The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [2]
Mr. Wapshot—Captain Leander—was not around. He was at the helm of the S.S. Topaze, taking her down the river to the bay. He took the old launch out on every fine morning in the summer, stopping at Travertine to meet the train from Boston and then going across the bay to Nangasakit, where there were a white beach and an amusement park. He had been many things in his life; he had been a partner in the table-silver company and had legacies from relations, but nothing much had stuck to his fingers and three years ago Cousin Honora had arranged for him to have the captaincy of the Topaze to keep him out of mischief. The work suited him. The Topaze seemed to be his creation; she seemed to mirror his taste for romance and nonsense, his love of the seaside girls and the long, foolish, brine-smelling summer days. She had a sixty-foot water line, an old Harley engine with a single screw and enough room in her cabin and on her decks for forty passengers. She was an unseaworthy hulk that moved—Leander said so himself—like real estate, her decks packed with school children, whores, Sisters of Mercy and other tourists, her wake sewn with hard-boiled-egg shells and sandwich papers and her bones shaking so wildly at each change of speed that the paint flaked off her hull. But the voyage seemed to Leander, from his place at the helm, glorious and sad. The timbers of the old launch seemed held together by the brilliance and transitoriness of summer and she smelled of summery refuse—sneakers, towels, bathing suits and the cheap fragrant matchboard of old bathhouses. Down the bay she went over water that was sometimes the violet color of an eye to where the land wind brought aboard the music of the merry-go-round and where you could see the distant shore of Nangasakit—the scrim of nonsensical rides, paper lanterns, fried food and music that breasted the Atlantic in such a fragile jumble that it seemed like the rim of flotsam, the starfish and orange skins that came up on the waves. “Tie me to the mast, Perimedes,” Leander used to shout when he heard the merry-go-round. He did not mind missing his wife’s appearance in the parade.
There were some delays about the commencement of the parade that morning. These seemed to center around the Woman’s Club float. One of the charter members came up the street to ask Moses and Coverly if they knew where their mother was. They said they hadn’t been home since dawn. They were beginning to worry when Mrs. Wapshot appeared suddenly in the doorway of Moody’s drugstore and took her place. The Grand Marshal blew his whistle, the drummer with his head in a bloody bandage played a measure and the fifes and drums began to squeal, discharging a dozen pigeons from the roof of the Cartwright Block. A little wind came off the river, bringing into the square the dark, raw smell of mud. The parade picked up its scattered bones and moved.
The fire-department volunteers had been up until midnight, washing and polishing the gear of the Niagara Hose Company. They seemed proud of their work, but under some enjoinder to appear serious. The fire truck was followed by old Mr. Starbuck, who sat in an open car wearing the uniform of the G.A.R., although it was well known that he had never had anything to do with the Civil War. Next came the Historical Society float where a direct—an authenticated—descendant of Priscilla Alden sweated under a heavy wig. She was followed by a truckful of lighthearted girls from the table-silver company who scattered coupons into the crowd. Then came Mrs. Wapshot, standing at her lectern, a woman of forty