Swell Page 6

  “Mi casa es su casa,” Dan says, too heartily, looking away at the surf casters leaning against Tim’s porch. Does Dan fish? Before Tim has a chance to ask this, the neighbor reaches into his pocket and whips out a fifty. “Um, one more thing,” he adds, casual-like. “If we could maybe use your driveway Sunday? For the overflow?”

  So that explains it.

  Tim pretends not to see the money. Or at least pretends he didn’t see Dan see him see it. For once, he’s glad to spy his dog peeing against the next-door shower house. “No! Blacky! Get!” It gives Tim something to do while Dan shoves the bill back into his khakis. Despite the mounting evidence, Tim refuses to let the Glassmans disappoint him.

  Muttering about “something on the stove,” Dan heads off, twirling the tray expertly on two fingers. Never, ever, leave your cooking unattended, the firefighter still inside Tim shouts silently. His audible voice is offering its millionth apology for the dog pee.

  What Blacky has against (or for) Tim’s own nearly identical shower house is hard to fathom. Tim’s mom used to credit the large crucifix she hung in there, now mildew green. And Tim factors in the sacred vibe forged the summer he and his first girlfriend, Alex, lost their virginities to each other inside, over and over. But both of them know the animal is likely just attracted to something scent-worthy growing in the Impoliteri yard. Dogs are ruled by odors and sounds humans barely perceive, and while their loyalty may be a given, their discipline is a reflection of their owners’ own.

  Blacky has none whatsoever. Doesn’t listen to Tim, never did. In his own time, the mutt saunters, not home where Tim’s calling him, but back to the cherry tree. There he barks once at an invisible intruder, circles the ground, and lies down, done. Inches away, the women are too absorbed in their mysterious argument to acknowledge the animal. Rose pushes her white pocketbook at Bibi, who absolutely refuses to take it. The aide situates herself out of reach, one delicate brown hand on her heart.

  Straining to hear more over the racket of quietude—ocean, birds, breeze—Tim begins walking down his side of the hedge. Step by step, he feels his mood changing. Tim’s psyched to be included in the Glassman celebration even if parking concerns drove the invite. They’ll get to know him and then they’ll like him and then he’ll always be included. But Tim’s uneasy on account of Rose standing in his way. He’ll stay on the outside of the family so long as she’s around, bad-mouthing him. Psyched, uneasy, psyched, uneasy, uneasy, psyched. The closer Tim gets to the women, the more the balance tips, what with the anticipation and the damp garden smells—flowers, cigars, herbs, cherries, old flesh. Psyched, uneasy, uneasy, psyched, uneasy, uneasy, uneasy. Scary Impoliteri.

  Tim really had intended to water Rose’s plants until the Glassmans had a chance to get settled. He even bought an extra-long hose attachment. But he kept putting it off, so strong was his distaste for next door, a sense fostered long before the night of the Golden Venture. Mr. Impoliteri, a hulking monster in a suit, needed only Frankenstein bolts in his neck to complete him. Gary, a squat ghoul encased in hair gel, was his fitting sidekick. As for Rose, the woman they regularly abused, Tim guessed she was more like a pitiful fiend, a victim turned killer in delayed self-defense. At least that’s what Tim had convinced himself of while mostly avoiding Rose and the incident all these nine years since.

  But now, clearing the end of the shrub, Tim suddenly views her anew, that is, soberly. The way she’s pushing her pocketbook on Bibi recalls the gun she forced into the Chinese man’s hands. Difference is that dude had croaked and couldn’t object. Bibi is ultra-alive and vivid, holding five sharp, sparkly fingernails high in forceful protest. “This is not part of my job description!”

  “And who pays your salary?”

  “Maureen.”

  Curious why Rose wants so badly to give Bibi her purse (sending the woman to buy her more booze?), Tim reaches out and intercepts the bag, basketball-style, and, whoa, what a load! His arm drops from the weight of it.

  Step One of the Twelve Steps: To admit he’s powerless in the face of Rose’s (apparently many) tiny bottles of Sambuca. They’re sooo cute! Unluckily (luckily?), she claws Tim’s arm, regains possession of the bag.

  “You packing, Rose?” Tim jokes but the funny snags in his throat as he considers—could she be? Tiny bottles of Sambuca are not that heavy.

  A long smear of pink lipstick mars Rose’s too-white smile. She wags her head, slowly, no.

  “So, whatcha got in there, then?”

  “A dead body.”

  Bibi sighs and plucks a tissue from the old lady’s hoodie sleeve, then leans in to wipe at her stained teeth. Such an intimate gesture makes Tim want to bolt. Instead, he turns his face away and allows himself a good, hard scratch. It’s a torment, this facial hair he’s trying to grow—he can feel it growing. But the hope is to divert attention from his missing chunk of nose. So he is willing to suffer.

  On the sand, June is now heading home. She holds the bottle the tide had returned to her up high, like a torch, away from Kenny Mole-Kacy. Kenny jumps, grabbing at it. That is, unless he’s going for her bra strap, a black slash against her freckly shoulder bared by the weight of the red backpack.

  “My bracelet!” Rose says, patting her wrist. “Where is it? Bibi? Give it back!”

  Ignoring the accusation, the aide begins searching the grass.

  “Give it back! Give it back!” Rose hollers again before turning her frustration on Tim. “What’s with you, gawker? Go buy my fungicide.”

  “I can’t,” Tim says, regarding the pitiful tree. Fermenting fruit and dusty, curled leaves (which Sage calls “not-treasure”) plop down on obliviously sleeping Blacky. “Without permission from the Glassmans.”

  “Permission?”

  “It’s not your house anymore.”

  Bibi accidentally (or not) backs into Tim, then lets loose with a waterfall of minty giggles.

  Tim does nothing. It’s a practice he’s perfected for such instances when women come at him with their hair and nails, flexible limbs, dangling jewelry, feelings. (Men are generally bigger but much more contained.) Doing nothing is almost always effective. Case in point: Bibi quickly gives up the flirt and resumes combing the lawn for the missing bracelet. Tim can check out his dog in peace.

  In his sleep, Blacky whimpers and cringes. If dogs share their owners’ recurrent nightmares, Blacky’s a lifeguard on that far-off July 4th when the big sandbar bursts and all the guards are swimming themselves numb saving body after body from the sudden, violent riptide. He sees the girl come up for air in the swirling water; he’s got her; she’s coughing but he’s got her. Her thin limbs hold on. Then she’s gone, replaced by a desperate old hairy guy, pulling him under. Below it’s all green-gray mush. His eyes sting. He glimpses the last of the kid, her little heel being yanked by the current, away.

  Tim’s supposed to “start from empty,” Mark No Name and his ilk all say—that is, put a lid on thoughts like these. Not only has Tim replayed the tragic moment too often for too long but he’s also exhausted every alternative version: He slips from the man’s grip, catches up to, and saves the girl. He hangs on to the man and saves the girl too. He loses them both, et cetera. In one scenario, Tim even drowns himself.

  It’s essential that he think of something else, anything else, that Blacky might be dreaming—about a pirate ship, say. The old dog sentenced to walk the plank for peeing against the shower house one time too many.

  “Ahoy,” Tim whispers to imaginary Ed, described to him by Sage as “brave, brown hair, my height.” As an afterthought, Tim digs some coins from his pocket to drop onto the treasure pile. “Spend wisely.”

  “Are you talking to me?” Bibi wishes.

  On the beach, June’s now close enough for Tim to recognize the bottle in her hand as one of his own Fresca empties. A piece of loose-leaf floats within. Aha! A message in a bottle! He should have known a Glassman would never litter. Besides, how many of those notes did his own sorry young self chuck into t
he surf in vain, in vain. As the teenagers approach, Tim can hear Kenny trying to guess at June’s note.

  “‘Dear Kenny, there are things I’d like you to do to me. Put it in, Kenny, my hero, put—’” He halts, losing color at the sight of the three adults. “Mr. Ray. Ladies.” A slight, jittery bow.

  June nods at them and hurries on toward the back door. Her thin, cold legs look purple where the veins show through translucent skin.

  “How do you start an argument with a redhead?” Rose cracks. “Say something!”

  The old lady’s phlegmy chuckle gives Tim the chills. If Kenny heard her, he doesn’t show it. He stares forlornly at the back door, hands shoved into his windbreaker pockets. The image of June and her legs lingers in the boy’s mind, Tim senses. In his own self is an odd, mounting pressure to protect June, protect all the Glassmans, from—what exactly he can’t say. Cursed Rockaway in general? Kenny Mole-Kacy in particular? Rose or his own paranoia of Rose? Tim tells himself he’s being irrational. The old woman is not toting her dead husband’s gun. And even if she were, such an old weapon wouldn’t fire. And even if she were and it would, she hasn’t the strength, at her age, to lift it. Besides, the heavy thing in her white pocketbook could be anything: Six pounds of espresso. Hand weights to combat osteoporosis. Gold! Rose won’t show it to him simply because she’s a mean, stubborn, mistrustful crone. And that’s all.

  “Okay, then!” So how come Tim can’t stop recalling the weapon? Small, gray, pitted barrel, wooden handle. If something should happen to a Glassman…Rose must leave now. To that end, he offers a “special ride” in his driver’s ed car.

  “Get out!” Bibi pushes on his chest. “You’re a firefighter and a teacher? Get out!”

  “Ex-fire—”

  “He’s a drunken bum and a drunken bum.” Rose snorts. “I wouldn’t get in his car for all the tea in China.” Then she dons her sweatshirt hood, transforming herself into ET with lipstick. “A guy named Timmy walks into a bar! Ouch!”

  “Sticks and stones,” Mark keeps advising, a phrase only slightly less moronic than “the luck of the Irish.” Words can fucking harm you! The words I know Rose Impoliteri murdered her son could put her in prison. Well, could have. To begin only now to sort out why he failed to say them is like hauling out some rusty-wheeled thing from the garage and trying to make it go. Words not said also suck. Love means having to say you’re sorry. A lot. All the time. Which Alicia, his ex-wife, failed to do, ever.

  Soon the sun will begin to lower and smear into its slot behind the water. The widows will be expecting him. Denise McClary, who needs—what does she need again? The power to sew new sock-monkey husbands? Faith? Screens? To stop saying, “I shouldn’t be laughing,” every time she laughs.

  And Trish, with the death wish, en route to Afghanistan. She’ll need someone to mind her four cats while deployed.

  Only Peg needs something from Tim that Tim needs back, but it seems wrong to need it. In survivalist mode, Peg asks for sex in the same tone in which she requests carbon filters or, now, respirator masks small enough to fit her two kids. That’s another one for Step Four. Saying yes to her. Saying no to her.

  Step Four of the Twelve Steps: To make a searching and fearless inventory into the morality of screwing your best friend’s widow. Kind of biblical, Tim thinks, by way of shaky justification.

  Then, spurred on by the image of Peg’s ass in her snug park ranger uniform, Tim suggests a car service. Hell, if Rose won’t go on her own or let him drive, he’ll spring for a limo.

  But Rose just stares at her cherry tree, dry, round, brown doll eyes and wrinkled silly mouth wide.

  “Damn,” Bibi says. “You are spooky.”

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Sue grins by the Shabbat candles. Sy’s just handed her a matchbook from a place called Topless Tony’s. “So you’re going to strippers now?”

  The old man shrugs, no apologies, a desiccated string bean wearing the same gray sweatpants and black leather vest he’s had on since his wife died. For some reason, Dan’s chosen today to notice.

  “This is what he wore to meet our new suppliers. Three strangers flew in from Tianjin to meet him in this.”

  To Sue’s mind, Sy’s home-dyed hair is the bigger problem. There are stains, black stains, on the back of the man’s neck. And Dan’s distress merely animates Sy. He paces the worn linoleum, taunting. “Did I embarrass little Danny in front of the Chinamen? Did I forget to kiss the Asian ass? Why should I care! It’s your business now.”

  “It’s a disorganized mess is what it is. I should fire you.”

  “Like you have the guts. It’s high time those people learn what it means to live in a free country. I can wear my jockstrap to the meeting if I—”

  “That’s what you think it means to live in a free country?”

  “Free expression, free speech—”

  “And the right to bear arms.” Dan moans, holding a kitchen knife to his own throat. When no one protests his suicide, he turns back to maniacally stirring the gravy. The shit-brown sauce pocks the tiled backsplash.

  No wonder not even the doctor will answer his calls. Dan stands up to his father over work attire but ignores misogyny, mind games, questionable ethics. Finally, he’s been given the business, and nothing, not one thing, has changed. According to his mother, Dan was seven when he picked his first lock. He’s a natural. Whereas Sy learned the trade only after he married the boss’s daughter. (Eventually taking over and renaming Reliable Locksmith after himself.) Those Chinese suppliers have to know it’s the polite guy in the clean clothes to whom they should listen and not egomaniac Sy with his Mets tie and bialy breath.

  “You married into what I deserve, now you deserve what you married,” Dan once said to Sue at the height of a fight. The sentence lingers in her head like a good country-music lyric. Words so plain, they fool you into thinking they make sense. But the entitlement piece, she gets, truly. They don’t deserve a thing.

  “What about the right to eat?” June asks, roaming around, shaking sand from her hair. Living in Rockaway requires that you accept a certain amount of beach on your body, underfoot, in your bed.

  “Religious freedom first,” Sue says, striking a match. Up pops the image of the backyard on fire. Rose has fallen asleep and dropped her cigar while Bibi slinks off with Tim. That’s ridiculous. Rose loves her house too much, so much she won’t leave. Sue actually asked a ninety-year-old woman to leave. Surely that has to be a spiritual low even for a superficial convert. Instead of feeling remorse, Sue muses about ousting Sy along with the women.

  “People! People!” her father-in-law calls, meaning Sue. “Is it asking too much to get the candles lit before the first pitch? Do the words subway series mean anything?”

  “No,” June says, though Dan’s radio has been hyping it all week. Mets versus Yankees. Clemens versus Piazza. The first time the two will meet since Roger threw a 98-mile-an-hour fastball into Mike’s helmet.

  Sue’s hand shakes, lighting the candle. She mentally replays Shabbat Prayers Made Easy, using the tick of Estelle’s avocado-shaped kitchen timer as a metronome. Sy has moved in with the entirety of his Brooklyn kitchen. His belongings add a bright note to Rose’s scarred countertops and hanging rusty pots, but it’s a grace note at best. It’s Sue who will have to sort through all of it—the lifetime’s worth of things Sy brought with him, the other lifetime’s worth of things Rose left behind.

  That is, if Rose left them. Now that she’s back “home,” who knows? To Sue and Dan, fleeing their own possibly contaminated possessions, the furnished house had seemed like a godsend, its many stuffed drawers and closets like a series of time capsules awaiting discovery. Ha! Sue’s sigh contains enough worry to blow the candles out.

  “Make a wish!” Sage says, hopping past her en route to June. Once at her sister’s side, she pogos in place, asking, “What’s a stripper, Junie? Junie? What’s a stripper?” Seated at the table, June gazes through the screen overlooking the driveway an
d the Mole-Kacy garage. A scruffy blond kid is banging his skateboard on Kenny’s popular basement window. “Yo, Ken Doll. Open up!” Everything about the Mole-Kacys is amplified, even their guests. Sy calls them the Yellers.

  “What’s going on over there with the Yellers?”

  Kenny deals Cipro, June informs him matter-of-factly. For anthrax. Given the current level of hysteria, it seems plausible. Letters containing spores have already killed five people and infected seventeen others. The antidote is in short supply. Not to mention Kenny’s father is the kind of doctor who offers to bring over pills for Dan’s migraine.

  “That little Poindexter, a dealer?” Dan’s having trouble believing it. He strolls over with his wooden spoon to check out the scene for himself. “Oh, I see, yeah. That is definitely a buy in progress. But Cipro?”

  June offers to score them some. “I can probably get a discount.”

  “He does like you.” Sue’s noticed. “From day one.” On day one, Kenny shot June with a BB right in the butt! Not that Sue knows this firsthand. She overheard June bawling on the phone to her best friend, Jake Leibowitz. “It hurts to sit! What if there’s, like, a piece of BB still in there?” And no fucking way would she be telling her parents. “Don’t be dense, Jake! What if I still want to hang out with him?”

  June claps a mosquito dead on her thigh, examines the resulting smear. Sue figures this is in lieu of smacking her pesky sister.

  “What’s a stripper, June? Junie? June?”

  “Someone who takes their clothes off for cash, okay? Shut up.”

  “Treasure cash?” Sage can’t believe her good fortune. She quickly shoves the ketchup bottle between her knees, yanks off her purple sundress, and stands, palms raised, waiting for the easy pay. You can see the slight sunburn where her clothes weren’t—fluffy cheeks, arms, shins, and the tops of her small flat feet. “June? Junie?”

  “Ask Grandpa,” June says.