The Reef

rain that was falling in steady, sodden sheets, Matthew remained outside under the rusted, leaking awning.
    “What is this slop?” Buck demanded, clattering into the tiny kitchen.
    LaRue didn’t bother to glance up from the book he was reading. “It is bouillabaisse. A family recipe.”
    “Slop,” Buck said again. “French slop.” Unshaven, wearing the clothes he’d slept in, Buck slammed open a cabinet door in search of a bottle. “I don’t want it smelling up my house.”
    In answer, LaRue turned a page.
    “Where the fuck’s my whiskey?” Buck stabbed his hand into the cupboard, knocking over and scattering the meager supplies. “I had a bottle in here, goddamn it.”
    “Me, I prefer a good Beaujolais,” LaRue commented. “At room temperature.” He heard the screen door open and marked his place in his Faulkner novel. The evening show was about to begin.
    “You been stealing my whiskey, you fucking Canuk?”
    As LaRue’s tooth gleamed in a snarl, Matthew stepped in. “There isn’t any whiskey. I got rid of it.”
    Hampered more by his morning’s drinking than by his prosthesis, Buck turned on him. “You got no right to take my bottle.”
    Who was this man, Matthew thought, this stranger? If Buck was somewhere in that bloated, unshaven face, in those red-rimmed, bleary eyes, he could no longer see him. “Right or not,” he said calmly, “I got rid of it. Try the coffee.”
    In response, Buck grabbed the pot from the stove and hurled it against the wall.
    “So don’t try the coffee.” Because he was tempted to ball them into fists, Matthew tucked his hands into his pockets. “You want to drink, you’re going to have to do it somewhere else. I’m not going to watch you kill yourself.”
    “What I do’s my business,” Buck muttered, crunching over broken glass and slopped coffee.
    “Not while I’m around.”
    “You’re never around, are you?” Buck nearly skidded on the wet tile, righted himself. His face went pink with humiliation. Every step he took was a reminder. “You blow in here when you please, and blow out the same way. You got no business, boy, telling me what to do in my own house.”
    “It’s my house,” Matthew said softly. “You’re just dying in it.”
    He could have dodged the blow. He took Buck’s fist on his jaw philosophically. In some perverse part of his brain, he was pleased to note that his uncle could still pack a punch.
    While Buck stared at him, Matthew wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m going out,” he said and left.
    “Go away, walk away.” Buck shambled to the door to shout after him over the drumming rain. “Walking away’s what you’re best at. Why don’t you keep walking? Nobody here needs you. Nobody needs you.”
    LaRue waited until Buck lumbered back toward the bedroom, then rose to turn down the heat on his stew. He took his jacket, and Matthew’s, and slipped out of the trailer.
    They had only been in Florida three days, but LaRue knew just where Matthew would go. Adjusting the brimof his cap so that the rain sluiced off in front of his face, he made his way down to the marina.
    It was nearly deserted, and the lock was off the door of the concrete garage that Matthew rented by the month. He found Matthew inside, sitting in the bow of a nearly finished boat.
    It was a double hull, almost as wide as it was long. LaRue’s first glimpse of it after they’d arrived had impressed him. It was a pretty thing, not dainty by any means, but sturdy and tough. The way LaRue preferred his boats, and his women.
    Matthew had designed the deck section to lie across the top of the hulls so that it would stay clear in rough seas. Each bow had an inward curve that would create a cushioning effect and lead to not only a smoother ride, but a faster one. There was plenty of storage area and seating. But the genius of the design in LaRue’s opinion was the sixty square feet of open deck forward.
    Treasure room, LaRue thought.
    All it lacked were the finishing touches. The paint and brightwork, the bridge equipment, navigational devices. And, LaRue thought, a suitable name.
    He climbed up, impressed again by the sharp, cutting look of the bows. It would take the water, he mused. It would fly.
    “So, when you finish this thing, eh?”
    “I’ve got the time now, don’t I?” Matthew envisioned the rails. Brass and teak. “All I need’s the money.”
    “Me, I got plenty of money.” Thoughtfully, LaRue took out a