All around us people chanted, “PDA, PDA, PDA.” I caught Brizzey looking visibly perturbed. I liked Nadia well enough. She was sweet and small. I liked the way she hummed as she played piano, how she’d look up from the bench and smile whenever she struck a dull note. It occurred to me that it might be in my best interest to date her to dispel any rumors Brizzey might attempt to erupt. I took off the blue-andwhite Brooks Brothers tie I had on and knotted Nadia’s gift around my neck, then held her hand and walked out of the Dining Hall with her.
The headmaster discovered the three boys tied to the columns soon after we left. He was not amused. After a rough fall semester, Windsor probably hoped to coast through the spring. An old sailor himself, Windsor untied my knots and welcomed the boys inside his home for some hot chocolate and blankets. One of the three boys was Officer Hardy’s son. The one in the camouflage pajamas. Hardy had been lucky enough to win custody of his kid, luckier still to have the school offer his son a full scholarship, including room and board. James Hardy wouldn’t need to worry about the stigma of being a townie.
I was impressed that the three boys held their silence, claiming ignorance as to our identities. The shafting grew into myth, and by early evening the official report was that at least a half dozen guys or more had been tied up naked. Kids bragged about being shafted, kids who had played no part in the prank. It became a special badge of honor and pride to have been singled out for this hazing, and all of the underclassmen who claimed to have been involved boasted that this meant they got to pull the same prank themselves the following year. Race, Kriffo, and Taze were thrilled. “We did it, Prosper,” they said. “We’re legendary.”
After that first blizzard, the days got colder. The air stayed brittle, and when I stepped outside I feared my breath might shatter into a thousand icicles. In the mornings the guys on the top floor of Whitehall fled the dorm together, traveling in a pack, hoping the synchronized movements of our bodies would keep us warm. The temperature dropped so much that the ocean froze. Race swung by the dorm one Saturday afternoon and invited Tazewell, Kriffo, and me out for a drive. “The ocean is sheer ice. We could skate on it. Walk on water.”
We packed into Race’s Land Rover and drove down to the beach. I hadn’t been back to that stretch of sand since Marieke’s visit. Though I thought of her often, Marieke remained a mystery to me. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Aidan to grow up listening to the jangling of those bracelets, smelling that musky perfume, standing always in the cold shadow of her mother’s im mense beauty, her ego. One of my biggest regrets was not being able to convince Marieke of her own daughter’s happiness. Over break, I’d tried to rent the movie she’d produced, but every time I went to the video store the film was checked out. “That’s a holiday classic,” the video clerk declared. “Good luck finding it anywhere.” On New Year’s Eve I not only told Ginger about Aidan but I also mentioned Marieke. Ginger knew and adored the film. “My favorite tearjerker,” she said. She had a copy of the movie in her apartment and we went back that night and watched it together as the sun came up. It should have been hokey, laughable, even— an old man and his cat on a road trip together. But when the cat died in the old man’s arms, I found myself bawling. “Told you,” Ginger said. “She might have been a crummy mother, but that woman made a great film.”
At the beach, the sand was covered in snow, the sky a slate gray. Just as Race had promised, the ocean was frozen. Not a thin surface layer of slush as I’d imagined but a deep, hard, glacial block. The wind blew in ribbons snapping across our faces as the four of us in our dark parkas walked out several yards onto the ocean, sliding across the white surface. Taze wiped out, joked that he’d tripped on a wave.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” I said, “for salt water to freeze.” “The salt doesn’t freeze,” Race corrected me. “But the water does. The salt separates, gets pushed down below the water. Pretty cool, huh? Wish I had an iceboat. We could sail over the surface.”
“Iceboat,” I said. “They call them Skeeters, right? They’ve got those long-ass steel blades.”
“Yeah,” Race said. “My dad sailed one out on the Hudson. Saw him do it. Those fuckers fly.”
Sunlight bounced off the white ice without being absorbed. I wondered how long it would take for this ocean to melt. Kriffo had brought along his hockey skates. He laced himself up and began cutting laps across the shoreline. Taze fell again, then stayed down, pulled out a joint, lighting up. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m a chimney.” Race and I kept walking, testing the frozen waters for weakness.
We were about a hundred feet from shore when Race turned to me, “Is there any chance you might want to sail this spring?” Race looked away after he asked his question.
Though I understood it took a lot for Race to make this offer, I didn’t want to appear too eager. “On one condition.” I breathed out a thick fog of air. “Tell me, what exactly is a SeaWolf?”
Race bared his teeth, growled, and smiled.
“We don’t have to sail together,” I said. “But if you’re up for it, I wouldn’t mind crewing for you.”
“Truth is,” Race said, “the only good day of sailing I had last semester was with you. Well, until you nearly killed me.” Race laughed as though the whole thing was behind us now. As though we could joke about our past.
“I think together . . .” I smiled. “We’d be unstoppable.”
We stood out on the frozen ocean discussing strategies, strength training, aerodynamics, the way an apparent wind could shift suddenly, violently if you were accelerating too rapidly. It wasn’t the type of conversation I could have enjoyed with Aidan. Race and I shared an expertise, an intimacy that enabled us to speak in shorthand. We were insiders. It wasn’t the same as talking to Cal, but it was close. I thought of how close our bodies would be, Race’s and mine, when trimming the sails in light winds. Race and I would be right on top of each other balancing in unison.
I looked down at the ice. These frozen waters had swallowed Aidan. She really did swim like a mermaid. So strong, she would have fought the storm to stay afloat. My hero Joshua Slocum didn’t know how to swim at all, insisting it was useless for a sailor to struggle in the open ocean. He sailed alone around the world without knowing how to doggy paddle. And when he died, he died out at sea sailing his sloop until it capsized, until the waters filled his lungs. Aidan prided herself on being unsinkable, but she’d been tossed around and broken. I was standing on a grave.
“So it’s settled,” Race said. “You’re part of the team.”
Yazid returned a month into the semester. “I abhor the cold,” he said. “I’m allergic to it, or at least that’s what my doctor’s excuse claims.” While the rest of us had suffered through blizzard conditions, Yazid had spent weeks sunning himself on the Mediterranean. We all agreed that he was the smartest person we’d ever met. Yazid’s return was greeted with great anticipation. The Whitehall pot supply had dwindled to seeds and stones. Taze and I were disappointed when Yazid pulled out a bundle of leaves wrapped around red and green plant shoots. “These are fresh,” he said. “I brought enough for everyone to try.” He told us that the plant was called khat and that if we chewed the leaves and flower shoots we’d feel euphoric, buzzed. “You’ll never want to sleep again.”
In his room, Yazid had real adult furniture: a pair of comfortable brown leather chairs, a red-and-blue Turkish rug, tall brass floor lamps. He slept on a futon. The room of a very sophisticated dope fiend.
Yazid unwrapped the khat and showed us how to fold the leaves and chew on them to release the drug. The plant smelled like a mixture of oregano and mint. “It’s like dip,” Taze said. “Should I tuck it into my gum?”
Yazid explained that he’d been chewing khat since he was little. For him the drug was not much more than a cup of coffee. He cautioned that for us the khat might seem as strong as a bump of cocaine.
Tazewell wasn’t used to stimulants. He couldn’t stop chewing the leaves, green foa
m forming at the sides of his mouth, bits of leaf covering his perfect teeth. “I haven’t been this high since the hurricane,” he said. “We were crazy that night.” Tazewell paced and played with the bracelets on his wrist. “I can’t even remember her name.”
“Whose name?” Yazid asked.
“The girl.” Taze looked at me, his pupils like pinpricks. “The one on the boat.”
I spit the leaves out into my hand. “You took a boat out in the storm?”
“Just a joyride.” Tazewell smiled. “No big thing.” Tazewell pointed to his bracelets and nodded to Yazid. “Have I made you one of these?”
Yazid shook his head.
“All this time,” Taze said, “I’ve been smoking your dope and it never once occurred to me to make you a bracelet. I’m going to do it. Decorate your whole wrist.” Tazewell got up and went to his room.
“Filthy,” Yazid said. “He thinks I want his filthy embroidery.”
I sat with Yazid for a while, certain that this new drug would keep me awake all night. Tazewell had allowed something to slip, “I can’t even remember her name.”
“Have you ever been to Race’s house?” I’d never asked Yazid about the party.
Yazid said that he’d never been invited to anyone’s home. “You’d think that one of these chaps would have invited me to one of your big American barbecues. When I was in London, my friends were always showing me off, introducing me to their families. I suppose I haven’t made that sort of friend here.”
I told Yazid that he had a standing invitation to stay with me in the city or up in Maine, and though I think he appreciated it, my invite couldn’t help but feel like a consolation. “Are you sorry you came here?” I asked.
Yazid folded some green leaves and chewed slowly. The khat seemed to have an almost calming effect on him. “Bellingham,” he said, “serves a purpose. Someone has to cater to all of these fuckups. Best of all, I’ve never once feared being kicked out. That’s worth something.”
Aidan had compared Bellingham to the Island of Misfit Toys, a sanctuary for the unwanted. But the problem, as I saw it, was that putting this many defective kids together only created more trouble.
I began to think of Tazewell, Kriffo, Stuyvie, and Race as “the Company.” The new company I was keeping. When Chester returned in mid-February, he was annoyed to find me having dinner with Kriffo and Tazewell. I tried to play it off, but Chester was obviously hurt. That night he came into my room and asked for his book back. I had yet to locate it. Told him that I wasn’t finished reading it yet. Chester showed me his latest scar, a smile that curved down his biceps and around his elbow. “Sixty-five staples. Nine inches long.” The rough skin similar to the scar on his jaw.
“Impressive,” I said. “Matches your other scar.”
Chester clutched his chin in his hand. He took a deep breath. “Funny thing too,” he said. “Same guy gave me both.”
During Chester’s junior year, Kriffo and Taze took up smoking cigars. “They didn’t want to smoke in their rooms, so they turned mine into their own personal humidor. Back then, I had the only single, the best room in the dorm.” Chester would stay in the library all night and return to find his place trashed, Kriffo and Taze sitting in their boxers puffing away on Montecristos. Even then, Chester didn’t respond. Then one night, they just went after Chester. “They told me I didn’t deserve such a nice room. Kriffo insisted I only got it because I was black.” Chester let out a small laugh. “I let them know that they got lots of stuff, special stuff, every day just because they were white. Thought I was making a good point, but Tazewell held me down while Kriffo pushed the charcoal end of the cigar against my chin. Told me they wanted to brand me. That I was their cattle.” Chester exhaled and asked me if I still had any whiskey.
I went over to my dresser and lifted up my dopp kit. Underneath, I saw a red cover and the words “Advance Copy.” I’d found the missing book. There were two more bottles of Jim Beam and I gave one to Chester.
“I never told anyone how I got this scar,” he said. “Not even my mom, and I tell her everything.” Chester opened the bottle and took a small sip.
“I want to fix this,” I said. “Make it right.” I explained that I’d been courting the Company. “Do you remember Aidan?”
Chester offered me the bottle. “Sometimes I think I’m the only one who does,” he said. “It’s like somebody died and this place barely blinked.”
The whiskey reminded me of the storm, of our first bonding session. I suddenly realized that while Aidan was at Race’s, I was in the shower beating off. While Aidan was trapped on the beach, I was playing football. Though I’d mentioned our friendship, I’d never told Chester just how close Aidan and I had been. “I don’t believe she killed herself.” I made my suspicions clear to Chester. “At the very least those guys are hiding something.”
Cal’s mother had given me the order to get back on the water, to return to sailing as way of returning to Cal. Ginger had given me a very different idea regarding Aidan, the idea of becoming close to Race. “Make him your friend,” she’d said, “and he’ll tell you his secrets.”
“I get it,” Chester said. “It’s like a bait and switch. But I’m sorry, I just don’t think those guys will come clean. All they’ll do is lie to you.”
The entire sailing team stayed on campus during spring Break, training, running drill after drill. Practicing boat control, trapeze techniques. For the past three years, the Baker Trophy had eluded Race, and he was confident that the two of us together could bring the award to Bellingham. Race and I shared the important love of a sport, and the more we won together, the more Race would want to seal that bond.
Nadia was upset that we wouldn’t be spending Spring Break together. She’d invited me to Atlanta. Her family had a house on Sea Island. “It’s totally exclusive,” she said. “There’s a guard and gatehouse. You can’t even drive on to the island unless you live there or are somebody’s guest.”
Gates and private islands didn’t impress me. I’d seen more than my fair share. It made me sad to hear Nadia smooth out her accent, dull her voice. Back in Atlanta she’d grown up believing that being sophisticated meant attending prep school in New England. What she wanted more than anything were postcards, snapshots of herself windsurfing, playing lacrosse, sneaking out to hotel parties in Boston. She was desperate to visit me in the city. “I’m the only freshman who’s dating a senior,” she confided. Our relationship hadn’t progressed much beyond the kissing stage. I was afraid of touching her, harming her. She’d begun to ask me about Aidan, had developed a fascination with her and seemed to believe that we’d had some sort of tragic love affair. That Aidan had been heartsick and killed herself over me. Nadia was a sweet girl and it would have been unfair of me to compare her to Aidan. I’d managed to convince Nadia not to wear too much makeup, to keep her hair short, to play the piano with me. To be grateful for my attention. So far things had worked out between us, though I was beginning to sense that Nadia wanted more. Spring Break. One morning the campus was teeming with students and the next morning it was as silent as an empty soundstage. It was strange to be at school when nearly everyone else was on vacation. Coach Tripp and I were the only two left in Whitehall. The dorm was always alive with music, animated with the sporty motions of young hyperactive males. It was nice to take refuge in the quiet hallways. No small talk, no bullshit. Coach Tripp continued to teach me about celestial navigation.
With the campus empty, there was nothing keeping me from seeing its beauty. I’d gotten so used to being at Bellingham that I’d stopped appreciating the ocean, the bracing smell of salt air. Waking up at five a.m. to train with the sailing team, I welcomed the morning into my lungs as if for the first time. I could feel the brackishness surge all the way down my throat and into my stomach. “Let’s do this,” I thought. “Get back out on the water.”
I’d never sailed with a skipper as meticulous as Race. He had long thin fingers that moved with speed and ac
curacy as he checked our gear, making certain that everything was literally shipshape. “All-a-Taut-O,” he’d call out when our boat was rigged. In turn, Race was impressed by my speed at tying knots, my understanding of when to use a par ticu lar hitch.
Race’s mother had donated new training dinghies, 470s, the same type of dinghy Race would compete on if he made it to the Olympics. Speed machines, we called them. Elegant but demanding boats, quick to plane and charge through the water. I was happy to play crew, to harness myself into the trapeze and balance precariously on the gunwale, leaning back so far off the boat and so close to the water that it seemed as though I was literally pulling the dinghy through the waves. My power and gravity keeping us on a straight course. It was a breathless, exhilarating feeling to rediscover. Often, I felt compelled to close my eyes, surrendering to the excitement. I could die happy knowing that this was the last feeling I would enjoy. Then Race would call, “Ready about,” and I would restore my concentration, focus on our teamwork.
Cal and I had always switched off, sharing the roles of skipper and crew. Believing that both were equal, neither subordinate, and that we should be equally great at both. Race was different. He needed to be in charge. I could hear it in the fierce tone he used to call out orders and see it in the way he threw his weight when we swung over to windward to steady our boat.
Race, like a lot of sailors, had his superstitions. He preferred wearing a wet suit instead of a dry suit, and though he could have afforded the best high-tech gear, he kept his lucky wet suit patched together with squares of duct tape. Before every regatta he listened to the same CD—a collection of Van Halen hits—and ate the same lunch—a roast beef sandwich made by his mother. Before a particularly challenging meet at St. George’s in Newport, I’d watch Race check and recheck our lines compulsively. He hummed “Panama” and retaped each piece of duct tape, piling on four different layers. His mother had mistakenly packed a ham and cheese, and right before we were due out on the water, Race insisted that Coach Tripp drive him into town to a sandwich shop. “I’ve got a ritual going,” he said. “I need to honor it.”
The Starboard Sea: A Novel Page 28