesic rub made me feel human again.

We trekked down to the boathouse together, the entire mixed crew. Dave, Dean and I helped everyone down the rather steep ladder to the deck. The tide was out and it was pretty severe here. The boat was sitting at least three feet lower than it had been last time I visited.

Before I followed the rest down the ladder, I went to the control panel that Dennis had shown me, made sure the power was on, then operated the outer doors to the boathouse.

On the boat, I opened the hatches to air out the engine space for a few minutes, then went to the helm and started the motor. It fired right up and, once the vent hatches were closed, was pretty quiet too. There was some noise because of the enclosed space, but once out of the boathouse, it should be almost silent unless I really opened it up.

Jake had found the bar and was playing host, mixing up a batch of Bloody Marys (virgins for the kids and those who didn’t want any go-juice this morning.) Cliff wanted to go by and moon the Texas A&M campus, but Mary put the kibosh on that, telling him he was worse than the kids, but I could tell he was just having fun.

We motored out into Offat’s Bayou and headed north towards Galveston Bay. We had to go slow around the breakwater near Pelican Cut since there was a lot of traffic out there, but everyone was having fun waving to other boats. We ended up circling Pelican Island and coming back, stopping for a late lunch near the deer islands.