Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work

by Jason Brown

  Jacob could see twelve, ten yards ahead, the line of blue water marking the wind. As they grew closer, the wind receded and the shallow rocks appeared, yellow and white beneath the surface. Jacob watched the blue patch of wind on the water draw back like a snake into its hole and vanish. Now they were drifting straight toward the rocks with no wind coming around the island to make them heel. His father knew and only had a few seconds to decide what they would do. He could gradually steer them to port, but without wind there was no point in throwing the tiller over. They would still drift forward. Before either could act or speak Jacob saw just behind his father’s head a patch of dark blue water, a stiff gust, advancing from the north. Jacob barely had time to release the jib, though he realized later that it was the wrong thing to do. The wind caught inside the loose jib and lurched them straight forward at no heel. His father lowered his jaw and put his hands out to the side as if some enormous creature had lifted him off the ground and was preparing to swallow him whole. Jacob waited for the sound, but halfway through the passage none had come, and he thought maybe they would make it all the way through. Then came the thud that seemed distant, lurching the Sassanoa’s bow down and her stern into the air. The wind caught the trimmed mainsail and pulled them sideways off the rock. When broadside to the wind and going over, Jacob finally unleashed the mainsail and let the boom fly. The wind spilled out; they were off the rock. His father leaned over the side of the boat to check for damage.

  “No harm done,” he said and grabbed the tiller. There had only been a thud, Jacob thought. His father steered them toward the channel. Jacob trimmed the jib, and they sped along with the wind and rocks behind them. The collision seemed never to have happened, and Jacob knew they would not talk about it—as if it were a secret they would have to keep from his dead grandfather.

  Outside the harbor the wind blew twice as strong and the swells rose high into the air. The hull planed. Jacob sat on the rail and adjusted the jib sheet while his father sat on the transom so he could see over the bow. When they rose to the top of a swell, they could see out to sea as if from the top of a mountain. The bow sliced up one side of the wave and the stern coasted down the other side just as his great grandfather had designed her to do, and Jacob was immensely proud in that moment, thinking of his great grandfather’s mind and hands creating such an efficient and worthy craft. More than that: the Sassanoa was a work of art, perfectly balanced between the wind and the ocean, that sat at her mooring in the morning as calmly as a sleeping dove.

  Jacob looked back at his father, who grinned like a child, his open mouth and bright wide eyes pointed up at the blood-red sail as if the very idea of the wind moving a boat over water at such a speed was a discovery he had just made for the world.

  As they coasted down a swell, Jacob leaned over and placed his hand on the side of the hull. He did not think of turning around even as they passed Damirscove Island. He could see in the windows of the old coast guard station there; at a certain height he could see in one window and out another. Europeans had settled on the treeless island, he knew, before Plymouth or Jamestown. They had fished there, and lived in cold shacks. Several hundred years later the coast guard had come, and now they were gone, too, and the island was empty except for the terns, gulls, herons, and snowy egrets that swarmed over the grass.

  After Damirscove there were no other landmarks to gauge distance over water, and Jacob did not look back except to check his father’s eyes darting from the sails to the ocean in perfect concentration. Jacob didn’t care how far they sailed as long as his father continued to smile.

  Jacob looked up at the sail and noticed how the pressure of the wind moved from one side to the other as his father shifted the lines and tiller. Some of the wind spilled out the side of the sail, swirled around back and caused a luff. With a slight adjustment they were back on track. Then Jacob noticed a frayed stay. Three or four of the metal threads that twisted around each other had snapped, which left two or three at the most to hold all the weight of the sail and the wind. Any number of bad things would happen, Jacob thought, if the rear stay broke. The mast would snap immediately, and might drag the boat over with this strong a wind. The weight of the keel would probably keep them upright. Even so, without the sail there was only the paddle. No motor. Jacob promised himself he would check all the rigging the next day.

  “Dad, look.” Jacob pointed up at the stay and as he pointed he knew he was also pointing a finger at his father for not keeping the boat up to his grandfather’s standards. His father glanced up and saw the fray but did not seem concerned.

  “It’ll hold.”

  The wind did not vanish immediately, as often happened, but gradually, to Jacob’s relief, until it was no longer necessary for his father to concentrate so hard on their heading. Jacob could tell his father’s mind was on some other worry, probably to do with work.

  “We should head in,” Jacob said. He hadn’t even looked back for some time. He wanted his father to be the first one.

  His father did look and raised his eyebrows, not in shock but surprise, and so Jacob looked back, too. They were a good distance from shore. The wind usually switched in the evening, after a lull. This was that lull. They would just have to wait for the switch. With any luck it would be a south or west wind. In any case the water around the Sassanoa for as far as they could see in all directions was smooth and dull gray-green.

  Jacob never noticed the cold when the sails were full, when there was action, but now, in the stillness, he rubbed the goose bumps on his arms.

  His father pulled his sport coat collar up around his neck and looked down at the bilge. “Damn!” he yelled and yanked his briefcase off the floor. He brushed the water off the leather surface. “I don’t think any water got inside.” At first Jacob thought he was talking about the Sassanoa.

  The sails were swaying now, like curtains, in the dim light. The horizon had just turned orange. It was not going to be a clear night; fog might even roll in from offshore. For the first time, Jacob noticed that his sneakers were soaked right through. That’s why he was so cold. Under way, he seemed to lose all sensation, but now he could see that his feet rested in water that had hidden in the bilge while the boat was heeling. Their bow had dipped, riding the swells, but Jacob hadn’t seen any water coming over.

  His father let go of the tiller and the mainsheet. With no wind they couldn’t control the Sassanoa’s direction. Jacob looked at the back of his father’s hands, resting on top of the briefcase. With the dried sea salt on the tanned skin, Jacob thought his father looked like a man who had been out to sea a very long time, though the briefcase and suit jacket made it seem as if he were just on the way to the office. Jacob understood that the Sassanoa was leaking through the bilge, probably where the keel was bolted to the hull. When they had thudded against the rock in New Wagon harbor, they must have loosened the joint.

  “I think we’re taking on,” Jacob said.

  “I know,” his father said, not looking up. “I’m thinking.”

  Jacob was silent. He decided he had better think, too. As a matter of pride, his grandfather had never kept a motor on board. The hand-pump bailer was on the island, with the life jackets and flares, in the boat bag. His father went under the deck and rummaged around. He came out a moment later holding the anchor, a twenty-pound aluminum hook attached to a length of chain and rope. The water had risen two inches above the floorboards and was still rising. A lobster boat motored by on its way home a little ways to the west, but neither Jacob nor his father thought to wave.

  His father held the paddle in one hand and the anchor in the other. Suddenly he stood up on the deck and waved the paddle in the direction of the lobster boat. “Hey! Hey!” They could see the man in yellow waders behind the wheel, looking forward, not back.

  Jacob had never in his life seen his father or grandfather call for help while on the water. Jacob’s heart pounded, and he was no longer cold or tired. He had been thinking about his mother’s shep
herd’s pie, but now he saw what he should have seen before.

  “What are we going to do?”

  His father sat down. “We’ll be fine. Let’s see what the problem is down there.” He lifted the hatch in the floorboards and stared down through the water to the bottom of the bilge. The compartment narrowed to the shape of a V, where Jacob could see the keel bolts protruding. His father removed his jacket, folded it carefully on top of his briefcase, and reached his hand down into the bilge.

  “I can feel the water flowing in around one of the bolts. I think.” He lifted his arm out. All the rollers had vanished now and the water was flat for as far as they could see. His father removed his shirt. Jacob was startled by the white skin and curly black hairs. He recognized the future shape of his own body, but had trouble imagining himself covered with so much hair. His father ripped the shirt on a cleat, tore it into strips, and leaned back into the bilge. The water was so deep now that he had to crane his neck to keep his face from going underwater. He gave up trying and plunged both his arms and his head under the water. Jacob watched numbly as his father’s back muscles bulged and strained against the skin. He popped out a moment later dripping and gulping for air.

  “I wrapped the cloth around the bolt. Hand me the anchor and I’ll pound it down. That should wedge the cloth in and stop the leak.”

  Jacob handed the anchor to his father, who went back down under water. Jacob heard the thud of the metal anchor smashing against the top of the bolt, and occasionally the sound of his father missing and hitting the wooden spine. His father came up for air and went back down. Finally he rested back, and set the anchor down. “That should do it.”

  Jacob nodded. His father was shivering violently. “Put on your jacket, dad.”

  “Yeah.” After wrapping himself in the jacket for a moment and rubbing his arms, his father looked intently at his son. “We shouldn’t have tried the trickiest bit.”

  “We’ll fix it when we get back. We should probably replace those bolts anyway.”

  “You’re right about that. Those bolts must be twenty-five years old. This is an old boat, you know. Let’s get this water out of here. You start, will you? You’ll have to use what’s left of my shirt to sop it up, and then I’ll start paddling.”

  Jacob picked up the shirt and soaked it in the water, but quickly realized his father was not thinking right. Instead of using the shirt, Jacob took off his shoe and started to scoop out the water. “The tide’s going out,” he said

  “I know.”

  They were moving farther away from shore. His father paddled as Jacob scooped up water and dumped it over the side. His father kept looking down at his son, and Jacob guessed what he was thinking. He wanted to somehow hide it from his father, he didn’t want his father to get angry with himself, but Jacob couldn’t help it—the water was still rising.

  His father sat down and stared back into the bilge. His feet were wet and he was shivering again. Jacob looked down, too, but in the darkness he couldn’t see the bottom. His father removed his jacket again and thrust himself beneath the water. He stayed down so long Jacob almost touched the white skin of his father’s back to make sure he was all right. Then his father burst out and stumbled back across the boat, landing against the tiller.

  “Damn. It’s not the bolt. There’s a crack in one of the lower planks. One of the ribs must have pushed out when we hit and split the planks or something. I don’t know. I can’t patch it from inside.”

  His father’s eyes widened when he saw his briefcase sitting on one of the seats. He lunged across the boat and fumbled with the latches.

  “Let me,” Jacob said, rising and standing next to his father, but his father pushed him away.

  “I got it.” The two latches clicked up and the briefcase popped open. His father grabbed the phone with his numb hands. He had to cradle it in one palm and aim with the index finger of the opposite hand at the POWER button. Jacob could see his father’s teeth gleaming in the moonlight, but he turned his attention to the phone and waited for the yellow lights to appear on the panel. Nothing happened. His father pushed again, and again.

  “The battery’s dead. Didn’t you turn the power off?” His father looked at the phone in total disbelief, and then at Jacob, who, to avoid looking at his father’s eyes, also looked at the phone. He tried to remember if he had pushed the power button after talking to his mother. His father let out an awful noise, half growl, half scream, and threw the phone toward shore. Jacob heard it plop like a stone. His father picked up his briefcase, too, swung it against the deck of the boat with a crack, and then hurled that out as well. The white papers fluttered through the air like a flock of panicked terns before drifting slowly to the water and vanishing. The open briefcase tipped sideways and sank from view.

  His father watched the place where it had been. Jacob watched his father and thought that they could have used the briefcase to bail. Maybe they could stay ahead of the leak until morning, when someone would see them for sure. “Maybe someone will see us out here tonight.”

  His father looked up at the rigging, his shoulder blades pinching together. “Not with red canvas. We’ll have to patch the crack from the outside. Hand me my shirt there and the anchor.”

  Jacob rested them on the deck as his father removed his shoes and slacks, and he groaned when his body slid into the cold water. His white arm came up and grasped the shirt and anchor. He put the anchor back on the deck.

  “You’ll have to dangle the anchor over the side for me while I use the edge of it to stuff the rag into the crack.” His father’s voice was already shaky, and his teeth chattered.

  Jacob leaned over the side and watched his father vanish into the dark water.

  “Give me a little more slack,” his father said after coming up for air. Then he went back down again, and Jacob heard faint taps on the hull. His father came back up for air. “It’s a long narrow crack,” he said. “It must bend inward but we can’t get to it from the inside without ripping up the floor. Even then I think it’s out of reach from the inside.”

  Jacob didn’t want to say anything. He wasn’t sure of the situation. His father went down again, tapped, and came up. This time he let out a long moan before sucking in air and going back down. Tapping turned to banging. Jacob could see the outline of the silver anchor swinging through the water below. His father was swinging as hard as he could through the water at the crack. Jacob had an idea which plank it was. The last thud was muffled. He looked down to see his father pulling back on the anchor.

  “No!” Jacob said, but it was too late. His father jimmied the anchor out and then came up for air. Jacob pulled the anchor aboard and reached his own arm down into the bilge. He could not reach the plank his father had been hitting, but now he could feel the flow of water rushing in where the anchor had made a gash.

  “I’m too cold,” his father said.

  Jacob turned and wrapped his hands around one of his father’s arms and pulled. His father kicked and lunged up, eventually getting his stomach over the gunwale and grabbing the edge of the seat. Jacob put his hands and arm around his father’s waist, feeling the hair on his father’s back press against his face, and tugged. The flesh was cold to his lips and hands, but Jacob was afraid to let go, even when his father was safely on the seat.

  His father pulled away, rose to his feet, and found the anchor. He dropped it, and then clamped it between his hands and swung it over his head like an axe. The anchor bounced off the deck and fell to the floor. His father reached into the water and lifted it over his head again.

  “No, no!” Jacob reached for his father, who was using the last of his full strength to swing the anchor against the deck. This time the anchor bounced into the ocean. They both watched as the chain and fifty feet of rope snaked out of the boat, snapped into the air, and disappeared. Jacob felt embarrassed for having cried out.

  His father sat down on the seat. The water rose almost to his knee. Jacob shook, but his father was beyond
that stage. His eyes drooped.

  “We’ll have to swim.” His father barely mumbled, he was so groggy with cold.

  Jacob nodded. The tide had taken them further out. Jacob realized they might have been able to swim it pretty easily if they had started out when they first noticed the leak. Now it was farther away and his father was tired. Even in late August the water was frigid, and they wouldn’t have much time before hypothermia set in. Jacob was an excellent swimmer. He swam for a team at school, but that was in warm water at an indoor pool. A long string of lights followed the shoreline of New Wagon harbor and seemed close enough to touch.

  “You swim for shore and get help.”

  Jacob couldn’t see his father’s lips moving. “No.”

  “Don’t argue. Take the paddle and swim as well as you can. Don’t let go. Go now.”

  Jacob stood on the gunwale with the paddle in his hand looking down into the water. The deck was less than a foot off the surface. He eased himself in with the paddle gripped in his hand.

  “I’ll be right back,” Jacob yelled, but there was no response. He could see the silhouette of his father’s head and thought about checking on him, but decided he had better keep going, focusing on the brightest light on shore, probably someone’s dock, and kicking with all the force he could muster. He felt strong at first, but then grew stiff, his legs moving in slow motion. He looked behind him. The outline of the sails seemed lower in the water. He turned and kicked harder, afraid to lose sight of the dock but also thinking maybe the wind would still come up. Soon he could barely move his legs, and the water felt warmer as he turned onto his back to rest. His thoughts slowed. Tomorrow, he thought, they would tow the Sassanoa to the island and patch the hole. He wanted to call out to his father and tell him about the plan, but before he could, the dark triangle set against the stars sank into the blue-black horizon, and there was no sign of the pale shoulders and arms of the man who had promised him all those summer afternoons when he would finally sail alone.