“Do you think we’ll do anything today?”
“Never know. There’s some awfully big fish out there this time of year. Are you going clean up to the
Isaacs?”
“The boys want to go up there.”
“We ought to get going right after breakfast. I’m not figuring to cook lunch. I’ve got conch salad and potato salad and beer and I’ll make up sandwiches. We’ve got a ham that came over on the last run-boat and I’ve got some lettuce and we can use mustard and that chutney. Mustard doesn’t hurt kids,
does it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We never had it when I was a kid. Say, that chutney’s good, too. You ever eat it in a sandwich?”
“No.”
“I didn’t know what it was for when you first got it and I tried some of it like a marmalade. It’s damned
good. I use it sometimes on grits.”
“Why don’t we have some curry pretty soon?”
“I got a leg of lamb coming on the next run-boat. Wait till we eat off it a couple of times—once, I guess,
with that young Tom and Andrew eating, and we’ll have a curry.”
“Fine. What do you want me to do about getting off?”
“Nothing, Tom. Just get them going. Want me to make you a drink? You aren’t working today. Might as
well have one.”
“I’ll drink a cold bottle of beer with breakfast.”
“Good thing. Cut that damn phlegm.”
“Is Joe here yet?”
“No. He went after the boy that’s gone for bait. I’ll put your breakfast out there.”
“No, let me take her.”
“No, go on in and drink a cold bottle of beer and read the paper. I’ve got her all ironed out for you. I’ll
bring the breakfast.”
Breakfast was corned-beef hash, browned, with an egg on top of it, coffee and milk, and a big glass of
chilled grapefruit juice.
Thomas Hudson skipped the coffee and the grapefruit juice and drank a very cold
bottle of Heineken beer with the hash.
“I’ll keep the juice cold for the kids,” Eddy said. “That’s some beer, isn’t it, for early in the morning?”
“It would be pretty easy to be a rummy, wouldn’t it, Eddy?”
“You’d never make a rummy. You like to work too well.”
“Drinking in the morning feels awfully good though.”
“You’re damned right it does. Especially something like that beer.”
“I couldn’t do it and work though.”
“Well, you’re not working today so what’s the goddam problem? Drink that one up and I’ll get you
another.”
“No. One’s all I want."
~Ernest Hemingway (from Islands In The Stream)
