To Be Sung Underwater

by Tom McNeal

  “And?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What did you and Burt Reynolds do then?”

  “Oh. We parted company. Told him I had to see a man about a dog. Later he came into the Eleventh Man down the road. ‘Shoot you a deer?’ I say, and he says, ‘No. Get you a dog?’ I laughed at that, and we began playing dice for beers, which is more my idea of fun.”

  Judith leaned back, tilting her head to the sunlight, breathing in, breathing out.

  Later that afternoon, when Willy retired to his cabin for a nap, Judith went for a meandering walk. Outside the encampment, moving through the shadows on the soft litter of pine needles, she began to feel like she was in a dream. A distant ash tree shimmering yellow through the dark pines might pull her toward it. So might the cooing of a dove or the whisking of a small animal. Fairly often she drew herself still to look and listen, and once, where the cushion of pine needles was thick, she lay down, cradled her head in her locked hands, and stared up.

  One day during her summer with Willy, they had driven up to Wind Cave and walked the path to its source, a rocky opening no more than two feet in diameter with cool air blowing out. The Lakota had at one time considered this opening the source of their life, the birth canal for the first of their people. Willy had said that that was not quite right, and Judith had laughed when he explained that the authentic true story was that the very first Indian came out of the opening, took one look at South Dakota, and went back down the rabbit hole. But the small rocky opening seemed no less mysterious to Judith than it must have seemed to the Native Americans. For her, it seemed to breathe, and she was unsurprised to learn that in fact the mouth of the cave sometimes blew air out and sometimes sucked it in, a phenomenon explained by some kind of difference in barometric pressure or something. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the idea of the earth breathing, and lying here now, staring up through the slow sway of the trees, she could just feel the soft, slow breathing of the earth beneath her.

  She rose and kept walking. Twice she came upon discarded pint bottles in the needles and leaves, the glass crusted and dirty, metal collars dulled with rust. These seemed mysterious artifacts of Willy’s life without her, but when Judith crested a ridge and was presented with a sudden view of farms and barns and houses, she averted her eyes at once and retreated downslope to the safety and secrecy of the trees. She followed a deer trail around the lake, and then, approaching the boathouse from the rear side, she happened on another path curving away from the camp, a path that after some minutes of gradual ascent brought her to something odd: a crude pinewood flagpole equipped with pulleys and rope. Hanging from the top of the pole was a shabby green flag, pennant-shaped, like something used long ago to signal ship to ship. To the base of the flagpole someone had wired a rusted black mailbox, inside of which Judith found a frayed and faded red flag, also pennant-shaped. From the flagpole the descending trail widened beyond the need of foot traffic. One of those all-terrain vehicle things could traverse it easily, and Judith guessed a truck might, too, if driven with care. The lane curved down through trees and rock outcroppings to a small graded clearing, from which a rough road sloped down to the east. An easier way in, she thought, but not the one Batch had used to deliver her.

  “Less picturesque,” Willy said when she asked about it after returning to camp. He’d had his nap and was rolling out biscuit dough on a cutting board. “I thought you’d want to come the way we used to do.”

  “And the flagpole?”

  “Boys built it.” He shook his head. “One day they just got a notion and there was no stopping them. The older boy climbed up to the top of one of those ponderosas, bolted in a pulley, strung the rope through, then sawed off the limbs as he came down. It took a few days, but they’d hardly eat breakfast before heading out, they were so excited. It wasn’t safe, but it was pretty ingenious.”

  He began cutting biscuits from the rolled dough with his tin can.

  “And the mailbox at the bottom of the pole with a red pennant inside?”

  Without the slightest hesitation Willy said, “Oh, when I need something, I just run up the red flag and leave a note at the bottom.”

  She stared at him. “And then the forest fairies take care of it sometime between midnight and sunrise?”

  A small snorting laugh. “Something like that. Though I don’t know ol’ Batch would care to be called a forest fairy.”

  “That’s some little system you’ve got going there.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” He shrugged. “I could forage, I guess. And kill wildlife and shit. But I think I told you, I don’t really have much stomach for killing things anymore, other than biting insects.” A smile. “I said that, more or less, to Frank a few years back, and he looked at me and said, ‘That ain’t it. You’re just lazy.’ ” Willy gave a wheezy laugh. “He might’ve been right.” An envelope and a pencil lay on the table. Willy nodded toward it and said, “I’ve got a list going for this afternoon if you have any requests.”

  The list was written in block letters: 2 lbs grnd beef. Meds. Eggs from Mack. Tomatoes from MaryAnn. S-n-G.

  “Meds?”

  “Sure. The doctoring goes on. Till I shed the mortal coil, I’m a cash cow.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she said, “And S-n-G?”

  “Scotch and gin. Batch knows the brands.” He smiled and nodded again at the list. “I’ll add anything you want as long as it doesn’t come from Saks Fifth Avenue.”

  Judith thought about asking him whether alcohol wasn’t contraindicated with his medications, but what was the point, really? She looked at him and said, “I don’t want anything that’s not already here, Willy.” She meant it as a compliment, and she could tell he took it as one. But then, while he was laying his biscuits in the Dutch oven, she said, “Could he get me a hat?” She was thinking of the sun on her face when they were out on the lake.

  “Why, sure he can. And I’m sure it’ll be stylish.” Then: “How about laundry? I’m sending some of my dirty clothes on down.”

  This was a surprise. “Batch does laundry?”

  “No, he doesn’t. But he knows somebody who does.”

  Judith began to think what it would mean to have another four or five days’ worth of clean clothes, and how she really shouldn’t stay another four or five days, but what she said was, “Won’t doing wash for me mean everybody in town knowing you’re up here with someone whose underwear comes from Bloomingdale’s?”

  Willy shook his head. “Woman who washes them is an old Indian gal who’s not talkative.” He let his faded blue eyes settle on her and said gently, “So why don’t you just set your stuff out on the porch there—would that be all right?”

  She was surprised to feel her head subtly nodding. “All right.”

  The next morning Judith opened her cabin door and found her clothes laundered, ironed, and tightly folded within two tied plastic grocery bags. There was also a brand-new John Deere hat, pink twill with the leaping stag logo in white—a hat, she thought, clearly meant for the little woman in agriculture, though she had to admit, assessing herself in the cabin mirror, that it had a certain cachet. She liked it quite a lot.

  “A lakeview cabin with laundry service, personal shopper, and self-propelled kayaks,” Judith said when she joined Willy for breakfast. “Camp Blue Moon is moving up toward the top of my list of all-time favorite resorts.”

  Willy said he was happy to hear it.

  She looked around, listened to the chatter of birds. Again the strange suggestion of amplification. “I hate to tell you how much you could rent this place out for,” she said. “With a few more cabins, it would be the perfect place for reunions and weddings and retreats.” Willy’s eyes slid away, and she knew at once that she’d infringed somehow on the intentions of the place. “But that would ruin it, wouldn’t it, strangers coming and going?”

  He was nodding, accepting her surrender on this point. “I think it would, yeah.” He let a few secon
ds pass. “But I’ll tell you what. You’ll get to decide.”

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I die and you get it. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

  Judith felt a sense of encroachment, and alarm. “What about Deena and the boys?”

  “Oh, Deena. She just wants shut of it. She called it an albatross, I think. Or maybe a white elephant. One of those, anyway. And the boys lost all interest in the place ages ago. Besides, I’m leaving them enough they can build ten camps like this if they want, and then they can bring in electricity and computers and jet-skis and all the other crap they seem to think a camp can’t do without. Anyhow, they already know about this. If they were disappointed or surprised, they didn’t show it.”

  “Why not surprised?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I think from almost the beginning Deena knew I was building the camp with you in mind.”

  Judith wasn’t sure what to think. That he would build this place and keep tinkering and tampering and fiddling with it, all with the idea that she might someday look upon it and grasp its implications, whatever they might be, and then become its steward was as disturbing as it was flattering. It was true, she liked the way she felt here, the way she breathed and heard and saw, but she dreaded how it might feel without Willy’s presence. What if Willy was giving her all the ingredients but the recipe was in his head? “I don’t know, Willy. I like it here, but…” She let her voice trail away.

  “Well, that’s okay, Judy,” he said. He was using his soft, tender voice. “When the time comes, you’ll sort it out, one way or the other. You will. You’ll see.”

  Judith nodded. He’d done it, and now he’d told her he’d done it, and that was that. She wished the matter were open to further discussion, but it wasn’t.

  Each day seemed to Judith as placid as the last; it was as if her own well-being and their common goodwill could alter the weather. Her thoughts were not quite as circumscribed as the encampment, but they were close to it. Whenever she thought of Malcolm or Milla or Leo Pottle, it caused a strange puncturing sensation, but during the day, at least, it took only a word from Willy, a bite of food, or the quick flight of a bird through the trees to dispatch all thoughts of Los Angeles. At night, lying in bed with her quilts pulled tight against the chill, the pangs were more piercing, and more than once she resolved to tell Willy the next morning that the time had come, she needed to go, but then the day broke and the urgency slid away. Really, she thought, nobody was worried. Probably they were all enjoying their vacation from her, especially from the Judith she had become before she left. And who besides Hooper and Pottle would really miss her? Milla had her friends and schoolwork, and Malcolm had… whatever and whomever he had. It was all okay. It was all fine, in fact. She was breathing in, breathing out, letting go, unfolding her fist into an open hand. Her mother would approve.

  Still, she made a decision. She arranged for Batch to take her to the nearest public telephone—a booth behind a highway gas station in the little town of Crawford—where she called home. She’d planned the call for a time when nobody should be in the house but she was nevertheless relieved when nobody was. “Hi, it’s me,” she said into the answering machine and went on from there. She was fine, she said, but her mother was not. She’d written a few talking points on a card—parasite, inflammatory bowel syndrome, fluid accumulation in her legs, Mexican doctor who’s supposedly a gastroenterologist—and when she was pretty sure that she had, as intended, made the situation seem like an impenetrable muddle, she took a deep breath and said, “Anyhow, the good news is she’s probably going to be okay and her spirits are good but it looks like it’s going to take a while to sort it all out.” She covered the phone and to no one at all said loudly, “Okay! Okay!” then, back into the phone: “I’ve got to go, but don’t worry about me. Calling from here is an unbelievable nightmare so I probably won’t call again unless something goes terribly wrong. Miss you both, and kisses on the ears.”

  She’d thought she might do a little shopping in town, but found now that she didn’t want to. She wanted to go straight back to the camp. Batch had picked her up below the pine flagpole, but she asked if he would drop her off on the other side, where he’d dropped her off the first time, where she and Willy always used to begin their climb.

  “Why, sure,” Batch said, and they didn’t speak another word until they’d pulled into the trampled space at the base of the hill. She turned then and thanked him for the lift.

  “Happy to do ’er,” Batch said.

  But she didn’t open the door. She looked at Batch and said, “You’re pretty loyal to Willy.”

  Batch shrugged.

  “Why is that?”

  Batch Batten looked stricken and confused, so she said, “Was it because he always trusted you?”

  Relief flooded Batch’s face; he was glad to have been supplied an answer that he saw at once was a good one. “Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding and brightening. “He always did. Right from the start he always did. And good to me? You don’t know the half of it.”

  Judith didn’t find Willy in camp, and as she made her way down to the dock, she saw that the red kayak was gone. It took a few seconds to spot Willy floating in it on the opposite side of the lake. She thought of shouting out to him but instead closed her eyes and felt the subtle sway of the dock and listened to the sounds of the water and of the trees and of the birds and, finally, of the kayak’s tiny engine coming her way.

  She opened her eyes and was met with Willy’s grin.

  “What were you doing out there?” she said.

  He shrugged. “Nothing. Waiting.”

  “I was going to do some shopping but found all I wanted to do was get back here.”

  “Well, there you go,” he said.

  Though later that night, over the fire, he mentioned that it had been his plan to wait out on the lake until she returned, however long that was.

  “And if I didn’t?” she said and wished at once she hadn’t, but Willy took it in stride.

  “Oh, I knew you would all right,” he said, and then slid a little fun into his voice. “Me still having your fancy watch and all.”

  “That was the least of it,” Judith said.

  Willy remained quiet.

  “You know that, right?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “I know that.”

  So a few days passed, and then a few more. Willy drank, not heavily but steadily, and when late in the afternoon the shadows stretched out and a chill stole over the camp, she joined him in a little scotch while they played cards or board games. His spirits were good and his physical condition seemed barely to change. He was unwell, that seemed certain, but he didn’t seem in imminent peril. After the noon hour he would often go off to his cabin to rest or nap, and in these absences Judith would walk or read or shower or try something in the Dutch ovens, with mixed results (the baked squash was delicious; the apple cake couldn’t be eaten). The weather held. Twice the sky thickened with clouds the color of blued metal, and one morning a cold blowing rain fell, and for the first time during daylight hours she began to think of leaving, but by midafternoon the sky cleared and the sun was warm enough to draw vapors from the wet dock, and before long she and Willy were raking up limbs and needles and talking about going out on the lake as if nothing had happened.

  One chill sunny morning Willy was stirring the ashes with his length of rebar, turning up orange coals, while Judith ran a dry rag over the table and benches. She felt him watching her, and when she turned he looked at her a second longer before gazing off toward the lake. “Maybe we’ll have Indian summer till spring,” he said. Then, back at her: “I mean, it’s nothing we wouldn’t deserve.”

  In her movie, Judith thought, this would be the section with just wistful images of yellow and sepia leaves, pallid light and still water, no dialogue, none, just a muted soundtrack of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

  She was almost embarrassed by
the pure, low-grade pleasure she took in board games. They would talk and play, play and talk. Besides Pay Day, Othello was her favorite, notwithstanding the fact that Willy, upon winning, would recite with Zen-like calm the game’s tagline: “A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.”

  One afternoon while they were playing Blokus in the dock house, Judith looked out toward the lake and saw something startling protrude from the water: a hoary head, almost beaked-looking, with a dark crescent shape following behind.

  “Is that a turtle?” she said, pointing, and Willy abruptly pushed back from the table, took the rifle down from the wall, and hauled himself out to the front porch, where he steadied the barrel over his fist and against the porch post, sighted, and fired. The water plinked just behind the moving thing, which then dipped below the surface.

  “Fuck,” Willy said through clenched teeth. He kept staring at the spot where the creature had submerged.

  “So it was a turtle?” Judith asked.

  “Snapping turtle.” His eyes were still fixed on the lake. “This rifle’s for shit. Sights right and I overcompensated. Which does piss me off.”

  “What’s so bad about a snapping turtle?”

  A slow blink. “Eats small fish.”

  But the fervency of his attempt to kill the turtle had been surprising to Judith, and once they’d settled back into their chairs and he’d snapped one of his geometric pieces into place, she said, “The other day you said you weren’t that crazy about killing things other than fish and biting insects.”

  “Yeah, I should’ve added snapping turtles to the list.”

  “Why is that?”

  He looked up from his cards, then out at the calm water. “Okay, it’s kind of embarrassing, but here you go. As you’re aware, I can’t swim a lick, and it’s not completely impossible I might wind up in the bottom of that lake someday, which in itself doesn’t bother me near as much as you’d think. What bothers me is the idea of that fucking turtle fucking feeding on me.” His eyebrows lifted slightly, comically, but his tone was sober. “Ripping the skin from my soggy corpse and such.”