Gone to Drift

by Diana McCaulay

  After he was alone, my brother spent his days lost at sea wedged in the small V-shaped shade of the bow cap. He said he could hear the sea talking to him through the hull of the boat. He said birds pitched on the boat and he knew they were waiting for him to die so they could peck at his eyes. He never used the word “loneliness” but that is what I could feel—the desolation of being alone on the sea in a boat without power.

  On the eighth night, he crawled out and looked at the sky. He said he knew he would die the next day when the sun came up. He was tired of trying to catch fish or birds or turtles. He was tired of praying for rain. It was over. And then he thought of the fuel in the engine and in his mind he saw fishers leaving Great Bay in the dark. When he saw the first faint tinge of gray in the sky, he poured the fuel on the surface of the sea and he lit it with a match. That is how he was found by Maas Peter, who saw the glow of burning fuel in the fading night.

  26

  Maas Roxton brought Lloyd a cup of water and sat opposite him on a chair. “Me sorry, Lloydie. Me know you and you granddaddy was close.” He shook his head. “Is just a dangerous time now, and him is—was—one ignorant old fool. Man can really get himself kill over a dolphin?”

  So here was the truth. Why hadn’t he come to find Maas Roxton earlier? Why had he wasted time with the Coast Guard boat and the dolphin women? He faced the old man. “Tell me what happen,” Lloyd said. The wondering would soon be over. “Why him go to Pedro? Him never go there in him life. What him go there for?”

  “Him go ’cause him see you father catchin dolphin for the foreign people.”

  “My father?” Lloyd asked the question, but he felt he had always known Vernon had something to do with Maas Conrad’s disappearance.

  “Ee-hee. Vernon. Your daddy. Conrad tell me one early mornin him comin home from a quick trip and him see Vernon with some other man. Them was loadin a dolphin into a pickup on Gray Pond beach. Him and Vernon did have words.” Maas Roxton stopped.

  “Me know Gramps love dolphin, but is not the first time him and Pa have words. Them have words all the time. What happen after that?”

  “Maas Conrad find out ’bout some big crackdown on the Pedro Cays, environmental people want stop night fish-nin and spear fish-nin and government bring in some kind of fish sanctuary place where no fish-nin allow. And the Coast Guard catch some fisher with one whole heap a cocaine, and some other boat with a pile of shark fin. Then two conch compressor diver dead from stayin down too long. Me no know the whole story. But plain and straight, the government stop the fishers from do what them used to do and them stop make money. So them start catch dolphin and sell them to the foreign dolphin people. Been going on for a while near Negril, but not so easy to find dolphin along the north coast ’cause the reef dead and the fish small and dolphin not there more than so. So them start catch them out at Pedro.”

  “So Gramps go Pedro. For what?”

  “Lloydie, me beg him don’t go. Him leave from here, y’know. But you know how him stay. Him get worse the older him get, all him can chat ’bout is how the sea is mashin up and how all of we is to blame. Them kinda thing. You memba how him nearly get kill last year out by Old Harbour after him try beat up that police, what him name again? Aaahm . . .” The old man stopped and Lloyd wanted to say, who cares about the policeman. He waited.

  “Corporal Armstrong. Yeh. Him sell dynamite to fishers.”

  “Me never know ’bout that.”

  “Conrad nearly get kill! Is only him gray hair save him. Corporal Armstrong say him never want see him again in Old Harbour.” Maas Roxton sighed. “Me know why him go Pedro, but me don’t know what him think him go do when him get there.”

  “So why you think him dead?”

  “Him dead because a bad man say him must dead.”

  “Black Crab, you mean?”

  “What you know ’bout Black Crab?” Maas Roxton looked terrified. “Lloydie you can’t mix up-mix up inna these things. A big man thing. Bad man thing.”

  “Where I can find him?”

  “You no hear what me just say, bwoy?”

  “Me have to find him. You think Gramps dead but you no know for sure. Right? Right?”

  “Lloydie, I know it hard. But is, what, ten days now since Conrad leave from Pedro. Him must dead. Black Crab send man to get rid of him. Me know that. Black Crab come here, him come to Rocky Point and Welcome Beach and Old Harbour and him tell everybody to keep them mouth shut, that dolphin business a good business, and how nuff man eatin a food from it, and how one old man nah go stop it with him fool-fool chat. How dolphin just a fish, just one animal, like any animal, and what, we must stop eat chicken, stop jerk pork, nobody must have curry goat feed? Not a manjack agree with that. Not a man think anything wrong with catchin a dolphin. After we all catch fish, no so?”

  “Dolphin not a fish,” Lloyd said.

  “Same damn foolishness. Get it outta you head, yout’. I know it hard, no funeral, no proper nine night, but you granddaddy gone.”

  “Who Black Crab send to Pedro to find Gramps?”

  “Me no know, Lloydie. Me know you father big up inna the dolphin business, but me no know if is him. Me not sayin is him. But me hear from ’nuff Pedro man that Vernon was out there—and him no like go sea more than so, you know that. If him was on Pedro, him go there for a reason.”

  “You look for him, Maas Roxton? You go look for you friend, for you bredren?” Lloyd stood. He wanted to hit the old man, to throw the cup he held against the wall.

  “Don’t facety to me yout’. You is outta order. Is not you one care about you granddaddy. But me have grandpickney too and it nah go help them to bury me, you hear? Yes, me look for him. Me look for him every time me go sea, me look for him at Hellshire and on Pigeon Island and on Pelican. But is a big sea. Me don’t find him. Me know the Coast Guard look too.”

  “You see his boat?”

  “Not a trace. Him gone, Lloydie. It hard, but him gone. You go home now and you forget ’bout it.”

  Lloyd walked to the door and stopped on the doorstep. He did not know what to believe.

  “Where you going now, Lloydie?” Maas Roxton said. “You can’t go back to town ’til tomorrow. Stay here tonight. I have some fish and festival, Miss Janet over by the Co-op fry it up for me. We beg a call over at the shop and tell you mother where you is. You get up early and go home with Django—is him bring you, don’t it? Or you can come sea inna the mornin with me. We take some fish for Miss Beryl.”

  Lloyd’s eyes filled with tears. It would be so good to cry, to mourn, to admit defeat.

  “C’mon, Lloydie, you just a bwoy. Hear what me is tellin you.”

  Lloyd nodded slowly and he felt his body soften, and together the boy and the old man went in search of a cell phone with credit.

  Luke stayed at home for three weeks. My family dispersed. Robert went back to Southside, Colin to Top Hill, Lewis to Billy’s Bay, Ben to Junction. My father went to Black River. My mother cleaned and cooked. I waited. When Luke took his first steps around our house I walked beside him. I watched his flesh fill out and soften the hard lines of his bones. He was still hungry and he drank a whole coconut every single hour he was awake. People from the community came by, mostly the women, and they brought gifts—a special oil for the skin, a tea that would bring sleep and a quiet mind, sweet potatoes just dug from the earth. No one spoke the words we were all thinking—would Luke go to sea again?

  At night, I lay on the floor on my pile of blankets and listened to my brother’s breathing and I thought about a life on the sea, the life of a fisher. When the fish were biting, we had money. We had respect. We were big men in the community. If we were lost, a search was mounted and the whole community waited for our return. I had no other trade. Until Luke went to drift, I thought I knew the sea. I thought often about what he said, that the sea talked to him through the thin hull of the boat, and as I lay on the floor I listened for the words of the earth below me but it was silent.

  I kn
ew I would go to sea again. Never with a man like Donovan, never if the weather was bad, never if something simply did not feel right. And never to the Pedro Bank. I would never take the journey all my brothers had taken, never see the man with two rows of teeth like a shark, never sleep and wake on a cay in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. But I would go to sea, I would come home to land at the edge of the sea, but the sea was and would always be my world and my work.

  In the fourth week after Luke’s return, our father came up to us where we sat on the front steps, Luke with a coconut shell in his hands. Tomorrow, he said to Luke. You be ready. My brother nodded.

  Me can come? I said.

  My father pursed his lips and looked down. Ee-hee, he said eventually.

  The next morning we skimmed over a light chop into the whorls of sunrise and Luke took his place at the bow, holding the anchor rope, riding the eternal power of the sea. And that morning we saw the dolphins at the reef; we saw a female with her calf and a big male that rode our bow wave, close enough to touch. It was a morning of triumph and I grinned at Luke. I loved dolphins anew. All my life they reminded me of the day I made my peace with the sea.

  I know I will die on this rock in the sea. There is no escape. A man born to drown cannot hang. The Pedro Bank has been waiting for me.

  27

  The next morning, Maas Roxton and Lloyd left to pull pots. The weather was dull and sticky and the choppy sea held a threat of something more. Lloyd had fallen asleep on an old army cot as soon as he had eaten and had slept deeply and dreamlessly all night. Yet he felt heavy. Maas Roxton said his grandfather was dead. Perhaps it was time to accept it.

  “We go over by Wreck Reef,” Maas Roxton said. “Then to Gray Pond. You sell some fish, you pray for you granddaddy and you go about you business after that, seen, Lloydie?”

  They left the cays of Portland Bight and the town of Old Harbour and the round dome of Rocky Point behind and Maas Roxton kept Testament close to the coast, past Coquor Bay and Manatee Bay. When they reached Needles Point, Lloyd looked over at Tern Cay and tried to think when last he had visited Tern Cay with his grandfather—it must have been at least three months ago, perhaps in his Easter holidays.

  He watched the coastline slip by. There were beaches fringed with mangroves in some places, in other places it was rocky and a boat without power would be dashed to pieces by the surf. Behind Wreck Reef, the sea was calmer. They headed to the first pot and began to draw it, working in silence. Lloyd remembered the story of the dolphins leading Gramps through the dangerous coral heads of Wreck Reef and he was angry at his grandfather for telling him such tales. There were no miracles.

  The fishing was poor and Maas Roxton’s traps held very little of value. “Sea gettin up,” he said. “Time to call it a day.” His catch would not pay for the fuel to take Lloyd home. They left the Hellshire coast and headed for Kingston Harbour. When they entered the Harbour, Maas Roxton opened the throttle and Testament raced across the sea. They passed the Coast Guard base. Surrey was not at anchor.

  “You fish at Pedro?” Lloyd asked Maas Roxton over the noise of the engine.

  “Yeah, sometime. Fish-nin much better than ’round here, but is a long boat ride.”

  “Suppose somebody hurt Gramps. Suppose him in the sea. Him swim good, you know. Where him could wash up out there, where nobody would find him?”

  “Bwoy, Lloydie, you head tough like a dry coconut. Three cays on Pedro—Top, Middle, and Bird Cay. Man live on Top and Middle—you know that. Nowhere to hide there.”

  “What about Bird Cay?”

  “Nobody live there, but you can see it easy, and fishers go there all the time. Although, mark you, now Bird Cay is in the fish sanctuary and nobody not supposed to be over there except the wardens.”

  “Maybe Gramps is there then.”

  “Lloydie, if him is on Bird Cay, and him stand on the beach and wave him hand, everybody see him. Him can’t be there. If him is there, him is dead.”

  “Nowhere else on Pedro him could be?” Lloyd saw the cranes of Gordon Cay and the power plant and the refinery and the tall buildings of downtown Kingston ahead. He saw the fishing boats gathered at the old sewage plant outfalls. He was nearly home.

  “Well, I suppose a man could drift to Portland Rock, but him can’t survive there, not for long. No shade, no water, nuttn but bird nastiness.”

  “Where is Portland Rock?”

  “Pedro. Two hour from Middle Cay. In the north. Depend where him did go into the sea as to whether him could end up there.”

  Lloyd had never heard of Portland Rock. “What it look like?”

  “Me only go there once. Is just a rock sticking outta the sea. What you want me tell you? Is a big rock. Sharp. Easy to cut you. Nuff bird and crab. If it rain, water collect in the hole in the rock. Me think the bird like that. Windward side rough as hell.”

  “Nobody is there?”

  “Sometime fishers camp out there. Them don’t stay long. No fresh water, like me say. Only one place a boat can land. Water pretty, though—blue and deep and clean. Nuff shark too. That’s another thing. How a man could swim through the whole heap of shark?”

  “Me going look,” said Lloyd.

  Maas Roxton cut the engine and they glided onto Gray Pond beach. “Lloydie, what me must do with you?” he said. Lloyd said nothing. They faced each other, the old man with his hand still on the tiller and the boy sitting astride one of the thwarts. Maas Roxton sighed. “Awright. Is on you own head. Better you look for Black Crab than go Portland Rock. You no see the sky? Storm a come. Crab hang out at a bar name Shotta near Newport West. Maybe him feel sorry for a yout’. Me hope so, anyway.”

  “Thanks, Maas Roxton. Me have to try.”

  “Take these two parrot fish for Miss Beryl, youngster. Take them. Me want you to eat good tonight. Me sorry . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “You know anybody will take me to Portland Rock?” Lloyd said.

  Maas Roxton sighed. “You going search the whole sea, Lloydie?”

  “He could be there.”

  “Eleven days on a rock inna the sea. No food? No water?”

  “If it rain, why not? If bird and crab is there, why not? Maybe fishers leave a tent.” Lloyd stopped. “You ever see dolphins out there?”

  “You and the blasted dolphins. Me never see them the day me go, but fisher talk about them out there.”

  “Plenty a them?”

  “Me no know, Lloydie. What a crosses! Anyway, me done. Me tell you what me know. Me sure Conrad is dead. That’s it. You stay away from all the dolphin business or you be the next one nobody know what happen to. You get between a man and his bread, somebody go get hurt. Tell Miss Beryl how-de-do, awright?”

  “Ee-hee. Thanks, Maas Roxton.” Lloyd watched the old man stumble across the sand. Gramps was old, but he was strong; stronger than his friend. Lloyd was sure he could have climbed up onto Portland Rock. He would find his way to the rock in the sea, but not until he had spoken to Black Crab. He would ask Dwight to go with him to find the bar called Shotta near to Newport West.

  I think this is my eleventh day on Portland Rock, but I am no longer sure. The rock pools are empty of water now. The plastic bottle is quarter full. There is not a single sea snail near to me. I should have eaten the ones farther away when I was stronger. I am afraid to stand again. Soon I will not be able to crawl. I am no longer hungry but my thirst burns and burns. I live in my memories; they make the hours pass and the pain in my leg bearable.

  I remember the loss of Snowboy in the 1960s, how the communities mourned and how a fund was set up by our prime minister, Alexander Bustamante, and how the discussions were about which children should benefit from the fund as the men who were lost at sea had more than one family. That was the first time I heard the word “illegitimate.” Once the fund was started, the lost fishers were forgotten, their lives exchanged for money. I always wondered who owned Snowboy and whether they continued to send boats full of fishers to sea. By then my par
ents were both dead, my father of some wasting sickness no one ever named, a skeleton in the Black River Hospital, his skin turned from black to gray.

  Only Luke and I were still in Great Bay when Snowboy went to drift. We lived in our old house, me with Jasmine, Luke with Cordella, who I never liked. By then, we were going farther and farther to catch the same amount of fish. It was hard to make ends meet.

  I remember the rains from Hurricane Flora when the pond overflowed into all the houses that had been built too close. Only the lignum vitae trees held firm—the coconut trees were uprooted, every last one. We lost our roof and nearly all our possessions. The farms of St. Elizabeth were washed away. It rained for weeks and the land turned a strange, unnatural green. Goats died from eating the acid green grass. The sea was churned up and fishing was bad. It was then that Jasmine’s old desire for Kingston took hold of her.

  28

  Lloyd and Dwight made their way to Newport West next day. Lloyd told himself he was on a quest. His sidekick was Dwight. Black Crab would know where he could look for Gramps. And if it was Portland Rock, he would go there next.

  The Shotta bar was a plywood structure with a slanted tin roof, like a lean-to. Dancehall music throbbed from two large speakers on either side of the bar. Two old men with lowered heads sat on bar stools. Beyond them, a fisher worked on a fish pot under a sea grape tree. There was no beach.

  The barman had reddened eyes. Lloyd ordered a Pepsi in two cups without ice and the barman brought them. The boys sat at the bar and looked around. Apart from the two men at the other end of the bar, there was a thin black man sitting right in front of the speakers with a cell phone to his ear. He was dressed in torn jeans and an undershirt and another cell phone buzzed on a metal table in front of him.