The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims (120 page)

The lobster boats were still in the channel, working and circling. From her perch on the cliffs, Ruth saw the boat of Mr. Angus Addams and the boat of Mr. Duke Cobb and the boat of her father. Beyond them, she could see a fourth boat, which may have belonged to someone on Courne Haven Island; she couldn’t identify it. The channel was so littered with lobster trap buoys, it looked like a scatter of confetti on a floor or dense litter on a highway. Men set their traps nearly on top of one another in that channel. It was risky, fishing there. The border between Courne Haven Island and Fort Niles Island had never been established, but nowhere was it more in contention than in Worthy Channel. Men from both islands defined and defended their ground hard, always pushing toward each other. They cut away each other’s traps and waged collective assaults toward the opposite island.

“They’ll drop their traps on our front goddamn doorsteps, if we let them in,” said Angus Addams.

On Courne Haven Island they said the same of Fort Niles fishermen, of course, and both statements were true.

On this day, Ruth Thomas thought the Courne Haven boat was hovering a little close to Fort Niles, but it wasn’t easy to be sure, even from above. She tried counting strings of buoys. She picked a blade of grass and made a whistle with it, pressed between her thumbs. She played a game with herself, pretending that she was seeing this view for the first time in her life. She shut her eyes for a long moment, then opened them slowly. The sea! The sky! It was beautiful. She did live in a beautiful place. She tried to look down on the lobster boats as if she did not know how much they cost and who owned them and how they smelled. How would this scene look to a visitor? How would Worthy Channel look to a person from, say, Nebraska? The boats would look like toys, adorable and sturdy as bathtub boats, manned by hardworking Down East characters who dressed in picturesque overalls and gave each other friendly waves across their bows.

Ruth wondered whether she would enjoy lobster fishing more if she had her own boat, if she were the captain. Maybe it was just working with her father that was so unpleasant. She couldn’t imagine, though, whom she would enlist as a sternman. She ran over the names of all the young men from Fort Niles and quickly confirmed that, yes, they were all idiots. Every last drunken one of them. Incompetent, lazy, surly, inarticulate, funny-looking. She had no patience for any of them, with the possible exception of Webster Pommeroy, whom she pitied and worried over like a mother. But Webster was a damaged young man, and he was certainly no sternman. Not that Ruth was any lobsterman. She couldn’t kid herself about that. She didn’t know much about navigation, nothing about maintaining a boat. She’d shrieked “Fire!” to her father once when she saw smoke coming out of the hold; smoke that was actually steam from a ruptured hose.

“Ruth,” he’d said, “you’re cute, but you’re not very smart.”

“You think you’re smarter than everyone else.” Ruth had often heard this accusation from her neighbors on Fort Niles. A few of the Pommeroy boys had said it to her, as had Angus Addams and Mrs. Pommeroy’s sisters and that old bitch on Langly Road whose lawn Ruth had mowed one summer for two dollars a pop.

“Oh, please,” was Ruth’s standard reply.

She couldn’t deny it with more conviction than this, though, because she did, in fact, think she was considerably smarter than everyone else. It was a feeling, centered not in her head, but in her chest. She felt it in her very lungs.

She was certainly smart enough to figure out how to get her own boat if she wanted one. If that was what she wanted, she could get it. Sure. She was certainly no dumber than any of the men from Fort Niles or Courne Haven who made a good living by lobstering. Why not? Angus Addams knew a woman on Monhegan Island who fished alone and made a good living. The woman’s brother had died and left his boat to her. She had three kids, no husband. The woman’s name was Flaggie. Flaggie Cornwall. She made a good go of it. Her buoys, Angus reported, were painted bright pink, with yellow heartshaped dots. But Flaggie Cornwall was tough, too. She cut away other men’s traps if she thought they were messing with her business. Angus Addams quite admired her. He talked about her often.

“Are you enjoying our view?”

Cal Cooley was standing right behind Ruth. She was startled but didn’t show it. She turned slowly and gave him a steady look.

“Maybe.”

Cal Cooley did not sit down; he stood there, directly behind Ruth Thomas. His knees almost touched her shoulders.

“I sent your friends home,” he said.

“Did Mr. Ellis see the Senator?” Ruth asked, already knowing the answer.

“Mr. Ellis isn’t himself today. He could not see the Senator.”

“That makes him not himself? He never sees the Senator.”

“That may be true.”

“You people have no idea how to act. You have no idea how rude you are.”

“I don’t know what Mr. Ellis thinks about these people, Ruth, but I sent them home. I thought it was too early in the morning to be dealing with the mentally handicapped.”

“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, you prick.” Ruth liked the way that sounded. Very calm.

Cal Cooley stood behind Ruth for some time. He stood behind her like a butler, but more intimate. Polite, but too near. His nearness created a constant feeling that she did not appreciate. And she did not like speaking to him without seeing him.

“Why don’t you sit down?” she said, at last.

“You want me to sit next to you, do you?” he asked.

“That’s entirely up to you, Cal.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he did sit down. “Very hospitable of you. Thank you for the invitation.”

“It’s your property. I can’t be hospitable on your property.”

“It’s not my property, young lady. It’s Mr. Ellis’s property.”

“Really? I always forget that, Cal. I forget it’s not your property. Do you ever forget that, too?”

Cal did not answer. He asked, “What’s the little boy’s name? The little boy with the tusk.”

“He’s Webster Pommeroy.”

Which Cal Cooley knew.

Cal stared out at the water and recited dully: “Pommeroy the cabin boy was a nasty little nipper. Shoved a glass up in his ass and circumcised the skipper.”

“Cute,” Ruth said.

“He seems like a nice child.”

“He’s twenty-three years old, Cal.”

“And I believe he is in love with you. Is this true?”

“My God, Cal. That is truly relevant.”

“Listen to you, Ruth! You are so educated these days. It is such a pleasure to hear you using such big words. It is rewarding, Ruth. It makes us all so pleased to see that your expensive education is paying off.”

“I know you try to rile me, Cal, but I’m not sure what you gain from it.”

“That’s not true, Ruth. I don’t try to rile you. I’m your biggest supporter.”

Ruth laughed sharply. “You know something, Cal? That elephant tusk really is an important find.”

“Yes. You said as much.”

“You didn’t even pay attention to the story, an interesting story, about an unusual shipwreck. You didn’t ask Webster how he found it. It’s an incredible story, and you didn’t pay any attention at all. It’d be annoying if it wasn’t so damn typical.”

“That’s not true. I pay attention to everything.”

“You pay a great deal of attention to some things.”

“Old Cal Cooley is incapable of not paying attention.”

“You should have paid more attention to that tusk, then.”

“I am interested in that tusk, Ruth. I’m actually holding it for Mr. Ellis so that he can look at it later. I think he’ll be very interested indeed.”

“What do you mean, holding it?”

“I’m holding it.”

“As I’ve said, I’m holding it.”

“You took it. You sent them away without their tusk. Jesus Christ. Why would a person do something like that?”

“Would you like to share a cigarette with me, young lady?”

“I think you people are all pricks.”

“If you would like to smoke a cigarette, I won’t tell anybody.”

“I’m sure you do lots of bad things you don’t tell anybody about.”

“You took that tusk out of Webster’s hands and sent him away? Well, that’s a downright horrible thing to do. And typical.”

“You sure do look beautiful today, Ruth. I meant to tell you that immediately, but the opportunity did not arise.”

Ruth stood up. “OK,” she said, “I’m going home.”

She started to walk off, but Cal Cooley said, “As a matter of fact, I believe you need to stay.”

Ruth stopped walking. She didn’t turn around, but she stood still, because she knew from his tone what was coming.

“If you’re not too busy today,” Cal Cooley said, “Mr. Ellis would like to see you.”

They walked toward Ellis House together. They walked silently beyond the pastures and the ancient gardens and up the steps to the back verandah and through the wide French doors. They walked through the broad and shrouded living room, down a back hall, up the modest back stairs—the servants’ stairs—along another hall, and finally reached a door.

Cal Cooley stood as though to knock, but, instead, stepped back. He walked a few more paces down the hallway and ducked into a recessed doorway. When he gestured for Ruth to follow, she did. Cal Cooley put his big hands on Ruth’s shoulders and whispered, “I know you hate me.” And he smiled.

Ruth listened.

“I know you hate me, but I can tell you what this is all about if you want to know.”

Ruth did not reply.

“Do you want to know?”

“I don’t care what you tell me or don’t tell me,” Ruth said. “It doesn’t make any difference in my life.”

“Of course you care. First of all,” Cal said, in a hushed voice, “Mr. Ellis simply wants to see you. He’s been asking after you for a few weeks, and I’ve been lying. I’ve told him that you were still at school. Then I said you were working with your father on his boat.”

Cal Cooley waited for Ruth to respond; she didn’t.

“I should think you’d thank me for that,” he said. “I don’t like to lie to Mr. Ellis.”

“Don’t, then,” Ruth said.

“He’s going to give you an envelope,” Cal said. “It has three hundred dollars in it.”

Again, Cal waited for a response, but Ruth did not oblige, so he continued. “Mr. Ellis is going to tell you that it’s fun money, just for you. And, to a certain extent, that’s true. You can spend it on whatever you like. But you know what it’s really for, right? Mr. Ellis has a favor to ask of you.”

Ruth remained silent.

“That’s right,” Cal Cooley said. “He wants you to visit your mother in Concord. I’m supposed to take you there.”

They stood in the recessed doorway. His big hands on her wide shoulders were as heavy as dread. Cal and Ruth stood there for a long time. Finally, he said, “Get it over with, young lady.”

“Shit,” Ruth said.

He dropped his hands. “Just take the money. My suggestion to you is not to antagonize him.”

“I never antagonize him.”

“Take the money and be civil. We’ll figure out the details later.”

Cal Cooley stepped out of the doorway and walked back to the first door. He knocked. He whispered to Ruth, “That’s what you wanted, right? To know? No surprises for you. You want to know everything that’s going on, right?”

He threw open the door, and Ruth stepped inside, alone. The door closed behind her with a beautiful brushing sound, like the swish of expensive fabric.

She was in Mr. Ellis’s bedroom.

The bed itself was made, as seamlessly as though it were never used. The bed was made up as though the bedding had been produced at the same time as the piece of furniture itself and had been tacked or glued to the woodwork. It looked like a display bed in an expensive store. Bookcases were everywhere, holding rows of dark books, each precisely the same shade and size as its neighbors, as though Mr. Ellis owned one volume and had had it repeated throughout the room. The fireplace was lit, and there were heavy duck decoys on the mantel. The musty wallpaper was interrupted by framed prints of clippers and tall ships.

Mr. Ellis was near the fire, sitting in a large, wingback chair. He was very, very old and very thin. A plaid lap rug was pulled high over his waist and tucked around his feet. His baldness was absolute, and his skull looked thin and cold. He held out his arms to Ruth Thomas, his palsied palms upward and open. His eyes were swimming in blue, swimming with tears.

“It’s nice to see you, Mr. Ellis,” Ruth said.

He grinned and grinned.

THAT NIGHT, when Ruth Thomas told her father she had been to Ellis House, he said, “I don’t care who you spend your time with, Ruth.”

Ruth had gone looking for her father immediately after she left Mr. Ellis. She walked down to the harbor and saw that his boat was in, but the other fishermen said he’d long been done for the day. She tried him at their house, but when she called for him, there was no answer. So Ruth got on her bicycle and rode over to the Addams brothers’ house to see whether he was visiting Angus for a drink. And so he was.

The two men were sitting on the porch, leaning back in folding chairs, holding beers. Senator Simon’s dog, Cookie, was lying on Angus’s feet, panting. It was late dusk, and the air was shimmering and gold. Bats flew low and fast above. Ruth dropped her bicycle in the yard and stepped up on the porch.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, sugar.”

“Hey, Mr. Addams.”

“Hey, Ruth.”

“How’s the lobster business?”

“Great, great,” Angus said. “I’m saving up for a gun to blow my fucking head off.”

Angus Addams, quite the opposite of his twin brother, was getting leaner as he grew older. His skin was damaged from the years spent in the middle of all kinds of bad weather. He squinted, as if looking into a field of sun. He was going deaf after a lifetime spent too near loud boat engines, and he spoke loudly. He hated almost everyone on Fort Niles, and there was no shutting him up when he felt like explaining, in careful detail, why.

Most of the islanders were afraid of Angus Addams. Ruth’s father liked him. When Ruth’s father was a boy, he’d worked as a sternman for Angus and had been a smart, strong, ambitious apprentice. Now, of course, Ruth’s father had his own boat, and the two men dominated the lobster industry of Fort Niles. Greedy Number One and Greedy Number Two. They fished in all weather, with no limits on their catch, with no mercy for their fellows. The boys on the island who worked as sternmen for Angus Addams and for Stan Thomas usually quit after a few weeks, unable to take the pace. Other fishermen—harder drinking, fatter, lazier, stupider fishermen (in Ruth’s father’s opinion)— made easier bosses.

As for Ruth’s father, he was still the handsomest man on Fort Niles Island. He had never remarried after Ruth’s mother left, but Ruth knew he had liaisons. She had some ideas about who his partners were, but he never spoke about them to her, and she preferred not to think about them too much. Her father was not tall, but he had wide shoulders and thin hips. “No fanny at all,” he liked to say. He weighed the same at fortyfive as he had at twentyfive. He was fastidiously neat about his clothing, and he shaved every day. He went to Mrs. Pommeroy once every two weeks for a haircut. Ruth suspected that something may have been going on between her father and Mrs. Pommeroy, but she hated the thought of it so much that she never pursued it.

Ruth’s father’s hair was dark, dark brown, and his eyes were almost green. He had a mustache.

Ruth, at eighteen, thought her father was a fine enough person. She knew he had a reputation as a cheapskate and a lobster hustler, but she also knew that this reputation had grown fertile in the minds of island men who commonly spent the money from a week’s catch on one night in a bar. These were men who saw frugality as arrogant and offensive. These were men who were not her father’s equal, and they knew it and resented it. Ruth also knew that her father’s best friend was a bully and a bigot, but she had always liked Angus Addams, anyway. She did not find him to be a hypocrite, in any case, which put him above many people.

For the most part, Ruth got along with her father. She got along with him best when they weren’t working together or when he wasn’t trying to teach her something, like how to drive a car or mend rope or navigate by a compass. In such situations, there was bound to be yelling. It wasn’t so much the yelling that Ruth minded. What she didn’t like was when her father got quiet on her. He got real quiet, typically, on any subject having to do with Ruth’s mother. She thought he was a coward about it. His quietness sometimes disgusted her.

“You want a beer?” Angus Addams asked Ruth.

“No, thank you.”

“Good,” Angus said. “Makes you fat as all goddamn hell.”

“It hasn’t made you fat, Mr. Addams.”

“That’s because I work.”

“Ruth can work, too,” Stan Thomas said of his daughter. “She’s got an idea to work on a lobster boat this summer.”

“The two of you been saying that for damn near a month now. Summer’s almost over.”

“You want to take her on as a sternman?”

“You take her, Stan.”

“We’d kill each other,” Ruth’s father said. “You take her.”

Angus Addams shook his head. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “I don’t like to fish with anyone if I can help it. Used to be, we fished alone. Better that way. No sharing.”

“I know you hate sharing,” Ruth said.

“I fucking do hate sharing, missy. And I’ll tell you why. In 1936, I only made three hundred and fifty dollars the entire goddamn year, and I fished my balls off. I had close to three hundred dollars in expenses. That left me fifty to live on the whole winter. And I had to take care of my goddamn brother. So, no, I ain’t sharing if I can help it.”

“Come on, Angus. Give Ruth a job. She’s strong,” Stan said. “Come on over here, Ruth. Roll up your sleeves, baby. Show us how strong you are.”

Ruth went over and obediently flexed her right arm.

“She’s got her crusher claw here,” her father said, squeezing her muscle. Then Ruth flexed her left arm, and he squeezed that one, saying, “And she’s got her pincher claw here!”

Angus said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Is your brother here?” Ruth asked Angus.

“He went over to the Pommeroy house,” Angus said. “He’s all goddamn worried about that goddamn snot-ass kid.”

“He’s worried about Webster?”

“He should just goddamn adopt the little bastard.”

“So the Senator left Cookie with you, did he?” Ruth asked.

Angus growled again and gave the dog a shove with his foot. Cookie woke up and looked around patiently.

“At least the dog’s in loving hands,” Ruth’s father said, grinning. “At least Simon left his dog with someone who’ll take good care of it.”

“Tender loving care,” Ruth added.

“I hate this goddamn dog,” Angus said.

“Really?” Ruth asked, wide-eyed. “Is that so? I didn’t know that. Did you know that, Dad?”

“I never heard anything about that, Ruth.”

“I hate this goddamn dog,” Angus said. “And the fact that I have to feed it corrodes my soul.”

Ruth and her father started laughing.

“Anything else bothering you?” Ruth asked.

“Simon wants me to show the dog some goddamn affection, but that runs contrary to my instinct.”

“Which is?” Ruth asked.

“Which is to stomp on it with heavy boots.”

“You’re terrible,” Ruth’s father said, and bent over laughing. “You’re terrible, Angus.”

Ruth went into the house and got herself a glass of water. The kitchen of the Addams house was immaculate. Angus Addams was a slob, but Senator Simon Addams cared for his twin brother like a wife, and he kept the chrome shining and the icebox full. Ruth knew for a fact that Senator Simon got up at four in the morning every day and made Angus breakfast (biscuits, eggs, a slice of pie) and packed sand- wiches for Angus’s lunch on the lobster boat. The other men on the island liked to tease Angus, saying they wished they had things so good at home, and Angus Addams liked to tell them to shut their fucking mouths and, by the way, they shouldn’t have married such lazy fat goddamn whores in the first place. Ruth looked out the kitchen window to the back yard, where overalls and long underwear swayed, drying. There was a loaf of sweetbread on the counter, so she cut herself a piece and walked back out to the porch, eating it.

“None for me, thanks,” Angus said.

“Sorry. Did you want a piece?”

“No, but I’ll take another beer, Ruth.”

“I’ll get it on my next trip to the kitchen.”

Angus raised his eyebrows at Ruth and whistled. “That’s how educated girls treat their friends, is it?”

“Oh, brother.”

“Is that how Ellis girls treat their friends?”

Ruth did not reply, and her father looked down

Ruth did not reply, and her father looked down at his feet. It became very quiet on the porch. Ruth waited to see whether her father would remind Angus Addams that Ruth was a Thomas girl, not an Ellis girl, but her father said nothing.

Angus set his empty beer bottle on the floor of the porch and said, “I’ll get it my own self, I guess,” and he walked into the house.

Ruth’s father looked up at her. “What’d you do today, sugar?” he asked.

“We can talk about it at dinner.”

“I’m eating dinner here tonight. We can talk about it now.”

So she said, “I saw Mr. Ellis today. You still want to talk about it now?”

Her father said evenly, “I don’t care what you talk about or when you talk about it.”

“Does it make you mad that I saw him?”

That’s when Angus Addams came back out, just as Ruth’s father was saying, “I don’t care who you spend your time with, Ruth.”

“Who the hell is she spending her time with?” Angus asked.

“Lanford Ellis.”

“Dad. I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“Those goddamn bastards again,” Angus said.

“Ruth had a little meeting with him.”

“Dad—”

“We don’t have to keep secrets from our friends, Ruth.”

“Fine,” Ruth said, and she tossed her father the envelope Mr. Ellis had given her. He lifted the flap and peered at the bills inside. He set the envelope on the arm of his chair.

“What the hell is that?” Angus asked. “What is that, a load of cash? Mr. Ellis give you that money, Ruth?”

“Yes. Yes, he did.”

“Well, you fucking give it back to him.”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business, Angus. You want me to give the money back, Dad?”

“I don’t care how these people throw their money around, Ruth,” Stan Thomas said. But he picked up the envelope again, took out the bills, and counted them. There were fifteen bills. Fifteen twenty-dollar bills.

“What’s the goddamn money for?” Angus asked. “What the hell is that goddamn money for, anyhow?”

“Stay out of it, Angus,” Ruth’s father said.

“Mr. Ellis said it was fun money for me.”

“Funny money?” her father asked.

“Fun money.”

“Fun money? Fun money?”

She did not answer.

“This sure is fun so far,” her father said. “Are you having fun, Ruth?”

Again, she did not answer.

“Those Ellis people really know how to have fun.”

“I don’t know what it’s for, but you get your fanny over there and give it back,” Angus said.

The three sat there with the money looming between them.

“And another thing about that money,” Ruth said.

Ruth’s father passed his hand over his face, just once, as though he suddenly realized he was tired.

“Yes?”

“There’s another thing about that money. Mr. Ellis would really like it if I used some of it to go visit Mom. My mother.”

“Jesus Christ!” Angus Addams exploded. “Jesus Christ, you were gone all goddamn year, Ruth! You only just goddamn got back here, and they’re trying to send you away again!”

Ruth’s father said nothing.

“That goddamn Ellis family runs you all over the goddamn place, telling you what to do and where to go and who to see,” Angus continued. “You do every goddamn thing that goddamn family tells you to do. You’re getting to be just as bad as your goddamn mother.”

“Stay out of it, Angus!” Stan Thomas shouted.

“Would that be fine with you, Dad?” Ruth asked, gingerly.

“Jesus Christ, Stan!” Angus sputtered. “Tell your goddamn daughter to stay here, where she goddamn belongs.”

“First of all,” Ruth’s father said to Angus, “shut your goddamn mouth.”

There was no second of all.

“If you don’t want me to see her, I won’t go,” Ruth said. “If you want me to take the money back, I’ll take the money back.”

Ruth’s father fingered the envelope. After a brief silence, he said to his eighteen-year-old daughter, “I don’t care who you spend your time with.”

He tossed the envelope of money back to her.

“What’s the problem with you?” Angus Addams bellowed at his friend. “What’s the problem with all you goddamn people?”

As for Ruth Thomas’s mother, there was certainly a big problem with her.

Nobody knew the orphan’s real name; nobody knew anything at all about the immigrant. Ruth Thomas’s mother, therefore, had a genealogy that was cauterized at both ends—two dead ends of information.

Ruth’s mother had no forefathers, no foremothers, no recorded family traits by which to define herself. While Ruth Thomas could trace back two centuries of her father’s ancestors without leaving the Fort Niles Island cemetery, there was no getting past the orphan and the immigrant who began and completed her mother’s blunt history. Her mother, unaccounted for as such, had always been looked at askance on Fort Niles Island. She’d been produced by two mysteries, and there were no mysteries in anyone else’s history. One should not simply appear on Fort Niles with no family chronicle to account for oneself. It made people uneasy.