Goodnight, Sunrise
by Michael Schulman
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
The town sign off Route 27: Welcome to Montauk Haven, Long Island — The End
Harley Johnston caught the marigold burst of sunlight over the docks of Napeaguee Bay in an eternal portrait. It was 7 a.m. The sun pillar was too bright for him to look at. He lowered his head, and the brim of his Yankees cap shielded his eyes. In the upper reaches of the sky and slowly lowering itself, it was exactly as he imagined it: a white flame. For a moment, Harley saw an angel flutter by. Did he imagine it?
He didn’t, and angels were real. It was a messenger.
It took the form of a cloud. Clouds traveled vast distances, appearing and disappearing, being transported by prevailing winds in the atmosphere.
“You’re perfect for the job,” Harley said to the sky, holding his fishing line steady. “Get me a message sent, will you?”
Harley wanted a message about Carol and the baby. He wanted to know if he would be a boy’s father. But not for pride, name-sharing, or a head start on shopping for blue wallpaper.
Sometimes, Harley believed in the Legend of Montauk Haven. His interest waxed and waned throughout his life, but he mostly ignored the legend. Until eight days before his twenty-ninth birthday.
Fishing was the best distraction for him. Napeaguee Bay presented a likeness of regenerating sunlight, and the bay shimmered in a relaxed flow. Harley usually fished alone, but today he met a friend.
“Hey, where are you going?”
The boy, no older than ten, looked at Harley, uncertain.
“Here, grab my hand. What’s your name, kid?”
The child said his name. He said he was looking for his older brother.
“Haven’t seen him. Hang out with me for a while until they come. In the meantime, I wanna show you how to fish.”
The compliant boy let Harley put his tiny hands around the fishing pole’s handle.
“You ever throw a baseball?” Harley asked.
The youngster nodded.
“Wind up like this.” Behind him, while cradling his wrists gently, together they swung back in a slow-motion stroke. Swinging over their heads, they cast the line in the water.
The boy couldn’t help but smile at his success.
“Did you think there’d be more to it?” Harley said. “Nothing to it!”
Harley made sure the boy had a good balance between the rod and reel, and he whispered to the child as the boy held the pole steady. “Can I confess? For fishing lessons, you must hear what’s on my mind. This here Napeaguee Bay killed my papa at the foretold time and place. Let me tell you the legend. This much I know.”
The water’s calm and the whistling of the fishing line were the only sounds.
“Peaceful here, ain’t it? Tell me. Do you believe in ghosts?” Harley asked.
“Yep,” the boy replied. “Ghosts are all around us, my dad says.”
“Okay. Let me tell you the story. Mom died in childbirth. A breached birth. I came out upside down.”
“Cool,” the boy said.
“Yeah, Grandma raised me, and I’m an only child. You got any more brothers? A sister?”
“Just a brother.”
“You know your grandparents?”
The boy shook his head.
“Well, Grandma raised me, and I’m an only child. When I turned eighteen, she got a potent form of dementia where she became affected by a lingerin’ ghost. Do you still believe in ghosts?”
“I said I did, sir.”
“Nonsense, kid. Of course, there are no such things as ghosts or curses or whatever. Same with the supernatural. That’s what I’m saying. But Grandma was superstitious. She went to psychics and shamans. Said dead relatives spoke through her.”
“Spooky stuff.”
“Yep. She told me to leave Montauk Haven when I graduated high school. How do you like that?”
“Why’d she tell you to leave?”
“She said change is good for the soul and pocketbook. Study accounting or computers, something marketable in today’s job market. Grow up. And don’t be like Daddy.”
The sound of calm stroked their ears, a lull softer than clouds, occasionally punctuated by the twitching of the spool.
“Well, Grandma’s mental decline interfered with her ability to carry out daily activities, that’s for sure. I didn’t mind cooking and cleaning and driving her to the doctor. I was an adult by then. Besides, everyone knew Daddy died from drinking and not some curse. No spiritual haunt comin’ to arrive on time for my twenty-ninth birthday.”
“So I guess you don’t believe in ghosts?”
“Nope. I never met Daddy, either. A week before I was born, he downed a couple of shots of bourbon and a six-pack. Charley Johnston had extraordinary courage. A real fool. Could go fishin’ for catfish at night at high tide. But no proof of a legend bordering on the conspiratorial, if you ask me.”
“Dad says drinkers got character deficits.”
“Especially the young ones.”
“How old are you, mister?”
“Funny you should ask. Male Johnstons have lived here in Montauk Haven and fished in the same bay for three hundred years.”
The boy said, “Wow, cool.”
“But nowadays, there aren’t enough fish in the sea, and each of those Johnstons died on the day of their twenty-ninth birthday. Just like my dad.”
Harley shook the reel a bit. He whispered, “You feel somethin’?”
“Nope,” the boy whispered back.
“I do.”
A tiny bubble formed on the water’s surface. Then another. “We got somethin’. And let me tell you,” Harley said, keeping his voice. “I’m twenty-eight, and on the first day of spring, March 21 — exactly eight days from now — I’m due.”
He gradually raised the rod and pulled the reel handle. “I’m attuned to my senses, but I don’t believe the legend. Can’t. What do you think, young man?”
“I think—”
Harley pulled it up: a flat, olive green, and oval fish. “A fluke,” he said. He looked down at the boy snug in the cavity of his chest. “So you think the legend’s like this fish here: an unlikely chance occurrence?”
The boy said, “My mom says never say never. Nothing’s impossible.”
* * *
Regarding the boy, Harley thought about himself. At least he was a force of good in some lives. But since Carol got pregnant, the extension from fishing to home felt like a violent blow to the head. Sometimes, Harley wished he never came home.
The biggest issue that gave Harley migraines was the fact that twenty-nine was coming so fast.
He woke up the morning, a week before his birthday, and he realized he had a dream of drowning: sucking empty air, the pressing on the diaphragm, and spasming of the throat. When he woke up from his choking, he greedily pulled in air, stale from last night’s cigarette smoke. Harley didn’t believe in premonitions, but now he wasn’t sure. Was it his smoking habit that affected his breathing? He had never had a dream like this before.
The kitchen TV was turned all the way up despite nobody listening. Bottles of folic acid were opened on the lime-green Formica table, mostly empty. Carol had vigorously scribbled the numbers one to thirty-six on heart-shaped personal stationery, FROM THE MIND OF CAROLINE NOVAK-JOHNSTON, and placed them around the bottles. The weeks of her pregnancy.
When Harley entered the kitchen, Carol took a single piece of heart-shaped paper stuck on the back of her hand. It was a note from which she was going to give an ad-lib presentation. She squinted, first reading the note slowly, then quickly. She said, “I suggest a move.”
“What do you mean?” Harley asked.
“New mothers need a lot of sunlight, and Long Island doesn’t have enough of it. We could go to California.”
“California?” Harley said an octave higher than usual. “Outa left field.”
“Cousin Pattie moved last year, and she thinks it’s great. The beaches, weather, opportunities—”
“Earthquakes, liberals, taxes,” Harley said. He opened the top cupboard for a box of Fig Newtons.
“Rabbi Witz is at the Chabad Center in Sacramento. I can get a mikveh and get purified.”
“You talk some weird stuff, Carol.”
“My name is Esther. When are you going to call me by my name?”
Harley gobbled up the square snacks in a staccato rhythm. He grinned at the yarmulke on her hair-sprayed, bleached blond bobbed head and chuckled. The crumbly cake of the snack stuck to his smiling teeth.
“C’mon, Carol. Aren’t those Jewish skull caps for guys? Are you supposed to be wearing one?”
“A woman can fear and respect God, too.”
Harley dropped his jean-clad bottom on the lawn chair next to his wife. He squinted, pinching his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Another migraine comin’. So, what were we talking about?”
“Each and every issue we talk about is essentially money.”
“Look here, I married a reductionist! Yeah, I got a job here. The rain excites the catfish. Who wants anything more?”
“See what I’m dealing with? Everyone says you’re just like your dad.”
“I know what you’re sayin’. You’re sayin’—”
Carol snorted. “You do, do you? You know what I’m saying?”
“I do. But we gotta know what’s between the kid’s legs: sheath or sword. And we gotta go to the hospital to get you a sonogram. So I’ll tell you what. If the baby’s a boy, I’ll consider leaving.”
“All issues damned, I’m ready to leave. Thirty-five weeks pregnant. Boy or girl.”
Harley sniffed. “I’m not ready to leave.”
“I’m ready. Legend or no legend.”
“Go to Dr. Holmes.”
“The Midrash and Rabbi Spengler says the parents must not know the gender of an unborn fetus because—”
“Rabbi Spengler? Midrash? Gimmie a break, Carol.”
Carol shook her head, her arms folded. “I’m not having a sonogram, Harley.”
Harley, too, had his arms folded with an equal amount of contempt. He shook his head. “Then I’m not leaving Montauk Haven.”
Both sat with heated tempers and were silent. Sitting at the kitchen table on metal foldout chairs, they watched each other like in a staring contest. One of them cracked a smile, and the other followed.
“You can’t buy love, dear.” Harley grinned. “And why are we broke, love?”
“Don’t start, Harley. I need this,” Carol held the latest iPhone in her hand as if she was demonstrating it. “What about your pickup?”
“What about? I got to get the fish to the market to make money.”
“Why don’t you stop fishing? You’re not catching as much as you used to. Do boat tours, a fishing school. Work the register at Home Depot. Anything. I sent you that text yesterday. Remember?”
“I’m a fisherman like the Johnstons men have been even before the British ruled the colonies. I ain’t gonna sacrifice pedigree to be a cash register jockey.”
“History was my major in community college, so I should appreciate your heritage. But it’s like fate stares at us, eye-to-eye.” Carol laughed but more at herself.
Harley shrugged. “You’re the smart one. Then what could we do?”
“It’s clear. We should move. Get out of Montauk Haven.”
“There’s nothing out there for our type, Carol.”
“I could wait tables once the baby is born. And what about the curse? The Montauk Haven legend?”
“Let’s say I’ve accepted my fate.”
“What do you mean you’ve accepted your fate? That’s so cheesy. You can change. What about your boy?”
“We don’t know if it’s a boy. That’s what I’m saying. Talk about catchin’ up in time. You gotta get a sonogram.”
Carol sighed. “Well, I’ve been thinking. Do you think we can borrow from my folks? Some money for the bills?”
Harley looked into the distance, vaguely frowning. “I’m too proud to beg.”
* * *
Harley’s life looked at the culmination of the prior twenty-eight years that pointed to his expiration. March 21, the first day of spring. The season of new beginnings.
Carol recommended meditation to Harley, but he scoffed. Two things relaxed him: fishing and shopping, and he was out of beer.
Harley strolled with his shopping cart to the condiments section of the supermarket. Stoking his prematurely graying goatee, he vaguely read the sign and understood Carol enjoyed the section International Delights. It was too exotic for Harley, but Carol loved the fresh cheeses, multi-colored pasta, and foreign snack foods with wasabi and seaweed. The brand touted the chocolate as a hazelnut spread. It was too complicated for a man who adhered to the four food groups: marshmallows, meat, Marlboros, and malt liquor.
“Case of beer is on sale this week. It’ll be $18.78, Harl,” the cashier said.
“Can you believe it?” Harley said. He played with the Zippo lighter in his jeans pocket. “The doctors thought Carol could light a fire under my butt.”
“How’s that?”
“The doctors talk about emergency signs. I’m 245 pounds and in trouble. I have early signs of COPD, and diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are coming, too.”
“You’re still young, Harl. You got plenty of time to change.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
The case of beer, wrapped with electric green and blue colors printed on its cardboard, affected a cool spring wash, coating the skin and tingling the senses. The packaging attracted Harley. The colors affected a chill on his fingertips and cheeks when he looked at the beer’s logo.
The logo, a jet stream of water shooting out of a green glass bottle, gave Harley a thrill. It stimulated a flow of water propelled along a flume by a current of energy. The sensation was the advertisers’ intention, and it reached its highest point of development in the mind of this loyal customer.
Although an afterthought, the taste of the beer wasn’t bad. A little malty, a little sweet, and drinkable any time of day. The flavors and bitter aftertaste linger. But the design, widespread and encountered in all forms of media, was the beer’s genuine attraction. A splash on a summer day in a thirsty mouth. A spray on a hot brow. It was all in the imagination of its consumer, despite alcohol’s dehydrating effect on the body.
Across the supermarket floor, carts jangled and slid, and bodies glided by. Children cried.
Harley paid cash. “Thanks, Jane. Tell Paul I said hi.”
He put the case in the cart and left the supermarket.
Tomorrow was Harley and Carol’s big day at the obstetrician’s at Montauk Haven Good Samaritan: the last prenatal appointment before delivery.
* * *
Copyright © 2024 by Michael Schulman
