Of Sea and Cloud

by Jon Keller

  Osmond wished briefly that he had been the one to drown. To feel the cold waves. But even as the wish formed he threw it away like a coin down a well and focused instead on the question, How the hell had Nicolas Graves ended up a skeleton within the pound?

  There was no explanation. None save for a man’s hands but whose hands and how?

  Julius’s truck tore through his thoughts and down the driveway and soon Julius came into the house. He went first to the girls’ room and Osmond heard him talk to his sisters and ten minutes later he sat on a stool at the bar and faced the lobster tank. Behind him the sea rose and fell in smooth gun-gray swell. Osmond watched the boy as if seeking evidence of his own blood.

  Osmond didn’t speak. He sipped his drink and spun the melting ice cubes around the glass. He stood and took a piece of salt cod from a glass jar and dropped it into the fish tank. The lobster backed into its cave with its two claws sticking out and waited as the fish settled to the bottom.

  We have to make some decisions, Julius. About our future.

  I got my future decided. I got my boat and that’s it.

  Osmond reached his long arm slowly across the bar and gripped Julius’s hand and squeezed it until he saw the muscles work in Julius’s face. The blood rushed up Julius’s neck and pulsed in a lightning bolt vein across his temple and forehead and beneath his ear. Osmond relaxed his grip. No, that is not it. Nicolas is gone. What happens from this point on is our decision. You have a long way to go. You have been spoiled, Julius.

  I earned every cent I got.

  Osmond put his hand back on his own drink. How have you earned it?

  Working for the old man. Hell I know his operation in and out and ran half of it myself.

  So why aren’t you in prison as well?

  I’m careful.

  You’re careful? A careful man considers his future. The pound has a lot of potential, but it is a lot of work, Julius. It will take commitment and perseverance.

  I ain’t a pound man. I’m a fisherman, plain and simple. You can do whatever you want.

  Osmond stood fast from his seat. His hair swung in a swish like a cape as he grabbed Julius by the back of the neck and squeezed. He bent over and the heat and moisture of Osmond’s mouth shot into Julius’s ear.

  This pound is not for me, Julius. This pound is for this family. It is for you. It is for your future and that of your family, and it is for your sisters’ future, and I have sacrificed myself for those futures. I have sacrificed myself, he repeated slowly as his free hand landed first on Julius’s chest then moved to his throat where the fingers wrapped the tender skin.

  Do you understand?

  Julius didn’t answer. Osmond pinched the neck harder and Julius’s back arched scorpion-like and his feet kicked and air escaped his mouth and he gagged. Osmond released him and sat on the barstool beside him then reached over and pushed gently on Julius’s lips as if to silence the boy. Julius’s breath evened and Osmond ran his hand through Julius’s hair.

  That pound ain’t shit, Julius said.

  Osmond gripped the jugular in his fingers. He saw Nicolas in the water and he squeezed and the jugular was a grape in his grip as Nicolas thrashed and Julius squirmed. Nicolas went under for this boy who did not even care. Osmond ground his teeth and squeezed harder and tears spilled from the sides of each man’s eyes and Julius dug his fingernails into his palms and his mouth flattened into a line. His back arched again.

  Osmond released him and slowly nodded. He finished his drink and placed the glass upside down in Julius’s palm as if marking the boy. He looked out the window at his boat on the mooring and the gray ripples on the ocean. He ran a finger over his mustache and said, The question now is what changes will be made at the pound.

  Julius gripped the glass. He closed his eyes. I’d say it’s going to need quite a few changes, he said.

  Things already are changing, Julius. Nicolas is gone.

  Julius stood and steadied himself against a chair and breathed heavily. His eyes met his grandfather’s then he went behind the bar and took a cola out of the refrigerator. He put ice in a cup and filled it.

  Osmond lifted the bible. He who conquers shall be blessed. He held the book in front of himself like a wineglass. So tell me, young Julius, what is your future?

  Julius held the glass of iced cola in his fist. With his tongue he knocked an ice cube around his mouth then crunched and swallowed it. This, he finally said.

  Louder.

  This is my future.

  Osmond nodded chin to clavicle and back. He heard Dolly instruct Rhonda on something. Waves piled on the shore. He felt his grandson’s eyes upon him. A line of sweat streamed down his spine and something within his skull pounded. The lobster in the tank moved from its small cave and dragged the piece of fish back into the darkness.

  Osmond spoke quietly. The pound is a lot of work, Julius. And it will only grow from here. This is the beginning. When Jason Jackson gets involved with us we are going to be committed. He is negotiating with Benji to purchase the wharf but that purchase will be contingent on us. He will make sure we do well but there is no room for mistakes.

  I know that.

  The boat price on lobsters is gone and it won’t come back. It might go up some, but it won’t come back. Not unless something happens to the catch.

  So?

  So speak.

  Bill ain’t going to give up the pound.

  Osmond slammed his palm onto the bar top and Dolly’s voice from the other room silenced. Bill no longer has anything to do with the pound, Osmond said. It is over for him. The Lord has struck.

  Charlotte parked her car at the Irving station and climbed into Julius’s truck. She wore a blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans and an aqua blue skullcap. Her hair hung in a ponytail from beneath the skullcap. The truck smelled like air fresheners and cologne. Julius had parked with the front wheels stuffed deep into the snow bank so the tires spun as he reversed.

  They pulled out of the parking lot and turned west and crossed the river. The truck rumbled. The tide was coming and filling the frozen mud channel with brown seawater. A layer of snow covered the dead sea grass.

  I can’t wait to be done with school, Charlotte said.

  I’ll tell you what school’s for, said Julius. It’s for nothing.

  She felt a charge in her throat. Well, high school maybe. But I’m moving out west soon. I got into college in Idaho.

  I like it right here.

  Charlotte smiled at him. You’ve probably never been anywhere else.

  He turned onto a side road that passed a wreath factory and crossed a discontinued set of railroad tracks and he put his foot down on the gas and the truck roared over the tracks and began up a long hill.

  The hell I ain’t, he said. I been everywhere.

  You haven’t either.

  The hill turned to dirt with potholes and frozen washboard. The truck bounced over the roadbed and Charlotte held one hand on the seat beside her and one on the handle above the window.

  Where’ve you been? she said.

  Julius pursed his lips and drew them into his mouth. She watched him scratch his arrowhead patch of hair. He looked innocent or naive but she could see the sinew and muscle in his neck and shoulders and hands and she could see a light like a black spark deep in his eyes that made her want to press her eye directly to his. It occurred to her that his entire body held this sort of spark and she wanted to encompass it like a stove would a coal.

  He ran his finger and thumb over his mouth then touched the back of his head as if feeling a bruise but he didn’t answer her.

  The hill grew steeper. They climbed out of the oaks and maples and the blueberry barrens spread before them. Thousands of acres of blueberries and ponds and brooks and rivers covering a single vast deposit of sand and gravel left behind by the glaciers that had ages ago calved and melted into the sea. The early winter winds had blown the snow from the barrens and exposed the blueberry shoots that were blistered red
from cold as if the fields were afire. Around the fields the windblown snow was packed into tight drifts set against the oaks and rocks.

  I wouldn’t go, Julius said.

  I don’t have any real reason to stay.

  Consider it, he said. A careful person considers the future.

  Charlotte laughed at the caution in his voice. I have thought it over. And I am careful, thank you. I don’t like the smell of bait, I don’t like everyone knowing everything about me, and I don’t like the fog. I looked on the computer and Idaho gets as much sun as Florida and way less rain.

  Julius crunched on a candy and didn’t respond. He turned onto a rough dirt road that followed the edge of the plateau and from there they looked north over the barrens and south over the sea. The sun hovered over the mountains to the west. Outside the truck window the barrens whizzed by.

  Charlotte turned in the seat and leaned against the door and put one foot on the seat with her knee bent up to her chest. She watched Julius through a long silence. After a few miles he pulled off the road and parked. They walked across the frozen ankle-high bushes toward a car-sized boulder that sat alone among the blueberries. Traces of snow lay in webs on the ground. A waist-deep drift filled the lee of the rock and they climbed the rock and Charlotte sat in the orange radiating glow. Julius stood straight atop the rock’s crest and the quarter moon appeared due south. There was no wind and it was silent and cold and Charlotte shivered and rubbed heat with her hands into her thighs.

  I hear you moved, she said.

  Where’d you hear that to?

  School. Just the kids talking.

  Kids? Ain’t no one knows me.

  Charlotte smiled. Everyone knows you.

  The hell they do.

  Julius’s face was serious and the sunset was red on his dark skin. She thought he looked like a statue. She watched his face and he didn’t blink or waver just stared into the light strict and intent as if the last rags of sun depended on him alone. Then he raised one arm to the moon and the other arm to the sun to become the vertex of a 90-degree angle between star and moon. Small tides now, he whispered.

  Charlotte watched him for a few seconds. You got it figured out, don’t you?

  He didn’t blink. Yes, he said. He lowered his arms. You can tell the tides by where the sun and moon are. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? Grandfather’s the one told me. He might be a weird motherfucker but he knows some shit no one else does. See, the sun’s in the west and the moon’s in the south so they’re pulling the water different ways. That’s why the tides are small. You got to pay attention. A careful man pays attention.

  I didn’t know that, Charlotte said and her voice held traces of sarcasm like barbs on wire. What else do you know?

  He waited a few seconds then sat down beside her. Leave it alone, he warned.

  All you men around here think you know everything just because you have big lobster boats.

  Them boys don’t know shit.

  What boys?

  Them ones you know. Bunch of pussies is what they are. They think they’re tough cutting off a bunch of Grandfather’s traps, but they’ll see. They’ll get their own. I got a boat now.

  Charlotte laughed. What about your grandfather?

  What about him?

  You’re moving, and I thought you two were inseparable.

  I got my boat. That’s all I need.

  What about your sisters?

  Rhonda and Dolly? Rhonda’s only half there. They say the other half of her smarts is extra for Dolly. She’s a smart shit.

  Charlotte considered what to say. Then, What happened to Rhonda? Was she born like that?

  Julius curled his lower lip into his mouth and bit down on it. He didn’t answer at first then said, No. She fell off the wharf is what happened. No one saw until it was almost too late.

  Oh my God, said Charlotte. That’s horrible. Who found her?

  I did.

  Charlotte didn’t know what to say. Thoughts tumbled. She said, Well, it’s a good thing you were there. I’m glad you have them. I’m an only child.

  I know it.

  Except I got Jonah and Bill to look out for me. So watch out.

  Julius leaned forward and pressed a slight spray of saliva through the gap in his front teeth.

  Charlotte pulled her skullcap off and stretched it overtop her knee. How come you don’t get along?

  Me and them?

  Yeah.

  They’re a couple of pussies and I don’t get along with nobody is why.

  You get along with me, don’t you?

  He looked at her and sucked in his lip just slightly and said, You tell me.

  I will tell you, she said. You can get along with me anytime you want. But I wouldn’t go calling Bill a pussy.

  Hell. I seen him near cry the other day when we pulled that head out of the pound. That ain’t pussy I don’t know what is.

  I’d have cried if I found my dad’s head, Charlotte said and scratched at her jeans with her fingernails and concentrated on the rock beneath her. I went down there with them when Bill was looking for the other bones. All of this is crazy. I haven’t slept at all. I just can’t stop thinking about it. It just doesn’t seem real, you know?

  Julius leaned to the side and shoved his hand into his pocket then pulled the hand slowly out and held it closed tight before Charlotte. Close your eyes, he said in a whisper that sounded more like it came from a hole in the ground than a mouth.

  Charlotte eyed him and considered what to do then closed her eyes. She felt his hand grip hers. She bit her cheeks without meaning to. Julius pressed his closed fist into hers and dropped something hard onto her palm. He closed her hand around the object and said, Keep your eyes closed.

  She did keep her eyes closed and a smile appeared on her lips.

  He leaned closer. He still held her hand in his. Tell me this. Can I trust you, Charlotte?

  She nodded. Yes.

  No, he said and squeezed her fist. Can I trust you?

  Yes, she said. Yes, you can trust me.

  With anything?

  She nodded. Anything.

  You won’t tell a soul about me? Who I am?

  His mouth was very close to her ear and she could feel his voice like insects. I won’t tell a soul, Julius. I trust you. So you should trust me, right?

  He slid his hand up her arm and shoulder and over her neck and threaded his fingers into her ponytail and pulled her face to his and their lips brushed. Really?

  Really, she said and she leaned toward his lips but he held her back by her hair until her eyes opened and searched. Then he kissed her heavily on the mouth and she felt his tongue on her own and she breathed in the taste of hard candy and wrapped her arms around him still holding whatever it was clenched safe and fast in her fist. He cradled her shoulders and head and eased her backward and the rock cold beneath her held her pinned as if designed to hold a girl supine. Now on her back she opened her eyes and glimpsed the sky behind Julius clutching and dying dark.

  She closed her eyes again. She felt him maneuver. He kissed her ear then neck then down farther and he pulled her sweatshirt and shirt up to expose her belly then pulled her belt buckle and the thin frilled rim of pink cloth down to expose the bare spread of her pelvis and the first touches of hair. He ran his tongue in a slow flat line from those hairs to her belly button then released her. She didn’t move and she didn’t open her eyes and she felt the cold air on the wet track of his tongue. She waited uncertain if she were waiting for more or simply allowing her heart to slow and skin to adjust. When nothing more came and her heart slowed she sat up.

  Can I look? she said and held her fist out.

  If you trust me.

  I do, she said.

  She opened her fist and there in her palm was a single tooth gray as gravestone. She started to speak but failed because already she knew from where the tooth came. She shook it from her hand as if it could still bite and it rattled onto the rock and caught in a tuft
of frozen moss.

  Julius reached down and lifted the tooth between thumb and forefinger. He held it in the air to examine it for damage. He smiled in a way that she’d not seen him smile before and she couldn’t tell if he looked like a toddler with a toy or a man with a weapon.

  What the fuck? she said. She pulled her sweatshirt and shirt down to cover her exposed tissue. She could still feel the wet trace of his tongue.

  Julius turned the smile on her. He held the tooth in front of her as if to show her its true power like some crystal which would soon refract the slight night’s light and thereby tell her something of her future but really it was only the dead tooth.

  Bill didn’t see me so I got to keep it, he said and blinked his eyes several times in a row. It just fell off the skull, down at the pound. I didn’t even need to pull it out. You ever touched a dead man’s tooth before? Probably not.

  What the fuck? she said again. Her throat felt like his fingers were on it or even in it. The moon slid across the southwest sky. In the distance the sea flamed purple as the barrens fell black. The wind picked up and Charlotte shivered.

  Julius rose and looked straight down on her. You trust me, he said. I’m glad.

  He reached down toward her but she winced and turned her face away. He held his hand in front of her face as if to show her that it held no weapon then removed it. You trust me, he said. I only want to touch your cheek.

  Their eyes connected. Then he jumped off the rock and crossed the stretch of barrens to his truck. She watched him walk and she felt sweat like betrayal on her spine. Again she adjusted her clothing. She refitted her ponytail and put her skullcap back on. She tried to tell herself it was only a tooth but it was Jonah’s father’s tooth and Julius had held the thing before her like a jewel with that coal glowing in his eyes.

  She gazed at the emptiness surrounding her. She stood and pressed her fingers against her pelvis and with a smile she wiped the coolness of his tongue away.