the Golden Orange (1990)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  Winking, Buster said, "I'd rather stay around Dana Rrint. There's this waitress down there. She can dive without tanks. Lungs out to here."

  "Have fun, kiddo," the sailmaker said. "Gotta go back inside or those morons'11 cut up my goods to patch their crummy jeans."

  The boat slip that the sailmaker had leased from the city of Newport Beach was only a few minutes from his shop. Woody's twenty-eight-foot Bertram was seedy from lack of use. Two gulls and a pelican were living on the fly bridge. Buster hauled his gear to the dock beside the boat and hopped aboard. At first he was afraid the batteries were dead, but then he remembered that Woody had installed an anti-theft battery bypass. He reached into the engine compartment and turned the bypass switch on. After he ran the blowers, the engines fired at once.

  It wasn't a particularly warm morning, but Buster felt exceptionally clammy. He took off his windbreaker and began to transfer his gear from the dock to the boat: a black wet suit, mask, fins, a weight belt, two tanks, a black hood, a light, a knife ...

  America's largest catamaran, The Catalina Flyer, left its berth by the Balboa Pavilion at nine o'clock sharp. The huge cat held five hundred persons, and could make the twenty-five nautical-mile crossing in seventy-five minutes, weather permitting.

  Winnie had been aboard the catamaran only one other time, and for this trip he sat on the top deck forward, facing the wind. Hoping for revival.

  "I need an oxygen tank, is what I need," Winnie said to Tess, who looked gorgeous in a lime-green cableknit sweater, with her butterscotch hair blowing free. For the first time he noticed the tiny line of scar in front of her ear, when the wind blew the hair back.

  "You'll be in the pink after we get there, old son," she said.

  Tess eventually went below for coffee, but Winnie stayed put. He passed the time by breathing deeply-trying to purge every vein and artery with a fix of sea air. He avoided contact with other passengers. They were youngish couples with small children, and older people whose children were grown, people not ruled by school schedules.

  Santa Catalina Island was bought from the pioneering Banning family by the Wrigleys of Chicago in 1914. The island is now mainly controlled by a conservancy, a nonprofit charitable foundation, which was deeded forty thousand acres by the Wrigleys and is responsible for keeping its eighty-six percent of the island in a natural state forever.

  The island is twenty-two miles long and eight miles wide at its widest point. Formerly a verdant paradise without large herbivores, the island has been ravaged by animals introduced for man's pleasure. The Spanish brought the goats, the Yankees introduced feral pigs and deer for hunting, and Hollywood brought the buffalo for the filming of Zane Grey's Vanishing American, the famous author himself being a resident at Avalon. The buffalo ended up on the cutting-room floor, but stayed on Catalina Island, where they roam the hills and, when the herds are cropped, end up in buffalo burgers and buffalo tacos.

  Now, what with thousands of wild pigs eating the acorns, wild bison and deer eating the grasses, and wild goats eating everything, there is a constant effort on the part of the conservancy to keep the animals under control and the shallow soil intact. Still, Catalina is a beautiful place, and Winnie was always glad to return.

  The ocean swells were three to four feet during the crossing, but Winnie knew they sometimes reached sixteen feet from the trough to peak, this being a treacherous stretch of ocean. After an hour had passed, when the big cat slowed with Avalon Harbor dead ahead, Winnie was starting to feel better. He always loved the sight of the Avalon Pavilion off starboard. Tall as a twelve-story building, with art deco murals, the once fashionable casino is now used as a big-band ballroom, art gallery and cinema.

  In the summer months the harbor of Avalon is under siege by an armada of yachts, and moorings have sold for more than $175,000, Catalina Island being one of the few destinations available to mainland yachtsmen. The narrow beach in Avalon is jammed in the summer, and the streets are mobbed.

  Avalon is a very small town on a dot in the ocean, and doesn't offer much variety in the way of entertainment. Winnie knew that if he lived here he'd really become an alcoholic. The thought of it made him look at his hands. They'd finally stopped shaking. He was starting to regret he hadn't eaten his breakfast, but it was too early for lunch.

  The sailboats and power yachts occupied most of the moorings, and shore boats taxied their passengers ashore for two bucks a head. The cruise ships and The Catalina Flyer were allowed to dock at the quay.

  After Winnie and Tess disembarked and were strolling along Crescent Avenue, the main promenade, Tess said, "No point rushing to the isthmus. We've got lots of time to kill."

  Winnie looked at his watch and Tess eyed him knowingly.

  "I'm not looking to see if it's late enough for a drink," he said.

  "I didn't say you were."

  "I'm just seeing if it's too early for lunch."

  "We can eat any time you like," she said.

  They chose a restaurant favored by many of the two thousand locals, off the main promenade. Tess ordered a salad, no dressing, and Winnie asked for a cheeseburger and fries. While they were waiting for their food, Tess said, "Greasy stuff takes care of the alcohol in your system. It's the best thing when you've been drinking. I don't think a beer'd hurt you."

  "I'm not drinking today!" Winnie said.

  She reached over, and touched his cheek and said, "You don't mind if I do?"

  "Why should I mind?"

  He was surprised when she didn't order a beer. She didn't even order a glass of white wine. She ordered a double Scotch at eleven o'clock in the morning! And she asked for a bucket glass.

  "I'm on holiday," she said apologetically. "I'm going to have fun."

  When the drink came, Tess got animated. She picked it up and clicked it against Winnie's water tumbler.

  "Chin chin," she said. "I'll do the drinking for both of us."

  She sipped, threw her head back like a bird, and said, "Mmmmmmm." He watched her throat muscles work on the Scotch. He could almost see it gliding down that graceful throat. He loved bucket glasses. They seemed more nautical-a heavy solid honest bucket glass.

  He caught a glimpse of pink. Her tongue flicked along her chrome-red lipstick. She sucked the liquid like a she-wolf. Winnie waved to the waitress. He ordered a double vodka on the rocks. Tess said nothing.

  "Unfortunately/' he explained, "this is the only thing for a hangover. One a these and I'll feel okay."

  "You look okay now," Tess said seductively. "You look good enough to eat. One more of these and I might decide to do it. Maybe we could try it on a glass-bottom boat? Give the divers and the fish a show."

  The cheeseburger arrived and it was okay. So were the fries. The drink was a very honest one. Tess said he still looked a little shaky and should probably have another.

  Winnie ordered another double vodka. He had three before they left the restaurant at twelve-thirty. He and Tess were in a great mood. She kept repeating that he looked "extraordinarily sexy."

  They walked down Crescent Avenue to the pavilion and watched some scuba divers sitting on the seawall, shucking clams.

  "Let's come about, skipper," Tess said.

  "Okay, where we going?"

  "I know a lovely little tavern in the town."

  "There is no lovely little tavern. Too many tourists in them."

  "This one's different."

  "Don't you think we oughtta do something besides drink?"

  Tess looked around, and saw that the tourists were all watching the divers. She ran her hand down inside his belt, tickling his lower belly with her long vermilion nails. Her gray eyes narrowed, vulpine and sly. "I will do something besides drink if I can get you in a dark corner of that lovely dark tavern!"

  "Let's go find your tavern," said Winnie.

  As he'd predicted, there was nothing lovely about it. It was just a bar where islanders did their drinking. It was dark; but there were no corners. The room was round.

/>   "Oh, well," Tess said. "It used to look different when I was younger."

  They ordered doubles. There were only three other customers. Winnie had to use the men's room, and when he got back there were two more drinks in front of them.

  "Where'd these come from?" he asked.

  "I finished mine while you were gone," she said boozily. "I wanted another so I ordered another for tt you.

  "You finished yours just like that?"

  "Like that," she said. "I'm on holiday!"

  "I had good intentions," Winnie said weakly.

  Tess reached up and pulled Winnie down by the hair. She thrust that muscular tongue straight into his left ear, and said, "I want bad intentions, big boy. This is holiday time!"

  Winnie raised the bucket and said, "I'm catching up!

  "That's my boy!" Tess said, and Winnie drank guilt-free, proving yet again that the superego is alcohol soluble.

  They ordered yet another round, and Tess, whose voice seemed to be getting thick, said, "I gotta make a call, sailor. Gotta check on our B and B."

  "Thought you already booked the room."

  "Yeah, but I've got to make sure it's ready. I hate getting turned away from inns, like Mary and Joseph."

  While she was gone, Winnie noticed that his jaw was going numb. Greasy food or not, he'd had enough. He put the drink down, but then he saw that there was half a shot left in the glass. He drained it and put the glass down again.

  Lousy joint didn't serve anything but crummy American vodka. He noticed that the fish in the aquarium on the wall seemed to be swimming. Then he looked closer and saw that it was a plastic fish in a three-dimensional wall hanging! He blinked hard and the fish stayed put.

  "Guess what?" Tess said when she returned.

  "What?"

  "Our room's ready."

  "So let's go."

  "We've got some time to kill. One more for the road?" Tess raised her hand and called for two more doubles.

  By the time they were back out on the street, Winnie was walking unsteadily. Tess led him to the taxi stand and the young driver helped Winnie up into the van.

  "That vodka," Winnie said. "They oughtta can it and sell it to the cops. Tasted like Mace."

  Buster filled the Bertram at the waterfront gas station next to the Balboa ferry. The kid pumping gas said, "Going after abalone?"

  "Anything I can get/' said Buster Wiles. "Sometimes you gotta take what life offers."

  "Guess so," the kid said, topping off the tank. "Hope you have good luck!"

  "Gotta make your luck sometimes," Buster said.

  The day was heating up, and the sun crashed down on Buster Wiles up on the fly bridge. When he neared the end of the jetty, he thought the wind would cool him off, but it didn't. He took off his sweatshirt and fejt chilled with only a T-shirt underneath, but in a moment he was okay. In fact, his underarms were damp with sweat. He'd been sweating all morning.

  When he cleared the jetty, he gave her some throttle. He did not turn southeast toward Dana Point. The lazy sea lions on the bell buoy were indifferent to Buster Wiles, who steered a compass bearing of 240. Toward the isthmus of Santa Catalina Island.

  The west end of Catalina was by far Winnie's favorite part of the island, and he was grateful for a respite from booze as the taxi wound along the road from Avalon over the mountains to the isthmus. During the hour-and-a-half drive, Winnie gazed at Mount Blackjack, the second highest elevation at two thousand feet, on an island without flat land. His father had taken him camping there when he was ten years old, and Winnie felt nostalgia welling up in his throat. It took a moment to subside. It was shocking to think that he was older now than his father had been when he took his son to the top of Mount Blackjack on a nature hike with his Cub Scout troop.

  When they approached Little Harbor on the offshore side of the island, Winnie was a bit more sober and said to Tess, "God, I forgot how beautiful it is! The white rock and black rock and the clear water!"

  The driver had to slow when a mother buffalo and a calf, their hides caked with the chalky red dust of the island, crossed the road in front of the taxi, disdainfully trampling some prickly pear as though the yellow blossom cactus weren't there. Finally the road snaked its way down into Two Harbors, Santa Catalina's narrowest point, where Isthmus Cove on the north and Catalina Harbor on the south are separated by a narrow strip of land only half a mile wide.

  Here the cloud shadow on the hillsides gave the rugged landscape a look of moss and velvet before the summer burn. Cat Head juts out of Catalina Harbor on the south like a mini-Gibraltar, and the little harbor below Cat Head was dead calm with perhaps thirty boats moored and anchored: yachtsmen, fishermen and divers arriving early for the weekend.

  A three-masted Chinese junk, the Ning-Po, lies in shallow water there in Cat Harbor, a boat with a colorful history. First used by smugglers in China, later captured by Chinese Gordon himself-who later passed into legend at Khartoum-the junk became a prison ship and finally ended up as a restaurant, a movie prop, and now a sunken oddity.

  Sailing into Two Harbors through Isthmus Cove was the way Winnie loved best. So many times he'd come from the mainland for a weekend to fish the kelp beds with his dad. He'd always gotten that same feeling, his throat swelling up when he saw the chalk cliffs off to port, and Bird Rock off to starboard-home of gulls, pelicans and cormorants-a rock that guarded the harbor like an iceberg. And in fact many a careless skipper had been sunk by this "iceberg" when his bottom struck the protective reef to the south, so shallow it juts out of the water at low tide.

  Winnie and his father used to moor in Isthmus Cove and fish for halibut, yellowtail, albacore, mako shark, and his dad's favorite, white sea bass. Winnie often thought that if his father were alive he wouldn't have let himself deteriorate after he'd been forced out of police work. His dad would have saved him from himself. And then it occurred to him that he was still a lost little lad, longing for a father's protection. Did that ever end?

  From the charcoal-gray, rock-strewn beach at Isthmus Cove the land rises up gently across the isthmus, with steep rugged hills ascending on both sides. Shaggy, wind-shaped eucalyptus and artfully placed palm trees provide a picturesque backdrop for the village at Isthmus Cove. Hollywood palm trees were uprooted when Sunset Boulevard was widened during the movie town's Golden Age, and the trees were shipped to Two Harbors to give the village the look it needed for filming Rain, Hurricane and Mutiny on the Bounty. Many of the wood-frame buildings with tarpaper roofs, including the general store, were constructed as a backlot in the thirties, and now serve as homes for the 130 souls living at Two Harbors.

  Older yachtsmen still tell tales of the days when "Christian's Hut," built for the Clark Gable-Charles Laughton epic, became a favorite saloon for the legendary binges of Errol Flynn, Victor McLaglen, David Niven, Ward Bond, and of course, John Wayne, until it burned down and was never rebuilt.

  The dive-boat skippers claim there's fifty-foot visibility in the water by the kelp beds and reef off Isthmus Cove, making it a diver's paradise. Winnie remembered two trips he'd made here with Buster Wiles on the Bertram belonging to Woody the sailmaker to dive for abalone and lobster by the reef. On one of those trips they were outside the cove near Ship Rock, another small outcropping snowcapped with guano, when Buster had suddenly surfaced with a lobster in each hand.

  Buster's violet eyes were dilated with fear! He'd been surprised by a large mako, which had come from nowhere and knocked the mask off his face. Still, Buster had clung to his lobsters, and later they cooked them on the beach by the pier and shared them with two young women from the Avalon Safari Tours, both of whom fell in love with Buster while he told them about the mako shark. He'd had good times there at Two Harbors, Winnie and his friend Buster Wiles.

  Instead of going straight to the lodge on the hilltop, Tess asked the driver to let them off by the general store down in the village. The taxi fare was ninety dollars, and Tess gave the kid a hundred and waved good-bye.

 
; "Need something from the store?" Winnie asked.

  "Need a drink," she said. "That Catalina red dust, I've got it in my teeth."

  There was one restaurant in TWo Harbors, with a bar inside and another bar outside on a wooden deck. They chose the outside bar and sat on the stools rather than at a table.

  "It's glorious," Tess said. "We're going to have a warm glorious weekend!"

  "Hot," Winnie said. "Hot for Catalina at this time of year." Then to the bartender, "Double vodka. Polish if you got it."

  After the second one Winnie started to regain the buzz he'd lost during the taxi drive. After the next the buzz became a roar. After the fourth he knew he was getting drunk.

  "Think we better go find our room?" he said. "It's almost four o'clock. What time's the party start?"

  "Dexter said to be there at six. Sunset in paradise, that sort of thing."

  "Which club is it?" Winnie asked. "There's several little yacht clubs around here."

  "I don't know the name of it. The one near Cherry Cove. Walking distance, according to Dexter."

  "I know that one," Winnie said. "A long walk. Maybe we oughtta eat something now. I'm getting loaded."

  "No, you're not," Tess said.

  "I'm drinking two for every one a yours!" said Winnie. "Or three."

  "I'll let you know when you're drunk, old son," she said. "I was married to three drinking men. I know the symptoms. You're far from drunk. Anyway, we'll get a ride to the party from our B and B landlady."

  At 4:45 they left the bar and walked to the hilltop lodge, past the old Civil War barracks where the Union troops were supposed to protect the California gold from pirates during voyages from San Francisco to New York and Boston. The B and B lodge, once the home of the island's first family, was a charming old building overlooking both harbors from a hilltop promontory. Their room was comfortable and cozy. Tess told Winnie to shower first while she lay in bed watching the five o'clock news.

  When it was her turn to shower, Winnie went down to the public room, whose fireplace had a century-old smell of eucalyptus and oak. He strolled outside and climbed the hill to enjoy the view of Cat Harbor. To ponder where life would take him now that he'd met Tess Binder.