an officer. Dick got some food and another beer, sat on a rock, and watched Elsie starting back from way across the pond, just a dark spot in the rippling light. The sun grew red and orange at the bottom; across the surface of the water and the land the near side of things turned blue and violet above their dark shadows. Dick felt his dry squint open up some, the rest of him ease up too—this violet half-light flooding the pond and marsh came into him like an easy tide.
When it got all the way dark, Joxer’s and Schuyler’s party began to light lamps—some candles in glass chimneys, some battery lamps, and a hissing gas lantern on the bow of Joxer’s water-jet to light up the picnic-table bar.
The noise of the people talking was the same noise Dick used to hear coming back in on a fishing boat easing past the yacht-club porch. The engine would be thumping at quarter-speed, and suddenly they’d hear the voices over it—the whole clump of voices at once and then one or two breaking loose and blowing off toward the boat like milkweed floss.
Dick had always liked the sound. It was like spring peepers. Not so raucous, but more keyed up than ducks feeding in the shallows, chuckling to each other in between dabs. A silly sound, but a sign of a season.
You couldn’t mind anything that came to its own place in a regular way. The seals went north in May, the terns came in, the striped bass came up the coast in schools. Real summer was bluefish, swordfish, tuna, sharks. When the water got to sixty-five degrees or so. And in the marsh, red-winged blackbirds, meadow-larks, and swallows. The spartina grew greener, everywhere there were new wicks of bright green.
By midsummer all the bright turned heavy and dark. In August the sky streaked with shooting stars, and next thing it was fall. The long mild fall, the clearest and best of Rhode Island seasons, with its own flurry of movement and ripeness. You could find stray cod all the way up the coves and creeks, broken off from the schools passing in deep water. Then the November gales blew through—things bent down, folded in place. The dead spartina broke, blew off, wrapped onto the next stalks, and sank under the rains down to the live roots, mixing into the blackness. It was useful death.
While Dick was thinking this, half-hearing the voices and the rustle of grasses stirred by light air across the pond, but still seeing a last glow of light in the sky and the sea out toward Block Island, he thought about his father’s death. He got away from his feeling of bitterness that the old man’s dying had stripped away the rest of the point, leaving his son and grandsons bare. Now he felt sorry for the old man, who must have felt his dying as a freak, not a regular gale but a tropical hurricane, too early, too destructive, tearing things away instead of bending them down and mixing them slowly into the dark marsh.
Then Dick tightened up again. Okay—he wouldn’t get the point back. He’d get the goddamn boat built. It’d all go into the boat—thelittle piece that the old man had left and whatever scraps and crumbs could still come off the point from the new owners. This clambake, for instance, went right into the engine. Five hundred dollars.
Joxer and Schuyler were good for some more. Parker would do for some too.
That was when Dick put Schuyler and Parker together in his mind. Slick and slick. He wasn’t as slick as either of them, but the two of them would get to each other. Dick felt lucky. He was still a dumb swamp Yankee compared to them, but he had a clear will. He’d wanted his boat for a long time, but now it seemed a part of the way it was all going. As sure as finding fish when all the signs were right.
Dick took some of the party back to the point. Sally and her husband and kids. Miss Perry, who reminded him it was getting near to Charlie’s birthday when Dick always took her and the boys out for her yearly fishing.
Back to the island. Dick gave the big
When it got all the way dark, Joxer’s and Schuyler’s party began to light lamps—some candles in glass chimneys, some battery lamps, and a hissing gas lantern on the bow of Joxer’s water-jet to light up the picnic-table bar.
The noise of the people talking was the same noise Dick used to hear coming back in on a fishing boat easing past the yacht-club porch. The engine would be thumping at quarter-speed, and suddenly they’d hear the voices over it—the whole clump of voices at once and then one or two breaking loose and blowing off toward the boat like milkweed floss.
Dick had always liked the sound. It was like spring peepers. Not so raucous, but more keyed up than ducks feeding in the shallows, chuckling to each other in between dabs. A silly sound, but a sign of a season.
You couldn’t mind anything that came to its own place in a regular way. The seals went north in May, the terns came in, the striped bass came up the coast in schools. Real summer was bluefish, swordfish, tuna, sharks. When the water got to sixty-five degrees or so. And in the marsh, red-winged blackbirds, meadow-larks, and swallows. The spartina grew greener, everywhere there were new wicks of bright green.
By midsummer all the bright turned heavy and dark. In August the sky streaked with shooting stars, and next thing it was fall. The long mild fall, the clearest and best of Rhode Island seasons, with its own flurry of movement and ripeness. You could find stray cod all the way up the coves and creeks, broken off from the schools passing in deep water. Then the November gales blew through—things bent down, folded in place. The dead spartina broke, blew off, wrapped onto the next stalks, and sank under the rains down to the live roots, mixing into the blackness. It was useful death.
While Dick was thinking this, half-hearing the voices and the rustle of grasses stirred by light air across the pond, but still seeing a last glow of light in the sky and the sea out toward Block Island, he thought about his father’s death. He got away from his feeling of bitterness that the old man’s dying had stripped away the rest of the point, leaving his son and grandsons bare. Now he felt sorry for the old man, who must have felt his dying as a freak, not a regular gale but a tropical hurricane, too early, too destructive, tearing things away instead of bending them down and mixing them slowly into the dark marsh.
Then Dick tightened up again. Okay—he wouldn’t get the point back. He’d get the goddamn boat built. It’d all go into the boat—thelittle piece that the old man had left and whatever scraps and crumbs could still come off the point from the new owners. This clambake, for instance, went right into the engine. Five hundred dollars.
Joxer and Schuyler were good for some more. Parker would do for some too.
That was when Dick put Schuyler and Parker together in his mind. Slick and slick. He wasn’t as slick as either of them, but the two of them would get to each other. Dick felt lucky. He was still a dumb swamp Yankee compared to them, but he had a clear will. He’d wanted his boat for a long time, but now it seemed a part of the way it was all going. As sure as finding fish when all the signs were right.
Dick took some of the party back to the point. Sally and her husband and kids. Miss Perry, who reminded him it was getting near to Charlie’s birthday when Dick always took her and the boys out for her yearly fishing.
Back to the island. Dick gave the big
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