Open Water (6 page)

Willis had seen local Cape Verde women in Newport. If one of these women was widowed, she wore black for months, sometimes years, waving her flag of grief; yet she went about her business, shopping at the Almacs, chatting away at the Norgetown. The only bitterness was in the dark clothing. In the same way, Fritz was safe behind his blank mask. Even eating ice cream Fritz looked bleak, but he also looked peaceful, as if giving in to it was easier than fighting it off; chocolate stained the expressionless corners of his mouth.

“So tell me, how did you pinch this stuff to perfection?” Willis said.

Fritz said, “I drive my sister’s car into Metric King. The shop at Two Mile Corner. I was interested in some wipers. Just some wipers.”

“Blades or the whole arm?”

“That’s what I was going to find out. No one was around but Albert—”

“Which Albert are we talking about?”

“The young guy.
Sweet
Albert. Princess Feet. And guess where he’s at. He’s in his van behind the place. The windows are misted up.”

“Princess Feet has company.”

“Magazines. That’s my feeling. I’ve seen some of these gay rags. I saw one called
Inches.
”

Willis said,
“Inches?”

“The official title above the masthead.”

“It’s to the point.”

“Anyway, the garage is empty. Cleared out. I hear a voice. The voice says, Help Yourself. I see the Porsche thing. I tip it into my backseat. The wrenches—in metal drawers and trays. I load them up like egg cartons. Fifteen minutes later my shopping list is complete. I’m across town.”

“And where are you now? The minnow piss-hole.”

“It got fucked up,” Fritz said. “My brother-in-law’s snooping around on the carport, writing down serial numbers. Can you believe this? He says he’s going to put the squawk on me unless I unload the whole package. It’s out the window.”

“What about your sister?”

“She’s ready to throw me out. I’ll be homeless. I’ll be on the grass triangle in the center of town, with all those ginks sleeping in their paper bags.”

“No man is an island.”

“I’m telling you. I can’t live outdoors. I can’t snooze under Venus and Mars,” Fritz said.

“Maybe you can practice,” Willis said, “because you’re not getting rich this way.”

Willis looked back at his friend’s face. “What’s the matter? You’re having that old nightmare?”

“That’s right. The same one. I wake up. I’m one of three on a bench at the ACI.”

“And why do you think it’s always three?”

“Three is a spooky number, isn’t it? Shit, I don’t know why it’s three.”

Willis said, “It’s like Calvary. When I was in Norfolk, I saw those three crosses. They’re everywhere. In a field. In the woods. They surprise you. It’s supposed to be Jesus and
the two thieves. You think, who in the hell put these crosses out here? It’s the nineties. Who went to all the trouble? It’s real spooky shit.”

“Jesus and the two thieves? Shit, I forgot about them.”

“I guess you did. Never mind, we sink the stuff. Splash. We’re in rinse water after that.”

Fritz got out of the car and went to find the dinghy he’d left in the tall grass earlier that day. He pulled the blunt-nosed wooden pram parallel to the car. It was a tiny, bright yellow boat, a local mascot. The diminutive rowboat was usually moored in a reserved slip in front of The Black Pearl, an upscale restaurant on Bowen’s Wharf. Its stern said
Crouton.

Willis said, “The
Crouton.
Shit, I’m impressed. How did you get it?”

“Like it? I knew you’d like it.”

“Really. You thrill me to death. You just walked off with the
Crouton?
”

Fritz said, “You definitely like it?” Fritz rested his head on his shoulders, enjoying it, tasting relief in his friend’s approval. “I knew you would like it.” He was almost grinning, an intense flat line. “I rowed it out to the other end of Thames Street. It was simple. Preps were watching right out the window, drinking Heinekens. From glasses. I just shoved off.”

“With their
Crouton.
” Willis liked the story.

The stolen tools were still in trays wrapped in an Indian blanket. The Porsche electronics were in a big console on casters, maybe they could roll it, but the grass was long and thick. Willis started to load the wrenches into the dinghy.

“Point. Boat goes in the water first, don’t you think? We launch the boat first?” Federico said.

Willis didn’t like to make little mistakes like this and
he had to shift it over to Fritz somehow. He couldn’t see how, so he clucked his tongue in random rhythmic phrases. Fritz shoved the pram into the blackness ahead of the car until it lofted on the water and Willis held the stern rail with his good arm. Fritz dragged the weighted Indian blanket over the spartina, raking its silvery stalks. They went back to the car and lifted the console out. The readout panels caught the moonlight in glowing bars. They tipped the heavy machine into the boat and shoved off. Willis lifted a glossy oar and snapped it in the oarlock; its new coat of shellac smelled sweet in the cold air. He shoved the oars to Fritz.

They glided through the darkness, watching the house-lights along the hillside, trying to judge where the center of the pond was by the corresponding landmarks. Fritz rowed out. He started singing “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Willis used his teeth to nip the fingers of his single glove until he had it off. He hit Fritz in the mouth with its heavy leather cuff. “Shut up. Stop dicking around.”

Fritz kept singing.

“You idiot. You’re a Chinese fire drill, you know that?”

Fritz went ahead with the ballad until Willis was laughing against the heel of his hand. Again he told Fritz, “Shut up, Federico. This isn’t
Star Search.
I’m sticking my neck out sitting here.”

When they reached the middle of the pond, Willis unwrapped the tools from the Indian blanket. They watched the occasional traffic on Memorial Boulevard in the distance. Willis took a handful of the wrenches and opened his fist under the water. Both men immersed fistfuls of the expensive tools; shiny jaws glittered and were gone. All sizes of SuperKrome sockets like scores of silver knuckles. Universal joints, some flexes. The crowfoots went in, the
wobbles. Willis took his time, resting the wrenches on his knees before pitching them in. He recognized a sense of waste. The chrome tools caught the light from a wide girth of stars, bright enough to illuminate the silver bones as they sank beneath the surface. The electronic console was a different matter; they had to tip it over the gunnel and use their weight to counter it, submerge it slowly so it wouldn’t splash. The cabinet screaked against the boat, making a minor racket. Cormorants lifted off the bank and circled the pond, their taut canvas wing beats made an upsetting, prehistoric flapping. More birds hooted bloodless tones, then quieted. The cabinet sank under the water.

“Wait a minute,” Willis said. “I can still see it.” They could find the top plane of the big cabinet, a pale square in the moonlit water. It was only two feet under the surface.

“You know. This is giving me a pain,” Willis said.

“Deepest apologies.”

“I’ll have to tip it over. Give me the oar.”

“Let me do it,” Fritz told him.

Fritz lowered the oar into the water and tried to shove the cabinet, knock it over. It wasn’t coming. Then Willis pulled his new boot off and handed it to Fritz. He peeled off his sock and Fritz pushed it inside the boot. Willis threw his leg over the side of the boat and kicked the machine. The water was icy and he felt the cold climb his leg and tighten like a vise. He leaned farther out of the boat and kicked the heavy machine off a muddy shelf. The cabinet sank away and the rotted muck floated up to the surface; blackened stalks of eelgrass drifted loose.

Fritz rowed the
Crouton
back to where the car was parked and got out of the boat. He tugged the dinghy on shore, through the weeds, with Willis still on the bench. Willis might have stood up and jumped out, to ease the
weight, but he didn’t. Sometimes their relationship bled further, into an intimacy they couldn’t understand or acknowledge, but both men accepted their stations. Fritz pulled the dinghy into the high grass until the tall weeds splashed over its hull.

“Aren’t you going to return the boat?” Willis said.

“You’re kidding?”

“It’s an institution, isn’t it? It’s the
Crouton.
People will miss it.”

Fritz said, “Listen to yourself. You sound like some kind of church boy. Christ. Maybe I’m starting my own institution.”

Willis put his boot on and got into the car. He tried the ignition but it wasn’t turning over. He tried it a second time, and the engine grabbed; its open throttle growled over the wide surface of the pond. Coming out of the sand road, they peeled onto Eustis Avenue. A police cruiser was parked on the street; its engine was running.

“Watch it. His Kodak might be loaded,” Fritz said. Willis slowed his speed, but the cruiser was empty. Willis said the officer was probably in one of the houses getting a handout.

Willis switched on the heater to warm his wet pant leg. By this time his cast was firm, but Fritz had left little fingertip notches in the plaster. Willis wanted to find the Salve Regina girl to see if she had cooled off, but he didn’t know which dormitory to start at. They drove into town. A few weeks before, the Chamber of Commerce had nailed huge
green shamrocks to the elm trees to celebrate Saint Paddy’s. No one had collected them. The high beams hit the scalloped foil medallions.

“There are just enough of these party themes, one after the other, to keep me going,” Willis told Fritz. He pulled over and got out of the car. He tugged a shamrock loose, panned it under the yellow streetlight, then he walked around and put it on the dash. The decoration was for the Salve Regina nurse. Her farewell clover. He didn’t like their violent parting and he wondered if she felt sorry. He’d accept her apology and give her the souvenir. He wasn’t sure the shamrock was the right memento.

“I think she’s in Watts Sherman House. That big one,” Willis said.

Fritz whined, “Maybe she’s in Wakehurst or Carey Mansion. Who knows what dorm she’s in? She could be in any of those. She could live off-campus. My sister lived off-campus.”

Willis told Fritz, “You go inside and tell them to have her come down. I’m waiting.”

Fritz said, “Are you asking me to go up there? There might be some nuns inside there. I can’t deal with nuns.”

“You’re a chickenshit.”

“Point. A girl going to Catholic nurse school has big ideas. She wants a doctor someday. She doesn’t like it when someone like you gives her the heave-ho. It’s bad for her self-concept. If she did like it, you would have brought out the fox. Was she fox or bitch?”

Willis picked up the shamrock and fanned his throat. “Actually, we were an equal match, we were on the same card. That’s why she bored me, initially. I like to go outside my class.” His eyes felt blurry. His pain was surfacing again, making everything jiggly.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Fritz said. “A little Salve Regina pussy goes a long way. It lasts a lifetime.”

“A lifetime for you isn’t the same as for me,” Willis said.

Fritz said, “I’ll live twice as long as you.”

“May you live as
long
as
you want
and
want to
as
long
as you live.”

“Where did you hear that one?”

“That’s a chestnut. Rennie told me that one.”

“Why do you want a nurse anyway? You could stay at home and try that new girl next door.”

“Haven’t had the pleasure yet. Besides, Rennie says she’s a pyro.”

“A pyro? Maybe that’s your type.”

“Christ, this stinks. Does this arm reek?” Willis waved the new cast under Federico’s face.

“Smells like you’ve been hanging Sheetrock, smells like that white mud.”

“Where do I drop you off?” Willis couldn’t follow the yellow line without feeling it slice through his eyes. “Where do I set you down?”

“No hurry,” Fritz said.

“I’m asking, where?”

“Split up now? It’s still early. We just started. I thought we were going for a pitcher. I’m thirsty.”

“Jesus, you’re a long streak of piss. Right here.” Willis crushed the brake pedal; the suspension shivered with the hard stop. Fritz got out of the passenger seat and stood beside the car. They were in the middle of nowhere, halfway out on Ten Mile Drive. The surf was tearing into the silence. Other than that, it was the dead of night.

Fritz leaned in the window. “Come on. You don’t look so good. I don’t care if you can’t take it. Who’s going to
know but me? I’ve got Darvon at the house,” he told Willis. “I’ve got Empirin—”

“Empirin? Since when do they still sell Empirin? What’s the shelf life on Empirin?” Willis moved across the seat, hunched over and vomited. Pain moves all around the body, finally into the gullet, into the acid rising now, into his throat. A fiery gloss of sweat sealed his eyelids shut. He rolled onto his back.

Fritz said, “Okay. So, now what are we doing?”

Willis laid the back of his heavy arm over his eyes.