“You talked to me! You made me break my rules! You made me talk to you, you made me want to break the rules! You take pills! You smoke! Damn you, you bastard, I already killed you. I drowned you and I could have left you in the water but I didn’t. I made you dead and then I made you alive again, but you’ve been dead all along. That’s why the boat, that’s why it has to be drowning.”
“Paul, Paul—”
“You came too close! I made myself stop talking to people and you made me talk to you! I was free, I was alone, and you came close! I was alone and I was myself and you wrecked that, you pushed your way in and now you’re me and I’m you! You’re the me I hate!”
I stood there listening to that last sentence ringing in the air. It had come out all by itself. It was true, and it was a truth I hadn’t known about before. I could feel tears behind my eyes. I knew they wouldn’t flow, I knew it, but they were there.
I went downstairs again. Below. When I came back he said, “Paul, I give up. You don’t want to torture me. End it.”
“Do it yourself.” He didn’t understand. “Take the black pill,” I said. “You once told me I’d never do it. Neither will you. You’ve got a hollow tooth, I found it when I gagged you. Bite it, take the black pill. It’s easier than drowning.”
He breathed. In and out, in and out. “That’s what I thought. Part of you keeps thinking I’ll change my mind. That’s what I thought, but I had to find out for sure. Even when you’re under you’ll wonder if I’m going to pull you back up and let you go. You’ll keep on wondering, and then you’ll drown. Again.”
“Paul—”
I didn’t listen. I picked him up. I was surprised how easy he was to lift. He flapped like a fish, but he was still easy to lift. I wanted to make it fast now before something went wrong. I threw him overboard.
The fucking line was too short. He hung head downward, his head just a foot from the water surface, and he was screaming. I grabbed the anchor and heaved it after him, and by the time I looked he was gone.
At four o’clock I thought I heard a noise, a rumbling noise far out to sea. I went to the rail but I couldn’t see anything. It could very well have been thunder, a storm out over the Atlantic. Or my imagination.
Eighteen
I don’t know how long I stayed on the boat. For a few days I left the engines off and stayed adrift in the Atlantic. The boat became a surrogate for my island, but without the discipline. There was food and water on board. I drank water, but as far as I know I didn’t touch the food. I think I slept a lot, but all the edges of memory are blurred, and I could not say what happened and what was dream.
This did happen: One night I took off all my clothes and jumped overboard and swam out to sea, away from the ship. I may have meant to drown myself, but it could also have been a test, a game. If so, I proved what I had set out to prove, and thus lost or won, as you prefer. I couldn’t take black pills either. Somehow I swam back to the ship and managed to drag myself aboard.
That must have been a turning point, or the signal of a turning point, because the next thing I did was start the engines. I set out to run the boat south, and figured that I could stay within sight of the coast and cruise all the way around Florida to my island.
Madness has many phases. This phase was good enough to wear off before the tanks ran dry. I suddenly realized one day that I would run out of fuel and be permanently adrift in the Atlantic, and the phase instantly lost its charm.
I docked at a private marina outside of Neptune Beach, which is a shore suburb of Jacksonville. It was the middle of the night and no one was around, and I tied up my boat like a good little sailor and walked through the grounds unchallenged. Pure dumb luck, and it got me through the most genuinely hazardous part of the whole operation. There I was with no identification, someone else’s boat, and a million dollars in a metal satchel. I didn’t even realize the danger until it was long past.
The time on the boat established one thing. By the time I got off it I knew that all the things I had to do would have to wait until I was in shape to do them. Buying the land, stashing the money, everything. None of it was that goddamned urgent. It could wait. First I had to go home.
I sat in a Turkish bath in Jax until the barbershops opened. I went to one and got a shave and a haircut. A Chinese laundryman pressed my suit while I waited. Then I walked over to the terminal and got on a bus.
He didn’t recognize me. He pointed his eyes at the middle of my chest, and he put the cracker accent on hard, the way he’ll do with mainland types.
I said, “I’ll bet you forgot the dictionary, too.”
The eyes jumped, the mouth gaped. “Now I will be damned,” he said. “Now I will be paternally damned. Do you know I didn’t know you? By God, I don’t know as I can be blamed. No beard, next to no hair, and pale enough to pass for white.” He suddenly remembered that the radio was on and that it was against my religion. He spun around and turned it off, then turned to face me again.
“A dozen aigs and what-all else? You know, I never thought I’d get to say that again.” His face turned serious. “Thought I’d gone and lost your trade. Thought you were dead, if I’m damned for saying it. Been how long? A month?”
“About that.”
“Haven’t been sick, have you?”
“Up North.”
“About the same, some would say.” He leaned on the counter. “Well, now.”
I didn’t want to be too talkative, but I had to fill in a few blanks for him. “Sudden trip,” I said. “A boat came across from Little Table Key to pick me up.”
“Business?”
“A death.”
“Oh, now,” he said. “I am sorry. Kin of yours?”
“A friend,” I said. “My only really close friend.”
“Terrible. A young fellow, I suppose.”
“About my age.”
“Terrible. Sudden?”
I thought for a moment. “No,” I said finally. “No, not sudden. We knew it was coming. It was just a question of when.”
I told him I would hold off on restocking until I had a chance to take inventory. I explained that my own row-boat was on the island and he immediately offered to run me over. I said I’d just as soon go myself, if he knew where I could borrow a boat; I’d tow it back tomorrow or the day after. He had a dinghy with an outboard on it and said I could keep it as long as I wanted.
“And one thing you don’t walk off without, by God.” He reached under the counter, pulled out a book and slapped it down hard. It was a paperback dictionary. “That’s a bet you just lost, that I wouldn’t remember it. Oh, and there’s a story goes with it.”
He propped himself up on his elbows, grinning at the memory. “That fellow brought the dictionary, you know, and he always just goes and sets the books in the rack and clears out the old ones. Well, the wife was here at the time and of course she didn’t even think. And a couple of days go by, see, and this nigra conies in. Suit and a tie and you just knew he walked through life waiting for someone to take his photograph. Well, what does he pick out but the dictionary.
“Now you can imagine. First time in the store, and he brings this book over to the counter, and what do I have to say? ‘Oh, can’t sell you that, it’s reserved on special order.’ Which is exactly the truth, and I’d of had a better chance of convincing this nigra that I’m a bleached Chinaman myself, see? And the more I talk the madder he gets, and I just keep on explaining and explaining. Take another book, take a dozen.’ I tell him. ‘Have a Coke, free, my compliments, drink it right here in the store, hell, I’ll get you my own damn glass.’ And out he goes with his nose scraping the ceiling.”