Afloat

by Jennifer McCartney

  I have never inspired such hatred or lust or panic. But I am starting to believe in the necessity of these extremes.

  At three o’clock, Bryce’s sister calls the restaurant. I imagine that someday she and I will be friends.

  Stripping everything off, my skin is wet underneath my uniform, the damp black polyester acting as a kind of wet suit, keeping the sweat close. My socks I return to my backpack – constantly recycled they’ve become crusty cotton balls holding whatever shape they dry into. I hang my tuxedo shirt in the closet for its thrice-a-week cleaning in St. Ignace.

  I change into too-long jeans frayed and shit-brown at the bottoms and a white tank top. My feet are free in sandals, the in-between of my toes cooling down. I put my hair up and feel my neck begin to dry. Unlike every other restaurant I’ve worked in, Velvet demands we wear our hair down around our face. It must be either straightened, or curled with a curling iron in ringlets. No one knows why, but I wonder if it isn’t some kind of health violation.

  My pockets are crammed with twenties, fives, ones, and heavy quarters. Like everyone else, I throw the pennies into the lake. They shine briefly like fishing lures in the air before plunking beneath the water. Then retrieving my bike from the racks, I wheel it from the grass to the street before swinging my leg over the seat, pedaling leisurely away from the Tippecanoe.

  The island post office has hundreds of PO boxes available to summer employees, but there are still not enough for everyone. Mine is awkwardly located in the bottom row and involves getting on my knees to open it. I make sure my pants are hiked up before bending down. Because of the shortage, I share the box with a thirty-year-old man from Jamaica named Sylvester who has twice opened my mail, then returned the letters to their open envelopes. During our last encounter at PO box 367, he shrugged when I questioned him as if there could be some other person responsible for this. A single letter now lies through the glass, but when I turn the key and pull it out it is addressed to him. Resisting the temptation to open it, I join the line in the lobby to buy stamps.

  A man walks in wearing a top hat. Standing behind me, his cell phone rings and when he answers he says, ‘Hey, Doc, how’s the new yacht treating you? Yep, slip number seven, same as always.’

  When he returns the phone to his pocket he shakes his linen pants so they hang properly again.

  This is why people come here.

  I hear Velvet’s voice.

  You are here for our guests as part of the play. You are here to unobtrusively make their visit to the island perfect because this is a dining experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

  And don’t forget we have new steak knives that need to be washed by hand so they go in this bucket over here that says ‘steak knives.’

  His phone rings again, and I hear him say, ‘Bunny! How was Corsica?’, but I’m next in line and I don’t hear the rest.

  It is forty-seven cents each to mail my postcards, and I don’t have exact change because I have no pennies. I chose the cards that say, Have a Road Apple, Courtesy of Mackinac Island. The picture is a shit-covered Main Street populated with horses, a road apple being a giant lump of horseshit.

  It was hard to write anything to anyone at all. I had sat on my bed with my black ink pen, wondering what to write after making tons of cash. I used long drawn-out letters to take up the maximum amount of space and I wonder if the tourist bureau has thought about scratch and sniff postcards. Perhaps the accompanying scent would say it all. My parents receive a more tasteful postcard. The heading reads: A Reconstruction of an Early Missionary Chapel, Marquette Park, Mackinac Island, Michigan. The photograph shows both the inside and outside of a domed hut made of bark. The inside looks cool and dark, and in full ceremonial dress a man shakes hands with a black-robed missionary.

  Thank you, the man seems to be saying. And welcome.

  The shops here sell tomahawks, bows and arrows, and moccasins.

  The name Mackinac is a mangled Chippewa word, according to Bryce.

  Depending on what history book you read or what historical plaque you look at, the name Mackinac means:

  Great turtle,

  Place of the giant fairies,

  Place of the great uplifted bow,

  A tribute to the Mishinemackinawgo people, or

  Gathering place of the ancient tribe of the Mishinimaki.

  I prefer the idea of the island as a great sleeping turtle, on whose back we all live as a matter of privilege. It gives me the same sense of awe as when my babysitter told me that we all lived on the head of a massive green giant, and that the grass was his hair.

  Outside the post office I hesitate for a moment, undecided as to my next destination – I have nothing at all to do today, no skim milk to buy or laundry to wash. To my left, at the end of Market Street, is Marquette Park where I can sit and watch the water.

  The air is hot, the blue metal of my bike burns, and the seat is soft and warm as I straddle it. Riding a bike that has been left in the sun is a surprising thing, it feels alive. Children have orange and purple faces from popsicles and women wear hats and carry water bottles too big for their purses. Men sweat and turn red. I park my bike under a tree and wander onto the green, away from the football game and away from the man without his shirt on, thick and heavy with hair under the lilac tree. The missionary chapel is a dark and pleasing shape by the edge of the park, but I am not interested enough to go inside. Seated, I breathe out, looking at the marina and the yachts easing into the harbor. This is the sort of place, the sort of summer, where an afternoon sitting on the grass feels like an accomplishment.

  Pulling up the leg of my jeans I examine the hair that stands straight and black on my shin. This morning I noticed rust on the blades of my razor and I decided not to use it in case I cut myself and contracted a strange rust-related infection. I think maybe a tan will camouflage the hair until I remember to buy a new one. Rolling up the legs of my jeans I arrange my backpack behind my head. Twenty seconds later a kid stomps past and catches a Frisbee right beside my face. I decide to keep my eyes open. Looking up into the sky I can just see the white wall of the fort looming above me.

  A man wearing a yellow button that reads, Ask me about the Mackinac Island Carriage Tour! appears above me, casting a short shadow across my body. I sit up and he takes a step back.

  ‘Have you taken the carriage tour yet?’ he asks.

  He points to his gigantic button and says, ‘It’s only fifteen dollars today.’

  ‘It’s always fifteen dollars,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ he says. ‘Do you work here?’

  I nod.

  ‘Fuck,’ he says again. ‘I’m trying to fill my quota.’

  ‘That sucks.’

  He shrugs. ‘Better than shoveling shit,’ he says. ‘Plus I get a tan.’

  Lifting up his T-shirt higher than is appropriate, he shows me the white skin underneath and compares it to his brown arm. All of his muscles are flexed. There is no hair on his chest.

  ‘Plus the owners of the tour own the whisky bar, so I drink for free.’

  He puts his shirt down slowly and I notice it says, ‘Moustache Rides 25 Cents.’ We both look out across the water for a moment, silent. The sun is burning the metal on my watch and I move my arm into the shade underneath my legs.

  ‘You know who built that?’ he asks, motioning to the hill above us.

  The wall of the old fort has been painted, and pretty yellow umbrellas are set up along it. They are part of the café, catering to the tourists who get up there and discover the only thing to do is buy a coffee, as the fort is just a series of reconstructed empty buildings and painfully boring.

  ‘It’s the British fort.’

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘They built it, but we took it.’

  ‘Didn’t we get it in a treaty?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The treaty of Ghent.’

  ‘Whatever. It’s ours now.’

  We watch a man cutting across t
he grass and heading towards the fort dressed as a civil war soldier and holding a long rifle as he chats to a Native American complete with feathers. For the entertainment this provides I think the presence of the fort is worthwhile.

  They pass quite close to us and the Native American is saying, ‘I swear to God, Rick, both fucking legs right behind her head.’

  ‘No shit,’ says Rick, ‘do you still have her number?’

  The tour guy looks for my reaction, and the cannons go off suddenly, startling me. Loud heavy bursts. I’ve never gotten used to them, though they fit with my impression of what a fort should be – heavy with the sounds of war and surprise. As the smoke clouds drift across the park and dissipate, he points to the yellow umbrellas and comments, ‘They make good cappuccinos up there in that café.’

  I shrug, and then make him an offer: ‘I’ll give you a free appetizer down at the Tippecanoe if you give me a ticket for the carriage ride.’

  ‘Deal,’ he says.

  He hands me a green ticket with a picture of a horse on it. I put it on the grass beside me and I don’t say anything else. He asks anyway.

  ‘You have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Oh. Okay, well I’ll see you around.’

  I watch as he approaches a family sitting on a picnic blanket, and a woman wearing a huge white sun visor fans her face with her hand as she looks up at him. She looks at her husband who reaches for his wallet. They have three kids.

  I roll down the legs of my jeans and pick up my bag. On the back of the ticket in big letters it says, See Famous Arch Rock. As it is the natural wonder of the island I have seen many wooden arrows indicating its whereabouts. I have never actually been there, however, and I’ve heard the tour takes a good hour, so I’ll be learning as well as wasting time before this evening.

  The carriage winds from Main Street up to Market Street and I am sitting next to a couple from Cheboygan, which they tell me is a town not too far from the island. They come here every summer at least once, but as he can’t ride a bike because of his back problem they always make a point of taking the tour. He used to be a pilot. Their names are Martin and Barb.

  The carriage stops by Arch Rock for about ten minutes, allowing us to climb off and take pictures while the horses eat and piss, to the delight of the young school groups. The earthy smell of horseshit doesn’t bother me anymore, but the wet sharp smell of urine is still unbearable. The class of ten-year-olds on the carriage tour seem to agree with me. Horse piss does come out with quite a bit of force and I will admit it is an impressive show, the yellow draining quickly to the sides of the road to be easily stepped in if not paid attention to. It is also, I discover, easily sprayed up your back if cycled over without mudguards.

  Arch Rock is made of soft limestone and stands on a cliff overlooking the lake. It looks as if an ancient, rocky thumb and forefinger came to pluck away a piece of the cliffside and then never left. A natural formation, the leg of the first arch is planted close to the cliff’s edge with brush and grasses growing from its base, while the second half descends over the cliff and ends somewhere further down. On a hot perfect day like today you can take a photograph using the archway as a frame, in which you can capture all the blues and greens of the water. There is a metal fence around the site that’s been bolted firmly into the ground, however, so everyone waits to stand in the one spot with the best angle. The fact that I haven’t brought my camera separates me from the rest of the group and I stand behind them, as if I’ve seen it before.

  When our ten minutes are up and everyone has taken pictures, used the public restrooms, and bought a Coke from the vending machine, we slide back into the bench seats, the tour guide yelling:

  ‘Carriage four preparing for take-off.’

  I make a point of sitting on a different bench as I climb back on, and I hear Martin behind me hoot, ‘Take-off! Gets me every time when they say that.’

  As we continue through the forest, the tour guide begins to recite the fable of Arch Rock, straining to be heard over the clopping of horses, chattering of tourists, and cries of the children. Eventually he gives up and speaks in a normal voice, so I don’t quite catch the last of the story.

  Bryce cannot believe I didn’t pay to take the carriage ride. At the Cock we have claimed the table by the window, and by not sitting at the bar or on the couch we are technically out for dinner, according to him. I wanted to go somewhere else.

  ‘Anything you need to know about this island,’ he says over the table, ‘I already know it.’

  He taps his temple with his index finger as if indicating just how much knowledge is in there. I ignore him and spear an ice cube with my straw.

  ‘Look at these ice cubes,’ I tell him.

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘They’re perfect cubes. Big perfect cubes of ice.’

  He pulls it off my straw and eats it.

  ‘There’s a hole in it,’ he says. ‘So what did you learn on this carriage ride?’ he asks, from around the ice.

  I warn him I will be making some of it up, but I suppose the details don’t matter when it comes to things like this. The fable is universal and timeless and borderless and this one is for us, here, now.

  ‘A young woman and her lover spent many nights together on the cliffs of the island, wandering, holding hands, and having sex.’

  Bryce interrupts me. ‘The tour guide did not say having sex.’

  I ignore him, and he rolls his eyes as my voice takes on the tone of a tour guide.

  ‘They were very much in love because they were young, and young people know that love lasts forever. They enjoyed dreaming about the future and all the things they would do together in that future. It went on like this until one day her lover ventured out into the open water in a canoe, on a day when men should not be out in canoes, and he drowned.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ says Bryce.

  ‘Quiet. So when she heard this, she went to the spot where they had spent so much time together, determined to wait for him there until he came home, convinced that he would. And she cried. Day after day she threw herself against the cold rock and cried. And her tears began to wash away the rock. Soon there was a deep cavity against the rock where she stood, but still she cried. Eventually her tears washed right through the rock to the other side, creating a large gaping archway, that we today call Arch Rock.

  ‘No such thing as a happy ending, I guess.’

  That the woman died of a broken heart is something I do not mention. It seems to me like that might be the easy way out.

  Bryce is only marginally impressed with the tale, but this is always his reaction to finding out things he didn’t know about before.

  ‘Would you cry a hole into a rock if I drowned?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course.’

  He puts a hand over mine and winks at me. ‘That’s what they all say.’

  John brings over our food, everything in plastic baskets. I’ve ordered the deep-fried whitefish, which ruins the taste of the fish, but I’m in the mood for something crisp and fat. My drink is an expensive Long Island Iced Tea, and Bryce has a Screwdriver, also unusual for him. We trade sips.

  Some days you feel like something different. It’s nice to be able to change your mind.

  As we begin eating our fish, I remember to tell him that his sister called.

  St. Paul, 2:01 p.m.

  I have a souvenir from that day of fairytales and deep-fried fish. My mug is not the only thing I have kept from that summer, although it is the most practical. It’s a silly thing to speak of now, so trivial it seems.

  He bent the straw from my long island into a triangle, fitting the ends into each other so that it kept its shape. ‘For you,’ he said, flicking it at me. I left it on the table when we got up, and then later, taking off my clothes before bed, I discovered it in the hood of my jacket. It stayed on the dresser there until I left. What makes one keep things like this? But I did, I brought it home with me, and it went
into an envelope.

  This morning Anna came and put her hand on my shoulder, startling me. I’d been wondering about my breasts and how I wanted them to appear this evening, imagining the encounter both with and without them.

  I think I will wear them, I told Anna, turning towards her touch.

  She nodded and brought me to the bedroom. The thick envelope lay at the bottom of the closet surrounded by men’s shoes. Some pairs shiny and hardly worn and others creased across the toe. The mail bag beside Anna was full. She had already discovered the two lavender air fresheners stuck to the back wall and when she pried them off the paint came with them. When she apologized, I was far away, remembering how nice the lavender used to smell, masking the scent of Alan’s wet leather running shoes in the morning.

  Alan’s favorite smell was sand. When we played my What Would You Give Up? game, he insisted he would trade all the fingers on his left hand for our own private beach. He would not give up any of his toes, as that would upset his balance. I told him sand was just made of rocks and rocks don’t smell, and he said for someone raised Catholic I had very little faith in my own senses. If you just sit still and concentrate long enough, you can smell anything, taste anything. He sometimes tried moving pencils with his thoughts. Anna with all her meditation and studies about transcendence to different worlds agreed with her father. Anything was possible.

  The envelope from my closet was heavy and marked with the word MACKINAC, as if all the contents, all the cards, letters, the one cassette and the triangle straw memento were geographically branded somehow. I imagined my island past as a person, with hair made of dry green grass and a lighthouse beacon for a heart.

  ‘It’s full of old papers,’ Anna said, reaching a hand into the envelope.

  ‘I know what it’s full of,’ I told her. ‘Just leave it.’

  She ignored me. ‘You can’t keep this, Mom. What is this?