Of Sea and Cloud

by Jon Keller

  He reached out and rolled the ashes from the tip of his cigarette onto the edge of the scallop shell ashtray then abandoned the cigarette and stood. A twist of smoke cut the air. He cupped his left hand around the back of her neck and after a pause with their eyes locked together she took a step to him. She closed her eyes and so did he. He pressed his lips softly against her forehead.

  • • •

  He stood in the window and watched her walk away. He felt a fist in his chest clench and he took his breaths one by one as if reminding himself to do so. He watched until she was gone and he watched until it was full dark hoping she’d reappear but he knew her too well for that. In his cupboard he found a half bottle and he took one quick swig then went out the door. He walked slowly to the wharf. Two trucks passed him and the fishermen waved at him but he didn’t wave back. He kept one hand in his pocket while the other held the bottle tight to his hip and there seemed to be yet a third hand still clenched fast in his chest.

  Aboard his boat he fired the engine and idled his way out of the harbor with his running lights aglow. He held a course due south. He sipped the whiskey. He passed Ram’s Head and Two Penny without a glance and continued on through the up and down of the sea and into the smooth black darkness. Slowly as the few scattered lights of the coastline dimmed behind him he tapped the throttle lever down and the boat lifted to a plane and disappeared into the night.

  He drummed the bottle against the bulkhead. He did not look back for a long time and when he finally did he could see no lights at all. He continued on and swallowed more and finally when his knees began to feel the warmth he reached down and turned the key off so the boat rose atop its own running wake and came to a lurching halt. Everything fell silent save for the last tumble of the wake which dissipated fast. He stood there at the wheel and looked at black sea and sky all around him. After a moment he swung his legs over the side and sat on the washrail and faced the sea as if facing the long void of his own future.

  He took a final haul off the bottle and threw it and watched it glint through the starshine then heard it splash. He lit a cigarette. His entire body quivered with fear but what exactly he was scared of he wasn’t sure. He leaned forward and squinted at the water and whispered as if the wrong person might hear, Fuck you, Dad.

  Then leaned forward a bit more and felt a line which all he had to do was teeter over and he’d plunge headfirst into the water. He leaned back to safety. Then forward and he hit the line and felt a rush of solidity. His father was gone and Charlotte was gone and he’d started a trap war with Osmond Randolph and Virgil and Bill may as well be gone and what else was there? Only the line and the water beneath the line.

  He leaned forward again and the sky swung and the water felt close and concave in the darkness. The davit for his pot hauler hung beside his head for him to hold on to but he did not. He only leaned into that line across which lay the same cold waters that held his father. He stayed there for full seconds willing and uncaring with his boat beneath him riding up and down on each piece of swell.

  Then shut his eyes and fell.

  The noise of the water around his ears shocked him awake and the cold came next. His clothes and rubber boots were heavy and his boat loomed above him silent and still with its old chips and grooves from thousands of traps banging against the hull on their way up from the seafloor. But he himself was on his way down. The story of an old-timer falling overboard flashed through his mind. The man’s wedding ring had caught a screw head on the splash rail and there the man had dangled until someone heard his shouts. But that was in the harbor. Jonah was out here alone with no wedding ring to save him and the side of his boat came up and down and he grabbed but could not reach the gunwale and there was nothing else. He was not frantic but the cold was biting deeper and his teeth felt brittle beneath his jaw’s tight lock.

  The gunwale rose on a wave then dipped and he reached and missed and the next time he nearly got it but his hands were too cold to hold. Again and nothing and one more time because that was all he would have. This time he locked a single row of fingertips onto the brass coaming. He gripped and his hand tried to betray him but he held and the boat rocked and lifted him out of the water to his thighs then dunked him again. On the next rise he got his other hand up and he dunked then pulled and got his chest over the washrail and there he locked his elbows and hung his head into the boat and breathed.

  Once in the wheelhouse his fingers would not turn the key. His entire body shook as if somebody’s angry hands were upon him. He slammed open the door and dropped below and pressed his hands onto the engine block. He could not tell if it was too hot or not but he heard no skin sizzle so held his hands there despite. Finally his hands began to ache then burn and as the pain ran up his forearms he was able to pull his wet clothing off. He started the engine and went back below and stood naked in the small space and the bright light with oil and tools. The engine chugged and banged all around him. He found a dirty sweatshirt and a pair of oil pants but that was all. He put them on and stayed below with the noise of the engine loud but all of his thoughts and fears stunningly silent.

  • • •

  He went that night to his father’s camp. He was too cold to start a fire but buried himself in the old bed with piles of wool blankets. He lay on his side with his hands between his thighs. His entire body shuddered. From time to time the trembling slowed enough for him to wonder if he would survive and to wonder at what he’d just done out there on the ocean. He knew he had not meant to go overboard but the fact that he hadn’t cared one way or the other shocked him. He gripped his hands together. He trembled and cried.

  • • •

  The camp was a single-story cedar shake cottage with a wood cookstove and a small bedroom. Propane lanterns lined the ceiling and a propane refrigerator rusted in the corner. A water line ran from a boiling spring into a soapstone sink and when the ocean was calm the smooth overflow of spring water filled the air.

  The camp sat perched atop a slab of pink granite ledge at the end of the peninsula. A mile-long skid road led east along the southern edge of the peninsula from the pound to the camp but the path was overgrown and rarely used. A small cove shimmered below and spruces towered above. Stone Island protected the cove from wind and surf but the height of the ledge enabled Jonah to see overtop the island and far out to sea. In the morning he searched through some of his father’s things and was surprised to recall that his father had bought the pound and built the camp after Vietnam.

  The previous night echoed in him like a distant memory but no matter the distance it still shook him how close he’d been to the end. He told himself that he’d been drunk and that tale worked only in increments because like a blade came the truth to his chest that for a moment he’d not cared what happened out there.

  • • •

  Later that day he moved some of his things by boat into the camp. He started a fire in the wood stove and waited as the flames caught and grew. His father’s old Winchester 30.06 hung from a nail on the wall and he took the rifle down and turned it in his hands. It smelled of oil. The stock was scratched and gouged but worn smooth. He opened the bolt and it was empty so he closed it and sighted out the window at a rock on Stone Island. He dry fired once then hung the rifle back from the nail.

  He fed the fire and unpacked his things then took two bottles of beer with him to the wharf and sat on the end with his legs dangling. He watched the cool flight of gulls above Stone Island. The Jennifer was moored in the small cove before him. The water was clear green and he could see the shadow shapes of boulders and the tall sway of old growth kelp. In the warm months those kelp beds held fleets of lobsters living lives built on an ancient and simple pattern. In the fall the lobsters fled the icy inshore waters for the relative comfort of the offshore depths. Then returned in the summer as the shoal waters warmed and in those warm shallows they dug their mud caves and shed their old shells only to emerge new and soft and vulnerable. These migrations were huge
and the seafloor would seethe as the lobsters fanned like cavalries across open flats then piled atop each other to enter underwater corridors or skirt mountainsides and anything that was in their way was either food or not food and all they did was fight to eat and fight to breed. Fight to live and fight to die.

  That night Jonah lay in his father’s bed listening to the waves touching the rocks and the distant grinding of the sea. The bed smelled like his father even though he’d changed the sheets. The smell was Nicolas despite the fact that Jonah couldn’t remember his father ever smelling like anything but lobster bait and diesel fuel and cigarette tobacco. And occasionally bourbon. Now this familiar and strange scent made him feel suddenly close to a man he’d thought in many ways to be a stranger. In that smell he was six years old again and it was a good feeling but not one he was ready to surrender himself to.

  He ran his hands over his face and blinked in the darkness. He thought of armor and claws. He thought of underwater caves and of shedding a shell. He reached to the bed stand and searched for his cigarettes. He knocked one out onto his bare chest and dropped the pack onto his stomach and reached for the lighter.

  One week later. Julius Wesley stood at the boat landing with the wind blowing the water into breaking curls that piled against the steel pylons. The sky was blue and trains of clouds rode the offshore winds. Julius’s sisters stood one on each side of him. He held their hands. They both wore dirty pink jackets with the hoods down and their braids hanging. Dolly wore a small backpack and from time to time she looked up at her big brother. Osmond stood next to them with his oiled hair tucked behind his ears. He was a head taller than Julius.

  The truck and trailer carrying the new 42-foot boat Dolly Rhonda turned in the parking lot and backed down the slick pavement. Julius and Osmond and the girls walked up the galvanized float ramp and Julius ran his hand over the mirror black gel coat on the boat’s hull. Osmond eased a stepladder from the bed of his truck.

  This sure is big, said Dolly. It’s beautiful, Julius.

  They stopped at the stern. I know it is. And so are you two. Here are your names, right here, he said as he traced his finger over the white letters.

  That’s us, Dolly said. Do you see, Rhonda? It says, Dolly Rhonda. You and me.

  Rhonda stared openmouthed at the stern.

  Can we fish with you? Dolly said.

  No, he said. No you two better keep fishing with Grandfather. He needs your help. You’re his new sternman, aren’t you?

  Dolly nodded uncertainly.

  We’ll see, Osmond said as he propped the ladder against the boat. You better get aboard.

  You coming? Julius asked him.

  We’re coming, Osmond said. But you go first.

  Julius adjusted the ladder and climbed aboard the boat and ran his hand over the bulkhead. He smelled fresh fiberglass resin. He leaned over the washrail and Osmond handed the girls up one at a time then climbed the ladder himself. He began to pull the ladder up.

  Don’t bring that aboard here, Julius said.

  Osmond stopped.

  I don’t want that up here.

  Why not?

  I don’t want shit like that aboard is why.

  It will be fine, Julius.

  Just throw it, Julius said.

  Osmond shook his head and swung a leg over the rail and climbed down the ladder and carried the ladder to his truck. Julius watched him for a moment then went to the wheel. The truck lurched and the boat backed down into the water. Bubbles seethed from the hollow trailer frame and the wheels slowly disappeared underwater. The truck stopped and the driver climbed out of the truck and took a control box from its mount. Julius felt the boat drop into the water as the driver worked the individual hydraulic lifts. Each lift made a loud mechanical whir. When the boat was afloat Julius turned the key and the big diesel roared and he smiled at Dolly and she smiled back.

  It sounds like thunder, said Dolly.

  Seven hundred and fifty horses beneath our feet is what that is. John Deere power.

  Oh, said Dolly.

  Osmond sat in his truck with the heater running. His daughter had been dead for four years and he’d held her hand in the hospital bed and he’d sunk to the bed and wrapped his arms around her as she died. Her name was Neveah Elaine and she had trusted her father to die for her children but Julius was something beyond him. He rolled the window up and watched as Julius eased the boat up to the float and gaffed a rope. Dolly climbed out and stood on the steel grate float and waved Osmond down. Osmond didn’t move. Then Julius leaned out and Osmond saw that the boy’s face was red and could not tell if it was happiness or sadness or pain but he opened the door and walked down the float and got on the boat.

  Too bad Pa ain’t here, said Julius.

  Yes, said Osmond. He put his hand on Julius’s shoulder and gently squeezed the muscle and sinew. You should be proud.

  I ain’t proud. I got no time for that.

  Osmond lifted Dolly and Rhonda onto the shining stainless steel baitbox so they could see out the windshield. He turned back to Julius. You can stay at the house, Julius. There’s the mooring there for you.

  I got a mooring going in today.

  I know you do. But so you know.

  I don’t need a thing but this boat.

  Fine, Julius. But you’re always welcome.

  Julius revved the engine and pulled away from the float and eased her up to speed as he crossed the bay. Thunder, he said to Osmond with a grin. I sound like thunder.

  Jonah stayed at his father’s cabin on the end of the peninsula. His head slowly began to clear. Each day the moon rose after midnight and set after dawn. The loud ocean silence descended upon him and that silence felt good. He spent long periods of time watching the sea and its curious combination of motion and stillness. The clouds drifting overhead had the same quiet movement and he wondered why humans after thousands of years of studying sea and cloud had not learned such lessons.

  One night while sitting on the end of the wharf with a scattering of constellations rising over the waters and his feet dangling above those same waters it occurred to him that with this move he’d done something nobody had expected him to do. It was a simple realization but for Jonah it had been a long time coming. This was the first time in as long as he could remember that he’d made a decision and done it despite what Virgil or Bill or Charlotte or anybody else said. Even an action as rash as cutting Osmond’s traps had been done in part out of the mistaken certainty that those he respected would have wanted him to do so. Then he’d nearly died out on the water when in reality he’d wanted the opposite of death. He’d wanted to feel something and perhaps he had. Perhaps the waters had changed him. He’d packed his things and moved to the camp and it didn’t make sense because he should have stayed home and talked to Charlotte and it didn’t make sense because winter loomed and he would be so alone but moving was something he wanted and something he needed and it was something he did.

  • • •

  It had snowed wet and heavy the previous night and through that day. Six inches of slop covered the ground. Now the snow quit and the sun set and the coastline went red and fibrous as open flesh. Jonah heated a basin of water and carried it barefoot outside and dumped it steaming over himself in thick lava-like surges that melted a circle around his feet.

  Back inside he dressed. He paused at the window as the sun dropped over the horizon. The chain of islands southeast from Mason’s Island to Spencer Ledges dropped black and the sea dropped black but far off in the west beyond Two Penny and Drown Boy Rock and beyond the line of coastal mountains remnant shreds of sunlight clung to the earth rim. A final blood-red surge flushed over the darkness.

  He pictured Charlotte. The strips of muscle on the back of her neck. The black curls of hair that he used to tuck behind her ear. The gentle rasp in her voice and the cluster of freckles like a constellation on her shoulder and as the spruce fire crackled he was reminded of the late-night patter of her bare feet on his kitch
en floor.

  He shook his head. He put his jacket on and blew out the lantern and went outside and down the trail. Thoughts of her lifted and crashed like the action of waves. The two of them picking apples in the old peninsula orchard. Her so much younger. Days on his boat. Days along the shore. The two of them catching snowflakes in their mouths. Heads back. Throats arched. The first time she came to his house alone. Just walked in seventeen years old and stood in front of him and said his name. Jonah.

  He pushed the skiff across the frosted planks and into the black water. The last of the tide rushed out like a cloth pulled from beneath him. A gull from somewhere unseen swooped and landed on the bow of the skiff and watched him as he rowed. It batted its wings and stamped its feet. A hush descended and the timeless clatter of wood and water and boat rose into the night sky.

  Jonah tied the skiff off to his boat and checked the oil and turned the key and the engine ground to life. He ran the bilge pump and watched the oil and water piss from the chine. It was cold and getting colder and he stuffed his hands into his pockets and hopped up and down as the engine settled into its deep rhythm. The deck hose was frozen and he cursed and went below and removed the belt from the pulley so the rubber impeller wouldn’t thrash itself to pieces any more than it already had. His fingers went numb with the cold wrenches and the cold grease and the cold oil.

  His wake sparkled white and phosphorescent. The stars glinted. He imagined returning to the camp with Charlotte beside him. He imagined her to be pregnant. He imagined the smooth sea-swell of her body. He listened to his engine pound the shoreline only to drive back at him like fists. Perhaps going to find her was a mistake but he was beyond that so he continued on and rounded the ledges and entered the harbor. The tide turned to flood and the Big Dipper lifted above the harbor as if ladling saltwater into the sky. The pound slid by in the night light with its wood slat dam like baleen and Jonah had the instantaneous image of his father building the dam and he felt a pang for the simplicity of those days.