A Dredging in Swann

by Tim Garvin

  Then he set Fernando up front to sing the two eight-line solos with drone accompaniment, bracketed and ended by the unison chorus. Fernando did not have Shaun Davey’s gravel, but his accent added a halfway Irishy brightness, especially since Seb had worked with him to soften his too-sharp i’s.

  Then they took a break and went back to their chairs. Seb left the keyboard and stood before them for a few impromptu remarks about the song itself, running down its centuries-long history of revisions, remarking that its current version was, in his opinion, an almost perfectly written lyric. Consider the lines, he said, There’s many a comrade ere I had that’s sorry for my going away. And many a sweetheart ere I had would wish me one more day to stay. See how the two differ, he said, the men and women, the men expressing their usual manly sorrow, but the women—here he gave himself to sublimity—the women, the wells and storehouses of human feeling, how they plead, oh, one more day at least.

  The singers nodded and smiled. They recognized this was his effort at therapy, this unashamed making-public of the inner being. This was sponging in the yurt. They were grateful. They were enthused.

  They ran through it several more times until the muddiness became musicality, then ran through it again and were done. It was nearing ten o’clock.

  Ahmad, a tall, big-shouldered black man, whose throat was scarred with a wound and surgeries, took him aside and made another rasping plea for hip-hop, and couldn’t Seb write a little something, because he, Ahmad, now had over a dozen extremely vivid beats plus melodies worked up on his boom box, and did he, Seb, have time for a listen tonight? Seb said he would definitely listen soon, but not tonight. Tonight he had something going.

  They gathered their chairs into their customary circle. Seb stood in the center, turning as he spoke. He introduced Tom Rogers again and explained that this was the time they shot the shit, everyone speaking freely or not speaking.

  Rogers nodded and shrugged and watched. He and Seb had spoken privately before the practice, Seb inquiring if Tom, during his stretch in the brig, had run into a man named Grayson Kelly. He had not.

  Seb addressed the group, noting there were three more practices until their miniconcert on the base, when they would perform “Forever Young,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “The Rose,” and now “The Parting Glass.” Then he mentioned that the medical examiner’s wife, supposedly a fine singer, had expressed interest in performing with them, and was that something they wanted to consider? The proposal was met with silence. He said, “Okay, forget it. Now I need a favor. I want you guys to let me leave early.”

  Someone said, “Of course.”

  Someone else said, “What’s up?”

  Seb said, “I met a woman …” and paused to let the clamor go by. He said, “I don’t have a lot of time, and I …” Gloria rose, and, with her hands against his back, pushed him through the circle toward the door. She said, “Go on now. Go. Go.”

  Then the others took it up, “Go, go, go.”

  He smiled his gratitude and waved and left.

  It was after ten. As he drove along the inlet road toward Willow Creek, he realized he would soon pass Loman Creek Road, where Charlene lived, and where Cody lived in a rear trailer. He was already late for his planned drop-by at Mia’s, and as Loman Creek approached he did not slow.

  Then he braked hard, making a sliding turn onto the gravel road, and a hundred yards later turned into their driveway and parked behind Charlene’s SUV. He walked past Cody’s bike, past the garage and upturned boat, then up the path to the trailer. The lights were on. He heard the sound of the television.

  He rapped on the metal door. As it opened, he moved his face into the column of spilled light. He said, “Hey, Cody.”

  Cody said, “What the fuck …”

  “I was just heading home after the singers. You got a minute?”

  “I told you I’m not going …”

  “Yeah, I noticed you did not show up. Hey, you mind if I come in? Get eye-to-eye.”

  “There’s no place to sit.”

  Seb opened the door wider and stepped onto the first stair. “I’ll stand. That’s fine.”

  Cody said, “Hey, man …” But he backed up as Seb stepped onto the trailer floor.

  Seb glanced around the labyrinth of miscellaneous clutter. He said, “This place has a lived-in look.”

  Cody lifted his remote from the chair and paused the TV, which was showing a black-and-white Western. Seb pointed to the screen. “High Noon. You know what makes that a classic? Basically, it’s because Gary Cooper is not an asshole. Except maybe he could have stayed in town and forgiven those people. I hope I didn’t ruin the ending.”

  “I’ve seen it. What do you want?”

  “I promised Charlene I’d come by, and I didn’t think I should count seeing you at Elton’s tub yard. So here I am. Your sister says you’re maybe getting into something wrong. Right now I’m not a detective, and if a thousand flytraps fell out of your cupboards I wouldn’t even notice. She didn’t say flytraps. I’m guessing. I hope not dope.”

  “C’mon, man. You can’t just bust in here.”

  “I’m leaving. Unless you offer me a beer.”

  “I don’t have a beer.”

  “Okay then. Anyway, I invite you again to Pass the Salt. I need your baritone. So that’s one thing. The other thing is, for your sister’s sake, who has a big heart for you, do not fuck up. She shed tears of love for you today, Cody. Don’t break her heart. That’s my message.”

  Cody smiled. He made a small laugh. He picked up the remote, sank into his padded chair, and started the movie.

  He said, “Okay then.”

  A Giant Military

  Problem

  As Seb cruised past Jimmy Beagle’s Famous Floating Fish House, he spotted a slim figure crossing under the lightbulb on the suspension walkway and thought, that’s her, but wasn’t sure. He drove the hundred yards to Mia’s white barn studio, parked, looked through a window into the darkened gallery, then went down the wooden walkway and opened the door to the attached studio. He spoke loudly, “Mia?”

  The studio lights were all on, illuminating her throwing station and a clutter of ware shelves, carts, and canvas-covered tables. No one answered. It was her on the walkway then. She had something in her hands too, something in each hand, and it was beer bottles, definitely, so she and Jimmy Beagle were buddies. Seb and his father had bought minnows from Jimmy years ago. If he wasn’t dead, he was old, so why not drop by?

  The barge was a hundred feet of rusted steel and had been cut in two lengthwise so that it was only twenty feet wide. It was moored on piers and connected to the land with a suspension bridge and gangway leading to the barge deck. A couple of johnboats with small outboards were lashed to one end. The darkened bait shack sat in the center, and as Seb approached it he saw in the gibbous moonlight the land-facing signboard across the shack’s eaves. It had once read jimmy beagle’s famous floating fish house, hand-lettered red on white, but was faded to unreadable now. At the far end of the deck, he could make out two figures seated on white plastic chairs beside the cleaning counter.

  Jimmy’s voice said, “Help you, sir?”

  Seb started toward them, thinking what to say. He had a plan but had forgotten it. He said, “It’s Seb Creek. Is that Jimmy and Mia?”

  “Seb?” said Mia.

  As Seb approached, he thought he heard Jimmy say, Is that him? and Mia say, It sure is.

  Jimmy rose from his chair. He and Seb shook hands. Seb said, “My dad and I used to get minnows here. Like twenty years ago.”

  Jimmy nodded. “I been selling menhaden forever and ever. Till the creek closed up. Now if you want my minnows you about got to pole through. Menhaden still here, though not in abundance. That describes me in a fair way.” He made a polite chuckle. He was an elderly black man. In the moonlight, his face was like crumpled gray leather
. He wore dark pants, flip-flops, and a pale long-sleeved shirt. He gestured with his beer bottle. “I’m about finished with this beer, or I’d pour you a slug.”

  Mia said, “He can have a slug of mine, if he wants.”

  Seb said, “I hope I’m not intruding.”

  Jimmy said, “I believe I’m the one intruding now.”

  They laughed.

  Mia said, “Jimmy and I were talking about the helicopters that crashed. I wondered if you knew some of them.”

  “The names haven’t been released yet. I’ve been out of uniform for several years, but it’s possible.”

  Mia said, “I’ve been sad all day. I think because I just met a soldier.”

  Seb felt for a response. He could make a joke. He didn’t.

  “Look here,” Jimmy said. “I’m cleaning tanks. Let me get to it. Do you mind, Mia?”

  “Of course not,” said Mia, returning his formality. “Next time.”

  “Next time, Mia.” To Seb: “Nice to see you.”

  Seb said it was nice to see him again too, and Jimmy walked back to the bait shop fifty feet away. An interior light went on. A window cast a yellow rectangle on the rusty deck, and Mia’s face emerged from shadow. She was waiting. She smiled.

  Seb said, “I guess I ran him off.”

  “You did. But he was cleaning tanks when I got here.”

  “I saw you crossing the bridge.”

  “I wondered how you found me. Sit down. You want a pull from this beer?” She handed him the bottle. “Drink up. I’m done. I just saw Jimmy’s light on. We drink a beer now and then.”

  Seb drank an inch of beer from the half-full bottle, thinking of her lips on the smooth glass. He was alone in the moonlight with her. He offered the bottle back, but she declined with a gesture.

  He said, “It’s been twelve hours. I figured that was long enough.”

  She made a humming laugh. She said, “Have you tied someone to a tree? Or did you come with another intention?”

  He said, “I saw some guys today I wish I could tie to a tree. But yes, my intention is to ask you for a date.”

  “Okay. Let’s have a date.”

  Seb let out a long undisguised sigh. He polished off the beer and set it on the deck. “If I could have a wish, I would wish us ahead about six months. So I would feel braver.”

  She said, “I’m pretty terrifying.” Then she said, “I shouldn’t joke. It’s hard, starting something.”

  There was a silence. She said, “I was telling Jimmy about you.”

  “I thought I picked that up.”

  “You probably didn’t notice, but one of his arms is a little shorter than the other. That’s why he wears long-sleeved shirts. He was shot in the elbow in Viet Nam.”

  Seb looked into the dark bulk of water, then at her. He said, “You wanted to know about war, how it affects people?”

  “I didn’t want to ask you about it. But yes, I wanted to know, so I thought of Jimmy. I don’t know anything about it, except that it’s so … different than here.”

  “You go from the mall to killing strangers in a foreign country.”

  “Oh, God.”

  He let a silence go. If he talked, if he let the war come, the passion would come too. He said, “Eventually, if we get to know each other, I’ll tell you all about it.” He could say, that’s why I’m here, and then thought, that’s not true though. He was here because he liked her. He smiled at that thought.

  She said, “This is such a hard subject to think about. I guess that’s why we don’t think about it.”

  He said, “It’s the farthest thing from home that we do. From our humanity. Back here, you do a guy a favor, just some ordinary thing you might do, you pass the salt, and in war, that same guy, you shoot him. Or he shoots you. In the singers, we try to reconnect the parts. The savage part that does the killing. That wants to kill, even. And the deeper place that doesn’t. Because war cuts you right in two. It’s a giant military problem, when you think about it. They can send you to war, but they can’t bring you home.”

  It was time to breathe. He gestured with his hands and now felt her warm hand hold his and squeeze and release. That she released was wise and granted his privacy.

  She said, “Do you know the World War I story about Christmas in the trenches?”

  “I know it and prize it. It freaked the generals out. But can that be enough about war and Seb? To tell you the truth, I sort of despise talking about it. Not because of guilt or anything, but … I don’t know …”

  “Because it’s sacred. You can’t walk there with words.”

  “Oh, man.” He flushed and breathed away tears. One day he would tell her about the land of love and explanation, the place he had visited when he was dead for six minutes. He said, “Is it enough?”

  “It’s enough, sure.”

  “I’m basically a happy guy. I want to tell you jokes. And talk about movies.”

  She touched the back of his hand. She said, “You have an X on the back of your hand.”

  “Yes, I do. That’s a reminder to buy our secretary a rose. She did me a favor.” He looked at her. She was waiting, offering silence.

  He asked her about her work then, about selling at art fairs and about galleries, about the packing and shipment of delicate ceramics. She answered clearly and courteously, but the lightness of the subject contrasted with war and made his questions seem trivial. Finally he was quiet. Her hand rested on her thigh. He reached and grazed the back of his hand across the top of hers. He wanted to stand and draw her up and embrace her. He resisted. He said, “So how about a date could be we go fishing? Take a boat, maybe go out by the ocean.”

  She lifted her face into the moonlight, smiled unwillingly. Her face was concentrated.

  It was the death of fish, he thought. He said, “It could be that you have an issue with fishing.”

  “Well, not so much an issue …”

  “Are you vegetarian?”

  “I am actually. I could watch you fish.”

  “Watch me kill fish?”

  She made a warm smirk.

  He said, “I mostly let them go. Did you know Jacques Cousteau didn’t fish? He thought it was wrong to kill fish for sport. How’s this? We go on a picnic, go out to the ocean.”

  “We could rent one of Jimmy’s boats.”

  “We could go for an ocean walk, search up some pretty shells. It’s cold for swimming, but we could wade.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  He said, “So good. Now I better head out. I need to sleep. Unless you want to tell me about your brother.”

  “Another time. He’s quite nice. He’s a reporter, and I have two sweet nieces.”

  They stood. They started toward the fish shack and the walkway behind it.

  She said, “We haven’t given our date a date. I know you must be busy. I heard on the news the death has become a murder.”

  They passed the front of the fish house, where Jimmy was bent into a tank. They stopped at the ramp entrance to the suspension bridge. Seb said, “I’m definitely pinched for time. I’ve been running around all day.”

  She said, “Do you have a suspect?”

  “Lots of them. What’s your schedule like?”

  “I’m fairly free. I teach on Wednesday evening is all.”

  “Okay. I’ve got lots of comp time, so any good weather day we see coming. I look forward to it.”

  “Thanks for stopping by.”

  They hesitated, both waiting to see whether a kiss was next.

  She said, “Seb, let me kiss you. But don’t kiss me back. Just for now.”

  “Okay.”

  She leaned, raised her face, and lightly pressed her lips to his. He stood obediently impassive.

  She smiled. She said, “Now kiss me back, but just a little.”


  They kissed. He held her cheeks with fingertips. He felt her warm breath. They parted.

  She said, “It’s a sign of sincerity to kiss back just a little.”

  He smiled. He said, “I wouldn’t mind kissing back a little more.”

  She laughed. “That’s a sign of something else.”

  A Table of Splinters

  Cody’s sister knocked on his door at seven Monday morning, off to school. She kissed him, asked him not to paint the gardenias blue, frowned at the flytraps he was arranging on his kitchen table, and, because she had seen his Mylar-taped umbrella hanging in the garage, told him his deer-blind idea was impressive and a possible moneymaker. He told her he was planning to get some spray paint to camo it up. A lie about a lie. He had altered his plans. A Mylar sneak was too risky. He was going to run.

  He phoned his extract buyers and asked them to make an exception, come to him this time, but they wouldn’t budge. The overcurrent was, we’re businessmen buying from a nursery. The undercurrent was, you’re a poacher, and in North Carolina flytrapping has gone felony. So he set up a three o’clock in the Marriott parking lot north of Richmond. That gave him time for a bank run to collect his twenty grand from the safety-­deposit box, time for the drive, time for a fast chat with Keisha at Walmart. Take her to the bathroom, show her the stash, inform her it would soon be twenty-five. Then, please Keisha, come to Canada. Canada instead of Mexico because of its beauty and lost northern regions and English. You can go to college in Canada with this amazing amount of money. The reason, Keisha, is that I am a hunted bandit! I have stolen a missile system! An impossible scene to accomplish on a bathroom break. So call her instead. I have fled, Keisha. I am a fool. Meet me in Canada.