Emma nods and puts her arm around my shoulder, one of her rare small gestures of affection. I pray that she can become human again.
“Then one time I got broadside to the wave and it flipped the boat. Ruined the little engine.” I yawn loudly.
“My sentiments exactly,” Emma says.
“You had me going,” I say.
“I know,” she says with her old smile.
“I’m exhausted,” I tell her.
“You’ve been up, like, forever. Take a catnap. I’ll keep us on course.”
“Thanks, sweet pea.” I kiss her on the cheek and go down in the cabin, luxuriously exhausted, as if I had just swum the English Channel. It’s a little after one. “Wake me up in a couple of hours.”
I hear myself moan, then see the lights on the cabin ceiling. I’m lying on the floor in several inches of water. Rain pelts the roof like a million fingers. The boat heaves and I fall back onto the bunk, bounce against the ceiling. We are going to capsize. Then I fall farther, curling up instinctively before I bang onto the floor. I crawl to the storm locker, wrest myself up with the handle, pull on a life jacket, grab a smaller one for Emma, and stumble up the steps to the cockpit. She’s not at the helm. “Emma!” The sail luffs. The boat’s trying to come around. “Emma!” A wave washes over the deck. The rain whips in from the aft, then port. The wind’s rotating. A flash of lightning shows Emma in the bow packing a jib back in its sail bag. The boat heaves forty-five degrees, throwing me down, and water splashes in my eyes. Then she rights. With my left hand I steer her into the waves while I sheet in furiously with the right. “Emma, get back here!” I can’t see her, have no idea if she can hear me. A bolt of lightning flashes off port, illuminating black rocks standing tall like the big heads on Easter Island, then the world is howling blackness. The thunder sounds like bombs. “That’s not real.” I paw around for the ignition. That can’t be real. Where the fuck is the key! Calm down. Those weren’t rocks. That was a trick of light, fog, rain. The wind changes direction and carries the sound of surf lashing rocks. I find the key. The engine doesn’t seem to crank up. “Dear God, please help.” We start plowing forward into the waves, so it must be working. I try to steer away from the sound of the surf but there’s no way to be sure in the darkness. Emma’s shadow steps into the cockpit by the Plexiglas windshield. I glance at her, see that she is wearing a life jacket, then stare into the dark, straining to hear the danger.
“Sleep well?” Her voice is nervous.
“Like fifteen minutes?”
“Like hours.”
She’s right. My watch says five. In Memphis, Dad is coming in from his jog and Mom is leaving for her morning swim and in New York, Harper is hungover on his way to work at the World Trade Center, while I’m about to sink a sloop in the Monterey Bay. “Why are you trying to kill us?”
“I thought we were in the middle of the bay,” Emma shouts over the wind. Her voice sounds scared. “You can’t see shit through the rain, no city lights.”
“Blindman’s bluff.” I start to laugh. “With a wall of rocks.” I roar hysterically.
“You’re not helping.”
I manage to stop long enough to blurt out, “Sorry. Just thought of a Conrad line about the merriment men feel when they see that events are about to end in utter disaster.” The laughter doubles me over onto the helm. Our roles have reversed. I find some Shakespeare to express my feelings: “By my troth, I care not. A man can die but once . . . and let it go which way it will!”
“Cage, snap out of it!” Emma grabs my arm. The soft light of the instrument panel lights up her face enough to see real fear in her eyes.
I stop laughing. “Nice to see you care about something besides getting high.” I put her hands on the helm. “Keep us pointed into the waves. Maintain the compass heading. Let’s hope I guessed right. Keep your eyes and ears open.” I pat her on the back and leap onto the deck, start to lash down the mainsail, then decide to leave it loose should we have to come around quickly with the wind in a workable direction. Hugging the mast with one arm, I slowly scan the darkness in a circle around the boat. With only four hours’ sleep, I feel ready for the watch. I yell out into the night, “I’m the king of the world!”
A chilly northwesterly blows the squall from the bay, leaving in its wake gnats’ eggs of light along the coast, the glow of Monterey on the southern curve, the lights of man that obscure the constellations in the opening heavens. Beyond the wall of mountains the sun begins to ascend over the edge of the continent, casting shadows of three hundred million souls haunting the anthill of America. Light brims over the jagged horizon in royal purple, then forty shades of pink, and the escarpment below—shaggy forest tops, bald glades, zigzagging roads and rivers—gathers density and depth. In the darkness to the west the black sea brightens gloamy blue before the night sky begins to lighten. The steady whir of the freeway travels miles across the water in the gaps between the wind, breaking the spell of the Magic Hour. I’m in California, at least its territorial waters. Leaning around the cabin door, I see Emma asleep sprawled facedown on a bunk.
I bring Day Tripper around and angle into the wind, decide that it could take a couple of hours to tack north back to Santa Cruz. So much for slipping her back into her slip and slipping away before the harbor is crawling with yachties. Possibly even the owners. It’s Saturday after all. April 17, 1999. Maybe they’ll let me off if I say it’s my birthday. Thirty-nine years after I arrived on the planetary surface, early one Sunday morning away down South in Dixie.
“Yo, dude, like you should anchor along the coast south of the Cruz. Batten the hatches and abandon ship,” I suggest to myself in California stoner. “Ditch ol’ Dawn Treader. The water cops’ll find her, totally. No worries. Like, that’d be semirighteous.”
“Now, son,” I answer in my father’s voice, “your impulsive actions have once again outstripped common sense and common decency, not to mention maritime law. The only honorable course is to return the boat to the harbor. I would advise you to turn yourself over to the authorities and throw yourself on the mercy of the court, but that would be asking more than you are willing to do. So simply return the property and walk out of the harbor with your head held high and your drug-addicted girlfriend on your arm straight to the nearest rehabilitation clinic, which surely abound in the state of California. Check yourself in and give me a call.”
The sail luffs in the shifting wind. I bring the boat around and tack toward the open sea.
“Yo, nigga, don’t listen yo’ daddy and all that paternal, moralistic hype. Only a nigga with crack for a brain would head right back to the scene of the crime. Wha’s wrong wi’ you? Shit. Take my advice. Get yo’ ass to Tahiti. Things ain’t worked out for you in the ol’ U.S. of A. Time to start over. Time to reinvent yo’self. Cage Rutledge, el capitano. Nothing slicker than a skipper. Imagine the bitches. Mmm hmm. I can see you now with a piña colada in a coconut cup, kicked back under a palm tree, fanned by topless women in grass skirts. Go for it, nigga. Show us what you got.”
Two dozen surfers in black wet suits bob up and down in the water like seals where the breakers start to rise out of the ocean about two hundred yards from a stony beach at the base of a low cliff. Cyclists and skaters roll slowly along a road on the edge, against a backdrop of low sixties clapboard houses, a stand of eucalyptus, a lone palm. Emma’s at the helm, smiling in the morning light, looking purified by the nautical adventure. I finish furling the mainsail, inspect the deck fore and aft, and go down for a final look at the cabin. Everything appears pretty much the way we found it. The owner will probably suss that someone’s been in his boat by the empty jars of peanut butter, the near-empty gas tank. Coming up, I close the cabin door.
Emma steps back and I take the helm. The cliffs give way to piles of boulders protecting large houses with giant glass windows looking down on a sandy beach where a few kids boogie board close to shore.
“That looks perfect,” I tell her.
�
��I want to stay with you.” Her light eyes look sincere, troubled.
“What do you think Butch and Sundance would do right now?”
“Rob a bank?” Emma laughs. A new playful side.
“No. Split up and meet at the Hole in the Wall.” I comb her hair back off her forehead with my fingers. “So I’ll see you at, um—”
“Alisa’s.”
“Yeah. On Portola. Now, if I’m busted, what are you going to do?”
“Call your brother, Harper Rutledge, in the New York phone book.”
“That’s it. Time for you to get ready.”
Emma strips down to her bra and panties and bundles her cashmere sweater, capri-cut khakis, Aussie ankle boots, and a towel in a kayaker’s bag as I steer toward shore. About forty feet out, little waves rock the boat from side to side, rolling past to the break on the beach. Emma kisses my cheek and steps backward onto the stern ladder.
“Thanks for the cruise, Cage. Thanks for everything.”
“Don’t mention it.” I hand her the bag. “Ciao for now.”
“Whoa it’s cold!” she shrieks.
“Go, girl!” Walking back to the helm, I watch her breaststroke toward shore, dragging the floating bag by a line around her wrist. After I’m set up as a carpenter in Santa Cruz, I’ll sneak back to the Day Tripper and leave a hundred bucks in an envelope with a sea riddle:
Who’s been eating your peanut butter?
Who’s been sleeping in your bunk?
Bon voyage,
The Sailor Who Fell to Earth
Emma is reaching the shallows as I go around a point where the beach ends and bluffs begin again. On the far side is the barrier wall of the harbor. About twenty little Laser class boats are streaming through the narrow mouth like water bugs skittering about, barely touching the surface. It’s nearly nine-thirty. “I reckon there’s a ten o’clock race,” I say nervously to myself, then in my father’s voice: “Buck up, boy. You’re doing the right thing.” After the fleet of water bugs disperses I pass easily through the gap, so different than the dramatic midnight departure. In the sunshine, wearing bright colors and stripes, yachties are walking around the docks, climbing about the boats. A sickening ball of fear starts leaking in my gut. “Yo, crack-brain,” I jive-ass myself. “I tried to tell you. Honor. Pfff. Just another word for stupid.”
As I motor past the most seaward of the three parallel docks, everything appears to be cool. No one is looking. I can’t see Day Tripper’s berth on the most inland dock until I come abreast of the middle one and the ball of fear explodes in my gut like an attack of diarrhea. There are two cops talking to a tall, blond, crew-cut guy wearing wraparound Oakleys, Top-Siders, and a windbreaker. He looks like the perfect candidate for SS officer training school. They don’t see me. One cop is writing on a clipboard. The other is staring at the empty slip, the square of water. Gestapo is shaking his head.
“You’s in trouble now, nigga. That man gonna put yo’ ass in the Big House. No more Mr. Misdemeanor. You graduated now, white boy. You going to the land of Big Black Men. And they don’t take to crackers, Jack. Yeah, you fixin’ to reap the wages of stupidity.”
“Maybe I should come about and sail right back out of here,” I answer in my real voice.
The cop studying the oily water glances up toward me. At first he isn’t suspicious. Then we make eye contact. I try to smile and feel my face twisting into an embarrassed confession. Without taking his eyes off me he says something. The other cop and Gestapo turn their heads in unison. Gestapo’s eyes widen in disbelief, then narrow in outrage.
I cut the throttle, put it in reverse, and back into the slip with ease, as if I do it every day. Trying to appear innocent as a Boy Scout, I throw rope from the stern to Gestapo. He ties the line to a cleat on the dock and leaps on board. I extend my hand and say, “I saved your boat.”
He ignores my hand. With an expression of extreme distaste he looks me up and down and I can suddenly see myself from his perspective: wild hair, unshaven face, dirty clothes. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Excuse me, sir, I may look like a wharf rat but I just brought your boat right back to your waiting arms, no?”
Gestapo smirks. One of the cops climbs on board. I see that his insignia says Harbor Patrol. Gestapo nods his head at me and says, “I don’t know what he’s on.”
“Officer, I don’t see why he has to malign me like this. I just brought his boat back. A couple of kids from UC took it for a joyride. They wanted to dump it in Monterey.”
“Get off my boat, asshole,” Gestapo says.
“Let’s go.” The cop grabs me by the wrist, twists it around behind my back.
“Hey, I was just trying to help,” I say, shoved toward the stern. “This is the thanks that I get?”
The cop lets me go so I can jump to the dock, while the other cop waits with an amused grin and a pair of handcuffs.
“Hey, this isn’t fair!” I yell as he cuffs my hands behind my back. “I’m the good guy. I’m the hero.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” the first cop says as they lead me along the dock and all the yachties stop coiling ropes and filling up beer coolers to watch the procession. “Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an attorney—”
“Look, man,” I drown him out. “I was walking by here about midnight and I saw these two guys climb around the fence and I followed them and—”
“We’ll take your statement in a minute. You have the right to an attorney—”
“I don’t need an attorney. I didn’t do anything.”
Harper
Rainy Monday. Double bummer. Looking out the window with a tectonic hangover lingering from yesterday morning makes the gray Jersey landscape more depressing than usual. After gallons of Gatorade my head still feels like a fault line is fracturing the two hemispheres, pulling them apart, making the Great Rift Valley of my mind. The afternoon stretches ahead of me like an endless desert. I can barely focus on the screens. I’m writing code at a limp. I feel gloomy, dirty from the debauchery, and wonder once again if the emotion is produced by my body detoxing the alcohol and blow or by my conscience. I remember when I was in high school, Nick, back in Baton Rouge at Christmas from Berkeley, described the feeling after spending a night two-timing his California girl, shagging a Cajun beauty from midnight to dawn. Nick said he felt “far from God.” Then he went back for another five rounds on the mat with her the next night. Just as tonight I’ll get drunk and hammer the debutramp. Slaves, all of us, Cage, Nick, and me. Slaves to carnal servitude. I don’t believe in God. But I do feel very far from anything infinitely pure.
My direct line flashes. The ringer has been off since a thermonuclear hangover months ago. I let the voice mail pick it up, and hit the speaker button:
“This is Harper. Please be precise. Thanks.”
An automated voice that must have begun talking when my line answered comes on in midsentence: “—tional Communication Services. You have a collect call from an inmate at the Santa Cruz County jail. Do you accept the charges?”
“Yes.” I moan so loud that Asgar looks up from his desk. I put my finger to my temple like a gun barrel, pull the trigger, collapse in a heap on my keyboard, and he looks away, puzzled.
“Hey, brother. Good to hear your voice. You’ll never believe what’s happened.” Cage sounds relieved, eager, excited.
“Happy birthday, Cage.” I laugh at the sadness of it. “I hoped to hear from you on Saturday.”
“It’s so ironic. That’s when they jacked me,” he says. “Pisses me off. I mean, I’m so angry.”
“What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Cage sounds outraged.
“What are ya charged with?”
“Stealing a sailboat.”
“Nice boat?” I put my head in my hands.
“A thirty-two-foot Erickson.”
“Pretty. Why’d you steal it? Because, because, because, because, because?” Cu
pping my eyes, my palms feel nice and cool. “Because of the wonderful way she was?”
“I didn’t steal it! I was with these junkies who stole it. I talked them into swimming to shore and I returned it to its slip.”
“That sounds completely credible.”
“Listen, the judge was on the verge of letting me out. But I didn’t have any ID. I lost my wallet in a storm. So he set bail at six grand. Will you bail me out of here, Harper?”
“Shit, Cage. In principle, if you were telling the truth, if you had nothing to do with stealing the sailboat, then I would cough up the money. But how can I believe a word you say? It sounds exactly like something you would do.”
“I haven’t lied about anything. I haven’t done anything wrong. Why would I take it back to the slip? I was just trying to help out.”
“Did you tell them that you’re bipolar?”
“Yeah. I told the judge and the public defender—”
“Good.”
“I asked them for lithium but they haven’t given me any.”
“You got a number for your lawyer?”
“Roberto Garcia. He doesn’t really look Latino.”
I type the guy’s number on a virtual Post-it note on my main screen. “I’ll call him. I’ll see what he says. Have you told Mom?”
“No.”
“Call me back in an hour. Hang in there.”
“I can’t imagine anyone else in our family being in this situation,” Cage says dolefully.
I chuckle through my nose. “The High Plains Drifter.”
“That bastard.” Cage laughs. “Love you, Harper.”
“Love you, Cage.” I click the phone off, massage my temples, the rift in my head. “Aw fuck!”
Asgar’s head jerks in my direction. Beyond him Dooner throws me a distracted glance, keeps shouting at the traders on the other side of the partition. I reach in a drawer for a framed photograph that Mom mailed to the office so that it would actually come to reside at my desk. Thanksgiving 1986 on the porch at Cage’s Bend. Everyone is still alive and well. Mom is smiling sweetly, genuinely overjoyed to have her sons together, everyone healthy and happy, counting her blessings. Dad looks happy, too. Nick has shoulder-length hair and a content expression. Cage’s and my haircuts are the same—short with a floppy part, sloppy prep. I look bored, pimply, sixteen. Cage is in grad school at Vanderbilt. Smiling confidently, he looks ready to go out and conquer corporate America.
Cage's Bend Page 28