The Boat

by Jim Markson

  It was the most Mike had ever heard her talk, and he listened in rapt attention, wondering how she had acquired such a wide span of knowledge. It was almost like she tried to conceal how smart she was, and it was only when she was immersed in an issue, essentially talking to herself, that she revealed the breadth and depth of her understanding. He thought of his own academic career, how he had considered pursuing a doctorate degree but, outside of technical law enforcement issues, he doubted there was anything he knew that she didn’t know better. Hell, the issue of cop work hadn’t come up, maybe she even knew more about that.

  After the deliveries, they returned to Erin’s house, but there was little time left before he had promised to bring the family up to Miami. In the moments he had not been mesmerized by Erin discussing her business plans, his mind had returned to the night before, and he longed to feel her again, knowing he would better appreciate what was going on. But instead, he walked out to the jeep and threw his bag in the back. Erin reached up and kissed him on the lips. It was their first kiss, a kiss for the daylight, a kiss of sincerity and affection. It was short, but it felt almost as good as the night before.

  “You coming back next weekend?” she asked, standing in her cutoffs and T-shirt, maybe showing a girly side he had not seen before.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, climbing into the jeep and warning the dog to take good care of the girl.

  XIX

  He arrived at the family’s house just before 5:00 pm. The mother and son were sitting outside under a tree with a small overnight bag. She looked to be forty years old, with hard black hair and tired brown eyes. The kid couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, happy and carefree, the way kids are supposed to be. One of his ears was mostly missing, and there were obvious skin graft scars on the same side of his face and throat. He wore shorts, and one of his thighs was covered in clean white bandages.

  The boy helped his mother into the front seat and then scampered into the back. The mother and son spoke to each other in Spanish, and then the kid said, “My mother said to say thank you for being so kind to strangers and that Mr. Rusty is an angel of the Lord.”

  Mike chuckled. “Well, tell your mother she is welcome; it is really right on my way … but I’m not so sure about Mr. Rusty being an angel.” The kid laughed and then spoke to his mother, who concealed a giggle.

  As they drove over the bridges of the Florida Keys, the kid asked questions freely and rapidly, ignorant of social decorum, free of the secret bonds that restrained inquiries among grown-ups. Once the kid found out Mike was a cop, the pace of questions increased. When he found out Mike had also been an FBI Agent, they came like the roar of a machine gun.

  After an hour the kid slowed, his mother sound asleep in the front seat. Mike asked what the kid was going to do at the hospital. “They’re gonna try to put on my ear” he said, “they are growing it here, under my bandage.” It was said so matter-of-factly it took a few seconds to sink in. Mike looked at the kid in the mirror; he was looking off at the water, the question asked, answered and done.

  “Does that hurt a lot?” Mike asked.

  “I dunno, never done it before,” the kid again looking off at something in the water. No fear, no pity, no concerns, no regrets.

  By the time they hit Homestead, the kid was also asleep. In the evenings this time of year, the weather was still pleasant, and the wind whipped through the jeep as they headed up the turnpike extension toward Miami. Going seventy mph with a cool breeze, the lights twinkling in the darkness off the east side of the turnpike, Miami could appear a comfortable place to live. But Mike knew better, knew the dangers that lurked in the dark, the hardness that had taken hold of the city decades before, when the cocaine money came in and robbed the city of all civility and charm. Off to the west was a hundred miles of thick Everglades, full of different dangers that he had only recently become acquainted with. Between the two, Mike figured his preference would be the Everglades, where you generally knew which animals were trying to kill you.

  He pulled out the red-lens flashlight he always kept in the glove box and looked at the directions Rusty had provided. He turned off the turnpike onto the Dolphin Expressway and headed east toward downtown Miami. Continuing to follow the instructions, he exited the expressway south on NW 17th Avenue and, in three blocks, turned into the parking lot of a seedy hotel inhabited by enough shadows that he opened the glove box again, pulled out his Glock, and tucked it under his thigh. He slowed enough to see someone passed out near the entrance and another shadow looking for something they could undoubtedly be arrested for.

  Mike rolled out of the parking lot a little faster than he rolled in, and headed south again on 17th Ave. He turned west on Flager St., through Little Havana, and the south on Red Road. In 15 minutes they arrived at the Biltmore, one of the oldest hotels in the area and one of the last vestiges of how rich people had lived back in the old days of Miami. As he parked the car, the woman awoke, groggy but startled, looking around, finally looking at him and remembering where she was and how she had gotten there. She quickly looked back outside the jeep and then looked at Mike, waving her finger, indicating this was definitely not her destination. She woke the kid, who rubbed his eyes and listened as she spoke. The kid looked around and immediately understood what his mother had been saying. “The directions must have been wrong; this isn’t our hotel.”

  Without further explanation, Mike told the kid he had to run inside and he’d be right back. The kid nodded his understanding and translated to his mother. Inside, Mike showed his badge and said he needed to book a room for two friends who were very important to him. He provided his credit card and explained that he wanted the mother and kid well taken care of and all expenses put on his credit card. That was the advantage of a place like the Biltmore, they still remembered how service was supposed to be. The clerk called the bellboy, a man of sixty years with strong arms and soft eyes, handed him the key, and provided him stern instructions in Spanish. “Everything will be taken care of Mr. Kelly, you have my promise,” said the clerk. She handed Mike a business card and continued, “It has my desk and cell numbers on it; if there is anything else you need, or you want to check on your friends, please don’t hesitate to call me.”

  The bellboy accompanied Mike out to the jeep. The woman and kid watched but said nothing. “Your hotel had a fire this morning and is closed; you’ll be staying here, but everything is paid for,” Mike said. Apparently the woman spoke more English than she let on, because she immediately began speaking to the boy and voicing her disapproval. The kid, also confused, started to relay his mother’s concerns. “She says we can’t afford … we can’t stay at anyplace like this—” But the bellbo interrupted in Spanish. Mike had no idea what he was saying, but he spoke to them in a voice rich with authority and experience, and they listened. He opened the door for the mother, grabbed the bag from the kid, and started to escort them up to their room.

  The mother looked back over her shoulder and then said something to the kid. “Thank you,” the kid said to Mike. “My mom said thank you very much.”

  He looked at the kid, now fully awake and eager to get to his hotel room. “You’re welcome,” Mike said, wanting to say more. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?”

  “Ernesto,” the kid answered.

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Obduro,” the kid answered.

  “Good luck tomorrow, Ernesto!” The kid said thanks again and then walked with his mother into the aging but still graceful hotel.

  Mike climbed into the jeep and drove the remaining four hours back to his house in Tampa.

  XX

  The pattern followed for three months, Mike driving down on Friday night unless he had pressing case activity. Business grew quickly. Erin had stocked the store and hired a local girl to staff it most of the open hours. Almost all of the slips were rented out, and she had started to get some repair work that she handled by herself. With the growing busines
s, there was less time to spend together, but there was enough, and he found a strange satisfaction in just being there, being around Erin, helping out however he could.

  With the uptick in business, Erin had been forced to forgo their Sunday mornings together, but begged Mike to go to Mass without her and continue to help Rusty deliver groceries. It was much better with her, but he found himself also enjoying these mornings alone. He started taking Jeep the dog, who behaved better than most people Mike knew, and acted as if it were providentially ordained that he should be sitting in the front seat, riding around with Mike.

  He extended his visits with Rusty, picking up odd chores and listening to stories when things were slow. Rusty talked about his days in jail, his days in rehab, all the mistakes he had made along the way, never seeming to embellish or be embarrassed. “It was what it was, and it is what it is,” he would say with a shrug of his shoulders. Mike had assumed that everyone like Rusty harbored general resentment toward cops, but he believed Rusty when he said that he was grateful for everything that had happened in his life, including getting busted and going to jail; it had landed him where he was, doing good and feeling good.

  Things had also started to change in Mike’s perspective of the world. Maybe it was going back to Mass, or maybe it was being around people like Erin and Rusty. His need for a goal, an objective to be conquered, seemed to diminish with every visit to the Keys. He found himself sometimes eating dinner with Erin and realizing that he was thinking of nothing else. He would listen to her talk, or watch her eat, and that was all he wanted. It was a contentment he had never known.

  He had always wanted to be a policeman, catching bad guys, protecting innocents. He had always been aware of an evil force in the world. He could not name it, put a finger on it, but it was there, and it was his job to keep it in check. But now, instead of contemplating the source of evil, he had begun to wonder what made people do good things, even noble things. What prompted a person to sacrifice for another, a stranger who probably didn’t deserve the help? Were Rusty’s actions just amends for past misdeeds, atonement made out of fear as death inevitably crept closer? Or was it something more, some mystical force that pushed people into helping each other and then rewarded them with sentiments of satisfaction and contentment, like a treat given to a dog who obeyed his master’s command?

  Mike had recently been thinking about one of the homilies he had heard at Mass weeks prior. The priest had not said God was manifest in love, but that He actually was love. Mike had never heard the theory but, as he struggled with the interpretation, he found it a comfortable thought that there was a God, and He was among us everywhere, tangible in every act of love, rewarding us for such acts and leaving bread crumbs to the trail of happiness. And the more he thought about the God of Christians, the more it seemed appropriate that their king had set such a great example of love, hanging on a cross to give a get-out-of-jail-free card to a bunch of assholes that were killing him.

  Mike was acutely aware of his reflections, of the time he spent thinking about these things, but he kept it all inside his head. You never knew how things were gonna turn out, better to keep it to yourself … who knew what might change if the thoughts were given voice.

  XXI

  Mike had been conducting an interview on a Thursday afternoon when he received a phone call and let it go to voicemail. As soon as he was done he looked at his phone, saw the missed call was from Erin, and dialed up his voicemail. From the very first word, he knew something was wrong. She had tried her best to deliver the message in a casual tone, tried to minimize the significance, but it was his immediate instinct that she was lying. She had said all was well, but she had to head up to Miami Friday night for a Saturday morning meeting regarding some needed additional financing. She wasn’t sure when she’d get back, probably not till Sunday, so there wasn’t any sense in his coming down for the weekend. Unless, of course, she had said, he was really coming to see Rusty and Jeep these days. Trying to inject some levity. She promised to call back Friday, when she had things confirmed. He didn’t let himself wait and called her back as soon as the message ended. No answer.

  In the milliseconds it took for his mind to start wandering, his stomach flipped, and he looked around for something to throw up in. It was the surprise that caused the physical reaction. If you were ready for something, you could control your responses. But this was like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky—the possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. His forehead was cold yet sweaty, and he knew it was too late to control his physiology or his appearance. He ducked into the men’s room and sat in a stall, buying some time to get his stuff together. Deep breaths, he told himself, pull it together; you’ve been through worse. He was already trying to mentally stop the bleeding and cauterize the wound. It’s just a girl; you haven’t even known her a year; you’ll be over it in a week. And while he wouldn’t dare let himself think it, somewhere buried deep inside, he knew the slippery, sideways disorientation was exactly what he had felt when he was told of his brother’s death. Deep breaths he kept telling himself.

  When the physical reactions subsided, he rinsed his face with cold water and dried it with some paper towels. He had been doing well in the months since he met Erin, but people had seen his fall after John’s funeral and were still watching him; appearances were important. He went to the captain’s office and asked if it would be problem to take off Friday, volunteering that his cases were all squared away and no significant activity was expected over the weekend.

  Captain Derek Grant looked up from the report he was reading and, peering over his glasses, gave Mike a hard look. He was not afraid of the silence and let it hang in the air, seeing if it might compel the detective to volunteer anything else.

  “You know better than me if you can go,” he said, “and if you shouldn’t be going, I’ll find out about it sooner or later.”

  “Thanks, Cap,” Mike said, and he hustled down the stairwell and out the side door to the parking lot to avoid having to talk to anyone else.

  He overcame the temptation to buy a bottle on the way home, knowing the welcome comfort and sleep it would inevitably bring, but afraid of where it would lead, what would happen when he awoke and the numbness was gone. The night was long and sleepless and, one by one, the demons he thought he had conquered slowly made their way back home in the dark, laughing and gluttonous.

  He was showered, dressed, and out the door by 5:30 Friday morning. The day was bright and crisp, a fair wind blowing in from the Gulf. But if the night was long, the drive from Tampa to Key Largo seemed a torment without end, each slowly passing mile a mere step down an eternally spiraling path of pain and self-doubt.

  As a coping mechanism, he tried to distance himself from events, to look at what was happening with the cold objectivity of a criminal investigation. There was absolutely no proof, he told himself, that there was anything wrong. Forget proof, there was not even any circumstantial evidence to suggest that any of his concerns were justified. Erin had made a call indicating she had to attend to business over the weekend. Every word was plausible and there was no logical reason to assume otherwise; but Mike similarly had absolutely no doubt that his instinct was right, and that everything had somehow gone wrong.

  But where had it gone wrong? The more he tried to objectively answer this question, the more it became obvious that things had never been “right.” He had met the girl when he was too drunk to sail a little boat and she was bobbing in the sea about to be eaten by sharks. These circumstances don’t happen to normal people; things were broken from the very beginning.

  “It felt right,” he told himself. “It felt … perfect.”

  “Yes,” the demons answered back, “and when you’re lost at sea on a raft, a little sandy island looks like paradise. But soon you realize there is no water, no food, and now you’re not even moving toward a safe haven … you’re even more broken than you were on that little boat. To a rat, a turd looks like a smorgasbord, but it
isn’t—it’s just a turd.”

  It was a keen observation and hard to argue against. There was no doubt he was a broken man when he met Erin. But he was just as confident that he had felt genuine love, he was as sure of this as he was that she was lying when she left the voicemail.

  So where did it go wrong? he asked himself again.

  “Where did it go wrong? Really, jackass? I’ll tell you,” the demons answered back. “You think it’s just a coincidence that she was too busy to spend Sundays with you? You really think you’re that much fun to be around? Did you ever work at the relationship? Did you ever think about what she was looking for? Shit, the two of you had more secrets from each other than you did shared experiences! The real question is how the hell it lasted as long as it did, and how you didn’t see it coming to a crashing end like the rest of us!”

  The secrets. Mike didn’t really think of them as secrets. When someone asked for information and you concealed that information, that was a secret. There were certain things they had not talked about, things that perhaps they were not proud of, or that would hurt to discuss, but it wasn’t like either of them was trying to conceal the existence of these issues. It had seemed to Mike, at the time, that they had an unspoken agreement not to pry into such delicate matters. When one or the other wanted to bring it up, they would start the conversation.