On a Beach on Nantucket

On a Beach on Nantucket

Remembering youth and love on the island of Nantucket

In the early summer of 1974, I was young and in love, enjoying a time when, as Hemingway might say, life is a moveable feast. Although I did not have Paris, I did have Nantucket.
 
The community college I attended was on its summer break, and my girlfriend Loretta had just left for the summer to work and live on Nantucket Island, located thirty miles off the southern coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. She would meet a group of friends on the island, and their plan was to find a place to rent and share living expenses through the summer season, which started in mid-June. Rhetta had made many trips to Nantucket, and one of her dreams was to spend an entire summer on the island.
 
I was living in a two-bedroom apartment above a bar in Manchester, Connecticut, with my roommate, Don Doughty. Occasionally, I talked to Loretta on the phone, and everything was going well on the island. The group had found a small rental in town, and six people lived there together and shared expenses. Most had found jobs in restaurants or hotels for the busy summer season. I told her I wanted to visit sometime, and Rhetta told me that she would like that. I was lonely and heartsick, and the time seemed to crawl when she was away.
 
Early one morning, sick with loneliness, I walked into my roommate Don’s room and asked him to drive me to the ferry. I told him I would pay for the cost of gas both ways, and throw in twenty dollars as well. After he agreed, I made a reservation for the ferry, which in those days departed from the southwestern tip of Cape Cod at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. I then called Loretta to let her know I would be on the late afternoon boat. I threw some clothes in a large daypack, and we were soon on our way. I planned to hitchhike home three days later.
 
The ride to Woods Hole took about three hours. I said goodbye to Don, got my ticket, and waited with the other travelers for the ferry to board, eagerly awaiting my first voyage to the island. Today’s run would stop first at Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard, before continuing on to Nantucket. The ferry was a large ship that shuttled trucks, cargo, and provisions, as well as passenger cars, to and from the islands. The ferry had large loading doors leading to the parking level at each end of the ship, and cars and trucks would drive in one end, and exit out the other after reaching the island. In addition to vehicles and cargo, the ship carried more than a 1000 passengers.
 
We boarded the ferry and headed for Martha’s Vineyard, clearly visible ahead. After unloading passengers and cargo, we started for Nantucket. At the halfway point, you cannot see land from the open deck, but the island comes into view on the far horizon.
 
We approached the island and began to slow in preparation for entering the harbor. I saw Loretta and Steven Cooney standing on the shore of what I would later learn was Cliff Beach. I waved to them, and Rhetta waved back; my heart swelled with emotion at the sight of her. They turned and left the beach to meet the boat when we docked.  The ferry passed Brant Point lighthouse and slowed to a crawl as the ship made a hard right turn and headed into the main landing.
 
The boat docked at the downtown pier and quickly secured in place. The passengers walked ashore through the large loading doors leading to the parking level. Rhetta came up to me through the crowd and we hugged and kissed, oblivious to the mass movement of people around us. It was a wonderful and salient moment, as fresh today in my memory as it was standing in the sun amid the crush of humanity those many years ago. I shook hands with Steven. He was here on the island with his girlfriend, Mary Ellen Casey, and they shared the bungalow with Loretta. The three of us walked into town and stopped at the Brotherhood of Thieves, a small bar and restaurant, where we had a beer and a cup of the Brotherhood’s famous clam chowder.
 
After leaving the restaurant, we walked around downtown Nantucket, and then made our way to the small bungalow she shared with her friends. Her roommates were either out working, or judiciously away to give us some privacy. As the day grew dark, we spread out some blankets and sleeping bags, and with a sweet urgency, shed our clothes and made love on the floor.
 
Over the next two days, I had my first look at the island, and numerous place names entered my vocabulary: Madaket, Cisco, Surfside, Siasconset, Wauwinet, Quaise, Quidnet, Polpis, Pocomo, Monomoy, Sankaty Head. There was so much to see and appreciate, and my feelings for the person at my side occasionally overwhelmed me.
During those few days, I asked Rhetta to marry me, and she accepted. Joy now was manifest in the world. We planned to have a simple wedding in August; we would wed in casual dress and exchange vows in the bird sanctuary on Nantucket. We called family and friends to share the good news. Everything was so beautifully simple, and we felt ourselves swept up in the salad days of life.
 
After two days on the island, I returned to Woods Hole and hitchhiked my way back home. Several return trips to Nantucket soon followed. I always felt great just setting foot on the ferry; heading offshore for thirty miles provided immediate release from the day-to-day grind, and I always felt I was really getting away from my mundane existence in Manchester. Loretta had secured a job cooking meals for an elderly woman, a Mrs. Everett, who lived in a fine old house close to downtown. Two fine silver pheasants with long tails sat on her unused dining room table downstairs. She kept telling Rhetta that she wanted to meet me, but she always deferred when I was actually at the house, telling Rhetta that she was too tired to do meet me today. Because of Rhetta's job, we met some Portuguese workers who assisted the Everett family in caring for both her and her dwelling. These people were life-long islanders, and we were lucky enough to become their friends. They invited us to birthdays and graduation parties, and we enjoyed our opportunity to share in their celebrations of life on the island.
 
We never did have that simple wedding in the bird sanctuary that we had planned; Rhetta’s mom morphed the wedding into a large production in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Yet we kept our connection with the island and the friends we had made there, and this connection led to numerous trips to Nantucket, and the creation of some wonderful memories over the years.
 
Rhetta had met John Poor, whose family owned the fish market on the wharf downtown. We would occasionally stay in a room above the market, spreading our sleeping bags on the floor. One time when we were staying there, a lobsterman brought in a 37-pound giant. I have a picture of John holding the lobster up for the camera. John purchased it for himself, and a group of his friends chipped in to pay for it. We went out to the shore south of Madaket one night and, in a secluded circular depression in the sand and sea grass not far from the ocean; John boiled the lobster in a garbage can over a fire. We threw ears of corn and a bushel of clams into the can as well. We sat around the fire, protected from the wind, drinking wine and beer from two large coolers carried into the dunes. It was a magic evening.
 
Loretta had a close friend, Mary Twormey, who was staying in a house near the beach on Quidnet Pond, and she had invited us to stay with her and her friends for a few days. The place was quiet and private, and when the house was empty Loretta and I would spread a towel on the sand and make love on the beach under the summer sun.
 
Nantucket Island was a blue-blood destination during the summer, and its population swelled in the sultry summer months. There were the places Jackie O used to visit, or where the Kennedy clan stayed. There was fine dining to enjoy, and lively bars. As we grew older, we availed ourselves of the enjoyment found at some of the nicer establishments. Occasionally, when we were at a secluded stretch of beach, the girls would go topless. We were young and free and, if you were on Nantucket in the summer, you were definitely one of the beautiful people. Everywhere one looked; there was youth, abundance, beauty, and joy.   
 
As the years went by, we made more and more trips to the island in the winter. One or two places remained open year round, with our favorite being the Jared Coffin House. The cost of a room was very reasonable, and they had a warm and friendly bar. We would book winter reservations, and three or four couples would travel to the island together. A close friend’s daughter was conceived on one of these trips. During the day, we would enjoy the deserted and windswept beaches and explore the downtown area. At night, we would enjoy dinner, and follow that with a drink by the fireside in the café.
 
Nevertheless, things change, and Loretta and I began to grow apart. In relationships, nothing is one-sided, but in looking back, I could see where I was selfish and insecure. I was unprepared and emotionally unavailable to support her as she prospered and bloomed into a dynamic business leader. She was looking at starting her own company and I was floundering about in search of my own meaning. I was more interested in exploring the White Mountains of New Hampshire than I was in business or school. In 1982, we were divorced.
 
Several years went by, and I did not return to Nantucket until the spring of 1986, when I visited the island with two friends, Bob Dunfield and Mary Carroll. We made reservations to spend two nights on the island. We boarded the ferry, which now left from Hyannis, in the early afternoon and headed out for the long trip to Nantucket.
 
As we approached the island, I could not help but remember the first trip in 1974, and I could see Steven and Loretta standing on Cliff Beach and waving to me as the ferry approached Brant Point. Today, in 1986, Loretta was living in Connecticut where she had built a successful advertising business. Steven was now dead, his death occurring sometime around 1980. He and some of his friends had left a café in the early morning hours near Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. As he stepped off the curb and into the street, he was struck by a car. The driver stopped a short distance further on, and then continued into the night; the driver was never caught. Standing at the railing of the ferry in 1986, a melancholy came over me, and I felt an ineffable sadness. I thought I had made a mistake coming on this trip, that I should not have come back to this island at all.
 
Later, I would realize nothing could have been further from the truth.
 
The ferry docked at the wharf, and the small off-season crowd disembarked. The three of us walked to our hotel and secured our rooms. In the evening, we enjoyed a fine dinner, and later we had drinks in the café. We quickly made friends with the bartender, Elaine, who enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed her. We were all tired after hours of traveling, and we did not make it a late night.
 
The next day broke warm and sunny. Rain was on the way, but we rented mopeds and set out to tour the island. We headed out by Cliffside and then west to Madaket. We then turned east and crossed the entire island to Siasconset, and walked up to the view by the lighthouse at Sankaty Head. Then we continued around through Quidnet and Quaise and returned to the town of Nantucket proper. Everywhere we went, and everywhere I looked, old ghosts and memories were there to greet me.
 
Bob, Mary, and I enjoyed another fine dinner, and then returned to the café where Elaine greeted us warmly. I savored two cognacs by the fire, and rejoiced in the fine ambiance of the café. When it was time for bed, I took my parka and walked out into the rain for a bit of fresh air. The streets were empty, and old island ghosts drew me on. I walked down into town to where the cobblestones were lit by the streetlights. The rain was steady.
 
A taxi pulled up at the curb beside me, and the driver asked if I wanted a lift anywhere. I thought for a second, then opened the door and got in. “Where to?” he asked.
 
“Take me to Cliff Beach,” I said. He left the center of town and drove for a few minutes until he reached a dark parking area, then pulled over and stopped.
 
“It’s right out there,” he said, gesturing to the flat darkness.
 
I got out of the cab, stepped over a log barrier, and walked out on to the beach in the dark and the rain. I could see a few lights streaking along the harbor entrance. I walked across the expanse of sand and stopped where the beach sloped down to the edge of the surf. Standing on the beach alone alone, I realized how lucky I had been to have this wonderful life, to have experienced the myriad things that happened to me on this island. There was sadness, yes, and some of it was my doing. Yet, I remembered how alive and wonderful I felt on that first trip in 1974, seeing Rhetta and Steven standing somewhere on this beach waving to me, waiting for me to arrive. I saw Rhetta naked in the golden candlelight of her bungalow on that first night I spent in Nantucket, and I felt once again the current of joy that surged through my body at the sight of her. I also remembered how beautiful she looked in the sunlight of those youthful days when we frolicked at the beach. Other images came into my mind, and I thought about many of the special moments the two of us had shared here on the island with so many of our friends over the years.
 
I loved Loretta, and in my heart, I always wanted the best for her. I looked out over the surf and into the blackness of the ocean, and then, into what Dylan Thomas called “the holy darkness”, I spoke a few words and made my final peace with Loretta and myself. After several minutes, I walked back to where the cab waited, and was quickly deposited back at my hotel.

Now, many years later, I live in California. Hardly anyone I know has any knowledge or appreciation for what the island of Nantucket is actually like, or of the history that surrounds it. Loretta remarried long ago and is doing well, as far as I can ascertain. My old roommate and steadfast friend, Don Doughty, passed away several years ago in San Diego. Old connections to the past are broken and whittled away, and the past itself seems ever more distant. Tonight, I remember my solitary walk in the rain late at night on Nantucket so long ago. The old thoughts and memories that came to me there on the sand at Cliff Beach come back to me here in California tonight, and I remain forever grateful.
 
 

February, 2008