Russell Banks - Continental Drift

He stands, studies the wreckage that surrounds him, and walks slowly through the living room to the front door, opens it and walks outside, leaving the door wide open behind him. It’s still raining, a dense, straight, windless rain from a low, overhanging sky. Bob wants to keep going, but he doesn’t know where to go. He wants to get into his car and back it slowly down the driveway to the road, turn and head out of here, light out of Florida altogether. But to where? He can’t go back to New Hampshire, and there are no new places anymore, none that he can imagine, and if he heads south again, back to Miami and the Keys, it’ll be as if he’s gone in a circle. He turns and returns to Eddie’s house and slowly, methodically, starts cleaning up the mess his brother has left behind.

9

Bob is seated aft in the Angel Blue in one of the fighting chairs, swiveling it idly from side to side. Ave emerges from the galley carrying two king-sized cans of Schlitz. “Here you go,” he says, handing one of the cans to Bob.

It’s dark, the boat is tied up in her slip in the marina next to the Belinda Blue, and there’s a three-quarter moon in the eastern sky, scraps of silver cloud drifting across its face. A pair of pelicans perched on a piling near the bow of the Belinda Blue seem to watch the two men. The boats rock gently in the still water, and along the pier here and there a man and a woman or sometimes several men and several women sit aboard their boats and talk and drink. Behind them, at the end of the pier, the jukebox in the Clam Shack is playing a Kenny Rogers song about a gambler.

“Sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday or sooner today,” Ave says as he eases into the other fighting chair. He’s barefoot, wearing shorts and a zippered nylon jacket. His long reddish hair fluffs out from his head like an aureole, and the pale hairs on his tanned legs and the backs of his hands shine in the moonlight like straw. He puts his feet out and rests them on the gunwale and lights a cigarette, offering the pack to Bob.

“No, thanks.” Bob is dressed, as usual, in chinos and white tee shirt, and tonight he’s got his captain’s hat on. He takes a sip of beer. “No, that’s okay. I had a lot to do anyhow the last couple of days, with the funeral and all. And then I had a party of six this morning to take out. This’s the first chance I’ve had to sit still for more’n ten minutes.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get back till real late last night. And then I had some business to take care of today, so, yeah, me too,” Ave says. He studies the pelicans a second, as if aiming a weapon at their long, drooping heads. “You know how I feel about Eddie, Bob. I’m real sorry. Whew! Incredible, isn’t it? Who’d have figured it? You know?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, who’d have figured ol’ Fast Eddie would take the fucking pipe?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s … ah, there’s no way it was accidental or something, is there? I mean, he was epileptic, I remember, and funny things happen sometimes.”

Bob snorts. “No way. I found the body, his body. He was having them, seizures, quite a lot lately, but no, this was his own doing, his decision.”

“Jesus. I just can’t believe it. You know? There’s no way it coulda been fixed up? You know, arranged. He was playing with some pretty heavy dudes up there, and maybe …”

“No. They did an autopsy.”

“Incredible, man. Just fucking incredible. Ol’ Fast Eddie, always running around yakking and laughing his head off, a million theories. Good hockey player, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Incredible, though. I just can’t figure it.”

“Well, Eddie wasn’t what he seemed, that’s all. And it took something like this, I guess, to let us know that.”

“Yeah.” Ave takes another slug from his Schlitz. “A lot of people aren’t what they seem. You know?”

“Yeah.”

The men are silent for a moment, and then Ave says, “Honduras told me you fucked her the other night.”

Bob says nothing, looks down at the top of the can of Schlitz as if lowering his head to pray. “Honduras told you that?”

“Yeah. True?”

Bob is silent, and then he says, “Well, Ave, what if I said no? What if I said I drove over here the other night looking for you, and you weren’t here, so she gave me some grass and some coke and then came on to me, only I turned her down? What if I said that?”

“You saying that’s what happened?”

“Jesus H. Christ, Ave. If I did fuck her, why would she turn around and tell you? It only makes sense for her to claim I fucked her if instead what I did was turn her down. She’d hafta be pretty pissed at me, wouldn’t she?”

Ave scratches his pointed chin. “She’s a strange girl, lots of weirdness there. But she doesn’t fuck my friends. Not while she’s fucking me, anyhow. She knows that. And my friends, they don’t fuck her, either. They’re supposed to know that. Did you fuck her, Bob?”

Bob says, “I’m going to tell you the truth. And then I’m going to ask you a hard question that I expect you to answer with the truth. Fair?”

Ave looks over at his friend, who is staring upward, the fighting chair tilted back, at the night sky, a wash of stars overhead. “Yeah. Fair.”

“No. I didn’t fuck Honduras,” Bob says, still looking at the dark blue sky. “Did you fuck Elaine?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Did you fuck Elaine?’ ”

“Jesus Christ, Bob! Why do you ask a thing like that?”

“She told me you fucked her. That’s why. Four years ago, back in Catamount. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s like it was last night, you know?”

“Women are crazy, man,” Ave says. He exhales noisily. “Crazy.”

Bob sips slowly from his beer and watches Ave over the top of the can. “Did you?”

Ave says, “Listen, I like Elaine a lot. A whole lot. But if she says I fucked her, she’s lying.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. We … okay, we talked about it once, you know, kind of flirting with the idea. I guess I’d had a few too many, and maybe she had too, I don’t know, it was a long time ago. I don’t know where you were.”

“Out on the boat. Fishing. I remember where I was. I was a couple miles off the Isles of Shoals outside Portsmouth. It was summer, late July, early August, the bluefish were running, and you had some kinda excuse for staying home.”

“Okay, okay, I don’t remember what it was. But anyhow, she didn’t exactly come on to me, but it was sort of clear that if I made a move … well, she’d respond in kind. But honest to God, Bob, I said no. Hey, she’s a good-looking woman, but no way I was going to fuck my buddy’s wife.”

“So why’d she tell me you did?”

“Beats the shit out of me! Women are crazy, man! Like Honduras. I mean, why’d she tell me you fucked her?”

“I didn’t,” Bob says quietly.

“I know you didn’t, man! But why’d she say you did?”

“She was pissed at me for turning her down, I guess.”

“Well,” Ave says, “there you go.”

“I guess so,” Bob says, and he sighs. “I guess so.”

For a while, the men say nothing. Fireflies dart past them and go out, and the pelicans shift their weight, turn and watch a boat on the opposite side of the pier. Bob says, “Ave, I have got to make more money than I’m making.”

“No shit. I’m glad you noticed.” Ave gets up from his chair. “ ’Nother beer?”

“Yeah.” He collapses the empty can and hands it to Ave, who heads forward to the galley. When he returns and passes Bob a fresh can, cold and solid as ice, Bob says, “I’m stuck in a fucking rut, Ave. My wheels are spinning. I can’t make enough from my share of the Belinda Blue to live on, let alone save up a few bucks every month so I can buy a larger share so I can make enough money to live on. It’s what you call a vicious circle. And it’s making me crazy, it’s making Elaine crazy — for Christ’s sake, she’s gone and taken a job working nights at the Rusty Scupper up in Islamorada. I just dropped her off there a while ago. Hafta pick her up at one.”