by John Enright
He was at the edge of the village headed home when he remembered the one thing that had not been on his list—Lydia’s chocolate doughnuts. He turned around and headed back to the food mart. He found her box of desired treats and resisted reading what was in them. On a table by the checkout line was an array of small, tabletop synthetic Christmas trees with tiny colored lights—the sort of thing you saw in offices. On an impulse he bought one. It was all of eighteen inches tall.
Back at Mt. Sinai Atticus already had a fire going in the parlor. Dominick set up his Christmas tree on the end table there between the settee and the wingback chair and plugged it in to the extension cord for the reading lamp.
Neither Atticus nor Lydia mentioned the tree. It was as if it had always been there or was meant to be there. That evening as the three of them sat in front of the fire—Dominick reading, Lydia knitting, Atticus just watching and tending the fire—the tree was like a fourth in their party. It was hard to imagine it not being there, but it wasn’t like it had anything to do with Christmas.
“Tell me, Dominick, do you think of your body as your enemy or your friend?” Lydia looked up from her knitting as she spoke.
“I try not to think of it at all. I’ve found that is best.” Dominick didn’t look up from his book.
“But when we are young we love our bodies, the source of such pleasure.”
“I still feel that way when I fall asleep.”
“Then at some point they become an embarrassment. They stop us from doing what we want to do. They hurt.”
“Is it all about pleasure or pain then?”
After a long pause Lydia said, “Yes, I think it is. That’s what it is all about. It’s really quite simple, pleasure and pain.”
The big Bay Savers meeting was to be held on the mainland up the bay, in the evening. In the evening was the problem part. Atticus had to admit that for years his night vision had been getting gradually worse, but recently it had gotten so bad that he had to give up driving at night altogether. His solution was for Dominick to take him to the meeting. Only that would mean a night off-island for both of them, and Atticus did not want to leave Lydia alone that long. So Atticus called Ms. Arnold in New Jerusalem and had her call Lydia back to invite her over for the evening. Atticus had it all arranged before he informed Dominick of his essential involvement. “What else would you be doing?” Atticus asked.
They dropped Lydia off at Ms. Arnold’s after catching the early afternoon ferry. Dominick used the excuse of not being able to find a parking space to avoid going in. He cruised instead, circling the block, or blocks actually. New Jerusalem, with all its two-hundred-year-old narrow streets, held the record for Do Not Enter signs. It could take blocks before you found a street going the direction you wanted to go. Another age-induced dysfunction, Dominick thought. By his third pass Atticus was back out on Ms. Arnold’s stoop, waiting. “All quiet on that front,” he said, getting into the car.
Atticus gave Dominick directions on how to get out of town, headed north on a main route. The ride was like a trip forward in time. Ms. Arnold’s eighteenth-century neighborhood gave way to blocks of more stately nineteenth-century houses on larger lots, which yielded to suburban split-levels and ranch-style houses with fairway lawns and proud garages. Then came the omni-present of strip malls and drive-throughs and ubiquitous cement. Funny how the past was place specific and the present could be anywhere.
“You know, Dominick, I never asked you about how your visit with Angie in Boston went. There was all that other stuff going on, the raid and Lydia’s . . . ah . . . little crack up.”
“Have you heard anything more from Angelica since her visit?”
“No, nothing. But how did it go in Boston? Did you guys have a good meeting?”
“She was much more charming with me there than she was with you here.”
“Oh, the feds had gotten her all riled up, that’s all. She always was one to fly off the handle.”
What else flies off the handle besides weapons, Dominick wondered. How would Atticus like to hear that his favorite daughter prided herself on the professionalism of her blow-job technique? “Did you know that your daughter races go-karts?” he asked.
“No. What?” Atticus laughed. This was good news to him.
“We met at a go-kart race course, between heats. What’s with her husband?”
“Slim? I call him Slim. Haven’t seen him in years. You didn’t meet him?”
“No, we did not meet. Angelica and I did have dinner though, later, and reached a sort of agreement to continue our negotiations. I think we’re on hold through the winter at least.”
“You know, in the old days fathers had some sort of say over who their daughters married.”
“It was seen as more of a real estate deal back then, feelings came second. But I thought her husband was a doctor. That is usually not a bad business deal.”
“Slim? Yeah, he’s an MD, but not worthy of her in my estimation. And he’s a homosexual.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, for one thing they haven’t given me any grandkids.”
They had wandered into territory where Dominick did not want to be. “Say, that meeting isn’t for hours yet. Let’s find a place to get something to eat. We have plenty of time.” He had in mind a proper inn or restaurant with a bar, some place with a history, but for the longest stretch all they passed were fast-food places, twenty-first-century purveyors of impersonal fodder.
The Bay Savers meeting was at the Quanticut Yacht Club. Dominick stood in the back, in his peacoat and watch cap. He had been careful not to go in with Atticus. He had used the excuse of smoking a cigar to hang behind outside in the parking lot and watch the others arrive. He had counted the other men who had beards—none. He was not yet used to appearing in public as the white-bearded gent. He noticed that his carriage and gait had adapted to his new appearance—he walked slower, with his shoulders back, like an old guy looking for a fight. He wondered what General Washington would have looked like with a beard, a white beard, as white as that funky wig he wore in Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of him on the dollar bill. No one would recognize him. Funny how beards went in and out of fashion, not to mention powdered wigs. Would they ever make a comeback? Much less as a sign of highest authority?
It being a New England meeting, it started promptly on time at seven, even though people were still arriving and the yacht club parking lot was full and people were walking from blocks away where they had to park on the street. Dominick had found a secluded spot to park his car between the shrink-wrapped hulls of hibernating yachts on an adjacent chandler’s dock. Dominick slipped in and stood at the back of the hall near the main door. The few seats still available were up near the front.
At the Boar’s Head Inn where they had eventually stopped to eat, Dominick had downed enough drinks to put him over the state DUI level. He was on this trip under protest. Atticus was one of the six people seated at a table in the front of the hall. None of them were wearing white wigs. There was only one microphone, and one of the others was using it, welcoming people, directing them to the still-empty seats in the front. Behind them was a computer projection screen on which someone was trying to find the right PowerPoint file.
The hall was unheated but warming up with the assembled bodies. There had to be fifty or sixty people there. Dominick had no real interest in the meeting—especially now with the PowerPoint setup, which meant someone would be reading to them what was already up on the screen, as if they were beginners in an English as a Second Language class—but it was colder outside and he had nowhere else to go. A seventh person joined the group seated at the front table, and with a start Dominick realized he recognized her—tall and catlike, black hair pulled back, cape and all. It was Queen Emma from The Harp. The meeting took on a little more interest for him. He looked around the hall more carefully. Maybe there were other people there he knew. And sure enough, standing by a side door, confiding to her cell phone, was th
e pretty young woman in the blue down ski jacket, Miss FBI Agent of the Month. She snapped shut her little phone and took one of the empty chairs near the front. He wondered if she had made him.
He also wondered how many other agents, infiltrators, and plants the feds had in the crowd. There would be three factions present—the feds and their friends there to learn what they could, those true believers clever enough to know that there would be moles among them and so would speak guardedly, and those true believers innocently ignorant of the game being played around them. The purpose of the meeting seemed to be to rally the base in the face of the new allegations against them and to reconfirm publicly the group’s opposition to all acts of violence.
The sound system wasn’t good, and some of the first few speakers didn’t know how to use a microphone, so that there were calls for “Louder” and “Speak up” from the back of the hall. Queen Emma was introduced by her chiefly Indian name and tribe, both of which Dominick missed in the shitty transmission. People continued to come and go by the side door, but all was quiet by the main entrance where Dominick was standing. About the time that the PowerPoint presentation began, the sounds of a scuffle and raised voices came from outside. Dominick took the opportunity to slip out.
A TV crew had arrived and was being stopped by a group of men dressed like anyone else at the meeting. Dominick ambled into the shadows around the side of the building to watch. This had to be more interesting than the PowerPoint show inside. The TV crew—a cameraman, a sound man, and a female reporter—were putting up a protest about being denied access to the meeting, but they were also being pushed slowly backwards toward their transmission truck parked in the street. Dominick saw someone hold up in the reporter’s face an ID case. The cameraman tried to film this but was stopped. There was no one in a uniform there, but they won anyway, and the TV crew returned to their truck. One man stayed there by the truck, while the rest of the posse—maybe eight or nine men—huddled together, some of them talking into their shoulders.
Dominick found an open back door to the hall at about the same time that the posse came into the hall through the side and main doors. Some man with a very good voice and a New York accent was telling everyone to stay where they were and not move. People were getting to their feet. Folding chairs were being pushed back and collapsing. A scuffle broke out near the main door. Someone was yelling into the microphone about constitutional rights of assembly and free speech. Dominick came up behind Atticus and tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said, jerking his head toward the open back door. “Party’s over.”
Atticus nodded his agreement, got up, and followed Dominick out the door. Two other people from the table followed them out. One was Queen Emma.
Chapter 15
It was a very fast boat, fast and sleek and clean inside the cabin. After a stealthy lights-out crawl away from the Quanticut Yacht Club marina, they had opened up to full throttle, and the prow of the speedboat rose out of the water and raced for the deepest darkness toward the mouth of the bay. Inside the cabin were Atticus, Dominick, and Queen Emma, all sitting in silence, feeling the rhythm of the wave tops the hull kissed as it bounced over. They were joined by the other man who had left the hall with them through the back door, whose boat it was. Dominick recognized him as the man who had made the opening remarks at the meeting, a small robust hairless man in a black turtleneck and a windbreaker.
Queen Emma spoke first. “This is all very nice, Theo, but why and where are we going?”
“Well, there was no point in staying there and being treated like criminals, was there? Besides, they were looking for new people to suspect; they already know you, me, and Atticus. But I don’t believe I know this gentleman here, who provided us with our escape route.”
“Oh, this is Dominick,” Atticus said. “He’s with me. I can vouch for him.”
“Dominick, Theo Neisner.” They shook hands. “Welcome aboard.”
“But where are we going, Theo?” Emma asked again.
“There was no getting out of there on the land side, as Dominick here told us, but as luck would have it, I came by boat,” Theo gestured to their surroundings, “so we could leave that way. Hold on a second.” Theo left the cabin.
When they had come aboard, unpursued, Dominick had noticed a crew of at least two waiting for them, who had immediately untied the boat and gotten underway. Theo must be giving them instructions, because the boat slowed down and changed course. Theo came back. “Emma, I thought we would go somewhere out of harm’s way and see how this develops.”
“And where might that be?”
“I have a place on Teapot Island no one knows about, a nice private spot, just the one house and the dock. But it has everything we might need.”
“For the night?”
“For the night at least, I’d think. Until we learn what this was all about and what the fallout is and how we should respond.”
“But I’m parked illegally on the street back there,” Emma said.
“We will get your car back for you, Emma, but not tonight.”
“I need a drink,” Emma said.
“The cabinet there above the sink is stocked,” Theo said. “Help yourself. It will be about another twenty minutes. Dominick, can I have a word with you?”
Dominick followed Theo out on deck and then through another door into a smaller cabin with bunks and a fold-out table. Theo wasted no time. “You’re Lord Witherspoon, aren’t you? I remember you, without the beard, from our flotilla action. You were with Atticus, and it was Lydia who called me up and gave me your name to use in the press release.”
“Lydia’s grip on reality is not the best. She calls me many things.”
“Okay, whatever. Look, I am going to frisk you. I want you to take off your peacoat and to empty your pockets onto the table first. If you have nothing to hide, you’ll have no trouble doing that.”
Dominick did as he was asked, and Theo gave him a very thorough, professional pat down. Once again, being touched all over his body was a foreign, strangely exciting sensation. On the table were just his car key, a money clip of folded bills, a cigarette lighter, a handkerchief, and the small leather card case with his driver’s licenses and credit cards. Theo examined his peacoat and pulled out the burnished aluminum four-cigar case. “No cell phone, no wristwatch?” Theo asked.
“No weapons or wires either.”
Theo opened the cigar case and sniffed. “Nice,” he said. He looked at Dominick’s licenses and cards.
“And no Lord Witherspoon,” Dominick said.
“What’s your game, then?” Theo handed Dominick’s coat back to him and gestured that he could pick up his pocket things. “Why pass yourself off as Lord Witherspoon if you’re not?”
“That was Lydia, remember? Not me. I just look after Atticus sometimes. I only came tonight because he can’t drive after dark.”
“You know I’d be a fool to just accept that as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but there’s not much I can do about it now. You’re here. You’re with us. But I’ll be keeping a close eye on you. You understand why I can’t wholly trust you?”
Dominick put his peacoat back on and picked up his things from the table. “Of course. And for all I know you are a fed and this boat was a drug-bust prize.”
Theo laughed. “See, you think like a cop. Let’s go join Emma in a drink.”
“Maybe she is the fed among us,” Dominick said as they left the bunk room.
“Nah, she wouldn’t have worried about being parked illegally. Emma and her tribe have been with us since the git-go. She has no dark shadows. She gets a little horny when she’s drunk, but that’s about as dangerous as she gets.”
A switch near the throttle turned the dock lights on. Theo was taking the boat in, himself. Dominick was standing beside him in the cockpit. The two crew members were out on deck. The wind had picked up, and the channel around Teapot Island was choppy. The dock lights moved up and down in the blackness off to s
tarboard. “Not to worry,” Theo said. “It’s calmer inside the cove.” Theo deftly maneuvered the boat up to the dock and the crewmen had her quickly bumpered and secured. Emma needed help getting from the deck to the dock, but no one got wet.
When they were all ashore, the two crewmen got back on the boat, untied her, and took off into the night. “She takes too much of a beating tied up here in these easterlies,” Theo explained when Dominick asked. He was experiencing a strange new sensation—that of being marooned. “Besides, she needs to be refueled, and if she’s safe in her slip ashore and not tied up here, no one would think to look for us here.”
There was a long flight of wooden stairs from the dock up a rocky cliff face. With the flick of two switches Theo turned on the stair lights and turned off the dock lights, and they headed up. At the top of the steps Theo flicked another switch and lights went on at a house at the top of a sloping lawn maybe thirty yards away. A gravel walk led to it. Theo switched off the stair lights. Behind them now was only darkness, not a light to be seen. Dominick noticed how closely they all were clustered together, almost touching. In fact, Emma reached over to hold on to Dominick’s forearm as they started up the walk. They fell behind the shorter and spryer Atticus and Theo.
“What’s your name again?” Emma asked.
“Nick,” Dominick said.
“In my language nick is the word for shit. I can’t call you that. I’ll call you Nickel instead. Tell me, Nickel, what do you think of all this?”
“I wasn’t prepared to be on the lam tonight.”
“Got a late date? You can always call her and tell her you are stranded on a deserted island.”
