Randy White - Shark River

Time to go out and join the party.

Mack stood as he said, “You want, I’ve got a couple of spare bedrooms at my house. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Or maybe we should get the chief of police over here. Invite him to the marina for a drink and ask if his people can keep a watch on your place.”

I was shaking my head. I didn’t want anything to do with involving the police. Not now. I told Mack, “I can handle it myself. But help me keep an eye out for anyone who wants to contact me for the wrong reasons.”

“No worries, Doc. If we don’t take care of our own, who will?”

“Exactly.” I had my box of mail under my arm and said to Jeth as I was walking out, “You don’t mind, I’d like to talk with you for a minute. About how my fish did while I was away.”

He still had his face in the magazine. “There’re fine. You had a sea horse die, a couple of pinfish, that’s all. I dah-da-didn’t miss a feeding. You know you can trust me.”

“The stuff I want to ask you about is a little more detailed. Outside?”

“I don’t see why I’ve got to go outside just to-” He looked up for the first time and saw the expression on my face. He folded the magazine with the reluctance of a difficult teenager. Said, “Okay. You’ve got questions about your fish. Whatever.”

Jeth accompanied me down the shell road toward the path to my house, not wanting to follow but I left him no choice by walking as fast as I could, talking, asking questions at the same time, so it would have been rude to stop, and Jeth is never rude.

I kept him on the subject of my aquaria. Had he seen the sharks actually eat, or had he assumed they’d eaten? What about the largest of the immature tarpon in my tank? I’d noticed some scale damage on her. Had someone done something to spook her; caused her to slam into the wall of the tank? “You know how careful I am with those tarpon,” I told him. Then I switched the subject to the netter who brought me fresh mullet and thread herring three times a week. Maybe there was a better, more dependable source over on Pine Island. Saint James City, maybe. Or Bokeelia.

“Might be a more cost-efficient supplier,” I said.

I could see that he was bored with the subject. Didn’t want to be there listening to it. Tolerated it only because we’d been friends so long. He did a lot of heavy sighing. He ended several sentences with, “That’s about all I can tell you…” meaning he was ready to head back to the marina, probably his one-bedroom apartment where he’d spend the evening alone, moping upstairs in his room while the Friday night party raged outside.

I didn’t let him. I continued to bore him with questions about my fish until we got to the locked gate, which is right next to the path through the mangroves that leads to my boardwalk. I stopped there, leaned my weight against the fence and looked at him for a moment before I said, “I heard about what happened between you and Janet.”

“Boy oh boy, that’s just what I thought,” he said severely. “You didn’t want to talk about your fish tanks. You got me out here alone to talk about her. But, damn it, I’m not gonna talk about that woman. Not to you or anybody else.”

“At least listen to what I have to say-”

“Nope. End of dah-dah-discussion. Far as I’m concerned she doesn’t even exist. Like she’s dead. I don’t want to ever hear her name again.”

“Her name’s Janet, and she’s not dead. She’s an important part of your life and you need to deal with what happened.”

“You’re starting to piss me off, Doc! Seriously. It’s none of your business. I don’t go asking you nosy questions. What the hell gives you the right to do it to me?” He folded his arms across his chest, eyes glaring. Defensive posture.

“Jeth, I’m asking you as a favor. You, Janet, me, we’ve all been friends too long to-”

“If you’re my friend, you’ll drop the goddamn subject! I not only don’t want to talk about it, I don’t even want to think about it! Which is why I’m gonna take my ass back to the marina and pretend like you didn’t pull the tricky deal you just pulled.” He turned to leave, but I caught him by the shoulder. It stopped him. Stopped him not because of the grip I had, but because I’d crossed a very dangerous boundary. With someone like Jeth, verbal manipulation is one thing, physical contact with the implication of force is another. He looked at me, his face turning crimson, then looked at my hand. “Let me go, Doc. Get your hand off me. Now.”

“Nope. Not ’til we talk.”

“I mean it. You’re pushing way too hard. Don’t think you’re safe just because you got that arm in a sling.”

“You want to hit someone, Jeth? Go ahead and hit me. But after I pick myself up, you’re going to stand there and listen to what I have to say.”

“That’s enough!” He whirled and, in one motion, used his elbow to knock my arm away before he grabbed my shirt collar in both hands and jammed me hard up against the fence. “I warned you. I told you to get your fucking hands off me!”

I didn’t fight back, didn’t struggle. Let him hold me there, looking into his bulging face, his crazed eyes. Waited while the fury moved through him and slowly, slowly dissipated. Waited and watched as he took a big shuddering breath, then shook his head as if just awakening from some nightmare. “Christ, Doc. I’m sorry. But you just wouldn’t quit. You had to keep pushing and pushing and… shit!” He yanked his hands away and turned his back to me. “I can’t talk about it,” he said miserably. “I won’t talk about it. Not after what she did.”

“Is what she did really that bad?”

“You’re goddamn right it is! You didn’t have to sit there like an idiot and listen to that phone tape. First couple of minutes, I couldn’t even figure out what the hell was going on. It scared the devil out of me because I knew it was Janet, and I thought she was hurt or kidnapped or something, that’s why she was moaning. Once I realized what the hell it was, though, I couldn’t stop listening. It was like some sick thing in me wanted to hear. I still don’t know why.”

I said, “We all do things that, later, we simply can’t understand.”

He turned to face me again, eyes teary but some of the anger returning, too. “Don’t make excuses for her. Don’t you dare! The guy she was with-Mikey, that’s what she called him, this guy she’d never met in her life before. I’d kill the sonuvabitch if I could find him. You know what the woman I planned to marry did for Mikey?”

“Knock it off, Jeth. I don’t want to hear the details, and there’s no reason to put yourself through it again.”

His voice grew louder; had acquired the thin edge of hysteria. “You wanted to talk about it, so let’s talk! You didn’t hear the tape, so how else can you know? Janet and her new boyfriend, Mikey, on the recorder, they were both breathing and moaning and he says, ‘Jan Ba-bah-baby, why don’t you slide down there and make me feel really good.’ And Jah-ja-ja-Janet tells him, ‘Oh baby, I want to do that anyway,’ and then I could hear what she was doing, the sound of it, and that’s when I ripped the fucking phone out of the wall, ran it down to the docks and threw the goddamn thing into the water. Know what I did then, Doc?” He shuddered massively once more, pressed both hands to the sides of his head, eyes closed, as he said, “I vomited.”

I hesitated, then stepped to him and put my hand on his shoulder. Gave him a little shake and said, “You need to talk to her. You don’t have to forgive her. You don’t have to make up with her. You don’t ever have to speak to her again. But you need to allow her the chance to apologize. Person to person, face to face. You know her past, what she’s already been through. Yeah, I know, it’s a bad time for you, but it may be a dangerous time for Janet. As in very dangerous. This time, she might not fight her way back. Grace is what she needs right now. Grant her some grace. She’s a good person, a good woman. She’s my friend and she deserves that.”