Suspended Sentences

At intervals Brenda sipped his whiskey and vocalized sounds indicative of her attentiveness to his monologue. Mainly she was thinking morosely of the pointlessness of it all. Was Eric going to ask her to stay the night? If he did, would she accept? In either case, did it matter?

Watching her with bemused eyes, Eric went on. “The Endangered Species laws have made it impossible for us to obtain whalebone or elephant ivory in any quantities anymore. It’s a real problem.”

“You seem to have a fair supply in those bins there.”

“Well, some of us have been buying mastodon ivory and other fossilized bones from the Eskimos — they dig for it in the tundra up in Alaska. But that stuff’s in short supply too, and the price has gone through the ceiling.”

Eric took the glass and filled it from the bottle, extracting ice cubes from the half-size fridge under the workbench. She rolled the cold glass against her forehead and returned to the wicker chair, balancing herself with care. Eric smiled with the appearance of sympathy and pushed a little box across the bench. It was the size of a matchbox. The lid fit snugly. Etched into its ivory surface was a drawing of a humpback whale.

“Like it?”

“It’s lovely.” She tried to summon enthusiasm in her voice.

“It’s nearly the real thing,” he said. “Not real ivory, of course, but real bone at least. We’ve been experimenting with chemical processes to bleach and harden it.”

She studied the tiny box and suddenly looked away. Something about it had put her in mind of little Geoff’s casket.

“The bones of most animals are too rough and porous,” Eric was saying. “They tend to decompose, of course, being organic. But we’ve had some success with chemical hardening agents. Still, there aren’t many types of bone that are suitable. Of course, there are some people who’re willing to make do with vegetable ivory or hard plastics, but those really aren’t acceptable if you care about the artistry of the thing. The phony stuff has no grain, and anybody with a good eye can always tell.”

She was thinking she really had to pull herself together. You couldn’t get by indefinitely on self-pity and the liquid largess of old acquaintances, met by chance, whom you didn’t even like. She’d reached a point-of-no-return: the end of this week her room rent would be due again and she had no money to cover it; the time to make up her mind was now, right now, because either she got a job or she’d end up like that whiskered wino begging for pe

Eric went on prattling about his silly hobby or whatever it was: something about the larger bones of primates — thigh bone, collarbone. “Young enough to be in good health of course — bone grows uselessly brittle as we get older…” But she wasn’t really listening; she stood beside the workbench looking out through the dormer window at the dozens of boats in the anchorage, wondering if she could face walking into one of the tourist dives and begging for a job waiting on tables.

The drink had made her unsteady. She returned to the chair, resolving to explore the town first thing in the morning in search of employment. She had to snap out of it. It was time to come back to life and perhaps these beautiful islands were the place to do it: the proper setting for the resurrection of a jaded soul.

Eric’s voice paused interrogatively and it made her look up. “What? Sorry.”

“These two here,” Eric said. She looked down at the two etched pendants. He said, “Can you tell the difference?”

“They look pretty much the same to me.”

“There, see that? That one, on the left, that’s a piece of whale’s tooth. This other one’s ordinary bone, chemically hardened and bleached to the consistency and color of true ivory. It’s got the proper grain, everything.”

“Fine.” She set the glass down and endeavored to smile pleasantly. “That’s fine, Eric. Thank you so much for the drinks. I’d better go now —” She aimed herself woozily toward the door.

“No need to rush off, is there? Here, have one more and then we’ll get a bite to eat. There’s a terrific little place back on the inland side of town.”

“Thanks, really, but —”

“I won’t take no for an answer, duckie. How often do we see each other, after all? Come on — look, I’m sorry. I’ve been boring you to tears with all this talk about scrimshaw and dead bones, and we haven’t said a word yet about the really important things.”

“What important things?”

“Well, what are we going to do about you, duckie? You seem to have a crucial problem with your life right now and I think, if you let me, maybe I can help sort it out. Sometimes all it takes is the counsel of a sympathetic old friend, you know.”

By then the drink had been poured and she saw no plausible reason to refuse it. She settled back in the cane chair. Eric’s smile was avuncular. “What are friends for, after all? Relax a while, duckie. You know, when I first came out here I felt a lot the way you’re feeling. I guess in a way I was lucky not to’ve been as good a scholar as you and Briggs were. I got through the Ph.D. program by the skin of my teeth but it wasn’t enough. I applied for teaching jobs all over the country, you know. Not one nibble.”

Then the quick smile flashed behind the neat beard. “I ran away, you see — as far as I could get without a passport. These islands are full of losers like you and me, you know. Scratch any charter-boat skipper in that marina and you’ll find a bankrupt or a failed writer who couldn’t get his epic novel published.”

Then he lifted his glass in a gesture of toast. “But it’s possible to find an antidote for our failure, you see. Sometimes it may take a certain ruthlessness, of course — a willingness to suspend the stupid values we were brought up on. So-called civilized principles are the enemies of any true individualist — you have to learn that or you’re doomed to be a loser for all time. The kings and robber barons we’ve honored throughout history — none of them was the kind to let himself be pushed around by the imbecilic bureaucratic whims of college deans or tenure systems.”

“Establishments and institutions and laws are designed by wi

Put that starkly it made her gape. Eric leaned forward, brandishing his glass as if it were a searchlight aimed at her face. “Well?”

“No. Nobody,” she murmured reluctantly.

“There you are, then.” He seemed to relax; he leaned back. “There’s not a soul you need to please or impress or support, right? If you went right up Front Street here and walked into the Bank of Hawaii and robbed the place of a fortune and got killed making your escape, you’d be hurting no one but yourself. Am I right, duckie?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then why not give it a try?”

“Give what a try?”

“Robbing a bank. Kidnaping a rich infant. Hijacking a yacht. Stealing a million in diamonds. Whatever you feel like, duckie — whatever appeals to you. Why not? What have you got to lose?”

She twisted her mouth into an uneven smile. “You remind me of the sophomoric sophistry we used to spout when we were undergraduates. Existentialism and nihilism galore.” She put her glass down. “Well, I guess not, Eric. I don’t think I’ll start robbing banks just yet.”

“And why not?”

“Maybe I’m just not gaited that way.”

“Morality? Is that it? What’s morality ever done for you?”

She steadied herself with a hand against the workbench, set her feet with care, and turned toward the door. “It’s a drink too late for morbid philosophical dialectics. Thanks for the booze, though. I’ll see you…”