Al Banks despised bottom fishing and he never ate fish when he could help it, but it was their hundred bucks. He worked in toward shore and fussed about until he found a good place to drop anchor.
Gerald didn’t feel like fishing on the bottom for small stuff. He wanted action, sport, heroics, the things he had been missing all his life with his nose to the typewriter. But there wasn’t anything else to do and he’d just get more restless watching Madge and thinking too much, so he dropped a line over too.
They caught a couple of fair-sized groupers and some grunts. The skipper’s silence as he handled the fish for them seemed contagious. Al Banks was thinking about dolphin and sailfish and wahoo; Gerald Millinder was wondering how long this state of things would go on between him and Madge, and whether he was hopelessly ineffectual for not being able to make up his mind once and for all about the book ending. Madge was wishing there was something she could do to keep Gerald from getting so moody. She had hoped this fishing trip would help but it was turning out to be a mess.
In the silence, suddenly, they heard a splash a hundred yards or so off their bow. Al Banks turned his head quickly, with the sense of excitement real fishermen never lose. He was tired of this lazy, hand-line stuff and there was something about this joker Millinder that made him want to nudge the writer into action.
“There’s something out there. Let’s make one more pass at ’em before chow. Maybe we c’n catch ourselves an amberjack. Reel in your lines.”
Half drowsing in the sun and looking on indifferently as a gray snapper teased his bait, Gerald Millinder was looking up from his desk, home in Westport, as Madge came in with the day’s mail.
—Madge, the book club called today. They’ll take the book.
—Gerald! That’s wonderful!
—A hundred thousand dollars.
Madge hugged him. The book had taken longer to write than he had figured and the publisher’s advance hadn’t quite seen him through it. They had had to borrow on their insurance. And if the book should only sell five or six thousand copies, like the last one … Madge had been worried, more than she had let him see.
—A hundred thousand! We’ll put half of it away for the children’s education.
That had been one of the things worrying them.
—Only wait a minute. There’s a catch in it, Madge.
—Oh?
—Yes, they want me to change the ending.
He had tried to make it sound casual, but it went to the heart of what he was trying to do. Eight years ago he had quit a thirty-thousand-a-year radio job to write as he pleased, to be his own man. The last fortress of individual enterprise, he had half-kiddingly called his study. Change the ending. Lord, the nights he had worked on that ending until he was satisfied that it said what he most deeply wanted it to say. And now they wanted to soften it, tone it down. It was too grim they said, too defiant. They weren’t exactly asking for a happy ending, but …
Promptly, characteristically, Madge had said—If I were you, Gerald, I wouldn’t do it.
And Gerald, troubled, torn—Madge, I don’t know, we need that money like crazy. And is it fair to the kids, is the ending, any ending, that important? Is there any reason why they should be penalized for my artistic purity? Or maybe the book-club people are right. It isn’t a bad ending they’re suggesting. Not a too-convenient Hollywood ending or anything like that. Just a little less shocking, a little less—well, they think I go too far.
—I wish I could help you, Madge had said.—But you’ll have to do what you have to do.
You have to do what you have to do.
“—all lines in the boat.”
The sound of the motor and the sense of forward motion in the Lorelei brought him back from the bends of Westport to the blue-green quiet of the Gulf. The doctor was right—rest, relax, breathe deep, fish …
From the stern came an unfamiliar grinding sound and then, over his shoulder, snapping Gerald Millinder back to here and now, he heard a brief, vivid oath from Al Banks.
“God damn it, didn’t you hear me tell you three times to get your goddamn lines into the boat?”
Gerald drew on his line and realized for the first time that it was taut, held firm, and being pulled out of his hand by something unyielding beneath the water. For a moment he thought he must have hooked a big one, a jewfish perhaps, and then he heard Banks cussing—
“God damn it, you got your line fouled in her goddamn propeller.”
In a blaze of profanity, the skipper shut off the goddamn motor before the line could work its way right into the goddamn propeller shaft.
Shaken, and hating Banks, the Lorelei, fishing and primitive life in general, Gerald leaned over the railing and peered helplessly down at the fouled propeller. A few feet below the surface there were three barracuda, lying side by side, attracted by the bait on the line wound around the propeller.
The skipper stood right behind him. “Are you a pretty good swimmer?”
Gerald looked up into the hard, leathery face. “What—what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your line fouling up my propeller. Someone’s gonna have to go over the side and work it clear.”
“Can’t we just leave it there and go on?”
“And grind your fucking line into my propeller shaft? Sorry, Mister, not on my boat.”
The skipper stared at Gerald Millinder and Gerald looked down at the deck and then at the water and then at the skipper again and then at Madge. She was standing there watching them with a stiff, uncertain expression on her face. I know what she’s thinking, Gerald tortured himself, that I’m afraid, that I’m not a whole man, that I’m not a positive male animal like Al Banks.
He leaned over the railing and cupped his hands around his eyes to study the barracuda. They were waiting, motionless, three of them, three big ones. He could feel their teeth ripping into the socket of his arm. He placed his other hand on that arm as if to hold it to him.
“The barracuda?” he said, with hardly any breath in his voice.
“They won’t bother anybody. But just to make sure I’ll break out my .22. The water’s clear enough for me to see ’em and I can scare ’em off if they get frisky.”
Nothing is simple any more, Gerald Millinder was thinking. Not even fishing. Problems of decision. Of courage and risk.
Al Banks was standing there waiting for him to act. The barracuda were down there waiting for him to act. Madge was watching him with a questioning look on her face.
If I can only disconnect my intelligence, Gerald was thinking. If I can find a way to black out this imagination. That’s what makes these fearless heroes. A numbness. An ignition key for switching off the imagination.
He looked down into the water and tried. He closed his eyes and tried. And in the sun-struck darkness behind his eyes, he was seized with a strange discovery. He wanted to dive in. He was excited with the feeling of wanting to be down there among the hard, swift, violent barracuda. He was crazy eager to plunge into fear and bloody danger and then to emerge heroic, exalted, primevally and finally alive.
“All right,” he said, “get me some goggles,” and this was not Walter Mitty living the coeur de lion dream of the fainthearted, this was incredibly Gerald Millinder himself, stripping down to his swim-trunks in a daze of heroism, moving toward danger with mechanical will, suspended between the twin exhilarations of impetus and triumph.
While he paused at the railing, Madge was conscious of his bony knees, his undeveloped chest, the incipient pouch, the familiar ineffectuality of his physique.
“I think you’re a heartless son-of-a-bitch,” Madge said to Al Banks. Her husband had never heard her use that term before.
“Gerald, you’re not going in. I’m not going to let him do this to you. It isn’t heroic, it’s crazy, senseless.”
Millinder hesitated, caught between the two worlds.
Madge was telling the impassive face of Al Banks, “I don’t care about your precious pro
peller. If he has to, he’ll buy you a new propeller. But he’s not going into that water. It isn’t worth it. His courage—it’s a different kind—you wouldn’t understand. He’s not going to have to prove it in your stupid, ridiculous, animal way.”
“Madge, I said I would, and I feel I—”
“Listen, we have three children, and your work and—you’re trying to be brave where it’s a lot harder to be brave, and where it counts, for you. If you do this—this idiotic thing—I won’t be proud of you. I’ll think you’re as big a fool as—as he is for egging you into it.”
Al Banks was never a man for argument. Either do it or get off the pot was his philosophy. Now he came over and said:
“Tell you what I’ll do with you. I’ll sneak her slowly back into the lagoon. She only draws two and a half feet and I can practically lay her stern on the beach. Then I can cut the line out.”
“Take her into shallow water and I’ll get the damn line myself,” Gerald said.
So that’s the way it was compromised. Millinder put on the goggles and held himself under the boat a minute or so at a time and finally worked his line free. There was still some slight danger from barracuda—if indeed barracuda are dangerous—but not much. Millinder felt somewhat exhilarated but not as much as if he had accomplished the feat in deep water. Al Banks felt justified but not as much as if he had been able to prove to Millinder that the fear of barracuda was mostly in his mind. Madge felt satisfied with having put an end to daredevil foolishness but not as much as if she had been able to get Gerald not to go into the water at all.
Between the Millinders and Al Banks almost nothing was said as he took the Lorelei back across the straits. Two worlds had collided and held each other fast for a moment, and then each had shaken the other off and backed away to resume its own course.
Sitting with Madge in the stern on the way in, Gerald was thinking of the barracudas lurking beneath the surface of his creative life. Let me dive down among the waiting shadows and realities. Let me dive down.
And then, so clearly it startled him, his decision was in his mind. “Madge,” he said, “I just decided. I’ve got to keep that book my way. To hell with the money.”
Madge let her hand rest on his.
“Good. It’s your book. The best so far.”
“If it could just make that damn best-seller list.”
“We’ll manage. I’m glad you decided. Now try to put it out of your mind. Let’s enjoy the day.”
THE PETTIBONE
PLAN:
A FABLE
The old man, hatless, coatless, was walking solemnly up the desolate highway between the ocean and the mountains. The raw, stiff California night wind ripped around him from the sea, blowing his faded yellow beard wildly about.
Now and then as specks of lights in the distance became great blinding headlights looming up, he would hold out to them a sun-leathered, weather-twisted hand, letting it fall slowly, not angrily, as the cars sped on by, racing for cities, afraid of the open darkness and the strange figures of the night trudging through.
After the cars rushed past, the old man would resume his steady pace, watching the tiny rear lights twist through the passes and over the hills like red fireflies. He was able to watch them disappear with little sense of bitterness and less of hate, for the old man had walked across America for ten years now, until he felt that he had walked all the evil out of him; in his mind, at last, there was understanding, and his heart was full of love.
Then, when he had reconciled himself to walking through the night until his bones grew so weary that they would not know the difference between a feather bed and a clump of rocks by the side of the road, a car stopped for him.
It was an old rattletrap Ford, driven by a clean-faced country kid who was taking his girlfriend for a ride along the ocean.
“Pretty cold for an old coot like you to be out walkin’.”
“Just a little wind. I’m used to the cold,” the old man said.
“You can climb in back if you want,” the kid offered.
“God bless you,” the old man said. “It’s only the old jalopies that’ll stop for you.”
The old car vibrated along peacefully, except when the wind gusted so violently it blew it two or three feet across the road. The kid sized up the old man through the mirror. His clothes were wrinkled and badly worn, but there was something in the way the old man wore them that kept them from looking sloppy. His old blue suit looked as if once it might have been fashionable. And when the wind blew his handsome yellow beard away from the face, the youth saw that he was wearing a tie.
“You don’t look like an ordinary hobo,” the kid said.
“There’s no such thing as an ordinary hobo, son,” the old man said. “In these last ten years it’s been my privilege to reside in some of the best-known jungles in the nation. I’ve met hoboes of all ages, sizes and dispositions. And there wasn’t an ordinary one in the lot. There couldn’t be. Because it isn’t ordinary for human beings to roam the earth hunting their food and shelter like wild animals, is it, son?”
The old man’s voice was gentle and the kid was curious. So they talked as they drove along the beautiful California coast north of Santa Barbara, the girl silent, half asleep as she nestled under the young man’s shoulder.
“I forgot to ask you,” said the kid. “Where you headin’?”
“Nowhere,” the old man said.
“No particular place you want to be tomorrow?”
“Yes, there is, but anyplace you drop me will probably do.”
“That don’t exactly make sense.”
“Excuse me,” the old man said. “I don’t mean to confuse you. I meant that any of the little valleys off the ocean will suit me fine.”
“What’s in the valleys?” the young man asked.
“Flowers,” said the old man. “Wildflowers. I always hunt for them. Seeds and bulbs. This is fine country for them.”
“Sort of a hobby with you, huh?” the young man asked, thinking, I hope I haven’t picked up a crazy. Pa always told me not to stop for strangers.…
“No, not a hobby,” the old man said. “It’s my life’s work. I just gather all the different kinds of wildflowers—seeds and bulbs—I can find as I go along. Now and then I sell a couple in the cities. Other times I just plant them where I think they’ll look nice.”
Anyway, he sounds harmless, the kid thought. Gee, I hope he is harmless.… “How long you been at this wildflower stuff?” he asked.
“Since October 1929,” the old man answered.
“What made ja start then?” the youth asked.
“It’s a long story, son,” the old man said. “But I never get tired of hearing it myself. You care to know it?”
Better not stand in his way, the young man thought. Guess it’s safer if I let him have his way. He looks harmless enough but you can’t always tell by looks.…
“Before 1929 I was a stockbroker on Wall Street. I made money for people who didn’t have the slightest idea what made one stock go up and another go down. I didn’t have too much idea myself but I was very proud of my profession, pleased that I had chosen a respectable calling. I always felt so dignified of a Sunday afternoon strolling down Fifth Avenue in my walking suit. Dignity, son, is very important. And suddenly all in one week I saw my profession lose its dignity. I saw respectable citizens go into the men’s room and blow their brains out. On the following Sunday I saw my partner, dressed in a dignified afternoon cutaway just like me, walk out of his penthouse window. He flopped over and over in the air like a scarecrow. I assure you he didn’t look dignified in the least. So I made up my mind that if I was to regain my dignity I could not do it by returning to the Stock Exchange or following my partner out the window. So I simply started walking. In search of dignity, and I’ve stopped to pick wildflowers on the way.”
The young man was glad when he came to his turnoff in the road. “Sorry to put you out,” he said, “but this is the end of the line.�
��
“Let me give you a little something for your kindness,” said the old man. He reached into one of the burlap sacks he was carrying. “I picked these up Vermont way last spring,” he said, handing the youth a little paper bag. “If you water them well they will grow up into lady’s slippers. You might like them for your garden.”
“Thanks, Mr.…”
“Pettibone,” said the old man as he stepped out onto the road again. “When your lady’s slippers bloom, just think of Mr. Pettibone, the flower man.”
The rattletrap Ford turned away and Mr. Pettibone was alone again. The wind was blowing so hard now that it was easier to keep going than try to sleep. As he walked he saw a great white city rising in front of him just beyond the shore. At first he thought he must be dreaming, for often in these all-night stretches his mind would drift off while his body, needing little conscious guidance, would plod on. But as he came closer the buildings grew three-dimensional, one huge structure surrounded by rows and rows of little houses below, suggesting a feudal town. And covering the roofs, covering the sides, covering the ground around them, covering the telephone wires and filling the air were millions of little chalky flakes, which Mr. Pettibone, if he did not know the mildness of California autumns, would have taken for snow.
Here and there through the chalky haze Mr. Pettibone saw a light flickering, so he kept on until the chalk flakes were flailing around him, stinging his eyes and almost blinding him. Then as he stared up at the huge lettering on the sign of the large building he discovered what the flakes were. Cement. Here in this desolate rocky country with the ocean beating up just below he had stumbled onto a cement factory and all the little houses surrounding it were the workers’ homes, for the factory was so far removed from any cities that mill and mill workers had to form a complete and self-sufficient city unto themselves.
The wind flinging the cement dust around had punished Mr. Pettibone so severely around the eyes that he gave up all thought of going on, and groped his way toward the nearest light.
Love, Action, Laughter and Other Sad Tales Page 27
