felt like it might split open. His eyes would not blink. Yes, there it was again. A huge amorphous shadow, passing deeper into the mist.
“There’s something out there,” he said, his voice dry as sand.
“Could be another raft,” Gosling said, grabbing a flare pistol to signal with. He got up by George and watched, saw something vague out there, but just for an instant
“It’s not a raft,” George said.
“It’s too far, you can’t tell.”
“Oh,” he breathed, “I could tell.”
Gosling just looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is unless rafts have big green eyes that shine in the dark, that was no raft.”
6
“Hey, Fabrini,” Saks said, “what’s the difference between your mother and a refrigerator?”
“Just fuck off,” Fabrini said.
“Wrong. The difference is that your meat don’t fart when you pull it out of a refrigerator.”
Menhaus giggled. “That’s a good one, Saks. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Yeah, you remember it, dipshit.”
Saks was figuring, according to the luminous dial of his watch, that the sun would be up in an hour or so. And maybe when that happened, it would burn off the damn fog. But he had his doubts. He had doubts about a lot of things, only he wasn’t voicing them. These two… Menhaus and Fabrini… they weren’t much. They were both scared white and maybe, inside, Saks was, too. But he couldn’t let them see that. Way he was figuring things, he was in charge and he had to set an example for those two wet-ends. He started telling them what he was really thinking about all this, that it was the mother of all clusterfucks, and those two pussies would be pissing themselves and calling for their mothers.
No, somebody had to exhibit some balls here and Saks figured the mantle had fallen to him.
What he was really thinking about this whole mess was not good. Maybe they were still in the Atlantic and maybe they’d been vomited somewhere else. Didn’t much matter when you came down to it. What mattered is how they handled it and how they were going to stay alive.
Fabrini was the real problem here. He kept saying things that were getting Menhaus all worked up. And Saks couldn’t have that. Couldn’t have him going on about sea monsters and shit like that. Sure, they’d all heard those sounds out in the fog, the sounds of men being eaten, but if they were going to keep their heads out here, they couldn’t be dwelling on those things.
That’s why Saks was riding Fabrini all the time. Keep him in line, keep him on edge so he couldn’t spend his time undermining authority here. That and the fact that he didn’t like Fabrini, him and his Mediterranean good looks and muscles. Kind of guy women went for. Kind of guy that, down deep, maybe Saks felt threatened by.
Fabrini kept muttering something under his breath. Saks could hear him. Figured maybe he was losing it. That happened, Saks figured he’d feed his dumb wop ass to the fishies… or whatever else might be out there.
“Fabrini? What the hell are you doing? Whispering sweet nothings to Menhaus or what?”
“I think he’s praying,” Menhaus said.
“Are you praying, Fabrini?”
“What the hell’s it to ya?”
“Maybe,” Menhaus began, choking on his words, “we should just leave him alone, Saks. You don’t wanna bother a guy when-”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right, Menhaus. I’d sure as hell hate to interrupt John the Fucking Bapist in his daily devotion.”
Fabrini kept mumbling. He was making a conscious effort to ignore Saks and the world in general. Not that Saks was going to put up with it.
“Maybe we should pray too, Menhaus. Whaddya say?”
“I’m not much on that.”
“Oh, come on, let’s. Me and you and shit-fer-brains here can hold hands and pray to God and when we’re done hail-Marying we can have a nice little circle jerk, just the three of us.” He laughed shallowly. “How’s that sound, Fagbrini? Maybe we can work our way up on this crate and have a clusterfuck.”
Fabrini kept praying, his eyes squeezed tight, his ears all but shut to the insults being directed at him. He hadn’t prayed since he was boy. He’d pretty much written off God and religion as a bullshit sedative for the masses. But like any man in crisis, he was willing to try anything.
In the gloom, Saks was keeping an eye on Menhaus. They’d both started losing it after those sounds in the fog, but Menhaus more than Fabrini because Fabrini had some balls and Menhaus was the sort that needed to be led. He was the sort that needed someone to hold his dick for him, show him where to piss and what to wipe. He wanted somebody to make his decisions for him, tell him what he was supposed to think and how he was supposed to feel about things.
Guy like that, you could lead real easy.
Right then, Menhaus wasn’t doing so good. That business in the fog, those sounds, it was unraveling him.
“Listen to Fabrini there, Menhaus, what a fucking waste. Lucky you got me here. You got any good jokes so I don’t have to listen to Fagbrini praying for a bigger rod?”
Menhaus could fire one off after another most days. He was a repository of dirty jokes and salty anecdotes. Right then, though, he was having trouble. Staring into the fog and having trouble with a lot of things. “Um… let me think here… I… oh yeah, what did one condom say to the other condom when they passed by the gay bar?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s go in there and get shitfaced.”
Saks laughed until he started coughing. “I gotta better one. What does a sunken ship and Fabrini’s asshole have in common?”
“Can’t say.”
“Dead sea-men.”
Menhaus started chuckling and stopped.
“Listen, motherfucker,” Fabrini growled, snapped out of his devotions, “you better knock this shit off. I’m warning you, fatass. I’m not in the mood for yer crap.”
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Saks said.
“He’s just kidding you,” Menhaus said.
Saks sighed. “Sure I am, Fabrini. You know I’d never do anything to hurt your feelings. You mean too much to me, sweetheart.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“I would but you’d get all excited.”
Fabrini resumed praying.
“Hey, Menhaus,” Saks said. “You hear about the time Fagbrini got VD? He goes to the doctor and the doctor tells him, yeah, you got the clap. ‘You know who gave it you?’ the doc says. Fabrini says, ‘No, silly, I never saw his face, he was behind me all the time.’”
Menhaus couldn’t keep from laughing at that one. He could feel Fabrini glaring at him, yet he couldn’t stop laughing. He laughed and laughed and then he stopped because he got to thinking maybe was laughing too much. Maybe it wasn’t that funny after all. Maybe, maybe-
“Jesus Christ, Saks, what the hell is this all about? I think I’m losing my mind or something. Where are we?”
“He don’t know, Menhaus,” Fabrini said, his words full of dread. “Nobody knows where we are. This place… this is where all those ships go, the ones that disappear. Sometimes they drift back out, but there ain’t no people on ‘em.”
“Shut the hell up, fuckhead,” Saks snapped at him. “You don’t know shit. Goddamn moron.”
