Island Tour

“Hi, Bobby? This is the person you picked up earlier and drove to the Manisses. I was wondering if you had time to take me on the full island tour.”

    Bobby looked at his watch. Five o’clock. The next boat wasn’t due in for a while.  And there wouldn’t be any other island tours today. They paid better than waiting in line. “Sure. It’s $75 for the full treatment.”

   “I know. That’s fine. When can you pick me up?”

    “Five minutes?”

   “Okay. See you soon.”

   He pulled into the parking lot of the Manisses, got out and looked over at the hill. The kangaroos were hopping around. The yak was grazing.

   “Is that a camel?”

    He looked in the direction she was pointing. “Yep. It’s a kind of private zoo, though the owners let everyone look at the animals and feed them.“

    “I see a yak. Weird.”

    He looked at her. She wasn’t as old as he had thought. Her hair was prematurely gray, but she didn’t look any older than he was. Maybe younger.

     “Well you can walk down and look at the zoo any time,” he said. “Let’s hit the road. Why don’t you sit in the front of the van—you’ll be able to see better, and I won’t have to yell.”

     Over the years he had grown tired of his spiel—the Spring House and the spring, watercress blah blah, the Southeast Lighthouse moved back from the brink blah blah, the wind farm blah, and so on. He could do it in his sleep. So sometimes, to amuse himself, he made up stories to relate—how the island had once been floating and was towed out and anchored in its current position, how the original settlers were all from Fiji. People generally caught on and thought it was funny and they all had a good laugh. 

   But on this tour he was more interested in getting information than giving it. And his passenger seemed interested in getting information, too. Though the island didn’t seem to be the particular subject of her interest.

     “How did you wind up here on the island?” she asked, as he stopped near the bluff overlook.

     “Let’s walk out,” he said. “Don’t touch the bushes on either side of the path, they’re mostly poison ivy.”

    “So I see,” she said, in an I’m-not-an-idiot tone of voice.

    They walked single file to the overlook, a dangerous plunge to the beach below with a view of the deserted bluffs and coves to one side and the Southeast Light to the other.

     “I can see why you like it here,” she said.

    He looked at the windmills turning slowly. They looked huge, even though they were three miles offshore.

     “It’s very different now than when I got here. Thirty-some years ago now. I took a summer job as a bus boy when I was in school. Lived upstairs from the restaurant. Surfed all day, if there were any waves. Worked all night. The island was different then. Very short season. We were longing for tourists. More business, more tips. And it was isolated. No unlimited long distance, no cell phones, no Facebook. Just a bunch of misfits.”

     “And then?”

      They walked back to the van, and he held the door open for her. She got in, and he closed it. An old-world courtesy he performed mechanically.

     “And then?” she repeated when he sat down behind the wheel.

     “And then, and then, I graduated and went to Hawaii to surf bigger waves and work in different restaurants. And then I ate a lot of psychedelic mushrooms, and saw friends get ground into coral reefs and I became afraid of the water. And I washed up back here, where I knew the beaches and the breaks and the people and the climate and the rhythms. And I have never wanted to leave.”

     They drove past the rock at the entrance to Black Rock road. “Black Rock, the surfing beach, is down that way,” he said.

      “Why do they call it Black Rock? The rock isn’t black.”

     The rock, in fact, was gaudy colors of pink and aqua, with a couple of stuffed animals on top.

      “That’s not Black Rock, that’s the painted rock. Islanders decorate it when they get married or graduate or whatever. Black Rock is a rock in the water at the beach.”

    “Do you still surf?”

    “Once in a while. If the waves are perfect. But when it’s warm I’m mostly too busy driving.” He looked at her. “And what about you? Why did you come to the island?”

     “I’d heard about it for a long time. I used to know people here. I was curious. You hear the advertisements on NPR in Connecticut all the time. I just thought, why not sail away on the Block Island ferry?”

     He did not press her. Just waited.

     “And I’m glad I did. I’m learning a lot about what they see in the place.”

      They rode in silence for a while, broken only by Bobby’s occasional narrative.

     As they started down the hill towards Champlain’s marina, a moped zoomed up the hill going in the other direction. In the rear view mirror, Bobby saw Kate twist around to wave.

     “Oh my God,” said his passenger. “Those are my kids!”

     Bobby looked at her. “What is your name?”

     “Katherine Addams,” she whispered.

    “I thought so,” he said. “That makes three.”

    “People call me Kat.”

    “Well it’s out of the bag now.”  He circled at the bottom of the hill and drove slowly up. The moped was out of sight. “I want to introduce you to a friend of mine,” he said. “We need to have a chat.”

     “I guess we do,” she said.