Her face had that explosive look again. That son-of-a-bitch! she said. He came with me. He invited me on this trip! And now he’s with her. God, that just kills me.
Then the music started again and the disco lights rotated and Lila looked at him in a curious way. It was just a glance, and the disco light moved on but in just that moment he noticed what a beautiful pale blue her eyes were. They didn’t seem to match the way she talked or the way the rest of her looked either. Strange. Out of memory. They were like the eyes of some child.
The ale cans were empty and he offered to get some more but she said, C’mon, let’s dance.
I’m no good, he said.
That doesn’t matter,' she said. Just do anything you feel like, she said. I’ll go along.
He did, and she did go along and he was surprised. They got into a sort of a whirl thing. Going round and round with the disco lights and they began to get into it more and more.
You’re better than you think, she said, and it was true: he was.
GET DOWN TONIGHT…
GET DOWN TONIGHT
He was aware that people were watching them, but all he could see was Lila and the lights whirling around and around.
Around and around. And around and around — red and blue and pink and orange and gold. They were all over the room and they moved across the ceiling and sometimes they shined on her face and sometimes they shined in his eyes — red and pink and gold.
DO A LITTLE DANCE…
MAKE A LITTLE LOVE…
GET DOWN TONIGHT…
GET DOWN TONIGHT
The hesitation was gone and the ale and the music and the perfume from Lila took over and her pale blue eyes were watching him with that strange look of are you the one? and his mind kept saying to her yes, I am the one and this answer extended slowly into his arms and hands where he held her and then into her body and she could feel it and she began to quiet down from her anger and he began to quiet down from his awkwardness.
DO A LITTLE DANCE…
MAKE A LITTLE LOVE…
GET DOWN TONIGHT…
GET DOWN TONIGHT…
Once the Canadian dancer came over and wanted to cut in. Lila told him to get lost and he could tell from a change in her body how good she felt about that. After that they both knew that something had been settled, for tonight at least, and beyond that was too far to think about.
He could hardly remember how he got back to this boat with her. What came through in memory was the beat of the music and that pale, blue-eyed questioning look, and then here on the bunk the way she embraced him, clinging with all her might, like a drowning person holding on for dear life.
Do a little dance…
Make a little love…
Get down tonight…
Get down tonight…
He began to feel sleepy.
It’s so strange, he thought. All the tricks and games and lines and promises to get them into bed with you and you work so hard at it and nothing happens. And then someone like this comes along and you don’t try much of anything at all and then she’s the one you wake up next to.
It doesn’t make any sense at all, he thought sleepily… no sense at all. And the tune kept playing on and on in his mind — over and over again and again until he fell asleep.
Do a little dance…
Make a little love…
Get down tonight…
Get down tonight…
2
When Phædrus awoke he saw through the hatch that the sky had become less black. Dawn was coming.
Then he realized he wasn’t alone. In fact he was blocked physically from getting out of the bunk by a body between him and the boat’s passage way. This was Lila, he remembered.
He saw that with some careful maneuvering he could slink up through the open hatch and come around on deck and re-enter the cabin from the cockpit.
He lifted himself up carefully and then got through the hatch without disturbing her.
Nice work.
The cold deck on his bare feet really woke him up. He couldn’t feel any ice, but the fiberglass coachroof was the next thing to it. It helped to shake off all the alcohol fumes in his head. Nothing like walking around bare-naked on top of a freezing boat to wake you up for the day.
Everything was so quiet now. The dawn was still so early the turn of the creek in the distance was barely visible. Hard to believe what Rigel said: that around that turn a coal-barge could go all the way to the ocean.
He went over and checked the lines going over to Rigel’s boat. They were a little loose and he took up on one of the spring lines and then tightened all of them. He should have done that before he went to bed. He’d been too drunk to take care of details like that.
He looked around and, despite the cold, a dawn mystery took hold of him. Some other boats had come in since he had, and were rafted ahead and behind him. Possibly one of them was the boat Lila had come on. The harbor looked scuzzy and old in places but showed some signs of gentrification in others. Pseudo-Victorian, it looked like, but not bad. Off in the distance was a crane and other masts. The Hudson River was completely out of sight.
It felt good not to be related to this harbor in any way. He didn’t know what was above the banks of the river or behind the harbor buildings or where the roads led to or who the houses belonged to or what people would appear here today or what people they would meet. It was like a picture-book and he was a child, watching it, waiting for a page to be turned.
Shivering broke the spell. His skin was covered with goose-bumps. He went back to the stern of the boat, hung off the boom gallows with one arm and relieved into the creek. Then he stepped down to the cockpit, pushed the heavy teak hatch cover back and let himself down with the grace that came from a familiar motion. It was a grace he’d acquired the hard way. When he first got the boat he walked around like it was a house, slipped on some diesel oil, plunged head-first down the companionway ladder, and broke a collar bone. Now he’d learned to move like a spider monkey, particularly in storms when the whole boat rose and pitched and rolled like a flying trapeze.
In the cabin he felt his way to an overhead light and flicked it on. The darkness was filled instantly with familiar teak and mahogany.
He went forward into the deck forecabin and found his clothes in the bunk opposite Lila. She had evidently rolled over since he left. Her shadowy shape looked about the same from this side as it had from the other a few minutes ago.
He closed the forecabin door and went into the main cabin where he pulled open a wood bin-cover, took out his old heavy brown sweater and drew it over his head. When he pushed the cover shut, the snap of its catch disturbed the silence. He went back to the companionway ladder, put the hatch’s drop-boards in place, and slid the heavy hatch-cover shut.
This place needed some heat.