Episode 64. The Rocks in the Middle Distance
Nearby, within the distance of his binoculars, his estranged wife Delilah sat on the sea cliffs with his mother-in-law Big Bertha. They were very powerful binoculars and allowed him to see the lips of the two women move, but since he was no reader of lips he could not know that Bertha was telling Delilah that because of her sunscreen she looked like a ghost. And when Delilah replied that she felt like a ghost, he could not know that either. So it was completely coincidental, and a thing they could not know since they were unaware of his presence, that he himself was feeling like a ghost.
He felt like a ghost because he was pretending not to be there where he had no right to be, which was anywhere near her. He had abandoned her and their son Noah, driven away in a new car on a rainy day to be with Margaret, who was more fun than Delilah and far more boldly sexual. And who had no children to attend to or ask him to attend to.
And yet he had almost approached her again. He had come to the village. He had passed by the driveway of the seaside cottage of his inlaws, where Delilah was staying. And then seeing his son walking along the road there, out of desparation at his own inability to tell Delilah he was sorry, he had snatched the boy. And though he had shortly returned him with every dollar he could spare, he had done it bizarrely, tying Noah up and leaving him in the village's vacant bed and breakfast in a snowstorm, where Bertha and her husband Little Mac had to come with Delilah to rescue the boy.
He had let his family go. Why he could not just leave them be, he did not know. He knew he could not trust himself was all. And so this time, when his longing for them overflowed, he had come by water. If he stayed on the water, that would help him keep his distance. That at least was the plan. And so there he sat in his boat, snugged up against some rocks in the harbour so as not to be noticed, spying with his binoculars.
He wore a hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. So he could leave quickly he had not dropped an anchor but had rowed the boat onto a clump of floating seaweed where it would not drift. He had a fishing rod leaned over the side to make his being there seem more natural. And he had brought a bottle.
At some point the women had left. And yet he had remained. Because there was more in the bottle. At a later point he looked away from the sea cliffs and put the binoculars down and let his eyes rest on the rocks in the middle distance where it was easier to focus.
The next thing he knew, it was the bottle he was looking at. The empty bottle, lying on its side in the bilge where he was lying too. And someone was poking his shoulder with a boat hook. It was Billy Christian, alongside in his lobster boat, looking amused.
"You right enough to take her home or do you need a tow?" Billy said.
"I ain't never needed a tow," he replied.
"Good," said Billy. "Well, best you be gettin' along. Be dark soon."
"I was just nappin'. I'll be fine."
So Billy chugged away to his dock. It was the end of the season and he was unloading his traps. He had binoculars too, and every now and then he picked them up and trained them on the seaweed-bound boat. When the boat finally left, he threw the butt of his cigarette into the water and let out a sigh of relief and left too. The long day was over and he needed his rest. Yet at the moment he was glad to be old and beyond the reach of such foolishness.
Love. True love. The young folks just had no idea.
8 June 2018
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca