When the scream was cut short, as it always was, I continued walking forward, toward the bow. I would be needed there to guide the spotlight with which the Captain would have to spot the buoys to get us all safely into Southport harbor.
It was a clear night; once at the bow I could see the stars in all their glory, too numerous to count, or spot familiar constellations. It’s a sight that’s known and loved by all those who follow the sea, and it had a special meaning for we, who manned the Orcas, for the stars were immutable, the one unchanging part of our universe.
I checked the lines, the winch, and ties in the chained-off portion of the bow, then notified the Captain by walkie-talkie that all was ready. He gave me “Very well,” and told me that we’d be on the mark in five minutes. This gave me a few moments to relax, adjust my vision to the darkness, and look around.
The bow is an eerie place at night for all its beauty; there is an unreality about a large ferryboat in the dark. Between where I stood on station and the bridge superstructure towering above me there was a broad area always crowded with people in warm weather. The bridge—dominating the aft field of vision, a ghostly, unlit gray-white monolith, reflecting the moonlight with an almost unreal cast and glow. A silent, spinning radar mast on top, and the funnel, end-on, in back of the bridge, with its wing supports and mast giving it a futuristic cast, only made the scene more alien, more awesome.
I glanced around at the people on the deck. Not as many as usual, but then it was very late, and there was a chill in the air. I saw a few familiar faces, and there was some lateral shift in focus on a number of them, indicating that I was seeing at least three levels of reality that night.
Now, that last is kind of hard to explain. I’m not sure whether I understand it, either, but I well remember when I applied for this job, and the explanations I got then.
Working deck on a ferryboat is a funny place for a former English teacher, anyway. But, while I’d been, I like to think, a good teacher, I was in constant fights with the administration over their lax discipline, stuffed-shirt attitudes toward teaching and teachers, and their general incompetence. The educational system isn’t made for mavericks; it’s designed to make everyone conform to bureaucratic ideals which the teacher is supposed to exemplify. One argument too many, I guess, and there I was, an unemployed teacher in a time when there are too many teachers. So I drifted. I’d lost my parents years before and there were no other close relatives, so I had no responsibilities. I’d always loved ferryboats—raised on them, loved them with the same passion some folks like trains and trolley cars and such—and when I discovered an unskilled job opening on the old Delaware ferry I took it. The fact that I was an ex-teacher actually helped; ferry companies like to hire people who relate well to the general public. After all, deck duty is hectic when the ferry’s docking or docked, but for the rest of the time you just sort of stand there, and every tourist and traveler in the world wants to talk. If you aren’t willing to talk back and enjoy it, forget ferryboats.
And I met Joanna. I’m not sure if we were in love—maybe I was, but I’m pretty sure Joanna wasn’t capable of loving anyone. Like all the other men in her life, I was just convenient. For a while things went smoothly—I had a job I liked, and we shared the rent. She had a little daughter she doted on, father unknown, and little Harmony and I hit it off, too. We all gave each other what each needed.
It lasted a little more than a year.
In the space of three weeks my neat, comfortable, complacent world came apart: First she threw that damned party while I was working, and a cigarette or something was left, and the apartment burned. The fire department managed to get Joanna out—but little Harmony had been asleep in a far room and they never got to her through the smoke.
I tried to comfort her, tried to console her, but I guess I was too full of my own life, my own self-importance in her reality, that I just didn’t see the signs. A couple of weeks after the fire she’d seemed to brighten up, act more like her normal self.
And, one evening, while I worked on the boat, she hanged herself.
Just a week later that damned bridge-tunnel put the ferry out of business, too. I’d known it was coming, of course, but I’d made few plans beyond the closing—I’d figured I could live off Joanna for a while and we’d make our decisions together.
Now here I was alone, friendless, jobless, and feeling guilty as hell. I seriously thought about ending it all myself about then, maybe going down to the old ferryboat and blowing it and me to hell in one symbolic act of togetherness. But, then, just when I’d sunk to such depths, I got this nice, official-looking envelope in the mail from something called the Bluewater Corporation, Southport, Maine. Just a funny logo, some blue water with an odd, misty-looking shape of a ship in it.
“Dear Mr. Dalton,” the letter read. “We have just learned of the closing of the Delaware service, and we are in need of some experienced ferry people. After reviewing your qualifications, we believe that you might fit nicely into our operation, which, we guarantee, will not be put out of business by bridge or tunnel. If this prospect interests you, please come to Southport terminal at your earliest convenience for a final interview. Looking forward to seeing you soon, I remain, sincerely yours, Herbert V. Penobscot, Personnel Manager, Bluewater Corp.”
I just stood there staring at the thing for I don’t know how long. A ferry job! That alone should have excited me, yet I wondered about it, particularly that line about “reviewing my qualifications” and “final interview.” Funny terms. I could see why they’d look for experienced people, and all ferry folk knew when a line was closed and would naturally look for their own replacements there, but—why me? I hadn’t applied to them, hadn’t even heard of them or their line—or, for that matter, of Southport, Maine, either. Obviously they had some way of preselecting their people—very odd for this kind of a business.
I scrounged up an old atlas and tried to find it. The letterhead said “Southport—St. Michael—The Island,” but I could find nothing about any such place in the atlas or almanac. If the letterhead hadn’t looked so convincing, I’d have sworn somebody was putting me on. As it was, I had nothing else to do, and it beat drinking myself to death, so I hitchhiked up.
It wasn’t easy finding Southport, I’ll tell you. Even people in nearby towns had never heard of it. The whole town was about a dozen houses, a seedy ten-unit motel, a hot dog stand, and a very small ferry terminal with a standard but surprisingly large ferry ramp and parking area.
I couldn’t believe the place warranted a ferry when I saw it; you had to go about sixty miles into the middle of nowhere on a road the highway department had deliberately engineered to miss some of the world’s prettiest scenery, and had last paved sometime before World War II, just to get there.
There was a light on in the terminal, so I went in. A grayhaired man, about fifty, was in the ticket office, and I went over and introduced myself. He looked me over carefully, and I knew I didn’t present a very good appearance.
“Sit down, Mr. Dalton,” he offered in a tone that was friendly but businesslike. “My name’s McNeil. I’ve been expecting you. This really won’t take long, but the final interview includes a couple of strange questions. If you don’t want to answer any of them, feel free, but I must ask them nonetheless. Will you go along with me?”
I nodded and he fired away. It was the damndest job interview I’d ever had. He barely touched on my knowledge of ferries except to ask whether it mattered to me that the Orcas was a single-bridge, twin-screw affair, not a double-ender like I’d been used to. It still loaded on one end and unloaded on the other, though, through a raisable bow, and a ferry was a ferry to me and I told him so.