Possibilities was well named, since anything could happen to you there, from being whacked with a chair leg in a locked corridor by a brother or sister bipolaroid to a lightning-fast heave-ho if your money ran out. The idea was to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and you became Mr. or Ms. In Between. There were pills to zonk or stun. There were even pills to encourage, but Eric was not allowed them. Dope was around, but of course getting thrown out was a waste of time and money. Eric managed not to use it. Hitting the street, he had felt ready for sobriety. Some unremembered misstep had betrayed him into his own lower nature.
Annie, the Steadman's Island lady he had spoken to — importuned somewhat — sounded nicer than her sister. Anyway, Eric was used to soliciting contacts and hospitality in a variety of places. For quite a few years he had been traveling the world, scratching a living from his trade. He had written about the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and had seen disturbing things along the way. At times he had experienced the elation of being in new cities and new landscapes that were dangerous and fascinating. As a younger man he had been able to truly rejoice in those things.
In the early afternoon, Eric found his way to the comfortably unpreserved back streets of town. In the shadow of a fog-wrapped railroad underpass he came on a tavern called the Fisher's Inn. It had an anchor over the door, always a good sign. The place was empty except for a couple of old-timers in ragged team jackets and baseball hats. At the Fisher's Inn, where no one bought drinks for Eric, the fog seen through dim windows was seamless. Eric sauntered out and took up headquarters in a yo-ho netting-and-knotboard joint that overlooked the water, or would have if there had been anything to see through the gray shroud. He was waiting for the hour when the public might be carried across the bay. Beefeater was prohibitively expensive in the harbor spot, but Eric allowed himself several. He had drunk more modestly at the Inn. On the walk to the dock he had been shocked to discover two joints of the finest pakalolo in his raincoat pocket. A left hand had faked out the right again.
In a day or two, the conferees at Heron's Neck would hold a press conference on their deliberations at a media center on the mainland. From Eric's point of view, the only interesting thing about the event were the rumors of the Secretary's spectacular mood swings. Insider material, not funny if you were a ragged peasant in the shadow of his gleaming wings. Not funny for his undermanned, under-equipped and underinformed legions either. A few insiders had suggested in print that the main event of the conference might be some maneuvering by the Secretary's enemies to test his grip on things. There would be leaks — controlled burns, as they said in the Forest Service. That kind of thing, even considering Eric's perspective, was hard to resist.
Security officials had canceled a bird census for the duration of the conference, not that anyone could see a bird that week. It was a gesture by the Secretary's office. They were contemptuous of the sort of folks who might object to the cancellation, as they imagined such people. Around the Secretary's office they imagined such people a lot, and felt certain that the fine, all-believing yeomanry they claimed to represent hated such people as much as they did.
The trip over to Steadman's was agonizingly slow. The small two-deck ferry proceeded through swells that presented a glassy surface but set the boat into long fore-and-aft glides. The dope was good for nausea, so Eric found himself a gear box and let the breeze carry his smoke over the wake. There was nothing to be seen except the water; everything else was invisible, even the squawking gulls that attended the ferry. When, after an hour and a half, the boat eased into the island's principal town, Eric had no idea what the place looked like. His first sight of the island as the ferry came about to tie up was of Feds in raincoats on the dock, backed up by armed Navy men in jump suits. He flicked his roach into the harbor.
The houses of town were white clapboard, and there were a couple of old buildings with cupolas out of Currier and Ives. Putting the place together was akin to a blind person's feeling out an elephant, so thick was the going. It was not so hard to find a liquor store. There, a glum Portuguese man sold him two bottles of California cabernet for an all-time record price. The wine would be his house offering, one he ought to have bought off-island. He bought cigarettes too, Marlboros, the red-and-white packs that had once bought taxi rides across emerging nations. These also cost a lot.
The liquor store clerk gave him directions to the Shumways' house, which turned out to be not far but an uphill trudge. He was a little unsteady on the way. After a few minutes of walking he turned to look down on the harbor, but of course it had disappeared behind him. No up, he thought. Neither down nor sideways. It was liberating, the complete obscurity. Past gone, present solitary, future fading out. A crazy little whoop of joy inside. Must be a rush, he thought.
At twelve-step meetings and to nurturing females Eric liked to give the impression that dreadful sights had brought him to the booze- and drug-examined life. He liked, in fact, to give himself the same impression.
In his heart he knew better than to blame his ways on bad experience. No one would convince him that character was fate; he had seen too much of each to believe it. Everyone was tempted by bad choices great and small, everyone was subject to bad luck. But he had always been a boozy, druggy person, and he would have been one had he lived to middle age in the bosom of mercy itself.
All at once he thought he heard laughter, somewhere distant, at the heart of the fog. Laughter and convivial chat, a strong sound carrying many voices. Something about it made him shudder. Then the voices were subsumed in the rattle of dead leaves underfoot and his interior noises. For all he could tell the laughter had started there. Listening for whatever it was, he became aware of the foghorn on the island. He had been hearing foghorns for hours. He incautiously took the second joint out, turned from the breeze and lit it for two quick tokes.
After a few minutes the slope evened out and the blacktop road he followed looked recently surfaced. He saw that there was an old house on his right, fronted by moss-covered old stone, and beyond that a sagging porch with a defunct oil furnace sitting on it. There was a light on in the back. He walked on and saw more houses, widely spaced on both sides of the road. They appeared and disappeared behind him. Then he heard singing, the real thing, a single voice.
Steps on, he came upon a young woman in gardening gloves cutting and gathering flowers, pulling clumps of nettle and pigweed as she worked. She was tall and pretty with graying black hair. No kid was she, but she seemed very youthful.
She looked up and saw him step out of the fog and put a hand to her hair, which was to him — as they said at AA — a trigger. Her eyes were blue, her look unguarded. She seemed to be shy and sweet and much nicer than his former girlfriend.
"Hi, Annie," he said to her. "Eric." They shook hands. "What kind of flowers?"
Annie had chosen mainly asters, zinnias and gerbera daisies, all of them dripping wet. Gathering flowers, which was something Annie did all season long, never failed to remind her of the days in her childhood when she was appalled at cutting them at all. She was practically ten before she could truly believe that they did not experience pain. The thought came back to her in various forms, borne on different memories.
She told him with a smile what kind they were. "I always think they have feelings," she said.
As she straightened up, he asked, "You think the flowers have feelings?"