Second Skin (17 page)

We were only forty-eight minutes late, exactly, when we drifted to a marvelous stop beneath the bright green caterpillar awning and waited while the driver climbed the smooth white marble steps to report inside. The place looked empty. No sign of the hearse. No attendants in black swallowtails. Nothing. Then Sonny went in after the driver—grief riding his shoulders, dreading the interior of this establishment which was like home to me—and in close conversation, stooping, black shoes making startled noises on the marble, they returned together. Sonny opened the car door, stuck his head in, and Cassandra and I—Cassandra in her trim black dress, hair drawn tightly under the
little hat—leaned forward as one. The black face was wet and the long black cheeks were more hollowed out than ever. His panther hand was trembling.

“Been some mistake, Skipper,” shaking his head, fanning himself with his black chief’s cap, “hearse gone on ahead without us. The man inside couldn’t tell us a thing. Anyways, we got to get a move on now.”

“Well, hop in, Sonny,” I said. “Let’s go.” Then leaning forward, touching the stiff driver’s charcoal arm and wishing I could see his face, “Listen,” I said, “it’s a matter of life and death. Do you understand?”

“Got his lights on now, Skipper,” nudging me, peering down into my face, staring at me with those hard-boiled eggs of his, “and them lights ought to help for sure.”

“That’s good, Sonny,” I said. “I’m glad.”

Then suddenly the highway was wide open, clear, a long rising six-lane concrete boomerang with its tip driven into the horizon and all for us. Soft gray seats and chrome and the sunlight standing still on the ebony dashboard, and only the highway itself took my attention away from the chrome, the felt padding under our feet, so that for a moment I saw the lemon trees, the olive groves, the brown sculpted contours of the low hills.

There was a shadow in the front seat next to the driver, a dark amorphous shadow that swelled and tried to change its position and vague shape according to the curves in the road, black shadow that seemed to be held in its seat by the now terrible speed of the Caddy. The driver had both hands on the wheel and now the speed was whispering inside my spine. I noticed that the tints of the window and windshield glass had slid, suddenly, onto Cassandra’s black dress, were shining there in the black planes of her body, and that she was looking at me. The black shadow was snuggling up to the driver.

“Hurry up,” I said as loud as I could, leaning forward and fighting against the sword at my side, “hurry up, will you? We haven’t got all day.”

And then the turn-off, the gentle incline over gravel, a long sweeping glimpse of the lemon sky, the archway flanked by two
potted palms—there was an angel floating between the palms—the still sunlit aspect of the cemetery at the end of the day. And a little sign which I saw immediately-
speed six miles per hour
—and far off, at the top of a dun-colored hill, a little activity which I tried not to see. Sonny was suffering now, moaning to himself, and doing a poor job of controlling his fear of graveyards.

“Look, Sonny,” I said, “isn’t that the hearse?”

“Appears to be the hearse, Skipper. Sure enough.”

We crawled toward the hill and toward the green speck—it proved to be a tent for mourners—and toward the other elongated speck, black and radiant, which was the hearse. The sky was a pure lemon color, quite serene.

“But, Sonny,” clutching his arm, reaching up quickly for a fierce grip on the handstrap, “it’s moving, isn’t it? It wasn’t moving before, but it’s moving now.”

“Appears like you’re right, Skipper. That hearse just don’t want our company, I guess.”

And then the stillness of the limousine, the grease and steel sound of the door opening—we left the car door open behind us, large and empty and catching the sun—and Sonny holding one of my arms and Cassandra the other, and we were walking across the carpet of thick green imitation turf in the gentle light on top of the dun-colored hill, and no one was there.

“All right,” I said, “they can begin. Let’s get it over with.”

But I knew better. There was no one there, the place was empty. The remains of flowers were scattered around underfoot, red roses, white carnations, the debris of real activity, I could see that. But I rushed to the tent, for a long while stood looking into the darkness of that warm tent. There was a shovel lying on the ground and the smell of earth. Nothing else.

The flowers were heaviest where the digging had been going on. Piled up, kicked out of the way, crushed. And there were a few strips of the thick green turf lying more or less around the edges of what had been the hole, and the three of us, standing there together, gently touched the green turf with the toes of our shoes. They must have thought they were burying a piano, and judging by the width and depth of the new earth the hole
must have gone down a hundred feet. There was the deep print of a workman’s boot right in the center and I squatted, kneeled, brushed it away.

And kneeling, weighing a handful of the new earth in my cold hand: “So they went ahead without us,” I said. “They put poor Gertrude into the ground without us. You know,” looking up at the two black figures rising into the soft lemon sky, “I told them I wanted Gertrude to have a white casket. A white casket with just a touch of silver. But they might have put her into mahogany and gold for all we’ll ever know. How can we tell?”

I stood up, raised my palm, straightened out my fingers: “Pretty sandy stuff, isn’t it, Sonny?” I said, and tossed it away, wiped my hand on the back of my pants. I turned to go.

And then the whisper, the quick soft whisper full of love and fear: “Ain’t you got something for the grave, Skipper? Got to leave something for the grave, Skipper. Bad luck if you don’t.”

I nodded, thought a moment, pointed. He understood. Sonny understood and unhooked the hooks and raked out a little trough about three inches deep in the loose skin-colored soil. He buried the sword about three inches deep in the loose soil, tamped it down. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps we would have had worse luck had we not left it there. At least it was no great loss.

The driver took us the long way around the cemetery on our way out, drove us at six miles per hour along the gentle road that was like a bridle path through a hovering bad dream. At the far end of the cemetery there was a line of eucalyptus trees, and leaning forward, staring out of the tinted glass and between the trees, I saw a mountain of naked earth heaped high with flowers—dead flowers, fresh flowers, an acre-long dump of bright tears for the dead—and I knew that poor Gertrude’s flowers would soon land on the pile.

“When we get home, Cassandra,” I said, and leaned back against the perfect cushion and shut my eyes, “I want you to try on that camel’s-hair coat. I think her camel’s-hair coat might fit you, Cassandra.”

White lifeboat. I heard something, steel, ratchet, a noise I must have known was descending cable, and there was an eclipse of the porthole, a perfect circle of blackness flush against the side of the ship at the spot where the great ring of brass and glass was hooked up with a little chain. The porthole was always open as it was now because I liked to catch the first pink edges of the tropical dawn, first breath of day, first patter of bare feet on the deck above. But it had never gone black before, that porthole of mine, and for a moment—squall? tidal wave? another ship between ourselves and the sun?—I felt what it was like to be faintly smothered in some new problem of seamanship. Slowly I put on my cap, set aside my tom gray copy of the serviceman’s a-bridged edition of the New Testament. Then carefully I thrust my head through the porthole and attempted to twist myself about and look topside. No luck at all. So I looked down. Suspended a long way below me, yet out of reach of the waves, motionless, a white lifeboat was empty and absolutely still down there. For some reason I lowered the port, spent precious minutes screwing tight the brass lugs, even though I was swept immediately by my usual swift fear of ocean nausea. Then I
looked at my wrist, 0500 hours, and then I locked the cabin door, climbed topside. For three days, in a sudden effort to keep abreast of Mac the Catholic chaplain, I had been reading the New Testament each dawn. The lifeboat destroyed all that.

I came out with a light in my eyes and the brisk wind catching my cap by the visor, and dead ahead was an enormous field of shoal water emerald green in the dawn. East, I thought and smiled, blotted a little fine spray with the back of my hand. I had to shade my eyes. But the lifeboat was there all right, though swung up as she should have been on giant fishhooks of steel and not suspended above the waves where I had first seen her, and she was motionless up there, hauled now a good distance above my head, and she was as large as someone’s private cruiser and, in her own shade, a solemn white. I wondered whether or not it was the same boat. But the fishhooks were canted slightly, the blocks were pulled from under her, the giant tarpaulin lay heaped on the deck, and after a moment I knew that it must be the same boat. I stood there, shaded my raised eyes, waited.

Because someone was standing on her bow. He was nearly a silhouette to me, and yet I took him all in, the long spread legs, the fist on the cable, the faded denim jeans, the flapping sky-blue shirt, the long black hair whipped in the wind, the white hat rolled up and stuck halfway down the front of the jeans. I watched him in the shelter of the white lifeboat and in the bright warmth of the sun. But he was a man of the wind, a tall bony man of this sudden topside wind, and he was bracing himself on the enormous soft white prow of the lifeboat and grinning down at me.

I cupped a hand, tried to see into the sun, called up to him: “Tremlow? Started painting the shack yet, Tremlow? How about knocking off early for a little boxing?”

It was the windward side of the ship, the eastern side, and even in the shelter of the boat the air was loud so that I could hear nothing but whistling overhead and far forward a heavy singing in the anchor chains. But I could see him and he had moved one foot so that it rested now against his rigid knee, and he was shaking his head at me, still grinning.

“By the way, Tremlow,” squinting, cupping my hand again, “who told you to take the tarp off the lifeboat? The tarp’s supposed to be on the lifeboat at all times. See to it, will you?”

I gave him a half-salute then—mere boy only a third my age and six feet five inches tall and a perfect Triton—and turned on my heel. The lifeboat remained a white impression in my mind, a floating thick-sided craft with a wide beam, deep draft, brass propeller, an enormous white sea rover with something amiss. But at least I had been too quick for Tremlow, once again had managed to avoid his deliberate signs of insubordination.

I took my bearings and made my way aft in time to help Mac into his vestments. We were in the sick-bay which was the most suitable spot on the ship for holding Mass, as I had insisted to the old man, and a few of the men leaned up on their elbows to watch.

“How goes it, Mac?” I said.

“Late as usual,” he said.

“No rush, Mac,” I said, “no rush,” and slipped the purple stole around his damp shoulders. “Did you notice the coral shoals off our starboard side around 0600 hours. Mac? Like a field of underwater corn or something. Or perhaps it was a couple of acres of broken bottle-green glass, eh, Mac?”

But I could see that he wasn’t listening, so I opened the white locker where he kept the cross and took it out, unwrapped it, gave it a few licks with the chamois.

“OK, Mac,” I said, “all yours.”

I was in the middle of my four-year stint on the U.S.S.
Starfish
and it was a bright pink and green dawn in early June and I was helping Mac, seeing how I could give him a hand. Helping Mac serve Mass though in the background, just hovering in the background, just doing what I could to help Mac start his day. I wanted to tell him about the lifeboat but kept quiet, busied myself with the various odd chores of Mac’s silent hour. But the bell was tinkling and I was trying to make myself look small. From far forward near the anchor chains the mushy rapid-fire sounds of a machine gun died away. I nodded, glanced significantly at Mac, because they knew better than to have machine gun practice when Mac was holding services in the afterpart of
the ship. I walked over to a porthole—sea the color of honey now, sky full of light—then turned at a nearly inaudible little SOS from Mac and put a towel on my arm, stationed myself in the background. But not before I had seen that one of the black pelicans was flying high off our starboard quarter with his broken neck thrust forward and homely wings wide to the wind. The bird was good medicine for the lingering vision of the white lifeboat though not good enough as I discovered. Even the hours I had devoted to helping the chaplain failed to save me.

The sick and wounded were first and we made quick work of them, Mac and I, passing from bed to bed with the speed of a well-oiled team, giving to each man his short ration of mysterious life, freely moving among the congregation, so to speak, and stooping, pausing, wiping the lips—it was my job to wipe the lips—then disengaging the hands that clasped our wrists and hurrying on. I leaned over, felt the impression of parted lips through the linen, shut my eyes and smiled down at the unshaven face. “Feeling a little better today?” I whispered softly because Mac was already murmuring to the man ahead, and I daubed once more at the lips with the linen towel. “We’ll get you off to a good start anyway.” And I carefully found a clean spot on the towel.

And then the medicos were kneeling and it was 0730—time was passing, that much I knew—and Mac was straightening up and signaling to me to throw open the infirmary doors. So I threw them open, nodded to a couple of familiar faces, hurried back to Mac. Blond hair faded almost to white, wet blue eyes, enormous unhappy face like the tortured white root of a dead tree, tall brawny heavyweight wearing vestments and purple stole and khaki shirt and pants, poor Mac, and I watched the watering eyes, the dimples that were really little twitching scars in his great pale cheeks, watched Mac and everything he did as if I knew already what I owed him and as if all those days were upon me when Mac would be gone.

“Cheer up, Mac,” I whispered, “there’s a pelican following us. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

But still he was not listening, so I looked around, asked one of the medicos to bring me a fresh towel. Mac was standing in front of the cross with his chest caved in and his clasped hands trembling and his walleyes large and yellow and fixed on the silent faces of the men. I stood beside him, nudged him, and in a louder whisper tried again.

“The men are pretty devout, Mac, at least they aren’t taking any chances. They’re waiting for you. Let’s go.”

More tinkling of the bell. Infirmary jammed with men. Faces looking in at every porthole. Silent faces watching until they could have their turns inside. And inside all the heads were bare—gray pebbly helmets carried by chin straps or stuffed under perspiring arms—and tan or black or blond or red almost all of them were shaved, packed together like so many living bones, and in the silence and looking over Mac’s white shoulder I thought that all those young vulnerable skulls must have been cast from the same mold. The men were breathing—I could see the movement of their chests—they were waiting to return to battle stations, to return to work. Somebody coughed.

And then Mac shuddered and began. They pressed forward at 0800 hours, pressed toward the cross, all of them, with the blank vaguely apprehensive faces of young sailors who never know what’s coming—ocean, destruction, living dream—on their way toward the unknown. Blue denim, white canvas, windburned skin, here and there a thin-lipped smile, a jaw hanging down. I saw Sonny in the crowd, saw him trying to elbow his way to the makeshift altar and sneaking a couple of extra steps whenever he could. I smiled.

“Let me get up there,” I heard him whisper, “me next,” and then he too was in the front row and on his knees and when we passed, Mac and I, passed with cup, plate and towel, I felt the tug on my sleeve and knew suddenly that Sonny’s reverence was not all for God. “Got to speak to you, Skipper,” he whispered as I touched the comer of the towel to the shapeless swelling of those trembling lips, “got to have a word with you right away….”

I nodded.

So at 0940 hours the last stragglers crossed themselves and we were done. Mac went below for a shower while I wrapped the cross in the chamois, stowed it again in the white cabinet. The sea was still a honey-colored syrup streaked with green, the blue of the sky had faded nearly to white, I thought I could smell the spices of a distant land on the smooth clear moving air. If only I could have heard a few birds; I always missed the song of the birds when we were at sea. At least the pelican, sweet deformed lonely creature, was still high off the barrels of our sternmost guns.

I stooped under number three turret then and began to whistle, forgetting as usual that it was bad luck to whistle on a ship. Sonny slid out from behind a funnel, we fell in step.

“Well,” he said, “we got troubles. Oh my, we surely got troubles now. Ain’t you noticed anything peculiar yet today? You ain’t seen a thing to make you suspicion the ship ain’t exactly right? Well, let me tell you. Somebody is fiddling with the boats. How’s that? Sure as I know you is you I know somebody is fooling around with them lifeboats. That’s bad. But that ain’t all. Somebody else has broke into the small arms locker. Yes sir, somebody has busted into that locker and swiped every last small arms on the ship. Ain’t that just the devil? But you want to know what I think? Here’s what: I think they means to kill all the officers and dump the bodies in the lifeboats! Some kind of devilish thing like that, you wait and see…”

I returned to my cabin and unlocked it, opened the porthole, hung my head out of the porthole where there was nothing to see except the golden water, the paste of foam, the passing schools of bright fish, the shadow of the ship sliding down to the deep. And all the while overhead there was a stealthy clamor around the white lifeboat—I remembered that
33
 
persons
was stenciled on the bow—and I nodded to myself, closed up the port again, because poor faithful Sonny was never wrong. But at least the ocean was calm and I wasn’t sick.

So I spent the day in my damp bunk reading, still trying to catch up with Mac, spent the day in hard meditation and drinking
warm clear water from the regulation black Bakelite pitcher which I filled at the tap. Around 1600 hours I went topside briefly to assure myself that Tremlow had not abandoned his interest in the lifeboat. He had not. I saw him stow a wooden box —sea biscuits? ammunition? medical supplies?—under the tarp and then with heavy grace and fierce agility drop down beneath the tarp himself and begin to laugh with someone already secreted in that hot white arc. Standing flat against steel, beautifully hidden, I looked skyward then—the poor pelican was gone —and then I skimmed down below again and poured myself another glass of water.

When I felt the sunset imminent I simply spread open the New Testament over my eyes and fell asleep….

I woke even before Sonny kicked with his old black blucher on my cabin door, woke in time to hear him muttering, grunting under the weight of an axe, flapping and sweating down the companionway toward my cabin door. But the cabin was filled with moonlight and there was no hurry. I ran my fingers over the books in the little shadowy bookcase screwed to the steel plate at the head of my bunk until I found the slot for the New Testament and shoved it home. Then I emptied the remains of the water pitcher into my right hand and rinsed my face, snorted, wiped my face on the rumpled sheet. The moon filled the cabin with its pale nighttime color; my palms and the backs of my hands, I saw, were green. I was covered with green perspiration. But I knew I wasn’t going to be sick this time, had nothing to fear from my ocean nausea now.

And opening the door: “Topside, Sonny,” I said, “the first thing to secure is the pilothouse.”

“Now I want to tell you,” panting, chugging along with the bright fire axe, leading me through the darkness and into the sudden green pools, “now you want to watch yourself. They’s got a ringleader.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, “a ringleader.”

“A ringleader, just like I says. And they been having a party. That’s right! They been having a party on the fantail ever since
the dark come down. And they’re full of beans! Hear? You hear it?”

A shot, a tinkle, a scream from somewhere aft, the far-off massed clatter of running men. Hand on iron, foot on a rung, I paused and gave the ship my craning and hasty inspection: a black ship in a bright lunar field, and high above us little steel cups were whirling on the mast and there was smoke in the smokestack. The bow dipped, then recovered itself.

“Now about this party,” pulling me around, pointing upward with the luminous head of the axe, for a moment thrusting his enraged face close to mine, “that devil been the whole show, that’s the devil got them stirred up this way.”