Stern Men

7

AT THE END of the week, Cal Cooley and Ruth drove back to Rockland, Maine. It rained the whole time. She sat in the front seat of the Buick with Cal, and he did not shut up. He teased her about her one set of clothes and about the shopping trip to Blaire’s, and he did grotesque imitations of her mother’s servile attendance on Miss Vera.

“Shut up, Cal,” Ruth said.

“Oh, Miss Vera, shall I wash your hair now? Oh, Miss Vera, shall I file your corns now? Oh, Miss Vera, shall I wipe your butt now?”

“Leave my mother alone,” Ruth said. “She does what she has to do.”

“Oh, Miss Vera, shall I lie down in traffic now?”

“You’re worse, Cal. You kiss more Ellis ass than anyone. You play that old man for every penny, and you suck up like crazy to Miss Vera.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sweetheart. I think your mother wins the prize.”

“Up yours, Cal.”

“So articulate, Ruth!”

“Up yours, you sycophant.”

Cal burst out laughing. “That’s better! Let’s eat.”

Ruth’s mother had sent them off with a basket of bread and cheese and chocolates, and Ruth now opened it. The cheese was a small wheel, soft and wax-covered, and when Ruth cut into it, it released a deadly odor, like something rotting at the bottom of a damp hole. Specifically, it smelled like vomit at the bottom of that hole.

“Jesus fuck!” Cal shouted.

“Oh, my God!” Ruth said, and she stuffed the cheese back into the basket, slamming down the wicker cover. She pulled the top of her sweatshirt up over her nose. Two useless measures.

“Throw it out!” Cal shouted. “Get that out of here.”

Ruth opened the basket, rolled down the window, and flung out the cheese. It bounced and spun on the highway behind them. She hung her head out of the window, taking deep breaths.

“What was that?” Cal demanded. “What was that?”

“My mom said it was sheep’s milk cheese,” Ruth said, when she caught her breath. “It’s homemade. Somebody gave it to Miss Vera for Christmas.”

“To murder her!”

“Apparently it’s a delicacy.”

“A delicacy? She said it was a delicacy?”

“Leave her alone.”

“She wanted us to eat that?”

“It was a gift. She didn’t know.”

“Now I know where the expression ‘cut the cheese’ comes from.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“I never knew why they said that before, but now I know,” Cal said. “Cut the cheese. Never thought about it.”

Ruth said, “That’s enough, Cal. Do me a favor and don’t talk to me for the rest of the trip.”

After a long silence, Cal Cooley said thoughtfully, “Where does the expression ‘blow a fart’ come from, I wonder?”

Ruth said, “Leave me alone, Cal. Please, for the love of God, just leave me alone.”

When they arrived at the dock in Rockland, Pastor Wishnell and his nephew were already there. Ruth could see the New Hope, sitting on flat gray sea speckled with rain. There were no greetings.

Pastor Wishnell said, “Drive me to the store, Cal. I need oil, groceries, and stationery.”

“Sure,” Cal said. “No problem.”

“Stay here,” Pastor Wishnell said to Owney, and Cal, imitating the pastor’s inflection, pointed at Ruth and said, “Stay here.”

The two men drove off, leaving Ruth and Owney on the dock, in the rain. Just like that. The young man was wearing a brand-new yellow slicker, a yellow rain hat, and yellow boots. He stood still and broad, looking out to sea, his big hands clasped behind his back. Ruth liked the size of him. His body was dense and full of gravity. She liked his blond eyelashes.

“Did you have a good week?” Ruth asked Owney Wishnell.

He nodded.

“What did you do?”

He sighed. He grimaced, as if he were trying hard to think. “Not much,” he finally said. His voice was low and quiet.

“Oh,” Ruth said. “I went to see my mother in Concord, New Hampshire.”

Owney nodded, frowned, and took a deep breath. He seemed about to say something, but, instead, he clasped his hands behind his back again and was silent, his face blank. He’s incredibly shy, Ruth thought. She found it charming. So big and so shy!

“To tell you the truth,” Ruth said, “it makes me sad to see her. I don’t like it on the mainland; I want to get back to Fort Niles. What about you? Would you rather be out there? Or here?”

Owney Wishnell’s face turned pink, bright cherry, pink again, then back to normal. Ruth, fascinated, watched this extraordinary display and asked, “Am I bothering you?”

“No.” He colored again.

“My mother always presses me to get away from Fort Niles. Not really presses, but she made me go to school in Delaware, and now she wants me to move to Concord. Or go to college. But I like it out there.” Ruth pointed at the ocean. “I don’t want to live with the Ellis family. I want them to leave me alone.” She didn’t understand why she was rambling on to this huge, quiet, shy young man in the clean yellow slicker; it occurred to her that she sounded like a child or a fool. But when she looked at Owney, she saw that he was listening. He wasn’t looking at her as if she were a child or a fool. “You’re sure I’m not bothering you?”

Owney Wishnell coughed into his fist and stared at Ruth, his pale blue eyes flickering with his effort. “Um,” he said and coughed again. “Ruth.”

“Yes?” It thrilled her to hear him say her name. She hadn’t known that he was aware of it. “Yes, Owney?”

“Do you want to see something?” he asked. He blurted out this line as if it were a confession. He said it most urgently, as if he were about to reveal a cache of stolen money.

“Oh, yes,” Ruth said, “I’d love to.”

He looked uncertain, strained.

“Show me,” Ruth said. “Show me something. Sure. Show me whatever you want to show me.”

“Have to hurry,” Owney said, and he snapped alive. He rushed to the end of the dock, and Ruth rushed after him. He hustled down the ladder and into a rowboat, untied it in a flash, and gestured for Ruth to follow. He was already rowing, it seemed, as she tumbled into the boat. He pulled at the oars with beautiful, solid strokes-swish, swish, swish-and the boat shimmied across the waves.

He rowed past the New Hope, past all the other boats docked in the harbor, never easing his pace. His knuckles on the oars were white, and his mouth was a tight, concentrated line. Ruth held on to both sides of the boat, once again amazed at his strength. This was not at all what she’d expected to be doing about thirty seconds ago, when she was standing on the dock. Owney rowed until they were out of the protected cove, and the waves had become swells that bounced and rocked against the little rowboat. They reached a huge granite rock-a small granite island, really-and he steered the boat behind it. They were completely out of sight of the shore. Waves lapped at the rock.

Owney stared ahead at the ocean, frowning and breathing heavily. He rowed away from the island, into the sea about forty feet, and stopped. He stood up in the rowboat and peered into the water, then sat down and rowed another ten feet, and peered into the water again. Ruth leaned over but saw nothing.

Owney Wishnell reached to the bottom of the rowboat for a fishing gaff, a long stick with a hook at one end. Slowly, he dipped it in the water and started to pull, and Ruth saw that he’d snagged the gaff on a buoy, like the ones lobstermen used for marking where they’d set traps. But this buoy was plain white, with none of the lobstermen’s bright identifying colors. And instead of bobbing on the surface, the buoy was on a short line, which kept it hidden several feet below. Nobody could have found it without knowing exactly, precisely, where to look.

Owney threw the buoy into the boat and then, hand over hand, pulled the line it was attached to until he reached the end. And there was a handmade wooden lobster trap. He heaved it aboard; it was packed with huge, snapping lobsters.

“Whose trap is that?” Ruth asked.

“Mine!” Owney said.

He flicked open the trap door and pulled out the lobsters, one by one, holding up each for Ruth to see and then tossing it into the water.

“Hey!” she said after the third one. “Don’t throw them back! They’re good!”

He threw them back, every one. The lobsters were indeed good. They were enormous. They were packed in that trap like fish in a deep-sea net. They were, however, behaving oddly. When Owney touched them, they didn’t snap or fight. They lay still in his hand. Ruth had never seen anything like these obedient lobsters. And she’d never seen anything close to this many in a single trap.

“Why are there so many? Why don’t they fight you?” she asked.

“Because they don’t,” he said. He tossed another one in the ocean.

“Why don’t you keep them?” Ruth said.

“Can’t!” Owney cried.

“When did you set the trap?”

“Last week.”

“Why do you keep the buoy under water, where you can’t see it?”

“Hiding it.”

“From who?”

“Everyone.”

“How did you find the trap, then?”

“I just knew where it was,” he said. “I know where they are.”

“ ‘They’?”

He threw the last of the lobsters into the sea and tossed the trap over the side with a mighty splash. As he wiped his hands on his overalls, he said, with tragic urgency, “I know where the lobsters are.”

“You know where the lobsters are.”

“Yes.”

“You really are a Wishnell,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Where are your other traps, Owney?”

“Everywhere.”

“Everywhere?”

“All over the coast of Maine?”

“Yes.”

“Your uncle knows?”

“No!” He looked aghast, horrified.

“Who built the traps?”

“Me.”

“When?”

“At night.”

“You do all this behind your uncle’s back.”

“Yes.”

“Because he’d kill you, right?”

No answer.

“Why do you throw them back, Owney?”

He put his hands over his face, then let them drop. He looked as if he was about to cry. He could only shake his head.

“Oh, Owney.”

“I know.”

“This is crazy.”

“I know.”

“You could be rich! My God, if you had a boat and some gear, you could be rich!”

“I can’t.”

“Because somebody-”

“My uncle.”

“-would find out.”

“Yes.”

“He wants you to be a minister or something pathetic like that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a big fucking waste, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to be a minister.”

“I don’t blame you, Owney. I don’t want to be a minister, either. Who else knows about this?”

“We have to go,” Owney said. He grabbed the oars and spun the boat around, his broad, straight back toward the shore, and started to pull through the water in his beautiful long strokes, like a gorgeous machine.

“Who else knows, Owney?”

He stopped rowing and looked at her. “You.”

She looked right back at him, right at his big, square blond head, at his blue Swedish eyes.

“You,” he repeated. “Only you.”