Of Sea and Cloud

by Jon Keller

  Jason grunted. What is your faith in, Osmond?

  Osmond rolled his shirtsleeve up and exposed a white arm and he clenched the arm with his hand and the fingers were long and strong and he squeezed the arm until his veins rose into ridges beneath the skin. There, he said. There is my faith, Jason. Blood and blood alone.

  Jason yawned and scratched the inside of his thighs. Daniel will take you to your hotel. Leave your rig here. And one more thing.

  Osmond rolled his sleeve down. He felt empty as if he’d sold something he treasured.

  This thing with the skull in the pound—whatever the fuck it is, I don’t care. But I want to know this: Did your grandson harm Nicolas? Julius Wesley. I’ll find out for myself but I want to hear it from you. I like to understand my business partners.

  Osmond stood. He placed his glass on Jason’s desk. He left the room and went down the steep metal staircase and found Daniel in the front office. Daniel drove him into the city to a hotel and let Osmond out on the sidewalk. He handed Osmond a keycard.

  They’ll pick you up at six.

  Yes, said Osmond and as he watched Daniel enter traffic and disappear into the city’s corridors he pictured an underwater landscape built of ledge and cave and canyon and he pictured lobsters rushing about the streets.

  He stepped into the building.

  There was an atrium in the lobby with several fountains surrounded by artificial aspen trees. Water noise echoed throughout the room. Osmond carried a single black leather bag and wore a black overcoat. He took the elevator up six flights and went down the hallway and opened the door.

  The shower was running and he could hear the exhaust fan. He shut the door and set his bag down and took off his boots and coat. He went to the window. The curtain was open and the view was over the south side and he saw old brick buildings and stone churches. He stood looking out over the cold city and watching the steam and smoke rising in tendrils from the rooftops until the shower stopped and the bathroom door opened.

  Osmond didn’t turn around. He felt her arms wrap around his waist and her head lean against his spine as her fingers dug into his stomach. He looked down at the long thin fingers so dark brown they were nearly black.

  Do you remember what you said to me the last time we saw each other? she said.

  Of course I do.

  I didn’t think you would.

  You are the only woman left in the world, he said.

  You’re so full of shit, she said and smiled as she turned him around. She was six feet tall and her forehead came only to his lips. Her hair was long and wet and brushed straight back over her scalp and she was naked. Beads of water remained on her shoulders. She didn’t wear any jewelry except a silver chain above her hips which held a silver pendant below her navel.

  Osmond set his hands on her shoulders and ran them down her arms and rib cage and followed the silver chain with his thumb and middle finger. He gripped the pendant. Below his fingers lay a thin strip of black hair.

  I’m happy you still have this, he said and released the pendant.

  She unbuttoned his shirt and worked it down over his shoulders and arms. She pulled his T-shirt off and his skin was like salt next to her dark skin and his chest and shoulders were covered in thick gray hair. His back was torn with old scars and she traced her fingers over the scars and he had the brief memory of kneeling shoulder to shoulder beside his brother with their father behind them holding the small flagellum and he twisted his shoulders away from her touch. She undid his pants and kneeled down and pulled them over his feet. She stood and her mouth was slightly open so he could see her white teeth and pink gums and the red tip of her tongue.

  He gripped her hips and ran his hand over her stomach and breasts and around her waistline and down her ass and he lifted her to her tiptoes and kissed her chin. Then released her. Her nostrils flared. She ran her hand between his legs and gripped and she searched his face for what was wrong and he said, Later.

  He pulled the blankets off the bed and lay down and she stretched out next to him.

  • • •

  Osmond and Renee met Jason outside the hotel. Jason held his arm around a Japanese-Hawaiian woman he introduced as Turtle. She wore a silver fur coat and hid her chin and mouth in the collar. It was dark but the city lights were bright against the wet pavement and their breath rose like street vent steam.

  Turtle stuck her hand out for Osmond to shake. He took it and she squeezed him harder than he would have thought possible. She looked him in the eyes and said, You’re a big bastard too, aren’t you?

  Osmond held her small hand and looked at Jason and Jason laughed.

  Jason had a car waiting and they climbed into it. Jason didn’t say anything to the driver. They sped through the city and turned down an alleyway and stopped beside a dumpster. They climbed out and the driver opened an oversized metal door and they walked into a wooden hallway stained dark with tobacco. There was no door on the men’s bathroom and they could smell urine and see the stainless steel trough that lined the wall. The trough was filled with pissed-over ice and cigarette butts. An Elvis poster hung on the wall but it had long since been tattooed with graffiti.

  Jason led them down the hallway and past a kitchen with a service window. The barroom was crowded and filled with smoke and the walls were lined with photos of old men like wainscoting and on the wall beside the service window hung a breakfast-all-day menu. A young man who looked to be a weightlifter leaned on his elbows in the window. He wore a tank top and a bandana drenched in sweat.

  Jason passed before the weightlifter’s field of vision and the man nodded and came out a side door and pushed through the crowd then unlocked a door that led to a wide wooden staircase. The step treads were covered in rubber mats. The weightlifter held the door as the four descended the stairs then shut it behind them. Osmond heard the lock slide home. The staircase was lit by a single dirty bulb hanging from an overhead wire.

  At the bottom of the stairs Jason opened a door and they entered a small speakeasy with a bar in one corner and several round black tables. The back of the bar was the glass wall of a pool-sized fish tank. A topless woman dressed as a mermaid swam back and forth and took periodic breaths from a tube camouflaged as seaweed. Underwater bulbs shone blue from the tank and lit the room in waves of light.

  The bartender walked around the bar and took their coats. Renee’s midriff and silver pendant flashed as she sat down.

  Jason still wore his cutoff sweatpants and white lab coat and rubber boots.

  The bartender brought two bottles of sake. She set them in front of Jason and he grabbed her by the hip and pulled her to him. She wore a black cocktail dress. She bent to hear what he was saying then nodded and left. Turtle leaned over to Jason and gripped his thigh in her fist and whispered, Easy with the hands there, Big Man.

  Jason nodded. He pulled her fist from his thigh and held it in his hands.

  Minutes later the bartender returned with a platter of tilefish taquitos. The taquitos were slices of fish the size of silver dollars pounded flat with rice flour then fried until they curled. Raw tilefish was piled inside each curled slice then topped with pickled cucumber and jalapeño slaw.

  Jason ate one. He licked his thumb and forefinger. As I was saying, Osmond, he said. This is the thing. The Japanese are the market. Right now the Italians have them. They have the lobsters and the fish so they have the Japanese market. But the Japanese don’t like to deal with them.

  But they like you.

  Right now a few of them do and as long as I provide the best product it will stay that way. They only want one thing and that’s quality. The Italians don’t understand that. They’re slobs. They eat too much sauce to understand. They have the fish but they manhandle them. They ruin their tuna and swords and then they soak the battered pricks in olive oil and tomato sauce like it’s fucking gnocchi or something. They have no sensitivities. The Japs are venomous pricks, and the more venomous a creature is, the more sensitive it is
. Wouldn’t you agree, Turtle?

  I would, she said. She grinned and wiped a sliver of cucumber from her chin. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not full of shit, Big Man.

  Jason laughed and his laugh was a boom like a backfire that filled the empty room. Easy, Tiger, he said.

  Easy? Turtle said. Easy? You bring me to a fucking strip joint and tell me to be easy?

  This isn’t a strip joint.

  Turtle turned and looked at the mermaid. She held her hand out with the palm up and the wrist arched and the bracelets dangling. What the hell is that then, a fucking dolphin? Fucking Flipper with tits?

  Osmond wrapped both hands around his drink and glanced at Renee. Her face looked to be smiling but her lips were set. She lifted one eyebrow at him. She picked at the tilefish.

  Jason reached into the air and waved once and the bartender came over. He motioned for her to come closer and he said, Get that girl out of the water and give her some clothes.

  The bartender looked around the room as if confused. Turtle pushed her chair back. Get that skinny bitch out of there or I’ll get her myself.

  The bartender grinned. Will you need a swimsuit?

  Jason grunted. Here. Give her this and tell her to go home. He handed the bartender some bills. She nodded at Turtle and took the money. She went behind the bar and through a doorway and Osmond watched as the mermaid surfaced and climbed from his field of vision.

  There, Jason said. How’s that?

  It’s still a fucking strip joint, Turtle said.

  Jason waited.

  Osmond lifted a taquito between two fingers and ate it in a single bite. The fried fish shell crunched then dissolved in his mouth. Who sets the price? he said.

  I do, Jason said.

  Osmond leaned back in his chair and put his hand on Renee’s leg and pulled the hem of her dress up so his hand was on bare skin. He felt the muscle twitch. I don’t believe that, he said to Jason.

  Jason laughed again. Good, he said. We’d be fools if we did. But I will tell you this. My price doesn’t come from Tsukiji. It comes from my man. Japan buys one in every ten fish caught in the world. In the whole world, Osmond. You catch ten goldfish in your granddad’s pond, you have to sell one of them to a Jap. The fish at the Tsukiji market are some of the best in the world, but that don’t mean shit to a lobster. You know why? Because lobsters are alive, Osmond. Those haiku cocksuckers don’t understand a living thing.

  I’m not interested, Osmond said.

  You will be. Jason ate three taquitos in a row then licked his fingers. China is emerging as a major lobster buyer. They think they want the same quality as Japan, but they’re still in the dark in a lot of ways. They might have developed infrastructure, but they haven’t developed taste. So we’ll deal with Japan and China. The top goes to Japan, the second run goes to China. We go from there.

  It’s my pound, Jason, and I have no intention of giving it to you.

  I don’t want it. If I wanted a pound I’d buy a pound. Hell, I’d buy yours. What I want is you.

  Those who conquer, Osmond said.

  Yes, Jason said. They eat from the tree of life. But we aren’t out to conquer, only to eat.

  The bartender brought another bottle of sake and two plates of Arctic char crudo. The Arctic char came folded in layers of bright orange atop beds of shining green sea lettuce. Brown dots of miso and strips of shaved radish circled the plates. The bartender left and returned with a plate of steamed buns. In the center of each was a deep-fried lobster the size of a thumb. Jason tugged his sleeve up so his hairy wrist was exposed. He reached for a bun and packed the spilling pickled red onions and cabbage back into it. He ate it in two bites and the entire table heard his chewing.

  Osmond eyed Jason. He lifted a bun and peered at the baby lobster and said, Any fisherman back home would cut your hands off for this.

  The lobster? Don’t eat it then, Jason said.

  Osmond glanced at Jason then put the lobster bun in his mouth and chewed and swallowed. He sipped the sake and all of it was good but he had no appetite for it. He watched as Turtle ate down the lobster then the pickled vegetables then the bun.

  Renee pushed the baby lobster aside and ate the bun together with a slice of the char.

  Tell me this, friend, Jason said. He sipped his sake. Why haven’t you discussed the situation with Nicolas’s son? I am confused.

  Don’t worry about it.

  I’m not worried, Jason said. I’m confused.

  Osmond pushed his chair back. He looked at the hoops that Turtle wore in her ears and the red lipstick. How old are you? he asked her.

  Jason grinned big at Osmond.

  Guess, Turtle said.

  I don’t guess.

  I don’t tell.

  Osmond’s jaw clenched then relaxed and he squeezed Renee’s thigh.

  Turtle ran a finger over the corner of her mouth as if to wipe away a crumb or hide a smile. The bartender returned and Turtle said, Can I get a cheeseburger and fries? Rare.

  A cheeseburger and fries, the bartender said. She looked at Jason then to Turtle.

  Yeah, a cheeseburger and fries.

  The bartender nodded but didn’t move.

  Jason pushed his chair back as if to stand but stayed seated. I should have introduced you, he said. This is Turtle. She used to manage the fish exchange in Honolulu. Now she’s with me. She gets whatever she wants. Turtle, this is Kate. She’s the best bartender in the city so don’t give her any of your pidgin bullshit.

  There was a moment of silence before Kate said, A cheeseburger?

  Rare. With fries.

  Kate nodded and left.

  Jason cleared his throat and turned to Osmond. He fingered several pieces of Arctic char into his mouth followed by a pinch of sea lettuce. Nicolas’s son, Osmond?

  Osmond folded his hands in his lap. Nicolas was my friend, he began. I have not discussed things with William because I initially thought we were on the same page. Now I understand that we are not, and I will talk to him.

  Why wouldn’t Nicolas tell him you were insured?

  Osmond looked over his shoulder at the vacant tank as if searching for solace in water then said, So you buy the bugs from me same as ever?

  Same as ever.

  And you pay for the facility.

  Yes.

  Who runs the wharf? And the tank house? Who runs the trucks and pays the maintenance? Who gets fucked when the power goes out?

  We’ll have a manager that works for me but answers to you.

  I don’t believe you, Jason, Osmond said.

  I don’t expect you to. That’s why you are here.

  Osmond blinked. That’s why I am here, he thought and once again he saw his friend Nicolas Graves alive in the sea and he felt suddenly that he would lose his bowels. He clenched every muscle in his body to keep hold of whatever remained within him. He stood. He saw Nicolas’s eyes ready to go down. He excused himself and hurried to the restroom and into a stall where he braced both hands flat on the wall and saw Nicolas later only a skull flung to the sea. Osmond’s hair hung beyond his cheeks. He stared at the water in the porcelain bowl. A bead of sweat fell and landed in the toilet and he closed his eyes.

  Goddamn you, Osmond whispered. Goddamn you.

  The next evening. Osmond sat at the end of the bar in his house. Rhonda and Dolly were in their bedroom and he could hear Dolly’s constant chatter. He held a glass of scotch in his hand. An open bible lay on the bar and there had been a time when the men in those pages were the men in his life and miracles were commonplace and belief and truth were one but belief was no longer truth and the time of miracles was over. Faith was forever and Osmond’s faith was in his ability to navigate a world as empty and chaotic as the whirlwind but now suddenly he felt that faith cracking.

  He sipped his scotch. The south wall of his house was built of floor-to-ceiling picture windows that framed his wharf and boat and beyond that the reach and the bridge that arched across to Mason’s I
sland. To the southwest an archipelago stretched offshore to Spencer Ledges and the sea-swell rolled and heaved against the outside ledges. White spray hung in the air.

  On the wall opposite Osmond stood an eight-foot-long saltwater fish tank with a lobster the size of his leg lying motionless in it. Osmond drank his scotch and looked to the lobster. There you are, he whispered. I see you waiting.

  He went back to his reading and read several verses and as he read his lips mouthed the words and his right hand slid a check in circles on the bar top. The check was for $35,000. Ten thousand pounds of lobster at three fifty a pound. Osmond pressed it into the bar top to still it. If Nicolas were alive he would deposit the check into the business account and split it down the middle. Any expenses incurred throughout the year would be likewise split.

  But Osmond’s world had shifted.

  Chimney was in prison and Nicolas was dead and Julius had bought a new boat and moved out. Whether Julius was to be trusted or not Osmond had no idea. Osmond had simultaneously abandoned his brother and his beliefs for a woman and he’d lost both her and their child. And he’d later sacrificed Nicolas his only friend with his own hands. Osmond understood these three deaths to be elements of providence and he understood that fear and fragility came in apocalyptic waves which rose and fell with the corrosive power of tides and what remained when fear finished was love and faith and love and faith together meant blood.

  But I have this against you, Osmond whispered as if speaking to the lobster. That you, you have abandoned love.

  And here he sat about to abandon Nicolas’s son William. But that was not a choice of his. That was a choice he and Nicolas made together and they had never once doubted that decision but neither Nicolas nor Osmond had ever doubted who would die first. Nicolas had not been the sort of man to die. But Osmond was not the sort of man to abandon his family. Not again. After Laura died he’d spent years believing her death to be his punishment for abandoning the church and the only way he’d survived was to accept his punishment and accept life as a consciousness dissolved within predestination like salt within water. There existed a God who was neither good nor evil and that God saved those souls chosen regardless of sin or sacrifice. A man must walk this earth with steps true and sure but now and always now was Nicolas Graves.