The Old Man, watching his back, by day, on a boat, Stevie Duck’s boat, the Kolea, at sea, beyond Lanai, pulling fish out, throwing them back, taking pictures, man and fish, fish and man, with a friend, listening to T.J., the boatman’s fish stories.
At Stevie Duck’s, then the Pioneer Inn.
It’s sunset, just beyond the parking lot, the boats coming in, people milling about, then still, as that green dot glints as the sun goes down into the flat sea.
“Amazing,” says The Old Man’s friend, Sid Shotwell.
They went way back, these two.
The Old Man: “Marie’s worried about the dog!”
Sid: “And those two dogs hate each other.”
The dogs are in Watsonville, in the country, on Green Valley Road, way out, unaware that in this horsey set, nobody talked about anything but the horsey set. It’s a good place to hide.
The girls are in the kitchen. The dogs are under the porch. It’s been a beautiful day. The girls, nine and thirteen, are making peanut butter cookies.
The dogs are tolerating one another. They’re guarding the girls, separately.
The girls are in charge of the dogs. Their grandfather is paying them twenty dollars each to watch these dogs, plus supplies.
Under the porch, Mezro says: “Sid had cash, The Old Man has a way with cards. Sid said they ran their first game in the hospital in Morocco.”
The Old Man’s Dog: “We both know they’re liers.”
Mezro: “Sidney and Thelma, those are my sources.”
THELMA: ” Did he get a divorce in the first place?”
SIDNEY: “She was dead any way!”
THELMA: “You knew them both. What did she say?”
SIDNEY: “I can’t say!”
THELMA: “You won’t say!”
Mezro: What’s The Old Man say?”
“Nothing.”
Mezro: “The brothers?”
And the girls called them in.