Of Sea and Cloud (3 page)

Strange being orphans, Jonah whispered to Bill.

Bill didn't move and after a pause he said, Guess we are that.

Osmond approached Jonah and Bill. He took them both by the hands and he held tight. Jonah's hand felt small and fragile within Osmond's grip and he fought the need to pull away. Osmond's two granddaughters flanked Osmond as if leashed. Osmond's head hung low and he raised his eyes to Jonah and then to Bill and each eye was a tarn and he said, Virgil will not come inside?

You know that well as we do, Osmond, Jonah said.

Yes. I hoped that this might be different.

Jonah pulled his hand free and his heart rushed. I'm guessing if the situation was reversed you'd be sitting out there too, ain't that so?

Bill glared at Jonah. Bill's hand was still within Osmond's.

Osmond licked his lips. His face was pocked and clean-shaven save for a black mustache. Your father will be missed here on earth, he said. He released Bill's hand and took the two girls with him to the center of the small circle which had formed around the grave hole and the casket.

Celeste and Charlotte moved in beside Jonah and Bill. Erma Lee made her way to Bill's side. Osmond lifted his hands into the rain and the group silenced but as the silence fell a pickup truck slowed on the road and pulled into the field. The truck was glasspack loud and drove fast over the ruts and parked. Osmond pointed a finger like a sword at his grandson Julius and motioned him into the cemetery. Julius slid out of the truck and moved past Virgil without a glance and entered the cemetery. He left the gate open behind him.

Osmond's arms were still in the air and his long fingers were outstretched like feathers and his robe and hair blew in the wind and the rain. Jonah felt his brother shift. Charlotte gripped with two hands the umbrella that she and her mother stood beneath. The rain slashed through the gravestones and rapped on the empty casket with thuds like a distant knocking.

Osmond lowered his arms and bowed his head.

We stand here in the rain, the sons and daughters of this earth, and try to understand what has happened and why it is that our friend and father and partner, Nicolas Alexander Graves, was called from us. We look to the heavens for answer and we look to the earth for reason. We seek redemption, and we find redemption, but we find it within our own private persecution. We blame ourselves—we think this is atonement. But it is not. What could
you
have done? What could
I
have done? We must each understand,
we
do not choose salvation, salvation chooses us, and those choices were made long before this world began.

Jonah turned toward Virgil and saw the glow of Virgil's cigarette and the swipe of the windshield wipers and the small dog on Virgil's lap. Osmond began again but Jonah looked down the hill at the snaking brown river where the falling tide emptied the mud shoals. The south wind hurled against the water and lifted the river into standing breaking waves. He heard Osmond's voice but paid no attention until Osmond silenced.

Wind filled the void. Jonah felt the cold rain pelt his face. He saw Osmond's eyes shift as if the man had forgotten what he'd intended to say. Then as Jonah watched Osmond exhaled long and lifted his arms high and tucked his voice low as if to utter a secret meant for Jonah alone.

I hold no scripture in my hands. I bear no cross about my neck, for I have come here as a man. I have come because Nicolas Graves was called. Nicolas was not a man of the church, and if asked he would have said he worshipped no god. Nicolas Graves was a man of the sea and what he believed in was blood. And I ask you, what is faith but each man's belief in his own blood? Man is of sea and cloud, and like sea and cloud we are not long separated from the Lord. Each death falls like a raindrop into His great palm. Nicolas Graves worked the sea and he loved the sea and at sea he shall remain. So be it. He has rejoined the only eternity he ever believed in, the only eternity he ever sought, for he was blood and blood alone.

• • •

When people lined up at the casket to whisper their goodbyes Jonah slipped through the gate and the wet grass and sat in the truck with Virgil. Virgil handed him the bottle and Jonah drank. As he lowered the bottle he saw Osmond standing beside the casket with one hand where Nicolas's head would have been. Osmond watched Jonah.

The sonofawhore, Virgil said.

Osmond?

Who do you think?

Guess I don't see why the old man was friends with him and you ain't.

I don't trust the sonofawhore is why, Jonah. Same as ever.

Yeah, Jonah said and lit a cigarette. It was humid in the truck and the humidity smelled like nicotine. He rolled the window down.

Forget Osmond. This day's been coming a long time, Jonah. I'm sorry for you to go through this.

Coming ever since Ma died I figure.

That's right. That changed Nicolas something. That'd change any man.

I been thinking about her.

I know it. We all been thinking about her.

Not the Captain.

Captain Bill's been thinking on your mother more than all of us together only he's too chickenbeaked to admit it. That's why he's the Captain because he's a chickenbeak. Look at him with Osmond. Christ Almighty and hally fucking looya. Now the Captain's at Osmond Randolph's beckon. That ain't good.

Jonah nodded and watched the dark sky and felt suddenly that the sky was motionless as the hilltop graveyard spun.

And he done knocked up that little slush Erma Lee now, Virgil said.

Yeah, he done that.

Nicolas wouldn't take to that notion any more than I, Virgil said.

They watched in silence as Bill and Osmond lowered the empty casket into the ground. What'd he say up there, old Osmond?

He didn't say nothing that I know of, Jonah said. Said we're stuck between the flesh and the Lord and the ocean's a big puddle of blood.

Guess I agree with him on that.

The old man didn't love God no matter.

Nicolas didn't love much.

Guess he didn't, Jonah said.

Just lobster fishing.

Like loving a heartrot whore he always said.

Virgil grinned and nodded his head in slow agreement.

Bill came to the window and Jonah rolled it down the rest of the way and handed the brandy bottle to him. Rain blew over the cab and onto Bill's head and pushed his hair down like a bald spot. Bill took a drink and held the bottle on the windowsill. His jaw was square and clean-shaven and his glasses were wet. You didn't have no last respects to pay our old man, Jonah?

Jonah didn't answer.

Christ, Jonah, said Bill.

That's just an empty box up there with Osmond Randolph standing next to it. You know as well as I do.

It still means something.

That what little Erma Lee been telling you? This means something?

She don't matter. It means something to me.

That's fine, Bill. That's good. It don't to me.

Well something better mean something sometime, Jonah.

You ain't my Pa last I checked.

I'm what you got, Jonah. Me and Virgil here. Bill put his hand on Jonah's shoulder for a second then took it back. Ride on down to the pound with me, Jonah. I'll drop you back here later.

I'll take my rig.

Suit yourself.

I aim to do just that.

Erma Lee crossed the grass and took Bill by the arm. Bill nodded to Jonah and Virgil and walked away. Jonah and Virgil sat in the truck as the rest of the people left the cemetery. Celeste and Charlotte came to the truck and Virgil rolled his window down.

You two will be along soon? Celeste said.

We will, Virgil said.

Celeste looked to Jonah then back to her husband. I don't know which one of you to worry about more.

Him, Virgil said.

Celeste nodded.

Osmond and his three grandchildren came through the cemetery gate last. Osmond closed the gate. He waited until Celeste and Charlotte left then stepped to Virgil's window. His grandchildren stood in a row behind him.

Virgil, he said.

Osmond.

We will miss Nicolas, Osmond said.

Yes we will. Virgil lifted the bottle from the seat and handed it to Osmond. Osmond twisted the cap off and tipped his head back and took a long drink. He handed the bottle back to Virgil and their eyes connected through the wind and rain. A piece of Osmond's wet hair blew across his cheek. Osmond nodded and left.

Rain hammered on the roof. After a moment Virgil said, The Captain is fucked, Jonah.

I know it. What'll Osmond do to him?

He'll take over the pound is what he'll do.

Jonah shifted in the seat and said, The Captain's tough.

But he ain't smart like Osmond, you know as well as I do.

That night the wind swung around to the east and the sea piled into corkscrews that surged against the outside islands. The spruce and birch trees that surrounded Virgil and Celeste's house creaked and tossed their heads and lifted their root wads and each throw of air carried the smell of salt spray and rockweed and rainwater.

Jonah stood on the porch and smoked a cigarette and passed a bottle of whiskey with the other fishermen. He watched the trees lean and fight and he wondered which would fall first. He felt like an intruder in this house that was nearly his home and in the wake of this death that was his father's. He stood by his brother's side but found no comfort there.

The wind pushed the rain sideways and the eddy of porch air was a swirl laden with moisture and tobacco. A single light hung from the door trim. The food Jonah had eaten churned in his gut. He wondered where Charlotte had gone. He paid little attention to the other fishermen as they argued about lobster prices and diesel engines and reduction gears and after another hour he left without saying goodbye to anyone.

He stuffed his hands in his sweatshirt pocket and pulled his hood down to his eyes as he walked the long driveway toward the harbor. Rain drilled against him and soaked into his sweatshirt and dripped down his neckline. When he came to the road he stopped and looked around the dark village. There were only two dozen farmhouses and twenty of those farmhouses stood empty for the cold months of the year so the only lights Jonah could now see were the lights of his father's final celebration flickering and faltering through the rain and through the trees.

At home he sat at his kitchen table. His trailer rocked and the big spruce in his front yard rocked, too. He spun a scallop shell ashtray in circles across the tabletop. Rain beat the window and rattled the glass in its aluminum framework and he felt the bursts of wet air like screams. This line of storms each one had been followed by a humid stillness that swallowed the horizon and made the sea and sky merge into a single oblivion that did not belong on this bold cold-water coast. It had been eight days since his father disappeared. Eight days filled with boats searching the seas for a body and eight nights filled with Jonah bolt upright in his bed with sweat stapling his forehead like buoy patterns. On each of those nights the arcane dream-image of his father's lobster pound existing as some massive heart had surfaced in his mind and he didn't know what to make of the image and he could not shake the image from his daytime thoughts. In actuality the pound was nothing more than a cove converted into a tidal lobster storage facility but since Nicolas's death it had become synonymous with the man himself.

Another streak of rain and the water pounded like footsteps on his roof. Jonah didn't hear the truck but saw the sweep of headlights. His brother kicked his rubber boots off and came into the small trailer kitchen.

You got coffee hot?

I can, Jonah said.

Get it hot then. I guess I might need a cup.

I imagine that's so. She's blowing a gale.

Bill grunted. Guess ain't none of us fishing in this. Price don't matter if she's blowing too hard to fish anyhow. Hell, Jonah, the tide's right up overtop the wharf, higher'n I ever saw. She's lapping the bait house doors and liable to flood the whole operation. Fuel pumps and all are going under.

Jonah put water in a kettle and turned the burner on. Bill sat down and turned his hands together to dry them. He lit a cigarette. Jonah slid the scallop shell ashtray across the table then opened a beer for himself and he wondered when Bill would mention Erma Lee. He sipped the beer as the water heated.

Neither spoke.

When the coffee was finished Jonah poured a cup and handed it to Bill and said, Hell, Bill, Virgil done knew about her anyhow.

Well you don't see me squealing you out.

That's different.

Different because it's you is why it's different. And how'd Virgil know?

How you think Virgil knew? Same way Virgil knows who's gotta have a shit and who's got crabs and every other goddamned thing under this fogfucked sun.

He don't know one thing.

What's that? Little Erma Lee got twins?

No, she ain't got no twins. She ain't big enough for twins.

She ain't big enough for you.

I'll tell you what neither one you or Virgil knows if you shut your highliner mouth for a breath.

What's that?

The Downcoast Highliner is going into the lobster pound business with his big brother is what.

Like hell.

Like hell is right Mister Man. I know we figured I'd take his share in the pound and you'd get the camp, but I'm thinking on you and me going in half partners and we sell the
Jennifer
and you take the
Cinderella
once we get her back. Now don't you go getting ornery. You need a bigger boat.

I ain't getting ornery, Bill. And I don't need a bigger boat. And I ain't gardening lobsters in that mud hole and counting numbers in books and I especially ain't going in with Osmond fucking Randolph.

You always was good with books, Jonah. You're the Downcoast Highliner by Jesus. You can do any old thing. That pound is worth more'n twice what the camp is worth and so if we go partners with you taking a share of the pound, them numbers can work out. The price ain't shit but all we got to do is feed and hold some lobsters over the winter and by March the price'll be up.