The Dreadful Lemon Sky Read online

  “That wrapped head makes you look strange. It’s like a turban. Lawrence of Arabia, or some damned mercenary. You’re dark enough for an Arab, but the pale eyes make you look very savage somehow.”

  “Meyer, what did you find out?”

  “Oh. While you were unconscious? Let me think. Oh, yes. That’s quite a nice hangar out there at the ranch. Quonset-type construction. That’s where ranch equipment gets repaired and maintained too. There’s a slow charger for batteries, and a battery cart to boost the aircraft batteries when starting the aircraft up cold. There’s a fifteen-hundred-gallon gas tank and a pump to service the aircraft and the ranch vehicles. There’s about six employees out there, which means a pretty good payroll, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Meyer!”

  “Are you supposed to sit up like that? There, that’s better. Okay. Travis, he has …” Meyer paused and took out his little pocket notebook and flipped through the pages, grunting from time to time.

  “Meyer!”

  “He has a Beechcraft Baron, designation B fifty-five. It has two two-hundred-and-sixty horsepower Continental engines, designation Ten four-seventy L. The fuselage is twenty-nine feet long, and the wingspan is thirty-seven feet ten inches. At ten thousand five hundred feet, at a long-range cruising speed of two hundred and twenty miles per hour, with optional fuel capacity of a hundred and thirty-six gallons, he can carry two people and over eight hundred pounds of cargo for sixteen hundred miles, less ten percent safety factor, which gives us fourteen hundred and forty miles. It has an automatic pilot and a lot of other things which I didn’t write down here. He bought it used a year ago for sixty-five thousand. He financed it. It can carry four people. It is white with a blue stripe.”

  I stared at him. “And you went out there and went in the hangar!”

  He stared back. “I wish I could say yes.”

  “What did you do?”

  “You reminded me to be cautious when I looked under that Datsun.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I did what all economists do. I went to the library. And after a two-hour search I found an article about him and his place in a magazine called Florida Ranchorama. It had a picture of the hangar, with airplane inside. Then I went to the airport, over to the private airplane area, and talked with some mechanics there about airplanes. I asked some questions and then I did a lot of listening. I found out more about airplanes than I care to know.”

  “You did very well, old friend.”

  “Shall I blush and simper?”

  “If you don’t keep it up for long. I hate blushing and simpering in a grown man when it goes on and on.”

  “You seem to be doing a lot of yawning.”

  “I am dead tired for some unknown reason, and I am starving. I’ve never been so empty.”

  We got hold of the sprightly little old nurse, who said the kitchen was closed and who then went off and checked with Dr. Ownings to see if it was all right for Meyer to bring food in. He said fine, and he would approve it because I had a private room.

  When Meyer left on his errand it was after eleven, and I did not expect Mrs. Birdsong to be waiting that late. But she was. She came in, and her face went from somber to beautiful in the glow of her smile. She came around and sat on the chair and then stood up again. Awkward moment.

  “Please sit down,” I said.

  “I am so used to sitting right here without …”

  “You don’t need any invitation, really. Meyer told me how faithful you’ve been.”

  She had seated herself again, on the edge of the chair. She wore khaki slacks, fitted and faded almost white. She wore a tan shirt with silver buttons. She clutched a brown leather purse with both hands. She wore a trace of lipstick, nothing more. When she looked down the dark glossy hair would have swung forward, would have softened her face, had she not worn it cropped so desperately short. In manner and looks it was almost as if she were trying to deny her femininity, or perhaps she was so shrewdly aware of herself, she knew that any attempt to deny it merely emphasized it.

  “Faithful,” she said, giving the word a bitter emphasis. “Sure, I guess so. I … didn’t want you to wake up and not have anyone close by to tell you what happened. But I missed out on that … too.”

  “I appreciate it. Maybe it was good to have someone nearby. I think that people are never totally completely one hundred percent unconscious. I think that they are always aware to some degree of what is going on around them. I think I knew you were here.”

  “How could you know it was me?”

  “Maybe just that someone was here who cared.”

  “Cared. Yes, that word is okay, Mister McGee. Cared if you lived or died. I’ll buy that word.”

  “I’ll give it to you free.”

  She smiled and again that transformation, but the smile did not last long enough. She flushed visibly and said, “I didn’t think about it being hard to talk to you when you woke up.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “Well, I don’t know what to say. We buried my husband Monday. I’ve hired another person. With Jason, Oliver, and the new man, Ritchie, everything can go on … as before. After the insurance people told Meyer that you’re not covered, he said it was okay if I told the boys to work on your houseboat whenever they have the time.”

  I sat up. “I’m covered!”

  “For lots of things, yes. If your tanks had blown up, yes. Or sinkings or collisions or fire or running aground. But not for people bringing a bomb on board, you’re not covered. Should you be sitting up like that?”

  I settled down again. She reached and gave a quick shy pat on my arm.

  “It’s sort of in their spare time, so I’m only billing you for supplies.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes things happen that maybe a person could have stopped.”

  “And people can take too much onto themselves. If I had done this … or that … or the other, then maybe this or that or the other would never have happened. The world-mother syndrome.”

  She thought it over. “I guess I am sort of that way.”

  She looked down and away, lost to me, wandering in the backwoods of her mind. It was a strong clear face, clean and dark and timeless, like the face of a young monk seen in an old drawing. It was somber and passionate, withdrawn yet intensely involved. The curve of the lips, shape of the throat, set of the eyes, all spoke of fire and of need carefully suppressed, held down in merciless discipline.

  Meyer came back. She stirred to leave, but he had brought food for her too. He said it had not been easy at that time of night. Quarter-pounders with cheese, in square cartons, still hot. He had brought six of them, and a container of milk and two containers of coffee. Meyer sat on the foot of my bed. I was certain I could eat three of them. I was famished. Yet it was all I could do to finish the first one. I drank the milk. I sagged back. I thought I would close my eyes for just a moment. I heard them talking, and their voices sounded strange to me, as if I were a child again, half asleep in the back seat while the parents talked together in the front seat. When the little white-haired nurse woke me up to find out if I wanted a sleeping pill, Meyer and Cindy were gone and the room was darkened. I heard a siren far away. I turned back into my sleep, wormed my way back to dreaming.

  • • •

  On Friday at eleven thirty Dr. Hubert Owings changed the dressing on my head, making it much smaller, getting away from the turban effect. He checked me over and approved me for release. I phoned the marina and got hold of Jason, who got hold of Meyer. Meyer said he would be along to pick me up in a half hour. I told him to bring money. And clothes. The clothes I had been wearing when I arrived were too badly dappled with the blood of Joanna to ever consider wearing again.

  I borrowed a shower cap and took a shower. Meyer arrived and said he had stopped at the cashier’s office and bought me out, and given the release ticket to the nurse at the floor station. I got up too quickly and felt dizzy. I h
ad to sit down for a minute before I could get dressed. Meyer was worried about me.

  “Hube said I’m fine. A heavy concussion. No fracture. I came out of it okay, he says. If I start to have fainting spells, come back in for observation. They are short of beds or they’d keep me longer.”

  The world looked strange. There were little halos around the edges of every tree and building. I did very deep breathing. It is strange to sleep for five days and five nights and have the world go rolling along without you. Just like it will keep on after you’re dead. The wide busy world of tire balancing, diaper changing, window washing, barn dancing, bike racing, nose picking, and bug swatting will go merrily merrily along. If they were never aware of your presence, they won’t be overwhelmed by your absence.

  On the way back Meyer told me that Cindy Birdsong had made arrangements for me to have a unit at the motel, next to hers. I could not get any rest aboard the Flush because of all the sawing and hammering. I was supposed to get a lot of rest. The prescription would make me drowsy. I said it was a lot of nonsense.

  But when I got out of the car I gave up all hope of walking out to look at my boat. I saved everything I had left for the immense feat of tottering over to the motel and collapsing onto the bed which Cindy and Meyer guided me to.

  I slept through lunch and woke up at five o’clock. I put my shoes on and latched my belt and went on the long walk out to the Flush. The sun was still high and hot. I heard the power saw long before I recognized who was running it. Jason was brown and sweaty, and he was cutting some heavy-duty marine plywood to size. He let go of the trigger on the saw and put it on the uncut sheet and stuck his hand out. “You don’t look so bad, Mr. McGee.”

  “Neither does my vessel.”

  “Not so bad on the outside until you notice it blew all the ports out of the lounge. It isn’t so great in there.”

  “Do you know how to do … what you’re doing?”

  “Does it make you nervous? I can cut plywood to fit, for God’s sake. The thing is to get it sealed before it rains again. We’re into the rainy season now. I fixed the two broken cross members, those beam things. They were splintered. I cut out the bad parts and bolted in new pieces. It’s okay now. Stronger than before.”

  “In case I get another gift bomb?”

  “Nobody around here makes any jokes about that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Joanna was an okay person. Not like Carrie, but okay. I mean there was no need for anybody to blow her into pieces.”

  I climbed aboard and up the side ladderway. There was one hole left, a neat rectangle about two feet by five feet. There was new plywood over an area at least sixteen by thirty feet, the major portion of the sun deck. Jason came up with the last piece and laid it in place. It fit so snugly he had to stomp it into place with his bare heels. He knelt on it and took the nails from his canvas apron and smartly whacked the nails home. He threw one to me. It had a twist like a screw, and it was heavy-duty galvanized.

  “These won’t let go,” he said.

  “You’re doing a good job.”

  “Ollie and I both think we are. He did part of this. What I plan on doing is caulk all these seams with a resin compound before I lay the new vinyl decking. It doesn’t exactly match this stuff but it’s close. Here’s a sample. Close enough?”

  “Nobody will ever notice. What about the ports?”

  “That’s another story. I got a guy coming to make an estimate tomorrow morning. At ten, if you want to be in on it.”

  I left him to his hammering and went below and went down into the forward bilge area. It took thirty seconds to make certain nobody had located my hiding place between the fake double hull, not even the impressive Harry Max Scorf himself. I checked out three weapons. If he found them, he had had the sense to leave them where they were, entirely legal.

  The lounge was a sorry mess. It was damp as a swamp and already sour with mildew, a gray-green scum spreading across the carpeting. The yellow couch lay with its feet in the air, a dead mammoth from earlier times. Shards and splinters of coffee table and chairs lay here and there in profusion. A large splinter protruded from the precise center of a stereo speaker. Another had pierced a painting I was fond of, right between the Syd and the Solomon of the painter’s lower-right-corner signature. There were thick brown stains of dried blood. There was a chemical smell, like cap pistols and ammonia.

  Meyer came hurrying in. “Hello! Should you be roaming around like this?”

  “I’m roaming around crying.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Is the wiring messed up? Would the air conditioning work?”

  “It kept blowing circuits at first, and I found out that it was the lamp that used to be on this bracket over here. It smashed the inside of it. But now things work.”

  “Then instead of letting the place rot, let’s get some sheet Pliofilm and staple it over the ports and get the air conditioning going to start to dry it out in here. And let’s pull up this carpeting and get it trucked away.”

  “All right. But spare me the ‘us’ part of it. Go back and rest.”

  “Is there any ice?”

  There was. I assembled a flagon of Plymouth and carried it topside and sat at the controls and sipped and watched the sun sliding down the sky on the other side of Florida. That drink really slugged me. I had to pay special attention to every shift of weight and balance as I walked back to the motel. Every footfall was an engineering problem. My ears had started ringing again.

  Cindy heard me and opened the interconnecting door and stood staring at me. I realized that I was visibly smashed, and I realized she’d had all too much of that in her marriage.

  She shook her head. “Travis, good God. Sit down before you fall down.”

  “Thank you very much indeed.”

  “Are you going to be sick?”

  “I don’t think so. Thank you very much indeed.”

  “Here. Let’s swing your legs up. Let me get your shoes.”

  “Thank you very much indeed.”

  Eleven

  I opened my eyes. It was night. There was a small lamp with an opaque shade on a table in a corner. Cindy Birdsong slept in the wing chair beside the table, long legs extended, ankles crossed, head tilted way over to rest on her shoulder, mouth slightly agape. I spied upon the privacy of her sleep. She rifled the closets and drawers of memory while her body lay a-sprawl, clad in gray cardigan, pink blouse, dark blue slacks.

  I looked at my watch. I pressed the button. No display. The batteries had died. I had such an evil taste in my mouth I knew I had been asleep a long time. I felt as if I could eat a bison. Raw. With a dull fork.

  I tiptoed to the small bathroom and eased the door shut before I turned the light on. I looked at a gaunt, weathered, and most unfamiliar face. I brushed my teeth with foaming energy and drank four glasses of water. My tan looked yellowed, as if I had jaundice. The white scar tissue in the left eyebrow seemed more visible than usual, the nose more askew. The eyes looked shifty and uncertain. Some kind of hero. Some kind of chronic girl-loser. Some kind of person on the edge of life, unwilling and/or unable to wedge himself into the heartlands.

  When I turned the light off and opened the door, Cindy was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the chair, knees together. She hugged herself, rubbing her left shoulder, and said, “I must have dozed off. I’m sorry.”

  “Why be sorry? What time is it?”

  She gave a little start as she looked at her watch. “Good grief, it’s a quarter to four! I … I really haven’t been sleeping well lately. Until now. I guess you were so deep in sleep it was contagious. How do you feel?”

  “I’m starving. You asked. I have to tell you I’m going to faint from hunger. I’ll fall heavily.”

  At her invitation I followed her into the larger unit she had shared with Cal. There was a kitchenette arrangement behind folding doors, scrubbed to a high shine. We inventoried the possibilities, and I opted for Polish sausage and l
ots of eggs. She went into the bathroom and came out with minty breath and brushed hair.

  She made an ample quantity and served herself a substantial helping. It was not a meal where conversation was encouraged. It was a meal which required more eggs, and she hopped up and scrambled more. She served good coffee in big mugs.

  At last I felt comfortable. I felt cozy. I leaned back. She caught my eye and flushed slightly and said, “I haven’t been eating hardly anything. Until now. I’ve lost about six pounds in the past week or so. I want to keep it off.”

  “You seemed about the right size and shape when I checked into your marina, lady.”

  “I get hippy. That’s where it all goes.”

  The silence between us was comfortable—and then uncomfortable. The awareness grew, tangible as that ringing in the ears. She looked down, flushing again. When she got up I reached for her and caught her wrist, then tugged her gently around the corner of the table toward me. She came with an unwillingness, looking away, murmuring “Please.” I pulled her to stand by me, against my thigh, and slid my hand to her waist, slid it under the edge of the pink blouse to clasp the smooth warm flesh where the waist was slimmest.

  “No,” she said in a soft dragging voice, far away.

  “I have been losing girls,” I said. “It has to stop.”

  “I’m not a girl. Not any more, I’m not.”

  I stood up and put my hands on her shoulders, felt a gentle shuddering that was awareness, not revulsion.

  “Cindy, I could say an awful lot of dumb things. What it would boil down to is, I’m alive, glad to be alive, and I want you.”

  “I … I just can’t quite …”

  And I steered her slowly and gently to the relative darkness of my connecting unit, through the door ahead of me, arm around her waist, blundering together to the bed.

  At the bed, after she sat and I began to undo the buttons of her blouse, she pushed me away and said, “I have to say something first. Before anything happens. Listen to me. Wait. Please. When I heard he was dead there was … some kind of dirty joy in me. I cried and carried on because people expected me to.”