Calvin Baker - Grace

“Don’t look,” I said, seeing her agonize, as I prepared to kill it.

“Yes, you can do this part,” she said.

“It will be painless.” I kept my voice calm, though it was something I had only forced myself to learn since I was on the island, and did not look forward to it.

“Do we have to kill it?” she asked when she saw the spike.

“We can throw it back, but if you want to eat it, this is the best way to end it.”

“It looks cruel,” she wavered.

“It is your fish. You can do whatever you wish.”

“It is our fish. We should cook it for dinner.”

“Then this is the best way.”

I got it over with quickly, and we rowed directly back to the Saavardra’s dock, where we carried the fish into the kitchen. There was no one about, as we cleaned the fish in the sink, then packed it in ice, and put it in the refrigerator for later, before cleaning up.

“You think it is okay we took the fish?” she asked.

“It is terrific we took such a fish,” I said. “It will be a great dinner.”

“Yes,” she said. “We can do it on the grill. I don’t know where my uncle and aunt are, but you will come for dinner tonight, and we will make a fire for the fish.”

I nodded.

“Then one day it will be our turn for the fire.”

“Eventually. It is the second law of nature, or so they say.”

“What do they say is the first?” she asked, though I think it was just to hear me say it.

“It is the radiance and connection of all things.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“No, but I’ve been told.”

“Yes, they told me that, too. Do you believe it?”

“I want to believe it.”

“I don’t know that I can anymore. I once did, but you go out and give your heart to doing things you think matter, and find out how little all your efforts are worth, and it weighs on you. Does that make sense?”

I looked at her in the diminishing light and nodded, and felt a great uprush of kindredness and the desire to continue with her.

She had walked with me toward the river, and we were still on the verandah of the house. I put my arm around her waist and she did not move it. But when I bent to kiss her she turned away.

“Don’t you feel what I do?”

She looked at me with the full force of our attraction, before turning back to face the dock. “I’m not sure I know exactly what you feel.”

“Yes you do. I don’t want to name it yet.”

“Then we won’t.”

“So that means you feel the same way?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“That makes me glad.”

“It scares me. You don’t live here, so we may suffer, and even if you did, we might still suffer.”

“That scares me less than missing an opportunity for happiness.”

“Me too.” She said, looking away. “Do you have another woman?”

“If I did I would not kiss you.”

“Do you swear?” she asked.

“Of course,” I nodded, and she cried. It was then I kissed her the first time, careful because I understood why it was she always played so godforsakenly hard.

The southern summer passed too quickly. We left our little island and returned together to her apartment in Farodoro, where I caught up on my affairs and balanced my accounts in New York.

The film had enjoyed a good opening, and the final wire from the production company, a bonus Westhaven had negotiated, had reached my bank. It was as much as I had ever received at one time, enough to not worry for a couple of years, if I was smart with the money, so I felt flush and brimming with energy.

As I was logging off, my cell phone rang with a call from Davidson, who was out in Los Angeles. He told me he had been trying to contact me for weeks, which I was happy to hear because I needed to get back to work.

“Well?” he asked expectantly.

“Well, what? I need work. Where have you been, by the way?”

“In the Gobi Desert, where I had the most amazing vision. I asked the universe to show me the future.”

I took the bait. “What did you see?”

“Television.”

“Of course.”

“So, did you get paid?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what? Like I said, I need work. I have expenses, plus catching up to do.”

“What are you going to buy? A house? An electric car? A car with bad gas mileage?”

“Nothing.”

“A man Friday who drives and build houses?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Maybe a little more time for myself to figure things out.”

“You cannot buy time, my friend. Time cannot be created, only used up. Compensation is for time you have spent. They give it to you to make you forget for a moment you’re going to die.”

“In that case buying something will not help.”

“Trust me, it will. Go buy yourself something that has a meaning for you, Harper. Anything. So long as it is something you will continue to enjoy.”

“I will think about it, but my pleasure is in the work.”

“Interesting. I did not know you had that in you.”

“Had what?”

“You don’t know your own power. Remember when you were a kid, before you ever got some, and you were walking around, all nuts, because you were tired of being a no-name chump virgin? Then one day, at last at last, you get some. You got some. But it was not how you imagined it would be, or what you heard it should be, because you were a no-name chump virgin, who would believe anything, and she was a no-name chump virgin, who knew nothing, so neither of you knew what you were doing. But you got some — alleluia — and were still marked by the newness of her skin; of the experience itself. You smell every electron in the room; feel every hadron, every boson; sense every tau in the air and it didn’t even feel like you were doing it. It was not bodily, but ethereal as innocence. Afterward, you don’t know how you feel, or how you are supposed to feel. Part of you wishes you had waited and were still a virgin, but you walk your half-virgin self through the streets, over the hills, across the lawn, down the beach, not knowing you just entered the hall to the big dance, and you do not know the steps. You just float through the subway, down the highway, over the hills where the dew has not burned away yet, like the baby fuzz on your upper lip, looking at the little kids playing tag, as you hear music and voices drifting from the houses you cannot make out. Everything has a new feeling to it. You got some. And you don’t know what or how, but something is different, take-me-to-the-river changed, because Time just looked out over that field, down that street, up across the sands, and noticed your chump self for the first time — putting a hand on you in a way you will not understand for years.

“Later that day, you see your friends, and one of them looks at you strange. He knows. ‘I hear they gave you some last night,’ he jibs.

“‘They did?’ another asks.

“‘That’s what I hear.’

“‘Who?’

“‘Seraphine.’

“‘Which Sarah? Black Sarah? White Sarah? Asian Sarah? Spanish Sara?’

“‘Not Sarah, Seraphine.’

“‘You mean those two supernerds are trying to make Godzilla nerd.’

“‘How do you feel?’ they ask, when they tire of ribbing you.

“‘Feel about what?’” You play it cool.

“‘Feel now that you did it, and ain’t a no-name chump virgin.’”

“‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ you insist. ‘I ain’t never been a no-name chump virgin. I been doing it my whole life.’”

As the call ended I agreed to meet him and Elsa on a ski trip out West, if I made it home before Easter.

“Don’t disappoint me. We made something good. We should commemorate that.”