“Gigante!” the driver said happily as he climbed into the car, turning with small, abrupt movements to Steve and Agnes in the back. “Where to?” he said in English.
Steve gave him the name of the resort.
“Si, si, very nice. Muchos touristos estancia alli. You like.”
The driver hit the gas and the small car jerked away from the airport, offering Adolf his first Mexican breeze as the smell of foreign land and surf streamed through the window. He closed his eyes and inhaled, felt himself relax for the first time since they had gotten on the plane. Settling deep into the seat as the car jerked and whined up a ramp and onto a narrow freeway, he found himself wondering what kind of food real Mexican people ate, and whether there was any good hunting to do in the area.
The resort was all it was cracked up to be. Even Adolf had to admit having a pool to soak in was a decent way to spend an afternoon. His mother and Steve enjoyed the poolside bar, and Steve bought Adolf his first alcoholic drink—a thick red daiquiri Adolf sucked through a green paper straw, a small yellow umbrella perched on the side of the glass to shield the crushed ice from the blazing sun.
“I hope that’s virgin,” Agnes said, not opening her eyes as she laid in her deck chair.
“The boy’s practically eighteen, and we’re on vacation,” Steve replied, giving Adolf a sly wink. “Let’s let the lad loosen up, huh? Be good for him.”
Agnes turned her head far enough to shoot Adolf a nervous glance, but Adolf played dumb, pretending not to absorb their conversation or let on at the rush he was getting from the icy strawberry, alcohol-filled concoction. The syrupy slush sent a chill up the back of his neck, pleasantly so, and the alcohol swirled upward into the center of his large head like black liquid smoke, spinning things around inside, his brain turning into a sweet, mushy spiral of dulled senses and blustering new emotions.
He pressed his back against the side of the pool, his body immersed, his long wet hair stuck to his skin in black tentacle strands. He spared a look for his mother and Steve, watched as Steve rubbed suntan lotion on his mother’s soft white shoulders, her bikini of bright red flowers on black fabric a sharp contrast against her flabby pale skin. Her folds of stomach fat became even more accentuated as she leaned forward so Steve could apply the creamy white paste of 50 SPF lotion to all her exposed areas. When Steve got to her jiggling monstrous thighs, Adolf had to look away.
Through the haze of sunshine and alcohol, Adolf felt that pang again, that stinging sensation he had when first told about the vacation. He looked over at the two of them once more, wondered where he fit into that picture. He wondered if Steve, who was nothing but nice to him, was planning something sinister. Was all of this a ploy to deprive Adolf of his mother? To build him up, give him the strength of independence, so that in a year Steve could sit him down and explain that he and Agnes were leaving without him. That he was a big boy now, an adult. That he could take care of himself?
Adolf had a vision. He saw his father’s coffin lowering into the ground, pictured himself inside, cuddled against the large rectangle of cold steel that was his father’s remains. Down, down into the earth he sank, the chill of the metal growing colder and colder. And in that cold darkness Adolf knew what he feared.
He feared the day he would also lose his mother. He pictured her old, withered and dying in her bed. He would sit with her, holding her hand. They would be together in her last moments, and in the fantasy Adolf was there—watching—as she died. He imagined how her eyes would flicker, then go blank. The soul departing, the muscles atrophying, the skin becoming inflexible and gray. He had missed watching his father die, missed seeing the body, saying goodbye. Holding him one last time.
He could not allow the same thing to happen again. He would be there at the end. Her body would be his, and there would be no more mystery of death.
Adolf waded deeper into the pool, away from his mother and Steve. He sipped on his cold daiquiri as he went, enjoying the contrast of the warm water on his skin and the chilling feeling inside, growing deeper as he sipped and slipped further and further into the water.
* * *
“What do you mean you don’t wanna go?” Agnes wailed. “What are you gonna do?”
Adolf shrugged. His skin was red and painful from sunburn. Despite his constant smearing of sunscreen, there were large patches along his shoulders and back that were bright red. Ghostly fingerprints that frayed the edges of crimson splotches where his reach had failed him. His front was the worst. He had failed to properly coat within the folds of flesh, so when he laid full-out on the lounge chair the hot Mexican sun had ripped into his epidermal layer, creating a striping pattern along his broad stomach and in the sallower pits of his chest.
Now Steve and his mother wanted him to go scuba diving. An all-day trip that would leave him unprotected against the harsh rays of the sun for nearly eight hours while he paddled around the top of the ocean, staring at coral and fish. It was too passive for Adolf’s tastes. If he was going to swim for fish, it would be to catch them, study their insides. Not float around like a dumb raft and gawk at their underwater homes. No, all he wanted to do was sit inside the air-conditioned room—a ground-floor suite with sliding doors opening pool-side—and find something to watch on television, praying that the resort had satellite.
“If the boy isn’t feeling up to it, Agnes, maybe we give him the day to himself. Let him explore on his own for a while,” Steve said, his bald head already bronzed, his hazel irises glittering gold spheres against the cue-ball white eyeballs and tanned skin. The wrinkles around his eyes and lips were more noticeable now, aging him. “I think Adolf has earned a little independence, don’t you? A big boy like that. And let’s not forget, this is his vacation, too.”
Adolf watched Steve closely as he talked. Saw the light blond frizz patches on his tanned head, the luminous eyes, the curling lips. He listened to his tainted words, his hidden meanings. Independence. Big boy. Explore on his own. Adolf looked to his mother, her brown curly hair pulled back from her head with a cheap yellow scarf, her pudgy fingers fidgeting with each other like fat white worms, each trying to fight off the other, agitated with the sudden knowledge of their close proximity.
“Adolf, is that really what you want?” his mother asked. “I heard there are big turtles out there, and I know how much you love animals.”
Adolf shrugged, nodded. “Yeah, Mama. I’d rather just rest.”
Adolf skulked to the small brown couch the suite provided, laid his massive bulk down onto it, and punched the television remote. He was quickly lost amid an old rerun of I Love Lucy, all of Lucy’s dialogue coming through in dubbed Spanish as she explained feverishly about something she had done to a large cake while Ricky’s hateful eyes bored into her, his fury growing with each foreign word that came out of her flapping mouth.
“Well, if you’re sure,” Agnes said, looking anxiously at Steve’s nodding, re-assuring head. “Then, well, I guess we’ll see you later. We should be back around six and we can all get some dinner.”
“There’s lunch meat in the fridge, champ,” Steve added, all but pushing Agnes toward the door. “Bread and mustard in the cupboard, and a bunch of cold Cokes in there, too. You take it easy.”
“All right,” Adolf mumbled, not bothering to wave goodbye, his face not leaving the coarse tweed of the couch’s small dusty pillow.
Adolf fell asleep. Fell into a dream.
In his dream, the house in San Ramos had been inexplicably moved to Acapulco, and now sat lonely on the beach. The incoming ocean waves lapped against its porch, against the rotting baseboard, the incoming tide pulling its peeling white paint away with every salty lick.
Adolf stood in the frame of the open front door, staring out at the ocean. He could see Steve, far off in the blue waves, swinging his arms through the air, as if he were drowning, as if he needed help.
Behind Adolf, in the living room, lay his mother. He wiped at his mouth, saw blood on the back of his hand.
He had been feeding. He turned, looked at her corpse without emotion. She was opened from neck to crotch, naked and startled. Her insides had been devoured, and Adolf felt great comfort and a sense of nourishment. He wondered if he had killed her. Or had it been Steve, who now cried for help so far out in the ocean? He wasn’t sure. Couldn’t remember. Maybe he had been hungry—starving even—and she had offered herself.
Adolf didn’t know. All he did know was that his stomach was growling, and that he missed his mother. With a last look at Steve, a small black dot in the wide expanse of the ocean, Adolf stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Steve’s last cries as something yanked him down under the water were dampened. Adolf ignored the distant screams and, ravenous once more, went back to feed.
He woke with a jerk and a gasping breath. His eyeballs roamed the room, informed his conscious brain where he was and what was real. His clothes were damp with sweat, his face embedded with the ridges from the pillow. He sat up groggily and thought immediately of the Cokes. He stood, creakily, rubbing his lazy eye, and made his way to the fridge. He grabbed a Coke, opened it with shaking hands, and downed the whole thing in one breath, washing down the thick residue of bacteria that coated the inside of his dry mouth. He belched loudly enough for his vision to vibrate.
The room was stuffy, the tile floor warm, the yellow walls pulsing with heat. Steve must have turned the air-conditioning off when they left.
Adolf found the control, flicked the switch to COLD and turned the knob all the way to the left. He walked over to the television, now showing local news, switched it off, then opened the door to the poolside patio. Outside was a small metal-mesh table, large enough for two people to sit and sip cocktails and not much else. Adolf plopped down into one of the chairs, looked toward the pool, catching up to his thoughts.
The dream had been strange, and he searched for the flittering tendrils of it that were even now slipping back into the dark world of his subconscious. What remained, images mainly, was enough for him to retrieve the overall horror of it.
He forced himself to think of other things and watched the people laying around the pool, the kids swimming, screaming, splashing around inside of it.
His eye fell on a young girl, a child. She was blond and pretty and wore a bright blue bikini. She had a loud smile and wide eyes. She was running around the pool, chasing her shadow most likely, when she slipped on the slick surface. Her knee skidded and her shoulder smacked against the wet pavement.
Adolf shot up, looked around, waited for the running parent, the concerned mother, the overreaction of her protectors. He waited a moment, then another, watching as the girl sat up, crying loudly, her scraped skin already red and tinged with the blood rushing to the surface.
Nobody came.
Adolf walked off his patio, across the narrow strip of grass, and over to the girl. He looked around, still expecting someone to notice the injured, crying child.
“You okay?” Adolf said, kneeling his bulky frame down to be closer to her.
The little girl looked at Adolf, studied him between sobs, her eyes roaming his face, his large body, his odd black clothes. She nodded.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
The girl looked around, as if she were as surprised as anyone that her mother wasn’t within sight. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, her small voice filled with sadness and confusion. “She was talking to a man. She told me I could play.”
Adolf felt blood rush to his face, the old swirling hate clouding his features. A rush of words flew through his mind—bitch whore slut—but he kept those words inside, not wanting to frighten away the timid thing.
“What’s your name?” Adolf asked.
The little girl, holding her leg, looked at him closely, as if deciding.
“Mary,” she said.
Adolf nodded, then looked around in disbelief. Nobody was coming, nobody was looking at them. Nobody cared.
Mary stood. A doe just-born on wobbly legs, thought Adolf. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said.
Mary looked at him, her eyes wondering. She nodded.
Adolf walked back to his patio in thoughtful silence. When he turned back to find her, she was gone.
It grew late and there was still no sign of Steve or Agnes. His stomach growling, Adolf plowed through the cold cuts from the fridge, slapping them between warm slices of white bread smeared with squirts of the Mexican-branded yellow mostaza his mother had picked up at a nearby grocery.
After dinner, Adolf flipped through the television channels offered to him, scoffing at the Mexican soaps and moving quickly past the roaring sounds of the televised football matches. He missed the animal channels he watched at home, missed the crime shows he and Agnes would watch in the evenings. Annoyed, bored and uncomfortable in his sunburnt skin, he finally turned off the television and went back outside to see what he could find to occupy himself.
He strode over the pebble path at the end of his patio and onto the grass. He looked westward, scratched his inflamed skin. The sky was purple, the settling sun a blazing blood-orange smear against the ocean’s horizon.
He heard voices and turned back toward the public recreation area. He scanned the pool. The underwater lights had clicked on, creating a ghostly luminescence shivering across the surface. The warm evening air carried the high-pitched, distant-sounding screams of playing children. Adolf noticed that, along with the splashing kids, bored parents now stood around the pool as well, most of them holding thick drinks, their bodies wrapped in touristy, overly-vibrant blouses and shorts. Tiki torches had been lit and flickered in a broken star pattern around the manicured grass periphery.
Adolf’s dark eyes ticked from one face to the next, to the next, to the next. He grimaced and watched the dying sun bleed out.
It was well past eight o’clock now. His mother should have been home hours ago. His agitation grew when he thought of her out there with Steve, laughing it up, not sparing him a second thought. He imagined her white bulbous form hovering like a fleshy moon over the giant turtles, felt a pang of regret he had not ventured out with them on the trip.
Filled with self-pity and anxious with boredom, Adolf started back toward the suite, determined to find something on television to pass the time until his mother arrived. As he turned, he gave a nonchalant look toward the beach, a minor debate gathering steam in his brain as to whether the shore might be worth investigating for beached ocean critters or sand-based insects.
There was a giggle and a flash of a tiny blue bikini against pink flesh. He could actually make out the deep-red rash on one skinned knee.
He strolled to the beach at a leisurely pace, not looking around him, only forward. He angled around the low hedges that separated the beach from the grass-covered recreation area, stepped onto the sand.
He was careful not to seem eager. He looked again toward the ocean, let his eyes ride the tips of three separate waves, sensing her approach.
“Hey,” a small voice said.
Adolf, wide-eyed with feigned surprise, looked down at her.
“Hey yourself,” Adolf said, his thick lenses reflecting the dying light.
Mary said nothing, only toyed with a strand of hair while twisting one toe deeper into the sand. She was a wet silhouette against the darkening sky.
They stood in silence. No one called out. No one approached. He felt warm sweat slither down his back.
“It’s hot,” he said, “even at night.”
“Yeah,” Mary replied.
Adolf looked behind him, then once more to the great water, building courage.
“Hey, Mary,” Adolf said, “you want a Coke?”
The air conditioning had cooled the room considerably. Adolf and Mary sat comfortably inside, the tinted patio door closed to keep out the moist heat.
Mary sat on a blue lounge chair, a cold can of Coke in her tiny hands. Adolf sat on the couch opposite her, awkwardly looking around the room for topics of conversation.
“So, how old are you?” Adolf asked.
“Nine. I’ll be ten in August,” Mary replied.
“Cool,” he replied. “I’m gonna be eighteen in June.”
Mary studied him a moment, an odd smile creeping on her face, her scraped knee forgotten. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. It doesn’t work right, is all,” Adolf said.
Mary giggled. “It’s kinda funny.”
Adolf ignored the childish slight and continued searching the room. His eyes fell on the vinyl CD case his mother had brought. Beach Music, she had called it. Adolf went over, thumbed through the plastic sleeves.
“You like music?” he asked from across the room.
Mary shrugged, an adult expression on her face, the look a woman has when she’s feigning boredom while fully aware that every aspect of her person is under close scrutiny. “Sure,” she said, lifting the can to her lips.
Adolf slipped one of the discs out, popped open the tray on the narrow white CD player that Steve had so proudly purchased for the trip, dropped in the disc and hit Play.
After a moment, the soft melodies of the Beach Boys filled the air. The slow, drunken lullaby of Surfer Girl changed the energy of the room—opening the walls, widening the space, giving awareness and electricity to the molecules in the air.
Adolf waded back through the charged atmosphere to his seat opposite Mary. The Beach Boys chimed out the chorus.
He sat down, watched the girl closely. He felt himself grow inexplicably anxious, his muscles twitching and tense. He wanted to forever capture an image of the creature sitting in his room, the frail thing that had wandered into his imaginary fort.
Adolf shifted his bulk. “I miss my dad,” he said, one finger tracing a line on the couch fabric before jumping to his lower lip, his eye. He sniffed, then let his hand drop back to the couch armrest. “I loved him, but he died.” He sighed, resigned. “He left us exposed, and a cunt came in.”
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