“What happened to your wing?”
“Ice skating with my grandson down on the pond there.” He waved his good arm at a flat white space beyond the barn. “Not as limber as I used to be. Nowadays I break easier than I bend. You figure you can drive that rig, Clay?”
Clay followed his gaze and nodded, smiling. “I figure you’ll let me know if I’m doing it wrong.”
“You figure right. Well, let’s go, so I can get rich before things melt. You know where to go, J.W. Do my sister’s drive first, then when you’ve got the other places plowed out, come back here.”
“Okay. Who put the plows on? Job takes more than one arm.”
“My son Dan. Came over last night. Figured he owed me because I’d wrecked my arm skating with his boy, Little Dan.”
“Guilt is a powerful tool.”
I brushed the snow from the older of the two trucks, then let the cab warm for a few minutes while the steam cleared from the windows and I refamiliarized myself with the workings of the plow. By that time Clay and Ted were clearing the area between the house and the barn and, from what I could see, Clay knew what he was doing. Leaving them to that work, I plowed the driveway as I went out to the street. There, even though it was a public way, I plowed my way up to the highway to make things easier for the neighbors until the big town plows came by.
It wasn’t an easy matter to move the heavy snow where I wanted it to go, but by being patient and not asking too much from my equipment, I could clear it away.
I drove a mile toward Vineyard Haven, then turned off and started cleaning Eleanor Araujo’s driveway, pushing the snow off, first to this side, then to that, until I got to her yard, where I cleaned the parking area in front of her house and two-car garage. There was an apartment over the garage that she rented out during the summer, but its windows were dark with emptiness.
As I was finishing the job, Eleanor came out with a half dozen fresh-baked bran muffins still steaming in the winter air. I knew they were delish before I even tasted them, because I’d given her the recipe.
“Here you go,” she said, handing me the paper plate. “Something to keep you alive until noon.”
“Thanks. How are things with the Great White Fleet?”
“Slow, just like you’d think. This time of year you know most of the people on the boats, and more of them are leaving than arriving. Headed south to Naples or out to Scottsdale, looking for warm weather. They’ll be back in the spring.”
Naples and Scottsdale are known by some as Vineyard South and Vineyard West, because of the number of islanders who winter there to escape the rock. I personally liked our Vineyard winters at least as much as our summers because of the quieter pace, the sense of greater empty space, and the feeling of small-town comfort that comes when you recognize the people you meet at the grocery store or post office.
Off-islanders are often surprised by anyone’s affection for the island in the wintertime and wonder what people do out there when they can’t go to the beach. I tell them that though I am inclined to stay at home with my family, I could, if I wished, be out every winter night listening to music of every sort or performing it, attending lectures or plays or otherwise partaking of island culture, for there may be no other place so small that produces more good art in all its forms than does the Vineyard. Writers, actors, painters, sculptors, wood carvers, musicians, and other artists hunker down in their houses and work during the short days and long nights of winter, showing up to exhibit their excellent wares onstage, in galleries, or in bookstores.
“No exciting news to report?” I now asked, not expecting any.
“None,” said Eleanor, “unless you consider higher ticket prices exciting.” She looked up into the falling snow. “The weather lady says this should be pretty much stopped by noon, but the Montreal Express is coming down, so it’ll be a while before it melts.”
“Good news for the kids who want to go sledding,” I said. “But I’d better get moving before this stuff freezes solid.”
I drove away and went first to my own driveway and yard, which, as a perk, I cleared before moving on and cleaning the driveways of Ted’s customers. I worked steadily all morning, plowing and pulling a couple of stuck cars out of ditches and snowdrifts. By noon I was hungry in spite of having downed my coffee and muffins, but I kept on working as the snowflakes slowed and then stopped. About one in the afternoon, a bit of blue sky showed and an hour or two later, the gray clouds had moved off completely, leaving the snow cover glittering in the light of the southern winter sun, and the trees, each branch white with snow, looking like a fairyland. Is anything prettier than such a winter landscape? It made me feel happy and about six years old.
By four o’clock I was through with my jobs. I drove the truck to the gas station and filled its tank with the country’s most expensive gasoline, put the fuel on Ted’s tab, and went on to his place as the long night began to come down. I’d parked the truck and gotten the heater, such as it was, going in my Land Cruiser when Clay and Ted came in with the other truck.
“You didn’t tell me that Clay was a boatbuilder,” said Ted when I met them. “Come on, Clay, you might be interested in this.” He led us into the barn and showed us his boat. The hull filled the center of the building and seemed complete. The barn was warmer than I’d anticipated and I saw why: it was weather-tight and insulated and it had heat, though the thermostat was set low.
“Been working on her off and on for fifteen years,” said Ted. “Thought I might get her into the water this coming summer but because of this bum arm, it may take longer.”
Clay went to the boat and touched the stem, then, while Ted watched proudly, he circled the hull, climbed a ladder, and looked at the cockpit.
“Go on aboard,” called Ted. “Look inside. You’ll see what still needs to be done.”
Clay nodded, stepped aboard, and disappeared.
“Nice fella,” said Ted. “Said he could plow and he can. Said he’s built a couple of wooden boats.” He gave me a quizzical look.
“I saw the first one,” I said. “A Tahiti Ketch. Saw pictures of a schooner he worked on later in Florida and a little sloop he was building in Oregon. All of them beautiful. He’s got magic hands.”
Clay came back down the ladder and nodded. “Nice boat. Chapelle design?”
Ted smiled. “You recognize it?”
“Forty-two-foot schooner. I almost built one years ago but I got sidetracked. You do this yourself?”
“A lot of it. I had some friends help out now and then when I needed to be two places at once.”
Clay nodded. “It helps to have several hands sometimes. You’ve done a good job. She’s strong and solid and she’ll be beautiful on the water.”
“I want to take her a ways before I get too old and rickety. Not too many years left before that happens.”
Clay was looking at the boat. “Not too much left to do. Mostly inside-finish work and rigging. You have your masts yonder, I see. You might get in the water this summer.”
“Not with this wing.”
“No.”
Ted had apparently been thinking, for now he made a decision. “You interested in the job? Pay you a living wage.”
Clay looked at him, then looked back at the boat, then nodded. “I can use a job, and I can do this one. What’s a living wage on Martha’s Vineyard?”
Ted named a fair-sized figure. Clearly he wanted to see the schooner afloat. Clay nodded again and put out his hand, which Ted shook.
Clay looked at the boat with a new expression: that of a builder. “Unless there’s some problem I don’t know about, we should have this vessel ready for a summer launching.” He rubbed his chin. “Of course, there are always problems you can’t anticipate, but we’ll take care of them as they come.”
“You take a look at my inventory,” said Ted. “I think I have almost everything we’ll need. I’ve been collecting it for years. Anything we don’t have, we’ll buy.”
“I’ll have
my hand tools shipped to me,” said Clay. “A friend is storing them for me out in Sausalito.” He looked at me. “I’ll have them sent to your place, if that’s okay with you.”
“Fine,” I said.
“You may not have to do that,” said Ted. “I’ve got all the tools you’ll need.”
“A man likes his own tools,” said Clay, “but I’ll use yours until mine get here.”
“Fair enough.”
Clay seemed as pleased as Ted. “Only two more things, then,” he said. “I’m going to need a place to stay and a truck of some kind to get around.”
“You can stay with us as long as you want,” I said.
“No, I can probably leech off you for a few more days, but then I’d start to feel bad. My folks were churchgoers but the only part of religion that stuck with me was guilt. I’m sort of like Byron; he said that his religious upbringing never prevented him from sinning but always prevented him from enjoying it as much as he wanted.”
Ted frowned, then brightened. “We may be able to kill two birds with one stone. My sister Eleanor has an apartment over her garage that you can probably rent cheap during the winter. And she’s still got that old Bronco she planned to sell when she got her new pickup. She might give you a good deal on it. Nothing wrong with it, really. Just old.”
“The same is fairly true of me.” Clay laughed.
“I’ll call her and sound her out,” said Ted, sounding pleased.
“And we’ll head for home,” I said. “If Eleanor’s interested in this deal, have her give Clay a call at our place.”
Ted pulled out a roll of bills and awkwardly peeled off wages for both of us. Then, as he walked toward his house, we drove away toward mine.
The promised cold wave was already crisping the snow when we pulled into the darkening yard, and we were barely in the house when the children came smiling up to Clay.
“We’ve done our homework and now we want the story about being lost in Alaska!”
“Give me five minutes to shed my coat and boots.”
“And another five for me to do the same and get us some drinks,” I said.
“I want to hear this, too,” said Zee, helping me out of my coat.
The fire in the stove was dancing and the room was warm. Oliver Underfoot and Velcro were stretched out, enjoying the heat. We sat in the living room and Clay sipped his hot cider and looked at Joshua and Diana.
“Well,” he said, “it happened like this.”
6
His tale was of being a last-minute copilot on a routine winter flight from Bettles Field north to the oil fields along the Alaskan coast, of leaving in sunshine and flying into a sudden and unexpected snowstorm where all landmarks were blotted out, of having a compass that didn’t work because of the magnetic pole, of gradually running out of gas, and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, through a miraculous opening in the clouds below, seeing a tiny airstrip punched out of the tundra by a bulldozer driver for some reason, of landing the plane in howling winds, of stepping out into the storm and having hands that shook so badly he could barely light a cigarette, of shivering in the plane through the night and then, the next morning in bright sun, flying back to Bettles on the fumes from their gas tanks, and greeting friends who were sure they were dead.
His voice cast a glamour over his listeners, entrancing us. He could have been a skald of old, a scop, an Egil Skallagrimsson weaving such a tale of words that Eric Bloodax, his captor, allowed him to live. When he finished his story, there was a silence, then Diana spoke.
“Clay, don’t you know that smoking’s dangerous?”
The big people laughed and Joshua smiled uncertainly, not sure what was funny.
Clay brushed his hand across Diana’s dark hair. “You’re right. It is dangerous. I smoked then, but I don’t do it anymore.”
“Do you still fly airplanes?” asked Joshua.
“I can,” said Clay. “But right now I don’t have one to fly.”
“I want to be a pilot,” said Joshua.
“You’d like it.”
“I’d like it, too,” said Diana. “Can you teach us how?”
“Well,” said Clay. “I can teach you some things, but to really learn we’d need an airplane.”
“Is it like driving a car? We drive our car on the beach sometimes, sitting in Pa’s lap.”
“It’s something like that. If you can drive a car, you can probably learn how to fly an airplane.” Clay smiled at me. “So you’re letting them learn on the beach, eh? When I was a kid out in Wichita we all learned by driving around in the fields.”
“We’ll switch to fields when they get a little bigger.”
I went with Zee into the kitchen and helped get supper while Clay and the children discussed cars and airplanes.
“I see how he managed to get married so often,” said Zee. “He’s got a voice that casts spells.”
“Put cotton in your ears,” I said. “You’re already married to me.”
“Maybe you can take locution lessons.”
“I’m the strong, silent type.”
“Pardon my repressed laughter.”
“Speech is silver; silence is gold.”
“Silver apples of the moon.” She kissed me.
“Golden apples of the sun.” I kissed her back.
We called everyone to the table and afterward, when the dishes were cleaned and stacked and the kids were in their rooms reading and the adults sat over coffee and cognac in front of the fire, the phone in the kitchen rang. It was Eleanor Araujo calling for Clay. While he talked to Eleanor, I told Zee of Ted Overhill’s job, housing, and transportation proposals.
She arched an eyebrow. “Really? Clay must have made a pretty favorable impression on Ted. One day working together and he offers him a full-time job and finds him a car and an apartment, too.”
“Clay inspires confidence.”
She nodded and glanced toward the kitchen. “He does that, for sure.”
Clay came back and sat down. “Well, it looks like you won’t have to put up with me much longer. Tomorrow I’ll go over to Eleanor’s place and take a look at her old truck and her apartment. The prices she mentioned seem right, and if things work out I’ll be out of your hair.”
“We don’t want you out of our hair,” said Zee. “You just got here and you haven’t told us half of your adventures.”
He gave her that smile of his. “Adventures are always more fun afterwards. While they’re happening, you often wish they weren’t.”
“This is afterwards,” she said. “And Jeff hasn’t seen you for a long time. You two talk, and I’ll listen and keep the drinking horns filled.”
“You know what they say about fish and guests,” he said, grinning. “And tomorrow will be my third day. I’d stay longer if I thought I wasn’t going to see you again for another ten years, but it looks like I’ll be your neighbor, so we’ll have plenty of time to bring each other up to date. Besides,” he put a hand over his cognac snifter, “I don’t imbibe as much as I used to, so I don’t need my drinking horn filled again tonight.”
“Tell me what happened to that Tahiti Ketch you built when you were at BU,” I said. “I never did get that story straight. The last time I saw it was when you and Margaret sailed south for Florida.”
“Ah,” he said, sitting back and making a wry face. “Where to begin? The problem was Margaret’s inner ear.” She was seasick all the time they sailed, and when they got to Fort Lauderdale, where his job waited for him, he knew she would never step aboard again, so he sold the boat and bought a share in a plane. But it turned out that Margaret got sick in planes, too, so he sold his share of the plane and bought a van, and…
By the end of his tale, Margaret had, as the result of a complex series of events, ended up with a wealthy Mexican ranchero driving a white Rolls-Royce toward Texas, and Clay had ended up with a used van full of his worldly possessions, most of which were tools, and all of us, Clay included, were laughing so hard, tears were strea
ming down our faces.
“That’s enough for tonight,” said Clay when he’d caught his breath. “I’m going to bed.” And he did.
Alone in the living room, Zee looked at me and laughed again. “My God,” she said. “What a life. He lost his boat, his airplane, and his wife. It must have been a terrible time, but he made the whole thing sound incredibly funny!”
“Byron thought we laugh so we won’t cry.”
“I know that quote: ‘And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’tis that I may not weep.’ Maybe that’s what we have to do.”
I didn’t know whether life was comic or tragic. Perhaps it was both, though I suspected it was neither. But Zee was real and good, so I put my arms around her and said, “Let’s go to bed.”
Dawn brought blue skies and a landscape that was a fantasy of snow: white, shimmering trees; white, sparkling earth; slanting light dancing off silver drifts and the icy pond beyond our garden; glinting snow on the far barrier beach and beyond it the cold blue waters of Nantucket Sound. Winter! The owl for all his feathers was a-cold.
We bundled the children in their warmest clothes and sent them up the driveway to wait for the school bus, because it’s good for kids to know they’re tough enough to go to school even though it’s colder than an oyster on ice. They were not long on their way when Zee pulled the electric dipstick out of her Jeep’s engine, kicked over the motor, and headed to the hospital. She left a few minutes early, in fact, because although her motive was never officially announced, she wanted to make sure that Joshua and Diana actually got on the bus.
That left Clay and me to have a last cup of coffee, clean up the breakfast dishes, and drive to Eleanor Araujo’s house. The trees glittered at us as we passed them and the brilliant sky looked like blue ice.
Clay turned up the collar of his coat. “The older I get, the less I like cold weather,” he said. “But this is beautiful.”
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