Of Sea and Cloud (2 page)

That was it. The seawater was 48 degrees Fahrenheit. That crossed Nicolas's mind but not for long because the tide ran like a river and sucked him fast from the rafted lobster boats. He watched Osmond grow smaller aboard his boat. Osmond fell to his knees with his head bowed and his body swayed in anguish and if Nicolas had been closer he would have seen the lips moving and perhaps heard the words of prayer which rose into the air. Then Osmond stood and without a last look at his friend he stepped back aboard his own boat. Nicolas saw black smoke shoot from
Sanctity
's exhaust as the rafted boats together spun away.

Nicolas's rubber boots and oilgear filled with water and his head dipped. He kicked and thrashed and tried to rip away his boots and jacket and pants but it was already too cold and he was already choking on too much saltwater. He surfaced. That quick and the boats were gone. Osmond was gone. Only seconds and fog surrounded Nicolas and water surrounded Nicolas and from somewhere in his mind came a voice
swim
but something stronger surfaced. It was a scene that for so long he'd held tucked away. Twenty years ago and he held a gaff at his side and watched from his boat as his son Joshua fought the sea. His older son Bill stood beside him and Bill cried and looked up at his father but did not say,
Help him Dad
. The boys' mother had died only weeks before and she'd been the world to all three of them and Nicolas held the gaff and watched Joshua while anger tore him to shreds and he shouted at the drowning boy,
Goddamned poison aboard here is what you are.

Now Nicolas was in the water himself and death was indeed a rock which he held in his hands. What had Joshua even done? He'd released a day's catch of lobster. Thrown the lobsters overboard one by one every last one but truthfully that was nothing because what was everything was that Joshua would forever be a relentless reminder of the woman who'd died so Nicolas's own hands had lifted his own son and thrown him into the sea and he'd yelled,
My own flesh and blood. You want to throw things overboard?
Then he'd reached the gaff out to Joshua but the boy would not touch it.
Take it
, Nicolas had said and he'd realized hatred in his voice and he'd realized that a part of him wanted his son to die right here and how could a father wish that? How could a father wish for the son to take the mother's place in death?

Take the fucking thing
, Nicolas now screamed frantic in the fog but there was nothing to take but the biting of the waves. His head dipped and his body thrashed and Joshua would not take the gaff and there was the older son Bill who was cast in his own image and Bill leaped into the water and swam screaming for his little brother. Nicolas spun the boat and saw the sea surrounding the boys and his wife was dead and buried somewhere on dry land and their two sons were now sinking into this wasteland. Bill who was eleven years old choked on saltwater and caught his younger brother in a weak headlock. Joshua was white and blue by then and already readying himself for a new world but his eyes were still fierce and intent on his father who had thrown him overboard and his father whose miserable depths the boy now understood more completely than Nicolas himself.

Nicolas himself drowning. Saltwater piled into his mouth and out his nose and stomach acid raced up his throat. Small waves piled overtop his head and pressed down like hands. His rubber boots and oilgear jerked him into the deep and Nicolas remembered Bill's long ago scream shrill as a girl's and that scream should have echoed throughout his life but such a thing could not be held. Only now that he was drowning did he realize how weak his own hands were. Twenty years ago with both sons overboard he'd spun his boat in a tight loop and plunged his arm and head and torso overboard and with one hand jerked both children into the boat but now he could not so much as tread water.

He grew colder by the second but he was actually surprised how long death took. Death was indeed a rock pulling him down and like life it took too long. Images he did not care to see splashed through his mind. He wished he could see his friend Virgil Alley because his apology was so overdue and it occurred to him how tragic it was that in a life too long lived a man can find no time to do what matters most. He wondered briefly if this was a taste of hell brought about by a life lived without confronting specific sins.

He did not wonder for what he was thrown into the sea. It was as if his mind understood perfectly that it occupied a man deserving of this death so when the cold penetrated and Nicolas felt the depths call him downward his thoughts rested solely on his son Joshua who all of the fishermen called Jonah. He needed to see the boy one last time. He needed to face his son and he needed to hold his son and whisper to his son because finally as he touched the end Nicolas understood that Jonah would live his life without knowing his father's last truth.

The first drops of rain came. The brothers on the wharf stood and watched the drops fall into the fish blood stream. The flood tide fell to slack and all of the lobster boats and the five draggers swung on their hooks and the younger of the two brothers spat on the filthy oil-soaked wharf planks and said, Where's Virgil gone to?

Christ if I know, Jonah. I wouldn't give a damn anyway.

You wouldn't give a damn? The hell not. What're you gonna do?

You asking me that?

That's what I'm doing.

That ain't what you're asking.

She ain't what I'm talking about, Bill. I'm talking of the price of goddamned lobsters is what I'm talking.

The hell you are.

The two brothers turned at the grind of a new diesel and watched the black truck drive past the fog-worn bait house. The tires splashed through the fish blood. A series of gulls with their asses perched from the wind flew from the swayback roof. The rain came harder.

Here's Virgil all dressed up. See what he says.

You know what he'll say, Jonah. Same as you and same as me.

Virgil parked on the wharf and rolled the window down. His fingers crept like spiders onto the edge of the door and his face stuck out above his fingers. His cheeks hung like paper sacks. He wore a suit coat and a loosely knotted tie. What in clamfuck's the price dropped to now, Jonah?

Two-fifty.

Two-fifty. Virgil turned his gaze to Bill. His head moved slowly. What're you planning on doing, Captain?

Bill shifted on his feet and stood straight. I'm planning on fishing same as you and same as Jonah.

Captain Bill's planning on fishing, Virgil muttered. He leaned back in his seat and looked at the water. He ran his windshield wipers. He had a small dog in the cab with him and the dog climbed onto his lap and licked at its own nose. Virgil said, You boys best get going before you get them fancy suit coats ate by this weather.

Jonah didn't listen. He sat back on a stack of storm-beaten yellow traps and he pulled his collar up and looked out at the end of the harbor where the barren island called Ram's Head rose as if to plug the harbor mouth. He felt a shiver run up his arms and into his shoulders and neck. He looked at the harbor where his father's empty mooring ball leaned with the ebbing tide. Don't look the same, he said.

Ain't nothing the same ever, Virgil said.

Bill leaned against the fuel pump with his back to the water. The wind blew south against the tide and small whitecaps rolled and broke in the harbor. That's so, he said and clenched his jaw in thought. But I got me some plans for the pound.

The Captain's always got plans, Jonah said. That's why he's the Captain of this here coast of America. Me, I got plans too. I might just take myself clamming.

He might take his own self clamming.

Might.

Now that the old man's dead and gone the Downcoast Highliner gives up fishing.

I just might.

That there, Virgil said, is why Nicolas had the good sense to die on us. The world ain't much on spinning the right direction.

Jonah pinched a dead barnacle from the yellow trap wire and crushed it between his fingers and let the powder fall to the wharf plank. He reached through the trap head and pulled a dried starfish out and turned its brittle mass in his wet hands. Erma Lee spins any direction the Captain beckons, he said. Ain't that so, Bill?

Virgil lifted his glass and sipped his drink. Ice clinked and left a smatter of brandy and milk on his mustache. His eyes landed like lead on Bill.

Bill looked at his own big wet hands. We're done late now, he said. He lit a cigarette and shook his wet head and the drops of water beaded on his glasses. For a heartbeat his eyes connected with Virgil's then broke away. Bill walked down the wharf and past the stinking rotting bait house and the rusted thousand-gallon fuel tanks and the clamshell bank.

Jonah heard the truck start and saw Bill drive up the dirt hill to the road.

Guess he's off, Virgil said. You taking your rig up?

I aim to.

Good. I got the mutt here.

Jonah looked around and felt the cold rain on the backs of his hands and he told himself that it was only the chill that made him feel childish. You fishing in the morning, Virgil? he said.

Virgil put his truck in gear. Guess you don't need to go talking dumbshit now, Jonah. Virgil ran his hand down the dog's head and looked back to Jonah. You thinking we should take a day of rest for Nicolas?

I don't know what I'm thinking. Just with the price gone and the old man gone, things ain't right.

That's right, Jonah. Things ain't right. The only thing that is right is that you and me and the Captain are fishing in the morning, same as each man on this coast.

Virgil backed up and turned around the back of the bait house and drove up the hill. Jonah walked to the edge of the wharf and reached overhead to the winchhead gallows and stretched his arms and hung out over the tidewater. Seaweed rushed in the cold salt currents and wrapped around the barnacled hackmatack pilings. Mussel shells and crab shells and clamshells covered the rock bottom. Jonah hung down low and whispered, Guess you're in there somewhere.

• • •

He drove slowly and bounced north up the peninsula through granite ledges and stunted and tangled maple and alder. The road climbed and rain spattered. At the summit of the hill he turned into the brown dead-grass field which held a dozen trucks and freshly made ruts. A few men stood by their trucks and smoked and drank. Jonah sat for a moment in the warm truck wishing everyone would go home and then got out and nodded to the men. He felt their eyes track him as he crossed the field.

He saw Virgil in his truck with the dog named Chowder in his lap and the wipers flicking. He continued to the pathway and stood alone with rain running down his neck. He lit a cigarette. Some of the women with their black umbrellas and black stockings and black heels covered in wet grass came over and hugged him and stood silent for a moment with their hands on his sleeve and their eyes on his. Then they moved on.

Erma Lee rushed to him and wrapped her skinny arms around his waist and set her head to his chest. He felt her sob and when she looked up at him her chin was red and wrinkled and soft. Tears ran along her nose. I'm so sorry, Jonah, she said.

Fine, Erma Lee. Thanks.

Is Bill okay, Jonah? He don't speak often of his feelings.

He's good.

Oh the Lord, she said.

Oh the Lord, Jonah repeated but he was watching Virgil's wife Celeste and their daughter Charlotte. Celeste smiled at Jonah. The two women waited for Erma Lee to release him and when she was gone Celeste hugged him for a long time. Her hair was gray and her skin was warm. He saw Charlotte over Celeste's shoulder. She watched him but he closed his eyes. Celeste's touch was like climbing under a blanket and he pinched his tears away as Celeste stepped back.

Charlotte slid her arms around him. She was taller and thinner than her mother but smelled the same like salt and sage and he held her tight until she pulled away.

I'm sorry he won't get out of the truck, Jonah, Celeste said. She nodded toward Virgil.

Jonah smiled and shook his head. I'd think he'd be crawling into that grave himself if he come in here.

Your father would have wanted Osmond to minister this, Celeste said. She reached out and squeezed Jonah's forearm.

I know it. But ministering or not ministering, I ain't got to like him any more'n Virgil does.

He gives me the chills, Charlotte said then looked around as if the man named Osmond Randolph had snuck up behind her.

Come to the house afterward, Jonah, Celeste said. I don't want you going home alone. We have lobster and crab and mincemeat pies and all sorts of things, and there's the extra bedroom if you want.

Charlotte stuck the tip of her tongue out. A bead of water slid down the line of black hair that had fallen from beneath her hood. She raised her eyebrows at him and her eyes were red and somber and Jonah felt them in the pit of his stomach. Celeste grabbed Jonah's arm and the three of them followed the short pathway to the cemetery where Osmond Randolph stood guarding the wrought iron gate. He nodded to Jonah but did not speak. His black hair hung over his shoulders and his black robe clung to his chest and clung to his arms in the ripping wind. His two granddaughters stood at his side.

Once through the gates Celeste leaned close to Jonah and whispered, Charlotte made clam fritters. I'll be damned if she wasn't up early digging clams in the rain. You'll like them, Jonah. Please come over.

Jonah nodded. He noticed Bill making his way around the parked vehicles with a gang of fishermen following him. Bill smoked a cigarette and flicked the butt away and let the smoke ease from his nostrils and the other fishermen took that as a signal and tossed their own cigarettes into the grass. Bill nodded to Osmond and stopped next to Jonah and all of the fishermen found their wives or girlfriends and stood silent and awkward beside them. When the two dozen or more people were in the cemetery Osmond pulled the gate closed.