Daniel Gumbiner - The Boatbuilder

“I want it on the record that there may be a conflict of interest within the Sheriff’s Department, stemming from a major maritime fine issued to the brother of a deputy,” Garrett said.

“My brother got a big fine?” Deputy White said.

“He was violating Coast Guard rules. Look, I don’t want to see anyone go down, but the playing field’s got to be level. This unlevel playing field is good for no one.”

“What did he get fined for?”

“Had too many passengers on a charter.”

“So someone tipped off the Coast Guard that he had too many people on board?”

“Evidently.”

“Okay, Garrett, it’s on the record.”

“Thank you, Deputy White.”

ONE SATURDAY, BERG DROVE down to the city to give Nell a surprise visit. It had been weeks since he’d left Talinas and he wanted to get out of town. As he drove along the 1, he passed ferns and cypresses and pines, columns of weathered roadside rock. Out on the water he could see the combers rolling in, foamy and slow, exhausted after their cross-ocean journey and eager to break upon the shore.

For the people of Talinas, leaving the bay was a big deal. They referred to anything beyond the town as “over the hill,” and traveling over the hill was generally regarded as undesirable and troublesome. “You’ll have to go over the hill to get that” was something people usually said in a resigned, sorrowful tone. Some people seemed to never go over the hill. According to Garrett, there was a local artist who had not left the town once in the last twenty years.

Berg drove past Glen Meadow and Alamere and Jensen Beach, with its corner deli and its empty basketball court, everything salty and still and cool. From there, he headed inland toward the eastern suburban corridor, where the highway was lined with big-box stores and fast-food chains, and eventually he made his way across the bridge and out toward the sandswept western half of the city. There was no traffic the whole way and he arrived at Nell’s apartment in two hours.

“Berg! What the hell?” Nell said. “Come in. I was just going to make coffee. Actually, let’s go out for coffee. Want to go out?”

“Sure, yeah, I’m easy.”

They walked to the coffee shop around the corner. It only sold coffee, toast, and coconut water, and it always had a line. Today, the line was particularly long. It stretched back to the far wall, which featured someone’s collage art. Berg and Nell had been standing in the line for a few moments when he saw Kenneth, his old coworker, by the counter. He’d just ordered his coffee and he was about to turn around, at which point Berg would be right in his line of sight. Berg wished the collage-art wall were some kind of permeable membrane, that he could just slip through it and disappear into the street. But there he was and there was Kenneth.

“What’s up, Berg?” he said. He was wearing a V-neck and running shorts and he looked like he was about to go play softball in the park with old college friends.

“Hi Kenneth,” Berg said. “Do you remember my girlfriend, Nell?”

“Hi,” Nell said.

“Oh, hi,” Kenneth said, and then he looked back at Berg. “I haven’t seen you in forever. What are you doing?”

“I’m up in Talinas,” Berg said

“Is that like in Oregon?” Kenneth asked.

“No, it’s just a couple hours north.”

“Oh, right on. Cool, cool. Well, you know we miss you at the office. I know we never worked together directly, but everyone told me you were killing it.”

“Thanks, yeah…”

“So what’re you doing up there in… uh…”

“Talinas.”

“Yeah, what’re you doing up there?”

“I’m working a boat maintenance job.”

“Really?” Kenneth said. It seemed like he thought Berg was playing a joke on him.

“And you’re sailing,” Nell added.

“That too,” Berg said. “I help take people out on sailing charters.”

“Like, you sail the actual boat?” Kenneth asked.

“Yes.”

“Whoa, dude. I had no idea you were into that stuff.”

“I wasn’t really,” Berg said. “I just started.”

“Oh, okay…” Kenneth said. He appeared to be growing more and more confused. Berg knew it was confusing, knew it would take much more explaining for Kenneth to understand what had happened, but he didn’t feel like telling the story.

“Well, nice running into you,” Berg said.

“Yeah, you too,” Kenneth said. “Let me know if you ever think about moving back to the city. My team is always looking for talent.”

When they got their coffees they walked across the street to the park and sat on a bench. A woman in jeans and a T-shirt strolled past them, speaking Spanish into a large blue phone. An old man with a walker followed after her. There were two sliced-open tennis balls on the bottom of his walker and a purple plastic bag draped on top of it.

“Do you miss working at Cleanr?” Nell asked.

“Not at all,” Berg said. “But I don’t really care about what I’m doing now either.”

“You’re figuring it out.”

“Am I? I’m pretty sure I’m just serving hummus on sailboats.”

“You have to be patient, Berg. You’ll find something. Maybe not in Talinas. But you’ll find something.”

The problem was he didn’t know what he wanted. This did not seem to be something Nell struggled with. She knew what she cared about. It was part of what attracted him to her. But Berg’s experience of the world had always been more plastic, more passive and coincidental. He had never been a man on a mission, exactly. He’d been a man who met a guy who had a friend who was doing this thing and sure, that seemed like an okay thing to do. That was certainly how he’d ended up with the Cleanr job. He didn’t want to be that way and had an idea of himself as being something else. But what was he? He was twenty-seven years old. He had a lingering brain injury and he’d spent the last three years of his life working in the sales department of an antivirus startup and developing an opioid addiction. This was what he had become. Despite his near-perfect SAT score and his caring parents and the noble legacy of his grandfather, Rabbi Joel Rothman, may he rest in peace, Eli “Berg” Koenigsberg had, by all accounts, made nothing of himself.

When they finished their coffees, they walked over to the botanical gardens. There was some kind of event happening there that day. Several pianos had been placed throughout the gardens and anyone could sit down and play them. After a brief stroll, they stopped at the piano in the riparian woodland section. It had been placed between a coast live oak ( Quercus agrifolia ) and a hollyleaf cherry ( Prunus ilicifolia ). Berg sat down next to the cherry shrub and Nell took a seat at the piano. She began playing her own music, song after song, and slowly a crowd began to form. By the time she finished there were at least forty people standing there, hanging on her every word. She was that good.

MANY PEOPLE IN MUIRE County believed that, if you lived in Talinas long enough, you would inevitably go crazy. They said that, before the town was built, the local indigenous people used the land for ceremonies to communicate with the spirit world. No one was supposed to live there or else they would become part spirit.

“She needs to move out to Alamere” was something people said to suggest that a person was losing her mind, that she should skip town before the spirits fully engulfed her. It was not exactly clear how and why people lost their minds, but it was agreed to be a general hazard of living in the area, like rogue waves or earthquakes.

Berg felt the myth had some credibility. Many of the town’s residents seemed otherworldly. There was Leanne Korver, for example, the local Pilates teacher, who believed in a complex pantheon of gods and was rumored to have stabbed a man in Santa Fe. And there was Greens, the son of Fred Perry, who owned the local hardware store. He refused to wear anything that wasn’t bright green but other than that he was an entirely normal and sociable person. There were the Morrises, who believed they were Venutians and who had, at one time, convinced several other people in town that they were Venutians, too. And there was Woody, whom Berg had seen play guitar at the Tavern, but whom he met for the first time outside the supermarket.