“Kid! Get your sweet dumb ass over here right now and look at this!” Rising from the stool, Drew walked warily to where Doris stood, in a dim, airless corner of the drying shed, near one of the storage rooms. (This happened yesterday afternoon.) He held out a Sheepswool sponge Drew had clipped. “This bloody thing looks worse’n it did when it come outta the goddamned ocean. What the ’ell are you thinkin’ about?” Instead of apologizing and promising to do better, as he had on previous days, Drew replied, “Numbers, sir.” Doris, squinting: “What d’yuh mean, numbers? What numbers? What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy?” And Drew, affirming his sanity, said that he had been thinking about angles and the numbers of those angles, because numbers and angles and equations were as beautiful to him as poetry was to other people. To that declaration, Doris had no reply. He only stared down at Drew, who could not control the trembling in his lower lip. Doris stared for a long time and in a strange way, his expression hard and gentle at the same time: that big red ham of a face, and the hams for hands, one of which rose toward Drew’s face, causing him to flinch. “Take it easy, kid, I ain’t gonna smack you. Are you scared of me?” Drew thought it best to nod. “Well, you should be, ’cause I could hurt you if I wanted, but right now, I don’t want to, because you’re a nice-lookin’ kid.” Now the hand rested softly against Drew’s cheek, its touch making him squirm, as if it were some clammy, slimy thing from the sea’s bottom. “Too bad a nice-lookin’ kid like you is so bloody fuckin’ dumb and crazy. The craziest little bugger I ever met. Numbers! Nah, I ain’t gonna hurt you. What I’m thinkin’ I oughtta do is tell Sweeting to fire your sweet dumb ass for all the messin’ up you’re doin’. Want me to do that?” Drew, a fluttering in his throat, shook his head. “Bloody right you don’t, ’cause around here, it’s a full week’s pay for a full week’s work.” Doris looked one side to the other, his hand falling from Drew’s cheek to his collar, twisting it. “But you gotta be punished for messin’ up like you have. Taught a lesson once for all. C’mere.” He jerked Drew toward the door of the storage room, kicked it open with a knee, and dragged Drew inside, amid mounds of groomed sponges. “Takin’ you to the woodshed, kid, and you ain’t gonna make a peep, are you? Not one bloody little word.” He whipped off his belt and wrapped part of it around his hand and told Drew to take his pants down. When Drew refused, he grabbed one of his braces, Drew spinning and bolting for the door to be pulled back by the elastic braces like a ball on a rubber band. He spun again, and one brace popped its buttons. “Wanta make it hard on yourself, do you, that’s fine with me.” Doris, breathing hard now, his lips wet, snatched the other brace, but Drew lunged away with such force that it, too, broke loose, leaving Doris holding the pair and Drew free to run, which he did, holding up his trousers with his hands, Doris shouting after him, “Hey, kid! I wasn’t really goin’ to! Was only trying to scare you! You keep your little mouth shut, or I’ll …” But by then Drew had fled outside to the dock and out of earshot.