Final Haven

I was eleven years old.
Morning - overcast - early fall.
An old, bulky, motorized whaler's rowboat
rhythmically spanked the waves
as it sped
from the island of Vinal Haven to the Maine land
over
the primal, dank, wind-bitten, Penobscot Bay.

A glum, pregnant silence shivered through
the two families.
The week's holiday -
bucolic cabins, fireplaces, books, remote walks, unkempt sleeping bags,
carefree games, fresh fish, fantastic stories, whimsical adventures -
was over.

Only the old sea salt islander steering the boat,
sporting the implacable demeanor of a barnacle stuck on ocean rock,
remained impervious to both the human and elemental gloom.
I gave an apprehensive glance at the approaching horizon.
The inevitable transformation of simple rustic pleasures
into tortuous institutional machinations,
was at hand.
A moment before,
the volatile Mr. Henriques, precariously stood up, anchored his legs wide,
and after muttering something unintelligible,
slapped his fifteen year old son Clark across the face.

Cheek reddened,
Clark sat defiant, proud,
a face of quiet, unrepentant triumph,
while Mr. Henriques, cheek blanched,
slumped back down, crestfallen,
a face of noisy, penitent defeat.
The father had just committed an unpardonable sin.
He beat a child in public,
which we all new,
was to be executed solely in the privacy of one's home.
Nothing was said, everything implied.
Later, I asked my older brother what Clark had done,
but was told brusquely, 'who knows.'

A year later, the headstrong Clark, falling from his birthday present,
a mint-green Vespa motorcycle,
crushed his helmet-less skull on Follen Road.