The Winter After This Summer

by Stanley Ellin

  When I got out of the cemetery I wanted to go to the movies and be in the dark away from people, but there was no way of getting in. There were a lot of sailors on the streets, and I knew that all I had to do was turn around and smile when they stopped to watch me and then I’d have someone to take me to the movies and maybe to a place on Duval Street afterwards to eat, but I didn’t. I never did that before in my life, and I was scared to. Anyhow, being in the movies with one of them would be like Yeager all over again, and I had enough of that for one day.

  So I just kept walking until I came to the city beach where there was hardly anybody else that late in the day. I filled up on all the water I could drink at the fountain there and then went down to near the tideline and lay down to read the newspapers all over again and look at the magazine. I fell asleep doing that, and when I woke up it was almost dark, the sky red over Fort Taylor way and all the rest of it black and starry.

  I sat there looking at the stars for a long time, and that was when I knew my life had changed. Before, I had been able to stand everything because of Jimmy, and because I knew that when he saw me he would feel the same about me as I felt about him. Now everything was empty. The only thing left was his spirit because that would never die. And I knew that if I could get to Fairmount, Indiana, where he was going to be buried, and give him my wedding ring the way I had tried to do here it would fill up the emptiness. It would be like marrying him, so that we could always be together. Then he would really be Beloved Husband like the one in the cemetery.

  It was a long way to the dock but I didn’t mind it, thinking things out that way. And once I got the boat clear of the Submarine Basin I cut loose and pushed it as hard as I could, setting course for Mooney’s Key by the Whitehead Street lighthouse. The bow was high, the waves slamming it and the spray shooting up and soaking me, and I could hear Jimmy beside me laughing and yelling, “Faster!” all the way across the open water.

  FOUR

  Except for the stars it was all dark when I ran alongside the dock at Mooney’s Key. There was a twenty-footer without any lights on her already tied to the dock, and I had to look close to see whose she was. Then I saw it was the Xenia, which meant that Uncle Christos and Aunt Smaro were visiting, so at least Cole and Lettie couldn’t get me alone right away. Anyhow, I kind of liked Uncle Christos. He ran a couple of sponge-fishing boats out of the Pinellas, and in between the sponge fishing he and Aunt Smaro would take the Xenia along the coast and visit family. Lettie had a lot of people along the coast—some in the Pinellas, some in Tampa, and even Uncle George who ran a souvenir place in Miami Beach—but the only ones I ever saw were Uncle Christos and Aunt Smaro. They had the most money in the family, but never showed off about it. I guess they had enough money to buy a cabin cruiser if they wanted to, but Uncle Christos built the Xenia all by himself, and even if she didn’t look like much she slept two and had a cookstove and a head and was a lot better than any stinking outboard.

  I put the magazine and newspapers in a safe place under the dock and went in, and the four of them were there around a table in the restaurant drinking coffee and eating melomacarona which Aunt Smaro must have brought because Lettie never baked anything except those sloppy lime pies of hers. Lettie was really laying for me. Before I could open my mouth she said, “What happened to you? You get tired sitting in the movies?”

  I said, “I didn’t go to the movies, Ma. How can I go to the movies if I don’t have money for it?”

  She leaned over the table and gave me a hard look. “No? Then maybe you were walking up and down Duval so everybody could get a real good look. You’re dressed for it all right. Look at the way you’re dressed. How many times I tell you not to go to Key West with those shorty shorts and that shirt hanging out so you can’t even tell if there’s anything under it? How many times?”

  Cole said, “A daughter of mine looking like that in town. And you got no money, huh? How much money you think I got to pay for the gas you just burned up? By Jesus, I got a real notion to give you what-for this time.”

  Uncle Christos said, “Ah, let the girl alone,” but Lettie was so steamed up I thought she was going to reach out and hit me in front of everybody. “Now you tell the truth,” she said. “What were you doing with yourself up to now?”

  “Nothing, Ma. I swear to God, all I did was go to the cemetery and then the beach and that’s all.”

  “And who do you know in the cemetery? Some nice sailor-boy?”

  “I swear to God, Ma, I was all by myself the whole time.”

  “Let her alone,” Uncle Christos said again, but this time you could see he meant it. Lettie sat back looking daggers while he pulled me by the arm to the chair next to him and pushed me into it. “Don’t start crying,” he said to me. “Have some coffee and cake and forget it. Be happy. When I’m here everybody has to be happy.”

  “Not me,” Lettie said. “Not when that one is off having a time in Key West so that my sister-in-law has to wait on tables for her like hired help. The first time the Doyles brought anybody here in a week, and that’s when she has to look at the cemetery. If that’s all she was doing.”

  “A fine way to talk, Iouletta,” said Aunt Smaro. “As for waiting on tables, I’ve done harder work in my day.”

  “But for yourself,” Lettie said. “Not for me.”

  Uncle Christos pushed my hand so that I would eat some cake. I tried to but it stuck in my throat. “Barbara-Jean is a good girl,” he said to Lettie. “Stop worrying about it. But she’s a young girl. You take somebody young and stick her out here like a turtle on a sandbar, and then you get mad when she wants to run off to the city and see life around her. That’s not right.”

  “That’s how much you know about bringing up a girl,” Lettie said. “It’s easy enough for you to talk, you have two sons. You don’t know anything about it.”

  “George in Miami has two daughters,” said Aunt Smaro, “and there’s a lot more to worry about in Miami than here, Iouletta, what with all those rich Jews walking around half-naked and looking for women. And he doesn’t make any fuss about it the way you do.”

  “Then George is a fool,” Lettie said.

  Uncle Christos shook his head at her. “George is no fool. He brought up two fine girls that help in the store the way Barbara-Jean helps you, and in a little while they’ll get married and that’s all there is to it. But he lets them live. He lets them see other young people. That’s nature.” He looked at me. “But your mother is right about the clothes, Barbara-Jean. You shouldn’t dress like that when you go to Key West. And you don’t go into a cemetery that way. It’s not nice. How old are you now?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Sixteen,” he said to Lettie. “In two years she’ll be ready to get married, and then what?”

  “Then we’ll see,” Lettie said, and Cole said, “She got plenty of time to get married. I’m against young marriages. People get married too young don’t have sense enough to make out. You read it in the paper every day.”

  “All right,” said Uncle Christos, “she won’t get married in two years. She’ll wait three years or four years. Then who does she get married to? One of the Rios boys, so she can move into that shack with Felix and Hilaria and keep house for them?”

  Cole hit the table with his hand. “She’ll never marry any Cubano while I’m around to say no.”

  “Then who?” Uncle Christos said. “What young man can she meet if you keep her stuck away here?”

  “How do I know?” Cole said, but Lettie waved a hand at him to shut up. “What are you getting at?” she asked Uncle Christos.

  “Something we—” Uncle Christos said, and then said to Aunt Smaro, “You tell her.”

  “Well, Christos and I were talking about it,” said Aunt Smaro. “Now that the boys are grown-up they’re away with him in the sponge boats so much, and the house is empty. And if Barbara-Jean lived with us, there’s plenty of room for her. Tarpon Springs is a fine place for a young girl. There’s all good
families there.”

  “She can finish school there,” Uncle Christos said. “We’ll take good care of her, Iouletta. You don’t mind my asking about it, do you? It’s only because Smaro said it was so lonely in the house now.”

  “Why should I mind your asking?” Lettie said. “I’m only a poor relation. What right does a poor relation have to mind anything?”

  “Iouletta!” said Aunt Smaro, and Uncle Christos pointed his finger at the ceiling and said, “I ask God to witness I never treated anybody like a poor relation. Nobody in this world. You’re my sister, Iouletta. I love you the way I love everybody in the family. All I want is for them to be happy. I don’t want to hear this talk about poor relations.”

  “Oh, if that’s all you want,” Lettie said. “Well, I’m very happy. I’ve got so much to be happy about. Can’t you tell that just by looking at me?”

  “And what happens to the restaurant if Barbara-Jean goes off to have a time for herself?” Cole said. “I don’t guess you thought about that, did you, Christos? If Smaro is lonely, then the hell with us.”

  I could see Uncle Christos was getting real mad, but he was trying to keep it in. “What did you do before Barbara-Jean was big enough to help out?” he said. “You got along just the same then, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not as young as I was then,” Cole said. “And Lettie is a tired, worked-out woman. All we got to depend on is what help Barbara-Jean can give.”

  “Then you should take out insurance on this place and set fire to it,” Uncle Christos said. “You know as well as I do that it’ll never make money for you. I told you that when you bought it. But you were a fool about it then and you still are.”

  “Oh, sure,” Cole said, “you can talk like that to a man with one arm.”

  “One arm or two arms,” said Uncle Christos. “The first time Iouletta brought you to the house you had two arms, and I told her what you were then. Only now you think having one arm is an excuse for it!”

  “I do what I can,” Cole said. “Let the railroad give me back my other arm, and I’ll show you how much better I can do. Or let them give me the money they swindled me out of on my payment, and I’ll show you how this place can be fixed up. A new generator, some paint and repairs on the house, some fancy fixtures—it would be a gold mine.”

  “There isn’t money enough in Florida to make this place show a profit,” Uncle Christos said. “You might as well talk about opening a motel on the Tortugas.”

  Cole hit the table again with his hand. “It wouldn’t take more than five hundred dollars,” he said. “Once I get my credit established I’ll be in business the way Henry Flagler was.”

  “Not with my money,” Uncle Christos said. “Not with a nickel of it. I already threw more than five hundred dollars down this cesspool. The next time I want to throw my money away I’ll take it out to the Gulf and throw it overboard. Then at least the fish might get some good out of it.”

  “A lousy five hundred dollars?” said Cole, and he was using his begging voice. “How much can that mean to you?”

  “Enough,” Lettie said to him. “I had enough of this.”

  “But five hundred dollars,” said Cole. “I’ll pay it back in two years. I’ll pay back everything I owe you in two years.”

  “Not two years and not twenty,” Uncle Christos said. “I work too hard for my money. The sponges have been sick all this season, the men get paid twice what they’re worth—everything comes too hard now. But Iouletta is right, we had enough talk about this. Enough, enough. I’m sorry I even thought about it.”

  “He’s sorry,” Cole said to Lettie. “That’s for sure when you try to get a loan from him.” But Uncle Christos didn’t pay him any attention. He pushed the plate with cake on it at me. “It’s good cake,” he said. “Nobody makes melomacarona like your Aunt Smaro. Maybe some time you’ll come see us in Tarpon Springs, and you’ll see how good it is right out of the oven.”

  But I couldn’t eat it. All I could do was sit there and shake my head.

  “Don’t look like that, Barbara-Jean,” said Uncle Christos. “Be happy. You have to be happy when you’re young. You see what happens when you get old?”

  FIVE

  He could say that because he didn’t know. All he knew was to get into his boat with Aunt Smaro and head up north away from Mooney’s Key. And all I knew was to stand there and watch. And have a sick feeling about it because he could come back in five years or ten or fifty for that matter, and I’d most likely still be standing there, old and beat-up and sour like Lettie and Hilaria.

  That was when I knew that the worst thing that could happen was to have everything stay the same all my life. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to do something about it. And what I wanted to do most was go north to Fairmount, Indiana, where Jimmy would be, and then maybe across country to Hollywood, because that’s what Jimmy would want me to do. And I wasn’t a fool like most girls about getting to be a big star in Hollywood right away. The movie magazines were always saying how hard that was. But deep down inside I knew I was even prettier than those girls, so it wasn’t the same thing. And I knew I could be a good actress, if somebody showed me how.

  I didn’t go to school any more after that. That wasn’t wrong because I was old enough not to go if I didn’t want to. Anyhow, the only reason I kept going at all was Lettie. She never had much schooling so she thought it was some kind of big deal sitting there and trying not to fall asleep in class. And there was no way of telling her different.

  So I took the outboard into town same as always every morning, but then I’d hang around the library or beach or cemetery until the movies opened. It cost a lot, but what with Yeager, and the cigarettes I could sell, and any money from tips I could keep back from Cole I got in almost every day and saw the show, and afterward I would pick up Lettie’s groceries and go home without telling.

  It was the school told them, and then there was a fine to-do with Cole yelling his head off about how much of his good money I wasted and Lettie chasing me around the house hitting me with her fist until I got away down the beach and waited until she cooled off. After that it was worse than ever. I could never go to town week ends because that was the biggest time for the restaurant, and the rest of the time either Lettie went with me for the marketing or she held a watch on me if I went alone. She was sure I was fooling around with sailors any time I went to town without her, but I wasn’t. That wasn’t the sailors’ fault either, or later when I got to be eighteen and nineteen the officers’ fault. In Key West when you’re sixteen it’s just sailors, but after you’re eighteen it’s officers, too, so you’d swear they all had a calendar with your birthday marked on it.

  But I knew how Jimmy would have felt if I fooled around with them, so I didn’t. Not even the ones that didn’t try to act so smart but were real nice. None of them were like Jimmy. I never saw anybody like that until Egan.

  Still and all, Lettie was always at me about it, and it got so that I hated to go to Key West at all. When I had time off from the restaurant I just stayed by myself, or I went over to the cove to talk to Sebastiano and Suzie Rios. Then after a while it was only Sebastiano because Suzie got married. Felix brought home some Cubano who worked as a porter in a motel, a squinty little thing looked as mean as a barracuda, and a month later there was a party for them in the restaurant with Hilaria doing most of the cooking so it stunk from garlic for a week afterward, and then they went to Key West and got married. But Suzie left the picture of her pilot in my album, because she was afraid her husband would ask about it. She said to take care of it for her, so I just left it in the album. Then when she visited Felix and Hilaria she would come down to the cove with me and would kiss it and hold it against her, and I knew how she felt. I wanted to ask her how it was to be married, what happened with a man and all, but I didn’t. So we just talked about other things, and then when the baby came she wouldn’t visit any more because she was afraid to take it out on the water, and I never saw her again.
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br />   Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to break open the cash drawer and run away, but I was scared to. It wasn’t only that Cole and Lettie would sure enough have the cops after me, but I had the feeling that everybody up north would be like the tourists, and I didn’t see how I could stand that. But I thought about it. And I thought about other things. About what it was like to be married so that a man could do whatever he wanted to you. And about Jimmy, so that he and the married thoughts got all tangled up together, and almost every day I had to do what Sebastiano caught Suzie doing. I didn’t want to, because afterward I would feel so ashamed and know I might even go crazy doing it so much, but I couldn’t help it. And sometimes I would lie on my back on the beach with the sun so hot that it made your heart beat loud, and I would listen to it beating and wonder what made it keep going like that. It didn’t matter to me if it stopped once and for all, but it just kept going all by itself.

  That’s how I was when Avery came along. I was real low and not caring, and no matter what else happened between him and me, he made things different.

  SIX

  Avery’s barge wasn’t the first ever got hurt on Half Mile Reef, but it was one of the lucky ones. Most of the reef was very shoal, with the water pale green and the breakers making a line of foam along it, so it was easy to steer clear of. But far out where the water got real blue and didn’t shoal at all, there was still some reef, and that was the bad spot. The current always set in strong to the west there, and boats working against it would crowd the head of the reef and sometimes run over it. Then the coral would take out their bottoms like a chisel, and in a little while the boat would either go down off the head of the reef or would break up and float into the cove, one stick after another, so there would be wood for repairing things, and new doors, and plenty for beach fires.