Washed Up with a Broken Heart in Rock Hall

by Peter Svenson

  In the early evenings he’ll sometimes take a drive in the old Corolla just to cool off and clear his brain.

  Getting away from the cottage, however briefly, becomes a mental necessity. I don’t go far—over to Tolchester where the shipping channel cuts near the shoreline, or down to the wildlife sanctuary on Eastern Neck Island. Sometimes I just drive around Rock Hall itself—Catholic Avenue, Boundary Avenue, Liberty Street, Hawthorne Avenue, Sharp Street. Dead-ends and alleyways, water accesses, cul-de-sacs.

  Yes, I know. Mindless cruising is a silly holdover, a figment of my long-gone youth, a waste of gasoline. Having no real destination or purpose, I’m the worst kind of automotive polluter—the guy who buys a tankful and proceeds to burn it for no good reason. Motion for motion’s sake, an idiotic expenditure of energy!

  I only wish I had a woman to ride shotgun.

  There are other diversions as well. On a mid-August Saturday, Rock Hall’s annual “Party on the Bay,” is held at the town bulkhead, a harborside expanse between wharves and boat sheds not far from where he lives. The day is a scorcher and he normally eschews both crowds and midday sun, but this is an event he feels he shouldn’t miss. He has already devoted the morning to writing and just now had lunch.

  Sometimes it’s good to do what everyone else is doing. All morning I’ve looked out the window and seen cars heading in that direction. I’m ready to join the procession so off I saunter with maximum protection—canvas hat, long trousers and sleeves, sunblock. Along the half-mile hike, I’m stopped twice and asked directions, which makes me feel like a true Rock Haller.

  Budge arrives at the bulkhead to find the party in full swing. Several hundred people are milling between two rows of shade canopies flanking a bandstand and a covered picnic area. The three-piece band is rhythmically obstreperous—guitarist, bassist, singing drummer—as a contingent of mostly women sidesteps in unison to the slide boogie. A beer seller ministers to his parched gregarious queue. Adjacent food purveyors dispense funnel cakes, pit beef sandwiches, Philly steaks, steamed shrimp, Italian sausage, and caramel apple chips. When the band takes a break, a crab-picking contest ensues. From the crowd, bashful half-drunk souls are importuned, seated at a table, given three minutes to extract the meat of whole crabs into pint containers. The winner—by weight—is awarded twenty-five dollars.

  Off in the harbor, pleasure craft peopled to the gunwales ride at anchor. The skipjack Nathan nudges pierside between half-hour cruises—not cheap, never crowded. By contrast, the free shuttle boat to Waterman’s Dock on the far side of the harbor is jammed. In the glare of the afternoon, Budge is thankful for his ray-deflecting attire, although he can’t help but notice that most of the party goers, young and old, celebrate the sun. Hatless, with minimal covering, tanned in some cases to precancerous (so he imagines) excess, they circulate in multitude, flaunting body piercings and tattoos.

  Centrally located in the throng is Rock Hall’s Oysterman, a life-size bronze heroic figure on a pedestal, frozen forever in the act of harvest. Within his long-handled tongs’ basket, someone has placed real oyster shells, an elegiac reminder of a once-thriving Chesapeake Bay industry, now diminished almost to the point of extinction.

  The crowd ignores the statue. It isn’t pirouetting, it isn’t hawking anything, it isn’t decked out in polychrome, and it has been around for years. Its patina looks almost black. An African-American oysterman? All the more reason to ignore it.

  By three o’clock in the afternoon, with the heat at its oppressive zenith, business under the shade canopies begins to slack off. Handmade hats, ornamental birdhouses, toe rings, Nautical Treasures, sports plaques, plastic bag holders, and other assorted “bayside” crafts go unsold. Out by the parking lot, fewer children jump and slide and squeal in the inflatable fun-house. J.R.’s Midnight Express, back on the bandstand, belts out another set, but nobody’s dancing anymore despite the fact that the country-rockers have cranked the volume.

  On the crowd’s outskirts, I stand in the slim shade of a utility pole to listen awhile to the music, although by now my ears don’t perceive it as such. Nor do I get relief from the heat; the pavement broils through the soles of my sneakers. I have no choice but to keep moving.

  Circumnavigating the bulkhead one last time, he exchanges greetings with two or three familiar faces and picks up a few free pencils and refrigerator magnets. Then he walks home.

  Chapter 6

  As August wears on, Budge stays on the premises for even longer stretches. He’s making a concerted effort to spend less money—not by choice, but by necessity. Having balanced his checkbook, he realizes that unless he can generate more income, he will be broke within two billing cycles.

  In a way, it’s a good thing that he’s not dating anyone—he can’t afford to. But why is he staying at home day and night, not availing himself of even so minor a perk as an occasional ice cream sundae at Durdings or Saturday night concert at the Mainstay? He is putting himself at an extreme social and personal disadvantage, and for what? Is he trying to prove to himself that he can scrimp like a pauper?

  No, it’s to prove to the world that he’s a serious writer, a literary force to be reckoned with despite his obscurity and advancing years.

  I sit at my desk and write. That’s all I do, day in and day out. I intend to write my way out of this predicament, write my way to a pedestal of modest renown. I know I can do it—writing is the one thing I do better than anything else. Somewhere, somehow, someone will want to read these words. In my lifetime, I hope.

  I used to consider myself the most versatile writer in the world. Give me any topic, and I’d custom craft a piece of required length. I was an indefatigable researcher; I got right down to the nitty-gritty. I thought of my skills as being superior to those of a mere reporter, because I polished my prose to a high literary lustre—I didn’t just serve it up hardboiled.

  One by one, these projects were completed, but then freelance work became scarce. Nowadays, choice writing assignments are doled out in-house—staff writers are easier to control and paid less. A new generation of editors, having little affinity for a writing style like mine, applies the red pencil too heavily. My sentences are diced into a succotash of mediocrity, and what I see in print isn’t at all what I’ve submitted.

  Budge is on a favorite topic here: the hard truth about growing obsolete.

  But you don’t stop doing what you do best. If you do, you’re fooling yourself. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about “reinventing,” i.e., dropping one persona and picking up another as easily as, say, slipping on a Halloween mask. The ultimate versatility: turning into a new and different person (and tossing in a little cosmetic surgery, if it’ll help to complete the transformation). Then what do you have? A creature desperate for approval. A man or woman who will do anything to obfuscate the old reality. Learn new skills, wear new clothes, drive a new car, take a new lover. But in the end, you’re left with a makeover that will fail as surely as what was in place to begin with. Life is short; its potential is limited; its possibilities are finite. This is what’s known, I think, as “the human condition.”

  When the writing day is over, Budge finds solace in quaffing a beer or two at the water’s edge. Starting roughly at the portajohn, there is a low wall of rip-rap extending through the phragmites, and on these piled up rocks, completely hidden from the public beach, Budge has placed an Adirondack chair that washed up shortly after he first moved in. As found objects go, the chair is a rarity; it must have cost a couple of hundred dollars when new. Its teak slats, fastened with stainless steel screws, are in near-perfect condition—nicely weathered, too—with only one armrest cracked. Budge toiled for almost an hour one afternoon to get the chair situated atop the massive granite polyhedrons so that its four legs were level and sufficiently wedged against the highest tides. Now he has a veritable throne on the bay.

  This is where I go as the day draws to a close. Later, I’ll mosey over to the boardwalk to visit with whoever is r
epresenting the sunset club that evening, but first I want to relax by myself and not worry about getting busted for having an open container of alcohol.

  Ragu accompanies me. After checking the rustling vegetation for scents and quarry, she stretches out upon one of the flatter rocks below the chair. She has no interest in the bay splendor, while I can’t take my eyes off it. As the sun lowers, the water turns successive shades of chiaroscuro, and the reflective movement over so vast an area, linked to the sky by a sliver of distant shoreline, is nothing short of mind-bending. It’s easy to lose all track of time.

  Condensation from the beer bottle runs down the arm of the chair. Mosquitoes violate my airspace. I shift my posterior to a more comfortable position. My feet are swinging free (the chair sits high, it couldn’t be helped). Several small craft are in view: a charter fishing boat returning to the harbor, two sailboats tilted in the evening breeze, a speedboat copping a last rush of adrenaline. Through binoculars, I can make out tractor trailers rolling along the highway on Kent Island—darkly shimmering rectangles slowly traversing the horizon. A couple of feet in front and below my chair, opaque brown wavelets rush and recede, rush and recede, tumbling a dead fish that aromatically wedges itself between rocks.

  I am that breeze, I am those trucks, I am that dead fish! I’m here because I want to be here—no, that’s not it at all. I don’t want to be here; I have to be here, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I am one with this shoreline, wedded to it, stuck with it. For how long, I have no idea. Christ, it’s a bummer!

  In the hottest part of the day, when Budge is indoors, he uses the binoculars for closer subjects.

  I hardly consider myself a Peeping Tom—I mean, voyeuristically speaking, the bathing beauties are in plain view—but this way, I can extend my appreciation of bare flesh to details I might otherwise miss. A sprinkle of freckles, a felicitously placed mole, a birthmark the antonym of a blemish, a pierced navel, a tasteful tattoo, a noteworthy manicure or pedicure, a ravishing sunburn, a clump of bleached still-wet hair. What better way for a non-sunwor-shipper to study the noonday colonization of the strand? Optical enhancement brings me close-up without getting personal. I’m paying the rent, I’m entitled to the view.

  Thoreau said something about how the unexamined life is not worth living. I couldn’t agree more. My powers of observation are my true wealth (not to mention my sole source of entertainment). My eyes lead me to contemplations that are key to my well-being. Were I to ignore the minutiae, I’d be all the poorer. Myopic as the next guy, I’d miss a good portion of what “beachness” is, too.

  It is a privilege to live here, I keep reminding myself. This is no recirculating frog pond, no whooshing white noise machine that plugs into an outlet beside the bed. This is the “real deal”—and on Beach Road no less! It looks and smells and sounds just right. It’s got a human component that invites scrutiny. But I don’t just think of myself as an observer of female anatomy; I also observe context, proportion, quality, and relationship. Hence I have no qualms about using the tools at my disposal.

  Thus Budge rationalizes his surreptitious surveillance without mentioning his actual motivation, i.e., the sheer horniness that compounds daily. Were it not for the binoculars, he’d have no outlet—however vicarious—for his pent-up tactile urges. From inside the cottage, however, he lacks an unimpeded view. Double panes of dirty glass plus screening dull the clarity, and the locust trees and boxwood—not to mention the two kiosks—partially block the sight line. So he doesn’t get to see everything he might want to (of course, if he stepped outside, that would solve the problem).

  But Budge isn’t an in-your-face guy, nor does he want the reputation of a dirty old man. He’s too busy, he’s got too much work to do. He’ll only glance up from the computer screen every fifteen minutes or so. For a writer as unsuccessful as he has been lately, he still retains an amazing amount of discipline. He continues to believe in the Big Payoff. He’ll gawk through the binoculars only to rest his eyes. A full day’s writing always comes first.

  This may explain why, during off hours, his imagination often runs out of control. Take, for example, the simple act of grocery shopping at Bayside Foods. Like most men, Budge would rather not shop, but since he has to, he utilizes the opportunity to give the once-over to two checkout girls in particular.

  Both are in their late teens, both physically stunning. One is tall with ash blond tresses, the other is petite with a dirty blond bouffant. The ash-blonde has a vacuity that takes my breath away; her eyes stare through me as if I’m not there. She’s got thin lips, a beak of a nose, a complexion of the palest ivory. Checking the groceries, she hunches forward and squints a little—not out of concentration, but out of boredom—as she shoves each item lackadaisically across the scanner. Something in her attitude turns me on—her passivity, her disdain. She’s a fully clothed paper doll waiting for a lover.

  The other, the dirty-blonde, is just the opposite. She’s cute, talkative, eager to please. When greeting customers, she looks directly into their eyes and smirks coquettishly. She’s got the most kissible lips in creation (I often wonder who they’re being wasted on). The acne on her rosy cheeks has almost disappeared (from sunbathing at the beach?), and her lithe post-adolescent figure—from what I can see of it—is in exquisite proportion. She makes me feel like I’m her valued customer (could she secretly have the hots for me?). Moving my purchases over the laser window, taking my cash and proffering the receipt, her multi-ringed hands articulate the age-old transaction between seller and buyer. Her bagging skills are superior to anybody’s in the store. She’s so helpful, in fact, that after she loads each plastic sack, she stiffens the handles by creasing them so they’re upright and ready for the grabbing. I only wish it were as easy to grab her …

  Okay, enough of that. A steady diet of Budge’s romanticization of the mundane can choke the swallower. What kind of an audience is he writing for, anyway? More and more, it appears he’s writing only for himself. No wonder he’s having a hard time getting published! It’s easy for him to get carried away on descriptive flights of fancy, just as it’s easy for him to forget his age and the way he really appears in a mirror.

  On the other hand, Budge is a sane man. Which means, of course, that he’s perfectly harmless. He’s a mainstream guy with mainstream values; it wouldn’t dawn on him in a million years to actually make a pass at a teenage girl. (If he ever did, God forbid, he wouldn’t know what to do next.) At present, the only thing that distinguishes him from any other average middle-aged Joe is that he is very, very lonely and he’s got an overstimulated imagination. He is a dumped writer—those two words say it all. Can he not be blamed, then, for being woman-hungry man incarnate? He’s got one thing on his mind and, rant as he might, it seems to be the farthest thing from his grasp.

  Similarly, when Budge goes to the post office on Liberty Street, he is smitten.

  Rosa, behind the counter, is the most beautiful woman in Rock Hall. I’m talking about ripeness now, not teeny-bopper immaturity. Rosa’s beauty radiates beyond the depredations of time; she’s like a Florentine matron, knowledgeable yet demure, with a face that would rival Helen’s, launcher of a thousand ships. She’s in her mid-50s (it takes one to know one), with colored hair, wrinkled brow, a sagging jawline (you can tell if she’s having a good day or a bad one) and penetrating dark eyes. She’s got fleshy arms and is at least ten pounds overweight with a bit of a tummy (fibroids?), but she’s an out-and-out delight to gaze upon.

  When I walk in, she is usually at the back of the office, sorting behind the one-way glass. “I’ll be there in just a minute,” she’ll call in that sultry voice which utterly captivates me. I imagine her stepping nude from behind an ornate screen, an Odalisque summoned by her lover. I brace myself for the treat. When she does appear, crisp and business-like in her postal attire, I do my best not to make the transaction too brief. “Oh, and I need some stamps, too. Do you have any new issues? Would you mind showing me?”


  She always obliges. My eyes flit between the stamps and her. Without a doubt, she has a face that launches thousands of pieces of priority mail. Do others see her beauty as well? Does her husband (deduced by the wedding band) worship her as I do? He’d be a curmudgeon if he didn’t. In my estimation, Rosa is the town’s single most valuable asset. In her presence I grow weak-kneed and light-headed—she has that strong an effect upon me. Naturally, I hold myself together, but I buy more stamps than I need.

  Thus, the pattern emerges. Budge can’t help himself, roving from one feminine superlative to the next. He’s a lover’s lover, with no means of expressing himself other than in prose that curls purple at the edges with unrequited desire. The strain of this state of suspended sexuality will surely drive him nuts.

  Chapter 7

  Budge describes his loneliness to a doctor in Chestertown during a routine checkup. Physically, he’s feeling fine, except for the fact that he’s not sleeping very well. Dr. Schneider commends him on his weight, blood pressure, and blood work—obtained just recently—as well as his general state of fitness. The stethoscope plus pokings and proddings and orifice-inspecting confirm the diagnosis: here sits a strikingly healthy 55-year-old male.

  Without saying so, Budge is greatly relieved.

  “As for sleeping pills,” the physician advises, “I’d prefer not to write you a prescription. Try to relax a little more—drink a glass or two of wine every night, watch a good movie, read a book, and when you’re ready, start dating again …”

  Budge interrupts. “That’s the problem, Doc. I’m definitely ready—believe me, I’m rarin’ to go—but I can’t find a suitable woman.”

  Budge then goes on to inquire if there’s a local support group for divorced people. Considering the question, Dr. Schneider strokes his chin thoughtfully.

  “A local support group, you say? Right off, I can’t think of any. We’re too far from a metropolitan area. But I’ll tell you what—you go online, don’t you?”