by Pat Conroy
“It’s going to be a little chillier than we planned, Grandpa,” I yelled to him as I fed the towrope out behind the boat. “The sun went behind the clouds and it looks like rain. We can put it off.”
“They’ll be waiting at the public dock,” Amos said, taking the towbar into his hands, getting a good grip.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s incoming tide all the way, so we don’t have to worry as much about sandbars. We’re going on a straight line whenever we can and we’re going as fast as this boat will take us.”
“You think I should just slalom all the way to Colleton?” he asked.
“You’re going to need two skis before it’s over,” I said.
“But I could really show some style when I finished.”
“No, Grandpa,” I said. “And, remember, I’m going to be tossing you oranges during the trip.”
“I’ve never heard of eating no oranges when you’re just out skiing.”
“You aren’t just out skiing, Grandpa,” I said over the engine’s idle. “You’re going forty miles and you’re going to need some fluid in you. Now, you watch for those oranges. If one hits you in the head, we’ll be burying you at sea.”
“It sounds funny to me,” he said.
“You listen to the coach,” I said, flashing him a thumbs-up sign. “You ready, old man?”
“Don’t call me ‘old man,’ ” he said.
“I won’t call you an old man if you’re still standing when we hit Colleton,” I called out to him as he pointed the skis skyward.
“What’ll you call me then, Tom?” he shouted.
“I’ll call you one hell of an old man,” I screamed as Luke hit the throttle and we headed south along the waterfront where a small crowd had gathered to watch the beginning of my grandfather’s trip. They cheered when he lifted out of the water smoothly, and leaving the wake behind the boat, he cut toward them and sprayed them with a sheet of water as he made a dazzling angling turn back toward the boat.
“No tricks,” I shouted as he began jumping the sharp rims of the wake and, keeping the line taut, raced out along the water until he was almost even with us in the boat.
“The kid’s still got it,” he shouted, screaming over the noise of the motor.
He did not settle into the serious business of pacing himself until we turned into Stancil Creek and entered South Carolina waters. Then, he moved behind the boat and let it do most of the work for him. I kept an eye on my grandfather and Luke watched the channel markers as we passed the small islands with their trees arranged on the sunless shores as the water changed from pale jade to a metallic gray. You could feel the sun shopping around for an opening in the massed cumulus, but you could also see the thunderheads, hive-shaped and ominous, gathering darkly to the north.
Behind us, my grandfather stood erect on his skis, his arms and legs thin and functional, like a set of number-two pencils. There were no soft places on Amos and his body contained that surprising strength one associates with coiled wire. His forearms and triceps strained in graphic bas-relief against the tension of the towrope. His face and neck and arms were dark; his shoulders were shy and pale. As the day darkened and the temperature dropped, his flesh developed a slight bluish color like the tinges of azure in wild birds’ eggs. After the tenth mile, he was gaunt and shivering and old. But he was still up and he was wonderful.
“He looks like death warmed over,” Luke shouted to me. “Try to get him an orange.”
With a pocket knife I cut a quarter-inch hole into the top of an Indian River orange and walked to the stern of the boat. I held it up for him and he nodded that he understood.
I tossed the orange straight up into the air, but I misjudged the height and it sailed far over his head and Amos almost went down as he tried to leap for it.
“Don’t jump, Grandpa,” I screamed to him. “Let it come to you.”
I wasted three oranges before I got his range and speed figured out and he caught the fourth one like an outfielder leaning over the fence to rob some power hitter of a home run. Luke’s arm went up in a gesture of victory when Amos caught it, and Amos sucked that orange dry and emptied it of pulp before he let it drop like bright tissue into the waters behind him. The orange seemed to revive his spirits and he jumped the wake a few times and sat down on his skis while holding the towbar with one hand before we got him calmed down again.
“Mile fifteen,” Luke said as we passed the buoy light that marked our entrance into Hanahan Sound.
There are times you can watch the stuff your family is made of, and this was one of those times. In Amos’s eyes, we could see the grit and resolution granted in supreme distillation throughout the Wingo gene pool and it made us proud to be the son of his son. At the twenty-mile mark, he was shivering and his deep-set eyes were smoky like ruined aspic. But his skis still cut through the water like blades injuring a pure surface of enamel. He was shivering and exhausted, but he was still up, still moving toward Colleton.
He did not fall until we reached Colleton Sound and the waters were roiled by the approaching storm and we could see lightning scissoring through the clouds to the north.
“He’s down,” I called to Luke.
“Get in the water with him, Tom,” Luke said as he turned the boat in a wide circle and cut the engine to idle as we approached Amos.
I jumped into the water beside him, holding a newly opened orange above my head and taking care that no salt water entered the hole I had just cut.
“How’re you doing, Grandpa?” I asked as I swam up to him.
“Sasser’s right,” Amos answered, and I could hardly hear his voice. “I’m cramping up.”
“Where are you cramping, Grandpa?” I said. “Don’t worry. Not every water-skier carries his own masseur along with him.”
“I’m one big cramp,” he said. “I got toes that I never felt before cramping. My teeth are even cramping and they ain’t even mine.”
“Eat this orange, lie back, and let me work on the body,” I said.
“No use,” he said. “I’ve been beaten.”
Luke had maneuvered the boat up beside us and I could hear it idling as I began to massage my grandfather’s arms and neck.
“He says he’s going to quit, Luke,” I said.
“No, he isn’t,” Luke said.
“I’m licked, Luke,” Amos said.
“Then you got a big problem, Grandpa,” Luke shouted down to Amos.
“How’s that, Luke?” my grandfather asked, moaning as my hands worked to soften the knotted muscles in his arms.
“I figure it’s a lot easier to ski the ten miles to Colleton than it is to swim them same ten miles,” Luke said.
As he said it, he held up his own driver’s license and said, “There’s one of these waiting for you just a little bit up the river, Grandpa. And I want to see that shit-eating look on Sasser’s young face when we come tearing up that river.”
Amos shouted, “Work on the legs, Tom. And throw me down another one of those sweet-tasting oranges, Luke. I swear I never knew an orange could taste so right.”
“Take off your skis, Grandpa,” I said. “I’m going to massage your feet.”
“I’ve always had the prettiest feet,” he said, half delirious.
“Strong feet, too, Grandpa,” I whispered. “Strong enough to go ten miles.”
“Think about Jesus walking up to Calvary,” Luke said, his voice blooming from above. “Think if he had just quit, Grandpa. Where would the world be now? He was strong when he needed to be. Ask Him to help you.”
“He didn’t water-ski up to Calvary, boys,” my grandfather gasped. “The times were different.”
“But he would have if it was necessary, Grandpa,” Luke encouraged. “He’d have done anything to redeem mankind. He didn’t quit. That was the whole point. He wouldn’t quit.”
“Massage my neck again, Tom,” my grandfather said with his eyes closed and his mouth around the orange. “It’s mighty sore, son.”
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sp; “Just relax, Grandpa,” I said, moving around to massage his temple and his neck. “Just float with the life jacket and let all the muscles rest.”
“You’ve always gone three hours on Good Friday,” said Luke. “You’ve never quit in your life. Tomorrow you can take the whole family for a ride in the Ford.”
“Speak for yourself, Luke,” I said as my fingers dug into my grandfather’s shoulders. “Throw down that canteen and let me give Grandpa some water.” He floated in my arms like a man asleep until he heard Luke say, “Better get in the boat, Grandpa. You just made Sasser the happiest man in South Carolina.”
“Bring me that towrope, son,” he said, his eyes opening suddenly. “And I don’t want to hear no more lip from my grandsons.”
“It’s rough water from here on out, Grandpa,” I said.
“That’ll make it sweeter when you pull me through town,” he said.
I got back in the boat and played out the towrope again, hand over hand, and fed it out to Amos until the line was taut and seemed to be connected to his navel. When I saw his skis rise up on each side of the rope, I shouted, “Now,” and Luke hit the throttle and the boat shot forward through the rough waters. This time Amos came up like a man dying, an altered, quivering man blanched white by spray and exhaustion. He fought the rope, the waves, the storm, himself. The storm broke over us now and it rained so hard Amos dissolved behind us in illusory contours like the shape of a man in a badly focused negative. Lightning slashed at the islands and the thunder indentured the river with an amazing voice of negation. Rainwater flooded my eyes and Luke drove blindly, but with a perfect knowledge of depths and tides, as I watched the dim figure of my grandfather wage war against time and the storm.
“Are we killing him?” I cried out to Luke.
“It’ll kill him if he doesn’t make it,” Luke screamed.
“Down again,” I called as I saw Amos take a wave badly and get caught off balance as the next wave struck.
Luke circled the boat once more and I entered the water beside my grandfather, fighting the turbulent waters as I swam up behind him and again began massaging his neck and arms. He cried aloud when my fingers touched those sore muscles along his shoulders and beneath his arms. His coloring was all wrong, like a marlin undermined by the art of taxidermy. His body was limp, drained, and his thoughts rambled as I moved down to work on his legs and feet.
“I think we ought to bring him in the boat,” I shouted to Luke as he angled toward us.
“No,” my grandfather roared in a whisper. “How far?”
“Seven miles, Grandpa,” Luke said.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“You look like hell,” I answered.
“You look like a million bucks. Don’t listen to Tom,” Luke said.
“I’m the coach,” I said.
“I taught you how to ski, son,” Amos said as he floated on his back, his life jacket bobbing like a cork.
“And you taught me never to ski in weather like this,” I said, my hands digging into his tight thighs.
“Then I taught you well,” he said, laughing. “I taught you real well, son.”
“Then get back in the boat,” I ordered. “You gave it your best shot, Grandpa. No one can say you didn’t try.”
“The Lord wants me to keep going,” Amos said.
“Listen to the thunder, Grandpa,” I said. “It’s saying no.”
“It’s saying, ‘No, don’t stop, Amos,’ “ he answered. “That’s what I’m listening to.”
“Tom never was good at foreign languages, Grandpa,” Luke screamed as he brought the boat around and hauled me up over the side as Grandpa put on his skis again.
“I don’t like it, Luke,” I said.
“In seven miles, you’re gonna love it,” he answered as we watched Amos grab hold of the drifting towbar and ready himself for the final run to Colleton.
Luke slammed that throttle forward and again, my grandfather struggled to rise in the rain and white-capped surf, but rise he did, beyond all thresholds of desire or passion. He burned with the appetite of completion. The old lust of sport and competition vitalized his soul, and that was the flame that all the waters of the sky and the Atlantic could not touch as they beat his body senseless.
Two miles before we reached the town, we began to see the cars lining the road beside the river and clogging the boat landing waiting for our arrival. When they saw Amos still up on his skis, the shores erupted with a symphony of car horns and the citizens of Colleton honored Amos’s triumph by flashing their headlights in celebration. Amos acknowledged the horns and the lights with a jaunty wave, and as we made the turn at the bend of the river, he started showing off again, doing a few tricks, flashing some of the old style. The noise of the horns was deafening as we passed alongside the Street of Tides, competing well even with the thunder. The bridge was thick with people and umbrellas and a cheer went up as Grandpa passed, waving and preening, beneath the grillwork of the drawbridge. Luke headed toward the public dock, where another crowd was gathered. He raced the boat at full throttle, then turned suddenly back down the river as my grandfather streaked toward shore at breakneck speed, released the towrope as Luke and I headed downriver, and floated magically, like a man walking on water, all the way to the public dock, where my father caught him in his arms.
Luke circled the boat and we witnessed that memorial moment beside the cheering crowd when Amos Wingo received his new driver’s license from an impressed and gracious Patrolman Sasser.
We missed the more troubling moment when Amos collapsed in the parking lot and my father had to rush him to the emergency room at the hospital. Dr. Keyserling kept him confined to bed for a day and treated him for both exhaustion and exposure.
A year later Tolitha sent Amos out shopping for a pound of self-rising flour and a bottle of A-1 steak sauce. He had almost made it to the aisle with the steak sauce when he stopped suddenly, gave out with a small cry, and pitched forward into a canned goods display of turnip greens flavored with pork. Amos Wingo was dead when he hit the ground even though Patrolman Sasser tried vainly to revive him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They said that Sasser cried like a baby when the ambulance squad drove off to the hospital with my grandfather’s body. But Sasser was only the first in Colleton to weep that night. The whole town knew it had lost something exquisite and irreplaceable. Nothing so affects a small town as the loss of its rarest and finest man. Nothing so affects a southern family as the death of the man who lent it balance and fragility in a world askew with corrupt values. His faith had always been a form of splendid madness and his love affair with the world was a hymn of eloquent praise to the lamb who made him. There would be no more letters to the Colleton Gazette with word-by-word transcriptions of the Lord’s gossipy chats with Amos. Now those dialogues would be face-to-face as Amos cut the Lord’s hair in a mansion sweet with the bird-song of angels. Those were the words of Preacher Turner Ball that rang through the white clapboard church on the day they buried my grandfather.
The South died for me that day, or at least I lost the most resonant and eminent part of it. It lost that blithe magic I associate with earned incongruity. He had caught flies and mosquitoes in jars and set them free in the back yard because he could not bear to kill one of God’s creatures.
“They’re part of the colony,” he had said. “They’re part of the design.”
His death forced me to acknowledge the secret wisdom that issues naturally from the contemplative life. His was a life of detachment from the material and the temporal. As a boy I was embarrassed by the undiluted ardor he brought to worship. As an adult I would envy forever the simplicity and grandeur of his vision of what it was to be a complete and contributing man. His whole life was a compliance and a donation to an immaculate faith. When I wept at his funeral, it was not because of my own loss. You carry a man like Amos with you, a memory of immortal rose in the garden of the human ego. No, I cried because my children would never know him an
d I knew that I was not articulate enough in any language to describe the perfect solitude and perfect charity of a man who believed and lived every simple word of the book he sold door to door the length and breadth of the American South. The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.
Amidst the shouts of “Hallelujah” and “Praise be the Lord” six men with newly made wooden crosses began thumping the bases of the crosses against the wooden floor of the church as a gesture of homage to my grandfather. They drummed the crosses in unison, creating a palsied, unfathomable tattoo, the dark music of crucifixionists. My father rose up with Tolitha leaning against him and he walked his mother down the center aisle, where she faced Amos for the last time. In the open casket, with his hair swept back in a pompadour and a slight bedeviled smile on his face (indelible signature of the undertaker, Winthrop Ogletree), Amos looked like a choirboy gone to seed. A white Bible was opened to the page where Jesus spoke the red words, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The organist played “Blessed Be the Tie that Binds” and the congregation sang the words as Tolitha leaned down and kissed my grandfather’s lips for the last time.
