BUT COLEMAN DID BEGIN to pay Alejandro back. That fall he brought weekly installments over to the house, along with a few fish from the day’s haul. Based on the wide variety of fish Coleman brought over, Alejandro assumed that the fish were being caught in a questionable manner. He suspected that Coleman was using a beach seine, a fishing method that Alejandro had practiced himself, back in the day, before it was deemed illegal. He asked Coleman if he was doing this, and Coleman denied it. In the end, Alejandro decided not to press the issue.
Shortly thereafter, Alejandro received a call from Celia, an old friend in Pine Gulch. She wanted to commission him to build a sloop. Alejandro considered turning down the job. He wanted to get started on the sea-farming project, but Celia was offering a lot of money, and she was a friend, so he decided to go ahead with it.
Celia wanted the boat to be capable of cruising but she also wanted to be able to put it on a trailer. Alejandro designed a twenty-eight-foot lapstrake, a double-ender, with a nine-and-a-half-foot beam and a six-foot draft. It would be a swift boat, Scandinavian in style and reminiscent of a Spidsgatter. He planned to use the leftover pepperwood from JC’s sloop for the planking and oak for the sawn frames.
When he was done with the design, Alejandro let Berg help him with the lofting.
“Most people hate lofting,” he told Berg. “But I’ve always loved it.”
Alejandro did all of his designing and lofting by hand, using long wooden battens to draw fair lines. It required a meticulous focus, but it rewarded you for that focus. There was nothing more satisfying than making a slight alteration and watching that alteration ripple through the rest of the design, relieving it of its imperfections.
When the lofting was finished, Alejandro called Uffa and asked him if he could move back to help them with the boat. He came clattering into Alejandro’s backyard the next day at 11 p.m.
“I drank three 5-hour Energy drinks to get here,” he said. “I was down in Joshua Tree.” Berg and Alejandro were in the living room, reading. Rebecca and the others had gone to bed a couple of hours ago.
“Why do you drink those?” Alejandro asked, standing up to hug him.
“It’s like Adderall,” he said, embracing Alejandro. “Makes everything easier. It’s basically just Adderall you can buy in a store.”
“I’ve never tried an Adderall,” Alejandro said.
“Don’t,” Uffa said. “You’re like eighty years old. You’d probably have a heart attack.”
Uffa walked into the kitchen and began rifling through the pantry. “You have any cereal? Or like a bagel or something?” he asked.
“There’s some leftover cheese and bread,” Alejandro said.
“Excellent.”
Uffa took a hunk of bread and cheese and came back into the living room.
“Where’s Demeter?” Berg asked.
“Dropped her at her mom’s before I came here,” he said. “You guys hear anything about Pat and JC?”
“The trial is dragging on,” Alejandro said. “But they’re looking at ten years.”
“Fuck. For real?” Uffa said. “That’s messed up.”
“It’s terrible. But they haven’t been convicted yet. I’m hoping they’ve got good lawyers.”
“What about Lammy?”
“She seems to be okay. And we haven’t heard anything from JC. He’s still in Mexico.”
“Damn, man. That drug is going to be legal in like two years, too.”
“But it’s not legal yet,” Alejandro said.
When Uffa finished his snack, Alejandro took out the sketch of the new boat. He talked about the kinds of wood he wanted to use and the amount of time he thought the project would take. Uffa examined the lines.
“So the cylinder’s tilted this way?” he asked.
“No, it’s tilted this way,” Alejandro said. “You’re looking straight down.”
“And this is the radius? Where does it cross the buttock lines? Ah, right here, I see.”
When they were done looking at the lines, Berg helped Uffa move the bus behind the shop. There was a slight incline and it was a delicate process, especially at night. As Uffa backed in, Berg held his cell phone light in the air, directing him like an air traffic controller. Once they were done, Uffa said he needed to go to sleep. Berg hugged him and said goodnight, but before he turned to leave, Uffa stopped him.
“You doing all right?” he said.
“You mean because of all the JC stuff?” Berg said. “Naw, I’m not worried about that.”
“No, I mean, how are you doing? You look a little… I don’t know, you look different.”
“I’m just tired,” Berg said.
“Just tired,” Uffa nodded.
“Yeah, we were working on Coleman’s boat for such long hours and I feel like I still haven’t caught up on sleep.”
“Oh, okay. Well go get some rest then.”
“I will.”
“It’s good to see you, Berg.”
Before going up into the cubby he stopped in the shop bathroom. He turned on the light and examined himself in the mirror, something he hadn’t done since the day of the Oysters game. The eggplant-colored depressions under his eyes had returned and he had lost weight. This part was strange, because it seemed like he was eating three square meals a day with the family. He had no explanation for it. Maybe he had a tapeworm, or maybe he wasn’t eating as much as he thought he was.
When Berg got to the cubby he lifted up his mattress and examined his dwindling stash. Maybe fifteen Oxys and twenty Perc 30s. Lots of Adderall. When the opioids ran out it was over, he told himself. This time it was finally over. He could deal with the headaches. They probably wouldn’t even be that bad anymore. It had been months since the second concussion.