“That might make a good setting,” he said. “I would like to get closer to it.”
“You can negotiate with the Gay Headers,” I said. “I don’t know if they want anybody making movies down there.”
“I’m just an idea man,” he said, with a smile. “Some-body else can do the negotiating if it needs to be done.”
As we passed Toni Begay’s shop, I put my head inside and saw her little sister Maggie. “Toni at home with the family?”
“Oh, hi,” she said. “Yes, everybody’s there. Since Hanna showed up, it’s hard to get my sister out of the house. I think she’s afraid that Hanna will break if she takes her outside.”
It was a now familiar fear that I hadn’t known existed before Joshua was born. I was working hard to overcome it, but wasn’t out of the woods yet. I suspected that I might never be, that as a parent I was doomed to worry about my children forever.
“And speaking of babies,” Maggie went on, “how is Wyatt Urp?”
“Wyatt is right outside,” I said. “See for yourself.”
She did that, and I made introductions.
“Maggie, this is Drew Mondry of the Hollywood Mondrys. Drew, this is Maggie Vanderbeck of the Gay Head Vanderbecks.”
Maggie and Mondry exchanged hellos. “Hollywood,” said Maggie. “Are you with that movie outfit I’ve been reading about?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Maggie was cute. “Are you looking for genuine Native American extras to give your film a touch of authenticity? I can use some fame and fortune.”
He laughed. “I don’t think authenticity has a lot to do with movies these days, but I’ll keep you in mind.”
Then Maggie and Zee cooed over Joshua until a customer came by and Maggie had to go back to work.
“Maggie and I work together at the hospital,” said Zee to Mondry. “She’s studying to be a nurse.”
“A noble profession,” said Drew Mondry.
Zee nodded. “It is. Once I thought I’d go to medical school and become a doctor, but I decided that being a nurse was more important. I think I made the right choice.”
“Indeed.” He nodded.
It was beginning to take effort to dislike him. After all, his only problems were that he looked like a leading man, acted like a gentleman, and was fascinated by Zee; and who could blame him for any of those things?
We drove toward Lobsterville and turned off into Joe and Toni Begay’s yard. Joe’s truck and Toni’s car were parked there, and there was a pretty new Ford Bronco there, too.
Toni Begay came to the door and, seeing Zee and me, came right out and gave us hugs. “What a nice surprise!”
I introduced Drew Mondry to Toni and Toni to Drew Mondry. “I’m giving the twenty-five-cent tour of the island,” I said, “and I want Drew to see the cliffs from the bottom looking up.”
Toni waved toward the path that led to the beach. “You two go look at the cliffs. Zee and I will stay here and make plans for Joshua and Hanna’s wedding.”
“But Hanna is an older woman,” I said. Hanna had been born ten weeks before Joshua.
“Women should always get their men young and raise ’em the way they want them,” said Zee. “Everybody’s happier that way.”
“You didn’t do it that way.”
“I made a mistake, myself, but it’s not too late to save my son.” Zee put her nose against Joshua’s. “Is it, you little sweetie?”
“You’ll probably meet Joe and his friend Larry and Larry’s assistant on your walk,” said Toni. “They’re out strolling the beach. Come on in, Zee.”
Drew Mondry looked appreciatively after them. “Now, there are two women who make you think there’s hope for America. You and your friend Joe are two lucky guys.”
True.
We walked west along the sandy trail until we came to the beach. To our left the cliffs began to rise. We went that way, with the waves slapping at the sand beside us.
“A lot of bass have been caught under these cliffs,” I said. “And a lot of people like to take mud baths in the clay that washes down onto the beach. For years nobody thought much about it, but now it’s very politically incorrect, and they’ve got people with badges patrolling the beach to protect the cliffs.”
“You sound like you aren’t too sympathetic with the badge wearers.”
“I’m getting crotchety in my old age. I don’t like people telling other people that they can’t do harmless things they’ve always done.”
“Maybe the mud baths aren’t harmless. I imagine the police are just trying to protect the cliffs.”
Sweet reason.
“It’ll take more than a few mud bathers to tear down the Gay Head cliffs,” I said. “I’m not a mud bather myself, but I’m on their side.”
From the direction of the cliffs, two men and a woman were walking toward us. I recognized the taller one as Joe Begay. His companions were shorter and slighter and were strangers to me. They seemed deep in conversation.
“I think the argument is that there have to be rules that keep people from wrecking the environment,” Drew Mondry was saying.
I wasn’t opposed to that thought, but felt a surge of familiar stubbornness. “Yeah, but who’s going to decide what the rules are and who’s going to be the enforcer? Those are the questions. Personally, I don’t think I need anybody else telling me how to save the planet.”
“I think that I’ll just ease out of this subject,” said Mondry with a grin.
The grin was infectious and I found a smile on my own face. “Both of us will ease out of it.”
Ahead of us Joe Begay and his companions seemed to notice us for the first time. Actually, I suspected that Joe had taken note of us before I had seen them. There was little that escaped Joe’s eye. Now I saw him raise a hand, and raised my own in reply.
“Joe Begay,” I said to Mondry. “We met in Vietnam.”
“Quite a while back.”
“Yeah. It’s in the history books these days, the way World War Two was when I was a kid.”
The five of us came together and paused. Begay raised an eyebrow.
“Are you alone, or are our ladies at the house admiring their children?”
“They’re there. Joe, this is Drew Mondry. He’s scouting locations for that movie outfit that’s coming here in the fall. Drew, this is Joe Begay, Toni’s husband.”
They shook hands. Then Mondry shook hands with one of Begay’s companions.
“Call me Drew,” he said.
“Larry,” said the other man. “This is my assistant, Beth.”
He was slim, clean-cut, and wearing pressed jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and had thinning brown hair above intelligent blue eyes. Everything about him was clean and neat.
“Hi,” said Beth. She was young and outdoorsy looking.
There was a little smile lurking somewhere in Joe Begay’s scarred bronze face.
“And this is a friend of mine, J.W.,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve met. Larry, this is J. W. Jackson.”
Larry put out his hand and I took it. It was sinewy and brown. A working hand.
“And, J.W., this is Larry Ingalls,” Begay’s amused voice continued. “Larry works for the state. He’s down here to give a talk.”
Larry Ingalls. Works for the state.
Lawrence Ingalls, state biologist. Plover lover. Eco-terrorist. Beach closer.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Loathsome Lawrence.
— 7 —
“Larry’s down from Boston,” said Begay.
“That makes you a stranger in a strange land,” I said, looking at Ingalls.
Ingalls shook his head. “Not really. I’m based in the city, but I have a place here. I get down whenever I can.”
“Larry works for the Department of Environmental Protection,” Begay said to Mondry, enjoying the situation. He then turned to Ingalls. ’J.W. is one of our local surf casters.”
“When I can get to the surf to cast,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “there’s certainly plenty of surf on the Vineyard.”
“Not as much as there used to be,” I said. “Some idiot up in Boston has closed down Norton’s Point Beach for the past several summers because of his asinine notion that ORVs were killing off piping plovers. There’s a lot of local sentiment to the effect that whoever made that decision should either be shot to put him out of his misery, or institutionalized because he’s delusionary.”
Beth looked startled, and Ingalls’s eyes got hard. “The law is the law. And the plan worked. The plovers are thriving and the beach is open again.”
From the corner of my vision I could see the smile on Begay’s face, but I kept my own eyes cold.
“Everybody but this seven-letter word from. Boston knows the plovers are thriving because the beach patrol built predator fences around the plover nests, not because there weren’t any ORVs going down the beach. But this fanatic, whoever he is, is one of those eco-terrorists you read about: he’s got himself a list of commandments straight from God, and one of them is that ORVs are plover killers. He reminds me of that bastard Oliver Cromwell.”
Was Ingalls running seven-letter words through his mind? I couldn’t tell.
“I’m the guy in Boston,” he said coldly. “This island is a fragile place, and we protect its ecology, including its wildlife. Irreparable harm can be done! And a lot of studies show that ORVs have been a principal cause of destroying the natural habitat of plovers and other shorebirds!”
I put my face a little closer to his. “There’s no evidence at all that the plovers on Norton’s Point are any better off because you banned ORVs, you know.”
“I do not know!”
“You probably don’t know a lot of things,” I said. I was on a roll. “Before you closed it, the county cleared about forty thousand dollars a year selling ORV stickers to that beach! Since you closed it down, they’ve had to spend more than that just to hire people to enforce your worthless regulations! It works out to about two thousand dollars a plover, and by the ounce that’s more than the price of gold!”
“We’re sensitive to the revenue issues,” said Ingalls, putting his nose up toward mine. “But if vehicles aren’t managed on that beach, the ecological consequences will be extremely adverse!”
“The ecological consequences will be extremely adverse, eh? The only time I ever heard anybody string together a phrase like that was when he was reading it out of a book. You must have memorized those tablets God showed you when he gave you the job of leading us heathen out of the wilderness!”
“Don’t raise your voice to me, Mr. Jackson!” he said, raising his voice. “It costs money to enforce the law, and there are no laws more important than those protecting our environment!”
I was beginning to feel pretty good.
“Nobody needs you or your idiotic notions about what it takes to protect the environment!” I said, raising the voice he’d ordered me not to raise. “The scariest thing about you is that you actually believe what you say!” I turned to Begay and winked and said, “Joe, what are you doing hanging around with an arrogant idiot like this guy?”
I turned back and was surprised to find Lawrence Ingalls swinging a wild right hand at my chin. It was easy to slip it, and I felt sorry for him until he belted my jaw with a hard left and the world turned gray-black. My knees went watery and I realized too late that the right had only been a feint and that Lawrence Ingalls was a boxer. Although only a middleweight, he knew how to put shoulder behind his punches, and that one such punch in the right place has put better men than me down for the count. I got my hands up just in time for him to step in under them and put a hard combination into my gut. Although I was a couple of weight classes heavier than he was, I sagged some more.
If he’d stepped back then and taken his time, he might have put me down, or I might have just kept falling until I hit the ground. But, instead, his temper kept him close, throwing more punches at my belly, and I was able to lurch forward and get my arms around him. I put my chin on his shoulder and let him hold me up while he banged on my kidneys. Slowly my head began to clear and my knees got some starch back into them.
I tightened my arms around him. The surf was off to my right, and I dragged him down to it while he kept thumping my kidneys. But I was a lot bigger than he was, and in spite of his best efforts to stop me, I walked him out into the water and shoved his head under.
He thrashed like a bluefish, but I held him there.
Somewhere off in the distance I heard Begay saying, “Now, now, J.W., if you’re going to drown him, it’d be better if you did it without any witnesses around.”
“Let him up,” said Beth’s voice. “You’ll kill him!”
“Somebody probably will,” I said. “Why not me?”
Ingalls seemed to be weakening. I pulled his head up and he choked and gasped and grabbed at me.
“You shouldn’t pick fights with strangers,” I said. “They’re not all as nice as I am. The next one may hand you your head on a plate.”
I dragged him back to shore and dropped him on the beach. He didn’t look as ironed as he had before.
“I thought he had your number there for a minute,” said Begay. “You must have forty pounds on him, but he still almost cleaned your clock. You’re getting old.”
“He never laid a glove on me,” I said, panting.
Beth was kneeling beside Ingalls, who was coughing salt water out of his lungs. She looked up at me with furious eyes.
“I’ll have you arrested for assault, you big bully! You almost killed him!”
“He’s not even half dead,” I said. “Besides, he threw the first punch, so I should be the suer, not the sue-ee. Ask your witnesses.” I waved a hand at Mondry and Begay.
Ingalls got to his hands and knees. He was still coughing, but looked like he’d live.
“You’d better take your boyfriend back to Boston,” I said to Beth. “This island isn’t good for his health.”
“You won’t get away with this,” she said. “I’ll make sure you don’t!”
Ingalls sat back on his heels. By some miracle, his glasses were still on his face.
“Why don’t you two keep going on your walk,” said Begay. “Beth and I will get Larry back to the house.”
That seemed like a good idea. “Come on,” I said to Drew Mondry. “We’ll check out the cliffs from the beach.”
“Stay away about an hour, at least,” said Begay, with a reasonably straight face.
“I’ll remember you,” said Ingalls, coughing. “We’ll meet again!”
“You’d better hope not,” I said, and walked away up the beach. Snappy dialogue is my forte.
Mondry walked beside me, saying nothing.
After a while, I looked back and saw that Begay, Beth, and Ingalls were gone.
“Well,” said Mondry.
“I know, I know,” I said. “The whole thing was stupid.”
“I wasn’t going to say a thing, but now that you mention it . . .”
“If my face isn’t red, it should be.”
“These things happen,” said Mondry.
“I don’t like them happening to me,” I said.
A couple of times in the past, when I’d been injured or afraid, a crimson curtain had fallen over my eyes and turned the world the color of blood, and I’d come close to really hurting people. I didn’t ever want that to happen again, and wondered now how far away that red world had been when Ingalls had hit me.
“Your friend Begay is an interesting guy,” said Mondry. “He didn’t seem too worried about either of you.”
“Joe has seen too much to worry about a spat like this one.”
I was soaked, but that didn’t mean much since I was decked out in my normal duds: shorts, a T-shirt, and Tevas, the first two being products of the Edgartown thrift shop; if you live on an island, you have to e
xpect to get wet now and then, either on purpose or accidentally. Besides, my clothes were already drying in the summer sun.
“Where did your friend see all that stuff?”
“You can ask him when we get back to the house. He might tell you, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
We walked along the beach as the cliffs rose higher and higher above us, and passed the place where people like to take mud baths.
I said, “This is the place I was telling you about. When I was a little kid, nobody cared if you wallowed around down here in the wet clay, and we used to climb up and down the cliffs. I think it would take a lot of people a lot of time to wear away these cliffs, but they’re Gay Head’s cliffs, not mine, and if they want to keep people off them, it’s okay with me.”
“You’re pretty testy today,” said Mondry.
He was right. I tried to put my testiness away.
We walked to the far end of the cliffs, then back again, passing the rocks where sometimes there are big bass lying in wait for your lure. The only problem with hooking a really big bass at the foot of the cliffs is that you have to somehow tote it back to your truck, which is a long walk. It is a difficulty gladly accepted by bass fishermen.
“We could bring a boat in close and get shots of this beach,” said Mondry, looking first out to sea, then up at the sky. “And I should take a look at the cliffs from a helicopter, too. In fact, I should take a look at the whole island from the air. You know anybody with a helicopter?”
“It costs a lot of money to rent a helicopter.”
He smiled his California smile. “Money is no problem.”
I thought of Zorba’s observation that life is a problem; only death is no problem.
“I can find you a helicopter,” I said.
“Good man.”
Our hour was up, so we walked back to the Begays’ house. Loathsome Lawrence and his helper were gone.
Zee narrowed one eye and looked at me. “What happened out there? All Joe will say is that you and Larry Ingalls had an argument. But Larry was soaked when he got here and I can see that you got pretty wet yourself. What happened?”
She had Joshua on her hip. I was almost dry by then, so I took him and put him on mine. Babies fit on women’s hips better than on men’s, but Josh did not seem discontent. He grabbed my T-shirt and tried to get it in his mouth.
A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard Page 5