Fishermen's Court

by Andrew Wolfendon

  Miles’ relief is palpable. “I think that’s a brilliant idea.”

  He stands and takes my brandy away, as if suddenly realizing that giving me booze might not have been the wisest thing to do. He offers to make me a cup of herbal tea and bring it to my room. I accept, agreeing an early bedtime for me is a capital idea, eh wot.

  . . . . .

  I sit in the guest bedroom, sipping my warm tea and watching the rain lash the window. I dread going out in the storm, which I’ll need to do before long.

  You see, that crap I told Miles about accepting my delusionality was grade-A cow shit. Over the course of the evening, I have come to see a couple of things clearly. One, Miles truly believes I’ve had a nervous breakdown. Period. Therefore, he is not going to take precautions against the danger I’m in. Therefore, he and his family remain in danger.

  And two, the only way to make him believe me would be to tell him everything. Pull out all the stops. Show him the suicide note. Show him the Boston Globe article. And I can’t do that. I can’t derail this man’s top-shelf life and career.

  Not now. Probably not ever.

  No, it seems I will have to bear that burden alone, and pay whatever price it demands of me. And that is probably as it should be. My guilt, after all, is far greater than Miles’. Isn’t it? Miles has no idea what he did; I’m the one who made a conscious decision to keep a secret on that fateful night so long ago.

  Best for Miles and his family if I remain a delusional nutjob in their eyes.

  And so here is my plan. I will wait until the house has gone to sleep for an hour or so. Then I will borrow a flashlight, a gallon of water, an old blanket or sleeping bag, and a few CLIF Bars from the cupboard. I’ll sneak out of the house, taking all my belongings with me, and find a hideaway on the island where I can hole up until the storm is over. I don’t care if it’s a tool shed or a moldy boathouse. (I’ve been living at my parents’ house; I can survive anywhere.) I will stay hidden from all eyes and avoid all contact with Miles. Once the ferry is running, I will board it. And the moment it docks, I will seek police protection, even if that means telling them the tawdry tale of the scotch bottle and taking all the blame for it.

  By the way, no, there is no full-time police department on Musqasset. We share one part-time peace officer with Monhegan, and he’s stuck on the other island till the storm passes. We have no jail or protective custody facilities either.

  . . . . .

  My chin bobs off my chest and I pull in a ragged snore. I notice my tea has gone cold and rain is no longer pelting the window. I must have dozed off and drifted into a heavy slumber. The wind is still howling, but the windowpane is mostly dry.

  Was it a sound that jarred me from sleep? I freeze and listen.

  Seconds pass and I hear it again. A pebble tick on the window glass? Really?

  No way. No one has seen me on the island, except Dennis. And he doesn’t know where I’m staying.

  That suggests only one possibility. My bowels tighten.

  I wait again. Another tick.

  I look out through the glass, but a rhododendron bush blocks most of the view, and the darkness beyond it is inky.

  I throw on my rain jacket—I don’t know where Beth and Miles put Billy’s rain suit—and sock-foot my way through the sleeping house. I pull a butcher knife from a wooden rack in the kitchen and locate my shoes in the mudroom. Grabbing one of the flashlights hanging near the door, I step out into the gusting wind.

  It’s pitch dark outside, as it always is at night on Musqasset. The island does not have streetlights. In fact, it still shuts off its electric power at eleven o’clock at night. The only buildings that have power after eleven are those with gas or propane generators. And even they don’t use outdoor lighting. No one does on Musqasset. Nighttime is nighttime here. Old school. If you go for a walk at night, you bring a flashlight.

  I tiptoe toward the blackness of the back yard, not wanting to turn my flashlight on and reveal myself until I know what I’m up against. The idea that my Wentworth stalkers would invite me to my doom by pebbling my window like a high-school suitor seems absurd, and yet here I am, bait taken.

  As I’m rounding the rear corner of the house, feeling my way along the rhododendron, a flashlight ignites ten feet away, bottom-lighting a face in a hooded jacket.

  Chapter 11

  “So, Finnian Carroll,” says the hooded figure, “you walk right into Pete’s and you don’t even say hello?”

  Jeannie.

  “How’d you know that was me?” I ask, sliding the butcher knife into my jacket pocket and turning on my flashlight.

  “Come on, Finn, this is Musqasset,” replies Jeannie.

  She’s right, of course. A secret on Musqasset Island has about the same odds of survival as dignity at a Renaissance fair. “You recognized the rain suit,” I say. “And then you talked to Dennis or Billy.”

  “Give me a little credit. I knew it was you the second I laid eyes on you,” she says. “Raincoat can’t hide a vibe.”

  “How’d you know I’d be staying at Miles’?”

  She doesn’t even have to answer that one. Jeannie knows every blade of grass on the island, every piece of news that blows ashore here, every nuance of every island relationship. She absorbs it all by psychic osmosis and by working at Pete’s. That’s why I knew I couldn’t stay on the island after we broke up; I would never be able to establish my own boundaries.

  So did I really think I was going to visit Musqasset without Jeannie knowing about it? I guess I did, because I am thoroughly unprepared for this encounter. I have thought for years about what I would say to Jeannie if I ever saw her again, and now my skull is an empty jar.

  She aims her flashlight at my face like an inquisitor’s lamp and says, “What in the Jumping Jiminy Fuck are you doing here, Finn?”

  Never one to beat around the bush, Ms. Jean Eileen Gallagher.

  The wind howls, accentuating my silence. I can’t very well blurt out the whole truth, so I just say, “Miles invited me out for the holiday weekend.”

  “You two are talking again?”

  “We were never ‘not talking’; we just hadn’t spoken in a while.”

  “Wow, there’s a Finnism, sure and true.”

  “Something came up yesterday. I called him, we talked, he invited me out to the island. It was all very spur-of-the-moment.”

  “So that’s why I didn’t even merit a heads-up?”

  She shines the flashlight on my face again for a couple of seconds, then turns and aims it into the wind-whipped bushes. She strikes off down a trail that leads out of the yard. I guess I’m meant to follow her. You never know with Jeannie.

  “I wasn’t necessarily planning to see you,” I say, hustling to keep up with her long-legged stride. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me or what your situation was.”

  She marches ahead into the scrub-pine woods that surround the shore properties here in The Meadows. We walk in silence for almost a minute, and then she says, “My situation—the part that’s any of your business—is: I’m still pissed at you. The way you left here sucked. No goodbye, no forwarding phone number. You even killed your Facebook page and email address. Not cool, Finn, not cool. There were things that needed saying.”

  “I could have handled things better.”

  She ignores me and continues through the blowing scrub, lighting the narrow trail ahead. I feel myself getting sucked into a familiar old dynamic. Jeannie would say or do something thoughtless or mean or downright wrong, and I would react badly to it. Then we’d get hung up on analyzing my shitty reaction, while avoiding discussing her original behavior.

 
In the case of our breakup, Jeannie pulled the big A. She had an affair. Now here we are, talking about what an asshole I was for leaving the way I did. Typical. Suddenly I am not feeling so wistful about the Jeannie days.

  We come to a fork in the trail and stop short. Do I hear the sound of footsteps following us, a few yards behind?

  No, just a shore bird scurrying through the brush... I think.

  “A lot of changes since you left,” she says in a reproachful tone much like the one Dennis used on me. She shines her light down the right-hand path, the one that leads to Fish Pier. Or used to. “You need to see something.”

  We walk in silence among the gnarly pine shrubs for a minute or two, following our bobbing light-beams closer to the water. When we get to the shore of the inlet between The Meadows and the village, where Fish Pier stood last I knew, she stops and shines her light on a hanging wooden sign I’ve never seen before. Twisting in the wind, it reads Marina and Yacht Club at The Meadows.

  “Has Miles given you the grand tour yet?”

  I shrug no.

  “Didn’t think so. Brace yourself.”

  She sweeps her light-beam around the inlet, revealing a huge network of newly constructed private docks where the old fishermen’s pier once stood. Yes, Fish Pier is gone. I pull in a breath. Pausing dramatically, she raises the light above the docks to reveal a massive cluster of dockside retail buildings. The complex looks so wrong here my visual cortex actually wants to reject the image. It includes a pretentious-looking restaurant with outdoor tables called Haar; two or three art galleries; a specialty wine, cheese, and pâté shop (North Atlantic Charcutiers); and, holy shit, a new upscale hotel by the name of—gag me with a marlin lure—Kaiyo. There’s also a marine repair shop and a dockable gas station, complete with a preciously country-store-styled convenience shop where Fish Pier’s ice-making machinery once stood.

  Taken as a whole, the marina complex looks completely out of character and proportion for humble little Musqasset Island.

  “What the fuck is this?” I ask, aghast.

  “Don’t look at me,” she says. “Miles and his crowd own this end of the island now. They just dock their frickin’ Catalinas and stroll right up to a restaurant or hotel, or take a golf cart to their million-dollar homes, without ever having to sully themselves amongst the commoners.”

  “God, this is not what this thing was supposed to be.”

  “No shit, Princess Buttercup.” She shines her flashlight in my face again and clucks at my incredulity.

  “Miles’ original proposal—the one I supported—was nothing like this. You know that. It was a good idea. It would have helped the fishermen. It would have helped the island.”

  “Yeah, well, things went off the rails, as you well know.”

  “Yeah, but not to this extent. Jesus. How’d they push this monstrosity through?”

  “The shit show just got worse and worse after you left.”

  After Miles bought his place here, he became a mover and shaker on Musqasset, much to my chagrin. He and some investment partners came up with a plan for a modest-sized yacht club and marina complex that was originally supposed to include rebuilding and maintaining the old Fish Pier in perpetuity, not hauling it away on a salvage barge.

  Fish Pier, you must understand, was the heart of Musqasset’s fishing and lobstering trade. The heart of Musqasset itself. Islanders and guests could fish off the end of it, and all the fishing boats used to dock and unload their catches there. The pier itself was public property, but for decades a guy named Bo Baines ran a private outfit at the base of it called the Seafood Exchange. He bought the fish and lobsters from the local fishermen at the end of each day, then took the whole haul to the mainland and sold it at a modest profit. It was a good arrangement for everyone. It meant the fisherman didn’t have to lug their individual catches all the way to New Harbor or Port Clyde, so they were able to shave hours off their workday. Bo sold gas too, and supplied the boats with ice, and was known to fix a bent propeller shaft or two.

  But for years Fish Pier had been falling into disrepair and no one could agree on who was supposed to pay for the renovation. That was where Miles’ development plan came in. Yes, it included a new yacht club and marina, which rubbed a lot of island people the wrong way, but it also provided for a complete overhaul of Fish Pier and ongoing funds for its maintenance. Under the plan, the new developers would own the Seafood Exchange, and it would get a facelift, but Bo Baines would continue to run it. Though many locals griped about the change to the “character” of the island, to me it seemed like a win/win. Not only would Fish Pier get a badly needed rehabbing but the town would also get a huge tax windfall, which it could use to build a new schoolhouse, hire a full-time police officer, upgrade the electric grid, fix up some of the public buildings, and more.

  “What happened?” I ask Jeannie.

  “You saw the beginning of the end while you were still here. Once everyone in town got a giant stiffy for all that new tax and tourist money, the parade of amendments started. Let’s add this, let’s change that. Right after you left, Miles and his boys came back to the approvals board, claiming the slump in the local fishing industry had changed their ‘projections for that part of the revenue stream,’ and they might have to ‘rethink the fishing component.’”

  “I was still here when that happened.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, then they brought in some new tourism ‘trend charts’ showing the island could support a bigger retail complex than they originally thought. They just wore the opposition down with dollars and promises.

  “A lot of people see them as saviors, though,” she goes on. “The new schoolhouse has already been built—‘course there are only twelve kids in it—and Greyhook just got a quaint little park, courtesy of the new tax funds. The island’s hiring a full-time cop next spring.”

  “But not everyone is thrilled, I’m guessing.”

  In response, she just shines her flashlight on her own unsmiling face.

  She heads back up the trail that led us here. We walk without talking for a while, hearing only the changing sounds of the wind. And... wait, do I hear footsteps behind us again? I stop and say, “Shh. Did you hear that?”

  Jeannie strides on. Eventually she turns onto an uphill trail leading to the north edge of the island. We hike for a bit longer, then ascend Lighthouse Hill to the top, passing the lighthouse on our right. Next, we work our way down the steep cliff-side trail that descends to Table Rock, lighting the slippery path with our flashlights.

  Table Rock is a flat, wide, slightly raked, slate-rock structure on the water’s edge, where The Shipwreck, an island landmark, resides.

  “Lots of other changes happening,” Jeannie says. “Brace yourself.”

  She stops in her tracks when we’re still twenty yards or more above sea level and shines her light down in front of us. Massive waves from the storm are crashing on Table Rock, and something looks off to my eyes.

  “The Shipwreck,” I say. “It moved.”

  “It’s moving,” she says. “I think this storm is going to take it out to sea.”

  What? The thought chills me to the marrow. We sit and watch the giant waves crash in the light of our flashlight beams, mesmerized by the spectacle.

  The Shipwreck has been a Musqasset icon for decades, as well as the subject of at least eighteen bajillion oil paintings, including a few of my own. The story is that in the late 1940s a mail boat named the K.C. Mokler ran aground here in a storm at sea, and its rusting metal hull has remained dry-docked on Table Rock ever since.

  The Shipwreck holds a boatload of history for Jeannie and me. It was our designated place for bad behavior. During the day it belonged to the to
urists, but at night it was ours. Whenever we felt like smoking a joint, or drinking some Chartreuse, or being sexually... resourceful, we’d end up at The Shipwreck. You could climb up on top of it or go inside the hull, depending on the weather—and your inclinations. The risk of getting caught, of course, always added an edge of danger to our activities. And in keeping with the theme of the landmark, we were usually pretty well wrecked whenever we found ourselves there.

  “I quit drinking,” says Jeannie, as if tapping into the stream of my thoughts.

  “Wow, really?” I say. Sometimes my font of eloquence is positively bottomless.

  “Over three and half years ago now,” she says. She watches another wave crash on The Shipwreck, then adds, “Not that I owe you an explanation, but: I’m not the way I... was anymore, Finn. I just thought you should know that.”

  As a statement, it couldn’t be vaguer, but we both know what she’s referring to. I won’t say Jeannie was promiscuous—that’s not accurate—but she had issues with monogamy and was not willing to give up her sexual autonomy for anyone, including me. There were men who preceded me, and whom she quietly continued to see from time to time, even after she and I were an item. Her belief in her entitlement to these ongoing assignations was built on some obscure moral foundation I was never allowed to glimpse in full.

  The men weren’t island guys; she didn’t want that kind of entanglement. Rather, they came by sea. One was a ship’s captain, another owned a yacht so big it couldn’t dock in the harbor. (I prayed that wasn’t a metaphor.) She shielded these encounters from me, and I sensed that if I were ever to insist we confront them openly, I would lose her. So I didn’t. But this “pattern” of hers—and my utter ineptitude at dealing with it—formed the fault line in our relationship that eventually led to the quake that undid us.