Terminal Island

by Walter Greatshell

  “Just browsing, mainly.”

  “Go right ahead. That’s what I’m here for. I like to think of this place as a museum, a piece of the island’s history. I guess that goes for me, too!”

  The door bell tinkles and the old man excuses himself to greet the new customer. Henry is interested to see that it’s the same hulking bald man from the restaurant. While Ruby tries on sun hats, Henry maneuvers himself closer, pretending to study some wood carvings of whales and dolphins.

  “Excuse me, but my name is Carol Arbuthnot,” the big man says, offering the shopkeeper his card. “I’m a private investigator with the Schroedinger Agency, and I’m following up on some cases of suspected identity theft and possible missing persons. I was told by the concierge of the Sand Crab Inn that you are somebody I should speak to when it comes to matters of local gossip. He said you know the island better than anyone.”

  “It depends, I guess. You said your name was…?”

  “Arbuthnot. Carol Arbuthnot. As in Christmas Carol. I won’t take more than a few minutes of your time.” The big man opens his briefcase and takes out a sheaf of photographs. As Henry and Ruby migrate to the door, Henry can hear Arbuthnot saying, “There’s a substantial finder’s fee if you can help me locate any of these people, or verify their identities…”

  “Did you hear any of that?” Henry asks, once they are outside.

  “No. Hear what?” Ruby says.

  “Nah—it was nothing.”

  Strolling the pier a little later, Henry forgets about the conversation in the souvenir shop. With Ruby filming him, he says, “I remember when I was a kid they used to fire off a little cannon every time a boat brought in a swordfish. It would go off a couple of times a day—the Marlin Cannon. You could hear it all over town, and whenever I heard it, no matter where I was or what I was doing, I would drop everything and run down to the pier to see them hauling the marlin in. It’s something to see. You can hardly call it a fish: these sleek, silver aliens with weird sea lice clustering around their anuses.”

  “Oh, gross,” she says.

  “Then the fishermen would party late into the night up in the pier restaurant.”

  “Sounds like something out of Hemingway.”

  “Yeah. It really was.”

  The Marlin Cannon is gone, but the old electric crane for hoisting and weighing the fish is still there, as is the snack bar at the end of the pier. The abalone burgers he remembers so well are still on the menu, but considerably more expensive—they share one just to film it. It’s good, a tender, breaded patty on a bun with tartar sauce, but not the extraordinary treat of his youth. Henry remembers as a kid watching them pound the tough abalone steaks—that big, toothed hammer.

  Moxie wants more. You just had breakfast, Ruby tells her, but they get a Styrofoam cup of smoked swordfish and eat it sitting on a bench overlooking the bay. The water is nice, though murkier than Henry remembers it, devoid of fish as well as the pleading local kids who used to dive in the shallows for coins.

  Ruby does pickup shots of a few fishermen basking in the late-afternoon sun, lines limply trailing. Henry used to love to fish. He loved everything about the sea, but mostly that it was the edge of the land—the visible frontier. Now he feels nothing.

  Sitting on the hotel balcony, swirling his wine against the dusk, Henry murmurs, “I shall make thee fishers of men…”

  “What?” Ruby jumps to adjust his clip-on mike, mouthing, Louder.

  “Nothing. I just really miss fishing sometimes.”

  “You should do it more often.”

  “Nah, it probably wouldn’t be the same. I don’t think it’s the fishing I miss, but the weird aura of childhood—the feeling of being a kid fishing. Anything can happen. Having that line in the water is like expecting a call from God—this kind of communion with nature. I can’t really explain it.”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job. Keep going.”

  “I just remember getting up at dawn every morning and lugging my pole down to that pier. Ten-year-old kid. My mother was still asleep, and I’d creep outside and walk across town, not a soul awake except maybe a guy hosing off the sidewalk. Then I’d go out on the pier and fish ’til maybe eight or nine o’clock in the morning, then go home and have breakfast. It was like a job.”

  “You must have loved it.”

  “Yeah. It’s odd, because I rarely caught anything.”

  Ruby laughs.

  “I think I was a terrible fisherman—I really had no idea what I was doing. But I had no expectations, so when anything at all happened it blew me away. That’s the Zen of it: You have these long periods of nothingness, and then suddenly the most amazing thing will happen, stuff you never expected. Like I remember once this giant bat ray appeared out of nowhere. It just came gliding in at dusk like an alien spaceship, this huge black diamond swooping between the pilings.”

  “Did you catch it?”

  “Catch it? No—God no. If I had hooked that, it would’ve probably taken me and all my tackle to the bottom of the ocean—thing probably weighed half a ton. It just kind of hovered around the pier and went right back out to sea again. Things like that blew my mind as a kid; they still don’t seem real.” Lowering his voice, strangely urgent, Henry says, “You should get the peanut butter.”

  Uncomprehending, Ruby looks down at the jar at her elbow. “What?”

  “Take the peanut butter before Moxie gets it.”

  “Why?”

  Moxie is standing by the little table set with their food and wine, innocuously fondling the big glass jar. Ruby starts to say, “She won’t—” but even as she speaks—before either one of them can move—the little girl whirls around and in one continuous motion pitches the container over the railing.

  Too late, Henry yells, “Catch it—shit!”

  The heavy jar falls from view, Henry’s heart plummeting with it to crash like a bomb below. He is electrified with fear—this is all they need: a lawsuit; property damage; criminal negligence resulting in death; manslaughter charges; family services brought in. Right here and now, at this moment, they stand to lose everything. This is the thought process of a split-second.

  “Oh shit, shit—” Numb with dread, Henry jumps to looks over the railing.

  The jar is directly below, smashed in the gutter. There is no one around; no victims, no witnesses. No shocked and accusatory stares. No damage—only an empty parking space starred with a peanut-butter splat.

  Leaning against the railing, his knees wobbly, Henry suddenly has a strange revelation:

  He is standing exactly where that dog-faced woman was, nearly thirty years ago. It’s the same balcony; the very same room. And if there had been a little boy like him standing in that spot down there—that exact same spot—he would have just been killed.

  Ruby is still in shock, clutching the grinning baby in one hand and the camera in the other. “Moxie! Oh my God,” she says. “Honey, I wouldn’t have imagined in a million years she could do that so fast.”

  “I know. It’s okay.” He’s annoyed that she still hasn’t stopped taping.

  “I am so sorry. I just never would have dreamed—”

  “It’s okay. Nothing happened. We were lucky.” His heart is finally slowing down. “We lucked out, that’s all.”

  That night, after Moxie is asleep and Ruby’s camera is recharged, Henry starts to talk.

  Chapter Five

  Flying Fish

  Once they had established a home base at the Formosa Hotel, Henry and his mother spent a few days enjoying the island. They had enough money to live on for a couple of weeks—the sum of their small savings and the severance check from her last short-lived secretarial job, from which she was let go for borrowing from petty cash. She would find another job, there was no rush.

  In the meantime, they spent long, blissful days on the town beach, Henry snorkeling in the shallows while his mother lazed in the sun. Occasionally they got more adventurous and would trek the cliff-side road to Lover�
�s Cove, a stonepile of a beach south of Avalon that was famous for its undersea gardens. It was a spectacular spot, forever ice-cold from direct ocean currents, but teeming with colorful sea life and surrounded by lovely, spooky kelp groves. At regular intervals, glass-bottom tourist boats would pass close by, feeding chopped meat to the fish.

  “Mom, why aren’t we rich?” Henry asked, drying off on the rocks.

  “We are. There’s more to life than money.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this. You and me here together. Don’t you know the best things in life are free?” Vicki stretched, languorously arching her body toward the sun like a movie star. In her bathing suit and big sunglasses she looked a lot younger than usual—Henry could see a couple of creepy old men checking her out. He wanted to go swimming but was afraid she’d start talking to them.

  “But you always say there’s no free lunch. That you get what you pay for.”

  “That’s different.”

  “But how come rich people get to have everything? It’s not fair.”

  “Nothing in life is fair. Being rich doesn’t guarantee happiness. It can be a curse.”

  “How?”

  “Well, when you’re born into something like that, it comes with a lot of responsibility—you live your life under the weight of it, and can never truly discover yourself, the real you. You have to be what they want you to be.”

  She paused, so that Henry thought she was finished, but then she went on:

  “You never find out who you are, or who you could have been—you’re just a custodian of this thing, this machine, that has no interest in you as an individual, but only in perpetuating itself. They keep telling you that you’re lucky, you’re blessed; that it’s your destiny and you should embrace it. But everything inside you says no—you never asked for this, you don’t want it. Even if you try to break away, the burden of that knowledge pollutes everything you try to do, making your deepest hopes seem trivial in comparison to this great gift that you are spurning.”

  Her voice became haunted, her expression turning inward. Henry hated it when she got like that—he didn’t have a clue what she was going on about, and didn’t much care.

  Dreamily, she continued, “Every day you struggle on your own is like you’re drowning, swimming against the current. And you tell yourself, ‘This is how most people live—get used to it.’ But it’s hard. It’s hard to let yourself drown as a matter of principle. Sacrificing yourself and your child rather than take the hand that is offered. Because that hand…”

  She snapped herself out of it. “Anyway, you should count your blessings. Some people would give their right arm to be in a place like this.”

  “All right, all right,” Henry said impatiently. “I get it.”

  When the weather was cool, they explored the town or toured the various scenic attractions: the historic cliff mansions, the rugged inland wilderness, the sea life. Henry was especially interested in the nature tours, though most were disappointing. The glass-bottom boat was okay, but strictly for old ladies—Henry could see the same thing snorkeling, only better. The land tours were a big dud; they never saw a single bison or any other wild game.

  The flying-fish excursion, though, was more worthwhile. It was a large open boat with a powerful spotlight that followed the dark coastline and picked out nocturnal points of interest. As its beam passed over the water, schools of glassy green flying-fish flitted across the surface like skipping stones, their trembling gossamer fins catching the light.

  Shining the beam up at the cliffs revealed glowing pairs of eyes looking down at them—the eyes of wild goats, they were told. Spooky, his mother said.

  The jocular tour guide announced, “Now we’ll be making a little surprise visit to Lover’s Cove, and maybe if we’re lucky you folks can see how it got its name.” The passengers tittered.

  Arriving there, the boat crept up in darkness, the guide admonishing everyone to be quiet. Henry thought of the kelp jungle swaying in the darkness below them.

  “Sometimes we catch ’em with their pants down,” the guide whispered into the mike. At the last moment he flicked on the searchlight, flooding the tiny beach with stark, stagy brightness.

  Empty. The eager beam swept up and down the deserted shore, finding nothing to leer at. There was a sense of let-down—everybody had been looking forward to a glimpse of something naughty.

  “Aw, I wanted to see some lovers,” Henry complained.

  “Oh well,” his mother said sportingly.

  The guide’s voice pricked up. “Wait a minute, folks, wait a minute.” The light was moving, scanning and focusing in on something above the shore. “Oh yeah. Here they come now!”

  In the white circle of light, Henry could see a man and a woman walking along the cliff-side road from town. They were holding hands and shading their eyes from the glare, obviously confused.

  “Oh yeah, here we go,” smirked the guide.

  As the boat got closer and the beam homed in more intensely, the couple paused, trying to penetrate that light, then walked faster. It was no use—the powerful beam stayed trained on them.

  “Oh no you don’t,” the guide said, like a fisherman playing a wily fish. “Where do you think you’re going?” The passengers giggled expectantly.

  As the couple hurried, looking more and more upset, the boat effortlessly kept pace with them, keeping the blinding light in their faces. There was no escape; the exposed road offered little refuge. At the top of the beach stairs was a signboard that warned of the absence of life guards, and in desperation the couple ducked behind this plywood shield, trying to disappear.

  “Oooh,” the guide crowed lasciviously. “Looks like they’re going at it!” The tourist mob cackled.

  The couple sat tight, but the light didn’t budge from their meager shelter; all aboard patiently endured the suspense as the minutes dragged on.

  “Don’t be shy now. Wow, they must really be makin’ whoopee,” the guide said.

  Suddenly the pair bolted from hiding, running as fast as they could down the road. This caused an explosion of jeering laughter from the onlookers—“There they go! Get ’em, get ’em!”

  The chase was on. With cruel persistence the boat continued to harry the couple as they fled, the tour guide making great hay of their obvious panic, hounding them to the last as they rounded the point and finally vanished behind a huge rock outcropping.

  Awww—the fun was over. With a razzing cheer, the boat turned for home.

  Chapter Six

  RETURN TO SENDER

  The next morning, Henry carefully gets out of bed so as not to disturb Ruby or the baby. It’s been a rocky night and he can’t lie down any more. He goes to the window and looks out at the misty, sleeping town—early morning has always been his favorite time of the day, especially on weekends. That’s the problem: it’s Monday, Labor Day, and he feels funny about not being at work. Checking his cell phone for messages, he finds there’s no signal—in a way it’s a relief.

  Gingerly putting clothes on, he sneaks out and walks to the pier. It’s brisk, the last day of the tourist season. Standing overlooking the water, he vividly remembers the feeling of casting his line out and reeling it back. He wishes he had a pole again, just for one try.

  Looking at the sleepy tourist town, Henry can’t imagine that such a place could ever harbor anything bad. And so much of his childhood seems like a dream to him that if it weren’t for the living proof of his mother, he would gladly dismiss the past and forget it ever happened.

  From somewhere deep in town, he hears a scream. A series of screams—a child’s screams—increasingly frantic, pealing high and wild and then abruptly cut short. Silence clamps down again like a vise.

  Henry and Ruby are spending the morning on the town beach, watching Moxie dig in the sand. The weekend crowd is gone; they just about have the place to themselves.

  “This is nice,” Ruby says, leaning back against Henry’s chest.

  “
Uh-huh,” he says, a bit tense. “When do you think we should go see my mother?”

  “Soon. Not yet.”

  “This afternoon.”

  “Yes. This afternoon.”

  It’s perfect weather, sunny but not hot, with a slight breeze. The water is colder than Ruby likes, but Henry takes a dip and Moxie splashes at the glassy edge of the shallows, collecting pebbles.

  Coming up from dunking his head, Henry is suddenly aware of a scum of debris and cigarette butts floating around him—there’s crap in his hair. He splashes it off and gets out.

  “I don’t know how clean this beach is,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “It’s like a giant ashtray.” He points out drifts of butts in the hollows of the sand. “I didn’t realize until just now. It’s pretty gross, actually.”

  “Yuck. I didn’t even see that.”

  “You know what it is? Look—the street drains right onto the sand.” He suddenly notices the spouts in the concrete sea wall. “All the spit and filth of the night before, they just hose it all down here for the tourists to sit in. Unbelievable.”

  “So we’re basically wallowing in a big gutter? Ugh.” She begins folding up their towel to leave.

  Walking out, they see a gawky teenage lifeguard wearing an oversized pith helmet. He resembles a gnome squatting under a toadstool.

  In passing, Henry asks pointedly, “Excuse me. Is this beach clean?”

  The guard looks at him, eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, pimply mouth an exaggerated moue of pure contempt. “Cleaner than back there,” he sneers, indicating the mainland. It is as if he’s referring to some absolute sink of foulness; the source from which all corruption flows. Meaning them.

  Partway back to the hotel, Ruby has to pry something away from Moxie. “Oh shit,” she says. “Honey? Look what she was playing with.”

  Henry peers at his wife’s cupped palm in disbelief. In it is a human tooth—a big, ugly molar.