Of Sea and Cloud (7 page)

Yeah, Jonah said. His voice was noncommittal and Virgil didn't appear to have heard him.

I don't trust Osmond, Jonah. Something's not right. Something doesn't add up. Virgil took a deep breath and squeezed the steering wheel with both hands as he released the breath. Anyway, supper'll be on if you got nothing for dinner.

I'm just having a sandwich and going to bed I think, Virgil. Thanks anyway.

Jonah opened the door and climbed out but before he shut the door Virgil stopped him. Jonah, he said and turned his face so their eyes met. You did good today. Got me? The hell with Osmond Randolph.

Erma Lee was standing on the couch when Bill opened the door. She wore a tight pair of jeans and a pink sweater. She held a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other and she pounded the nail into the Sheetrock and missed. Half-moons speckled the wall. Sheetrock dust lay scattered across the couch cushions.

The room was different than it had been that morning. Pictures of her parents and grandparents and cousins and friends hung on the wall. All of the pictures were framed and most of the shots were posed with blue or gray backdrops.

By Jesus, Erma Lee. What're you doing?

Don't talk like that to me. She walked across the cushions with her feet in pink ankle socks and stood on the armrest and said, Catch me. She jumped and he caught her and with her came the smell that he loved. It was her hair or her skin, he didn't know which. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and wrapped her mouth over his earlobe and he felt a shiver in his side as she softly bit down.

He carried her across the room and put his lunchbox on the counter and glimpsed the pictures covering the refrigerator and the ornaments on the windowsill and the line of stuffed animals on top of the cabinets. She still had his earlobe in her mouth.

You been busy, he said.

I'm getting busier, Captain.

Seems so. He rested his hands on her waist and pushed softly but she didn't budge.

I'm a monkey.

You ain't a monkey, he said. He pushed harder. You know I hate monkeys.

You don't either, Bill. She kissed down his neck and around his jawline.

Down to Argentina they got guided monkey hunts.

No they don't either. You can't kill no monkey, Bill.

They got monkeys all round the equator. I'd like just to beat one once.

Argentina ain't the equator, and you can't beat no monkey, Bill. They're too cute.

They got bald asses.

That's a baboon with a bald ass.

I hate them too. He sat down on the couch with her on his lap and she leaned back so they could look at each other. What's that smell?

That smell is dinner.

What is it?

Erma Lee was small and her weight on his thighs was barely noticeable.

It's casserole, she said.

We just had casserole.

And we didn't finish it, so this night we got us a casserole made of a casserole.

A casserole casserole?

She nodded and smiled and wiggled. Her cheeks were red and her eyes dark and her hair curled down over her neck. Bill smiled as he looked at her and he put his hand on the back of her neck. She frowned and her chin grew a neat cluster of wrinkles.

Don't you like what I done with the house? Ain't it a home now, Bill?

Erma Lee, he started but didn't know what to say.

And I got more to do, but that's enough for today.

More? No more pictures I'm hoping.

That's my family, Bill, and you and them are going to be like you and Jonah are.

I don't know about that.

You will because we got a infant coming and my family's that infant's family. And speaking of family, I got a question for you that's been nagging, Bill.

I would imagine you do.

It's not funny, she said and her voice was serious and her face concerned. It's how come Jonah's called the Highliner when you say he don't catch nothing?

Bill laughed. He took his glasses off and wiped his eyes and shook his head from side to side. Jesus Christ, Erma Lee, he said.

What's funny about that?

He catches some. He does all right.

But why's he called the Highliner?

It's just a joke. Like calling a fat guy Slim or something. Jonah's just kind of lazy. He don't hang down.

Well don't laugh at me. I didn't know, she said and she paused and looked at him with her head tilted to the side. What? Ain't you happy I got moved in quick?

He put his glasses on and ran his hands up her sides. It's just that I didn't know you was moving in. I thought you were staying here for a bit. Like a trial.

A trial.

Yeah. Ain't that what we discussed? A trial.

Me getting knocked up weren't a trial, Bill. And this is a trial? I can't have a trial without feeling like I'm home or ain't nothing'll work.

Christ. So long as we're clear.

We're clear all right, Captain. But I got more news for you. Ain't you happy?

What is it? You done found that sports car you're buying with your mystery money?

No. I want for you to guess. She slid off his lap and dropped down to her knees in front of him and set her chin on his knee.

I ain't guessing about nothing. I guess all day on the boat and now I'll be guessing down to the pound and what I want is to come home and be damned sure about every damned thing in my house. If I ain't damned sure about my home then I ain't coming home.

Aren't you tough? She hissed like a cat and ran her pink nails across his cheek. You good and well better be sure about things, Bill.

Not with this guessing horseshit I ain't.

Well then I won't have you guess no more. That smell coming from the oven is a tuna casserole and a fresh chicken flavor mixed in for tonight.

Christ, Erma Lee, I didn't know I was guessing as to your casserole.

Erma Lee laughed to herself. There's other news too, she said and smiled at him. I made friends with Celeste and Charlotte today. Celeste was awful pleased with us living together.

All I said is we could have us a fucking trial, not that we were living together.

When you done this, she said and leaned back and jutted her pelvis out, when you done this you said a lot and if you ain't ready for it then tough because you got no choice now.

That? Hell. Bill ran his hands through his hair and breathed in and out to settle himself. Well I need some help feeding down to the pound.

Now?

Yeah now. Them lobsters'll eat each other before dawn.

I got a casserole in.

You always got a casserole doing something. Just put the fucker on warm, Erma Lee. I need help.

Fine, she said. I'm only here to help you, my liege.

What?

Nothing. Is Osmond going to be there? It's spooky you being partners with him, Bill.

Why's it spooky?

Bill pictured Jonah cutting Osmond's traps.

Why's it spooky, Bill? I heard he can dream things. Erma Lee lowered her voice and her head lowered at the same time so she looked at Bill through the tops of her eyes. She spread her hands across her cheeks like a child hiding behind them and said, His eyes get moving when he dreams and when he wakes up he knows everything we do.

Dreams things? He dream up the things you and me do? He dream that thing we done in the truck the other night? He dream that?

She hit him on the chest. Ain't nobody knows about that, Bill. Just you and me.

That's right, excepting Osmond who dreamt about Erma Lee Carver doing that. His eyes would've been moving like a tilt-a-whirl at the fair he dreamt that.

Erma Lee glared at him.

Hell, he'd want you for his own if he dreamt you doing them things you done with me.

That ain't funny at all, Bill. Not one bit. There's a line you're crossing and I'm not taking any of your bullshit. Just like Celeste said.

My bullshit?

Erma Lee nodded.

Bill thought it over and nodded and said, Fine.

• • •

The air was thick with salt and seaweed. A cold breeze blew across the harbor and the wharf light bounced on the ripples. The moon had yet to rise and the sky was black but shot with stars. They drove in silence past Virgil's house and past Jonah's trailer and down the rough pound road and parked in front of the building. They could see the dark mouth of the harbor on their right and the open ocean out beyond the Burnt Island causeway.

They sat in the truck with the radio on. They held hands with their fingers spliced. The wind was increasing and gusts of air drove across the Atlantic and rose over the island and causeway. The small trees on the island swayed and the pound water stood in rips like the curl of reaching hands.

I used to feed with the old man, Bill said. I been here only a couple times since he went. I suppose I could've got Jonah to help feed earlier, but I didn't. I just didn't.

Erma Lee pulled her hand from his and placed it on his thigh and squeezed. I'm sorry about your dad, Bill. I know you two was best friends too.

Bill rocked his head from side to side. The pound was dark but in the distance he could see the open shining gut of sea. It wasn't far across. Just through the mouth of the Bay of Fundy and there was Nova Scotia. On certain days when he was far offshore he could see a cloudbank hovering over Nova Scotia and sometimes the ocean wasn't that big.

Bill blinked. He remembered what they were there for. They got out of the truck and Erma Lee stood above the black pound water while Bill slid the pound house door open. The room smelled pungent and sweet like salt cod. He flipped a breaker and a series of overhead lights turned on. The building was twenty by forty and stuffed full of plastic fish trays holding 100 pounds each of cod racks. The racks were all that remained of the fish after being processed for fillets in the Canadian fish houses and they were dried and salted like jerky. Bill flicked a breaker and the floodlights outside illuminated the driveway and water and dam. Erma Lee stepped inside as he slid a side door open and they both looked across the pound water.

You ever been in love before, Bill? Before me I mean?

Bill took a steel rod with a handle on one end and a hook on the other from the wall and hooked a blue fish tray and dragged it loud and scratching across the dry concrete floor and out the door to the ledge above the pound. The tide was down and it was a fifteen-foot drop to the feed scow. The scow was an eight-foot-by-eight-foot raft with an outboard motor bolted to the stern. He tipped the tray over the edge and dumped the fish racks. The scow bucked and settled. He went for another tray.

Bill? I asked you something.

I know it, he said. He slid a tray from a stack six high and he hooked it and dragged it across the floor. I'm thinking, he said.

How much you got to think about that? I know you was with Bobbi-Jo for a full year or more.

Bill dumped the fish out and tossed the tray on top of the first one. So?

Well I'm asking if you loved her.

I don't know, Erma Lee, hell. Did you love Randy or Clifford or any of them boys?

That ain't fair, Bill. That ain't fair at all.

He stopped in front of her and held the hook with the fish tray in tow. Sweat trickled down his temple and he wiped it with his shoulder. Now you're going to have to spell out to me why that ain't fair.

They was just quick boyfriends. Not real loves.

So Bobbi-Jo Norton was a real love and Clifford Beal weren't?

I knew it, she said.

Bill dragged the tray outside and dumped it on the scow. When he turned around he said, I thought I loved her but I was a kid.

It was only a year ago, Bill.

I done grew quick. Now shut up about it and do something.

What should I do?

See that dark spot on the wall? He pointed. Where the knot's at on the wood?

Yeah, I see it.

Lean your forehead on it till I'm ready for you.

Ain't you gonna pay for that, she said and turned so red that he had to smile. She backed away as he approached her and when she'd backed against the wall her eyes darkened. She held her elbows out as he hugged her and she turned her cheek when he tried to kiss her.

I do love you, he said.

You better love me. You're a baboon about it though.

She watched him in silence as he dragged six more trays across the room and dumped them onto the scow. He grabbed a shovel from the wall and said, Come on down.

He climbed down the wooden ladder to the scow. He pulled the pin on the outboard and lowered the prop into the water and turned the fuel on and opened the air valve on the gas tank and choked it and pulled it three times before it started.

Erma Lee followed him down and stepped hesitantly onto the wooden scow. The stern sank and water came up to their ankles with both of them on it. Bill throttled the engine to keep it running as a cloud of blue two-stroke smoke rose around him.

Untie her, he said.

She worked the knot on the stern free and Bill left the outboard and walked with the shovel over the pile of fish racks and untied the bow. He pushed it off and said, Okay, you drive.

I can't drive this thing, Bill.

Twist the throttle and point where you want to go.

She twisted the throttle and the engine wound hard but they didn't move.

Hold on, Bill yelled. Hold on.

The engine wound at full throttle.

Christ, he yelled and climbed back over the fish and turned the throttle down. The engine quieted. Be gentle, he said, and he turned it partway. Like a car. You ain't got to have her in the bucket the whole time. Go slow.

We didn't go nowhere.

You got to put it in gear. He flicked a small lever and turned the throttle and they motored away from the wall.

Well you neglected that information.

He went back to the bow. Now just go slow around the pound and don't run her aground.

Where's the ground?

The fucking edge. Don't hit the edge. Keep her in the water.