The man in the ticket office at the Fire Island ferry looked me up and down a dozen times, then shrugged; he stood in his fleecy parka, hands wrapped in thick sheepskin mitts which he clapped continuously together, cursing that the stove had run out of heating oil, and looking dubiously at the darkening sky. Yes, the ferry was running; how often it was running, he had no idea; it was off-season now, and the boat was not as regular as in summer time, he informed me. It had last departed over an hour ago, and to his knowledge it hadn’t sunk; when it would return was anybody’s guess. All he could do was to give me a reasonable degree of hope that, provided the weather did not worsen, I could expect to find myself on Fire Island within the next two to three hours, and he pointed out a white-painted shack, with two windows and a door, and the words Porky’s Clam Bar sticking out above its sloping tiled roof, where he suggested I wait.
Inside was a blaze of warmth, with tightly packed, wooden tables and chairs, a wood-beamed ceiling, blue-and-white check cotton curtains, and a full-length bar loaded with trays of blueberry muffins and, as the sign on the wall assured us, home-made belly-busting Lunar donuts. There was a liberal sprinkling of artefacts in keeping with the seafood and seaside atmosphere, including tiffany-style lamps with lobster and clam shell motifs, hanging plants on thick rope cradles, a map of Olde Long Island, and a 28-pound lobster nailed to a wooden board. Handwritten signs on the wall advertised ‘The clams that made Long Island famous served here’, ‘Root beer served in a frozen mug’, and what has now become an almost statutory item in every American restaurant with any aspersions to grandeur, Eau Perrier.
I ordered a beer and a bowl of steamers from a small boy in a baseball cap who had been sitting on a bar-stool, practising sticking a knife into a beer mat, and he rushed off through a doorway shouting at the top of his voice, ‘There’s a lady out there wants serving.’
A good wait later a girl in a sailor-suit uniform placed a massive bundle of silver foil on the table, and opened it up to reveal an enormous pile of whitey-beige shells of varying size, from medium to huge, each with a shrivelled grey protuberance like an elephant’s trunk. As far as attractive-looking food goes, Long Island steamer clams must rate in the top 10 most ugly creatures ever to be eaten by mankind; but as far as taste goes, they have few peers.
I glanced up; the girl, and the boy in the baseball cap, were both looking curiously at me. I turned my attention to my bowl and began to lift out the content of another shell, when I heard a snigger. I saw a second girl in sailor uniform dart her head back behind the doorway, then cautiously look round again at me. For someone who’s job it is to pass unnoticed at any time, anywhere, I hadn’t begun my trip to Fire Island too successfully.
The weather lifted a little, and in a shorter time than the ticket collector had predicted, I was in the covered downstairs section of the hydrofoil as it pitched through the none-too-gentle swell with a disturbing lack of ease. The pencil silhouette of the island appeared from time to time as the bow dipped. I looked up at the ceiling and wasn’t sure whether to be reassured or worried by the fact that it was thick with orange lifejackets.
Other than the pilot, a large bearded man with a fat cigar, who was reminiscent of the man in the John Player advertisement, and a youth with him on the bridge, there was only one other person on the ferry, an elderly woman in a purple mackintosh, who held three miniature poodles on a tangled string of leashes. She discussed with them the finer points of the voyage, pointing out to them landmarks they shouldn’t miss, and discussing how they might like their steak cooked for supper. They were called Tootsie, Popsie and Baby.
The arrival of the ferry in Ocean Beach harbour could not be accurately described as a major event for the islanders. A man in a donkey jacket came with evident reluctance out of the long shed that ran the length of the dock, caught the line the youth tossed him and pulled it swiftly down over a bollard.
It was bitterly cold now, and as I stepped ashore I felt the wind and damp gnawing through every inch of my body. It made me thoroughly unenthusiastic for anything. If Ocean Beach had a charm in summer, it had been packed away most efficiently for the winter; the whole place felt morose, like an abandoned film set. The air was full of the flapping of boat tarpaulins and the clacking of halyards as an assortment of power boats and small yachts jerked uncomfortably at their moorings in the tiny marina, on the other side of the George Crohn Senior Wagon Park, where a myriad of rusting four-wheeled kiddy karts sat waiting for their owners to return next spring and load them with their baggage and provisions.
I walked around the town, looking for an open shop. A sign in a window said, ‘Have a great winter, see you in the spring. Larry and Don’. Underneath it, two young men in athletic outfits beamed out, one pulling the other in a kiddy kart. A shutter banged in the wind, and some gulls flew screeching overhead. A small group of people sat drinking coffee inside a real estate agency, but I walked past.
A general store was open and I went in. The woman behind the counter was a cheerful old stick and gave the impression of not having had any form of contact with human life for several days as she reeled into a ten-minute monologue about such topics as the weather, the general state of repair of the harbour wall, and the dangerous condition of the lanes on the island due to increasing congestion of bicycles. There was no stopping her, and by the time she had finished talking, I knew everything about the island except the one thing I was interested in: the house in Duneway Avenue called Coconut Grove. On this topic Fire Island’s answer to the Doomsday Book was stumped. All she knew was that it was owned by someone she thought lived in New York, who rented it through an agency. Mostly, this summer, she thought it had remained empty, although occasionally a tall fair-haired man, Harriman or Harris she thought his name might be, would visit it. Sometimes he came alone, sometimes with another man; but no one from the house ever came into the shops, nor did they take any interest in the community affairs of the island. She asked me if I was thinking of renting the house, and I told her I had heard it might be coming on the market and I wanted to take a look at it.
She gave me elaborate directions to the house. I thanked her and set off through the tiny town. A notice in the window of the wooden police station warned me not to evade buying a bicycle licence. A large free-standing notice further on made it very plain that there was to be no eating or drinking nor changing of clothes on the beach, that the use of radios was regulated, and that I was to pick up my dog’s droppings. The population of Fire Island was evidently big licks on notices.
I walked past a massive water recycling plant and was suddenly out of the town. A long concrete path stretched out in front of me, lined with thick evergreen vegetation — pines, firs, holly; anyone planning to ambush me would have it all his own way with this high shrubbery. I was glad of my disguise, but knew, as anyone lying in wait for me would know, that not too many people would be out walking around this island for their health right now.
I had my hand sunk deep into my coat pocket, and clamped firmly and reassuringly around the handle and trigger of my gun. I know of agents who don’t like to carry guns; I’m not one of them. There are many agents who prefer to carry small unobtrusive guns; I prefer to wear a jacket that’s one size too large than a gun that’s one size too small.