As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth (6 page)

O
ther than the rivulets of molten lava burping up out of occasional fissures in its crater, and the steam that rose from them, the volcano had been dormant for such a long time that tall trees grew on its steep slopes.

A few locals earned a living by leading tourists up winding paths that were almost unfindable in the undergrowth, climbing over the waist-high, even shoulder-high, banyan tree roots to the top.

When they got up there, they could look around panoramically. To the north and south, a few other tiny islands emerged from the water. To the west was the Caribbean. And to the east was the Atlantic Ocean, with nothing at all emerging from it for more than three thousand miles, only ocean until the coast of Africa, unless you were lucky enough in your swim or boat ride
to hit the Cape Verde Islands, almost to Africa anyway, and here you were on this teeny-tiny island, and what if you fell off? Especially on the Atlantic Ocean side?

Then the tourists would venture into the crater and observe the glowing lava trickles and the steam, and try to remember those diagrams of volcanoes everyone had to draw in fifth grade, and wonder how dormant a volcano could be if it still had glowing lava coming out of it? Here it was, geology in real life (though geology was really
every
where; it
was
real life), and it was all pretty incredible, but it was also a relief to get back to the bottom and eat one of the sandwiches that the guide had packed, even if giant ants had found their way inside the bag and had to be brushed away.

Meanwhile, back up behind them, the thick heat of the tropical afternoon settled around the mountain. Twitters and chirps and squawks punctured the heavy stillness here and there, but it was siesta time.

The perky ringtone of a cell phone sang out into the cloud forest. No one was there to notice how the narrow rectangular window on its face lit up.

Five minutes after its Answer button went unpressed, it emitted a musical burble.

By the second burble, a small monkey with a green
cast to her fur had located the smooth silvery object. She waited for it to speak again, and it did. She touched the small bumps along the edges, and it peeped and glowed at her. And it vibrated, like a bee trapped under a leaf, tickling the palm of her hand. Foot. Whatever. She squeaked, then carried it off to show her family and friends.

I
n the booth at the New Pêche Skillet, Del and Pete were having a discussion.

“I like to fly under the radar,” Pete was saying.

“So, what happened to your eye?” asked Beth. She was talking to Ry.

“I just let them know where I stand,” said Del. “I don’t have anything to hide.” He was talking to Pete.

“I walked into something,” said Ry. “A big metal cable. It was in the shadow, and it was coming straight at me. I didn’t see it.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” said Pete. “But I’m not going to broadcast it, either.”

“Ow,” said Beth. “You’re lucky you didn’t poke your eye out. Where was this cable? What were you doing?”

Bit by bit she pried it out of him. It was surreal to be
sitting in the same booth, in the same restaurant, telling the same story he had told the night before to Del. But he was awake this time. And Beth was so interested. She kept asking him questions and listening to the answers. And there were the breakfast smells and the friendly hubbub of voices and clattering dishes and clinking silverware and the sunlight pouring through the windows…. Ry found he was chattering away, and when he ran out of things to say, he realized that everyone in the booth was now listening to him.

“Are there any other people you could call, any other relatives?” Del asked. “Besides your grandfather?”

“Maybe a neighbor, someone who could go see if your grandfather’s okay?” This was Beth.

“We just moved,” said Ry. “I don’t actually remember anybody’s last name. There’s a lady named Betty.”

“Betty,” said Pete. “Betty, Betty, Betty. Let’s call Betty.”

“I don’t know her last name.”

“I know, I was just—tell me again, what is the deal with your parents?”

“They’re sailing around the Caribbean. I think they’re revitalizing their marriage or something.”

“That sounds nice,” said Beth. “I’d like to do that. How long do they think it will take?”

“Take?” asked Ry.

“Do they have an itinerary?” asked Arvin. “Or are they just blowing in the wind, wherever love takes them, skipping over the ocean like a stone?”

“Arvin’s kind of a mystic,” explained Beth.

“Almost a monk, really,” said Pete. “He’s a Buddhist.”

“It’s words to songs,” said Arvin. “The stuff they play on that radio station you people listen to.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Beth. “I thought you were being poetic.”

“Not me,” said Arvin. “Delwyn’s the poet.”

Ry didn’t want to picture his parents letting love take them where it would. He wanted to picture them answering their phone and telling him what he should do.

“I think they have reservations at some of the places they want to stay,” he said. “My grandpa has the list. But I think some of the time they’re just going to sail around wherever. I feel like I should just go home. But it’s kind of impossible. I only have, like, eighty-five dollars, and my return ticket is in my backpack, which is who knows where.”

“Maybe he could work with us for a couple of days, Del,” said Beth, “and earn his train fare. He looks like a strapping lad. And in the meantime,” she said, turning
back to Ry, “your grandpa will remember to check the answering machine, or he’ll be there when you call. I bet he’s next door, blabbing with Betty.”

It was the sort of thing you say to make a person feel like he’s doing something when all there is to do is wait. No one, except maybe Ry, who didn’t know what would happen next, really expected him to work long enough to earn three hundred dollars, or whatever it would cost for a ticket. It was a distraction. But everyone went with it, waiting for the better idea to come along.

“We need to find him some shoes then,” said Del. “He can’t work in flip-flops.”

“What size are you?” asked Pete.

“Ten,” said Ry.

“Same as me,” said Arvin. “Almost. I’m ten and a half.”

“Do you have any extra shoes?” asked Pete.

“No,” said Arvin. “Not work shoes.”

“He needs shoes he can keep,” said Beth, “to wear back on the train. We can make a quick trip to the Sally.”

“T
he Sally” was the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Once inside, Ry’s new companions strayed like cats, every one to his own way. He stood just inside the door, bereft. Without his team buoying him along, he was less certain that what he was doing made any sense. He moved toward a set of shelves that held plates, bowls, and glasses. Kitchen things. The shelf at eye level was filled with mugs imprinted with photographs of children, grandchildren, best friends, boyfriends, and girlfriends. There were inscriptions like “World’s Best (fill in the blank)”, “I ♥ (whoever)”, “BFF.”

Abandoned now like puppies at the pound, they huddled together on the cold metal shelf. It was kind of depressing. Who was going to buy a mug with a picture of a total stranger? They were doomed. Their ranks
would only grow. It would be kind of funny, though, if you had a restaurant, to use only this kind of cup. He was momentarily glad to be far from home; if he saw someone he knew on a cup, he would have to rescue it. Them.

“Ohmigod,” said Beth, suddenly beside him. “Look what I found. Wait. We have to go to an outlet.” She took Ry by the elbow. As she led him along, he saw that in her other hand she carried a plastic cactus in a plastic pot, with a cord attached. When they reached the wall, she plugged it in. Many of the plastic cactus bristles were optic fibers, and pinpricks of light shone from their tips in an ever-changing array of color.

“I can’t believe someone would get rid of this,” said Beth. “Can you?” When Ry didn’t immediately respond, she said, “Picture it in the dark.”

“Cool,” said Ry. It would be better in the dark, he guessed, when you couldn’t see the cheesy plasticness of it, just the shimmering lights.

“Okay,” said Beth. “Never mind. Let’s go find you some shoes.”

On the way she grabbed a package of socks from a spinning rack.

Del was already in the shoe area. He was methodically checking each pair in the unmethodical aroma-of-feet
jumble for size. He glanced up as they approached.

“It’s not the greatest selection,” he said. “But I found a few.” He nodded toward three pairs he had set aside.

Ry had imagined something like the work boots Del and his crew all wore, maybe a more beat-up version of his own hiking boots. A pair of tennis shoes would have been okay. So far, his choice was between an old man’s dress shoes, reddish brown; crinkly white business-lizard loafers with a gold chain on one but missing from the other, and pull-on ankle-high boots of scuffed black suede with triangular elastic inserts on the sides.

“Give those a try,” said Del. “I guess you need socks, too.”

“I’ve got some right here,” said Beth, ripping open a plastic pouch. Ry pulled on the white cotton tube socks. Blue stripes went around the tops.

The ankle boots were the only pair that looked like they had been worn by a person under sixty years old, so he tried them first. He could barely get his foot inside.

Next he tried the dress shoes. They were huge. He would have been relieved about this except that it left him with the most horrible shoes, the shoes of last resort: the shiny white loafers.

Reluctantly, he slipped them on. He hated to admit it,
but this pair felt the best. They were all cushiony.

“Wow,” said Beth. “You would need a lot of self-esteem to walk around in those all day.”

Ry looked at his feet and legs in one of those little shoe mirrors that sat on the floor. The shoes were a metaphor for the decline of western civilization: crappy and glitzy and barely useful, but pretty comfortable. This is the narrator’s opinion. Ry didn’t think that thought specifically, but he felt as dispirited as if he had.

The contrast between the shoes and the striped tube socks was interesting. Probably a metaphor for something depressing, too. It looked as if a lawn mower–riding failed gambler in shorts with a potbelly should be attached to his legs. But shoes were just something to put on your feet, right? It wasn’t like he had to wear these the rest of his life.

Beth, meanwhile, said, “Men don’t know how to shop.” She went over to see what Del had missed. When she came back, she had a pair of blue-and-yellow Pumas. They were soiled and worn, but intact.

They fit like gloves. Whatever that means when you’re talking about shoes. They fit like magic slippers, in a fairy tale.

“You don’t have to pull the socks all the way up like
that,” said Beth. She folded the tops over and smooshed them down. “There,” she said.

Ry felt almost normal. He looked at Beth with gratitude. She was pleased, too.

“I know,” she said. “I’m amazing.”

Pete and Arvin had materialized. Pete held a cookie jar shaped like a parrot. Arvin carried a teakettle.

“Thoreau said to beware of enterprises that require new clothes,” said Pete.

“But did he say you have to go barefoot?” asked Beth. “I don’t think so.”

“I don’t think those shoes count as new,” said Arvin.

“Did Thoreau say anything about ceramic parrots?” asked Del.

“It’s for my mother,” said Pete. “She loves this crap. You should see her house—it’s full of it.”

Ry tried to picture Pete in a house full of cookie jars. He tried to picture Pete with a mother. It wasn’t what you thought of when you first looked at him. That would be more like, I hope he doesn’t hurt me. Okay, not really—that was an exaggeration.

He tried, in his mind’s eye, to morph Pete into Pete’s mother. He made him smaller, rounder, and softer, and eliminated the facial hair. He pulled the rest of the hair
into a ponytail and gave her sleeves. She only came up to Pete’s shoulder.

“Oh my God, Pete,” she said. “That is too cute. I love it!” Her voice was gravelly, like Pete’s. He gave her his own mother’s voice instead. It didn’t quite fit, but it made her seem very motherly.

Thinking of his mother’s voice made him think of his mother. He thought of how she looked when he said something she thought was funny. At first her face stayed the same, except for her eyes. They would twinkle. Then the shape of her mouth and cheeks would shift almost imperceptibly into her secretly amused expression. It was weird not to know where she was. She didn’t know where he was, either. Both of them sort of thought they did, but in a useless, nonspecific way. Like, oh, yeah, my needle is right over there. In that haystack.