Chapter 12
The second day of the hunt was as still as the first. When they left the dock at six in the
morning, a light southwest breeze was blowing, promising to cool the day. The passage around Montauk Point was choppy. But by ten the breeze had died, and the boat lay motionless on the glassy sea, like a paper cup in a puddle. There were no clouds, but the sun was dulled by a heavy haze. Driving to the dock, Brody had heard on the radio that the pollution in New York City had reached a crisis stage --something about an air inversion. People were falling sick, and of those who were sick already, or very old, some
were dying.
Brody had dressed more sensibly today. He wore a white, short-sleeved shirt with a high collar, light cotton trousers, white socks,' and sneakers. He had brought a book along to pass the time, a sex mystery borrowed from Hendricks, called The Deadly Virgin.
Brody did not want to have to fill time with conversation, conversation that might lead to a repeat of yesterday's scene with Hooper. It had embarrassed him --Hooper, too, he thought. Today they seldom spoke to one another, directing most of their comments at Quint. Brody did not trust himself to feign civility with Hooper. Brody had observed that in the mornings, Quint was quiet --tight and reserved. Words had to be wrung from him. But as the day wore on, he loosened up and became more and more loquacious. As they had left the dock that morning, for instance, Brody had asked Quint how he knew what spot to pick to wait for the fish.
"Don't," said Quint.
"You don't know?"
Quint moved his head once from left to right, then back again.
"Then how do you choose a place?"
"Just choose one."
"What do you look for?"
"Nothing."
"You don't go by the tide?"
"Well, yeah."
"Does it matter whether the water's deep or shallow?"
"Some."
"How so?"
For a moment, Brody thought Quint would refuse to answer. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the horizon. Then he said, as if it were a supreme effort, "Big fish like that probably won't be in too shallow water. But you never know." Brody knew he should drop the subject and leave Quint in peace, but he was interested, so he asked an-other question. "If we find that fish, or if he finds us, it'll be
luck, won't it?"
"Sort of."
"Like a needle in a haystack."
"Not quite."
"Why not?"
"If the tide's running good, we can pat out a slick that'll cover ten miles and more
by the end of the day."
"Would it be better if we stayed the night out here?"
"What for?" said Quint.
"To keep the slick going. If we can spread ten miles in a day, we could make it more than twenty miles long if we stayed out all night."
"If a slick gets too big, it's no good."
"Why?"
"Gets confusing. If you stayed out here a month, you could cover the whole fuckin' ocean. Not much sense in that." Quint smiled, apparently at the thought of a chum file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (102 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt slick covering the whole ocean.
Brody gave up and read The Deadly Virgin.
By noon, Quint had opened up. The lines had been in the slick for over four hours. Though no one had specifically assigned him the task, Hooper had taken up the chum ladle as soon as they began to drift, and now he sat at the stern, methodically scooping and dumping. At about ten o'clock, a fish had taken the starboard line and had caused a few seconds of excitement. But it turned out to be a five-pound bonito that could
barely get its mouth around the hook. At ten-thirty, a small blue shark took the port line.
Brody reeled it in, Quint brought it to gaff, slit its stomach open, and released it. The shark nibbled feebly at a few pieces of itself, then slipped into the deep. No other sharks
came around to feed.
At a little after eleven, Quint spied the scythed dorsal fin of a swordfish coming
toward them up the slick. They waited silently, begging the fish to take a bait, but it ignored both squid and cruised aimlessly sixty yards off the stern. Quint jiggled one of the baits --tugging the line to make the squid move and seem alive --but the swordfish wasn't impressed. Finally, Quint decided to harpoon the fish. He turned on his engine, told Brody and Hooper to reel in the lines, and drove the boat in a wide circle. One harpoon dart was already attached to the throwing pole, and a line-covered barrel stood ready at the bow. Quint explained the pattern of attack: Hooper would drive the boat. Quint would stand at the end of the pulpit in the bow, holding the harpoon over his right shoulder. As they came upon the fish, Quint would point the harpoon left or right, depending on which way he wanted the boat to turn. Hooper would turn the boat until the harpoon was again pointing straight ahead. It was like following a compass heading. If all
went well, they would be able to creep up on the fish, and Quint could plunge the iron off
his right shoulder --a throw of about twelve feet, almost straight down. Brody would stand at the barrel, making sure the line was kept clear as the fish sounded. All did go well until the last moment. Moving slowly; with the engine sound barely above a murmur, the boat closed on the fish, which lay resting on the surface. The boat had a sensitive helm, and Hooper was able to follow Quint's directions precisely. Then, somehow, the fish sensed the presence of the boat. Just as Quint raised his arm to east the iron, the fish lurched forward, thrust its tail, and darted for the bottom. Quint
threw, yelling, "Prick!" and missed by six feet.
Now they were back at the head of the stick again.
"You asked yesterday if we have many days like this," Quint said to Brody. "It's not often we string two of them together. We should of at least had a bunch of blue sharks by now."
"Is it the weather?"
"Could be. Makes people feel shitty enough. Maybe fish, too." They ate lunch --sandwiches and beer --and when they were finished, Quint checked to see if his carbine was loaded. Then he ducked into the cabin and returned, holding a machine Brody had never seen before. "Still got your beer can?" Quint asked.
"Sure," said Brody. "What do you want it for?"
"I'll show you." The device looked like a potato-masher hand grenade --a metal cylinder with a handle at one end. Quint pushed the beer can down into the cylinder, turned it till there was a click, and took a .22 blank cartridge from his shirt pocket. He
slipped the blank into a small hole at the base of the cylinder, then turned the handle until
there was another click. He handed the device to Brody. "See that lever there?" he said, pointing to the top of the handle. "Point the thing up to the sky, and when I tell you, push
that lever."
Quint picked up the M-1, released the safety, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (103 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt said, "Now."
Brody flipped the lever. There was a sharp, high report, a mild kick, and the beer
can was launched from his hand straight up into the air. It spun, and in the bright sunlight
it shone like a sparkler. At the height of its track --the split-second point when it hung
suspended in air --Quint fired. He aimed low, to catch the can as it started down, and he
hit its bottom. There was a loud whang, and the can cartwheeled down into the water. It did not sink immediately, but floated at a cockeyed angle, bobbing on the surface.
"Want to try?" said Quint.
"You bet," said Brody.
"Remember to try to catch it right at the top and lead it a little bit low. If you go
for it in full rise or full fall, you've got to lead by a whole lot, and it's much harder. If you
miss it, drop your sights, lead it again, and squeeze off another round." Brody exchanged the launcher for the M-1 and stationed himself at the gunwale. As soon as Quint had reloaded the launcher, Brody shouted, "Now!" and Quint released the can. Brody fired once. Nothing. He tried again at the top of the arc. Nothing. And he led it by too much as it fell. "Boy, that's a bitch," he said.
"Takes some getting used to," said Quint. "See if you can hit it now." The can floated upright in the still water, fifteen or twenty yards from the boat. Half of it was exposed above water. Brody aimed --consciously a hair low --and squeezed the trigger. There was a metallic plop as the bullet hit the can at the water line. The can vanished.
"Hooper?" said Quint. "There's one can left, and we can always drink more beer."
"No thanks," said Hooper.
"What's the problem?"
"Nothing. I just don't want to shoot, that's all." Quint smiled. "You worried about the cans in the water? That's an awful lot of tin
we're dropping into the ocean. Probably rust and sink to the bottom and clutter up everything down there."
"That's not it," said Hooper, careful not to rise to Quint's bait. "It's nothing. I just
don't feel like it."
"Afraid of guns?"
"Afraid? No."
"Ever shot one?"
Brody was fascinated to see Quint press, and pleased to see Hooper squirm, but he didn't know why Quint was doing it. Maybe Quint got ornery when he was bored and wasn't catching fish.
Hooper didn't know what Quint was doing either, but he didn't like it. He felt he was being set up to be knocked down. "Sure," he said. "I've shot guns before."
"Where? In the service?"
"No. I..."
"Were you in the service?"
"No."
"I didn't think so."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Christ, I'd even bet you're still a virgin." Brody looked at Hooper's face to see his response, and for a split second he caught Hooper looking at him.
Then Hooper looked away, his face beginning to redden. He said, "What's on your mind, Quint? What are you getting at?"
Quint leaned back in his chair and grinned. "Not a thing," he said. "Just making a
little friendly conversation to pass the time. Mind if I take your beer can when you're through? Maybe Brody'd like to take another shot."
"No, I don't mind," said Hooper. "But get off my back, will you?" file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (104 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt For the next hour they sat in silence. Brody dozed in the fighting chair, a hat pulled down over his face to protect it from the sun. Hooper sat at the stern, ladling and
occasionally shaking his head to keep awake. And Quint sat on the flying bridge, watching the slick, his Marine Corps cap tilted back on his head. Suddenly Quint said --his voice flat, soft, matter-of-fact --"We've got a visitor."
Brody snapped awake. Hooper stood up. The starboard line was running out, smoothly and very fast.
"Take the rod," Quint said. He removed his cap and dropped it onto the bench. Brody took the rod out of the holder, fit it between his legs, and held on.
"When I tell you," said Quint, "you throw that brake and hit him." The line stopped running. "Wait. He's turning. He'll start again. Don't want to hit him now or he'll
spit the hook." But the line lay dead in the water, limp and unmoving. After several moments, Quint said, "I'll be goddamned. Reel it in." Brody cranked the line in. It came easily, too easily. There was not even the mild
resistance of the bait.
"Hold the line with a couple fingers or it'll snarl," said Quint. "Whatever that was
took the bait gentle as you please. Must have kissed it off the line." The line came clear of the water and hung at the tip of the rod. There was no hook, no bait, no leader. The wire had been neatly severed. Quint hopped down from the flying bridge and looked at it. He felt the end, ran his fingers around the edges of the break, and gazed out over the slick.
"I think we've just met your friend," he said.
"What?" said Brody.
Hooper jumped down off the transom and said excitedly, "You've got to be kidding. That's terrific."
"That's just a guess," said Quint. "But I'd bet on it. This wire's been chewed clean
through. One try. No hesitation. No other marks on it. The fish probably didn't even know he had it in his mouth. He just sucked the bait in and closed his mouth and that did it."
"So what do we do now?" said Brody.
"We wait and see if he takes the other one, or if he surfaces."
"What about using the porpoise?"
"When I know it's him," said Quint. "When I get a look at him and know the bastard's big enough to be worth it, then I'll give him the porpoise. They're garbage-eating
machines, these fish, and I don't want to waste a prize bait on some little runt." They waited. There was no movement on the surface of the water. No birds dived, no fish jumped. The only sound was the liquid plop of the chum Hooper ladled overboard. Then the port line began to run.
"Leave it in the holder," said Quint. "No sense in getting ready if he's going to chew through this one too."
Adrenaline was pumping through Brody's body. He was both excited and afraid, awed by the thought of what was swimming below them, a creature whose power he could not imagine. Hooper stood at the port gunwhale, transfixed by the running line. The line stopped and went limp.
"Shit," said Quint. "He done it again." He took the rod out of the holder and began
to reel. The severed line came aboard exactly as had the other one. "We'll give him one more chance," said Quint, "and I'll put on a tougher leader. Not that that'll stop him if it's
the fish I think it is." He reached into the ice chest for another bait and removed the wire
leader. From a drawer in the cockpit he took a four-foot length of three-eighths-inch chain.
"That looks like a dog's leash," said Brody.
"Used to be," said Quint. He wired one end of the chain to the eye of the baited file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (105 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt hook, the other to the wire line.
"Can he bite through that?"
"I imagine so. Take him a little longer, maybe, but he'd do it if he wanted to. All
I'm trying to do is goose him a little and bring him to the surface."
"What's next if this doesn't work?"
"Don't know yet. I suppose I could take a four-inch shark hook and a length of noshit chain and drop it overboard with a bunch of bait on it. But if he took it, I wouldn't
know what to do with him. He'd tear out any cleat I've got on board, and until I see him I'm not going to take a chance and wrap chain around anything important." Quint flipped the baited hook overboard and fed out a few yards of line. "Come on, you bugger," he said. "Let's have a look at you."
The three men watched the port line. Hooper bent down, filled his ladle with churn, and tossed it into the slick. Something caught his eye and made him turn to the left. What he saw sucked from him a throaty grunt, unintelligible but enough to draw the eyes of the other two men.
"Jesus Christ!" said Brody.
No more than ten feet off the stern, slightly to the starboard, was the flat, conical
snout of the fish. It stuck out of the water perhaps two feet. The top of the head was a sooty gray, pocked with two black eyes. At each side of the end of the snout, where the gray turned to cream white, were the nostrils --deep slashes in the armored hide. The mouth was open not quite halfway, a dim, dark cavern guarded by huge, triangular teeth. Fish and men confronted each other for perhaps ten seconds. Then Quint yelled,
"Get an iron!" and, obeying himself, he dashed forward and began to fumble with a harpoon. Brody reached for the rifle. Just then, the fish slid quietly backward into the water. The long, scythed tail flicked once --Brody shot at it and missed --and the fish disappeared.
"He's gone," said Brody.
"Fantastic!" said Hooper. "That fish is everything I thought. And more. He's fantastic! That head must have been four feet across."
"Could be," said Quint, walking aft. He deposited two harpoon barbs, two barrels, and two coils of rope in the stern. "In case he comes back," he said.
"Have you ever seen a fish like that, Quint?" said Hooper. His eyes were bright, and he felt ebullient, vibrant.
"Not quite," said Quint.
"How long, would you say?"
"Hard to tell. Twenty feet. Maybe more. I don't know. With them things, it don't make much difference over six feet. Once they get to six feet, they're trouble. And this sonofabitch is trouble."
"God, I hope he comes back," said Hooper. Brody felt a chill, and he shuddered. "That was very strange," he said, shaking his
head. "He looked like he was grinning."
"That's what they look like when their mouths are open," said Quint. "Don't make him out to be more than he is. He's just a dumb garbage bucket."
"How can you say that?" said Hooper. "That fish is a beauty. It's the kind of thing
that makes you believe in a god. It shows you what nature can do when she sets her mind to it."
"Horseshit," said Quint, and he climbed the ladder to the flying bridge.
"Are you going to use the porpoise?" said Brody.
"No need. We got him on the surface once. He'll be back." As Quint spoke, a noise behind Hooper made him turn. It was a swishing noise, a liquid hiss. "Look," said Quint. Heading straight for the boat, thirty feet away, was a triangular dorsal fin more than a foot high, knifing the water and leaving a rippled wake.
It was followed by a towering tail that swatted left and right in tight cadence.
"It's attacking the boat!" cried Brody. Involuntarily, he backed into the seat of file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (106 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt the
fighting chair and tried to draw away.
Quint came down from the flying bridge, cursing. "No fucking warning this time," he said. "Hand me that iron."
The fish was almost at the boat. It raised its flat head, gazed vacantly at Hooper
with one of its black eyes, and passed under the boat. Quint raised the harpoon and turned
back to the port side. The throwing pole struck the fighting chair, and the dart dislodged
and fell to the deck. "Cocksucker!" shouted Quint. "Is he still there?" He reached down, grabbed the dart, and stuck it back on the end of the pole.
"Your side, your side!" yelled Hooper. "He's passed this side already." Quint turned back in time to see the gray-brown shape of the fish as it pulled away from the boat and began to dive. He dropped the harpoon and, in a rage, snatched up the rifle and emptied the clip into the water behind the fish. "Bastard!" he said.
"Give
me some warning next time." Then he put the rifle down and laughed. "I suppose I should be grateful," he said. "At least he didn't attack the boat." He looked at Brody and said,
"Gave you a bit of a start."
"More 'n a bit," said Brody. He shook his head, as if to reassemble his thoughts and sort out his visions. "I'm still not sure I believe it." His mind was full of images of a
torpedo shape streaking upward in the blackness and tearing Christine Watkins to pieces; of the boy on the raft, unknowing, unsuspecting, until suddenly seized by a nightmare creature; and of the nightmares he knew would come to him, dreams of violence and blood and a woman screaming at him that he killed her son. "You can't tell me that thing's
a fish," he said. "It's more like one of those things they make movies about. You know, the monster from twenty million fathoms."
"It's a fish, all right," said Hooper. He was still visibly excited. "And what a fish!
Damn near megalodon."
"What are you talking about?" said Brody.
"That's an exaggeration," said Hooper, "but if there's something like this swimming around, what's to say megalodon isn't? What do you say, Quint?"
"I'd say the sun's got to you," said Quint.
"No, really. How big do you think these fish grow?"
"I'm no good at guessing. I'd put that fish at twenty feet, so I'd say they grow to
twenty feet. If I see one tomorrow that's twenty-five feet, I'll say they grow to twenty-five
feet. Guessing is bullshit."
"How big do they grow?" Brody asked, wishing immediately that he hadn't said anything. He felt that the question subordinated him to Hooper. But Hooper was too caught up in the moment, too flushed and happy, to be patronizing. "That's the point," he said. "Nobody knows. There was one in Australia that got snarled in some chains and drowned. He was measured at thirty-six feet, or so said the reports."
"That's almost twice as big as this one," said Brody. His mind, barely able to comprehend the fish he had seen, could not grasp the immensity of the one Hooper described.
Hooper nodded. "Generally, people seem to accept thirty feet as a maximum size, but the figure is fancy. It's like what Quint says. If they see one tomorrow that's sixty feet,
they'll accept sixty feet. The really terrific thing, the thing that blows your mind, is imagining --and it could be true --that there are great whites way down in the deep that
are a hundred feet long."
"Oh bullshit," said Quint.
"I'm not saying it's so," said Hooper. "I'm saying it could be so." file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (107 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt
"Still bullshit."
"Maybe. Maybe not. Look, the Latin name for this fish is Carcharodon carcharias, okay? The closest ancestor we can find for it is something called Carcharodon megalodon, a fish that existed maybe thirty or forty thousand years ago. We have fossil teeth from megalodon. They're six inches long. That would put the fish at between eighty and a hundred feet. And the teeth are exactly like the teeth you see in great whites today. What I'm getting at is, suppose the two fish are really one species. What's to say megalodon is really extinct? Why should it be? Not lack of food. If there's enough down there to support whales, there's enough to support sharks that big. Just because we've never seen a hundred-foot white doesn't mean they couldn't exist. They'd have no reason to come to the surface. All their food would be way down in the deep. A dead one wouldn't float to shore, because they don't have flotation bladders. Can you imagine what a hundred-foot white would look like? Can you imagine what it could do, what kind of power it would have?"
"I don't want to," said Brody.
"It would be like a locomotive with a mouth full of butcher knives."
"Are you saying this is just a baby?" Brody was beginning to feel lonely and vulnerable. A fish as large as what Hooper was describing could chew the boat to splinters.
"No, this is a mature fish," said Hooper. "I'm sure of it. But it's like people. Some
people are five feet tall, some people are seven feet tall. Boy, what I'd give to have a look
at a big megalodon."
"You're out of your mind," said Brody.
"No, man, just think of it. It would be like finding the Abominable Snowman."
"Hey, Hooper," said Quint, "do you think you can stop the fairy tales and start throwing chum overboard? I'd kind of like to catch a fish."
"Sure," said Hooper. He returned to his post at the stern and began to ladle chum into the water.
"You think he'll come back?" said Brody.
"I don't know," said Quint. "You never know what these bastards are going to do." From a pocket he took a note pad and a pencil. He extended his left arm and pointed it toward shore. He closed his right eye and sighted down the index finger of his left hand, then scribbled something on the pad. He moved his hand a couple of inches to the left, sighted again, and made another note. Anticipating a question from Brody, Quint said, "Taking bearings. I want to see where we are, so if he doesn't show up for the rest of
today, I'll know where to come tomorrow."
Brody looked toward Shore. Even shading his eyes and squinting, all he could see was a dim gray line of land. "What are you taking them on?"
"Lighthouse on the point and the water tower in town. They line up different ways depending where you are."
"You can see them?" Brody strained his eyes, but he saw nothing more distinct than a lump in the line.
"Sure. You could too, if you'd been out here for thirty years." Hooper smiled and said, "Do you really think the fish will stay in one place?"
"I don't know," said Quint. "But this is where we found him this time, and we didn't find him anywhere else."
"And he sure as hell stayed around Amity," said Brody.
"That's because he had food," said Hooper. There was no irony in his voice, no taunt. But the remark was like a needle stabbing into Brody's brain. They waited for three
more hours, but the fish never returned. The tide slackened, carrying the slick ever slower.
At a little after five, Quint said, "We might as well go in. It's enough to piss off
the Good Humor man."
"Where do you think he went?" said Brody. The question was rhetorical; he knew there was no answer.
"Anywhere," said Quint. "When you want 'em, they're never around. It's only file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (108 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt when you don't want 'em, and don't expect 'em, that they show up. Contrary fuckers."
"And you don't think we should spend the night, to keep the slick going."
"No. Like I said, if the slick gets too big, it's no good. We don't have any food out
here. And last but not least, you're not paying me for a twenty-four-hour day."
"If I could get the money, would you do it?" Quint thought for a moment. "Nope. It's tempting, though, 'cause I don't think there's much chance anything would happen at night. The slick would be big and confusing, and even if he came right up alongside and looked at us, we wouldn't know he was there unless he took a bite out of us. So it'd be taking your money just to let you sleep on board. But I won't do it, for two reasons. First off, if the slick did get too big, it
would screw us up for the next day. Second, I like to get this boat in at night."
"I guess I can't blame you," said Brody. "Your wife must like it better, too, having
you home." Quint said flatly, "Got no wife."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I never saw the need for one." Quint turned and climbed the ladder to the flying bridge.
Ellen was fixing the children's supper when the door-bell rang. The boys were watching television in the living room, and she called to them, "Would somebody please answer the door?"
She heard the door open, heard some words exchanged, and, a moment later, saw Larry Vaughan standing at the kitchen door. It had been less than two weeks since she had last seen him, yet the change in his appearance was so startling that she couldn't help
staring at him. As always, he was dressed perfectly --a two-button blue blazer, buttondown shirt, gray slacks, and Gucci loafers. It was his face that had changed. He had lost weight, and like many people who have no excess on their bodies, Vaughan showed the loss in his face. His eyes had receded in their sockets, and their color seemed to Ellen lighter than normal --a pasty gray. His skin looked gray, too, and appeared to droop at the cheekbones. His lips were moist, and he licked them every few seconds. Embarrassed when she found herself staring, Ellen lowered her eyes and said,
"Larry. Hello."
"Hello, Ellen. I stopped by to..." Vaughan backed up a few steps and peered into the living room. "First of all, do you suppose I could have a drink?"
"Of course. You know where everything is. Help yourself. I'd get it for you, but my hands are covered with chicken."
"Don't be silly. I can find everything." Vaughan opened the cupboard where the liquor was kept, took out a bottle, and poured a glass full of gin. "As I started to say, I
stopped by to say farewell."
Ellen stopped shuffling pieces of chicken in the frying pan and said, "You're going away? For how long?"
"I don't know. Perhaps for good. There's nothing here for me any more."
"What about your business?"
"That's gone. Or it soon will be."
"What do you mean, gone? A business doesn't just go away."
"No, but I won't own it any more. What few assets there are will belong to my... partners." He spat the word and then, as if to cleanse his mouth of its unpleasant residue,
took a long swallow of gin. "Has Martin told you about our conversation?"
"Yes." Ellen looked down at the frying pan and stirred the chicken.
"I imagine you don't think very highly of me any more."
"It's not up to me to judge you, Larry."
"I never wanted to hurt anybody. I hope you believe that."
"I believe it. How much does Eleanor know?"
"Nothing, poor dear. I want to spare her, if I can. That's one reason I want to move
away. She loves me, you know, and I'd hate to take that love away... from either of us." file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (109 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:23 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt Vaughan leaned against the sink. "You know something? Sometimes I think --and I've thought this from time to time over the years --that you and I would have made a wonderful couple."
Ellen reddened. "What do you mean?"
"You're from a good family. You know all the people I had to fight to get to know. We would have fit together and fit in Amity. You're lovely and good and strong. You would have been a real asset to me. And I think I could have given you a life you would have loved."
Ellen smiled. "I'm not as strong as you think, Larry. I don't know what kind of...
asset I would have been."
"Don't belittle yourself. I only hope Martin appreciates the treasure he has." Vaughan finished his drink and put the glass in the sink. "Anyway, no point in dreaming." He walked across the kitchen, touched Ellen's shoulder, and kissed the top of her head. "Good-by, dear," he said. "Think of me once in a while." Ellen looked at him. "I will." She kissed his cheek. "Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Vermont, maybe, or New Hampshire. I might sell land to the skiing crowd. Who knows? I might even take up the sport myself."
"Have you told Eleanor?"
"I told her we might be moving. She just smiled and said, 'Whatever you wish.'"
"Are you leaving soon?"
"As soon as I chat with my lawyers about my... liabilities."
"Send us a card so we'll know where you are."
"I will. Good-by." Vaughan left the room, and Ellen heard the screen door close behind him.
When she had served the children their supper, Ellen went upstairs and sat on her bed. "A life you would have loved," Vaughan had said. what would a life with Larry Vaughan have been like? There would have been money, and acceptance. She would never have missed the life she led as a girl, for it would never have ended. There would have been no craving for renewal and self-confidence and confirmation of her femininity, no need for a fling with someone like Hooper.
But no. She might have been driven to it by boredom, like so many of the women who spent their weeks in Amity while their husbands were in New York. Life with Larry Vaughan would have been life without challenge, a life of cheap satisfactions. As she pondered what Vaughan had said, she began to recognize the richness of her life: a relationship with Brody more rewarding than any Larry Vaughan would ever experience; an amalgam of minor trials and tiny triumphs that, together, added up to something akin to joy. And as her recognition grew, so did a regret that it had taken her so long to see the waste of time and emotion in trying to cling to her past. Suddenly she felt fear --fear that she was growing up too late, that something might happen to Brody before she could savor her awareness. She looked at her watch: 6:20. He should have been home by now. Something has happened to him, she thought. Oh please, God, not him.
She heard the door open downstairs. She jumped off the bed, ran into the hall and down the stairs. She wrapped her arms around Brody's neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.
"My God," he said when she let him go. "That's quite a welcome."