by Daniel Hays
Uncomfortable with the emotions swimming in my stomach, desperate for a distraction, I look around for someone to yarn with. I have always disliked being alone when I say good-byes. I walk toward the water.
The boat is resting on the gravel beach where the tide has left her. The six-foot tides here do not simply flow up and down like the hands of a watch. All tides—as I understand it—move with small jumps, unchanging for a period of time and then dropping or rising quite suddenly. You can see it. So although I left the boat only fifteen minutes ago, the tide has fallen a whole foot. Four hundred pounds of boat and motor are high and dry.
I begin by spinning her around, figuring that she’ll be easier to push into the water nose first. When I drag her in stern first I have to lift her over any rock, and the stern is both the boat’s heaviest and its least streamlined part. She pivots easily, and I get her around and I push. She makes a small lurch ahead. Suddenly I hear, “What the hell are you doing?”
It’s Junior, and he appears to be angry.
“Well, uh, I was . . .”
“Not bow first. You never launch bow first, it’s not done, it’s just not done!”
“But she’s practically—”
“I’ll not have it.”
And sure enough, he won’t. Made of a combination of tree root and granite, Junior spins my boat around with one gnarled hand so she’s stern first to the water. Easy as you like, he shoves her in and hands me the bow line. I’m not sure for what, but I thank him. A little confused, I pull-start the engine and am off. Peter tosses me a pound of scallops as I motor past him and Aaron; they are out dragging.
Later, Aaron explains to me why Junior was so emphatic. “Well, yes, you never launch bow first. I watched a guy do that a couple of seasons ago and he’s dead now, yes he is, by God. You don’t mess with the old-timers’ sayings, not here. That’ud be downright stupid. If my granddaddy heard you say P-I-G on a boat, he’d pick you up and he’d throw you over the side. Same thing with a hatch cover—you never turn it over and lay it on the deck. Never start a voyage on a weekend, especially a Friday—and there’s many more.”
I say, “It sounds kinda like the way a church works, with all the rules, the symbols, the rituals.” He replies, “Well, I don’t go to any church so I wouldn’t know, but this is where I live.” He gestures to the ocean and the harbor. “And I respect it. This can kill you on a nice summer’s day, and I’m out almost every day. I’ll take no chances like that. I’d rather drive my boat blind drunk to your island in a gale than say P-I-G on a boat, yes I would . . .”
DAY 278
Rainy noisy night. The water tanks are full and tasting a little of sulfur. The dogs are depressed. They sleep with me and then go down to the harbor for their daily activity of waiting. Bear is gone all day, Abby back around noon looking a little frayed. A good walk around the island. Then I get to thinking:
Wendy requires that I manage the moment. If a seal appears before the house and she doesn’t see it, she’ll stand there with the binoculars telling me, “Make it come back.” This is how she manages the moment, by telling me to do it. This reminds me of an enlightenment course I took in the eighties. In a relationship there are three things a woman wants from a man: fun (men are spontaneous and more fun), safety in the moment (protection, changing a flat tire, ordering at the restaurant), and sex. Males require a safe place to communicate (things that they are not comfortable telling men), the game of sex and love (the challenge, the “Will I get it?”), and safety in the future (the sense that “it will work out”). Providing Wendy with her three things goes a long way.
DAY 281
I sit here missing Wendy, afraid to make the coffee because just two years of her has taught me to be helpless. I miss Stephan. I find myself daydreaming about rowing with him in the harbor, or carrying food up the trail with him and laughing as we trip and stumble. I keep the dogs on the bed with me and we take turns eating spaghetti out of a big pot. They go right for the meatballs.
But I’m also having the best time! Eating Pringles and rum for lunch, mustard and olives for dinner. I love not having my mood changed by someone else’s. I can soak in a funk, pee in the sink, eat on the floor with the dogs. . . . It’s not that I can’t do all these things with my family, but I’m not self-conscious now. “Is this good role-model behavior for my son?” or “I know that grosses Wendy out”—it’s just, well, politeness really. I do so many things to be able to live with other humans, to get along, but I just love to savage out.
Bonuses of living alone: 1) looking at—well, trying to look at—your butt in a mirror; 2) eating cold baked beans out of the can; 3) reading and reading a good book; 4) dozing; 5) sweeping things into the cracks in the floor; 6) leaving out a dirty magazine (perhaps exposed to sunlight for the first time); 7) sneaking up on the sleeping dogs and blowing in their noses till they wake up; 8) tripling the amount of ground coffee for each pot; 9) barking, howling; and 10) perfecting the really-big-slice theory of eating bread—where you just butter an area of the loaf and go.
So these are the things my soul craves? This is liberation? What have I become?
I have a scallop-dragging day planned—fun to hang with Peter and find our common denominator, where we share roots, so we can talk. I say fuck a lot. I’ll take a bunch of rum and go to Peter’s camp when this southeast wind is gone. I’m taking advantage of being alone and doing big mess-up-the-whole-house repair jobs, like fiber-glassing the inside of the whalebone sink. The bone has been drying and a crack has been spreading.
DAY 285
As a rule, I do not give any day the power to be a good or a bad day. To think the day, or God, or the CIA, or any other deity has me on their calendar just doesn’t mean anything to me. This being said, however, today was really a bad day. I’m toodling along in the boat, having a nice ride in to get mail. I’m thinking about how I’ve done well this lifetime with lots of near-death experiences, all to the benefit of my appreciating life more, and how it would sure suck to miss the last lesson—that when I do die, it will be alone. The tide is extra high and as usual I’m loving it because everything is changed—all the ledge islands are smaller and I can go over some of the shoals I generally detour around. Unfortunately, I am appreciating this one particular shortcut when a larger than usual swell passes under me. Dead ahead, in the trough of this wave, appears a pointed rock, unquestionably attached to the sea’s bottom. The wonderful feeling of floating over the ocean is shattered. I immediately hit the rock with a loud boom. The box of emergency gear and I slam ungracefully into the forward seat. An empty oil jug flies past my ear. The next wave picks the boat up and carries us over. Directly in front of me I can see a tear in the bow where the water’s rushing in. I stumble back to the stern now, hearing water coming in. Quickly restarting the engine, I accelerate to full throttle, and the bow rises up as we plane over the water. I hurry back to the island and, going fast, drive her a quarter of the way up the ramp before turning the motor off.
The image of the rock rearing its head like that will stay with me. But worse than a fearful picture is the feeling that the ocean seemed to betray me, leaving a hole in the water right before me.
I trust the ocean—it does not have malice—but right now I’m anxious. This uneasy feeling says the ocean did something to me, and I don’t like that. The ocean has always been my ally, and I would rather be hunted by an imagined bogeyman than the sea.
I repair the bow using a mallet and the best caulking material I have ever known, 3M’s 5200. Those who know the stuff affectionately call it “Fifty-two Million” or even “Fifty-two Billion.” I have found few products that live up to their promises. But I don’t care, because the label on 5200 makes up for all of them; it is humble: “marine adhesive.” Ha! You could join two planets together with this stuff.
Banged roughly into shape, the aluminum bow looks okay—a little wrinkled, as if it aged quickly in just that spot. I drill some holes along the twelve inches of the tear an
d use stainless steel wire to join them. Then a liberal dose of 5200 to fill up the gaps and cover over all the wire, inside and out. The final touch is several layers of what the inexperienced eye would call duct tape. In 1982 I got a case of this stuff, which calls itself “gaffer’s tape, 2-inch black matte.” It is usually used in the theater for all the “building” that a stage manager has to do. I use it for anything, including to repair tears in my blue jeans. It will survive about five visits to the washing machine. With the adhesive benefits of the 5200 it is covering, I expect it to last indefinitely.
My boat is repaired. I have to wait two days for the 5200 to dry. To try to cheer myself up I paint the little green boat. I love painting, but I never have the patience to do that brush-dipping thing. With the boat flipped over, I pour half the can on either side of the center line and just push it globbily around. It goos down the edges and I must hurry to spread it before it reaches the rails. I mop the paint along, letting it fill holes here and there. It’s a pretty green, and I do feel better. But then it starts raining, and in despair I just walk away, leave my brush on a rock. I want to cry.
DAY 286
Woke to all sorts of birdsong, the guys scratching out territories not so different from humans in their tinted-window bass-thumping small-wheeled cars driving the main drag of a town.
Peanut-butter egg ‘n’ cheese omelette for breakfast. I lie in bed missing my Wendy, wanting a nuzzle, to hear her laugh.
I count my miseries: 1) a bashed pinkie from hammering the aluminum boat back into shape; 2) an immobile wrist from shucking scallops; 3) a painful other wrist from an old tae kwon do injury; 4) a bruised shin from the boat crash; 5) a twisted ankle from a fall walking around the island yesterday; 6) I’m getting balder by the moment; and 7) I’m still unsure of what to do when I grow up, not to mention when we leave Whale Island.
The dogs still spend most of their day at the dock, waiting for Wendy to return. This is one of those gaps in languages that I just don’t like. I have explained it verbally, also believing dogs can read us, and I sent them some vivid mental images. I think they don’t perceive the concept of future. I am in good company. They sit and wait patiently. I must admit I love it when I motor into the harbor and they are waiting for me. I’m usually yelling at Abby as I come in—she’s either jumping, standing, or swimming right where the boat must go. I believe her brain is so overloaded with the joy of seeing me that the “don’t get crushed” instinct is completely inoperative. She lacks peripheral perception.
I love to go walking with them. Abby still stops to eat the rotting sea urchins. Although they are all spines, she has no trouble eating them, or throwing them up. Hell, she can throw up feathers! The duck washed up in November makes frequent cameo appearances now, what with having been torn into at least eleven pieces and the snow melting. It heaves out of Abby in a warmth of fluffy piles.
The paint-and-water mixture I applied to the bottom of the rowboat yesterday has dried nicely. The eventual evaporation of all the water drops has left many depressions on the surface, which will no doubt act like an emergency brake when I’m rowing. Safety first!
DAY 287
As I lock up the house to go ashore I think about territory, and how nice it must be to secure your territory by simply peeing on some of the bigger bushes or trees that surround it.
Visiting in summers is a slow way to establish yourself in the area, and for years small things were stolen from the island. One year, after we’d built most of the main house, a lot was stolen (“By them sons of bitches thievin’ goddamn alcoholic Weed Harbor boys,” I was told), and I understand it. This is their backyard, and I’m “a rich New Yorker.” (Every one from the States is guilty of this unless proven otherwise.) What made me furious was that my “insurance” company would not cover it. I had locked nothing, because these guys could easily get in anywhere, and a big lock might only encourage them to use a chain saw instead of a crowbar. Also, on an island like this, being so remote, a shipwrecked person would be awfully grateful for shelter. It is an unwritten law by the sea, as in any remote settings, that your home is available for shelter. The “insurance” company said that since there was no sign of forced entry, it wasn’t really theft. I just about pulled out the rest of my hair when they told me this.
So we keep a seventy-five-cent lock on the door, easily removable. But by now we are safe just because of our presence. Living here makes us human. Besides, this area is too small to steal from quietly. We know who stole from us before, but to take it back or call the police would probably end up with the house getting burned down.
DAY 288
A forty-foot male sperm whale, dead for weeks but still quite whole, has washed into a small cove. Naturally (as a consumer) my first thought is, “What can I get?” I think of the teeth and scrimshaw, but Peter has already cut the jaws off with a chain saw. He’ll get good money for that on some black market. I’ll have to wait at least a year for the rest of the bones, which I’ll use for building, or sculptures . . . and then I think of the penis.
Though I’ve never heard of an actual penis bone, I have a picture of a sperm whale skeleton that definitely shows a bone down there. Well, wouldn’t that be a cool thing to have? What a mantelpiece ornament; imagine the small talk it would elicit.
But I’m afraid to go get it, scared of two things. First, the job itself would be quite gross. I’d wait till low tide and then, with my machete, I’d start hacking away at three and a half feet of penis. Chunks of blubber would be flying, and no matter how hard I tried to stay clean, eventually the whole island would stink.
Second, what if this wakes up the whale? Sure, it’s dead, been dead for a month, but if anything can wake up a dead whale, this would be it. It’s the look that he would give me that scares me. His penis is all that he has left. At one time this guy could hold his breath for an hour and a quarter, dive into the depths of the sea and battle giant squid, sink the Pequod. I mean, I’m talking about attempting to castrate Moby Dick!
But the thought of the prize drives me on. The great white hunter, the American male, conqueror of the West. Fearless. I go to the whale with my machete and firm resolve. I take a deep breath of courage. I kick the monstrous penis defiantly. It wiggles, and I run away.
(Weeks later, when Wendy finally sees it, she says, “Holy shit, that’s the second-biggest penis I’ve ever seen!” And I will always love her for saying that.)
DAY 294
Wendy and Stephan are landing in Halifax at eleven-thirty tonight, and I am bubbling with anticipation. Time and distance are the perfect elixir for me, the snake oil that really does work. My relationships are cleaner, more meaningful. I forget bad stuff and I notice the better qualities in others. I listen.
For two weeks I’ve been a bachelor. And yet, without a doubt, I want my Wendy and Stephan back.
DAY 295
House-shaking windy-ass night with water leaking on the computer, the bed, into a bag of flour. I’m hoping Wendy won’t rush to the dock, that the north wind has time to blow some of these big southeast seas flat. I do a high-speed power cleanup: throw rugs down over the dirt, toss a few hopelessly dirty dishes in the woods to “find” again in a few years.
NOW IT’S HAILING, blowing thirty knots. But I want my family back real bad, so I will take the boat ashore. It’s very gray, penetratingly so, as if the gray were a verb that could sneak under my rain gear, through the seams at my wrists and neck.
One advantage that I have had all year is that Wendy and Stephan really know little about what constitutes bad weather on the ocean. Generally, when I seem confidant, they assume all is well. But truthfully, we have been on this sea in some frightening conditions. I’m pretty comfortable in small boats. I worry that in the future Stephan may feel a bit more invincible than his skill merits.
Hellion of a rough ride in! I can see Wendy’s car as I approach the dock; the doors open, and there is my family.
Wendy and Stephan bundle up, jump down into th
e boat, and we’re off for home. They are so excited that any fear they do experience turns to exhilaration.
At our harbor’s mouth Wendy is crying happily. Stephan is grinning gleefully, and the dogs are frothing with joy. I feel like a finally found and inserted puzzle piece—we’re a family again.
16. Ships at Sea
A single gentle rain makes the grass many sheets greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring.
—THOREAU
DAY 299
Today is the best day of the year as lobster season begins. Last year we were still in Idaho on Setting Day, and we missed all the excitement.
For two months these guys will get up at four a.m. and by maybe two in the afternoon will have pulled, emptied, rebaited, and reset their 250 traps. They will be on the water every day. By sunset I will be able to see hundreds of traps around the island and will have waved and spoken to maybe five guys. We’ll be getting occasional meals —people like to give; there’s a good sense of “richness” in passing on a lobster dinner. It is expensive ashore, abstract, while here its value lies in the labor, which is so much more authentic.
I hope the waters have warmed enough; lobsters are like flies and don’t move much in the cold.
One guy, who is setting traps in front of my house now, has been doing this his whole life. His dad’s nearby in his own old boat, and for three more generations back his family has worked just this five-mile strip of coast. They used to row and sail it, which is why there are all these camps on the mainland shore. The long row back to town was too far, a waste of energy to do every day. There used to be a “canning factory” house out here—two miles west of Whale Island—where the guys could bring their catch and sell it daily. I once found an old chart that showed a footpath leaving Kingsland and heading this way. I looked, but I could never find the path. Aaron’s grandfather owns the place still, and there is a sign over the old shed’s doorway stating OND BY COOPER; it was put up by Aaron’s grandfather’s dad. There is a beautiful, deep, and safe cove there, one I’d use in a hurricane. It is between Junior’s dock and my island, and I often stop to float quietly in it. I never feel alone when I am there.