47: As you approach Babbington . . .
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy,” Chapter 5 begins
5
As you approach Babbington, note the large and unattractive water tower rising from the center of town. Topped by a winking red light, this tower serves as a beacon for ships at sea, much as a lighthouse would, though God knows a lighthouse would have been much quainter and more attractive, and one can’t help but wonder why, if a water tower had to be constructed in the center of the town, those responsible for it could not have had the good sense to disguise it as a lighthouse, or an obelisk, or a tree, or something.
Boating on the Bolotomy
CAP’N ANDREW LEECH lived alone in a shack under the water tower that dominated the skyline of Babbington. The tower stood on four thick, tubular legs, up one of which a small and fragile-looking ladder ran. At the top, the tank, an enormous sphere, slightly oblate, rested on the legs. Around its equator was a narrow walkway. The names of daring adolescents were painted all over the sphere, those of more recent generations obscuring those of boys who had long ago become men and, in some cases, legends. Largest of all, still discernible in fat black letters beneath the newer names, running all the way around the sphere, was
BLACK JACQUES LEROY
which Black Jacques had painted on the day the tower was dedicated, August 13, 1905, when he was sixty-nine and probably should have been beyond such pranks. Except where it had been painted with names, the structure had gone unpainted, since there were no daring adolescents in the Babbington Department of Public Works to climb the rickety ladder. The tower had rusted to a ruddy orange, and in the setting sun it was a magnificent sight, as magnificent as the sun itself. A boatman on the bay, when the day was done and the desire to be at home and at rest became so tangible that he could feel the cold glass in his hand, would see the tower above the roofs of the town, burnished by the late sunlight, more magnificent in its way than any cathedral—earthy, not ethereal, speaking of the simple comforts of this life, of home, a shower, a comfy chair, a full glass, a full stomach.
Raskol took me to visit Cap’n Leech one night when he was delivering half a peck of chowder clams to him. Raskol’s father, like many another clammy, sent the Cap’n a sack of clams now and then, and once in a while a few dollars too. When he was younger, Cap’n Leech had owned the boatyard at the end of the street where my big grandparents lived, the boatyard that was now run by his son: Leech’s Son’s Boatyard. “Cap’n” was an honorary title.
It was dark when we reached the shack. A dim light showed through the one window. When Raskol knocked on the door, the whole shack shook.
“Hey, Raskol, take it easy,” I whispered.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“You’re being too rough. Look—the whole place shakes when you bang on the door like that. You’re going to knock the shack down, and then we’ll be blamed for it. My father would go wild if I ever got into any trouble like that. The police would arrest us, and the whole story would be in the paper:
[to be continued on Monday, July 18, 2021]
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