Page 62 of Prayers for the Prickly

Nah, not with all the older siblings I had, someone always had practice for something or was taking a lesson, and the fish market always needed runners to bring things in from the outdoor booths, so even when I wasn’t being dragged along to something one of them was doing, one of my aunts, uncles, or older cousins who worked on the docks would bring a few of us there to ferry things around when they needed us to.

So not much down time to be found.

Nope, but I never minded. Getting dragged along and told to sit quietly meant I could sketch without any interruptions, and going to the docks meant that Old Mr. Pilsbury let me sit with him and his wife at his booth when I wasn’t needed. He made all kinds of wooden bowls, platters and cutlery, while his wife sold some of the best soup I’ve ever tasted, every kind of chowder, bisque and creamy seafood soup you could imagine, including she-crab soup, which I absolutely love. She taught me how to make it and her garlic and Old Bay biscuits, which complement it beautifully.

Was Mr. Pilsbury the one who taught you how to carve?

One of several who took the time to show me different techniques and the proper way to hold a tool for a desired effect, as well as which tools were best for the type of carving I wanted to do.

It sounds like how things were back home. Just about everyone in the community was willing to share their skills when someone asked them. It was the best way to learn. It just sucks that as the elders pass on, the new elders have less interest in sharing. Too many skills are being forgotten that way.

Or hoarded.

Yeah, that part sucks the worst, especially when the people who gather a bunch of skills decide that the only way they’ll part with even a shred of that knowledge is if you pay them for it when we all know good and damned well they acquired it for free. Talk about spitting in the faces of those who took the time to teach them without asking for anything in return, the point should always be to pay those kinds of opportunities forward when the opportunity arises, not try and take advantage of someone.

If the goddess is kind, karma will teach them the lessons they failed to grasp growing up.

It just shocks me how many people treat life like a competition and won’t lift a finger unless there is something in it for them.

Fortunately, that sort never lasts long around here,Gregor assured me.Most times, they piss someone off within the first year and once that happens, the town sort of turns their backs on them and makes it known without saying that they’ve worn out their welcome here.

Has that happened often?I couldn’t help but think about Ever’s shop and the way business remained so poor that he was only open three days a week now.

Only a handful since I was a kid. Most people figure out right away if this is someplace they want to put down roots and be a part of, or if they need to press on to somewhere that would fit them better. The town leaders don’t take rowdy, disruptive, or destructive behaviors lightly, so they tend to levy fines some folks see as a little outrageous, but only because they are the assholes and idiots having to pay them. Hitting someone in the wallet seems to be the best way to make them see the light and either change their ways or kick rocks.

I wanted to point out that there were other ways of hitting people in the wallet without having to fine them because they’d screwed up, but Ever’s struggles at the shop and with Olly’s mom had already cast enough of a pall over our time together that I decided not to bring up the way the steady decline in business had made it so that Ever couldn’t even afford to advertise anymore and now relied entirely on social media to try and get people to drop in.

And still it wasn’t working.

Dammit. So not going to dwell on that today. Everything that could be done to get people in there Ever had already tried, with very little success. Antgate was still being talked about, especially by Mrs. Zebrowski, who vehemently denied having anything to do with those ants and could frequently be heard complaining to anyone who’d listen, that the shop was trying to blame her when she was the one who’d been given tainted food. I still didn’t believe for one minute that those ants had come from Ever’s shop, but without proof, it and the glaring photo evidence of the ants that had been shared all over social media, there was little we could do to convince the people of this town otherwise.

The place I did the most cloud watching growing up was the pond behind my family’s house.Gregor said, breaking up the thoughts that were threatening to derail our peaceful afternoon.

What did you do, float around on it and daydream?

Nah, if it was wet I had a fishing line in it, but when it was frozen, I liked to lie out on the ice and watch the sky get dark before a storm.

How did you not freeze your ass off?

Snowpants or fur, depending on the mood. Definitely snowpants if I was waiting for enough people to show up for a hockey game.

Still, how was that not cold?

I guess because I wasn’t thinking about it, I was more interested in the silent hush of being outside and watching the way the clouds clumped together and grew thicker right before it snowed. You know how it is, being in a house with so many people you couldn’t turn around without tripping over someone. Every bedroom had a different song coming from it, sometimes more than one, if a radio battle was going on. Pops flat out forbid televisions in the bedroom after my oldest three brothers got into a wrestling match over a remote and a bunkbed and a window got broken.

Okay, I can see the window,I said.Hard plastic against glass never has a very good outcome for the glass, but what happened to the bunk bed?

Have you ever watched professional wrestling?

With the costumes and the crazy characters and shit?

Yeah.

I like to watch from time to time. I don’t really follow it, or know who most of the wrestlers are outside of the few favorites I had as a kid, but yeah, I’ve seen enough of it to start picturing what happened to that bunkbed. Which move wrecked it?

A powerbomb off a dresser through the top bunk which wasn’t in the best of shape anyway, with the way they were always climbing it and jumping off it. I got to see that mess firsthand, from the doorway, right before Pops came in and bellowed the roof off the place.

So a window a roof and a bed had to be repaired I take it.

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