Cloudbursts

by Thomas McGuane

  “I don’t like disappointing you, Madeleine. Or Homer neither. But those bottles are mine.”

  “No doubt they are, but I’m the one who let you take them, and now it seems I’m in trouble. You ought not to have done that to a lady. Besides which, you have two beautiful children and you continue to poison your relationship with them over your bottle collection. I’m an out-of-towner and I don’t get it. Cecile has quite a job with those children. She could probably use some help as opposed to battling over a collection of whiskey bottles.” Homer was impressed at the practical way Madeleine swallowed what must have been her distaste for Cecile.

  “I’m lucky she isn’t feeding them sardines with the mother-seagull glove to make them think they can fly. Do tears embarrass you, Madeleine?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Homer’s seen all this before. I blubber, and he just goes with it.” He swept his hand down his face, but it continued to glisten. “The bottles don’t belong to Cecile. I bought those bottles full and I emptied them in my own home. They’re a monument to better days. So, here’s what you tell Cecile: No dice. Also, where’s the phone decanter?”

  “Yakima,” Homer said, rather pleased he could supply this fact.

  “I emptied that phone last New Year’s Eve. Cecile was upstairs watching the ball come down on Times Square. When she showed up, do you think she wished me Happy New Year? No. She said, ‘Shit-faced in a wheelchair is a look whose time will never come.’ ”

  Madeleine gazed at Dean for a long moment, with wonder or compassion Homer couldn’t say, though he struggled to understand. He seemed to expect that she would say something wise, should she finally speak, but all she said was “I give up. Perhaps the bottles are happier with you.”

  * * *

  —

  Madeleine couldn’t make it all the way that night, but Salt Lake City was a hub and gave her several options for the morning, and there were shuttles to the hotels near the airport. She assured Homer that she had loved visiting the West and learning firsthand that it was, as all had promised, breathtaking. And just think: once in Salt Lake, you could go direct or change in Memphis, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati—all those cities!—and still get home. Homer seemed downcast at these prospects, but she assured him it had been a treat catching up.

  THE REFUGEE

  Errol Healy was going sailing to evade custody in one of the several institutions recommended for his care. He believed the modest voyage from his berth in Cortez across the Gulf of Mexico to Key West was something he could handle. All therapeutic routes in which he was described as having a labile affect and deficient insight had proved ineffective, and friends and professionals alike felt the trip might help him reconstruct events in a way positive to his well-being. In particular, his boss at the orange groves urged him to pull himself together or else, and he realized with a panic that losing his job would, under current circumstances, not be endurable. In contrast to the skepticism he directed at mental health professionals, he ascribed almost supernatural powers of healing to an old woman in Key West, Florence Ewing, whom he’d not seen for so many years that it was questionable whether she still lived in Key West or lived at all. In many of his plans these days, he was reduced to superstition, and the mestizos he managed in the groves, who had won his friendship and peculiar loyalty, were superstitious about all things, hanging their charms everywhere, from their old cars to the branches of orange trees. Errol, quite sensibly, thought it was absurd to describe someone who was drunk all the time as having “a labile affect and deficient insight.” Better to note that a do-or-die crisis seemed at hand and something had to be tried if body and spirit were to be kept together. His body was fine.

  Years ago, he’d had a sailing accident. As a result, his closest friend, Raymond, was lost at sea, and the meaning of Raymond’s death, nagging and irresolute, continued to consume him. The customary remedies were unavailing, and he intended to resort to this soothsayer of his past. His employer, the owner of numerous large orange groves, had agreed to this final shot: after that, he was on his own. This ultimatum was not offered lightly: Errol, a fluent speaker of Spanish, had a loyal crew who would disperse in the event of his firing. The employer, a patrician cracker who also owned a large juice plant in Arcadia, Florida, said something that really caught Errol and made him see his plight more clearly. “I just can’t have someone like this. Not around here.”

  It was evening before Errol boarded Czarina, unfurling her jib to gain enough headway to sail the few yards to her mooring. Not far away, a big ketch with the steering vane and ratlines of a long-range cruiser tugged politely at her rode. Otherwise the tideway, lit by stars, was empty. He went below to the galley, turned on a lamp, and made a drink, then carried it to the cockpit, where he sipped and watched the clouds make their way in a moon-brightened sky. He brought the bottle with him and refreshed his iceless drink from time to time, feeling the deep motion of the boat as the incoming tide lifted her against the weight of her keel.

  Errol awoke as the sun crossed the side of the cockpit. As usual, he was sick and disgusted but with the rare luxury of not being guilty over something he’d done the night before. He declined to throw the empty bottle overboard and sentenced himself to live with it a few hours more. He had wisely provisioned the galley already—wisely, because he hardly had the strength for a shopping trip now—but was in no mood for food. He remained stretched out, waiting for his mind to clear.

  Errol made his way around the yawl, raising the mizzen first so that she swung on the mooring facing upwind. Raising the main seemed to take all his strength, the hard stretched halyard in his aching hands, but the sail went up and the halyard somehow found its way to a cleat and Czarina trembled under the steady luffing of the mainsail. Errol went forward and cast off the mooring, and Czarina began to drift backward toward the dock. Errol released the mizzen sheet and drew in the mainsail; Czarina bore off into the tideway. He trimmed the mizzen, and the yawl sank down onto her lines and beat across the harbor, tacking here and there to avoid anchored boats. Errol was glad she had no engine: an oily bilge would have been disastrous in his current state.

  He sailed south in shallow water past islands covered with winter homes and islands which had been declared wildlife refuges. There was occasional traffic on the Intracoastal Waterway and to the east, towering from the mangroves, a baseball stadium. Cumbersome brown pelicans sailed on air currents, suddenly becoming arrows as they dove into schools of fish. Czarina was moving well, rail down and tracking her course insistently. A northwest wind was building, and Errol planned to evaluate the seas once he reached the pass. He would venture out into the Gulf and make a decision. The leeward side of the foredeck had begun to darken with spray as the wind increased, and he could hear the telltales on the leech fluttering. Exultation at the little ship’s movement cheered Errol at last, and he went below to examine his larder. He cut up an apple into a bowl of dry cereal, then poured Eagle Brand condensed milk over it. Czarina had sailed herself contentedly in his absence, and he sat down to eat with an inkling of happiness.

  The tide was falling through the pass, building up steep seas. A big new-moon tide, it sucked channel markers under and left streaming wakes behind them. Errol was anxious to begin his voyage and, nearly certain he would be turned back, he beat out toward the Gulf of Mexico and the dark sky to the west.

  Because of the running tide, the faces of the waves were steep and the little yawl seemed to be ascending skyward before reaching their crests. The long slopes at the backs of the waves were almost pleasant as she ran down them, the centerboard humming in its trunk and a fine vibration coming through the tiller. But by the time he passed Johnson Shoals and began to contemplate a long trip in these conditions as opposed to the immediate sporting challenge, he grew apprehensive. There was green water on the deck racing toward the scuppers, the bottoms of the sail were dark and soaked, and he was getting shaky again. This development was something he meant
to observe from afar.

  He came about and headed downwind toward Cayo Costa, avoiding whatever temptation he might have had to press on in this small boat, and in the face of obvious peril that would have been the real loss of nerve. Better to shake himself miserable in a safe anchorage than abandon himself to the fatal and picturesque.

  Pelican Bay was a protected anchorage in the middle of a state park, and its oceanic zephyrs were personalized with the smells of hot dogs and hamburgers from the many boats anchored there. Errol was ill equipped to cope with this banality, and he looked beyond the mouth of the bay to the increasingly raging seas of the Gulf with melancholy and regret. By tomorrow, the winds should have diminished and clocked around to the northeast, which would make the hundred-mile open-sea crossing to Key West one long reach. Meanwhile, the high-spirited shrieks of children made him furious. That the powerboats looked like huge tennis shoes only added to his general dissatisfaction with the world. Nevertheless, his belief that all his problems would go away once he reached Key West brought him a kind of grim cheer; recently and in an hour of unsurpassed bleakness, when the landscape of his failures seemed almost to afford death a dismal glamour, he’d had a kind of satori in which he’d either remembered or imagined an old woman of infinite wisdom who could see him on to a better place. In years past she’d done this for him and for several dissolute friends, among whom he remained the sole member whose life seemed to be slipping through his own fingers. The occasion of his vision was less than august: trying to please a new lady friend, he’d lost a toe while mowing her lawn at midnight, and the pain as he sat in a crowded emergency room, a bath towel around his foot, a tall to-go cup in his lap, seemed to summon forth a vision of a livable future spelled out by the old lady in Key West. He had to get there and he would, once the wind was in the northeast.

  About fifty yards away, a man stood in the stern of a dilapidated launch, hands on his hips, playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony from a boom box at high volume. He seemed to be challenging anyone who might wish to interrupt his attempt to educate waterborne vacationers. Errol was having difficulty ignoring this. Presently, a cigarette boat filled with young people pulled anchor and relocated near the loner in the old launch. They played rap music on their much more powerful sound system while mimicking the crablike moves of hip-hop. Errol ransacked his boat for booze and miraculously found a six-pack of warm beer made with water from the Rocky Mountains wrapped in a bundle of canvas in his sail-repair supplies. He tingled with the excitement of discovery as he remembered hiding it from a woman who’d come aboard one morning, an attractive woman who’d gone nuts, shouting invitations to a coast guard station in her underwear. Errol permitted himself to sample the beer. Feeling better, he mused over the old fellow’s persistence in playing Beethoven; and with the second can, he began to enjoy the undulations of the half-clothed youths in the cigarette boat. The arrival of a private helicopter overhead, ruffling the entire surface of the harbor and tossing the smaller craft merrily, made him bless whatever gods had dropped off the six-pack. He retreated to the cabin and assumed the cooler view that would become necessary if the hilarity continued to spread over Pelican Bay. His simple ambition—to avoid insanity—seemed in danger of deteriorating into misleading annoyance. Still, he was smart enough to know that the curtain would fall again. It was only a matter of time.

  After a short and troubled nap, Errol rigged a handline and small jig that he dangled from the side for only a short time before bringing a snapper aboard. He held it in front of him, its fins braced, bright eyes seemingly fixed upon his. He rapped it over the head with his cleaning knife, and as it stiffened, shivered, and died in his hand, tears filled his eyes. He cleaned it, placed the two fillets in a skillet on the single-burner alcohol stove, and, after examining the fleshless frame of the fish and thinking it looked like a good plan for a snapper, he threw it overboard. A seagull flew straight from the Beethoven boat, where it had been working the owner for snacks, and carried off the remains. The cigarette boat was now motoring slowly among the other anchored boats, treating them to the latest urban sounds. The helicopter was gone. “Why do we ‘clean’ fish?” Errol said aloud. “They are not dirty.” He chuckled as though he’d made this remark for genteel company, then grimly contemplated pulling anchor and sailing for Key West. The wind had not come around sufficiently, but surely it would; staying in this public anchorage any longer would only put off the help he needed to avoid calamity and, more important, polishing off the beer would make it unavailable for the voyage, when its service to morale in stormy conditions would be invaluable.

  Therefore, he raised the sails, pulling the halyards until they squeaked in the jam cleats. They luffed loudly as the boat drew back on the anchor rode, the boom bouncing against the mainsheet traveler, the tiller swinging from side to side as though the boat were being steered by a ghost. The anchor came up covered with turtle grass, and Errol laid it on deck, cleaning the weeds and throwing them overboard before lashing the anchor into its chocks and returning to the cockpit. He sat down and pushed the tiller to one side. The boat drifted backward and swung, until the sail filled and she reversed direction. Czarina then moved swiftly, rail down, toward the entrance to the bay.

  As he sailed out the pass, he felt the slight easterly shift of the still-powerful winds. The faces of the waves were now tall but less abrupt, and the rudder never lost its bite as it had on his first crossing. The sky was gray, but it was higher and faintly light-shot to the west. He trimmed the sails until, at due south, there was no pressure on the helm, and the yawl sailed herself. His only job would be to adjust the sheets to keep this heading as the wind clocked around to the east.

  The coast soon disappeared and he found himself making good progress in the open water; the Gulf of Mexico, and the greater regularity of the seas, uninfluenced by tide and shore, made the little boat lope along with a purpose. Errol had a few sips of his beer, but he could already tell he was not going to drink too much. He occupied himself with housekeeping, making up the pipe berth below, folding his oilskins and stowing them in their locker, draining the icebox into a bucket and pouring the water overboard. He pulled the floorboards and sponged out the salt water that had come on deck and gotten through the deck ventilator, which now poured fresh air through the cabin, arousing the smells of cedar and old varnish. On the bulkhead a framed photograph had discolored over time, a picture of himself much younger, a man, and a woman, the same age. Underneath, it said “Pals.”

  Back in the cockpit, he unspooled a handline with a large silver spoon and single hook over the stern. It danced and dove a hundred feet behind the boat and seemed to elevate Errol’s spirits further. He wished he had some sort of flag to raise and then remembered that he did have just the thing. He dug around in the cockpit locker among dock lines, fenders, and life jackets until he found the flag of the Conch Republic, the imaginary nation of Key West from its days of hippie utopianism, an era Errol seemed to have trouble escaping. He raised it to the masthead on the flag halyard and liked seeing its pink-and-yellow conch and sunburst against an increasingly blue sky.

  The compass indicated he was now heading for Yucatán and so further adjustment to the sails would be necessary. This was the result of the steady easterly shift of winds and clearing weather. The seas were ever less violent, and within an hour the skies had cleared entirely and the Gulf had regained its characteristic dusty-green placidity under towering white clouds. It occurred to Errol that his drinking days were behind him. Oh, joy! Not another shit-faced, snockered, plastered, oiled, loaded, bombed, wasted minute ever again! No more guilt, remorse, rehab, or jail! Free at last!

  Calming down, he remembered that his hope lay in his visit to Florence Ewing, the good witch. She had seen right through him in days past and found something redeeming. She would again. He could have taken the bus and gotten there straightaway, but he had arrived by sea the last time she’d put him right, and though it was decades ago he was sure she could do it a
gain. He knew better than to alter any of the details. His mestizos, trustworthy and industrious, would keep the cracker’s groves in order until he returned.

  A frigate bird followed him at a great altitude, a perfect flier that barely needed to move its wings, an elegant black zigzag watching his wake for baitfish. He daydreamed about what it would be like to be a bird like that, a seabird with that great altitude and horizon. No big thoughts, of course, just Where’s the fish? Like being a fine athlete, everything vision and muscle memory, Ted Williams watching the ball compress on the bat, no attitude, a simple there-it-is. Roar of the crowd same as wind or traffic, just worthless noise. If I were a bird, that six-pack wouldn’t glow like radium, a screeching come-hither.

  The yawl was making wonderful progress. With the slowly clocking wind and more moderate seas, she sped along on a controlled reach that might scarcely need adjustment before Key West. The coast soon disappeared beneath the eastern horizon, and for a pleasant half hour a pair of young dolphins surfed in the quarter wave before peeling off for more interesting games. Huge schools of bait, shadows in the pale Gulf green, erupted like hail falling on the water as predators coursed through and terns dove at them from above. The leeward deck was dark with spray all the way to the transom.

  In late afternoon, he sailed through a congregation of Louisiana shrimp boats, nets draped from trawling booms as they awaited nightfall. And at dusk a big ketch rail-down passed a couple miles to the north of him, heading for Yucatán. Errol lashed the tiller and went below to warm some soup over the blue alcohol flame. He ate it slowly, sitting on the companionway step and looking at the clouds swaying back and forth above the cockpit, their undersides pink at the approach of sundown. As he gazed south, he wished he could do this forever. Maybe once he’d been saved, it would be possible. At least he could go to the islands for a spell, which islands it was hard to say. What difference did it make? he thought irritably, as though being cross-examined about the islands. For a moment, he fretted about islands all running together and being required to distinguish between them. Now his ears were ringing.