BARBARA PROBST SOLOMON
571
had knit for him while he was in the Navy in World War II on the
floor.
"Elena ... the sails have gotten loose. Do you think you can
make it up on deck, and batten them down?"
He is angry at himselffor having to ask you.
"My back's gone out. Any knot will do ."
I crawl along first one side of the deck, do what needs being
done, then do the same on the other side. The rain is coming down
in thick sheets.
PoorJudgement to be up alone on a slippery deck with winds
at gale strength.
The yawl is dancing. My knotting and securing of the
sails has been haphazard. I crawl back into the cabin and dry
myself. Daniel, meanwhile, has been trying to rub Ben Gay into his
shoulder muscles. "Let me," I say.
"Oh, you're killing me," he yells in mock pain. I continue to
massage his back. "Daniel, I've been thinking about Braden's Press
... your generation were the big time investors in idealism. And
now you're speculating in big time despair. I'd say that they are both
luxury items. Marginal stuff."
Daniel just stares at me. When I finish I put the ointment back
in the medicine shelf in the head. "Start off with wild sex fantasies," I
yell back, "And you end up with Ben Gay ."
•
• •
Night. I have finished the RO in ROOSEVELT. Red, white
and blue.
"Hurricanes don't bother you too much," he observes.
When it comes right down to it, you are more of a New Englander than
Daniel.
"After all . .. I grew up along this coast . All those long sum–
mers. Mystic, Essex. Saybrook. Daniel, we have to pass by Plum
Island . When I was a kid I spent days at the beach just looking at it.
The island was in the part of the coast just opposite our house, I
pretended that it belonged to my folks."
"I can't sail you by there. It's military property. Off bounds."
"My Plum Island?"
"... is being used for experiments in germ warfare."
"One summer we lived in a real Captain's house by the sea.
Had a widow's walk, and secret passageways. There was a fierce
hurricane that August, and when we came back to our house on the
beach, most of the houses and boats along the boardwalk had been
smashed . Except for my older brother's sailboat. Really. It was in
