by Mary Rickert
“I’m really sorry about this,” Alex said. “I just couldn’t think of another way.”
She began to curse, a string of expletives quickly swallowed by her weeping, until finally she managed to ask, “Alex, what are you doing?”
He sighed. “I know it’s true, okay? I see the way you are, how tired you get and I know why. I know that you’re a breath-stealer. I want you to understand that I know that about you, and I love you and you don’t have to keep pretending with me, okay?”
She looked around the room, as if trying to find something to focus on. “Listen, Alex,” she said, “listen to me. I get tired all the time ’cause I’m sick. I didn’t want to tell you, after what you told me about your wife. I thought it would be too upsetting for you. That’s it. That’s why I get tired all the time.”
“No,” he said, softly, “you’re a ghost.”
“I am not dead,” she said, shaking her head so hard that her tears splashed his face. “I am not dead,” she said over and over again, louder and louder until Alex felt forced to tape her mouth shut once more.
“I know you’re afraid. Love can be frightening. Do you think I’m not scared? Of course I’m scared. Look what happened with Tessie. I know you’re scared too. You’re worried I’ll turn out to be like Ezekiel, but I’m not like him, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. And I even finally figured out that you’re scared ’cause of what happened with your mom. Of course you are. But you have to understand. That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Maybe we’ll have one night together or only one hour, or a minute. I don’t know. I have good genes though. My parents, both of them, are still alive, okay? Even my grandmother only died a few years ago. There’s a good chance I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of breath in me. But if I don’t, don’t you see, I’d rather spend a short time with you than no time at all?”
He couldn’t bear it, he couldn’t bear the way she looked at him as if he were a monster when he carried her to the couch. “Are you cold?”
She just stared at him.
“Do you want to watch more I Love Lucy? Or a movie?”
She wouldn’t respond. She could be so stubborn.
He decided on Annie Hall. “Do you like Woody Allen?” She just stared at him, her eyes filled with accusation. “It’s a love story,” he said, turning away from her to insert the DVD. He turned it on for her, then placed the remote control in her lap, which he realized was a stupid thing to do, since her hands were still tied behind her back, and he was fairly certain that, had her mouth not been taped shut, she’d be giving him that slack-jawed look of hers. She wasn’t making any of this very easy. He picked the dish up off the floor, and the silverware, bringing them into the kitchen, where he washed them and the pots and pans, put aluminum foil on the leftover lasagna and put it into the refrigerator. After he finished sweeping the floor, he sat and watched the movie with her. He forgot about the sad ending. He always thought of it as a romantic comedy, never remembering the sad end. He turned off the TV and said, “I think it’s late enough now. I think we’ll be all right.” She looked at him quizzically.
First Alex went out to his car and popped the trunk, then he went back inside where he found poor Agatha squirming across the floor. Trying to escape, apparently. He walked past her, got the throw blanket from the couch and laid it on the floor beside her, rolled her into it even as she squirmed and bucked. “Agatha, just try to relax,” he said, but she didn’t. Stubborn, stubborn, she could be so stubborn.
He threw her over his shoulder. He was not accustomed to carrying much weight and immediately felt the stress, all the way down his back to his knees. He shut the apartment door behind him and didn’t worry about locking it. He lived in a safe neighborhood.
When they got to the car, he put her into the trunk, only then taking the blanket away from her beautiful face. “Don’t worry, it won’t be long,” he said as he closed the hood.
He looked through his CDs, trying to choose something she would like, just in case the sound carried into the trunk, but he couldn’t figure out what would be appropriate, so he finally decided just to drive in silence.
It took about twenty minutes to get to the beach; it was late, and there was little traffic. Still, the ride gave him an opportunity to reflect on what he was doing. By the time he pulled up next to the pier, he had reassured himself that it was the right thing to do, even though it looked like the wrong thing.
He’d made a good choice, deciding on this place. He and Tessie used to park here, and he was amazed that it had apparently remained undiscovered by others seeking dark escape.
When he got out of the car, he took a deep breath of the salt air and stood, for a moment, staring at the black waves, listening to their crash and murmur. Then he went around to the back and opened up the trunk. He looked over his shoulder, just to be sure. If someone were to discover him like this, his actions would be misinterpreted. The coast was clear, however. He wanted to carry Agatha in his arms, like a bride. Every time he had pictured it, he had seen it that way, but she was struggling again so he had to throw her over his shoulder where she continued to struggle. Well, she was stubborn, but he was too; that was part of the beauty of it, really. But it made it difficult to walk, and it was windier on the pier, also wet. All in all it was a precarious, unpleasant journey to the end.
He had prepared a little speech but she struggled against him so hard, like a hooked fish, that all he could manage to say was, “I love you,” barely focusing on the wild expression in her face, the wild eyes, before he threw her in and she sank, and then bobbed up like a cork, only her head above the black waves, those eyes of hers, locked on his, and they remained that way as he turned away from the edge of the pier and walked down the long plank, feeling lighter, but not in a good way. He felt those eyes, watching him, in the car as he flipped restlessly from station to station, those eyes, watching him, when he returned home, and saw the clutter of their night together, the burned-down candles, the covers to the I Love Lucy and Annie Hall DVDs on the floor, her crazy sweater on the dining room table, those eyes, watching him, and suddenly Alex was cold, so cold his teeth were chattering and he was shivering but sweating besides. The black water rolled over those eyes and closed them and he ran to the bathroom and only just made it in time, throwing up everything he’d eaten, collapsing to the floor, weeping, What have I done? What was I thinking?
He would have stayed there like that, he determined, until they came for him and carted him away, but after a while he became aware of the foul taste in his mouth. He stood up, rinsed it out, brushed his teeth and tongue, changed out of his clothes, and went to bed, where, after a good deal more crying, and trying to figure out exactly what had happened to his mind, he was amazed to find himself falling into a deep darkness like the water, from which, he expected, he would never rise.
But then he was lying there, with his eyes closed, somewhere between sleep and waking, and he realized he’d been like this for some time. Though he was fairly certain he had fallen asleep, something had woken him. In this half state, he’d been listening to the sound he finally recognized as dripping water. He hated it when he didn’t turn the faucet tight. He tried to ignore it, but the dripping persisted. So confused was he that he even thought he felt a splash on his hand and another on his forehead. He opened one eye, then the other.
She stood there, dripping wet, her hair plastered darkly around her face, her eyes smudged black. “I found a sharp rock at the bottom of the world,” she said and she raised her arms. He thought she was going to strike him, but instead she showed him the cut rope dangling there.
He nodded. He could not speak.
She cocked her head, smiled, and said, “Okay, you were right. You were right about everything. Got any room in there?”
He nodded. She peeled off the wet T-shirt and let it drop to the floor, revealing her small breasts white as the moon, unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, wiggling seductively out of the tight wet fabric, taking her panties off at
the same time. He saw when she lifted her feet that the rope was no longer around them and she was already transparent below the knees. When she pulled back the covers, he smelled the odd odor of saltwater and mud, as if she were both fresh and loamy. He scooted over, but only far enough that when she eased in beside him, he could hold her, wrap her wet, cold skin in his arms, knowing that he was offering her everything, everything he had to give, and that she had come to take it.
“You took a big risk back there,” she said.
He nodded.
She pressed her lips against his and he felt himself growing lighter, as if all his life he’d been weighed down by this extra breath, and her lips were cold but they grew warmer and warmer and the heat between them created a steam until she burned him and still, they kissed, all the while Alex thinking, I love you, I love you, I love you, until, finally, he could think it no more, his head was as light as his body, lying beside her, hot flesh to hot flesh, the cinder of his mind could no longer make sense of it, and he hoped, as he fell into a black place like no other he’d ever been in before, that this was really happening, that she was really here, and the suffering he’d felt for so long was finally over.
The Shipbuilder
His name was Quark. Yet the phone call that came late at night pulsated through his life, not in the pleasant manner of a star, but in the grievous one of a migraine. And why not? Why wouldn’t he compare his entire life to the headache he experienced driving the familiar aorta back to Bellfairie?
“Missing? What do you mean he’s missing?” Quark asked, pressing the phone close to his ear as if the late hour had affected his hearing. “Is this a joke?”
But of course it wasn’t. The sheriff wasn’t the joking sort.
“A confession?” Quark asked. “You mean, like an apology?”
He peered through the Ford’s window into the gray dawn, but all he could remember—after the question—was the buzzing in his ear, as if, through some strange night magic, he heard the reverberation of his existence—that dark persistent screed.
It was true the Old Man could be cruel, once tying an apron to Quark’s pants, knotting the yellow flowered fabric on the loop meant for a belt. Quark, in his innocence, didn’t recognize the mockery. Enjoying the feel of material draped behind him, he began spinning; his arms raised toward the ceiling, fingers spread, head tilted back like someone nearly drowned who, just in the nick of time, broke surface.
“What are ya? Some kinda fag?” the Old Man asked.
Earlier, when he was awoken by the phone’s chirp, Quark blinked like a confused time traveler before thinking maybe it was something wonderful: a mysterious portent, a secret admirer, a winning lottery ticket. He was showered, dressed, and on the road forty-five minutes later, peering through the dark until morning broke with a snakelike fissure of light, reminding him of the rain that violent night so long ago, lashing the windows until they were streaked with silver and the Old Man weaved through the small rooms as if trapped on a doomed ship. Quark remembered the oily smell, the waxy scent of crayons scattered across the table where he sat clutching the purple in his small fist. When the Old Man set down the plate, the fried fish lapped near the edge wept oil onto Quark’s drawing.
Quark, the man, remembered the boy’s hesitation; crayon held tight before it was dropped. How old was he? Six? Seven? Eight?
Maybe he was eight that night he sat at the small wooden table etched by knives. Time was lost between the first bite of catfish and the one Quark remembered next, bone drawn between teeth, placed carefully on his plate—not tossed, but assembled—when he became aware of the Old Man watching. Quark feared that to comment on the attention would destroy it; instead he sucked the last flakes of oily flesh, placing the translucent sliver neatly among the rest.
“What ya got there, boy?”
“Catfish,” Quark said, proud of how he’d restored the bones, their silver reflecting the light.
“Thought it was a ship,” the Old Man said, turning away.
“That’s what it is.” Quark reached across the dimming space to rearrange his bone sculpture. “These are waves, see?”
“Yah said ‘catfish,’ din’ ya?”
“It’s the name of my ship.”
“Are ya a liar too?” The Old Man swept his hand across the table, spilling plated bones, sending papers aloft, crayons tumbling. His arm raised in violence turned Quark into an anemone; pummeled by the Old Man’s rage until, at last, squeezed so hard he gasped for breath, Quark was released.
Quark gripped the steering wheel, reminding himself he was no longer that boy who woke early the next morning in pain, filled with the terrible realization of God’s absence, who walked barefoot down the creaking stairs and across the wooden floor littered with papers and bones into the kitchen where he lit the oil lamp that awakened winged shadows. So small he had to stand on a chair to reach the sink, then drag chair to stove, where he stirred coffee grounds and water to boil, watching the stars outside the small, round window there. When Quark leaned across the stove to turn off the burner, the heat brushed against his stomach, reminding him of his pet cat gone missing a few months earlier. She used to lie on his belly and keep him warm.
He cracked an egg into a bowl, fished out the bits, beat it with a fork, measured it out with a teaspoon, unsure of the amount. He dragged the chair to fill two cups with hot water, then turned each cup over and watched the water spiral down the drain. When he poured the coffee through the filter he spilled some, which he mopped with a dish towel, creating a reddish brown stain he didn’t like to look at; he thrust it into the trash beneath banana skins, eggshells, and newspapers.
The Old Man was sitting in his recliner, staring out the big front window when Quark approached with trembling cups, unsure how to proceed. “Take it,” he said, surprised when the command worked.
Quark set his own cup on the small table in the clutter of maps and carving tools before returning to the kitchen for the chair he dragged (tearing papers and breaking bones) to position beside the Old Man. Together they stared out the window at the thatched lawn littered with rusty bicycle, deflated yellow ball, the abandoned garden, a small piece of silver fluttering in the sun and, in the distance—like a line drawn with Magic Marker across the bleak horizon—the bright blue sea.
Quark raised the cup to his lips, flinched against the heat, and sipped. It was his first taste of coffee. Bitter; he didn’t like it, and that seemed right.
Even though Quark knew how the road banked around the bluff, distracting drivers with maintaining the curve, he was surprised by the initial appearance of sun-washed buildings nestled among boulders before the road began its descent. When Bellfairie reappeared, the enchanted palette of turquoise and white was replaced by murky water dotted with spinach-hued clots and houses so long in disrepair only a few chips of color remained: a streak of mustard yellow, a smear of red, half a wall painted pink, ruined by abandonment.
Quark sighed as he entered the narrow, labyrinthine streets. Several dismal houses sported dead plants in pots perched on sagging porches or cracked concrete stairs, as if awaiting revival.
Some might call that optimism, Quark thought, but it’s actually denial.
Bellfairie was named after the doomed ship on which it was founded; crashed on the rocks, she sank with her cargo of bells that still rang from the depths. The survivors, washed to shore, decided to stay with their ghosts, using ship wood for lumber which, the Old Man said, made the sea angry. “She is unforgiving,” he used to rant. “No one was meant to survive.”
Perseverance, in almost any circumstance an attribute, fed off Bellfairie like a tumor, and if the bleak gardens weren’t proof enough of that malignancy, surely the narrow figure, walking on the side of the road, was. Quark slowed to a stop, reached across the passenger seat to roll down his window.
Dressed all in black, Dean Yarly had taken this walk every morning Quark could remember; a devil worshipper, some said, who used the cove as chapel for sac
rificing the missing pets of Bellfairie, the lost cats and dogs of Quark’s childhood, though the Old Man spat when Quark once posited this theory.
“My ass. Devil worshipper, my ass. Don’t you kids know nothing? Saying Dean Yarly is a devil worshipper’s like calling your elbow a dick. You can tell your friends I said.”
Dean didn’t look to see who slowed beside him but raised his hand, ring and pinky finger half bent, thumb angled in, a cross between Boy Scout salute and benediction.
“Heya. How ya doin’, Mr. Yarly?”
Quark checked the road ahead as he eased into neutral. When he turned back, Dean was grinning, affable as an egg.
“Quark? Is it Quark? Is it really you?”
Quark scratched the back of his neck.
“It’s good you came,” Dean said in an uncertain tone. “Don’t you mind what no one says, okay, son? You ain’t dead and Thayer ain’t either; am I right?”
Confused, Quark nodded. Why he was bothering to behave falsely with Dean Yarly, he had no idea, though he recognized a trait that always seemed pronounced in Bellfairie, the need to guard against revelation.
“Where ya off to?”
“Nell’s open?”
Dean shook his head. “Sold after her son got kilt in that wreck.”
“Wayne?” Quark was surprised the name rose so easily to his lips.
“Head right off. Took several days to find it rolled down the bluff.”
Wayne was one of the beautiful boys; hair made golden by the sun, broad shoulders and muscular arms from summers spent on his father’s trawler.
“Didn’t mean to shake you up, son. You two would be round the same age, am I right?”
Quark swatted the air, as if it didn’t matter.