The Blue Hole

A story from the Pine Barrens

The Blue Hole

by Thomas Pluck

Jerry knelt by his bedroom door and hoped he wouldn’t be seen. He sneaked out of bed every time his uncle killed a case with his father. Uncle Ozzy had green and blue tattoos up and down his hairy arms, a bristly black beard and eyes black and shiny as a doll’s. He had a voice that shook dust off the shelves, and he told the best stories. Like the one about the Marine he beat in a bar fight by wrestling him to the floor and smothering him with his belly.

“Looks like we’ve picked up a third,” Uncle Ozzy said, pointing to Jerry with one sausage finger. His middle ones were both inked with feathers. For flipping the bird.

Jerry had gotten in trouble for drawing feathers on his fingers with a black Bic pen. The Principal made him scrub them off with green Lava soap.

“Thought you were in bed,” his father said. He was as skinny as his brother was stout, his elbows white and scratchy as a rat tail file.

“It’s okay, Richie.” Ozzy flashed a smile of cracked tombstones. “You like my stories, don’t you?”

Jerry nodded.

“I’ve got to call my ride. Then I’ll tell you one more story.” He used the beige phone mounted on the kitchen wall to call the taxi company listed on a business card he took from his pocket. Then he sat down hard before the dead soldiers on the kitchen table.

“’Bout time this boy had a beer, ain’t it?”

His father’s wrinkles cut his face with thought. “Maybe.”

Jerry climbed into an empty chair. The one his mother would be sitting in, if she wasn’t serving cocktails at the country club. Uncle Ozzy always stopped by when his ship was in port—whether it was Philly, Newark, Brooklyn, or even Baltimore, he always found a ride—but Jerry’s mom always seemed to be working when he visited.

His father pulled the tab off a can of Rhinegold and set it in front of him. “See if you like it.”

Jerry sipped, then fought not to make a face as the bitterness sizzled on his tongue.

“See, he likes it.” Ozzy laughed. His belly didn’t shake. It was as round and solid as a cast iron kettle. “Well, what story you want to hear?”

Jerry shrugged.

“I know you got a favorite.”

He wanted to hear about the naked lady who led him to his ship, but the thought made his ears flush red. “I like ’em all. I want to join the Merchant Marine too, when I’m old enough.”

“Hell you will,” his father clucked. “You’re not raking cranberries, either. The hardest work I want to see you do is pushing your chair away from a desk.”

Jerry had helped his father when the Haynes flooded the cranberry bogs just a month before. It was thrilling to watch the ruby and green berries float to the surface, but it was hard. Like all the work his mom and dad did, it left them exhausted and broken at the end of the day.

“It’s a good life, rough sometimes. You don’t need to work at a desk, as long as you’re busting your brain and not your back. I ever tell you the story of why I joined?”

“No, sir.”

“Take another nip of that beer. You might not wanna finish it when I’m done.”