Pulling up to Indian Wells for the afternoon haul, Ben saw Donny’s truck in the sand by the water, but instead of joining him, sat there in the parking lot watching the incoming waves. Small but resolute, they churned toward shore, one after another, their crests peeling back in the wind like the teeth of spinning saw blades.<\/p>\n
Ben’s father had been the head of the haul-seining crew until he’d died three years ago and Ben’s older brother by four years, Donny, had come home from Nova Scotia where he’d gone in search of better fishing after high school. Their mother lived nearby with a guy who’d quit haul seining and opened up a deli that had expanded each of the past three years, and now included a small restaurant and catering service.<\/p>\n
Ben watched the figures of his brother and their helper get out of the truck and slide the dory from the trailer into the mild surf, figured they could manage fine without the gas he\u2019d picked up, and headed back to Lazy Point.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That night at the deli his mother, after marrying the owner, now half-owned, Ben saw his girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, he wasn’t sure, Cindy, sitting with Donny’s girl. The day before they\u2019d gone to the Episcopal church\u2019s annual Chowder Festival and Ben, appalled at Cindy\u2019s flirtatious behavior, had driven her home in silence. \u00a0Now, when she joined him in a booth, they ordered their usual plate of French fries, which grew cold as they picked at it. As if to make some kind of point, Cindy told him his mother had offered her a job at the deli.<\/p>\n
“Go ahead, take it,\u201d Ben said, \u201cbut it’s a bullshit job. Serving tourists, people who don\u2019t give a damn.”<\/p>\n
“I suppose I should haul seine,” Cindy said. “How many of you are there left, three? Now there’s a smart career choice.”<\/p>\n
Though he knew fishing was a dead-end, Ben felt a loyalty to his father, and to something else too, something vague and unsettled in the pit of his stomach.<\/p>\n
His most vivid memory of his father was of a day when Ben had missed the afternoon haul and come home to find the old man unloading the nets by himself. Although Ben had just turned sixteen and quit high school to fish full-time, he’d also just met Cindy and on this day had skipped the afternoon haul so the two of them could take advantage of her empty house.<\/p>\n
Driving up the street at dusk, Ben had seen the old man unloading the truck, and felt himself driving into a scene that suddenly seemed quaint, pass\u00e9. He stopped on his way in to grab an armful of net.<\/p>\n
“I can handle it,” his father said, not looking at him. But Ben continued until the old man yanked the net from his hands and dumped it back in the truck. Excited by the quick movement, their black Labrador, Guts, danced over and began barking.<\/p>\n
“Jesus Christ,” Ben mumbled, “you ain’t got to kill yourself just to prove a point.”<\/p>\n
His father pointed a thick finger at Ben’s chin. “Then don’t come strolling in here at sundown and lay your clean hands on my nets.” His raised voice sent Guts into another spasm of tail-wagging and barking.<\/p>\n
“Maybe I got something better to do,” Ben said, and as he turned to the house, Guts jumped at him playfully, Ben fending him off with a forearm, the dog returning to earth and springing in the same motion toward Ben’s father. Leaning into the truck for more net, the old man felt the dog’s paws on his hip and wheeled around in a fury, meeting the dog’s jaw with his fist and knocking it unconscious to the ground.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Waiting for his hamburger, Ben caught Cindy’s eye and, feeling a surge of forgiveness, nodded and said, \u201cWhat\u2019s up, girl?\u201d But the words came out glib, uncaring.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d Cindy said. She stood up and returned to Donny\u2019s girlfriend\u2019s booth.<\/p>\n
Donny strolled into the deli, still wearing his knee-high rubber boots. He took a look around the restaurant, spotted the girls, and squeezed in opposite Ben.<\/p>\n
“Where were you?” Donny said.<\/p>\n
“Nowhere,” Ben said. “Anything running?”<\/p>\n
“You talk to Cindy?” Donny said.<\/p>\n
“Nah,” Ben said. “Any bass?”<\/p>\n
“Where the hell were you?” Donny asked again.<\/p>\n
“Nowhere,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
Donny huffed and took another look over at the two women. “Guess I better check in,” he said. Donny stood up and, dragging the heavy boots, walked over to Cindy and Joy, exchanged a few words, and walked back.<\/p>\n
“Told her you and me need to get a beer,” Donny said.<\/p>\n
The two brothers bought a six-pack from the retail side of the store and took Ben’s truck out to the beach, Donny pushing in the CD already in the player.<\/p>\n
The nearest beach was Two Mile Hollow, also known as Queer’s Beach, usually deserted in the off-season. The two sat idling in the empty parking lot, sipping their beers and peering ahead to where the truck’s lights shone into the blackness. Side one finished and side two began.<\/p>\n
“What part of Canada was it again, the place you lived?” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“Nova Scotia,” Donny said.<\/p>\n
“Some kind of farm,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“There were eight of us and a couple acres of crops,\u201d Donny said. \u201cBut it was near enough to the ocean so\u2019s I could still fish.”<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you were screwing some married chick.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo of \u2018em,\u201d Donny said with a sigh, lowering himself into the seat. \u201cOne from Maine, the other from Ohio. Hell, they\u2019re the only two I\u2019ve been with besides Joy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen one of em\u2019s husband inherited a bunch of money and they all moved back. I stayed up there fishing till Mom called and said Dad died.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the last song on side two, side one began again, Donny slipping into a slumber, Ben still sitting upright, staring into the night.<\/p>\n
“Canada,” Ben said, glancing at Donny\u2019s unhearing form and shaking his head. “How do you just move to Canada?”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Two days after punching the dog, the old man had for the first time in Ben’s memory stayed home in bed. When Ben and Guts\u2014after being knocked out the dog had been skittish with anyone other than Ben\u2014came home after the afternoon haul, Ben had found his mother moving about the kitchen oddly jittery, too preoccupied to greet him or ask about the fishing. Ben walked down the hall to his father’s room and looked in, finding it empty, bed made.<\/p>\n
“Where’s Pop?” he asked, returning to the kitchen. But his mother didn’t answer, just nervously ushered Ben to the single setting at the table and served him dinner.<\/p>\n
Afterward, Ben took Guts for a drive, but unable to shake the image of his parents\u2019 empty, tidy bedroom, turned back and confronted his mother, who, without lifting her head from the sinkful of dishes, told him his father had died that morning of a heart attack. She hadn\u2019t told him when he came in, she explained, because she didn\u2019t want him to hear the news on an empty stomach, and by the end of the month, still jittery, peripatetic, she’d moved in with the guy that until a year earlier ran the only other remaining haul-seining crew besides his father’s, and who now owned the deli.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBen,\u201d Donny said sleepily, rolling his head on the seat-back toward his brother, \u201cif you\u2019re on the crew, you got to be there both hauls, morning and afternoon. Dory ran out of gas today\u2014we had to row in.\u201d<\/p>\n
But behind Donny, a surge of light from an approaching car caught Ben\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
“It’s November,” Ben said, “Goddam season’s over.”<\/p>\n
“Not no more it ain\u2019t,\u201d Donny said, rolling his head back the other way to see. “Nowadays they\u2019re out here till Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
“But what the hell for?” Ben said. He peered past Donny to where the car, dark-colored with dark windows, had pulled up a couple of spaces over.<\/p>\n
Ben got out of the truck and passed through the headlights on his way to the car. Donny watched as he rapped a knuckle against the window, which descended an inch or so, and a minute later Ben returned to the truck.<\/p>\n
“I asked him what he was looking for,” Ben said, “and he just goes, ‘Nothing, I couldn’t sleep.'” Ben stared at Donny for an explanation, shook his head, and opened another beer. “Get me out of here,” he said.<\/p>\n
They drove back through the village, found the deli closed, and continued on past the horse farms, which opened out beneath the night, then on to Springs, turning at a fork toward Cindy’s.<\/p>\n
“Just to see if she’s home,” Ben said, chugging the rest of his beer and flipping the can behind his seat where it rattled against the others. They pulled over before a split-level ranch, the windows dark but the house faintly lit by a streetlight.<\/p>\n
“Probably at Joy\u2019s,\u201d Donny said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNah,\u201d Ben said, \u201cshe went to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donny had always been struck by Ben\u2019s prescience. While he himself focused on the business at hand, figuring things out as he went, Ben seemed to know things in advance, things for which, as far as Donny could tell, there hadn\u2019t been any indication.<\/p>\n
Ben walked up the driveway, the streetlamp casting a dark shadow at his side, stepped onto the porch and thumped the door with the heel of his hand.<\/p>\n
After a full minute of silence, a light went on inside and the door opened, Cindy stepping onto the porch wrapped in an oversized parka, legs bare.<\/p>\n
“We were just driving by,” Ben said. “Thought maybe you’d come have a beer.”<\/p>\n
“I already went to bed,” Cindy said. She shook her head in frustration and stepped back up onto the door sill, where she peered back at Ben. “What is it with you?” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAin\u2019t nothin\u2019 with me,\u201d Ben said. He shrugged and glanced back at the truck. Cindy swung the door closed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Gotta get her beauty sleep, huh?” Donny said as Ben accelerated down the lane.<\/p>\n
“Shit,” Ben said, “I ain’t hardly slept all week.”<\/p>\n
“And you’re some beautiful, too,” Donny said.<\/p>\n
“Compared to the rest of the Brister men, I’m a freakin’ cherub.”<\/p>\n
“A what?”<\/p>\n
“Like they got on the windows at St. Anne’s.”<\/p>\n
“What do you know about St. Anne’s?”<\/p>\n
“Plenty,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A few days after his father\u2019s funeral, Donny still in Canada, Ben had gone back to the Episcopal church and found the priest, a young guy with hair long enough to tuck behind his ears, watching a football game in the rectory out back. The priest remembered Ben from the service, introduced himself as Jack, and invited Ben in. He flipped off the television and offered Ben a beer, which Ben declined.<\/p>\n
“So what’s up?” Jack asked, settling himself into a sofa.<\/p>\n
“I want to know if my father dying means there’s some kind of score that needs to be settled.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Score?” Jack asked.<\/p>\n
“Like do I need to make amends?”<\/p>\n
“I don\u2019t know,” Jack said, \u201cyou got any unfinished business with him?\u201d<\/p>\n
“I’m just asking,” Ben said, “what’s the normal procedure.”<\/p>\n
“If you\u2019re feeling some guilt,\u201d the priest said, “it’d be normal to ask for forgiveness.”<\/p>\n
“Why would I feel guilt?” Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you lose someone,” Jack said, “it\u2019s common to wish you\u2019d done some things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
“What are you trying to say?” Ben said.<\/p>\n
At this point the priest stood up, walked into the next room, and returned with two beers, handing one to Ben. “Take it,” he said, “you\u2019re not on trial here.”<\/p>\n
As Ben sipped his beer, Jack told him in surprisingly blunt language about his own father back in Oregon, how the hostility between them had steadily grown until one night Jack found himself pacing outside his father’s bedroom with clenched fists.<\/p>\n
Jack took a long pull on his beer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere I was,\u201d he said, \u201cready to challenge him to a fight, when all of a sudden it came to me: This isn\u2019t about him\u2014it\u2019s about me. A week later I entered the seminary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re saying I should start going to church,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying it\u2019s how you look at it. It might seem real dark where you\u2019re looking but off to the side there\u2019s a faint light flickering somewhere. You just have to look.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben sat there trying to make sense of the metaphor, searching the past week for a flickering light. But no matter what he recalled\u2014the long morning drives during which he\u2019d tried to summon grief for his departed father, the idle afternoons spent lying with Cindy gazing out her bedroom window\u2014all he found was a dull half-light, the landscape shadowless beneath an ashen sky.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ben and Donny stopped for another six-pack and returned to Two Mile Hollow, this time shutting the lights. They weren\u2019t there ten minutes when the same car pulled up beside them, shining its lights out over the ocean.<\/p>\n
“The insomniac,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“Looking for love,” Donny mumbled.<\/p>\n
“He ain’t finding it in my asshole,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“Not real love,” Donny said.<\/p>\n
“Fuck you.”<\/p>\n
“You know, if you think about it,” Donny said, “these guys might be on to something. I mean, imagine chasing girls just as horny as you. They\u2019d chase you right back.\u201d<\/p>\n
“You don’t get nothing for free,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“Maybe you don’t,” Donny said, and his voice softened as he thought back to Canada, \u201cbut there\u2019s times when everything just falls into place and you get your pick of pleasures.\u201d<\/p>\n
“You can run off somewhere and think you do,” Ben said, “but there’s always a price.”<\/p>\n
“That St. Anne’s talking?” Donny said.<\/p>\n
“It’s me talking,” Ben said. “St. Anne’s ain’t nothing but a bunch of shit about flickering lights.”<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me tell you, I\u2019d a married that chick from Ohio. The other one wasn\u2019t bad, but the Ohio chick used to come to my room and fucking dance for me.\u201d Donny shook his head, gazing out before him. \u201cI\u2019d lie there watching till I couldn\u2019t take it anymore and she\u2019d just pull her clothes off and climb in bed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was married already,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying if she was single I\u2019d a married her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight, and then she\u2019d a been dancing in somebody else\u2019s room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know that,\u201d Donny said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just saying what difference does it make. Now that it\u2019s gone, what difference does it make what it was?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of difference,\u201d Donny said. \u201cCause I know it\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat ain\u2019t what\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donny released a long stream of air and Ben, looking back to the car at their side, its headlights pushing vainly against the darkness, popped out the CD and opened his door.<\/p>\n
“Come on,” he said, “this guy’s starting to get on my nerves.”<\/p>\n
Donny watched Ben climb out, then followed, not trusting him on his own. As they reached the driver’s window, it lowered to about half open, and they saw a smooth round face that looked oddly young beneath a receding hairline.<\/p>\n
“Guess you ain’t got to sleep yet,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“No,” the man said. “I\u2019m not used to the quiet.”<\/p>\n
“You from the city?” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“Guilty as charged,” the man said. “You guys must live out here.”<\/p>\n
“Born and raised,” Ben said.<\/p>\n
“You\u2019re lucky to live in such a beautiful place,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n
Ben and Donny stood a moment in silence, Ben straightening and peering off at the ocean, then leaning back to the window.<\/p>\n
“Listen,” Ben said, “me and my brother here are headed down to the water if you care to join us.”<\/p>\n
Without a moment\u2019s hesitation, the window went up, lights and motor shut off, and Ben raised his eyebrows at Donny as the man slid out of the car. He was short and wore a turtleneck and fleece vest.<\/p>\n
“I’ve just been driving around,” he said, clapping his hands against the chill.<\/p>\n
Ben led them into the soft sand and down toward the water, Donny in his boots taking up the rear. Moving out from the dim light of the parking lot, Ben walked nearly to the water and turned back to the stranger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a question for you,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
The man came to a stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive me one reason I shouldn\u2019t beat the shit out of you right now,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
The man was quiet a moment before answering. \u201cBecause I didn\u2019t do anything to you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ben stepped forward and grabbed the man\u2019s vest in both hands. He pulled him close, their noses nearly touching, then jerked him sideways and down to the ground where he landed on his knees and stayed put.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on,\u201d Donny said, grabbing Ben\u2019s arm, \u201cthis ain\u2019t gonna solve nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust by being here,\u201d Ben said to the man, \u201cyou\u2019re doing something to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go,\u201d Donny said, pulling Ben away.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hear me?\u201d Ben said. \u201cJust by being here.\u201d And he yielded to Donny\u2019s hand on his arm, and the two of them walked back to the truck.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They climbed in the cab and Donny reached over and switched the ignition to accessory, playing the CD at low volume, the faint guitar chords seeming to drift in from somewhere out in the night.<\/p>\n
They heard the door to the car open and saw the man slide in behind the wheel, start the car, and drive off.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the place everybody wants to be,\u201d Donny mused. \u201cI\u2019ll bet you even that chick from Ohio comes here at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo find you?\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d Donny said. \u201cOr maybe just to come here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what the fuck for?\u201d Ben asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cCause it\u2019s beautiful, and not crowded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody can\u2019t come to a place and it not be crowded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not all here yet,\u201d Donny said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd once they are, then what?\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey start going to another place,\u201d Donny said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what they do,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Before driving Cindy home from the Chowder Festival the day before, Ben had felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the priest, Jack. He\u2019d been standing on the line for the clam chowder made by a new bistro in the village, Ben buying it because he was hungry, not curious, and because Cindy didn\u2019t want to leave.<\/p>\n
The feel of Jack\u2019s hand had felt immodest, as if they\u2019d never had their disagreement in the rectory. It occurred to Ben that Jack might be gay, a person who simply skipped over the normal obstacles.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody doing okay?\u201d Jack had asked, looking into Ben\u2019s eyes as if he actually wanted to know, despite having lived in the town for less than a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s fine,\u201d Ben said, stepping back enough for Jack to withdraw his hand. \u201cNow we\u2019re just one less,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrief follows its own schedule,\u201d Jack said.<\/p>\n
Ben ordered his chowder and before he could pay, Jack told the server he would take one too, and that Ben\u2019s chowder was on the church.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t even for me,\u201d Ben said, \u201cit\u2019s for my girlfriend,\u201d which of course was untrue, Ben the hungry one, yet perhaps true in the sense that it was because of her, for her, that he was at the fair in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell her I hope she likes it,\u201d Jack said, and again Ben was disturbed by the presumption, the way Jack had gone along with the lie, with the strain of what he\u2019d said that was not true, never sensing the strain that was.<\/p>\n
Then Ben had returned to Cindy and mentioned to her that the priest had bought the chowder, expecting her to confirm the banality of the gesture. Instead, she made Ben take her over to be introduced, whereupon she had made small talk and offered a flirtatious smile that made Ben realize the priest wasn\u2019t gay at all, simply charming.<\/p>\n
He had driven Cindy back to her house in silence, Cindy asking once what was wrong but Ben unable to look at her, unable to speak.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ben drove Donny from Two Mile Hollow back to his pickup truck at the deli, assured him he\u2019d be there for the morning haul, then instead of heading out to the house on Lazy Point, turned back to East Hampton and made a final circuit through the empty town.<\/p>\n
He drove past the pond, then the church, light from the rectory in back silhouetting its tall steeple against the night sky. Entering the village, dimly lit by the streetlamps, Ben gazed at the row of boutiques on either side, the rooflines of the connected buildings the same as when he had been a kid.<\/p>\n
Everything had changed, but you could never tell by looking. You had to know.<\/p>\n
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