Gravity & Good Manners

Boy, Cap said as loud and clear as a church bell to my brother, You dull witted?  Step off that net 'fore you fall in and drown!  Do as I tell ya, boy!

The men on the wharf shuffled their feet uncomfortably and found other places to look in the silence that followed and my brother's face twisted and darkened with anger as he stepped away and back from the hauling nets.  Although barely ten, his eyes filled with hate at being publicly shamed.

I'm smarter than you, you old son of a whore! he yelled back and shook one small fist impotently, I'm smarter than all of you!

John Sullivan stepped out of the shadows, silent as a cat and moving with uncommon speed.  He delivered one sharp cuff to the side of my brother's head and sent him reeling back against the crowd of fishermen.

No, you ain't, boy, he said calmly, And somebody oughta wash yer mouth out with soap.

My brother, now thoroughly humiliated and white faced with rage, stumbled to his feet, took a few shaky steps toward the fisherman and spit.  Long John sighed and reached out one hand, snatched him up by his collar and held him out over the open water.  He dangled and struggled, let loose a stream of profanity and threats, and then in one unforgettable moment, John let go and I watched in unadulterated shock and glee as my brother fell - no, plummeted - in the ocean below.

For a shattering second or two, no one spoke.  No one moved.  Then Long John's brother stepped forward, cast a cursory glance over one of the pitch stained pilings, straightened up and shrugged.

Gravity, Jacob Sullivan said dryly, Ain't she a bitch.

Can he swim?  Cap called up.

Like an eel! I yelled back, remembering those classes at the YWCA but still halfway hoping he might drown.

My mother didn't speak to John Sullivan for a week and we were all forbidden to set another foot on the breakwater for the rest of the summer but the very next morning Nana made a fresh blackberry cobbler and slipped me a fifty cent piece to discreetly deliver it to the Sullivan brothers.  She winked at me and said she wished she'd been there.