"Why is it, the worse the weather, the worse they drive?" George asked.
"Dunno. It isn't even bad yet."
"Assholes," George said.
"Yeah. I bought some black walnut," Oliver said. "I just saw a woman in
Becky's; she had eyes the same color."
"You want I should go back?"
"I'm too short for her," Oliver said.
"You never know. Some of those short people in Hollywood have big
reputations."
"They're stars," Oliver said. "I'm just short."
"What are you doing with the wood?"
"Haven't decided--maybe a table."
"I'm getting into casting. You ought to come over; I'm going to try out
my furnace."
"Casting what?"
"Bronze. Small pieces."
"Hey, whoa, let me out." Oliver pointed at the ferry terminal, and
George stopped.
"Yeah, come on over tomorrow morning, if you're not doing anything."
"O.K., I'll see."
George beeped twice and drove into the thickening snow. Oliver bought a
ticket for Peaks Island. The ferry was nearly empty, cheerful with its
high snub bow painted yellow, white superstructure, and red roof. It
was not as spirited as the red and black tugs that herd tankers to the
Montreal pipeline, nothing could match the tugboats--but the ferry was
close; it had the human touch, a dory that couldn't stay away from
cheesecake, broad in the beam, resolute, proof against the cold rollers
of the outer bay. After two long blasts, the ferry churned away from
the wharf. A line of gulls on the lee side of a rooftop watched them
move into the channel and gather speed.
Twenty minutes later, the ferry slowed, shuddered, and stopped at the
Peaks Island landing. Oliver walked uphill to the main street, unsure
why he had come. Habit took him around by his former house. No lights
were on, no sign of anyone home. He continued around the block,
surprised at his disappointment. He hadn't seen Charlotte for six
months and had no reason to see her now. He considered this over a cup
of coffee at Will's. It was natural to check in sometimes with old
friends. I mean, we were married, he told his cup.
_Jealousy is a symptom--like the effects of drought_. Owl told him that
once. They had been standing on the club dock, having one of their rare
conversations. He was telling Owl about Kiersten, how she wouldn't take
him seriously, her smile always for Gary--star everything. Owl's voice
was sympathetic but with a dissatisfied edge, as though he were
impatient with or imprisoned by his superiority, his tenure at Brown,
his aluminum boat, one of the fastest on the sound.
Oliver never thought to ask for an explanation, and then, sadly, it was
too late. It was years before he understood Owl's jealousy
pronouncement. He wasn't jealous any longer, certainly not where
Kiersten was concerned. God, she'd driven everybody crazy.
Territory--now that was different. You want your own territory, your
own mate, your house, your space. It still pissed him off to see his
old garage surrounded by Mike's messy piles of building materials. But
he wasn't jealous. Charlotte was better off without him; she had a
child, finally.
The waitress had a tolerant smile. Thank God for waitresses. He left a
big tip and got back on the ferry.
Snow was drifting against brick buildings as Oliver walked into the Old
Port. He decided to stop for a pint. Deweys was busy; people were
packing it in early, finding strength in numbers. "A Guinness," he
ordered, "for this fine March day." Sam set a dark glass, overflowing,
on the bar in front of him. Oliver bent forward and slurped a mouthful.
"You could live on Guinness foam," he said.
"And the occasional piece of cheese," Sam said. Patti Page was singing,
"_I remember the night of The Tennessee Waltz . . . _" Her voice, the
fiddle, the stately waltz told the old story: "_stole my sweetheart
from me . . . _" One way or another, sooner or later, we are all
defeated. Oliver felt a swell of sadness and the beginning of
liberation.
"God, what a song," he said to Mark Barnes, who had come up beside him.
"Classic. How you doing, guy?"
"Hanging in there." More people came in, stamping snow from their
boots. Patti Page gave way to Tom Waits belting out, _Jersey Girl_.
"Another classic," Oliver said. Tragedy was just offstage in _Jersey
Girl_, momentarily held at bay by sex and love and hope. "All downhill
from here, Mark."
"Life is fine, my man."
"What? Must be a new dancer in town. How do you do it, anyway?"
"Innate sensuality," Mark said. "One glance across a crowded room . .
."
"Yeah, right. My rooms are crowded with women in black pants who have
eyes only for each other. Although, I did see a beauty in Becky's this
morning. Had two little girls with her---and a friend."
"What kind of friend?"
"A lady friend, not a black pantser, I'm pretty sure. Francesca, her
name was."
"Francesca? Tall chick? Good looking?"
"I wouldn't call her a chick, exactly. More like a Madonna by
Modigliani."
"Yeah, Francesca. She lives in Cape Elizabeth. I was in a yoga class
with her once."
"I ought to take yoga," Oliver said.
"The ratio is good, man. Francesca. That was years ago. She married
some guy who works for Hannaford's."
"I knew it," Oliver said.
"They can't help it," Mark said. "They have this nesting thing."
Dancers came to Portland, walked around the block a couple of times,
and met Mark. Six to eighteen months later, they married doctors.
"Did you ever think of settling down?" Oliver asked.
"I'm trying, man. Who do you like in the NCAA's? Duke?"
"No way. Robots," Oliver said. "Smug. Bred to win from birth."
"I got a hundred on them." Mark made money helping executives scale the
job ladder. He was amused and ironic about it. They knocked themselves
out; he got the dancers--for a time.
"Hey, Richard!"
"Mark . . . Oliver . . . The boss let us out early." Pleased with
this statement, Richard O'Grady, who acknowledged no boss but "The Man
Upstairs," shuffled to his customary place at a long table on the other
side of the bar. He was bright eyed, slight, and stooped, a survivor of
diabetes and severe arthritis.
"Amazing smile!" Oliver said.
"A world authority on blood chemistry," Mark said. "You'd never know
it--in here every night drinking scotch."
"Every night but Sunday," Oliver said. "I asked him, one time, where he
got that smile. I thought he'd say something like: it was his mother's.
He said, 'Don't know.' Then he said, 'Use it!' It was like a command
he'd been given."
"Not too many around here that haven't had a drink on Richard," Mark
said. "I'm outa here. Duke, man."
"Boo."
"Oliver," Richard called, "Help me with this plowman's lunch." Oliver
sat on a wooden bench across the table from Richard.
"I'll have a bite," he said. "What's happening?"
"Oh, the usual," Richard said. "Palace intrigue. Too many chemists in
one lab. I shouldn't complain; they do a good job." He bent over the
table and lowered his voice. "One of the supervisors is a bit rigid. I
hear about it, you know. I've tried to talk to her. It's delicate." He
brightened as he straightened. "I'm sending her to a conference in
Amsterdam. Maybe something will happen."
"That would be the place," Oliver said, cutting a slab of Stilton.
"How are you doing? Working?"
"In between programming projects at the moment," Oliver said. "Not sure
what to do next. Sometimes I wonder what's the point of doing anything."
"Oliver . . ." Richard reminded him, pointing at the smoky ceiling,
"you've got to trust The Man Upstairs. It's His plan." This would be
too corny to take if it weren't coming from Richard.
"I wish He'd let me in on it." Oliver took a long swallow of stout.
"I'll tell you what I do when I feel bad," Richard said. "I find
somebody who's worse off than I am, and I do something to help him out.
Or her out. Works every time." He turned toward Sam and held one
crippled hand in the air. "Over here, Sam, when you can." Oliver didn't
think in terms of other people. He related to them as required, but his
focus was inward. He imagined Richard's process: let's see, I feel bad;
therefore, it's time to find person X who is worse off than I am and
help him out. Or her. He could picture eligible persons, but he
stumbled on the help part. What did he have to offer? Was a dollar bill
going to make a difference? He felt blocked from the part of himself
that might contain helpful things he could pass along.
"I like this chutney," he said, "good with this cheese. What was your
father like, Richard?"
"Great guy," Richard said. He sloshed the scotch and ice cubes around
in his glass. "I'll tell you a story about my father. He couldn't tell
time. Someone gave him a watch, but he didn't want to learn. He was
proud of the watch, wore it every day. He used to go to people and say,
'I'm having a little trouble reading this,' and then he'd hold his
wrist up." Richard raised his arm proudly out in front of him. "And
he'd squint, as if he had eye trouble. 'Oh, it's a quarter to nine,'
they'd say." Richard threw back his head and laughed. "My dad was a
great guy--could barely read, always singing. He worked on the docks."
"Hi, Richard." A thin woman approached. She had dark eyes and bleached
blonde hair pulled into a tight pony tail.
"Hi, Sally. How are you?"
"O.K."
"Do you know Oliver?"
"Seen you around," she said, appraising him. Oliver felt about a four
out of ten, maybe a three.
"Sally works at Mercy Hospital. That cigarette isn't doing you any
good, you know."
"Nag, nag, nag."
"You got one for me?" Richard lit up the room with his smile.
"Oh, Richard!" Sally felt in her purse with one hand.
"What are you drinking?" Richard asked.
"I'll see you guys," Oliver said, sliding to the end of the bench and
standing. Sally took his place. "Thanks for the eats, Richard."
"Stay warm," Richard said.
A plow rumbled by, as Oliver stepped out into the storm. He followed it
along the white empty street. He considered stopping at Giobbi's
Restaurant, but he turned up Danforth and walked to State Street where
he lived in a second floor apartment on the last block before the
Million Dollar bridge.
Verdi was waiting. He jumped from the window sill and made a fuss
bumping against Oliver's legs. "Hungry, are we?" Oliver bent over and
stroked him from head to tail. "Yes, very large and very fierce is
Verdi. Very fierce." Verdi was brown and black, heavyset, with a large
tomcat's head and yellow eyes. He padded deliberately over to the
lengths of walnut leaning upright in one corner of the room and
scratched luxuriously, stretching full length, as though he had been
waiting to do this for some time. "Aieee! Swell, Verdi." Oliver hung
his coat on a peg and gathered up the boards. For the moment, he laid
them on the table. The cat was irritated. "How about some nice pine,"
Oliver said. "Much better than walnut. I'll get you a nice soft piece
of pine. In the meantime . . ." He opened a can of salmon Friskies.
Verdi ate, and Oliver refilled his water dish. The boards were
beautiful. He'd been right about the color of Francesca's eyes. There
was an actual black walnut, a large one, at the edge of the parking
area behind his building. It shaded his kitchen window during the
summer and dropped hundreds of furry green walnuts that were gathered
by squirrels each fall. Oliver had planted six walnuts in yogurt
containers. He'd let them freeze first, done everything right, but none
of them came up. The seeds were finicky for such a powerful tree. Maybe
they had to pass through a squirrel. "Biology is complicated," he said
to Verdi.
The kitchen had been a master bedroom in the original house. The
appliances, counter, and sink were arranged along one wall and part of
another, leaving plenty of space for a table in the center. The wall to
the adjoining living room had been mostly removed; the two rooms
functioned as one. Steps led to a landing and then to an attic bedroom
with a view of the harbor. There was a fireplace that he rarely used.
In one corner, a small table held a computer system.
Oliver sat at the kitchen table and ran the heels of his hands along
the walnut. He enjoyed making things from wood: easy shelves, chests, a
cradle once for a wedding present. He had a table saw and a router in
the basement, but he kept his tools under a rough workbench that he had
built along one wall of the kitchen. A "Workmate" stood in the living
room near the door to the hall. Usually it was covered with mail.
The touch of the wood was reassuring. Deep in the grain, in what might
be made from the grain, was something iconic and alive, more alive than
what could be said about it. Oliver took particular pleasure in
finishing a shelf or a chest, hand rubbing the surface and seeing the
patterns of the grain shine and deepen. He would have to buy legs if he
were going to make a table. Or learn how to use a lathe. He didn't have
a lathe. Maybe he could make a small box--to hold something special. He
could give it to someone.
Who? A wave of longing swept over him. Who would care? He had an
impulse to put his head down on his arms and give up.
"There are no cowards on this ship!" God, he hadn't thought of that for
years. His high school English teacher had said it, loudly. It was the
punch line of a war story. The teacher had accompanied a couple of his
Navy buddies to the bow of their ship; one of them was bragging that he
would dive. The captain had come up behind them, asked what they were
doing, and then ordered them _all_ to dive. Apparently, it had been a
high point of sorts in his teacher's life.
"No cowards on this ship, Verdi," Oliver said, standing. Toast. Tea.
When Oliver was upset, he turned to food. He had a high metabolism and
ate what he wanted. His body looked chubby on its short square frame,
but there was more muscle than fat under his skin; he could move
quickly when he wished. He had a wide serious mouth with strong teeth.
His eyebrows and hair were black. His eyes were large and dark brown
with lids that slanted slightly across the corners. Women looked at him
and were puzzled by something that was different. He almost never got
into it.
"Oliver Muni Prescott," he had told a few. "Owl Prescott was my
stepfather. My father is Japanese--Muni, his name is--I never met him."
The toast popped up. Oliver buttered it and laid on marmalade. He put
the toast and tea on a tray and carried it upstairs. His mattress was
on the floor next to a window set low in the wall, under the eaves. He
lay down, munched toast, and watched the snow falling and blowing. When
he turned his head, the window was like a skylight. Mother is coming,
he remembered. The image of his mother with her flamboyant blonde hair
was replaced immediately by that of Francesca--quiet, natural, and no
less forceful.
He finished the toast and held the mug of tea on his chest with both
hands. He could see Francesca's eyes in front of him. They were asking
something, and he was answering. Her question was more complicated than
he had thought at Becky's Diner. Were they the same? Was she beautiful?
Was he for real? He relaxed and aligned in her direction. The answer
was reassuring. "Yes," he said. He lifted his head and sipped tea.
"O.K.," he said.
2.
The sky was bright blue, the wind gusty out of the northwest. Oliver
squinted at the fresh snowbanks on his way to Becky's.
Sunglasses--should have worn sunglasses. He had oatmeal and a blueberry
muffin, drank coffee, and listened to the waitresses chatter about
their dates. Francesca did not come in, but her image remained vivid.
He waited, not so much for her as for something in his mood to change,
to see if it _would_ change. It didn't. He continued to feel slightly
excited, as though he had something to look forward to. Francesca had
met him in a central place. Was it a place that they made, sheltered
between them? Or was it a place inside each of them that was similar,
more accessible in each other's company? Wherever it was, Oliver knew
that he wanted to go there again.
He walked home, shoveled out his Jeep, started it, and scraped the
windows, thinking that he'd see what George was up to. He could have
walked, but there wasn't much cat food left. He'd shop, maybe take a
drive.
George had a loft in a warehouse at the foot of Danforth Street. "Hey
there, Oliver" he said, opening the door. "Big day--Foundry Goodbean!"
"I brought some bagels," Oliver said.