The Tidewater Tales

by John Barth

  Knock it off now, Willy, Henry Sherritt chuckles in K IV’s aft cabin, where he and Irma sleep feet-sternward in their queen-size berth. Across the nursery, their first-born is banging his crib against the wall again, a habit he picked up some weeks ago. The sturdy ten-month-old likes to get on hands and knees in his blue Dr. Dentons and lunge heavily back and forth, going unh, unh, unh. His parents can move the crib a foot from the wall and put rubber cups under the casters, but when Willy Sherritt decides to “chunk himself to sleep,” as they call it, his motion inevitably inches the crib along until its headboard hammers the wall. Knock it off, Big Will, his father chuckles through the dark.

  Irma touches his arm. She has just waked from good-humoredly chiding her daughter-in-law, who in the interval between Easter and Flag Day has become a sudden “chocoholic.” This time next year, Irma prophesied beside the pool at Nopoint Point, you’ll weigh a hundred eighty-five. Replied morose Molly This time next year I’ll weigh less than I do now. Awake, Irm wonders what’s come over Molly Barnes Sherritt, but that concern gives way to a leisurely inventory of others, from that poor unfortunate fat boy who tried to drown himself, through what to get Olive Treadway for her upcoming fortieth birthday and fifth anniversary in their service, to the approach of her and Hank’s old age and inevitable infirmity. She does not omit her daughter and son-in-law’s reckless recent wardship of her grandchildren, which (the recklessness), thank God, seems at an end. Her husband chuckles again in his sleep; she kisses his pajama’d shoulder and does in fact, politely, thank God.

  In an unsuspected alcove under the bed in our Stony Run apartment in Baltimore, Katherine Sherritt Sagamore finds Tawney’s edition of Penzer’s translation of Somadeva’s eleventh-century tale cycle, The Ocean of Story, in ten sea-green folio volumes, of which the first (containing the “Kathapitha,” or “Story of the Story”) is conspicuously missing. Relieved, she squeezes her burden into the slot. But Florence Halsey, glasses down on her nose, eyes twinkling over the rimless lenses, is already shaking her head. I know, sighs Kate, I know. Behind the cubby she senses another secret space, opening upon vastness like the keyhole to a closed planetarium. She grips the retrieved volume momentarily between her knees; that won’t help for long! Ma-ay, she chides. Her underpants feel wet. ¿Qué pasa?

  (Of the lot of us, only Night and Day make no distinction between waking and dreaming, even when awake; but they feed upon, filter, and flavor their mother’s dreams. Her shudder now alarms them; they clutch each other and themselves. About twelve hours, eleventy-nine minutes and counting, they agree, though they have no timepiece; it’s just a way of talking they’ve picked up. Declares proud Rock: Daddy’s writing all this in a book. His sister says So’s Mom: El lee-bro meesterioso, and we’re in it. About twelve hours, eleventy-eight minutes and counting.)

  Andrew Sherritt, directing the number-two cameraman to dolly in tighter, is surprised at the husky male sound of his own voice. It is himself at his present age, in the bed of his bedroom at home, on a green and tender late-May morning. But the smiling woman beside him—tawny-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned as a Coppertone model sans bikini, across whose nakedness the sweet air moves as over his—is his wife. Her head is propped in her right hand; her left rests lightly on her upthrust hip. Her face, also her body, is of a surpassingly friendly beauty; Chip will remember that phrase, the ease of his lying there with her, the air on their skin, the feel of their being husband and wife. He’ll recall her face exactly; it reminds him of no one’s he knows, nor any composite that he can sort out. He’ll wish he had gotten her name, at least, and wonder why in the world he was filming them in bed together. He’d never do that! His eyes and nose will sting: His first real wet-dream, and they were such good friends!

  In Limbo Straits, between Lower Hoopers and Bloodsworth Islands—so named by Captain John Smith in June of 1608 after squally sailing there—the writer Peter Sagamore lies becalmed. His committee is still in conference aboard the Committee Boat nearby; he awaits their judgment in his College Park office. He has for example not paid enough attention to his old mother: Where has Nora Sagamore been, these many pages? He does not care as much as he ought for his sister and brother, better human beings in several respects than himself; surely they think him snobbish, too good for them with his Gold Coast bride and in-laws. That’s not the point, Sue-Ann, Jacob!

  What is the point, then?

  Okay: He does not expect to fare so well as Dante Alighieri, welcomed in Hell’s First Circle as one of themselves by Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, together with his sponsor, Virgil. Homer will dismiss him as too narrow, among other failings; Cervantes and Sam Clemens as too fancy. No matter that he has worked honestly and hard, year after year for above two decades, at his art: The committee rightly cares nothing for effort, only for accomplishment.

  His friend in court, if he has one, is Scheherazade, an amalgam now of May Jump and Carla B Silver. Yet even she seems to admonish him, not in person but in a caption that rolls by as on a Trans-lux: you need not LOVE THE WORLD. . . . YOU NEED NOT EVEN APPROVE OF IT. . . . BUT RELISH IT YOU MUST.

  Probation, then: an Incomplete. Fair enough. What he’ll do, muse willing, is what he’ll have done when he’s done, and he is not done yet.

  Aboard Reprise, all hands in sleep replay the evening’s ruckus, each in his/her personal key. How do we know? We know. Bid by Peter at Leah Talbott’s request, Carla B Silver made her way across the rafted boats to see what ailed Simon, who was by then howling in the cutter’s cabin. Kath offered her services, but stayed put when Lee advised her it was a family matter. Captain Donald tagged along, but stopped with us aboard Story, for the same reason. By the evidence, we agreed, the trouble this time was not seasickness. Where’s his mother? Kath wondered. Swimming, aft of Katydid, along with May, Chip, Frank Talbott, the Basses, and the Sherritts. Probably couldn’t hear Simon’s voice for their splashing.

  To his grandma, Sy now shrieked curses upon his mother and May Jump: wild imprecations that even we could hear, of a tenor with his earlier confidings to Chip Sherritt. Oh, the poor boy! Kath commiserated. And poor May! We shook our three heads, tisked our three tongues (Pity and Terror, praise God, were napping, and missed this scene). Lee came out and called sharply into the dark for Marian and Frank; the other swimmers paddled usward too, wondering now. Hearing her name by Simon hoarsely screamed, May Jump hauled herself up Reprise’s stern ladder behind the other two. I do believe I’m being summoned, she remarked in our direction. Capn Don warned her that the boy sounded clear out of control; May said Yup and went dripping on down to see what was what.

  The sight of his irritated mother, soaking wet in her now-translucent orange T-shirt and skintight shorts, proved Sy’s last straw. He bellowed a foulness at her; she yelled right back You little shit! and whacked him upside the head. Sy snatched a sharp pair of British one-handed stainless-steel dividers from the chart rack beside Reprise’s quarterberth and lunged at her. Wet May caught his arm and expertly restrained him, at the same time urging him calmly to cool off. As gently as he could, Frank Talbott retrieved and stowed the dividers; his wife, less gently, moved her dripping sister back out of range, toward the forward cabin, scolding her. Well I’ve had it with him! Marian wailed. I can’t do anything! Growled Carla B Silver For Christ sake can it, Mims.

  To sunglassed Simon, thrashing now in May’s strong grip like an animal in a trap, Frank proposed moving upstairs to talk things over. By an agreement of eyes, May seconded the motion; she was the wrong one to be restraining him. The instant she let go, however, and before Frank or Carla could recatch him, the boy bolted up the companionway they were nudging him toward, out into the cockpit, up and over the starboard lifeline. Had Reprise’s dinghy been rigid fiberglass like ours, he would in all likelihood have hurt himself; it was secured on that side to clear the boarding ladder. As was, he landed heavily but harmlessly upon its inflated outboard side, splashed into the black Sassafras, lost his reflector sunglasse
s, and proceeded to drown.

  Frank Talbott and May Jump, already in swimsuits and still wet, piled up the companionway right behind him and into the river. Peter Sagamore, standing barefoot in shorts and shirt in Story’s cockpit, dived in a moment later over the head of Chip Sherritt, who was en route up our boarding ladder (his parents and the Basses were already toweling off on Katydid). In the event, the two men did most of the rescuing—without great difficulty, for the shock of the water and of what he’d done frightened Simon into nauseated helplessness. May Jump, every bit as able and probably as strong as they, kept clear at a little distance, not to provoke the boy into resisting. Katherine Sherritt, Leah Talbott, and Donald Quicksoat manned flashlights, horseshoe rings, and boathooks from Reprise’s cockpit; Hank and Chip Sherritt, instead of joining the rescuers in the water, prudently stood by in Story’s dinghy; Jack Bass hurried down to his cabin to fetch his bag; Joan and Irma sensibly stayed put in Katydid’s cockpit, as did Carla B Silver in Reprise’s, saying things to herself in various tongues. Marian Silver, still in her wet clothing, closed herself up in the cutter’s forward cabin, bolted its folding louvered door, and flung herself onto the V-berth.

  That’s where she is now, in dry underpants and a shirt borrowed from Frank Talbott, sleeping on the berth’s port side because she wet the starboard—May’s side. Captain Donald Quicksoat’s leathery hand is in her crotch; she put it there. He’s sort of cute, and Mims has never made it with a guy old enough to be her father. It occurs to her to wonder whether she even needs to bother with her diaphragm; she’s heard old guys can’t keep it up, but she can’t remember whether they’re still fertile even when they’re impotent. It’s late in her month; she’ll take a chance; it’s semi-groovy to have to think about such things again. But there’s Sy, bawling in his crib. Feeding time already? Her nipples are still raw and swollen from before! Let the little bastard holler, she frets to her mother; I’m wet all over.

  Lee Talbott sees him still—sick, scared, embarrassed—pulling himself up the boarding ladder and vomiting at the same time (Sy swallowed some Sassafras). The men in the water below moved aside but encouraged him, as did she. Attaboy, Sy; good man, Sy; here’s a towel. She and Captain Donald took his arms and steadied him over the transom. But it was his grandma he needed, and Carla B Silver was of course right there to envelop him: water, vomit, and all. All right, now, Mister Simon; time to dry off and hit the hay. Down we go, sir, and no more swimming till tomorrow. Doctor Jack came over with his kit, but agreed there was no call for his services. Half a Dalmane, maybe, to help the boy sleep through, but the less embarrassing attention, the better. One for the mother, too, if she needs it? My sister needs more than Dalmane, Leah said; thanks anyhow.

  Once he’d splashed the transom clean, sighing Frank came up and aboard; kissed his wife, toweled off, and went below to change. Carla B Silver had Simon’s wets in a bundle to hand up to Lee for rinsing in the river and hanging out on the lifelines; the boy himself was in the head compartment, cleaning up and getting into his pajamas. The adults simply shook their heads. Where’s Mim? Frank wondered. Muttered Carla Where indeed, indicating with her head the closed cabin door, and went upstairs to let the man dress. Uncle Frank? Simon called quietly from the head compartment. Right here, Sy. I’m sorry. Forget it, fellow; I’ll tell May you apologized.

  But Lee Talbott dreams he’s drowned: lost like her stepfather without a trace. She holds the unavailing life-ring, the flashlight lighting nothing. All the swimmers come out of the water. Frank embraces her from behind: We’ll just have to start over, is all. That’s not all, she knows. All the same, she’s stirred; she slightly shifts position to let him enter.

  In bed at last after things had settled down and all hands except Simon—thirteen of us!—gathered in Katydid’s great center cockpit for nightcap and bedtime story (Lee or he occasionally checking to see that all remained quiet aboard Reprise) and eventually said good night, Franklin Key Talbott gratefully embraces his wife from behind in the dinette settee double that we much envy them. To his surprise—they’ve been abed less than ten minutes—he discovers she’s already asleep, as, thank God, are Simon in the quarterberth and, presumably, Maid Marian in the forward cabin. What an evening. Like us, the Talbotts sleep naked in warm weather and bottomless in cool, except when there’s company aboard. Tonight he’s in cotton PJ bottoms, through the fly of which his erection thrusts, and Lee’s in a combed-cotton top like a long T-shirt that comes nearly to her knees when she’s standing, but rides above her hips when she’s in bed.

  From long custom, her body responds to his, even in three-quarter sleep. At the feel of his hands upon them under the bedsheet, her buttocks tuck into his lap. The light poke of his penis between them lubricates her. She shifts position just a bit; he parts her lips and, steadying her firmly, slides in—to the hilt in three gentle thrusts, on the third of which he comes, a drowsy, happy man. At once he deliquesces into sleep, even as, stirring, Lee slides her right hand back to his hip, holds him in place, and squeezes the last drops from him. Though he doesn’t know it, his hands move now to her breasts, under the nightshirt. His face is between her shoulderblades. His first dream of the night, when presently he dreams it, will have nothing to do with her or sex, at least not overtly, though he’ll still be in her: He’ll lean far out over Reprise’s gunwales with the boathook, trying unsuccessfully to fish his old boina out of the water as it slides by. Aha, he has it. Nope: got away. His next try pushes it farther under. Yet when, in their wake several boatslengths aft, he sees a large sea-mammal leisurely surface, roll, and gulp—Manatee? Sea lion?—he recognizes that that’s okay. In fact, it is what their long voyage has been about. They may now get on with it: They’ll just start over, is all.

  Lee wakes briefly, feels her friend inside her, and understands that after the awful drowned part, what she was dreaming was also taking place. She can’t recall that’s having happened to her before and hopes she’ll remember it in the morning. She puts her hand atop the sleeping hand upon her right breast, presses, and tightens her vaginal sphincter. As his penis squirts out, Frank looses his embrace without waking; their limbs disengage, and she rolls comfortably onto her stomach. She has a quick image of May Jump, after Simon’s rescue, discreetly climbing Story’s boarding ladder instead of theirs; conferring with that Donald Quicksoat person while Katherine Sherritt fetched her a towel. For the good of the order, May decided, she would bed down elsewhere than with Marian Silver that night; she asked Lee, via Katherine, to send her backpack over to Rocinante IV. Marian, reemerging from her hideout without a word to her son, made no objection. Leah Talbott herself has never made love with a woman; has no interest in ever doing so, though the general idea does not repel her; and is unaware of Katherine’s brief affair with May, though not of their long-standing friendship. She didn’t see Kath blush at her remark that, much as she loves her scattered sister, May Jump deserves a better friend. Agreed Carla B Silver She does that. Well, they’d see which way the wind blew in the morning and work out the best logistics for getting all hands home under the circumstances. Meanwhile, Kath’s lovely parents and their friends, who seemed to take anything in their stride, were inviting everyone to have a good-night drink with them, to unwind before turning in. As she drops back to sleep, Lee remembers her mother’s accepting May’s hand-up onto Katydid’s gunwale and bussing her cheek when she got there. Two good people. What an odd story May Jump then told!

  Lee drifts off, half smiling, and at that moment—about 0117 hours, thirteen seconds EDST, 29 June ‘80—becomes pregnant again.

  And of what does Simon Silver dream?

  Silver Simon dreams of hymen, ‘cause the world’s unfair.

  Fat, unlovely bastard boy, your father didn’t care

  how young hitchhikers whimpered when he grabbed them by the hair

  and held his pistol on them till they dropped their underwear

  in the grubby rear compartment of his Chevy van. He’d
swear

  to shoot them if they didn’t close their mouths and open their

  behinds for buggering, if boys; for humping everywhere

  if girls.

  Thus did your mom, in Fenwick Island, Delaware,

  become your mom: because she hitched one time too often there

  along the beach and climbed into that Pennsylvanian’s lair;

  because he forced her fore and aft, but reached one climax where

  his uninvited sperm could go the natural route and snare

  their natural prey—just then, alas, available.

  A pair

  of options yet remained; but Mim was shocked into a rare

  intransigence (for her): Your mother found she couldn’t square

  away the fetus early, on the one hand, or forswear,

  on the other, maternal rights to you at birth. She would declare,

  “I hate the little shit, but he’s the cross I have to bear.”

  So here you are, your father’s son: unloved and made aware

  (against your grandma’s wishes) of your history; forced to share

  your father’s guilt—your mother’s, too—with every breath of air

  you breathe. No wonder you dream dreams now dark enough to scare

  yourself awake:

  “Aunt May” and Mom play double solitaire;

  you sneak into the room and smash May’s head in with a chair.

  You bind and gag and blindfold Mom and then proceed to tear

  her clothes and underclothes off, layer by motherfucking layer.