Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone

checklist.”
    â€œYou’d have to leave her in the water overnight then. Tied up to a mooring.”
    â€œWell, I’d lock her up,” Browne told him. He saw the man exchange looks with one of the yard workers behind him.
    After a moment Fay said, “O.K., you men go home. I’ll help him.”
    â€œIf you’re gonna stay, Pat,” the Down Easter said, “we’ll stay too.”
    Fay took off his hat and his camel’s hair coat and set them down on a desk.
    â€œI’m sorry to trouble you,” Browne said. “I thought the boat would be in the water.” It seemed to him that there was something sinister in Fay’s manner.
    â€œNo problem,” Fay said in a distantly cheery voice. He turned to the boatwrights. “This is Mr. Browne, fellas. One of our salesmen.” Browne did not correct him. Then Fay introduced the boatwrights, who were named Crawford and Fanelli. Browne nodded without looking at them. Fay’s air of patient virtue was getting on his nerves.
    â€œWe know him,” Crawford said. “He keeps his boat here.”
    â€œRight,” Fanelli said.
    â€œSee, Mr. Browne,” Fay said. “They know you.”
    He and Fay went down to the dock. Crawford and Fanelli sauntered along behind. The evening was charged with everyone’s stifled anger.
    When the catamaran was in the water, Crawford, the Maine man, let him into the shed to get his sails.
    â€œGuess you don’t know who Pat is,” Crawford said as Browne lifted the sails out of a locker. “Just the damn chief designer of this company.”
    At that point, Browne recalled meeting Fay in California. He was a former Navy mustang who had gone to work for Altan as an engineer.
    â€œGlad to have his help,” he said to Crawford. “Yours too.”
    The three men stood around as he cleared his outboard. They watched him pick up the motor and heave it into the brackets. The effort of hauling it himself left him breathless and sweaty. When he climbed into the boat, he saw that Fay had stripped to shirtsleeves and that there was a broad grease stain across the front of his white shirt and striped tie.
    â€œBetter check your running lights,” Fay called to him. Fanelli untied the boat’s stern line, flinging it into the water with a disgusted motion.
    â€œThanks again,” Browne called to them.
    After several pulls, he got the Evinrude to turn over. With his sails still bagged, he motored off into the twilight shadows of the Upper Bay. Waterborne at last, he had to laugh at the absurdity of his own situation. He had come out on the merest impulse. Then the yardmen’s resistance had provoked him into following through. Left to himself, it seemed, he might have changed his mind entirely. Now he was riding the swells off Staten Island with absolutely no purpose in mind.
    For a while he headed for the lights of Manhattan island, dodging around Robbens Reef with Katie’s Light to port. The city lights reminded him of the summer after his plebe year. His ship had steamed up the harbor and anchored in the Hudson. Out on the town, midshipmen had been less well received than they expected. He had fallen in love with Anne that summer.
    He heard the throbbing of a diesel and turned to see a lighter coming up behind him at a good ten knots. The craft swung around him, passing to starboard. A bearded long-haired man in the wheelhouse looked down at him in astonishment. Browne was amused at the idea of how strange a spectacle he must present to passing craft. A butterfly in the gasworks, an ecological commando in a boat full of limpet mines. He waved to the lighter’s pilot. The man put his hand out the wheelhouse porthole and made the horned sign against the evil eye.
    In mid-harbor, he turned his back on the lights and Liberty’s statue. Hard by the Bayonne shore, he skirted a nun buoy and passed under the lighted fantail of an enormous container