The Pirate's Daughter by Robert Girardi Page A

pavement, and Wilson opened his eyes and looked up. She was standing above him, sun behind her coppery hair like a halo, one thick hand extended.
    â€œCome on,” she said.
    â€œYou don’t really know anything about me,” he said.
    â€œDon’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time ahead of us for that.”
    Wilson stood up and took Cricket’s hand, and she pulled him over to the bronze mermaids that guard the portals of the Mariners’ Union, their bronze breasts worn to a dull metallic sheen by generations of sailors copping a feel.
    â€œGo ahead,” Cricket said. “Kiss her tit. This one’s Stormy; that one’s Windy. You get your choice.”
    â€œYou’re kidding,” Wilson said.
    â€œNo,” Cricket said. “You’ve got to kiss it. Been a tradition for all first timers for years. Brings good luck on the voyage.”
    Wilson felt stupid about it, but he did what she said. He kissed the bare metal nipple of the nearest mermaid to a faint acrid, brassy taste. Cricket laughed and took his hand again, and they crossed the threshold together into the echoing shadows of the union hall.

4
    In the evening, the wind blew high and steady from the southeast. The sky was touched with green and gold below the dark layer of night. Waves beat against the seawall. The moon pulled the tides of the world. All roads seemed to lead away from home. Duffel bag over his shoulder, Wilson felt the dread curled inside him like a sleeping animal, but he also felt calm and resolved. He walked with Cricket along the boardwalk on Blackpool Island. Black rocks, some large as boulders, led down to the dark water. Aluminum fishing skiffs rocked violently on the waves at their moorings below the pier. Wilson saw the faint silhouette of a departing tanker on the horizon.
    They went to Bazzano’s at the far end of the Blackpool Amusement Pier. Cricket chose a table on the bricks beneath the lights of the loggia, which is open to the sea. A few hipsters slumped at the old tin-topped bar inside, drinking espresso and smoking Frenchcigarettes. The waiter was a squat Peruvian man with a face the color of a beet. He seemed distraught when they both ordered steaks; no one orders steak at Bazzano’s which was famous for its Italian-style seafood. The restaurant was an institution in the city: Open continually since 1908, its walls were decorated with scenes of the simple life in a Sicilian fishing village, painted in bright, fanciful colors that had faded with the century. After a decade or so of decline and a diminishing tourist trade, Bazzano’s had caught on with the young, artsy set that lived in the garrets and lofts of the Bend. The Terminal Street Ferry made the round trip four times a night, bringing Bend bohemians shambling up from the foot of the pier with their sideburns, their ancient thrift store suits, their vague hopes, their beautiful tattooed women fleeing the possibility of life in the suburbs. Bazzano’s, Wilson had read recently in the Life section of the
Dispatch
, was one of the last unvarnished relics of the city our grandparents knew, a metropolis full of gangsters and socialites, bootleg gin, cigarettes, lipstick, and love affairs. Not exactly true, Wilson thought, but modern life was so relentlessly unromantic, and Bazzano’s had somehow managed to maintain a certain atmosphere.
    The steaks were a long time coming. The Peruvian waiter sent a Peruvian boy, perhaps his son, who explained that the steaks had been fetched up from the basement freezer, were hard as rocks, and needed to thaw a bit more before cooking.
    â€œDon’t you people have a microwave?” Cricket said. “Stick the steaks in and switch on the defrost setting.”
    â€œNo microwave,” the boy said.
    â€œMaybe we should change our order to scallops,” Wilson said.
    Cricket shook her head. “No way,” she said. “How much steak do you think we’ll