Of Sea and Cloud (34 page)

Seems you're the one needs protected, Julius said.

• • •

Back in the house Julius eased into Rhonda and Dolly's room and sat in the darkness on the bed beside Dolly and shook her shoulder until she awoke. She blinked her eyes until they focused on him then she sprung up and wrapped her small arms around his neck.

Get up, he said. Grandfather's making waffles.

Waffles, Dolly said. I'll awake Rhonda.

Let her sleep awhile. We'll get her up when breakfast is ready. Julius stood. You get dressed.

Dolly came out wearing pink overalls and a short sleeve shirt and she sat in a chair at the table. Osmond wore a red striped apron and he mixed waffle batter at the counter. Wind pelted the windows. The air had warmed enough that a few flakes of snow came.

What happened to you, Julius? Dolly said. Did you get hurt like Grandfather?

I got beat up, he said.

You got beat up?

Yeah. Can you imagine?

I can't, said Dolly. Why'd you get beat up, Julius?

I fell in love with the wrong girl and she already had a boyfriend.

Osmond stopped what he was doing and looked at Julius with his mouth open as if hearing for the first time something that he did not already know. He held the whisk in the air and let the egg whites flop back into the bowl and a light that had not been in him for a long time suddenly turned on and he allowed himself a brief moment of hope.

You fell in love with a girl? Dolly said.

I sure did.

Who is it?

Her name is Charlotte. Isn't that a pretty name?

It's beautiful, Dolly said and she said the word slowly. Are you going to marry her?

I hope so.

Enough, Osmond said.

Why, Grandfather? Dolly said.

Enough now. The Lord will decide those things.

Can't Julius decide who he loves?

The Lord has already decided. Long, long ago. Now awaken Rhonda and she will help cook these waffles.

I'll get her, Julius said and he went into the room and came out with Rhonda in his arms. Her arms were tight around his neck. White drool crusted along the edges of her mouth. He sat her at the table but she refused to let go of his neck. He tried gently to unwrap her handhold but she clung to him with locked fingers and from deep within her came a whining sound as he tried to free himself. He stood and she dangled like a drapery from his neck and she bucked and writhed and would not let go.

Osmond lifted Rhonda by her armpits and Julius slid from her grasp. Her whine increased and Osmond turned her in his arms and hugged her tight to his chest as the whine turned to a cry and a scream.

Dolly took a pencil from a jar of pencils and wrote her name over and over on a piece of scrap paper. Julius looked out the window and wished he had a magnet that could lift the water from the sea so he could see each lobster hidden there. Osmond danced the screaming girl around the room and whispered to her and she screamed and he danced and he whispered as her body shook as if gripped by seizure. He hummed to her and sang to her and danced her around and around and around the room and he cupped the back of her small head in his hand and touched his cheek to hers and he danced and he danced and she finally calmed. She held his neck in her arms. He wet a cloth and wiped her face. He pushed two chairs over to the wood cookstove and sat her in one. Dolly climbed on the other and Osmond poured batter into the cast-iron waffle iron and the girls watched.

They were all silent as Osmond drove Julius home. He watched Julius's bloodied face out of the corner of his eye. He felt silence heavy as chain. When they reached Julius's house they sat for a moment in the truck.

Osmond said, Please let this battle end before it is a war, Julius. We have the pound to worry about. The price won't get any better. I am old but you will need that pound to survive. Fishing alone will not last, Julius, and we will need to insulate ourselves. You will need the pound and you will need the market that Jason can organize. We don't need more problems with Virgil and the boys.

They ain't got the guts.

They nearly killed you, Julius. I don't believe guts are an issue for them.

Well, these things are up to the Lord aren't they?

The Lord is speaking.

Ain't He always.

Yes, Julius, yes He is. Always.

Does He always speak through you?

Osmond sighed. He speaks through you as well, only you do not listen. He speaks through everything. He is everything, Julius.

I thought He was a old guy on a cloud with a lightning bolt in His hand, Julius said. He put his fingers on the door latch but he didn't open the door.

This is the Lord, Julius. You and me and everything around. The Lord is not man nor woman, good nor evil. The Lord is what allows your chest to beat and the wind to blow. The Lord is the tides, Julius. You only need to be quiet long enough to listen and once you hear you will believe. You will have faith, Julius. You will be free.

Huh, Julius said. He opened the door and stepped onto the driveway. I suppose if He's diesel power then I'll start believing but till then the god I believe in is Mister John Deere and he's a lean mean diesel-sucking sonofawhore.

Jonah stood beside a birch tree. He leaned his head against the white flaking bark and he watched Virgil's taillights disappear in two red streams. A breeze fitted itself between the trees. He lit a cigarette but it tasted bad and he dropped it into the snow and watched the ember sizzle dead. He stepped onto the road and turned toward the wharf with the intention of walking to his camp but after a dozen steps he stopped. Through a break in the trees he could see Bill's house across the harbor. The lights shone over the snow and onto the water.

All was quiet as he walked through the village. The old farmhouses with barns attached by breezeways looked like vacant relics and Jonah had the feeling that time had ended.

He knocked once and opened Bill's door.

Bill stood halfway then sat back down. Jonah, he said. He shut the television off and dropped the remote on the coffee table. What're you doing? You seen a ghost? You get your highliner ass kicked?

Jonah touched a finger to his swollen ear. Near it. I seen Julius. And I seen Virgil.

Bill went to the kitchen and returned with two cans of beer. He handed one to Jonah. Jonah pulled his boots off and crossed the carpet and stood with his back to the wood stove. He knocked the stove damper open with his toe and the heat beat the shots of fresh air into flame.

What about it?

Jonah drank down half the beer and wiped his face although he didn't feel capable of tears. Fucking Virgil, Bill. He done it. This whole time it was him who done it.

Him what? Done what?

• • •

Bill didn't speak for a long time. His jaw muscles worked. He lit a cigarette and smoked half of it and the smoke lingered about his head. He said, Virgil's fucking nuts, Jonah, but I keep thinking maybe he's right about Osmond. Don't you think? What if he is? Jonah?

• • •

That night Jonah slept on Bill's couch. He dreamed of his father floating in a flat calm sea with his arms at his sides. Nicolas was emaciated but pumped with small and tight muscles the size of scallops. His veins rose into blue swollen tracks. A blanket of water spread over him. Their mother was in the dream and she floated beside her husband and she turned her eyes on Jonah and cried,
What have you done, Jonah? What have you done?
He awoke on the couch and he was glazed in sweat and the blanket was on the floor and flames piled against the glass door on the wood stove. He sat up and wiped his face and body down with his T-shirt then held the shirt on his knee. He heard his brother's snores come tumbling down the hallway.

• • •

The next morning. Wind blasted the house and sea smoke swirled and rushed in legions over the water. A bank of clouds like a mountain range stood at the other end of the sea. Jonah lay on the couch watching the flames in the stove. His face was sore from the hits Julius had dealt him. He felt a stabbing pain in his ribs. His head pounded and he was exhausted. He wanted to sleep the day through but he knew he couldn't sleep another minute.

He could hear the squawking and honking of eiders in the harbor and he hoped Julius wasn't frozen solid aboard Osmond's boat. He rolled to his good side and ran a hand over the couch cushion and looked out at the snow surrounding the harbor. It was high water and the tide was slack. The water was gold in the sunlight and rimmed with sheets of salt ice. A fox stepped out of the woods and ran across the ice and rounded a small spit of land. A flock of whistlers burst from the cove and flew overhead and even inside the house Jonah could hear the noise of their flight.

Jonah pictured Virgil dumping the body. He pictured the skull he'd found. He pictured swarms of lobsters like troops racing across the seafloor to join the frenzy of feeding on his father and his stomach turned and he tried to force the image away but still his mind filled with the silent and dark movement of lobsters.

He dressed. He sat at the counter and looked at the harbor. The
Cinderella
and
Gale Warnings
were on their moorings and the dream-image of his father with scalloped muscles and swollen veins came back to him and so did his mother's voice calling,
What have you done, Jonah? What have you done?

Charlotte parked in Julius's driveway. She knocked on his door. He didn't answer and she knocked again. When he still didn't answer she opened the door and called for him.

Yeah, he said.

Can I come in?

Yeah, he said.

She stepped inside and shut the door and took off her jacket. The coffee table was upside down and two chairs were tipped over. She saw splashes of blood on the carpet.

Julius came out of the bedroom wearing sweatpants but no shirt. She saw his black lobster tattoo. His lips were swollen and cracked and the side of his neck was bruised purple and yellow and his wrists were burned where the ropes had chafed. His knuckles were swollen and crusted in blood and several fingers were wrapped in a bloody bandage.

He stood in front of her and smiled.

Oh my God, she said. Jesus Christ. What happened?

She stepped to him and ran her finger over his lips and stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips gently into his.

It ain't bad, he said.

She lifted his wrist and examined the bandage. Did Jonah do this? He did, didn't he? Oh my God, I'm so sorry. This is my fault.

No it ain't, he said. It's not about you.

Yes it is, she said. He still loves me and he's jealous. He wants to get married and have kids and things.

He thinks I sank his boat, Julius said.

But you didn't?

Julius sat on the couch and Charlotte sat next to him. He pulled the remote from the cushion and turned the television on. You don't want to have kids? he said.

Not now. Probably not ever.

What do you want now?

Nothing, I guess. I want to move. I want to be on my own. What do you want?

Just what I have. Just to go lobster fishing.

I bet you want your dad out of jail, don't you? Or your mom back.

No, Julius said. He flicked through the channels.

Charlotte pulled her feet up beneath her and put her hand on Julius's head with her fingers driven into his tuft of hair. She pulled slightly. Did you sink Jonah's boat?

He faced her. Them boys ain't as tough as they think.

That wasn't the question. She pulled his hair harder.

So you think I'd sink Jonah's boat because of you? You don't trust me.

Answer the question.

His tongue flicked out of his mouth and ran over his scaled lips. His pupils were small and dark despite the dark room. No, he finally said. I don't want a thing to do with them.

She released his hair and put her hands in her lap. Julius flicked through the channels on the television then dropped the remote on the cushion.

He said, So what do you dream about?

What do I dream about? I don't know, I guess. I dream about lots of things. I used to have a nightmare that my mom and dad got a divorce.

I dream about water, Julius said.

Water?

Like I'm underwater but there's no me. I'm part of the water or something. I just see water everywhere. And hear it too. Sometimes I think that's what the Lord is. The water and the tides.

Charlotte stared in disbelief. You always dream that?

All the time, he said. You just have to be quiet long enough to let it happen. As soon as my head hits the pillow the water turns on. I bet you never met anyone like that before. Who dreams he's water.

No.

Just me, Julius said. That's it.

What color is the water?

Blue and green. Like water is. No bubbles or nothing. Julius looked away and thought for a moment then turned back to Charlotte and put his hand on her knee.

So who sank Jonah's boat then? she said.

I don't know. You don't believe me. You think I did it.

You're the obvious conclusion.

Jonah's boat goes to bottom and everyone thinks it's me? Just because I just got my new boat is why. That's the only reason. Jonah acts all nice on dry land but get him on the water and he's a mean bastard. Hell, him and your father both broke down my door and did this. I don't want a battle to be a war.

I know, said Charlotte. She got up and went into the kitchen and came back with a wet paper towel. We should clean those lips up some, she said and stooped over him and held the wet towels out like showing a bone to a strange dog. Julius didn't move and she dabbed at his lips. He didn't seem to feel anything and when she finished wiping them clean he reached up and pulled her by the hips toward him. She leaned over him and her hair hit his shoulders. He pulled her knees apart and eased her down so she straddled him. He ran his hands up her back and beneath her shirt. She kissed the broken lips gently then kissed his cheek and he flinched as she approached the bruised side of his neck.