Walls: Essays, 1985-1990

Intimate Injustice

Intimate Injustice A few days ago I was offered a whopping one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for our summer home on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Even though the house was not mine to sell-it belongs to my parents-the figure seemed out of all proportion to reality. Undeniably, the house is a grand one. With ten rooms, a lovely p orch (designed by the architect of the Panama Canal, Thomas Goethals), a palatial s un room, and a wonderful, if sometimes elusive, view of the Oak Bluffs Harbor, it is a setting worthy of Monet. I wrote my first poem while looking out from the sun room, watching the wind stir the lilac ; my mother painted her prize-winning "Day at Length" there. As with all things, one' s memories are either bitter or sweet, depending on the freight of the imagined and the thirst of the imaginer. Yet, no matter what its charm, the house is a summer cottage-with no heat, little insulation, and a general airiness. In the eighty-five-degree summer heat, one can delight in the wind whipping through its porous walls as if they were mosquito netting; in the winter, however, these same walls act like a deadly sieve, the damp , moist air rushing like water through a parched field. 83 Walls: Essays, 1985-1990 My parents actually bought the house in 1 943 for twenty-five hundred dollars, after my father had been practicing medicine for three years. At that time he and my mother went for broke. With little but the arrogance of love, they scraped together the funds, spending every penny they had. In 1 94 7 , after seeing the wonderful Lerner and Lowe musical , they christened the house "Brigadoon," replete with a champagne party. If anything, the house was a place thatched out of dreams and wonder-at least for them. Like the enchanted country in the musical, our cottage seemed to rise out ofthe mist, wondrous in its apparition, recalling, at least for my parents , the only time when they cast discretion to the winds. Never again would they so resolutely trust their intuition; never again would they be so young, care­ free, and sassy. If the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars seemed remarkable, even more so was the fact that I thought of accepting it. This house had once been a symbol of unbridled fun and delight; now it rankled like a broken rib. My parents , certainly, did not view the Vineyard house as I did. They, for their own understandable reasons, tenaciously clung to the joy-laden past which salved the present. The Vineyard had once been a euphoric place for them: they remembered the gala beach parties; the gay times with the children; the brilliant overturning of a racist ordinance then prohibiting blacks from playing golf at the "public" country club; the giddy love they made in the upstairs bedroom; the long trips in broken-down cars from New York City to the island, one with war-issue tires so flimsy they exploded every twenty-five miles ; the early­ morning light which crept up the trellis like a hand opening; and the eerie soul-hungry drone of the East Chop foghorn, wailing like a loon to the distant Indian shores of Squibnocket, Tashmoo, and Wampannog. Yet, for my part, the present was unavoidable: it was my only reality. And thus my parents' reminiscences about the glorious past seemed but idle talk. All I could connote with the Vineyard was my dead alcoholic brother and my sister Adrienne, 84 Intimate Injustice who-in her long, lonely sojourn-showed me the island's hind parts. It is a much exploited notion that places cannot be divorced from the people who make them up , and Martha's Vineyard is no exception. Largely a resort community (or, at least, that is what the vacationers and the monied people like to think) , the island is also inhabited by fishermen, artists, carpenters , and craftspeople-the real folk, if you will. For many years, with various levels of difficulty, the vacationers and the true islanders (the "natives , " as they are called) have coexisted, with the proportion (the ratio between native to summer visitor) the most interesting variable. Thirty years ago, the island had a small winter p opulation and an equally tiny summer influx. Recently, however, with the advent of the "jet-setters "-such...