Cody Treat was a very wealthy man before he had reached his
26th year. A native descendent of
fishermen or as long back as anyone could remember, men who hardly made enough
living for their families and drank the rest, Cody was a person of interest. He
had purchased a gently used fishing boat, fixed up and added a wing onto the
old family home for his mother's comfort, and his own need of solitude. Cody
was aware of derision from the close knit club of fishermen, and even
fear. These hard bitten seamen were courteous
enough when doing necessary business with him, but he had no friends among
them. That this was fine with Cody Treat.
He had no intention of sharing his methods with any of them, or anything else
for that matter.
The granite foundation of the Treat family residence had
been on the bluff on land deeded to the family in perpetuity since the late
1600s. The great irony is that the land belonged from the beginning of time the
Wampanoag Tribe, whom the English called Redmen. Generation to generation that
land was passed down to the women of the tribe as was the Wamanoag custom. The
land encompassed A forest thick with Pines called The Grove. It was always a
sacred place where the sachems danced and performed their rites. Beyond toward the sea large sandy spits,
called by the English The Fingers, is The Sandy Landing place, made for a calm
haven for water craft from canoes to English war ships.
In the time before time Onkwam was a spiritual place of
beauty, tranquility and peace of soul. Massasoit erred in thinking an alliance
with the English would forge a lasting peace.
What the alliance did was cause the Wampanoag Tribe to lose much of
their land. Wars broke out, The
Massachuttsets Bay Colony claimed much of Native land for the growing colony of
settlers.
Still the Spirits never left the land. In 1877 The Grove, as the lush pine forest
came to be known, was formally dedicated to the "principals of
spiritualism". Some bogus
'spiritual' rites were practiced. Flim-flam men came to hold their séances,
read fortunes and mostly empty the pockets of the gullible. The town fathers
violated the age old rule of not parading holy secrets in public for
profit. Small wonder that a Victorian
crazy woman Geraldine Vallier Perle in 1891 wrote a series of popular articles
which were published by The New England News Company of Boston, The
Vampires of Onset. Other journalists wrote to expose the fakery of Spiritualism
geared to sell papers. And sell they
did. None of the reported events ever
took place in Onset but the general public believed the place was a haunted
dangerous place no longer a good place for family vacations.
Onset further descended in popularity as a tourist mecca
with the rise of a shanty town. It
became a party town, known to be full of bars, cheap eating establishments, and
gambling and even murder. Onset's had become a place good family people stayed
away from.
Weeta Weems Treat named by her Native mother, was born in
1945. She lived on the 100 acre piece That
had remained in private ownership for some 300 years. The Native women married
Englishmen to keep the sacred piece whole.
By the time of Weeta' s birth an Onset Association had been formed by
men who had grown up hearing stories of the magic place Onset once was. They
voted to tear down the shanty town. Weetta Weems joined the effort and while
still in her teens she began to speak at public meetings. Owning a large tract of some of the finest
and most valuable land in Onset she was heard.
By her 20th birthday she had met Nelson Treat at various town meetings,
fallen in love with and married the man who alone she found to be a man like
her ancestors: "a lusty man, grave of countenance, spare of speech, a man
with quiet strength."
Weetta was the perfect counterpoint to Nelson Treat. To his great amusement the woman he loved
talked ceaselessly to any and all who would listen as she painted a picture of
Onset where the sachems walked and sang and danced sacred dances among the
pines, of a time when the land was treasured and cared for by women who had the
aid of good spirits that had time before time inhabited the land. So eloquent she was she convinced wealthy
businessmen that Onset could once again be a sacred Eden. Of course for the
businessmen that translated to condos, parks and golf courses, and of course
money tourism would bring. Weetta Weems
was fully aware these men were in it for profit. She saw a way of compromise.
Wise and popular outgoing woman she was, she rallied their wives to include
homes for the disabled and indigent, hospices and food pantries.
The battle for the Treat property goes on to the present as
the land is much coveted by prosperous businessmen for condos and inns or even
shopping malls to accommodate the booming tourist trade. Cody had no intercourse with any of them -
not because these fancy men didn't try heir damnest to lure Cody and his mother
with offers of money and prospective to administrative
power to oversee their projects.
To Cody Treat and his mother all of their promises were as
tobacco and beads. Weetta Weems Treat had taught her son well the ways of men
such as these. They would not make the mistake of trusting these white men. or
trying to placate them that their Wampanoag ancestor the great king and Sachem
of the Wampanoag tribe Massasoit, had made. And anyway, following Wampanoag
custom the land belonged to Weetta Weems as had all Wampanoag land from the
beginning of time belonged to the women of the tribe. These daughters of
Massasoit had wills of steel, they had the Sight and the gift of expression the
People of the Dawn and The Sandy Landing possessed. Weetta Weems Treat managed
to keep her land, as had all the women of her line before her.
Her husband died at sea when Cody was twelve. He remembers his dad Nelson Treat as a large
man in body and spirit with deep set eyes that betrayed little of what he was
thinking or felt. In Cody mind he
remained an anchor of a man who held fast no matter which way the wind blew or
how hard. He knew how to gauge the tides
by the moon, and could predict storms by the movement of clouds and winds, and
the very smell of the air. People said he had a sixth sense about the sea. The
morning he left before dawn he came to Cody bed, woke him and told him to
remember he was a man, to always be a
help to his mother, to keep his mother's council and to never sell the
land. Cody took that message as
important, presaging something bad. His
dad only spoke like that when it very much mattered. He pressed his son's shoulders hard and then
he was gone.
By the time of his
dad's death Cody Treat was as wise in the ways of the seas as his dad, and was as
much a part of the sea as if the very brine of it ran in his veins. And most of
all he knew the seasons when the big fish moved and where. He knew where the
monster Bluefin Tuna found their favorite
Striper and Snapper Blue food. Cody Treat was in truth a Sachem of
Onkowan, the Sandy Landing Place. Locals little knew or cared about
history. They simply whispered of him,
"A strange one, that."
When Weeta lost Nelson, she lost her soul's mate. And her son the very image of her husband was
both her great joy and her reminder of her loss. By the time Nelson died and
Cody was entering his teen years, Onset by then had been transformed into a
charming village of replica Victorian houses and cottages. There were twenty three new buildings in all.
And a spa that offered any service of skin, hair and nail that man or woman
could possibly want. The walks everywhere in town were Belgian block lit by
black replica gas lanterns. Window boxes
filled with bright flowers and foliage hung on the sills of each window in
town. Signs were painted in dark colors
and lettered in gold. The entire town
spoke prosperity and peace.
But for Cody Treat the bounty of Onset was the sea. Cody
only felt really alive on the sea. He
was a quiet secretive boy who was described as a loner. To the more astute, he
presented himself as historians who had met and written about the great
Massasoit: "a lusty man, grave of
countenance, spare of speech". Cody
was tall, over 6' feet. His skin summer
or winter was always a light copper color. He was lean and fit and He had not cut his straight
black hair since his dad died and now at age twenty six he plaited it to hang
almost to his waist. His facial feature were already chiseled by his ancestry
and the elements of the sea which was his home. His forehead was creased giving
him the appearance of thoughtfulness or menace depending on how you looked at
it.
Cody had none he called friend; he had many who respected
him, and some who feared him. At age 16 he had almost killed a bully who
started a fight with him in high school.
It started when he was called a faggot because of the thick black braid
he wore. After the fight but carefully out
of his hearing his schoolmates called
him the crazy Redman.
₳₳₳
Annie Copeland at age 23 was back in Onset after graduating
from Boston College. She was her widowed
father's great disappointment. Mr.
Copeland had forced her to go to college.
Annie thought it was because as an important man in town affairs and a
leader in The Onset Bay Association he was determined at all costs to have an
educated daughter as befitting her father's station in upper class Onset
society. Her mother ill with cancer,
what Annie most wanted was to stay in Onset and care for her mother who had
been her loving and wise parent and her best friend. However she gave in to her
father's rants and enrolled in Boston College so as not to cause further stress
in the household. Annie's mother died in the middle of her sophomore year.
Annie had defied her father by majoring in psychology and social
work. His weekly calls to her in Boston were to ask her what her grades were
and to warn her sternly that to get any kind of decently paying job in that
field she would have to go on to get at least a Master's Degree. There was never any mention of her mother
unless Annie insisted in tears. Her
father never once asked her if she was alright or how she was doing
emotionally. Annie came home to see her mother those first year and then spent
holidays with roommates families, or simply stayed in the empty dorm going back
and forth to the library to read. She
was perfectly content to be alone.
Her brief home stay for her mother's funeral convinced her
of a few important things. She would not
pursue an advanced degree, and she would not leave Onset. After graduation she
hadn't bothered to even look for a job. She couldn't tell her father how
heartsick she was for her mother, the comfort of home. She gave excuses why she
couldn't come home for holidays. She
wanted to avoid however she could the arguments she knew would go on unabated
if she went home. Annie didn't tell her
father what she knew for certain: that she had no intention of getting any
further degree, or that she had no intention of finding job which would require
her to leave Onset.
Her father beamed at
her graduation. Annie only felt relief
that the four year ordeal was over. It
was April, the beginning of Spring. Annie felt it was the beginning of her
life- a life she chose and not a life that had been chosen for her. She packed
up her things, loaded the car and her dad drove her home the evening of
graduation. She had few people she
needed to say her goodbyes to. A
professor or two, and a couple of roommates she had liked, and then they were
off.
Annie had no choice but to move in with her father. She unpacked
and settled into her old room which looked the same as it had when she had left
for Boston four years before. She wasted
no time applying for a job at the Spa.
With her major in psychology and a convincing interview she was
accepted. She learned massage
therapy. All of this caused her father's
disappointment to boil over into rage, and he and Annie fought almost daily.
Annie sought solace, to no avail, in affairs with a number of local boys that mostly
ended unsatisfactorily. Once she was hit hard enough to cause purple bruises
she couldn't hide with sunglasses or makeup.
She began to smoke a little dope
down at the beach at night. Weed was a refuge from life's disappointments. It took the sting away, and allowed her to forget
for a time.
After one particularly terrible argument where hateful
hurtful words about how she was murdering her mother's memory were said, Annie
found a small two room apartment and moved in while her father was at an
Association meeting. She took
little. Some clothes, mostly jeans, favorite books, and some tapes of her
favorite music ranging from Bach to Ian and Sylvia. She signed on for as many extra hours at the
Spa they would give her.
There was no end of bereft, depressed, lonely, lost women
who came to the Spa to be pampered, massaged, fed healthy food, made over. It
was calming for Annie to feel their flesh under her hands, to knead the hurt
out of the skin and soul of these woebegone women which in turn lessened her own
pain. Annie took her lunch breaks in the
employee cafe. It was there she met
Weetta Weems Treat. Weetta as outgoing
and loquacious as ever came right over to the table where Annie was picking at
her lunch and plunked herself down next to the girl.
"My name is Weetta Weems Treat. You can call me Weettie. They all do. You work at the Spa, am I right?"
Annie was wary. It
was like this tall woman had a force field around her. She managed a weak, "Yeah."
"Just a slip of a girl, ain't ya? What? Just shy of 5 feet and I bet you don't
weight but a hundred pounds. You should
eat something, lovey."
"Don't feel much like eating these days."
"As bad as all that? A pretty one like you? Well, the
hours you are working you need some meat on those sorry bones of yours." Annie jumped as a deep laugh burst from
somewhere up from Weettie's solar plexus.
Weettie seemed not to notice the effect she was having and went on. "I work at the hospice, assistant to the
dietitian. Have lunch about the same
time as this most every day. Next time
I'm bringing you something I cooked myself.
You won't be a pickin' at it I can tell you!" And then lunch break
was over. Annie thought, how
strange. I never would have believed how
very much I like this woman.
For all the work Annie did at the Spa, she suffered
insomnia. It didn't worry her a
bit. She looked forward to those dark
sleepless hours. That was when her
imagination painted its best works of art, told the best tales, shifted Annie's
shape to whomever and whatever it had a ken to, took her on phantasm journeys.
One sleepless night at 2:30 am Annie pulled on her jeans and
a jacket and headed down the bluff to the sea. A stiff breeze sang through the
Grove, carrying its healing pitch blood smell. Below she sank into the yielding
sand track to the death and life smell of the sea. The sound of the sea this
night was applause as the surf swept over the rocks, the sight in half waxing moonlight
a simmering black living thing laced with white at the crests. Untidy halyards played mast chimes.
Annie had to sink down to her knees at the miracle this
always was. She finished her joint, buried
the dead roach in the sand and finally reclined in the lee of the marina shed,
not a living being apart from herself in sight. Somewhere out of her dreaming she heard
someone whistling. She stood up too fast
and almost toppled over. Arms tightened
around her body, the wool of his jacket rough on her cheek. Annie thought right
then how strangely calm she was, given that she had no idea who this was
hugging her. His voice was deep, "Steady as she goes there!" A hint
of concern, and yes amusement.
He held her a moment at arms' length, then released her.
Almost a foot taller than she he dipped his head a bit and touched his cap to
her and turned his back to go. Annie
laughed right out loud then. Peal after peal. It was as if the laughter and joy
pent up for so long finally made a break for it. The breeze brought words from Cody Treat back
to her. "Gnight Annie."
She stood a moment and listened. Rumble of a diesel engine, sound of heavy lines
being cast on the dock beyond, clink of a chain, thud of what sounded like
crates being stowed. Boat in gear now,
steady thrum heading out and away. A black shape sailing the moon's silver path
to the sea.
Later back in her bed Annie could still feel rough wool on
her cheek. Cody Treat. Hadn't seen him since high school where he
was a year ahead of her. Always the
mystery man. Never seemed to socialize
with anyone, travel in any clique or crowd.
Never played sports even though every coach of every team begged him to
play. The girls took bets on who could get him.
They all lost. The sea was his
passion. That was all there was to it
Annie thought. What a treasure to have
passion of any kind like that. She dreamed that Cody Treat's strong arms stayed
around her all the night through.
Annie woke to the phone ringing. It was her dad. Once again ranting about all the money he
wasted sending her to college, ranting that she was ungrateful, that she was
spitting in the face of her dead mother working for slave wages at the Spa,
then weeping. Please come home. She hung
up on him. Of course he called again and again leaving messages for her to come
home. She knew what he really wanted was
for someone to take care of him. She
stopped answering her phone. Home for
her now was her two room apartment. She came and went as she pleased. And here she was a short walk from the sea
which held her mother's ashes and her heart.
Weettie was true to
her word. She showed up almost every lunch time with something so
delicious that Annie could not refuse to eat. Blueberry pie, Dump Cake, Indian
Pudding. And always a joke in salty language, a story about various
townspeople, and events. All made
hilariously funny. One day Weettie
became uncharacteristically quiet. She
gave Annie the eagle eye. It was
unnerving to say the least. Then, a hint
of a smile. Just the barest movement at
the corner of Weettie's mouth.
"You've met my son."
It was a statement pure and simple. Not a question, or a judgment, or loaded with
any discernible meaning. Just a
statement of fact. Annie was taken aback. Now what the heck? In a gentler tone Weettie said, "You are
a good girl Annie Copeland."
₳₳₳
Cody began to appear as out of the air when Annie had gone
to the beach nights she couldn't sleep. Those
first meetings they said little. They lay
apart on their backs in the sand and stared at the stars. Cody began to name
them: Ursa Major and Minor, Lyra with its bright Vega, Quila the Eagle, Bootes
the Herdsman With Arcturus in the southwestern end and Izar residing in the
middle of the Belt of the Herdsman figure.
Scorpius, the long, snaking line of bright stars clustering at its head
and sting, with the brightest star Antares Cody said means the rival of
Mars. He said they would watch the
Perseids in mid July to late August after midnight. "And we will wish on those shooting
stars."
Annie was filled with such calm peace and wonder at Cody
knowledge and reverence for the heavens she felt faint. No one knows him. "See the grand W over
there?" Cody continued. That's
Queen Cassiopeia. She was banished to
live forever in the heavens because she was so beautiful. The five stars we see are Caph meaning Open
Palm. Shedar, Full breast. Tcih, Warm thigh; Achird, Desirous Womb;
Sagin, Legs"
Annie thought, you artful deceiver, slip slider man, shape
shifter. Who are you? Where did you come from? "Legs," Cody whispered after a few
minutes. They must decide to go....or
stay." Annie was praying as never
before that they would stay, and never take this man from her.
In days to follow Annie asked him, "Are you ever lonely?"
Cody told Annie, "My liking for being alone is not loneliness." He touched her head as if in blessing saying,
"I am not lonely." This she fully understood. It was her life he was talking about. "I've
had troubles with my father." she said. "He has said hateful words
about how I am killing my mother a second time by not using my education well.
He said I am no daughter of his and that he wished I had never been born. We
have cut off all communication. I feel
very guilty. Terribly guilty. Not
because I feel that the things he said about me are true, but because I feel
freed by them in some way. I feel guilty because I am not lonely. I am simply and joyfully alone. Alone to be
who I will be."
Cody put his arm around her. "Like it or not you have a
parent, he said." Annie frowned and
dipped her head in question. "You
have a mother," Cody repeated. Annie
began, "Yes, but she's..." Cody
spoke over her, "You have a living mother.
Mine." It was as great
loving arms squeezed all the pain and hurt out of her. As though she had been reborn.
In June Annie's day began a pink cotton candy dawn. She woke thinking of Cody as she had fallen
sleep. When she brushed her hair in the morning it was his face she saw in the
mirror. At work the flesh she kneaded was his.
Cody was a constant dull ache like she had never before
experienced. It was as if she her every
waking thought came back to Cody Treat.
Everything she did and everywhere she went Cody Treat was there. It was
as though she was possessed by him.
She called the Spa to say that she would not be in that
lovely June morning, that she was not feeling well. And that was not in truth a lie. The sun rose
hot on the sea grass smelling like wheat toast as she headed down the bluff
path to the marina. Something was going
on down there. A murmuration of gulls
diving and soaring all around and their maniacal laughter filled the air. There was a huge tanker parked in the lot and
little men in grey wrap jackets were doing something around the tanker. Closer, Annie saw they were Asians. Standing apart from them was another Asian
man dressed in what looked to be a dark Italian suit, linen shirt, gold
cufflinks, and a silk tie knotted at the man's throat Windsor style. Shiny
Gucci style tasseled loafers. Not a
scene one saw every day in Onset.
Further down the ramp to the dock there was Cody's boat. A
new 28' Mako with a center console, and transom door. Cody was standing knee deep in red blood. Annie
watched in wonder as Cody tipped up to the sky, lifted both arms dripping with
tuna blood and began to voice something like a chant.
An enormous Blue Fin tuna had been hoisted up on the crane
and then swung over to be weighted. Must be 900 or a thousand pounds or more. A true giant tuna. To Annie all of this was almost unbelievable
sight. The Asian men made some notes. Cody
stripped off his bloody fisherman's bib and boots, stood in his shorts ankle
deep in tuna blood Annie watched in awe as he raised his bloody arms to the sky
and appeared to be saying something.
He began stowing gear.
A large gaff in the holder, a harpoon, a couple of rods, heavy tackle
from which Cody was removing large two spike hooks. He took his time. Placed the crates on the dock, some light and
empty, and some heavier. When Cody had
cleared the cockpit he unreeled the marina hose and turned on the water full
blast and proceeded to hose down every square inch of his boat. Transom door wide open the water ran in a
blood red river out of the boat. Then
the river turned salmon pink, then lighter, then clear. He sprayed his oils and boots on the dock. Cody
hosed himself next, even putting the nozzle over his head and down his
shorts. Cody wet skin looked like
burnished copper. His braid looked like
a glistening serpent against his back.
A crowd had begun to gather.
Annie stepped back to the marina porch to get out of the way. There was the Asian man in the suit, standing
still and straight as a post. His men were lined up in front of the giant tuna
which dock workers had lowered almost to ground. And still Cody was unhurried finishing his
clean-up. A woman who looked like a
reporter had appeared. She was dressed
in a suit and high heels and was perspiring this warm summer day. She held a clipboard. Behind her stood a man
with a professional looking camera. In
contrast to the stark still Asian man, the woman reporter was swaying her
weight from one foot to the other and grimacing as though she were in pain.
Cody finally came up the ramp. He had pulled on a somewhat rumpled checked
shirt that he hadn't bothered to button and a pair of clean cargo shorts. His feet were bare. Cody
waved off the reporter who had made to rush at him with her camera man in tow
and stood before the Asian man who bowed before him. They spoke briefly. Cody gestured toward his fish. Annie could see the Asian man take some kind
of instrument out of his pocket, approach the fish, and plunge the instrument
into the flesh about midway along its 10 foot length. A stab, a twist yielded a sausage sized plug of
meat which the Asian man immediately bit off, chewed slowly, and
swallowed. Another short exchange
between Cody and the Asian. Another bow
as the Asian handed something about the size of a softball to Cody which Cody
stuffed into his side pocket. Cody stuck
out his hand which the Asian shook.
As the crew busied getting the fish maneuvered into the
truck the reporter and her cameraman advanced.
She had some questions which she asked in a loud high pitch. Annie heard her ask how long Cody had been
fishing, who taught him how to fish, how old was he when he started, how do you
catch the giant tuna. It was obvious by the look on the reporter's face that
the interview was unsatisfying. Her machine gun fire questions were followed by
mostly monosyllabic answers. When she asked,
Where do you find the giant tuna? When Cody said, "The sea",
the reporter clapped her clipboard under her arm and hobbled off to the van,
knowing full well that the bulk of the article would have to be filled with her
own research about big tuna fishing. The
photographer took a few more pictures of the fish being loaded and then a
close-up of Cody. The reporter yelled to
her camera man, "We're done here!"
Annie had to laugh. Cody walked back toward where his boat
was docked. Passing the marina porch he
suddenly stopped and looked Annie straight in the eye and said, Wanna get out
of here? She actually checked to see if it was she he was talking to before she
hurried after him.
"Let's go to my place.
They'll leave me alone there.
Scared of my mother." A
quick chuckle and Annie knew he was only half serious. "She's been at me to invite you for
weeks." Well Annie wasn't expecting
that exactly. The path up the bluff was steeper here. Cody took her hand a few
times but dropped it just as quickly when the going got easier. Through the cool Pine Grove. And there was the
house sitting on a newly pointed ancient granite block foundation. The house was newly sided traditional white
with wide corner boards and green panel shutters with hardware that looked like
it really worked. High end circlehead windows along the front of the house. A white railing of lathed spindles around the
large porch. And a genuine widow's walk
atop the roof line perhaps resurrected from the original or a good reproduction.
Annie wondered if Weettie waited up
there looking out to sea the day her husband Nelson was lost.
Cody led her around to a side door. This is my part of the house. You just sit while I take a shower and
change. Inside was a large room. Cody disappeared though a short hallway. Annie heard the water running. She looked around. An enormous rubble masonry
fireplace with a soapstone hearth dominated the room. Yellowed pieces of
scrimshaw decorated the mantle, A bed against one wall looked like a bunk for a schooner captain, carved head and
foot with a double sized mattress. The pattern of the quilt on the bed was a
pattern Annie knew as Stormy Sea. A
desk, old, carved, antique. Two antique harpoons hung on the wall, and a couple
of seascapes of some importance by the look of them. What looked like strings
of Indian beads hanging from a large tuna hook over the desk. And ancient rusted anchor leaned in one
corner of the room. Sweetgrass mats on
the floor perfumed the entire space. Annie
had just sat down in the only chair in the room- an upholstered Captain style
chair when Cody appeared dressed in a clean T-shirt and denim shorts. His hair wet, unbraided, tied back with a
leather thong. He led Annie through the archway leading to his mother's part of
the house.
Weettie was waiting at the door. The interior of the kitchen was New England
spare, not unlike Cody wing. A heavy
wood table and chairs, deep burgundy rag rug, a few very nice paintings of the
sea, and one of a fisherman with arresting deep blue eyes. Blown glass net floats strung on pieces of
net. Old by the look of the wavy glass.
Weettie already had a full lunch going. Crab cakes, corn chowder, homemade bread and
blueberry jam. Indian Pudding for dessert and heavy cream to pour over. When Annie remarked about it all being ready
Weettie laughed and pointed to the VHF radio on shelf right over the kitchen
work area. "Got em all over the
house. Don't miss a thing going
on." punctuated by the Weettie wink.
Annie watched Cody as
he tucked into the food. There was little conversation. Just as Annie began to feel a bit
uncomfortable with the silence, Weettie winked a yes, that's my boy at Annie which
chased the tension right out of the room as she began her own monolog. "Those
Japanese are amazing, ice trucks at the ready the first news by VHF radio that
someone had caught tuna and where it was going to be sold. Always a cash transaction. Fishermen, ya know don't take credit, or do
much with banks either for that matter."
Cody is saying nothing.
Weettie ignores her son who looks like he might fall
asleep. "And the gear! Bibs, slickers and Wellies, heavy gloves-
heaps of those! 50 pound test lines,
number 2 or 3 carbon steel hooks, heavy duty rods, gaff, harpoon, and a good
big knife. Cody uses fresh mackerel. Ya
probly saw the crates. That's an
expense. The fuel. Not to mention the work." Annie sees that Cody eyelids are sinking
further toward sleep. She gets up to go.
"Terrible hard work." Annie says. "I should go." To Cody, "You need to get some
sleep."
"Ha!" shouts Weettie. "Not so much work, hey Cody luv? Them monsters come to you. Haha!."
At this Cody smiles.
Annie got up to go. Gives her
most sincere thanks to Weettie for the delicious meal. And to Cody who has risen also from the
table, "Thank you for letting me have a glimpse at your world, Cody. You
have no idea how much I appreciate your sharing it with me."
Cody grins, "That mi mudder who's the big talker. But
you're welcome. Nothing
really."
Before she reaches the door she says to Cody, "Yes it
is. It is very much something."
The paper came out the next week. The photo of Cody was
black and white, the cove muted magic in the background, the figure looking
like a painting. Features in bas relief. cheekbones, nose and body poignant, an
expression of a person utterly grounded, not impressed by the attention he was
getting. And one remarkable tendril of
Cody hair formed a perfect 'C' on his forehead. Annie's insides fairly leapt.
Annie didn't see Cody for a week after that. By the end of a
week it felt like starvation had set in, as though she were stranded in the
Mohave with not drop of water to drink.
She couldn't keep focused on anything going on in her life as thoughts of Cody
crowded out the real world. Gorgeous
dawns, sapphire blue skies, cotton candy cumulus clouds, her beloved sea, its
contractions were a mirror of the pain she felt in her gut. She fully realized what was happening to
her. She told herself over and over to
get on with it. Cody is a dream. You have a real life. Pay attention to that. And still her mind did not obey. Cody washed into her every moment like the
tide at full moon. Pulsing, insistent,
relentless. Annie had to admit to
herself that she was a prisoner as she had never been or wanted to be. Besides wanting to see Cody, be bathed in the
sight of him. How silly the words of Millay when she first read them: Love has
gone and left me, and the days are all alike. Eat I must, and sleep I will--and
would that night were here! But ah, to lie awake and hear the slow hours
strike! Would that it were day again, with twilight near! And this one said it all:
The Want of You
The want of you
is like no other thing;
It smites my soul with sudden sickening;
It binds my
being with a wreath of rue-
This want of you.
It flashes on
me with the waking sun;
It creeps upon me when the day is done;
It hammers at my heart the long night through-
This want of you.
It sighs within
me with the misting skies;
Oh, all the day within my heart it cries,
Old as your absence, yet each moment new
This want of you.
Mad with demand
and aching with despair,
It leaps within my heart and you are-
where?
God has
forgotten, or he never knew-
This want of you.
”
God! So desperate
that! How ridiculous it seemed to the
10th grader stuck in English class studying this drippy poetry. And now Annie was living those poems. She really had to laugh at the many things
she once so easily and casually dismissed that had come back to bite her, and
bite her hard. She wished so very much to talk to someone about him, as if
talking about him would be as a substitute for his presence. Of course the only person she could talk to
about her obsession was Weettie, and Weettie, they said at work, had taken off
to Maine on vacation. They had no idea
of where, and no one had seen her son either. His boat was not at the
marina. Annie checked every day.
One morning the second week of her misery she got ready for
work. At the bottom of her door was a
piece of paper. She turned the paper over in her hand. A piece of buther's paper, the kind the shops
wrap meat in, but neatly trimmed to fit what was written on it.
"I think of escaping from all things
to be a hermit in a vastness
where a long wind comes from infinity - WANG WEI
She read it, and read it again. And a sinking sickening feeling came over her
that her had gone. What the fucking hell? Escape? A hermit where the wind comes from
infinity. Fucking hell. Is he dead?
Every as she thought that, she knew he was very much alive. It was was though she could feel his breath
on her cheek.
Another week went by.
Now almost the end of June, the very crown jewel of summer. And Annie was furious at herself for letting
this man, a man she barely knew, this childish crush of a man take over what
should be the happiest days of her life.
Another piece of paper appeared under her apartment
door. Hand written again. This time on
linen stationary.
How
can feeling spread so far but be inside such a confined knitness of thought?
One tiny strike on the flint can create the chaos of flame to warm or ward
off…. friend or foe it be. The tiniest flick of light in the darkest of dark
can create hope of personal gratitude of fortune in one’s mind and soul… or can
be ignored for another day… Please my friend, take the temptation of love and
run with it as far as it may take you… may it be round and back to where you
once began. All and all, a day is a day, am I right? Go reap the lands you were
found helpless and sorrowed… They will be generous beyond imagination. I will
be there.
To say she was stunned would be the understatement of the
year. She read the card over and
over. Then she stopped at each word sucking
meaning out of each, sweet, delicious, like a kid sucking the last drop of
chocolate milkshake out of a straw. God!
Take the temptation of love??!! He has to be kidding. We are eons beyond temptation. The temptation
has devoured me.
Annie ran to the
beach at every opportunity for solice, kicked off her sandals and stripped off
her shirt to her tank or bathing suit top and sank down in the sand. Warm nights she sat and listened to the pull
of the sea. One night, dark of the moon,
only a gentle warm breeze, she felt him before she saw him. He knelt down beside her. Ran a rough hand down her bare back. "We'll go sailing tomorrow if you're
free." Not a question. Her heart almost stopped but she managed, "Say
when."
They did go sailing every chance they could get away. Anchor
set they plunged into the water to swim, to enjoy being alive together. She did
ask Cody where he had been the past two weeks.
"I'm telling ya my secret love. Back and forth from Plymouth19
miles to and from the Stellwagen Bank, a shelf where the Stripers and the Blue
Snappers feed. And where the Blue Fins
go to feed on them."
"Why Plymouth, why not Onset?"
"Too much flap
around here. Plymouth they don't expect me. Or Barnstable, though it's
further out to the Bank from there."
"Don't ever leave me again without at least a word or
two. I thought I had dreamed you!, Annie sobbed.
"That's why I had to come all the way back here to
leave them notes under your door."
Cody grabbed her then,
and swung her up in his arms, twirled her around, hugged her hard and kissed
her harder. At last, she thought. At long last. "Slow learner," she
kidded him. "Oh yeah?" he beamed.
They made love on the deck.
Back at the house typical Weettie saw them coming hand in
hand. "Well!" she roared. "When is the wedding? I have to know to
have time to make the cake."
July and August Cody came and went. He listened to fishermen's reports on
VHF. And if there was a good one he
threw some things in his ruck sack and was gone. Not that Annie didn't worry, but she
discovered that when you love someone,
you love what they do. And you
realize that what they do is an important part of who they are. Part of the whole package.
They were married that winter in Cody wing in front of the
fireplace by a woman chaplain Weettie knew from the hospice. Weettie was the witness. Papers signed, she
kissed hugged and kissed Annie.
"Hope you know what you've got yourself into!" She placed her hands on each side of her
son's face, drew his head down and kissed him on one eyelid and then the other. "Your and Annie's babies will be the
very light and life of my old age. I
will tell them the old stories."
Annie took over keeping the books, and administering the
family's ever increasing portfolio. The
price of the giant Blues rose to over $20),000 per. Then the Japanese started a
full out war paying over $700,000 for a big Blue. It would be suicide to continue
fishing Blues with prices like that. All the fishermen Cody knew armed themselves
with high powered rifles.
With Weettie's permission and help she hired the best Boston
law firm to set up a trust for their land in perpetuity. It was specified that
should no family member or their descendents wanted the land it be placed as
trust land for the town of Onset, never to be built upon except for specified
hiking and biking trails.
Aimee W.Treat was born in August the next year. Two years later Jonah C. Treat greeted the
world. And two years after that Ousa
Blue Treat. Ousa would become the
family's next famous Blue Fin hunter.
Weettie loved her grandchildren more than her life. She lived to be ninety nine years old.
