It was another one of those numberless summer days. On Sagasaugh Island, the mornings and evenings blended together, the sharp edges of night and day feathered by long sunrises and sunsets. Without the weight of responsibility the days of the week lost their meaning. I sat in the rocking chair on the porch, eyes closed, steeped in blissful boredom.
The outside world leaked onto the island through radios and a television set in the neighborhood bar. Twice a month a Postal Service boat would brave the waves to deliver a load of Sears catalogues or the odd letter from a relative. Other than that, the ten-mile strip of water that separated us from the mainland was like a castle wall. Faced with the grey violence of the Atlantic on the other shore, we had to turn to our neighbors to find strength and comfort.
I heard a grunt and heaved my eyes open a crack. Across the way, our next door neighbor, Mrs. Weatherby, engaged herself in a bitter tug-o'-war with the daisies that ringed her house. Her hair glinted silver in the afternoon sun. Deceptively fragile, ropy hands fought with the recalcitrant weeds. The flowers had been one of a long list of aborted attempts at color, growing pale and sickly in the sandy soil of the island. I had offered to help earlier in the day but got only a "thank you, no" and an explanation that the exertion "kept her arteries supple". The tough brown stalks slowly lost ground.
Mrs. Weatherby was rather new in our insular community, having moved in a mere ten years ago. You would have never guessed it. Instead of waiting the usual twenty-year prove-yourself-and-learn-the-way-things-are-done-around-here period, she had jumped straight into things with astounding enthusiasm. Her good-natured warmth and ready smile eventually won over everyone but the most disagreeable of the islanders. She would treat us children to home-baked goodies that would spoil our appetites. It was her only weakness in our parents' eyes.
She never seemed to talk down to us and was always accepted us at our own level. Soft summer evenings were filled with stories of her late husband's exploits in the War, skillfully embellished for her young audience. We came to prefer her stories to whatever was pumped through the radio. After some of her more romantic renderings she would get a wistful look in her eye and then send us running home with a cookie in our hands. She had no visible means of support. We were her only family. I still can't figure out if we adopted her or she us.
One day, I sat in my rocking chair on the porch when I saw Mrs. Weatherby emerge from her house armed and ready for battle. She stood outside the door, her knee pads and gardening gloves on, surveying the bright afternoon through nearly opaque sunglasses under a broad summer hat.
"H'lo Mrs. Weatherby," I called to her, "whatcha doin'?"
"Well hello Joel. Why don't you come over here so we don't have to shout at each other and I'll show you."
I hopped down off of the chair and ran up next to her. She smiled at my enthusiasm.
"I have a friend on the mainland, a botanist, who's interested in Oriental flora. I wrote him for something that would take to this poor soil and he sent me these."
She held out a bulging envelope to me. Inside, a pile of tiny, dirty black grains flowed loosely. Her smile broadened, "What do you say we give 'em a try?"
She poured the seeds into my outstretched hand. I couldn't believe anything substantial could sprout from such little specks. Nevertheless, rigged up in one of her old-fashioned wide-brimmed hats, I set to pushing the minuscule seeds into the damp, sun-warmed earth.
The tepid summer days and fresh summer nights passed quietly. Only the progress of Mrs. Weatherby's flower bed marked the time. They broke the surface during the night. My mom and dad let me go out when Mrs. Weatherby called. You could barely see the pale green buds under my flashlight. Unlike the daisies and her numerous other attempts, these plants thrived. Soon their stalks grew as tall as me with showy white and lavender flowers. They were the tallest poppies anyone had ever seen.
*
Tuesday, September 1. The day before school started. One of the few summer dates I can remember. A whale had beached itself on the windward shore. Its beautifully streamlined form lay lifeless on the sand. The whole town turned out to see the strange gift of the waves. Its massive, oblate body with its graceful fins created a disturbing on the land. Close up, the barnacle encrusted skin provided us boys with something different to poke and prod.
A distant buzzing filled the sky above us. We were all too engrossed in the whale to really notice it. The buzzing grew until a helicopter hovered over us, roaring and spraying seawater in our faces. The words 'Oceanographic Survey Society' stood out on its bulbous white body in strong, tall letters. The ungainly contraption managed to land and disgorged a small army of men and women in yellow plastic coats. They swarmed to the whale, pushed us back, and set up a plastic tape fence in the sand. They then set to climbing all over the carcass, poking and prodding, cutting and scraping. I felt the yellow clad men were being rather selfish in keeping the whole whale to themselves. They all wore intense frowns and sounded very important when they talked. They didn't seem to be enjoying their exploration of the giant piece of flotsam at all. We lost interest in the whale and the helicopter after a few hours.
I started to leave but saw Floyd, our "Post Master", lingering at the tape fence. His usual faded Bermuda shorts, tie-dyed T-shirt, and shredded baseball cap were definitely not government issue. No one seemed to be able to find enough substantial faults in Floyd to lodge a formal complaint, so he continued to hot-rod his motor dinghy across the waves; a bi-weekly Santa Claus of mail. I ran up to him to say hello.
"Hey little dude! How's it goin'?" he said, kneeling down.
Today Floyd was wearing an old, beat-up, comfortable looking T-shirt with a cartoon on it. The man in the drawing had a silly smile on his face and held a bunch of plants in one hand. In the other, he held a funny looking cigarette. The caption in big blue letters was 'Kona Gold is Hawaiian for A Good Time'.
We talked for a bit after he gave me a good tickling. He told me to ask my mom if I could go to a "Rolling Stones" concert with him and sent me home with a wave.
*
The last day of freedom ended as the sun slipped past the horizon. I would still see all my friends every day in class, but of course it never was quite the same.
That morning I passed Mrs. Weatherby's poppies on my way to school. They had formed swelled, pale green bulbs on the ends of their stalks. After school I went to see the whale, but only a deep red stain marked the sand where it had lain.
That night, I jumped out of bed to the sight of flashing red lights and the screaming of sirens. I could hear a man talking with a bull-horn: "Come out with your hands in the air!" I ran to my window in time to see Mrs. Weatherby disappear into a police van.
*
The whole town crossed the gulf to the mainland for Mrs. Weatherby's arraignment. For many it was the first time they had left the island. An irate taxi driver almost clipped Herb Granger when he tried to saunter across a major boulevard.
Once in the courthouse, my parents and I ran into the officer in charge of the bust. I recognized his voice as the one I had heard over the bullhorn. He sneered as he talked and his tone seemed to foretell doom and destruction.
"One of our team members on the oceanographic survey noticed your little crop. He chose, rather wisely, to wait and report his finding to us."
The judge, once hearing Mrs. Weatherby's story, stifled a chuckle and dismissed the case, levying a five-hundred dollar fine on her for some obscure misdemeanor. A community pot took care of the fine and it was back to the island, back to home, and back to life as usual.
*
School had been out for a month. I sat in my rocking chair basking in the sun when I heard a familiar grunt from across the way.
Mrs. Weatherby was busy pushing soil in around some plants she had just received from a friend in Oregon. Their palmate leaves reminded me of the plants covering some of Floyd's shirts.
I asked her the names of her funny new plants her mainland friend had sent.
She knitted her brows in thought and replied: "I think he called them 'Mary Janes'."
Pakeha