PAT WAS CONVICTED THAT winter. Eighty-two months in custody for smuggling eleven thousand pounds of pot into California. “We aren’t going to let our oceans become a freeway for drug traffickers,” the prosecuting attorney said in the news. “Smugglers might think the vast Pacific is a good place to be invisible, but these defendants know otherwise.”
“It’s an outrage,” Alejandro said to Berg, after reading the article. “You’ve got corporations polluting our rivers and mountains and air with impunity. You’ve got hedge fund managers manipulating the global economy. The stock market is just pure thought—you know that, right? When we run out of thoughts it will cease to exist. Those guys are scamming everyone and Pat, who’s doing something that harms no one, who’s delivering medicine—and delivering it without using any fossil fuels, I might add—he’s the guy who goes to prison.”
That same winter, Nell went on tour with Carlos Carlos de Carlos again. Berg wrote her letters almost every week, simple notes about his day-to-day, about life in the shop. He’d aim the letter toward whatever city they were visiting next, but he was never sure if they’d make it.
Sometimes, the shame of his lies, of his exposure, of his OD, would be so strong that his chest would hurt. He’d write Nell a long letter about how worthless he was and how much he’d fucked up, and then he’d crumple that letter up and throw it out. She didn’t need his self-pity. She needed him to show up, to maintain some kind of consistent, base-level integrity.
The headaches were still there. He knew they would be. They came on an almost daily basis, and when they did, if he could summon the courage to do so, he welcomed them. He tried to watch them, moment by moment, to observe their texture and sensation, to avoid pushing them away.
Berg was not the only one having a difficult time that winter. Uffa was experiencing his own tailspin. Demeter had purchased a ticket to New York and, in less than a month, she would be moving across the country. When Uffa first heard the news, he spent a week alone in his room, recording an elegiac freestyle rap album. Later, he adopted a gray stray cat and named him Grayman.
“I think he dips his giant mouth scoop into multiple food bowls around town,” Uffa said. “But he likes to sleep on the bus now.”
With Celia’s boat almost finished, Alejandro had turned once again to his three-pronged plan to generate extra revenue. He spent all day at the docks, puttering around and experimenting with his first 3-D ocean-farming structures. He had built several different kinds and he wanted to test their efficacy over time.
Meanwhile, in the shop, Berg was attempting to build his first twenty-four-hour canoe. It was taking him a lot longer than twenty-four hours, but this morning, after a week of work, he was finally ready to fasten the first plank. He looked around the shop for the specialized jig Alejandro had made to rivet the canoes, but he couldn’t find it.
As he walked down to the docks he could hear the creaking of pilings, the jabber of gulls. When he got to the water, he found Alejandro on the ground, examining kelp.
“It probably makes most sense to dry out this kelp,” Alejandro said, looking up at Berg. “That way we can sprinkle it over our crops as a fertilizer. It would close the nitrogen loop, you know? The kelp would sop up the nitrogen and then we’d use it to grow our vegetables and then it would make its way back into the bay. The issue is the smell. It has an unfortunate odor. Rebecca hates it. Maybe I could mix it in a solution with something else to minimize the odor? Or maybe I should just scrap the whole fertilizer idea and sell the seaweed to high-end restaurants? That would probably make us the most money anyway.”
Alejandro went on in this manner, discussing the different contingencies of his kelp situation. His mind seemed scattered, burnt out, overheated like a computer that was running too many programs. When he finished, Berg asked him if he knew where the jig was.
“I don’t know where I put it,” Alejandro said.
“But you were the last one to use it.”
“Look, I just said I don’t know,” he snapped. “Make a new one. It’s not difficult to make one.”
“I don’t know how to make one,” Berg said.
“Just think about it for one second,” Alejandro said. “It’s not hard. I don’t have time to explain it.”
Berg walked back up to the shop, hurt and irritated. He thought about their conversations in the forest. Alejandro was such a hypocrite. He preached equanimity and awareness and then he behaved like this, with a total lack of respect. It wasn’t Berg’s fault that Alejandro had lost the jig. Here he was, listening to Alejandro talk about his kelp problems for twenty minutes and then the guy wouldn’t give him one moment of assistance.
Back in the shop, Berg began designing a new jig. It turned out, to his dismay, that Alejandro was right. It was an easy tool to construct and he finished making it in less than an hour. He used the jig to rivet the plank he’d finished and then he took his lunch beneath the buckeye tree.
As he was eating, Alejandro walked past him.
“Hey, did you get that jig figured out?”
“Yes,” Berg said.
“Oh, good,” Alejandro said. “Well done. Do you need anything from the house?”
“No.”
“I’ll be up there for a little bit. Feel free to come find me if you need anything.”
Berg could tell he was trying to apologize. He’d probably figured out the kelp issue and, liberated from his frustration, become aware of how brusquely he’d spoken to Berg. That didn’t make it okay, Berg thought.
After lunch, Berg began to work on his next plank. At a certain point he paused and looked around the shop. His gaze settled on the photo of Alejandro and Uffa from many years ago, the one where both of them were wearing overalls. He was struck, again, by how young Uffa looked in the photo. His hair was long and fine, like some kind of Arthurian knight’s. As Berg looked at the photo, he imagined Uffa showing up at Alejandro’s doorstep, a lost teenage wastrel who had read some book and thought he knew who Alejandro was. He imagined Alejandro taking Uffa in, those first few days he spent teaching him how to sharpen chisels and how to sail. As he thought about this, something in his heart softened. He realized that he was giving Alejandro no leeway, no room for error. He had made him into an idol, long ago, and if he seemed for a moment imperfect, Berg felt betrayed.
He took the jig from the workbench, pocketed it, and walked over to the farmhouse. Alejandro was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and rolling a cigarette. Berg took the jig out of his pocket and showed it to him.
“This is the new one,” he said brightly. Alejandro took the jig in his hands. Berg poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down next to him.
“Excellent job, Berg,” he said, holding the jig up to the light. “This is excellent.”