The Lost And Found

She had actually been out on the lake only once. It was frozen. The winter had been sharp and hard. All across the countryside, lakes and ponds had frozen overnight.

Years earlier, she’d seen her brothers and a friend stranded out on the lake in a rusty old pick-up. They’d gotten drunk after the football game and had been doing donuts out on the ice. They’d stopped and couldn’t get started again. Her mother and she watched safely from the bank while her father dragged a winch cable out to them. Pillars of steam rose off their bodies as they worked to lash the steel line to the frame.

But this winter, a warm spell swept up from the south, as it will some time do. It brought a night of snow and a sudden shift in temperature. Where it had been hovering at zero night after night, the temperature rose above 40 degrees almost at once and held for the weekend.

With the air feeling warmer than it was after so many days of cold, she’d gone out to the lake. She discovered a smooth, untouched bed of snow, stretching out to the black trees that rose up off the perimeter of the water, as far as she could see. She stood there for a time, waiting for something.

When it did not come, she lifted a rock from the shoreline and heaved it as far as she could out over the white frosted lake. It landed with a thud and slid away from her silently, plowing snow up in front of it. Then she stepped out onto the stilled water.

She picked a place in the snow, lay down carefully and made an angel, as she had done when she was a girl. Then she stood and walked over to the stone she’d thrown. She threw it again and followed its trail. Where it stopped, she knelt and wiped away the snow. The ice was clear and green and invisible, except it was laced with countless pockets of trapped air.

Suddenly the ice seemed fragile. She couldn’t see how thick it was. In fact, it seemed to have no thickness at all, only an infinite darkness spreading beneath and she lost all her faith in the ice. She stood, slipping and falling and running back to the shore.

That night she dreamed about the ice. That night and countless more nights since. The dream wouldn’t leave her. Sometime it was the same lake, but in a far away place. Sometimes there was no shoreline. But always there was a lake. Frozen. Covered with snow. She would go back out on the ice, hurling stones ahead. She would follow one trail after another until she finally reached a spot where the snow melted and the lake would fracture. Great cracks stretched out in all directions, holding her at the center.

Sometimes, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she would be joined by children in red and tourquoise winter coats. They would follow her out, holding hands along the trail behind her. Then they’d spread out around her, lay down and make angels. As they spread their wings, the ice would buckle, millions of air pockets bursting at once. She would leap to her feet, standing solo on a column of ice. Her head would fill with the muffled screams of the children as they sank in their heavy coats, their small limbs thrashing just below the ice as it froze back together above them, locking the tips of their bright mittens in the rigid surface. She was left, standing stranded above, peering down into the ice, air pockets forming small open mouths against the bleak, tragic depths.

Then it stopped coming. The dream left her and she didn’t know what to do. For awhile.

+++

The bait shop was right down on the water. You got to it by walking across a series of loosely hinged bridges that rose and fell with the swell of the lake’s undulating body. They creaked and swayed with every footstep, each of which you learned to time in rhythm with the shifting surface.

The marina, which had once been blue, resembled a floating bungalow with a wide grey covered porch wrapped all the way around. Docks lined with all manner of boats, reached out in spidery vectors from the bait shop, giving the entire place an awkward, flimsy geometry.

The whole contrivance floated on moss-covered styrofoam blocks the size of refrigerators. Everything about the place was damp and crowded, but breezily comfortable. It was really the only social place for miles around. So in any given season, it was home to a steady stream of fishermen, jet skiers, inland sailors, rangers and wanderers.

Willis T. Grant was a regular part of this island society. If he didn’t arrive before sunup everyday, it was because he hadn’t left, sleeping out on his pontoon boat the night before. Virtually everyone knew Willis. And if you didn’t know him, he acted like you did.

So it was a perfectly routine thing for him to come strolling into the bait shop one morning, just as the sun suggested 10:30 or 11:00 in the sky, sporting a wet, purple stocking cap hooked at the end of his Shakespeare.

“This is either a strange new species or I got myself a contribution to the lost and found,” Willis declared.

“Well, it don’t look like no fish there Willis, recent nor prehistoric. And we don’t have no lost and found. So ‘bout all it could be is another fish tale, sprung right up out of the waters of your imagination.” This retort was delivered by Uncle Earl. The marina, the bait shop and all its perpetual revenues were his.

“Well, it fought me like a bullhead. Nearly had to throw out the anchor to hold my position. But she finally came up. Quite a trophy idn’t it?’

“Yeah Willis T. Why don’t you just mount it up there next to the insect repellent and we’ll have a plaque made in your honor. Now, go take your nap and come back with a genuine catch or a genuine story or a genuine something.”

Willis worked the cap off the lure, reached up over the wall mounted displays of eyeglass holders, little plastic American flags, stale O’Henry’s and insect repellent and stuck it on an empty hook. Then, acting as if he owned the place, he went behind the counter and rummaged around for some scrap paper and a magic marker.

Uncle Earl and a slowly accumulating group of folks watched Willis scribble out some note and stick it up next to the damp cap with some duct tape. “Caught by Willis Grant, with a six pound line, a Clear Spook and 55 years of fishin’ savvy. Species unknown. Not for sale. At any price.”

With that, Willis made his way through the cluttered shop to the coffee pot, plopped a quarter in the tin cup, then posed briefly under the cap for a Polaroid with his trophy before heading on back out to his floating palace.

Somebody called after him, “Goodnight, Willis.”

As far as he was concerned that cap had gotten about all the attention it was worth, except for the few incidental future moments when Earl or somebody would surely make a brief, cajoling reference to it. At best, it might grow into some sort of recurring tale. But Willis knew that the prospects of restricting what might come of it had already passed out of his hands into the daily life of the bait shop.

Willis got to his boat, drew an orange plastic tarp around the canopy and lay down to the gentle slapping of water. As he had done many days before and likely would, many days to come.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the stocking cap. A month or so later, he was moored out along the shoreline, near a point, casting about, when a green canvas-looking shape appeared just below the surface. He tugged at the fabric with his boat hook, then attempted to pull it out of the water. But it wouldn’t come. It was either stuck on something, or just too plain heavy. Then the whole thing rolled over alongside the pontoon and he had to sit down to keep from losing his breath and everything else inside him.

It was a body. The face was puffed and white like an old algaed, plastic fender. Irregular black and blue patterns ached beneath the surface. The hair floated like frayed rags in the foam lapping at the shore. Willis didn’t want to believe it was a human body. But that’s all it could be. Wrapped and swollen and water logged, but finally bouyant enough to have made its way back up out of the depths.

He listened as a bass boat bolted by a hundred yards out. After it buzzed past, cutting its own path through the waves, Willis knew he should have signaled it. But he hadn’t. And when the boat’s infinite wake reached the shore, one of the body’s shoulders rolled up and an arm appeared. Then a hand. In a purple glove. Willis Grant knew where the stocking cap had come from in an instant.

Willis shook himself, put his hands against his thighs and stood up. He paused to take one deep breath, then another, unhooked a dock line and worked to lash the body to the starboard pontoon. He tried to do it without touching the body. But finally, he did have to grab one thick leg to get the line around it and secure the figure to the boat.

He pulled up his anchor and trolled across the cove towards the marina. He didn’t go to his slip. He just quietly motored up to the dock on the port side, climbed out and went into the bait shop.

Earl was standing there behind the cash register chewing on a red licorice stick. “Howdy there Willis T. Grant. Caught us anything special today?”

Willis reached up the wall, removed the stocking cap and his note. He wadded up the note and said, “I have caught us something special. But it’s nothing that ever belonged on a hook. And it’s nothing anybody ever wanted to bring up.”

Uncle Earl and a small entourage of fellow fisherman and gawkers followed Willis out to his boat. He lumbered onto the deck and turned. “Earl, now I want you to come over here, but I want no one else. I need your help.”

Earl followed Willis onto the boat and leaned over the lifeline on the far side. He stood up straight as a pipe when he saw the thing. “Willis,” was all he could say.

The others held back, absolutely curious, yet cautiously patient at the same time. They heard Willis say it again, “Help me, Earl.”

Willis and Earl both got down on their knees and pulled at something. They struggled to lift it, but couldn’t. Earl turned and signaled for another man to come help them. He staggered back, too, when he got to the edge. The three of them labored to raise the mass part way up. It was like a roll of flooded carpet pinned against the stanchions. A fourth man came over then and finally they got it over the top. The body lay there on the bright green synthetic turf of Willis Grant’s deck, water pooling about it. There was complete and utter silence for a moment.

By now, a small crowd had gathered. And as its members slowly, truly did accept that it was a body, there was gasping and crying on the gently heaving walkway. Questions began coming up then. Whispers, rolling forward from the folks further back. Some people turned away. Some left. Most stayed. Then everyone grew silent again and watched as Willis lifted the girl’s head and put the cap on it.

The stocking cap took on great importance after that. As did Willis T. Grant. Folks talked to him less, talked about him more. He spent more time on his boat, docked in his slip. He spent less time in the bait shop, less time out on the lake. Not because he was afraid he’d find something unwanted again. But because it was all he could think about. And he thought about the cap and the body so intently, he didn’t have room enough left even to think about fishing.

He thought about his find because he couldn’t explain anything about it. He couldn’t explain why he had been the one to find both the cap and the body. He couldn’t explain why either was in the water. He couldn’t explain why it meant so much to him.

To everyone else, it was something to be talked about. Beyond that, it was little more than a curiosity. But to him, it needed to mean something, which was something for a man who had pretty well figured out how he and the world fit together.

Finally, about the only thing that seemed to make sense to him was that he had pulled that stocking cap off the girl thirty feet down and that somehow he had to be the one to put it back. In his view, the world did operate against some sort of arithmetic, even if one could never fully do the calculations.

Accordingly, in a world where things like this can happen, and some times actually do, that’s all the meaning he could muster.

+++

The stocking cap matched her gloves. They were mittens actually, knitted from a thick mauve yarn. She removed them to pull the cap over the top of her head and tuck her hair up underneath. Then she closed the trunk and made her way down over the rocks to the water’s edge.

It was late April. A Tuesday morning. No fishermen in sight. Perhaps they were off across the lake, seeking crappie in some hidden cove or catfish hunkered down at the bottom of the dam. The cove she was at, just off the road, was quiet. Wisps of fog floated about, just above the surface, ghosts scattered over the water. She had been here before. Uncounted times, in a dream she’d awaken from, sweating and disoriented, for more nights than she could remember.

She became aware of a buzzing sound. It was familiar, but unnatural. She listened for a moment and realized it must be the buzzer on her car. Perhaps she had left the door open, the keys in the ignition. She started to turn, then understood that it didn’t matter.

She lifted her coat a bit and cinched up the cords on two pairs of sweat pants. Then she pulled on the mittens and fumbled with velcro straps to snug the green sleeves of her coat around the mittens at her wrist.

Three geese flew overhead, squawking. Then they were gone. Another lone bird whistled across the cove and she stepped into the water.

She looked down at her boots for evidence that she had actually entered the water. She felt nothing. Then she took another step, then another. The lake bed was smooth here, soft, not rocky like the bank. It wasn’t what she had expected. She began to feel the water press the plastic uppers of her boots against her shins. With the next step, water began to come in around the boot-tops. She felt the cold even before it soaked through her socks and circled around the arches of her feet. She kept moving. The water resisted. She shuddered as the water came up around her knees, then her thighs. She had become so hot, it soothed her. She could feel the water loading up her sweat pants and her jeans. Three layers thick. Heavier each second, they pulled at her waist, tugging her deeper into the body of the lake. This time one foot hit a rock, she stumbled and one hand entered the water for the first time. That mitten grew heavy with water, too. She lowered her arm to her side and flattened out her hand like a fin. Then she brought down the other arm. The water was up under her coat now. She could feel the water seeking her skin, through her wraps. The water was colder than she’d imagined. It was comforting at first, but after it overcame the heat she’d built up inside her sweatsuit, it made her limbs feel hard, bone and ice. The blood chilled inside her. She lifted her arms, as if they were floating. Water swirled in under them, too, as she put her arms back down. But she needed them more now, to stay upright. She thought of angels. It was difficult to move forward. The water tried to lift her up. But she kept stepping out. When the water reached her neck, a fish leapt, breaking the surface, just a few feet away. One cold drop of water splashed lightly against her cheek. She closed her mouth. As her ears slipped beneath the surface, she heard a buzzing sound again and thought of the car door. But this was higher pitched, grizzlier, the metallic whine of a bass boat screaming across the far side of the lake. Then she closed her eyes and took another step, her clothes a lead gown draped around her body. She felt the water crawl up past her eyebrows onto her forehead. Her skin tightened as the water soaked through the cap. Then she knew she was under. She’d been afraid she would float. But it was actually easy to stay under. So she relaxed everything and took one more step. This time there was no bottom. Surprised, she opened her eyes to a greenish-yellow world with millions of mossy strings suspended in rippling folds of light. Drifting downward into darkness, she closed her eyes and listened to the bubbles escape past her face as she released her breath and drank.

SWood, May 1991