OCEAN
21
What fiendish fries ensued down there, Stephen preferred not · to
think
about.
For some reason the storm held off all through dinner and
through his bath, so that by the time Stephen was ready for bed
he had almost forgotten about it. After Mommy had kissed him
goodnight, and the soft but monumental security of Clarry's bosom
relinquished him to the dark, Stephen lay in bed musing, as always,
over the ocean. He listened to the pounding surf, smelled the brine,
and searched for the grains of sand that invariably materialized in
his hair, his bellybutton, his bed. He did not question how they
came to be there; Stephen knew-knew that he was part of them,
the sea and sand, mixed with them, a blend of them the way green
is a blend of yellow and blue.
As
on every other night, before he was
able to fall asleep, he had to get out of bed, tip-toe to the radiator
and examine his marine collection one more time. He had to seize
the whelk and take it back to bed with him and hold it to his
e~r,
uncertain in his somnambulation whether the roaring-rush he listened
to emanated from the shell, the ocean or his heart.
At some point in the middle of the night a lightning-crack
awakened Stephen to tears. Even without looking, he knew the
house had been struck and rent in two. Someone had taken the
lightning rod off the roof and stuck it through his open window;
some evil executioner, armed with electric currents, was standing
in his bedroom, trying to electrocute him. The whole house quaked
as the bolts flashed and crackled before his hand-covered eyes
and the thunder detonated inside his eardrums and the rain deluged
his marine collection. . . . But it wasn't only the rain, it was the
ocean, too. The ocean was angry. It had come onto the land,
exactly as Clarry had predicted it would.
It
was just outside his
window there, trying to get in, trying to reclaim all the treasures
he had stolen-all the shells and gems and creatures. The only way
to save them was to shut the window. He had to shut the window!
. . . And yet Stephen knew that if he did, if he got out of bed,
the evil executioner would spy him and hurl a bolt of fire
s~ack
into his face, so he helmeted his head in his pillow and dived under
the covers, where, lumped together like a pull of toffee, he eventually
cried himself to sleep.
The next morning, when the family came down to breakfast,
