A Beautiful Place to Die

by Philip Craig

  Zee’s Jeep was gone from Wasque, but there were a dozen others with fish tossed in their shade. Three- or four-pounders. I watched for a while. There was more coffee drinking going on than fishing, so things must have slowed down. I got out and took my graphite and put on a three-ounce red-headed Roberts. I’d added about fifteen yards to my cast when I’d gotten the graphite. It was a sweet rod. I walked down to the water, put a little muscle into the cast, and dropped the Roberts far out into the edge of the rip.

  Bingo!

  In about ten seconds I was shoulder to shoulder with other fishermen. It’s a well-known fact that there are fishermen living under the sand at Wasque. You can be down there all alone, and as soon as you catch a fish they all jump out and start casting right beside you. When the fish are gone, the people all disappear again.

  Zee should be here, I found myself thinking. I got eleven fish on twice that many casts and then they were gone. Ten minutes later I got a final stray and called it a day. We all talked for a while.

  “Hey, J.W., I hear you hauled George Martin off the beach yesterday. He okay?”

  I said he was as good as could be expected. George was popular on the beach. He had more money than all of the rest of us together could ever hope to have, but he was just another fisherman as far as the regulars were concerned.

  “Too damned bad about Jim Norris.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hear he was leaving the island and going home. Never make it now except in a box.”

  “George and Jim were good buddies. Fished together a lot when Jim wasn’t working.”

  “George going to make it, J.W.?”

  “He says he’ll be on the beach as soon as they let him out of bed.”

  “That’s George. He’d rather fish than fuck.”

  “He’d rather fish and fuck.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably more like it.”

  Everybody laughed. It came to me that Zee had said she’d gotten off work at two in the morning, which probably meant that she went to work at six in the evening.

  “It’s fish in the freezer time,” I said. I tossed my catch into the box, drove to Herring Creek and scaled them, then went home. I filleted them on the bench behind my storage shed, bagged them, and put all but one in the freezer. The one I put in the fridge. I like fresh bluefish a lot about three times each spring. After that I still eat it because that’s what I have, but not because I particularly like it. But I never get tired of smoked bluefish, so I freeze it for that purpose. Down my driveway I’m famous for my smoked bluefish.

  I went back and washed off the fish-cleaning bench and tossed the bluefish carcasses into the woods northeast of the house. In a week the bones would be bare; meanwhile, the prevailing southwesterlies would keep the stench away.

  I mixed up some stuffing and layered it between the two fillets I’d put in the fridge and put the fish on an oiled cookie sheet. Stuffed bluefish! Yum. Too much for one meal for one man, but delicious again tomorrow, warmed over. I popped a Molson and took it out to the garden with me while I picked peas. Pods, actually. The sweet Chinese kind. Back inside I put them in a pan with salted water. While everything cooked, I finished the beer and got a sauterne out of the fridge. I like it better than drier stuff with bluefish. I took a swig. Good! I poured a glass for the cook. When the timer dinged, I put everything on the table and turned on the radio to listen to the news.

  I have a tendency to eat fast when I’m alone, so I took my time, just as though I had company. I imagined Zee sitting across the table. It was a nice bit of imagining. The radio news seemed about the same as usual. Once I’d experimented and hadn’t listened to it for a month. When I listened again, nothing much had changed. Still, I kept on listening to it. A human voice at mealtime.

  When I was through, I washed and stacked the dishes and called Quinn. He was still out. Probably in a bar somewhere doing newspaper work. Quinn was okay. I was okay, too. The wine bottle was empty and in the trash basket under the kitchen counter. I got into the Landcruiser and drove to Oak Bluffs. It was dusk and the beach was empty save for stragglers who hated to go home for supper. A lone surf-sailer was easing along in the dying wind and beyond him, out in the sound, sails were white against the darkening sky, trying for harbor before nightfall.

  In the hospital parking lot I found Zee’s Jeep. George’s Wagoneer, too. Susie must still be visiting. Personally, I hate hospitals. They’re unhealthy places. People die there all the time. I almost did myself. I went into the emergency ward and immediately saw Zee. She was saying good-night to a patient with a patch over his eye. Another Vineyard casualty of some sort. I decided to try the direct approach.

  “Hello,” I said.

  — 6 —

  “Well, hello, Jeff.” She looked terrific in a newly pressed white uniform. The doctors in emergency often look like they just came in from the farm or the beach. An informal crew. Zee looked professional.

  “Can I talk to you even though there’s nothing wrong with me?”

  “Who told you there was nothing wrong with you?” She had fine teeth. Very even and white.

  “I went fishing this afternoon. I noticed that you got your Jeep back from the beach.”

  “You’re not the only man that I know.” I could believe that. “A couple of friends went down and brought it to me.”

  “It’s good for a woman to know a number of manly four-wheel-drive driving men.”

  “Like you.”

  “Pardon my shy smile and my foot scuffing the floor.”

  “You still have my rod and tacklebox.”

  “And your waders, too.”

  “Ah, yes. The ten-pound bag.”

  “Everything’s out in my manly FWD. I’ll stick your gear in your Jeep when I leave. Say, how long are you going to be on this shift?”

  “Two o’clock in the morning, just like yesterday. Why do you ask? she inquired coyly.”

  “I thought I might invite you out to dinner so you could get to know me better and maybe I could get you drunk so you’d do something your mother would regret. Or, barring that, maybe I might just invite you out to dinner. But since you get off at two in the morning, maybe I should invite you to breakfast instead, or maybe to a snack or something. . . .”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, do it. Invite me. But not to breakfast or a snack. I’m really wiped out and I expect to be more wiped out when I get through this shift. Try supper.”

  “You mean I spent my teenage years wondering how to ask girls out and all I had to do was just come right out and ask?”

  “What can you lose?”

  “You might say no, and I’d be crushed. Beneath this brawny chest beats a sensitive heart.”

  “How Hemingwayesque. Take a chance.”

  “Okay. Will you go out to dinner with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Golly.” I felt terrific. “When?”

  “I’m off tomorrow night. The next morning I go on day shift again.”

  “Where do you like to eat?”

  “You decide. Be manly.”

  “I can’t help it most of the time, but the sight of you turns me into a child.”

  “In that case I’ll reconsider my answer.”

  “I was lying. I’m more masculine than you can possibly imagine. You’ll trust my choice of restaurants?”

  “If you can’t trust the man who teaches you how to cast, whom can you trust?”

  She lived in West Tisbury. An up-islander. I got directions and also her telephone number. A double score. I told her I’d pick her up at six-thirty. About then a woman with torn clothes and a bloody knee was brought in.

  “Moped accident number five for the day,” said Zee, and she was gone.

  I walked back through the corridors of the hospital and found Billy’s room. No armed guards. No guards of any kind. The chief obviously hadn’t taken my suggestion about possible murder in the hospital very seriously. Neither had I, for t
hat matter. Still, if I walked in with, say, a silenced .22, I could walk right out again without a soul to stop me. I went to the door and heard voices from inside. Billy’s and a female’s. I thought it was Susie’s, but then I knew it wasn’t. It was a jittery voice, a tight voice. I couldn’t make out the words, but I recognized the tones. I’d heard voices like that in Boston long ago. I knocked on the door and walked in.

  The girl jerked around. She’d been sitting on the bed, and now she jumped off. Her eyes were flickering, like those of a scared cat. Her hands leaped into a knot. Billy stared at me.

  “Oops,” I said. “Gee, Billy, I didn’t know you had company.”

  “Well, I do,” he said after a moment.

  “My name’s Jackson,” I said, giving the girl a fast smile. “I’m a friend of the family.”

  She nodded and put on a quick smile of her own.

  “This . . . this is Julie,” said Billy. “She’s my . . . a friend from college. She . . .”

  “I heard about the accident,” she said in a startled-fawn way. “It was on the news. I came over to see him. I was so worried.” One hand rubbed the opposite arm, then found the other hand and knotted into it again. She looked quickly at Billy. “Well, maybe I should go. I guess I really should. I guess I will. I’ll . . . I’ll see you later, then, Billy. Okay?”

  Julie went out. I smiled at Billy. “Just came by to see how you’re doing, kid.”

  “Fine,” he said, “I’m doing fine.”

  “That’s the way, kid. I’ll see you later, then.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, thanks for coming by.”

  I went out and down the hall and out into the parking lot. A Mazda two-door was pulling out. Julie was in it. A teacher I knew in Boston told me that you could always tell the difference between the faculty cars and the student cars. The student cars were new.

  Julie was down the road a piece when I drove out of the parking lot in the Landcruiser. She didn’t spot me in the rearview mirror and lead me on a high-speed chase like on TV. Instead, she drove down Circuit Avenue, parked, and went into the Fireside Bar. By the time I found a parking place, she’d been in there awhile.

  When I went in, I bumped right into Bonzo. Bonzo wasn’t his name, but that’s what people called him because he liked Ronald Reagan’s last movie so much. Also because he’d blown away a good part of his brain on bad acid and hadn’t been too swift since. Not as smart as the Bonzo in the movie, in fact. I’d never known him before he’d popped acid, but I’d heard that he’d been a smart kid. Once I’d taken him fishing and it had been like taking a child. He’d been my buddy ever since. Bonzo earned his keep by scrubbing floors and doing odd jobs at the Fireside.

  “Hi, J.W.,” he said. “Long time no see.” He grinned, showing pretty good teeth for a guy in his condition. His mother probably made him brush every day. Bonzo shook my hand. “Hi, J.W.,” he said again. “Say, when are we going fishing again?”

  Just then Julie came out of the ladies’ room. In this case it was identified by a stencil of a little girl pulling up her panties. The men’s room was adorned with a stencil of a little boy trying to button up his pants. Or unbutton them. It was hard to tell. Julie looked different. Gone was her nervousness. She looked laid back and at ease. She went to the bar and I heard her joke with the bartender. Her voice was low and smooth.

  “Later,” I said to Bonzo. “We’ll go fishing later.”

  I went to the bar and sat beside Julie.

  She looked like the all-American girl. Sandy blond hair, unlined face, clean blouse, plaid skirt, and sandals. She gave me a smile of nonrecognition. Her brain was in second gear and shifting down.

  “Hi, Julie,” I said. “Billy told me I could find you here.”

  “Billy told you?” The light dawned. “Oh, yeah. You’re the guy I met in the hospital. Hi, there.” She grinned. She was feeling better all the time. The bartender set a pink drink in front of her. She sipped it through a straw. The bartender looked at me. I ordered a beer.

  “I’ve got to talk to you,” I said. “There’s a booth over there. Come on, it’s important.”

  “Booth? Important? Oh, okay—why not?” Mellow and getting mellower, she smiled. I escorted her and her drink to the booth, went back for my beer, and then sat down across from her. Around us the noises and smells of the early-evening crowd made a wall. I leaned across to her.

  “Billy sent me after you. I need something!” I made my hands tremble and I darted my eyes around. “I just need a little. Just to get me through, you know? He said I could get it from you. That you had it.”

  She stared at me with a dreamy look. I let my fingers dance to her arm, then dance away again. I licked my lips and chewed a bit on my lower one.

  “He didn’t have anything, of course. He couldn’t have, because they’d have found it in his clothes, but he’d have given me some if he’d had it, you understand? He said to see you! Look, Julie, I have money. I’ll pay you. But I need it now, you know? Please!”

  She tried to be intelligent. “Who are you?” She wrinkled her forehead at me and sipped her pink drink.

  “You know me. I’m J. W. Jackson. We met in Billy’s room. I was just looking for something to calm me down, you know? I mean my main man is off island, that’s the trouble. But I knew Billy and he told me I could talk to you.”

  “Did he?”

  “Call him up, for God’s sake! He’ll tell you! Here! Here’s some change . . .” I fumbled in my pocket. “Just call him, please!” I had a pretty good whine, I thought. Maybe I could make it onstage or the silver screen or on the street with a tin cup.

  “Hey, hey,” Julie said, putting her hand on my arm. “It’s okay, man. Hey, I believe you. I’ve been there myself, you know?” Her voice was gentle, concerned. She cared for me or maybe what she saw as my condition. “Not here,” she said. “Too many people. Most of them look okay, but you never know, you know?”

  I wondered how many times the two of us would say “you know” if we were not interrupted for, say, the next hour. A hundred? A thousand? “I’ve got a car,” I said. “We could use it.”

  “Okay,” she said with a gentle smile. “Drink your beer.”

  “I don’t want any beer,” I said. “I want . . .”

  “All right.” She smiled. “Take it easy, man. We’ll go.”

  We went. She walked as if she were on air, giving me compassionate looks. I wondered what she was on, and ran the cornucopia of popular drugs through my mind. I was five years out of date, but I imagined things hadn’t changed that much. Whatever she used, I was going to get some.

  “When you feel better, maybe we can come back,” she said, taking my arm. “Billy says the Fireside is a good place. Felt good to me, that’s for sure.” She laughed. I hurried us along.

  “What’s this sort of car?” she asked when we got there.

  “Never mind. Just get in. Oh, hell, it’s a Landcruiser, a sort of Japanese Jeep.” We got in. We were parked under a tree in the shadow cast by the streetlights. Nobody was around. I fumbled out my wallet and spilled some bills into my lap. “Here,” I said. “Hurry!”

  “Hey, take it easy, man. Roll up your sleeve. You want me to do it or do you want to do it yourself?”

  “I don’t care! I’ll do it myself. What do you have?”

  She opened her purse and took out a plastic syringe and a needle packaged in a sealed envelope. “Codeine. Look. My old man’s a doctor. I get these from his office. Sterile. Neat, huh? You can’t be too careful, you know? I only use them once, then I get rid of them.” She got out a vial of liquid. “You’ll be okay in just a few minutes, J.W. Just relax.”

  “I’ll do it,” I said, taking the syringe and the vial. I took them, looked at them, and put them in my pocket. Julie didn’t understand. Then she did understand. She put a hand to her mouth and bit lightly on her finger.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, God!”

  — 7 —

  I tried to look like stone. “Ever been
in jail, Julie?”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “No. Oh, God . . .”

  “Your parents know about this, Julie?”

  “No. Oh, God . . .”

  Time for the carrot. “They don’t need to know, Julie. But I do. You’re a nice kid, I think, but I’m not nice. You understand me? Talk to me?”

  “A narc,” she said, beginning to cry. “A narc. Oh, God . . .”

  I reached across and took her purse. She held on to it for a moment, then let it go. Inside were half a dozen more syringes and another vial. I found her wallet and took out her driver’s license. Julie Potter. I put the license in my pocket and flipped through the wallet. A student I.D. card from Brown, pictures of a family of five. Healthy Americans. Julie was the eldest child. Mom and Dad were clean-cut post-preppy types. Behind them was the house. Colonial. A country place. I found her father’s card. William Potter, M.D. It had addresses and telephone numbers. I put it in my pocket with the license. Then I took out the other syringes and the vial and added them to my collection. My pockets were beginning to bulge. Beside me, Julie’s head was down and her shoulders were shaking.

  “I don’t think you’re in too deep yet, Julie. You still have good skin tone, your hair still has a shine to it, and you’ve still got meat on your bones. You hear me?”

  She nodded, sobbing. I found a little package of tissues in her purse and gave them to her, then put the purse back in her lap. She cried into a tissue.

  “You didn’t get this stuff on the island, did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Where’d you get it, Julie?”

  “I won’t tell you!” She had a bit of spunk I’d have to get rid of.

  “Julie, you just tried to sell me this stuff. Your parents will have to know about it if we charge you.”

  She caught the “if” the way a bluefish takes a hook.

  “What do you mean ‘if’?”

  “I mean that if you talk to me I may not have to bring you into things at all. I mean you’re just an amateur, a small-time user. I’ll take you in if I can’t do any better, but I’m really interested in some other people. Maybe you can help me.”