Night Freight

I heard Nicky laugh, and Pete say something that had Lila's name in it, and Kjel said, "Shut up, you damned fool, he'll hear you!"

And Nicky said, "He can't hear inside. Besides, what if he does? He knows already, don't he?"

And Kjel said, "He doesn't know. I hope to Christ he never does."

And Pete said, "Hell, he's got to have an idea. The whole village knows what a slut he's married to . . ."

I had a box wrench in my hand. I put it down and walked out there and I said, "What're you talking about? What're you saying about Lila?"

None of them said anything. They all just looked at me. It was a gray morning, no sun. A dark morning, not much light. Getting darker, too. I could see clouds on the horizon, dark hazy things, swallowing the light—swallowing it fast.

I said, "Pete, you called my wife a slut. I heard you."

Kjel said, "Da

I said, "He meant something. He meant it." I reached out and caught Pete by the shirt and threw him up against the port outrigger. He tried to tear my hands loose; I wouldn't let go. "How come, Pete? What do you know about Lila?"

Kjel said, "For Christ's sake, Da

"What do you know, goddamn you!"

Pete was mad. He didn't like me roughing him up like that. And he didn't give a damn if I knew—I guess that was it. He'd only been working for us a few months. He was a stranger in Camaroon Bay. He didn't know me and I didn't know him and he didn't give a damn.

"I know because I was with her," he said. "You poor sap, she's been screwing everybody in the village behind your back. Everybody! Me, Nicky, even Kjel here—"

Kjel hit him. He reached in past me and hit Pete and knocked him loose of my hands, almost knocked him overboard. Pete went down. Nicky backed away. Kjel backed away too, looking at me. His face was all twisted up. And dark—dark like the things on the horizon.

"It's true, then," I said. "It's true."

"Da

"No," I said.

"It only happened once with her and me. Only once. I tried not to, Da

"No," I said.

I turned around, I put my back to him and the other two and the dark things on the horizon and I went into the wheelhouse and shut the door and locked it. I didn't feel anything. I didn't think anything either. There was some gasoline in one of the cupboards, for the auxiliary engine. I got the can out and poured the gas on the deckboards and splashed it on the bulkheads.

Outside Kjel was pounding on the door, calling my name.

I lit a match and threw it down.

Nothing happened right away. So I unlocked the door and opened it, and Kjel started in, and I heard him say, "Oh my God!" and he caught hold of me and yanked me through the door.

That was when she blew.

There was a flash of blinding light, I remember that. And I remember being in the water, I remember seeing flames, I remember the pain. I don't remember anything else until I woke up here in the hospital.

The county cops asked me if I was sorry I did it. I said I was. And I am, but not for the reason they thought. I couldn't tell them the real reason. They wouldn't have understood, because first they'd have had to understand about the light and the dark.

I close my eyes now and I can see my old man's face on the night he died. He was a drunk and the liquor killed him, but nobody ever knew why. Except me. He called me into his room that night, I was eleven years old, and he told me why.

"It's the dark, Da

I promised. And I tried—Christ, Pa, I tried. Thirty years I reached for the light. But I couldn't hold onto enough of it, just like you couldn't. The dark kept creeping in, creeping in.

Once I told Lila about the dark and the light. She just laughed. "Is that why you always want to make love with the light on, sleep with the light on?" she said. "You're crazy sometimes, Da

I should have known then. But I didn't. I thought she was light. I reached for her six years ago, and I held her and for a while she lit up my life . . . I thought she was light. But she wasn't, she isn't. Underneath she's the dark. She's always been the dark, swallowing the light piece by piece—with Nicky, with Pete, with all the others. Kjel, too, my best friend. Turning him dark too.

I did it all wrong, Pa. All of it, right to the end. And that's the real reason I'm sorry about what I did this morning.

I shouldn't have blown them up, blown me up. I should have blown her up, lit up the dark with the fire and light.

Too late now. I did it all wrong.

And she's still out there, waiting.

The dark out there, waiting.

Deathwatch.

The pain isn't so bad now, the fire on me doesn't burn so hot. The morphine working? No, it isn't the morphine.

Something cool touches my face. I'mnot alone in the room anymore.

The bastard with the scythe is here.

But I won't look at him. I won't look at the dark of his clothes and the dark under his hood. I'll look at the light instead . . . up there on the ceiling, the big fluorescent tubes shining down, light shining down, look at the light, reach for the light, the light . . .

And the door opens, I hear it open, and from a long way off I hear Lila's voice say, "I couldn't stay away, Da

The dark!

A major social problem of our times is the stuff of this mordant little tale. The central premise strikes me as all too possible; if something like it hasn't happened yet, I for one won't be surprised to pick up my morning newspaper one day soon and find an account of a similar occurrence. It should probably be noted that my personal sympathies here are about equally divided between Re