Russell Banks - Continental Drift

Bob lays the newspaper down on the kitchen table. There is a photograph above the article, and he studies it for a moment as if trying to memorize every element of the picture, as if preparing to draw a copy for himself. With his fingertip he traces the dark line between the white beach and the gray sea, from the upper right corner diagonally across to the lower left. Then he traces the outline of the black body lying face down on the beach, a woman, her arms folded under her chest, the soles of her bare feet facing the camera.

“Awful, isn’t it?” Elaine says, looking over his shoulder from the sink, where she stands, eggy plate in hand, cleaning the breakfast dishes while Robbie takes his morning nap. The girls have left for school. Bob has been home for a day and a night now, since being released by the police, but he has not slept. He’s reading this morning’s newspaper for the fifth or sixth time, smoking his third pack of cigarettes since walking in the door yesterday at ten, bleary-eyed, limp-limbed and, for the most part, silent.

He didn’t have to tell her about Ave. She’d already been informed by the police the previous evening, when, after arresting him in a bar in Key Largo, they’d raided Ave’s apartment, detained Honduras, impounded the Angel Blue and gone looking for Bob, Tyrone and the Belinda Blue . Confident that Bob was in no way involved in Ave’s smuggling and drug selling, Elaine nonetheless was terrified for him. She repeated to the police what Bob had told her, that he’d gone to New Providence in the Bahamas to take a large party of French Canadians out tarpon fishing and would return the next morning. When the police had finally seemed to believe her and had driven off, she got down on her knees right there in the living room and prayed straight out that Bob had not unknowingly allowed the Belinda Blue to carry drugs for Ave. Bob was capable of that, she knew. He’s not stupid, she thought, and he’s not naive about Ave’s business, not anymore, but even so, she knew that his capacity to behave as if he were both was great. His arrival home, then, relieved her, as if a terrible and likely disaster had been barely but wholly avoided.

His behavior afterwards confused her, however, and then it began to frighten her. He went out around noon and bought copies of all the newspapers he could find, the Miami Herald, the Marathon Keynoter, the Key West Citizen, examined each one carefully, and apparently not finding what he was searching for, tossed them all into the trash can under the sink. Elaine assumed he was looking for accounts of Ave’s arrest.

“It won’t be in the papers till tomorrow,” she told him. “Or tonight at the earliest. If then. They don’t write about those things anymore, they’re so common.”

“What things?” he snapped. He had turned on the radio and was spinning the dial rapidly past music, stopping for a few seconds whenever he found a news broadcast, then, when it turned out to be a weather or sports report, moving impatiently on.

“You know. Drugs. Except when it’s millions of dollars’ worth. Ave’s not one of those big-time drug dealers, I’m sure. Which means he’ll probably have to go to jail. It’s always the big guys who get off, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s awful, though,” she said, her voice going tender. “I know how you must feel. I feel it too.”

“About what?”

“Ave. Him going to jail.”

“Yeah. He’ll do okay, though. A couple of years, maybe.”

“But then he’ll have to start all over again,” she said. “With nothing.” She stood behind him, her hands lightly kneading his taut shoulders, while he went on fiddling with the radio. “Why don’t you try to sleep? You must be exhausted after all this. Otherwise, you won’t be able to stay awake tonight when I’m at work….”

“I’ll stay awake,” he said, cutting her off.

And, indeed, he did stay awake. He lay down in the kids’ room and tried to nap while Elaine ironed in the living room, but in five minutes he was back in the kitchen, flipping the dial of the radio back and forth, then drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, pacing from room to room in the trailer and outside in the cluttered yard, walking to the sea, where, lost in a reverie, he’d stand a moment, then quickly step away, as if discovering he’d walked to the edge of a cliff.

He was shuffling back toward the trailer when he saw his daughters coming toward him along the sandy lane from the school bus stop. Emma waved and walked faster toward him, but Ruthie showed no sign of recognition and fell behind her younger sister.

Bob scooped Emma into his arms, lifted her up and leaned his weight against the front fender of the car. “Hi, baby. How’d it go? Good day at school? You like kindergarten?”

“Yeah,” she said, and shoving a fistful of crumpled paper in his face, she said, “Look! I got a star for drawing.” Then she wrinkled up her face and pulled away. “Yuck, Daddy! Whiskers!”

Bob put her down, spread out the sheet of paper and studied her drawing for a moment, lollipop people in front of a rectangle that, despite the absence of windows and doors, was clearly meant to represent their trailer. The broad crayon strokes against tan, pulpy paper had caught with precision the faded shade of flaking yellow. In the foreground, there were five stick figures of various sizes with large, disk-like heads, all but one of the five, the tiniest, wearing grim faces, mouths that were straight lines, eyebrows pointing down in scowls.

“Who’s the happy one here?” Bob asked. “The little guy.”

“Robbie. That’s Robbie.”

“How come he’s the only one who’s happy?” Ruthie had come up to them and stood silently behind Emma and peered anxiously back over her shoulder at the trailer, as if expecting someone to come out the door and scold her.

“Hi, Roots,” Bob said. “How’s it going?”

She turned and faced him, her dark head a heavy blossom on a thin stalk.

“You okay?” Bob said too quickly.

She nodded.

“Good day?”

Emma looked at the ground, as if embarrassed by her older sister, who nodded again, silent and withdrawn.

“Did you see Emma’s drawing?” Bob asked. “Isn’t it terrific? Look, here’s Robbie, smiling to beat the band.” He held the sheet of paper out before her and pointed with his finger at the figure that was Robbie. Ruthie raised her eyes and glanced at the drawing.

“Which one’s Ruthie?” Bob asked, turning to Emma. “It’s hard to tell.” Indeed, of the five figures, the three in the center were as alike as triplets, all with sour expressions and masses of dark curls on their heads. The tiny, bald, grinning figure on the left was the baby, of course, and the large, bald, frowning figure on the right, though the same size as the triplets, was clearly Bob. The three females in the center, as grim and harsh-looking as Furies, were drawn exactly alike.

“That’s Mama,” Emma said, pointing at the Fury standing next to Bob. “And that’s Ruthie. I’m next.”

Ruthie’s interest in the picture suddenly flared, and she edged closer and seemed about to smile.

“How come only Robbie’s little? All the rest of us are the same size,” Bob said. He could see them now, all five of them, exactly as Emma had. The Dubois Family — an angry male out on the right and, despite his proximity to the others, a solitary, who’s either in command of the others or their surly slave; then three angry females at the center; and last, as solitary as the first, a male, but half the size of the others and wearing a silly grin on his face.

“Well … Robbie’s a baby,” Emma said.

“He doesn’t know anything yet,” Ruthie added in a low voice.