Darcey Steinke - Up Through the Water

“That long-hair,” John Berry said. “For God's sake.” He sat back on his stool.

“If you're down to make trouble,” the bartender said, setting down the beer, “I'd think twice.” He held out an open palm. “Look,” he said. “Just because your sand castle washes down is no reason—”

“My goddamn life is not sand.” John Berry clenched his beer, foam slipping over his fingers, and took it to the back table. He shouted behind him, “Just bring ‘em to me when you see I'm empty-because that's your job.”

* * *

As he lifted the delicate spines from the flounder fillets that would be tonight's special, Birdflower daydreamed about trout fishing and how the first time he went he had waded in hip-high rubber down Black River in Michigan. Like any other hunter, he had searched, concentrating on dark patches of water. He could see them waving their tails in slow motion, cool pebbles on their bellies, giving a wide fish yawn. It had been his first time fly-fishing. He'd flipped the rod above his head, made it dance, and then, as his father told him, let the line drop just so, barely stinging the surface. Ahead, in the stream, his father looked over his shoulder and, as if from another world, smiled. And that was when he realized how alone he was and would probably always be. How the whole point of fishing was solitude. How his father had waited until he was old enough, until he saw him lying alone in his bedroom, eyes to the plaster swirls of the ceiling. He was himself, not his grade in school, his family, or his father. It was then that he realized he stood, taking up only the space — in the stream, on the land, and in the air — that he did.

“Six orders of strawberry pie to go,” the owner shouted, fishing hat held at his hip.

Birdflower opened the fridge door and took out a pie of whole berries floating in red gelatin, molded by graham cracker crust. He cut each slice, snuggled them on Styrofoam plates, and covered them with Saran Wrap. They looked like road kills, Birdflower thought, watching the owner bag them and call out the window.

All day today he'd been thinking about Emily. He remembered when he'd heard the rumor that she swam nude every morning out at the point. One day, just after sunrise, he hid himself in the dunes. Sea oats blew figure eights that rustled against him. He watched her hold her hands up to the sun and splash up walls of slap-dash water. Her face changed continuously, smiles into whispers widening to laughs. He watched as she somersaulted and twisted. It was then that he fell half in love with her, and decided he wanted her for himself.

The owner stepped around the corner.

“The rush is over; you can clear out of here,” he said, pushing his hat back on his bald head. He looked at him hard a minute. “I just want to warn you. These island guys. They're different from you or me. When they were growing up, they never saw cities with one-way streets or highways where you had to stay in your lane. You know what I mean? They've never seen a parking cop, a paddy wagon, or a big state pen from a car window. You've heard them. . they all think they're pirates.”

“With no brains,” Birdflower laughed. He took out his cigarettes from his shirt pocket and checked to see how many were left. “When's the last time you had a girl?”

The owner winked. “Besides my wife, you mean? Oh, one hundred, maybe two hundred years.”

Birdflower smiled and opened the door into the dull sunlight. He walked out onto the back porch.

“Okay,” the owner called after him. “All I'm saying is those fellows aren't for messing with.”

“Uh-huh,” Birdflower said. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled one of the cigarettes out of the pack with his teeth. To him John Berry seemed almost comical, living on the ferry and existing on six-packs and vending machine candy. Birdflower shaded his eyes. He shouldn't have thrown the bottle, but God knows he had his reasons. Birdflower puffed his dangling cigarette and arched against the boards. He thought he understood. He knew Emily's body and how you wanted to climb into it. She had a lazy way that made everyday life fluid and easy. He pushed a cheek against the cooling weathered wood. Still, the bottom line was that only savages cut women. He flicked his cigarette to the sand and took the steps by twos, walking quickly towards Paolo's for a couple after-work beers.

* * *

The bar had filled — a guitar player sang Jackson Browne songs on the raised stage, and the waitress was lighting candles at each table. John Berry burped quietly. His empty basket, chips and pickle, rustled as he reached for crumbs. He was going through all the cottages on the island, remembering curtains, front yards, birdbaths or planters, trying to fade the nausea and loneliness of being back to a place you know completely but feel a stranger to. He was thinking of a time when he was a kid and he and his younger brother — who now lived off the island and was continually coming for vacations with some bookish woman who hated the sun but loved the people and wrote down everything obsessively in bound journals — had collected every can and bottle on the whole island. They nagged their father to drive to spots way up the beach road that they couldn't ride their bikes to. He remembered trading in these bottles and ordering from the back of Life magazine with the money. The ad showed a boy with a buzzcut and a happy face in an air-propelled minicar. When it came, they spent days assembling it, careful of every weight-conscious detail. The day finally came, and John Berry and his brother carried it out to the flat grass in the backyard all the time talking about the Wright brothers. They flipped a coin and it was his brother who solemnly stepped in and ignited the engine, and for one brief boyhood moment John Berry saw him, shoulders and head above the floating contraption and the slight lift and pause on that morning so many summers ago.

Over the bar the TV flashed a vampire movie. Dracula passed through a hanging fern. John Berry watched the count's cape flutter, blood dripped from his lips. He felt Emily's lips on his neck, then the tug and pull, till he was dizzy and his eyes would roll white. John Berry's head jerked to where Birdflower was ordering a beer with a nod at the bar. That long-hair was skinny; frying burgers didn't give you muscles. He could kill him if he wanted.

The bartender pointed back and Birdflower glanced over his shoulder as if alone at night and hearing footsteps.

People around him quieted, looked back, and shifted nervously in their seats. One woman took her baby from the high chair to her lap. The bartender walked over and said, “No bar fights. I swear I'll call the sheriff in a heartbeat.”

John Berry stared dead-eyed at his beer. “Tell that hippie I won't touch him. I just want to know a few things.”

“I'll pass the message on,” the bartender said.

“Before you shits got here, either raising your motels or working in them, this place was real nice.” John Berry sat across from Birdflower, who listened, his eyes tied to the tiny reflection of himself in his bottle. “I grew up in a house on Howard Street. You know what happened? Some idiot bought it from my mother. Painted it yellow. And is calling it the Canary Guest Cottage.”

“Why'd you throw the bottle?” Birdflower said.

“There's not a person I see in the winter months crossing that I don't know,” John Berry continued.

Through straggles of loose hair, Birdflower was looking him over.

“If you think this has nothing to do with you, asshole, you're wrong.”

Birdflower stood up. “Man, you're nuts.”

“Sit down,” John Berry said, standing and pushing him back into his chair. The bartender made a warning sign. John Berry held up his hand. “Okay, okay,” he said.