Inside, the place was dim and poorly insulated. A draft swirled, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, leading most of the patrons to keep their outerwear on. No one cared. They were seafaring men used to living in the same clothes—both outer and inner—for days at a time. They reeked of the sea and all that she brought to them and they brought to her: salt and sweat and fear and diesel and pain and the guts of the animals she nurtured and they hunted. Even if the stench could be borne by tourists, it was not a place outsiders would want to visit. It was a private place: a place of shared experience beyond the grasp of those who had never fought the loneliness of the sea and lost the battle against indifference.

Cookie Landrigan stood behind the bar, wiping down glasses and keeping an eye on the place. It could sometimes be a difficult task, but at ten o’clock on a Tuesday, business in the place was dying. It was an on-shift bar, frequented by the men who worked by day. Those on leave, with a week or more to blow the cash that slipped so easily into and out of their hands, found nicer places downtown where women were welcome and welcoming. The Mariner was for those who had to work the next day, and the days started early enough on the water that the nights were necessarily short.

In one corner, a group off a cargo tanker that had pulled in earlier in the day drank with raised Greek voices and tense good cheer. Cookie knew that rowdy celebration could easily turn sour among men who had been confined together for weeks at a time. He’d served for ten years, slinging hash aboard the USS Warrington, a navy destroyer that spent most of her time in the early seventies trolling off the shore of North Vietnam, bombing anything that moved along the trails at the edge of the jungle. He’d seen the stress of close quarters set best friends at each other’s throats over trifles as simple as a misplaced cigarette. Men who had been together for too long were nitroglycerine—unstable and explosive. The Greeks seemed to be in control of themselves, though.

They’d better be, Cookie thought to himself. He’d always run a tight ship, and he had a heavy wooden club at the ready under the bar. Anyone stepping out of line at the Mariner was dealt with swiftly and in a manner that left a lasting impression. In that way, the Mariner was like most aspects of life along the waterfront.