Life Between Wars

by Robert Patton

  She’d requested her ashes be spread on the ocean on the night of a certain day. Full of sour, wounded worldliness, Willoughby had participated reluctantly in his cousins’ hick parade of flatbeds and Cadillacs heading east to Virginia Beach, where, after the sunburned vacationers had gone, they carried to the water’s edge the ashes of Grandmother Claire. As the sun set behind them the sky went red, the moon came up full, and the old woman’s plan came clear. Like her, few of those present had seen the ocean; it might have been the face of God for the way they stood and gawked. The moon on a hundred Virginia ponds couldn’t match the moon on the sea, its reflection a ribbon, a silver umbilicus, linking the mourners to the unseen horizon. They couldn’t help but remember the babies born and stillborn, the crib deaths and backroom abortions that since the turn of the century the old woman had staunchly attended. They couldn’t help but remember her and wonder where she was tonight. The Baptist preacher scattered the ashes but didn’t bother preaching. His flock had gone pagan, its prayers not for Jesus but for the moon and the ocean and blood — blood, that is, in memory form, spilled all over the sand. On Penscot Island Willoughby hoped to feel the same dread he’d felt that night, dread being a good place to start if for years you’ve felt nothing. And he hoped to lose the sort of doubt he’d brought to that beach. Then it was doubt of his grandmother’s purpose; today it was doubt of his own. His purpose was revenge. He prayed he wouldn’t flinch. And abruptly resolute, his passion erupted clumsily:

  “Whatcha reading, Sister? I say again, whatcha reading?”

  She flipped a page. “You wouldn’t like it. It’s a Jesus pitch.”

  He snatched the book away. “The Rule of St. Benedict,” he read from its clothbound cover, on which was handpainted a cherubic monk meditating in an idealized cave.

  She drew herself up. “That’s right. I’m a Benedictine. The book is St. Benedict’s guide to serving God, a way to order your life, written in A.D. 500.”

  “What does he recommend?”

  “Work and contemplation — and seclusion from outside agitation.”

  Willoughby opened the book. “It’s Greek.”

  “It’s Latin. The translation’s on the page opposite.”

  “‘Hearken, my son,’” Willoughby read, “‘to the precepts of the master!’” His voice became a holy roller’s, booming and accusatory. “‘Freely accept and faithfully fulfill the instructions of a loving Father, that by the labor of obedience thou mayest return to Him from Whom thou has strayed by the sloth of disobedience.’ Lordy!”

  She grabbed her book, took up her stuff, and moved to a seat far away, a retreat she regretted at once. She’d failed the test — but at least it was minor. Forewarned now, forearmed, she was prepared for more tests to come.

  In the seat in front of Willoughby, an old woman whose ears were stretched like warm taffy by the weight of gold hoops turned to scold him. “That’s pretty low, fella — and with a Sister!”

  “You were eavesdropping.”

  “You were cruel,” she said, which of course he was flattered to learn.

  The ferry rounded the buoy at the head of the harbor around nine that morning, moving like a ghost ship through the soft rain and through, as well, Robby Cochran’s damaged perception. Leaning against his transom, spinning rod in hand, he tracked the ferry’s course with an infant’s mesmerized wonder, seeing the vessel and all things today as brand new, or, to the same effect, as if seeing them for the last time.

  Rain had beat flat the sea chop. The dull backs of bluefish cut lazy patterns in the dark water. Their feeding spree had just ended. Baitfish had scattered — menhaden, mackerel — a smooth slick where they’d been of oil and viscera above which seagulls deftly hovered. Casting his plug, Robby knew he’d get a strike. Blues are vicious creatures, a predator that gorges itself, vomits and gorges again, like Romans. Robby thought it might be fun to hunt them full time, but there was no money in it, and Barfly, co-owned with his brother Jerry, was the wrong type of boat. Next year Robby might lease something he could use for blues and stripers in warm months and convert for scalloping in the cold. A change from lobstering would do him good. His life had become too predictable.

  He reeled. The silvery plug skipped on the water. A bluefish struck and knocked the plug clear of the surface. At once Robby got another strike, the blue instantly on and off. He let the plug float motionless. Water swirled around it. The small fish was hooked and in moments lay shivering in the water alongside. Robby gripped the wire leader and lifted the fish onto the deck, where it flapped and contorted, its mouth chewing air. With a baseball bat he pounded it quiet. Cool blood speckled his bare feet, trickled thinly out the scuppers. He freed the hooks with pliers. He sliced the gills and ventral artery with a filet knife to let the meat bleed clean. The blood on the deck began to clot. Robby ran his toes through it and was reminded of finger paint.

  Taking up his rod he discovered the sea transformed. The blues were gone. Their finning had troubled the water subtly, blunt heads, flat thin bodies arrowing to and fro with minor effect. A more languid turbulence had set in. Dark rollers crisscrossed as if pushed before the prows of submerged ships, were plumed white as in tidal rips when immeasurable masses of water forge past each other like silent freight trains, currents in conflict churning upward between them.

  A whale broke to Robby’s right, its blowhole spewing a sudden steam psshhh. It was followed by another whale, this one rising half clear of the water and hitting with a crash, by another that rotated slightly in the air so that its pectoral fin rather waved at its audience, by two more whales whose liver-colored backs appeared as twin islands, risen and sunk in the blink of an eye. As whales go these were small, eight feet long, weighing maybe half a ton. Pilots or False Killers, Robby guessed. Rare to see them in this close, in water this shallow. They weren’t the showmen porpoises are. Robby once had hired out on a purse seiner and during his night watch porpoises by the dozen had kept him company; when he’d aimed his flashlight into the water they’d chased its glow like actors. Next to porpoises whales have a barnyard quality, horses or cows compared to foxes. Yet their display this morning was soaring and happy and, in its brevity, magical. They were gone now. Had they been here at all? Robby’s heart pounded.

  He’d checked his traps and was passing time till the restaurant warehouses opened. His head throbbed from the night’s inflictions, still he felt not too bad. He had a fair lobster catch. He’d caught a blue and seen five whales. His only complaint was that he could kill for a cigarette.

  Four

  Gathered on the pier in a haze of cigarette smoke and coffee steam, the lobstermen had exploded with hoots and handclaps for the errant Robby Cochran. “Robby C! Robby C!” Their faces were flushed, their rainslickers shiny as they punched their fists in the air. Bonding these men was the proud conceit that their working lives were shit; now they had a martyr to take it public. Willoughby Claire had seen the crowd and squad cars from the ferry and had beelined here after disembarking, his duffel over his shoulder. But he’d been disappointed to find that for the lobstermen, despite their showy fury, this all was a little bit fun.

  Occasionally the men glanced to the harbor mouth where they would hear, then see, Robby’s boat approach through the rain like a mirage that gets realer as it nears. If the Coast Guard had located him he’d have an escort. If not, he might see the waiting squad cars and flee. The men onshore would cheer impulsively, forgetting the second cutter docked at the Coast Guard station that would run Robby down within minutes. He was wild enough to make a last stand, waving to his brethren while blasting away at the oncoming cutter, in the end shredded by the vintage .50-caliber manned by the underage Kansan who’d only enlisted to the see the ocean. Robby kept a shotgun on board for sharks and ducks on the water. It was something to hope for.

  A man was saying, “What idiot leaves a witness behind like that? Real sharp.” There was laughter
.

  One of the fishermen broke from the group and approached a young cop standing nearby. As they spoke they glanced once at the harbor mouth, once at Willoughby. The cop wore an earring and looked uneasy. The fisherman moved to Willoughby. “You’re a Fed.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It’s okay. It’s a job. Del over there says no, but I’m right, huh? You’re a Fed.

  Willoughby shrugged. “Guess you got me.”

  “For next time, a tip: lose the shades.” But by now Willoughby had faced the man and was thanking God he’d kept his sunglasses on. The guy was bigger than him, with a drawn face, short straw-colored hair shot with gray, skin slightly pocked. The guy was the enemy. “Smoke?”

  “Thanks.” The Camel dragged hot over Willoughby’s throat.

  The man went on, “Don’t matter to me either way. Robby’s an asshole. Made like people were always rippin’ him off, like they were out to get him and that’s why his hauls were so shitty. He’s paranoid. He used to trip a lot.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “Not that you don’t get burned. Been goin’ on for years. You lose a little here and there, but it’s minor. What I do when I see ’em? I snatch their fuel line, make ’em paddle home. You don’t run ’em over. That’s fucked.”

  “And a good way to land in prison.”

  The man whipped around. “That’s your opinion. Mine?” He exhaled. “He shoulda taken the fuel line. I’ve told him and told him. Now he’s gone and fucked himself. Fuckin’ Robby. Jesus.”

  They stood in a parking lot overlooking the pier. Waves nudged the wood pilings. Last winter somebody drowned here. Drunk probably. Fell off the dock through a window of ice. Divers fumbled through the harbor murk with their fingers for eyes, till they found him.

  “See that gull?” The man pointed. “I was casting for blues and he dove on my plug. Hooked himself. I got him loose. Cost him his foot, but he made it. See? I named him Stump.”

  “Good choice.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No, I do.”

  The man shrugged. “I’m no poet.” Laughter broke from the group of lobstermen. Someone played tug-of-war with a Golden retriever, a greasy rag the possession in question. “Everybody’s bored,” the man with Willoughby said. “Robby same. Told me life on the island was lulling. That’s his wife’s word, lulling. I never heard it before. First she puts horns on him, then says it’s his fault. So he snaps, is my theory.”

  “It happens.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Sure I do. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You and me.” The man turned to Willoughby. “I’m his brother, see?”

  “Your brother’s keeper.”

  “That a joke?”

  Willoughby laughed. “No joke.”

  The man laughed too. “A Fed. Can I pick ’em or what?” But his levity, such as it was, dispersed in a squinty pause. “I dunno. Long as I do my part, it’ll be cool.”

  “What part is that?” But the man’s attention was focused now on drawing a cigarette from the pack. He clanged open an old steel Ronson, held his lighted cigarette in three fingertips, an odd and delicate arrangement, as a bird might wield a length of straw or an invalid his first pencil since the accident. Willoughby asked again, “What part in this is yours?”

  “I’m his brother, right? And you can’t let your brother do time. I mean hard time, state. So I’ll get up the dough and bail him out. What he does next is his business.”

  “You think he’ll skip.”

  “What do I know?”

  “They’ll come after you. Could be expensive.”

  “Some things are.”

  “It’s tough. I feel kind of sorry for you.”

  “Save it for the dead guy.”

  “Good point.”

  The man introduced himself. “My name’s Jerome. Use’ta be Jerry, but I like Jerome better. More different.”

  They shook. The man didn’t let go of Willoughby’s hand.

  “No name?”

  Willoughby’s smile hurt.

  “For politeness, no?” Still the handshake, sweaty now.

  “I’m Claire.” Willoughby cursed the crack in his voice, the ruinous quaver. “I’m Willoughby Claire.” He ripped his hand free.

  “Willyboy.”

  “Right. Willyboy.” Willoughby removed his sunglasses, composing himself in the delay of wiping them on his shirt.

  “You grew your hair.”

  “People change.” There was a long pause. “So. This is home.”

  “Born and raised.”

  Another pause. “Lotta water.”

  Jerome nodded. “Guess you hooked up with Parker — about my letter?”

  “What letter?”

  “Last year. You and Sergeant Parker, I wrote you last year. Yours came back. His not.”

  “Mystery to me.”

  “Yeah? So this is luck, huh?”

  “Vacation. See the world, follow the sun.”

  “They put you back together, I guess.”

  Willoughby unclenched his teeth. “I wasn’t hurt too bad. Back of the legs, across the ass. Maybe twenty percent disability. Parker took most of it.”

  “He lost a leg?”

  “Two.”

  “You and him talk, do ya?”

  “Not since rehab. Long time ago.”

  They smoked. At length Jerome said, “Got a few vets in town. One was in D Troop. Joe Drocky. Nice Guy. Burned off four fingers with liquid phosphorous. Runs a hairdresser now.”

  Willoughby reached for the strap of his duffel, to leave. In afterthought he said to Jerome, “You mean to tell me a guy lacking four fingers works in a beauty parlor? What as, a coat rack?”

  “I dunno, but my wife thought he was the greatest. Different damn hair color every month.”

  “You’re married.”

  “Was. She died.”

  “Oh.”

  Jerome, nodding, looked dumb as a cow.

  “Kids?”

  “A boy, yeah. He’s the balls.”

  “Well, that’s . . . that’s fine.” Willoughby apologized then for not being a Federal agent. “I’m sure you’re usually right.” As he started away a smile stole over his lips, a twitch of irony and wry approval at the tricks fate sometimes plays.

  Jerome called, “Willyboy!”

  He turned.

  “Just wanna remind you. I go by Jerome now, not Jerry. In case you look me up.”

  Willoughby gave a slack salute. “Roger.” He continued to the seawall overlooking the pier, his mood gone blacker than ever. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He’d planned to scout him on the sly, find the way to hurt him best. Sergeant Jerry Cochran. Fuck.

  A screech cut the air — tires skidding on cobblestone. A beat-up station wagon bombed into the parking lot. “Here’s trouble,” someone said. Buckets, brooms, and vacuum cleaners were piled in back. On the door was stenciled, The Lois System. Willoughby watched as two women got out of the car. He recognized the nun from the ferry. The other woman was her sister, Lois Cochran. The resemblance was clear, though there was more to Lois wherever you looked. A tear at the hip of her Levis revealed an eyelet of red underpants.

  Lois moved past the squad cars, her sister a step behind. The lobstermen tracked them wordlessly. “My husband’s colleagues,” Lois said drily. At the seawall she gazed down at an empty slip. “We’re early.”

  Anna Edman, “Sister Bernadette” no longer, wanted to touch her sister. She’d stepped through an unfamiliar doorway into a whirlwind, Lois flinging on clothes and cussing bloody murder. They hadn’t yet kissed nor hardly spoken. Anna thought she should hug Lois. There was crisis here, a need for grace. Anna felt the call.

  Her sister said to Jerome Cochran, “I just heard.
I thought it must be a joke.”

  “You didn’t wonder where he was last night?”

  “No. Did he do it?”

  “His word against another guy’s. Some summer kid.”

  She asked Jerome for a cigarette. A gentleman, the lighter flamed in his hand. “He did it,” she said, exhaling. “You know he did. Our man Robby.” She threw her arms skyward, “That fool” drawing a chuckle from the long-haired guy sitting on the seawall. Lois glared at him. “Had a funny thought,” he said.

  “Care to share it?” That was Anna. She was a parochial-school teacher and looked it exactly.

  “Depends,” he said. “Got a strong stomach?” Her expression conceded nothing. Their eyes locked as others watched them, puzzled.

  Mysterious sounds issued from inside the station wagon. Behind a window a head appeared whose eyes shone bright as reflectors. “He’s up early,” Jerome said.

  “I think he fainted,” Lois said. “Doesn’t like my driving.”

  The car’s rear door opened. A loafered foot dropped to the pavement, testing with caution some untrod planet surface. A short plump man clambered out and slumped against the vehicle as if he’d just scaled a cliff. He looked a youthful fifty or a ravaged thirty-five. Under his elbow he carried an entertainment magazine opened to the puzzle page. Like a doctor examining himself he pressed one hand to his heart. People wondered should they laugh with the charade or give him room to breathe. The man fixed on Lois. “I have survived. But know this, little sister — your recklessness has aged me.”