by Philip Craig
“It’s a secret,” George said, grinning. “Don’t tell anybody. We want them to stay away.” He rubbed his shoulder. “I’ve got an ache or two myself. Every year it takes me a week or so to get back into fishing shape.”
She tapped him on the chest with her finger. “How about that ticker, George. Does your doctor know you do this stuff?”
He laughed. “If I go, this is how I want to go. I like to think that those heart attacks were God’s way of telling me to give up work and get to fishing and hunting. It’s been five years since I sold the company and came down here, and the old pump hasn’t missed a beat.” He tapped his shirt pocket. “I carry my nitro pills to keep everybody happy, though.”
“I thought my own heart was going to burst when I was trying to land that first fish,” said Zee. “It is really beautiful down here.”
“Missed the green flash again,” said Susie. “The magic moment went by during the blitz.”
“What’s the green flash?” asked Zee.
“They say that when the atmospheric conditions are just right at dawn or dusk, there’s a flash of green just as the sun is touching the sea. I’ve never seen it.”
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I’ve never seen it either.”
“Why do you cut the fish’s throats when you land them?”
“I think it makes the meat taste better.”
“Fishing lore,” said George. “Everybody’s got a different idea about how to do things.”
Zee began counting fish. “Wow! What’ll we do with them all? I never saw so many fish!”
“First, you get bragging rights,” said Susie. “Look, here come some late arrivals. They’ll see these fish and say something like ‘They still around?’ or ‘When did they come in?’ And then you get to say, ‘You’re just in time for the funeral.’ ”
From the west came two Jeeps.
“You get to say it, Zee,” said George.
“Just act natural,” I said. “Take a couple and toss them into George’s fishbox just as they drive up. Then say it.”
The first Jeep pulled up and the occupants surveyed the scene. Zee tossed a couple of fish into George’s box and gave them a dazzling smile.
“They still around?” came the inquiry.
“You’re just in time for the funeral,” said Zee.
“They hit about an hour and a half before the end of the west tide,” ‘said Susie. Fishing lore.
Zee picked up two more fish. “Yeah, about then,” she said and tossed the fish into the box.
The second Jeep pulled up. “Looks like they’re here,” said the driver.
“They were here,” said the driver of the first Jeep.
“You mean . . .”
“Yep. You’re just in time for the funeral.”
Everyone laughed. “God,” said the second driver, “how I love to say that and how I hate to hear it.”
George looked at his watch. “Well, what do you say, Susie, shall we drift up to the lighthouse? The boys ought to be coming out in the boat about the time we get up there. We can make a couple of casts along the way, if you want.”
We divied up the fish while the newcomers tried in vain for more. Zee had no fishbox, so without asking I tossed hers into my box. She looked at me. “You ever been up to the Cape Pogue light?” I asked. She shook her head. “Well, what do you say we trail George and Susie up there? It’s a pretty drive. After we watch Billy and Jim come out, we’ll come back down here, and you can pick up your four-by-four and follow me to the fish market. Then you can take your share of the loot and buy yourself a fish box of your very own so you won’t be dependent on awkward but well-meaning strangers.”
Zee looked at me. George and Susie looked at both of us. “Hmmph,” said George. He and his daughter got into his Wagoneer and headed up the beach.
“Well,” I said, “what’ll it be? You do have a choice. If you don’t want to go up to Cape Pogue, I’ll put my fishbox in your Jeep and you can take the catch to the market and give me my share of the money later.”
“I don’t even know how many fish I caught. I lost track after about the third one.” She had a laugh that came from deep down, like bronze bells. “How many did you get?”
Fifteen. I always know. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard to keep track.”
“How will we split the money, then?”
“Fifty-fifty is okay by me.”
“You’re a cheerful liar,” she said. “You know exactly how many fish you caught.” How did she know? “Okay, I’ll go up to Cape Pogue with you. But I do have to get back before too long. I didn’t get off work until two this morning, and I’m pretty wiped out.”
“The first thing about riding around in waders is that it’s hard to sit down in them,” I said. “You can either take them off, which is not a good idea if we happen to find some fish because then you’ll have to climb into them again, or you can loosen the suspenders and slide the waders down a bit so you can bend your knees.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I suggest that you take them off. We’ve got all the fish we need, and I’d like to know what’s really inside that ten-pound bag.”
“If mine’s a ten-pounder, yours is a twenty-pounder!”
“Flatterer!”
She had a great laugh, but she only loosened her shoulder straps before we chugged off north toward Cape Pogue. It was small-talk time.
“What are you looking at, out there in the water?” The sun was glancing off the water and I was squinting into the glare.
“Sometimes you can see fish.”
“See fish? Under water?” She shaded her eyes against the dancing sunlight.
“Not now. There’s nothing there. But when you drive along like this you can see them sometimes. There’s a difference in the way the water looks when there’s a school of bluefish moving along. If you cast into that water you can pick one up. Sometimes you’ll see four-by-fours driving along and guys jumping out and casting a couple of times and then jumping back into the truck and driving on and jumping out again and casting. They’re following the fish.”
We were driving up East Beach, a beautiful stretch of sand where only fishermen can normally be found. It was lonely and lovely in the early morning sun. Far ahead, George’s Wagoneer was a small dot on the empty sand.
“Why do they call you ‘Zee’? An initial?”
“Short for Zeolinda. Named for my grandmother. She was from the Azores. How long you known George?”
“About five years. Just after we both came down here to stay. We met on the beach, fishing. He could really cast. Better than me, then, and probably still better.”
“But can’t you throw your plug out farther? I mean he’s so much littler than you are. . . .”
“Some of the best casters are little guys sixty or seventy years old. They’ve got the right gear and the right technique and that beats size and strength every time. You’re not very big, but the day may come when you’re casting with the best of them.”
“Really?”
“Really, if you practice.”
Ahead, George stopped at a little point of sand and made a few casts. No action. He drove on and we followed.
“Why don’t we try?” asked Zee.
“We’ll try if you want to, but . . .”
“But if there were any fish there, George would have got one.”
“Probably. The tide’s slack now. Fishing will be better when it starts to run again. How did you meet George?”
“I met him in the hospital.” She hesitated. “Do you know about his son, Billy?”
“I heard the rumors. That he was strung out on drugs, but took the cure. That he’s clean now.”
“Well, I met George and his family during all that. Billy was in Emergency before they flew him to the mainland for the cure. It wasn’t a week later when I saw that article about George in Time. Did you see it?”
“The rags to riches to rags story? Millionaire entrepre
neur leaves fast track for jeep and fishing rod and the simple life on Martha’s Vineyard? Everybody on the beach read it. George took a lot of razzing from the regulars. They accused him of slumming.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He took it. And nobody ever mentioned it again. On the beach, it doesn’t make any difference whether you wash dishes or own General Motors. They only care if you can cast straight and can kid around.”
“Manly society.”
“Mostly. There are half a dozen women, maybe, who belong, as it were. They have to meet the same tests.”
We drove all the way up to the jetties. Shimmering waves, pale blue sky, gentle wind. A Chamber of Commerce day. Ahead of us stood the Cape Pogue lighthouse. I stopped the Landcruiser and climbed out of my Gralites. Zee also shed her waders and we stashed both pair in the back.
“Guess what you don’t look like any more,” I said.
“Gosh, mister, you really know how to sweet-talk a lady. Do you realty mean it?”
“Us Jacksons are noted for our silver tongues.”
We drove toward the lighthouse. “What shall I call you, Mr. Jackson?”
“You can call me Jackson’ or J.W.’ or Jeff or none of the above.”
“Is that ‘Geoff with a G or Jeff with a J?”
“It’s J as in Jefferson.”
“Don’t tell me what the W stands for. Did your mother have a thing about presidents, or what?”
“She never explained.”
“Does anybody ever call you ‘Wash’?”
“No one living.”
We hooked left off the beach just before the lighthouse and drove through the seagull nesting grounds up to the tower. George’s Wagoneer was parked there. You could see Cape Cod fading off toward Chatham across the Sound, and the Oak Bluffs bluffs to the northwest. Beneath us, the cliff fell down to the beach, where jeep tracks formed a sandy road. It’s one of my favorite spots. Someday when I win the lottery I may buy one of the lonely houses out there.
“How do these people get supplies?”
“By four-by-four or by boat. There’s Edgartown, over to the west. By water it’s not too far. By car, the way we’ve just come, it’s a long haul. This is the place for people who like to be alone.”
“Do you like to be alone?”
I thought about it. “I’m alone whether I like it or not.”
She gave me a long look.
George had his binoculars out and was looking toward Edgartown, trying to spot the Nellie Grey coming out. She was his boat, a nice thirty-foot fishing toy for the man who could afford such toys. She had clean lines and a wide cockpit with three chairs for trolling. She was the kind of boat I’d want if I didn’t prefer sail.
From the north I saw another boat coming. A long black expensive job with outriggers and a pulpit, the sort of boat you could take a long way out with no trouble at all. She was on a course that would take her a half-mile or so east of us. I guessed she was on her way to the swordfishing grounds south of Nomans or maybe even farther. She was not the sort of boat that hung on the Wasque rip trolling for bluefish. I thought maybe I’d seen her in the Oak Bluffs harbor or in Vineyard Haven, but I wasn’t sure.
Beyond her, other boats were coming out. How did they know the bluefish had arrived?
“There she is,” said George, looking through his glasses. “I hope they don’t have any more trouble with that engine.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” said Susie, “the yard checked it out and I did, too. I took her out yesterday afternoon and everything was fine.”
I must have had a question mark on my face.
“Gas leak,” said Susie. “One of the lines in the engine compartment. You could smell the fumes sometimes, so we took it in. Just a bad connection, but out of the way so it was tricky to find. But they found it and fixed it, and yesterday I took Nellie halfway to Falmouth and back. No problem.”
Now the Nellie Grey was in sight, moving smoothly out with mild following waves, the wind at her back. She came past the lighthouse and we could see Jim and Billy. They waved and we waved back, and they went on out beyond the shallows that reach east from Cape Pogue. Beyond the Nellie Grey the long black boat altered her course to hold outside the Nellie’s turn as she swung south beyond the shallows to follow the beach toward Wasque.
“Come on,” said George, lowering his binoculars, “let’s go back to Wasque so we can watch them fish the rip. The east tide will be running and there may be something there.”
Susie, looking sad, nodded and turned to the Wagoneer.
“We’ll follow you down,” I said, “but then we’re going on into town. We want to sell these fish.”
“And I’ve got to get some sleep,” said Zee. “I’ve got duty again tonight, and right now I’m frazzled out.”
Just at that moment the Nellie Grey exploded. A great red and yellow flower opened from the sea and expanded into the air. Petals of flame and stalks of debris shot up and arched away as a ball of smoke billowed from the spot where the Nellie had been. A moment later the boom of the explosion hit us, and the sea around the Nellie was one of flame. I thought I saw a body arc into the burning water.
The black boat turned and I could see her white bow wave as she sped in toward the burning wreckage. I thought I could see a figure thrashing in the oily water. The black boat came in, dangerously close, and someone leaned over the side and dragged a man up over the rail.
Behind me I heard a cry and turned to see Susie with her father in her arms. His hand was groping toward his shirt pocket as his knees buckled.
Then Zee was beside him, helping him with his nitroglycerin pills and I was on the C.B. radioing the Chappy beach patrol to alert the Emergency Center that we were coming in with a heart-attack patient and to tell the harbormaster and Coast Guard that the Nellie Grey had just blown up off the Cape Pogue light.
— 3 —
We took the Wagoneer because it was bigger and more comfortable, and I drove us south along Cape Pogue Pond. I cut over the Dike Bridge and raced to the ferry. On the far side the ambulance waited. The ambulance took George and Susie and Zee and went off, sirens wailing. The tourists stared. Beyond the Edgartown light the harbor patrol was roaring out toward Cape Pogue.
I took George’s Wagoneer out to his house. Nobody home. His wife had gone to the hospital. It had been a bad day for the Martins. I left the keys with the housekeeper and hitched back into town.
I got my dinghy at Collins Beach and went putt-putting off to Cape Pogue Pond, where I beached the boat and walked up to the lighthouse to get the Landcruiser. Out in the sound there were boats hovering around the spot where the Nellie Grey had gone down. The Coast Guard and the Edgartown harbormaster’s boat were there, and I could see skin divers in the water. I remembered Marcus Aurelius’s advice: Do not act as if thou were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee.
The fish in my box—mine and Zee’s—were too soft to keep, so I tossed them off the cliff and watched the seagulls swoop in for the feast. The morning that had started off so beautifully had turned all sour. I drove back, picked up the dinghy, and went down to Wasque. The terns and gulls fed along the edge of the water, and I saw oyster catchers and a little blue heron. Nothing had changed for them; the sun still showered light down upon the sand and sea. The wind still blew softly from the southwest. The sky was still pale blue. At Wasque a dozen four-by-fours were lined up, and poles were bending in the hands of fishermen as the east tide ran. I heard shouts and laughter as the fish were reeled in. I drove on by.
The next day I read all about it in the Gazette. George was still alive and was expected to recover. Billy was alive, though burned by both the explosion and his efforts to save Jim Norris. Jim was dead, his body having been recovered from the wreck by skin divers. Billy had been saved by the quick action of the captain of the Bluefin, which had picked him up and raced with him to Oak Bluffs, radioing ahead for an ambulance to meet them at the docks.
Credit was given to nurse Zeolinda Madieras, who had accompanied George to the hospital. Tim Mello, skipper of the Bluefin, was praised by the boat’s owner, Fred Sylvia, by the passengers aboard the Bluefin, and by his mother. About Jim Norris there was little. He was from Oregon, his parents had been notified. He was well remembered by those who knew him as a pleasant, hard-working man who enjoyed outdoor work and fishing. A tragic loss.
I wrote a note to George accusing him of being too rotten to die and saying I’d see him after he was no longer news. I told him my fish had gone soft because of him and that the next time we’d haul him in in my Landcruiser and leave his Wagoneer out there so his fish could spoil.
Then I went out and hoed my garden for a while. I plant early in April, and greenies were appearing in little rows. I’d have radishes and lettuce any day now, and my beans and peas looked good. I wondered if my carrots would be as bad as usual and if I’d been right to try broc and cauliflower again since I’d never yet managed to make them grow.
I had rows of flowers planted between the rows of vegetables, but had a hard time telling which little plants were flowers and which were weeds. I’m better at recognizing vegetables than flowers.
I was through hoeing and had the sprinkler turned on, and was having a beer as a reward for my hard work when a car came down my driveway.
Since I live in the woods at the end of a narrow, bumpy road, I don’t see many people in my yard who don’t want to be there. I don’t get many in any case.
The car stopped and Susie Martin got out. I was glad I was at least wearing shorts. Sometimes I’m inclined to walk around my place wearing only sandals. I have tender, flat feet.
“Hey, kid,” I said, “how’s the old man?”
She had an odd look about her. “He’s okay. I guess it wasn’t too bad. Learning that Billy was okay helped a lot.”
“How’s Billy?”
“He’s okay.” She had a way with words. “I want to talk with you, J.W.”
She was serious and nervous.
“Sure, kid. Sit down. Want a Coke?” This was the first time she’d ever been to my place, and she was looking it over in a halfhearted way. “Old hunting camp,” I said. “My father bought it way back when island land was cheap. I inherited it.”
