THE RADIO speaks of rain, a late spring, and now, after all the speeches and ballyhoo, the repeal of Prohibition.
The end seems entirely clear – the shipments drying up and the river less crowded than before – a new amendment, the Twenty-first, and Michigan, the Wolverine State, leading the charge for approval.
Faya rubs the stubble on his face. “Fetch your razor,” she says. “I’ll give you a proper shave.”
“Let it be,” he says. “I’m ready to grow a beard.”
“At least a beard, a real beard, would be softer than this.” She runs her fingers along the edge of his jaw.
“I don’t care much for shaving,” he says. He gazes out the kitchen window. The flower beds look bowled over, flattened by the heavy rain.
Faya removes her apron, folds it, and hangs it on the pantry door.
“It’ll be finished soon,” he says, leaning on the counter. “I’ll be out of a job when the truckers and distributors get up to speed.”
She squeezes his hand. “It isn’t your fault,” she says. “We’ll be fine.”
He turns from the window. “What will I do?” he says. “I may last the season, but after that – ”
“You’ll get hold of things,” says Faya.
He kisses her fingers. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll have to.”
“Are you going?” she says.
“Not tonight. The moon is up.”
“I’m glad.”
He won’t cross anymore unless the river is black. If a strange shape rises in the dark, he cuts the engine and drifts. He keeps the bow pointed toward shore. It’s there, after all, that a body stays put.
“Let’s have a fire,” says Faya.
“I’ll tend to it,” he says. “I’d like some tea.”
She hums the tune playing on the radio and places the lid on the teakettle and sets the kettle on the stove. He admires her for trying to conceal her misgivings, for tending to her business as if nothing in the world had changed.
He worries and finds it difficult to sleep. He abhors lying awake on clear nights, fears the openness of solitude, so he fixes his mind on something in the room, an immediate shape, an object large enough to fill the empty space.
When he manages to sleep, he dreams of a sudden storm that rolls him over, washes him up on the Windsor shore, his boat cracking and splintering on the rocks. A crowd gathers, wringing their hands, asking for an explanation. “You ignored the warnings,” he says. “You made no preparations for disaster.” He grows impatient. He sees the people around him as ciphers, vessels of faith.
Waking in the night, he feels shaky, less certain of his mental and physical abilities. Growing older promises no leeway for error, no margin for infirmity or distraction, no peace.
He says nothing of this to Faya. She sleeps the sleep of the young. He wonders what he’ll be after the slow disintegration of muscles and nerves – a cloud of fog, perhaps, a white vapor settling on the earth.
THE WORD on the street is that the landlord won’t be trifled with. He owns the building. He plans to own most of Detroit. People say he was too old for the War, but they call him a scrapper, proud of the fact that he never backs down.
Most of the tenants won’t talk. They get jumpy and close their doors when the conversation gets down to brass tacks. Others take pleasure in spilling their guts. There seems to be some agreement that the landlord thinks of his renters as property, movable parts, objects that require space and not much else.
The complaints stack up like old garbage. He listens. He digs up more whenever he can.
LIKE a soldier, he partitions his mind. He marks time on the river, floating in the shadows or visiting Peche Island when conditions allow.
Away from the water, he stays close to Faya and keeps their small house in order. They park a Ford coupe in the driveway. They own a Victrola, a collection of jazz recordings, and several pieces of fine German crystal. A mahogany table with four chairs occupies the dining room. In the bedroom is an English armoire with doors that feature hand-carved rosettes and small windows of beveled glass. At regular intervals, he polishes the wood furniture with lemon oil and beeswax.
Dorian is three years old.
Faya had wanted a second child by now, but so far she’s been unlucky.
“We’ll put the crib in the living room,” he says. “If a baby shows.”
Faya shakes her head. “Let’s have the crib with us. There’s more than enough space.”
He smiles. He’ll rearrange things and figure out the best plan.
He drags Dorian out from underneath the table and hoists him high into the air and sets him on his shoulders.
TURNING the corner, seeing the lit window, the apartment where his mother sits waiting, he knows the landlord will come.
Snow’s fallen steadily since morning. Detroit is a ghostly white and the streets stand empty and quiet – a hush he’s hoped for since his return. In a few moments, he’ll unlock the door. He’ll bend and kiss his mother on the cheek. She’ll ask about his day. He’ll talk about being hungry or tired – something to discourage her questions. Then he’ll sit with her in silence. He feels calm only when voices, when sounds of any kind, fade and disappear.
WITH the boat laid up early, with the roads muddy after a heavy rain, he drives his Ford coupe through Rivertown and parks at the river’s edge. He walks along the seawall.
The Windsor shore looks sooty in the September light. It’s used up, he thinks. He sees no place for himself in Detroit or on the other side.
Days and weeks disappear, and the boat rests in its cradle.
He spends time at home, rattling around the house like a bored retiree. He chases Dorian from the kitchen to the living room and back again.
He sits with Faya and drinks coffee. “It’s a strange renaissance,” he says. “The saloons in Rivertown have risen from the dead. All the signs are up and the front doors are open. They keep ’em open all night. Beer arrives by truck, and the drivers unload it in broad daylight. The cops on the waterfront are out for a stroll, for sunshine and fresh air.” He pulls on his beard. “Life on the river is obsolete.”
A week or two later, without much discussion or second guessing, he sells the house and the launch, collects his treasure from Peche Island, and packs Dorian, Faya, and four suitcases into the Ford.
With a hard rain slapping the windshield, they drive north. “Saginaw is a small town,” he says. “My mother’s family lived and died there. That’s where she was born.”
Faya smiles and peers out through the rain.
“We’ll buy a big house,” he says. “I’ve got plans for a new business. A clean break is lucky. It’s less painful and quick to heal.”
“I SHOULD’VE gone away,” says his mother. “There’s plenty of work in the country.”
He checks the door – its brown paint peeling – to see if it’s locked. “Leaving would’ve been suicide,” he says.
His mother lets out a pent-up breath and a deep moan rises from her chest like a tree groaning.
“You had no choice,” he says. “You were alone for too long. But now I’m here. I’ll do the thinking for both of us. I’ll decide if and when we should move.”
SAGINAW lies at the crossing of four rivers, in the crook of the thumb, a once-booming lumber town now desperate for a working mill. The streets are windswept and somber, especially in November when people and storms blow through in a hurry, as if stopping or stalling runs the greater risk of fatigue and dissipation. It’s a city built on salt, where a man of means can quietly take up residence, build a business or a dynasty, and go unnoticed until his efforts become visible. By then, of course, his neighbors think of him as being there from the start, a stalwart member of the community, proof of the town’s miraculous potential. It makes no difference that he hailed from Detroit or that he squeezed his wealth out of a bottle.
He moves Dorian and Faya into an old house with a spiral staircase and corner towers, a structure reminiscent o
f a French château.
He works in Bay City, fifteen miles north on Route 13, the founder and sole proprietor of Halyard & Mast Marine Supply, a large building on the east side of the Saginaw River and close to Saginaw Bay. Finding and leasing the right space had been quick and cheap. The building came with sturdy shelves, display stands, glass counters, and cabinets for charts. It included, as well, a sizable showroom floor and a private office in the rear.
He commissions a sign and scrubs the awning and windows. He outfits the office with a mahogany desk, an executive’s chair, and a brass lamp.
He orders an “insulated chest” made by the Hall Safe & Lock Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. The men who deliver the strongbox, following his instructions, slip it off the dolly and lay it down so that the door swings open toward the ceiling.
The next day he pulls up a section of the office floor, cuts away the joists, shoring up the segments that remain, and begins to dig a rectangular hole that is twelve inches deeper and sixteen inches longer and wider than the safe. In the hours that it takes him to finish the digging, he feels an unwanted movement at the bottom of his mind, a thing both familiar and unsettling. He begins to worry. He fears that something left for dead has begun to shift and there’s no other course except to argue it down. He concentrates on the work at hand, wheeling the dirt out the back door and piling it in the alley.
On the third day, he dumps gravel into the hole, tamping the stone into a firm base. In the alley, he mixes cement and water in a wheelbarrow and carefully rolls the load into the office and pours it in the hole. All the while, the thing at the bottom of his mind keeps moving and demanding attention. It drops slowly into his chest and then his stomach. He works faster, striving with each breath to avert a sudden rush of nausea and weakness. He repeats the process of mixing and pouring until a thick layer of concrete covers the gravel. He smoothes the surface with long-handled tools and gives it time to dry.
Next he builds forms out of planks and two-by-fours that parallel the sides of the hole. He mixes more cement and pours it into the forms, making walls that are eight inches thick. Still, the anxiety stays with him. He wishes he’d brought a flask of whiskey from home. He feels cranky. The effort not to think has made him tired and dissatisfied. He breaks down the forms – his eyes, ears, and mouth filling with dust – and reveals a concrete rectangle that allows just enough room for the safe.
In the next week, he builds a small hoist between the strongbox and its final resting place. He checks the pulley and rope and then raises the safe and lowers it slowly, using his foot to keep it in position. Once he has it settled, he mixes more cement and uses a flat shovel to fill the thin gap between the safe and the surrounding walls, cementing the black box into the ground.
He breaks down the hoist and makes a trapdoor out of the loose floorboards. Finally, he packs his life savings into the safe and slowly closes the door so as not to let it fall and clang, steel on steel, like a church bell.
He paints the letters H.M.M.S. in gold above the dial.
He closes the trapdoor and puts a wool rug and two chairs on top of it. Now he’s ready to open the store.
IN THE War, he learned the necessity of making careful preparations, of establishing and executing a plan with methodical precision.
It’s because of this training that he follows the landlord for several weeks. He observes the man’s habits, where he stops for meals and where he walks. He knows there’ll be no end to the landlord’s visits, the incessant knocking, and the unseemly demands. The man will have what he wants without marriage – an exercise of power – and he’ll take more pleasure from that than from anything else.
He knows the landlord’s routine. Now comes the waiting and watching, the cool vantage outside of time, as if time itself were indifferent.
HE RISES each day at 6:30 A.M., drinks his coffee with Faya, kisses her on the cheek, and drives from Saginaw to Bay City, opening Halyard & Mast Marine Supply at 8:00 A.M.
No customers call at that hour. No more than a dozen or two call in the first months. Except for the radio – the signal suddenly drifts, the song fading – Halyard & Mast enjoys the silence of a graveyard, the parts, equipment, and supplies waiting in mute assembly.
When the weather’s warm, he keeps the front door open, allowing for an occasional sound from the street. He often jumps when the telephone rings, startled by its shrill urgency.
At 5:00 P.M., he closes the front door, straightens the papers on his desk, and leaves by way of the alley, returning home for dinner with his family.
The neighborhood perks up for an hour in the evening but then quickly settles down. At sunset, the streets and the houses are still. “Even the saloons in Saginaw are quiet,” he says. “No bands. Not even a piano.” He never cared much for the longhair stuff, but he’d like to hear again the quartets and sextets that kept the blind pigs lively, or the dance bands that played in the huge Detroit halls. There’s no smoke or sweat, he thinks, when you crank a Victrola or listen to the radio.
WHEN Dorian’s old enough, he takes the boy up to Bay City to teach him something about the store.
Dorian explores the stock, plays with anything that seems unbreakable. He likes to climb, and if there’s a box filled with shackles or cleats then he usually finds it, pulls it down, and falls in an avalanche of metal to the floor.
He observes that Dorian is fond of the mailman, the only regular at Halyard & Mast, a jovial guy who hands off the bills, winks, and admires for the umpteenth time the store’s magnificence. The mailman says, “It’s a gold mine still sitting on its mother lode. I’m sure of it, Mr. Moore, you’re bound to be rich.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not,” he says. “Tell me, does the post office own any boats?”
“I imagine it does,” says the mailman. “But not the branch here in Bay City.”
“I’m not surprised,” he says. “I guess there’s no hope for a fleet.”
He watches the mailman go and then opens the first of three letters addressed to Halyard & Mast. He’s been cagey, he knows, using the smallest part of his fortune to create a respectable inventory, purchasing equipment and supplies at cutthroat prices from men struggling and going down.
He’s filled the store – the Depression be damned – with sails, spars, rigging, fittings, and tackle.
He’s stocked it with mainsails, headsails, and topsails; gaffs, boomkins, and whisker poles; heaving line, stays, and shrouds; davits, bitts, binnacles, blocks, cleats, and belaying pins; and in every aisle, shelves sag and boxes burst with gadgets and gear for navigation, safety, and maintenance.
He believes that his investment will yield a significant return. He predicts revenue, success, and expansion. Everything at Halyard & Mast stands ready. But it won’t work, he knows, without patience, without the capacity to hold firmly and wait.
He sits on the floor of his office rearranging the contents of his strongbox. He counts out his monthly allowance and sets it aside. Now and then, he enjoys a brief surplus of cash when a marina or a boatbuilder makes a purchase, but otherwise he uses only what he needs. “I can buy the necessary time,” he whispers to himself. “I can make the store pay off.”
He reaches up to close the safe, but the door slips and slams shut like a metal jaw. He sucks in a quick breath, checks the fingers on both hands. That could’ve been painful, he thinks.
He spins the dial and secures the trapdoor.
HE WAITS outside of time.
He hears leather boots on the wet bricks of the alley. The air is bitter cold, a night without moon or snow. He knows that patience can defeat almost anything. The cold is bad but no worse than in the trenches. The flashes of light on the horizon were no sunrise, no promise of warmth. There was nothing to do but wait. Men waited and stopped breathing. He holds his breath.
ON FRIDAYS in the summer and fall, he picks a bouquet of wildflowers for Faya, nothing fragrant or flashy, just a bundle of common blooms that grow in long stretches near the river. He yan
ks them up and trims the roots and wraps them in brown paper.
Faya has a vase ready when he walks through the door.
“Darling, here’s a bit of color,” he says.
“Thank you,” she says. “They’ll be lovely on the table.”
“I wish I could bring you orchids,” he says, “or long-stemmed roses.”
All this, she knows, is part of their custom. “These are more beautiful,” she says.
“Perhaps another time,” he says. He kisses her, smells the fragrance of her soap, and feels the exquisite softness of her skin. “How are you today?”
“The same,” she says. “No heartburn. No sickness.” She fills the vase with water and tries to coax the flowers into some sort of arrangement. “The doctor said it may not happen again. I’m thinking he’s right.”
“How’s Dorian? Was he out raising Cain?”
“Yes,” she says.
“That’s good.”
On another afternoon, home early from Bay City, he sits at the kitchen table and watches Faya knead dough and wash vegetables. He drinks coffee and takes comfort in the economy of her movements, the lightness of her step. He says the house with her in it is a rare island. Only the water – being out on the water – promises the same magic. He guarantees Faya a ride on Saginaw Bay, on Lake Huron, though for now he has no boat.
“Stop your staring,” says Faya. “You’ll distract me and I’ll make a mistake.”
“You’ll have to suffer it,” he says. “Watching you calms me down. I like the hush.”
“You’d think you’d be through with silence by now,” she says.
“The store isn’t quiet,” he says. “It may often be empty, but it’s not quiet.”
Dorian rushes in and the screen door slams, breaking the spell.
“What’s for dinner?” says Dorian.
“Biscuits and chicken soup,” says Faya. “But you’re a little early.”
Of Song and Water Page 7