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Carl, Quenby, Swede, Ola… Drinks in the livingroom. An after-dinner sleepiness on all of them. Except Ola. Wonderful supper. Nothing like fresh lake bass. And Quenby’s lemon pie. “Did you ever hear about Daddy and the cat?” Ola asks. “No!” All smile. Ola perches forward on the hassock. “Well, Daddy had been away for two weeks…”
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Listen: alone, far from your wife, nobody even to play poker with, a man does foolish things sometimes. You’re stretched out in your underwear on an uncomfortable bed in the-middle of the night; for example, awakened perhaps by the footfalls of deer outside the cabin, or the whistle of squirrels, the cry of loons, unable now to sleep. You step out, barefoot, to urinate by the front wall of the lodge. There seems to be someone swimming down in the bay, over near the docks, across from the point here. No lights up at the main house, just the single dull bulb glittering as usual out on the far end of the dock, casting no light. A bright moon.
You pad quietly down toward the bay, away from the kennels, hoping the dogs don’t wake. She is swimming this way. She reaches the rocks near the point here, pulls herself up on them, then stands shivering, her slender back to you, gazing out on the way she’s come, out toward the boats and docks, heavy structures crouched in the moonglazed water. Pinpricks of bright moonlight sparkle on the crown of her head, her narrow shoulders and shoulderblades, the crest of her buttocks, her calves and heels.
Hardly thinking, you slip off your underwear, glance once at the house, then creep out on the rock beside her. “How’s the water?” you whisper.
She huddles over her breasts, a little surprised, but smiles up at you. “It’s better in than out,” she says, her teeth chattering a little with the chill.
You stoop to conceal, in part, your burgeoning excitement, which you’d hoped against, and dip your fingers in the water. Is it cold? You hardly notice, for you are glancing back up now, past the hard cleft nub where fine droplets of water, catching the moonlight, bejewel the soft down, past the flat gleaming tummy and clutched elbows, at the young girl’s dark shivering lips. She, too, seems self-conscious, for like you, she squats now, presenting you only her bony knees and shoulders, trembling, and her smile. “It’s okay,” you say, “I have a daughter just your age.” Which is pretty stupid.
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They were drifting between two black islands. Carl squinted and concentrated, but he couldn’t see the shores, couldn’t guess how far away the islands were. Didn’t matter anyway. Nobody on them. “Hey, listen, Swede, you need a light? I think I still got some matches here if they’re not wet—”
“No, sit down. Just be a moment…”
Well, hell, stop and think, goddamn it, you can’t stick a lighted match around a gasoline motor. “Well, I just thought…” Carl wondered why Swede didn’t carry a flashlight My Jesus, a man live up here on a lake all these years and doesn’t know enough to take along a goddamn flashlight Maybe he wasn’t so bright, after all.
He wondered if Swede’s wife wasn’t worrying about them by now. Well, she was probably used to it A nice woman, friendly, a good cook, probably pretty well built in her day, though not Carl’s type really. A little too slack in the britches. Skinny little daughter, looked more like Swede. Filling out, though. Probably be a cute girl in a couple years. Carl got the idea vaguely that Quenby, Swede’s wife, didn’t really like it up here. Too lonely or something. Couldn’t blame her.
He knew it was a screwy notion, but he kept wishing there was a goddamn neon light or something around. He fumbled under the seat for the other beer.
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I asked Daddy why he shot my cat,” she said. She stood at the opposite end of the livingroom, facing them, in her orange shirt and bright white shorts, thin legs apart It was a sad question, but her lips were smiling, her small white teeth glittering gaily. She’d just imitated her daddy lobbing the cat up in the air and blowing its head off. u ‘Well, honey, I gave it a sporting chance,’ he said. ‘I threw it up in the air, and if it’d flown away, I wouldn’t have shot it!’” She joined in the general laughter, skipping awkwardly, girlishly, back to the group. It was a good story.
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She-slips into the water without a word, and dogpaddles away, her narrow bottom bobbing in and out of sight What the hell, the house is dark, the dogs silent: you drop into the water — wow! sudden breathtaking impact of the icy envelope! whoopee! — and follow her, a dark teasing shape rippling the moonlit surface.
You expect her to bend her course in toward the shore, toward the house, and, feeling suddenly exposed and naked and foolish in the middle of the bright bay, in spite of your hunger to see her again, out of the water, you pause, prepare to return to the point. But, no, she is in by the boats, near the end of the docks, disappearing into the wrap of shadows. You sink out of sight, swim under water to the docks — a long stretch for a man your age — and find her there, holding onto the rope ladder of the launch her father uses for guiding large groups. The house is out of sight, caution out of mind.
She pulls herself up the ladder and you follow close behind, her legs brushing your face and shoulders. At the gunwales, she emerges into full moonlight, and as she bends forward to crawl into the launch, drugged by the fantasy of the moment, you lean up to kiss her glistening buttocks. In your throbbing mind is the foolish idea that, if she protests, you will make some joke about your beard.
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He punched the can and die beer exploded out He ducked just in time, but got part of it in his ear. “Hey! Did I get you, Swede?” he laughed. Swede didn’t say anything. Hell, it was silly even to ask. The beer had shot off over his shoulder, past the bow, the opposite direction from Swede. He had asked only out of habit. Because he didn’t like the silence. He punched a second hole and put the can to his lips. All he got at first was foam. But by tipping the can almost straight up, he managed a couple swallows of beer. At first, he thought it tasted good, but a moment later, the flat warm yeasty taste sliming his mouth, he wondered why the hell he had opened it up. He considered dumping the rest of it in the lake. But, damn it, Swede would hear him and wonder why he was doing it This time, though, he would remember and not throw the empty can away.
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Swede, Quenby, Carl, Ola… The story and the laughter and off to bed. The girl has omitted one detail from her story. After her daddy’s shot, the cat had plummeted to the earth. But afterwards, there was a fluttering sound on the ground where it hit. Still, late at night, it caused her wonder. Branches scrape softly on the roof. Squirrels whistle and scamper. There is a rustling of beavers, foxes, skunks, and porcupines. A profound stillness, soon to be broken surely by rain. And, from far out on the lake, men in fishing boats, arguing, chattering, opening beercans. Telling stories.
THE SENTIENT LENS
Scene for “Winter”
No sound, it gets going with utter silence, no sound except perhaps an inappreciable crackle now and then, not unlike static, but our ear readily compensates for it, hears not that sound but the absence of sound, stretches itself, reaches out past any staticky imperfections there might be and finds: only the silence. And that’s how it starts. Not even a wind. Merely the powderfine snow dropping silently, evenly, no more than infinitesimal flecks of light, settling idly on the quiet forest like frozen dust. The snow has folded itself into drifts, or perhaps the earth itself is ribbed beneath, cast into furrows by fallen trees and humps of dying leaves — we cannot know, we can be sure only of the surface we see now, a gently bending surface that warps and cracks the black shadows of the trees into a fretwork of complex patterns, complex yet tranquil, placed, reflective: the inter laced shadows and polygons of brightly daylit snow suggest the quavering stability of light, the imperceptible violence and motion of shadow. So close to the drifts are we that whole trees cannot be seen, only thick black trunks flecked with white and plunging branches weighted with snow, sweeping perilously near the white heaps of earth: we pass beneath them, sliding by the black trunks, over the virgin planes of groundsnow.