A Savage Wisdom

by Norman German

  He took the photograph.

  “Now roll up your shorts.” He checked the settings on the camera as she furled the hems. “One more time,” he said, indicating with a motion of his hand that he wanted her to roll the shorts higher. “Lie on your stomach and lift your legs. That’s it. Try crossing your feet at the ankles. Good. Now, look at me.”

  Annie gazed into the eye of the camera. Nevers could tell she was aroused. He took several more shots, then paused to reload. That done, he glanced at Annie sitting up clutching her legs, her chin on one knee.

  “Don’t move,” Harold said. “Tilt your head that way.”

  He pointed. “A little more. Little more. Stop.” He pushed the button. “Turn sideways. Right.” He lifted his head from the camera. “Let’s see. Sit up on your calves. Good. You look beautiful. Push out.” Annie moved her arm out toward the camera. Nevers laughed. “No,” he said. “These.” He pointed to his chest and thrust it out. Annie laughed as she mimicked him with an exaggerated movement, then drew her breasts back in.

  “That’s it. No, you had it. You look great.” He took two shots. He lowered the camera and stared at her. “You look sooo . . . delicious.” He continued to stare.

  “Well,” she said. “You gonna take a picture of me or slobber on me?”

  “Slobbering sounds good.”

  “Take a picture.”

  “Any chance I could get you to shed that hardware?” He pointed. Annie knew he was referring to her brassiere. “You have a beautiful figure. Why make it look frumpy with a suffocating wrap like that?” Harold turned comic. “Try Formfit. You’ll like the youthful, perky uplifted lines it will give you.” He paused. “And so will I!” He laughed. “Look, just take the underthing off and we’ll shoot a picture.”

  “I don’t know,” Annie said demurely. A small pain of excitement pinched her heart.

  “Who’s gonna see ‘em? I develop them myself.”

  Annie turned away from Nevers. She felt her face flush and grow hot. She worked underneath the blouse until she was free and stuffed the lingerie into the picnic basket. Turning toward Nevers, she felt her breasts tighten with excitement. She heard the shutter trip. Harold advanced the film and took another shot.

  “Pull the material against you.” Annie did as he commanded. “You know,” Nevers said, “you’d look great as a blonde.” Her eyes looked sleepy. “Push out some more.”

  Annie looked down at her breast. The camera caught her as her mouth parted in a barely audible gasp.

  Chapter 10

  September 1938

  Appearing suddenly, as if from nowhere, Harold usually surprised Annie when he came into town. This time she surprised him. He had called the restaurant to have her meet him at Galatoire’s at seven that Friday evening. She walked in and past Nevers to see if he would recognize her. He glanced at her, admiringly, she thought, but didn’t acknowledge her. Her hair was as white as Mae West’s. The new cut and color altered the appearance of her face so that Annie herself could hardly believe the change when she looked at her reflection the first time.

  For the weekend, Nevers had scheduled a fishing trip to Grand Isle. Saturday morning, the two met Burk and his girl at the grassy airstrip west of City Park. Eddie Agnelly stored their gear in the cargo bin and helped them into the cabin of his new air yacht, a biplane built on a single pontoon shaped like a gigantic shoe.

  Nevers made the introductions. “This is Nausica.” The slender woman wore tight, lime-green slacks and a hot-pink blouse. Her hair was clown-red. “And you remember Arkie Burk, Annie.”

  “Whoa!” Burk exclaimed. “I didn’t even recognize you, Annie.”

  “Who did you expect Harold to be with?” Annie quipped in mock jealousy. She extended her hand to Arkie’s girlfriend. “I’m pleased to meet you, Nausica. That’s such an interesting name.”

  * * *

  After landing and storing a two days’ supply of food in their separate bungalows, the men met on the screened porch of Harold’s place and rigged four fishing rods with artificial lures. On Annie’s rod, Nevers tied an orange shrimp with gold glitter embedded in the hard plastic. Two treble-hooks dangled menacingly from the bait, which reminded her of an amputated finger.

  “They actually bite that thing?”

  “Just wait,” Harold said.

  The four made their way down to the water. Stepping across the high-tide line of driftwood and seashells, Annie flushed a killdeer that ran from them with a wing jutting from its side.

  “Oh, look,” she said. “It’s crippled. Harold, can we catch it and doctor it up?”

  Nevers laughed.

  “You’ll never catch that bird, because it ain’t hurt. She’s just trying to lure you away from her eggs.” Nevers walked along the tide-line until he found the nest.

  “See?”

  They all inspected the eggs, three of them disguised in what appeared to be a tiny

  brush pile.

  “Well, what do you think about that?” Annie said.

  * * *

  Annie hesitated when Nevers kicked off his shoes and waded into the rolling surf, expecting her to follow. After some cajoling, the men finally convinced the women to come into the salt with their sneakers on.

  Annie tested the water near shore. “Aren’t there crabs and things on the bottom?”

  A little more daring, Nausica was already knee-deep in the Gulf. The waves patting her legs, Annie walked hurriedly out to Nausica and grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t hang on to me, honey,” Nausica said. “I step on a crab, and they’ll have to ship me back from Dee-troit, ‘cause that’s where I’ll land when I come down.”

  Holding hands, the two waded out near Burk and Nevers, who were already working their baits in the waist-deep swells. The girls followed their men as they broke in opposite directions up the shoreline.

  Harold said to Arkie, “Holler if you get into a school, Arkansas.”

  “I ain’t telling you nothin’,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  Nevers coached Annie on how to cast the rod, then let her practice.

  Annie eyed Harold suspiciously. “They don’t have those devilfish things in here, do they?”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you what to do if you step on one.”

  “Harold!” Annie whined.

  Nevers laughed. “I’ll guarantee you there’s not a devilfish within five miles of Grand Isle.”

  Nevers watched and tutored her. “Reel a bit faster. When you feel something, set the hook hard.”

  Ten minutes later, Annie had lost her concentration. She felt a jolt at the end of her rod and forgot to jerk.

  “I think I had one, Harold.”

  “Pay attention,” he said. “We might be coming into a school.”

  He cast a segmented minnow where she had the strike. The lure plopped on the surface. He twitched it once, making it wobble like a wounded shad. The surface shattered in a foamy explosion.

  “That’s him,” Nevers shouted. The fish leaped two feet and somersaulted, shaking its head to throw the hooks. “Speckled trout!”

  Annie saw the red and white plug in its gaping yellow mouth. Nevers landed the fish by grabbing it tightly behind the head.

  “Come see,” he called to Annie. He handed her his rod, then put the catch on a nylon stringer. Nevers admired the fish. Hundreds of black dots were highlighted by a silver background. “Three pounds, I’d say.” Nevers turned the fish in the sunlight.

  “Look at his back,” Annie said. “It’s purple.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty. Look at these traps.” He showed her the fish’s teeth.

  “They’re like rattlesnake fangs.”

  “Quick, cast out that way again. I think it’s a school.”

  Annie cast and let the artificial shrimp sink to the bottom, then jerked-and-reeled twice. When she lifted the rod the second time, she felt a dull tug. Nevers was watching her rodtip as he tied the stringer to his belt.

  “Jerk!”

&nb
sp; The fish almost pulled the rod from Annie’s hands. She drove the handle into her stomach and held on as the drag screamed and payed out twenty feet of line.

  “That’s a good one,” Nevers said. The fish ran toward the beach, then up the shore. The drag began squealing again. “Bigger’n I thought.” Nevers touched her rod and lifted it. “Hold the tip higher.”

  A few minutes later, the fish torpedoed into the shallows. Annie saw a single black spot on its tail, like an eclipsed sun. She had served the fish hundreds of times.

  “It’s a redfish,” she squealed with delight.

  “Sure is. Five pounds, at least.”

  Nevers grabbed the line and walked backwards, dragging the fish ashore. It lifted its tail once, then lay still working its mouth and pectoral fins.

  “My arms,” Annie said, massaging her muscles.

  Harold drove the big needle through the underside of the fish’s jaw. “Fun?” Annie opened her mouth and lolled her tongue out in a gesture indicating exhaustion. “Ready to go after ‘em again?”

  “Ready. But I hope I don’t catch another one that big.”

  “A real fisherman would never say that.” Harold approached Annie with the needle.

  “You’re not tying that thing on me.”

  “You catch ‘em, you drag ‘em.” He began tying. “You clean ‘em, too.”

  “No way. I’ll cook him, but I won’t clean him.”

  An hour later, Nevers whistled shrilly to get Arkie’s attention and waved them in. Onshore, the party inspected their catch on the sand. Annie’s stringer held the big redfish, fourteen specks, and a sand trout. Burk’s had one red and three specks. Nausica had five specks.

  Nevers spat on his lone speckled trout.

  “Beginner’s luck,” he said.

  At the bungalow, they held their stringers up to Harold’s camera.

  “All right,” he called. “One, two, three, lift!”

  Annie struggled with the hanging weight. A week later, when she saw the photograph, it wasn’t the strain on her face or the sunburned cheeks that made her look like an exotic stranger. It was the white hair.

  * * *

  While the men cleaned the fish, the women cooked baked beans and French fries.

  “That’s such an interesting name,” Annie said to Nausica for the third time that day.

  “It’s not my real name,” Nausica said as she peeled a potato with a paring knife.

  “Is that right?” Annie was on the verge of telling her that Annie was not her real name, either. “Where’d you get it?”

  “That’s a long story, honey. I’ll tell you sometime when they’re not around.” She gestured toward the men with her knife.

  After supper, the couples retired to their separate cabins. Although the hot part of the day was past, the onshore breeze had not yet begun, and the moderate heat was stifling. Nevers had planned a floundering trip after dark and suggested everyone rest till then.

  Heavy with the greasy food, Annie and Harold swung tranquilly in their separate hammocks on the porch, talking and dozing. Facing each other, his feet at her head, they pulled at the hammocks, rocking them back and forth in an erratic, never synchronized movement. Annie imagined she was being sloshed about in a small boat on the ocean and fell into a deep sleep.

  She awoke an hour later. It was darker and cooler.

  Nevers reached over and pulled her hammock towards him. Something about the way he did it made her know what it meant. Annie looked at the cabin where Burk and Nausica were staying.

  “We’ll bake inside,” Annie said.

  Harold nodded toward the beach. “You have a whole ocean to cool off in.”

  The bed frame was fitted with a single, firm mattress. Nevers had left the doors open, and a breeze blew from the porch through the bungalow and out the open window of the bedroom.

  In the shadows of the dying day, they shed their clothes in the bungalow. Blood pounded in Annie’s throat and surged through her hips. Harold stepped to her and held her close. She felt the anxiety in her chest that always made her think she would burst out crying. She felt him rise between her legs and whispered, “Ah, god.”

  As her legs began to quiver, Harold lifted her and set her down on the bed. Her arms fell back on the mattress. It felt something like surrender. Nevers entered her, and she moaned at the pleasurable pain he still caused because of his size, which had made her bleed the third and fourth times they had been together, until she began to think she was a renewable virgin. Beads of sweat streamed down her face and fell onto the sheet in audible thumps. Harold told her how beautiful she was, how sweet to surprise him with her white hair.

  Annie listened, his voice mesmerizing her, making her feel limp and drowsy.

  “Do you love me?” he said.

  Her eyelids opened lazily. “You know I do.”

  “Will you do anything for me?”

  It was a game they played. He asked questions and she answered.

  “Yes. Anything.”

  Saying the word thrilled her. The word and the tone of his voice suggested things she had never imagined, things she knew Harold would know and would teach her. Until now, he had never taken the game farther.

  “Do you love it?”

  She looked up at him. He was watching himself slide in and out of her. As always, she was shocked at something that large moving easily inside her. She gasped and let her head fall back.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Say it.”

  “I love it.”

  “Say it bad,” Nevers said. “Tell me bad words.”

  Annie felt his excitement. He was moving more passionately. Her breath came faster. Aroused and puzzled, she glanced up.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Say—. Say it.” He closed his eyes and stopped moving. He held his breath, then exhaled. “Say—.” He looked down at her. “Say ‘Fuck me.’”

  Annie’s head turned to the side. It felt like her heart had been stabbed with a hot icicle. She felt desired and desirous, and at the same time demeaned.

  “I—.”

  Nevers lifted himself and pushed inside her hard.

  “Beautiful Annie.” She gazed into his eyes. “My sweet Beatrice.” Although he had given her the name, he used it only in bed and it always triggered something deep inside her. “My beautiful, sweet Beatrice. Say bad things to me.” He drew most of his length out of her.

  What she felt came out sounding like “Nguh.”

  “Are you my sweet little bad girl?”

  “For you,” she said.

  “Say bad words for Harold.” He moved in and out of her.

  She imagined saying the words. “Just—.”

  She struggled but could not bring herself to say them. Nevers increased her hunger for him by refusing his entire length. She looked down at him moving inside her.

  “God, Harold.” She fell back. “Just do it,” she said in a voice near crying. “Do it.”

  “Are you my sweet bad little girl?”

  “Yes. Only for you.”

  “Say ‘Please.’ Say ‘Please do it to me.’”

  She put her heels low on his back and pulled him down with her arms.

  “Do it, Harold. Do it to me. Do it.” He drove inside her and loved her vigorously as she repeated, “Do it to me.”

  Annie’s throat filled with the painful swelling just before crying. As they reached the end, she couldn’t tell if it was tears or sweat trickling into her ears.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Harold whistled out the window to Arkie. In a few minutes, Burk and Nausica approached the porch where Annie watched Nevers lighting a gas lantern.

  “Got your lantern?” Harold asked.

  Burk lifted a lantern.

  “Gig and stringer?”

  Burk thrust a two-pronged spear forward like a movie Indian, then patted his trousers.

  “Beautiful woman?”

  Burk pointed to Nausica.

  “Well
, then,” Harold said. “I guess we’re ready.”

  In contrast to the afternoon’s waves crawling ashore, Annie saw the glassy smooth water licking the beach in the light of a three-quarter moon. The atmosphere should have been quiet, but it gave off a background noise like someone making an incessant hushing sound. Annie wondered where it came from.

  At the water’s edge, Nevers suggested the pairs go in opposite directions, work the shore for an hour, then turn around and meet back at the bungalows.

  “What are we looking for?” Annie said.

  “Eyes,” Nevers said. “Look for eyes.” He scanned the lantern back and forth. “If it’s just settled, a flounder looks like a big brown arrowhead sitting on the bottom.”

  After a few minutes, Harold whispered loudly, “There’s one!”

  Annie looked around in the small arena of yellow light.

  “Where?”

  “Right there.” Nevers used the gig as a pointer. “Look, there’s his head, and you can barely see his body.” He outlined the flounder’s shape with the gig.

  Annie slapped his arm. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying. And we better stick him before he spooks.” He handed her the gig and guided it over a spot in the light. “Now, push down hard and hold on tight.”

  Annie thrust the gig into the sand. Nothing happened.

  “Did I miss him?”

  “No, you got him. You probably stuck him in the spine and paralyzed him.” Nevers clutched the shaft of the gig near the water. “Here.” He handed her the lantern and slid his other hand into the water. “Walk to the shore.”

  When she reached the water’s edge, Annie turned around.

  “Okay,” Harold said. “Here I come.”

  Pinning the flat fish against the gig with his hand, he lifted it out of the water and ran towards the light. On shore, he drove the gig into the sand and stepped on a dark brown flounder a foot and a half long.

  “That beats all I ever saw,” Annie said. “I speared that thing without even seeing it?”

  “Just another one of nature’s liars. Like that killdeer.”

  “Or those fishing lures.”

  Nevers laughed. “That’s right. You have to meet nature on her own terms.” After stringing the fish, Nevers removed his foot. The flounder flapped around on the beach with a sound that reminded Annie of a tickled dog’s foot rapidly patting the floor. When it stopped, Nevers stooped down and gripped the flounder firmly. “See?” He turned the fish over, exposing its white bottom. “They’re like people. They all have a dark and a light side.”