A Jaws Retelling

Don't Tell Me Tonight

In all the time she could remember, which was albeit a very short window of time, Ruth had never been so nauseous. As soon as the Orca set sail with its ragtag team of reluctant sailors, Ruth had been planted firmly at the stern of the ship, getting violently seasick and shooing the men away from her.

"Y'oughta thank her, chief," Quint said with a chuckle. "Long as she's doin' that you don't have to sling any chum." Brody ran a hand down his sweaty face, hurting because Ruth was in pain and getting equally nauseous from the sound of her retching and the thought of slinging chum. Hooper just sat off to the side, playing solitaire on the top deck, moping and looking utterly miserable.

"I wish I could do something for her," Brody lamented.

"You can," Quint said. "You can put aside all your shit with your wife and focus on getting this son of a bitch shark."

"My wife—?"

Quint chuckled again, and it grated on Brody's nerves only because it was always heavily laced with a tone that insinuated he knew more than he was letting on, and usually, he did.

"Aw, come on chief. You don't think I don't notice what goes on with my crew?" Quint said. "I may not want as many shipmates as I have but as long as I'm stuck with you all I happen to pick up on a thing or two. Best advice I can give ya, chief? Leave your emotions on the dock when we sail. They only get in the way." Wordlessly, so as not to instigate an unnecessary altercation, Quint signaled with a nod to the quietly fuming biologist on the deck.

"I know," Brody said. He didn't know what else to say.

"Jesus H. Christ," Ruth said, shakily walking over to where Brody and Quint idly sat. Quint smiled, knowing she didn't know who Jesus H. Christ was, and that she must have picked up the expletive from her short time hanging around him. Brody looked over at her warily.

"You okay?" he asked. Ruth nodded, clearly lying.

"Well, don't get too comfortable there, Fireball," Quint said, passing her a bottle of tonic water nonetheless. "We've got work to do. Chief, I'm gonna need you to start chumming. And Fireball, I'm gonna have Mr. Hooper up there teach you how to steer the boat."

Quint wasn't any more eager than Brody to send a still-indignant Ruth back to Hooper's charge again, but on the Orca, whatever needed doing came first, and for the moment he had nowhere else to put her. He felt bad, truly he did, though many thought the fisherman incapable of empathy, as Ruth frowned painfully but obeyed Quint's order without a word.

Ruth climbed the boat's wooden ladder with sweaty hands, and as she walked she kept her eyes glued to the ground to avoid noticing how vast and overwhelming was the ocean around them. Staring at the floorboards beneath her didn't stop Ruth from "accidentally" trodding on Hooper's solitaire game, taking his seven of spades with her on the bottom of her shoe.

Hooper looked up and was about to protest before he thought better of it, and Ruth, in her own head and without so much as turning to see his face, dared him to say something.

"Quint says you have to teach me how to steer the boat."

"Turn left for left," Hooper bit. "And right to go right."

"Oh, is that what they teach you at your fancy marine school?" Ruth was glad she had her back turned to the scientist so that he could not see how shocked she was by the venom in her own remark. Evidently it was a fire Quint had known was there all along; Ruth was starting to have a little understanding as to why the all-knowing mariner called her "Fireball."

"At least I can remember what I learned in school," Hooper mumbled, half-hoping she hadn't heard once the words quietly left his mouth. They hung painfully in the air like small clouds of toxic smog, but whether Ruth heard them or not, he got no indication.