Jaws (13 page)

"I didn't sleep well last night, and I didn't want to wake up if you came home late.

So I took a pill."

"I'm going to throw those goddam pills away." He kissed her cheek, then tried to kiss her mouth but caught her in mid-yawn.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm afraid it won't work."

"It'll work. All you have to do is help a little."

"I'm so tired. But you go ahead if you want. I'll try to stay awake."

"Shit," said Brody. He rolled back to his side of the bed. "I'm not very big on screwing corpses."

"That was uncalled-for." Brody didn't reply. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and feeling his erection dwindle. But the pressure inside him was still there, a dull

ache in his groin.

A moment later, Ellen said, "What's Harry Meadows' friend's name?"

"Hooper."

"Not David Hooper."

"No. I think his name is Matt."

"Oh. I went out with a David Hooper a long, long time ago. I remember..." Before she could finish the sentence, her eyes shut, and soon she slipped into the deep breathing

of sleep.

A few blocks away, in a small clapboard house, a black man sat at the foot of his son's bed. "What story do you want to read?" he said.

"I don't want to read a story," said the boy, who was seven. "I want to tell a story."

"Okay. What'll we tell one about?"

"A shark. Let's tell one about a shark." The man winced. "No. Let's tell one about

... a bear."

"No, a shark. I want to know about sharks."

"You mean a once-upon-a-time story?"

"Sure. Like, you know, once upon a time there was a shark that ate people."

"That's not a very nice story."

"Why do sharks eat people?"

"I guess they get hungry. I don't know."

"Do you bleed if a shark eats you?"

"Yes," said the man. "Come on. Let's tell a story about another kind of animal. You'll have nightmares if we tell about a shark."

"No, I won't. If a shark tried to eat me, I'd punch him in the nose."

"No shark is going to try to eat you."

"Why not? If I go swimming I bet one would. Don't sharks eat black people?"

"Now stop it! I don't want to hear any more about sharks." The man lifted a pile file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (45 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt of

books from the bedside table. "Here. Let's read Peter Pan."

PART 2

Chapter 6

On her way home Friday noon, after a morning of volunteer work at the Southampton Hospital, Ellen stopped at the post office to buy a roll of stamps and get the mail. There

was no home mail delivery in Amity. In theory, only special delivery mail was brought to the door --any door within a mile radius of the post office; in fact, even special delivery

mail (except that clearly labeled as sent by the Federal Government) was kept at the post office until someone called for it.

The post office was a small, square building on Teal Street, just off Main. It had

500 mailboxes, 340 of which were rented to Amity's permanent residents. The other 160

were allotted to summer people, according to the whims of the postmistress, Minnie Eldridge. Those people she liked were permitted to rent boxes for the summer. Those she didn't like had to wait in line at the counter. Since she refused to rent a box to any summer person on a year-round basis, summer people never knew from one year to the next whether or not they would have a mailbox when they arrived in June. It was generally assumed that Minnie Eldridge was in her early seventies, and that

she had somehow convinced the authorities in Washington that she was well under compulsory retirement age. She was small and frail-looking, but deceptively strong, able to hustle packages and cartons nearly as quickly as the two young men who worked in the post office with her. She never spoke about her past or her private life. The only common knowledge about her was that she had been born on Nantucket Island and had left sometime soon after World War I. She had been in Amity for as long as anyone living could remember, and she considered herself not only a native, but also the resident expert

on the history of the town. She needed no prodding at all to embark on a discourse about Amity's eponym, a seventeenth-century woman named Amity Hopewell who had been convicted of witchcraft, and she took pleasure in reciting the list of major events in the

town's past: the landing of some British troops during the Revolution in an ill-fated attempt to outflank a Colonial force (the Britons lost their way and wandered aimlessly back and forth across Long Island); the fire in 1823 that destroyed every building except the town's only church; the wreck of a rumrunning ship in 1921 (the ship was eventually refloated, but by then all the cargo off-loaded to make the ship lighter had vanished); the

hurricane of 1938, and the widely reported (though never fully ascertained) landing of three German spies on the Scotch Road beach in 1942.

Ellen and Minnie made each other nervous. Ellen sensed that Minnie didn't like her, and she was right. Minnie felt uneasy with Ellen because she couldn't catalogue her. Ellen was neither summer folk nor winter folk. She hadn't earned her year-round mailbox, she had married it.

Minnie was alone in the post office, sorting mail, when Ellen arrived.

"Morning, Minnie," Ellen said.

Minnie looked up at the clock over the counter and said, "Afternoon."

"Could I have a roll of eights, please?" Ellen put a five-dollar bill and three ones

on the counter.

Minnie pushed a few more letters into boxes, set down her bundle, and walked to file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (46 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt the counter. She gave Ellen a roll of stamps and dropped the bills into a drawer. "What's Martin think he's going to do about that shark?" she said.

"I don't know. I guess they'll try to catch it."

"Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Book of Job," said Minnie. "No mortal man's going to catch that fish."

"Why do you say that?"

"We're not meant to catch it, that's why. We're being readied."

"For what?"

"We'll know when the time comes."

"I see." Ellen put the stamps in her purse. "Well, maybe you're right. Thanks, Minnie." She turned and walked toward the door.

"There'll be no mistaking it," Minnie said to Ellen's back. Ellen walked to Main Street and turned right, past a boutique and an antique shop.

She stopped at Amity Hardware and went inside. There was no immediate response to the tinkle of the bell that the door struck as she opened it. She waited for a few seconds, then

called, "Albert?"

She walked to the back of the store, to an open door that led to the basement. She

heard two men talking below.

"I'll be right up," called the voice of Albert Morris. "Here's a whole box of them,"

Morris said to the other man. "Look through and see if you find what you want." Morris came to the bottom of the stairs and started up --slowly and deliberately,

one step at a time, holding on to the banister. He was in his early sixties, and he had had a

heart attack two years earlier.

"Cleats," he said when he reached the top of the stairs.

"What?" said Ellen.

"Cleats. Fella wants cleats for a boat. Size he's looking for, he must be the captain

of a battleship. Anyway, what can I do for you?"

"The rubber nozzle in my kitchen sink is all cracked. You know, the kind with the switch for spraying. I want to get a new one."

"No problem. They're up this way." Morris led Ellen to a cabinet in the middle of the store. "This what you had in mind?" He held up a rubber nozzle.

"Perfect."

"Eighty cents. Charge or cash?"

"I'll pay you for it. I don't want you to have to write up a slip just for eighty cents."

"Written 'em a lot smaller 'n that," said Morris. "I could tell you stories that'd set

your ears to ringing."

They walked across the narrow store to the cash register, and as he rang up the sale on the register, Morris said, "Lots of people upset about this shark thing."

"I know. You can't blame them."

"They think the beaches oughta be opened up again."

"Well, I..."

"You ask me, I think they're full of --pardon the expression --bull. I think Martin's doing right."

"I'm glad to know that, Albert."

"Maybe this new fella can help us out."

"Who's that?"

"This fish expert from up Massachusetts."

"Oh yes. I heard he was in town."

"He's right here."

Ellen looked around and saw no one. "What do you mean?"

"Down cellar. He's the one wants the cleats." file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (47 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt Just then, Ellen heard footsteps on the stairs. She turned and saw Hooper coming through the door, and she suddenly felt a surge of girlish nervousness, as if she were seeing a beau she hadn't seen in years. The man was a stranger, yet there was something familiar about him.

"I found them," said Hooper, holding up two large stainless-steel cleats. He walked over to the counter, smiled politely at Ellen, and said to Morris, "These'll do fine." He put the cleats on the counter and handed Morris a twenty-dollar bill. Ellen looked at Hooper, trying to define her reminiscence. She hoped Albert Morris would introduce them, but he seemed to have no intention of doing so. "Excuse me," she said to Hooper, "but I have to ask you something." Hooper looked at her and smiled again --a pleasant, friendly smile that softened the sharpness of his features and made his light blue eyes shine. "Sure," he said. "Ask away."

"You aren't by any chance related to David Hooper, are you?"

"He's my older brother. Do you know David?"

"Yes," said Ellen. "Or rather, I used to. I went out with him a long time ago. I'm

Ellen Brody. I used to be Ellen Shepherd. Back then, I mean."

"Oh sure. I remember you."

"You don't."

"I do. No kidding. I'll prove it to you. Let me see... You wore your hair shorter

then, sort of a pageboy. You always wore a charm bracelet. I remember that because it had a big charm that looked like the Eiffel Tower. And you always used to sing that song

--what was it called? --'Sh-Boom,' or something like that. Right?" Ellen laughed. "My heavens, you have quite a memory. I'd forgotten that song."

"It's screwy the things that impress kids. You went out with David for what -two years?"

"Two summers," Ellen said. "They were fun. I hadn't thought about them much in the past few years."

"Do you remember me?"

"Vaguely. I'm not sure. I remember David had a younger brother. You must have been about nine or ten then."

"About that; David's ten years older than I am. An-other thing I remember: Everybody called me Matt. I thought it sounded gown-up. But you called me Matthew. You said it sounded more dignified. I was probably in love with you."

"Oh?" Ellen reddened, and Albert Morris laughed.

"At one time or another," said Hooper, "I fell in love with all the girls David went

out with."

"Oh." Morris handed Hooper his change, and Hooper said to Ellen, "I'm going down to the dock. Can I drop you anywhere?"

"Thank you. I have a car." She thanked Morris, and, with Hooper behind her, walked out of the store. "So now you're a scientist," she said when they were outside.

"Kind of by accident. I started out as an English major. But then I took a course in

marine biology to satisfy my science requirement, and --bingo! --I was hooked."

"On what? The ocean?"

"No. I mean, yes and no. I was always crazy about the ocean. When I was twelve or thirteen, my idea of a big time was to take a sleeping bag down to the beach and spend the night lying in the sand listening to the waves, wondering where they had come from and what fantastic things they had passed on the way. What I got hooked on in college was fish, or, to be really specific, sharks."

Ellen laughed. "What an awful thing to fall in love with. It's like having a passion

for rats."

"That's what most people think," said Hooper, "But they're wrong. Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They're beautiful --God, how beautiful they are!

They're

like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They're as graceful as any bird. They're file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (48 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt as

mysterious as any animal on earth. No one knows for sure how long they live or what impulses --except for hunger --they respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and every one is different from every other one. Scientists spend their lives trying to find answers about sharks, and as soon as they come up with a nice, pat generalization, some-thing shoots it down. People have been trying to find an effective shark repellent for over two thousand years. They've never found one that really

works." He stopped, looked at Ellen, and smiled. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to lecture. As you can see, I'm an addict."

"And as you can see," said Ellen, "I don't know what I'm talking about. I imagine you went to Yale."

"Of course. Where else? For four generations, the only male in our family who didn't go to Yale was an uncle of mine who got thrown out of Andover and ended up at Miami of Ohio. After Yale, I went to graduate school at the University of Florida. And after that, I spent a couple of years chasing sharks around the world."