by Rick Hautala
‘‘I’ll check in on you in a bit, then,” Julia said, edging toward the door.
John stirred, opened his eyes, and as best he could, because of the swirl of images and memories in his brain, tried to tell her what he had been imagining. In broken phrases, he communicated fragments of the hallucination to her, and she listened patiently until he settled back down into bed.
“The fever’s doing this to you,” Julia said mildly. She carne back over to the bed and, sitting on the edge, gently rubbed John’s forehead. His skin was like a smoldering coal under her fingers. His hair was matted down in a ring of sweat. He seemed to pull away from her touch, though, so she stood back up and, easing the door shut behind her, left him there.
During his next waking moment, John figured she must have come back into the room after he had fallen asleep, because — after another particularly frightful dream, in which he began to feel pressure being applied to his throat, like a noose slipping tighter — he awoke with a start and, seeing the glass of ginger ale, grabbed it and gulped it down greedily. Within a minute, he was kneeling on the bedroom floor with his face over the wastebasket; coughing and sputtering as his stomach spewed it all back out.
Julia came rushing into the room and, after helping him back into bed, handed him a cold washcloth for his face. But the chilly cloth on his forehead only reminded him of those hands he had imagined reaching out, feebly trying to touch him, trying to choke him. Once she was gone, he let the washcloth drop to the floor and sank: back into a thin, disturbed sleep that would last long into the evening.
II
Earlier that day, after Bri and John had left and after Mrs. Bartlett had visited with Frank and gone, Julia asked Frank if there was something special she could do for him. She was still feeling guilty about their argument about churchgoing, and she wanted, once and for all, to make it up to him.
Frank didn’t answer right away, but she was beginning to understand that it was his way to silently consider things before answering. It may have seemed typically Yankee, but it also suited Frank’s personality perfectly. After a few minutes, though, he nodded his head and said, “Yeah, I spose there’s somethin’ you could do for me.”
“What’s that?” Julia asked after a short pause, trying the unhurried Yankee style on for size.
“I was thinkin’ how it’s been awhile since I went down to the wharf. See who might be around. ‘s probably deserted, but we could give it a shot.”
Unlike just about everyone else on the island, Frank had never lobstered for a living; he had worked for years at the CMP power plant on Cousins Island, and had retired seven years ago. But almost all of his friends around town were lobstermen, and on days off, he usually visited them down on the docks for a bit of drinking and card playing after their day’s work was done.
Julia readily agreed, so around ten o’clock she rolled Frank out to his car, helped him into the front seat, then collapsed his wheelchair and put it into the backseat.
“You’ll have to tell me where to go,” she said as she started up the car and backed out onto Oak Street.
Frank nodded and made a slight motion to his right as she drove to the stop sign at the intersection of Shore Drive. After the right turn, a short distance past Pottle’s, he nodded to the left, and she turned down onto a road marked Wharf Road.
“Might wanna slow down for this,” Frank said, but his words were a second too late. When the asphalt abruptly ended, the car bottomed out on the potholed dirt road. The incline down to the water was quite steep, and with the shimmering gray water straight ahead, Julia felt a momentary panic, thinking, What if the brakes let go? She could imagine the car gaining speed as it bounced over the swath of grass and then shot out into the cove.
But the brakes didn’t let go.
The car squeaked to a stop at the bottom of the hill. The dirt road branched left and right, and Julia sat waiting for more directions. For a moment, Frank sat there, too, wondering why she wasn’t moving.
“Oh — take a left, I spose,” he said. “Might’s well see if Frenchie’s round.” Julia obliged with a left turn.
Driving past the fishing shacks, Julia was struck by the thought that, as postcard pretty as they might look from the ocean, the close-up reality of these ramshackle buildings reminded her more of third world poverty in the Caribbean. On both sides of the dirt road were the tiniest and — if they had been painted and refinished — the cutest little buildings. But she could see that those that did have doors usually had slats of cardboard filling most of the windows. The single windows looking out onto the road were likewise mostly all broken; the holes filled either with newspaper, cardboard, or moldering cloth.
Everywhere the ground was littered with empty beer cans, whiskey bottles, crushed cigarette packs, assorted food wrappers, empty fuel drums, piles of gray-weathered lobster pots, tangled ropes, and stacks of brightly painted buoys. Weeds, now dead and brown, choked the narrow alleys between the shacks, which were backed by a long wall of thick granite blocks. Other than the buoys and the boats riding at anchor in the harbor, there wasn’t a single thing in sight with a fresh coat of paint.
“It’s —” Julia started to say, but then thought better of it. She had been about to say, “It’s depressing,” but she instantly thought, who was she to judge? It wasn’t as though the lobstermen couldn’t afford to keep up appearances; they simply weren’t into them. Let the outta-staters think what they want and be damned seemed to be the attitude.
“Don’t see no one,” Frank said, squinting as he scanned each side of the road, peering into the darkened doorways as best he could as Julia drove by. “Why don’t you park over there by the boat yard?” He pointed to a wide open area off to the left. Up the rise of the hill, Julia could see what must have been the back side of Pottle’s store.
“I won’t get towed or anything, will I?” Julia asked as she slid the car into Park and clicked off the ignition.
Frank snorted with laughter and said, “I got a feelin’ they’ll recognize my car even though it’s been in the barn ever since —” To finish, he slapped his useless leg with the flat of his hand.
“Oh, I’ve been using it some,” Julia said as she got out and went around to the passenger’s door. After taking the wheelchair from the backseat and unfolding it, she set the· wheel lock and helped Frank swing up off the car seat and into the chair. He shifted his hips from side to side, getting comfortable.
In the shelter of the harbor, the air was much warmer than up at the house. She tipped her head back, and, closing her eyes for a moment, inhaled deeply. The mingled scents of ocean-fresh air and rotting bait, tinged with wet rope had a rawness that, while unpleasant at first, actually was rather invigorating. Julia was filled with a sense that this was where honest; hardworking men spent their days from before sunrise until after dark. In spite of how many times she had heard John bitch about the narrowness and the grubbiness of the world down by the harbor, Julia almost envied the salt-of-the-earth feeling the place had.
“Where to?” she asked, taking hold of the handle grips. As she was leaning forward to release the wheel lock, the sharp report of a gun shattered the air. It was followed an instant later by the whine of a bullet ricocheting off a rock. Three more shots cracked off in quick succession. Julia crouched down, her panic-stricken face level with Frank’s.
Frank was smiling, watching her. Then, shaking his head, he said simply, “Yup. Sure sounds like Frenchie’s around.”
“What’s going on?” Julia asked, her eyes darting from side to side, trying to locate the source of the shots.
Frank pointed off to the left, down by the water, where a man wearing a nearly shapeless red felt hat and dingy tan coat was sitting on the edge of the wharf. He had a rifle cradled in his lap and was leaning forward, studying the tumbled granite blocks of the wharf that jutted out into the cove. Sunlight made the water sparkle farther out, but the man was peering into the shadows in close where the water rippled like ink.
>
Before Frank could respond to Julia’s question, Frenchie brought the rifle up to his shoulder and the sharp report cut the air three more times. Each bullet whined like an angry bee as it bounced off the rocks.
“Yo, Frenchie,” Frank hollered, raising his hand up to cup his mouth. His voice didn’t carry well, and it took several more shouts to get the man’s attention.
Finally Frenchie turned, but he didn’t rise from his perch. He signaled instead with a wave of his hand — which clenched the neck of a wine bottle — for Frank and Julia to join him.
“Down around to the right there’s a bit of road,” Frank said, so Julia released the brake and pushed in that direction. The rutted dirt road, though, wasn’t much good; the wheelchair bounced and wobbled viciously. A few times, Julia was afraid she was going to tip Frank out onto the ground, but eventually she made it to the wharf edge, and once she struggled the chair up onto the relatively smooth rock surface, pushing Frank was a bit easier. She didn’t wonder very long why Frenchie didn’t come to help; as soon as they got close to him, it was obvious he was three, maybe four sheets to the wind.
“Fine mornin’, ain’t it?” Frenchie said.
His face was a dense network of deep lines crisscrossing skin that looked more like leather than flesh. His hat shaded his eyes, but from underneath the uneven brim, Julia could see his eyes sparkling like chips of amber. His jowls were covered by white stubble. His smile, when Frank introduced Julia to him, exposed a row of rotted and browned teeth.
“Pleasure to meetcha,” Frenchie said.
“Nice to meet you, too, Frenchie,” Julia said as she shook hands with him. His grip was dry and hard from a lifetime of pulling on lobster trap lines. It wasn’t until she bent over to fasten the wheelchair brake that she saw the real reason Frenchie hadn’t helped her get Frank’s chair onto the wharf. His left leg had been amputated above the knee. The loose flap of pant’s leg was folded up and pinned shut.
“Frank told me ‘bout you and John movin’ in with him,” Frenchie said. “He didn’t tell me you were so pretty.”
Slightly flustered, Julia looked down at the ground. Everywhere the rocks were splattered with sea gull shit and litter. She had been wanting to sit down but decided against it.
“So how’s the huntin’ been today?” Frank asked.
“Had betta,” Frenchie said, shrugging his shoulders and tipping the wine bottle to his lips. Old Duke sloshed back and bubbled as he took several gulps. Then, with a satisfied smack of his lips, he handed the bottle to Frank, who took a slug without pause. After Frank had his first swallow, he offered the bottle to Julia, but she shook her head and mumbled a quick “No, thanks.”
“I tell yah, as the years go along, them sums-a-whores are gettin’ smarter. I swear they are,” Frenchie said, squinting as he turned his attention back to the shadows under the stone blocks.
Julia strained her eyes, trying to see anything other than the sea-weed-collared rocks and inky water. Frenchie, though, obviously saw something because he snapped the rifle to his shoulder and popped off two quick shots.
“Damn,” he snarled, shaking a clenched fist in front of his face. “Missed ‘em.”
Frank looked around at Julia and, reading her confusion, said, “Yah see, ever since Frenchie lost his leg, back in — what was it? ‘Seventy-nine?”
Frenchie nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the wharf.
“Yeah — ‘seventy-nine. He’s took it upon himself to rid the dock of wharf rats.”
Julia raised one eyebrow, silently questioning if anyone other than Frenchie could see these rats.
“Used ta think I could do it, too,” Frenchie said as he took the wine bottle from Frank and drank deeply. “Thought for a while I was makin’ progress, but them sums-a-whores breed like rats,” he finished, ending with a chuckle at his own dumb joke. “They come up from the wharf, too, ‘n get into people’s houses.”
“Yah see,” Frank went on. “The accident that resulted in Frenchie losin’ his leg all came about ‘cause a rope he was dependin’ on let go, and Frenchie claimed —”
“Didn’t claim,” Frenchie snapped. “Know.” The knuckles of his hand holding the wine bottle turned white.
“Yeah, well — Frenchie knows the rope let go ‘cause some rats been gnawing on it and weakened it. Ever since then he’s been campaignin’ against the rats. Says he’s gonna be like the Pied Piper, and get rid of all the rats on Glooscap.”
“Damn well gonna try, anyway,” Frenchie said. He suddenly clamped the bottle between his thighs, aimed, and shot again. The bullet whistled in the air as it ricocheted and then went plink into the water.
“Course, that gets to be a real problem when you consider pretty near every boat that ties up here can be crawling with rats in the hold,” Frank said. “Not to mention they can swim across the bay even if they don’t bother to use the bridge.”
Frenchie looked at Frank and shook his head sadly.
“You’re bein’ too depressing on such a nice day. You know that?”
“Just fillin’ Julia in a bit, is all,” Frank said sullenly.
Julia could hear in his tone of voice the unspoken thought. So, here we sit … Two useless old farts … Might as well be drunk.
“I honestly don’t see anything out there,” Julia said, craning her neck as she tried to pierce the shadows of the wharf.
“Surprised you can’t,” Frenchie said, “Some of ‘em get pretty damned big.”
“As big as poodles?” Julia asked, remembering what Frank had told Bri after she had heard thumping sounds in her bedroom wall at night. She suspected she was being strung along with a variation on the old fish story.
“Sure,” Frenchie said. “Reckon some of ‘em — ‘specially the smart ones like that one I just missed — might live long enough to get that big. They can get pretty mean ‘n’ nasty, too. I seen one of ‘um attack a German shepherd and do a pretty good job on him before the dog called it quits.”
Julia looked at Frank to see if his expression would reveal that she was being put on, but as far as she could tell he didn’t let on that she was. She was worried that the family might be in danger from vicious rats living in their house.
“There,” Frenchie said, pointing to a spot above the waterline. “See ‘um?”
The water was lapping gently at the base of the wharf, and the unevenly cut rocks created a maze of shadowed cracks and spaces as jumbled as the lines of Frenchie’s face. The darkness under the rocks was so dense it seemed to vibrate in contrast with the water, but after staring where Frenchie was pointing, she did see … something — a vague shifting. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw, perched on the edge of a rock, shaded by an overhang, the biggest rat Julia had ever seen in her life. His plump bulk actually looked as big as … well, a small poodle.
Julia watched the motionless animal for several seconds and was thinking she was imagining it when the sharp report of Frenchie’s rifle made her jump. Beneath the loud gunshot, she heard a little squeak, and then the dark bulk flipped off the rock and landed with a big splash in the water.
“Damn straight. Got ‘um,” Frenchie said before taking a swallow of wine. “One less of them sums-a-whores.”
“Couldn’t you get arrested for doing this?” Julia asked. Her eyes were still focused on the spreading ripples where the rat had sunk beneath the water. The only response from both Frank and Frenchie was snorting laughter.
Now that he had scored, Frenchie was apparently feeling a little more sociable. He put down his rifle, turned on the rock to face Frank and Julia, and withdrew a new bottle of Old Duke from his coat pocket. Twisting the cap off, he offered the first sip to Julia.
Thinking what the hell, Julia held the bottle up and toasted Frenchie.
“To one less son-of-a-whore rat,” she said, smiling as she took a gurgling swallow then handed the bottle to Frank.
Frenchie motioned for her to have a seat on the rock beside him, so she sat down, and for th
e rest of the morning, the three of them sat there, talking about anything and everything that came up as they watched the lobster boats and sailboats entering and leaving the harbor. The lulling sounds of gulls crying as they circled overhead was shattered only when Frenchie shouldered his rifle and cracked off some more shots at the “sums-a-whore” rats.
Around noon, Julia walked up to Pottle’s and bought them each a submarine sandwich — an “Eye-talian,” as Frenchie called them — some chips, soda for her, beer for Frank, and another bottle of Old Duke for Frenchie. Julia ended up tossing half of her sandwich to the gulls that swooped in as soon as they started eating.
While they were eating, two men — obviously brothers and possibly twins — joined them. Frank introduced Julia to Herb and Mark Winslow, who stood around, adding their two cents to everything that was said until, around one o’clock, they drifted off, saying there was a poker game in one of the fishing shacks. Frenchie declined, saying the hunting was “too damned good to give up.”
When Julia noticed that it was after two o’clock, she reminded Frank that Bri would be home from school soon, so they should get back to the house. Saying good-bye to Frenchie, who looked as though he planned on sleeping right where he was, she rolled Frank back up to the car, helped him get in, then loaded his wheelchair into the backseat. The last thing she heard as she drove up the steep dirt road was the sharp report of Frenchie’s rifle.
“I can honestly say I enjoyed myself,” she said as the car labored up the incline to Shore Drive.
Frank sat with his hands folded in his lap, his face clouded by a deep scowl. His wrinkled eyebrows reminded Julia of the thick, shadowed rock ledges that made up the stone wharf. She put on her turn signal for the right turn onto Shore Drive.
“I can see why you enjoy going down there,” she went on. “That Frenchie is quite the character.”
“Oh, yeah,” Frank snorted and shook his head. “All of us are up to our ears with local color.”
