Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn

by Paul Watkins

‘I’m going to think about it.’

  ‘Come on, James! Seize the day!’

  ‘I’ll seize it when I have some time to think.’ Then I went to my room and sat very still. The whole Atlantic Ocean thundered through my head.

  Joseph brought home a girl named Rachel.

  He met her when she asked to test-drive a car. He liked her so much he told her where to get a better deal. He came home with a sack of lobsters and the girl, and we cooked his lobsters in a big black pot on the stove.

  She was a dental assistant. She talked about fluoride and asked to see our teeth. She’d just been down to the Bahamas. Her legs were smooth and red-brown from the sun.

  We ate the lobsters with melted butter, breaking the claws with nutcrackers. The pink armour of their shells piled up in the bowl my mother had set out in the middle of the table.

  Rachel talked fast and smiled when she ate.

  Joseph glared at us in the moments of quiet, ordering us with his eyes to make conversation.

  ‘Can we go out on your boat some time, Mr Pfeiffer?’ She held up a piece of rubbery claw meat and waited for his answer, butter running down her fingers.

  ‘It’s not—’ My father talked into his milk mug, voice bouncing back in his face. He set the mug down and cleared his throat, touching the knuckles of his fist against his mouth. ‘It’s not really the kind of boat you go out on unless you’re working.’

  ‘Why is that?’ She set the lobster meat on her tongue and seemed to swallow it without chewing.

  He blinked once at Joseph, knowing then that Joseph had not told her the Glory B was a trawler. ‘It’s a fishing boat.’ He nodded, agreeing with himself. ‘I’m a fisherman.’

  ‘What is it you fish for?’ She picked a roll from the basket and pulled little bits off it, letting them fall on the wreckage of her lobster.

  ‘Anything we can get!’ He laughed and sat back in his chair.

  Joseph fiddled with the nutcracker, crunching loose pieces of lobster shell.

  ‘I like to fish.’ Rachel sprinkled salt on the roll and nibbled at it. ‘But I don’t like taking the hooks out.’

  ‘What kind of boat did Joseph tell you I had?’ My father started gathering the plates.

  Joseph stood and began to collect the remaining things on the table, as if he were in a competition with Father to see who could carry the most. ‘What’s for dessert?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Joseph.’ My mother was pleased the topic had changed. ‘You said you were taking care of everything.’

  Through all this, I sat wondering why it was that I always felt awkward when Joseph brought girls home. I had stayed quiet during the meal. A last slight pitching of the boat still ran through my head, back and forth the way the mackerel used to rush in Gunther’s nets, dark silver-green shadows under the iron-grey water.

  I made inventory lists in my head, checking off things I would need when the time came to run my boat. Rope and buoys and anti-fouling paint.

  ‘No. Really.’ My father stacked the plates and held on to them, as if Joseph might try to take them away. ‘What kind of boat?’

  ‘Oh,’ Rachel twisted a silver bangle on her wrist, still smiling. ‘The little rascal had me thinking it was a cruise ship.’

  ‘I didn’t call it a cruise ship,’ Joseph said very quietly.

  ‘Well, that’s what it sounded like.’ Rachel turned her head to speak as he walked past into the kitchen.

  ‘A cruise ship.’ My father’s face stayed blank for a second. Then he grinned. ‘Cruise ship!’ He looked at Joseph in the kitchen and smiled and was miserable.

  I put all my money except a hundred dollars in a savings account at a bank near Sabatini’s.

  Then I walked across the street to Mary’s, where I knew the crew would be. I peered through a fishing net strung across the window and decorated with plastic lobsters. The door was open. I listened to the talk inside.

  Franklin and Gil were trying to buy a pinball machine from the bartender, who had long and greasy grey hair. The barman said it wasn’t his to sell.

  ‘I want it! I want it and I’m going to get it!’ Gil stamped and sat down at a little table with a red and white checked cover. He ordered a dozen raw oysters with hot sauce.

  Franklin fussed around after Gil, pulling the chair out for him to sit down. ‘He means it!’ Franklin cut the air with his palm in the direction of the barman. ‘Gil gets what he wants and it’s a fact!’

  Pittsley was talking to a crewman from the Halifax, which pulled up the remains of a small plane off New Bedford the week before. It was a Cessna, and all that remained of the pilot were some bones and bits of rotten clothing in the cockpit. The Halifax crewman showed Pittsley some Polaroids he had taken.

  Gil raised his hand, like a pupil in class, and asked to see. A big smile of hot sauce was smeared across his face.

  Howard stood on the bar in front of a television bolted up near the ceiling. He turned from channel to channel. He was wearing a new leather jacket zipped to the throat.

  I looked up at him. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘A New Bedford trawler got caught last night running drugs off the New Jersey shore. I heard about it this morning from one of the Newport police, and now I’m waiting for it to hit the news.’ He gave up turning channels and switched the TV off. ‘What you drinking, Pfeif?’

  ‘Maybe some mescal.’

  He ordered me some. ‘What do you think of my jacket, Pfeif? Cost me damn near two hundred dollars!’ He stood and waved his arms, like a bird with tar on its wings.

  ‘It makes your legs look thinner than they are.’

  The bartender handed me a shot glass full of mescal. I sniffed at the honey-coloured liquid and drank it fast. As it burned in my throat, I began wishing I’d drunk water or something with no kick.

  ‘I was thinking that too!’ Pittsley tried to fit quarters into the jukebox but kept dropping them on the floor. ‘Your legs look even more twiggy than before!’ Eventually the barman had to help Pittsley with the jukebox, inserting the quarters and asking in a soft voice, ‘Which song do you want?’

  Pittsley bent down over the clear screen and pointed to the titles.

  The mescal reached me, like being hit over the head with a pillow. ‘Where’s Kelley?’

  ‘Now tell me the truth!’ Gil rested his forearms on the little table. ‘Did you ever kiss Kelley on the lips?’ I snorted and turned back to the bar and ordered more mescal.

  ‘He bought himself a new camera and went to take pictures. That was a while ago.’ Gil pulled a plastic lobster from the window net and bit off its tail.

  I walked down Severn Street to the bus stop.

  Someone called to me as I cut across the grass by the old courthouse, a brick building with white stone steps left over from colonial times.

  I looked around but couldn’t see anyone. The call came again, and then I saw it was Kelley. He stood locked in a set of punishment stocks outside the courthouse.

  In colonial times, criminals were put in them for minor offences and left there overnight for people to throw tomatoes at.

  Kelley said he’d been walking around with his new camera and saw some tourists having their picture taken in the stocks. When they were finished, he ordered some kids playing on the grass to take his picture in the stocks.

  While one kid stood back with the camera, another kid came up from behind and stuck a branch through the iron loops that locked the stocks together. Then they used up the rest of the film, taking pictures of Kelley going insane and trying to escape. When the film ran out, they put the camera around his neck and ran away.

  ‘At least they gave your camera back.’ I set him loose.

  ‘I just hope no one saw me in there.’ He looked around for signs of anybody staring, but saw only the taxi men, who kept their yellow cars in the shade of trees that grew on the courthouse lawn. They sat on the hoods of their cars, wearing jeans and T-shirts with suspenders. People said they all went and had vasectom
ies together.

  ‘I used to have a camera, Kelley.’

  We sat at the bus stop, hogging a bench.

  ‘Camera like this?’ He held up his purchase. It was cheap, with a plastic lens.

  ‘Different.’

  Kelley handed me the camera. ‘Help me get the film out.’ I rewound his film, opened the back and took out the canister.

  ‘So what happened to your camera?’

  ‘Someone stole it.’

  ‘This one only cost me twenty dollars. Get one of these.’

  I opened my mouth to tell him about how I was kicked out of school, then said nothing, feeling the familiar anger rise up in me when I thought about it. A bus swung around the corner and stopped in front of the YMCA. Old ladies clattered out on to the street. They huddled for a few seconds, trying to get their bearings, before heading off in different directions.

  ‘Going home?’ He stuffed the roll of film in his shirt pocket.

  I nodded, thinking that he would forget to have the film developed and I should see to it for him. ‘Where are you staying?’

  He pointed upward. ‘I got a room at the Y. It’s clean, at least.’

  I climbed on the bus and poured a handful of change into the fare box. As my bus pulled away, I looked out the window and saw Kelley still sitting on the bench, taking pictures of people with no film in his camera.

  I took my camera bag from the closet and rummaged through the filters, each one in its own plastic case. I checked the dates on my spare rolls of film, saw they were expired and threw them away. I put my hand in the empty space where the camera should have gone and brushed out crumbs of dirt.

  Over and over in my head I saw Bartlett sliding off the hood of his car.

  Then I saw myself through the eyes of the Executive Committee. Saw myself fiddling with my top button, feeling choked by the tie. And I saw how I took a handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it against my face to soak up the sweat.

  In the final picture, which returned and returned to me at night before I fell asleep, I saw my room at college. My bed stripped and only a mattress on the bed frame. Torn poster corners from where I had glued pictures to the wall. The drawers of my desk open and empty.

  I put the camera bag away and sat on my bed, wondering if I should have done what Joseph said and brought the boy down from behind. And even if I did that, I wondered how much longer I’d have stayed before finding some other reason to leave college. I thought about writing Bartlett a letter and thanking him for stealing my camera. Then I laughed to myself in the empty room. My voice bounced back off the walls.

  ‘What’s wrong? What happened?’ Joseph sat forward in his chair and slapped the television.

  ‘The sound is broken again.’ Mother knelt in front of the screen and played with the controls. ‘It’s been doing this for a while.’ She turned to Joseph. ‘And it doesn’t help one bit you punching the set.’

  ‘But it’s my night! They’re selling my record tonight! How am I supposed to know if they’re doing it right if there’s no sound?’ He was red in the face and kept smoothing back his hair.

  ‘We’ll just have to watch it with no sound.’ She sat in her chair and folded her arms. ‘The picture’s worse since you hit the set. That solved everything when you laid into the panel there. Did a lot of good, didn’t it?’

  We had been watching the Shopping at Home channel for half an hour, waiting for Joseph’s record to be displayed. They sold a luggage set, then switched to a gold-plated necklace and after that a sweater with a picture of a parrot sewn on the back.

  The announcer stood holding a microphone in front of the camera. He wore a jacket and tie. He moved his mouth.

  ‘Goddamn you to hell.’ Joseph stamped on the carpeted floor.

  Then the picture showed the cover of Joseph’s record. The little people with strange black words seeming to pour into their mouths rather than out.

  The announcer again. Talking. Not talking.

  Now they must have been playing one of the anthems.

  The camera showed two models saluting and smiling. One of them still wore the sweater with a parrot on the back.

  Announcer. He pointed at the camera. $25 flashed on the screen, on and off while the announcer kept talking.

  The two models again. They both held on to the record cover and smiled. The screen still flashed $25.

  Then a red X appeared in front of the $25 and at the other end of the screen $10 appeared and began flashing.

  ‘No! Fifteen!’ Joseph stamped both his feet on the floor. ‘I told them fifteen!’

  ‘You did say the records were going to cost fifteen dollars.’ Mother nodded and bit her lip. ‘That’s what you told me, anyway.’

  ‘No!’ Joseph ran into the kitchen and phoned the television station.

  Mother and I sat watching the screen. We didn’t speak.

  ‘This is Joseph Pfeiffer. Mr Carrera? Yes, this is Joseph Pfeiffer. The one with the records. Look, I told you to sell it for fifteen dollars, not ten. Yes, you have ten dollars up on the screen. Yes, please, I would like it changed immediately. To fifteen! I don’t care. I want it done now! Thank you, Mr Carrera. Yes. Goodbye.’

  A few seconds later, a red X appeared over the $10 and the price went up to fifteen.

  The announcer smiled and pointed at the camera, his shoulder hidden by the blinking $15 sign.

  Joseph sat down next to me.

  I kept my eyes on the screen.

  I dreamed I was lying in a box and couldn’t move.

  My hands were crossed on my chest and I smelled of chemicals.

  Then someone I could not see put a lid on the box.

  I realised it was a coffin and felt myself being carried down a flight of steps.

  The box shuddered as the people set me down.

  I waited for the lid to open.

  Something hit the lid of the coffin, and something else, and then more thuds, which I knew then were earth, and I was being buried.

  I called for help but no sounds came out. I yelled until it felt as if my throat would rip but made only the faintest murmur.

  I yelled and yelled and felt the air becoming thick and unbreathable in the coffin.

  Then I sat up in bed and filled my lungs with the damp breeze blowing in off the salt marshes and through my open window.

  Suddenly I heard a cry from my parents’ room. Then another. I realised that the sound from the other room had become my own crying in the dream. It had worked its way into my sleep.

  It was my father. He kept saying please, dragging the word out. Pleeease. Pleeheease.

  I left my bed fast and opened my bedroom door.

  Joseph stood in the way, having left his bedroom and crept on bare feet across to my room. He held up his hand for me to be quiet.

  Father’s voice was cracked with tears and he breathed heavily between each call for help.

  ‘Russ, it’s only a dream.’ My mother’s voice was hushed and sad. ‘Russ, it’s not there.’

  ‘The fish. The fish is coming. He’s under me. I can see him. He’s coming around. He’s coming right at me!’

  ‘Russ! You’re going to wake everyone. Russ, honey.’

  I heard his cries muffled as she held his head to her chest.

  ‘He’s there! I can see him. He goes away but he always comes back. Oh, please somebody come get me. Please somebody come. I’m so tired. I can’t stay floating much longer. Pleaaase.’

  ‘You’re on land now, Russ. You want to take a walk in the garden? Russ?’ She whispered at him, and I heard the bedsprings creak as she rocked him back and forth.

  He screamed. ‘The fish!’

  Joseph and I both flinched when he cried out. Joseph stood with his jaw clenched and eyes almost closed, still with his hand raised as if I might try to go forward to the white door of our parents’ room at the end of the dark corridor.

  ‘Russ, you can’t keep having these dreams. You just can’t, honey. It’ll tear you up inside. Don’t
make me cover your mouth again. It hurts me to do that. You’re home now and you’re safe. Safe. The fish isn’t here.’

  ‘He’s here.’ He was exhausted now. His voice became a murmur. ‘He goes away but only for a while.’

  I had never heard him calling out before in the night. Maybe it started only a short time ago, I thought, or maybe in the past my mother had been quicker to cover his mouth and hide his crying.

  When the noise from their room had stopped, Joseph walked to his room and shut the door. He had not looked at me once.

  I stayed for a moment alone in the hallway, then moved silently back to my bed.

  Eight

  ‘James!’ It was Emily. She pressed her nose against the window of the café where I sat drinking tea and waiting for Mary’s to open.

  I had left on the bus for Newport early that morning, before my parents were awake.

  I told Joseph to let them know I’d gone on another trip.

  We didn’t speak about the night before.

  He only nodded and said he would tell them, as he fumbled with the coffee pot.

  The boat wasn’t due to leave until the next day, but I decided to stay at the Y. I didn’t want to see my father’s face worn out from the bad dream. I didn’t want an explanation.

  ‘So here you are being a Gatsby boy!’ She sat at my table and set aside the newspaper I was reading.

  ‘I’m not being a Gatsby boy. I’m only drinking tea.’

  ‘But that’s how every good Gatsby boy begins his day. In some flashy café with the daily news.’ She wore white trousers and a blue sweatshirt with URI in faded letters on the front. She looked pretty. More pretty than I remembered.

  ‘I ran after your car that day I saw you last. I tried to catch up with you.’

  ‘Why?’ She opened her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  ‘I was going to tell you … I was going to say … say we shouldn’t have left things the way we did.’ I glanced up. ‘That’s what I was going to say.’

  ‘And how did we leave things?’ She talked with the clean white stick of an unlit cigarette between her lips.