by Philip Craig
Island wages are low and everything else is expensive, but summer jobs are sucked up by college students who are looking for vacation jobs with access to sea, sun, surf, and sex, and who don’t really care if they actually make any money before returning to school in the fall. More serious workers come from overseas, legally or illegally, and live wherever they can while working as hard as they can, since even low Vineyard wages are better than they can earn at home.
Day-trippers come across from Cape Cod, take tour bus rides, buy knickknacks mostly made in Asia but sold with Vineyard logos in island souvenir shops, and go back to America having done the island in half a day. Other summer visitors come for their week or two of escape from the real world. The harbors are filled with yachts, and there are great summer houses owned by the people who come for the season.
John Skye was one of the house owners. He owned a part of what had once been a farm. The house had been built in the early 1800s, in the time before the island economy became dependent on tourism. In those days, islanders, like most coastal people, generally tried to make a living by combining farming and fishing, two of the toughest jobs imaginable. Tourism, by comparison, offered easy money, so when the island economy turned in that direction, farmers’ sons and daughters left the farms for the towns and, years later, John had bought his house, outbuildings, and land pretty cheap.
Before I knew him, he and his first wife had come down every summer from Weststock, where he taught things medieval at the college. When she had died, too young, he had missed a season and gone instead back to southwest Colorado, where his people still lived. The next summer he was back on the island where, a year or so later, he and I had met on the beach and, in time, I became his caretaker, charged with closing his house in the fall, keeping an eye on it over the winter, opening it in the early summer, and caring for the Mattie.
The Mattie wasn’t the Mattie when I went to work for John. She was the Seawind. She became the Mattie when John married Mattie, whose young husband had left her a widow with twin daughters when he drove his motorcycle into a tree at a high rate of speed.
And now Mattie and the girls had fallen in love with Colorado and John had a dilemma: where to spend the summer? Out by Durango, near the mountains they all loved, or on the island they all loved?
“If Colorado had an ocean, it would be no problem,” John had said on the phone. “If they could just flood everything east of the divide, or maybe all of Texas, I could live out there for the rest of my life, but . . .”
“Everybody’s got problems,” I’d said.
“Except you. You’ve got it made, J.W.”
“Who’s this guy you’re sending down, and when will he be here?”
“Jack Scarlotti. He’ll be down May 25. He’s our current hotshot junior faculty member. Sociology, Poli-Sci, or some combination of both, I think. Anyway, he’s very dashing, very intense, very bright. The ladies all love him. Not a bad guy, actually. Teaches a grad seminar. Wants to take the whole class down to the island for a week so they can do field research among the locals, before the summer people really get there.”
“The island as a laboratory. Natives living in isolation from the mainstream. That sort of thing?”
“I think that’s it. Something like the deafness bit, maybe.”
Presumably because of inbreeding, a lot of up-island people once suffered from a type of deafness. Some medical or academic type had studied the phenomenon and his conclusions had been written up and had attracted a good deal of comment.
“The politics of isolation,” I said. “Professor Scarlotti’s students do the legwork and write papers and he puts it all in a book with his name on it and uses it as a required text in all of his courses.”
Skye laughed. “Spoken like a true scholastic, J.W. Where’d you learn about that trick?”
“From listening to you and your academic buddies at those cocktail parties you throw.”
“I’ll have to advise my colleagues to talk less about our trade. They’ll give away all of our secrets. I’m going to have Jack come by your house for the keys. Then you can take him over to the farm. Is that okay? I’ll let you know what boat they’ll be coming on.”
“Okay.”
“I think you’ll like him. He’s a good guy even if he is a whiz kid. I understand there’ll be about ten grad students with him, both sexes. They should all fit in the house if they don’t mind sleeping double. I want nothing to do with deciding who sleeps where, by the way.”
“I’ll make sure the place is clean, that there are sheets and blankets and water and lights, and that the fridge has bacon and eggs and bread waiting for them. I’ll show him where the A & P is, too. Can this guy sail?”
“He says he can. If he wants to go sailing, you can show him the Mattie and where the dinghy is on Collins Beach and where the oars and oarlocks are in the barn.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll have him leave the keys with you when he leaves. I’ll be down in the middle of June.”
“That’ll give me time to clean the place up again. What do you mean, you’ll be down? What about Mattie and the girls?”
That’s when I learned that Mattie and the girls were going to Colorado to stay at John’s mother’s ranch.
“So you’ll be living the jolly bachelor life, eh?”
“That’s an oxymoron. The bachelor life is not the life for me. I have a theological crisis whenever Mattie has to be away. Sleeping alone in a double bed is evidence that there is no God.”
“Why don’t you just go out to Colorado with your wife and avoid this existential predicament?”
“I thought you of all people would understand. Bluefish, my boy! Clams! Quahogs! I haven’t had a fresh bluefish since last summer. I haven’t had mussels. I haven’t had a clam boil. I haven’t had one single littleneck on the half shell. Life is not always easy, you know. We have to face tough choices.”
“Well, my favorite woman is right here, so I don’t have to chose between her and fish.”
“You’re a lucky man.”
A few days later, when Zee told me about her New Hampshire plans, I didn’t feel so lucky, but at the time I could not but agree with John.
John’s house was off the West Tisbury Road. In the wintertime, When the leaves were off the trees, you could catch a glimpse of the ocean from a couple of his upstairs windows. If some developer had gotten hold of it, he probably would have called it Ocean View Farm, or some such thing.
In preparation for the arrival of Dr. Jack Scarlotti and his band, I turned on the water and electricity, made sure there were no leaky pipes and that the toilets all flushed, and vacuumed and dusted the house, including the fine, big library where a few thousand of John’s books tended to slow me down a lot as I examined titles and fingered through pages when I should have been working. I made sure there were blankets and sheets in the linen closets, opened screened windows so the place could air out, turned on the bottled gas for the stove, mowed the large lawn, and checked the barn and fences for needed repairs.
Behind the barn the grass was high in the field where the twins kept the horses that wintered at a farm up toward Chilmark. The horses would stay at that farm this summer, I reckoned, since Jen and Jill would be in Colorado with their mother instead of here. I liked the twins although I simply could not tell one from the other. I realized to my surprise that I would miss them. Was I becoming a sentimentalist?
I unlocked the tack room, where the twins kept their saddles and other riding gear and grooming supplies, enjoying, as always, the smell of leather and oils and the scent of horsehair and sweat that gets into tack, and the smell of hay and grain that is usually mixed in with it. Everything was fine, so I locked the door again and went back to the house, closed the windows, locked up, and went home. As I drove I saw Geraldine Miles walking slowly toward me on the bike path that paralleled the road. The bike paths on the Vineyard are popular with walkers and joggers, and Geraldine was limping along with an in
tent look on her face. In the warm spring air, she wore long pants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt. I considered offering her a ride, but changed my mind. She was walking because she wanted to be walking. I drove past and she never glanced at me.
On May 24, I got another call from John Skye. Jack Scarlotti and company would be coming over the next day on the one-fifteen boat from Woods Hole.
I went to the A & P and bought juice, instant coffee, bread, oleo, bacon, and eggs. As is customary on Martha’s Vineyard, I paid a lot more for the food than I would have on the mainland. Such is the price of island living. All businesses overcharge and claim that it’s because of the cost of bringing in supplies on the ferries. The overcharges are, of course, much greater than the freight costs, but it is a convenient lie shared by the businesses, and islanders tolerate it because they must. Once the state sent down a Consumer Affairs official in response to complaints about unjustifiably high prices. The official agreed that island prices were outrageous and had little to do with freight costs, but could find no law against the practice of overcharging and went back across the sound to America, never to return. Some people were disappointed, but no one was surprised.
I put the food in John Skye’s refrigerator and went fishing.
At home again, I filleted the fish on the metal-topped table behind the shed in back of my house and threw the carcasses into the trees. As long as the wind blew from the southwest, the scent of rotting fish would blow away from the house. Within three or four days, the bones would be stripped bare by insects and birds and there would be no smell at all. Blues, like people, are biodegradable.
I set one fillet aside and put the rest in my freezer, then celebrated with a bottle of George Killian Red. George Killian Red is a product of the Coors brewery. Coors beer (“brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water”) may be a bit overrated, but George Killian Red is a good beer that I enjoy.
My peas were ready, but there was also some asparagus coming up, so I picked that and managed to get it back to the house without eating it raw, proof that I have a will of iron. Asparagus out of the garden is so tender that it really doesn’t have to be cooked at all, but on the other hand, a bit of butter doesn’t hurt it. I put it in a pan with a little water and cooked it in the oven while I fried up the bluefish fillet, and made a sauce of horseradish, mustard, and mayo. In the fridge I had the last half of a loaf of bread I’d baked the day before (you always eat at least a half loaf of fresh bread as soon as it comes out of the oven), and in a bit sat down with another George Killian to a supper better than what anyone else I knew was eating. A Vineyard meal, the gift of the earth and sea. I wished that Zee was sharing it, but she was at the hospital on the four to midnight shift, alas. I managed to eat everything by myself.
The next afternoon at two-thirty I heard cars coming down my long, sandy driveway. Not too many cars come down my road, but these were right on time. The one-fifteen boat from Woods Hole gets into Vineyard Haven at two o’clock. It should take about a half hour to get your car off the ferry and down the road to my place. Dr. Jack Scarlotti could apparently read a map, because here he was with his students.
They were in two station wagons which stopped in the yard. I was pulling weeds in my garden and was glad for an excuse to stop. Weed pulling is not my favorite pastime. Car doors opened and people got out. Ten people in their twenties. The eldest came toward me. He was one of those dark-haired, dark-eyed, tight-skinned people who almost glitter with intensity.
“Mr. Jackson?” He put out his hand. “Jack Scarlotti.” His grip was quick and firm. He gestured at the people with him. “My students.” A girl with glasses was hovering directly behind him. “My teaching assistant, Bernie Orwell.”
Bernie Orwell thrust out a hand and we shook. Her palm was soft and a bit damp. “How do you do?” she asked.
I thought she looked tired. “I do reasonably well,” I said.
Another young woman, slim and attractive, stood beside Scarlotti. He did not introduce her. I looked at him. “I’ll get your keys for you. Then I’ll take my car and let you follow me out to John’s place. If one of your crowd wants to ride with me, I’ll point out the post office and some other places you might want to know about.”
“I’ll do it,” said Bernie Orwell. Although her voice was without expression, she was quick to serve, which was maybe one reason she was his teaching assistant instead of just another student.
“Good enough,” said Scarlotti. “Interesting place you have here,” he added, looking at my house with a studious eye.
“An old hunting camp. I put in heat, water, and electricity. Otherwise it’s about the same as it was eighty years ago when it was built. You’ll find John’s house a good deal more civilized.”
I got the keys and gave them to Scarlotti, then pointed Bernie Orwell to my rusty Land Cruiser. The other girl climbed into the front seat of the station wagon driven by Jack Scarlotti. The station wagons got themselves turned around and followed me out to the highway.
“A station wagon train,” I said to Bernie Orwell. “Does that make me a station wagon master?”
“What? Oh. I get it.” She smiled a distant metallic smile. She was older than most people wearing braces, but I guess it’s never too late to straighten your teeth. Hers didn’t look too bad. She glanced back at the following cars.
We drove into Edgartown and I pointed out the post office, the drugstore, the liquor stores, and, when we finally got past the normal traffic jam in front of the almost brand-new A & P, the hardware store down by the park.
“We call this Cannonball Park because of those stacks of cannonballs in it,” I said. “It’s got cannons, too, as you see, but they’re the wrong size to shoot the cannon-balls. Don’t ask me why.”
“Very well, I won’t.”
“That way’s downtown,” I said, pointing, “but we’re going this way.” I turned up the West Tisbury Road and drove until I got to John Skye’s driveway. The station wagon train followed me down to the house.
“So this is his place,” said Bernie Orwell in her dull voice. “He liked to talk about it.”
Scarlotti and the students emptied out of their cars and looked appreciatively at John’s farm. After seeing my place, they realized how well off they were here. Bernie Orwell went to Scarlotti’s side.
“I know where all the stores are. We’ll need to do some shopping. I’ll make a list and get right back to town.”
“Let’s look at the house first, Bernie,” said Scarlotti, smiling.
She shrugged, and flicked a glance at the other young woman. “Yes. Of course.”
A tired dog, but one still willing to please.
I climbed back into the Land Cruiser. “You know where I live and my number’s in the book. If you need me, let me know. I can fix most of the things that might break while you’re here.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you know about John’s boat?”
“I know it’s moored in the Edgartown harbor somewhere. He said we could use it.”
“If you decide to go sailing, contact me and I’ll show you the boat and John’s dinghy.”
“I doubt if we’ll have time for sailing, but if we get our work done and the weather’s good . . .”
• • •
I drove away and didn’t see any of them again until, two weeks later, the station wagons came down my driveway and Jack Scarlotti handed me John’s keys and drove off to catch the ferry back to America.
That afternoon I went up to John’s house to clean up the mess. I found what I expected to find: overflowing trash barrels behind the house, breakfast dishes still in the dishwasher (which had been John’s none-too-romantic-but-greatly-appreciated last year’s birthday gift to Mat-tie), a lot of beer cans stacked on the back porch, and a very large pile of dirty linens which had been stripped from the beds. I also found three stray and unmatched socks and, behind the kitchen table, one earring. I opened windows to air out the house and spent the morning cleaning up. I was
hed several loads of linens in the machine and hung them on the solar drying line, vacuumed the house, washed the dishes, and made a run to the dump (once a favorite shopping spot where fine and useful stuff could be found and taken home for further use, but now an efficient and expensive recycling facility where all lumber had to be cut into short lengths, glass and paper and plastics had to be separated into colors and grades, and it cost you money for every barrel of just-plain-rubbish you deposited).
When the linens were dry, I folded them and put them away in various closets, and decided that John’s house was back in shape. I checked the barn and that, too, was fine.
I closed the windows and loaded the beer cans into the Land Cruiser so I could take them to a liquor store where I could get a nickel apiece for them, thus adding a bit to the meager Jackson coffers and cleaning up the environment at the same time. Then I took a last turn around the house to see if I had missed something. I had.
Upside down in the flowers at the side of the front porch was a small green knapsack. It looked to me as if it might have been knocked off the porch when the gang was stacking, stuff outside to be loaded into the cars. I got it and opened it up, looking for some ID. Inside were a variety of items: a zipped plastic bag containing lipstick, face powders, tiny bottles, and brushes; a Swiss army knife; pen, pencils, and notepaper; some Kleenex; cigarettes and matches; a plastic 35mm container with a bit of white powder in it and another film container with some pills; two books.
I wet a finger and tasted the white powder. Hmmmmm. I decided not to try one of the pills. I looked at the books. One was a book of social theory. Inside the cover was Bernadette Orwell’s name. The other was a journal. I opened it up.
Its first entry was almost two years old and had to do with what Bernie Orwell had been doing that September day at Weststock when she began her senior year. She also wrote about how she felt, which was not great. I flipped pages shamelessly. A few entries later, Bernie was very happy with her courses and particularly happy because she was in a Medieval Literature class with Dr. John Skye, “a wonderful, wonderful person.”
