Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 4-2008 You Will Come Safe from the Sea Peter J. Geye Western Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation Geye, Peter J., "You Will Come Safe from the Sea" (2008). Dissertations. 770. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/770 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. YOU WILL COME SAFE FROM THE SEA by Peter J. Geye A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Dr. Jaimy Gordon, Advisor Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan April 2008 YOU WILL COME SAFE FROM THE SEA Peter J. Geye, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2008 Set against the Minnesota North Shore of Lake Superior, "You Will Come Safe From the Sea" examines the lives of Olaf and Noah Torr, a father and son whose long estrangement began after Olaf survived a shipwreck on Lake Superior. Thirty years after the wreck, Olaf is dying of cancer and has asked his son home to help him die. Over the course of two weeks in November, the protagonists learn each other's lives and summon the courage to forgive. Multiple stories-within-the-story evolve, including the harrowing account of the wreck of the SSRagnarek (Olaf s ore boat), and Noah's own struggle to make a life with an absent father and the help of his sagacious wife, whose own complications with infertility issues mark her husband's life in ways he only fully understands as the reconciliation with his father takes shape. © 2008 Peter J. Geye UMI Number: 3303467 Copyright 2008 by Geye, Peter J. All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3303467 Copyright 2008 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have many people to thank. First, I'd like to thank my father for being such an inspiration and help in life, but especially during the writing of this book. You helped more than anyone. I'd also like to thank my mother for her support and encouragement through the years. Without the help of many friends, I'd have been hard pressed to finish. Kim Barzso, Laura Jean Baker, Bill Harris, Dale and Sandy Hofmann, Joseph Boyden, and Sandy Stark, I am indebted to each of you. To my committee members I owe an enormous debt of gratitude. Richard Katrovas, Jon Adams, and Peter Blickle, thank you all. To Jaimy Gordon, my advisor, I say thank you deeply and sincerely. You read this book with more attention and with greater care than I ever could have expected. Finally, and most importantly, I'd like to thank my wife, Dana Hofmann- Geye. You've always been more than I deserve. You are an inspiration in every way. I dedicate this book to you, of course. Peter J. Geye ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii PARTS I. RED, RIGHT, RETURNING 1 II. BY ANDROMEDA'S LIGHT 65 III. THE RAG IS BURNING 116 IV. THE DARKEST PLACE IN THE NIGHT 223 V. DEAD RECKONING 271 VI. YOU WILL COME SAFE FROM THE SEA 323 iii PARTI RED, RIGHT, RETURNING The aspens swayed white and bony, the last of their pale leaves had fallen. On either side of the road the pattern of trees made a crude geometry that had begun to lull him. Noah'd been toying with the car radio—tuning the dial up and down the AM band— when he heard a disc jockey from a station in Marquette announce the time, seven twenty-five, and an old country music song. The first few chords of a steel guitar moaned before fading to static. He turned the radio off, cleared his throat after a sip of lukewarm coffee, and settled into the white noise of the tires on the highway. It had been a half hour since he'd seen another car. Occasionally the road curved to the right—to the east—and the trees dispersed and the brown rocks and the brown water of the lake came into view. The lake was unusually still, especially in contrast with his memories of it tonguing up onto the stone beaches and boulders—a child's memories, the water all froth and fury. He'd been expecting the sun to rise over the lake but it was too late in the year, too far into fall, and it was rising over the hills instead. Watching the horizon over the lake to the north, he tried to remember the adage about a red sky in morning. 1 It was red—the sky over the lake—and threatening. It reminded him of his childhood and the late season gales that had been the curse of his mother, the curse of all the ore men's wives. Their children too. He never knew what to think about the storms but that they were spectacular, and he suspected one was coming in the spiraling clouds. Another hour, he thought. I'll be there in another hour. When Noah was a boy the North Shore was a savage place. Highway 61 had always been rutty with potholes and frost heaves, and deserted but for a few dilapidated wooden billboards and battered storefronts and the highway signs warning of deer crossings. Not much had changed as he drove along the highway but that the two deadliest curves, curves that had once pinned cars between sheer three-hundred- foot cliffs on either side of the road, one dropping into Lake Superior, the other climbing up from the highway, had been replaced with two quarter-mile tunnels burrowed into the craggy bedrock. The weathered wooden signs were still there advertising places like the Poplar Lodge and Ingrid's Wild Berry Pies. The signs warning of deer crossings were still there too. He was a long way from his townhouse in Cambridge. Two days earlier, on a Sunday, Noah was watching a Patriots game when the phone rang. 'Noah?' the voice said. 'Noah's that you?' 'Dad?' 'This is your father.' 'I know. Where are you?' 2 'At the gas station in Misquah. There's a pay phone here.' Something about his father's voice gave away the old man's isolation. It was the voice of a silent man, a man who hadn't spoken aloud in some time. 'Are you in trouble?' 'Fucksakes can't a man call his son?' 'Of course he can, he just doesn't.' There was a long pause. Noah could hear wind in the phone. 'Noah, I think something's wrong.' Noah said nothing. 'I shit a pile of bloody tar this morning.' Noah stood up, muted the television. 'What are you talking about?' The cabin on Lake Forsone where his father lived didn't have running water or a toilet inside. There was a spigot on a limestone slab in the yard. The well. He envisioned the rusted well pump from his childhood, the ten gallon buckets used to haul the water into the house. He could practically taste the metallic water in his memory, could practically feel its coldness on his throat. In order for his father to go to the bathroom, Noah knew, he had to walk thirty yards past the well up a path through the woods to the privy. From the seat whatever fell dropped ten feet into an antique septic tank that had to be pumped out every spring. 'How could you tell it was bloody? You can't see down into the toilet there.' His father sighed. 'Noah, I shit my pants. In bed. It happened this morning before I could get up. I couldn't get up.' 3 Noah hadn't thought much about his father the last couple of years, but whenever he did, the same image always came to mind. The Ragnarok steaming into Duluth harbor, the dregs of an August thunderstorm hanging over the hills behind the city, the old man in yellow rain pants, shirtless, shoulder muscles ropy, holding a stern line above his head as he instructed a deckhand. Noah remembered being able to hear his father's voice as the ship steamed past the breakwater where he and his mother stood. He hollered for his father, and between the ship's horn blasts to the bridge the old man hollered back, waving his free hand. It was a safe memory, one that kept the hatred at bay. 'You still there?' his father asked. 'I'm here. Tell me what happened. Be more specific' 'How in the hell can I be more specific? I woke up this morning and my pajamas were a mess. It was black and bloody.' 'How did you get to the gas station?' 'I drove the goddamn truck.