Black Water (5 page)

Her
father, Arthur Kelleher, was a close friend from school days and a golfing
partner of many years of Hamlin Hunt the Republican congressman, and even when
business was not going well for Mr. Kelleher (as, since the stock market
debacle of a few years ago, it did not seem to be going spectacularly well) he
contributed to "Ham" Hunt's campaigns, helped host immense
fund-raising benefit dinners at the Gowanda Heights Country Club, took a
childlike pride in being included in Republican Party events local and
statewide. The congressman, whom Kelly had known since elementary school, had
lately become a controversial "colorful" figure with a national
profile, he appeared frequently on television talk shows, was often interviewed
on the news, as a maverick sort of conservative who spoke out derisively
against every aspect of liberalism
except
abortion... regarding abortion, Ham Hunt declared himself
"pro-choice."

(In
private, Hunt believed sincerely that the key to America's future salvation was
abortion, abortion in the right demographic quarters, blacks, Hispanics,
welfare mothers who start procreating with the onset of adolescence, something
had to be done, something surely had to be done, abortion was the answer, the
way to control the population which the white majority had better underwrite
before it was too late—"And I know what I'm talking about, I've seen
Calcutta, Mexico City. I've seen the townships in South Africa.")

Once,
Kelly screamed at her astonished father, "How can you vote for such a man!—a
fascist!—a Nazi!—he believes in genocide for Christ's sake!" and Mr.
Kelleher merely stared at her as if she had slapped him in the face.

"How
can he, Mother?—how can
you?"
Kelly asked her mother at a
quieter moment, and Mrs. Kelleher regarded her fierce young daughter with a
shiver of pride, and took her hand, and said, calmly, "Kelly, dear,
please: how do you presume to know how I vote?"

During
the most recent presidential election Kelly had volunteered her services
working for Governor Dukakis's doomed campaign. She had not known the campaign
was doomed until the final weeks of the contest, each time she saw or heard
George Bush it seemed self-evident to her that anyone who saw or heard him must
naturally reject him, for how transparently hypocritical!
how
venal!
how
crass!
how
uninformed!
how
evil!
his
exploitation of whites' fears of blacks, his CIA
affiliation!
his
fraudulent piety! his shallow
soul!—so too, until the final weeks, perhaps the final days, her coworkers at
campaign headquarters (in Cambridge) had not seemed to understand that the
Democratic campaign was doomed, though the national polls clearly indicated
this, and the candidate Dukakis himself had a defiant rueful glassy-eyed air.

"Kelly,
my God!—how could you!—wasting your time and energy on that asshole!"—so
Artie Kelleher shouted over the phone.

When
the votes came in, when the landslide was a fact, and the unthinkable became,
simply, history, as so much that seems unthinkable becomes, simply, history,
thus thinkable, Kelly had virtually stopped eating; had not slept for several
nights in succession; felt a despair so profound and seemingly impersonal that
she walked in the streets and eventually in Boston Common disheveled, dazed,
vaguely smiling faint with hunger and nausea staring at, not human figures, but
misshapen things, animal, fleshy, upright, clothed... until she broke down
crying, and fled, and telephoned her mother to plead please come get me, I
don't know where I am.

She was the girl, she was the one he'd
chosen,
she was the one to whom it would
happen, the passenger in the rented Toyota.

She
was clawing at something that held her tight as an embrace as the black water
churned and bubbled rising about her splashing into her eyes as she managed now
to scream, drew breath to scream coughing and spitting screaming at last as the
Toyota sank on its side on the passenger's side in murky churning water.

Her
baptismal name was "Elizabeth Anne Kelleher." And, on the masthead of
Citizens' Inquiry: A Bi-Weekly Publication of the
Citizens'
Inquiry Foundation,
the name was "Elizabeth Anne Kelleher."

Known to her friends as
"Kelly."

An
immediate warm rapport between them, you know how it happens sometimes.
Unexpectedly.

As
he'd smiled happily gripping her hand squeezing it just perceptibly too hard
unconsciously as men sometimes do, as some men sometimes do, needing to
see
to
feel
that pinprick of startled pain in your
eyes, the contraction of the pupil.

As G-----, making
love,
had sometimes hurt her.
Unconsciously.

She'd
cried out, short high-pitched gasping cries, she'd sobbed, she'd heard her
voice distant, wild, pleading reverberating out of the corners of the darkened
room, Oh I love you, I love you, I love
love
love
you, their bodies slapping and sucking hot-clammy with
sweat, hair plastered to their heads with sweat,
you know you're
somebody's little girl don't you?
don't
you?

His
weight on her, and his arms around her, her legs tight-quivering around his
hips, then her trembling knees drawn up awkwardly to her shoulders so he could
go deepest in her, Yes!
yes
!
like
that!
oh
Christ!
and
she knew
that G-----'s lips were drawn back from his teeth in that grimace, that
death's-head triumph, that excluded her.

* * *

Very
near the end he'd said quietly, "I don't want to hurt you, Kelly, I hope
you know that," and Kelly smiled saying, "Yes, I know that," as
if this were a casual conversation, one of their easy friendly conversations,
for weren't they more than lovers, weren't they best friends too, she'd kissed
him, he'd slung an arm around her burying his warm face in her neck, she was
very still thinking, And can't I hurt you? Have I not that power, to hurt
you?
Knowing that she did not have it,
any longer.

The
winter afternoon waned. Shadows rose out of the corners of the room, it became
a room Kelly did not know. G-----
nudged
his head
against hers, and said, "I knew you knew. But I wanted to make sure."

And
now what held her tight?—a band?—several bands?—across her chest and thighs,
her left arm tangled in one of them?—and her forehead had cracked hard against
something she hadn't seen, it was pitch-black she was blinking squinting trying
to see, she was blind and that roaring in her ears as of a jet plane and a
man's voice incredulous "Oh God. Oh God.
Oh God."

She
was the girl, she was the one, she was the passenger, she was the one trapped
in the safety belts, no it was the door and part of the roof that had buckled
in upon her,
she
was upside down was she?
thrown
on her right side was she?
and
where was up?
and
where was the top?
and
where was the air? the weight of his body thrown upon
her too struggling and gasping for air pleading "Oh God" a sob in his
voice, a man's voice, a stranger's voice, you would not choose to die like
this, to drown, in murky black water with a stranger, but her right leg was
pinned, as in a clamp, her right kneecap had been crushed but she had no
sensation of pain, she might have been in shock, she might have been dead, so
soon!
so
soon!
the
black
water filling her lungs to drown her lungs thus the oxygen to her brain would
cease thus her thoughts would cease and yet her thoughts were detached and even
logical:
This isn't happening.

This
person, this man, his weight thrown on top of her—she'd forgotten who it was.
He too clawing and clutching and scrambling and kicking frantic to get out of
the capsized car.

That distinct voice, a
stranger's—"Oh God."

Not
in a curse but in a hortatory appeal.

Had
the speeding Toyota not lost control on the hairpin curve estimating a probable
speed of forty-five miles an hour from the skid marks in the road and the
considerable degree of damage to the vehicle it would very likely have collided
with the railing of the narrow bridge ahead with a subsequent crash, a fall
into the water, a similar result. Or so it would be speculated.

The
name of the fast-running stream was Indian Creek. You would not have thought it
had a name. In the marshy wasteland, in the seemingly uncharted swamp dense
with mosquitoes and shrill with nocturnal insects in a midsummer frenzy of
procreation.

You
would not have expected a creek, as deep as eleven feet in some stretches,
twenty feet wide, running in a northeasterly direction to empty into a tidal
pool of the Atlantic Ocean, thus into the ocean, approximately two miles to the
east in Brockden's Landing.

Am
I going to die? Like this?

And no witnesses.
And no other motorists traveling on Old Ferry.

As
if to punish her for her behavior her performance as
a self not herself:
not Kelly Kelleher really
but she rejected such a thought, she
was not superstitious, she did not believe in even the Anglican God.

He
had chosen her. You could see that from the first. The quick rapport!
the
ease of their smiles!
a
girl
his daughter's age!

Yes
they had surprised the others—a few of the others.
Those who
knew.
Disappointing Buffy St. John by saying they were leaving to catch
the 8:20
p.m
. ferry to Boothbay Harbor.

Actually,
as Buffy would recall, The Senator had wanted to catch an earlier ferry... but,
somehow, they hadn't left on
time...
The Senator had another drink.
Or two.

The
Senator and Kelly Kelleher his passenger had left the party at 17 Derry Road at
approximately 7:55
p.m
.
Which gave them twenty-five minutes to get
to the ferry, enough time if you drive fast and if you take the right route.

Turning
onto Old Ferry was the mistake but it was an understandable mistake, you would
not need to be
under the influence of alcohol
to make such
a mistake at dusk.

Old
Ferry, no longer maintained by Grayling Township, should have been officially
shut down:
road out.

Three
hundred acres of the swampland were preserved as the Grayling Island Wildlife
Sanctuary under a federal funding. Such birds as phalaropes, whippoorwills,
swifts, both surface-feeding and diving ducks, egrets, great blue herons,
terns, killdeers, many varieties of woodpeckers, thrushes, tanagers, as well as
the more common of northeastern birds.
Such marsh vegetation
as cattails, sea oats, sedge, wool grass, pickerelweed, dozens of varieties of
rushes and reeds, jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium, marsh marigold, arrowhead,
water arum.
Such animals as... Kelly Kelleher had in fact skimmed a
tourist flyer at Buffy's cottage, she'd read about the wildlife sanctuary a few
miles away, yes Buffy had gone of course many times when she was a kid and the
family spent summers out here but she had not gone in recent years and maybe
next day if Ray was in the mood they could drive over it
was
a beautiful place unless they all had hangovers unless
Ray had other plans unless it was just too hot but Kelly was thinking yes she'd
go by herself preferably, she'd make a point of going, borrow someone's car or
maybe if it wasn't too far Buffy's bicycle: a brand-new mountain bike.

Have
you ever ridden one of these before?—no? Try it.

Gripping
the
handguards
, her feet on the pedals, rising,
standing at first, spine arched, buttocks arched, long coppery hair whipping in
the wind, smiling at the childish pleasure of hurtling herself along the beach,
the bicycle's thick ridged tires biting into the crusty sand, what quick speed,
what happiness, little Lizzie flying as Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa
watch, Oh be careful honey!
careful
!
but
she'd laughed flying out of the range of their eyes,
their voices.