Good Trouble. Joseph O’Neill

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СКАЧАТЬ by the ridiculous injustice and hostility of it all.)

      I won’t even begin to describe how many hours and years we devoted to the parental body—the Hydra, as Chris named it. You cannot defeat the Hydra. You can only flee it. None of this is to say that we’re refugees; but it can’t be denied that we’ve retired, and that to retire means to draw back, as if from battle.

      The good news is Jack and Chris Bail will not be sleeping over. My Chris took it upon herself to warn Jack Bail and his Chris that there was no room at our inn, so to speak, to which Jack Bail responded:

      No worries.

      We’ll take him at his word. The other good news is that Ed and Fran Joyce, new Nova Scotia acquaintances, will join us for the dinner in order to absorb the Bails, although of course the Joyces aren’t aware that this is part of their function. We don’t know the Joyces at all well, but they strike us as good sports. Also, they hosted a kind of welcome event for us, and so we owe them dinner, arguably: one day soon after we arrived, a hamper filled with good things was left at our front door, together with an invitation to join members of “the community” for drinks and nibbles. We freely accepted the invitation—we hadn’t come here to be recluses, after all—and enjoyed the occasion, although we were, and still are, a little wary of and astonished by and ironical about the prospect of joining a retiree crowd. Our plan is to have a year of contemplative idleness, after which we’ll have a better idea of what to next get up to. We’re far from elderly, after all. Time is not yet a victorious enemy.

      Shortly before everyone is due to turn up, Chris and I take to the deck and get a head start on the wine, which is white and cold. “I wonder what Jack will have to say about this place,” Chris says. “Yes,” I say. “That’s something to look forward to.” She has reminded me of Jack Bail’s chronic amazement at our old apartment in Hudson Heights. Every time he came over, from Brooklyn, he would say something like, Hudson Heights? Who knew this neighborhood even existed? Who lives up here? Oboe players? It’s like I’m in Bucharest or something. Should I buy here?

      This kind of thing is all fine, needless to say, and absolutely within my tolerance levels in relation to schoolchildren, although of course Jack Bail, who must be in his late thirties, and if memory serves is balding, is no longer a schoolboy. But his personal qualities are beside the point. The point is that Jack Bail is uncalled-for.

      It’s a mild, semi-sunny, slightly windy June evening. “Just look at that,” I declare for about the millionth time since we moved into our cottage, which offers a panorama of a pond, green seaside hills, a semicircular bay, and a sandbar—or spit, perhaps. To the south, there’s a wooded headland that may or may not be a tombolo. It’s my intention to investigate this vista systematically, since it feels strange to look out every day and basically not understand what I’m looking at. Right now, for example, I’m observing an extraordinary horizontal triplex: in the offing, a distinctly ultramarine strip of ocean water is topped by a dull-blue band of unclassifiable vapor, itself topped by a purely white stratum of cloud. Then comes sky-blue air and, almost on top of our own hill, an enormous hovering gray cloud. This outlandish hydroatmospheric pileup, which is surely not unknown to science, leaves me at a terminological and informational loss that’s only intensified when I look at the bay itself, where the migrant and moody skylight, together with the action of the wind and current, I suppose, and maybe differences in the water’s depth and salinity, constantly pattern and texture and streak the aquatic surface. It’s unpredictable and beautiful. Sometimes the bay, usually blue or gray, is thoroughly brown, other times it has Caribbean swirls of aquamarine or is colorlessly pale, and invariably there are areas where the water is ruffled, and there are smooth or smoother areas of water, and areas that are relatively dark and light, and dull and brilliant, and so forth, ever more complexly. There must be some field of learning that can help me to better appreciate these phenomena.

      “The Salty Rose,” Chris says. “For the Lunenburg whaling years.”

      “Not bad at all,” I say.

      This is one of our favorite running jokes: Chris suggests titles for the memoirs that I am not writing about the lives that we have not led. In this subjunctive world we are adventurers, spies, honorary consuls, nomads, millionaires. The Hammocks of Chilmark describes our summers on the Vineyard. Our Corfu stint is the subject of a trilogy: The Owl in the Jasmine; A Pamplemousse for the Captain; and Who Shall Water the Bougainvillea?

      We have never set foot on Corfu or Martha’s Vineyard. Other than a four-year spell in Athens, Ohio, our thirty-one-year-old marriage and thirty-two-year teaching careers, and almost all of our vacations, have unfolded in and around the schools and streets of New York, New York. Jack Bail claims to have been in my class at Athens High, which is confounding. I have a pretty good recall of those Athens kids.

      “Goddamn it.”

      Chris: “Leg-bug?”

      I pick it off my ankle and, because these lentil-sized spider-like little fuckers are tough, I crush and recrush it between the bottom of my glass and my armrest. I call them leg-bugs because these last couple of weeks every time I’ve set foot outdoors I’ve caught them crawling up my legs—to what end, I don’t know; they’re up to no good, you can bet—and because I can’t entomologically identify them. They’re certainly maddening. Often my shin prickles when there’s nothing there.

      “Here they are,” Chris says.

      Our guests have arrived simultaneously, in two cars. Fran and Ed get out of their red pickup and Jack Bail gets out of his rented Hyundai. There’s no sign of his Chris.

      Dispensing with the steps, Jack Bail strides directly onto the deck. He’s extraordinarily tall, maybe six foot six. Has he grown?

      “Adirondack chairs,” Jack Bail says. “Of course.”

      As the young visitor who has gone to great lengths, Jack Bail is the object of solicitousness. There’s no way around this: once Jack Bail has traveled all the way from New York, he must be received with proportionate hospitality. “Jack first,” Fran says, when I try to pour her a glass of wine. “He deserves it, after his voyage.”

      “The flight was great,” Jack Bail says. “Newark airport—less so.” Ed says, “You might want to think about the Trusted Traveler program. Might speed things along.” “I am a Trusted Traveler,” Jack Bail says. “It did me no good. Not at Newark.” “What happens if you’re a Trusted Traveler?” Chris says. Ed says, “You don’t have to take your shoes off.” We all laugh. Jack Bail exclaims, “They made me take my shoes off!” We all laugh again. Ed asks Jack Bail, “Which program you with? NEXUS?” “Global Entry,” Jack Bail says. Looking at Fran, Ed says, “That’s what I’m all about. Global entry.” That gets the biggest, or the politest, laugh of all.

      Soon we’re eating grilled haddock, asparagus, and field greens. “Delicious,” Jack Bail is the first to say. “Thank you, Jack,” Chris says, with what seems like real gratitude. Jack Bail inspects the ocean, parts of which are ruddy and other parts dark blue. “That’s some view, Doc,” Jack Bail says. “Well, it’s not Hudson Heights,” I say. “I thought you lived in Manhattan?” Fran says. “Hudson Heights is in Manhattan,” I say. Ed says, “‘Doc,’ eh? You’re a dark horse.” “That’s what they called me,” I declare heartily. I didn’t invent the custom of recognizing a teacher’s academic title. Ed continues, “How about you, Jack? You a doc, too?” Jack laughs. “No way, man. I’m just a CPA.” “‘Just’?” Fran says, as if outraged. “You must be very proud of this young man,” she tells me, and this is a tiny bit infuriating, because I don’t like to receive instruction on how I ought to feel. How proud I am or am not of Jack Bail is for СКАЧАТЬ