Of Sea and Cloud

by Jon Keller

  Osmond glanced at him. I thought I said to dress well.

  Julius wore black sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt. I ain’t exactly flush with tuxedos.

  Never mind, Osmond said. We’ll take care of it.

  Where we going?

  To get you acquainted.

  Acquainted with who?

  With whom? With your future partners. We’re going to the city. To Boston.

  The fucking city?

  Osmond reached over and grabbed Julius’s bicep and squeezed it. You will mind your manners, Julius. Until the time is right to not mind them anymore, but until that time, you will.

  When’s that time?

  You must learn to pay attention to people. You are going into business now. Even in your father’s business, he had to be a judge of people.

  Yeah. Or he’d get his ass shot off.

  As may you.

  It was six hours before they crossed the bridge and dipped into the clean new tunnel. Julius was wide-eyed and held one hand on the door and the other on the dash. Traffic echoed.

  Sonofawhore, he said.

  Osmond grinned.

  They emerged near the train station and financial sector and the skyscrapers pincushioned the sky. They exited and veered east toward the water and parked outside Jason’s warehouse. Patches of snow and ice missed by plows dotted the pavement and the sky was gray and the air was heavy and cold and raw and smelled of heating oil and traffic.

  The steel door echoed. Daniel smiled and stood up and shook Osmond’s hand.

  This is my grandson, Julius Wesley. You met at the pound.

  Daniel nodded. I remember. Follow me.

  They followed Daniel into the tank room. Julius stopped at the doorway and looked around. Holy shit, he said.

  Osmond gave him a sharp look and Julius caught the look.

  Daniel explained the operation to Julius until Jason came down the steps from his office. He wore Hawaiian shorts and rubber boots and his white laboratory coat. His gut hung out over the waistband of the shorts.

  Julius looked up at him and the man was nearly as tall as his grandfather.

  You are Julius? Jason said.

  Yeah.

  It’s a pleasure. Jason reached out and they shook hands. Come upstairs. We can talk there.

  They followed Jason up the metal stairway. Daniel went back to the front desk. Osmond and Julius sat side by side on the leather couch and Jason poured sake for both of them and one for himself then sat at his desk.

  How was your drive?

  Fine, said Osmond.

  We have a lot to talk about, Jason said. He held his glass in the air and tipped it toward them then drank.

  Like what? said Julius.

  Jason smiled. I heard you were the ornery one.

  I ain’t ornery.

  Jason smiled bigger. No, I was wrong, he said. I apologize.

  Jason stood up and faced the window that looked down over the tank room. Julius, he said. Come look with me. He held his hand out toward Julius and Julius joined him at the window.

  You see this? This operation holds thirty thousand pounds of lobsters. That’s not much.

  No, that ain’t much at all, Julius said.

  Jason and Osmond exchanged glances and Jason turned back to Julius. No, that is not much. What we do here is hold lobsters for a matter of days. We get them in from operations such as yours, and we resell them to certain buyers. The highest-quality product goes to the highest bidder, obviously. The culls go to the processor. Most often, our highest bidder is my Japanese buyer. Very soon now, he will be the only bidder.

  Julius peered out the window as if bored. He drank down the sake and set the glass on the sill. Jason took the glass and refilled it at the bar and returned to the window and handed the glass to Julius.

  Now Julius, what I have discussed with Osmond is the possibility of building a new operation like this one at your pound. He tells me that you will be receiving half of the shares and replacing Nicolas, so any decisions involving the pound involve you.

  Julius didn’t say anything. He ran his fingers over his arrowhead of hair then reached into his pocket and gripped Nicolas’s tooth as if it were his talisman.

  We got a pound. What would we want a swimming pool for?

  Fair enough. I’ll buy the wharf and remodel the pound to nearly double the capacity, and cut your shrinkage. Then we’ll build a seawater tank house like this but three times the size. Four times the size.

  Which is it?

  Jason laughed again and slapped his hand on Julius’s shoulder. That is for us to decide.

  You got no market there. You got no airport there. If you’re shipping them bugs to Japan you need to get them out of the water and on the plane. You’ll have six hours on a truck before they get on the plane, same as now. Why the fuss?

  That’s right, Julius, Jason said. Unless we fly out of a different airport. But we’ll get to that. Osmond didn’t tell me you were a businessman.

  I ain’t. I’m a lobsterman and I know lobster.

  What sort of business were you in before lobsters?

  Julius looked away and didn’t answer. He released the tooth and in his other pocket with his other hand found a hard candy. He unwrapped the candy and put it in his mouth. He sipped the sake.

  What we would do, Jason said, is we could still use this operation in the same way we do now, only we won’t be dependent on it, and you won’t be dependent on us. We’ll combine our efforts and get bigger and more efficient. You won’t need to sit around hoping your lobsters won’t die in the pound before the price rises. Your fishermen will get paid according to the quality of their catch. You bring in good product, we pay good money. That simple. If we have top product we’ll have top price.

  It’ll still go up and down.

  Of course it will. But pound lobsters are a different product than run lobsters. Pound lobsters travel. The weak have already been culled. We can harden off the softshells over the summer and sell them in the fall for a real price, instead of sending them all to some Canadian processor for jack shit. We can make that pound work. Not just fill it once a year. We’ll fill it at least three times a year. And like I told your grandfather, the Japanese will pay for lobsters that have never seen tank water. They want to taste that seawater. And what we’re talking about is everything, Julius. We’re talking about the wharf and all of it.

  Huh, said Julius. He went back and sat down next to Osmond. He crunched his candy in his teeth. They wouldn’t know tank water from seawater no how, he said.

  Maybe not, Jason said. But they’ll pay for it. He moved some papers around his desk. I have some things to finish up. I’ll see you at the hotel?

  Yes, said Osmond.

  Daniel will take you.

  Fine.

  Jason opened the door and he shook Julius’s and Osmond’s hands. Osmond paused in the doorway. Julius climbed down the steps and looked into the tank.

  We need to find clothing for Julius, Osmond said.

  Jason nodded. I’ll have Daniel take care of it.

  Daniel led them to the black car. Osmond sat in the back seat and Julius rode in the passenger seat. He spun his head to see everything as they passed through Chinatown and beyond. He hunkered low with his chin to the dash to see the tops of buildings. Daniel gave them keycards to two rooms and dropped them at the hotel and the porter opened the door for them and they crossed the atrium and got in the elevator. Julius had never been in an elevator and he spread his legs wide and held his arms out for balance and he smiled like a little boy on his first bicycle ride.

  Their rooms were side by side. Osmond handed one of the keycards to Julius and Julius opened the door and went in. He dropped his bag on the floor and started across the room to the line of windows and stopped. A blond woman sat in a chair in the corner. She wore a loose flannel shirt and faded blue jeans and held a book folded over her thigh.

  Julius, she said.

  He looked out the window at the city.<
br />
  I’m Gwen, she said. She shifted in the chair and uncrossed her legs. She held the page of her book with a finger. You’re a lobsterman?

  What’re you doing here?

  Jason Jackson wanted us to meet. I work for him. She stood up and held the book at her side and faced the windows. She put one hand on the glass pane and peered down to the street. She was tall and thin and her tight jeans were tucked into tall boots made of brown leather.

  She turned back and faced Julius. He felt himself blush.

  You work for Jason Jackson, he said. Doing what?

  Sometimes I’m a chef and sometimes I’m a consultant. I do what I want and I charge what I want and Jason doesn’t argue.

  What’re you doing here then?

  I told you. Jason wanted us to meet.

  My old man always said a hooker’s just a homeless whore.

  Excuse me? She took a step toward him.

  You heard me.

  She took two more steps and stood with her face nearly touching his. Are you calling me a whore?

  Julius backed up a step. I’m calling you a hooker. And I got a girlfriend so get the fuck out of here. He pulled a hard candy out of his pocket and unwrapped it and put it in his mouth.

  Gwen walked past him. He smelled her slight perfume as she moved and he felt a crimp in his gut but he ignored it. He looked out the windows over the sea of brick buildings with smoke and steam rising in waves. He heard the door open and he felt her pause. He turned around. She’d put a ball cap on and as she stood there he was surprised at her beauty.

  She crossed the floor and stood in front of him and said, You’re an ignorant little prick, aren’t you?

  She walked out the door.

  Julius watched television for several hours and then someone knocked on the door and he answered. It was a porter with two paper shopping bags with twine handles and he handed them to Julius.

  He dumped the bags out and looked at the clothes. There was a black silk shirt and black slacks and a pair of sharkskin cowboy boots and a belt with a silver buckle shaped like a harpoon and a long black trench coat. Julius took a shower and shaved and dressed. He used the styling gel that was in the bathroom to slick his black hair back and he looked in the full-length mirror and he looked good.

  Another knock came on the door and he opened it. It was Osmond and with him was a tall black woman wearing a shining black fur coat and Julius had never seen his grandfather with a woman and this woman held Osmond’s arm. Osmond said, This is Renee.

  Renee nodded to Julius and Julius looked at Osmond.

  Where is Gwen? Osmond said.

  Kicked her ass out, Julius said.

  What?

  I don’t need a hooker.

  The wrinkles on Osmond’s face rose like a tectonic shift. He turned to Renee and whispered into her ear. She nodded. He stepped into the room with Julius and shut the door. Osmond hit him in the diaphragm and Julius bent over and struggled to breathe but couldn’t. Osmond righted him. Julius couldn’t catch his breath and his face went instantly purple. Osmond held him by his armpit with his thumb driven deep into the joint. He leaned in close to Julius’s ear and gently whispered, You may make decisions in this life, Julius, but you will never again disrespect either me or those with whom I am associated.

  Julius couldn’t breathe and his mouth worked itself open and closed like a frog’s. He told his chest to breathe but it would not listen. A ring of black circled his vision. He needed air and needed it right away. The black closed tighter and tighter until finally Osmond said, You may breathe now, and let go of Julius. Julius sank to the floor and his breath came and he sucked at the air with small gulps that were all his body would allow.

  Julius worked his way to his feet.

  Do you understand, Julius?

  Julius stared him in the eyes and Osmond repeated, Do you understand?

  I got a girlfriend.

  You got a girlfriend.

  Julius nodded.

  And exactly what does that have to do with a thing in this world, Julius? Nothing, that is what. Not a thing. Do you understand?

  Yes.

  Now Jason is going to find you a date for tonight and you will treat her with respect and if you embarrass me one more time, Julius, I shall punish you. You understand that, don’t you?

  Julius nodded.

  Good, Osmond said. After a moment he said, Who is this girlfriend?

  Charlotte Alley.

  Charlotte Alley?

  Yeah, Julius grunted.

  Osmond peered at Julius as if searching for the truth and he saw something in Julius’s eyes that satisfied him. He nodded his approval and ran a hand over Julius’s shoulder to smooth the bunched coat.

  Together with Renee between them they walked down the hallway. Both Osmond and Julius wore long black trench coats and black slacks and they both wore their black hair greased back. They took the elevator down.

  Jason stood in the atrium with Turtle holding his arm. He still wore his rubber boots and Hawaiian shorts and lab coat and he smiled and crossed the room. He went straight to Julius and took Julius’s hand and squeezed it with a strength that made Julius’s knees hurt. He pulled Julius close. Julius smelled aftershave and cologne but beyond that the simple smell of flesh.

  I understand that you had some misunderstanding with a dear friend of mine.

  Julius saw Gwen stand up from the couch she’d been sitting on. She wore a black evening dress and carried a jacket folded in her arm. She wore very little makeup. He was again shocked by her but the pain that stemmed from his hand worked like a sliver through his abdomen and spread to his shoulders and neck and his head involuntarily tilted to the side to alleviate the pain.

  Jason leaned in again. Are things cleared up, son?

  Now Julius leaned into Jason’s ear and the pain vanished and he said, Things are clear but do not ever call me your son again or I will cut you from your balls to your chin. Is that cleared up?

  Jason laughed as if no other response would have been appropriate and he released Julius’s hand. Yes, that is perfectly clear. I apologize. And now you may make your apologies to my friend, and we will go.

  Julius stepped away from Jason but Jason stopped him and said, And Julius. You look good.

  Julius crossed the room and approached Gwen. She held his eye as he approached her. He stopped in front of her. I apologize, he said. I have no reason to think I am better than you.

  Gwen smiled. We’ll see, won’t we?

  The tide poured into the cove in a smooth skin rush. Jonah sat at what had become his usual place on the wharf. His legs dangled over the water. He held a beer between his knees and from time to time he fed a cracker by finger to the beggar gull. The wharf planks were dried gray and worn smooth and fibrous and when the bird flew off Jonah shifted and rested his back against a pylon. The wind had stopped. The sun reflected off the water. He watched the swish and sparkle and he tried to imagine that this was the same water that swished and sparkled against the shores of Europe or Africa but he couldn’t fathom that. He pictured a fisherman drinking a beer on a wharf in Ireland with his legs hanging over the same ocean but the image ran afoul as if blurred by weather. It was easy to understand that if you sailed east for long enough you’d hit Europe but it seemed more complex than pointing a boat and going.

  The kelp forests swayed underwater. Waves climbed the ledges and stirred the rockweed and the rockweed crinkled with cold. He remembered sitting in Virgil’s truck watching Bill and Osmond lower his father’s empty casket into the ground and no matter how he reasoned through things he always came back to Osmond. He thought of his father’s rifle hanging in the camp and the cartridges he’d found in the drawer. It would be so easy to load those cartridges into that rifle and aim that rifle and all would end.

  Or all would begin and for what? That was the question. For what?

  He looked back over his shoulder at the camp. He was tired. His adult life had been spent searching for a contex
t in which to live but he’d found nothing. Bill had lobster fishing but for Jonah it was not so simple. At his college he’d been the lobsterman and at home he was the college boy but in truth he was both or he was neither. He just did not know.

  He heard a boat and cocked his head to listen. It was approaching the south side of Stone Island. The exhaust came in spells that echoed off the islands and shoals and the depth and duration of the echoes shifted as the boat worked the sea-swell. Jonah shut his eyes. He soon recognized the throaty drum of the exhaust like a howitzer and five minutes later Virgil rounded the tip of the island and maneuvered through the shoals. Jonah stood up and finished his beer and stuffed the bottle in the head of an old wooden lobster trap.

  Virgil pulled up to the wharf and said, Get in. His eyes swam in alcohol and his voice came from far away. We’re going to get Julius’s boat. We’re getting his gear off the Leviathan.

  His boat? Jesus Christ.

  We’re going to take his traps up for him. A favor for a friend.

  With his boat? Are you fucking nuts, Virgil?

  Just get in the boat, Jonah.

  Jesus, Virgil. I ain’t even had dinner yet. We could have a beer.

  Bring your beer, Jonah.

  You want to come in, Virgil? See the place?

  We don’t have time for that shit, Virgil slurred. Grab a beer and can of sardines. We got to catch slack water and that’s in two hours.

  • • •

  Thirty minutes later Jonah and Virgil and Bill left the harbor aboard Julius’s boat Dolly Rhonda. Virgil clutched the shining new spoked captain’s wheel in his right hand. Jonah and Bill exchanged nervous glances. Bill grunted and stamped his feet and cleared his throat and said, This is a bad idea, Virgil. This ain’t funny.

  And any of this has been funny? Virgil said. He peered out of the sides of his eyes at the sea as if his neck hurt. He pulled a flat brandy bottle from his oilskins and set it on the bulkhead. He switched the bottom finder and the chart plotter on. All of Julius’s traps were marked on the plotter screen and Jonah recognized the Leviathan canyons and wondered what Virgil was thinking. Over thirty years ago Virgil and Nicolas had found those canyons and still no chart showed them and no fishermen knew of them save for those three aboard that boat. Now Julius was seeking out their traps and marking the canyons on his plotter and just looking at the screen made Jonah feel a touch of trespass that he knew Virgil felt tenfold.