Outerbridge Reach

by Robert Stone

  “Zulu Romeo Alpha one Juliet five six three,” Browne said, “Whiskey Zulu Zulu one Mike eight seven three. I have a question, Max. I’m going to make a guess, over.”

  “Go ahead, over.”

  “I’m guessing you’re blind. Am I correct? Over.”

  “Affirmative,” the youth said.

  “I knew it!” Browne said triumphantly.

  “Thanks very much I’m sure. How? Over.”

  “I know more than I know,” Browne explained. Then he felt badly about sounding so enthusiastic. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen,” Max said, “over.”

  “Always blind?”

  “Negative your last. Blinded at age eleven. Cycling. Over.” The idea of young Mad Max, in conversation with the world from his own darkness, seized Browne’s imagination.

  “Know what a basso profundo is?” Max asked. “It’s a deep-thinking fish. Know what’s a rapscallion? It’s a door knocker shaped like an onion. Over.”

  “Very good.”

  “Like those? Over.”

  “Yes, they’re excellent. Really funny.”

  “Good,” said Max. “Play chess? Over.”

  “I know the moves.”

  “Just know the moves? That’s it? Over.”

  “Yes, that’s pretty much it.”

  “Got a girlfriend? Over.”

  “Yes I have.”

  There was static but he made out the word “picture.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have a picture somewhere. Salted away.” Somewhere, salted away, he had a picture of Anne.

  “Max,” Browne asked, “why do you collect chess pieces if you can’t see them?”

  Max was becoming alarmed.

  “Whiskey Zulu Zulu one Mike eight seven three, do use procedure. Over.”

  “Why chess pieces?”

  “I like chess,” Max said. “I like nice pieces. Over.”

  “And coins?”

  “Coins are smooth. They have edges. They have grooves. Over.”

  “Listen,” Browne said, “we’ve got to keep in touch.”

  “In touch,” cried Mad Max. “I get it. Out.”

  Later, Browne discovered that with a little instruction Max could be made to function like a Nautical Almanac and help to construct position lines. Once, in his impatience to forge ahead on the logs, he kept the boy awake for a twenty-four-hour period. He regretted it.

  “Sleep is important,” Browne told Max. “You’re lucky.”

  “Everyone sleeps,” Max said.

  “Not me,” Browne told him.

  After a few days of contacts, Browne began to speculate aloud about whether Max would ever be able to see again. Max broke off communication for a while.

  “I can only broadcast on the QT,” Max explained the next day. “It’s my ’rents. They don’t want me talking to you.”

  He had learned to call his parents ’rents from talking to teenage hams in America, many of whom were also blind.

  “I understand,” Browne said.

  But the next day he approached Max again.

  “Listen, I want you to patch a call for me.”

  He gave Mad Max his phone number in Connecticut. Max patched the call through his friend in New Jersey. Browne heard his wife’s voice. There was music in the background that sounded like progressive jazz. He found it impossible to imagine her life. Without a word, he closed down his transceiver.

  On deck one evening, he found himself wondering again about going back. He had just listened to Duffy ramble absurdly about public appearances and promotional trips. Browne ended the transmission, affecting a malfunction.

  He was not at all in the vein for traveling with secrets. His time was occupied in learning to live a life of singularities, in which no one action or thought connected certainly with any other and no one word had a fixed meaning. There was an art to it. Singularities had their satisfaction but they put a great burden on concentration.

  Singularities were the most fun at night when they could be observed among the stars. A man might undo and reorder entire constellations. Stargazing kept the voices at bay, and the crab-borne hallucinations.

  One night, rich with shooting stars, Mad Max sent him a covert message.

  “It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”

  “Roger your last,” Browne replied.

  How beautiful, he thought, and how true. The most familiar saws took on lustrous new meanings when examined in the light of singularity. By that principle, hope existed as the opposite of possibility. Perfection was always close to nonexistence.

  He became preoccupied with blindness. On another starry night he found himself wishing he might forget the order of stars, an illusion that distracted from singularity. Might he be better off blind? Yes. Yet, he thought, if he were blind, the black interior of his skull would sprout stars. There was always the vacant gaze, ever in search of something shiny to reverently bend itself upon. Always the need for a fix.

  “I wish I were blind,” he said prayerfully. He meant free. He cocked an ear to the wind as though expecting an answer.

  61

  THE SIGHT of Thorne’s Lincoln in the driveway gave her a thrill of hope. She could not keep herself from wanting to be thought innocent. Thorne came to the door with his hat in his hand but his somber expression sent her hopes scurrying.

  “Please come in,” she said.

  He thanked her formally and followed her inside. At first he refused even coffee. She practically had to beg him to accept a cup.

  “Owen’s doing very well,” he said coldly. “We’re pleased.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re very proud of him around here.” Thorne did not smile.

  “When we spoke earlier I told you that he would be taken care of by our organization.”

  “Yes, Harry.”

  “It still goes. Our corporate difficulties are coming under control, you might say. So you won’t have to worry about anything. You can enjoy the fruits of his . . .”

  “Adventure,” she suggested.

  “Right,” Harry said. “I think you know that the world of boats is not my world. They’re not something I know much about.” She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I know that.”

  “We all want him back, right? We’ll take care of him. Everything possible will be done.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “When we spoke earlier—I tried to explain myself.”

  “Harry,” she said, “I understand completely. We’re really very grateful.”

  “Good,” he said, “good.” He put the coffee aside. “This documentary of our friend Strickland—it’s got to terminate. I know you have a special interest in it.” He composed himself into a posture that was a parody of concern and smiled coldly. “It’s really not going to do anyone any good. Believe me.”

  She felt her face reeking of blood and looked at the floor. The polished oak, the woven Spanish rugs, all the artifacts of her domestic life embarrassed her beyond measure.

  “This guy Strickland,” Harry went on softly, “he’s a dog. In my estimation.”

  She tried to say something to fill the silence that followed.

  “Really,” Harry asked, “is he gonna help us? Is he gonna help Owen? No. So we’re going to pay him off and have him take his business elsewhere.”

  “That’s your decision to make.”

  He managed to behave exactly as though she had not said a word.

  “You know,” he said, “I’m a fantast. Maybe the word is fan-tasizer. I get carried away with my impressions about people. People to me are a source of wonder. I think maybe I like them.” He smiled at his own ingenuousness. “I idealize them.”

  “I see,” she said. She felt flayed.

  “Lucky for me I have a sense of irony. I used to think my business was built on my skill as a judge of character. I should think again.”

  “Harry,” she said, “you deserved better from everyone involved.”

  “You know wha
t?” he asked. “I’m not the only one.”

  62

  IT WAS three-thirty in the morning when they got back to Strickland’s loft. The day before, Anne had given a press conference at the yacht club. She believed that Owen was about to pass Cape Horn, hundreds of miles ahead of the competition. Strickland had filmed her performance. In the evening they had gone to Da Silvano for dinner and then to a party at Rex. The people at the party were various of his allies or enemies. A singer of Strickland’s acquaintance had stood and given an impromptu recital. Pamela had gotten sick.

  Strickland spent half an hour after their return reviewing footage on the monitor. When he came into the bedroom he found her beside the round window with an empty glass. He took it from her. The speakers were blaring a tape of sixties hits she had ordered while drunk through a television ad the week before.

  “I can’t take more days like this,” she told him. “I just can’t.”

  “You were great,” Strickland said. “I’ll show you if you like.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You ought to see it. I was proud of you.”

  “Please,” she said.

  Strickland went to the window and looked out down Eleventh Avenue. “I don’t appreciate being treated like a secret vice, you know.”

  “I understand,” she said, “but I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

  “It’ll be tough,” Strickland admitted. “You’ll have to get through all the happy horseshit.”

  “As you said, I’ll have to go on living.”

  “You make it sound hardly worthwhile.”

  “It’s late,” she said. “We should talk tomorrow.” She stood uncertainly by the foot of the bed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I just wish I were home.”

  “Somehow,” Strickland said, “I knew that was it.”

  “Don’t take it personally. It would just be handier.” She went around the bed and sat down on it with her fists together in her lap. “There’ll be more and more to do.”

  “I’m feeling,” Strickland said, “as though you’re chilling me out.”

  “He’s coming home, Ron.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want to?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Christ,” she said, “that he’ll know. That he’ll sense something.”

  Strickland grinned with displeasure.

  “Do you seriously propose to take up where you left off? You won’t be able to. Believe me.”

  “I have to. If I can.”

  “You’re out of your mind. You’re not that kind of hypocrite.”

  “Oh yes I am,” she said.

  He laughed. “You’re not thinking. You can’t do it.”

  “Sorry,” she said, “but I have to.”

  She watched him struggle to speak. “To coin a phrase,” he managed to say, “you can’t do this to me.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” she said, and shook her head dismissively. “Look, your kind of life is not for me. I’m much too square, Ron. I don’t belong with you.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “Ron,” she said, “I adore you. I do. I always will—” Strickland interrupted her. “Please don’t say it.”

  “But,” she went on, “it’s hopeless.” She looked at him with a forlorn smile. “Impossible.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  The feeble, stricken question sobered them both.

  “But you know why as well as I do.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  “Look,” she said, “the party tonight . . . I mean, you go through that crowd like you’re at a museum. You react in the same way. I don’t have that kind of detachment. I find those sessions very . . . hard.”

  “What the hell are parties to me, Anne? Do you think that silly shit is what I’m about?”

  “No, my dear. But all the same.”

  Strickland came and sat down next to her. It was an action unlike him.

  “Do you not see,” he asked, “what a great team we could be? What things might be like for us together? How much fun we could have?”

  “Fun?” She looked at him in wonder and laughed.

  “I realize that sounds distressingly frivolous. I just don’t know how else to say it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I travel the world, Annie. I know that’s what you’ve been wanting to do. I mean, I don’t mean to be a kid about it. I thought we might have a chance at a decent life.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I do.”

  “But you don’t care about a decent life?”

  She laughed silently. “I have no ambitions,” she said, “on that level.”

  “I can’t let you go back and be a doormat for that fucking boring man. It offends me. It’s against life.”

  To keep him from saying more, she put her fingers against his lips, as she had on the winter evening months before.

  “Enough talk,” she said. “Enough trouble.”

  He let her gentle and flatter him into making love. Wanting to satisfy him, she applied herself. She could feel him trying to excel, to impress her and bind her to him. Her own pleasure made her feel affectionate and uncritical, almost hopeful that they might somehow go on. But in the dark she knew better. When he had gone to sleep exhausted she lay awake and cried because it was the last time.

  Throughout the week that followed she kept the answering machine on her telephone and did not return his calls. She knew that eventually he would come. On the Wednesday, she had lunch with Duffy across from the railroad station in Saugatuck. They talked about Owen’s return.

  “Getting him on talk shows is not a problem,” the publicist explained. “I like the idea of getting you on. Like the week before he arrives.”

  “We don’t have anything to sell yet,” she said. “Later on we’ll have our video. And his book.”

  Duffy looked perplexed. “I think Owen’s gonna need a rest, frankly. He’s sounding sort of spacey. Don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We haven’t spoken.”

  “You haven’t?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, the world won’t wait,” Duffy told her after a minute. “We gotta strike while the iron is hot.”

  In their common Irishness, she and Duffy affected a relaxed manner in each other’s presence which ironically underlined the increased discomfort both felt.

  “How’s the moviemaking?” Duffy asked. He skimmed one of his handouts as he asked the question.

  “It’s O.K. We’re set for the last scene.”

  “Gonna miss being a star?”

  She watched him sidewise. “How do you mean, Duff?”

  “Oh, I just mean—will you miss the attention?”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said. “The world will take up the slack.” When they parted in the station parking lot, she called after him.

  “Ask Owen to call me. We’ve had enough silence, I think.”

  “Sure thing,” said Duffy.

  She heard nothing from Owen. On Friday, she took Strickland’s call. She found herself missing him dreadfully.

  “I feel like a kid,” he told her over the phone. “I’d appeal to your sense of irony if you had one.”

  “Oh, but I do,” she said. “We have to tough it out.”

  “If it was a good cause,” Strickland said, “that would be one thing. I mean, I hate to be egotistical about it, but why me and not him?”

  Because, she thought, in my love for you I make you part of myself. What I decide to endure you will endure also and we will be together in that. She did not think it bore explaining, certainly not over the telephone.

  “You mean, why him and not you, Ron.”

  Nevertheless, she agreed to see him the following weekend. She decided to have him come to Connecticut, to her life. They met in a clam house o
n a salt marsh outside Westport. The dining room had a view across the open water of the marsh. A night heron walked the tidal flat outside. The Chardonnay they drank was the first alcohol she had taken since their last night together.

  “I know better than you,” Strickland told her. “You have to believe me.”

  “Ron,” she said, “you surprise me. Do you really expect to be happy? Don’t be such a child.”

  “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “I can’t explain it.”

  They had something of an argument in the parking lot. They had come in two cars but Strickland insisted on going home with her. He followed her along I-95, driving so erratically she was certain he would be stopped. At the house, he pulled into the driveway behind her. She let him come inside and then began to worry about his being on the road. To keep things on track, she began to lecture him.

  “We’re going to call it quits,” she said. “We might as well get in practice.”

  “If you think I’m walking away,” he said, “you’re crazy. You’re going to change your mind. I’m going to make you.”

  “You don’t know me very well, Ron. If you did you wouldn’t say that.”

  “Sorry, but I owe this to myself. I owe it to us. I’m not taking any walking papers.”

  “Don’t be so proprietary.”

  “I have a right.”

  “No you don’t! And don’t push me around.”

  “I will be goddamned,” he said, “if I let you disappear into mediocrity with that asshole! In this stupid suburban bullshit. Like some fatassed Navy wife.”

  “That’s what I am. That’s all.”

  “Bullshit! Nonsense!”

  “You’re getting in the way of serious business. It was fun. It’s over. I have a job to do.”

  “Don’t play the cold-hearted bitch with me. I don’t buy it.”

  “You’re kidding yourself, Ron. Believe me, I can be a cold-hearted bitch with the best of them.”

  “I’m going to keep you from this disaster. I insist.”

  She had been avoiding his eye. She turned and looked at him. “What I don’t understand is why you’re so angry.”

  “I can’t help it,” he said. “The whole thing rocks me.”