Chapter of a Novel called “Last Bear”

                                                                                                              WHITEY’S ALUMINUM BOAT

Pretty clear why they called him Whitey with that hair. His blue eyes seemed transparent as he sat on the bench next to his truck, staring at the café, puffing occasionally on the stub of a cigar. An aluminum boat was lashed into the truck’s bed, the bow rising above the cab.  The aluminum boat was all that was left now.

Whitey grimaced. The search for his father’s drowned body had taken all day; Whitey had been able to cling to some slim hope that he might still be alive. Just about every able-bodied person in town had hauled their row boats and small power boats up to the reservoir to find him.  Oddly enough, of all of them puttering slowly around the lake, it was Whitey himself who hit something that felt like a submerged log, only soft, and Whitey knew. Even through the sides of the boat, he recognized the huge man who had raised him. Whitey cut the outboard and looked over the side  until he saw the familiar checkered red shirt. Whitey reached down and spun his father over. He  looked into his father’s stern face. Eyes wide, his body arched in shock, the old man looked still stunned by the moment the lightning bolt struck.  His body, magnified by the water, seemed even larger than usual. With their small crafts they couldn’t get him out of the lake without capsizing and they finally lashed him to the side and hauled him back to shore like a huge fish. Whitey couldn’t help thinking of the only book he’d ever read, the Old Man and the Sea. 

Rocky mopped up the syrup with the last of his pancakes, and he absently watched the huge figure cross the grass.  Whitey tripped on a rain bird and went to one knee on the lawn. He knelt there for a moment longer than seemed right, and he struggled to his feet like a wounded animal.  

“Check out the locals,” said Rocky with a little laugh. Pointing with his fork. 

Grace turned.

Katie, who ran the café, was just then putting the bill on the table- she saw Whitey coming. 

“Whitey lost his father in a storm,” she said gently. “He’ll be himself again ‘fore long.”

“Oh dear,” said Grace. “It’s Whitey?”

“Yep, that’s Whitey. Do you know him?”

“ A long time ago,” said Grace. “What happened to Zeke?”

“Lightning,” Katie said softly. Like it was the name of a disease.  

“His dad got hit by lightning?” Jovanna asked- she could hardly believe stuff like that still happened.

 “Yeah,” said Katie. “Out in the lake, near River Bridge. He was alone.” She pointed at the aluminum boat tied in the bed of Whitey’s truck. “That’s the boat he was in.”

Grace turned back to the window. Of course. She recognized him now, but just barely. From years ago. He had changed, but there he was. She remembered him as a boy in his odd clothes. Nothing ever fit. His brothers were taller than he, and slimmer, so the hand-me-down shirts always had the sleeves rolled up into great knots, and the front buttons bulging with the weight of his stomach.. He looked a sorrowful mountain of a man. 

“Are you from around here then?” asked Katie.

“Just moved back,” said Grace. 

“Really?”

“My name’s Grace. I inherited Bill Fear’s place a few years ago. We moved in yesterday.”

Grace wondered if William’s Fort was still small enough that Katie would have heard of her.

“Ahhh that’s you?” said Katie putting out her hand. “We’ve been expecting you, love. Sorry about your Uncle.”

“I didn’t really know him,” said Grace.

Whitey stopped several steps from the front door. 

Katie knew the rumors about Uncle Bill.  No one left their children alone around Bill. That was sure. And not a lot of people mourned when he died.

“This is Rocky and Jovanna. My kids.”

“I’m Katie. I run the cafe now. I guess you knew the old owners-  from when you used to live here?”

Katie was mid 40’s with a round young face, and had a charming English accent. 

Grace nodded. “I used to come here a lot when I was a kid. I’m going to be working up at the McClintok Ranch.”

 “Got work already? Good for you. They’re going to develop up there now aren’t they. New houses.”

“All new houses.  2000 acres. ”

“Progress, I guess.” said Katie. “Listen. Welcome. Let me buy your breakfast, I’ll just charge you for the coffees, ” she said grabbing the bill. “First one’s on me. Welcome to… well, welcome home. Lemme rewrite this.” 

Katie’s smile was the warmest thing Grace had seen in some time. She even felt at home. Jovanna watched her mother. Had the lines that creased her face disappeared there for a second? She looked like a different person, and then the concern was back as Whitey’s huge frame suddenly filled the doorway. He lumbered in. 

“Guy’s huge,” whispered Rocky. Whitey filled the center of the cafe and then turned toward their table. He walked directly over to them. Several people in the cafe stopped eating and watched as Whitey stood over the table, tottering. The smell of the cigar. His eyes fixed for no particular reason on Rocky’s pancakes and eggs. Katie froze at the counter waiting to see if she should intercede.

“Would you like to buy a boat?” he asked so quietly they could almost not hear him.

Grace almost reached out to him but something held her back.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “We can’t really afford a boat right now.”

“Hundred dollars is all.  It’s a good boat but I can’t keep it any more.” 

Grace shook her head.

 “You’ll feel better, Whitey,” Grace said gently.

“I ‘spect I will,” said Whitey. He was huge. His hands were enormous, thought Jovanna. One fist would be the size of her face. “I just can’t look at that boat no more.”

Whitey stood himself up and looked around the cafe. Jovanna could see him wondering if he had the energy to ask anyone else, to go around to another table.  Whitey took two steps. His voice suddenly boomed, bouncing off the walls of the small cafe, “I got the boat outside. It’s for sale. Anybody wants it, you come meet me outside. It’s a good boat. It was Zeke’s boat. One hundred dollars is all.  With the motor. 2 ½ horse. You all know the motor I guess. It’s ok now. It’s fixed.”

Then he spun, oddly, almost gracefully,  and headed for the door. He marched out to his truck and leaned against the side- one huge hand resting on the aluminum boat the other dug deep in his pocket,  eyes fixed on the café.

No one spoke. Rocky looked around the room. They were frozen like in an old photograph. Coffee cups suspended in air. 

Then someone said, Rocky couldn’t see who, “I guess not, Whitey,” 

“Henry, go buy the boat off that boy and let him get on with things.” 

Rocky couldn’t see who said that either. 

“I don’t need no boat, and I know that motor. Only one who could get it started was Zeke and he’s dead.”

Someone else agreed.

“Says it’s fixed.”

“Well it ain’t fixed.”

And that was it. Everyone went back to their breakfast. Jovanna looked out the window and saw Whitey staring now at the front door of the cafe. Kind of like a dog waiting for his master. 

 “I knew him a long time ago,” Grace said.

“Really?” 

“He didn’t recognize you, did he?”

“It’s  been a long time.”

They watched Whitey give up, and climb back into his truck. He sat there another minute and then seemed convinced that no one was going to buy the boat today. He backed up and headed down the road.

 “Pretty spooky guy,” said Jovanna.

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Grace. “He was a strange little boy.”

“He ain’t little anymore,” said Rocky.

“No he’s not.  Shall we take a look around town?”

Jovanna looked out the window and up at the sky that was filling up with dark clouds. “Strange town.” 

“All towns are strange,” said Grace.

“No – I kind of like it,” said Jovanna. 

Grace took her time, driving around a little to see how things had changed. Jovanna and Rocky took it all in.  Grace showed them where she grew up. The house was still there. The shade. Front porch, the chairs, two old people half asleep and rocking as they drove slowly by, the air thick with vines and insects. 

Rocky wasn’t impressed with how quickly you could get to the edge of town in any direction. The mountains around it though. The way it sat in a long valley. And the river. Grace drove them out to River Bridge where she used to swim as a girl. There was a wide lake, with boats drifting on it, fishing poles pointing into a lazy morning sky. The lake narrowed where the train bridge went over it, and the light, the sunlight, nothing like L.A. 

Nothing.  

Driving slowly through the little business section Jovanna named the shops. Then she spotted, up a dirt track behind the hardware store, a sign with a cow on it. ‘Veterinary Services’ she read.

“Really?” asked Grace.

“Yeah, maybe they need someone…”

“Can’t hurt askin’” said Grace. 

Grace drove them past the school. They sat in the car at the gate and gleaned any information they could from the size and shape of the school buildings, shaded with tall firs and surrounded by an unkempt lawn.  A dozen or so boys playing touch football on a distant field. 

When they got back home, Whitey’s aluminum boat was leaning against the stone fence that  ran up one side of the drive way. A note was stuck under one edge. Jovanna worked out the scrawling handwriting. “You’d be doing me a favor to keep this. Welcome back. Whitey.”

The motor was just inside the shed. 

“I guess he did remember you,” said Rocky.

“Give me a hand with this,” said Grace, and she lifted the bow. Jovanna and Rocky grabbed the sides and Grace led them around the back and down a trail that led to a pond.  They slid the boat in and the three of them climbed in.  

They sat in the boat in the sun. Bobbing. Jovanna closed her eyes. Birds sang. A great quiet came up and surrounded them. It was like a story book, thought Jovanna, the three of them sitting in a boat on a tiny pond, drifting, drifting toward a far shore.