E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5386-3
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
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It was a most spectacular burn. The raging speed of the fire dissolved the layers of thick chowder fog that usually lay naturally on the island like an old wool blanket. A covering that hid the scant land from the rest of the ocean the way an emerald is hidden in a mountain forest, its glow and brilliance and beauty becoming more of a myth, a story. Like Brigadoon. Kismet. Camelot. Melville’s Encantadas. The glow from the fire became so bright that, out on the banks, some of the fishing captains thought their ship compasses were out of whack, for it appeared the sun was rising in the west. Closer to the island, one longliner picked up her gear and headed for the flames, much like a mosquito to a backyard bug killer. But this crew had good reason to head for such an inferno. They were natives, and knew that there was only one structure on the island that could produce such a blaze: the Colquat Inn. A real spectacular burn. The sky above the darkened smudge that was the island of Colquat was boisterously lit in red and pinks. The land itself glistened and hissed as plumed flames and glimmering sparks seemed to fight for supremacy over the high bluff where the Inn once gloriously stood. The lower part of the bluff shone like it was part of a Hollywood movie set, the famous white sand of the escarpment reflecting the hot blaze above. The flickering shadows of the rocks and boulders on the beach were outsized and bizarre as the raging flames rose and fell. This made the calm sea below appear jagged and jumbled, as though it too was being consumed. Jack Lenox coiled the stainless steel wire line as quickly as he could, steadying himself as the Sarah Clark rumbled through the waves towards the conflagration. The reflected dull light from the fire got brighter on the deck as the old boat pushed her way home, the glow beginning to outshine the decklights. “Jay-sus!” Barney Clark bellowed from the open wheelhouse. He turned and yelled aft to Jack, “Ya see it? Whole goddamned west veranda just hit the beach!” From the corner of one eye, Jack saw the remains of the Colquat Inn’s grand promenade, a magnificent piece of Victorian architecture, ablaze and still spewing fist-sized sparks, disintegrate on the rocky shore two hundred and fifty feet below from where it had been built – by Jack’s grandfather – over sixty years before. Jack never knew his grandfather, a man everyone always referred to as Captain Jack, but he grew up hearing the stories. Captain Jack had been in the liquor import business, back when the trade was fast, risky, and very profitable. Now, thinking of how Cap’n Jack would feel, he lifted his head to get a better view of the destruction. But he was instantly sorry for it, as a wave came over the low aft gunnel of the Sarah and caught him in the face. “Gaaaagghh!” Jack choked out. “O yeah!” Barney seconded from up forward, his eyes still on the fiery wreckage ahead. Jack tried shaking his head, but the pain shot through his skull like buckshot. He could swear he heard rough laughter from somewhere, but Barney was intent on making for the island. Trembling now like a fresh-gutted fish, he almost dropped the tight coil of wire line he had been making. He tried laying it gently into the galvanized bucket between his feet, while at the same time fighting off the nausea. He really would have liked to puke up the concoction of no dinner and lots of wine from the evening before with the breakfast of hard-rock black coffee and stale roll that Barney Clark had forced upon him less than an hour ago. The steady pounding of the Sarah’s ancient diesel and the rusty sea-stink of her exhaust did not help matters much. The bucket between his legs made an inviting receptacle, but he could only retch, nothing forthcoming, and, with an intense effort, he forced the still-struggling wire coil down into its metal confines. Away from his labors, Jack sank to his knees and grasped the scarred wood gunnel. Craning his pained head to one side – very slowly – he lay one cheek on the chewed surface of the rail and watched the fire as the Sarah Clark chugged home. He was not up to this and he knew it. But a job was a job, and if he wanted to make it on Colquat there were two options: You went fishing, or, as the islanders put it, you worked ‘for, around, or in the Inn.’ Right now he wondered if he had made the right choice – as much as a choice it was – since getting a job ‘for, around, or in the Inn’ was moot, considering that Stanley Clark was the manager of the Colquat Inn, and also mayor of Colquat. But the worst part, notwithstanding his present position now, hunkered down like a sick dog just wanting to die, was that Stanley was the father of Chrissy. And Chrissy – ahh, Chrissy! – had, in as many ways and words much earlier in the evening previous made it quite apparent that she had come around to the same opinion of him that her father favored, and that was that Jack Lenox was just an irresponsible, no-good-useless bum. And, along with that, besides being an irrevocable, unequivocal and shiftless stain on the history of Colquat, an irreclaimable criminal, he was, in Chrissy’s last words to him, “An unemotional, insensitive, and atrociously selfish human being!” Yes – That was exactly why he was here now. After being verbally whipped, physically rebuffed, and challenged as to the question of his manhood, Jack sought solace in drink. Something he was not used to. He wasn’t used to the abuse, either, especially when it was inflicted in public. Colquat’s public. And within the confines of Cap’n Jack’s old refuge, now the Colquat Inn. And from Chrissy – that was the worst – with whom he had just begun to renew a very warm adolescent relationship, a childhood romance that had, somehow, now that he had returned to Colquat, full of tentative plans and enigmatic desires, bloomed. He was into a romance that was something so physically acute he was willing to suffer for it, including the indignities he was currently suffering from. Lately, Jack felt he was trapped in a bodice-ripping Romance novel, replete with a gothic mansion, an insufferably beautiful girl, dark familial secrets, and a tortured suitor – himself. Hence, when Barney Clark, Chrissy’s uncle, had said, after witnessing Jack’s debasement at the hands of his niece, that he needed a mate, Jack had quickly offered his services. He did so soggily, being inebriated enough to only want escape. Now, the fact that Jack had been standing on the same veranda that just disappeared forever in fiery waste when he’d made such a gesture seemed to now only underscore the point. If he had not done it – agreed to mate on the Sarah Clark – he would probably have just ridden one of the wicker divans that lined the veranda down to the fire-lit beach and be done with it all. For that’s where Jack had been just a scant hour or so before when Barney came to collect him: passed out on that same grand promenade, legs stretched out along the soft cushions, his head propped up on one of the wicker arms, and dreaming peacefully of happier times. It had been simple luck. And now, as the Sarah rolled and her exhaust hissed and rumbled in the swell, Jack thought he could hear gruff laughter again. The sound was spectrally distinct, and also as one with the throbbing rhythm of an old boat sliding through the sea. “Jack! Jack – hey!” Jack lifted his face off the rail, focusing now on the dark figure in the wheelhouse. “You get that line squared away?” Barney yelled above the steady chugging of the engine. Jack stumbled forward, sliding the galvanized bucket before him. He placed it just aft of the open wheelhouse alongside others like it. “Got it right here,” he said. Barney Clark, the stout hoary master of a vessel built by his father and named in honor of his mother, standing almost six-six in his Norwegian seaboots, singularly eccentric (if not stubborn) in his way of pursuing his livelihood (he sells his catch to other off-shore fishermen rather than to his brother, manager of the Colquat Inn), quickly glanced at the neatly coiled mass of wire line in the bucket and nodded his head. Not bad, Barney thought. Kid’ll do all right – if he’s anything like his old man was and wants to work. Not that Jack had done much that morning. He studied his mate’s face for a moment. Yah, he’s got his mother’s soft eyes, but the rest of him looks tough enough. Just like old Cap’n Jack himself. But the kid is pretty blasted now. Must have had a good night, what with that little niece of mine reaming him out in front of everybody at the Inn, and my fat stupid brother just eating it up like a cormorant choking down a cocktail blue. Barney looked ahead now, correcting a bit on the wheel. Ahh, well – shit’ll hit the fan now, what with the Inn burning up like that. Christ, she’s a burning! Hope the insurance covers her. Goddamn island’ll fold up and just blow away other wise. Goddamn lazy bastards on shore been livin’ off the Inn for as long as I’ve been around, and that’s some. He brought the old boat in a little closer to the beach just to watch the flames as they did their dance. They had to turn left now, and run along the edge of the island. Barney turned around and looked once again into Jack’s pale...
