John Casey - Spartina

Dick said to Charlie, “If Parker’d been along, he would have a right to another share for being skipper. You see how it usually goes?”

Charlie was too pleased. Dick sent him back up to the office to get some small bills. Dick made up an envelope for the household, both monthly mortgage payments and a little extra for groceries. “You understand that in summer we get off easy because of your mother’s garden. And summer we get free clams and flounder.”

Charlie was still pleased. Dick let it go. He said, “Well — it was a good trip. You earned your way.”

Charlie asked Dick to hold on to his share, put it toward Dick’s boat. Dick said, “It’s your money, Charlie.”

Charlie said that he’d just as soon get it back when Dick’s boat was in the water making money. Before Dick could say anything, Charlie added, “And I don’t want to make Tom feel worse for having to stay home. If he sees me with all that money …” Dick let that go too. Charlie was high from a good trip, nothing to worry about with that. And that Charlie transformed his own excitement into eager good will … Dick didn’t want to knock that down either.

They tossed their sea bags into the bed of the truck, Charlie with a little flourish that made Dick laugh. Charlie hitched his trousers and strode around the back of the pickup. The kid had a little roll and swagger to his walk. Dick stopped himself from saying, “Don’t bump your head getting in.”

Charlie gave May the household envelope. She made a fuss, got into a better mood than Dick had seen her in for months. She started fixing a big breakfast, and Charlie started talking to her about the trip, day by day.

Dick went off to take a hot shower. He could hear May oohing and ahing.

He turned the water on. He understood his pleasure at Charlie’s pleasure, he understood his uneasiness and his urge to bring Charlie down some. What Dick didn’t understand was the feeling of bleak despair that hit him now. Here he was flush with two thousand bucks, more than half of it unquestionably his. Flush with a good haul of lobster and swordfish on account of good luck and his knack. It was his marked charts, not Parker’s, that they’d set the pots by. His measurements and reckoning that got them into those swordfish.

And there was still a chance Parker would show up from New York and pay him.

He was closer than he’d ever been to fitting out his boat. Time was short, and the list of things he needed was long — there was the loran, five thousand bucks. And then a depth finder, a bilge pump, another payment on the engine. The pieces of equipment and what they cost tumbled through his head as clear as ever. But it wasn’t that. It was something else he couldn’t bear. It wasn’t worry or too much work or even facing pain. It was as though he was suddenly weakened by a causeless ease. Something already in him was shifting loosely and lightly. It wasn’t a temptation to give up, but a sensation that he already had.

It wasn’t until he’d eaten his breakfast — May and Charlie were still having a pretty good time at their end of the table — that he squeezed down on himself.

He got up and said, “I’m going to see Miss Perry. Talk about money.”

May looked up. She looked alarmed.

May said, “What …,” cleared her throat, and started over. “Have you thought about how to put it?”

“I’m going to do something you want me to do,” Dick said. “Don’t get fussy about how I do it.”

Dick pulled into Miss Perry’s main driveway and then the side drive to her house and into the white-pebble circle around the enormous weeping willow. Dick got halfway around the little circle before he saw Elsie’s Volvo, parked with its nose sticking onto the flagstone path to the back of the house, its tail out so far in the circle he couldn’t get around without tearing off pieces of weeping willow.

Jesus, he thought, Elsie too.

He marched up the steps to the front door and rang the bell before he could start thinking about it. It was Elsie who opened the door.

“Good God,” she said. “Dick. Where have you been?” He took a breath in. Elsie said, “And what are you doing here ?” Dick let his breath out. Elsie said, “Look, this isn’t a good time. I mean, it was very clever of you to figure out I was here, but this just isn’t a good time. I’m going back to my house in a little while. Say a half-hour.”

Dick said, “I came to talk to Miss Perry.”

Elsie said, “Oh.”

“Is Miss Perry in?”

“Well, yes. But this isn’t a good time. She just got back from a doctor’s appointment. It’s a little bit complicated.”

Dick said, “Is she sick?”

“It’s her … you know, her annual spell.”

“I thought that was more toward the end of the summer.”

Elsie said, “Well, yes. It usually is. But I’ve been — or, I should say, her doctor and I have been — trying to talk her into taking a drug, and all our talk seems to have upset her. Look, can you come to my house in a half-hour? Or maybe you can just go over there now. Just go on in. I’ll be back, and I’ll explain it all then. She’ll be glad you called on her. I’ll tell her.”

“I came to ask her to lend me money.”

“Oh.” Elsie stepped back. “Oh dear. I don’t know. Look, I’ve got to arrange some things. Captain Texeira’s coming over, and then the doctor’s going to call, so why don’t you go on to my house. I’ll see you there.”

Elsie closed the door. Dick stood there. He felt too reckless and lightheaded to feel he had shamed himself, but he could tell he was going to feel shamed. He got back in his pickup. When he got to the crossroads of Miss Perry’s lane and the dirt road, he stopped. What was the point in going to Elsie’s house? But, then, what was the point in going home?

When he got to Elsie’s house, he sat in his truck and smoked a cigarette. He lit another but put it out. He went into the house.

He felt odd being there alone. He was glad to feel odd, it kept his thoughts from settling. The scarlet curtain was drawn back from around the bed, the bed unmade but not messy, just the near corner of the covers flapped down, two pillows on top of each other.

The sun was bright on the little pond and on the slant of the greenhouse roof.

On the table by the window there was a plate with a wet peach pit and a coffee mug. A letter addressed to Elsie, several pages covered with handwriting on both sides. Next to it a tablet of paper and a pen. At the top of the page only “Dear Lucy” in Elsie’s writing.

These pieces of interrupted activity made the house even more charged with stillness.

Elsie didn’t come in a half-hour. Dick waited. He was made uneasy by the peach pit and the unmade bed. He threw the peach pit in the trash and tucked in the bedcovers. He sat back down at the table by the window. He let his mind go lax. Nothing here in this bright room. The sun moved across the pond, across the slant of glass. Now his thoughts began to settle. What had he done? His face felt cold, but busy with sensation. He’d blurted out how he needed money. Why did that feel so bad? He’d made himself more naked in front of bank officers, in front of Joxer Goode. The difference was that with those people he had an argument. They stood to gain if they used him shrewdly. Neither Miss Perry nor Elsie really knew the argument. They weren’t fighting for advantage. They didn’t set themselves out as being in business. Going to them was begging. There it was.

Dick thought he’d leave. Maybe write a note to Elsie saying he’d changed his mind. He felt weightless again, as though he’d been cut loose and might end up anywhere. Was this what Parker felt like all the time? Was this what it felt like to be a player? Or did you find yourself feeling like this and that’s when you had to decide whether you were a player? Parker wasn’t tied to anyplace or anyone. That part was how Dick felt now, but the difference was Parker wasn’t scared so much as dizzy about it. Once Parker started moving dangerously, he thought it all out. And Parker grinned. That was a difference too.