Off Season (8 page)

“More tea?”

So I had some more tea, and then I went home and made myself a supper of refrigerator soup, bread and white wine. Afterward I sat in front of my new stove
and read until I was ready for bed. I stepped out onto the porch first, for some night air. The fall wind sighed through the trees, and the night sky was bright and clear. I wished that Zee was with me, and wondered if she wished that she was. I also wondered if Mimi Bettencourt knew that Nash Cortez didn't have any rabbits.

“I thought you didn't use electricity,” I said. “I thought you were living the uncivilized life.”

Chug had just handed me three cold packages of venison. He grinned. “I got electricity and I got my truck, too. Some things you just can't do without. Hee, hee!”

“I knew a guy once who tried to go all the way back to the old days. Built himself a wooden boat, using only old tools. Had a wood stove and oil lamps and a wooden bucket instead of a water closet. Sailed the boat off to Mexico, then came back and sold the boat and gave the old days up. Said he'd found out he couldn't live without paper towels. Everything else he could handle, but he had to have paper towels, so he resigned himself to living in the twentieth century.”

Chug giggled and nodded. “I know whatcha mean, I know whatcha mean. Now, you enjoy that meat, J.W. It's fresh and it's good. Don't let the game warden catch you with it, though. You know what I mean? Hee, hee!”

“I'll be careful.”

Chug tapped one of the packages. “These are steaks. That one's a roast and this one you'd better grind up and make into venison burger. It's a sort of tough hunk.”

“Just like you and me, Chug.”

“Hee, hee!”

Through the sagging door leading to a back room, I could see a compound bow leaning against the far wall. Chug's idea of primitivism apparently led him to eschew firearms, even the muzzle-loading kinds, but not modern bows. I let my eyes drift by and come back to Chug. I put a finger against his chest.

“You be careful, Chug. There are a lot of people on this little island, and you never know when one of them might be walking through the woods bird-watching or something just about the same time you might be lining up the next deer. They'd have the warden on you like ugly on an ape.”

He looked up at me with his big frog eyes and grinned his innocent grin. “I don't have any idea what you're talking about, hee, hee!”

“Besides, there's Mimi and her gang, and they'd have you in jail quick as a wink if they caught you. And Vince Manwaring was complaining to the chief just yesterday . . .”

“Now, don't you go worrying about me, J.W. You want to worry about somebody, worry about Nash Cortez. Now, there's a man who's made some real enemies.”

True. And he seemed to be working on making them madder every day.

“I think you're right, Chug. I'm going to stop worrying about everybody, especially you and Nash.”

“That's smart, J.W. People got enough to worry about if they just worry about themselves. No need to worry about other people, too.”

“I owe you,” I said, hefting the packages. “How about some scallops? Come by and pick some up.”

“I've got all the scallops I can handle, J.W., but thanks. Hee, hee.”

I went out of Chug's falling-down house and drove home, the three packages of meat beside me on the seat. If some zealous policeman happened to stop me and see them, would the U.S. Constitution protect me from search and seizure? I didn't know.

Driving down my long, sandy driveway, I decided that I would get rid of some of the evidence of the crime by eating it. Dinner for Zee and me would be a nice venison roast, with brussels sprouts and little boiled potatoes with a butter and parsley sauce. First, though, oysters on the half shell, with a bit of caviar, maybe, to go with cocktails.

There is a lot of good food and drink in the world, and I intend to enjoy as much of it as I can grow or catch or buy.

The table was set with my best almost matching china and silverware, and the food was coming along when I heard Zee's little Jeep come down the driveway. I mixed her perfect martini as she shut down the engine: a chilled glass, a bit of dry vermouth poured into it and then tossed out, two olives (Zee had developed a taste for black ones) and Tanqueray vodka straight out of the freezer. No ice. As she came through the door, I met her with this in one hand and the bed-room slippers she kept in my closet in the other.

“Ah!” she said. “The old ply the maiden with booze and slippers trick, eh?”

“I'm a desperate man.”

She kissed me and took the glass and sipped. “Works like a charm. God, I'm such a traditionalist.” She kicked off her shoes, and put on the slippers.

“You go up on the balcony, and I will join you with goodies. You might take that blanket with you, because it may be a bit chilly.”

“If we freeze out, we can come down here and sit in front of your new stove. It's cozy here.”

“Cozy is my middle name, but let's go up first.”

She went and I loaded a tray with oysters, crackers and brie, and the Tanqueray bottle, and followed her.

From the balcony over my porch, on a clear, dry day, you can see Cape Cod on the other side of Nantucket Sound. Farther to the south you can see the Cape Pogue lighthouse on the northeasternmost point of Chappaquiddick.

Between the balcony and those far-off places are, first, my garden, second, Sengekontacket Pond, known as Anthier's Pond to those who don't speak Wampanoag, third, the spit of sand that carries the road and the State Beach between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, and fourth, Nantucket Sound. In the summertime, the road is lined with parked cars belonging to people who are spread out all over State Beach with bright umbrellas, sailboards and kites. On the other side of them, motorboats and sailboats move over the blue waters of the Sound.

In October, the summer people are gone, and the sailboats are gone, and save for an occasional fisherman heading in or out, there is nothing to see but the sea, and scallopers dipnetting in the pond.

I put the tray on the table between Zee's chair and mine. The sun was almost gone, and the air was cooling. The wind hushed through the trees, and a bunny, surely one of the fearless Bad Bunny Bunch who are a constant threat to my garden, had come out of the oak brush and was looking through my chicken wire fence at my fall veggies.

“Get out of there!” I yelled, and threw the shell of the oyster I had just slurped up. Yum! But the oyster shell fluttered off to one side and was ignored by the bad bunny, who also ignored my yell.

“I thought you were going to be nice to your bunnies,” said Zee, laying down an empty oyster shell and taking up a full one.

“They're not my bunnies,” I said. “And I am nice to them. I could be up here shooting at them, you know. It's not illegal to shoot rabbits, you know.”

“Sure,” said Zee. “I can just see you up here with your twelve-gauge blasting little bunnies into smithereens. Ha!”

“All right, so I probably wouldn't do that. That proves I'm not mean to them. So I throw an oyster shell now and then, but so what? You ever try to hit anything with an oyster shell? You see how that thing went flip-flopping off toward my shed? Looked like a scud missile. That bunny knew he wasn't in any danger. Look at him!” I threw another wobbly shell which the bunny ignored.

We sat there and ate oysters and crackers and brie. Now and then I ducked down to the kitchen to make sure things were on schedule. The sun went down, and the air grew cooler, and Zee wrapped the blanket around her. Lights began to flicker on Cape Cod, and the Cape Pogue lighthouse began to flash. I reached for an oyster, but they were gone, and I found Zee's hand instead. I got a good hold on it and felt her get a grip of her own. Suddenly I felt better than I had in quite a while.

Then it was time to eat, so we went down.

The secret of preparing good venison is to cook it rare and slice it thin. I served the roast and fixings with a bottle of Australian merlot that I'd come across sometime or other. I hold that there is no bad merlot
or cabernet sauvignon, so I buy whatever brand is cheap, when I happen to have the money. The Aussie stuff was quite up to my exacting standards.

“Yum,” said Zee, after sopping up a last bit of juice with her last piece of bread, popping it into her mouth and touching her lips with her napkin. “But isn't it a little early in the year to be eating fresh venison?”

“For a goddess such as yourself, hunting seasons do not apply.” I told her where I'd gotten the meat.

She arched a lovely eyebrow. “So Chug has been jacking deer, you think? I thought he lived on nuts and berries, or some such stuff.”

“I guess he's in his hunter-gatherer stage, or maybe even his early planting period. He's got a sort of garden back of the house, too.”

“He's a funny little guy. There are a lot of characters on this island.” She paused and looked happily at her empty plate. “Including you and me, probably.”

“No question about it.” I told her about Nash Cortez's visit to Mimi Bettencourt, and about Mimi's tales of Chug and his new girlfriend, and about the snatch of conversation I'd heard between Vincent Manwaring and the chief. And then I told her about finding Chug and Heather together. “So your rumor mill was right,” I said. “Heather seems to have a beau. Of course if Mimi is right about Chug and Helene Norton, Heather may not have him long.”

“Gossip,” she said. “I love it. You're getting better at it, I'm glad to say. When we get married, I can tell you the hospital gossip and you can tell me the Edgartown gossip. We'll never be bored.”

When we get married. A golden phrase.

I put her in front of the new stove with a glass of cognac while I cleaned and stacked the dishes. Then I went in and sat beside her, and we watched the fire
through the glass door of the stove. She leaned against me and put her head on my shoulder, and I told her about Edgartown nicknames old and new: the guy who became Two Tailed Rat because he swore he'd seen one; the man who became Littleneck because he got caught selling, then stealing back, the same limit of quahogs, over and over; the two guys called Pete Vincent, neither of whom was actually named Pete Vincent; the guy called Big Octy because he favored Octagon soap, and his namesake son, Little Octy.

“Like Chug Lovell and Shrink Williams, eh?”

“And Just Ted. Some things don't change. The island will always be the island.”

“I hope so. I worry about guys like Nash Cortez, though. He seems to want to start a fight.”

“With Mimi Bettencourt. He's been pretty obnoxious, all right.”

“You know what he reminds me of ? A braid puller.”

“A what?”

“A braid puller. One of those boys who pulls a girl's braids because he doesn't know how else to get her attention. Anyway, he's always been polite to me.”

“That's because you're the most beautiful woman on the island and you have a healthy effect on everyone you meet, even Nash Cortez.”

“Nash is a widower, isn't he? Does he have any children?”

“All grown up and off island, I think.”

“No wonder he's being obnoxious. No family.”

It was an explanation I should have anticipated since Zee was, in Mimi Bettencourt's words, getting broody. The idea of family was one of the reasons we were getting married. I might not be prime husband material, but Zee, not quite thirty, claimed to hear her biological clock ticking, and professed to liking the
idea of me as the father of her children. I heard no such clock, but liked the idea of being no more than sixty when my children, our children, would be grown. Maybe Zee was right. Maybe if I was a widower and my children were gone, I would be as much of a troublemaker as Nash Cortez. I didn't like to think about being a widower, so I cut that thought off abruptly.

“The thing is,” said Zee, “that Nash may make somebody so mad that they'll do something. Or maybe he'll get so mad that he'll do something. He needs a woman in his life.”

“Maybe we can get him and Mimi together. She needs a man in her life.”

Zee looked up at me. “Remind me to remind you not to take up matchmaking as a profession.”

“Well, in a couple of weeks the archery season for deer starts. Manny Fonseca thinks that Nash may get a license just to annoy the vegetarians and the animal rights people. Then later on Manny says Nash may get a black powder license, too. Again, just to rub it in Mimi's and her friends' faces.”

“And naturally, he'll hunt during shotgun season, too.”

“Naturally.” In Massachusetts, it's illegal to hunt deer with rifles. It's shotgun country. A lot of hunters have rifles, though, and use them to hunt in Maine and other states. My father did that. His 30.06 and shotguns, now mine, are in my gun cabinet with the .38 revolver I used when I was a Boston cop.

“What'll he do with all that venison? Good grief, he could kill a lot of deer!”

“Leave it on Mimi's porch?”

“Yech! Disgusting!”

“Most hunters don't kill anything. They just hunt, then come home and talk about it and drink and play
cards, then go out again the next day. More money is spent on booze than on bullets, and more deer are killed by cars than by guns. Most deer are still walking around when the season's over. And that's even truer of archery season and black powder season than of regular season. Nash might not get a shot, let alone hit anything.”

“Are you going to hunt?”

“No. I think my deer hunting days are over for the time being. I'll just eat what other people shoot.”

“I'm glad.”

“Me, too.”

“Do you think it's time to bank the fire and slip off to bed?”

“I'm sure it is.”

So we did that.

In August, islanders begin to take an interest in tropical storms, since that is the beginning of hurricane season and coastal New Englanders still remember the devastation caused by historic storms in the past. This year, in August, September and October, all of the hurricanes went into the Gulf of Mexico. However, in early November, a bit late for hurricanes, another one brewed up west of the Sahara and moved across the Atlantic in an arc that brought it up toward Bermuda.