Kids These Days (9 page)

Inside, it was refrigerator-cold. The biggest through-wall air conditioner I'd ever seen was roaring away behind the counter, and there were low ice-cream-shop coolers full of bait along the walls: Styrofoam containers of worms, shrimp, fish. Live bait, too, in tanks. No bell on the door, no bell on the counter, no way to alert anybody you were there. Faded pictures of fishing triumphs stapled up everywhere. Hats and T-shirts and beer cozies with
DEVIL'S BACKBONE
printed on them. And the requisite fishing supplies, line and three thousand different shapes and sizes of lead weights, sorted into tins and trays. A sign up by the counter advertised boat rates.
FULL DAY 225. HALF DAY 185. 90/HR.
The rest of the board was empty, filthy. I stood in the middle of the floor and waited.

A man came out from a back room, tall, heavy, nodded at me, said, “Be with you in a minute.” He took a tray of fishing weights outside. I could hear him walking along the dock. He came back in carrying a big plastic cooler, set it by the bait tanks, stood up straight, wiped his hands on his jeans, and said, “Charter?”

I said, “What?”

“My charter. You it?”

“No,” I said. “Sorry. I'm—”

“So you gotta be Mid's guy. Pleasure. You want to see the cottages.”

“Walter,” I said.

“Hurley,” he said. “Nice car.”

“It's borrowed.”

“Never seen one yellow like that before.”

“I think somebody had it done,” I said.

“I guess we can hope for that.” He picked at something behind his left ear. “We'll walk the site, and I can show you the drawings we got made. That seem like the way things ought to go?”

I had no idea how things ought to go, and it didn't matter, because Hurley didn't wait for an answer. I followed him back out into the hot, and he walked us down a fresh-cut path into the weeds, around toward the water. I tried not to think too hard about snakes. Or about whether Hurley might be carrying some kind of weapon. It wasn't that difficult to imagine him turning on me with a machete. We stopped after a couple hundred yards. “So these are the cottages right here,” he said, but there was nothing—no sites, no other paths. Just weeds leading down to a thin beach that was as much mud as sand. “And over there's gonna be the pool,” he said.

From where we stood you could see the bridges coming over from the mainland, a newer concrete drawbridge built almost on top of an older wooden one. The center of it was knifed open for a long white yacht. The middle of the wooden bridge had been cut away. Across the waterway there were mansions on stilts edging out of the forest. Over here, in the flat, there was nothing. “How big are they going to be?” I said.

“Two bedroom. Kitchen, living room, laundry. And front porches. We're having front porches.”

“How many?”

“Two waterfront,” he said. “And then four more back poolside. We'll probably break ground in a couple weeks.”

“I thought Mid said you guys were still kicking this around.”

“Y'all do get a vote, I guess,” said Hurley. “How's he doing, anyway? I heard he got a little busy.”

“He's fine,” I said, on instinct.

Hurley said, “I guess I don't have to tell you, but we don't need a lot of trouble out here, you know?”

“Sure,” I said.

“But tell him I feel his pain.”

“I will.”

“I'd have sent flowers if I could have.”

“Flowers?”

“He'll pull through. He always does.” The yacht had made it through, and the bridge was sliding back into place behind it. Again I felt lost. Again I felt like there was some book I should have read beforehand. He said, “Ask me about the numbers out here. Ask me about rental prices.”

“What'll you rent them for?” I said.

“Guess.”

“I have no idea.”

“Thirteen hundred a week,” he said, rising up on the balls of his feet. “Two-fifty a night. In season, anyway.”

“Are you serious? Here?”

He pulled a cigarette out of his pack. “No offense taken,” he said.

“I didn't mean that,” I said.

“You're from where? Kansas?”

“North Carolina,” I said.

“Not the beach.”

“No.”

He got lit up, took a long pull. The smoke against the salt mud smelled acrid and wrong. He said, “Look. Our whole thing is we get folks down here thinking they want to spend a week fishing, OK? They've got some dream all worked out about how it would go. What they really want to do is fish for one day and spend the rest of the week sitting on their fat asses on the beach watching the little ladies go by, but they don't know that.” He squinted into the sun. “Everywhere else down here is houses and condos. Any town but this one is high schoolers making twelve bucks an hour plus tips to set your umbrella in the sand for you. We call these fishing cottages, though, and who we'll get is dudes with big dreams, dudes who've seen what they think they want on some YouTube video. Drop a pool in the ground for the wife and kids, take these boys out and get 'em sunburned and drunk, and at least for that first day everybody has the time of their lives. After that I don't know. Maybe we'll load up one of the boats and take everybody around front to the real beach, if that's what they want. Run us a water taxi every couple hours or something. I've been wanting to do this for years.”

“Why didn't you?” I said.

“Needed you,” he said. “You and the jailbird.”

“Why not a bank?”

“Can't be dealing with suits all day. I like to keep it local.” He flicked the ash off his cigarette. “Mid's good people,” he said. “He'll make his money. You tell him we're ready. Tell him if we open up next season, he'll make his cash.”

He took me back up to the building to show me the drawings. The cottages looked fine there on the rolls of paper—shake siding, tin roofs. They looked like they'd be perfect almost anywhere. Just not here. I did not say so. I nodded and listened and did my job. Maybe it looked different to somebody who wasn't me. Maybe it'd look right once the cottages were actually standing. But what it seemed like on paper was that somebody was trying to play house at a gas station.

His charter turned up, two guys wearing golf shirts tucked into their pants. They looked pink and hungover. I took my chance to go, headed for the door while Hurley asked them whether they had any gear, whether they might like to rent some truly top-of-the-line stuff. He was precisely the picture of himself they wanted him to be. It was nearly noon. Hurley broke away from them right as I was getting into the car, told them to hang on just a second, gentlemen, leaned through my window, and said again to tell Mid this was a sure thing. “Also tell him I said get well soon,” he said, and shook my hand. I got back out on the highway. My head was crammed full and buzzing. Hurley knew things I didn't, but that didn't make him particularly special. It only added him to the list.

I found a place for lunch that looked safe, predictable, had a top deck where you could see the ocean. I ordered a Coke and a fish sandwich. The place was open to the air on the beach side, pretty full, and it was not difficult to see who was local and who was not. I sat there trying to figure out if Hurley had meant me, if I was the sort of person who might be his perfect mark—the kind of guy who might, on the strength of a glossy brochure, rent a half-sized cottage on the wrong side of the island. Alice called. “Where are you?” she said.

“I'm eating lunch,” I said. “North a little ways.” I checked the menu. “The Oasis.”

“Mid's out on bond. And they dropped some of the charges. It's down to just possession, and the lawyer says they'll either make some kind of deal or get it dropped completely.”

“Possession.”

“The lawyer says they had to charge him with something.”

“Does anybody know what happened?”

“Mid says the police came through and arrested everybody in sight. Apparently he doesn't know anything about it, but they took him in since he's the owner, or part-owner, or whatever.”

“That doesn't sound exactly right.”

“That's what Carolyn says, too.”

“How is she?”

“They went somewhere to talk. I think she's pretty blown away.”

“But he's out?”

“He is.”

“That's good,” I said.

“I guess so.” She didn't sound sure. All around me people started getting up from their tables, walking to the edge of the deck, looking south. I looked that way, too. “Are you still there?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Hold on a second.” It was the parachutist. Or a parachutist. But there couldn't be two. “I think this is our guy,” I told her. “Up here. I think it's him.”

“What guy?”

“The vet. The flyer. I think he's up here.”

“How far away are you?”

“Doesn't matter. It's him.” At first he was just a black kite against the sky, but he kept coming, and there it all was again: the
DON'T TREAD ON ME
flag hooked back up to the rig, plus two rainbow-striped windsocks hanging from the undercarriage. He had on a full Indian headdress. It looked like his beard might be in a braid. People cheered as he got nearer. He saluted, and people cheered louder. He flew a big loop out over the water and came back around.

“How does he look?” Alice asked.

“He looks—he looks good. He's got more stuff.” And then he pointed at me. I said, “I think he's pointing at me.”

“Why would he be doing that?”

“Maybe he recognizes me.”

“From the balcony?”

“How would I know?” He was turned in his seat, grinning. He was wearing the goggles.

“Do you think he could know you were you?”

“No,” I said. “But maybe.” If he did, he had to wonder where Alice was, why she wasn't there to show the BOJ the fabulous flying man once more. He quit pointing, flew on up the beach. It was over, just like that. Everybody sat back down.

Alice said, “Hello?”

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry.”

“I lost you for a minute.”

“I just—” He'd spooked me, is what it was. A winged messenger, come for me. “Never mind. It doesn't matter.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Now, I guess. When I finish eating.” How could he have known? I kept seeing him bank and find me. I picked up the table topper, read down the specials. Clam strips. Cornbread. I felt very far away.

“Walter?” Alice said.

“Yeah.”

“Did you hear me? I said I'd see you at home.”

“Home,” I said.

“Are you alright?” she said.

I gave her the only answer I could.

Saturdays were changeover days. The weekly renters packed up in the mornings, and their replacements arrived in the afternoons. The ones leaving: bleary from all their good fortune, determined now to make good time on the ride back into their daily lives. Arrivals: in a hurry, full of brand-new bodyboards and unrusted chairs and bags of groceries, sugared cereals and hot dog buns and beer. The little kids shrieked. The big kids preened. The adults loaded luggage onto hotel carts, wheeled their way into the elevators, found their spots on the upper floors. Maybe someone was towing a couple of jet skis. Maybe somebody'd brought a college-themed tent big enough for the whole family. They'd get settled in, unpacked, and then they were down on the beach or into the pool, parents trailing the kids, trying to make sure they put on sunscreen, floaties. The refrain of the arriving parents: Wait. Wait. Ronnie, just a goddamned minute. Kayla, come back here right now.

What they did: Sit on the beach, read, make sure the kids didn't drown in the surf. Sit by the pool, drink, adjudicate Marco Polo disputes. Sometimes, on a Wednesday, the beach would go quiet, empty itself out, all the renting families off to St. Augustine for a carriage tour or down to Marineland to watch the dolphins jump through hoops. The cars came back with dolphin-shaped bumper stickers:
I'VE BEEN TO MARINELAND.

Fourth of July: Big fireworks in St. Augustine, bigger ones down south toward Daytona, the sky lit up on both edges. On our beach, people shot off squealers, screamers, six-by-six cubes with names like Smiling Dragon and Happy Family. Dads and kids hunched into the wind trying to light matches, ten tries for every one they got lit. Then the scatter and scramble for safe distance, the thing going off too soon, the laughing, the apologies, the promises not to do it again. Then they'd do it again.

Alice and I sat on the balcony, celebrated our independence. Alice was showing more, a quarter-moon there at her waistline, said she was sure she felt the BOJ kicking. I couldn't feel it. “Hold still, hold still,” she said. “That right there? You don't feel that?” I told her I wanted to. “You will,” she told me. “Don't worry. Soon.”

I spent half a week moving the bird paintings around the condo, but the walls were a different color behind the frames, so I moved them all back.

Two Tuesday nights after he got arrested, Mid rang our doorbell. It was the first time anybody'd rung the doorbell since we'd been there. It played the national anthem. I opened the door. Mid had a pink duffel bag with plastic glittery handles. “It's Olivia's,” he said, holding the bag forward a little. “I couldn't find the suitcases. Mind if I come in? I think I need to sit down.”

Alice met us in the hall. “What is this?”

Mid said, “She kicked me out.”

“Please say that's not true,” Alice said.

“Don't worry. I'm not staying.”

“You have a bag,” she said.

He looked down at it like he'd already forgotten he had it with him. “I don't know why I brought this up.”

“What happened?” I asked him. “What's going on?”

“The guy who runs morning prep at Island? Stevie? He called and asked to store some stuff at our place. In our attic. Carolyn picked up while he was talking. I didn't even get the chance to tell him no.”

Alice said, “Stuff?”

“Grow lights,” Mid said. “Stuff.”

“Carolyn's right?” she said. “You knew?”

“Alice,” I said.

“Did you?” she said, ignoring me.

“I had an idea,” he said.

“This can't be happening,” she said. “This is insane.”

“Let him talk,” I said, mainly because nobody'd talked about it yet. Mid wasn't talking to Carolyn, Alice reported, and he sure wasn't talking to me. I wasn't asking him, for one thing. I'd been afraid to. We'd been riding stop to stop like nothing happened.

“Did you know?” Alice said. “Will you just please say?”

“I tried not to know,” he said. “I knew in the way you can know without knowing.”

She said, “Is that what the lawyer's telling you to say?”

“I only ever played with the front of the house. Whatever went on in the back, I tried to just let that go, ignore it.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” she said. “No offense. Also, I don't think you being here is such a good idea.” She turned around, walked away. “I have to call Carolyn,” she said.

“I'm not staying,” Mid said again.

“You can if you need to,” I told him.

“No, he can't,” Alice said, from the kitchen.

We heard her pick up the phone. He said, “This is just for a few days. Until she cools off some.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I spent a couple nights out after Maggie was born, when she was about a year old. This'll solve itself.”

“Sure,” I said again. Alice was talking to Carolyn now, saying something about getting to the bottom of things. Or hitting bottom. I couldn't tell.

“The county commission met this afternoon,” Mid said, looking at the floor. “On the school.”

“And?”

“They voted to delay construction indefinitely. No funding. Cutbacks and all that. I guess they're going to try some kind of bond issue in the next election, see if that'll fly.”

“That sounds bad,” I said.

“Very.”

“You OK?”

He switched his duffel from hand to hand. “You know, it's kind of hard to say.”

I said, “Grow lights?”

“He was wanting me to hang onto them for a week or two.”

“You would have told him no,” I said, checking.

“Yeah,” he said. “That's what I would have told him.”

“What made him think he could ask you that?”

“That's exactly what I was trying to tell Carolyn. This doesn't have anything to do with me.”

I said, “It has something to do with you, though, right?”

“I should have told you,” he said. “I should have told Carolyn. I never should have let it get this far.”

“You knew,” I said.

“I thought they had it under control. The place makes a ton of money. Made. I just felt like the less anybody knew about it, me included, the better. I felt like it wasn't my business.”

I said, “Even though it was your actual business? That was your plan?”

“I think it was,” he said.

“Jesus, Mid.”

Alice came down the hall, purse in her hand. “I'm going over to see her,” she said. “Mid, it's not that I don't—Anyway, you just can't stay here. I'm sorry. It's Carolyn—”

“I get it,” he said. “I'm staying with a guy down the beach a little. I'll be fine. This will all be fine.”

“Fine,” Alice said.

“Yeah.”

“She did ask how you were.”

He looked awful, I thought. Cratered. “Tell her I'm making it,” he said. “Tell her I'm holding up.”

“When will you be back?” I asked her.

“Later. Don't wait up.” She kissed me, and then said, “Please be good.”

“What?”

“Be good,” she said again. She was wanting a joke, but it didn't work—she ended up meaning it. “When I come back, I don't want anything to have happened to you.”

“How could anything happen to me?”

“How would I know?” she said, half under her breath, and then she left. We could hear her walking toward the elevators. Mid sat down, leaned against the front door, and thumped his head on it a couple of times. A hollow, metal sound came back.

I said, “Can I get you something? A drink?”

He hit the door again. “That'd be about right,” he said. “But I might want some ice cream first.”

“Some what?”

“Ice cream. I'd like some ice cream. Doesn't it seem like that would help?”

We didn't have any. Alice had run through it a couple of nights ago, and I hadn't been back to the store. “We can go get some,” I said.

“Do you mind?”

“Let me get the keys.” I left him there in the hallway, went to get my things. I stood in the back bedroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Ice cream. I didn't quite know him well enough to understand if he was coming unraveled or not. All I knew was that he was in my hallway, holding a sparkly pink duffel bag and banging his head against the door. Nothing in Sandy's bird books for that, probably. I found my wallet, found my shoes, and only then remembered that I didn't own my own car anymore, and that Alice had taken the one we had. “Mid,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“You drove here?”

“In the banana.”

“You buy that thing yet?”

“Still test-driving it.”

“You're going to have to test-drive us to the store.”

“Right. That'll be fine.”

I walked out there. “Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“What's in the bag?”

He looked up at me. I don't know what I thought he was about to show me. Stacks of twenties. Silver-plated pistols. Pure uncut Venezuelan hash. He unzipped the bag. Clothes. T-shirts and socks. I felt relieved, but also a little disappointed, which was how I knew Mid might not be the only one tuned in to the wrong station. Be good, I could hear Alice saying. Be good, be good.

“You ready?” Mid said, standing up, and off we went.

Delton was in the parking lot at the grocery. We passed her coming in. “Jesus Christ in a rayon tracksuit,” Mid said. “Another country heard from.” He cut a long loop around a row of parked cars, brought the Camaro back to where she was standing with a few other kids, all of them smoking cigarettes. She'd seen us the first time by. There wasn't any mistaking that car. When she flicked her cigarette away, it was more show than any attempt to cover up what she'd been doing. Mid shut the headlights off so we wouldn't blind them. The kids stared at us. They were bored. Not caught. Not afraid. Just bored.

“See?” Mid said. “This is what I'm talking about. She doesn't give a shit about anything.”

“Sure she does.”

“She doesn't give a shit about me. We've asked her not to smoke.”

“Kids smoke,” I said. “At least she's not driving.”

“We asked her not to smoke until she was eighteen. That's the kind of fuckwad compromise you end up making.”

“The other night, Alice said she'd have her on the pill.” It was out of my mouth before I even tried to think it through.

“She is on the pill.”

“She is?”

“Sure, man. You think we're idiots?”

He left the motor running, got out of the car, and walked over to Delton. He didn't yell. He put his hands in his pockets, stood there and fathered. He'd gone to jail. He'd been kicked out of his own house. He was in search of ice cream. He asked her a couple of questions, and she shook her head no to each one. She had a new haircut, one side longer than the other. She had on that same long-sleeved band T-shirt again, only this time with a pink ballet skirt. She was cute—not Homecoming Queen cute, but you could tell she wasn't going for that. Mainly what she looked like was a kid playing dress-up, trying to play at being grown up. And who could blame her? That was give or take what any of us were doing. Mid asked another question, and she nodded yes this time, leaned into the car they were standing around, came out with her purse. They walked back toward me and Mid opened the driver's-side door, folded the seat forward. She got in. She reeked of smoke. “Walter,” she said, in a fake deep voice. “How goes?”

“Delton. It goes.”

“Father has suggested I tag along with you two for a while, instead of hanging out with my miscreant friends.”

“Fabulous,” I said.

“Isn't it?”

Mid drove us over a few rows, found a space by the door. He parked and we sat there, the grocery glowing out into the lot. I hadn't seen Delton since she spent the night in the condo. From the back seat, I heard the scrape and flash of a lighter. “Come on, Liv,” Mid said. “At least don't smoke in the goddamn car.”