A Solitary Blue (17 page)

“You'll have to work hard to get your average back up, if you want to stay on high honor roll,” the teacher told him. “Do you want to do an extra credit assignment? Write another essay?”

Jeff thought about that, because he didn't want to. “No, I don't,” he said. “Thank you anyway, sir.”

Chappelle was staring at him, but the bell rang so that was an end of that. It was Friday, and Jeff hoped the whole thing would have blown over by the next Monday. A question waded along at the edge of his attention, like the blue heron fishing the creekside. But somebody nudged him in the ribs. He turned his head sharply.

It was Phil Milson. “Man, you are as cool as a cucumber,” Phil said. “Old Chappelle couldn't get you nervous at all, could he?”

“Oh, yeah, he could,” Jeff said, glad it hadn't shown.

“He could? I like that even better. See you around, OK?” Phil ran ahead to join his friends. But he came over to the table where Jeff sat in the cafeteria and said, “I don't know if you know this, I've got a brother and a sister who've been through it with Chappelle, but you're new this year, aren't you?”

Jeff nodded.

“He'll sulk, a week, maybe two — then he'll forget about it. He's a case of arrested emotional development. Just keep a low profile for a couple of weeks.”

“Thanks,” Jeff said. “I'll remember.” He thought he ought to say something friendly, but he wasn't sure what that would be. “What do you mean arrested emotional development?”

“I mean, we're kids, so we're supposed to act like jerks; it's OK for us. But it's supposed to be a phase you pass through.” The bell rang and Jeff didn't have to think of anything else to say.

He went out crabbing that evening, while the Professor did some shopping so they'd have something for Brother Thomas to
cook when he came down the next day. Jeff didn't expect to catch anything, and he didn't. In the cooler weather most of the crabs moved on south or buried themselves in the deep mud at the bottom of the bay. The herons and egrets too were growing scarce; only gulls remained in any numbers.

Jeff sat back in the boat, which he hadn't even untied from the dock, and let it rock under him. He didn't even look at the strings hanging over the gunwales.

He didn't think Chappelle had said it had to be somebody you knew, but probably the man had and Jeff hadn't registered it. He hadn't registered it, even though he usually listened well and remembered accurately; so he hadn't let it get into his head. Sometimes he did that, he knew; and then he would remember suddenly and wonder why he had forgotten. That was the way he was.

Why hadn't he ever done well in school before, if he was smart, and the Professor said he tested smart. The Professor didn't actually say he was smart though, did he?

If he was a ghost in the life he remembered, Jeff thought, he was also a ghost in his present life, just the same way. Except, in all the fourteen years, just a couple of times. With Melody that first summer he had felt alive. On the beach on the island. And when he played the guitar.

Most of the time, he thought, he practiced not being anybody. If you weren't anybody then nobody could — what? Hurt you or leave you behind? Make you unhappy? But then they couldn't make you happy either, could they? If you played it safe, then you kept safe. Jeff figured he was pretty good at keeping safe — he didn't even look in mirrors because he didn't want to see Melody's eyes. But one result of that was that Jeff didn't know anything about himself. And he thought, sitting in the little boat, alone on the creek, alone with the creek and the sky and the marshes, that he might want to know more.

But as soon as he thought that, he got scared that there wasn't any more to know. As soon as he got scared, he thought that being scared was one of his problems. As soon as he thought about one of his problems, he got impatient with himself, irritated — and that felt better. The Professor, after all, had loved Melody and lost her and been hurt by her too, Jeff suddenly realized. Probably at least as badly as Jeff had been; and now he'd written a book, and before that he'd made friends with Brother Thomas, so the Professor survived.
Hadn't Melody said, meaning to criticize, that Jeff was like his father? Jeff hauled in the baited strings and climbed out of the boat. He hadn't stopped thinking. But he was going to take it slow and quiet, this thinking about himself.

Chappelle did act funny about Jeff for a couple of weeks, calling on him every day at the end of class to read off the exact assignment, paying exaggerated attention to whatever Jeff said in class. Then he seemed to forget about it. Thanksgiving came, and a short vacation from school, which Jeff and the Professor used to haul the boat out of the water and stock up on some food in case they got snowed in. “It's always good to be safe,” the Professor said, placing cans of beans and soup in a row at the back of the shelf, lining up cans of ravioli, boxes of grits and oatmeal, as well as dry mixes for cornbread, biscuits, and milk.

“As a general rule?” Jeff asked. This was, of course, something he had been thinking about.

“As a general rule, well — I'm not the one to ask about that,” the Professor said. “If you mean, as I take it, a general rule for life. I'm awfully good at playing it safe and not good at all at taking risks.”

“But you have,” Jeff pointed out.

“Never by my own choice,” the Professor told him. He turned around to look at Jeff, who passed him more cans and boxes. “Always somebody else pushed me. Even my book; Brother Thomas is the one who pushed me into submitting it — the man is implacable, once he gets his teeth into an idea. I'm very grateful to him.”

“I like him too,” Jeff said.

And he did. All the more when, after Christmas vacation, on one of the days when the Professor stayed up in Baltimore, he picked up a brown manilla envelope from the mailbox. Brother Thomas had sent him some xeroxed copies of newspaper articles, he saw; also a note. The note read: “If I know the man you won't have seen these. I thought you'd enjoy them. BroT.”

There was a review (from
Time
magazine, Jeff noticed, impressed; more impressed when he read it and saw words like
intelligent, readable, thought-provoking
) and an interview from the Baltimore paper. It was the interview Jeff read three or four times. Because he didn't know any of this stuff about his father.

“Born in 1924,” he read, collecting the facts, “graduated from University of Chicago in 1943.” So the Professor had accelerated
through school. “PhD., University of Chicago.” The Professor had told the reporter that he had studied political geography, because he wanted to travel, but had gone to work for Army Intelligence instead. He'd worked in Washington, analyzing information from aerial photographs of central Europe, mostly, because he knew about the countries. After the War, he'd read Philosophy at Oxford for a year, then taken the job at Baltimore. He guessed it had taken him fifteen years to write his book. He'd finished it two years earlier and a friend had bullied him into submitting it to a publisher. The Professor told the reporter that he thought that was an awfully long time to spend on one book, but he'd enjoyed the work so much he had been almost sorry when he finished with it. Yes, he said, he might write another, he had file cabinets filled with notes. At the end of the article, there was a paragraph of personal information: married in 1962, separated, lives with his teen-aged son. “A handsome, age-less man,” the reporter described the Professor, “whose eyes twinkle with dry humor . . . a thoroughly charming man, who weighs his words and is worth listening to.” The article closed with a quote from the Professor: “Some of my best work is in that book, which is, I take it, what a book should contain.”

Jeff put down the papers. He didn't know what to think. He didn't really know his father, not this way, not as this kind of man. He guessed he was pretty proud of the Professor, and thought he was going to have even more trouble now keeping his promise to the Professor. He went to his room and got the Martin, sat strumming on it, looking out over the winter brown marshes and winter clear creek water and winter gray skies. Good for the Professor, he thought.

Jeff felt a little embarrassed, greeting his father after school the next day. He didn't know why the Professor hadn't told him about the review or the interview. Or about his life. He didn't know why he himself hadn't asked the Professor more about his life. Riding his bike back from school, arguing with himself whether or not he'd been a fool to take the bike on such a cold day, Jeff didn't know what he was going to say to his father. What he finally said was, “Your eyes don't twinkle.”

The blue eyes, of course, did look bright and amused at that. “I agree,” the Professor said. “Am I to gather then that Brother Thomas has been in touch with you?”

“I'm really impressed,” Jeff said.

“Thank you. It's probably as well he warned you, because I'm afraid the book is successful.”

“That's OK, Professor, I won't hold it against you. How successful?”

“British sales and a contract for a paperback edition. Is there anything you need money for?”

“No,” Jeff said. Then he thought. “Don't you want an electric typewriter?”

“Yes, but I've got one on order. What about you? Schools? I don't know, what do boys want these days?”

“Just a dog and a little red wagon,” Jeff said. “But you aren't serious, are you? You are, aren't you. I want a Martin, and I have it. I want to live in a place where it's beautiful, and we do. And a boat. I think getting rid of the money's going to be your problem, Professor, not mine.”

“I meant, we could move back to Baltimore, to one of those houses we couldn't afford before.” His father's face was expressionless.

Jeff made his face expressionless too. “Is that what you'd like?” After all, it was the Professor who supported them, who had the work. Jeff carefully didn't look out the window.

“I asked you first.”

“No, you didn't. You suggested, you didn't ask. I asked
you
first.”

“But I want to hear what you want.”

“Then you should have asked first,” Jeff insisted. This was crazy, like two little kids quarreling.

“But . . . all right. The truth of the matter is — no, I don't want to leave. But I always was a hermit. I don't know about you . . . if you're making friends, if there's enough for you to do, if the school is good enough.”

Jeff did get up from the table then. He walked to the glass door and looked out, across the marsh then down to the sweep of bay, larger now that the deciduous trees had shed their leaves. “I love it here,” he said, trying to say it as clear and true as he could.

“You really do,” the Professor said. After a pause, “I don't mind it myself,” he added.

As spring approached, Jeff began preparing the boat. He scraped and repainted the bottom and had the motor overhauled. In
late March he began to see ospreys. By mid-April, the trees started to produce new leaves. The egrets returned and, during May, the herons. Jeff saw his first heron of the season one sunny afternoon after school. The blue stood on the trunk of a tree that had fallen over into the creek, stood motionless and unaware. For a long time, Jeff watched it from the dock. The sun-warmed air smelled of moist earth, and somehow green, of growing things. Without moving, Jeff watched. The heron stood on stiff thin legs, its long neck tucked in, its flattened head still. Finally, Jeff couldn't contain himself: “Hello,” he called down the creek. “Welcome back.”

The bird didn't even look toward him. It took off, raising itself awkwardly from the tree, and flew up the creek, squawking its resentment as it disappeared into treetops. Jeff laughed aloud.

At school, he often joined Phil for lunch. Phil's father was a farmer, so they didn't get together outside of school — Phil had chores and had to help plow up the land, then plant it. He didn't seem too curious about Jeff, but he seemed to like him all right. They talked about classes, mostly, although sometimes Phil made cracks about girls, and he asked Jeff what his father did, and if he had brothers and sisters, and how his mother liked living in the boonies. Jeff just said his mother lived in Charleston. “I wish my mother lived in Charleston,” Phil answered.

Jeff liked Phil; he liked his sense of humor and the practical turn of his mind. Phil's life was so normal, so practical — and Phil couldn't see that. Phil figured, Jeff thought, that everyone was pretty much like him; he didn't have the imagination or experience to see what differences there could be. He was a four-square, solid person, and Jeff liked that. They weren't friends, exactly, but he wouldn't mind being friends.

Everything was going smoothly and Jeff slipped through the days, until Mr. Chappelle asked one day in class if Jeff's father was the one who wrote the book. After that, people seemed to look at Jeff with more interest and give him a wider berth. Except Phil, who tackled the subject head on. “He wrote a book? What are you doing down here?”

“We like it here.”

“Does that mean he's an egghead? Or you?”

“I don't know.”