Of Sea and Cloud

by Jon Keller

  Virgil stood up and rounded the table and took Celeste in his arms. She held her dough-covered hands out to the side and moved her head away from his but still she breathed his brandy breath.

  She stepped from his grip and squared herself in front of him.

  Virgil’s hands hung at his sides. He spoke in a feverish voice. Trust me. Just trust me. I know I’m coming off crazy but goddamn it, Celeste, trust me. Jonah won’t do anything stupid, but don’t you go talking to the Captain about this. He’ll come off pissing fury and we don’t need him on the warpath. I’ll make sure the Highliner don’t open his mouth.

  Celeste leaned against the counter. Jonah’s fine and the only one thinking about Osmond is you and you had no right whatsoever telling him that his father was murdered. Do you have any idea how crazy that is, Virgil? Any idea whatsoever? You just told a young man that his father was fucking murdered. I can’t even believe it myself. I just can’t fathom it. We’re lucky he’s more worried about Charlotte right now than he is about all your talk.

  Christ. I am too.

  Celeste turned and stamped a few more cookies and moved them onto a tray and they were perfect. Neither spoke for a moment then without facing her husband Celeste said, What happened that night, Virgil? That night you came home so late and you couldn’t stop shaking? What did you do? I need you to tell me.

  She heard him breathing.

  He stood up and circled the kitchen like a nervous dog then stopped in front of the window and gazed off into the night for so long that she wondered if he intended to answer her or not. Then he spoke. Remember when we got married?

  Of course I remember.

  He cleared his throat and swallowed. Well you said that you’d share everything you possibly could with me.

  He turned to her and she to him and she nodded.

  And you said that sometimes there would be some things that would be impossible for you to share. Well, this is one of those things right now for me.

  She studied his face with its drooping cheeks and clear sad eyes then nodded again and turned back to her dough.

  After several minutes passed Virgil sat back down on his stool and said, I figured the Highliner was over all that Charlotte stuff.

  Celeste paused and looked at the wall and held her breath for several beats and said, He’s in love, Virgil. He’s not going to get over it that easy.

  Charlotte met Julius at the Irving station. He went inside while she waited in the truck. She examined her fingernails and tried not to think about Jonah. A part of her wondered what she was doing with Julius but since the moment she’d discovered that it was he who’d left the flowers she’d wanted to find out who he was for herself. She’d met Osmond and she’d met the twin girls but she’d never actually met Julius. She’d heard rumors around the school and the wharf but that’s all she thought they were. Rumors. Julius was a drug dealer and Julius tried to drown his sister and Julius’s father was in prison and Julius should be in prison too.

  She didn’t believe the worst of it but if she was wrong then she’d handle him just like she’d handled everything else in her life.

  Julius returned with a bag of hard candies and a twelve-pack of colas. They crossed the river and he sucked on a candy. The tide was ebb and slabs of salt ice broke free of the frozen river and floated downstream to the bay while the rocks and seaweed along the shoreline stayed wrapped in the smooth ice sheets. Snow lined the banks above the high water mark and geese fed in the field and the coastline spread like a hand with its fingertips pressing deep into the gulf.

  They drove in awkward silence along the knuckles of land and came into a town that lay at the crux of two peninsulas separated by a river and bay. They turned down the western peninsula. Julius ran his thumb and forefinger over his arrowhead patch of hair and glanced at Charlotte out of the sides of his eyes. He grabbed a cola and opened the can and drank long but he did not speak.

  Charlotte pulled one foot onto the seat. She wrapped her arms around her knee and watched him as he drove. His eyes and hair and skin were all dark. Your father’s in prison?

  Yeah, he’s there.

  Is it true what he did?

  I don’t know, Julius said and grinned. What’d he do?

  They rounded a corner and saw a lobster pound. In the middle of the pound two men on a scow shoveled antibiotic feed pellets the size of dog food into the water. Several aerators bubbled around the men and a row of refrigerated trucks lined a new tank house. Beyond the pound the inshore islands appeared like black spots in the evening light and miles across the bay on the parallel peninsula Charlotte glimpsed the mouth of her home harbor and the rise of Ram’s Head at its mouth.

  People say he smuggled drugs.

  Yeah, that’s what they say, Julius said.

  But he didn’t?

  His eyes shot to her. I didn’t say he did or didn’t.

  Well, said Charlotte. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. I was just curious.

  He put another candy in his mouth and when it was gone he said, I’m fine talking about it. I don’t give a shit.

  You’re fine talking about what?

  Julius grinned. His eyes narrowed. We ran some stuff. That’s what we done. It’s no big deal now.

  Did your grandfather too?

  Grandfather? Hell no. He’s too religious for the real deal.

  The road led them away from the water and over a small knoll then back down to the water. They followed the edge of the bay and a half mile across the bay stretched the island called Numbers. Several old houses and an overgrown orchard and an abandoned schoolhouse and a collapsing church were visible on the western shore. A few deer stood in the snow beneath an apple tree and pawed at the ground.

  Your father’s name is Chimney?

  Yeah, Chimney Wesley. He’s a pirate is what he is. He was the one gave me the name Julius. Julius Caesar Wesley. My dad’s a real pirate. What we’d do is meet them big boats offshore and load our holds with weed or coke or hash or whatever. Then we’d pack lobster crates with it and put lobsters on top and the truck met me and him right there at the landing in front of everyone and all those dumb bastards thought we were just selling lobsters. I’ll tell you what else I done before. Me and my dad Chimney crated up lobsters and shipped them overseas to the Netherlands or Denmark or something. Amsterdam. Them Frogs over there’d put a bunch of shit in the crate and pack the lobsters back around it. Course by then the lobsters would be dead so they’d put stickers saying Dead Seafood or some shit in there and return it all to the sender. So me and my dad got the crates back full of stinky-ass dead bugs but in there was the good stuff.

  How long’s he in jail for?

  Ten or twenty, I don’t know. He’ll go back to court. He runs the show. He lives good up there.

  Charlotte wet her lips and looked out the window. She thought and then she spoke. Why aren’t you in prison too, then?

  She watched Julius’s eyes narrow. She wondered if she’d gone too far.

  Finally he said, Because my old man covered for me is why and don’t you ever forget it because I won’t. Not ever. You get that? Never.

  Charlotte started to respond but his face had turned angry so she turned away and crimped her mouth into a thin hidden line and wondered about him. The road left the water again and wound up a small plateau sided by blueberries. Neither spoke and Charlotte could feel scorn filling the cab like exhaust and she wondered if her friends at school were right that this boy named Julius was psycho. She kept herself from looking at him. She wanted suddenly to be out of the truck and in her car or in her home but it was not that simple. She gripped the door handle. Julius drove fast and for the moment at least he was still a magnet from which she could not pull away.

  Why’d you leave me those flowers? she said.

  Me?

  Yeah, you. Why’d you leave me flowers?

  She waited and watched the snowy fields rail by.

  Because, he said. Because you helped R
honda that time. At the store.

  All I did was help her up off the floor.

  Well all I did was give you some flowers.

  They neared the end of the plateau and the sea spread forth and blended with the sky and the two together formed a cosmos that the truck sped into. The light became bright red and pulsed and gleamed over the snow-covered peninsula and the bays and rivers with all of their islands like studs sparkled crimson in the sunset. Straight offshore the Drown Boy Rock lighthouse rose tall and cylindrical out of a submerged granite peak and if the water had been calm they might have seen the great mountain’s flanks and ridges disappearing into the soundless depths. They dropped down the hill into the thick gloom of spruce and fir and parked at a small brown church.

  You been here before? he said.

  Not for a long time.

  Julius stepped out of the truck and shut his door. Charlotte held the door handle and tried to ignore the fear she’d felt moments ago. The trees surrounding them were thick and crowded. Something about the situation didn’t feel real as if it were not her here with Julius but another girl who she had seen but never met and one day she would hear stories about that girl and shake her head and say, I remember her, foolish girl.

  She tried to forget that other girl. The door opened and she stepped out. Julius was there. He gripped her hand and swung the door closed. He pulled her toward the church. The snow came to her shins and as she followed him she caught herself thinking that this boy could do anything he wanted to her.

  He’d of gotten away with it too, Julius said with a voice soft and nearly sweet. Pa would’ve.

  If what? Charlotte stopped herself from walking and pulled her hand away. He turned to her and they saw each other as shapes in the darkness.

  If that offshore tug with them fucking Puerto Ricans hadn’t of got lost. That’s when they threw all our hash overboard while the Coasties were chasing ’em down and all the dumbass urchin divers and scallop draggers on the coast were coming home with steel tubes full of our hash. Sea hash is what they call it.

  And the Puerto Ricans told on your father?

  He didn’t turn himself in.

  Charlotte forced a laugh. Do you miss him?

  Chimney? He’s only been in for six months.

  She waited for more and nothing came so she followed the snow pathway to the steps. The church was small and sided with rough cut pine boards stained brown. The hipped roof and fieldstone bell tower stood framed by a break in the timber. She stood at its base and gazed up at the smooth rounding of rocks and the stars that were beginning to come out like eyes spying. She felt Julius’s hands on her hips. She didn’t move at first then turned.

  It’s beautiful, she said.

  I know.

  She laughed. You know everything.

  Damn close to it.

  He still had his hands on her hips.

  She put her hands on his hands then pulled away. She opened the big door to the church. The door swung slowly and creaked through the small chapel and bell tower. Charlotte could see the black lines of the pews and the black line of the altar and the big stained glass window behind it. She walked down the aisle and her footsteps were loud on the wooden floor and the room was a cavern filled by echo and it did not feel like a place of refuge or a place of worship. She shivered. She put her hands in her pockets and she felt her spine tingle.

  She stood at the altar as Julius stepped in. She turned and she saw him. A shadow in the doorway. He eased the door shut and latched it. The creaking seemed to stay in the room even after the door was closed and she couldn’t see him anymore but heard his breathing and then his steps one by one by one. She searched the darkness for him. She held her breath. She felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise and she felt once again that another girl had come and why would that girl do such a thing?

  His footfalls echoed around the chamber. She thought of Jonah. She turned in the darkness and looked for a place to go but there was nowhere. She reached out to grab something or fend something off but found only air. Then he flicked his lighter and the church lit and he stared through the flame. His eyes were dark slits like wings. His nose like a hawk’s. The flame went out and in the flash she saw the hawk nose and the arrowhead of hair and the wingspread eyes. Her neck pulsed.

  Suddenly he filled the space in front of her.

  She smelled candy on his breath. She waited for something but nothing came. He stood motionless. She forced a small and nervous laugh then gripped both of his biceps. His arms were lean and hard like stretched bricks and she smelled his skin and breath like sugar and she brushed her lips over his then said, This is a church.

  I know.

  Why’d you bring me here? Her hands climbed his biceps then rested on the back of his neck.

  I knew you’d like it.

  I’m going to kiss you, she said.

  You like it, don’t you?

  It’s fine, she said but suddenly she felt off balance and didn’t know why. She told herself that Julius was standing there harmlessly but her precariousness came from within and she wasn’t sure if she liked the feeling or not.

  You like it, don’t you?

  His voice shot into her eardrum and she felt vibrations prance along her ribs. It took her a moment to realize that he was talking about the church.

  It’s fine, she said.

  You trust me, don’t you?

  She nodded.

  Don’t you?

  Yes, she whispered. Yes.

  She saw him smile through the darkness and her heart thudded. She couldn’t swallow because her heart seemed to fill her throat. Her hands were still on his neck and she slid them down over his arms and wrists to his hands. She pinched the wedge of skin at the base of his thumb then pressed his hands onto her hips and held them there.

  She placed her fingertips on the tops of his hands then lifted herself onto her toes and pressed her lips briefly into his. She moved his hands to the front of her belt and with their fingers laced together she flipped her belt open and coached his fingers as they worked her button free then slid the zipper down.

  A shock of cold air landed on the beam of her bare pelvis and her knees felt loose and weak. She set a hand on the altar to balance herself and her other hand stayed slack atop his. She could hear a heart beating but didn’t know who it belonged to. She shifted her hips as he pulled her jeans and underpants down. He worked his fingers slowly into her and they were hard and cold.

  She heard him groan.

  She put a hand on his shoulder as they backed to the wall. With the one hand he lifted her to her toes. She kissed him on the neck and then their mouths met and she slid her tongue into his mouth. His tongue was sugary and fast. She reached for his belt and beyond but quickly he released her and caught her hand.

  He cleared his throat and coughed. He took her in his arms and hugged her to the length of his body. She stared up at the dark church rafters and it took a few seconds to realize that the trembling she felt came from him. He held her tight with his hands fisted in her sweatshirt and his face stuffed against her neck. She felt the hot breath from his mouth and nostrils on her skin.

  She didn’t move and tried barely to breathe.

  Then he cleared his throat and snorted loose snot. Her pants and underpants were stuck at her thighs. Her ass was cold and she shivered and tried to release him but he burrowed his face still deeper and squeezed tighter. Finally he lifted his mouth to her ear and she felt cold tearstains and heard his whisper deep in her ear, I’m so sorry.

  Then he was out of her arms and out of the church. Charlotte’s hands were left awkward in front of her with her arms slightly bent at the elbows as if she was readying to play a piano. Her fingers and wrists moved and curled and pumped. She had no strength in her legs so she slid slowly down the wall and landed with her bare ass on the cold floor.

  After what felt like both too long and not long enough she lifted her hips from the floorboards and pulled her underpants back up.
She waited and caught her breath then pulled her pants up but she did not zip or button them until she was standing. Whether or not to cry came in waves that she fought off each time and by the time her belt was latched she’d stopped shaking. Thoughts of Jonah piled in her mind.

  She walked down the aisle and opened the door. Tall spruces loomed over her head. At first she did not see him in the night but a motion caught her eye. He was a silhouette in the trees to the right of where she stood on the church step. He kicked at something over and over then as she watched he lifted whatever it was and swung it against a tree with a scream as high and frightening as a coyote’s.

  He screamed once more but in a deeper pitch. More like a wolf. Charlotte looked around as if searching for help but they were alone. After a minute Julius stilled and stood with his back to her. When he made no more noise she approached him with one hand held out in front of her. She didn’t know what he’d swung against the tree but found herself preparing for an animal the size of a dog. Her outstretched hand landed on his back and she paused. His body heaved. His muscles jumped. She pressed her hands against him and looked beyond him and on the ground she saw a broken and splintered log spread over the snowpack.

  She exhaled.

  Julius, she said. Julius, it’s okay.

  His back was covered in wet snow but she felt sweat rising through his sweatshirt. He didn’t respond so she took another step then another and she put her arms around his body and gripped his rib cage tight and his trembles became her own so she leaned her head against the back of his neck and held.

  When Jonah finished his shower he opened the door and went down the hallway. He carried his socks in his pocket. His bare feet touched quietly on the carpet. The door to Charlotte’s room was open and he paused on the threshold then went in. The porch lights lit the driveway and the yard below and cast a glow into the room. He could see the birches outside lined like ramparts.

  The room smelled like her. Like honey and sage and summer wind and he looked at the bed and the bureau and the vanity and the pile of jeans and T-shirts and bras in the corner. Pictures of her friends hung on the wall above the bureau and Jonah stepped closer and set his hands on the bureau top. It was covered in bracelets and necklaces and rings and barrettes and he recognized some of them. He began to feel strange among her things but couldn’t pull himself away. He resisted the urge to open a drawer. He lifted a silver necklace and let it dangle and flash from his fingers and wished Charlotte were there with him. He set the necklace down.