Envious Moon (4 page)

B
y Monday, Victor still had not been contacted by the sheriff and we figured we were safe. And that morning, before the sun rose, I said good-bye to my mother in the hallway of our small home and I saw in her eyes the sadness I always saw when I went to sea. Before me she had looked at my father this way and he had told me that a woman's sadness was to be welcomed. Many men did not have anyone waiting for them when they went to the Grand Banks.

An hour later we were steaming out of the harbor. It would be weeks before I would see my home again and I stood on the deck and watched the land recede behind me. Carlos and I were on the deck. Big Al and Ronny were below, sleeping off whatever they had done to themselves the night before. Captain Alavares was in the wheelhouse. Carlos, a heavy-browed Portuguese of about forty, was already tying leaders. This was work we shared and he knew I was good for my end so he didn't say anything when I hadn't started yet. There was a bright blue sky and a few high cirrus clouds. The truth was that I wanted to see the island. I wanted to see the house.

We followed virtually the same path that Victor and I had,
though now we were farther from shore and we were steaming much faster than we had in my skiff. The island came into view and then we were passing it. Carlos paid no attention but I stood against the rail and stared up at it. At its craggy bluffs and uneven coastline. And then at the turret of the great house and, coming around, the house itself. I saw a piece of green lawn in front of it and I was far away but I could have sworn I saw a figure standing on it. Was it the girl? And did she look down and see our boat chugging by and see me standing at the rail looking up at her again?

Past the island all that was in front of us was blue ocean. This was when I needed the work, the busy work that went with the ride out. For without it, I missed the certainty of land too much. You couldn't think about it because if you did it would drive you crazy. You needed to focus on the tasks in front of you, on the cleverness of your fingers.

Among the swordfish fleet, the
Lorrie Anne
was considered a good gig. As a boat it had never had any problems and Captain Alavares had a nose for fish. He didn't tolerate any bullshit, no drinking or drugs, and he hired good people and we made money.

I know that before I came on, some of the other men thought I was a Jonah, someone who was cursed. They never said it to my face, but I saw it in their eyes, and in the way conversation stopped when I came below. This was on account of my father drowning at sea. Though Captain Alavares had known my father, and knew he had been a good and able fisherman. And after a number of trips, Carlos and Ronny, the butcher, and Big Al, the cook, knew me too and I was no longer a greenhorn and we got along just fine.

It took five days to get to the swordfish grounds. Once the
lines were readied, there was nothing to do but wait. During the days we sat in the galley and chain-smoked and watched movies. We watched the same ones over and over. Like
Scarface
, which we all knew by heart. We took turns saying the lines out loud. Sometimes I lay in my bunk and read. The other guys made fun of me for it for they never read books. Big Al fed us twice a day and we looked forward to the meals as much for relief from the boredom as for the sustenance. Big Al was a pretty good cook. And we had all his best meals on the way out, the flank steak and the chicken parmesan and the stuffed haddock. Once we were working it was all spaghetti and salad. Not that it mattered then for we were working eighteen hour days, and none of us knew whether it was night or day, whether it was raining or clear, let alone what we shoveled into our mouths.

Until then, though, the only other responsibility we had was to take a turn at watch during the night. We divided the night into two-hour shifts and as the youngest, I got the worst time, two to four, smack in the middle and perfectly designed to make sure I could not string together too many consecutive hours of sleep. Our job was to sit in the wheelhouse and monitor the instruments. Every half hour we checked the engine room. And we only woke the captain if we saw another ship on the radar, which didn't happen too often. The North Atlantic was pretty much empty on the way out.

Sitting in the captain's chair that first night, with the only light coming from the instruments, looking to the sea of ocean stars above, I could not help but feel suddenly small, and alone, and afraid. The boat moved in a gentle swell and there was nothing but black ocean in all directions. I tried to think of other things, of home, but the fear kept moving through me. I kept seeing the man falling over the railing. And while that
night it happened so fast and it was dark and I had sensed him falling, had heard him falling, rather than seeing him, in my mind when I was on watch, I saw it clear as water. His arms and legs outstretched like he was flying. His face down. All of him moving quickly to the hard floor.

I tried to put it out of my head and think of other things. I looked out to the black ocean. It was so endless in the dark. You might think that after what happened to my father, and the age I was when it happened, that I would be scared to death of the open ocean. But I wasn't. To be honest, I was never afraid of dying. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. I was afraid of being afraid. A few times we had been in weather so bad that the waves were smacking with fury against the windows of the wheelhouse. We sat huddled in the galley smoking and none of us said a word and we did not have to. We knew that all it would take would be one rogue wave and we'd be beam-to, on our side. It had happened to many boats and when it happened there was nothing you could do but hope the ocean picked you up and laid you back down the right way. Otherwise, you were going down. Trapped in a steel cage with men you knew but could not say you loved.

And that's what scared me. Thinking about those moments of complete self-awareness, when we knew the boat was sinking, when we saw it on each other's faces. What would that fear be like? Would it be raw, like a punch to the face? Or would it be more quiet, the kind that would take us to our knees?

I never told anyone this, but that's why I think the dying would be the easy part. Just close your eyes and go to sleep.

And sitting in the captain's chair, staring at the stars, I wondered why we even did it, took the risk we did for this job. Though I knew the answer already. We did it because we were
born to it. We did it because it was the only thing we could do. We did it because in the work itself was a simple truth that is so hard to find in this life. We were men killing fish. It was no more complicated than that. And when you think about it in those terms, you understand the freedom that comes from this work. The freedom in knowing where you stand, in seeing your relationship to things.

W
e reached the Grand Banks without incident and the weather held. Captain Alavares moved us to different patches of ocean, looking for the right temperature to set. In the galley I sat with Carlos and Big Al and we smoked and waited for the word from up top that it was time to go. Unlike when we were steaming, there was no relaxed banter, no movies. We had our boots on and our coveralls. The quiet anticipation of the work to come.

Then in the afternoon Ronny came down the ladder and said that the captain wanted to see me. If the other men were curious they did not say anything, though I could not remember a moment before when he had asked to see me by myself.

I went to the wheelhouse and when I opened the door, Captain Alavares sat with his back to me and when I walked through he swiveled around and faced me.

“Anthony,” he said. “Come in.”

Through the windows I could see that the weather still held but the ceiling had shrunk and in the distance there were heavy gray clouds. I stood with my hands clasped in front of my waist, and I said, “Skip.”

The captain was in his forties and solidly built, with only the slightest hint of a paunch. The first silver was showing on the hair at his temples. Captain Alavares looked at me. “Anthony, is everything all right?”

I nodded, unclear at what he was getting at. “Yeah, sure,” I said.

“I got a strange call on the SSB this morning,” he said. “Sheriff from Cross Island.”

Immediately I thought of Victor, what he might have done. “Okay,” I said.

“You in some kind of trouble, Anthony?”

“Nah, Skip. Not that I know of.”

The captain looked straight at me and I tried to return his gaze, but instead I looked past him to where the boat cut through the waves. “He wanted to know if you were on board,” he said.

“What'd you tell him?” I said.

“That of course you were on board. He wanted to know when we were coming in.”

The captain laughed and I felt better when he did. He said, “Not a fisherman, that one. I told him we'd be in when we were done. Couldn't give him an exact date.”

“All right,” I said.

“Anthony,” he said. “You sure everything's okay? You're not in trouble?”

I shook my head. “Something stupid. Something with my skiff. That's all.”

Captain Alavares smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks, Anthony.”

“We going to set tonight, Skip?” I asked.

He swung his chair around and peered at the instruments
in front of him. “Still running a little cold. But let's hope so. It's time.”

We fished that night and every night for the next two weeks. It was a great run with calm seas and clear skies. A pale full fisherman's moon hung fat over the ocean. The first sets we pulled were mainly blue dogs, sharks, but after that it was all swords and big-eyed tuna. We worked hard and I gave in to the rhythm of the work, and the hold quickly grew full. Although in those brief moments when we had a lull, or when I found the time to lie in my bunk, I couldn't help but wonder what waited for me back home. Sometimes I looked to the wake that ran like a road through the ocean behind the boat. And it dawned on me that perhaps my life was going to come to an abrupt end after this trip.

But we caught fish after fish and this meant money and all the men were in good spirits. I tried to join them and sometimes I could not help but feel it. Sometimes I even managed to push it all out of my mind. The sheriff, Victor, the great house. All of it.

One bright sunny morning Captain Alavares told us we had done all we could do. He told us we were going home. We all whooped and hollered and stood dog-tired on the deck putting our arms around each other and lighting cigarettes. The captain turned the boat toward land. We were steaming again. Carlos and Big Al and Ronny all disappeared below to sleep. I stood on the deck and watched the sea move under the boat. I watched the birds that followed us, storm petrels mostly, get pushed around by the breeze. And I wondered if the sheriff would greet me at the wharf, or if he would be waiting for me at my house.

A
s we approached Galilee, I kept my eyes fixed on the small harbor. After we passed the breakwater, I anxiously scanned the wharf for any signs of red-and-white sheriff cars. But I saw none and when we docked we got busy with unloading the catch and cleaning out the holds and washing the decks. I looked over my shoulder the whole time. When we were done we smoked outside the office while our checks were cut and then we split up, Big Al and Ronny to the bar, Carlos home to his wife, and me to Victor's, where I found his apartment open but my friend nowhere to be found.

I returned to my house and there were no police cars here either. I thought that maybe my mind had gotten to me at sea. It was possible, I thought, that Victor had not caved in like I suspected and told everything. Perhaps the sheriff's call to the boat was nothing more than a routine follow-up. Maybe I was going to be okay, after all.

Inside the house I ate some of Berta's soup and I was so exhausted I kissed her good night while the sun was still in the sky. I climbed into my bed and I slept soundly until I smelled bacon frying in the kitchen the next morning.

At noon, I met Victor at the jetty. The sheriff had been to see him, he told me, though over a week ago, and Victor had done his job. He told him we fished the shoals that night and the sheriff didn't ask him anything else. Victor had not heard a word about it since. There was nothing in the papers anymore. I gave Victor half the money and he didn't want it but I made him take it.

“Don't do anything stupid,” I said. “Like get a motorcycle.”

The summer moved on. Long days after long days. In July I returned to the Grand Banks and it was another great trip, with fine weather and lots of fish. Both coming and going we steamed under the turret of the house and I looked up at the lawn when we went by, but I did not see anybody standing on it.

For a while, even, everything returned to normal. It was almost as if we had never gone into that house. As if we had stayed on the normal pathway of things the whole time.

Though I never stopped thinking about that night. In my bunk on the North Atlantic when the pitch and roll of the ocean denied me sleep, I returned again and again in my mind to the house. And when I studied what happened as best as I could, something curious happened. I stopped dwelling on the man and his fall. On the death that I was responsible for. Rather, I began to think only about the girl on the stairs. Hannah. To the extent that I considered her father trying to tackle me and then falling, I saw it almost as a separate event, as if it happened on another night. I suppose I knew that this was not right. And perhaps if I thought about it more, I might have realized that the ease with which I did it pointed to some larger flaw that rested within myself. Something that may have always been a part of me, but did not reveal itself until all this happened.
And so it was that as I lay looking at the steel bottom of the bunk above me, it was the girl I was haunted by and it was the girl I wanted to haunt me. I dreamed about her. Once she was on the stairs and she screamed and when I said it would be okay I saw her face visibly relax. Another time it was dark and we lay together in a large bed. All I wanted to know was the color of her eyes. I begged her, let me turn on a light. But she shook her head no and kept inviting me to guess. I named every color I could think of, every color I had ever heard of or seen, but none of them were right.

I also began to see her in other places, when I was not sleeping. Times when I began to wonder if I had lost my mind. She would appear suddenly, out of nowhere, like an apparition. Once I saw her in the shiny black eye of a swordfish. The fish was alive. I had just gaffed it and Big Al and I were struggling to get it up on deck. Its eye was as small and dark as a marble, and when it caught my attention, I saw her in its reflective surface, staring back at me, her long hair streaming behind her. I must have completely stopped what I was doing. For in a moment I heard Big Al next to me and then I felt him, a swift punch delivered to my biceps with his free hand.

“Anthony,” he said. “What the fuck? Get her up.”

From then on I tried my best to keep her at bay. I tried to think of her only in the deep of night when I was sure I was alone. When I could have her to myself. For the most part it worked. And I didn't tell anyone about this, not even Victor.

One August morning I stood in front of the
Lorrie Anne
where it was berthed. Tomorrow we were to head out again. I was waiting on Carlos. A beautiful midsummer day and we were to spend the morning loading the hold with the squid,
work I disliked more than all others. While I waited I stood and smoked and watched the boats around me. Small skiffs and dinghies heading out to larger boats. Trawlers being cleaned and loaded up. The day was warm and the sun moved in and out of high clouds. To my left, rising up above all the fishing boats, was the Cross Island ferry. It left every two hours year-round and we never paid it any attention. A sea bus, we used to call it. Though for some reason this time I was looking at its massive hull and I let my gaze drift up its decks. I drew on my cigarette and when my eyes reached the third level, what I saw almost stopped the heart in my chest.

It was her. Hannah Forbes. She was high above me and the sun was directly behind her head. The way the light shone over her made it impossible for me, once again, to make out her features. But a soft breeze blew her hair back and there was something about the way she stood that I knew with absolute certainty that it was her. You know how a parent can always recognize their child from a distance by how they walk? It was something like that, something intuitive, something I couldn't put my finger on. I said her name out loud then, wanting to hear it roll off my tongue. Hannah. I could not see her face clearly. But I could tell by the way it was angled that she was looking above and beyond me, taking in the harbor, the skiffs and the fishing boats in front of her like toys. I dropped my cigarette and broke into a run.

I ran past Carlos on the wharf, and he said to me, “Whoa, Anthony, man, where you going?”

But all I did was nod and keep moving past him. When I reached the road, I turned toward the ferry terminal. I reached the parking lot and the boat was in front of me. It had left its
moorings and was backing out and into the harbor. I scanned the top deck. There was a white-haired couple with sweaters tied around their neck. They waved to a young family next to me. But there was no sign of the girl. Though this time I knew I was no longer seeing things.