Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories (9 page)

The weather was harsh and the situation frightening. The three men wandered in the ice and the winds. They thought for sure they were going to die.

Then they came across the geodome …

“You’re lucky,” said Dr. Mann; “damn lucky.”

“We know, we know,” said Henri.

The doctor was examining the three men in sickbay, making sure they didn’t have frostbite on any parts of their bodies, any signs of ill health.

“You could have died out there, fast,” she said.

“We know, we know,” said Axel.

“The hell you doing way out here anyway?” she asked.

“Documentary,” said Paul.

“On what? Extreme survival?”

“Penguins,” said Henri.

“Penguins? How original.”

“Penguins are very commercial, very hot, very
in
right now,” said Axel.

“Jump on the bandwagon,” the doctor said.

Ripped and Kate walked in.

“I heard we have visitors,” said Ripped.

“All the way from Canada,” the doctor said.

“I
love
Montreal!” Kate said.

“I love Canadian bacon on my pizza,” Ripped said.

The three documentary filmmakers looked at each other, then stared at Ripped.

“What?” Ripped said, feeling on the spot.

“Good God, it
is
you,” said Henri.

“Me?”

“Tu,”
said Axel.

“Eh?”

“Ripped van Wrinkle!” said Paul. “The missing world famous surfer!”

“Missing?”

“You
did
vanish off the face of the earth,” Kate said.

“And wound up here,” Dr. Mann said; “this place is becoming rather popular.”

“You were all over the news,” Paul said, “months ago.”

“The whole world wondered where you were,” Axel said.

“Didn’t know the world cared,” Ripped said.

“Awww, the world wuves you,” said Dr. Mann.

Kate took hold of his arm. “The world can get in line.”

Ripped felt loved and it was a nice, warm, alien feeling.

The three French-Canadians all looked at each other, and then stared at Ripped.

“Thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Axel.

“Oui,” said Henri.

“This is
perfect,”
said Paul.

“This is destiny,” Paul said.

“Manifest
destiny,” Axel said.

“I agree there is some greater meaning, greater plan in the course of events,” Henri said; “there can be no other logical or spiritual explanation.”

Ripped thought these French-Canadian fellows talked the funny talk, especially with their accents, but they seemed to be all right.

He was sitting with the three men in the cafeteria, eating lunch and listening to what they called their “pitch.”

“Fuck penguins,” Henri said.

“Penguins are getting boring, anyway,” Axel said.

“And they stink something bad,” Paul said.

“I like them,” Ripped said; “they saved my life.”

“Ah, yes, I
love
that angle!” Paul said.

“It is a wonderful angle,” Henri said.

“The perfect angle,” Axel said.

The three nodded in agreement.

“That would be the title,” Henri said:
“Saved by Penguins.”

“Or:
It's Very Cold Down Here,”
Paul said.

“Magnifique!”
cried Axel.

“Um,” said Ripped.

“The hell with the penguins, Mr. van Wrinkle,” Henri said; “we want to tell your story. It is a story the whole world will want to see.”

“What story?”

“Of your disappearance,” Paul said.

“How we found you,” Henri said.

“How you got here,” Axel said.

“And your eventual return to civilization,” Henri said.

“It will be like when Hemingway crashed his plane in Africa and was lost, and emerged from the mighty jungle with a bottle of booze in one hand and a bunch of bananas in the other.”

“Hemingway,” Ripped said. “I know that name! I read one of his books in the library.
A Farewell to Legs.”

“Arms,” said Axel.

“Legs, arms,” Ripped said with a shrug; “it's all limbs.”

“Of course,” said Henri, “as you need your arms and legs to surf.”

“Um, yeah,” said Ripped.

The three filmmakers looked at each other, and then they stared at the surfer.

“So what do you say?” they asked.

“It's almost like an ethnography of you,” Kate said, as they were in her bed. “Your unique story. You should let them do it.”

“Um.”

“You’ll be famous.”

“I am famous already,” he said; “am I not?”

“I keep forgetting that,” she said, thinking about what that meant.

“My story,” he said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t do it,” she said.

“Make up your mind.”

“Don’t listen to me. It's your life.”

“You’re part of my life now,” he said. “If they make this documentary, you’ll be in it too.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, thinking about what that meant.

“They’re here, I’m here, we’re here,” he said. “What else we gonna do down here?”

“Make a movie,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll get my own star, near Hollywood and Vine,” he said.

Outside, light gradually crept into the night sky like a stalker on the Internet with an old modem and a slow connection.

“What do you mean by that when you said that about what you meant about that!” said Ripped van Wrinkle when he woke up from another crazy dream.

He caught his breath.

“Hate it when that happens,” he said.

He was alone in the bed. Kate was in the bathroom, on the floor, vomiting into the toilet.

“Babe,” he said, “you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, and puked some more.

“What is it? Did you eat something bad?”

“No,” she said. “I seem to be pregnant.”

“You’re what?”

“Knocked up.”

“Say what?”

“Of all the women you’ve had, you never impregnated one?” she asked, and puked.

“No,” he said. No, he never had. He either wore a condom or the women were on the Pill or took the Morning After thing.

“Congrats,” Kate said; “I broke your cherry.”

Ripped smiled. He had always wanted to be a daddy.

Summer arrived like the placenta from a once-pregnant female sea lion—slow, big, and wet. The ice began to melt. More people arrived to the South Pole, and some departed.

Back in the United States, it was a media circus. Missing surfer Ripped van Wrinkle was back from the dead, and on his arm was a pregnant academic he said was going to be his new wife! Supermodel Jolene Nemolavokis (AKA “Captain Nemo”) told the press: “What's the big deal? I showed the press the e-mail he sent me from Antarctica. I told you guys and you didn’t listen. Did you think I made it up? You did! You thought I was lying! I am an honest person! I never lie! The hell with you people!”

Jolene was not happy.

Ripped's friends and family were happy, however, especially his manager, who wanted Ripped to get back in shape and get back on the board. “You got a little soft down there in the snow,” his manager said, pointing out the twenty-five pounds Ripped had gained around his stomach. “Good eating,” Ripped said with a bright smile, “and lots of tequila.”

The cable news and entertainment programs ran numerous clips from the documentary footage that Henri, Axel, and Paul had shot. Most were interviews with Ripped, talking about his past, his life, his childhood, on being a celebrity, being in the South Pole, and being in love.

“My coming here was a blessing,” Ripped said, “and providence. I found love here. I never knew love. I thought I did, but I realized I never did. And now, here among the penguins, I have my cherished one, and I have my child coming … ”

Kate Drew, Ph.D., almost thirty and seven months pregnant, was still getting used to the changes in her life: living with Ripped at his beachfront house in San Diego, dealing with his luminary status, dealing with other women who wanted him, dealing with having a lot of money and no financial worries, dealing with cravings for strange foods and the fetus kicking inside her like a giant butterfly wanting out of a cocoon.

She was home alone the day Jolene Nemolavokis paid a visit.

Kate thought it was Fed-Ex, delivering some books she had ordered from Amazon.com.

At the door stood this very tall, very tanned, very beautiful, very blonde, exotic-looking super model in designer clothes, shoes, and sunglasses.

“May I help you?” Kate asked.

“Is Ripped here?”

“No he's not.”

The woman walked past Kate, letting herself in. “Ripped, yo, Ripped, yo, you around, babycakes?”

“Babycakes,”
Kate said under her breath. She knew who this woman was. Ripped had talked about her, and Kate had seen her on the cover of
Maxim
. “Excuse me, I said he was not here and I did not invite you inside my home.”

“Invite me in,” said Captain Nemo, rolling her eyes. “Ha. Funny. I used to
live here
, you know. Sorta. I had a key. I still
have
a key. I could have just
come in.”

“We changed the locks,” Kate lied.

“We?”

“Oui.”

“Look
at you,
look
at your belly,” said Nemo. “How quaint. How middle America. Ripped van Wrinkle,
breeder.”

“Can I help you or are you going to insult me and my…?”

Her what? She and Ripped hadn’t gotten married or set a date. Ripped said Nemo was going to get married, too, but it didn’t work out and she was regretting dumping him, especially since he was back home.

“Okay, he's not here,” said Nemo, “where
is
he?”

“He's in L.A., for an interview.”

“No
shit,”
said Nemo, “I just drove down from L.A.
Perfect.”

“In fact he should be on now… ”

Kate turned on the large-screen plasma TV. Both women sat down in the living room and watched the afternoon talk show that Ripped was a guest on. He looks so handsome, Kate thought, in his tight jeans and white silk shirt.

The talk show host, a well-known former model and actress in her late 50s, handed Ripped a large stuffed penguin when he came onto the set and sat down next to her.

The audience went, “Awwwwwwwwwwwww.”

“You read my brain matter!” he said. “Cool!”

“Does it remind you of the penguins who saved your life?” the host asked, joking.

“I wish I remembered,” he said, serious,
very serious
, “I wish I could find them and buy them a warm beer and some tasty fish.”

The audience laughed.

“So tell us, Ripped van Wrinkle,” said the host, “is it possible for a womanizing hunk like you to settle down, be monogamous, and become a family man?”

“Of course.”

Audience applause.

“He was monogo—monog—mono with me!” said Nemo, shaking her fist at the TV.

Kate grinned.

He's mine, she thought, all mine.

“Do tell,” said the host.

Ripped van Winkle looked into the camera. “Katey, my love, I know you’re watching, and I know you know how I feel about you. And our baby. I was lost out to sea, trapped in the Antarctic of my soul, and through you, I found my true self; I found my way home.” He took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “When I was at Station 33, all those free hours, I read many books. One was the journal of Ernest Shackleton, South Pole explorer renown. He wrote this that I found profound: ‘No person who has not spent a period of his life in those
stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole
will understand fully what trees and flowers, sun-flecked turf, and running streams mean to the soul of man.’”

Audience applause.

“Beautiful,” said the host.

“Bravo,” said Kate, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Bullshit!” cried Nemo, standing up.
“Look
at you!” she said to Kate. “And look at
me!
It makes no
sense!
I simply do not
understand!”
she said.

You never will, Kate thought.

“Did you put a curse on him? Did he get brain damage down there? None of this makes a damn lick of sense! The world has gone mad! I have entered the Twilight Zone of my heart!”

Nemo screamed and pulled at her hair. One of the extensions came out. He screamed some more

“Sssshhh,” Kate said, wanting to hear her love on

the TV.

“Oh
the hell
with this,” said Nemo; “you two have fun
playing house!”

Nemo turned, stomped away in her high heels, and left the house. The tires of her car screeched outside, rubber that was pained and confused.

Ripped van Wrinkle was still looking at the camera, peering into the living and into her being.

“Kate, if you’re out there watching.”

She went to the TV and touched it with her hand. “Yes, beloved.”

He smiled.

She smiled.

Nothing needed be said after that.

Oh yes—and they lived happily ever after, etc.

1.
Dr. Bernard Stonehouse first visited Antarctica in 1946 as a Royal Navy pilot for the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (later the British Antarctic Survey). He studied penguins and seals on the Antarctic Peninsula, and king penguins on South Georgia. At the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, Mass., he edited the journal, Polar Record.

T
hey are fighting. The couple upstairs: fighting, again, like they often do. They call each other names. They hit the walls. Their little baby cries and cries. Suddenly, things are quiet, too quiet. I read a magazine for an hour. I take a trash bag out and see her—the woman upstairs, mid-20s—sitting on the stairs, her pink t-shirt and arms and hands and face covered in blood. I know it is not her blood.