Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (classic fiction txt) 📕

“It was under construction. The storm destroyed it, though.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Half-destroyed it, technically, but it was totaled. So I’ve been demolishing it.”

Hal watched as T. poured wine into his plastic mug, emptying the bottle. Luckily Hal’s own vessel was still nearly full.

“Didn’t know you were quite so hands-on,” he said jokily. “What Susan said, you were mostly the brain trust. Not so much on the brawn side of things.”

“I’ve been giving it to the ocean. Piece by piece. I figure it could be an artificial reef. You know, like the old tires they sink in some places, or the wrecks, and then the fish come and inhabit them.”

Hal looked at him. He seemed sincere, but maybe there was something absent about him. Maybe he wasn’t all there. Like mother, like son, finally. It made perfect sense, of course, with the sunburnt castaway look and the whole tropical island, spurning-society deal.

“Wait. So this is why you haven’t called anyone? This is what you’re—you know, with your business losing money and all that this whole time? So you can personally, like, lug the wreckage of your hotel into the water?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” said T. lightly, smiling, and then gazed past him. “I mean, losing money—so yeah. It’s OK, finally. All my life I thought that was the worst thing that could happen to you.”

“Uh huh,” said Hal. He waited.

“I thought money was real.”

Poor guy.

“Well, I tell you,” said Hal mildly, as though speaking to an infant. “Admittedly I’m biased, being an IRS man. But I can’t think of a lot of things realer than money. I mean, to most people money is life and death.”

“So that’s two things right away. Life. And death.”

“I don’t really follow you.”

“They’re both more real. Living for money is like living for, I don’t know, a socket wrench. Unless you’re going to do something specific with it, it’s a complete waste of time. Obvious to some people, I realize. But I just now figured it out.”

“Sure. Hey, I get it. You’re talking to a civil servant here. So obviously I’m no high-earning capitalist. I’ve seen what money can do, though. Take income tax revenues. Social programs.”

“That’s not what income tax revenues do,” said T. softly. “Social Security has its own—”

“Not primarily, maybe—”

“Primarily, taxes pay for weapons. Weapons and war. Always have, always will.”

A straw man. Statistically, it was far more complicated than that. Hal could break it down for him. Basic protester stuff.

“Well, tech—”

“I know. Weapons, war, and please don’t forget the D.O.T.”

“As a percentage of—” started Hal, but the guy was shaking his head.

“Hey. Can I show you something?” he asked. “I’ve also been building the tree-house. I’m using some of the hotel materials for that. This is an island caye, palm trees and sand, which is what made it buildable in the first place. You know, some of the cayes around here are only mangrove, no real ground to build on. Mostly water. This one is island but it has a lot of mangrove vegetation too, kind of a mangrove-swamp thing on the east side, and the west side is solid ground. Right here we’re phasing into mangrove, and those are mostly scrubby. But I found one tree that was tall enough, that was it. Come here,” and he rose and Hal followed him, both with their cups of wine in hand.

There were rough steps up the tree with the lean-to beside it, pieces of wood hammered clumsily onto the narrow trunk. Whatever else the guy was, he was no carpenter.

At the top there was a platform, several layers of plywood with holes cut in them for the topmost limbs, which stuck out like grasping arms. Hal pulled himself up behind T., unsteady.

“Is this thing safe?” he asked.

T. shrugged. “Enough.”

They both stood looking out over the mangroves, over the low tangle of vegetation eastward to the open ocean. Nothing around them but air; at only twenty feet up they were the highest point for miles.

Hal saw a huge ship far out on the water, dazzling with light.

“Cruise ship, huh,” he said.

“You can see from here to the utter east,” said T. softly. “All the world ends in sea.”

The wind picked up the branches of the trees that ringed their clearing, swept through and subsided again.

“Right,” said Hal.

So the guy was maybe not doing too well, mental-wise. It happened. He had been in an extreme situation—lost in the jungle, pretty much. He had a little breakdown, or maybe an epiphany; he found God, he saw the error of his ways, he renounced the accumulation of capital. Good, fine, and even excellent. More power to him. Let him become ascetic, live in a small hut with zero Armanis. At last Susan could stop working for him.

Hal’s new fondness was a pleasant enough sensation. The man who used to be Stern had a gentle demeanor now, or that was what it felt like. Maybe Hal could even serve as his advocate with the Belize authorities, if it turned out he had committed a crime. If he had, for instance, murdered the tour guide, say, and that was why he had spiraled out of control and was building tree-houses and forgoing personal grooming. Hal could stand beside him like a brother.

He drank his wine and felt the cool breeze on his face and the warmth in his throat.

“Not a bad place to be,” said T. “Is it?”

But wait, maybe this was why Marlo had asked if he was a lawyer. When he first woke him up by the pool, Marlo had asked if he was a lawyer. Maybe the guy knew he needed a lawyer. Maybe Marlo had already called for one.

“Not at all,” he concurred, and looked up into the dark blue. It was light up here, the wind lifted you as though you could soar or fall, and let it, you wouldn’t mind. Stars were visible, but soft and washed out by the water in the air, not like infinite