Spring Green

He was a careful sailor, prudent, as unlike my father as he could be. Before casting off lines for even a quick sail out to the rocks and ledges around Flying Place, the tanks would be filled and the larder stocked, his battered Plath sextant ever ready to take a quick sight, or even a bearing-off if needed. He explained it to me thus one crisp autumn afternoon: suppose, he said, you're out on Mass Bay, maybe headed out to look at whales or cross over to P'town -- and the rudder breaks. Just snaps off. Soon you find yourself drifting off toward the Gulf Stream and your next landfall might be Ireland, or more fun still, Greenland. "Would you," he said, "rather make the trip with a little food and water on board, or make do for six weeks on a six-pack of Dr Pepper and that bag of Doritos?"

An interesting philosophy of life, don't you think?

So, he was Prudent. The laces on his boat shoes were always double-knotted -- "No need to trip and fall overboard, is there!" So complete was my upbringing I didn't even know there were people who double-knotted their shoes -- until Chuck pointed this out.

While Dad didn't mind somersaulting down the road less traveled, Chuck wasn't about to go any such place with stopping by the auto club first. "Always keep your charts up to date! It's a pain in the ass but keep up with your Notices to Mariners!" Always do your homework, in other words. Right, got it!

My dad had always been too busy hurling the middle finger at his brother to teach me a thing about sailing; now, at last I had a teacher, and a damn fine one, too. I paid attention. And soon he was looking over the girls I brought along, sizing them up. "Now that's a damn fine woman," he'd confide while we tied off the boat beyond earshot, or "Goddamnit, you can do better than that knock-kneed imbecile!" He was patient, steady, cool, and I was coming to feel quite at home with him. And anyway, he was usually right about the girls.

We started going out to dinner a couple of times a week, usually to talk about world events but sometimes to talk about football or -- yes -- sailing away to parts unknown someday soon.

He talked a lot about crossing the Atlantic someday, maybe cruising slowly through the canals of France in search of the perfect loaf of bread, that perfect bottle of wine he just knew was out there waiting -- for those willing to look, anyway. I tried to get him to loosen up, to try to be spontaneous from time to time, to live his dreams. No such luck, he wouldn't have it.

Those dreams were beyond the range of his tides, weren't they?

But come August every year we looked forward to the boat show in Newport, and it was always a fine day when we loaded up in his ancient Land Rover and headed south down 95 to look at the newest boats and gadgets. We called it Dreamville. Odd, now that I think of it.

One year we went down and looked over a bunch of cruising sailboats: "Just the thing, you know, for a week in Maine!" or "Hell, you never know, I might just get an itch and have to do the Bermuda Race next June." But there was a darker undercurrent inside his dreaminess: "Son, I'm getting too old to handle a big racing boat anymore." I began to hear this more frequently, at dinner sometimes, and then after one particular boat show, when I had to drive the Land Rover back to Boston. And while his thinking was methodical, logically methodical, he kept his dreams within that precious range of the comfortable.

My last year of school, when we went to the show in Newport, I paused and listened when he talked to a couple of boat-builders about the best boats capable of crossing the Atlantic, about this or that feature, and though I heard him say "that's just a damn fine idea" more than a few times, I could see he had his eye on one boat in particular. "What do you think of her?" he kept asking me, and "I like the lines of her, don't you?" We kept coming back to that boat over and over, and we crawled below time and again; there had been a nasty recession on for a couple of years and the builder looked hopeful each time Chuck came by -- and despondent each time he walked away. Late that final afternoon of the show, as folks were shutting down their booths for the year, Chuck ambled over to the builder and pulled out his checkbook. I thought the builder, a spry man from Maine, was going to have a heart attack right there. A Merry Christmas was, I'm sure, had by one and all that year.

But -- had Chuck been Spontaneous? I wasn't sure -- maybe a glimmer, just maybe.

Graduation rolled around that next May and I was slated to head off to Virginia a few weeks later; Uncle was in a little bit of a funk, and hell, I was too. An important chapter in our lives was drawing to a close and we knew it; things would be Different. Our lives were going to Change, one more time. What was interesting about that brief interlude, as I look back on things from forty years on, was how much I had changed during those few brief years. The impulsiveness my father had posited in me had slowly, inexorably given way to more the more immediate gravity of his brother; I had become a little less spontaneous, a little more cool and reserved, definitely better suited to the life Chuck had made of his world.

I was driving down 95 through New Jersey on that first trip south when I pulled off the road to grab some coffee. I looked down and noticed my old boat shoes were double-knotted.

+++++

I didn't see Chuck for a few years; I instead spent two years trapped in D.C. behind a desk, always preparing for another exam, and rarely had two consecutive days off. I did have one three-day weekend after my first year, so made it up to Boston for Chuck's birthday, and that was also the first year I'd spent without seeing the ocean, let alone sailing on it. Mom got sick after that time and I landed a temporary posting to the Embassy in London; Chuck came over more than once to lend a hand and I kept him posted as best I could on changes in my life -- but you could say at best those were brief conversations, short talks with plenty of time to spare for rambling discussions of the weather.

The temporary posting turned into a semi-permanent position and I took a flat near Paddington Station, an area teeming with Indian restaurants and short-posted diplomats; I proceeded to eat curry three times a day and soon developed all sorts of interesting gastrointestinal disorders. 'The shape of things to come?' I wondered. Mom got better -- a relative term, I know, and I learned more about her family -- and my own -- and time passed gently by. Uneventfully might be a better word.

A year later I had a three week stretch of vacation lined-up for the coming summer and I called Chuck, let him know I was free; he had decided to do the Bermuda Race and had wanted to invite me along -- but didn't want to intrude -- "In case you have other plans."

Right.

Other plans?

"Well, you never know!" And I can still hear his voice. He was happy with the new boat and looking forward to sailing her, and sailing her hard. He reminded me of Dad when I heard the same deeply resonant, discontented happiness in his voice. "Doing an ocean race like this is a big deal," he went on. "Grand memories are made on trips like this, William," he told me time and again.

How true, how true. And how very much like my father he sounded on those brief, flooding tides.

I started relearning how to shoot noon-sights with a sextant and use sight reduction tables to sort out the math for Altair; I started exercising and going to a Japanese place near the Embassy to clean the curry from my system, and I even managed to find a couple of Brits with Admiral's Cup boats who wanted a semi-seasoned navigator. I was in training! I started to run again, lift weights. Change was in the air!

About that time I had a semi-serious affair with a girl I'd met while out jogging one day. Sweet kid, really lovely -- if a bit mad. When I looked at Angela West I got weak in the knees. Her clock was ticking, however, and I seem to remember all she had on her mind was making babies. And her taking me out to the family farm for a look-see one sunny April afternoon. She didn't want me to go sailing; no, she wanted to go off on holiday and stay with her family in Devonshire. Let's see...three weeks of up-tight cream teas or a mad ocean race with Uncle Chuck and three of his best, most disreputable friends.

Still, breaking up with Angela seemed to hit very hard. I can still see her face. She simply couldn't believe anyone would walk away from the wonders of Devonshire and clotted cream.

◊◊◊◊◊

I flew into Logan in late May, helped get the boat ready to race; Chuck took time to acquaint me with her updated electrical systems and the minor idiosyncrasies in the updated Nav setup. All this while we provisioned and got ready for the start off Newport. The Race Committee came by to inspect all the boats and their systems, and especially the safety gear. Seminars were held on the dynamics of the Gulf Stream and it's atmospheric interactions; radio procedures for emergencies were detailed and our responsibilities thereto spelled-out. The whole affair was all very well organized, and the entire process seemed to enliven the physicians Chuck had invited to come along as crew. We were getting stoked; Chuck was flat-out beside himself with excitement. He'd never raced his own boat to Bermuda and he was all raging testosterone, almost like a predator sprinting in for the kill.

And really, the point I'm trying to make is this. The race was a big deal, certainly, but wasn't it all about having fun? Still, whatever "fun" I found seemed to have gotten lost in Chuck's free-flowing testosterone; as I looked around at the men in these pre-race seminars I saw more than a few hyper-competitive risk-takers among the people gathered, bankers and stockbrokers and lawyers, all well-heeled and prosperous I'm sure, movers and shakers each and every one of them. But were they having fun? Or were they just exporting their fierce competitiveness from the boardroom to the sea. Looking at Chuck was all I needed to know the answer to that question.

I would say happy, yes; maybe even having fun -- of a sort. Maybe in the same way engineering the hostile takeover of a rival business can be fun. "Oh yes, George, sorry to have snuffed out your life's work and put you on the street, but hey, it's nothing personal. I'm sure you understand..." Maybe I understood, maybe I didn't, but while I watched these men strutting about like peacocks in their plaid trousers and Polo shirts I began to feel a little uneasy. Maybe just a little out of my element. I think my father had been uneasy with these sorts, and all his life, too. Maybe he'd just taken to fighting the wars he could, fought the battles he thought he might have a chance at winning, or at least walking away not too badly injured.

I think I began to look at Chuck a little differently after that. If this was his idea of fun then we'd soon part company. I was, after all, my father's son.

+++++

I don't want to dwell on the race; it isn't important. We knifed through the Gulf Stream with ease and negotiated the reefs around the north side of Bermuda with no problem. We finished second in our class, a respectable showing for a 42 foot cruising boat, and Uncle was pleased as punch. I flew back to London, Chuck and his doctor-buddies sailed on to Nova Scotia and worked their way back down the coast back to Boston; I heard later they ate a bunch of lobster, drank too much scotch and had a grand time. End of story.

Mom was much better by then, and good thing, too. Soon after my return the head of section called me to his office and told me to get my things in order and pack for a hot climate. He detailed my new posting and I groaned. I bitched. I hesitated -- right there in his office. Thoughts of quitting and returning to Boston danced in my mind, of maybe moving up to the 48th floor and putting my recent experience to use in more profitable undertakings; all sorts of crap flashed through my mind -- and then I remembered those strutting peacocks in their plaid trousers.

"Out of my element," I said softly as memory washed away anger, revealing the cold stone walls of that other world.

"What's that, Bill?"

I shook myself physically away from thoughts of Boston, returned to my flat and packed my things. A few days later I was on my way to Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon.

The assignment of my dreams.

Yes. My thoughts exactly. I spent the next few years of my life there, and saw Uncle Chuck only rarely. Sailing was soon little more than a fond, if distant memory, and I seem to recall my shoelaces came undone from time to time.

◊◊◊◊◊

So the years passed with little said between us, and I really didn't know what was going on with him during that period. He had tried to forget about Ruth, he wrote once, by sailing up and down the east coast, but that had been a bust. Then one day another letter came. He had taken-up riding, was cruising all over the country on a motorcycle. I sat up when I read that letter, if only because a motorcycle was a symptom of something deep and dark. Something he didn't want to tell me.

I asked the ambassador for vacation and got a month, then called Chuck and told him I was on my way.

"Good," I heard him say through the scratchy connection, "we've got some unfinished business we need to get out of the way."

◊◊◊◊◊

He met me at Logan, and yes, in the same old slate blue Land Rover he'd had since forever, and we drove over to his slate blue-hulled boat. He had The Baby Ruth completely provisioned and cleaned-up, by the way, and she shone like a diamond. Her teak freshly varnished and all the chrome glittering to a sharply faceted brilliance under that moist April sun, we jumped on board and I stood-to and cast off lines like I had so many times before -- with him -- and with my father. Chuck brought Ruth into the wind while I raised the main and unfurled the staysail, then the high-clewed yankee. Full sail set, we close-reached out the inner harbor channel, right under the final approach to Logan as jets screamed by just overhead, and as he pointed up a bit into the wind the cutter bit into the breeze and danced her way across the harbor. We quickly made our way out into Massachusetts Bay, onto waters so familiar they seemed like home to me.

We'd hardly said a word to one another through all this, and I wondered why that felt so natural. Had we really so little to say to one another? Or in the end, had we done this so many times we no longer had need for words? I watched him as he sat behind the wheel, his grey eyes focused on the pulling sails, his ruddy cheeks turned a little into the wind, to better feel each molecule hitting his skin. He made course corrections with each little change in the wind, and he made them gently, intuitively, and I wondered why other kinds of change had been so difficult for him. Was it that he didn't know how to react to things he didn't feel on his skin? Was the wind truly his only real companion?

Then I thought about Ham, his boy, his son, and all that had rained down on Chuck over the years after his son's death. Had he handled that grief so badly? What would I have done that he hadn't, I wondered: follow in my father's footsteps -- paint whores in Paris? Or...had all Chuck's steely resolve been an act? Had he pushed change aside to provide stability and comfort for the woman he loved? Hell, hadn't he done that for my benefit too? Had Chuck been trying to provide stability for his kid brother and in the end resented my father? Because within their own peculiar gravity, hadn't my father always been so exuberantly, maliciously unappreciative? There had never been any doubt about Ruth's love, had there? Or Ham's. But what about my love for the old guy?

And what did it say about me that I had to ask that of myself? Had I been as relentlessly unappreciative as my father? I told myself I loved the old fart, but really, was love beyond my understanding too? Why hadn't I fallen in love with Angela? With any woman?

I felt walled off from love, alone, adrift where love was concerned, but where had this wall come from? Would it take the raging winds of a storm to push me past the edges of understanding?

Just what would it take to come to terms with love?

◊◊◊◊◊

"I don't want to dwell on the reasons," he said, "but there are a few things I need to go over with you, that you need to know." He seemed unnaturally calm as he sat there in the boat, calm even for him. We'd just dropped the hook in the bay beside the Kennedy Library; he had of course already loaded sandwiches and soda before I arrived, probably enough to feed an army for three weeks. Surprise, my what a surprise! After eating in silence, the sun on our necks and a fresh breeze rippling through the remnants of our hair, this odd turn of phrase felt more than a little ominous. I noticed his shoelaces then -- single knotted and one was coming undone.

"Is everything alright, Chuck?"

"Probably not." He looked lost. "Maybe. Who knows?" He proceeded to tell me that over the past year he'd been treated for a mass behind his right knee.

"A mass?" I said -- but I felt like the world had just dropped out from under me. "What is it?"

"It's malignant, Bill! What difference does it make what the goddamn thing is."

"Is or was? You said it is malignant?"

"Yeah, it is, and it's not responding. Remission's always a possibility, I guess. But look, that's not what I want to talk about," he turned away, turned to face the sea.

"Okay Chuck, let's have it." Why did it suddenly feel like I was the father, and he the son? What did he feel right now? Did he feel like he was talking to his son? Or to his brother? What about me? Did he feel like he was talking to a nephew, or was I suddenly something more -- or less?

"We've got some papers to go over. Family stuff. While you're here." Now he was speaking in staccato bursts, like he had 'change' in his sights -- just before the helicopter Ham piloted spun out of control and fell into the Mekong. "I've got a Will ready. There's family I'll need you to look after, William. Here, in Boston, and elsewhere."

That was news to me. I struggled with the math: let's see, there was Ruth -- but I doubted she'd figure prominently in his will at this point. He had me, my mother. There was some distant family in France that I'd heard mention of once or twice in passing. But no one else -- Oh! That I was aware of -- I felt -- Confused -- A little -- Upset -- By the direction -- This conversation -- Was taking.

Something was -- Changing -- Something big -- Unexpected -- Out of -- Character.

He was watching me, gauging my response. I remember my left eyelid twitching, my mouth dry as fields of cotton.

"My secretary," he said -- so softly. "Judy Masterson. You remember her?"

I did. And maybe I nodded my remembrance, and maybe I didn't. I was shaking inside. Earthquakes tore at the foundations of my understanding of the universe.

"I have a daughter, William."

"Indeed? Bravo!"

"You know, Bill, you sound a little, well, like I imagine I used to sound. Disapproving. Pompous."

"You left out incredulous. And maybe anger, too. Did Ruth know?"

He shook his head, looked away. "No," he whispered.

"You have a daughter, you've provided for her for -- what? For how long, Chuck?"

"She's twenty one, well, she will be, this summer."

"Twenty? She's twenty years old? This has been going on for twenty years?" I was blown away, and certain I was beginning to sound more than a little hysterical.

He nodded his suddenly leonine head, but he looked tired as that moment drew near and passed us by. The tired and lonely of an old lion, I remember thinking. The head of his pride and no longer as quick as he used to be.