Key West

Early on his first morning in town he got out of bed and put on his short-sleeved khaki shirt, Khaki shorts and leather sandals. He wanted to look the harbor over first, then find a cafe. In addition to coffee, he figured it would be a good place to listen and learn something of the local charter boat captains.

Most of the sport fishermen had sailed hours earlier for fishing grounds fifty miles or more off shore, but many of the commercial crews remained in port tending to maintenance and repairs.

The sun crept above the golden rim of a cloudless horizon. The sea gradually changed from slate gray to deep blue. He could already feel sweat oozing from his armpits and inching down his ribs.

Closer at hand the harbor held a stale fish odor--not repulsive but noticeable. A faint cloud of diesel exhaust lay low over the water where a boat had just departed. Off the end of the main pier a flock of gulls cried stridently, squabbling over refuse lying on the water.

He heard an engine crank, then the clatter of an idling diesel. When they first started they always reminded him of someone shaking a tin can with a half dozen marbles in it.

Halfway down a floating dock he stopped by a trawler where a man squatted on deck, parts of a winch strewn about him.

"How're things going?" he asked.

"Not too good right now."

"What's wrong with the winch?"

"Broke."

"Do you know what's wrong with it?"

"Yep."

He looked at lines going to outriggers, now standing perpendicular to the deck. "Lots of rigging to take care of," he said, stroking his white beard.

"Yep."

"You own this boat?"

"Yep."

"How many in your crew?"

The man reached into a tool chest and drew out a 15/16-inch box-end wrench. "Depends," he said.

"Depends on what?"

The man turned with an exasperated expression. "You writing a book?"

"Why, yes," the man called Papa said. "As a matter of fact I am."

Story ID:	2740
Written by:	James Baker (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Writers' Circle
Story type:	Fiction
Location:	Key West FL USA
Year:	1946