Island Read online

  Carole’s eyebrows shot up. She looked at her hands. Donald closed his eyes and held on tightly to the edge of the table.

  “You’ve got a poem, old man?” Roscoe asked, amused.

  “Yes,” Meredith answered for him. “He wrote it today while you were out fishing.”

  Carole looked from Meredith to Donald and smiled thinly. “You read Meredith the poem?” she said softly.

  “That’s fair,” Roscoe said. “I’ll accept that. I always liked Donald’s poems. And it’s been years since I heard one. Why, this will be just like in the old days. Come on, Donald.”

  “It’s a beautiful poem,” Carole said. “But it’s sort of personal. I think he feels a little funny about reading it.”

  “But he read it to Meredith,” Roscoe insisted.

  “No he didn’t,” Meredith admitted. “I heard him reading it to himself from my bedroom. Come on, Father. Read the poem.”

  Donald opened one eye and fixed it on his daughter.

  “Go ahead, Carole. Get it for him,” Roscoe said. “Donald always liked to read me his poetry. Belinda too.”

  “Should I, Donald?”

  “Whatsthedifference?

  “I’m going to bed,” Belinda said, gathering up her cigarette pack and lighter.

  “Oh that’s nice,” Roscoe said. “Everybody had to sit and listen to your gossip stories and now you’re going to bed before Donald—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She sat back, but did not put down the cigarette pack.

  Carole got up hesitantly and left the room. No one said anything while she was gone. When she returned, she handed the folded yellow paper to her husband.

  Donald snapped it open and studied it with bulging eyes. “The forcethatdragsthesundown,” he said.

  Roscoe and Meredith laughed. Belinda tightened her grip on her cigarettes and sucked in her breath.

  “Snouse,” Donald said.

  “Let someone else read it for you,” Meredith suggested.

  Donald studied his daughter’s face until he understood. Then he handed the poem to Carole. Carole sighed and began to read:

  The force that drags the sun down and then lifts

  Him again, dressed anew in dewy shades

  Of carmine, is but a feeble thing weighed

  Beside the force that tugs my heart adrift

  When you orbit into the room, carmine whiffed

  Yourself, sublime in your own light, and raid

  My spirit-vim before you turn and fade,

  Leaving me powerless to name your gift.

  Let us all hope on the sun-opposed plane

  You ne’er think to stand, your charms running free.

  The sun, like me, ’gainst its own course would strain,

  Provoking world-doom, spinning ’cross the sea

  Like wat’ry Indra from the womb unchained.

  Better you go on devastating me.

  Donald shut his eyes and began to hum and sway. Roscoe ran one hand through his curls, pensively. Meredith drew an imaginary face on the tablecloth. Belinda hadn’t moved a muscle.

  “Isn’t anyone going to say anything?” Carole asked.

  “Ho!” exclaimed Roscoe, laughing and throwing his hands out into the air. “It’s a great poem, no doubt about it. But I got this feeling of déjà-vu when you were reading it—like I heard it somewhere before.”

  Belinda clapped one hand down on the table. “Well folks, I’m hitting the hay. What do you say, Roscoe?”

  “Wait!” Roscoe snapped his fingers. “Donald, you wrote a poem almost exactly like that back in West Virginia. Or someone did. It must have been you. I remember because I didn’t know who Indra was and I had to … Wait …”

  “Roscoe,” Belinda said. “Indra finds his way into plenty of poems. Come on. You’re getting obnoxious. You had too much to drink, too.”

  “Wait. This is going to bother me. Like wat’ry Indra from the womb unchained … God, that’s familiar.”

  Donald brought a fist down hard on the table. Everyone jumped, including Meredith who had been watching its formation. “I’man imposter,” he cried. “Let … let the worldknowit. Letusgothen, youandI. Letuscarry this corpse.”

  “Why don’t we all go to bed and we can finish having fun in the morning,” Belinda suggested, breaking the silence that had followed Donald’s ambiguous declaration.

  “Wait a minute,” Roscoe said. “What do you mean, you’re an imposter? You’re not an imposter. That is what he said, isn’t it?”

  “You’d better tell them, Belinda,” said Meredith. “They’re bound to find it out anyway.”

  “What’s going on?” Carole asked.

  Belinda closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “I’lltell you,” Donald said. “Istole that poem frommy former—formerself.”

  “Your former self? What does that mean?”

  “That means—” Meredith began.

  “You shut up, big mouth,” Belinda said. “He didn’t make the poem up today, that’s all. He got it from me. He was trying so hard to write a poem today—for you, Carole—and he was having so much trouble … You should have seen him with his crumpled paper balls all over the table. And then when I came in and mentioned that I happened to remember a poem he’d written years ago, I guess he just decided to use that one.”

  “Belinda wrote it down for him,” Meredith said.

  “You know, you’re a little—”

  “I’m going to bed,” Meredith said. She wheeled herself out of the room directly, but only Belinda watched her go. The others were watching Belinda.

  “No offense, Donald,” she began, “but that kid of yours …”

  Roscoe laughed suddenly. “I remember,” he sang out. “I remember.” When he had calmed himself, he said, “I wrote that poem.”

  “You?” Belinda and Carole queried in unison.

  “Yes. No. Wait.” He began to laugh again and everybody waited. “Donald was teaching me about sonnets. Remember that, Donald? And Donald had written a few really nice ones. And—shucks, this is embarrassing—and I wanted to be able to write a really nice one too, because, well, I was head over heels in love with Belinda, and I guess I was a little jealous because she thought so much of Donald’s poems … Well, I figured if I could write a sonnet, a good one, especially for her, I’d have her hooked. So I came up with that one, and … Now I remember! Donald, I gave it to you to have a look at because I wanted to make sure it was first-class before I gave it to Belinda … Yeah, that’s right … And you never returned it to me … God, this is all so confusing. Oh shit! Now I remember. I didn’t ask you for it because when you didn’t return it on your own, I figured that you’d figured out … what?… shit!… that I really didn’t write it! Yeah, that’s it! And I was ashamed. I can’t believe this! I just remembered all that!”

  “Wait,” Belinda said. “You just said—”

  Roscoe put his palms out. “Let me explain. I found the thing in the library. This is incredible! I found it in the library, in a book. And I asked a few people about the author and they hadn’t heard of him. In fact, I think I even asked the librarian. So I assumed the guy was pretty obscure. And this was around the time that I’d been trying to write a poem for Belinda. And like Donald today, I was having trouble. So I figured I could get away with borrowing this obscure guy’s poem and saying I wrote it. I thought it was a pretty neat poem to steal to impress my baby with. And I figured I’d impress the hell out of you, too, Donald. So I copied it and gave it to you, modestly, telling you to feel free to make suggestions. Do you remember that? You said you’d have a look at it and get it back to me. And you never returned it. So I figured you were familiar with the poem after all, and that you knew what I’d done, and that you didn’t know how to approach me about it. I mean, that’s plagiarism!

  “I really felt terrible for a while. I wanted to talk about it and get it out in the open, but I didn’t know what to say. I was so ashamed. And that was right about the time when my old man had
his first heart attack. And shit, then everything changed. You started going out with Elaine … and I couldn’t talk to you about it in front of her … And then you guys moved … Shit! I’m glad it’s all out in the open now. I remember it bothered me for a long time. And then, over the years, I forgot about it. But when Carole read, “Wat’ry Indra,” something clicked, because I had a tough time finding out who this Indra dude was, and I had to know who he was before I gave the poem to Donald in case he asked me about it. I’m sorry, Donald. I’m sorry and I’m ashamed for having tried to trick you, my best buddy. And you, too, Belinda. I’m sorry. I was going to trick you with a poem that wasn’t even mine. Hey! But if I never got the poem back from Donald, how did you get hold of it? And Donald, buddy, how did you come to think that you’d written it? Hey! Talk about riddles!”

  “Who knows, Roscoe,” Belinda said. “Donald probably never found out you didn’t write it—right, Donald?—and he probably returned it to you and you forgot about it and left it lying around the house … I don’t know. And I probably found it and thought it was one of Donald’s, because to be perfectly frank with you, I don’t remember you writing any poems.”

  “Do you remember how Belinda got the poem?” Carole asked Donald.

  He shook his head, turning his wineglass ’round and ’round and inspecting the reflections in it from the light overhead.

  Belinda stood up. “I wish you had given it to me, Roscoe. I would have been impressed, even if you hadn’t written it. Are you coming to bed?”

  Roscoe rubbed his head. “Wait. I feel terrible. Man, the more I think about this …”

  “Come on, Roscoe. It happened a long time ago. There’s no reason to be upset about it now. You made your apologies.”

  “You don’t understand …”

  Belinda sat down again. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you tell your story? Then we’ll all have something to think about besides this silly poem business.”

  “No. I’m too upset. I couldn’t tell my story now the way I feel. Besides, it’s a sad story. It’d only make things worse. Don’t you see, Belinda? The consequences of something that I did years ago showed up today. That’s pretty scary! Donald gave Carole a poem that wasn’t his to give! But Donald thought it was his. So what I did was not only unfair to you and Donald, but to you, too, Carole.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Well, honey, if you had kept your mouth shut … You didn’t have to let everyone know that you remembered the poem and its entire history.” Belinda stood up.

  “Oh yes I did,” Roscoe answered. “I’m glad I told, no matter how demeaning it is for me. At least I stopped the thing from spreading.”

  “Can we go to bed now?”

  “Yeah, I guess we’d better. I’m really sorry, Belinda. Hey! What was your story about? Will you tell me now?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t so hot. It was about a woman who couldn’t see the forest through the trees. What about yours?”

  “Mine was dumb. It was about ducks.”

  Carole

  At first I thought maybe I got you dizzy, dancing around like a fool. Then … I hate to tell you what I thought—you always move around at that time … And when you didn’t … And after you hadn’t moved all day either … I was wanting to talk to you so badly.

  I didn’t sleep well, between worrying about you and thinking about Donald’s poem—or should I say the poem that started off as Donald’s and ended up belonging to some obscure poet. But I don’t want to talk about the poem now. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Suffice it to say that your father gave me a gift which was not his to give. And that maybe he knew it was not his to give, and maybe he didn’t. And that for some reason Belinda tried to cover up for him. I’ve been over it countless times already, and I’m still just as confused as ever. You see, he may have given the poem to Belinda years ago. Anyway, that’s the conclusion that makes the most sense because somehow it got from Roscoe to Donald to Belinda. And Belinda memorized it. So who knows?

  Anyway, I got up this morning while it was still dark out because I was too restless to stay in bed. The poem was still on the table in the kitchen. My conscience told me to take it and hide it somewhere so it wouldn’t be laying there like an accusation when the others got up. But I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.

  I rode my bicycle to the beach and waited for the sun to come up. When it did, it was red, a perverse red host lifting up into the gray. But as it rose higher, it lightened and the gray became blue, and soon I felt silly sitting out on the beach alone—alone except for the mosquitoes which were eating me alive—feeling sorry for myself. There were cirrostratus clouds forming off to the southwest and the sea was high, higher than yesterday. But with the blue overhead it was hard to believe any serious weather was coming.

  I went back home to get Belinda, for although I didn’t know what we would talk about after last night, we had made plans to go together to the Coast Guard station, and I didn’t think it would be polite to go without her. Or maybe that’s not entirely true. Maybe I thought that if I didn’t go back for her, my suspicions would be obvious. When I got back to the house, though, no one was up yet. So I left a note on the table, near the poem, and I went to the Coast Guard station by myself.

  The man I spoke to there was very kind and showed me the hurricane’s position on the map. He assured me that it wouldn’t hit Miami. Thank God for that. He said that given the direction it was moving in, there was some chance it would hit us, but it was too early to say for sure. It might very well hit south and only bring us a lot of rain, which, he said, the island could use after a such dry summer. Or it might curve and go back to sea like the other two this season. His greatest concern, assuming that it does hit us head-on, is that it will come in with the high tide, bringing with it a tidal surge that could be devastating. The island has withstood high winds before.

  That scared me. When he said it, I could picture a huge, monstrous wave piling up on the edge of the island. I guess he saw that I was upset because he offered me a cup of coffee, and for a while we talked about hurricanes in general, particularly the few that he had seen years ago when he lived in the Florida panhandle. He said the thing that amazed him most was how people tended to pull together during them. Back in Florida he’d seen people on long lines in stores waiting to buy batteries and masking tape and candles, all chatting excitedly about their particular preparations or their predictions on the storm’s strength. But when you get those same people in long lines at Christmas time, he said, they’re pushing and shoving and rolling their eyes every time the cashier tries to catch her breath. So why is it, he asked me, that the threat of doom is more effective than the advent of a so-called celebration at bringing out the best in people? I said I didn’t know, but it seemed to me that I could remember some celebrations where the best was brought out in people.

  Then he took me upstairs to show me the computer screen where the hurricane was being tracked. The woman at the computer said it was picking up speed, traveling at about forty-five miles per hour, but that the winds within the hurricane were holding steady at about ninety-five. I asked about evacuation procedures as we toured the rest of the station. He said many tourists had already left the island on the early morning ferry, and he expected to see a lot more evacuating during the course of the day. The last ferry was due to leave at six. I was shocked to hear that people had already left. How had they all heard about the storm so quickly? According to Meredith, who is always listening to the radio, the first signs of a threat came only last night, while we were … So that means that a whole ferryboat load of people was packing their things while we slept. It gave me chills to think of it, made me feel somehow … careless. But the Coast Guard official said that at this stage evacuation was in one sense premature—though on the other hand it was better to get as many people off the island as soon as possible so that if a real threat came there wouldn’t be a panic. A panic, according to him, was the result of numbers, not situations.
I asked him how the people would recognize a real threat. He said the village’s ambulance would ride up and down the streets with its siren going. (Unfortunately, the village had only one sheriff, and he couldn’t possibly go door to door.) Then the ferries would make one final trip to the mainland. If worst came to worst, people would be asked to leave their cars behind. Without cars, the ferries could accommodate everybody. Then the Coast Guard would radio ahead so that there would be buses waiting at the mainland station to take the ferry passengers to a shelter.

  On the way back I stopped at the general store to buy some cakes—since I was sure I had missed breakfast by then. The general store is a beautiful, old, plantation-style house with a huge front porch. It sits right on the harbor and is one of the buildings I have sketched. There weren’t many boats in the harbor now. The fishing boats were there, but the sailboats—and there had been several only yesterday—were gone. Two old men sitting out on the porch in rockers stopped me on my way and asked whether I would be leaving on account of the storm. I said that I planned to and they chuckled. Then we got to talking and they told me about all the hurricanes they could remember on the island. Most of them, they said, came within a few hundred miles and then curved around, only to be taken out by the westerlies and carried to the sea. They told me, too, about a few that had hit. The older of the two men, who said he had never been off the island in his entire life, had been around for the hurricane of 1899 when the whole island was inundated. He said he remembered it well, even though he was just three years old at the time. He described the rising seas so graphically that I felt the hairs stand up on my arms. I asked them if they would leave if the National Weather Service thought this one was likely to hit. They both laughed until I was afraid the older one would choke. When my question stopped being funny, they explained that most of the people who lived on the island had had ancestors here two hundred years ago. This was home. The island was in their blood. They’d stay no matter how bad it looked, and they figured most of the other residents would, too. I told them about the tidal surge that the Coast Guard was anticipating. The younger man, who must have been in his early eighties, said, “Yes, ma’m. There’s sure to be a tidal surge with this one with the moon being full like it is. I rolled up my carpets this morning and set them up on the table.” I said, “But what if the water comes up higher than the table? Then there will be a lot more at stake than your carpets. Think of the tidal surge that washed over Long Island in 1938. Hundreds of people were drowned. This situation could very well be life-threatening too.” The older man said he didn’t recall any storm out on Long Island. He said, “See that woman over there?” I looked where he was pointing across the harbor and saw a plump middle-aged woman hanging out sheets on a clothesline strung up between her house and the Bait and Tackle shop next door. Her loose-fitting skirt was flapping around her legs in the wind. He said, “I’ve been watching her hang clothes now for going on twenty years. And I’m a better man for it.” Then he got up, wiped his hands on his overalls, and went into the store. The other old man just sat chuckling and gazing across the harbor where a shrimp boat was coming in. He didn’t answer me when I said good-bye.