A Case of Vineyard Poison

by Philip R. Craig

  We were in the Land Cruiser driving south before Quinn got back to the issue of Zee’s fleeting riches. While we crawled through the A & P traffic jam, she told him her tale.

  “And the bank says it was a computer glitch, eh?”

  Zee nodded. “My hundred thou was there for the weekend, but was gone on Monday. That’s all I know. Sic transit moolah. I presume that means our relationship is over. Sigh.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Quinn. “Maybe we can still work something out.”

  Going on through Edgartown, Zee played travel guide for David Greenstein. She pointed out Cannonball Park, so called because of its six-inch muzzle-loading cannons and its stacks of twelve-inch cannon balls, and confessed that she hadn’t the slightest idea why the cannon balls and cannons weren’t the same size.

  “Why is that?” she interrupted herself to ask me. Zee sometimes thinks, or pretends to think, that I know more than I do.

  “It’s like those big vee formations that geese fly in,” I said. “One arm of the vee is almost always longer than the other one. You know why?”

  “I’m not sure that I want to hear this,” said Zee, suddenly suspicious. “Oh, all right. Why?”

  “Because the long arm of the vee has more geese in it.”

  “Haw!” laughed Quinn. When he was really amused, he put two haws in a row.

  “That’s how it is with these cannons and cannon balls,” I explained. “They aren’t the same size because the cannon balls are bigger than the cannons.”

  Zee, who was sitting beside me in the front seat, turned back to David Greenstein. “Now you see what you’ve gotten yourself into. A week of jokes like that and you’ll be begging to get back on the recital circuit.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” he said. “In fact, I’ve told worse. Maybe we can have a bad joke contest sometime. Of course Quinn won’t be allowed to compete because he tells the worst jokes in the world and would win hands down.”

  “That’s because I’m an ace reporter for the Boston Globe,” said Quinn. “My whole career is a joke. Compared to me, you guys are just amateur jesters.”

  We took a right on Pease Point Way, rolled past the cemetery and the fire and police stations, and drove on out toward Katama. The road was full of mopeds whose riders were headed for South Beach, and the bike path was full of bikers going the same direction. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I thought all of the travelers had the right idea.

  Zee kept up her travelogue as we drove down past the farm on the great plains, the condos and new houses by the Herring Creek, and, at the end of the pavement, through the crowds of cars, bikes, and people at the beach. I slipped into four-wheel-drive and we headed east over the sand toward Chappy.

  We drove along the inside track, following the south shore of Katama Bay. There were clammers and quahoggers in the bay, and a lot of four-by-fours parked or moving along the beach. It was a busy day. To our right, along the ocean shore, the air was full of kites. Still, the beach was uncluttered compared to the places where two-wheel-drive vehicles could go.

  There was, as expected, a huge gathering of trucks and Jeeps down by the clam flats near Chappy. The families belonging to them lolled under beach umbrellas or were busy getting sunburned as they heated their grills, flew their kites, and tossed their footballs.

  “The movable feast, also known as the portable parking lot,” Zee explained to David Greenstein. “One of the ironies of being an islander is that you never have time to enjoy the place the way the tourists do. All week, while the tourists are touristing, the islanders are working. So on weekends they make it up, and come down here to party.”

  We passed onto the Wasque reservation, going along the narrow road through the dunes, past Swan Lake, where once or twice we’ve seen otters swimming among the ducks, geese, and swans, and out onto Wasque Point. There, the four-by-fours were parked side by side while beyond them the fishing rods were bending.

  “Fish!” cried Zee, pointing. “They’re getting fish, Jeff!”

  Indeed they were. A lot of people were on, and others were up at the Jeeps, taking fish off their lures.

  I swung over and drove along behind the parked trucks. I didn’t see many that I recognized. Most of the regulars had moved out. The dozens of fishermen standing shoulder to shoulder, making their casts, were almost all amateurs. Crossed lines seemed to be the order of the day. A lot of fish were being caught, but a lot of gear was being lost, too. I looked at Zee and raised a brow.

  She shook her head. “Zoo city. You’d take your life in your hands trying to fish in that crowd. Let’s keep going.”

  Quinn said, “How about trying the yellow shovel?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “The yellow shovel?” asked David Greenstein.

  Zee explained. “The yellow shovel is a spot on the beach. Years ago, we knew a guy named Al Prada who got a kick out of picking up toys he found lying on the beach. I guess he had boxes of the stuff in his garage. Anyway, one day we spotted him fishing just up East Beach a way, in a place we don’t normally fish. He had a fish on, so we stopped and got a couple ourselves. It turned out that he’d stopped because he’d spotted a kid’s yellow plastic shovel lying on the sand, and while he was there, had decided to make a few casts. Ever since then, that spot’s been the yellow shovel.”

  “Of course, the yellow shovel itself is long gone,” I said. “In Al Prada’s box of junk, probably.”

  “But the spot’s still there,” said Zee, “and we get fish there now and then. We’re going to give it another shot now. The chances are there won’t be a crowd, and we can introduce you to the joys of surf casting without running the risk of having some greenhorn hook us instead of a fish.”

  “I’m a greenhorn myself,” said David Greenstein.

  “No, you’re a Greenstein,” said Quinn.

  “Not down here,” said Zee. “Down here he’s my cousin Dave from New Bedford. Right, Dave?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “You speak any Portuguese, cousin Dave?”

  “Sorry. No Portuguese. Does that mean I can’t be your cousin any longer?”

  “Not a bit. My own brothers can’t speak Portuguese, and I’m getting worse at it every year. No, you’ll pass, with or without the language.”

  “I know French and some German and a little Yiddish. Will that help?”

  “A Yiddish-speaking Portagee, eh? Well . . .”

  “Okay,” said Dave. “No Yiddish.”

  We arrived at the yellow shovel and got out.

  Dave looked around. “How do you know where you are?”

  “You just drive along until you’re there,” I said. “You’ve read the sign: There ain’t no other place that looks like this place, so this must be the place.”

  “Ah.”

  “You do this a couple of times, and you’ll know,” said Quinn.

  We got the rods off the roof. My rod and Zee’s are eleven-and-a-half-foot graphites with Penn reels. Mine doesn’t have a bail. My other rods are fiberglass, also with Penn reels. Zee had and I had Roberts plugs on our lines, and I’d put Spoff’s Ballistic Missiles on the lines of the two fiberglass rods. Everybody had a thirty-inch leader.

  Dave hefted his rod and raised a brow. “A little bigger than a fly rod,” he said.

  “I’ll teach you everything I know about these things,” said Quinn.

  “That shouldn’t take long,” said Zee.

  “Women shouldn’t be allowed to fish with the men,” said Quinn. “Come on, Dave. We’ll go down the beach a way so when we screw up our casts, we won’t bother J.W. and his lady friend.”

  They went off to the right.

  Zee made her cast and hadn’t taken two turns on the reel when a fish hit her plug.

  “Wahoo!” she yelled, and set the hook.

  Up the beach, David Greenstein turned and looked at her. I couldn’t blame him. He may have been around the world a dozen times, but he had never seen another woman like Zee.

&nbs
p; He watched her bring the fish In. His eyes were bright. As she carried the fish up to the Land Cruiser, she glanced at him and grinned. He raised a fist into the air and pumped his arm in a victory signal. She raised her rod and shook it in answer. They both looked happy.

  I went down to the water’s edge and made my first cast. The plug arched far out and hit with a satisfying splash. But no fish hit the plug as I reeled in.

  — 7 —

  Quinn was not only a good fisherman but a good teacher, and David Greenstein, fly fisherman of yore, was a quick study, so it was not long before Dave’s casts were beginning to reach out to where the fish were waiting. And it was not much longer before he had his first hit. His rod bent, but as fast as the fish was on, it was off again.

  He shook his head and said a few words I had heard fishermen use before when their fish said good-bye.

  “You’ll get the next one,” said Zee, as she hauled in her third or fourth.

  And he did. A few casts later another fish hit his plug, and this time Dave set the hook and brought him in. A nice seven-pounder that fought him all the way to the beach.

  “I believe ‘wahoo’ is the right word this time.” He grinned at Zee, and dragged the still-fighting fish up to the Land Cruiser.

  By that time there were nine other fish lying in the shadow of the truck, and it was high noon.

  “What a relief to finally be able to add one to the pile. I was beginning to think I’d never get one.” Dave looked at the fish. “What will we do with them all?”

  “First we’ll put them in the fish box so they’ll stay cool,” said Quinn. He cocked an eye at me. “What do you think? We want some more, or will this do it?”

  “It’s up to you,” I said. “You’re the guests. You want to fish some more, get right at it.” I turned to Dave. “None of these will go to waste. When we get home, I’ll stuff yours and maybe another one, and bake them for supper. Any others that we have, I could give to some people who like fish but can’t make it to the beach, or I could sell. But today I’ll fillet the ones I don’t cook, so I can smoke them later. So catch as many as you want.”

  Dave was happy. He looked up at the sun. “How about one more before lunch?” He shook his rod. “Wow! I love it!”

  I leaned against the Land Cruiser and watched him go down and make his throw. He was beginning to get some reach on his casts. His line arched out and the plug hit the water with a splash. About four turns of the reel in, a blue hit the plug and Dave was on.

  “Wahoo!” He turned his head and looked at us, beaming.

  We watched him bring the fish in, and all of us were grinning when he came up to the truck. It’s hard not to smile when somebody is as happy as Dave was with that second fish.

  “Quinn, my boy,” he said, laughing, “this is even better than you said it would be! This guy just about wiped me out. What a battle!”

  When you first start fishing, you wear yourself out on every fish. Later, you learn to use your energy more efficiently, although a really good fish can still tire you and a run of them can do you in completely.

  “Lunchtime,” said Zee. “You need to reenergize.”

  We rinsed the sand from all of the fish and put them in the fish box, then stood the rods in the rod holders on the front bumper and drove to our favorite spot in the lee of the tall reeds by Pocha Pond. By some fluke, no one was there ahead of us, so we had the place to ourselves.

  We put down the old bedspread, and got out the cooler, and dug in.

  After a bit, Zee looked at Dave and Quinn and said, “You two guys have been out in this sun about long enough for your first day. Best if we go back home right after lunch, so you can find some shade.”

  Wise advice.

  “You sound very maternal,” I said.

  “I’m practicing for after we get married.”

  “How about taking Dave on the rest of the four-wheel-drive tour, first?” suggested Quinn.

  For friends and other occasional guests, I offer two tours of the Vineyard: the two-wheel-drive tour around the island’s main roads, through its towns, up to Gay Head and back; and the four-wheel-drive tour out to the far reaches of Chappaquiddick via the beaches. Pocha Pond was about a third of the way along the four-wheel-drive tour.

  Zee looked at me. “Why not? It’s a beautiful day. And if these guys are in the truck, they’ll be out of the sun.”

  “Right you are,” said Quinn, his fair Irish skin already dangerously pink.

  “You be the tour conductor,” I said to Zee. “I’ll scale the fish, then I want to get some stuffers to replace the ones we ate last night. By the time you get back, I should have my bucket full.”

  “I’ll stay and give you a hand,” said Dave.

  “No you won’t,” said Zee. “You’ve been out in the sun long enough already. You can go quahogging tomorrow.”

  I took the fish box out of the truck and my scaler out of my tackle box. Then, with Zee driving and Dave beside her and Quinn in the rear seat, the others set off up toward Dike Bridge, which lay low against the trees up where the water narrowed.

  I scaled the bluefish, then waded out and began raking circles for the big quahogs that live in Pocha. While I raked, I thought about David Greenstein. Sometimes you take to someone right away. I felt that way about Dave, It was clear that Quinn, normally as cynical as any other practitioner of his distrustful trade, felt that way, too. And there was no doubt that Zee did. It would have been hard for her to have felt any other way, since he was her favorite musician and was miraculously right here in the flesh instead of out there on the airwaves or embodied only in a tape or disk.

  Still, when I thought of Zee’s feelings for him, I felt a twinge of jealousy that I didn’t like. I made myself remember a sign that hung above one of the doors in my house. There were two words printed on it: no sniveling. I don’t like snivelers, and I was not going to be one. Maybe if Emmy Lou Harris suddenly showed up at my house, I would be as happy and starstruck as Zee seemed to be in the presence of David Greenstein. Besides, what was wrong with being as delighted as Zee was being? Was I grumpy just because another man made her happy? What kind of jerk was I becoming?

  I had a bucket of nice stuffers and was polishing off a Sam Adams taken from the cooler when the Land Cruiser came swaying back along the sand track leading from the bridge, passed over the beach at the edge of the pond, and came to a stop.

  “Terrific,” said Dave, stepping down. “I don’t know why you ever go home. I can see why those people out on Cape Pogue live there. This place is beautiful.”

  “Fishermen everywhere,” said Quinn. “Fish everywhere. What a day. I see you’ve been busy while we played tourist.”

  “Home, home,” said Zee. “These guys are getting red, and I forgot the lotions.”

  Brown Zee and brown me needed no lotions, but our pale guests did indeed need some. We packed the gear, put the rods on the roof rack, and went home via the tiny On Time ferry, which transfers travelers from Chappy to Edgartown. It being Dave’s first trip to the Fabled Isle, it seemed appropriate that he make a crossing on the On Time, which is always on time since it has no schedule.

  As we waited for the ferry and then crossed with the three other cars that filled its deck, lovely white Edgartown sparkled in the sun. Boats swung at their moorings and anchors in both the inner and the outer harbors, and other boats crossed in front and behind the ferry, passing through the narrows linking the inner harbor to the sound. On the top of the town dock, tourists leaned on the railing and looked at the boats. Fisherfolk sat beneath them between the pilings and trailed their lines in the water.

  “Dynamite,” said David Greenstein.

  Zee gave him a warm smile. She thought it was dynamite too. So did I, for that matter. It’s hard to beat Martha’s Vineyard on a summer day.

  We stopped at the Midway Market for gasoline and a Globe. The policemen and golfers who gather at the Midway for early morning coffee and gossip had long since dispersed, but the
parking spaces were still jammed with cars. Summer had definitely arrived.

  As we drove home, Quinn leafed through the paper until he found what he was looking for. A short note in the Arts and Entertainment section reporting that the eminent pianist David Greenstein had been taken ill and had not appeared at Symphony Hall, as scheduled. His manager assured the public that MV. Greenstein would soon be back in the public eye, although it was uncertain whether he would perform tonight.

  “You see?” said Quinn. “No problem.”

  “Until tomorrow,” said Dave. “Or Monday, or Tuesday.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Quinn.

  “I’m not worried about it,” said Dave’. “That’s why I’ve got a manager. I pay him a lot to worry for me. I’m not even going to think about music for a while. I feel the way I used to feel when I played hookey from school, and I like it. Guilt mixed with freedom. Heady stuff.”

  “That’s the ticket,” said Quinn approvingly.

  “That’s how I feel about money I owe,” I said. “I figure that the guy I owe it to is the one who should worry, since he’s the one who doesn’t have it. No need for both of us to be in a stew.”

  “You don’t owe anybody any money,” said Zee. “That’s what’s infuriating about you. You’re the only person I know who doesn’t owe anybody a cent.”

  “The secret of my success is not to buy much,” I said. “I catch my own fish, I go clamming, I have my own garden, my dad left me my house and land, and this truck is umpteen years old and paid for, like everything else I own. It’s not hard to be out of debt if you don’t buy anything.” I put my hand on Zee’s brown thigh. “What’s more, I’m about to get hitched to a woman with a steady job, and that means not only no debt, but money in the bank.”

  “A lot you know about women,” said Zee, patting my hand. “I come with built-in costs you can’t even guess.” She turned to Dave. “Actually this island is an expensive place to live. Everything has to be brought in by boat, and because it’s hard and expensive for people to get over to the mainland where they can get bargains, island prices get jacked up to the sky. It takes a good deal of money even to be poor on Martha’s Vineyard. We’ve got one of the highest winter unemployment rates in the state, and the welfare lines are pretty long. Jefferson, here, is the exception to the rule. There aren’t many people on this island who don’t owe anybody money.”