(An extract from the novella The Vigil)
SALTY BLANKETS OF crushed crabs. He wants to go elsewhere. Nothing glowing like the regal white lighthouse. Mystery and echo. Spiral staircase. A lighthouse staircase at night holds all the chanting mystery of the sea. Tonight the stinging air makes him wish it was all over. No more of this night, no more of this dream. Nothing to see in the gently unfolding waves except the slow-motion square dance of moon-soaked seaweed changing partners. Keeper of the beacon watching over Little Brewster Island. Unda like an imprisoned angel damned to a lifetime of the unstoppable wood from the weed-grown tree repeating his pitiful choruses of guilt and shame. Asking the indifferent stars to beg his drowned daughter to forgive him for lacking the stability of a non-weed-grown tree. Bits of flesh and scattered little claws of the crabs mangled after gulls’ attack. But Unda cannot rescue himself from the sea. He cannot get outside of it. In his dreams he feels his daughter’s wet fingers. In his palm the slippery cascade of coins she brings up from the ocean floor. All the ancient lighthouses from Alexandria. From Ostia. From Laodicea in Syria depicted on the coins falling into his hands like silt dripping from her hair. In his dreams he is keeper of The Tower Of Hercules. Nightly he battles Geryon and buries his head. He burns all fires and finds his flailing daughter calling for him in the black waves. When he awakes, he is back in the Boston Light, the coins slipping away from his grasp. They tumble one by one down the metal coiling steps, their descending chorus of resonance mocking Unda like a robotic chuckling. He awakes to the same desolation, the same nothingness of aching regret. The last coin spins out a double helix, its final wobbling like death throes flattened into silence.
“That was so long ago I can’t even remember the poor girl’s name.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Unda’s daughter, for God’s sake!”
“You takin’ the boat out tomorrow? Red sky out there tonight. Should be nice and clear. Good day for fishin’!”
“It was Georgia, remember now? Such a shame. And Unda still runs it, the lighthouse? I thought it was automated.”
“Just couldn’t think of her name. That’s right. That’s right. Georgia. No, Unda’s still there but in a more or less superficial capacity, I guess you’d say. Coast Guard Auxiliary folks tend to it. They let him do some odds and ends. Probably feel a bit sorry for him.”
“Yeah, I’ll be goin’ out for sure. Let me have a couple reels of that monofilament line while you’re over by the poles.”
“Going for the largemouth bass?”
“Yeah.”
“So the poor soul is still up there? Damned shame about his daughter.”
“Damn shame it is.”
“Yeah.”
…and you were wearing that pretty new dress we gave you for your birthday…nicest little dress I ever saw…like a peach and pink sunset…like a summer sunset behind Boston Light…like the sun squeezed the sky until all the juices came streaming out…steam rising out of my coffee cup…I had just poured myself another, and the bouncing wisps of hot vapor twisted around my fingers the way I imagined the rope coiling around my neck…did you know that…sweet Georgia?…I wanted you to know how much I’ve wanted to hang myself from the tower…I should be at the bottom of the sea with you…say goodnight before you sleep…settle your salty blankets with my steady hand…I did not save you…the lighthouse knows…it mocks me…in my dreams I fly across the island like a banished gull…I see the circular beam of the tower light and it stares back at me with accusation…cold orb of its eye piercing through the saline haze of summer twilight…my little girl…my Georgia…do you hear me?…forgive me…forgive me…
Slowly interlocking fingers of knotted seaweed hide the secrets of the sea from the prying moonlight. Unda stares ahead from the tower. His endless vigil. Against one of the walls he has erected in his mind lies the coat of arms of Corunna. Fluttering shadows of brave soldiers’ feet charging to battle. Unda is not among them. He does not receive the rewards of courage. The shadows flit past the coat of arms displaying the skull and crossbones of the slayed Geryon. The Tower of Hercules standing at the top. The tower suddenly dissolves like a child’s sandcastle overwhelmed by waves at high tide. His daughter runs away, hiding behind one of the walls, afraid to know why he didn’t rescue the castle, why he didn’t rescue her. The racing shadows of Greek soldiers, running towards battle and victory, are like a flurry of punches from a superior boxer, pummeling Unda’s spirit over and over. Kegel helmets gleaming. Soldiers’ eyes glaring. Unda’s pride is an artificial prize. Geryon arises, and only the true Hercules can slay him. Unda torments himself over his failure to save his daughter. He is like a maniacal film director composing the very nightmare scenes that tear at him, rending his conscience into hopeless pieces, like the dismembered crabs nudged along the shore by the dark tips of twirling seaweed.
…and that’s why your mother left…you see…kept telling me I couldn’t let go…blamed me for clinging to the past…how you drowned… it drove her away…but I know why she left…my fault…I was supposed to protect you…dear Georgia…I watch over the sea…there’s a sweet harmony in my steady gaze each night…a sweet union with the paternal tower beam watching…guiding…there were so many nights…I repeated the words from the Psalms on so many nights after the sea took you away…where are you now?…the words of the Psalms are of no avail…He caused the storm to be still…so that the waves of the sea were hushed…feverishly repeated words…up in the tower…staring at the stars…there were no rough seas that night…no heavy seas clasping their destructive hands in gleeful anticipation of destruction and death…no…no…not like bad nights…seven on the Beaufort scale…near gale wind speed…thirty-two to thirty-eight miles per hour…no…no…wave height thirteen feet…I sounded the bell dear …Georgia…your mother left a year after you died…
“That’s the hell of it, you know. The boat was seaworthy. And she knew those waters. Christ, she spent her whole childhood playing by the lighthouse.”
“What about a backup? Want a couple reels of Spectra?”
“Extreme Braid you mean?”
“As I recall the whole night was dead calm, flat sea. Full moon, too.”
“You’ll know right off if you get a bite on this line. Bites go right to the rod and reel. Braid’s got almost no stretch.”
“Damn right spooky about that night. Coast Guard never found her. God knows how many times Unda went out in the rowboat. His own flesh and blood—how can you blame the poor man, although it must have driven his wife away.”
“Left him not too long after it happened, didn’t she?”
“Got to watch out for that, though. With no stretch on the line, that damn hook will tear right out of the fish’s mouth. Need a leader with a braided line. Give you some leeway there.”
“That’s right. Some flexibility.”
Beating splinters of rain across the wide lighthouse window panels. Unda’s mind fastens itself to the pounding. His eyes fixed upon the glass. He is in the ocean. Transported by the watery assault of the storm dissolving his consciousness the way a Sea Lamprey attaches the hellish suction of its circular mouth to the flesh of another fish. The ring of teeth like a disc of horn-shaped flags. Ring of fire from the circus, where Georgia laughed so much. His eyes steady on the road while heavy rain struck the windshield as she slept during the drive home. The conical cotton candy holder stuck to her face. The Sea Lamprey is a vicious master of the sea. It has attached itself to Unda. He sees the boat. He tries to swim there. He must find Georgia. Slowly he sinks, his hands eaten away by the predator fish with its seven pulsating pairs of gills. He cannot swim without hands. His pleading mind throws him back into the lighthouse, where he sits at his desk before a steaming coffee cup. The hot swirling vapors mock the ice-cold hatred he feels. Hatred of his failure. Hatred of his soul. Hatred of the tormenting thoughts of his daughter’s death. Her boat was found, but where did she go? What happened? He begs Breogan’s statue to search for her. He sees himself holding the gigantic Celtic shield. Massive disc of primordial stone. That will undo the savage secrecy of the deep. That will unleash the powers of tigers leaping through hoops of fire. One by one, the occluded openings on the sides of The Tower of Hercules evaporate as the stone turns to dust and an endless series of striped, fanged warriors leap out. They will resurrect his daughter. Summon her from the layers of sea mud and dark slime. The tigers will bring her back. He thinks of her joy when the animals jumped through the hoops. He sees her clapping furiously in her peach and pink dress, the circus lights on her face. He knows his sanity is a prisoner of the tide and ebbs away a little more each day.
Cape Cod girls
Ain’t got no combs,
Heave away, haul away!
They comb their hair
With a codfish bone,
And we’re bound away for Australia!
So heave her up, me bully bully boys,
Heave away, haul away!
Heave her up,
Why don’t you make some noise?
And we’re bound away for Australia!
“There you go! Now there you go!”
“Wasn’t that the one you’re singing? Used to hear Unda sing it to his daughter!”
“Whenever he had her, even in the stroller!”
“Man, did he have a horrid voice! Couldn’t sing in tune if his mortal life depended on it!”
“Yes, it’s true! Surely that is a fact!”
“But what a sight it was, him in town with Georgia, and she’d look up at him while he sang that shanty!”
“Beautiful girl. Beaming up at Unda, so enchanted by the song, even as a tiny thing—as if she knew the words!”
“He’d bring her by the tackle shop or along on grocery errands.”
“She loved the part about the codfish bone, didn’t she?”
“Always brightened up even more.”
“And she had one—I mean, didn’t he give her a bone that she ran through her hair whenever he sang that part?”
“Yeah, she did all right and smiled at him so big and bright. Like a sunrise.”
“What a terrible shame he lost her to the sea.”
“Lost her to the sea.”
“Yeah, what a shame it was.”
…and that’s when I started calling you Lumen…my sweet happy Georgia…such a bright face…always a smile for me when I sang about those Cape Cod Girls…I still have that little codfish bone…it’s right here with me in the tower…right there…next to my binoculars and the wooden radio…remember on Saturday nights how you loved to hear the big band music …but that was when you were just a few years old…they don’t have those radio concerts like they used to…sometimes when the wind is blowing hard and slapping against the tower glass…I can hear those clarinets and saxophones…I can hear the trumpet notes leaping across the cold stone floor in here…the way you tapped and scampered around when you heard the music…and I can see the cod bone looming up at me across the bay…as big as a leviathan from the Psalms…raising its monstrous head up…coming for me…it’s my punishment…sweet Lumen…I have forsaken you…I don’t deserve the sure footing and safety of dry land…I belong with you in the dead murk where no breaths are taken…where everything that moves in the mind is echoed by the motionlessness of the eternal seabed…that must become my grave…my face buried in the black mud will rejoice for a few beams of light…when you look upon me…Lumen…with your innocent eyes…with the glowing stars inside your unblinking eyes…
CAPE COD TIMES
LITTLE BREWSTER ISLAND
Tragedy at Sea
LITTLE BREWSTER ISLAND—Coast Guard patrols have ended a three-day search for Georgia Unda, who failed to return to the island after taking her father’s boat out last week. Her father, Ralph Unda, the lighthouse keeper for Boston Light, said she put out to sea just before dusk and he watched the boat through his binoculars. He added that after she’d traveled approximately two nautical miles, a heavy rain set in, and he could no longer see the vessel clearly.
A spokesperson for the Coast Guard reported the boat was located about five miles to the east of Chatham. The motor was turned off, which had allowed the boat to drift eastward. There was no sign of Georgia or foul play of any kind. Nothing on the deck, inside the cabin, or on the exterior of the vessel appeared to have been disturbed or damaged.
Mr. Unda was utterly devastated and unable to respond to questions. He did say that Georgia was studying photography at college and had wanted to take sunset photographs on the water. She intended to turn around and come right back. Unda added that the storm seemed to come out of nowhere and he could no longer keep the boat in his sights.
The Theseus, purchased only last year, is said to be in perfect, seaworthy condition. Local authorities will be performing a routine forensic examination on the boat. Hopefully, this will help solve the mystery of Ms. Unda’s disappearance.
Please click here for a review/details of the book
About the Author
Peter J. Dellolio has published three poetry collections. His writing – which includes poetry, fiction, one-act plays, and film criticism – has appeared widely in magazines and journals. He’s a contributing editor for NYArts Magazine; he’s written art and film reviews and several monographs on new artists. He’s the Co-Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Artscape2000, a prestigious, award-winning, art e-zine. He taught poetry and art for LEAP and is an artist himself. His paintings and 3D works offer abstract images of famous people in all walks of life who have died tragically at a young age. He graduated from New York University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
