The Starboard Sea: A Novel (30 page)

Chester was not back yet, but he’d promised to return before Spring Break. We’d talked on the phone several times. His physical therapy had gone well and he hoped to rejoin the tennis team. He asked if I’d finished reading the book he’d lent me,
The Motion of Light in Water
. I hadn’t even read the first page. I didn’t want to admit this failure so I lied that I’d started the book and that it was really moving that his father’s friend was clearly a great talent. “Glad you’re liking it,” he said. My comments had been so vague that if I’d been Chester, I would have quizzed me, forced me to reveal my lie. But Chester was happy to believe I was telling the truth. I tore through my room that night trying to locate the book. I’d outwitted myself. In the hopes of keeping the book neat and preserved, I’d put it in a special place that I had since forgotten.

As I searched through my desk and dresser, I noticed that my picture of Cal was also missing. It wasn’t tucked in the corner of my mirror. This made me even more agitated. I went through all of my drawers, clothes, and sheets and tried to remember the last time I’d seen the picture. Brizzey, I thought. Brizzey swiped the photo. I was furious with myself for not noticing sooner.

Before sunrise, on the morning after the first snowstorm, I met Race, Kriffo, and Tazewell outside the Old Boathouse. I’d borrowed some nylon rope from the New Boathouse and was ready to get fancy with my knots.

“Where’s Stuyvie?” I asked.

“He’s sitting this one out,” Race said. “Ever since his suspension he’s gotten chickenshit. Sends his regrets.”
Race wore a bright orange parka and mirrored sunglasses. He kept his hood down, his ears turning crimson from the cold. The knee- deep snow was topped by a crust of glassy ice. We trudged through the loud crunching snow blinded by the sun’s early morning glare. Tazewell kept complaining about his nuts being frozen. When Kriffo offered him his scarf, Taze accused his pal of being a pussy. “What, are we playing dress-up now?” The slightest kindness a sign of weakness. Kriffo wore a puffy down coat, green ski cap, and purple plastic gloves. He looked as though he’d been inflated, his arms filled with helium. Frost glistened on the trees. I could feel my cheeks redden in the cold. Our breath made diamonds in the air.
The plan was to grab four guys from Wee House. Any four guys would do. “All of those kids are skinny fuckers,” Race said. “I don’t think their balls have dropped.”
“Should we let them put their shoes on?” Kriffo asked.
“What are you, the fashion police?” Taze buttoned the top button on his pea coat. “The whole point is for them to get hazed.”
Kriffo seemed concerned about frostbite. I explained that we’d be tying the boys to the column shafts and that they’d at least be under the shelter of the colonnade and not up to their ankles in snow. This put Kriffo at ease. Race handed out rolls of duct tape, unstrapping the silver adhesive and demonstrating how we might secure the boys’ hands and feet. “We can tape their mouths shut first so they don’t alert Mr. Snopes.”
Mr. Snopes taught biology. A middle-aged man who had clearly stayed too long at the fair. He’d missed his chance to leave Bellingham for a better gig and now had to make due with his bachelor life. He coached the girls’ lacrosse team and for this reason alone was considered a perv. Nadia planned on playing lacrosse in the spring. She told me that the girls on the team were always spreading rumors about Snopes giving them the eye or accidentally wandering into the girls’ locker room. My bet was that he’d built up a tolerance, an immunity to their charms. That he’d spent so many bus trips listening to them gossip and complain that he’d long ceased finding teenaged girls attractive.
By the time we got to Wee House, some of us decided that it might be best to hijack two students. That four guys would be too much to wrangle. “Two is totally manageable,” Kriffo said. “We each grab a pair of arms and legs.”
Race was disappointed. He felt that two didn’t make enough of a statement. Four was ideal but three at least sent a message. Three was a better spectacle. I agreed with Race. Deep down, I wasn’t certain that I could manage even half a kid, never mind an entire fifteen-year- old on my own. I’d smoked a lot of cigarettes in New York and was already having a hard time just shoeing through the snow.
None of the lights were on in Wee House. Mr. Snopes lived on the first floor in the back of the dorm. We decided to hit the first two rooms, both doubles right near the entrance. It was Race’s idea that we tape the boys’ mouths first, then strap their wrists and feet. Right before we blitzkrieged the rooms, Kriffo whispered, “What if these guys have morning wood?”
“Why?” Race asked. “Would you like to fuck them?”

Taping someone’s mouth shut turned out to be harder than I’d anticipated. My target popped the tape from his lips with his tongue and let out a yelp. I quickly placed my hand over his mouth only to have him bite my palm. As the kid fought me, I wound a tight band of tape around his entire head. Then I flipped the guy over and taped his wrists behind his back. Race taped his kid’s hands in the front and seemed to regret it. “Your way is better,” he said as we sneaked out of Wee House. Kriffo and Tazewell took longer and emerged with only one victim between them.

“What happened?” Race asked.
“The other one was naked,” Tazewell said. “Even I have a heart.” Race seemed visibly disappointed. Kriffo was relieved that our

three captives had all gone to sleep in thick wool socks. We cut a messy path through the snow over to the headmaster’s house, like the world’s most uncoordinated dog-sledding crew. From there, I made quick work of strapping each boy against a thick white column. I’d planned on using a fancy buntline and clove hitch, but in the end I settled for a series of tight constrictor knots. The four of us stood back and admired our handiwork. I didn’t know any of the boys’ names. They all had greasy hair and scrawny bodies. One wore camouflage flannel pajamas. “I can’t see you,” Race joked while slapping the kid’s arms. The other two boys had on boxer shorts. One was lucky enough to have worn a Cornell sweatshirt, but the other stood shivering in a flimsy white T-shirt, choose life printed in black block letters on his chest. All three looked terrified.

Tazewell complained that we didn’t have a camera. He worried that we’d have no record of our masterpiece. I pulled out my Instamatic and the guys cheered softly as I snapped pictures of them modeling with their prey. “You guys got shafted,” Race whispered.

The sun was coming up, and it seemed like a good time to haul ass. All three boys shook, a deep fear emerging in their eyes as they realized we were going to leave them. Running away, I looked back at the columns. I thought of Diana’s father, who had introduced me to this tradition, wondered if he was getting any better. Then I remembered being bound up in a carpet at Kensington, remembered the laughter as my assailants rolled me down a hill. I wanted to explain to these three sophomores that there was a larger purpose, an actual point to this abuse. My hope was that Race, Taze, and Kriffo would begin to trust me, begin to feel bonded to me. I’d tied up three strangers in the hopes of building other ties.

Nadia had been especially happy to see me. Greeting me in the Dining Hall our first day back, she gave me a big hug, handed me a gift. “It’s from my mother,” she said. “A thank-you for being so nice to me.” It was a tie, a Ferragamo tie. Pink sailboats on a field of blue. The sort of thing a banker would wear. It was a very thoughtful and expensive gift and without anything to give her in return, I kissed Nadia on the lips right there in the middle of dinner.

All around us people chanted, “PDA, PDA, PDA.” I caught Brizzey looking visibly perturbed. I liked Nadia well enough. She was sweet and small. I liked the way she hummed as she played piano, how she’d look up from the bench and smile whenever she struck a dull note. It occurred to me that it might be in my best interest to date her to dispel any rumors Brizzey might attempt to erupt. I took off the blue-andwhite Brooks Brothers tie I had on and knotted Nadia’s gift around my neck, then held her hand and walked out of the Dining Hall with her.

The headmaster discovered the three boys tied to the columns soon after we left. He was not amused. After a rough fall semester, Windsor probably hoped to coast through the spring. An old sailor himself, Windsor untied my knots and welcomed the boys inside his home for some hot chocolate and blankets. One of the three boys was Officer Hardy’s son. The one in the camouflage pajamas. Hardy had been lucky enough to win custody of his kid, luckier still to have the school offer his son a full scholarship, including room and board. James Hardy wouldn’t need to worry about the stigma of being a townie.

I was impressed that the three boys held their silence, claiming ignorance as to our identities. The shafting grew into myth, and by early evening the official report was that at least a half dozen guys or more had been tied up naked. Kids bragged about being shafted, kids who had played no part in the prank. It became a special badge of honor and pride to have been singled out for this hazing, and all of the underclassmen who claimed to have been involved boasted that this meant they got to pull the same prank themselves the following year. Race, Kriffo, and Taze were thrilled. “We did it, Prosper,” they said. “We’re legendary.”

After that first blizzard, the days got colder. The air stayed brittle, and when I stepped outside I feared my breath might shatter into a thousand icicles. In the mornings the guys on the top floor of Whitehall fled the dorm together, traveling in a pack, hoping the synchronized movements of our bodies would keep us warm. The temperature dropped so much that the ocean froze. Race swung by the dorm one Saturday afternoon and invited Tazewell, Kriffo, and me out for a drive. “The ocean is sheer ice. We could skate on it. Walk on water.”

We packed into Race’s Land Rover and drove down to the beach. I hadn’t been back to that stretch of sand since Marieke’s visit. Though I thought of her often, Marieke remained a mystery to me. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Aidan to grow up listening to the jangling of those bracelets, smelling that musky perfume, standing always in the cold shadow of her mother’s im mense beauty, her ego. One of my biggest regrets was not being able to convince Marieke of her own daughter’s happiness. Over break, I’d tried to rent the movie she’d produced, but every time I went to the video store the film was checked out. “That’s a holiday classic,” the video clerk declared. “Good luck finding it anywhere.” On New Year’s Eve I not only told Ginger about Aidan but I also mentioned Marieke. Ginger knew and adored the film. “My favorite tearjerker,” she said. She had a copy of the movie in her apartment and we went back that night and watched it together as the sun came up. It should have been hokey, laughable, even— an old man and his cat on a road trip together. But when the cat died in the old man’s arms, I found myself bawling. “Told you,” Ginger said. “She might have been a crummy mother, but that woman made a great film.”

At the beach, the sand was covered in snow, the sky a slate gray. Just as Race had promised, the ocean was frozen. Not a thin surface layer of slush as I’d imagined but a deep, hard, glacial block. The wind blew in ribbons snapping across our faces as the four of us in our dark parkas walked out several yards onto the ocean, sliding across the white surface. Taze wiped out, joked that he’d tripped on a wave.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” I said, “for salt water to freeze.” “The salt doesn’t freeze,” Race corrected me. “But the water does. The salt separates, gets pushed down below the water. Pretty cool, huh? Wish I had an iceboat. We could sail over the surface.”
“Iceboat,” I said. “They call them Skeeters, right? They’ve got those long-ass steel blades.”
“Yeah,” Race said. “My dad sailed one out on the Hudson. Saw him do it. Those fuckers fly.”
Sunlight bounced off the white ice without being absorbed. I wondered how long it would take for this ocean to melt. Kriffo had brought along his hockey skates. He laced himself up and began cutting laps across the shoreline. Taze fell again, then stayed down, pulled out a joint, lighting up. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m a chimney.” Race and I kept walking, testing the frozen waters for weakness.
We were about a hundred feet from shore when Race turned to me, “Is there any chance you might want to sail this spring?” Race looked away after he asked his question.
Though I understood it took a lot for Race to make this offer, I didn’t want to appear too eager. “On one condition.” I breathed out a thick fog of air. “Tell me, what exactly is a SeaWolf?”
Race bared his teeth, growled, and smiled.
“We don’t have to sail together,” I said. “But if you’re up for it, I wouldn’t mind crewing for you.”
“Truth is,” Race said, “the only good day of sailing I had last semester was with you. Well, until you nearly killed me.” Race laughed as though the whole thing was behind us now. As though we could joke about our past.
“I think together . . .” I smiled. “We’d be unstoppable.”
We stood out on the frozen ocean discussing strategies, strength training, aerodynamics, the way an apparent wind could shift suddenly, violently if you were accelerating too rapidly. It wasn’t the type of conversation I could have enjoyed with Aidan. Race and I shared an expertise, an intimacy that enabled us to speak in shorthand. We were insiders. It wasn’t the same as talking to Cal, but it was close. I thought of how close our bodies would be, Race’s and mine, when trimming the sails in light winds. Race and I would be right on top of each other balancing in unison.
I looked down at the ice. These frozen waters had swallowed Aidan. She really did swim like a mermaid. So strong, she would have fought the storm to stay afloat. My hero Joshua Slocum didn’t know how to swim at all, insisting it was useless for a sailor to struggle in the open ocean. He sailed alone around the world without knowing how to doggy paddle. And when he died, he died out at sea sailing his sloop until it capsized, until the waters filled his lungs. Aidan prided herself on being unsinkable, but she’d been tossed around and broken. I was standing on a grave.
“So it’s settled,” Race said. “You’re part of the team.”
Yazid returned a month into the semester. “I abhor the cold,” he said. “I’m allergic to it, or at least that’s what my doctor’s excuse claims.” While the rest of us had suffered through blizzard conditions, Yazid had spent weeks sunning himself on the Mediterranean. We all agreed that he was the smartest person we’d ever met. Yazid’s return was greeted with great anticipation. The Whitehall pot supply had dwindled to seeds and stones. Taze and I were disappointed when Yazid pulled out a bundle of leaves wrapped around red and green plant shoots. “These are fresh,” he said. “I brought enough for everyone to try.” He told us that the plant was called khat and that if we chewed the leaves and flower shoots we’d feel euphoric, buzzed. “You’ll never want to sleep again.”
In his room, Yazid had real adult furniture: a pair of comfortable brown leather chairs, a red-and-blue Turkish rug, tall brass floor lamps. He slept on a futon. The room of a very sophisticated dope fiend.
Yazid unwrapped the khat and showed us how to fold the leaves and chew on them to release the drug. The plant smelled like a mixture of oregano and mint. “It’s like dip,” Taze said. “Should I tuck it into my gum?”
Yazid explained that he’d been chewing khat since he was little. For him the drug was not much more than a cup of coffee. He cautioned that for us the khat might seem as strong as a bump of cocaine.
Tazewell wasn’t used to stimulants. He couldn’t stop chewing the leaves, green foam forming at the sides of his mouth, bits of leaf covering his perfect teeth. “I haven’t been this high since the hurricane,” he said. “We were crazy that night.” Tazewell paced and played with the bracelets on his wrist. “I can’t even remember her name.”
“Whose name?” Yazid asked.
“The girl.” Taze looked at me, his pupils like pinpricks. “The one on the boat.”
I spit the leaves out into my hand. “You took a boat out in the storm?”
“Just a joyride.” Tazewell smiled. “No big thing.” Tazewell pointed to his bracelets and nodded to Yazid. “Have I made you one of these?”
Yazid shook his head.
“All this time,” Taze said, “I’ve been smoking your dope and it never once occurred to me to make you a bracelet. I’m going to do it. Decorate your whole wrist.” Tazewell got up and went to his room.
“Filthy,” Yazid said. “He thinks I want his filthy embroidery.”
I sat with Yazid for a while, certain that this new drug would keep me awake all night. Tazewell had allowed something to slip,
“I can’t even remember her name.”
“Have you ever been to Race’s house?” I’d never asked Yazid about the party.
Yazid said that he’d never been invited to anyone’s home. “You’d think that one of these chaps would have invited me to one of your big American barbecues. When I was in London, my friends were always showing me off, introducing me to their families. I suppose I haven’t made that sort of friend here.”
I told Yazid that he had a standing invitation to stay with me in the city or up in Maine, and though I think he appreciated it, my invite couldn’t help but feel like a consolation. “Are you sorry you came here?” I asked.
Yazid folded some green leaves and chewed slowly. The khat seemed to have an almost calming effect on him. “Bellingham,” he said, “serves a purpose. Someone has to cater to all of these fuckups. Best of all, I’ve never once feared being kicked out. That’s worth something.”
Aidan had compared Bellingham to the Island of Misfit Toys, a sanctuary for the unwanted. But the problem, as I saw it, was that putting this many defective kids together only created more trouble.