Baby, I’m not ready, Penny protested.
I know, said Scott, but I am.
Thus began the Dope Wars of 1987, a period of internal conflict that tested the newly formed alliance of Scott and Penny and tore it nearly asunder. For a magical spring and summer, they had pooled their resources: Scott’s leftover tuition money, the proceeds from selling Penny’s VW bus, which got eight miles to the gallon and broke down twice as often as Scott’s Sunbird. Paychecks from the surf shop, the warehouse, various convenience stores; Penny’s share of tip jars at lunch counters and snack bars and coffee shops. Who earned what was never clear, and didn’t matter. Rent was paid, gas and food bought. Whatever remained, they spent on pot. Penny had lived this way for years, with a discipline Scott admired. Without it he’d have piddled away his paycheck on beer and cigarettes and barroom pool, pleasant nonessentials he scarcely missed. Under Penny’s system they could get high every day, twice a day. And for a long time that was enough.
He’d heard for years that weed was nonaddictive, and he’d found this to be true. He could live without the high. But what he needed, truly needed, was the looseness pot afforded, the relaxed improv, the shuffle and dance. Smoking, he could glide through life’s humiliating scut work, the night foreman’s insults, the flat-out exhausted dread he felt at the end of the day and sometimes at the beginning, when he contemplated the endless bouncing bus ride—Penny was delivering pizzas and needed the Sunbird—the numberless mountains of pallets to be loaded, the mindless grind of machinery, the bundled magazines that came and came. He remembered with a creeping bitterness his Kap Sig buddies at Stirling, those dullards; the whole priceless bags they’d smoked away for dim-witted amusement, the obscene giggling pleasure of staring at Cheech and Chong movies and falling asleep on the floor. For Scott weed was no longer a diversion, but a necessity, the only thing that made work tolerable. And if, at the end of a back-breaking, soul-killing shift, he needed a few more tokes than his girlfriend did, why should he deny himself?
He would remember the fight forever, their first and ugliest. Eleven contentious years later, he couldn’t recall a more savage blood-letting, a more searing wound.
I’m bigger than you are, he began. Half a joint knocks you out, but I can barely feel it.
To which she had responded: You’re bigger than you used to be.
It was a surprise blow, stunning in its cruelty. He had fattened on meatball subs and fast food, cheap workingman’s lunches. His face was round and puffy, a moony Elvis in his declining days.
You’re smaller, he shot back, which was also true. I can’t find your tits in the dark.
The rest of the fight was too painful to remember, though its denouement—him sleeping on the wet grass after she’d locked him out of the house—would stay with him forever. They were twenty years old, new to love’s expansions and contractions, its fissures and failures. How it could leave you broke and busted on the neighbor’s lawn, weeping and seeing stars.
HE RETURNED Smoky Joe to the rucksack and headed out into the broad sunshine, toward the Place de la Capitale—far, far away from Gatwick, where an onion snow was falling on his mean little house. The Place was triangle shaped, like a New England town green; it was fronted on one side by the white stucco capitol building with its arched porticoes. Standing there, the sun warm through his shirt, Scott felt thawed back to life.
He crossed the square in the direction the innkeeper had pointed, heading, he hoped, toward the beach. The air was redolent of diesel. A dearth of stoplights kept traffic at a standstill; taxicabs idled at intersections, clogging the winding streets. A slow parade wound through the sidewalks, tourists complaining of new-shoe blisters. Scott stared at the damp armpits of their bright new cruise wear, the shopping bags brushing their winter-white thighs. He stepped around the pedestrians, mumbling to himself. The complexity of his mission overwhelmed him. He had come to this crowded island looking for a girl, a small, silent girl who did not attract attention, who moved invisibly through crowds. A very stubborn girl who, in all likelihood, did not wish to be found. His mother had provided scant details: a guy named Rico, something about scuba diving. Other information that might have been useful—the name of Gwen’s hotel, for example—Paulette simply didn’t have. Ask Billy, she said, but pride had prevented him from doing this. The mission was Scott’s, not his brother’s. He would figure it out himself.
The road curved sharply. On the horizon Marengo Bay appeared, gleaming silver. Scott blinked. For a moment an office building seemed perched upon it—gleaming white, larger than the capitol building.
“What’s that?” Scott asked the woman ahead of him, a sturdy grandmother in pink slacks. Though portly, she was surprisingly quick. It was like chasing a car in first gear.
“That’s our ship,” she said proudly, as though she’d had a hand in building it. “The Star of the North.”
Now the road sloped sharply downward, as though collecting this human runoff into a giant basin. The crowd flowed faster, flat feet smacking the pavement. In a final grab for tourist dollars, the street signage became more insistent. CLEARANCE! NO DUTY! CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP! American flags slapped the blue sky. Scott looked around, a little frantically. He felt as though he were running with the bulls at Pamplona, slow geriatric bulls with aching hooves. Still, stopping seemed dangerous. The woman behind him had already stepped twice on his sandal.
“Hey, mister,” said a voice at his elbow, a black boy of about twelve. “What you looking for?”
“The beach,” said Scott.
“These people, they going to the ship. You come this way.”
The boy headed down a narrow side street. Scott, hand on his wallet, followed behind. He was alert to scams, having fallen for most of them in Mexico years ago. But this boy was well dressed; he had not pulled at Scott’s sleeve, or seemed insistent. Even now, he didn’t look back or slow his pace. He seemed not to care whether Scott followed or not.
They passed fortune-tellers, a couple of barbecue joints. The air smelled of roasting meat. Scott felt his stomach squeeze. The airline Brie sat inside it like a lump of chewing gum, dense and indigestible. He would have to eat something, and soon.
He followed the boy down another block. The street grew narrower, the faces blacker. On one corner was a small café, three tables on a rickety porch, the sort of plastic chairs sold in American drugstores for five bucks apiece. Neon signs glowed in the windows: CORONA, CARIB, RED STRIPE. From the rafters hung a homemade banner, the clumsy block letters of a dot matrix printer. Scott squinted to make out the words: AMBROSIA CAFÉ.
Across from the café the boy stopped, stepped backward into a doorway. He produced a plastic bag from his pocket.
Scott blinked. Was the word STONER tattooed across his forehead? Was it so easy to pick him out of a crowd? “No thanks,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.
“You sure? It come by boat from Jamaica. Top stuff.” The kid offered the bag. “Here. Smell.”
Scott leaned forward. Somewhere deep in his memory this thought lurked: They can’t arrest me until I touch the bag. Was this still true? Had it ever been? He didn’t know.
The pot smelled incredible, moist and skunky. “Nice, right?” the boy asked.
He named a price that was good, but not too good, slightly more than Scott had paid in Mexico seven years ago. Quickly he calculated. The boy seemed calm and relaxed; the few drinkers at the café paid them no mind. This door frame, Scott realized, was the boy’s storefront, like a lemonade stand overlooking the street.
“Smells great,” he admitted. “But I can’t today. I’m working.”
“You come back later,” the boy said coolly, looking away, as if showing even this little enthusiasm had compromised him.
“Maybe,” Scott said.
He walked on. On the other side of the street he noted two boys in wet swim trunks. Beach, he thought. They’re coming from the beach.
He quickened his pace, still thinking of the pot, gr
een as lawn parings. He tried to recall another time he’d been offered weed of this quality—of any quality—and refused it.
There had never been such a time.
The beach was the most crowded he’d ever seen, a strip of sand no wider than a suburban driveway. A checkerboard of colorful towels lay across it. Scott glanced in both directions. He was the only white man on the beach.
He picked a direction and set off walking. Reggae poured out of an enormous boom box, the kind he’d owned at Pearse fifteen years ago. A leaning plywood stand sold pork sandwiches and Red Stripe. A hundred children, by his estimate, squealed in the surf.
He stepped up to the sandwich stand and bought a Red Stripe. “I’m looking for a guy named Rico,” he told the man who made his change. “He takes people scuba diving.”
The man looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
“You lost, man. There’s no scuba from this beach.”
“Well, where do people go scuba diving?”
He pointed to the direction Scott had come from, the cattle chute leading to the cruise terminal. “Look for the red flag, man. Dem can take you scuba diving.”
“I don’t want to go diving,” Scott explained. “I’m looking for a dive operator. One guy in particular. His name is Rico.”
“Rico,” the man repeated. He broke into a wide grin, shaking his head in disbelief. “You looking for a guy named Rico.”
Scott nodded, taking a long pull on his beer.
“My name is Rico,” the man said, laughing. “My little boy named Rico. On this beach I can find you twenty Ricos. You can talk to all of them.”
A horn sounded in the distance, so loud Scott’s molars throbbed.
“Your Rico,” the man shouted. “He a black guy or a white guy?”
“I don’t know,” Scott shouted back.
He retraced his steps along the narrow side road, stopping to buy a tourist map of the island. At the Ambrosia Café he bought a second Red Stripe and sat at a table on the porch—aware, in a deeper, more honest part of his brain, that he was waiting for the boy to return, the proud little businessman with his fragrant bag of weed.
Waiting, he unfolded the map and stared at it, trying to get his bearings. He’d never been any good with maps. The island was larger than he’d imagined, and he was on the wrong side of it. Most of the beaches, according to his map, were on the north side.
“Excuse me,” he said to the man who swiped a damp rag across his table. “Do you know where I can rent a car?”
“At the airport, man.” He was Scott’s age and very black, his head wrapped in a colorful scarf. “But it gonna be close now. Saturday night, you know? That type of business, it close at five.”
This was news to Scott, but the man said it with such assurance that there was no doubt.
“I can take you to the airport Monday,” the man said, seeing his angle. “My brother has a car.”
“Not tomorrow?” said Scott.
The man shook his head. “Sunday. Everything close.”
Scott thought, This is not possible. “Well, I need to get to the north side of the island tomorrow.”
“Take a taxi,” the man suggested.
“I guess,” said Scott. “But I’ll need the car for a while. Maybe all day.”
The man pondered. “You come back here in the morning. Nine o’clock. My brother be back from church then. He can take you for a ride.”
BACK IN his room Scott felt fretful, restless. He had waited at the café for two hours, but the boy hadn’t returned. Dejected, he stretched out on the bed and dialed his brother’s number. A strange male voice answered the phone.
“Um, sorry,” said Scott. “I think I have a wrong number. I’m trying to reach Bill McKotch.”
“Billy’s out for a run.” The voice was soft and cultivated, with a British accent. “May I tell him who called?”
Scott felt strongly that only women should have British accents.
“This is his brother. Can you leave him a message, please? It’s kind of urgent.” He paused. “I need to know the name of our sister’s hotel in St. Raphael.”
“Gwen’s hotel? She isn’t staying there any longer.”
It was an annoying voice, Scott decided, effete and snotty. Who the fuck are you? Scott thought. And why do you know my sister’s name?
“Just give him the message, okay?”
“Fine,” said the Brit, and hung up the phone.
What did they call them over there? Wankers? Peckers? Asshole, Scott thought—though whether he meant the Brit, his brother, or himself was impossible to say.
He took his rucksack from under the bed and reached inside the lining. The packet contained a single cannabis bud, slightly grayish but otherwise perfect. Scott sniffed it intently, recalling the mossy smell of the boy’s brilliant green contraband. His own elderly stash had no smell whatsoever, but it was all he had.
Later—stoned, sunburned, too exhausted to shower, he stripped naked and crawled into bed. He was a thousand miles from home, and he missed his wife.
It was the first time in ten years he’d spent a night without her. Last time he’d crept out of bed at dawn, careful not to wake her. He took an early flight from Los Angeles to Logan where, recalling those school vacations, his mother had met him in the old Volvo. But this was no joyous homecoming. He had called Paulette late one night, drunk and high and desperate. He hadn’t spoken to his mother in two years. Still she wired him the money for a ticket.
He landed in Boston in the middle of a snowstorm, sober and shivering; he’d sold all his winter clothes. Paulette met him at the gate, looking old and tired. He could see at a glance the pain he had caused her. It was in the fierce way she clasped him, her hungry eyes examining his face.
I’m sorry, he thought.
It was nearly the only thought he would have that weekend. Paulette took him home to Concord, where he showered and ate, then slept for two days straight. Finally he sat at the kitchen table and told his mother everything.
Oh, not everything. He omitted some loose nights, some scrapes and misfires, a dope squabble involving an ex-con named Duane Farley, ending when Scott pinned the guy to the ground and held Farley’s own knife to the guy’s throat. He did not mention the four joints discovered in his rucksack at the Mexican border, disaster averted when Penny disappeared with the border agent for ten minutes and came back smiling. You’re a free man, she said.
Apart from these events, and others like them, he told his mother everything. He finished with words that would haunt him forever. I want to come home.
He met her eyes then, which were brimming with a feeling he couldn’t name.
When is the child due? she asked.
Six weeks, he said.
He had asked permission to leave his wife and child—not yet a wife, not yet a child, but alarmingly close on both counts. His mother had listened, wearing a look very like sickness. Then silently shook her head.
No.
“Hi, Pen,” he told the machine.
He had burrowed into the mound of pillows, hugging one—a hard frilly cylinder the size of a football—to his chest. “I tried you before but the line was busy. I’m here on the island and wow, it’s gorgeous. But then this massive cruise ship—you wouldn’t believe the size of it—”
He was surprised when the beep came. Had he already used up the tape?
“Hi,” his wife said. “Did you find Gwen?”
“Baby!” Joy flooded him. “I can’t believe you’re there! Why didn’t you pick up?”
“I was in the bathtub.” She sounded distracted, a little breathless. “I had to run for the phone.”
“Oh, wow.” He paused a moment to contemplate this, Penny naked in the living room, the moist flesh of her belly, the droop and swing of her now-generous breasts.
“I love your tits,” he swore, his voice breaking with grief at the way he’d once insulted them. He was nearly sick with remorse.
“What’s the matter wit
h you? Scotty, are you high?”
Well, that was marriage. Through a staticky connection, over a thousand miles, she could hear cannabis in his voice. She had seen him stoned hundreds of times. For years she’d scarcely seen him another way.
“A little,” he admitted. “Pen, I found something in my rucksack. Remember Smoky Joe?”
“Oh, Jesus. Hang on a minute.” To his surprise the line went silent. Their new cordless phone came equipped with a HOLD button. Penny used it when her sister called late at night on a manic rant, oblivious to the time difference. She had never used the HOLD button on him.
For no reason, he remembered that she was still naked.
“Sorry,” she said when she returned. “This place is a pigsty. I can’t find anything. Your brother called awhile ago. He left a message.” There was a sourness in her voice that made her sound older, much older, than the naked girl in his head.
“Billy,” he said. “Yeah, I called him. Some snotty British guy answered the phone.”
“‘Gwen’s hotel was Pleasures,’” Penny read.
“Excellent!” said Scott. “Did he say anything else?”
“I didn’t talk to him. Sabrina answered.”
“Pleasures,” Scott repeated. “Okay, good. Hey, I’m sorry I smoked. I love you, Pen.”
“Me too,” she said—to which part, he wasn’t sure. “Listen, I have to run. Let’s hope Ruxton doesn’t make you piss in a jar.”
“Where are you going?” He glanced at the bedside clock. It was nine thirty on a Saturday evening. Where could she possibly have to go?
Penny sighed. “Sabrina is sick, and I can’t get Ian to bed for love or money. You may be stoned on a Caribbean island, but we’re right where you left us.”
She hung up the phone.
THE NEXT morning Scott arrived at the Ambrosia Café at five minutes to nine, so that a stranger’s brother could drive him somewhere, beat him senseless, and rob him blind. That he’d hatched this plan while sober was a distressing thought.
He took a seat on the porch and waited. Two little girls in white dresses raced down the sidewalk, veils tracing behind them like vapor trails. He thought of his daughter’s First Communion, the spring after they’d moved to Gatwick; how profoundly it had moved him, Sabrina like a tiny bride in her dress and veil. Her hair was redder then, and she bore a startling resemblance to his sister at that age. Scott had a clear mental picture of Gwen at seven, thanks to a framed photo that still hung in his mother’s parlor. It had been taken the morning of Gwen’s First Communion, before everything went awry in their lives. His parents stood arm in arm, smiling. In front the three children in Sunday clothes, Billy, Scott, and—still normal then, still innocent—lovely red-haired Gwen.
The Condition Page 28