An Island Boy

By C. K. Waterman

Born and raised on Catalina Island, Ben Morgan is scheduled to attend college on the mainland, but is reluctant to give up his role as protector of his unstable, single mother.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. K. Waterman
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215202166

Book preview

A CATALINA MEMOIR

Summer 2008

The Saturday morning after I graduated from high school, Allie and I sat on a bench overlooking the harbor, watching tourists come off the Catalina Express to stroll into Avalon for a day or two of shopping and sightseeing. They couldn’t have asked for a nicer day – warm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Eventually they would get back on the boat for the return trip to Los Angeles, maybe thinking how nice it would be to stay here forever. They’d be right. Catalina Island is just about perfect. So, here's the thing that didn’t make a bit of sense: I was going to leave. Most of those tourists would work their whole lives trying to save up enough money to retire to a terrific place like this. But I was already here. I was born here. Everybody I knew and cared about lived here. And I was leaving. It suddenly seemed kind of stupid to me.

I’ve got to go help my mom at the store, Allie said. Will you be okay?

Sure, I said. I just have to tell Gus what’s going on.

She held my face with both hands, kissed me softly and left.

My name is Ben Morgan. I lived with my mom, Sarah, in a run-down little house at the edge of town. My father?  I didn't even know who he was, let alone where he was. I was probably five years old before I even realized I didn’t have a father. I know, everybody has a father. But, until I started school, I was unaware of that fact. My whole world consisted of just my mother and my grandmother. Once I realized that the other kids in kindergarten all had dads, I started to ask Mom where mine was. I never got an answer. Eventually I stopped asking.

Grandma had died the previous November. She left the house to Mom debt-free, and that was a blessing because Mom didn’t have any money. She worked as a maid and waitress at the Beacon Hotel, which was owned by a family friend named Gus Pappas. Gus and my grandfather, Edgar Morgan, had served together in the Vietnam war. After they were discharged, Gus decided to follow his Army buddy home to this island paradise he had been hearing so much about. He was the best man at my grandparents' wedding. Years later, as Grandpa lay dying of cancer, Gus promised him he would look after his family. He kept his word. He was like another grandfather to me, so I wasn’t happy to be bringing him bad news.

I rode my bike up Sumner Avenue and turned onto Beacon Street. The hotel was an old three-story, wood-frame building with a small dining room and bar off the lobby, and eight guest bedrooms upstairs. Gus and I did all the handyman stuff, some part-time employees cooked and tended bar, and Mom cleaned rooms and waited on tables. So, when somebody didn't show up it really put Gus in a bind. 

Hey, kid.

Standard greeting. No smile, but he hardly ever smiled. He was a big man, 6-2, maybe 200 pounds. Mostly bald, he had a fringe of white hair, a weather-beaten face with bushy eyebrows over small, bright blue eyes and a busted-up nose. He looked like exactly what he was: a 62-year-old guy you would be very smart not to mess with. 

Hey, Gus.

I looked around to make sure we were alone before I told him that Mom would be late for work if she showed up at all.

Dammit, he growled. She was doing so good, too. What’s the problem now?

Nick Boone took her to dinner at El Galleon last night, I said. When I knocked on her door this morning, she said to leave her alone. I'll do her work today. She should be here to wait tables tonight.

Nick Boone? He’s back in town?

I just nodded. Boone was trouble, and we both had thought we were rid of him.