The Off-Islander

by Peter Colt

  Chapter 14

  But I wasn’t in Vietnam. I was walking down a perfectly normal, perfectly quiet street in New England. That was the problem with my war. It just showed up uninvited all the time.

  On my right, I passed a couple of inns and came to a stop partway up the small hill under a sign that was swinging in the evening breeze. The sign had a picture of a white man in colonial garb with horns coming out of his head, holding in one upraised hand a shackled black woman and child, and in the other upraised palm, a bag of money. Over one shoulder was a sailboat and over the other, a town with a windmill, obviously an homage to the island’s whaling and trading days. Underneath, it said, GOOD FOOD, GOOD DRINK, GOOD COMPANY.

  I pulled open the dark, wide-plank door by its wrought-iron handle. I stepped inside into a low, dark, narrow hallway. On one side to my right there was a cigarette machine—my brand was out. Next to it was a long, low, built-in wooden bench. To the left was a doorway flanked by two walls; half of each was made up of leaded glass window panes. On the other side of the doorway was a room with a low ceiling, dark timbers, and rough-hewn tables and chairs, all stained the color of molasses.

  A woman, a girl more accurately, in her twenties, with Ivory Soap skin and brown hair in a ponytail came up to me. She was wearing blue jeans and a black sweater. She had a nice smile. She asked if I was there to eat and didn’t seem upset that it was just me. We walked into the main room, and she led me around the corner to a table by an actual fireplace near the service bar.

  The heat from the fire was nice after being outside. The table was the same simple molasses-colored plank affair as the rest, but smaller. It had a candle in a holder that was riveted to the tabletop and had a glass globe on top of it. There were windows around the room, and I could see that we were actually about four or five feet below street level. Behind me were some booths and an open door that led to the kitchen. The music coming over the speakers was a mix of electric guitar Bob Dylan, The Band, the Allman Brothers, and the occasional Johnny Cash song.

  I had slid out of my parka by the time she came back with a menu that was printed on a blue sheet of paper that was newspaper-sized. On one side, it had a printed history of the island, the building, and the restaurant, and on the other was the menu.

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “Löwenbräu?”

  “Sure . . .” She turned away, then turned back. “You look like you were outside and could use something to warm you up. You should try a hot toddy. You can always get the Löwenbräu when you warm up.”

  “That is a great idea.”

  She smiled brightly. “Okay, let me get that while you look at the menu. I’ll be back in a sec.” She turned, and her ponytail flipped as if to punctuate her movement. The menu had the standard fish and chips and fried clams, as well as sandwiches and burgers. There was nothing on it that looked notable, except for the fact that they seemed to offer everything just a little bit differently than I had seen anywhere else.

  She came back with my hot toddy and set it down in front of me.

  “Here, this should warm you up.” Her smile was bright; the dim light and flickering fire conspired to make her look like someone too pure and pretty to be in a Chandler novel. She brought me back to reality by taking my order for a cup of chowder and cheeseburger with Boursin cheese. I sipped the toddy, which was hot, and at first I could just taste the rum, but then I could taste butter and cinnamon, and there was a hint of citrus. It was a drink that started off with the small, mean taste of the rum, but then opened up big and loud with all the notes and flavors it had. The Ivory Soap girl of a waitress was right—it did warm me up.

  I still had the Crumley novel in my pocket, so I took it out. I read by the dim light of the candle, enjoying the heat from the fire and the warmth from the toddy. I would look up to watch the occasional person walk into the room or go by outside. Outside, I could only see ankle and shoe and not much else. I felt somewhat the way I imagined Ishmael did in the beginning of Moby Dick, while he is on Nantucket waiting for a whaling ship to go to sea on. I was sure that it was cold and windy out, and I was lucky enough to be inside by the fire with a good book and warm drink.

  “What are you reading?” She had brought back my chowder and set it down next to me with oyster crackers. There was a pat of butter melting in the chowder. I had expected her to say “watcha” and “chowdah,” but her annunciation was clear and proper. I held out the book for her to see in the dim light.

  “Never heard of him. What’s it about?” Her brow had furrowed slightly, and combined with her Ivory Girl clean-cut good looks, it made my heart beat faster.

  “It’s a detective novel about a guy who is trying to find someone for a mysterious woman. The hero is a little different. It isn’t great literature, but the writer has a real nice way with words.” I was pretty sure that it wasn’t her type of thing.

  “Not what I normally read.” She smiled brightly. “Maybe I’ll check it out if I get sick of what I am reading now. Enjoy the chowder.” She turned away and was gone.

  I opened the packet of oyster crackers and poured it into the chowder. I ate it slowly while reading about how it is done in the world of written words. The chowder was good, thick and warm, the type that my father would have told me to eat because it would “stick to your ribs.” Crumley’s hero was also good. He was the sort of disheveled antihero who walked out of the post–World War II morality, tripped on Korea, and landed on his ass in the world after Vietnam. He was a student of Chandler’s observations that the detective as a fictional character had to be a loner. The empty chowder cup and toddy glass were replaced by the hamburger and a Löwenbräu. The Ivory Soap girl asked if I needed anything else, and I assured her I didn’t.

  The burger was a large, hand-formed patty, shaped more like a grenade than the disc of gray meat that passes for a burger these days. It was topped with Boursin cheese that was already beginning to melt a little and run down the sides with the burger’s juices. The bun was a large roll that I was sure came from a local bakery and not some supermarket. The French fries were actually curls of potato, and while I had traveled some, I hadn’t ever seen fries that were anything other than the straight, crispy, salted pieces of potato that we had all become accustomed to. I took a large bite of the burger and knew that I had made the right choice. All the injuries and injustices inflicted upon me by the cruel world were made up for with one bite of that hamburger, Boursin cheese, and freshly baked bun.

  I ate the hamburger and most of the potatoes, but in the end, I couldn’t finish it all. I also had two beers and worked my way through most of the Crumley novel. When the Ivory Soap girl came by to ask if I wanted anything else, I asked for another hot toddy for dessert. She brought it with the check and a smile that lit up my dark corner booth like a flashbulb. I put a very modest amount of Mrs. Swift’s money down on the table to include a generous tip. I finished the toddy and the novel.

  I walked out of the dimly lit restaurant, stopping only long enough to put on my coat. I pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped outside. The wind had died down, but the night was clear and cool. Looking up, I could see the many pinpricks of stars in the night sky. I put a Lucky in my mouth and lit it. I walked toward my hotel, past an interesting-looking bookshop that was closed for the night. I would have to come and check it out when it was open. I finished my cigarette in front of the hotel and crushed out the butt. I made my way upstairs to my room and called it a night.

  The bed was comfortable, and I fell asleep fast on my full belly. When the dreams came, they were the usual ones about war and death and my personal powerlessness. Most of them were my mind rehashing and repackaging my time in Vietnam. Some of them had nothing to do with any of it. In one, I was in my old uniform and jungle kit. My web gear was old and broken in the way it gets patrol after patrol, day after tedious day. I was wearing all my old gear: knife, Browning Hi-Power pistol, grenades, D-rings, and I was carrying the silent Swedish K gun
that I sometimes used. I was stalking—there is no polite way to say it—a person through the tall grass and reeds on the outskirts of Ruth Silvia’s farm. I could hear people laughing, guitars playing, and I could smell a lot of weed smoke in the air. Up ahead, I spied a slim figure in black pajamas and a conical straw hat. I could see an AK-47, but I couldn’t catch up to him. I picked up the pace and heard the laughter of Ruth Silvia’s hippie followers in my ears. I finally got close and raised the K gun; I could feel the wire stock in my shoulder and the metal against my cheek. I looked through the sights, lining them up on the VC’s back. Safety off, I squeezed the trigger all the way to the rear and heard only the click. It wasn’t the felt-covered bolt silently moving back and forth, just the empty click of having made a fatal mistake. The VC turned, spilling the conical hat off of her head. It was the Ivory Soap girl waitress, her laughter mixed and mingled with Ruth Silvia’s hippies. She raised the AK, and all I saw was her blinding smile.

  I woke up with the sheets and blankets tangled around my legs. My head didn’t hurt, but I can’t say that it felt good, either. A bright ray of sun was stabbing through the room, and it hurt my eyes when it was on my face. I rolled over, but it was no use. I was awake. I lifted my watch off of the bedside table and saw that it was just after six. I had made a practice to never be up early after I left the army. I put the watch down and dragged myself out of bed for a hot shower.

  I dressed more or less as I always did and headed downstairs in search of breakfast. The hotel offered some, but I decided instead to see if the diner I had seen the other night was open for breakfast. I walked down Centre Street, enjoying the cool morning air and smoking my first cigarette of the day. The sunshine that I had woken up to was gone. There was a light, chilly drizzle coming down, and I was beginning to see why the island was called the Gray Lady of the Sea.

  Just off of Centre Street on India was a diner called The Dory, and it had a wooden sign swinging above the door telling me so. It was open early for breakfast, did lunch, but didn’t bother with dinner. I walked in and was confronted by a narrow room. One wall to my right had a series of tables for four laid out down the length of the building. All of them were full. To my left was a counter and stools that ran most of the length of the building. On the other side of the counter was the flat-top grill, toasters, and a cash register. There was a TV on in the far corner, and the walls were brownish with pictures and clippings. I was able to get a seat on one of the stools at the counter, and a heavyset man with a five o’clock shadow put a menu down in front of me.

  “Coffee?”

  “Please.” He went away and I looked at the menu, all of which looked to be what you would expect from a breakfast and lunch joint. He put coffee down in front of me in a brown ceramic mug.

  “Cream? Sugar?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Know what you’re having?”

  I pointed to something on a plate going by that looked like a small, perfect pair of perky breasts.

  “What is that?”

  He smiled, showing me the end result of a lot of coffee and cigarettes.

  “That is our world-famous eggs Benedict. Two sunny-side up eggs, on top of Canadian bacon, on top of an English muffin, topped with two olive halves, and covered with Hollandaise sauce.”

  “World famous?” I asked skeptically.

  “World famous on Nantucket,” he laughed. “Want ’em?”

  “Sure, they look good. Thanks.”

  I picked up a discarded copy of the Globe that was laying on the counter. The headlines were all about cyanide in Tylenol. The economy was bad enough to make most people want to get a batch of the poisoned Tylenol. China had just reached a population of a billion people, and the president had told the Polish government just how annoyed he was with them. It was depressing stuff to read about. Reading about the Patriots wasn’t any more cheerful. The weather was typical for fall in New England: cold, damp, and rainy.

  The cook put the eggs Benedict down in front of me on an oval plate. He topped off my coffee without asking and moved down the line to attend to other customers. I ruined his artistic vision of perfect breasts by cutting into the eggs Benedict and taking a bite. I wondered if it would suffer for not being made with poached eggs, but it didn’t. It didn’t take me long to finish the coffee and eggs. I paid and walked out into the cool morning air.

  It was still too early for the town offices to be open, so I decided to take a walk and have a smoke. I headed down India Street away from town. The street itself was made up of quaint houses, the newest of which was only about two hundred years old. At the end of India, I turned down Liberty Street and then on to North Liberty. Here the houses began to be a little less densely packed but still had plenty of charm. I followed North Liberty. On my right, there was a low-lying marsh, and to my left appeared to be just a large, open area of scrub pine and high grass.

  I followed North Liberty past a small Cape Cod with a white picket fence and two Russian olive trees. I turned onto West Chester Street with its larger, newer homes, which slowly turned back into the older homes more in keeping with the island’s history. On West Chester Street, the trees were taller and they were swinging. I walked along the uneven sidewalks until they brought me to Centre Street. I was at the bottom of the hill that was topped by one of the big white clapboard churches that can be seen from the ferry when it makes its way into the harbor.

  The rain was picking up, and by the time I reached the brick two-story building that housed town hall and all of the town’s offices, I was starting to squish when I took a step. I made my way inside and looked at the directory for a few seconds while the water dripped off of me and onto the floor. I followed the signs to the office that dealt with deeds and property. I found the appropriate frosted-glass door and made my way inside.

  “My goodness, you look like a drowned rat.” I could only see the top half of the woman behind the counter, but she looked to be a solid woman in her forties with dark hair and glasses that had oversized square lenses and bent metal frames. She was wearing a pale sweater to ward off the chill in the building.

  “The rain picked up a little more than I thought it would.” My hair was plastered against my head, and my beard was wet, which is never a good sign. I pushed lamely at my hair but knew it was a wasted effort. I unzipped the parka, which had done a good job of keeping me mostly dry.

  “What can I do for you? I don’t have any towels.” She smiled, and I was pretty sure that someone somewhere on the island was a lucky man.

  “I was hoping to see some deed maps and records.” I smiled my most winning smile, which isn’t saying much. “I promise not to drip on them.”

  “Of course, what are you looking for?” I told her the lot numbers I was interested in. They were the ones that included some of the larger undeveloped lots on the island and the piece that Ruth Silvia owned.

  “Okay, give me a couple of minutes.” She got up and walked toward the back of her office. She was tall, and the phrase “pioneer stock” made its way into my sodden head. I looked around the office, which had a series of black and white pictures of the island intermingled with the sort of informational posters that are in every municipal office in the world. I dripped and waited until she came back.

  “Why are you interested in these? Are you a real-estate person?” Her brow was furrowed above the Tootsie glasses, and “real estate” was said the same way Father O’Malley used to say “fornicator.”

  “No, do I look like I have that type of money?” I tried my most charming smile again. “I’m working on my doctorate in local land use in New England towns. I’m focusing on how properties have changed over the years and the impact on the local community.”

  “Oh, I see. What school?” Her frown had eased up a little.

  “B.U. Political Science.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be a student?”

  “Blame the army. They insisted I take a break from my studies to help them out with a pro
blem in Southeast Asia.” Mentioning Vietnam, hinting at Vietnam was a great way to get most people to stop asking questions. No one wanted to talk about it.

  “Okay, here they are. Let me know if you have any questions.”

  “Thanks.” I spent fifteen minutes looking over maps that were of no interest to me, making meaningless notes in my slightly damp notebook. I also cross-referenced the deed maps with my tourist map of the island. Later, I would compare that to the street map that I had picked up in Boston before coming out to the island.

  “Excuse me, miss?” I used my sincere voice. She looked up from her desk.

  “Yes?” She leaned over, and I could smell a perfume of some sort but couldn’t tell you what it was.

  “I noticed that this one plot”—I pointed to a spot on the deed maps—“is one large plot, except for this one section at the edge of it. I noticed it is shaded differently?”

  “That is a private plot that has been leased to the Cranberry Company. It is a very large cranberry bog.”

  “Cranberry Company?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Yes, this is a large cranberry bog. It is responsible for the single largest crop that big company gets. If you drink cranberry juice or eat cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, chances are some of it is from here.” She smiled with civic pride.

  “This section here is leased to the company?”

  “Yes, has been for as long as I can remember.”

  “What do these black boxes here, here, and here mean?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer but wanted to hear her say it. Maps, all maps, have a lingua franca, part of which is that black boxes are buildings. The army had made me an expert at reading maps.

  “Those are buildings used by the company to store machines and process the cranberries for shipment. That other one”—she stabbed a lacquered nail at the map—“that one is easy. It’s the caretaker’s house.”