ONE DAY GARRETT ASKED Berg to help him drop off Vespucci’s father’s canoe at the local boatbuilder’s shop. They loaded it onto the roof of his truck and drove north along the bay. It was autumn now and the grass that had been kept green by the summer fog had turned brown. Everything seemed brown: brown buildings, brown trees, brown cows. They listened to the local radio station as they drove, WMUR. The DJ was announcing different community events that week.
“Folks are needed on Sunday to help weed a patch of grass in the commons,” he said. “Lot of weeds in the grass. Please help if you are able.”
When they pulled up the driveway, Berg immediately recognized the house as one of the places he’d broken into. Down to the left was the old farmhouse he’d entered and, up to the right, there were two large barns. In the distance, behind the barns, Berg could make out what looked like a blue school bus. He didn’t remember that school bus being here when he’d entered the farmhouse. He was staring at it, straining to remember whether he’d seen it before, when he realized that Garrett was saying his name.
“Dude,” Garrett said. “Look alive. C’mon, let’s go.”
“Sorry… I just… I thought I might have been here before.”
“You know Alejandro?”
“Who?”
“Alejandro Vega,” Garrett said. “The boatbuilder.”
“What? No.”
“Or Uffa? You go to one of his bus shows some time?”
“Bus shows?”
“Yeah, he has musicians come and play on his bus. I went one night. Got totally shadracked. Stumbled home at 4 a.m.”
“No, I’ve never been to one of those.”
“Oh, well I can’t say I recommend it. Bunch of freaks.”
Instead of walking over to the farmhouse, Garrett led Berg up a short trail toward one of the old barns. A young man with a ponytail was standing by the door, smoking a spliff. He was wearing purple sweatpants, a purple sweatshirt, basketball shoes, and a fanny pack.
“What’s up, Uffa?” Garrett said.
“’Sup, Garrett.”
“This is Berg,” Garrett said.
“Hi Berg.”
“Sorry it took so long to get you this boat,” Garrett said. “Lots of bullshit happening. I won’t go into it. Is Alejandro around?”
“Yeah, he’s here but he’s busy working. JC wants two new boats.”
“How many have you built for him now?”
“I’ve lost count.”
“You know, I’ve still never met that guy. Very mysterious.”
“He’s a good client,” Uffa said.
“People say he’s nuts. I mean, I’ve never met him so I don’t know, but that’s what people say.”
Uffa didn’t respond.
“Like, didn’t he kill someone?” Garrett said. “In Mexico? I know he went postal on Teddy Kearns at the Western that one time.”
Uffa stubbed out his spliff on the bottom of his boot. “Well, how ’bout we haul this boat inside?” he said.
The three men lifted the old canoe off the back of the truck and carried it into the barn. After they set it down on two saw-horses, Berg looked around. It was like being in some kind of cathedral. Tall ceilings and tall windows and boats hanging from the rafters, strung up by thick cords of rope, listing gently in the air. Everything shot through with columns of cold morning light, smelling of straw and saltwater and fresh sawdust. In the center of the shop there was a thirty-foot boat on blocks and, in the back, there was a loft. An older man was on his knees on the floor of the loft, staring at the ground, a pencil in his mouth. He was wearing jeans and sandals and a black turtleneck with holes in it. He did not look up from his work when they entered.
“Well, what do you think?” Garrett asked Uffa.
“There are no bleeding fasteners,” Uffa said, circling the canoe. “And this crack that you were worried about is horizontal, not vertical. So we should be able to just put some bedding compound in there and it will be fine. We’ll redo this rub strake for you, too.”
“Great,” Garrett said. “Thanks, Uffa. Hey, what happened to John? He’s not working in the shop anymore?”
“Cut his hand on the table saw.”
“Oh shit. You know, I thought his finger looked weird last time I saw him at the Western, but I wasn’t sure if it had always been like that.”
“Yeah, he lost a bit of his finger,” Uffa said.
“I figured it might be something like that, but you never know. I met a girl in Willits who was born without a big toe. Some kind of deformity. Ran in the family. Several of them without big toes. Well, anyway.” He looked around the shop, distracted. “We should get back to work. Mangini’s really cracking the whip these days.”
As Berg and Garrett walked back to the truck, a couple of dogs barked at them and then ran off toward some trees, distracted by a squirrel. In the distance, Berg saw a young girl running along the path down to the farmhouse, barefoot and tan, a fistful of blue flowers in her hand.
“I need to go back inside,” Berg said.
“Why?” Garrett said.
“I’ll just be a second.”
“Okay,” Garrett said, taking out his phone and beginning to flip through women on a dating app. “Hurry up.”
Back in the barn, Berg found Uffa leaning over the canoe, picking at a piece of caulking near the stern.
“Oh hey,” Uffa said.
“Hi. I was wondering if you guys need any help now, because Tom’s hand was hurt and all.”
“John?”
“Right, John’s hand, and I was thinking that maybe… I mean I don’t know how to do anything, really… but…”
“You’d have to talk to ask Alejandro about this,” Uffa said.
He led Berg across the shop and up the stairs to the loft.
“Ale,” Uffa said. “This is Berg. He’s interested in becoming an apprentice.”
Now that Berg was up on the floor of the loft, he could see what Alejandro was working on. It was a big sketch of a boat, precise and elegant. The sketch was drawn on multiple pieces of plywood, which had been painted white, and it ran the entire length of the barn. The old man looked up from the drawing and took off his glasses. His eyes were a muddy blue, the color of pond water.
“You would like to be an apprentice?” he asked.
“Yes,” Berg said. “I mean, I think so. I don’t really know what that means.”
“It means you work here four days a week for free for the next month and then, if you like the work and we like each other, I begin to pay a stipend for the next two years. And you can live in that cubby back there, if you like.”
Berg turned around and saw that there was a triangular door at the far end of the loft floor.
“That would be great,” he said.
“Very good then,” Alejandro said. He stood up, hobbled over to Berg, and shook his hand. He smelled like coffee and sweet tobacco. “I hope you find the work rewarding,” he said. “It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. It’s no problem.”
“Okay,” Berg said, desperately hoping he would like it.
“You’ll start next week.”
Berg walked outside and got into Garrett’s truck. As they drove back to Fernwood, he watched the bay on his right. Small coves and reedy beaches, a light fog approaching, wolf-colored and wet. He did some quick calculus to determine whether or not he would be able to afford the apprenticeship. If he kept working at Fernwood a few days a week, he could probably get by. Then he thought about how he’d broken into what he now assumed was Alejandro’s house, months ago. He thought about all the photos of boats and the oilskin map. He thought about the Lortabs and the amulet and how he’d taken a shit in the bathroom. But these memories were too shameful, too sad. He pushed them out of his mind, far out of his mind, to the extent that, weeks later, he was not sure if they were even real.