Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy Read online

  "I think I can hit something like that." He tossed her his glove. She caught it and held it like a dream that had dropped right out of the bright blue sky into her outstretched hand. She tossed the ball back to him and then, slowly, as if it were a ceremony, she put the glove over her hand. She flexed it, held it up over her face and smelled it, then held it out again. She punched her right hand into it.

  "Throw me the ball," she said. And he did. "Harder," she said, throwing it back. "Harder still," she called. At first she caught the ball down in the palm, but soon she had the trick of catching it up in the webbing, and she began to giggle with the pleasure of it, catching the ball and then whipping around and throwing it back to Turner. "You know," she said, "I never caught with one of these before." And Turner, watching the smooth flow of her arms and hands, the fine long fingers that twirled the ball just before they released it, the eyes that in the clear air shone with all the brightness of the day, thought that maybe he wouldn't need to light out for the Territories after all.

  They never did use the bat. All Lizzie wanted to do was to catch the ball, for him to throw it harder, or higher, or off to her left, or off to her right, and she would snatch it out of the air, sometimes even leaning out over the water, and she would look as happy as the yellow-robed day, and she'd toss the ball back and flex the glove.

  When they had thrown the ball back and forth about a million times, they sat down together on the stones, the glove between them, watching the ripples the tide was sending closer and closer in, watching it slurp up the seaweed beds and start to cover...

  "The mudflats," Lizzie said. "I promised my granddaddy I'd dig up clams enough."

  They threw the bat and ball and glove up above the tide line, and while Lizzie ran to the dory for her rake and bucket, Turner took off his shoes, rolled up his trousers, pulled up his sleeves, and began looking for a place to dig. He picked out a hole that the retreating ripples left bubbling, straddled it, and set to digging with his hands. By the time Lizzie was back, he had a pile of muddy sand but had lost track of where a clam might be.

  "Here," she said, "take turns using this." She set her rake mightily in the mud, pulled back a layer, put the rake in again, pulled back another peel, and then once more, until the tines scraped against a shell and the clam lay like an ornery pearl, spitting at them. Lizzie lifted it. "Sometimes they don't mind their manners much," she said.

  "I guess I wouldn't, either, if I was being dug up for chowder."

  "I guess. Lately, it seems like there might be a whole lot of reasons for not minding your manners."

  Turner nodded. He knew some reasons.

  They dug clams until the water covered the flats—actually, as Lizzie pointed out, Turner mostly watched her dig clams until the water covered the flats. He held the bucket, leaning away from it to avoid the spitting, and lugged it full back to the dory. Lizzie knelt and packed it with seaweed, sending little crabs scuttling from underneath each handful she dragged up.

  Turner was mindful of his toes.

  "You want to come over?" asked Lizzie.

  "To the island?"

  She put her hand on her hip.

  "I'll come over," said Turner. And together they waded out and climbed into the dory—it was floating freely now—and Lizzie, with easy hands, oared the boat around and with a few strokes set its bow and Turner toward Malaga.

  He had seen the island from the far ledges, standing with his father and Sheriff Elwell and Deacon Hurd and everyone else important in the town. A stony beach, a stony ledge or two, some pines—a few toppled over with their heads in the water, a few tilted, most of them still straight. There had seemed nothing on the island that would set anyone but a gull to wishing that he could live there.

  But coming on it now, from the water, with Lizzie stroking and angling her way to the point, Turner felt as if he was on the brink of a discovery. Ahead of him, the beach was covered with stones, their hard outsides rubbed off and smoothed so that they glowed as the waves gathered them up and down. The granite ledges were streaked by a thousand shades of gray and silver, separated by slices of pink quartz that glowed like happiness. And the pines! The pines threw their roots around the shore's boulders, grappling with the living rocks and wrestling them into position. And out of those rocks they thrust themselves into the air as if they might scratch the blue dome of heaven, and as they stretched back and forth trying to reach it, and as the sea stretched itself back and forth up the beach, Turner felt the world moving slowly and anciently beneath him, and he began to sway back and forth with the waves, with the trees, with the rolling globe itself.

  "You're not going to throw up?" asked Lizzie.

  "No, I'm not going to throw up."

  "Good, because if you were going to throw up, I'd be sure to remind you that you'd best lean out over the side of the boat."

  "You have a real way about you, you know that, Lizzie?"

  "That's what my granddaddy says: a real way about me."

  "What else does your granddaddy say about you?"

  "That I'm the closest thing to glory he'll ever see on God's green earth. What does your daddy say about you?"

  Turner didn't have to answer, since just then the dory scraped up on the beach a little above the point, and he jumped out the stern and began to push the boat in. (He thought just then that sometimes God could get things exactly right.) The rocks were cold and smooth and slippery under his feet and the water lapped up to his knees, but Turner hardly noticed. He watched Lizzie stow the oars neatly along the sides, saw her twist and reach for the hooked rock she would toss over for the anchor, felt the boat quiver a bit as she stood, balanced lightly, and finally jumped out the bow, her feet sending up a frothy splash. She turned and gripped the dory and pulled it higher, Turner pushing, and then she stood, hands on hips, and smiled.

  "You coming?"

  I'm coming.

  Maybe her granddaddy was right.

  He pulled the pail of clams from the dory, and when she reached out a hand to him, he took it, and so stepped onto Malaga Island for the first time: the sounds of the water rushing through the rounded stones, the salt-pine scent of the air, the gaggling cry of a single gull flopping around with its head lowered, the sea breeze coming up suddenly against his back, the warm feel of Lizzie's hand as she led him farther up into it all. Lord, thought Turner. Lord.

  Together they climbed up to the center of the island, where the trees were thick and high. She showed him the graves, and they stood quietly together and were careful where they set their feet. Then back up the shore and to the south end of the island, where shingled one- and two-room houses clamped themselves to the rocks like oysters, glad to be there and not needing anyone's say-so. In front of almost all of them was a dory or two, some overturned, some pulled up long ago for caulking or patching. Near them, half-moon lobster traps bleached under the heat of the sun, the salt dried to white streaks along their boards, their rope netting stiff and a bit ragged. High dune grass hid the paths up to the houses—in fact, almost hid the chopping block one man was using to split his cordwood.

  "Hey, Mr. Eason," Lizzie hollered, and the man stopped for a moment and waved at them.

  Turner shifted the pail of clams to his other hand, and they followed the curve of the beach past the schoolhouse—the trimmest building on the island—past more shingled one-room homes, where there was always someone at the window to wave to Lizzie and nod to Turner—the kind of nod you might give to someone who didn't belong but might, in time, come to belong—and then back around to the point where Lizzie's home and its tottering picket fence looked on up the New Meadows. And there was her granddaddy, sitting by the front door, a Bible in his hand. He closed it as they came up.

  "This the boy never talked to a Negro before?"

  Lizzie nodded. Turner nodded, too. He thought Lizzie's grandfather must be older than Methuselah. He looked like a white-haired, fiery-eyed, God-haunted Old Testament prophet without the robes.

  "How's
he doing now?"

  "Fair to middling."

  "Fair to middling," her grandfather repeated. "Let's see, then. Boy, why don't you go ahead and say something?"

  Turner had no notion of what to say to an Old Testament prophet. He had figured they were all dead.

  "Maybe not quite middling," said Lizzie's granddaddy.

  Turner opened his mouth and shut it again.

  "Maybe not quite fair. How about something from the Bible? You know something from the Bible? I've just been reading in Philippians here."

  "I do know something from the Bible."

  "That's good to hear. Good to hear." He emphasized the "good" as if it really meant something. "Go on and say what that is."

  Turner began. '"Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; and Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon.'"

  Lizzie's granddaddy put his hand to his cheek. Lizzie stared at Turner.

  "I can keep on going," said Turner.

  "No," said Lizzie's granddaddy slowly. "I expect you've gone on enough."

  "Zara of Thamar?" said Lizzie.

  "Maybe we should start with names." He put his hand to his chest. "Reverend Griffin."

  "And he's Turner Ernest Buckminster," supplied Lizzie.

  "Just Turner," he said.

  "Turner. That's a fine name."

  So's yours.

  "Well, thank you, Turner Ernest Buckminster. Now, if you're done with your begats, I'll go on ahead and shake your hand. But only if you're done with the begats."

  "I'm done," said Turner, and took Reverend Griffin's hand. He wasn't surprised that it was strong, but he was surprised by how he felt every scar that ridged the man's palm, every cut drawn through by a quick and sharp pull on a fishline, every slit opened by an accidental knife.

  "You can tell a man by his hand," said Reverend Griffin. He shook hands solemnly. "You hold your bat on the knob."

  "Just on it," said Turner. Lizzie's granddaddy was a prophet after all.

  "Good. Now, if you give me those clams, I'll see what I can do with them."

  While Reverend Griffin carried the spitting clams into the house, Lizzie took Turner's hand that held his bat on the knob, and they walked back down to the shore. The water was so different here than in Boston Harbor. There was a cold wildness about it, and it didn't seem to care whether you looked at it. It would do what it was doing with or without you, as it had been doing for a long time before you and would be doing for a long time after you. They sat down and did not speak but watched the small waves chuck at the shore, frothing and foaming and disappearing into the sand and rocks, and then doing it all over again.

  A loud screeching of gulls from behind the pines, louder and louder, and then it was no longer gulls that were screeching but a pack of five, or four, or six, or who knows how many children flapping their arms and running up and down and back and forth, screeching and cackling, and then careening down upon them, cawing and laughing and thrashing up the water until they flopped down like a flock of swarming birds all come to roost.

  "You Tripps," scolded Lizzie, but she was not really scolding, and though she stood and put her hands on her hips and looked at them with a terrible eye, Turner knew right away that they had seen it all before, and not a single one—not a single one—felt any remorse.

  Two of them grabbed Turner's hands. "Fly with us!" cried one. And they pulled him up and suddenly he was flapping his arms and running down the beach, and Lizzie was flapping hers and running alongside them, together in the midst of the swarm, and calling and calling and running and running, plashing through spent waves, cavorting up the granite ledges, wheeling around stands of pines. And when they were too spent to flap and screech anymore, they collapsed on the point, and Lizzie's granddaddy waved them to his door. Inside, there was bread and chowder in cracked white bowls, and they all—Tripps and Lizzie and Reverend Griffm and Turner—they all took the food and sat on the rocks, sun-warmed and briny, and Turner could not tell if it was the scent of the chowder or the sea that filled him, and he knew that he was late again for his own dinner and he did not care. Then there was quiet among the Tripps, and Turner and Lizzie looked at each other over their heads and smiled.

  One of the Tripps who had held his hand came to stand on Turner's toes. "I'm Abbie," she said. "You the boy who throws rocks at his nose?"

  Turner glared over at Lizzie, who was trying not to laugh. "Does Lizzie go around telling you stories?"

  "Only all the time."

  The Tripp who had held his other hand climbed onto his lap.

  "That's Perlie," said Abbie. "She don't talk much yet." Turner began to tickle her stomach.

  "And she ain't ticklish, either," said Abbie. "You could tickle that girl till half past tomorrow and she won't laugh none."

  "She won't laugh, huh?" said Turner. He set down his bowl, shoved off Abbie and Perlie, picked up a round stone, and tossed it in the air. He let it fall just by his face, then began to howl and howl.

  Perlie laughed, and Abbie laughed, and all the Tripps laughed. And they laughed louder and louder, and then they spread their arms and began to run in circles. They swarmed up the beach, and back down, and finally disappeared abruptly into the pines, Perlie the last in line, looking back at him and holding her nose.

  It was, Turner figured, as good as a baseball game on Boston Common. Even better.

  They carried all the bowls back inside the house. It was dark and warm and cozy. A shelf with pitchers was tacked to one wall, and underneath was another with a line of books, worn but serviceable. A small potbellied stove took up one corner, and next to it was a dry sink under a window that looked out to the sea. Lizzie's granddaddy took the bowls and stacked them in the sink—"Time enough for that later on"—and he pointed to a line of sepia photographs tacked to the doorway. "Those are our begats," he said, and he touched each one in turn: his grandfather, his own father, himself as a boy with his mama, Lizzie's mama, and another of her mama and daddy holding on to her as if she were a first-place prize they had just won.

  "Where are they now?"

  "You saw Mama before," said Lizzie. "Down to the graveyard." They were all three quiet for a time, and they could hear the screeching of the Tripps, or maybe it was the gulls.

  Turner and Lizzie spent most of the afternoon skipping rocks into the waves—he was better than Lizzie—and climbing up to sway in pines—she could go higher. And only reluctantly did they find themselves going back to the dory, getting in, and each taking an oar. They had trouble figuring how to work them together, and they circled and got slapped in the side by a wave that might have swamped them if it had been even a little bit bigger, but they straightened out and sat side by side, their shoulders working together as they crossed the New Meadows and landed the dory on the shore.

  "You come around again, Turner Ernest Buckminster."

  "I'll be around, Lizzie Bright Griffin."

  She smiled at him as he shoved the dory off, and he waved as she oared her way easily to Malaga and when she landed, she waved once, twice, at him, then ran back up around the point. Turner blew his breath out slow and even. He did not know that Lizzie was doing the same.

  Neither did Turner know that up in town, his father was blowing his breath out, too.

  He got home in good time, and since he wasn't wearing his white shirt, the dirt showed no more than it should. He had run all the way and, truth to tell, skipped some as well, though he had stopped when he came to Parker Head to become the Minister's Son again, stared at from every parlor window. He had walked quietly and calmly, with only a skip now and then when he couldn't help himself. He figured he was smiling like a loon, but probably no one would fuss too much about that—probably.

  The late afternoon was colder as he drew closer to home. The clouds had mottled, and high winds had started to shred their undersides. He won
dered how Lizzie and her granddaddy got along on the island come winter, wondered if the New Meadows might ice over so that he could walk out there, wondered if Lizzie ever came into town. He figured she didn't, or at least not much. He thought for a moment of Willis Hurd, and he didn't need to worry any longer about keeping his skipping to a bare minimum.

  He didn't need to worry about it at all when he got home.

  He opened the front door and thought he had walked into a prayer meeting. The parlor was stuffed with his father, Deacon Hurd, Sheriff Elwell, Mr. Stonecrop, and any other rich man who owned a house up to Phippsburg's Quality Ridge. The furniture seemed too small for them—the room seemed too small for them—and they scented the air with old cigars, starch, and sweat. Mr. Stonecrop stood like an actor posing onstage, one hand set carefully in a pocket and the other gesturing toward the ceiling, or maybe to heaven.

  "... Your duty to the town, Reverend. Your duty to the town, I say."

  Even though Turner tried to close the door slowly and quietly, it shrieked out his presence like a guilty accomplice, and they all turned to look at him. Mr. Stonecrop took advantage of the moment.

  "Good Lord, Buckminster, think of your own son here." He gestured toward Turner, then drew the eyes of his audience back. "This town is on the brink of economic collapse. Shipyards folding, one and then another. Families who have worked those yards for generations, who have used the hands that God saw fit to give them to build up a whole world, may see those hands empty. And what will this town be then? What opportunities will young Turner find then? I am a man of business, and I may not form the eloquent sentences of a preacher. But I say this: the day is coming when this town will perish, and young Buckminster will have nothing. Nothing at all."

  Turner thought it was rather hard to be used as an example. He decided he should head up the stairs.

  He did not make it.

  "Come in here, young Buckminster," Mr. Stonecrop called. "Come on in here and talk to your father." He held out his arm to him as though he were looking for a stage prop to be delivered.