She put the seat back and stretched, letting the fresh evening air wash over her like water. “I’d like to swim,” she said.
He glanced at her and saw the profile of her face. “There’s Lakeport,” he said. “Or we could stop at Birch Beach.”
She looked at the lake. “Maybe not,” she said. “I think it’s the idea of swimming I like and not the actual fact.”
“The water’ll be cold,” he said. “It’s a deep lake.”
She turned, the red sunlight falling across her hair. “Will you always love me?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Even when I’m fat?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you. You’ll leave me when I’m fat.”
“You’re too beautiful,” he said. “I can’t imagine.” He laid his hand on her thigh, his long, straight fingers pale against her skin.
“I love the twilight,” she said.
“There’s a hitchhiker ahead. He’s got one foot in the road.” He slowed the car.
“Do we have to pick him up?” said Jen.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said.
She smiled. “I just don’t feel like getting dressed.”
He felt the heat of her skin. “It’ll cool down fast after dark. You’ll get a chill.”
“Then I guess you’ll have no choice. You’ll have to close the windows.”
But the night stayed warm and he kept the windows open through Port Sanilac, Harbor Beach, and Port Hope, listening to the sound of Jennifer’s words, the rising and falling of her voice, watching from behind the wheel as the pure darkness of her body grew darker still.
He knows he’s pretty close at Grindstone City. He wraps up the unfinished bits of his sandwich and brushes the crumbs off his lap.
The first thing to do is find a room. When that’s done, he’ll drive by the old places and pay his respects, see what’s gone and what remains. He won’t worry about renting a boat until tomorrow.
Except for getting back and making things right with Heather, he’s in no particular hurry.
HE STOPS at the curb and sees that the porch has settled, one side sinking into the ground and the roof sagging.
He still feels guilty for not going to the funeral, for being in Kansas City when Otis died and not having enough cash or energy to catch a plane. He made excuses, of course, and convinced himself that it was already too late, even though the saloon keeper had just heard the news and wasted no time making the announcement. “I don’t know about the exact hour or the place,” said the man, “but Otis Young has passed, if not yesterday then the day before.”
He gets out of the truck. The rectangle of grass that was Otis’s front yard is now a patch of weeds. He pictures Otis in the heat of summer dressed in a crisp white shirt and black pants and peering out from behind the screen door, his expression filled with worry and sadness. It’s the same face he wore at the Green Mill when he appeared out of nowhere and sipped bourbon and spoke of last wishes before dying. Shivering and sometimes clutching his side, he managed to stay for both sets but didn’t breathe a word about his cancer or the burgeoning pain.
After that evening, knowing that Otis was in a bad way, he’d thought about driving to Port Austin and went as far as setting aside dates and servicing his car, but then a complication came up and his plans fell apart at the last minute. He’d felt shameful for not going and for making Otis’s visit to the Green Mill their last. In Kansas City, he felt worse.
He argued that funerals are only for the living. He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t just selfish and lazy, that sudden demands on his time were inconvenient, too costly, or – after a stiff drink – absolutely impossible. He searched for the easy way out and chided himself for a smallness of soul, a dwindling of gratitude and duty that seemed to make room only for indifference.
He sees the shanty in back and remembers the summer when he moved away and Otis paced the floor and handed him books and music. “Time’s run out,” he said, “and you still have everything to learn. You’ve got to play every day so that even when you’re not playing, some part of your brain is working out the problems. You’ve got to learn pedal tones and voice leadings, forms and motifs. There’s no end to it. I planned to show you grips that right now you can’t imagine.”
It was an overcast day and the room was dark. He looked up at Otis, his arms overloaded. “It’s hard to balance,” he said.
Otis ignored him and rushed to a file cabinet and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “I’m forgetting things. There’s more I wanted to tell you.”
“I’ll come back. You’ll remember by then.”
“I don’t count on second endings,” said Otis, still distracted, his words coming out in a whisper.
Trying to hold all the stuff that Otis had given him, finding it difficult to move, he stumbled and a book slipped out of his arms.
“Here, you dropped this,” said Otis.
Now, standing in front of the shanty, the windows boarded up and the paint peeling, he feels the weight of thin air. He remembers leaving the books and papers in a jumble near the door and telling Otis that he’d pick them up later, though he never did.
You deserved better, he thinks. Someone who’d go for broke, who’d scramble it and play it backward if necessary. You taught me and gave me advice and showed me what I needed to learn. But I couldn’t hold on to everything at once. You deserved someone smarter – someone who’d remember all one can forever. You said, Never – never forget. It was thoughtless of me, but when you got up after saying that and straightened yourself against the pain, I didn’t think to say good-bye. I said, Don’t worry. You shivered and buttoned your jacket. I was confused. I didn’t know then what you meant.
AFTER dark, he finds a bar, a small place with neon in the window, a slow-moving fan, and peanut shells on the floor. It smells like cigarette smoke and beer. A middle-aged couple sits in the red and yellow glow of the jukebox – a machine that looks to be from the fifties. A woman at the bar stares glassy-eyed at the silent TV.
He pulls up a rickety stool.
“What’ll it be?” says the bartender, a wrinkled man with gray stubble.
“Vodka,” he says. “On the rocks. Anything but Smirnoff.”
The bartender twitches. He picks up a bottle of Stolichnaya and pours. “Where you from?”
“Gibraltar.”
The bartender sets the glass of Stoli on a white cocktail napkin. “First time?”
“No. I was born here. But we left when I was in high school.”
“Is that right. You got a name?”
“Moore. Coleman Moore. My father ran a marine supply.”
“Halyard & Mast,” says the bartender, his voice flat, seemingly indifferent.
He sips his vodka. “You know it then.”
“Sure I know it. And now I don’t know whether to shoot you or shake your hand.”
He checks the bartender’s eyes and keeps a tight grip on his drink.
The old man rubs his stubble. “You’re Dorian’s boy?”
He nods.
“I knew your grandfather, too. Old Havelock Moore. Owned the big store down in Bay City.”
He hooks his heels on the stool’s bottom rung. “Were you a sailor?” he says.
The bartender laughs. “God no. And it’s a good thing. Otherwise, I might’ve signed over my soul. Just like everybody else in these parts.”
He downs the rest of his drink.
“Want another?”
He pushes his glass across the bar.
“Mind you, I never met Havelock. But you didn’t have to meet him to know him. He put men – good men – out of business. Plenty of ’em. He took over this whole territory. If you needed something to stay afloat, then you had to deal with him.” The bartender swats a fly with a rolled-up magazine. “I even knew a guy who ran in those singlehander races – said that Havelock Moore could never be beat. Even in a storm, he came out ahead. But you must’ve been no more than a kid back the
n.”
“Must’ve been,” he says.
“I saw a picture or two of him in the papers, but I never really knew what he looked like.”
“He was tall.”
The bartender raises his eyebrows. “Here he was the richest man in the neighborhood, and then he shows up one day in Port Austin and blows his brains out – does the deed in that big old boat of his.”
“I know,” he says. “I was there.”
The bartender twitches and leans on the bar. “Now, your father, he was a whole different kettle of fish. I talked to him face-to-face a few times. Kinda quiet. Like something was always on his mind. But he’d give a man credit any day of the week. If you couldn’t pay right away, it was okay with him. Keeping the boat up was all that mattered. How’s he doin’?”
“He’s dead.”
The bartender pours a shot of whiskey. “It happens. A little too often to suit me. Here’s to your father.” The old man throws back the shot and fills the glass again. “What took him?”
“He drowned.”
The bartender’s face keeps the same flat expression.
“He was lost on Lake Huron. Went into a storm out of Port Elgin. They found his boat grounded on Cape Hurd.”
The bartender dries his hands. “I’d say I’m sorry, but what’s the point?” He pours more vodka. “So what brings you here?”
He shrugs. “I wanted to see the lake. Thought I might go for a ride.”
“A little nostalgia, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“You got a boat?”
He shakes his head. “I thought I’d go over to Captain Morgan’s in the morning. See what I can find out.”
“The hell with that,” says the bartender. “I got a skiff, a ’66 Chris-Craft, restored her myself. I call her Idyllic, because nothing else is.” He takes a pen from behind his ear and writes on a napkin. “Come by in the morning – not too early – and you can take her out.”
He hadn’t noticed the old man’s palsy until now.
“Here you go. My name’s Ben.” He waves the white napkin like a flag. “You gonna leave me flappin’ in the breeze? Or are you gonna take it?”
“Thank you,” he says. “I’m – ”
“Don’t think another thing about it,” says Ben. He wipes the bar with a dirty towel. “You’re not a pirate, are you?”
The woman who’d been watching TV taps the bar. “Sorry to break up the reunion but my glass is standin’ here empty.”
He nurses his vodka. He hears the couple behind him talking and laughing. He looks up and sees them in the mirror above the bar. They’re sitting at a round table, the smallest one in the room. They act as if they’re entirely alone. The man feels in his pockets and shakes his head. Then the woman digs through her purse, pulling out a hairbrush and a small camera. She smiles and slides off her chair and walks over to the Wurlitzer jukebox. She doesn’t take long to make a selection. She turns and waits for the music to begin.
He recognizes the tune and the voice of Otis Redding rising out of the speakers. I’ve been loving you – too long – to stop now . . .
He swings around and watches as the woman walks toward the table, her arms outstretched, her hips swaying. The man goes to her and presses himself against her and they dance in the red and yellow light. There were times – and your love is growin’ cold . . . His perfect hands move slowly down her back . . . But my love – is growing stronger as our affair – affair – grows old. He bows his head like a man praying and lifts her from the floor.
He looks away from the couple and glances down the bar. He sees Ben rubbing a beer glass and talking to his other customer. He finishes his drink, leaves a big tip, and nods on his way out.
“See you tomorrow,” says Ben.
“I’ll be there,” he says.
He walks for a while but the cool air does him no good. Everything around him is all at once familiar and strange, known and unknown – the trees and houses flushed with moonlight, ashen and thin, floating in the air like fog.
When he gets back to his room, he opens his bag and pulls out the bottle of vodka. He drinks half of it without ice. He hears the faucet in the bathroom dripping. He raises the window, thankful for a breeze and the sound of white water.
IN THE late morning on the lake, standing at the wheel with the skiff underway, he feels his head clearing.
Back at the motel, opening his eyes to a strange room, he’d felt disoriented. He’d seen the booze on the nightstand and wanted a mouthful to stop the shaking, but he got up too fast, his hands aching, and his fingers jerked and froze. The bottle crashed on the bathroom floor.
He leaned on the doorjamb and gazed at the puddle of vodka. He slid to his knees and tried to feel for glass. He lowered his lips to the white tile and sucked in what he could.
After that, he drank as much water as his stomach would take and then fumbled through his pills. Eventually, he squeezed a small plastic bottle between the heels of his hands and twisted the cap off with his teeth.
He swept the glass aside with a towel and blew his nose and sat for a while on the toilet. He took a shower, careful to use the handrail when he stepped into the tub. He dozed a little in the warm spray.
When he pulled back the curtain and got out, he felt a tiny bit of glass stinging his foot like a pinprick. He didn’t mind the pain. It reassured him. He thought he’d probably be okay.
He ate eggs and drank coffee and then went over to Ben’s. The old man took a long time to answer the door. His face was pasty. “Woke up under the weather,” he said. “Got a bum ticker.” He shuffled out on the porch in his robe and slippers and handed over the keys and took a minute to look at the lake before going back inside.
Now, on the water, he keeps the skiff at low throttle – the sky cloudy but showing no signs of rain. He runs slow and remembers the cold wind out of the northwest that had once made him shiver. On this boat, he doesn’t worry about a winch handle or choosing the right moment to come about. He peers out over the bow and knows that he can keep this heading until he’s used up half his fuel. He sees the changing colors of the lake, the deep water ahead, and the light at Port Austin Reef.
It’s a wooden boat, lovingly restored, he thinks. It’s the old man’s dream – a last stand against failure.
Running straight out and going slow, he watches for a sign, an indication that he’s passed this way before. He feels his body rising and falling, the skiff beating against the current and in some way holding its own.
He knows he should be grateful for the lake’s hard beauty – his father embraced it always – but on this day it seems cruel, almost lonely. He tries to stay calm. He wants to hold everything in check, but he feels a pressure in his chest, his heart pounding, and beads of sweat roll down his back.
Without warning, a thin wall within him suddenly gives way. He wants to break something with his hands, to bulldoze long stretches of the past and start building again from the ground up.
He dreams of pouring the lake away. He wants to dam out all water and walk the singlehander’s course from Port Huron to Mackinac Island, cataloging the shipwrecks, mapping the caves and trenches, listening as whispers rise up from the seaweed and debris. He wants to search the naked lake bed, cursing the light, cursing the darkness, following the scavengers that circle overhead, their shrill voices calling, until he finds the lost pile of teeth and bones, the bleached remains of his father’s body.
He imagines his father grieving, marking the last miles home, steering by clouds and the hunches of birds. He sees him struggling against the weight of canvas, against the sailboat which was once his body. He seems confused by sudden mistakes, errors in judgment, as he watches for the light at Port Austin Reef and tacks across the lake, across its curved and breathing shoulder, checking the channel for big ships, their sad captains thinking of November, ice forming on deserted decks, storms, a long night, and then the shutting down.
He’d like one more day wi
th his father. He’d walk with him on a seawall and force him to speak.
I want to know what was in you, he thinks. What in the end was hard to keep and what was easy to let go? Did you forget the boatswain on his watch, the crow’s nest communing with clouds, losing your head and then your footing? Was it the lake that claimed you? Or was it the last groping for words? You took no time to explain.
Did you reach for lines strung from the light – lines that promised new breath? Did you pull and climb?
What did you think when the weight of your body betrayed you?
Or did you pray?
The skiff rises and falls on steady swells and the fear rising in him is the fear of deep water. “Lord, create in us changed lives,” he says to no one, “ – even as we drink deep, and thirst, and drink again – whatever the cost.”
Now he dreams himself aboard his father’s boat, just after the storm, a sea of diamonds flashing at every stir. He paces the cockpit and keeps watch, waiting for spectral arms to reach up from beneath the hull, waiting with broken hands to somehow touch his father, to hold him fast, the boat ghosting and then leaning, for the last time.
He can feel his hands shaking. He grips the wheel and tries to steady himself.
The swells keep coming – four feet, maybe, or five. His stomach churns. He’s stayed out too long. Even if he goes farther, he won’t find the thing he wants. He remembers being here as a boy and the nausea rising to his throat. He shudders. No boats on the water for as far as anyone can see. Not a soul raising a sail or letting an engine unwind.
He turns the skiff and sees the light at Port Austin Reef. The swells suddenly seem larger, the boat bobbing like a cork on a rippling pond. He looks beyond the light and wonders for a moment if he can regain the shore. Then he pushes the throttle and the pitch of the motor rises and the old wooden boat leaps forward.
chapter ten
HE DRIVES back the way he came, hitting potholes and sudden downpours, the bones behind his knuckles burning. Pills would help, but he can’t take them now if he wants to get home in one piece. He watches the road going and feels bad about using Ben’s boat and not paying for it. He should’ve insisted or left some money in the old man’s mailbox. He squeezes the wheel. He opens and closes one hand and then the other. Nothing helps.
Of Song and Water Page 23