I found Headwind in his boatport, working on his boat, doing it the hard way. That’s his style. It’s why we all call him Headwind. I forget his real name.

His boatport looks like a carport because it is. His skiff on its trailer is in water only during a hard rain and a couple of hours afterward.

Mrs. Headwind renamed it a boatport when she noticed the space between his new boat and her car is 21 inches narrower than it was with the old boat alongside. Good thing she’s slim.

I wondered why Headwind was dragging a heavy magnet on a string across the asphalt driveway.

“I dropped a nut,” he told me. “I found the washer pretty quickly but the nut is smaller, without much surface to shine in the sun, so I can’t see it.”

The boat’s bow cap was detached from the hull because he was replacing the mounting block for his trolling motor. The block’s bolts are fastened underneath.

The bow cap fastens to the hull with 18 little machine screws, 18 washers and 18 locking nuts, also little. Headwind counted them last time he tinkered there.

Like all boat-folk who do their own fixing and changing, Headwind has plenty of hardware fasteners. Stainless steel, you can bet, in every size the boat builder used.

Good for him. Even better if he knew where to look when he needs those. That’s why he tries hard not to lose any, and it’s also why he owns that magnet.

Removing the screws is easy. He does have to be careful not to drop any of them or washers or nuts, or they’ll surely disappear.

That’s easy too, especially if you have arthritis in both thumbs and forefingers like Headwind.

The last time he dropped a screw in the carport, Mrs. Headwind found it in her left rear tire. She was in a hurry, so Headwind changed the tire without changing his clothes. He got grease all over his semi-new pants and had to buy new ones.

Headwind’s first thought for this job was that he had other things to do. His second thought was to call Hardhat Phillips, well-known local boat rigger.

“My labor charge is $180 an hour,” Phillips reminded Headwind. “Do you really want to pay me that to take out screws and put them back? ‘Cuz that’s all it is.”

Headwind’s third thought was, well, I can pay myself $180 an hour to do it myself.

Phillips told him all he needs is a screwdriver and a nut driver. He didn’t wonder why one is one word and the other are two.

“Once the tools loosen a nut, do the rest by hand. Be careful not to drop a screw or you’ll get a flat tire,” Phillips added.

Headwind recently bought a set of pro-grade nut drivers with a ratcheting handle. They make the job easier. He doesn’t want me telling because it may stain his reputation.

He was replacing the trolling motor’s mounting block because he thought it was warped. He thought it was warped because the last time it vibrated loose he tightened it so hard that it may have warped.

He thinks that’s why he almost always has trouble getting the holes in the block and the matching holes in the trolling motor base to match up. He has to slide a U-shaped locking pin in there to keep the motor in place on the block. If the holes don’t line up, he can’t.

Someone in a Facebook page told Headwind he could prevent warping by putting thin washers between the mounting block’s four holes and the bow cap. It made sense.

Continuing to fight the thing would have enhanced Headwind’s reputation for doing it the hard way, but even his patience has limits.

Trying to make the holes line up when they wouldn’t would set Headwind to shouting in vulgar tongues.

Whenever that happens, a neighbor across the back alley calls the police. That guy sics the police on iguanas for trespassing in his yard.

Luckily for Headwind, the police officer covering his part of town is Terri the Cop. When the trick neighbor squawks, Terri drives over, spends a few minutes talking with Headwind about boats and fishing and goes back on patrol when Headwind calms down.

Headwind told me Terri had been there before me: “She helped me look for the nut, but we didn’t find it and she had to go on another call.”

You probably know a boatman like Headwind. You may be one yourself, with two or three drawers full of marine hardware and fasteners. You would have four or five drawers full, but the other drawers are full of other stuff. The hardware overflow is in a box over here somewhere, or another box somewhere over there. Maybe both.

Headwind hates searching for what he needs, not finding it, driving to the marine supply store and buying more of what he already has but can’t find.

That’s why he was putting so much effort into searching for one little lost nut.

Headwind said he put a few drops of anti-corrosion oil on each washer, because he thought he should.

“So my fingers are slippery,” he said. “It figures I would drop one or two pieces, right?”

We kept searching. I suggested putting the rest of those little machine screws back in their holes first, so they’d be washered and nutted already when at last we found the missing nut.

Next, I suggested walking barefoot on every inch of the driveway until he stepped on the missing nut.

“I think you’re on to something,” Headwind replied. “Even better, you walk around barefoot to show me how. Watch out for fishhooks. Does your medical insurance cover podiatry?”

We were trying to think of more ideas when Terri the Cop came back. Her shift was over and she wanted to know if Headwind had found his nut.

“Let me work on this,” she said. “I’ve applied for an opening in the detective bureau. Solving your case will give me a boost.”

Headwind said Okay, Sherlock, you’re in charge.

Terri the Cop had the same idea I had, to finish the rest of the job and then look for the lost nut, except that she ordered it. Headwind gave in to her authority.

“You take the screwdriver above and I’ll hunker below with the nut driver,” she commanded. “By the way, have you ever wondered why screwdriver is one word and nut driver are two?”

Headwind pushed a machine screw down into its hole. Terri held a washer in her left hand, threaded a nut onto the screw with her right and wiggled the nut driver over it, ready to ratchet.

It didn’t fit. She took a closer look, tapped the driver lightly on the asphalt, wiggled something shiny out of the socket, showed it to Headwind, recited his rights and asked:

“Is this what you were looking for?”

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