Dead Leaves, Dark Corners

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  Kathy chalked the noise up to stupid teenagers. They always drove too fast on the residential roads.

  She meandered up and down a few more blocks. You couldn’t call it power walking; exercise wasn’t the point. The reason for the daily walks was to get outside and breathe the fresh air, tinged now with the musty aroma of decaying leaves, find amusement in the carved jack-o-lanterns and cheesy Halloween decorations, and clear the cobwebs from her mind.

  She smiled at a Jack Russell terrier barking at her from behind a chain link fence. On the next street lived the huskies, which she had named Tippy and White Walker and who vied for her attention. But she wasn’t going that way today. She went straight, and so just missed seeing her husband’s Lexus backing out of Sharon Stevens’ driveway. He was supposed to be at work, not visiting the town trollop. If she had witnessed the event, she would have immediately called her friend, Jack Burns, who was the best divorce attorney in the city. Instead, she continued her spontaneous journey, oblivious to her husband’s indiscretion.

  On Elm Street, she took a right. Most of the time she would turn left here, but she felt like having a longer walk than usual today. If she hadn’t, she would not have spotted Sarah getting into her boyfriend’s car. Her fifteen-year-old daughter should be in class at this time of the day.

  “Sarah!” she yelled, just as the girl had begun to slide into the passenger seat of Dylan’s Mustang. Two other teenage heads were visible through the back window. “What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you in school?”

  The cartoonish expression of guilt would have been funny if not for the situation. She was an A student; of their three children, she was ‘the good one.’

  The next minute Kathy stood next to the car, pulling her daughter out of the passenger seat.

  “Don’t embarrass me!” Sarah hissed.

  “Don’t make me embarrass you,” Kathy whispered in her daughter’s ear. Then louder, “Sorry, Dylan, and whoever you two are in the back. Sarah isn’t going anywhere with you today. Dylan, if you try this again, I will call your mother. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Please don’t tell my mom. It’ll never happen again.” The boy was popular, but not terribly bright.

  The Mustang took off at a speed that was well under the limit, then they heard the engine rev as it rounded the corner.

  “You’re in so much trouble, young lady.”

  “Don’t make a big deal out of this. It’s not like I skip school every day!”

  “And I’ll make damn sure that was the last time. Who was that in the backseat? Jenny and Carter?”

  A petulant nod.

  “Where were you all going?”

  “Just down to the lake for a couple of hours. We were going to have a picnic. Now you’ve ruined everything.” Sarah walked faster, eager to get ahead.

  “Keep it up. You’re only making it worse on yourself.”

  The remaining walk was finished in silence. As soon as they arrived at home, Sarah raced to her room. At the last second, she decided not to slam the bedroom door behind her. Even though she expected to be grounded for a month, she was the lucky one.

  While she pouted on her bed, the automobile containing her three friends was hit at high speed by another vehicle at the intersection of the town’s two busiest streets. Dylan’s front and side airbags saved his life, but the physical and emotional scars would last for years. He would never play football again. The teenagers in the backseat who were not wearing seatbelts suffered multiple injuries and would soon be airlifted to a local hospital. The driver of the Nissan panel van, which had run a red light and plowed into the right side of the Mustang, died at the scene. A woman was found in the back of the van, gagged and tied to the floor. Because she had been securely immobilized, she survived the accident unscathed. The impact of the van crushed the Mustang’s front passenger seat, reducing it to a tenth its previous size. No one sitting there would have lived through the collision.

  Downstairs, Kathy was pondering an appropriate punishment for her daughter, when the phone rang.

  Introduction for “The Lighthouse: A Novelette”

  I was inspired to write “The Lighthouse” when I read a news story about a man by the name of Marc Pointud who intended to spend sixty days alone on an allegedly haunted lighthouse island off the coast of France. I wanted my story to take place near the eastern seaboard of the United States and I selected the actual lighthouse island of Little Gull for the location. If you research both Tévennec, the French island, and Little Gull, you will realize my fictional island is a kind of overlapping of the two. I have utilized some of the mythology surrounding Tévennec, and populated my story with names of actual former Little Gull lighthouse keepers.

  The rest is pure fiction...

  The Lighthouse: A Novelette

  Day 1, Little Gull Island, 3:17 pm

  I’m finally here! All those months of work...the crowd-sourcing, the networking, the endless meetings over crappy lunches, the butt-kissing of the Coast Guard officials, the schmoozing of the United States Lighthouse Society...have all paid off. I’m here, on Little Gull Island, where I’ll be living for sixty days, alone and with virtually no contact from the outside world. I have my cell phone, but I’m discovering even now that coverage is spotty here, which is okay since I won’t be talking to people anyway. I have the rented sat-phone for emergencies, so I’m not worried. In addition to raising awareness (and therefore money) for the restoration of the old lighthouse keeper’s residence, I intend to immerse myself in the adventure and document it here in my journal. When I get home, I’ll publish segments of the journal to my blog in weekly installments, and if I’m lucky, it will go viral. I’m no Jack London, but I think I can string words together well enough to tell my story. Maybe if I’m having a good hair day, I’ll make a video too. HA!

  I have tons of stuff to do getting settled in, so this first entry will be short. More, MUCH more, to follow soon!

  Day 1, Little Gull Island, 9:22 pm

  What an incredible day! How many people will ever experience anything like what I’m doing? Granted, most everyone else is warm and cozy in their centrally-heated homes at the moment, while I’m wet from head to toe and freezing my ass off. Yet I wouldn’t trade places with them for anything. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive. Exhausted, but alive.

  So a quick recap of my first day, before I’m too sleepy to write and while the memories are fresh...

  I arrived by boat (a woefully inadequate twenty-one foot bow rider) at noon, with my provisions mostly intact and myself partially dry. The skipper I hired had assured me that he and his vessel were up to the task of getting me from the Niantic River marina to the worm-eaten dock at Little Gull. I’m not exaggerating when I say there were a few times this morning when I feared for my life. ‘The Race’ (a four mile expanse of ocean at the opening of the Long Island Sound which runs between Fishers Island and Little Gull) was harrowing. Alternately a deep channel and shallow rocky reef, The Race is well-known by locals as tricky to navigate under optimal conditions, and dangerous or even deadly when the water is choppy and the rip current stronger than usual. Today was one of those dangerous days. Early October in this part of New England is usually lovely, but we do get the occasional autumn nor’easter – sometimes wind and rain, sometimes wind and snow and ice. It was just wind and rain today, but the waves were wicked, reaching eight to ten feet, according to my intrepid, colorful captain. I think his description of the sea was something along the lines of ‘water frothing and foaming up into jagged washing machines of standing waves.’ Scary, huh? My pants got the wettest of all the clothes I was wearing, and I admit all that salt water might not have come from the ocean.

  Anyway, I made it. It took us twenty minutes to unload all my gear and supplies and stack it on the stony shore at the base of the steps leading up to the lighthouse. Each time we took a load off the boat, I was afraid the decrepit dock would collapse under our feet...but it held firm. When we had finis
hed, Captain Dan gave me a salute as he untied the mooring ropes. I think he was about to say something, but instead he shook his head, slid behind the wheel, and got the hell out of Dodge. I hope he made it back to the mainland, since I have a reservation (paid in advance) for him to pick me up in exactly sixty days.

  I put a lot of thought into what I would bring on this enterprise. There aren’t any food stores or pharmacies on Little Gull. There’s nothing at all on this craggy, postage-stamp island except an automated lighthouse and its attached keeper’s dwelling – austere accommodations a hundred years ago, and now literally crumbling into the Atlantic. With all the pledge money, we’ll be able to restore this place to its former glory, but first I must endure two months of solitude and discomfort. I think I’ve planned well. I brought lots of lightweight, shelf-stable food (oatmeal, powdered eggs, instant coffee, freeze-dried meals...all of which only require a bit of hot water to prepare), and forty gallons of water. I’ll need to be very careful about using up my H2O too soon. I plan to wash my clothes and myself in sea water and save the potable water for drinking and cooking. I’ll also use sea water for flushing the toilet, which, by the way, was about as nasty as you might imagine. I’ve decided it will only be used for number two...number one will go into the ocean. Have you ever pissed off a cliff into the Atlantic during the remnants of a nor’easter? Word of advice: make sure your back is to the wind.

  Signing off for the night...I can barely keep my eyes open. I’m extinguishing the kerosene lamp and crawling into my sleeping bag.

  My first night on Little Gull...

  Day 2, Little Gull Island, 8:40 am

  Well, that was an interesting night. And by ‘interesting,’ I don’t mean comfortable, warm, or quiet. I might have gotten about three hours of actual sleep. The rest of the night I listened to the waves crash against the rocks (which is rather nice) and the wind howl through the holes in the roof and the cracks in the walls (not so nice), and watched the flash of the beacon every fifteen seconds through my closed eyelids. The silver lining? The fog horn was deactivated in 1997 when the lighthouse became automated. Halle-freaking-lujah.

  I’m sure I’ll get used to the sights and sounds of this place. I better, since I’ll need to get some sleep over the next fifty-nine nights.

  I just had my breakfast of scrambled eggs and Nescafe prepared on my Coleman stove. I can’t believe I considered not bringing it (and the five extra propane cylinders), thinking I would just make do with MREs and cold water. There’s something about having hot food and a steaming cup of coffee that makes you feel normal, like everything is going to be okay. If I ever go on safari in the Serengeti, I’ll have a candlelight dinner on a linen-covered table in the middle of the savannah, surrounded by Acacia trees and roaring lions. I love that image: the juxtaposition of the civilized and the wild. The scrambled eggs and Nescafe I just enjoyed were a tamer, less romantic version of that.

  This place is a dump.

  The structure – the keeper’s living quarters – is about thirty feet long by twenty feet wide and nestled at the base of the lighthouse tower. The entire building is just one large open room; there are no walls other than exterior. The ‘bathroom’ is the revolting toilet I mentioned before, set in a corner. Maybe there was a screen at one time to give the user some privacy. If so, it’s long gone. The ‘bedroom’ lies at the opposite side. Rusted bedsprings were separated from the rest of the room by curtains that have rotted away, leaving only empty hooks in the ceiling. The ‘kitchen’ runs along one of the long walls and is nothing more than a series of warped shelves and an opening in the floor and roof where a wood-burning stove and its chimney must once have sat. Like the antiquated Fresnel beacon lens that was removed in ‘95 (and currently on display at the East End Maritime Museum in Greenport, NY), perhaps the stove was also saved for posterity. All I know is the hole in the roof allows a hell of a lot of rain and seawater into this place. Patching it is one of the first things on my to-do list. Thank goodness for plastic sheeting and duct tape.

  The building – my home for the next two months – is damp, moldy, rickety, and smells like a hundred years’ worth of boiled cabbage. I have no idea what the keepers and their families ate; all I know is everything had to come from the mainland. Which brings me full circle to my Coleman and the decent-if-not-gourmet food I’ll be preparing on it. I have a feeling it’s going to keep me sane in the weeks to come.

  There is a door near the bedsprings that opens into the interior of the tower; the keepers didn’t have to brave inclement weather on their commute to work. The spiral staircase that leads eighty-one feet up to the lantern room looks structurally sound, but I haven’t ventured up there yet. That’s also on my list for today: further exploration of this two-acre rock and all its mysteries.

  Commencing in five, four, three, two, one...

  Day 2, Little Gull Island, 6:49 pm

  You know what they say in the real estate business? Location, location, location. I just watched the most spectacular sunset of my life from the tower’s catwalk. The wrought-iron stairs are in good shape. (I guess the Coast Guard makes sure of that since they lead to the beacon.) I took my dinner up to the top to watch the sunset, and it was worth the effort. The storm is gone, but it left behind a few wispy canvasses for the setting sun to splash with color. Fiery orange and cotton candy pink grudgingly gave way to swaths of indigo...cumulus that looked like angry bruises in the evening sky. It was a nice, calm ending to a stimulating day of solitary adventure. This may have to be part of my evening routine. I might even carry my folding table and chair up there tomorrow. Eight stories is a lot of stair-climbing, but at least I’ll be getting some cardio.

  To recap my day, first I patched the hole in the roof with some of the plastic sheeting, held in place with rocks, which are in abundant supply here. It would take some hefty gusts to knock them off. The wired-glass panes in the two windows are intact, but there was daylight showing around the casings. There’s no Home Depot down the street, but in the absence of caulk, I think the duct tape will do the trick. Much of the cold air was coming in around the windows and through that hole in the roof, so tonight I should be warmer. I don’t want to use the portable heater unless I’m freezing; I need to keep the propane for my stove. I can always layer, and my sleeping bag is heat-retaining even under Arctic conditions. It doesn’t get that cold here, thankfully.

  I rigged an indoor clothesline from wall to wall to hang my wet garments. I brought five sets of clothes, and it’s a good thing I did. Whatever I wear is damp after just an hour outside of the building...the sea spray is unending. I have a ten-pack of Ivory bars for washing me and everything else – it’s an excellent multi-purpose soap. I’ll have to work up the courage to bathe in the ocean though. I don’t think this part of the Atlantic ever gets very warm. The temperature of the water is about fifty degrees, and on my naked butt, that won’t be pleasant. I think I’ll wait until I can no longer stand my own stench before I brave an ocean bath.

  All in all, it was a productive day. I’m looking forward to a better night’s sleep now that it’s a little more comfortable in here. Don’t get me wrong...this place is still a dump. But it feels more familiar now than it did the first night, and my anxiety level is lower than it was this time yesterday. Turning down the kerosene lamp now. Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite!

  Day 3, Little Gull Island, 7:21 am

  I wish I could say my second night was restful, but I’d be lying. It was better than the first night, but that damn light drove me crazy. It flashed every fifteen seconds and was so bright that it penetrated my closed eyelids. Tonight I’ll have to rig up some kind of eye mask. The wind didn’t blow through the cracks in the building as badly (yay for duct tape!), but the acoustics in here are terrible. The howling gusts take on a sort of growling, beastly quality...like they are enraged for my having blocked their ingress. How’s that for a literary anthropomorphism? I’ll probably use earplugs tonight. I ha
ven’t so far because I wanted to be able to hear anything that might be creeping up on me. But I need to get more sleep. Two nights in a row and only six hours total...that just won’t cut it for an eight-hour-per-night sleeper like me.

  On tap for today is more exploring. You wouldn’t think there would be much to discover on a two-acre island, but you would be wrong. Imagine a jagged, lopsided wedding cake made of ancient lava rock jutting thirty feet out of the sea – that’s Little Gull Island. Yesterday I found a bird’s nest with five lovely speckled, greenish-blue eggs inside. Not sure if they’re seagull or cormorant, since both of those birds are copious in this area. I think it will be fun to check the eggs’ progress; I hope they hatch while I’m still here, although I have no idea what the incubation period is for sea bird eggs. I’m hoping for cormorant because I bet the hatchlings will look like baby pterodactyls...smaller versions of their prehistoric-looking parents. I also saw some seals swimming, but they never came ashore. Maybe today they will. This is supposed to be a sanctuary for them, as is the nearby Fishers Island and Plum Island. Yes...THAT Plum Island...home of the spooky, top-secret Animal and Disease Center run by the government and which gained notoriety in the movie The Silence of the Lambs. More on that later. Now it’s time to explore!

  Day 3, Little Gull Island, 8:59 pm

  Another enjoyable day of adventuring. The weather wasn’t perfect, but at least the rain held off. Dark clouds hung low...a bit oppressive, but they kept the air warmer than it might have otherwise been. I got some striking pictures of the waves crashing against the rocks with that foreboding sky as a backdrop. I need to be careful with my camera, though, since I only have two extra battery packs. Perhaps I should set a daily picture limit? I’ll have to think about that.