The Black House

  “Take it easy now,” Ben said. “Don’t collapse anywhere.”

  Their words reminded Ralph of the faint pink stains in the corners of their bathroom floor. That floor must have been a mess, and his chums hadn’t got the stains entirely removed as yet. Ralph caught a bus, found a seat, and tried to breathe in a slow Zen way.

  His father had a white bandage all across his nose and onto his cheeks in the form of adhesive tape. Steve nodded, holding the door open. “Come in, Ralph.”

  Ralph went in. “What happened?”

  “Something very stupid.—Funny.” In the living room now, his father looked at Ralph, smiling. Again he wore house shoes and had been reading a book. “Had a slight accident—on the way home from that party. Very stupid accident. I turned too close on a left turn—hit another car nearly head-on. Third Avenue. Completely my fault. And my nose hit the windshield. Broken nose.” His father laughed. His shoulders moved, but the laugh was silent.

  “I’m sorry. The police—” Ralph at once thought of a drunken-driving charge, but how could Steve have been drunk?

  “Oh! Well, yes, they gave me a test for alcohol and found I was well under the limit. Plain carelessness on my part, I said . . . Like a beer, Ralph?” Without waiting for an answer, Steve went off to the kitchen to get one.

  Ralph felt shocked. His father in a dumb accident like that! And sober! Ralph understood: his father had been totally shook up by that party, just by what he had seen there. Ralph took the beer can from his father. “Thanks dad.”

  “And that?” His father had caught sight of the bandage on Ralph’s right wrist, and at once looked at the other wrist, whose bandage was not entirely concealed by the loose blue plastic sleeve.

  “Yeah, well—little accident at my place too. Nothing serious.” Ralph sipped from the hole in the can, and felt his face grow warm. If it wasn’t serious, why else was he here? He was here because of a five-hundred-dollar hospital bill. Ralph found himself looking into his father’s eyes, aware of his father’s firm mouth. His father knew what those bandages were for.

  “Night of the party?” Steve asked, reaching for his matches.

  “Yes,” said Ralph.

  “They put you in a hospital, I suppose. I tried to phone you yesterday. Got some kind of silly answer there. Man’s voice.”

  Ralph swallowed dryly, and sipped more beer. “Nobody told me about that.”

  “Couldn’t be that you need money for the hospital bill.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it. That’s true, Dad . . . And they were pretty nasty at the hospital. Insistent, I mean.” And the cut wrists, the hospital bill had been his own fault, Ralph realized. Unnecessary. Ralph’s gaze dropped to the level of his father’s white coat sweater, to its brown leather buttons. His father’s broken nose had been an accident, too, hadn’t it? Really unnecessary. “I was upset—” Ralph shrugged, still unable to look his father in the eyes. Hadn’t his father been upset too? Didn’t everybody get upset now and then?

  “You’ll get the money,” said his father finally, in a rather tense voice, as if he were paying off a blackmailer whom he didn’t quite dare to treat rudely.

  Or so Ralph felt. Ralph felt this even more, when his father added:

  “After all, you’re still my son.” He walked to the secretaire bookcase where he kept his checkbook. “How much is it, Ralph?”

  “It’s a little over five hundred.”

  “I’ll write this for not over six hundred. You can fill out the rest.” His father wrote the check without sitting down.

  “Thanks . . . I’m sorry, dad,” Ralph said as he took the check from his father’s hand.

  “Shall I say it’s the last? I wish it were.”

  “I swear I’ll—”

  “I despise your life,” his father interrupted, “to be perfectly truthful.”

  Now Ralph stared into his father’s blue eyes as if hypnotized by them. The white bandage across his father’s nose and face, which might have been funny if they had both been in a different mood, now made Ralph think of a gas mask, or some kind of battle gear, not funny at all. And Ralph felt defeated.

  “I’ve tried to—appreciate your way of life, to understand it, anyway.”

  Ralph said nothing. He knew his father had tried. One of his wrists was pulsing, and he glanced at its bandage to see if any blood had come through. None had, so far. Ralph took an awkward step backward, as if to leave. “Yeah, I know . . . I’m sorry, Dad.”

  His father nodded, but it wasn’t an affirmative nod, rather a hopeless, resigned and rather tired nod. “Don’t come back again—if you can help it.”

  Ralph bit his underlip, wanting to speak, finding no words. He resented being treated like a bum, fairly told not to come back for a handout. Now he stood like a dolt, wordless, unable even to get his anger together, and he did feel anger. Yes. Ralph started to shout “Yes!” like a big affirmative, a big okay for himself, but his lips barely opened. Then he turned and strode towards the door, opened it and went out, and closed the door firmly but he didn’t bang it.

  The battle wasn’t over, Ralph knew.

  The Dream

  of the Emma C

  The nineteen-year-old Sam, youngest of the crew, was at the wheel when he caught sight of a white fleck in the blue water, about half a mile ahead and a bit to port. A lone gull, he thought, bobbing on the summer sea, all by itself. The Emma C was headed north in Cape Cod Bay, and the Cape shore with its clusters of white houses marking the towns was quite visible on Sam’s right. The mackerel haul had been miserable early this morning, and Captain Bif Haskins had decided they should try again at another spot before heading for home. The rest of the crew, four men plus Bif, were having a second breakfast of coffee and doughnuts in the galley now.

  When Sam looked again at the white gull, it looked round, like a beach ball. It wasn’t a gull. Sam had good eyesight, and he concentrated his gaze. It was a swimmer! And way out here, at least two miles from shore! Was the fellow maybe dead? Just floating?

  “Hey!” Sam yelled, at the same time turning the wheel so the Emma C would be headed straight for the white dot. “Hey, Louie!—Johnny!”

  A heavy tread clunked on the deck, then Chuck appeared at the port door of the wheelhouse. “What’s up?”

  “Somebody’s floating out there. Look!”

  Within seconds, all of them were looking. Bif got his binoculars from a little locker behind the wheel. The face under the white cap was pronounced that of a girl.

  “A girl?”

  The binoculars were passed around.

  “I can see her eyes!”

  “She’s not moving. If she was dead, her eyes’d be open too!”

  “Got a blue bathing suit on!” Chuck reported.

  Sam grabbed a quick look through the glasses which he held with one hand. “She’s an exhausted swimmer. Get a blanket ready!”

  Louie, the stocky half-Portuguese, lowered the Jacob’s ladder on Captain Bif’s orders. The ladder trailed in the sea. Now they were quite close. The girl was simply floating, making no movement with her arms or legs, as if she were too tired for any effort. But her eyes were open, a little. Louie was first down the ladder. Sam had cut the motor. Behind Louie went Johnny, a tallish fellow a little older than Sam.

  Louie groped, wet to his thighs, and caught the girl’s right arm at the elbow. They all heard her groan slightly. She was definitely alive, but so spent that her head nodded forward as Louie lifted her by both her arms. And Johnny tugged at Louie. Willing hands caught the girl’s hands, then her waist, her feet, and four pairs of hands lowered her gently onto the rough olive-green blanket that someone had spread on the deck.

  She was pale, just a little pink on shoulders and arms, not very tall, with a full breast, a smallish waist from which sprang rounded hips like those of a m
ermaid, but this was no mermaid. She had small, graceful feet, and legs, and the rest.

  “Tea! Hot tea!” said Captain Bif. “Then we’d better radio to shore.”

  “Coffee’s quicker, Bif!” Chuck went off to get some.

  Sam was pulling back her white cap, ever so gently so as not to tug at her hair. She was very blonde. Her lips were pale and bluish, her tongue bright pink, running its tip along the edge of her white teeth.

  “Ain’t she pretty!” someone whispered in a tone of awe.

  “Coffee, ma’am?” Chuck held the thick white cup to her lips. He knelt, as did Louie who supported her with the blanket around her shoulders.

  “Um-m,” she murmured, and took a tiny sip.

  “Where you from? . . . Are you cold? . . . How’d you get way out here?” The questions came fast.

  The girl’s blue eyes had barely opened. “A bet—”

  “Where’d you think you were swimming to?”

  “Stow it, all of you!” Sam said as if he were the captain. “She needs a bunk to rest in. She can have mine. Give me a hand, Louie?” Sam was ready to carry her in the blanket.

  “My bunk!” Chuck said. “Mine’s got a sheet since this morning.”

  Every bunk was offered—there were only four tucked away under the forward deck—but Chuck’s with the sheet was agreed upon. Chuck beamed as if he had won a bride, and followed Louie and Sam as they carried the girl toward the cabin. Chuck glanced over his shoulder as if to say to the three remaining men, including the captain, “Keep your distance!”

  The low-ceilinged cabin held two bunks on either side, one above the other. The crew sometimes snoozed in shifts, but they were almost never out all night. Once in a while, a man treated himself to a sheet from home to put between the blankets, and now Chuck happened to be sporting a sheet, which he considered a piece of luck. He carefully tucked the girl’s feet in, and made sure her shoulders were covered, because her skin was cool.

  “Like the sleepin’ beauty,” Chuck said softly. “Isn’t she?”

  “Oughtn’t we to take that wet suit off, Chuck?” Sam asked.

  Chuck frowned, thinking. “Um—yeah, but we oughta leave that to her—in a while. Don’t you think so? . . . Are you gettin’ warmer, miss?”

  The girl’s eyes were open again. Her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.

  Sam went off and returned with a corked wine bottle which he wrapped in a towel. “Hot water from the stove,” he said to Chuck, and placed the bottle carefully at the girl’s feet, inside the blanket but outside the sheet.

  Louie had departed, summoned by Bif. Filip, a boy of twenty, ugly and timid, peered curiously down the hatch at the girl in the lower starboard bunk.

  “Let’s let her be for a while,” Chuck said. Sam was standing near him, and Chuck poked him in the ribs with an elbow, so hard that Sam winced. “And no funny business, fella. Leave her alone.”

  Sam glowered at the older man. “Funny business from me?”

  The Emma C chugged northward in Massachusetts Bay but more slowly than before, moved in an almost dreamy way, as if the girl’s presence had cast a spell not only over the six men, but the engine. Captain Bif was at the wheel, nervously chewing a cigar that had gone out, gazing ahead of him at familiar water and at the fading Cape on his right. He had radioed Provincetown, giving a description of the girl, blonde and about twenty, saying she was too tired to speak now, but she did not seem to be injured and would probably be all right. Judging from what the Provincetown operator said, such a girl had not been reported missing as yet. Now where was he heading? They had the right to try their luck anywhere along here, closer to shore, and farther north, to lower their nets, make a sweep and fill the hold, or try to, before turning back for Wellfleet, their home port. But Bif realized he didn’t give a damn if they caught any more fish today or not. Neither did the crew, he knew. Where was the girl from? What was her name? She certainly was beautiful! Fantastic to pull something like that out of the sea! It was like a tall story, a legend that was amusing to listen to, but not to be believed. He and his men would treat her right. It was a time for all of them to be gentlemen. “Gentlemen,” Captain Bif murmured to himself, with a certain satisfaction. Yes, he’d see to that. “Hey, Sam!” Bif called loudly over his shoulder.

  Sam, organizing nets on the after deck, dropped his work and went to the wheelhouse.

  “Keep her steady—as she goes,” said Bif.

  “Yessir.” Sam took over the wheel. After a minute or so, he slightly decreased their speed. Today was a special day. Sam didn’t want to look at another dead or dying fish today. Sam had done two years of college, which had included six months on the training ship Westward that operated out of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, whereby he had gained credits in nautical and marine science. Sam intended to be an oceanographer. His job on the Emma C was a one-month hitch during summer vacation. On the Westward, Sam had cruised the Caribbean and the Florida coasts, they had seen phosphorescent jellyfish at night, lovely porpoise leaping in schools, but somehow nothing so strange, startling and beautiful as this calm girl that the sea had presented to them out of nowhere.

  Chuck was standing by the cabin hatch as Bif approached with an air of intending to enter. “She’s okay, Bif. Sleeping now.”

  “Good. Thought I’d have a shave—and I can be quiet about it. Tell Filip to bring me a pan of hot water, would you, Chuck?”

  Bif usually didn’t bother shaving on board. Chuck slid open the hatches a little, saw that the girl looked asleep, and touched his lips with a forefinger to indicate to Bif to be quiet. Then Chuck looked around for Filip and found him sweeping little dead fish on the after deck into a heap. He gave Bif’s order, and admonished Filip to be quiet when he entered the cabin, because the girl was sleeping. On second thoughts, Chuck decided to take the pan from Filip himself when he brought it. Filip trotted off, smiling. True there was a mirror on the wall between the bunks, but couldn’t Bif have shaved somewhere in the galley?

  Then a voice yelled, “Damn you to hell, Filip!”

  There was a thud, a tinny clatter, and Chuck saw Filip reel backward out of the galley and fall, and his head hit the bulwark. Louie stood over him with a clenched fist, then picked up the pan and went into the galley with it. Filip sat up, bleeding from his head. Blood rapidly soaked the back of his denim shirt.

  Chuck took the boy’s arm, and helped him to his feet.

  From the port door of the wheelhouse, Sam glanced aft and realized what had happened. He had also heard some of the conversation. Both had wanted to take the hot water to Bif in the cabin. Smiling, Sam steered the boat a little to starboard, toward the open Atlantic. They were passing Race Point and the tip of Cape Cod to their starboard.

  Louie brought the pan of hot water, and stared at the sleeping girl until Bif told him to leave. Then Chuck reported Filip’s accident to Bif, and said that Filip’s head would need stitches. Bif cursed gently.

  “I’ll see to it,” Bif said, knowing he was the best man for stitching, because he’d done it many times before. “Make Filip lie down somewhere—not here—till I finish my shave.”

  Chuck made Filip lie down on the deck with his head out of the sun. He had a nearly three-inch gash. Captain Bif arrived with a half bottle of whiskey, a bottle of surgical spirits, and his kit of gauze, adhesive tape, needle and scissors. He gave Filip a slug of whiskey for morale, because the boy was almost weeping, and when no one was looking Bif took a snort himself. Bif was rather strict about drinking on board: a little wine or beer was permissible, but no hard stuff, whatever the weather.

  Then the girl came awake, and there was a big to-do in the galley about what to give her to eat.

  “Soup,” said Johnny, as there was a lot of vegetable soup left over from yesterday’s lunch, but someone remarked that Johnny had thrown some fish fillets int
o it, like a dummox, and the soup at present wouldn’t be fit for a dog. “If you don’t like my cooking—” Johnny began, balling a fist at Chuck who had called him a dummox. This was a standing joke or threat: nobody wanted to cook on the Emma C, so anyone who criticized the food was apt to be appointed cook on the spot.

  Chuck had clenched his fists too. “I just meant—fishy soup, lousy soup is not appropriate for her! Scrambled eggs are more like it!” Then Chuck’s right fist shot forward as if released by a spring, and hit Johnny in the solar plexus.

  Johnny gasped, and a second later swung a right to Chuck’s jaw. Chuck staggered back and tripped, which was a good thing, as he fell on deck instead of over the low bulwark into the sea. Chuck shook his head and got up, thrust off Bif, and hit Johnny again under his ribs with a left, followed by a right to the jaw that floored him. Both men were big and evenly matched. Johnny did not get up.

  “You guys better stop this!” Bif said. “That’s enough! Understand? I’m giving orders here . . . We’ve got frozen steaks, haven’t we? You make her a steak, Chuck. You feel up to it?”

  Chuck stood tall, though his lip was bleeding. “I feel fine, Cap’n!” He went to the galley, stepping over Johnny as if Johnny were no more than a coiled rope.

  Filip winced as Bif stuck a bandage on his clumsily shaved head with adhesive tape. Filip knew he was low man on the totem pole on the Emma C, a kid not even tall enough to impress anybody. But Louie wasn’t any taller, just heavier, and Filip vowed his vengeance.

  Captain Bif ordered Louie to clean the galley floor with a bucket and rag on his hands and knees by way of punishment for his attack on Filip, and Louie started his work. Louie was curious about the girl. Had she taken off her wet bathing suit? What could he possibly do to serve her? So he said to Chuck, as Chuck added some home fried potatoes to the steak plate and set a glass of milk on the tray, “I’ll be glad to take that in to her, Chuck—sir.”

  Chuck gave a laugh. “I bet you would, fella! I’ll do it. Get on with your job here.” Chuck dipped half a dishtowel into the pot of hot water on the stove, wiped his lip and his hands, and picked up the tray. “Gangway!” he said, stepping on deck. The cabin hatch was closed, and he tapped with his foot. “Hello, miss! Can I—” Chuck scowled off Johnny, who was on his feet now, but holding the left side of his jaw as if it hurt. Johnny was ready to open the sliding hatch doors.