The Starboard Sea: A Novel (14 page)

I was excited for Ginger, glad to have seen her. Holding the remaining tangerine Aidan had given me, I wondered what she might think of Ginger and her giant belly. “What did Miriam mean?” I asked Riegel. “What’s there to hear about Mom and Dad?”

“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone who listens to nattering old biddies.” Riegel’s car phone rang again but this time he didn’t answer. “We’re late,” he said. “I know I promised you lunch, but I also need to go to this museum. The Whaling Museum. It’s over in New Bedford. My American lit professor insists I check out an exhibit on Melville.”

“Melville,” I said. “I distinctly remember your taking great pride in being illiterate.”
Riegel checked his mirrors and changed lanes. “True. I still find it much easier to critique novels I’ve never actually read. I enjoy making wild assertions without any accountability.”
I thought of Tazewell flinging paperbacks around his dorm room.
“But I’m close to failing this class. If I could, I’d pay some geek to write the paper, but the prick professor makes us turn in all these drafts and pass these oral defenses. I’ve got to nail down a grade-changing essay on
Moby-Dick:
the whale hunt as metaphor for religious revivalism— whatever that means.”
Here was my brother, downgraded to student just when he felt ready to become a captain of industry. Riegel looked over at me and smiled. “Plus, I figured you’d get a kick out of the Whaling Museum. You always loved that high seas stuff. You and Cal were like Ishmael and Queequeg.”
From a distance, New Bedford looked as shimmering and prosperous as it must have appeared to Melville when he first set sail from its port for the South Pacific. Once we exited the highway, the downtown revealed itself to be a labyrinth of abandoned factories, condemned mills, empty warehouses with broken windows. We drove by a strip club called Harpoons located right next door to a pet crematorium. New Bedford had seen better days.
I didn’t feel like wasting time on dead whales. I held the tangerine up to my face and thought to myself, “I miss Aidan.” It wasn’t that she’d replaced Cal, but the difference in feeling was that missing Cal had proved useless. He was gone. Missing Aidan gave me hope. If Cal was my past, Aidan was quickly becoming my future. Being away from her for an afternoon made me even more grateful for her friendship and the simple certainty that I could count on seeing her again.
We continued down to the waterfront. The marshy shoreline, littered with rusting ship containers and derelict scallop boats, was more of a junkyard than a harbor. Toxic steam rose off the surf in spectacular mist, blanketing the air with a sulfurous stench, making me wish the convertible’s top were drawn closed. We passed a series of fishprocessing plants and I wondered what it was like to work inside one of those places, wielding a knife, slicing guts, breathing in the salty fumes. Any fish pulled out of the local waters risked being poisonous.
Riegel couldn’t stand the harbor stench either. “What died out there?” He depressed a button, raising the Jaguar’s top, then reached across me to the glove box and slipped out a hammered silver flask. He knocked back a long swallow, pulled a pack of Camels from his inside pocket, and lit up a cigarette.
“They say those will kill you.” I smiled.
“Here.” Riegel tossed me the pack. “Smoke up.”
I examined the box, searching along the camel’s leg for the subliminal naked man. Cal had shown me this trick, the hidden man’s giant erection some sort of incentive to inhale. I tapped a cigarette on the bird’s-eye maple and Riegel handed me a lighter, our father’s initials engraved in the gold. I didn’t even know our dad smoked.
To prove my fraternal loyalty, I’d given Ginger my word that whatever scam Riegel was running wasn’t a scam. She wanted to know if I’d met Riegel’s boss, Hiro. If he could be trusted.
“So what sort of deal did you work out for Ginger and Dill?” The smoke from the cigarette burned down my throat, setting off a coughing fit. I took a sip from Riegel’s flask and spilled rum down my chin.
“You’ve got a smoking and a drinking problem.” Riegel shook his head.
“Seriously.” I continued to cough, my voice straining. “I need to know what I just signed off on.”
Riegel pulled a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it between his lips. “You ever wonder why people buy art?”
I started to answer when Riegel cut me off and said, “It’s all about class. People buy art so they can feel like they’ve escaped the middle class.”
The car filled up with smoke. Riegel cracked the window and explained that he was interested in something called value creation. “Hiro’s a computer genius. Works with derivatives, complex financial instruments.”
“What’s a financial instrument?” I asked. “Like an expensive banjo.”
“You’re as bad as Dad. He doesn’t even understand how computer trading works. He still believes it’s a bank’s job to make money for its investors.” Riegel explained that a derivative was an option. An investment in an opportunity, a scenario, a possible disaster or beneficial outcome. The hedge fund he worked for traded mainly in exotic, not vanilla, derivatives. “We deal in intangibles. The stakes are high but so are the rewards. Hiro gave me the challenge of bringing in new clients. I wanted to help out Ginger and Dill, but those two are cash poor.” Riegel detailed how he’d negotiated a special circumstance for Ginger and Dill. “Instead of money, they’re investing the Renoir.”
I was dubious. “If they need money, why don’t they just sell the painting outright?”
“Selling a painting can be expensive. They want to avoid a major tax event. We’re using the painting as collateral. It’s like I’m turning their Renoir into an ATM. Plus, Hiro’s high on sporting a minor masterpiece in his office.” Riegel tossed his cigarette butt out the window. “Can you believe your big brother came up with an unprecedented market opportunity?” Riegel hit the steering wheel, blasting the horn. “Ginger and Dill secure a little financial freedom, Hiro gets his art trophy, and I receive a sweet commission.”
“What’s my cut?” I asked.
Riegel smiled. “Now you’re learning.”

The Whaling Museum was housed in an enormous brick building. The main exhibition hall featured the world’s largest toy ship, a half- scale model of a whaling bark big enough to climb aboard and explore. The museum had been built around all eighty-nine feet of this black-and-green bark, the three white masts nearly skimming the dome of the vaulted ceiling. A ship in a bottle. A boat in a building. On the bow, the billethead was decorated with dark flares of wood trimmed with golden eagles. I had to hold myself back from clawing up the ratlines on the lookout for imaginary whales. The double topsail rigging intricately strung with miles and miles of hemp lines and metal chains. Riegel was right to believe that I would enjoy this sort of thing. For the first time in a long while, I felt like a little kid.

In an even more cavernous gallery, two fully articulated whale skeletons flew suspended from the raf ters. The yellowing bones a stark constellation against the celestial blue ceiling. I thought of our family’s Calder mobiles, those floating metal plates imitating these skeletal remains. From the label signage, I discovered that the whales were a mother North Atlantic Right and her unborn calf. The mother had beached ashore, sick and disoriented. The baby dying inside of her.

I followed Riegel into a painting exhibit. He kept yawning, the purple circles deepening under his eyes. It occurred to me that he needed a nap, that after an evening of dark and stormies, he might not be able to drive me back to school.

“I thought there was some secret to this.” Riegel pointed to a series of etchings that depicted the whale hunt from first sighting to harpooning to the flensing.

“What sort of secret?” I asked.

Riegel stood in appraising silence, then said, “I guess I thought there was some trick to capturing a whale, but the whole thing was pretty primitive. The sailors just pulled up in these tiny dinghies and stabbed the whales with their blades. I mean, once you struck with the harpoon the whale could take off, could drag an entire boatload of men down.” Riegel nodded to an oil painting of a whale doing just that. “There was no secret, no special technique. Why would anyone sign on to do this?” Riegel asked. “To take that sort of risk?”

“For the payday,” I said.

Riegel nodded, money a language he understood. He tapped the front of a glass case. “Check it out.”
Behind the glass, mounted on a simple black frame, was a ship’s log, a registry of all the sailors who had boarded the
Acushnet
on January 3, 1841. There in the middle of the page was the name and signature, “Herman Melville.” He would later jump ship in the Marquesas, wind up living with a tribe of cannibals. The museum’s brochure mentioned that Melville was born into a rich family but became downwardly mobile and died penniless and forgotten. Seeing his name on the ship’s registry touched me, made me want to round Cape Horn in his honor. I would take Aidan sailing. Teach her about the water.
Riegel whispered, “I heard Melville was a queer. That he wrote
Billy Budd
for some dude he wanted to screw.” Riegel strolled off, then turned on his heels and said, “I’ll be in the gift shop.”
I took my time. Studied every whale’s tooth. Learned about spermaceti, that it wasn’t sperm at all but rather this crazy wax found in the whale’s head that was used to make candles and lipsticks. Then there was the ambergris—whale shit or vomit used to scent the kind of fancy perfumes my mother always bought in Paris. I wasn’t going to leave that museum until I felt like an expert.
It’s possible that I would have made Riegel wait for hours, but a security guard approached and told me that the museum would be closing early.
“It’s storming something fierce,” he said. “You ought to get on home.”
I found Riegel in the fetal position on a bench outside the gift shop. If he had happened upon me asleep and defenseless, he would have stirred me awake with a wet willy, licking his finger and sliding it inside my ear. I tapped the bottom of his shoe and he startled.
“There’s thunder and lightning,” I said.
Riegel claimed that he was merely resting his eyes. He got up and the two of us began to walk down a marble corridor and out of the museum. Just as we were about to exit, Riegel turned around, ran back to the bench, and picked up a brown shopping bag. “Here,” he said to me, “belated birthday present. Open it later. Happy eighteenth. I promise this will be the best year of your life.”

Maybe Riegel was a little hungover or simply tired, but just like my father had on our way to Bellingham, Riegel gave me the gift of driving his car. The Jag took the slick corners like it was on rails, and I couldn’t imagine piloting another vehicle and loving it the same way. By the time we neared school it was evening and a true darkness had descended, and not just with the setting sun and the hurricane sky. Riegel’s mood had turned. He kept dialing phone numbers on the car phone and grew frustrated over being unable to connect to anyone.

I said, “I thought that thing was the future.”
“Yeah, well,” Riegel said, “the future is full of things that don’t work.” He rubbed his neck and said, “I still have a long night ahead of me.” Riegel sniffed at his own underarms. “Wish I’d brought a change of clothes. I too reek of seagulls and malfeasance.”
We neared the exit for the town of Bellinghem and Riegel cleared his throat. “Sorry we didn’t make it out to lunch or dinner, even, but look, here’s the thing,” he said. “Dad’s been living at the St. Regis.”
“Like the hotel? Why would he be doing that?”
“I know,” Riegel said. “If Mom kicked me out, I’d stay at the Plaza.”
I wanted to understand if what my brother was telling me was a temporary matter or something serious, something I needed to worry about.
“They’re separated for now,” he said. “Mom wants a divorce and Dad seems willing to give her what she wants.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I hate to tell you this on an empty stomach, but you and I need to protect our interests.”
“What interests?”
“I’ve seen a lot of kids get fucked over by their parents’ divorces. I’m insisting one of them keep the penthouse. You better be sure there’s money in place to pay for your college.”
It didn’t make any sense that I was hearing this news from my brother or that he would be so focused on giving me the kind of information and advice I didn’t want. I nearly missed the exit and Riegel had to yell at me to turn.
“Why are you the one telling me this?” I gripped the wheel and signaled, barely making the off-ramp.
“Mom and Dad felt it would be best if I broke it to you. They wanted me to reassure you that their separation has nothing to do with you or what you’ve put them through.”
Nothing to do with me. What I’ve put them through.
I didn’t respond. Despite the rain, I’d been driving pretty fast on the highway, the speed obscuring the sounds around me. Now that I was on the surface streets, I slowed and could hear the tight traction of the Jag’s wheels on the wet road. The rain drilled the soft car top. The windshield wipers strained. The entire car had filled with a thick cloud of humidity. I could barely breathe.
“You’re probably going to hear gossip,” Riegel said. “Divorce news travels fast. Ignore it like you did that stuff with Cal.”
“What ‘stuff’ with Cal?”
“Look, I never believed any of it, but you must have known what people were saying.”
Just ahead of us, I saw a police car’s flashing red and blue lights. A row of white saw horses gleaming with orange reflectors barricaded the road.
“Shit,” Riegel said.
I slowed, stopped, and waited. A police officer approached the car and I opened the window prepared to hear the obvious: “The road’s blocked.” The cop wore a vinyl rain poncho and what looked like a plastic shower cap over his hat. His thick mustache drenched with rain. “Where are you headed?” he asked.
“My little brother’s a student at Bellingham.” Riegel tapped me on the shoulder like I was his property.
Right there, in front of the cop, I wanted to punch my brother in the jaw. Wanted to be arrested, to be found guilty. I still had a lot to say to Riegel. I couldn’t believe that he had waited all day to give me the news of our parents’ divorce. That Miriam Thatcher knew before I did. Couldn’t believe that he had dragged me around on his errands. That he’d had the nerve to bring up Cal.
“What do you want to do?” Riegel asked. “Still want to go to your friend’s house?”
I’d forgotten about Race’s party. The idea of getting high on someone else’s dime sounded like the right and necessary medicine.
With a little too much hopefulness in my voice, I asked the cop, “Could you drive me out to Powder Point?”
“The causeway’s flooded,” he said. “The only way out there is by boat.”
I nodded at the police officer. “How close can you get me to school?”
“Some trees are down, power lines too, but I know the back roads. I can drive up near the dorms.”
I agreed to go with the cop, then rolled up the window to say goodbye to Riegel. “Will you be okay?” I asked.
“I’ll either fall asleep at the wheel or I’ll be fine,” he said. “Don’t have to make it all the way to Princeton. I can stop in the city. Check up on Mom.”
“Maybe I should go with you.”
Riegel blinked, and I understood that he had other plans in the city. If he made it home, it would be late and consoling Mom wouldn’t be his first priority. I took a long look at my brother and saw something of my own future in his tired face.
“You know that girl I introduced you to this morning,” I said. “She’s my girlfriend. Her name’s Aidan. She’s from California. You can tell Mom all about her.”
“Mom will like that.” He smiled.
In order to change seats, Riegel had to slip out of the car and into the rain. I remembered the gift he’d given me and reached over to the backseat to grab the bag. Then I saw Aidan’s tangerine still untouched and tucked it into the bag as well. I waved good-bye to the Renoir.