Something in the Water

by Peter Scott

  • • •

  Jake lit a cigarette and stepped into the road, out of the realm of light from the town hall windows to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He could make out two clusters of men among the parked cars and trucks. The farther group was loud and in motion. Lit cigarette ends sailed out of it like little distress flares. One shape pushed another backward into the alders, and several laughed while one swore loudly. Among the darker forms, he saw Morales’s pale uniform. Let him get drunk, Jake thought, and laid if he’s lucky; he deserves it.

  He approached the nearer, quieter group. There appeared to be about six men, all but two perched on bumpers, talking and smoking toward the ground. Amos emerged from the shadows and shook Jake’s hand.

  “Let me get you a drink,” Amos said. “It’s Green River, nasty stuff, but we cut it with ginger ale. You know Dwight here, and this is Dickie Hanson; he fishes on the east side.” Jake greeted the constable and shook hands with Dickie, who rose for the occasion. Amos bent over into an opened trunk to mix Jake a drink.

  “I met you in Stonington last year.” Dickie drew on his cigarette, illuminating his face for a second.

  “You look familiar,” Jake said. “Amos talks about you.”

  “I helped you and your ugly little mate load a couple of drums of kerosene. You cussed him the whole time,” said Dickie. “He deserved it, the nasty bastard.”

  Jake took his drink from Amos. “That was Harvey Gooden. He isn’t so bad; he’s dirty himself, but he keeps everything around him clean, and I like that.”

  Fuddy MacFarland and Skippy Groth sat shoulder to shoulder on a bumper in the dark, their legs crossed at the thighs and again at the ankles. Each made the same adenoidal noise when Dickie introduced Jake, but neither looked up from the conversation. Cousins who shared the same father, they looked like brothers—except for Skippy’s cleft palate and cruelly parted hare lip. They so clubbed his speech that only Fuddy and their parents could understand him when he ventured more than a short sentence. The two cousins were sharing a cup of rum, talking quietly; when Skippy drank, he was careful not to slurp.

  “Down in Thomaston I’ve got relatives who are Gardiners,” Dickie told Jake. “You’re not from Thomaston, are you?”

  “No,” said Jake. “I never was. I’m from up-country originally, but I was at the Pemaquid Point lighthouse before I came here. I didn’t know there were Gardiners in Thomaston.”

  A ratty Model A pickup truck with one headlight slowed to a crawl in the road behind them; Richard Snell was at the wheel, straining to see faces in the darkness. He parked and shined his flashlight on them as he approached.

  “Jesus, Richard,” said Amos shielding his eyes, “Point that damn light down.”

  “Sumbitch,” said Fuddy.

  “Nuh.” Skippy hid his face behind his hand.

  Amos introduced Richard to Jake; Dickie found a seat on a bumper. Someone set off a string of firecrackers in the field behind the alders, then another, and a child squealed happily.

  “So who do I have to fuck to get a drink around here,” asked Richard.

  “You could try yourself,” said Fuddy.

  “I doubt he will. It’s been suggested to him a million times and he’s never tried it yet.”

  “I’d argue that he has, and he did a pretty good job of it.”

  Dickie laughed, waved to the trunk, and told Richard to help himself. Richard cussed them as he poured, mixed, and swallowed one cupful. Then he poured a second, saying that he was worn out from his shore patrol—unlike some others; he said he tore his pants taking a short cut through the puckerbrush at Eben’s Head.

  “I heard you were going to be ashore here tonight, Chief,” Richard said. “I thought maybe you could help me out with something.”

  Jake looked at Amos, who showed nothing. “I might,” said Jake.

  “I want to join the temporary reserves, for the Coastal Picket, and get a radio for my boat. I don’t feel like I’m doing enough just walking along the shore. The Lucille s seaworthy, and I know these waters as good as anybody.” Richard looked around at the others, who said nothing.

  “You’ll have to go to Rockland for that,” said Jake, who smelled disapproval on Amos’s breath. “Ask for Ensign Onder-donk. He’ll give you an application, and if you qualify, the Coast Guard’ll send you to their school.”

  “Maurice Wilkins on Vinalhaven said he got his from you,” Richard said.

  And Maurice told him who else had radios, Amos thought.

  “Well, he did,” said Jake. “But now you’ve got to go to Rockland.”

  “I guess I’ll go then,” Richard said. “The last time I was there dealing with the Coast Guard I . . .”

  “Christ, you said you smashed one in the face with a lobster,” said Fuddy.

  “Chryff,” said Skippy.

  Skippy and Fuddy stood up.

  “Got to walk the pink flamingo,” Fuddy said, and launched himself toward the alders, nearly knocking Amos over. Skippy followed him, thrashing through the dark thicket, his bladder responding to Fuddy’s call. Amos set his cup on the hood and withdrew into the darkness.

  The musicians, refreshed by a sup on the back porch, struck up a slow waltz, and someone dimmed the lights. Amos watched the couples on the floor from the doorway, then slowly made his way through them to Maggie, who was sitting with Doris on the far side of the room. He stood before Maggie, who smiled and gave him an inquisitive look.

  “Hello, Doris,” he said.

  “Evening, Amos” said Doris. “Is Dwight still outside, or has he gone home?”

  “He’s listening to Richard the Lionhearted tell about his battle in Rockland. Would you like to dance, Maggie?”

  She said she would love to and gave him her hand. Doris beamed as they walked away.

  He held her at arm’s length, leading her in a stiff box step.

  “Not so far away,” she said pulling him closer. “I can’t follow you.”

  “Then I can’t see my feet,” he said, and laughed nervously.

  Iris Weed, who had begun to wilt, sat up and unfolded in bitter blossom when she saw them together on the dance floor. Lily Scales leaned into Iris’s ear. When Maggie and Amos stumbled by Iris’s chair, Maggie smiled at the ladies triumphantly, causing Lily to stare in disbelief and making Iris look away.

  “Can’t you just hear them?” Maggie whispered.

  “Yes, I can.” He laughed again, softly.

  She wanted to ask him to come for Sunday dinner. If he had invited her to dance, he might come to dinner, she thought. Instead she asked what he had meant at supper when he had said he had been to the quarry to get his shaft turned.

  “What’s wrong with the shaft? I haven’t noticed anything,” she said.

  “It’s making a funny noise, down by the stuffing box. At half throttle.”

  “You can’t haul the boat out now; it would take a couple of days,” she said.

  “In the fall,” he said, smiling. “I was making an appointment for the fall.” He let his hand slide down her back and rest on the dimple above her buttocks.

  “What are you up to, Amos?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and moved his hand back up to her shoulders.

  She shook her head. “Will you come to dinner next Sunday,” she asked.

  “Yes, I’d like that. As long as it isn’t Prem.”

  She promised that it would be something he liked.

  In the dark alders at the edge of the meadow behind the church, Fuddy started to say something, but Skippy put his hand over Fuddy’s mouth and held a finger to his own lips. Off to their right they could hear a boy and girl whispering excitedly, then there was a giggle and a soft moan. Skippy took Fuddy by the hand, and they crept toward the sounds. In a small clearing, lit by the thin moonlight, Morales was unbuttoning Betty Chambers’s blouse with one hand and trying to tug it free from her skirt with the other. Betty stopped him, stepped back slightly and slowly removed the blouse herself, letting it fal
l to the ground. She kissed him and unhooked her bra, offering her firm, full breasts, their nipples straining to meet Morale’s eager hands. She moaned and moved her hips eagerly as she watched him caress and squeeze her breasts, touching one nipple then the other with his tongue.

  Skippy, whose mouth was wide open in wonder, felt his knees weaken; he released Fuddy’s trembling hand and groped to find an alder trunk for support. Pop-eyed and breathing like a boy fogging a cold window, Fuddy held a branch aside to watch the couple sink to their knees. When Betty’s fingers found Morales’s belt and began to undo it, Fuddy’s hand slipped inside his own trousers as if it were hers, and he held himself while Betty and the Coast Guardsman undressed each other.

  She pushed Morales back slowly onto the soft grass and stroked his face softly with her swaying breasts as she mounted him. Leaning on his chest, her breasts gathered between her upper arms, she lowered herself onto him, cooing like a dove as he entered her. She rose and fell slowly at first, then with more heat as she pushed upright, her hair thrown back, her pale buttocks slapping his thighs.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, oh, yes.”

  Still inside her, Morales rolled her over, and she held her legs apart, hands under her knees, while he thrust into her.

  “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Her voice was husky as though she could not breathe. “Keep on doing it!”

  Amos was glad to find that Richard had gone when he rejoined Jake and Dickie and the others in the dark. He poured a healthy drink and sat next to Dwight, who was beyond conversation, to watch from the shadows as the older couples stood on the steps saying good night, the men pulling their wives away. The younger couples slipped past into the hall, drawn by the sound of what the musicians must have meant to be boogie-woogie. He saw Maggie and Leah come out together, Maggie’s white sleeve over Leah’s shoulder. They skirted the crowd and crossed in the light under the big windows on their way home. Leah’s head was down, and she seemed to be shaking—maybe sobbing—as Maggie was talking to her. Amos thought to catch up with them to see what was wrong but instead accepted another drink from Dickie, who had just told the one about the fat lady picking crabs, much to Jake’s delight.

  When the crowd had gone and the men had finished both bottles, Jake suggested that they go inside and watch Morales dance, and see if they could guess which girl he had ended up with. Dickie went with him, and Fuddy and Skippy, who emerged from the alders making wet noises to each other, followed. Amos stood up, patted the snoring constable on the back, and started to follow. But he found he was wavering, unstable, he so walked down to Cecil’s to get his truck and go home. Cecil’s car was in the yard, and all the lights were on in the house; Amos climbed into the truck and drove slowly, leaning out the window to let the air revive him.

  By the time he got around the island to the cove road, he felt a little better. To the south, on a sea made bright by the high summer stars, he could see Saddleback Ledge and over it, about to go down into the Atlantic, a half moon tipped like a pouring bowl.

  Amos stopped at the house to get his flashlight and binoculars, then walked up the old road past the field and houses to Old Cove, which was hushed at high tide and glittering in the starlight. There he turned south along the rocky shore and went into the dark spruce woods that covered the cliffs. Still wearing his striped shirt and Sunday shoes, he walked slowly in the spruce, using his flashlight, stepping carefully over humps of glacial granite. Twice he stopped along the cliffs where the trees opened, sat on a boulder, and scanned the horizon with the binoculars. From that height, nearly one hundred feet, he could see beyond the ledges to the flat sea, where nothing showed on the surface. The only noise was the thin hissing of an occasional breeze high in the spruce, and the silence welcomed him.

  As he approached the cabin, he shut off his flashlight and was careful to walk in the soft, quiet spruce needles. He thought he saw the shape of a man in the trees behind the cabin; it was too small to be Walter, so it was probably Lew. Since he felt cool—and clear now, too—Amos considered sitting on the boulder and having a sip from the bottle he kept under the cushion of moss there. But he was tired and wanted to go to bed, so he went carefully to the edge of the cliff to scan the sea once more, with one watchful eye on the cabin. He let go of the sapling he was holding onto, lifted his binoculars to his eyes, and pitched headlong onto the sharp rocks below.

  PART TWO

  The Coastal Picket

  “If you got something outside the common run thats got to be done and cant wait, dont waste your time on the menfolks; they works on what your uncle calls the rules and the cases. Get the womens and children at it; they works on the circumstances

  —Old Ephraim,

  INTRUDE IN THE DUST, William Faulkner

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AFTER CHURCH GUS WENT HOME TO CHANGE, THEN WALKED OVER TO the cove. He had fallen asleep twice in the pew. After the service his father had taken him aside and lashed into him for being a disgrace. Gus swore to himself that by God if Cecil ever tried to give him a whipping as he threatened to do, he would fight him. Gus was not a kid any more and he would not be treated like one.

  Amos was not at home. He was not anywhere around the house, and the truck was parked in the yard. The cove was quiet and still in the thin fog. He went from house to house, then down to the wharf. The skiff and boat were on their moorings, and there was no sign of any activity on the wharf. A line of indifferent gulls sat on the peak of the fish shack preening and sleeping. Gus hollered into the woods beyond, rousing the gulls, and heard Amos’s name echo in his own voice over the water behind him. He went back to the house to see if Amos had taken a shotgun and gone after crows. In the gun closet he found that the binoculars were missing, which made him think that Amos had headed out to patrol the shore.

  There was no sign of anyone’s having walked through the high, dewy grass in front of Ava’s, so Gus decided that he must have gone up the road, walking in the ruts to keep his feet dry. The boy hurried up the road, calling Amos’s name. He went up to the old cove and came back along the cliffs through the woods. He remembered his parents whispering that morning in the kitchen about how drunk Amos had been at the dance, and Gus decided that he was in the cabin sleeping it off.

  Though the fog was thick in the spruce along the cliff, the flashlight glittered at him among the brown needles where it had been dropped. Suddenly scared, he picked it up and switched it off and on. The batteries were dead. He hollered and looked around in the trees then, reluctantly, drawn by some demanding dread, he went over to the edge of the cliff and peered down into the sifting fog.

  Seventy feet down, Amos’s body lay on its side, the lower arm underwater, wedged in the rocks, the head rolled back, looking up. Gus shouted his name and scrambled down the incline. When he got halfway, he stopped and saw Amos’s face clearly; his mouth was wide open and the eyes stared straight at him, seeing him, recognizing him, expecting him. Gus tried to go to him, but he could not. Sobbing, he climbed back up the cliff and ran home for help, carrying the flashlight to give to someone, anyone, so he would not have to hold it any longer.

  Dickie Hanson, Cecil Barter, and Dwight Chafin went around to the cliffs in Dickie’s boat. Maggie, Leah, and Gus went by road in Maggie’s Ford, all three riding up front in terrified silence.

  Leah would not look over the edge. She would not even get close to it. Maggie only glanced, to be sure that it was true, then stepped back into the spruce, where she could see the men and boats, but not Amos. She pulled Leah against her, and Leah buried her face in Maggie’s shoulder. While Dickie held the boat off in deep water, Cecil and Dwight rowed ashore in a skiff, shouting at Gus to come down the cliff and help them. The boy clambered past Amos, careful not to look at him, and waded out to bring in the skiff. Cecil swore and sobbed once, almost choking, when he saw Amos.

  Amos’s skull was caved in on the left side, behind his ear. In the salt water his blood and brains had congealed into a dark, slippery mass that swelle
d out behind and over his ear. He had died instantly, Cecil said, from the ungodly force of the fall. Amos’s forearm was broken, the grisly bone jutting out of the ripped sleeve of his striped shirt; his left hip was torn and black with blood that had seeped through the tattered trousers. Gus looked once as they lifted him, then vomited into the water at his knees. Dwight took the body out in the skiff, and he and Dickie hauled it aboard. When Dickie went back to get Cecil, he told Gus to come along with them, but the boy, shivering and staring straight out to sea, said no, he would go back in the car.

  “Yes,” Cecil said. “You’re right, son. Get the women home. One of us will meet you there.”

  Late in the day, when Amos’s body had been taken to the undertaker’s in Stonington, and the Barter’s house had begun to fill up with people and covered baskets of food, Maggie left and drove home to be alone. On the way, she slowed twice to stop, nearly blinded by her weeping, but both times she gripped the steering wheel bitterly and drove on. Under the darkening oaks past Boom Beach, she imagined Iris and Lily in the corner of Leah’s parlor, heard Iris say “drunk again,” and saw them shake their heads, solemn and satisfied. She had thought from the beginning that he had gone up to the cabin for a drink, but she had not said so to anyone. Once Dwight got the coroner’s report, he and God knows who else would go through the cabin and find a bottle of booze. She turned around and went back to the cove, dry eyed and determined that no bottle would be found.

  She parked at Ava’s and went up the path to the cabin. Halfway up, she realized that they had not found the binoculars, either on the ground or on Amos’s body. Maggie stood at the place on the edge of the cliff where she thought he must have been standing when he slipped, where she had stood when she had seen him that morning. The tide had come in and covered the rocks where he had lain, but from no angle could she see the binoculars.