On the Jetty
In his season of despair, the seaside was a study in gray: level plains of gray above and below, the sea rippled, the sky rumpled, and trapped in the narrow clarity between them a scatter of black dots that were humanity. It was cold, and not many people were out. At the farthest end of the jetty, where the sea swells that found their way around the low breakwater leaned repeatedly against the tumbles of broken stone, four silhouettes lingered as if posed, while a sailboat tilted beyond them. In the distance to either side were faded beaches stretching north and south; to the west, the restless silence of the deep. Haze obliterated the horizon: there was no end to anything, just a merging of shades of gray. On the landward side, a gray city, low-roofed and half-hidden by slouching colorless trees. No one looked that way. Human eyes have always sought the sea.
The man stood hunched in his coat halfway along the jetty, looking out at the horizon and the lowering clouds. The inside of his head felt as gray as the world he looked at, and as unpopulated. A few little black dots of thought, posed and pretentious, interrupting the sound of seawater gurgling around the rocks that held up the ragged paving. The sea and its mechanical obligations, ceaselessly practiced. It should have pleased him, but nothing pleased him any more.
He heard a faint thud of footsteps, and turned his head automatically. A slight young woman in a gray sweatsuit was walking towards the sea with an air of determination. She had short dark hair and looked almost attractive from a distance. As she came closer he noted a grim set to her face. She looked unhappy. Maybe she wanted a good word to cheer her up. He looked at her without, he hoped, staring. Maybe a single phrase could start a new life for him. Out of habit and a remnant of politeness, he kept his face neutral as she approached, looking at her out of the side of his eye. As she neared him, she generated a frown. She didn’t want to be bothered, then. He didn’t bother her. She strode past him, the seabreeze moving her hair slightly. He watched her without pretense as she walked away. His mind categorized her as not bad looking even as he began thinking of something else. What, he wasn’t sure.
The sound of water distracted him. There must have been a storm in the distance, maybe thousands of miles away to the southwest. An invisible swirl in the water suddenly rose up and slapped against the mussel-crusted stone below him, then died away with faint bubbling sounds. When he looked up again, there were five figures at the end of the jetty, four together, and one smaller one by itself.
That was why he had stopped at the fishing platform halfway out on the jetty. He had wanted to be alone. Maybe he had wanted to be alone.
He was waiting for a sort of tide to carry his thoughts out of the backwater where they had been circling for hours. The slow rise and ease of the literal tide might do it. An invisible breeze leaned down and kissed the gray water in the middle of the marina channel; it responded with a cold ripple that died away almost instantly. A fattish floating bird ruffled its feathers and shook its tail, then dove under the water to reappear farther off, beady-eyed and complacent. He heard the whistling call of some other bird that he couldn’t see. A movement caught his eye: four men walking back along the jetty, slouched in the cold. Three of them wore knit hats; they all stared at the ground as they walked silently by, carrying fishing poles. The gray of the sea had made them mute, he thought. That was good: he would not have liked to hear chatter on a day like this. He looked to the end of the jetty: there was a lone figure showing black against the blurred horizon beyond the breakwater.
Another sailboat tilted past. His eyes followed it as it labored slowly out to sea in the sullen breeze. He made himself watch it patiently till it passed the marker buoy that floated crookedly beyond the breakwater. He knew that if he watched it long enough it would blur into the haze and be gone from view. Its sail gave a lazy flap as it turned slightly, then filled again. The helmsman had let his attention drift for a moment, then caught himself. He watched it sail away. After a long while, it faded into the gray. The breeze touched him with cold fingers, and he turned his collar up. Maybe it would rain. It might be time to leave.
The small sound of voices came to him, frantic-sounding shouts in the distance. He looked towards the end of the jetty. A small skiff was nosed up against the breakwater, and a sailboat had dropped its sails. A man in the sailboat was gesturing at the man in the skiff. Another man dove off the sailboat into the water. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the pantomime was obvious. He heard a siren and looked behind him: a Harbor Patrol boat surged into view, throwing white water from its bows. Its flashing cop lights looked out of place in the gray. He looked back towards the end of the jetty. There was no one there, no silhouette; the girl was gone.
A sensation of electric emptiness whirled in his belly. He would not see the girl in gray as she walked back to the city, never speak to her, never know her name or why she was angry. He looked at the end of the jetty and the futile frenzies of the men on the boats. He decided he wouldn’t read the newspaper the next morning. Better not to know.