“Yeah.”
“What kind?”
“Sailboat. Hughes Cruiser.”
“How big?”
“Thirty feet,” I said.
I think he imagined it would be smaller, and he seemed a little deflated.
“Used, right?” he said.
I would have given a lot to say that it was new.
“Yeah, it’s a junker,” I said. “But it’s totally cool. We’re going to put it in the water this month. We might just end up living on it,” I said.
“Cool,” he said. “Houseboat.”
A few more weeks passed. And then it was late October and our boat was ready for the open sea.
* * *
—
On the last day of October in 1981, Coyle, Fergus, and I stood on the concrete edge of Seneca Harbor, looking up at our father on the deck of our boat, which he’d just put in the water. Mom stood behind us with Maddy. She refused to get on the boat, and wouldn’t let Maddy get on, either.
“Before you get overly proud of yourself,” Mom said to Dad, “check the caulking. And wait twenty-four hours. We’ll know then whether she is seaworthy.”
“I know she is now,” Dad said. “I did the work myself.”
“I’m aware of that,” Mom said.
Dad grinned down at us.
“You get the feeling your mother doesn’t trust me? Come on, guys. Get on.”
Fergus, Coyle, and I clambered onto the boat. Mom held Maddy back.
“Maddy will stay here with me,” she said.
“Aw, let her come,” Dad said.
“I will let her go after twenty-four hours, as is recommended by the experts.”
Beyond the breakwall we could see rolling swells. Surf crashing and tumbling to shore. Gray-green water. Late fall in northern Illinois.
“Boys, you are not required to go with your father, who is determined to do something foolish.”
“It’s not foolish,” Dad said. “It’s a great day for sailing, and we’re right here. We’re going to the open sea.”
Mom turned to all three of us on deck.
“It is a rough day and I am not certain the boat is seaworthy. I recommend waiting twenty-four hours, like the instructions said. But it is your choice.”
“I’ll go,” Coyle said.
“I want to go, too,” I said.
“Out to the open sea,” Fergus said.
“I hope you’ve brought life preservers,” Mom said to our father.
“Oh, quiet,” Dad said. “Untie us, will you?”
“A ‘please’ would be nice,” Mom said.
“Untie it, woman!” Fergus yelled.
“Sorry, Maddy. Next time,” Dad said from the deck.
Mom untied the boat from the cleat. Coyle pulled in the wet rope. Dad stepped to the helm and turned the key. The engine coughed gray smoke that burbled from the water. Dad put the boat in gear and steered us slowly into the center of the harbor. Mom and Maddy stood watching us, waving, as Dad steered along the breakwall, past the pier, and out to the open water. The wind was stronger away from shore. The swells lifted and gently lowered the boat. The halyards on the mast tinged. We didn’t think to put the sail up. We didn’t even know how to. We were just motoring out. But, still, it was lovely being out there with those powerful, steady swells, the whitecaps here or there, and that feeling of a vast, watery wilderness all around.
We motored south along the coast toward the city. Coyle, Fergus, and I lingered at the front of the boat, not saying much, but leaning against the prow and looking out at the water and mocking our father at the helm, but at the same time thinking it was pretty nice. Even Coyle, who scoffed at the pleasures of rich kids, seemed to acknowledge that the boat had turned out to be a good thing. For once we weren’t arguing or fighting or plotting against each other. We were just riding on a boat—our boat, that we’d fixed together—and all around was the vast expanse of open water.
Dad motored down to the planetarium at Northwestern. Then he looped it around, and once we turned back the wind was in our faces and the air seemed cooler and the water rougher. Spray splashed up and pattered on our jackets.
At one point we heard the roar of a motor and turned to see a very large, sleek motorboat zoom past us, leaving a curved white wake. It was what we called a cigar boat, like an enormous arrowhead in the water, chugging out gray smoke.
“Willie Brennan!” a voice called. “Coyle Brennan!”
We could see tiny figures in the boat.
“It’s that suckass Robert Dainty,” Fergus said.
“God, what a one-upper,” Coyle said. “He heard we were putting our boat in today, and so he had to get Liam to come out with his father’s boat and one-up us.”
Fergus held a finger in the air as they roared past.
“One-up!” Fergus called.
They spun around, spraying white water, then roared past and zoomed out far away, just a low hum on the horizon.
“You know them?” Dad called.
“Unfortunately,” Coyle said.
“It’s Willie’s best friend,” Fergus said.
“Not anymore,” I said.
“Willie beat him in tennis and he goes all sourpuss,” Fergus said.
The cigar boat was already out of sight, engulfed by the swells of gray water.
We were almost back to the harbor when I felt water slapping the hull in a way it had not before. Fergus noticed it, too. He left the prow and stepped into the small cabin.
“It’s leaking,” he called out.
Dad made a dismissive motion.
“The seals expand and fill in the cracks,” Dad said. “It’s supposed to leak a little on the first day. I’ll check it when we get in.”
“Yeah, all right,” Fergus said. “But it’s really leaking.”
Coyle and I were standing at the helm. Fergus came back to us, grinning.
“Dad’s an idiot. We’re sinking,” he said.
“We’re not sinking,” Dad said, overhearing.
Coyle walked back and peered into the cabin, then went over to the helm. Coyle said something to Dad and then took the wheel and Dad went down the steps into the cabin. I heard something splashing. A minute later Dad came back up. He was wet past his knees. The boat was listing.
“Turn in,” Dad called to Coyle, but Coyle had already started in.
There was a hand pump down in the cabin. I heard the cough of water splattering from the bilge. As we turned broadside to the waves, I felt the boat listing even more.
“Don’t turn so sharply,” Dad bellowed from inside the cabin.
The boat was at a twenty-degree angle and stayed there. The engine stopped.
“Keep going!” Dad yelled from below.
“It stopped on its own,” Coyle said.
We were about three hundred yards offshore. The boat listed more and more.
“Open sea!” Fergus yelled. “Out to the open sea!”
Water crept up the back of the deck, which was lower than the front, inching toward the doorway to the cabin. Dad came out of the cabin, wet to the thighs.
“There’s a radio,” Dad said to Coyle. “Call for help.”
Coyle had been trying to start the motor. It only clicked.
“Are you not going to do anything?” Coyle said to me.
“What do you want me to do?” I said.
“Plug the hole that Dad messed up,” Fergus said.
“Shut up!” Dad yelled from the cabin. “Do something!”
Everyone was panicking a little, except Fergus, who understood immediately that there was nothing to do. The hull was leaking in multiple places. Fergus was leaning against the railing, trying to make the boat tilt even more, and laughing. I worked my way over to the helm and tried th
e radio. It was dead. I flipped the switch a few times. Coyle made a huffing noise like I didn’t know anything and reached over and flipped the switch. Again, nothing.
I heard the roar of a boat approaching and then the boat rushed past, spraying an arched curtain of water that splattered on the deck. The roar lowered to a deep, chugging idle. It was the cigar boat with Robert, Tom, and Liam. They sat, bobbing on their expensive boat, ten yards off, those three kids in their wrinkled oxfords and cutoff khakis, holding soda cans, grinning at one another as our old boat listed more and more.
“You guys need help?” Robert called.
“Yes!” Dad yelled. “Call for help!”
“Help!” Tom yelled sarcastically. “Help! I’m sinking!”
Robert said something to Tom that made him stop joking around. Then Robert picked up the radio handset and was talking into it. He actually did call the Coast Guard. Meanwhile, Dad was running around on deck, going from the cabin to the helm.
“Help! Help!” he called to shore.
His voice was small in that vast expanse of gray-green water. He was panicking. Dad could work for days on end without any sleep. He could take on any straightforward task. But he was not good at being in a hopeless situation.
“You could pump,” Coyle said to me.
“I think we’re a little beyond that,” I said.
Dad was desperately trying to bilge. Coyle left the wheel and found the life preservers. Fergus clung to the railing at the prow, his feet already in the water. Coyle tossed a life jacket to Fergus. He tossed one to me, too. He handed one down to Dad.
“Don’t get trapped in there,” Coyle said.
“I’m all right,” Dad said. “We’ll just work a little, get this water out.”
Dad was pumping furiously, and with each pump there was a little splatter of water outside the boat from the bilge. An enormous amount of water was pouring in from the deck, way more than was being pumped out. Fergus climbed over the metal railing.
“So long, suckers,” he called.
He jumped into the frigid water, surfaced, and swam to Tom’s boat. Robert helped him up. He even gave him a towel.
“You should get your life jacket on,” Coyle said to me.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“Don’t stay on too long. Make sure Dad gets off.”
Coyle stepped over the railing, looked back at our father, who was still pumping, then dropped into the cold water. He swam for about twenty seconds and was then lifted into Liam’s father’s boat. I worked my way over to the door of the cabin.
“Dad,” I said.
He was pumping.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“We need to go.”
After a moment Dad came out, wet to the chest. Dad balanced himself and climbed up to the helm and tried to get the faceplate off the side of the cabin.
I heard a distant roar. It was the Coast Guard’s Boston Whaler speeding out of the harbor. I could see Mom and Maddy, tiny figures, watching from the end of the pier. Robert was thirty feet away, watching me. To his credit, he was not gloating as much as I would have expected. He actually seemed concerned.
“Come on, Willie. Come on, Mr. Brennan. Get off before it sinks.”
“We’re all right,” Dad said. “Just have to pump this water out.”
I heard Fergus’s laughter drift over. Even at that moment Dad still thought it was possible to save the boat if he just worked harder.
I was on the lee side, which was a little higher than the rest. I tossed my life jacket out onto the water so I could grab it if I needed it. Then I leapt out, diving. I cut sharply into the cold water and submerged, I saw the graceful cut of the rudder and the curved bottom of that lovely vessel fading into the green, grainy, frigid depths, and at that moment, like a clear bell striking, I knew nothing would ever change with our family. For most of that summer I had fooled myself into thinking we were making progress, getting ahead. I’d thought we’d make a concerted effort, work really hard, and we’d get to a place where we were safe from financial ruin. But I understood then that the hard work was like Dad on that bilge. It would never be enough.
I hovered underwater, watching as the boat drifted downward, then surfaced and swam to Liam’s boat, dragging my life jacket along with me. I reached the ladder. Coyle looked over the edge.
“You all right?” he said.
“Fine,” I said.
“What’d you do, dive down?”
“I was watching our yacht sink,” I said.
“Right. The yacht,” Coyle said.
He held his hand down for me, but I didn’t want his help. I ignored his hand and climbed up to see Dad clinging to the mast. Fergus yelled, “Take it out to the open sea, Dad! Out to the open sea!”
In the end, Dad understood the ridiculousness of the situation and held a mocking fist up as the boat sank. Robert and Liam and Tom looked at one another, impressed that even at that moment we could joke around. That was our defense, making jokes, turning it all into an absurd story. It was the only protection possible, and I knew I ought to have joined in with the jeering, basking in the ridiculousness of our abject situation, showing Robert and the others that it didn’t touch us, but I couldn’t quite do it. It was just too humiliating. That boat sinking was like hope vanishing, the last stab at normalcy submerged, a leaden weight in my gut, drifting into green depths, pulling me down.
5
The Frozen Beach
All closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. The air that would be healthful to the earth, the water that would enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it when caged up.
—Charles Dickens
Room 434 at New Trier had a grand piano in one corner, a chalkboard with lines for music notes along the south wall, and a tiered structure so the ceiling was only six feet over the back desks. The east-facing windows had a view of a blue slit of Lake Michigan over the tops of far trees. It was February, four months after our boat had sunk. I was fifteen, a sophomore, and I had started going up to room 434 instead of going to class. I was still at New Trier. Mrs. Dobbs, the landlord, had heard of our boat sinking and had taken mercy on us and given my parents another six months to raise the money for the down payment. So, in a way, that boat had saved us, but it had also pricked a hole in my unrealistic expectations for our family, and by the time we learned that we would not be evicted it didn’t really matter to me. That winter, Mom and Dad would find me lying in bed with a blanket over my head, not doing anything, which was considered to be the most unpardonable sin in our family. Or I’d be at a desk with my blank homework, staring into space, my pen hovering an inch over the paper, filled with an all-encompassing lethargy, a listlessness, a leaden fog that covered more and more of my brain and heart and guts. It seemed to have started with the boat, but I think now that the boat was only the trigger. When I had fought with Coyle there had been meaning and purpose to my life, and afterward, there was nothing as vital or as all-consuming as those battles. I was learning a hard truth: Once you become accustomed to physical confrontations, nothing else matters except those confrontations for a very long time.
Bit by bit in those months after the boat sank, I stopped doing my homework. I started skipping classes. I began spending most of my time in school up in room 434, day after day, by myself, alone in this unused classroom, looking out the window with a blank feeling, the blue slit of the distant lake like some receding promise.
* * *
—
Dean Wilkins had said he wanted to talk to “BOTH PARENTS.” He had written it in capital letters on the parental notification, and the rigid, achingly unbiased tone of the letter, the polite, cold, formal way he requested BOTH PARENTS, let me know that I was really in trouble.
“At New Trier we try to encourage our students to live not just by a code
of conduct, but a code of honesty,” Wilkins was saying to my parents as I sat outside his office, listening through a crack in the door. Mom sat with her arms furiously crossed. Dad was leaning forward with his paint-spattered hands linked, the note requesting their presence resting on the edge of Wilkins’s desk.
“ ‘Lied’ is an accusatory word. I don’t mean to make this a forum on the forgery. I believe it was an act of desperation more than of dishonesty. I know there are pressures. Great pressures. Particularly”—he paused, leaning back—“in families where the children compete. I don’t think it is useful or healthy to dwell on that aspect of it.”
“Of course he must be held accountable,” Mom said. “The first step is to let him know he has not evaded the authorities. You’ve talked to him?”
“More than once, which—” Wilkins glanced at Mom. “As far as the situation on our end, seemed to do little good. We thought you knew, which apparently—”
“We did not know,” Mom said matter-of-factly. “If we had been alerted we would have dealt with the situation. We will now, rest assured.”
Hands clasped, trying to be even-handed, Dad put in an encouraging word now and then. Dad would rip into us at home, but in front of anyone else he would protect us.
“I have a question,” Dad said. “He’s going to be punished. Don’t worry about that. But if he gets this thing—the theme—if he gets it in, is he gonna get docked?”
“Not if he hands it in on time,” Dean Wilkins said. “There is no penalty for using all the time given. We believe in intellectual freedom at New Trier. We try not to dictate work habits. We understand that students are individuals and work in different ways. But it is the biggest project he will attempt in his four years here at New Trier. For many students it is the biggest academic project of their lives. There are stages. And Willie has not met the deadline for any of those stages. Red flags were raised. We were concerned. But, as I said, often, with a child like Willie, it is not the administration that corrects the student.” A vague motion across the desk. “The family does our work for us. But in this case our persuasion has not produced the results we hoped.”
The Brother Years Page 13