Chapter Two

One-Eyed-Toast

 

Porter named the dog Mr. Face, because he thought it had the jowls of a television news anchor. Mr. Face looked up through wrinkles, rolling gray slabs of skin and fur. He was just plain ugly, round, with legs like mottled sausages and reddened eyes that secreted a constant mucus.

Porter had seen Mr. Face occasionally, often trailing slowly behind Mel and George, or curled up forgotten in a corner of the yard. Now the dog had started sleeping under Poco, and Porter had begun to feed him leftovers, usually the last of his condensed soup. Eventually, Porter started buying the larger size cans so the dog would be sure to have some. Mr. Face would look up, snorting his gratitude and wiggling his stump of a tail. It felt good to Porter, having something that depended on him, something he could handle.

After about a week, Mel approached Porter by himself, without George. Mel seemed far less intimidating, physically deflated, when he was alone, Porter thought.

“You took my dog,” Mel said. He pointed at Mr. Face.

“Took him? I’ve been feeding him, taking care of him. I didn’t take him.”

“That’s really low,” Mel said, “taking a man’s dog.”

“I didn’t take him; he’s here on his own.”

“Dog’s don’t do things on their own.”

“Well, this one does.”

Mr. Face snarled at Mel, as if to make Porter’s point.

“That’s really low . . . . You turned it against me.” Mel bent down and moved his hand toward the dog’s collar. Mr. Face snapped at him. Mel jumped back, as if bitten, though the dog had barely moved.

“You!” It was Luke, yelling at Mel. “You!” Luke never seemed to know anyone’s name. “I want to talk to you.”

“I’m going to get my dog back,” Mel said to Porter.

“Go ahead and take him,” Porter said.

Mel hurried away and Luke followed him. “‘The poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind,’” Porter heard Luke holler while he crossed the yard in pursuit.

Porter had to walk up and call his wife from the pay phone. He dreaded it. She would give him a hard time when he asked for more money, because the divorce papers weren’t final and the meager assets had not been split.

“It’s coming out of your share,” she would remind him, several times. She would be keeping track.

Porter got what he asked for. So did his wife, Amanda. The only problem was that they’d be enjoying those fruits separately, him on Poco, living out their old dream, and her in the house in Seattle, the one they had bought together, with the garden and the lawn and the neighbors that she loved and he hated. She got the house, her new dream; he got his boat. The divorce, the economic value as lopsided as a sinking ship, would soon be final.

Porter and Amanda had raised a daughter and a son, Linda and Thomas. They spent their careers together, taught at Snoqualmie High School the entire time, him English, her math. They had met there; then the marriage, and the children, came very soon after. They decided early on that they were going to teach the minimum number of years for retirement--twenty--then sell the house; that was always their plan. Linda and Thomas would be off to college by then and they’d retire on a boat in blissful serenity while they were still fairly young.

But things changed. Thomas, once a bright and starry-eyed boy, suddenly descended into an unexplained, glossy-eyed, schizophrenic spiral, and Amanda and Linda could not take the sight of it. Linda disappeared into her studies and friends. And after sixteen years of teaching, Amanda went over to what Porter considered the dark side. She decided to go into administration; she wanted to become a principal. For two years, she went off on that track, spending evenings and weekends in training and workshops and retreats, removing herself from the family she could not control to find a situation she could handle. Though she didn’t move out, she left them for a new career.

Amanda excelled, became a principal, and Porter became a care-giver in his spare time while doctors took Thomas’ teenage years to find the right combinations of medications. Hospitals, then local jails on disturbance charges and later, assault charges, then more hospitals. Thomas, now twenty-one, lived in an apartment that his mother paid for. Amanda didn’t want Thomas to rely on Porter now that Thomas was an adult. He worked part time as a gardener, and as long as he took his medicine, he stayed out of trouble.

Linda was finishing her last year of college and had rarely visited over the last two years. She had found a boyfriend, a new life, and an escape from the madness at home.

Porter walked past the phone and headed for Lou’s. Mr. Face followed and waited outside. There were no customers, so Porter decided he could put off the call by eating breakfast.

“What do you have today, Lou?”

“Frog-in-the-hole.” Lou was polishing the mirror and had his back to Porter. He didn’t turn around.

“What’s that?”

“A piece of toast with a hole cut in the middle, and an egg fried in it.”

“Oh, my mom called them ‘leaky-egg-sandwiches.’”

“Depends on who you’re making ‘em for.”

“What do you mean?”

“It could be a ‘bun-in-the-oven.’ Lots of pregnant couples around here; pregnant couples coo over that one.”

Porter remembered when he was part of a pregnant couple. He and Amanda had once cooed. Lou polished his way into the little kitchen and began an orchestration of practiced movements. Standing in the center of the area behind the grill, he could reach the entire working space without taking a step. Facing Porter, his right arm pulled the coffee basket while his left arm shot out to a shelf, grabbing a filter. The hands met in the center and then produced a plastic packet which popped somewhere above his head and the coffee ended up at the machine. A click of the button and the other hand was lighting the grill. A slow spin in the middle and he was facing forward again, a bag of white bread in one hand and two brown eggs in the other. Moments later Lou produced two “frogs-in-the-holes.” The little round centers of the bread had been toasted and they leaned like tilted hats on the sides of the eggs. Lou sat down at the counter next to him.

”So what else do you call these things?” Porter asked.

“I had a place in Nevada a while back and I called ‘em ‘Frankie-hides-in-Vegas’ sandwiches,” he said. “And I had a place in San Francisco where I called ‘em ‘X-chromosomes trapped in the wrong bread,’ because the transvestites thought it was funny. And they generally don’t think much is funny, as a group, that is.”

A woman stopped at the door behind them and reached down to pet Mr. Face, then she walked in. She sat on the second stool to Porter’s left. She was about Porter’s age, mid-forties, thin, dressed in jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and worn canvas boat shoes. Porter liked her curly brown hair, longer than most women her age wore it, with just a few graying wisps.

Lou leaned around the front of Porter and pointed at his breakfast. He seemed to know her. “You want one?” he asked. “Frog-in-the-hole.”

“My mother called them ‘one-eyed-toast,’” she said. Lou nodded and stepped behind the counter.

“I’m Porter,” Porter said, without even thinking about it. He stuck out his hand, surprised that he had said anything. He was not used to introducing himself to women; he was not used to being single.

“I’m Dora.” She shook his hand, and Porter decided she had to work around boats because of the strength of her grip.

“Do you live in the marina?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“Me too. But I guess I live in the yard for now.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Everybody knows.”

“Oh, I see.”

Lou brought her a cup of coffee while they paused at the awkwardness.

“Well, it’s not quite like that.” Dora sipped her coffee and looked at him. “It’s just . . . I’m friends with Lila, in the office.” Porter sipped his coffee. “She thinks you’re cute,” Dora added. Porter snorted and the coffee went up his nose. He coughed and held his napkin to his face. In his mind, he suddenly pictured Lila’s husband, Henry, the yard owner, coming at him with a giant pipe wrench to crush the skull of the sneaking, low life philanderer who dared to touch his wife.

“Don’t worry,” Dora continued. “She looks but usually doesn’t touch. But, boy, does she like to look.”

Porter didn’t know what to say.

Lou set down Dora’s breakfast. “‘One-eyed-toast,’” he said. “I like that, ‘one-eyed-toast.’” He went back to the stove to clean it.

Porter finished his coffee and wanted to leave, though he wasn’t done eating. He felt embarrassed, out of touch. He felt out of touch a lot lately, as if set adrift by his wife. And now I have to call Amanda, he thought. He started to stand, but Dora put her hand on his arm.

“I didn’t mean to scare you off,” she said. “Go ahead, finish your frog.” She smiled and Porter felt as if it was the most beautiful image he had seen in a long time. They both ate and Lou sat back down beside them to finish his meal.

“So what do you do around here?” Porter finally asked her. He wanted the conversation to switch to her.

“Work on my boat, and sail it,” Dora said. “That’s about it; I’m retired.”

“From what?”

“The service industry,” she said.

“I knew Dora in Vegas,” Lou said.

“What did you do there?” Porter asked her.

“I don’t think you’d really be interested in me if you got to know me.”

“Oh,” Porter said. “I don’t know.” He was really interested.

“Trust me,” she said.

“How come I haven’t seen you around here before?” Porter asked.

“I sailed my boat up into the San Juan Islands, then I helped a friend by driving his fishing troller for a few weeks so I could make a little extra cash. I was gone about four months.”

“Wow,” Porter said. “Cruising for four months? That’s great, that’s really great. Great.” He realized he was repeating himself, a habit he had when he was nervous. He didn’t know why he did it, as if he was sure no one had heard him the first time. Or the second time.

“How about you?” Dora asked. “What do you do?”

“I’m retired, too”

“I know. A schoolteacher,” she said. It had never sounded so pathetic to Porter, and he wondered what else she knew. “I mean what do you do now?” she added.

“I try to figure out all the things I’m clueless about on my boat.”

“Poco’s a great boat; I’ve seen her,” she said. Porter was absolutely buoyed by the compliment. “I own a wooden sailboat, Willow, that I’ve been fixing up for a couple of years, so I appreciate the aesthetic of your intention.”

They sipped their coffee. Porter loved the way that sounded, ‘the aesthetic of your intention.’

“Are you finished restoring your boat yet?” he asked.

Dora laughed. “You’re kind of naive, aren’t you? Do you expect to actually finish Poco some day?”

“Well, I . . . .” Porter realized it would probably take him a hundred years. “I guess I . . . .”

“What did you teach before you retired?”

“High school English.”

“Oh, an idealist. Too bad it wasn’t science, or shop. That might have actually helped.”

“Yeah, it is just one big science project,” Porter said. “I guess it’s the new me.”

“That’s what this town is, a place where people come to reinvent themselves,” Dora said. “What do I owe you, Lou?”

“It’s on the house for both of you. Now get out; I’m closing.”

“Let’s blow this saloon,” Dora said

“Which end are you going to start at?” Lou asked her. Porter didn’t know what they were talking about; it was obviously some kind of inside joke between them.

“I’m this way,” Dora said when they were outside. She pointed away from the yard, toward the far end of the marina. She bent over and scratched Mr. Face’s nose. “I’ll see you again.” Porter watched her turn and head down the dock, past Mel and George, who sat on the tailgate of Mel’s truck.

“Hey, Dora baby,” George said to her. “You sure are looking sweet today.”

“Fuck off, George,” Dora said as she walked away without looking at him.

When Porter and Amanda officially separated, he had wanted to bring Thomas to stay with him on Poco. But Amanda and Thomas’s doctors had said absolutely no. It was not a life for him; Thomas needed stability. And he needed to learn to take care of himself. Porter was not doing Thomas any good, they said, coddling him. It would be best, they said, for Porter to just go live his own fantasy, without dragging Thomas into more of a dream land.

“Reality,” Amanda said. “He needs reality and he’s not going to get it around you.”

“He could just come live a different reality.”

“You call what you’re doing reality? That’s a laugh. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re a bad influence. You upset him with all your talk of the ‘frontier’ lifestyle you want to lead. You put crazy ideas in his head, and he certainly doesn’t need any more of those. Reality.”

“Maybe it’d be better than the comatose reality you’ve arranged for him here.”

“He gets agitated; I don’t want him upset. I don’t want him in jail; I don’t want him getting into any more trouble. I can’t take it. I can’t take it any more, Porter.”

“I know,” Porter said. “You can’t.”

But in the end, since the doctors agreed with Amanda, Porter had no say in the matter.

 

Porter waited at the top of the ramp for Mr. Face, who stopped and lifted his leg on the lamppost. The dog stayed frozen in place, as if he had forgotten what he was doing. The office door behind him swung open and banged against the wall. Lila emerged, dragging twenty feet of heavy chain behind her, struggling, stopping to pull it along, her teeth grit.

“Fucking visiting boats tie up and don’t check in with the office, don’t pay the dock fee, walk off without a word. We’ll see what they think when they come back and their precious little Bayliner is chained to the dock.” Lila turned to face him, apparently talking to herself. “Oh, hi Porter.” She pulled the chain to the top of the ramp and let it slide down to the dock. She went back to the office and returned with an enormous padlock, then turned to Porter and smiled. “I’m loving this.” Lila bounced down the ramp and hauled the chain to the boat ahead of her, dragged it onto the fiberglass sides of the highly polished hull of the boat. With all her strength, she wrapped the links around a big cleat and secured it with the lock. She snickered and clapped her hands together and returned to her office, locking the door behind her. The window shades dropped and she was closed off from the world.

Porter walked down to Lou’s, hoping he would run into Dora again. He and Mr. Face rounded the turn onto the boardwalk by the office, and Mr. Face stopped suddenly, sat, and blinked his big, round eyes.

“What is it, boy?” Porter kneeled down to pet him, then looked to see what he was staring at. Porter stood back up. Amanda was in front of her BMW SUV, its engine still running, and Thomas hovered slump-shouldered next to her, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head.

Thomas had stopped taking his medicine, Amanda told Porter. He had busted up a neighbor’s apartment because he kept hearing noises in the walls between them. “Noises,” she said. “And voices. I can’t believe it; this crap all over again! I had to talk to the judge and plead for him. His boss fired him, so now he doesn’t even have a job.” She had posted his bail, but now she had had it. Either Thomas stayed with Porter or she was going to have him committed, she said. This was his last chance, this God-forsaken place that Porter had run away to.

But Porter heard very little of his wife’s declarations. He looked at his son’s vacant stare, the antipsychotic medication fogging even the boy’s smile, and Porter knew he would not let Thomas go anywhere else. He was so happy to see Thomas that he took off his jacket and wrapped it around his son and led him back to Poco, leaving Amanda talking as they walked away.