Biff had the car, but he took a detour with his daughter. The fog rolled in over the beach, covering everything with equality. The gaudy apartments blended with the dwindling number of clapboard homes. Way off in the distance rang the bell in the lighthouse.
Lighthouses were obsolete in this day and age of radar and sonar tracking equipment. But the Ocean Beach lighthouse was still out there on the outcropping of rock sounding the alarm. It was a pleasant sound.
It reminded Biff of the grizzled old man walking around. He swung around and walked the few quick blocks back to that house. He was surprised to find the light was still on. Even through the fog, he could see the white-haired man sitting in the padded rocking chair, drinking a can of beer. Looking closer, Biff noticed the walls were lined with books and peering closer he saw, or thought he saw (the fog was getting very thick) old, leather bound volumes made in a bygone era. He sighed to himself. Biff had a house twice as beautiful and worth three times the money that this one bedroom shanty was. And yet he felt in his gut that the man living inside was infinitely richer, his life many times more fulfilling.
"What are we doing?" Janet asked. The fog was making her cold and she wanted to get back to the warmth and safety of the house.
"It will just be a minute," Biff answered.
They crossed the street and when they stood in front of the door, Biff stopped. He didn't know this man. It was awkward for him to open the door and say hello to someone he didn't know. But he felt compelled to do so. An invisible force seemed to be pushing him.
Squaring his shoulders, Biff walked the cement stairs to the house and knocked.
It was several long seconds before the grizzled man opened the door.
"Howdy," he replied. His face was square and masculine. He had straight, even teeth, a battered nose and a clipped white beard that made him look like Jack Hemingway.
"I live up on the hill," began Biff. "We were passing by, my daughter and I and we happened to see your bookshelf and…"
He was cut off by the man's guffaw. "Well, don't feel alone. All the guys up on the hill come by sooner or later." He extended a firm hand. "The name's Derk Jones. Been living here ever since the government took my schooner away from me." He waved them into the small one-bedroom shack with the large expanse of picture window and the row-after-row stacks of wonderful books.
"I'm getting famous in these parts," said Derk, fetching two beers for his friends. "I'm known by many names. The captain, the wanderer, the crazy old bird down on the beach. Lots of names." He laughed hard, showing all his teeth. There was none of the mean-spirited, hustling anxiety to his laugh. It was full throated and honest, a man who knew about life and the sea and had faced death many times.
"What happened to your boat?" Janet asked.
"Schooner," corrected Derk. "Don't mix the two up." He twisted in his chair crossing his legs.
"Lost it to the bank," he said sipping the beer. "Put every nickel I had into it, then had a run of bad weather and ripped out my mainsail and I couldn't charter out. My credit was gone and the bank came to collect what they could."
"Jesus," said Biff. Since his boyhood, he had been fascinated by the sea and the men who lived their lives on the great sailing ships. "That must have gutted you."
Derk laughed again. "Not at all. I had a blast. A hell of a good time. That's why everybody on the hill – the rich folks, if you don't mind me saying so – know me. I took cruises everywhere. One time or another everyone in Point Loma was on my schooner. Tahiti, Java, Samoa… everywhere. Hell of a good time. Wouldn't do a thing different if I had to. Hell of a good time." He drank from his bottle and the woman with the heavy belly and sagging tits came to fetch a fresh one for Derk.
"Did your wife go?" Janet asked.
The captain's eyes twinkled merrily. "Oh, she did. Grand old gal. I tell you life is all right. Ain't that right Babie?"
The heavy woman smiled at Derk lovingly. "The ocean is home," she smiled.
Biff drank from his beer. His eyes didn't leave the rotund figure of the woman. She had put on a worn sweater and some patched pants out of courtesy to the guest, though it was apparent she loved to run around the house half-naked, as Biff had seen her do earlier. Her skin was the color of brown sugar and her breasts hung like fresh mangos from her chest. She had a strong, pretty face, a wide smile like the captain's and coal-black hair that hung straight back down her shoulders.
She was neither young nor especially pretty. When she laughed her whole body shook. Her features were coarse and awkward, like the two dimensional scrawls of a schoolboy's first crayon painting.
Yet Biff was oddly drawn to this woman. It was a strange sensation. All his life he had searched for youth and beauty and finally finding both qualities in his daughter Janet, he discovered that women without these qualities could arouse him.
"Where is the schooner?" Biff asked, changing the subject.
"Still in the harbor," said Derk. "It's the bank's. They just haven't got around to selling her."
Janet nudged her father. She liked the old guy and it was just too damn bad about the boat. It was wrong for a bank to take this man's boat away from him.
Derk sensed the girl's uneasiness. "It's all right," he said. "I've got this little house and sooner or later I'll be back on my feet with another ship to sail. It always happens."
She believed him, though there was no mistaking the wistfulness in his voice.
"Take a look at the books," said Derk.
And for the next two hours they drank and talked about great books and great adventures and when they finally finished, Derk shook their hands and invited them back.
His wife was smiling at Biff as they left.
He knew that he would return.