Swell Read online

  Lost in thought, Sue nearly trips over a speckled-headed seagull she failed to see land in her way. The creature regards her with beady eyes, one foot protecting her clam dinner. Sue tries to apologize telepathically. And warn Avoid the airport at all costs! Her throat thickens.

  “Are you tearing up about birds again?” June asks with undisguised disgust.

  Sage tugs Sue’s hand. “It’s just a TV show, Mommy.”

  It’s a trial trudging over the last bit of soft sand to the house. Sue’s groin aches; all her calf muscles are popping. Stopping to rest, she starts at the sight of Rose’s empty wheelchair like some kind of macabre lawn ornament. Tim must have forgotten it when he hoisted Rose into the car. “We have to get it back to her, Dan. And all her other stuff too. At the very least, after the party—”

  “Let’s drop it,” Dan says, hooking Sue’s arm with his.

  “The party? Or Rose?”

  “Both.” Dan pulls Sue along—impatient? Devoted? People sit up from their towels, wondering. “Leave it! Sue. Please. Just be glad she’s gone.”

  “Think again,” June says, the first one through the beach door.

  “Humdrum rhododendron,” Sage adds, number two in line. Third is Sue. Sure enough, there’s Rose, beyond the hedge. Tim’s got her draped over his shoulder in the old fireman carry, only he’s entering, not exiting, the house. His. The white pocketbook dangles incongruously from his muscular forearm.

  “What’s he doing to her?” Sue asks, then shouts, “What are you doing? You put her down!”

  “Lemme guess,” Sue says, remembering Bibi’s bullshit. “He thinks Rose killed her son.”

  “What?” Dan’s shocked.

  June fans her thin arms around at the half-dug-up, half-planted garden. “She poisoned him?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Dan says, uncertainly. “Am I right?”

  Sue thinks so. “If Rose was going to poison anyone, it would be Maureen.” All the while, her eyes remain on Tim. Soon as his sliding door is cracked, Blacky squeezes himself out and barrels through the hedge toward Sage.

  “So Rose is going to sleep there?” June asks, her voice full of yearning. She pulls off her pack, plops dejectedly into the vacant wheelchair.

  “Get up!” Sue snaps, unable to bear the image of a handicapped June.

  “Oh my God, chill.” June takes her time rising. “I’ll bring the chair back—”

  “Over my dead body!” Dan says, startling even himself. The phrase was a favorite of his mother’s. His mother, now a dead body. Dan looks fretfully from Tim’s house to June and back again. “I don’t like the way June looks at Tim. He’s way too old.”

  “Exactly why I questioned driver’s—”

  “Stop talking about me like I’m not here!” June wails. “Forget it, keep talking. I’m going out!”

  “You are out.” Dan motions feebly at the air as June storms along the side of the house, her bright ponytail like a protest flag, waving behind her. Only then does Sue notice that Sage has climbed into the chair.

  “Get up! Up! Get out of there!”

  * * *

  “Heavenly Blue or Pearly Gates?” Kenny asks, holding up two mason jars of murky liquid. June stands warily at the door to his garage, which doubles as a bedroom, which triples as an R&D lab for an array of his current schemes, like nonmelting ice cream, biodegradable gum, and the “two flavors of Safe-n-Sound morning glory water” he sells, among other drugs, to help fund his “research.” Kenny hawks Ritalin under the tag Test Boost; MDMA is Parent Coper, et cetera. Only Cipro goes by its real name. “No one has any sense of humor about that.”

  “Where’s the egg?” June asks, intent on not looking at his king-size futon (a green bedspread strewn with AP test-prep books). Kenny had lured her here claiming he’d smashed his egg. That’s not entirely true. As June walked down the driveway she’d known he’d pop his eager face out the window; she’d willed it. Now she’s asking herself: Was this wise? What kind of sixteen-year-old owns a Bunsen burner and isn’t embarrassed to say so? Are his ingredients alphabetized on purpose? Apple seeds, baby oil, cardamom. “What’s that smell?” Seaweed meets corn? “Just curious.”

  “Could be my dirty laundry,” Kenny says, “but it’s more likely the Safe-n-Sound process.” Bouding over to a large, messy worktable smack in the center of the room, he reaches across some seltzer cartridges (“for poppers”) to grab a coffee grinder. “The morning glory seeds get crushed in here. Then the powders soaked in alcohol—I use gin mostly—before filtering…you’re not listening.” Kenny actually seems to care.

  “Where’s the egg?” June repeats, again not looking at the bed (Mutant Ninja Turtle pillow) but instead out the window, across her own driveway to the side of her house. There, right under the kitchen sill, is a brick patch that she’s never noticed is pocked with BB holes.

  “Target practice,” Kenny admits. Of course, since the Glassmans moved in, he’s been shooting the DEAD-END STREET sign instead. Aiming helps him concentrate. This he needs to do if he’s going to win the Westinghouse science contest with his natural bug repellent made from sand-shark skin and essential oils. When that happens and he gets admitted to MIT early decision, he will “buy her a shirt.”

  “What?”

  “A shirt, you know, that says MIT.” He drags two fingers horizontally across the chest of his white wifebeater. Over that, he wears a plaid short-sleeved button-down and over that the ubiquitous gray windbreaker.

  “So where’s the egg?”

  Kenny opens his jacket pocket to reveal the yolky goo inside. “You were walking by and I got excited.”

  “Oh God.” June backs out of the doorway a bit, but not so far that he can’t stop her. His direct, black-eyed gaze makes her feel, for better or worse, seen.

  “Hey, June. Wait, I’m joking!” Kenny’s real egg, with the blue number 9, has been in his other pocket all along.

  “You’re sick,” June says, giving in and looking at the bed. Kenny sits on the edge filling two martini glasses from the sludgy jar marked Heavenly Blue. (The guy’s a drug dealer, June wrote in her daily e-mail to Jake. He shot me. He fucked me. But, I don’t know, he’s, like, safe.)

  Kenny holds up the glasses. “A toast! To the ghost of Gary Impoliteri.”

  * * *

  Tim places Rose on his couch. Oddly solid she is, for a ninety-year-old. Tim has lugged enough bodies to know. Through water and flames, he’s lugged them, out of cars, over collapsed ceilings, down fire escapes, away from swarms of jellyfish, floating used condoms, and strangulating wads of plastic six-pack holders. So maybe it’s true: Rose is a witch. The freaky white pocketbook, the equivalent of a broomstick or wand. Rose has kept her hands on it the whole way from car to house, and now, seated, yanks it roughly off Tim’s arm. Of course he could easily snatch it back, but with his luck he’d wind up dead on his own living-room carpet, a grimy orange shag left over from his childhood.

  Then, too, a fair fight is only right. They’ve come this far.

  After the liquor store, Rose refused to return to assisted living. Tim drove all the way out to Forest Hills before discovering she would not cough up the address, not a chance. When he demanded it, Rose used that second pair of brakes, making the car buck to a stop in the middle of a thankfully empty street.

  It was the moment between day and dusk. The trees and houses were just starting to look lavender and stamped on. A single firefly winked on the windshield as Tim desperately dialed Dan (who had given him Maureen’s number), then Maureen (who didn’t answer), then Peg, who said, “Tennis? Why? Everyone’s headed to your house for the paddle-out!”

  Peg, like Tim, had only one association with Forest Hills—the U.S. Open. Back in the eighties, Tim had once spent a miserable afternoon there with his then-girlfriend, Alex, and her family. Should have backed out like Peg had begged him to do. Should have given Peg his ticket. On the way, Alex heckled her mom for wearing tennis whites even though they arrived to find loads of oth
ers wearing them. And Alex’s mood kept blackening as Martina Navratilova beat the crap out of Chris Evert, her pick. Looking back, Tim saw that Alex had already decided to break up with him but had waited until after the tournament since she’d invited him months before. Peg had known this. Peg had tried to guard Tim’s heart a little.

  “Tell me what you want, Rose.”

  “To go home. I have things to do.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “I’m your next-door neighbor!”

  Peg said Alex called after the Trade Center attacks to ask after their “old friends,” but who exactly were her friends? And what exactly did Peg say?

  Alex was too far away—in Botswana, with her Doctors Without Borders husband—to fly home for Chowder’s bodiless funeral. But in a sense, she’d been there, just as she’d be haunting Chowder’s paddle-out. You rack up enough real moments with people and they’ll poke at your psyche forever.

  In the car, in Forest Hills, Tim offered Rose a deal. “Hand over what’s in your pocketbook and I’ll take you back. No questions. No hassles.” Without hesitating, Rose unzipped the bag.

  Tim’s pulse tripled. “Be careful!”

  But all she pulled out was a decrepit-looking Ziploc bag filled with bills.

  “No, Rose. The gun.”

  “The gun? ” One wiry gray eyebrow curled up in surprise. “Is that what you think is in here?” Rose leaned in even closer than the too close she was, and Tim shivered from the smell of cigars and…clams, if that was possible. “No wonder you’ve been acting so crazy.”

  “Me? You’re the one carrying around that…relic!”

  Almost all of the Asians aboard the Golden Venture carried similar Ziplocs, buttoned, pinned, or sewn into their clothing. Inside would be a scrap of paper with a contact number on Mott Street or Avenue U and a wad of cash.

  “There’s three hundred dollars in here,” Rose said, her tone weirdly tender. “It was Li’s.”

  “Li? That’s the guy you framed?”

  “Saved! He would have died in my shower house.” Then Rose couldn’t resist the joke. “Died from the smell of Blacky’s pee.” Tim laughed involuntarily. “At least he died in my home,” Rose added, “beside a friend.”

  Friend! That fucking word again. Through the windshield Tim watched two Indian kids in Boy Scout uniforms slog house to house with a big box. Are there Boy Scout cookies now? Tim still felt guilty for drunkenly chewing out the Mole-Kacy boys when they tried to sell him candy for their school on 9/11.

  “Vin’s gun?” Rose asked. “You know, I forgot. It really shouldn’t be in that house.”

  “Just hand it over. I have to get home.”

  “Me too!” Rose shook the bag of cash. “If you take me, I’ll give you this.”

  “I don’t want your blood money,” Tim said, sounding like a gangster. If anything, he was one of those losers in a Greek myth: mortal Tim, having angered Poseidon by losing a child in the sea, is sentenced to an underwater eternity. Any time he tries to surface, a murderous hag pops up to shove him down again.

  Tim drove home. No choice. He had to pee bad. Badly? Had to get back before Peg and the others arrived for the paddle-out. No way was he bringing Rose to the Glassmans. Everyone (except him) was more secure with her here.

  Rose puts on her bifocals to assess the living room. “Your mother’s a lot messier than I expected.”

  “She hasn’t been here for almost a year, Rose.”

  “So that explains the mushrooms.” She lifts the couch cushions, reveals two fist-size clusters of fungus.

  Even Tim jumps. Who knew? “It’s the dampness? I guess.”

  “Or you’re just foul.”

  Understandably, Rose demands her wheelchair to sit in.

  “In a while…Take my arm, now. One, two, three.” He helps her onto a nearby La-Z-Boy.

  Rose peers under the chair cushions. Satisfied nothing’s growing, she immediately gets to work arranging her tiny Sambucas on the end table. Circle? Triangle? Rose settles on an arrow pointing toward Li’s plastic bag. Early on, she had called the 212 number on a scrap of paper inside, but whoever picked up spoke only Chinese. A second time she bribed the Wok ’n’ Roll delivery boy to stand by and translate, but the phone just rang and rang. Any further attempts were squelched when Maureen “stole” the info.

  “Why would she do that?” Tim asks.

  “Why?” Rose leans back in the chair. Her cracked face is not that far off from the cracked tan leather. “She stole my son; why’d she do that? She stole my house. She stole my Jewish friends and they stole from me too—my best knife. Don’t even get me started on Bibi, who stole my lipstick, my bracelet…” Rose blinks at her bare wrist for a minute then curves it around the little bottles, no doubt shielding them from alkie Tim. “Because I’m the one everyone steals from.”

  The outburst cows Tim somehow. It’s true he’s been after Rose’s purse for the past twenty-four plus hours, but…

  He doesn’t want to try and understand it. “What would you have said, anyhow? If you got through to Li’s contact. What would you even say?”

  “‘My condolences,’ dummy! You are slow.”

  Tim heads into the kitchen to get her a glass. If he can’t learn her assisted-living address via pleading, the Yellow Pages, the Glassmans, or Maureen, maybe Sambuca will loosen her tongue.

  “Knock-knock!” Rose calls after him.

  Only one Fresca left. Even bleaker are the dinner options: more toast, Cheerios, frozen fish sticks. Returning, Tim’s spooked to find those eerie doll eyes trained on him. “All right.” He sighs, pouring Rose’s drink. “Who’s there?”

  “Where?”

  “You said, ‘Knock-knock.’” The Sambuca is vodka clear, but the scent is all wrong, black licorice in place of that yummy rubbing-alcohol aroma. “I said, ‘Who’s there?’”

  “Your friends.” Rose scowls at the sliding doors. Sure enough, they’re arriving. And it’s not just his friends congregating in his yard but relatives of friends. Here’s Bean and his wife, Patty. And Peg’s cousin, that guy, and three out of Chowder’s seven older brothers. The youngest of the older brothers, Billy, hauling—oh, wow! Chowder’s first-ever surfboard, a lemon-yellow Plastic Fantastic with (now faded) red panels. But in case Tim feels too uplifted, here’s also Mike Fucking Sloane, decked out in his police uniform.

  “Knock-knock,” Rose resumes. Here’s Lefty and Ox. “Knock-knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  Where’s Peg?

  “9/11,” Rose says.

  Tim knows he shouldn’t take the bait. He already has goose bumps. “9/11 who?”

  “You said you’d never forget.”

  It’s like Rose stepped on that second pair of brakes again, only this time they are situated directly under Tim’s ribs. He grabs the gardening clippers off the top of the TV and goes outside.

  Right away Bean’s wife, Patty, is up in Tim’s face with her horsey jaw and chardonnay breath, “Look at yeeew!”

  “You seen Peg?” Tim asks, heading for some beach roses. “Was there trouble about a sitter or—”

  Patty follows, nodding her blow-dried bangs and repeating, “Look at yeeew! Ya nose is healin’ sooo good.”

  Tim attacks the dark pink shrub with the clippers. “If you haven’t heard, I’m retiring, Patty. So you can tell Bean this is a waste of time trying to sic you—”

  “Whatcha talking about, Timmy? Timmy? You all right?”

  Timmy. Timmy. Like a lot of guys on 9/11, Timmy switched shifts to enjoy the huge swells, whipped up by the fringes of Hurricane Erin. Unlike a lot of guys, he downed three Vodka Grapefruits for breakfast then filled a thermos for the bike ride down to Ninety-Second, the best surf break. By the time Chris D. appeared on the shore, with his fire gear half on, Tim could paddle better than he could walk. Chris D. took one look and raced back to where his car idled by the beach wall, key in the ignition.

  “What?” Tim had dropped his surfboard to ch
ase him. “What?” Chris D. dove into the driver’s seat, U-turning without closing the door. His sister had called him from her office on the sixty-fourth floor of the North Tower, Tim later learned. Delusional Chris thought he could simply drive into Manhattan and save her.

  “Go turn on a TV!” he screamed as he sped off. “And sober the fuck up, Timmy!”

  Maybe it was after that that Rose spied him, in tears, weaving into his house. Or maybe it was the next day, when, massively hung over, he donned his gear to go help search the wreckage. Other than pride, it doesn’t even matter.

  Tim puts Patty in charge of handing out an armful of beach roses. Crinkled petals. Windy smell. They seem perfect for the occasion. Like many locals who died or were “vaporized” on 9/11, Chowder had been working out of a firehouse close to the towers. The Rockaway companies, being farther out, weren’t immediately called. As for Chris D., he was forced to abandon his car at the mouth of the closed Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. After strapping on his sixty pounds of gear, he ran the rest of the way.

  “Don’t wait on Chris D.,” Tim says. “He’s working.”

  “All those cats stuck in trees,” says Chowder’s brother Billy. Ironically, the guy’s fat ass occupies Chris D.’s usual Adirondack chair.