Killing Time in Crystal City Page 5

  “It was kind of less swashbuckling than that,” I say.

  “And modest, too,” Stacey says, elbowing Molly, making a show of making mischief. “By the way, I looked you up, Mr. Vandeweghe, and you’re holding up pretty well for a guy who played in the NBA thirty years ago. You never played any defense, apparently, so maybe that kept your mileage down.”

  Ah, for God’s sake, here comes the blushing. I can feel my head just about percolating.

  “It’s a common name,” I say.

  “Right. Anyway, Kiki, so what are you doing back here? One night on the street enough to convince you to go home where you belong?”

  “I am not a street person. I came here to see somebody.”

  “Right, so did I. I just don’t know who it is yet. So then, what are you doing back at the lovely bus palace?”

  Think, think, think. Be cool, don’t be pathetic and needy.

  “I didn’t come looking for you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That is what I’m thinking,” she says boldly, grinning right in my face and probably having the time of her life.

  “It’s a little bit sad, then,” Molly says, sadly. “Because we came looking for you.”

  “Yes, sir, we did,” Stacey says, firm and proud.

  Why can’t I be firm and proud and just say what I mean and live with that meaning without coming off as some kind of a gink?

  “Come on, Molly,” she adds, towing her past me and out the door I just came in through. “Looks like we’ve been dumped.”

  “Dummy,” I say, banging my cast sharply off my temple. Twice.

  I rush back out through that door, taking a right turn this time, and quick-step up the street after them.

  “There are laws against what you’re doing to us here, KV,” Stacey calls out, embarrassingly loud. She doesn’t bother looking back at me even though most everyone else on the busy sidewalk does, including a smiling and waving Molly.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Are we a ‘we’ now?” Stacey asks.

  “Ah, let’s be a ‘we,’” Molly says.

  “I’d like that,” I say. “Yes.” Then I remember my two years of French, and because I am such a smoothie decide to put it to use. “Oui. See, I just agreed in French there, see? Oui and we? So how can you resist?”

  “With moves like that, why would we even want to?”

  I’m rolling now.

  • • •

  Where we wind up is a place known as Crystal Beach, which is actually the short stretch of gritty, sandy, marshy land along which the city’s working waterfront is joined by the canal. It’s not the kind of recreational beach you would go to if you had a beach to go to, but it has what you might call charms of its own. There is trash here and there on the ground, and a faint taste of iron in the salty air. You’d have to be of a certain stripe to see this as a destination shore.

  Such as a bunch of kids roughly our age gathering in groups and gaggles, kicking balls around, chucking rocks and each other into the water, and generally treating Crystal Beach like it is not only a proper beach but also its own population within a population.

  If a particularly hard-core high school had, among its facilities, its own waterfront, it would look a lot like Crystal Beach.

  And the reason we are now a part of it is that we have as our guide somebody in the know.

  “So, are you actually from here, Molly?” Stacey asks, plunking down cross-legged in the sand, facing the water and the commercial boats chugging across the bay. Molly and I sit on either side of her in a sea-facing crescent formation.

  “What?” Molly says, waving the idea away like it’s an unusually comical mosquito. “Oh gosh, nobody is from Crystal City as far as I know.”

  “But, it’s your home now,” I say.

  She looks my way, seems about to answer, then gives me both a shrug and a nod. “My mother and me. This is where we came to.”

  She stops right there, and appears to think that’s enough.

  “So, you live with your mother,” I say.

  “Nope. She hated the place, didn’t last a day here. Mother was never very patient. The whole of Crystal City smells exactly like my father did, apparently. He worked on fishing boats. Mother said she had already vomited away enough of her days because of that man and she wasn’t going through that hee-haw ever again. Right back on the bus she went.”

  “How come you didn’t go with her?”

  Molly looks over to Stacey as if I’m joking or something, then back to me. “Because it’s great here, obviously,” she says. “‘Suit yourself, kiddo,’ is what Mother told me to do and so I suited myself. I think she’s suiting herself too, but I’m not sure.”

  Stacey leans over and pulls Molly into a quick neck hug, then releases her again.

  “She stays in a Catholic hostel here in town,” Stacey says. “I stayed there last night myself. Not bad. Comfortable, but you gotta deal with the church-every-morning business, which—”

  “I thought you said you liked church,” Molly says.

  “I said I liked churches that had bedrooms attached.”

  “Can just anybody stay there, for free?” I ask.

  “Only if there’s room,” Molly says, “and if a resident sponsors you.”

  “I’m a friend of Molly, Molly’s a friend of Jesus, and so I’m all tucked in and comfy. Sorry, Kiki, no room at the inn for you.”

  “You can come,” Molly says anxiously. “We’ll find some room.” She’s up on her haunches and leaning toward me, saucer-eyed. She has a look that makes you want to make things better for her.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” I say. “I have a place. A relative in the city. He even made me an incredible breakfast, massive steak, and onions, and—”

  “That’s what I smelled,” Stacey says, leaning close to me. “Oh, man oh man, you sure landed on your feet.”

  “True enough. I never saw steaks like this. Hardly even had to chew, and with the salad and the mushrooms and onions all sautéed—”

  “Shush,” Molly says, looking at the variety of beach bums all around.

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Because that’s the kind of breakfast some people would kill you for. And some others would kill you just for talking about.”

  Stacey starts laughing, then realizes she’s the only one and starts laughing even harder.

  “Okay, calm down you two,” she says. “The chances of anybody killing you are not that great. But the chances of them following your onion-scented ass back to the source of such riches might be pretty good.”

  “Yes,” Molly concurs. “Everybody steals. Everybody, everybody. But especially that bunch over there.” She points to a half-dozen people who are draped all over a cluster of boulders half in and half out of the water. They are mostly motionless, slapped onto the rocks like big starfish, and they are all so skinny it’s hard to tell what the male-female breakdown is. “When they aren’t here, they’re either out trying to steal stuff or they’re pacing back and forth in front of the pharmacy waiting for it to open so they can get their methadone.”

  “Wait, I think I passed by that pharmacy,” I say, as if she’s just mentioned a treasured old landmark.

  “It’s between the closed-down movie theater and the sex-shop-dry-cleaners.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Yeah, every decent-size town’s got them guys,” Stacey says. “The Green Party.”

  “Yes!” Molly says.

  Stacey reads the small confusion on my face and helps me out. “It’s because they’re kinda green, if you get up close. Don’t get up close.”

  “Right,” I say. “I get it. Don’t get too close to the Greens, and don’t give anybody the bright idea to rob me.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says brightly. “Now, let’s go t
o your place and party.”

  Aw, hell.

  “Oh,” I say, getting up and stretching. I am only lately realizing that when I hit a tense part of conversation I spring into preflight mode. “It’s . . . not like that. Maybe at some point. But right now I’m not in a position to have full rights to the place to that extent. Possibly after a while, when my uncle gets to see that—”

  I interrupt my own explanation to address the disruption that has broken out among my audience. Stacey is sniggering, covering her mouth with her hand and leaning over Molly heavily enough to topple her. Molly, for her part, looks stunned.

  “Did I say something funny?” I ask. I hear in my voice that my next line should be “Would you care to share the joke with the rest of the class?” But it’s already too late to help it.

  “Oh, come on, Kiki. That kinda booty-breakfast doesn’t come from nobody’s uncle. Unless, well, right, unless it’s that kind of uncle, in which case hey, fair dues to you, dude, for doing what you got to do.”

  “Hey!” I say.

  She waits, still leaning on top of Molly.

  But I’ve got nothing more compelling than “He is my uncle.”

  “Isn’t he just adorable,” Molly says.

  “He so is,” Stacey says.

  “I am not adorable,” I shout, managing to bring more unwanted attention my way. A guy who’s dressed like Robinson Crusoe turns and smiles broadly at me. Then he whips a Frisbee from about ten yards away. I see it all the way and it still sails through my hands and hits me in the throat.

  “That’s assault, Mickey,” Molly says as the guy comes to retrieve his disk.

  He leans uncomfortably close and says, “That was not assault. But you’re right, man, you’re not adorable.” He runs off and rejoins his game with the debatably more beautiful people.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Molly says.

  “Did he hurt your feelings?” Stacey asks with something less than full feeling.

  “I think I’ll recover,” I say. “What is this place anyway?” I ask, scanning the landscape, which I suddenly and uncharitably think of as land-scrape.

  “It’s The Beach,” Molly chirps.

  “Not like any beach I’ve ever come across,” I say.

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Stacey says. “I’ve only been here a couple times before, the only other time I came to Crystal City. True enough, it’s not what a lot of folks would be looking for in a beach. But it’s cool. Pretty open with characters. Mostly safe.”

  “Mostly,” I echo.

  “Well, sure. No place is totally safe. Ain’t that right, Miss Molly?”

  Molly looks fleetingly at Stacey and then whips her head away toward the bay. Down at the waterline, a pack of three big mutty dogs emerges from by the canal and starts splashing around, yipping and pawing at each other. Molly coos, squeals, and tears off toward them like she’s their long lost fourth member.

  Stacey and I watch her, like parents. Feral though they seem to be, the dogs take her in and include her as if they had been expecting her all along.

  “So, you guys are pals, now,” I say.

  “I guess. ‘Pals’ is a kinda stupid word though.”

  You have to figure you can’t offend anybody with the word “pals.” I look to the side and watch Stacey watching Molly with grim intensity.

  “You’re probably good for her.”

  “I probably am. Just by virtue of not having a dick, I think I’m good for her.”

  First, I’m shocked into silence. Then, I’m shocked into looking away from her toward Molly and her canine pack.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll be quiet.”

  My magical mystical powers of amusement have somehow worked on Stacey again, because she leans forward with her head on her knees and her mouth open in a silent laugh. Then she straightens up and slaps me on the leg.

  “Didn’t mean you, Kiki. Your dick isn’t a problem for anybody.”

  Ah, come on, now.

  You wait an entire lifetime for a girl like Stacey to even contemplate . . . that . . . and then it finally happens. It was not what I had hoped it would be.

  “I’m outta here,” I snap, jumping to my feet like the big sand-mottled jerk-in-the-box that I feel like.

  I pass right across her line of vision and am almost away when she catches me midstomp, midhuff, by the ankle and brings me right down to the ground once more.

  I am lying in the sand, facing away from her, feeling the strong grip on my ankle and lost for any next moves.

  “Don’t make me drag you,” she says.

  The triple play of humiliation would have been too much to bear so I twist and scoot myself back to sit next to her again.

  I stare stone-faced at Molly as she marches back up to the beach toward us.

  “I promise I didn’t mean any disrespect to you,” Stacey says, then leans close to my ear, “or your dick. I’m sure it’s a wonderful thing for what it is.”

  I hear my asthma breath whistling in, and my blushing face is so hot and fluidy, I am surely going to start oozing tears of blood. God, I am a mess.

  Then, just before Molly arrives, Stacey kisses me softly, just at the smooth spot right in front of my ear.

  “I knew this was a good idea,” I say, yup, right out loud.

  INSIDE OUT

  After Dad and Mom split up for good, we all shot off like meteorites in different directions. Everybody got angry all of a sudden. Okay, maybe not Alice, but that was only because she was already angry. Mom and Dad were both always saying it was just a phase when she shouted three or four times a day that she hated somebody or everybody. Then, when things got toxic between the parents, it was sort of like that YOU BROKE IT, YOU BOUGHT IT sign at the Precious Pieces gift shop because Angry Alice became Always Angry Alice.

  During that time I decided to read every piece of literature that had people our age and that contained any form of the word “outsider” in the title or synopsis.

  I gave up after two months because it turned out that by the time I read every book that fit that description I wouldn’t even remember ever being this age.

  And also, every outsider I read about had a life that I envied so badly it made me depressed to think about it.

  I just had to be someplace else. I had always felt like this to some degree. Just right over there, or there, or just beyond, was certainly the place that was waiting to welcome me. I never, all through school, made any strong attachments to people before I met Jasper, which was what gave me this outsider-outside-the-outsiders feeling.

  Unless it was the other way around.

  “Oh, it was you, no doubt about it,” Jasper said practically before I could finish the question. I was talking while paddling—playing table tennis in Dad’s garage. But as soon as the ball returned to me I belted it, over Jasper’s head and loudly off the metal garage door. He calmly walked over to the door behind him, bent, and picked up the badly dented ball. “Was this necessary?” he asked, holding the ball out for me to see.

  “So it’s all my own fault, never fitting in?” I asked as I leaned with both hands flat on the table.

  “Yes,” he said, mirroring me from his side. “I think maybe you get off on the rejection, outsider, victim thing. You seem to like being wounded and offended.”

  “Stop judging me. I hate being judged.”

  Then he just started being dramatic. He allowed himself to flop forward, his forehead on the table and his arms spread wide. Didn’t stop him talking crap, however.

  “You ask either/or questions, knowing that one of the answers will make you outraged. You move to a new school/home/town in April. Of junior year. Without announcing yourself or even making a basic scouting trip in advance. If you marched up and down every street in town wearing a sandwich sign that said ‘Ostracize Me Now!’ on one side and ‘Oh
by the way, go fuck yourselves!’ on the other, you would have arrived at the same friendlessness without having to wonder about the whole, ‘Gee, is it me?’ question.”

  Continuing to be dramatic for whatever reason, Jasper remained facedown on the table.

  “I’m not friendless,” I said more gently than I had intended to. “I have you to prevent that. And you have me, so we’re square.”

  He raised just his head and faced me so he looked like a smiling airplane lying on the green runway of the Ping-Pong table. “You’re square, I’m . . . I don’t know, rhomboid or something. I have plenty of friends. I just don’t show them to you because you’ll scare them away. Then I’ll be like you. Which would be tragic.”

  I was about to attempt to defend myself when the electric garage door startled me with its loud rumbling opening.

  “It’s my dad,” I said nervously, like I’d been caught breaking in or something.

  “Oh, good timing, naughty principal,” Jasper said, holding his compromised position.

  “That is not funny,” I barked, making him cackle helplessly as he unfolded himself and we frantically folded up the table so my father could have his garage back.

  • • •

  After I had my freak-out and told Jasper how I felt about my dad and me, about being homeless within my father’s house, he spent a generous amount of his valuable wind-me-up time on winding me down again. He convinced me to give it time, to let Dad think things through, to let us evolve again as some kind of unit, and then maybe I would eventually hear the kinds of words I was hoping to hear when I first came.

  Hope, then, was my plan of action. Hope, the chump’s choice for when you’ve got nothing else.

  Perhaps that was the kind of doomsaying I’d need to leave behind. It wouldn’t be easy.

  Of course my father had a life and a right to have it. I never should have gone looking around like I did on his computer. It was wrong.

  Wrong, wrong, on so many levels.

  “I’m losing my mind a little bit, Jasper,” I said as I walked him back to his house.

  “Oh, well, as long as it’s just a little bit, then.”

  “No, I’m seriously worried. I had nightmares all night. Woke up every hour. Went to the bathroom, back to bed, deep sleep, nightmares, awake, bathroom . . .”