The Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus

by Allan Gurganus

  This group seems so at peace here on this blasted quay. They might be wandering the chrome solarium of what you guess is a good-sized cliffside home not far up the coast. At last, they’ve trekked at their agreed-on pace to one high spot two hundred yards beyond the car. The man idly lifts a found blue bottle. The dog’s front half immediately starts bouncing. This is the old-age version of his famous ground-clearing puppy leaps while playing Fetch. But—with ocean moiling on either side—that game will not do here. The man, catching a motherly head-shake from his partner, sets the bottle down, and slow.

  The people move arms-around-waists. In their very wordlessness, they achieve a hobbled working concord. Their dog twenty feet ahead keeps always turning back then going on, turning back. Even for the healthiest, these rocks—all round and each one scummed unevenly—make for ankle-twisting hazards. Gulls follow the party. Birds flop down just ahead of these intruders, shifting in irritable ten-foot flights. Birds appear expecting benefits from any guests crazed enough to come here after last night’s storm.

  The woman’s slight hunching now gives way to opening her mouth then leaning forward. Sick, she waves her companions on ahead to show she simply needs privacy. Her mate follows orders. Her grouchy gesture seems in no way irked at him. None of this seems personal. She is already that sick. She simply bends forward. Gulls—sensible—surround her.

  And, while the man and dog go on ahead, she does cough up a little breakfast. The Labrador keeps looking back at her, taking six or eight more steps, checking around again but, head lowered, with an air of philosophy or fellow suffering. She has hardly wiped her mouth with the back of one braceleted hand when birds mass across her ankles, fighting for that spot of yellow. Cursing, she kicks through leathern wings, manages to keep moving.

  The Lab, attuned to her discomfort, barks at gulls. He turns to greet her in awkward circles, yapping out to sea while slobbering some. His timing theatrical—he goes straight to playing the fool. Even in her smiling struggle for breath, you see her shake her head with mock-exasperation. This has become the woman’s most frequent sign of approval for both her males: half-wince, part-grin. Even so, as intended, the old creature has just fetched for her one moment’s distraction.

  The dog makes sport of yapping up at flying gulls. One tern dive-bombs him, scolding him with hard yellow eyes. The woman, hand to sternum, still shakes her head, peeved with her upset-stomach, a social lapse. The blond man, hoping to amuse her if stupidly (half-copying their dog), hurls himself down a rocky incline, achieves the surf. Waving both arms, leaping like some chieftain, he tamps one palm across his yodeling mouth to give off war-whoops. He intends such foolishness as a diversion. But he seems surprised by the very joy he’s faking. He, after all, is still healthy and not un-young. How many months now has he slowed his gait to honor gravity’s sudden tax on hers? Even before the diagnosis, didn’t his body sense a darkling visitor in hers? But today, out here, he dances, briefly freed. This guilty vigor surges and he feels himself again. Before whatever is waiting, he wants to bound around once more.

  The animal stoops, defecating, behind one nine-foot boulder. And from a second uprooted oak, the man rips a forked stick then shakes it overhead. Then as some last proof of his vitality, he chucks this limb end-over-end into surf. Foam pushes it, experimenting, only to suck it nine feet out with one smooth inhale. Such undertow. And he acts pleased. Till noting her eyes cut left, till seeing how she seems to curse. Her hand whips toward horizon. Their dog, from behind his shielding boulder, has somehow seen a stick tossed. Any stick is his. He has just belly-flopped into one very cold Atlantic. Their prized pet is swimming out to fetch a prize these two do not want. She clambers nearer water, shaking her head as if not believing. First she points to the man’s watch. Then, one palm pressed to her throat, she hollers accusations. Her partner goes very still. She screams out toward a dog impervious.

  She is left simply shaking her bone fist at the ocean.

  II.

  ONE LABRADOR RETRIEVER has found his daily chance: to retrieve. Fetch is the single game this beast will play forever. Night can fall. Favorite foods will go uneaten. He must love the joy of fetch for its being perfectly mutual, a standing appointment.

  The man, face stricken, now turns toward her. An airplane, on its runway, is being fueled. Doctors are likely reviewing her charts, scanning MRIs. Now this pair’s Lab, fourteen years old, dog-paddles off into a frigid Atlantic as if bound for Ireland. The creature is fixed solely on a green V-shape in this zone of rolling mercury. And all because of one dumb moment’s pure exuberance. She appears furious with him.

  Neck muscles vexed to cords, she finds the nearest good-sized stone. He expects she will now spastically hurl it toward their dog. Instead she heaves it right at him as hard as she can. It strikes his shoulder with force enough to knock him two steps backward. Then, shocked by such savagery, her features imitate his sudden grimace. Her face goes ashen as she reaches out. But, even as his hand presses the worst hurt, he shrugs, admitting he’s just done something idiotic. He has already turned, is running toward water.

  Given this sea’s Greenland temperature, considering their afternoon’s likely schedule, the man trots as close to jagged foam as he can in his Italian loafers blond as he is.

  The tide’s been shifting. Last night’s storm has added a whole new pitch of whistling roar. This makes any talk inaudible. What, anyway, to say, especially now? Flying gulls resettle on water, again at-swim to see whatever action must befall these guests. Birds shriek news of fresh currents, dangers only their ruddering feet perceive. (They now rotate forty degrees to face the dog’s own poorly chosen route.) Water surging past this point goes coursing south. But waves keep slamming east to west. Undertow results. Till now, this day has been the gray of the beach’s million dry rocks; now it turns the color of those wet ones varnished seal-black.

  Two people, together standing separately—one near the surf, another higher on stone bluff—each stare toward a floating branch, pursued. They judge the likely energy of their pet now paddling oblivious toward it.

  The couple’s upper bodies lock, studying a darkening whorl curving not thirty feet beyond the dog. This new channel feeds a greater suction turning off the point. Already the sprig of greenery goes spinning toward it, some compass-needle crazed.

  The woman, farther uphill, folds at center, points then hollers toward the man or dog or simply hollers. The man signals, showing he’s already seen the risk. He has accepted her stoning, but is now urging her (via downward sweeps of both his open palms) to at least not panic their dog, please. All this might yet turn out fine. Well, couldn’t it?

  Since breakfast, something extra’s shown in their Lab’s stolid bounce. Some up-curl at the inner seam of his black lip. Old as he is, this has been one of his better recent mornings. Even his chasing a stick not intended for him proves how young the ocean’s made him feel. His foolish splash of energy seems meant to re-engender theirs.

  The Lab is so intent upon his game. Such sport has become his favorite way to lift their sour latest moods. In the station wagon he rode here with familiar dreaded luggage; these people are world travelers; the dog knows the signs; he has been left before. So, even as he paddles toward that branch, he seems to take his time in chill water, eager for activity, relief, glad to hold them amused on his beach.

  You sense how truly smart they find him, at least how charming and present. As both these people straighten with suppressed alarm, you guess he’s always been their reckless enjoyer. They get to marvel and to worry, over-think for him. But their designated explorer has today overshot his skill, forgot his age. Surely that stick should not have left this beach. One backward shrug from the man near shore to the woman uphill again concedes this. After slamming one palm to his forehead, he hoists both hands then, despairing, lets them flop. Meanwhile, hopping side to side, he keeps screaming a two-syllable cry, probably the dog’s name, all while knowing—till that stick is fetched, nothing will d
eter the dog—nothing can save him.

  Still favoring the right leg, she fights her way down a graveled bank toward surf. She forgets herself and falls in her struggle to somehow help. She scrapes her knee, barely notices, scrambles upright. What can either of them do? The water temperature would stun, then, take them under. Even the dog, in weighing less, is—slowly—being pulled now from behind. The stick seems all that matters as he bashes through successive waves. Each hides undertow. Riptide’s force is visible mostly in its smoothing the tops of all the breakers that it implicates. The old dog, feeling only safe in his companions’ gaze, just goes with it. He heads toward the green. He imagines that his own male energy creates the tumbling drift that already has him.

  They hear the point’s down-turning slough, gone louder now. Everything is pulled toward and into it. She, reaching water’s edge, eager to consult her man, totters up to him, touches his back. He—deafened by wind’s shrilling, unaware of her approach—jumps as if shot, lifts one arm to actually defend himself. He at once shows he regrets this. And pulls her waist hard against his own right hip. They both turn and—joined—are screaming at their dog. They wave free arms. They separate to run like mad-people up and down the beach. Anything to distract their pet from his goal, anything to bring him in while he yet has strength and body heat.

  Once his usual game of Fetch begins, there is no devaluing the contested object, ever. As with love, substitutions don’t apply. Even so, they whistle, hooting favorite nicknames, acting utter fools. This eager to become his saving amusement, they imitate then gladly become him. (She, by drawing near the ground, coaxing him at child-height. He, via kinetic spins, by playing superb ghost-Frisbee.) This show begins to seem their farewell-thanks. Maybe they can mime him toward recalling his own confidence? He will need that. To pull himself free of a vortex waiting—roaring—at the point’s far end. They should never have fed him from the table; every ounce of extra weight today becomes a peril. Already the current has tugged him forty feet past shore, toward some claiming horizon.

  He somehow snags the stick. They literally applaud. He does a crude proud U-turn. He paddles toward shore. Now he faces them, how small his head looks bobbing out there. Black dot, smiling. Full stop. Then they see the gulls flying-shifting into better positions out beyond-behind him. Floating birds all shift his way. Ready for spectacle. They know more about the harsh shared currents than do any humans ashore. What are the gulls hoping for? Do gulls hope? Does any living thing for long? What are the odds against us?

  What of the dog? As yet unaware, even while locked in combat with undertow, instead he shakes the stick! (Tough-guy, probably growling out there to prove his moxie.) But currents already test his haunches. Smart as he is, the creature fixes on the expressions his companions offer. Likely two white masks of tragedy. And only now, in his reading these, do you see the creature’s sideways jerk of consciousness. Awareness flattens the animal’s black face. His head is visible, now not, visible, not now—behind repeated jagged waves.

  His paddling redoubles. But now the dog advances not at all.

  The second they see their Lab release his stick—no longer remembering why he even liked it—his companions start to cry. Herky-jerking arms far wilder, dancing ever-crazier, one weepy man goes into manic pirouetting jumping jacks. She does a faltering remembered ballerina-turn, a pas de chat, then settles for simply hopping frog-like side-to-side. Odd, now instead of favoring her bad leg, she seems to pound its whole corrupted foot against rocks. Sickened, she gives over to the un-discipline of outflung arms, then whistling with two-fingered tomboy force.

  The dog half-notices. And you soon hear in their torn scraps of sound how they no longer simply tease or coax the animal ashore; theirs have become cries and screams ascending to the pitch of non-believers’ prayers. Are these two yelling orders for him to save himself? Are they crying for themselves? Is any separation possible? With winds risen to twenty-five knots, it’s harder to hear the pitch of creature yelps. Undertow, as in some prank, now turns the dog one full rotation, so fast. And he, dizzied, simply starts paddling out to sea. Such screaming they do. Over his haunches, he notices, reorients. Slowing.

  The man, using the butt of his right fist, clears his nose while trying to hide signs of crying. She curls down on the rocks then, forcing herself, jumps into the ocean, wades a full yard out. Simple contact makes her start. Outstretched hands both fisting. Two minutes’ swim in this will stiffen her to wood. One shamed look tells him—she knows so now. But when she trudges out, dress darkened-lowered with sea-weight, she looks far more hobbled. She keeps signaling toward the animal. His rear-legs persist, then stop; two kicks more, he is going into some uneven stymied drift. Though he’s floated too far to read her gesture plain, she keeps holding out one hand, down low, as if offering whatever treat he’d most like finding there….

  The dog is being pulled against his will—aside—then out. Along the shore they follow him. They’re scarcely aware till they look back: that first oak is now three-hundred-yards away, their white car has somehow shrunk to matchbox-size. Off to the right, at the point of the peninsula, they hear a boiling suction. The stick the Lab just forfeited—in being weightless—shows his own likely route. Far faster than he would go, it is spun by six tricky currents till it reaches the point’s funneling vacuum, tilts, disappears.

  The two onshore begin to stare toward the great black surging channel.

  Treading water, the animal is visibly starting to know. If only he’d been stupider these last fourteen years, his end might now, for all of them, prove easier. He’s brighter than most first-graders and understands. If not the science of his fix, then its likely outcome.

  Though his front legs continue making their usual spastic imitations of real swimming, you sense he’s losing use of rear limbs. These are becoming just more ballast the undertow can use against him. The dog bares his teeth with strain. Amber light in his comic eyes goes leaden as the waves. What has left his features is simply all the native wit. You see he is now gauging only the couple’s distorted expressions. His face gives them back their own despair, their lack of plan, their sinking-in middle years. Finally, out of choices, the dog even risks staring straight-overhead at the gunmetal sky, seeking help there. As thanks, he takes in water, goes thrashing under for a bit. He’s out there seizing up, for one reason: he is obeying fear. Fear learned from the features he so daily and expertly reads. And, only after seeing him imitate their own recent half-deadness, do they somehow snap—fully parental—into action.

  Now they move like same-sex twins, natural and unanimous in joint emergency. Along the beach, they heave themselves, casting about for props. These people have so often taken charge. They’ve certainly stormed—with their thinness, good luggage and independent funds—many a fine hotel worldwide. Now they try distracting him at least from his own panic at seeing theirs.

  Running to a wedge of sodden plywood, she throws herself onto it, grabs one corner, tears it free. Rising, she now chucks this out toward the dog’s central fan of vision. He notices, continues frontward struggling, only to recede. For one second, glancing even at this pointless target, he seems to hold a moment longer in his place.

  She nods herself encouragement, finds six smaller rocks, ones safe enough to hurl into the black current before him. She intends describing the single path that might get him to a flat stone half-submerged thirty feet offshore. She’s trying to prevent his looking overhead again and taking in more water. Her tossed rocks sink at once but do leave cusps of foam. The dog is now watching each plash. He’s mapping each and this helps keep him fixed on her. On anything except the drift that has him, that seems just toying with him now.

  Soon she and the man have stripped the second oak tree to its trunk, tossing into salt water its last limbs, mere twigs.

  First the flailing dog ignores these but as the man onshore screams, doing further calisthenics to make a taller visual target, the old dog’s head fights to stare toward what
ever useless bits are thrown his way. Fetch? You see him fight to regain something essential for all drifters—a scheme, however arbitrary. The man chucks one stone close to where the last plopped. He more or less replaces one target with another at intervals that show, if not a Major League arm, then great adrenalized concentration. Fear has given him a material control till now seen only in one Swiss tennis champ. Awed by his own aim, he envies it. Knowing this can’t last.

  The more the dog fixes on any target, the better does he struggle, resisting sideways drift. But there’s little left to throw. His eyes are blinking, longer. He’s freezing, cramping up out there. Hands bracketing her mouth, she screams more warnings, promises.

  Having tossed at him everything available, now seeing him lose fixity while being shoved due east, she pulls off her gold bracelet. It is one whose “good” weight and simplicity has marked it as a feature of her arm for years. Without a thought except of him, she heaves it with good sisterly aim. And, though he’s gargling in sea-foam, its plop, its familiar glint, does snag at least a fragment of the drowning dog’s attention. Then pitiless she shucks her necklace, sends that into waves. This buys him another two seconds of interest.

  Next, each by each, her shoes go in. They describe an arc that hints toward a half-sunken shoreline rock that might give the creature foothold. Each of her offerings at least snags some new part of his retinal range. Retrievers’ being bred for such collecting helps him now. Each distraction she offers helps him plot a momentary wish. He is engaged because remembering, expecting. His next cobbled kick seems pure reward.