Vineyard Fear (3 page)

On May 24, I got another call from John Skye. Jack Scarlotti and company would be coming over the next day on the one-fifteen boat from Woods Hole.

I went to the A & P and bought juice, instant coffee, bread, oleo, bacon, and eggs. As is customary on Martha's Vineyard, I paid a lot more for the food than I would have on the mainland. Such is the price of island living. All businesses overcharge and claim that it's because of the cost of bringing in supplies on the ferries. The overcharges are, of course, much greater than the freight costs, but it is a convenient lie shared by the businesses, and islanders tolerate it because they must. Once the state sent down a Consumer Affairs official in response to complaints about unjustifiably high prices. The official agreed that island prices were outrageous and had little to do with freight costs, but could find no law against the practice of overcharging and went back across the sound to America, never to return. Some people were disappointed, but no one was surprised.

I put the food in John Skye's refrigerator and went fishing.

At home again, I filleted the fish on the metal-topped table behind the shed in back of my house and threw the carcasses into the trees. As long as the wind blew from the southwest, the scent of rotting fish would blow away from the house. Within three or four days, the bones would be stripped bare by insects and birds and
there would be no smell at all. Blues, like people, are biodegradable.

I set one fillet aside and put the rest in my freezer, then celebrated with a bottle of George Killian Red. George Killian Red is a product of the Coors brewery. Coors beer (“brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water”) may be a bit overrated, but George Killian Red is a good beer that I enjoy.

My peas were ready, but there was also some asparagus coming up, so I picked that and managed to get it back to the house without eating it raw, proof that I have a will of iron. Asparagus out of the garden is so tender that it really doesn't have to be cooked at all, but on the other hand, a bit of butter doesn't hurt it. I put it in a pan with a little water and cooked it in the oven while I fried up the bluefish fillet, and made a sauce of horseradish, mustard, and mayo. In the fridge I had the last half of a loaf of bread I'd baked the day before (you always eat at least a half loaf of fresh bread as soon as it comes out of the oven), and in a bit sat down with another George Killian to a supper better than what anyone else I knew was eating. A Vineyard meal, the gift of the earth and sea. I wished that Zee was sharing it, but she was at the hospital on the four to midnight shift, alas. I managed to eat everything by myself.

The next afternoon at two-thirty I heard cars coming down my long, sandy driveway. Not too many cars come down my road, but these were right on time. The one-fifteen boat from Woods Hole gets into Vineyard Haven at two o'clock. It should take about a half hour to get your car off the ferry and down the road to my place. Dr. Jack Scarlotti could apparently read a map, because here he was with his students.

They were in two station wagons which stopped in the yard. I was pulling weeds in my garden and was glad for an excuse to stop. Weed pulling is not my favorite pastime. Car doors opened and people got out. Ten people
in their twenties. The eldest came toward me. He was one of those dark-haired, dark-eyed, tight-skinned people who almost glitter with intensity.

“Mr. Jackson?” He put out his hand. “Jack Scarlotti.” His grip was quick and firm. He gestured at the people with him. “My students.” A girl with glasses was hovering directly behind him. “My teaching assistant, Bernie Orwell.”

Bernie Orwell thrust out a hand and we shook. Her palm was soft and a bit damp. “How do you do?” she asked.

I thought she looked tired. “I do reasonably well,” I said.

Another young woman, slim and attractive, stood beside Scarlotti. He did not introduce her. I looked at him. “I'll get your keys for you. Then I'll take my car and let you follow me out to John's place. If one of your crowd wants to ride with me, I'll point out the post office and some other places you might want to know about.”

“I'll do it,” said Bernie Orwell. Although her voice was without expression, she was quick to serve, which was maybe one reason she was his teaching assistant instead of just another student.

“Good enough,” said Scarlotti. “Interesting place you have here,” he added, looking at my house with a studious eye.

“An old hunting camp. I put in heat, water, and electricity. Otherwise it's about the same as it was eighty years ago when it was built. You'll find John's house a good deal more civilized.”

I got the keys and gave them to Scarlotti, then pointed Bernie Orwell to my rusty Land Cruiser. The other girl climbed into the front seat of the station wagon driven by Jack Scarlotti. The station wagons got themselves turned around and followed me out to the highway.

“A station wagon train,” I said to Bernie Orwell. “Does that make me a station wagon master?”

“What? Oh. I get it.” She smiled a distant metallic smile. She was older than most people wearing braces, but I guess it's never too late to straighten your teeth. Hers didn't look too bad. She glanced back at the following cars.

We drove into Edgartown and I pointed out the post office, the drugstore, the liquor stores, and, when we finally got past the normal traffic jam in front of the almost brand-new A & P, the hardware store down by the park.

“We call this Cannonball Park because of those stacks of cannonballs in it,” I said. “It's got cannons, too, as you see, but they're the wrong size to shoot the cannon-balls. Don't ask me why.”

“Very well, I won't.”

“That way's downtown,” I said, pointing, “but we're going this way.” I turned up the West Tisbury Road and drove until I got to John Skye's driveway. The station wagon train followed me down to the house.

“So this is his place,” said Bernie Orwell in her dull voice. “He liked to talk about it.”

Scarlotti and the students emptied out of their cars and looked appreciatively at John's farm. After seeing my place, they realized how well off they were here. Bernie Orwell went to Scarlotti's side.

“I know where all the stores are. We'll need to do some shopping. I'll make a list and get right back to town.”

“Let's look at the house first, Bernie,” said Scarlotti, smiling.

She shrugged, and flicked a glance at the other young woman. “Yes. Of course.”

A tired dog, but one still willing to please.

I climbed back into the Land Cruiser. “You know where I live and my number's in the book. If you need me, let me know. I can fix most of the things that might break while you're here.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you know about John's boat?”

“I know it's moored in the Edgartown harbor somewhere. He said we could use it.”

“If you decide to go sailing, contact me and I'll show you the boat and John's dinghy.”

“I doubt if we'll have time for sailing, but if we get our work done and the weather's good . . .”

• • •

I drove away and didn't see any of them again until, two weeks later, the station wagons came down my driveway and Jack Scarlotti handed me John's keys and drove off to catch the ferry back to America.

That afternoon I went up to John's house to clean up the mess. I found what I expected to find: overflowing trash barrels behind the house, breakfast dishes still in the dishwasher (which had been John's none-too-romantic-but-greatly-appreciated last year's birthday gift to Mat-tie), a lot of beer cans stacked on the back porch, and a very large pile of dirty linens which had been stripped from the beds. I also found three stray and unmatched socks and, behind the kitchen table, one earring. I opened windows to air out the house and spent the morning cleaning up. I washed several loads of linens in the machine and hung them on the solar drying line, vacuumed the house, washed the dishes, and made a run to the dump (once a favorite shopping spot where fine and useful stuff could be found and taken home for further use, but now an efficient and expensive recycling facility where all lumber had to be cut into short lengths, glass and paper and plastics had to be separated into colors and grades, and it cost you money for every barrel of just-plain-rubbish you deposited).

When the linens were dry, I folded them and put them away in various closets, and decided that John's house was back in shape. I checked the barn and that, too, was fine.

I closed the windows and loaded the beer cans into the Land Cruiser so I could take them to a liquor store where
I could get a nickel apiece for them, thus adding a bit to the meager Jackson coffers and cleaning up the environment at the same time. Then I took a last turn around the house to see if I had missed something. I had.

Upside down in the flowers at the side of the front porch was a small green knapsack. It looked to me as if it might have been knocked off the porch when the gang was stacking, stuff outside to be loaded into the cars. I got it and opened it up, looking for some ID. Inside were a variety of items: a zipped plastic bag containing lipstick, face powders, tiny bottles, and brushes; a Swiss army knife; pen, pencils, and notepaper; some Kleenex; cigarettes and matches; a plastic 35mm container with a bit of white powder in it and another film container with some pills; two books.

I wet a finger and tasted the white powder. Hmmmmm. I decided not to try one of the pills. I looked at the books. One was a book of social theory. Inside the cover was Bernadette Orwell's name. The other was a journal. I opened it up.

Its first entry was almost two years old and had to do with what Bernie Orwell had been doing that September day at Weststock when she began her senior year. She also wrote about how she felt, which was not great. I flipped pages shamelessly. A few entries later, Bernie was very happy with her courses and particularly happy because she was in a Medieval Literature class with Dr. John Skye, “a wonderful, wonderful person.”

Lucky John. I wondered if he knew in what favor he had been held. I flipped ahead. If John hadn't known earlier, he surely knew later. Bernie wrote of lingering in his classroom, of seeing him in his office, of thinking of him at night. Bernie waxed up and down in her moods. No surprise, considering her film containers. Powder up, pills down was my guess. I found myself uncomfortable reading Bernie's secret words, but not so uncomfortable that I stopped reading. Instead, I flipped far ahead in her journal.

Last fall. Graduate school. Hot and heavy thoughts of Jonathan, who had not only become Jonathan instead of Dr. Skye or plain old John, but who, according to Bernie, was “so beautiful and brilliant” that she “trembled at the very thought of his touch.” Good grief! So people really did write stuff like that. I wondered how anyone could think of John Skye as beautiful. Feeling suddenly like a voyeur, I closed the journal and returned everything to the backpack.

I went inside and phoned Weststock and asked for Bernie Orwell's address. They said they didn't give such information out. I got Jack Scarlotti's number and called that, but no one answered. I phoned John Skye. He obviously would know. But John said he'd get the address from the registrar and call me back. I found a beer in the fridge and drank it while I waited and wondered why John had told me he didn't have the address at hand. When John called back, he gave me an address in New Jersey, but said the registrar had been unclear about her Weststock address.

I scribbled a note to Bernadette Orwell and told her where I'd found her backpack and the earring in John's house, and that he'd given me her address. I put the note in the pack with the earring (which, after all, might actually have been hers and certainly was of no use to anyone else), and packaged everything up. I took the package to the post office on my way home, and sent it parcel post, thus robbing Uncle Sam of the first-class postage he would have required of me had I told him of the note inside. It's hard to hold your own against the government, but I try.

That evening as I was eating crackers and bluefish paté, the phone rang. It was Bernadette Orwell calling in a panic from Weststock.

“I'm terribly, terribly sorry to interrupt you, but . . .”

“Relax. I found your backpack.”

“What? You did! Oh, thank you . . . !”

“It had fallen off the front porch. I got your address
from John Skye and sent everything to New Jersey. I didn't know your Weststock address.”

“Oh! I just changed apartments . . . Well . . . Thank you! Thank you! My journal was inside . . . I've always kept a journal. Oh, I hope . . . You didn't . . . Oh, dear . . .”

“Don't worry,” I said, “I don't read other people's journals. Only a real crumb would do a thing like that.”

“Oh! Well, thank you again. You have no idea how worried I've been . . .”

“Think nothing of it,” I said. Bernadette was in Weststock and her cocaine and pills would soon be in New Jersey. Everybody has problems. One of mine was being a real crumb sometimes.

I was wrapping smoked bluefish for my illegal markets when the phone rang. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the town of Edgartown insist that people who sell processed fish to restaurants and other purveyors of food should have very expensive and sanitary facilities to prepare that fish, but I prepare my smoked bluefish in my kitchen and smoke it in a smoker made out of an old refrigerator and electric stove parts salvaged from the dump long ago, before the environmentalists seized control of the world. I maintain that if I've never poisoned myself or the guests at my table, my food won't poison anybody else either. Happily for me, some fine establishments on Martha's Vineyard agree with me and are glad to buy as much of my illegal smoked bluefish as they can get. Why not? It's the island's finest, after all.

It was mid-June and John Skye's voice was on the line.