Seacoast Fog

Blue Fog

Midnight fog blurred my view from the dark island. Boston’s glittery skyline became a golden smudge.

Redden mist approached our pier. I radioed the purring tugboat: “Spectacle Island to Orr. Evenin’ Cap. Drop that heavy barge at Pier 2. Scoot the light barge to Subaru Pier. Copy that?”

“Orr to Spec. Island. Roger copy all that. G’night,” said the captain.

After offloading the barge with a lumbering crane, we boarded the work boat for the ride home. Twelve tired souls sat on bench seats waiting for one laborer. I picked mud from my jacket while Cindy the bulldozer operator talked about her wayward daughter.

Timmy found his car keys and we left twenty minutes late. The sleepy captain aimed his black hull at the white haze surrounding Long Island pier. A half-hour later, the boat landed with a thump. After signing the ships log, Cindy and I walked past tired buildings full of Boston’s homeless to our trucks. Hundreds of feral cats avoided us because a few weeks before I had stepped on a cat’s tail at 2 a.m.

Cindy thanked me and drove away. Fifty miles to my Cape Cod home, my road companions included compliant Walmart trucks and wavering drunks. I looked for the bearded man. He drove an orange van with a heart-shaped window on the side panel. One night I waved and he waved back. I usually saw his orange aura a few miles into my ride home, but not tonight.

I thought about the bearded man. A man who drove a van with a heart-shaped window must have compassion. He took the time to cut a hole in the sheet metal and install this symbol of love. Perhaps he worked as a baker making donuts for school children. Or, he had a friend in a Boston apartment and he faced the heart toward her window.

Halfway home, I looked for the young State Trooper parked in the murk bordering the Jones River marsh. I often saw him slouched in his seat watching the asphalt, but not tonight.

I thought about the young Trooper. I sped and he didn’t care. The company decal on my truck indentified a worker eager to get home.

A few seconds later, the trucks, drunks, and I approached a cloud of pulsating lights. Blue fog blanketed both highway lanes. Thirty Trooper sedans hugged the median rail. An ambulance idled in the passing lane next to the orange van with the heart-shaped window. Two burly Troopers carried an ashen man to the ambulance. Another Trooper screamed: “Get Outta Here!”

***

A half-mile past the Jones River, a granite memorial sits a few feet from the highway. If you stop and read the inscription, no one will bother you. It describes the morning of September, 2, 1994, when the bearded man shot and killed the young Trooper.