Here & There

by Joshua V. Scher

  “Hungry?”

  Ecco nods at his father.

  Reidier peels back the Saran wrap. He reaches for a piece, and then stops and turns to his son, as if suddenly remembering something of great importance.

  “Wing or leg?”

  Ecco scrunches up the left side of his face in contemplation. “Wing.”

  Reidier smiles and laughs. He hands his son the remaining piece. And kisses him twice on top of his head. “Yes, that’s right. Wing.”

  Reidier grabs the leg for himself. The two stand there, eating their poultry in silence, Ecco nibbling off the tapered, crispy point of the wing, Reidier beaming down at his son with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin. “Ecco, can you show me where the dining room is?”

  Ecco raises an eyebrow at his father. Without interrupting his progression toward the meatier end of the wing, he points with his other hand down the hall toward the dining room.

  Reidier nods, his smile struggling to spread wider. “So it is. And where’s the sandbox?”

  Ecco rolls his eyes at his father and swings his pointing arm to bear down on the windowed door that leads out into the backyard.

  “Right again, my little Sherpa. Ok, and now for the ten-thousand-dollar question,” Reidier proceeds while licking his fingers, having finished his drumstick. “Where does Mommy hide the candy?”

  Ecco grins at his father and points at the counter to the left of where the pots dry at a collection of different-sized copper cylindrical containers, arranged smallest to largest, each with its own engraved designation: baking soda, baking powder, sugar, flour.

  Reidier frowns at his son. He walks over to the counter, tears off a paper towel, and cleans the chicken spices off his fingertips while staring at the copper containers.

  “That was a hard one and Mommy’s sneaky.” Reidier’s tone is sympathetic. He moves over to the cupboard to the right of the sink, opens it, and moves the old, large box of Irish Oatmeal to the side.

  There’s nothing behind it.

  Reidier’s brow furrows.

  A soft ting of metal against metal pulls his attention to Ecco, stretched over the counter, pulling the top off of the flour copper container.

  Reidier quickly moves to catch his son, who’s sliding back off the counter. He looks into the copper container.

  “Mommy is sneaky.” Reidier reaches in and pulls out a bag of strawberry Twizzlers.

  Reidier pops his son up on his hip, holding him so they’re eye to eye. “You, my little wonder, are very smart,” he says, while tapping his son’s nose with a stick of licorice.

  When Reidier gets to “smart,” Ecco catches the candy with his teeth and bites down. His smile drops a little. “It doesn’t taste right.”

  Reidier takes a bite of his own Twizzler. “Mine’s ok. Maybe you just got a stale piece. Have this one instead,” Reidier hands him his own piece. “Now,” Reidier lets Ecco down to the floor, “my little Sherpa, show me the way to the den.”

  After quizzing Ecco on where they keep the remotes, Reidier has his son lead him to the living room, the downstairs bathroom, upstairs to the library, to Reidier’s and Eve’s room, and to Ecco’s room, periodically stopping at this or that photo to ask who is this and who is that. The two of them finish their exploration in Otto’s room. “Whose room is this?”

  “Otto’s,” Ecco answers.

  “You’re batting a thousand!”

  The sounds of Eve and Otto playing during bath time tumble down the hallway.

  Reidier squats down to Ecco’s level. “Do you remember when we moved in here?”

  Ecco nods.

  “When we were unpacking this room, you and Otto played over in that chair. Do you remember that? What you two did?”

  Ecco nods again.

  “Can you show me?”

  Ecco walks over to the high-backed, cushioned chair that juts out of a window nook. He climbs up and sits on it upside down, with his back on the seat and sticks his legs straight up, resting them on the seat back. Staring at the ceiling, Ecco moves his feet in the air as if he were walking on the ceiling.

  Reidier beams. “’Atta boy!”

  Ecco tilts his head over the edge of the cushion and looks at his father, all smiles, scooching his way off, and then his eyes widen with fear, as he falls, and drops to the floor, head first, with a stomach-dropping THUMP.

  Reidier’s there in three steps, scooping up his boy, soothing him, “Shh, shh, shh, you’re ok. You’re ok. That was a good knock. Let Daddy take a look.”

  Reidier holds his son out a little to inspect the damage, and it is only then that he finally realizes Ecco isn’t crying.

  Ecco smiles up at his father and giggles.

  Reidier laughs too. “Look at how tough you are. Daddy’s just a worrywart.”

  “Worried about what?” Eve asks from the doorway, holding a damp Otto cocooned in terrycloth.

  “He bumped his head.”

  Eve plops Otto down on the bed and gets his PJs out of the drawer. “You missed dinner. I left plates out on the table.”

  “We saw, and we noshed. Thank you. Ecco was helping me with work down in my lair, and we lost track of time.”

  “It’s bath time now,” Eve cuts him off.

  “Off we go.” Reidier carries Ecco out.

  The last first thing I wanted to hear through a hangover was someone laughing in my ear. Each chortle tremored through the fog inside my skull. The particularly jovial voice that quaked through the mist belonged to Clyde Palmore, Reidier’s physicist colleague at Brown. “You sure you’re all right? You sound as sour as vinegar.”

  “I just had more than I should have last night,” I confessed.

  A quiet commiserative oh came across the line, followed by a snort that was cut short.

  “Honestly, if you’re not up for this—”

  “I’ll be fine, the fresh air’ll do me some good.” I sat up. The room took a spin.

  “You’ll be ok with bobbing? You’re not prone to seasickness?”

  “No. Luckily, I’m of the age now where too much to drink is much less than would make anyone nauseous.”

  “The blessing of a low tolerance. I’ll pick you up some coffee. And Dramamine, just in case.”

  “What time?”

  “Can you make it by nine thirty?”

  Lunch with Danny can wait.* “Sure.”

  * * *

  * She never did take me to lunch. And she never, ever took me fishing.

  * * *

  “And you know where you’re going?”

  At some point during our conversation, I had scribbled a location on The Stone’s Throw Inn stationery on the nightstand. It didn’t seem right, though. “I’m going to Galilee?”

  “Yeah. Just ask for directions to Point Judith. There’ll be signs. End of the main strip, there’s a parking lot in front of George’s restaurant. Last dock at the end. I’ll pick you up there.”

  I nodded into the phone. “Is there anything I should bring? Worms?”

  A loud laugh erupted through the receiver, sending currents of pain through my head. “I got all the lures and bait we’ll need.”

  Some thirty minutes later, Clyde was waiting patiently for me at the end of the dock. I waved from the parking lot. Reaching back into the car to grab the half-drunk coffee that sat in the cup holder, I suddenly remembered his promise to bring coffee and Dramamine. I left it and locked up.

  Galilee was, without any irony, a prototypical fisherman’s town. Slips were filled with boats returning from the morning’s haul. Wholesale merchants lined the road, each displaying the price of lobster per pound like gas stations would the price per gallon. Waves lapped up against the wharves, punctuated by clappers lazily dinging against the mast bells with each ebb and flow. The smell of fried clam cakes blew across the parking lot.

  I fled downwind of the aroma, to no avail. The boards of the dock creaked beneath my footfalls. My sunglasses offered little help against the double dose of sun
light reflecting off the water.

  “Not too late to reconsider,” Clyde shouted over the sound of the idling engine with a smile.

  A crosswind cleared away the scent of clam cakes. “Where should I sit?” I asked, as he helped me from the dock down into the boat.

  Clyde pointed me to seats at the back of his boat. “Probably you’re best in the stern.” He handed me a large coffee and two pills, then untied the bow line, stood in front of the captain’s chair, and throttled us out to sea.

  Miraculously, at six miles out, the salt air and gentle rocking improved my condition. My fishing skills were still, nevertheless, lacking. I reeled in the two-hundred-pound line with my best arrhythmic rhythm. No bites.

  Behind me, Clyde muttered to himself something about high whines and Afghanis tilting at windmills.

  “Your method isn’t working,” I said. “Or my tempo is too regular.”

  Clyde pulled his binoculars away from his eyes. He held up his palm to block the sun and scanned the skies through a squint. “Hm?”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Predators.”

  “It’s not like I have any fish for them to steal. Maybe I should switch to actual bait.”

  “Lures are better for stripers.” Clyde had the binoculars against his eyes again, this time scanning the horizon. In the distance, a ferry chugged along.

  “Maybe these stripers prefer the real thing.”

  Clyde let the binoculars dangle from his neck and smiled at me. “You ever read The Magus? John Fowles?”

  “Just The French Lieutenant’s Woman.”

  “Great bit in there about catching an octopus. Guy uses a piece of white cloth tied to the end of a line as ‘bait’ to coax an octopus into a net. The octopus prefers the ideal over reality.”

  “Well if it’s not the puppet, then it must be the puppeteer.”

  Clyde laughed. He squinted at the horizon again. “Sometimes the fish just don’t bite. Right place, right time. Maybe later this afternoon. How about some lunch?”

  Clyde guided the boat toward Block Island, slowed near the pier, and looped a bow line around a cleat. Across the water, a crowd flowed off of the ferry.

  “Are there always this many visitors?”

  “In the summer, yes. Not so much in the winter. So, I still have to take care of some things with the dockmaster. If you don’t mind, why don’t you go up and get us seats?” Clyde pointed up the hill. Tourists decked out in Block Island paraphernalia thronged along the two blocks of Main Street. At the end, perched at the top of the hill was a seafood shack surrounded by picnic tables. “Ever had a frozen lemonade?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Delicious. Grab yourself a Dell’s on me. I’ll be up in a few,” Clyde winked. “Got to wave the white cloth around a little.”

  Main Street was charming enough, lined with souvenir stores, inns, chowder houses, and saltwater taffy vendors. It seemed like a place that blossomed in the summer but was more likely treasured in the winter. Vespa honks and the slap-slap of flip-flops floated across the salty air.

  The aroma of fried fish and dough drifted downhill from the seafood shack as I headed up. My nose and stomach debated whether the scent was enticing or repulsive. I came across the Dell’s lemonade stand Clyde had been so adamant about. Flavored sugar water actually seemed like my safest choice.

  Clyde wasn’t wrong; the lemony, slushyesque beverage was divine. A citrus nectar frappe that quenched, cooled, and calmed my volcanic stomach, a relieving antidote to the summer sun. I made my way over to the picnic-table area and sat at the end of one, while a father helped his young son finish off his french fries. Seagulls dropped down and picked at a trashcan overflowing with wax paper, red-and-white-checkered cardboard food slips, and cups. Bike riders pushed their way up the hill, following the curved roads lined with colonial architecture. Another ferry departed for the mainland. Sun-bathers lined the beach.

  I scanned the docks until I found Clyde’s boat. He was standing at the edge of the floating gangplanks, binoculars held up to his eyes, scanning the horizon. After a few moments, he lowered them, and then squinted at the various boats in their slips. Clyde rubbed the back of his thumb across the crease between his beer belly and chest as he contemplated his various nautical neighbors. He held up a hand to block the sun as he gazed into the sky. Unsatisfied, he raised the binoculars up again, and scanned.

  “Apologies for the cloak-and-dagger,” said the man next to me.

  I turned to face him, confused at whether this out-of-context comment was even directed at me. The father and son had walked off across the gravel-lined courtyard. Sitting in their place was Bertram, dressed in red seersucker Bermuda shorts, a neon-green terry cloth Polo shirt, big sunglasses, and a straw fedora. It was a loud and ubiquitous fashion statement that perfectly camouflaged him among the preppy hordes. “Clyde told you about the frozen lemonade. He can’t pass a Dell’s. I’m more of a salt guy. French fries are the Achilles’ heel of my tongue.”

  “What are you doing here? Have you been hiding out on Block Island?” My mind hadn’t quite caught up with reality. His presence seemed anachronistic.

  Bertram laughed, “No I haven’t been hiding here. Clyde and I just thought it seemed like a good place for us to meet. Outside of the norm and easy to track any uninvited party crashers.”

  “Is that what Clyde is doing down there?”

  Down on the docks, Clyde was still scanning the skies with his binoculars.

  Bertram shook his head and chortled to himself, “In a manner of speaking. He’s trying to spot drones.”

  “Drones?”

  “Predator drones. Like they use in Afghanistan.”

  Predators.

  “The cloak-and-dagger. That’s why Clyde invited me fishing. You got my message.” My brain was finally catching up.

  “The Department didn’t suppress the hospital records,” Bertram announced over the wind. The tall sea grass that blanketed the cliff top whipped around him. “There were no records to be suppressed. I made sure of that.” Bertram stood quiet, gazing out at the ocean, while his confession sunk in. “Yes, there were the admittance forms, but those weren’t too difficult to have misplaced. Eve hadn’t been examined by a doctor before I got there.”

  Bertram’s attention had turned away from me. His gaze tracked a family of four circumventing the Block Island Southeast Lighthouse, a young boy chasing his sister around the expansive lawn. The father was taking pictures of the structure and view, his camera lens protruding from his face like a black unicorn horn, a Cyclops in Birkenstocks.

  Bertram and I watched them take in the scenery, read the various plaques that presumably summarized the history of the lighthouse, and finally find their way around the other side to the entrance.

  “I think the wind’s strong enough. But can’t be too sure,” Bertram said.

  It was unclear whether this was to me, to himself, or just a general declaration of the state of things. Clearly, Bertram and Clyde were savvy to the Department’s eavesdropping tendencies. Or at least they suspected that some party had been expending effort to monitor the Reidiers and by extension, Bertram and Clyde. Were they aware of the nanobots? I wanted to confide in Bertram about them, assure him that it would be highly unlikely for the Department to have already gotten here before us and nearly impossible for them to effectively deploy a cloud of its Smart Dust* to monitor us. However, in doing so, I might have implicated myself as part of the establishment, a major player in this game of deception. Then again, there I was, atop the Mohegan Bluffs of Block Island, as a result of my own sojourn off the reservation that took me out to sea on the tide of subterfuge.

  * * *

  * A system of tiny microelectromechanical systems, MEMS, equipped with a variety of sensors communicating wirelessly with each other. Essentially a cloud of nanobots set adrift in the air that relayed back everything from audio to temperature changes in skin (blushing) to vibrations of heartbe
at and pulse. An invisible swarm of information collectors that could measure stress levels and map out true/false probability curves to determine if someone was telling the truth or not. AKA: advanced, scary shit.

  * * *

  “Directing the nanobots is a challenge even within a small environment. They’ve only been effectively used within interiors or to blanket an urban enclave. A place like this, they’d scatter at the wind’s whim and dissipate too quickly to have any efficacy,” I offered.

  Bertram turned back to me and smiled. “Our thoughts exactly. They can’t hear out here. We figured being spontaneous and improvising our movements would give us a bit of an edge too.”

  Not knowing what else to say, I offered, “Thank you for trusting me.”

  Bertram kicked a rock off the edge of the cliff. It fluttered down so long it seemed more like a feather than a stone dropping into the sea. “Awful lot of precautions for trust, wouldn’t you say?” he countered.

  “They weren’t all on account of me.”

  Bertram nodded. Again it was unclear whether this was to me, or to himself. “You know the history of the Mohegan Bluffs?”

  I shook my head.

  “Block Island was Niantic territory, a Native American tribe that eventually merged with the Narragansett people. They called this island Manisses. Well, somewhere in the midsixteenth century, the Mohegans decided that this island was a pretty desirable place. Good deer hunting, good shellfish. A great battle took place, which the Niantic won by forcing the Mohegans over these cliffs to fall to their deaths.”

  I kicked my own rock over the edge this time. Again, it fluttered like a feather.

  I waited in silence for more. Bertram was finished. The wind kept blowing.

  “You planning on forcing me off?” I asked.

  Bertram chuckled. “I imagine you’re not so interested in colonial history as much as my personal history.”

  “I respect your privacy if you’re not comfortable sharing any more than you already have.” It was an empty offering. Bertram was ready to talk. He wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if he weren’t.