O+F | Page 4

storm. He followed
it along the white empty street. He considered stopping at Giobbi's
Restaurant, but he turned up Danforth and walked to State Street where
he lived in a second floor apartment on the last block before the Million
Dollar bridge.
Verdi was waiting. He jumped from the window sill and made a fuss
bumping against Oliver's legs. "Hungry, are we?" Oliver bent over and
stroked him from head to tail. "Yes, very large and very fierce is Verdi.
Very fierce." Verdi was brown and black, heavyset, with a large
tomcat's head and yellow eyes. He padded deliberately over to the
lengths of walnut leaning upright in one corner of the room and
scratched luxuriously, stretching full length, as though he had been
waiting to do this for some time. "Aieee! Swell, Verdi." Oliver hung his
coat on a peg and gathered up the boards. For the moment, he laid them
on the table. The cat was irritated. "How about some nice pine," Oliver
said. "Much better than walnut. I'll get you a nice soft piece of pine. In
the meantime . . ." He opened a can of salmon Friskies.
Verdi ate, and Oliver refilled his water dish. The boards were beautiful.
He'd been right about the color of Francesca's eyes. There was an actual
black walnut, a large one, at the edge of the parking area behind his
building. It shaded his kitchen window during the summer and dropped
hundreds of furry green walnuts that were gathered by squirrels each
fall. Oliver had planted six walnuts in yogurt containers. He'd let them
freeze first, done everything right, but none of them came up. The seeds
were finicky for such a powerful tree. Maybe they had to pass through
a squirrel. "Biology is complicated," he said to Verdi.
The kitchen had been a master bedroom in the original house. The
appliances, counter, and sink were arranged along one wall and part of
another, leaving plenty of space for a table in the center. The wall to the

adjoining living room had been mostly removed; the two rooms
functioned as one. Steps led to a landing and then to an attic bedroom
with a view of the harbor. There was a fireplace that he rarely used. In
one corner, a small table held a computer system.
Oliver sat at the kitchen table and ran the heels of his hands along the
walnut. He enjoyed making things from wood: easy shelves, chests, a
cradle once for a wedding present. He had a table saw and a router in
the basement, but he kept his tools under a rough workbench that he
had built along one wall of the kitchen. A "Workmate" stood in the
living room near the door to the hall. Usually it was covered with mail.
The touch of the wood was reassuring. Deep in the grain, in what might
be made from the grain, was something iconic and alive, more alive
than what could be said about it. Oliver took particular pleasure in
finishing a shelf or a chest, hand rubbing the surface and seeing the
patterns of the grain shine and deepen. He would have to buy legs if he
were going to make a table. Or learn how to use a lathe. He didn't have
a lathe. Maybe he could make a small box--to hold something special.
He could give it to someone.
Who? A wave of longing swept over him. Who would care? He had an
impulse to put his head down on his arms and give up.
"There are no cowards on this ship!" God, he hadn't thought of that for
years. His high school English teacher had said it, loudly. It was the
punch line of a war story. The teacher had accompanied a couple of his
Navy buddies to the bow of their ship; one of them was bragging that
he would dive. The captain had come up behind them, asked what they
were doing, and then ordered them all to dive. Apparently, it had been
a high point of sorts in his teacher's life.
"No cowards on this ship, Verdi," Oliver said, standing. Toast. Tea.
When Oliver was upset, he turned to food. He had a high metabolism
and ate what he wanted. His body looked chubby on its short square
frame, but there was more muscle than fat under his skin; he could
move quickly when he wished. He had a wide serious mouth with
strong teeth. His eyebrows and hair were black. His eyes were large
and dark brown with lids that slanted slightly across the corners.
Women looked at him and were puzzled by something that was
different. He almost never got into it.
"Oliver Muni Prescott," he had told a few. "Owl Prescott was my

stepfather. My father