A Mile Down by David Vann Read Free Book Online Page A

week, there was one section on the starboard side, near the boarding ladder, that I could actually pull out for almost a foot.
    Grendel’s deck caulking had been twenty years old and showed no signs of this. One afternoon Ercan and I inspected the deck thoroughly and found loose seams from the bow all the way back to the poop deck on the stern. It was all coming up.
    I waited until Nancy and Kevin went for a paddle in the kayaks and called Seref on Ercan’s cell phone.
    Seref didn’t want to believe it. “This cannot be true,” he said. “There is some other problem. The Cekomastik does not come up like this.”
    I asked Seref to replace the seams in Gocek, between charters, and this became a daily fight over the phone, without progress. He had the advantage of time. If he delayed long enough on anything he didn’t want to do or didn’t want to do my way, I’d have to accept his solution in the end, because I had these charters to run and then I was leaving for Mexico.
    We arrived in Gocek at the end of our first charter, said goodbye to Kevin, and greeted Seref and the construction crew. They had brought a lot of materials and equipment with them, including the AC units, the roller-furling and sail, and the marine plywood and mahogany, but they hadn’t brought anything to recaulk the deck.
    I pulled Seref aside to walk down the dock while the men unloaded everything. The waterfront in Gocek is lovely, the small town tucked into the head of a large bay with dozens of forested islands and a mountain rising directly behind it. The late morning was sunny and hot.
    â€œYou must understand, David,” Seref said. “I don’t make any money on this boat. I take nothing. When it is all finished, you give me some commission, what you think is right. But I don’t take any money now. All is for the boat.”
    I listened to this and knew it was crap. He was getting a commission every time I bought a nail or a piece of wood.
    â€œI don’t make any money on this boat,” he said. “I build it like it is my boat. I try to do everything right.”
    â€œI appreciate your efforts,” I said. “But the deck caulking should last at least twenty years. This deck caulking lasted about a week. So it has to be replaced. And I’m not going to pay. I already paid for caulking the deck.”
    â€œDavid, really you push too much. I cannot do this. Where do I get the money for this?”
    â€œI don’t care,” I said. “Just do it.”
    We walked on without speaking for a while, then Seref said, “You do not know me.”
    I didn’t respond. I actually liked Seref, and this was difficult for me. I didn’t like to push, but I had to answer to my lenders. It didn’t make sense to pay for the deck twice on a new boat. Seref was going to have to fix it.
    Talvi, the poet who would be teaching the writing workshop during this charter, arrived in the evening, followed by Steve, a friend I had invited on the trip for free. As long as the trips were nearly empty and still had to be run, I could easily invite a friend.
    The two of them were thrilled to be in Turkey. They had dinner with Nancy while I kept working on the boat.
    In the morning, we had just enough time to clean up from the construction projects, unload all of the workmen and their tools, and finish provisioning. We had only two paying guests: a friend of mine named Cristal and her friend Jen. Both were getting discounts, so there were no guests paying full fare.
    Just before we left, I called Amber in California. I was actually pulling in some new loans despite everything, but I wasn’t keeping up with my bills. The loans were only $10,000 to $20,000 at a time now. It was a week into August, and so far I had accumulated about $450,000 in private loans, far more than I had thought I would need for the entire project. That didn’t count the $125,000 I owed on just my one