Of Sea and Cloud

by Jon Keller

  Do you see that?

  I see that, said Julius.

  You have got to understand the bottom you’re fishing.

  It’s mud.

  Osmond rubbed the mud around his palm with his thumb. It’s soft mud and shell. No clay in it.

  Julius nodded.

  Tell me what that means, Julius.

  Means if there’s bugs there and traps there you might catch one.

  We’re in sixty fathom of water so soft mud means summer and early fall fishing, Julius. That is what it means.

  Yeah, said Julius. ’Cept we fish this canyon year-round.

  Osmond grinned and held a gloved hand in the air as if to silence the wind while he said, That is our secret. Lobsters like it here, and I cannot tell you why. That is something only the Lord knows.

  Julius picked the traps and baited them and set them at the stern. Osmond watched his depth finder as he maneuvered over the narrow underwater canyon and he nodded to Julius and Julius pushed the first trap overboard as Osmond followed the canyon and one by one all ten traps pulled each other into the sea.

  They hauled nineteen more trawls then steamed north and the coast rose like a black nebula disconnected from anything below. They ran for an hour before Osmond spotted the red and black metal buoys marking the Leviathan. This had been Nicolas’s territory but Nicolas was gone now and here came fear riding the thought of Nicolas like a parasite and what had he done? What had he done? Osmond looked at his hands as if they alone had betrayed him but he knew they had not. He told himself that the death of Nicolas Graves did not belong to him any more than the life of Nicolas Graves had.

  He focused on the Leviathan Ground. His eyes scanned the water for buoys he could not find. Slowly the fact that they were gone penetrated his thoughts. He slowed his boat to a stop.

  What the fuck is this? Julius said. Where the fuck are our traps?

  Osmond did not hear the boy. He stared at the empty water.

  Dolly and Rhonda watched from their perches.

  They cut our traps? Those sonsofbitches cut our traps? Julius said. The voice to Osmond held sound but no meaning and Osmond stared and his fists pumped and flexed then released and again and again until his arms and shoulders and entire torso pumped and flexed.

  Julius saw this flexing and stepped backward.

  Ten minutes passed.

  Fifteen.

  Twenty and Dolly looked to Julius wondering if all would be all right but she did not dare ask and he gave her no sign because he himself did not know.

  Thirty minutes and the engine idled and Osmond reached down and lifted his gaff and in a single motion swung it like a baseball bat into the side of the wheelhouse. The wood shattered and the iron hook on the gaff’s end hurled across the bow of the boat and skipped over the water before sinking. Julius bent his knees to brace himself and to duck what might come. Rhonda screamed. Dolly pinched her eyes closed and shrank into the fish tray. Osmond beat the wooden gaff handle against the washrail until it was only a pile of splinters littering the boat and water alike. He tossed the piece that remained in his fist overboard and grabbed a length of rope and worked it like a bullwhip over his shoulder.

  With the first snap of the rope Julius moved to the open stern. One more step and he’d be in the sea. Rhonda screamed shrill until she was out of breath then began again. Osmond approached Julius with the line coiled around his fist like a boxing glove. Julius ducked and moved past him and tucked himself beside his sisters as Osmond stood alone at the open stern of the boat and uncoiled the rope. His hair fell in ravels. He braced his legs and paused for seconds then began to whip the tip of the rope against the surface of the sea until sweat rolled from his face and his frame slumped in exhaustion.

  Then slowly and without a word to his grandchildren he steered the boat for home.

  • • •

  Now darkness. Osmond back on the water but alone this time. To the north he could see the lights of the harbor and in their homes slept Virgil and Jonah and Bill and one of them had cut his traps. Or all of them. He didn’t know which and he didn’t much care which. He steamed south over black water and rolling swell and as he steamed he felt Jonah Graves step into his mind as if into an empty room. He allowed himself a slight grin.

  He’d known Jonah as a child when he and Nicolas had first partnered together but that was long ago. Jonah’s mother had only recently died and Nicolas had been unable to deal with life after her death. He’d stopped fathering and stopped fishing and would have lost the pound but Osmond had stepped in with money and faith and counsel. Nicolas had not listened but their partnership had worked. The only explanation was that Osmond had lost a wife only months before Nicolas and so mutual but unspoken grief had brought and held the two men together.

  Osmond flicked his overhead lights on and lit a fifty-yard stretch of water before him. Swell silver in the light slashed through his field of vision. He watched the numbers on his GPS and soon enough he saw the first of Jonah’s strings. He throttled down and circled one of Jonah’s buoys then gaffed it and dropped it on his washrail as the traps rose. He pulled the two traps in. The tailer trap was empty but the head trap held a female the size of his forearm with a cluster of black eggs tucked beneath her tail. She was green and black and her shell chipped and worn by too many fights and too many storms. Barnacles grew from her claws and bits of seaweed hung from her shell. She backed into a corner of the trap and lifted her claws over her head to fight and she curled her tail tight around her eggs.

  Osmond paid her no attention.

  Both traps were small and old and basically junk. Osmond took his knife from the bulkhead but paused before he cut the ropes. His body felt numb. He looked at the knife in his hand as if some unknown force had placed it there. His boat turned and rolled with its beam to the swell and the head trap tumbled from the washrail to the deck. Osmond thought of his cut-off gear. A shock ran through him. He lifted his leg and slammed his foot into the bridge that spanned the center of the trap and his foot broke easily through the old wire. He slammed his foot through again then again and pounded the wire and the lobster both until he’d stamped the entire cage flat. He stepped back and saw the egged female mixed within the breakage with her useless claws and useless armor and all of her now only a pile of eggs and meat and shell.

  Without cutting any ropes he threw both traps overboard and shoved the throttle down full. The rope hissed as the boat and traps separated. The buoy and float shot from the washrail into the night. Osmond took the deck hose and washed the lobster remains out through the scuppers but the eggs stuck to the deck like gnats that he had to scrub away with his deck brush. He headed Sanctity south at full throttle. The engine surged and only a single time did he make a fist and raise it into the air and bring it down slow and silent onto the bulkhead as the name Jonah escaped his lips.

  It was after one in the morning by the time he slowed and turned north toward home. He cruised at three-quarters throttle and let his eyes close for minutes at a time but each time he snapped them open when Nicolas or Jonah or Virgil or Bill appeared. He told himself this was not guilt but weakness but he could not explain where the weakness had come from.

  At home he made coffee. He sat at a wooden table in the dark. He watched the working of the sea through the sliding glass door. He wondered what they knew. He imagined crows circling the near distance. He waited.

  Celeste woke when Virgil pulled into the driveway. She rolled over and looked at the clock. She heard the front door open and close and she heard the gentle creak of the railing as he pulled his body up the steps. She closed her eyes when he entered the room. She smelled seawater on him and sensed a presence that she could only equate with death but what it meant she had no idea. She tried to swallow the ink-like taste that suddenly trickled down the back of her throat but her tongue had gone dry.

  Virgil showered then sat in the chair beside the bed and she heard him pause and lean back. She listened to his breathing heavy throu
gh the darkness. After a while she could tell that he was trying to match the pace of his breaths with her own which was something he did when he could not sleep as if her calmness could transmit to him through patterns of lung and air. But now his breathing ran askew and he quieted and if she had looked at her husband she would have seen him close his eyes and she might have known that he wanted only to listen as her breath filled his chest.

  Celeste opened her eyes. The faint light from the sea beamed through the window and lit her gray hair. She didn’t move but she felt Virgil’s eyes on her. She swallowed the ink taste and said, Go on and tell me, Virgil, since I’m awake.

  He didn’t speak.

  Virgil, tell me. It’s after one in the morning.

  Virgil quietly clapped his hands together. As he rubbed them Celeste heard the scraping of his rough skin. She sat up and leaned against the headboard and let the sheet and blanket stay at her waist. She wore a white nightgown that absorbed the sea light. She saw the silhouette of her husband’s forehead and cheek and nose and jaw and she tried to fight the impression that he was returning from someplace horrible.

  He moved naked into the bed beside her and their arms and hips touched and she shuddered involuntarily and for the first time in over thirty years of marriage she found herself wondering who her husband was. Or what he was capable of. She didn’t know what was giving her these impressions and she didn’t know why her skin felt like a layer of cold wax had suddenly cloaked it.

  You’re frozen, she said and covered him with the blankets. Oh God, Virgil, are you all right? She rubbed his bicep with both hands and looked him over in the blue moonlight. Are you okay, Virgil?

  Finest kind, he said but he shook and he did not stop. He rubbed his face with both hands. His words were slow and frigid and they scared her. Just been up visiting with Royal.

  Visiting with Royal and what?

  I’m scared, Celeste.

  She dug her nails into the loose skin on his arm as if to awaken him. She swallowed more ink and kissed his cheek then shifted her face into his field of vision and said, Scared of what?

  I don’t know. That’s it—I just don’t know. Jonah cut a string of Osmond’s gear off. Out on the Leviathan. But that’s not it. Something’s gone wrong.

  What do you mean something’s gone wrong? Your best friend died, that’s what went wrong.

  Not that. Something just ain’t right, Celeste. It doesn’t add up. Nic dying like that, and now Osmond trying to fish the Leviathan, and Jonah cutting him off. It’s just not right.

  Do you need help? What were you doing with Royal James?

  Riding around, Virgil said but as he spoke he looked at his own hands as if surprised to find them empty.

  Celeste pulled the covers to Virgil’s throat and rubbed his arms then leaned back so her head touched the wall. Her eyes remained wide open. She said, Is there anything I can do?

  Virgil coughed.

  Oh God, Virgil, she whispered again and she put her hand on his thigh and he covered it with his own. You’re shaking, and you’re freezing. Do you need a doctor? What happened, Virgil?

  Nothing happened. I can’t make sense of it.

  You can’t make sense of what?

  This.

  This is madness, she whispered.

  Trust me, he said. Just trust me.

  An hour passed in silence. Then Celeste rolled over and without opening her eyes said, What have you done?

  I’m not sure, he said and his voice creaked. He took a moment to try to compose himself but he could not. He continued, I can’t tell you yet. I can’t, Celeste. Just not yet.

  She wrapped her arms around him and laced a leg between his legs and his entire body felt cold and wet. She spread her hand over his back and gripped the skin and she opened her mouth over his shoulder and she stared at the wall.

  Charlotte noticed the flower as soon as she stepped out of the building. She glanced from side to side. The wind pressed a tuft of her hair beneath her jaw and she rolled her head to free it. She crossed the parking lot and other students dodged around her and climbed into their cars but she paid them no attention. The flower was tucked beneath her windshield wiper in the same way they all had been. She’d counted seventeen flowers in the last two months and they never came with cards and at first she’d thought they were from Jonah but one day her friend saw Julius Wesley pull into the parking lot and slip a flower onto her windshield. That was number five. Julius hadn’t called her until number twelve but she doubted he’d kept count and she’d learned by then that the flowers came only on bad weather days when he wasn’t on the boat. By the time he called her she’d already begun listening to the marine forecast before bed. When she’d once lain awake dreaming about Jonah she now thought about this boy Julius and listened to the forecast and silently hoped for the winds that would bring another flower.

  She paused and looked at the flower for a moment. It was a white rose just like all of them. She’d done the research and it was a forty-five-minute drive to the nearest store that sold white roses. That was an hour and a half of driving when he could have bought a red rose at the local grocery. She let her book bag slide to the pavement and she lifted the wiper enough to release the flower but this time there was a small white card folded around the stem. She opened it and read the one line and smiled and bounced once on her toes. She read the line again and pocketed the card. With two fingers she held the flower beneath her nose and closed her eyes as she breathed its scent.

  • • •

  An hour later she pulled into Jonah’s driveway. She went inside and Jonah was at the table. She crossed the kitchen in a few quick steps and sat with her jacket still on and her small purse in her lap. Darkness gathered like a swarm through the windows. She stared tight-lipped at him. I’m sorry about not staying longer the other night, she said.

  It’s fine.

  She looked down at her purse and picked at her nails then flicked her eyes back to Jonah. I might be leaving, Jonah.

  Leaving?

  For college.

  I know.

  No you don’t. I got a letter yesterday. I was accepted early to one in Idaho.

  Good, he said. That’s good. Congratulations. He got up and took a beer from the refrigerator and opened it and drank down half of it before sitting back down. He lit a cigarette and said, You don’t look too overly enthused.

  Neither do you.

  I been to college already.

  Well I’m excited about going, Jonah.

  You don’t look it.

  Are you going to give me a beer?

  He nodded and got up and gave her one. He watched as she took a sip.

  Jonah, I don’t know what to do.

  He leaned his head forward and ran his hands through his hair. Do whatever you want, he said.

  She rotated her beer can on the tabletop. I don’t know what that is.

  He waited.

  I don’t think we should keep going, Jonah.

  Okay.

  She waited and he didn’t say anything else. Is that it?

  I don’t know what else to say right now, Charlotte. I’m sorry.

  Can’t you say something? Jesus.

  I got nothing to say, he said. I hope you do well.

  She took another sip of her beer and he stared at her small hand on the can and in that instant he wished she would just go. For a moment he wished everyone he knew and loved would just go.

  She stood up. She held her purse against her stomach. I’m sorry, Jonah. It’s not easy for me either. I love you but I’m graduating and going to college. I want to be happy about that.

  You should be.

  Her eyes dulled and the lids closed slightly. You were the one that kept telling me to apply to colleges. I wanted to stay here.

  I know it. He flattened his hand on the table then lifted it a few inches and swatted down as if to kill a fly. When he spoke his voice was quiet the way it was late at night. I know it, Charlotte. That’s good. I’m p
roud of you.

  She stepped toward him. Are you okay, Jonah?

  Fine. I’m fine.

  She rounded the table and set her purse down then took his head in both of her hands and turned it so he faced her. His face was pale. She bent down and kissed his lips and said, I’m worried about you, Jonah. You seem so—I don’t know. Cold or angry or something.

  Imagine, he said.

  She held his cheeks in her hands. She blinked. Look at your brother and Erma Lee, Jonah. I don’t want to be like that.

  They’re happy.

  She’s not happy. Me and Mom went and saw her the other day and she was sitting in that house all alone bawling her eyes out. That’s not happy, and I wouldn’t be either. And neither would you. I love you, Jonah, but I’m going away and that’s that.

  That’s that, Jonah repeated and as he heard his own words cross the room like a pair of flies he felt something inside him tamp the sadness down like dirt. Charlotte still stood in front of him with her hands on his shoulders. He gripped her thin wrists. He felt bones. He slid his hands along her arms and shoulders and down her rib cage to her hips. Then he pulled her forward lightly but she braced herself and stared down at him. He forced a grin. He unzipped her jacket and spread it open and lifted the side of her shirt to expose the top of her hip. He leaned his head in and kissed the skin.

  Jonah, she said.

  He reached up and worked her jacket from her shoulders. It dropped quickly to the floor. Her hair hung past her cheeks and shrouded her face. Her eyes were narrow and dark.

  Jonah, she said again.

  Jonah leaned back in his chair. He crossed his legs at the ankles and lit a fresh cigarette. What? he said.

  She straightened her shirt and straightened her hair and lifted her jacket from the floor. She faced him and said, Please, Jonah. Don’t.