The Green Ripper Part 16

"'There's no need ever to contact me again,' Jake said."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Meyer asked earnestly.

"I don't know how I am. Or exactly who I am."

"Remember when I talked about the new barbarism last December? About the toad-lizard thing with the rotten breath, squatting in its cave? You met it, Travis. You felt the lizard breath. It is man's primal urge to decimate himself down to numbers which can exist on the wornout planet. It is man's self-hatred. The G.o.d of the lemmings, and of the poisonous creatures which can die of their own venom. It takes time to back away from that, Travis. Time."

It had taken most of the five months to finish the job of sorting myself out. Meyer had put me on the right track. I didn't know what he had meant when he said to me, "Not one of us ever grows up to be what he intended to be. Not one of us fulfills his own expectations, Travis. We are all our own children, in that sense. At some point, somewhere, we have to stop making demands."

There was no great moment of my saying, "Aha!" or "Eureka!" It just slowly came clear, like the mist rising on a mountain morning. There was a black, deep, dreadful ravine separating me from all my previous days. Over there on the other side were the pathetic and innocent little figures of world-that-once-was. McGee and his chums. McGee and Gretel. McGee and his toys and visions.

I could not approach the edge of that ravine and look down. Far far below were the bodies of the dead.

And here I was, on this side. This side was today. This side was the crystal taste of icy gin, the brute weight of tropic sun, the tiny beads of sweat on my forearm, the lovely lines of the Magnum Maltese, those white popcorn gulls way out there, afloat after feeding, Viv's glad little, cries of love, the way the stars would s.h.i.+ne tonight, the way the clams would taste, the way we would fit together as we slept.

I tasted all the tastes of today and felt in me a rising joy that this could be true. I had raised myself up from many madnesses to be exactly what I am. It had become too constant a pain to try endlessly to be what I thought I should become.

I thought I saw movement over toward the shallows, sixty feet away, where the water danced in sunlight. I looked in the drawer and took out the Polaroid gla.s.ses and put them on. Yes, there were some bonefish tailing across the gra.s.s, feeding. I went down and changed the rig on the little Orvis spinner, knifed open a clam for bait, sneaked out near the transom and was barely able to drop the clam far enough ahead of them so as not to spook them.

For a little while I thought they would feed right on by but then came the soft mouthy movement. I counted to three and gave him a quick little hit, and he took off, screaming the reel, hissing the line. There is an almost indescribable elegance about that first run of a big bonefish. Big meaning anything from five pounds to ten. No flap, no wobble, just incredibly smooth acceleration. He circled from the port quarter around the stern about a hundred feet from the boat, and around to starboard. I had no hope of turning him. I managed to pa.s.s the rod around the aerial and outrigger without losing him, but I could not manage to get up the ladderway to the bridge fast enough to clear the line, and he broke loose. I laughed at myself, and I wished the fish good luck and long life. His acids would dissolve the hook within days. He would have something to tell the others. How he outwitted monsters.

I stowed the rod and went back up to the gin. The sun was moving down toward the horizon, losing some of its sting. Viv came climbing up to the fly bridge, gla.s.s in hand. She was wearing a short beach robe with big red polka dots. She kissed me. She smelled of her French soap, and tasted of her mint toothpaste. She put her drink down, combed her hands back through her hair and stretched on tiptoe, then sat down, sipped her drink, and smiled at me.

No need for words. Her eyes were wis.h.i.+ng me luck and long life. I had outwitted monsters.