Envious Moon(5)

We left the moorings behind us and the water opened up and I pulled down on the throttle and picked up speed. I followed the buoys toward the mouth. There were other skiffs and men pulling pots in the moonlight. A large trawler returning from Georges Bank came within thirty feet of us and we saw the shadows of men leaning against the railing. I didn’t recognize the boat or the men on it but I had been to sea enough times to know what they were thinking. In their minds they were already on land. The catch had been unloaded and the holds scrubbed. They were sitting in the bar, the open ocean growing more distant with each draft.

We passed the lighthouse at Point Judith and then the breakwater. Behind us the lights of the village shrank to pinpricks. We were in the sound now. This was water I had known my whole life. I knew where all the shoals and shallows were and I kept us away from them. To our right the dark humpback of land stretched toward Connecticut. To our left was Narragansett Bay and we could see the lights of freighters at the edge of the sky. There was the gentle breeze that blew my hair back and if it was not for what we were about to do, I would have relaxed into the ride. I would have enjoyed myself.

Even though the chop was light the hull of the small skiff still smacked against the water and we did not try to talk. We stood side by side, and in front of us the island began to take shape in the dark.

Soon we were close enough that we could make out the high dark bluffs. I turned the skiff to starboard, and we began to trace the western side of the island. The harbor and the main village were on the eastern side and there were no lights here. When we got closer, the ocean was shallow and I throttled down as we rode in the lee of the bluffs and we could hear each other clearly now.

“This is f*cking crazy,” Victor said.

“I know.”

“We don’t have to do this, Tony,” he said. Victor was the only one who called me Tony. I preferred Anthony but it was okay with me if Victor called me Tony.

“Let’s just find the cove,” I said. “Then we can bail if we want.”

I agreed though I had already made up my mind that I was going to go through with it. I kept thinking about all the money for college, and about my father. I pictured myself walking with those college girls in Providence. What my father would think if he saw me.

I studied the island to my left. I had only been on it a few times, and not since I was little. We always thought of it as a place for tourists. A lot of the girls we grew up with worked there in the summers. They were chambermaids at the inns. I knew a few guys who rode over to work construction. There were some farms and I had heard about work picking fruit but I didn’t know anyone who had done that.

I peered through the darkness and now I saw the first lights from the houses high above the cliffs. The shoreline flattened a little bit here and I could see what looked like a beach. In the distance I heard voices and the steady bark of a dog.

We made our way around the western coast of the small island. There were no other boats and in front of us the starlight shimmered a road through the ocean.

“Over there,” Victor said, pointing ahead. I saw where the island started to bend inward. “That’s the cove.”

“You sure?”

“Positive,” he said.

I brought the boat in slowly. It was a small cove but the beach looked sandy. I steered toward it and when we started to bottom out I cut the engine. I climbed over the bow and stood in the surf in my boots and the water lapped against the hull of the skiff. I took the rope and pulled the boat closer and when it stopped moving, Victor clambered over the stern. We were on the island.

I looked around. My eyes adjusted to the greater darkness that was the land at night. The cove in front of us was narrow and defined by rock outcroppings. Above there were small scrub trees that grew out of the cliff face and leaned over us.

I said, “Where’s the house?”

Victor pointed to the right. “Up there. Through the trees.”

“How do we get there?”

“Ahead,” he said. “See? There’s a path. It runs up that cliff and kicks out behind the house.”

I saw where he pointed. A break between trees. I took a deep breath. “All right,” I said.

“Tony?”

“I know, Vic,” I said.

“There’s not going to be anyone up there.”

“We should go,” I said.

“Okay,” said Victor, and we left the boat and moved toward the trees.





We found the path and it was a well-worn trail of packed dirt. On either side of us were small trees and dense undergrowth. The trail itself was narrow. We walked slowly. We didn’t want to trip over something we couldn’t see. My eyes grew more accustomed to the dark and we went a little quicker. Now and again we stopped and stood next to each other breathing heavily and we listened but there was only the sound of our breathing and the light surf against the beach below.

“Not much farther,” Victor said.

Soon the trees on our right thinned and then they fell away completely. I could see the end of the cove and the ocean, though I couldn’t see the boat since it was right underneath us. We followed several switchbacks and I got a sense of altitude. I looked to my right and saw the light at Montauk. It was a familiar sight and it comforted me to see it. The land started to level and in front of us the path widened. The trees on either side of us were larger now that we were away from the cliff but in the dark we could not tell what kind they were. The path was wide enough for several people to walk side by side now. In front of us I saw the stars in the sky and when we walked through a small stand of trees we found ourselves on a large lawn and then there was the house, several hundred yards away.