It grew warmer gradually. We sat on the deck and chatted and sipped coffee and watched the green boat on the sand. The faint sheen of distant water puddles that were growing ever larger told us the tide was beginning to ooze back in. Whatever those guys out there were doing, they'd better hurry; they didn't have a lot of time left. It was now after eight o'clock.
"Should we call the Coast Guard'?" she asked.
"I'll try to get their attention."
"From here? You'll look smaller than a gnat to them-"
I dragged the big beach umbrella up onto the deck and I opened it. Its panels alternated blue and yellow. Mary sat at the camera-telescope and sipped coffee while I got back up on the picnic table and waved the huge contraption back and forth like a semaphore.
"Well? Any reaction'?"
She said no, but to keep trying. Our cottage, fatuously named The Breakers after the elegant Newport mansion, sits atop a solitary steep bluff. It is the highest cottage around. Therefore, perched as I was atop the table on the deck, I was I above the horizon. After twenty seconds of signaling, Mary said the man in the bow had apparently seen me.
"He's calling the other guys, Charlie. The other men are climbing up on the deck to have a look too. Keep waving."
So I did.
"Now they're kind of scurrying around. One guy's raising his hands up and down. I think they're arguing, Charlie."
I dropped the umbrella and had a look. The deck was deserted. I said I was going to call the Coast Guard, but Mary suggested we wait because they had made no attempt to signal us back. I sat a while and watched the boat. There seemed to be no sense of alarm aboard her. Just the same, I phoned the Nauset station and said there was a stranded fishing vessel perched on the southernmost tip of Billingsgate Shoal, and that there was no apparent danger.
"Is the vessel damaged?"
"Can't see from this distance. But they're pounding on the hull with a hammer."
"Could be a repair;. we've got nothing on the distress frequency."
"The same thought occurred to me. Just thought I'd report."
"Thank you. Your name, sir?"
"Dr. Charles Adams, North Eastham."
Not long after I'd hung up, the phone rang.
"Who could that be?" asked Mary.
"The only person I know who would have the bad taste to call this early is Moe," I said.
I picked up the phone.
"Hi, it's Moe."
"Figured."
"Just thought I'd phone to see how you're getting along, Doc."
"Not so good."
"Still can't sleep?"
"Nope. Think I need to be shrunk, Moe?"
"No. You're definitely not psychotic and I don't think you're neurotic either. You're just a bit… uh… off the track is all."
"Off the track? What's that?"
"I see it a lot in our age group. Career doubts. Life doubts. Excessive self-analysis, self-pity, self-doubt. Self-obsession."
"My symptoms exactly."
"Well listen: get outside yourself. Submerge yourself in other things. Believe me, it's the best medicine. It's also the one common theme in the advice given by all the great and wise people who have ever lived."
"And you, I presume, are one of those great people?"
"No. Still learning. But passing on their advice. Listen: the more you try to make yourself happy the more miserable you'll be. To save yourself you must throw yourself away. What about your hobbies and interests? You like music. Get into some new types. You said you like Bruckner and Vaughan Williams. How about Elgar, Sibelius, Dvorak, Mahler amp;"
"Yeah I see what you mean, I could really get into it-"
"And more important, Doc, out of yourself!"
"OK."
"And you can work out some chess problems so I won't always beat you so badly. It's embarrassing gI tell you."
"Uh, right."
"And how about photography? You're a great photographer you know. Devote the next several weeks to being really great. Another Ansel Adams, who knows?"
"Exactly."
"Take pictures everywhere, and forget about yourself. Nothing makes people more miserable than worrying about I themselves. Nothing gives them more peace than finding a cause, or a devotion, outside themselves. Remember Tolstoi said that; you gave me the book-"
"Ah yes. The Kingdom of God Is Within You. By the way, I want it back."
"No such luck. I'm keeping git."
"Moe, take a hint. Lay off the hard g's. Say 'it,' not 'git.' I It sounds much more high class."
"Class? I should talk to you about class? Maybe I should talk to a penguin about life in the Sahara-".
"Do you know what a royal pain in the fanny you are?"
"You're no balm to the derriere yourself pal. Look: keep taking the Librium. Keep running, too, even though the medication may slow you down a bit. And be sure to take that lovely creature you're lucky enough to be married to into the sack as often as possible."
"Thanks, Moe," came a female voice.
"Mary! What are you doing gon the extension?"
"Doing on, not doing gon, Moe," I said.
"Thanks again, Moe," said Mary, and hung up.
"By the way, Doc, you owe me some money."
"What'? All you did was recommend Librium. Big deal. I could've done that myself."
"Yes, but not with my expertise and finesse."
"OK. How"much?"
"Four hundred?"
"What!"
"Listen, Doc, the Sea Scouts of Beverly need a boat. Now I bought one for them for two grand and I'm a little short. In fact I'm out. I thought you could help out a little, OK? Also, Mr. Empty Pockets, I happen to know you bought yourself a boat this spring. Twenty-something feet. Sleeps four… auxiliary engine…"
"So?"
"So? So give the kids a break, huh?"
"I can't stand it."
"I'm not asking for you to stand it; I'm asking gyou to send it. I, uh, sort of promised the bank you would. Now listen: you`ll never be anything but a half-assed chess player if you quit hanging garound me, so give. And take pictures. And take the medication. And take Mary. Good-bye!"
He rang off.
"That son of a bitch."
"Charlie, you love him and you know it. A lot of time he's the only thing that gives you hope in the human race. I'll get the checkbook."
Mary and I had breakfast and got ready to go sailing. As we left The Breakers at nine-thirty I took a last peek at the boat. The tide was rising; water was now lapping at her. Two men were walking knee deep in it looking down at the hull, which I could not see because of the angle at which she lay. The men stopped walking. One pointed upward. I heard the drone of the engine. Through the binoculars I could see the twin-engine plane bank steeply, beginning a tight circle. On the fuselage was the red slash that identifies all Coast Guard vehicles. I went back to the scope. The crew seemed to be excited. Then they did want help… no, they were arguing; Mary was right. No, they seemed to be deciding-
Then it began. I knew it would. Through the powerful magnification of the long lens, which compressed thousands of yards of space into what seemed less than 100 yards, the ground began to tremble. The sand flats began-ever so slightly-to shimmer and wave. Monstrous ghost puddles appeared on the nearby dry sand. Water where there was none. Then the figures, and the boat itself, began to wave and dance. Soon the men would be mere blobs of color; grotesque wriggling reflections in fun-house mirrors. Heat. The early morning heat was doing that.
As faint as it must have been in the early morning, the heat from the warm sand was sending up thermal currents-like the air over a hot wood stove-that jiggled and danced. That was it. I had been granted this brief chance to spy on these men and their boat, but no more.
"You coming? C'mon honey, I want to be back early. Remember Jack's coming."
To hell with it. Help was there if they needed it. We got into the car and headed up route 6 to Wellfleet, the next town north of Eastham. Our boat, Ella Hatton, was moored in a slip in the harbor there.