Timothy of the Cay

  Breakfast call sounded an hour out of St. Thomas, Crown Mountain growing closer with each turn of the propeller. Then the bo'sun, a bukra this time, kinder than the Bajan, issued orders to prepare the ship for entry to port.

  Timothy's pulse quickened. It seemed even more than four years since he left the island.

  Salt Cay and West Cay were in sight as the Bartolina steered southeast to round the tip of St. Thomas. Soon she'd round Turtledove Cay and Saba Island, then steer east until time to swing north and steam up the channel into the harbor.

  Twenty minutes later he saw the powder magazine and gun batteries on the tip of Hassel Island. In the distance, on St. Thomas's shore, were Fort Christian and King's Wharf, where he'd spent those hours watching sailors and ships.

  His excitement mounted as the ship put Flamingo Point, on Water Island, abeam. Now the route was a few hundred yards east of Hassel, and there was the Glory waiting off the port bow to help her into the West India Company berth in the harbor itself.

  ***

  Within minutes after the Bartolina was tied up, Timothy trudged along the dirt road that circled the harbor, going westward along the waterfront toward Crown Bay. Slung across his back, a canvas bag that he'd sewed together on the Theismann held his few possessions. In his right hand, wrapped in oilcloth, were Tante Hannah's gifts—a dress and a red parasol from France, a hat from Rio, a bracelet from England. He couldn't wait to see her face as she looked at them, then tried on the hat.

  They would talk for days, he thought, because Tante Hannah had never left St. Thomas in all her life—not even to go to St. John or St. Croix. She knew no other island, and now he could tell her what was beyond the horizon and what had happened to him there.

  He hurried his steps as he came closer to Back o' All and broke into a trot to go up the hill. Very little had changed on the waterfront and along the row of warehouses. Some of the same down-island schooners were in port but he didn't stop to say hello. He'd come back later.

  Finally, he reached the top of the hill, expecting to see Tante Hannah out by the iron wash kettle, see bukra clothes on the line. He planned to sweep her off her feet, hug her, kiss her, tell her how much he'd missed her.

  He slowed and then stopped. There was no kettle in the yard of her shack, no Tante Hannah stirring it, no clothes on the line. Someone was sitting on the doorstep, a woman—but she wasn't Tante Hannah. He'd never seen the woman before. Then he heard a baby crying, the sound coming from inside the shack. A baby in Tante Hannah's house?

  Suddenly uneasiness turned to alarm as he stood there, staring at the thin-faced woman. She stared back. He took a few more steps, then asked, "Whe' be Hannah Gumbs?"

  "Her lamp done went out." The young woman's eyes were remote.

  "Don' fool wit' me," Timothy said angrily. Tante Hannah was strong and healthy.

  "Her oil gone," said the woman, who looked to be in her twenties.

  Timothy found it hard to breathe. "When?"

  "Two year ago. Who yuh be?"

  "Her son." Yes, he was her son, as much as there was a son anywhere on earth.

  "Two year ago," the woman repeated.

  "I don' believe yuh."

  The woman shrugged. "She gone. We lib here..."

  No one owned property in Back o' All. When someone died, it was fair game unless a relative moved in quickly. Quickly meant within hours.

  Timothy turned his back and walked slowly toward Mama Geeches's, his feet leaden, pain crushing him from inside. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  It wasn't possible. Tante Hannah had never been sick.

  A smell of incense drifted out of Mama Geeches's shack. She always lit it with candles, twenty or thirty of them burning even in daylight. Mama Geeches, when she wasn't on her feet, stayed atop an old hospital bed. Her customers sat beside it on a stool.

  Dropping his sea bag, Timothy looked in. She was fully dressed but dozing, no matter that it was ten o'clock in the morning. Steeling himself in the doorway against the truth, he said sharply, "Mama Geeches, wake up."

  Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted. "Who be yuh?"

  "Timothy. Tante Hannah's son. Wher' be she?"

  "Otha side she gone."

  The other side. Timothy had never liked the word but had to know. "Dead?"

  Mama Geeches nodded.

  "How?"

  "Heart done gib out. She jus' dropped in de yard doin' wash foh de bukra..."

  Timothy nodded and picked up the sea bag to walk slowly away from Back o' All.

  The same strong smell of sewer and cooking over open fires was in the air. The shantytown looked even poorer after four years.

  He went to the very edge of it, then sat down and sobbed.

  ***

  Charlie Bottle said, "She buried on Estate Alborg, near her mama and papa..."

  Charlie said he made her pineboard coffin himself and then used his hay cart to transport her from Back o' All to the estate. Because she was a weedwoman, almost everyone in shantytown turned out for the procession in their finest. The procession was a quartermile long, he said.

  "Ah kept her 'ead pointed wes'."

  That meant her feet were toward the donkey's tail as it drew the cart. Head to the east invited Loupgarau and Soucayant and the jumbis to walk beside the procession.

  Timothy nodded. He was still in shock. He'd done a terrible thing. He'd stayed away too long. He'd thought Tante Hannah would never die.

  "Yuh lookin' good," said Charlie Bottle. "Yuh growed up."

  Timothy nodded, then said to Charlie Bottle that he'd see him later. He gave Charlie the gifts he'd bought for Tante Hannah, saying, "Fo' yuh womahn."

  He wanted to go to Estate Alborg and pay his respects.

  On the way he picked some red hibiscus, Tante Hannah's favorite flower, and placed them on her grave, staying by it for more than an hour.

  Then he returned to Charlie Bottle's and asked about Wobert Avril. He thought he'd like to go fishing with Wobert in the morning, clear his mind.

  "He done gone otha side, too," said Charlie.

  Timothy's four years away from home had been costly.

  He stayed the night with Charlie and then in the morning went down to King's Wharf to find work on an interisland schooner and pursue his dream of having his own boat.

  19. The Operating Room

  A voice, awakening me, said, "I have a pill for you."

  "What time is it?" I asked.

  "Five o'clock."

  "Do they always operate this early?"

  "Only on special people. Just one sip of water."

  I swallowed the pill.

  "Do you need to go to the johnny?"

  I said yes and got out of bed. I was still drowsy from the pill last night and stumbled.

  I'm not too sure of what happened in the next hours, but I remember being rolled onto a bed with wheels, then going on an elevator to another floor and down a long hall, finally through the doors of the operating room. I was holding Timothy's knife. Somewhere along the way Dr. Leonard had joined me. I remember her voice as she bent over me.

  As things got hazy, I remembered deciding that I'd dream of the cay while they bored those holes and cut that oblong window into my skull. Just before I faded away I saw Timothy standing against one wall, a wide smile on his face.

  He said, "Don' warry, Phill-eep, yuh in safe hans."

  20. Captain

  JULY 1916—Timothy, having just returned from three years in Panama, $596 richer from digging canal mud with a pick and shovel and a mule drag team, found Charlie Bottle beneath the sizzling tin roof of Market Square, between Kronprindsen's Gade and Torve Strade. He was playing checkers.

  Charlie, toothless as a day-old chipmunk, thinning hair as white as the inside of a turnip, had turned eighty the year past. He soon became aware that Timothy was standing there two feet away and looked up, smiling a little. "Fevah din't getcha, huh?" That was his only greeting.

  Malaria had sent several hundred Virgin Isl
and canal workers to early graves over in Panama. Timothy smiled back at his old friend and shook his head. "'Tween me an' de muskitas, dey lost." Barely. He'd almost died in over there from the high jungle fever. He bent down to hug Charlie Bottle, who was as near to a father as Timothy ever had.

  In the shade of the open-air market stalls a half-dozen checkerboards were occupied by men more or less Charlie's age. They gathered daily to talk and smoke and see who could be best at checkers. Vegetables, fruit, and fish were laid out on wooden tables nearby; chattering women guarded them, shooing flies. July heat had turned Charlotte Amalie into a humid furnace.

  Charlie introduced his checker partner. "Mistah Alonzo Lockhart..." He looked to be as old as Charlie, shiny bald head tucked down between his shoulder blades.

  Timothy didn't remember Mr. Lockhart.

  "'E from Tortola," Charlie explained. "One o' dem British boys runnin' from 'e wife." Charlie cackled, his gums showing.

  It was good to see Charlie Bottle again. Timothy hadn't been sure he'd still be alive. Most of the older people from his boyhood were gone. And three more years away from St. Thomas hadn't helped that situation. Before going to Panama, he'd crewed on down-island schooners, living aboard them to save money.

  "How ol' yuh now, boy?" Charlie asked, squinting up, frowning.

  "Forty-sumthin'," Timothy replied, sitting down on the stone wall beside the market walkway. "Pushin' fifty, ah guess..." But he was still lean, his forearm muscles looking as hard as the stone on which he sat. Even his neck was heavily muscled. Pick-and-shovel work.

  "Now yuh bock, time yuh settle down," Charlie advised. "Git yuhself a womahn, chillun..."

  Timothy made a laughing noise deep in his throat. Men who went to sea didn't make good husbands, and to sea was where he intended to go.

  Alonzo Lockhart made three quick jumps with his red piece, and Charlie, having paid more attention to Timothy than to the game, howled in protest.

  Timothy said, "Charlie, 'tween whot Ah got in d'bank 'ere an whot Ah made in Panama, Ah finally got enuff to buy me a boat."

  Charlie regarded Timothy with surprise and whistled softly. "Mahn, yuh gotta fortun', a fortun'! Buy sum cows, Ah say. Don' buy no boat." Charlie had sold his twenty-cow dairy when gathering hay had become too much for him.

  Timothy thought he could buy a good schooner or sloop for $800. Over the years, he'd saved up $906. He'd use the $106 to live on until he could get cargoes and passengers, buy rice and beans, get her shipshape.

  "Ah'm buyin' a boat."

  Charlie shook his head. "Yuh stubborn as dat ol' donkey Ah buried las' year. 'E died sayin' no."

  Timothy nodded, smiling widely. Maybe he was donkey stubborn. It had taken him almost thirty years to gather the money. But he knew there were black men who didn't have ten kroner in the bank. "Yuh 'bout to look at Coptin Timothy..."

  "Don' hang yuh cattacoo too high," said Charlie, eyeing Timothy.

  Charlie was beginning to sound like Tante Hannah, God bless her. Well, Timothy wasn't hanging his basket too high. He'd been going to sea thirty years and could sail on any ship afloat. "Finish yuh game an Ah'll buy yuh a rhum. Ah need to talk, Charlie..."

  Glancing down at the board, Charlie said, "Dat won't be too long...." Only two of his checkers remained.

  Mr. Lockhart made his last jump and Charlie said, "A good marnin' to yuh," and rose up.

  A moment later, Timothy walked slowly up sandy Torve Strade beside the old man, Charlie using his cane to maintain balance.

  Timothy needed Charlie Bottle to make his deal. Charlie could read and write, somewhat, taught by a woman from the Lutheran Church long ago. He was also good at figures. They soon sat down for a glass of rum.

  ***

  The next day, Timothy said to Charlie Bottle, "Das 'er," pointing to a two-masted wooden-hulled schooner riding at anchor in Vessup Bay, on the east end of the island. A For Sale sign was tacked at the base of her foremast. Her name was Tessie Crabb, built in Grenada.

  Salt streaks had turned her white paint brownish in places, and she needed work. But she looked sound. Of course, Timothy couldn't tell until he careened her at low tide and looked for worms. She was 49.6 feet long and 15.7 in breadth. She belonged to the widow Tessie Crabb, wife of the late Captain Elias Crabb. She'd been at anchor for almost a year. Her bottom was dirty.

  "How much she want?" Charlie Bottle asked.

  They were standing on the beach at Vessup.

  "A t'ousand," Timothy replied, eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun staring at the Tessie Crabb. "More'n Ah wanted to pay."

  "A t'ousand?" Charlie repeated, as if there wasn't that much money in the whole of St. Thomas.

  "But de bod part is, she lettin' de Bonk o' Denmark sell it, 'cause she owe de Bonk two hun'red. Coptin Crabb left 'er wit dat debt..."

  Charlie Bottle blinked and frowned. "An' yuh want me to talk to de bonk?"

  "Ah want yuh to lend me two hun'red dollar, den sit by me when I talk to de bonk."

  "Yoh din't say dis yesterday."

  "Ah'm sayin' it today."

  Charlie Bottle stared at Timothy. "Two hun'red? Dat is a lot o' money. How yuh gonna pay me bock?"

  "A lil' at a time," Timothy said. "Mebbe ten a mont', soon's I start gittin' cargo an' passengers."

  Charlie looked back at the schooner. "S'pose she got rotten sails?"

  "Dem sails number-four duckcloth, good as new."

  "S'pose dat hull rotten," Charlie said.

  "Ah'm gonna careen 'er tomorrow, look fer rot an' worm holes..."

  Charlie kept looking at the Tessie Crabb. "S'pose dem frames rotten."

  "Frames made o' white oak. Last a hun'red years, less I pile 'er up on a reef."

  "Riggin'?" said Charlie, trying to find an excuse.

  "Roeblin's bes' wire."

  Charlie blew a breath out. "Caulkin'?" That kept her from leaking.

  "Two threads cotton, five oakum, hawsed well bock an' payed wit pitch."

  "How yuh know so much, Timothy?" Charlie snorted.

  Timothy laughed long and hard. "'Cause ah bin goin' to sea since I was fo'teen. Yuh memory give out, Charlie."

  Charlie shook his head. "All right. Yuh 'ave to sign me a paper. Yuh pay bock fifteen percent interest."

  Timothy shrugged. He had no idea what 15 percent interest would be. It didn't matter. So long as the hull was sound, he wanted this schooner to fulfill his dream.

  ***

  On August 14, 1916, the former Tessie Crabb, now renamed Hannah Gumbs (home port, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) put out to sea past Rupert Rock and Muhlenfels Point, turning south off Buck Island, with eight passengers and a mixed cargo bound for St. Johns, Antigua.

  It would be a typical voyage. One lady was taking bags of seed, fertilizer, thread, soap, cotton materials, and live chickens, all for sale on Antigua. On the return trip, Timothy knew he'd have two tons of charcoal, the same of firewood; then some road oil and fresh fruits.

  Standing at her wheel near the taffrail, the rail over her stern, steering her, was Timothy, a huge grin on his face. On his head was a cap, gift of Charlie Bottle. The gold-thread letters said Captain.

  21. Awakening

  I seemed to be swimming through warm cotton as I slowly woke up. Nearby voices sounded as if they were coming out of a tunnel. Tongue thick, mouth parched, I could still smell the ether. The back of my head hurt and I was very tired. But I knew I was alive. I hadn't died on the operating table.

  Mother's voice said, "Phillip, you're okay. It's all over." Her hand clutched mine.

  "The doctor said it went fine. They repaired all the veins." My father's voice.

  They told me later that my first words were, "Where is Timothy?"

  Then I drifted back into the warm cotton for a while, voices fading out as I floated away again. I wanted to float away, and I remember doing that several times, like I was surfacing, then sinking again.

  Finally, my body seemed to stay put in that room, and I asked what ti
me it was.

  "Nine-twenty-five," my father said.

  "In the morning?"

  "No, it's night," Mother said. "You came out of the operating room at four-fifteen this afternoon."

  "I still can't see," I said, my voice sounding feeble.

  "Remember, the doctor told you it might take several weeks. The nerves have to heal," my father said.

  I tried to nod my head but realized it was strapped down so that my cheek was against the bed sheet. "Why is my head this way?"

  "So you don't put pressure on the back of it," another voice said. "I'm Eileen, your special nurse."

  I was thirsty and asked for water. Someone put a straw into my mouth.

  I'd never felt so weak in all my life.

  I drifted off again, not wanting to talk.

  The next time I woke up I heard the voice of another stranger asking if I needed anything. She said she was Helen, another special nurse staying in the room with me. I asked what time it was.

  "Just past midnight."

  I'd been on the table ten hours, she said.

  I stayed awake a little longer, then went back into that warm place where I was hiding. Later, Eileen told me that was a natural reaction to the surgery and to spending a long time under ether.

  ***

  I think I slept up to the time a strong hand was squeezing mine and the gruff voice of Dr. Pohl was saying, "Good morning. I don't know about you, but I've got to go down to the cafeteria and have my breakfast. How do you feel?"

  It took a moment to answer him. "Like I hit a rock wall."

  "You did, but your temperature is normal, blood pressure is normal. You're doing fine so far. I'm going to shine a light in your eyes. Tell me what you see..."

  I waited.

  "See anything?"

  "Nothing."

  "That's okay. I didn't expect a miracle. Give it time..."He gave me a slap on the leg and said, "I'll come by again late this afternoon. Meanwhile, get some food in your belly."

  ***

  Two days later Dr. Pohl said, "The incision is healing nicely. No sign of infection." He'd lifted the bandage on the back of my head and the nurse was standing by to put another fresh one on. "You're doing fine."