On Whale Island

by Daniel Hays

  I gave up anything that I thought was the right way out. I became free of my mind and just leapt from a roof, figuring that, as in a dream, things would work out. As I fell a seagull flew over me and I hung on to its legs. We flew across the street and I was let go on a roof—the kind that some bad guy always gets shot off of.

  That’s when I talked with God, a loving and thoroughly understanding being in the guise of my grandmother. I was quick at dispensing with any excuses; she spoke directly into my heart. My problem came down to having missed an opportunity and how I would now have regrets. I was guilty of mediocrity and had to go back to West Eighty-sixth Street and face my enemy. I could no longer hide behind being a grown-up. I cried, and we embraced. It was wonderful to hug my grandmother again, after all the years since she’d died. As I was leaving I saw God transform into a large old black woman, and a skinny black man who’d been waiting in line behind me was reaching out, in tears, to hug her.

  DAY 246

  Wendy’s been trying to talk to me all day about the future. Now that my old high school said no to hiring me, we have no plans at all for after the thaw. She feels unsettled. I just don’t want to deal with it.

  “You’re gonna get a job,” she says. I’m brushing my teeth as she utters these horrifying words and I somehow snap my toothbrush, and then I’m bleeding inside my mouth, with the taste of iron. Even as I write this she’s peering at me, saying, “Tell me when you’re done with that. I want to discuss next year.” Panic! I just want to do emergency right now things, anything but discuss the future. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of anything more revolting. So I make my now job to avoid the topic and stay pleasantly occupied. I claim to have a headache, I have to go the bathroom, and finally: “Dear, I took a sleeping pill and it just hit me and I’ll be happy to talk with you but it will be incoherent and you don’t want that, do you? This is important, I should be awake.” I fake sleep till her light snores allow me turn on my flashlight and read under the covers.

  I’ve always found myself flowing into continuous moments of right nows. I do the best I can with each now that I find myself in. I’ll deal with the future when it becomes a now, and not a moment sooner. I truly believe that in this area men and women are wired completely differently. I can fix a flat tire. Wendy can plan a wedding. Maybe I am emotionally undeveloped, just a child in the ways of forethought, an evolutionary throwback on par with jellyfish. Maybe I should write a book called The Attention Deficit Disorder Association’s Book of Wild Animals of North Amer—Hey! Let’s Go Ride Our Bikes!

  • • •

  DAY 247

  Wendy and I have a date. We deposit Stephan at Peter’s home, where he will have the thrill and terror of being with Peter’s twelve-, fourteen-, and seventeen-year-old girls. We leave him quaking on the porch, all three girls inside wearing boxers and T-shirts. I can hardly imagine, after months on an island with just his parents, the percent of fear and young testosterone in his veins. “Good luck,” I say. “Stay calm, pretend to be thoughtful. That’s what I do.”

  We go to a hotel. We’ve brought an avocado, chips, a bottle of rum and are planning, if all goes well, to attempt a sexual encounter. What with Stephan living just a few boards away . . .

  DAY 248

  Home by sunset. Stephan seems all right, though quiet.

  DAY 249

  Strong south winds at forty to fifty knots. I slept uneasily, as I would at sea, and at sunrise we woke up to a loud smack as quite a bit of ocean hit the windows. Wendy and I sat bolt upright, the sound being very much in the “I never heard that before” category. Nothing broke, and I am thankful to be behind glass to watch this one. The rocks off the house are all white in mist—a strange illusion, as if you can’t focus on them. The waves are so big that the rocks seem small—as if they moved further out during the night.

  There is a taste of salt water in the southern drinking-water tank. Some wave must have made it to the roof! Our fillet knife, whose point is wedged between two beams, vibrates faster and faster with the gusts. Both dogs curl up by me, the house shuddering.

  In the evening the three of us play a drawn-out game of progressive rummy. It’s drawn out because Stephan chose the music, the Star Trek sound-effects CD . . . so I’m looking for a pair of fours while listening to five solid minutes of bridge sounds, searching for spades during two minutes of door opening and closing sounds, and I lose the hand as photon torpedoes are being fired.

  DAY 254

  On our walks Wendy often relieves tension by running to each and every sea urchin a gull has left on the rocks. She stomps them for that satisfying crunch they make, like bubble wrap. Abby is a little distressed by this, because she loves to eat and later vomit these same urchins. Abby is faster than Wendy but is easily distracted, so they’re usually neck and neck.

  I’ve already mentioned the tragedy of dogs not having pockets, and seeing Abby is almost painful; she just loves things. On today’s walk, just fifty feet from the house she finds the perfect stick. It’s two feet long and old enough to get a good bite into. She holds one end and runs by Bear, enticing him to grab the other end. Many of our walks begin with the two dogs jaw-locked this way, charging full speed down the trail, heads oddly in perfect step together. But today Bear won’t be tempted. She brushes by several times and turning, seems to say, “Hey, this really is the best stick out here—you better come get some or it’s all mine.” He doesn’t, so with a sad look in her eyes she walks behind us, the stick scraping the rocks and pulling her head to the side as it snags on roots and rocks.

  This is the tragedy of not having a pocket. There is a good eighth mile of boulder-jumping shoreline ahead. Indecision.

  She follows with the stick, struggling along lopsided. It’s warmer today and I know she has to pant, her tongue dying to be set free.

  Wendy and I root for her. I don’t think she’s smart enough to have the concept of getting the stick over this section of island to the dock. If she makes it that far the stick will be safe, in an area she often visits. Wendy thinks she’ll make it. We can’t cheer out loud because we know it would distract her into a smile and she would forget about the stick.

  Halfway and we start to choose all the easier paths, Abby a step behind—though often in the same step.

  The final beach, and she makes it. The stick is carefully laid in a hole she’s dug to sleep in while waiting for the boat (and us) to return after a laundry or food run. Her tongue leaps out, does a thorough once-over her acre and a half of lips, and she smiles, running after us, continuing on our tour. She does her most joyous thing, a sort of front-to-back waddle while holding her back rigid, much the same as a happy llama might do. She’s free of needing a pocket, and the world becomes perfect again.

  And that is what I want, to be caught up in a series of wonderful right-now moments. Wendy is upset at me about something intangible, a later-than-now moment. It’s intangible to me, anyway. If I ever fall off a really high cliff, I’m going to enjoy the gravity, not flap my arms.

  14. Storms

  Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him.

  —KARLFRIED GRAF VON DÜRCKHEIM

  DAY 261

  Yesterday afternoon there was a scent in the air, a primitive thing . . . I was able to sit back and let Stephan drive the boat with only a couple of encouraging suggestions, like “Isn’t that land?” and “Either side of that,” but still, they were positive. I remembered that I love him and am proud of him. I let him be twelve. I think the best gift you can give to anyone is to see and love them as they are. Simple acceptance—it is what we spend so much of our lives running in circles for.

  Today I take the boat out alone, and as I’m riding over the waves, surfing up and down ocean swells, I am seized with the desire to simply head away from the shore. Forget my family, forget anything that holds me to the land. The water is blue and soothing and spreads before me unlimited,
potential without encumbrance. I’m standing in the boat holding the tiller, knees bent. A living thing, me and the boat. I lean one way, feel the bow coming down, lean the other way. I steer just with my body. I look into the splash I’ve made—forty feet on either side, and a sheet of spray ahead, which I catch up to and then zoom right through. The cold water on my face slaps me. I am awake and alive; there is nothing but this moment.

  DAY 262

  Big storm. Watching a storm here is like being allowed to witness a small God tantrum. You do not want to draw any attention to yourself. Since we’re surrounded by windows, the power of what’s happening is undeniable, and it permeates our beings to the bone. There are no covers to hide beneath for the shaking of the floor.

  The spray from each thundering wave is blown to bits and then inland, much of it reaching as far as our house. The whole structure trembles and shudders. We’re all three on the big bed and the dogs are standing on the floor, front legs on the bed with their heads reaching in, trying to be with us.

  Some spots are more spectacular to watch than others. We can see one group of rocks that present a vertical cliff face to the swells. As each wave reaches the rocks it is already toppling over. The booming concussion sounds almost like a gunshot. The wave is always thrust directly skyward, perhaps a hundred feet, into magnificent walls of spray.

  I love how we just give in—we’re not going anywhere. That is my favorite part, where my important plans are all nullified by the wind. What an excellent thing to have to admit, that a storm is in control of your life!

  Our rain barrels fill up and the windmill charges all the batteries.

  This storm is bigger than any we have seen. The beaches are rearranged. A slice of a peninsula vanishes; a chunk of rock the size of a school bus, gone. New things wash up: lumber, a dead seal, dead birds, tires, trees, plastic junk, rope, buoys, an oar, a glove, buckets, a doll. Older stuff gets carried off or shifted. Wash-up Point is completely clean. Since we walk around the island several times a week, we notice and appreciate these changes. All our shelves and much of the house is driftwood. Our kitchen counter is the side of a boat that wrecked here years ago.

  The storm continues. Ten shingles are blown off our roof. A whole section of earth and trees is removed from the west-facing side of the island. We later find out that one of Peter’s sheds washed away. Mike’s dock is gone.

  For two days we watch the waves. There is nothing between us and Africa but big blue ocean, so the storms have plenty of breathing room, and on this island they exhale. We watch for hours as they tumble toward us, sending spray hundreds of feet inland. The whole island rumbles, and we can feel the vibrations in our bones, a good place to feel anything, one of those places you need to listen to, pay attention to. The waves come here to die, and they are most alive in their dying.

  DAY 266

  The air smells different today, almost sexy, and I sense stuff underground bubbling with excitement. I feel like a prehistoric hairy guy scratching himself. It is not like it has blown in from somewhere—more like it’s bubbled up from the forest, the pregnant earth.

  We’ll still have some storms—from the east—and maybe will be stranded for two or three days as big seas make the harbor unsafe, but that is it. I think yesterday’s snowstorm was the last. The earth has spun itself warmer. It will soon become foggy; half of April and most of May are solid fog. It’ll be lobster season then, and there will be maybe five boats with their territories overlapping this island. We’ll wave, they’ll stop by to talk, drink, give us some lobsters, or even break down. I almost like that because I may have a washer or something we can jury-rig for them, and I’ll get to be a hero. Having the right part for a guy’s engine is the ultimate bonding thing possible out here.

  SOMETIMES WHEN WENDY and I fight, it’s as if the Terminator has got hold of my soul, of the part of me that wants life to be good, to have things work. I’m steeled. Being right becomes worth dying for, hurling myself on the sword for. I don’t even know what this latest fight is about—something dumb, no doubt. I just hate the ridiculous inevitable escalation. I generally walk away before bad things are said because I really love her.

  I sleep alone at the shack and make very small circles in my thoughts. I’m like a ship with no sea room tacking back and forth in the night, unable to see where it is better to be, where I should go to get out. Tacking again and again, imagining shoals in all directions, knowing only that “right here” there is enough water; but even that fades as the tacks get shorter, until all I can do is anchor.

  I struggle with myself to have empathy. I even look the word up in the O.E.D.: “The power of projecting one’s personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation.” And I have that. I’m even good at it. I love my therapist job because I can soul-surf, catch the wave of another’s perceptions and feel their balance, catch a view of their horizon. . . . If, however, there is the slightest possibility that my empathy will reveal how I am from another’s viewpoint, that I am possibly wrong, a jerk, full of shit, etc., then bammo! I hit the pier.

  Wendy has left all she knows to live in my dream and neurosis. She is demonstrating a level of commitment to me that is frightening.

  Could I do that for her? I’ve given up chasing the opposite sex, something I miss very much. I’ve given up a certain amount of irresponsibility—something I also miss. There is still a lot more to her than my self-centered universe will ever allow me to understand. She shows me doors where I thought there were only walls.

  DAY 267

  I had one of my best temper tantrums today and realized a great personal truth: as a bachelor, convinced that the world will end and that I can be saved because I have all the right equipment, life was much easier than it is now with a family. Most of the stuff I see as essential for survival fits in a fanny pack. My next essential-stuff kit is a backpack. Then my truck, then my sailboat. Each has only the highest-quality items. The fanny pack has the best rope, needles, fire-starting gear, compass, flashlight, first-aid kit, and so on. The backpack has the best one-man tent, sleeping bag, poncho, waterproof clothing, cooking gear, and so on. The truck has the best off-road drive train and half the items needed to establish an entire economy. The sailboat is a perfect refinement of all these.

  Anyway, now that I’m with my family I have a much bigger problem, which is this: I’ve not been able to convince them that the world is ending, so there is a certain urgency lacking in their whole attitude. I buy Stephan a two-hundred-candle-power, waterproof (to six hundred feet), rubber-coated, titanium-framed flashlight, and he carves a Z on the lens with a knife.

  So my tantrum: Stephan was dangling the portable CD player by the cord. I realized the pain I felt seeing this valuable thing on the path to its inevitable (in the hands of a now twelve-year-old) destruction. I knew it would eventually be destroyed, but I could not handle the stress of having to wait.

  “Everything you touch you break! You’re like the goddamn Antichrist of inanimate objects!” I grabbed the CD player and threw it on the ground, obliterating my anxiety.

  As these words tumbled from my mouth, and the lid to the player bounced down the stairs, I was thinking that I never am like this; I never destroy things. For a moment I feared that I was unfairly comparing Stephan to myself, then I realized . . . I used to destroy everything too! Things flew apart in my hands, I was entropy incarnate. So how could I be so angry with him?

  Am I my father now? Why would I expect a twelve-year-old to be anything but a twelve-year-old? Am I just a spoiled brat wanting to make sure Stephan won’t be happy if I can’t be happy? How is it possible that I can be so mean?

  Perhaps this anger in me bubbles up toward Stephan simply because it can. Maybe I was unable to be angry at my father, and Stephan has his anger . . . so this is what shrinks call “transference”?

  All this thinking, and where’s the light bulb for me? Where’s the release, the end of the movie, where the music swells, Stephan and I desp
erately running together to embrace? What good is all this “knowing”?

  And then, as usual, Stephan wasn’t manipulative enough to see anywhere to hide in this conversation, so he said, “I’m sorry, and I’ll try to be more careful.”

  “It’s just—Oh shit, I’m sorry too, Stephan. I destroyed everything near me when I was twelve. I’m sorry I’m so mean sometimes, I love you so much . . .”

  That was what I meant to say, what I knew was right to say. But it wasn’t what I said.

  The only word I could speak was “Okay.”

  Wendy

  What a day yesterday. We all fought.

  I think we need to get off this island.

  15. On My Own

  We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers.

  —THOREAU

  DAY 277—APRIL

  Bright, sunny, and cold morning with pancakes. Wendy and Stephan are packing for a two-week visit to family in Idaho. The tension has been building and we all need a break, me especially. Wendy suggested it as an alternative to murder or suicide. I agreed.

  Just having the plane reservations seemed to calm things down.

  We are all quiet as we ride ashore. We hug. Right before they get into Wendy’s car I take a big breath and say, “Stephan, I love you. I am sorry that I can be such an asshole.”

  He smiles. “Ya, you sure can be. I love you too.” Then they are off to a hotel in Halifax so they can get their early flight tomorrow morning.

  Is the only thing that works in my evil-stepfather relationship with this kid his ability to love me unconditionally?