some divers working on the lake last year – something to do with one of the wrecks. I guess he got talking to them.”
Billy watches the boy as he eats – the way he keeps drawing back his hair, with an almost girlish fastidiousness; the way he stops chewing and stares, abstracted, into space. After a while, Billy moves to a chair beside him. “So what the heck is an underwater engineer?”
At first, Jimmy does not respond. Then a foggy adolescent’s voice sounds. “Like if they’re building a bridge, the underwater engineer designs the parts that are under-water. Or if they’re going to blow up a bridge, he has to godown and look at the underwater parts – tell them where to put the dynamite.”
“So it involves diving?”
“I did some last summer.”
Billy waits for more, and when it does not come, he tells his nephew a little about his own diving experiences: the red fish, the blue fish, the barracudas pivoting like compass needles. The boy appears to be listening, but after a few seconds, his attention sinks away. “So you have to take training, I guess.” Blinking, Jimmy looks at him. “To get your diving papers – you have to take a course or what?”
“Lots of courses.”
“You need high school or –” Yvonne has mentioned that Jimmy talks all the time about dropping out.
“I guess. Yeah.”
Another silence falls. His nephew’s isolation seems deeper than a normal fourteen-year-old’s. There is something stunned in him, Billy thinks. Remote from life. He has the boy on his mind the next day as he works on his boat. When Yvonne drops by, he asks, “You sure he’s doing gas?”
“Sometimes he gets these sores around his mouth. Or you can smell it on him.” Minnows of light flicker over the hull. “There’s a whole gang of them. A year ago they were all good kids. Then something happened. I date it from Ross Shewaybick.”
He has heard about Ross, the boy who hanged himself.
“Why do you think Ross –”
She shakes her head. “It was Jimmy who found him. Up there at Pepper Point. I don’t think he’s ever got over it. Hewon’t talk about it – just gets mad.” The minnows go on swarming. “Sometimes I think there’s something they see, these boys. Something they can hear, you know, calling to them. You can’t argue them out of it. They don’t hear you.” He knows what it is: the dark place. He knew it when he was young, even before his mother drowned. He knew it worse afterwards – the thrill of coming close to it, without letting it take you. In some moods you felt you could play the game and never be caught; in others, you didn’t care.
The next day, driving his boat onto the lake, he heads for the Blue Osprey. He has never liked crossing the open lake – Nigushi six miles wide at this point, hundreds of feet deep – but it’s the shortest way to the lodge. Around him a vast silken calm spreads toward the crayon stroke of the far shore.
Off to his left, a gull flaps up. Its beak is open, and though his outboard muffles all sounds, he seems to hear it cry out.
The December afternoon before his mother drowned, she had danced him around their tiny living room. “Tonight’s my night,” she told him. “I got a feeling in my bones.” He had witnessed these eruptions of optimism before and knew they came to nothing. When she said that tonight was her night, she did not mean finding a man: finding a man was no trick at all for a beautiful woman. She meant findinga man who stayed, a man she wanted to stay: a good man, in other words, not like Donny Pace, who had broken her arm, or Hooch Robinson, whom she’d caught stealing from her purse, but a man with some kind of steadiness: a man you could count on to do the ordinary things with you like eating or shopping without turning them into some test of his power or a chance to put you down.
She had caught a ride into Black Falls with Bart and Mary Simmons, who ran the post office in Carton Harbour. They had dropped her at the
Billy watches the boy as he eats – the way he keeps drawing back his hair, with an almost girlish fastidiousness; the way he stops chewing and stares, abstracted, into space. After a while, Billy moves to a chair beside him. “So what the heck is an underwater engineer?”
At first, Jimmy does not respond. Then a foggy adolescent’s voice sounds. “Like if they’re building a bridge, the underwater engineer designs the parts that are under-water. Or if they’re going to blow up a bridge, he has to godown and look at the underwater parts – tell them where to put the dynamite.”
“So it involves diving?”
“I did some last summer.”
Billy waits for more, and when it does not come, he tells his nephew a little about his own diving experiences: the red fish, the blue fish, the barracudas pivoting like compass needles. The boy appears to be listening, but after a few seconds, his attention sinks away. “So you have to take training, I guess.” Blinking, Jimmy looks at him. “To get your diving papers – you have to take a course or what?”
“Lots of courses.”
“You need high school or –” Yvonne has mentioned that Jimmy talks all the time about dropping out.
“I guess. Yeah.”
Another silence falls. His nephew’s isolation seems deeper than a normal fourteen-year-old’s. There is something stunned in him, Billy thinks. Remote from life. He has the boy on his mind the next day as he works on his boat. When Yvonne drops by, he asks, “You sure he’s doing gas?”
“Sometimes he gets these sores around his mouth. Or you can smell it on him.” Minnows of light flicker over the hull. “There’s a whole gang of them. A year ago they were all good kids. Then something happened. I date it from Ross Shewaybick.”
He has heard about Ross, the boy who hanged himself.
“Why do you think Ross –”
She shakes her head. “It was Jimmy who found him. Up there at Pepper Point. I don’t think he’s ever got over it. Hewon’t talk about it – just gets mad.” The minnows go on swarming. “Sometimes I think there’s something they see, these boys. Something they can hear, you know, calling to them. You can’t argue them out of it. They don’t hear you.” He knows what it is: the dark place. He knew it when he was young, even before his mother drowned. He knew it worse afterwards – the thrill of coming close to it, without letting it take you. In some moods you felt you could play the game and never be caught; in others, you didn’t care.
The next day, driving his boat onto the lake, he heads for the Blue Osprey. He has never liked crossing the open lake – Nigushi six miles wide at this point, hundreds of feet deep – but it’s the shortest way to the lodge. Around him a vast silken calm spreads toward the crayon stroke of the far shore.
Off to his left, a gull flaps up. Its beak is open, and though his outboard muffles all sounds, he seems to hear it cry out.
The December afternoon before his mother drowned, she had danced him around their tiny living room. “Tonight’s my night,” she told him. “I got a feeling in my bones.” He had witnessed these eruptions of optimism before and knew they came to nothing. When she said that tonight was her night, she did not mean finding a man: finding a man was no trick at all for a beautiful woman. She meant findinga man who stayed, a man she wanted to stay: a good man, in other words, not like Donny Pace, who had broken her arm, or Hooch Robinson, whom she’d caught stealing from her purse, but a man with some kind of steadiness: a man you could count on to do the ordinary things with you like eating or shopping without turning them into some test of his power or a chance to put you down.
She had caught a ride into Black Falls with Bart and Mary Simmons, who ran the post office in Carton Harbour. They had dropped her at the
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