Then, believe it or not, Brenda actually turned, pushed a few bouncy hair coils out of her eyes, and smiled at me like she knew every secret I had ever had.
“Ciggy-boo?” she said, holding out her crinkled Doral pack.
“He’s a wimp,” sniggered Kevin, who was bogarting one of his dad’s Kents on the other side of the fire circle, letting the cigarette dangle limply off his lips. “Dave doesn’t smoke.”
I reached out for Brenda’s proffered pack. “Hey, there’s a first time for everything, bro.”
“What it is, what it is,” said Jerry, admiring my sense of adventure.
I pulled a white, filtered tube of tobacco out of its wrinkled cellophane container. “Dorals, huh?”
Brenda nodded. “They’re menthol,” she whispered, her voice husky and helpful.
“Cool.”
For some reason, that made Brenda laugh.
Maybe she thought I’d said, “Kool.”
“Need a light?” she asked.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
She found her Bic in the breast pocket of that gossamer peasant blouse, which, when backlit by the fire, was basically see-through. I could see she was round and firm and perfect.
“Thanks.” I took the lighter. Rolled the little ribbed wheel with my thumb a few times. It sparked against the flint.
“Smooth move, Ex- Lax,” said Kevin, my buddy the expert smoker. “Hold down the button, spaz.”
I did as suggested. Heard butane gas hiss up from the tiny plastic tank.
“Now flick it.”
I flicked.
The flame torched up six inches and scorched my nasal hairs.
“Here,” said Brenda. She braced a warm hand on my thigh and plucked the unlit cigarette out of my mouth. “I’ll light it for you.”
She smacked hard on the Doral she had already had going in her mouth until its tip glowed as bright as the dashboard cigarette lighter when it popped out of its hole in my dad’s Buick. Red hot, she plucked her cigarette from her lips, put mine in its place, and lit it off the end of the glowing one.
This wasn’t just my first cigarette—it was also my first lesson in chain smoking.
“Since it’s your first, just puff it,” Brenda said as she handed the smoldering ciggy-boo back to me. “Don’t inhale right away.”
“Cool.”
But I did.
Hacking and coughing and choking, I ignored Kevin’s laughs and took another sip of that horrible strawberry wine, grimaced, and tried again.
This time, the smoke filled my lungs a little easier. Slid down my wind-pipe a little smoother. Maybe it was the menthol. It felt like I was sucking on a hot candy cane. And man, did I feel good. Something powerful shot through my veins, made me feel as funny and clever as Jerry and Kevin combined.
“Taste me, taste me.” I raised my cigarette and recited Doral’s famous TV jingle as if it were Shakespearean verse. “Come on and taste me!”
Everybody laughed. The three girls. My two buddies. Jerry McMillan even winked at me just to let me know I was finally catching on to how to play the game, finally growing up.
Finally joining the fraternity of the tight and the cool.
So I smacked down some more smoke. Stifled some more coughs. Felt a rush of nicotine that made me feel like a jolly genius with superhuman powers. I jumped up and did my best to impersonate the jazz chanteuse voice of the singing cigarette pack in Doral’s cheesiest TV commercial: “Taste me, taste me. C’mon and taste me! Take a puff and let me do my stuff!”
Everybody was doubled up, laughing, holding their sides.
Brenda Narramore included.
Blurry from beer and wine, dizzy from tar and nicotine, I stumbled sideways and accidentally dropped my “ciggy-boo” in the sand.
“Here,” said Brenda. She was already firing up its replacement for me.
I plopped down next to her. Took my second smoldering stick. I coughed like I had bronchitis. Felt dizzy. My brain was all kind of fuzzy, but I think Brenda Narramore had moved closer to me. Our thighs kissed.
I couldn’t follow up on whatever that might mean because Kevin wanted to tell ghost stories.
Understandable.
We were sitting around a hypnotic driftwood fire under a full moon. The three girls were giddy and loose thanks to the beer and wine. In fact, Kimberly had already crawled into Jerry’s lap wearing nothing but her bikini.
A good ghost story would force the other ladies to leap into the first available pair of strong, manly arms they could find (such as the ones Kevin had spent the winter and spring sculpting in his garage).
And so Kevin started spinning his tale.
“My uncle Rocco works for the Verona Volunteer Rescue Squad. One night, they get this call from over in Montclair. Now, Montclair is a bigger town, has a professional ambulance crew, firefighters, the whole nine yards. But, last March, there was this huge accident. A horrible wreck. Seven girls in a station wagon, cheerleaders on their way home from a basketball game, wrap themselves around a telephone pole.”
Donna gasped. It was all the encouragement Kevin needed.
“Anyway, my uncle Rocco and his partner hit the siren and lights because it’s all-hands-on-deck time, you know? There’s only one problem: They’re from Verona and don’t know the roads over in Montclair too good. So they pull over to the side of the road. Whip out a map. Can’t figure out where the hell they are. All of a sudden, Uncle Rocco senses somebody staring at him through his window. It’s freaking him out, but he turns around and sees this old black dude standing right outside his door.”
“What’d he do?”
“He rolled down his window.”
Donna gasped again.
“Remember, it’s early March. Technically still winter. So when Uncle Rocco rolls down that window, he’s hit with a blast of cold air. He can see his breath steaming out of his mouth, it’s so frigging chilly out. Anyways, he sizes up the old black dude. The guy doesn’t look like trouble. Kind of dapper, a college professor type, you know? Wire- rimmed glasses, tweedy sport coat with the patches on the sleeves, neatly trimmed goatee. The works. Anyways, the professor standing outside their vehicle asks Uncle Rocco if he’s looking for the car wreck. ‘Yeah,’ he says. The old black guy nods. ‘It’s about a mile east of here.’ ”
When he was doing the black man’s voice, Kevin made him sound all warbly and spooky. The girls moved closer to their guys. Well, Donna and Kimberly. Brenda just sat there smoking Dorals, staring into the fire.
“ ‘You sure?’ my uncle Rocco asks. ‘Yes,’ says the black man. ‘Take the next right, then turn left at the second traffic light. The second, mind you. Not the first. The second!’ ”
“So what happened?” Even Jerry McMillan was mesmerized.
“They take off. Siren wailing. Lights spinning. They do the right, hit a major highway, count the traffic lights. Long story short, they find the wreck right where the old man said it would be. They set to work. The station wagon is totaled. Buckled up on itself like an accordion. So they get out their power saws and pry bars. Work off the doors. Cut open the roof.”
“Are the girls all dead?” asked Kimberly.
“No, they’re rushed to the hospital. All seven of them.”
“They didn’t die and turn into ghosts?” Kimberly whined. “I thought this was supposed to be a ghost story.”
“It is. Hang on.”
Donna scooched closer to Kevin. Kimberly wrapped her arms around Jerry’s neck. Brenda fired up two fresh Dorals at the same time. A double-barreled shotgun. Offered one to me.
“Thanks.” I took it. They were getting easier and easier, milder and milder. I took a puff and let the Doral do its stuff.
“Anyways,” Kevin continues, “after they run the girls to the hospital, all the ambulance crews are hanging out in the ER parking lot, shooting the breeze. Uncle Rocco asks some guys from the other volunteer squads how they found the wreck. Most bust his chops; say they used a frigging map. One o
r two, though, one or two say this old black dude walked out of the shadows and told them where to go. Black guy in glasses with a goatee. ‘We couldn’t see his breath,’ says this one paramedic from another town near Montclair. ‘What?’ my uncle asks. ‘It’s freaking cold out,’ says the other rescue worker. ‘My breath was steaming out of my mouth, but this black guy? You couldn’t see no breath.’ My uncle suddenly remembers: He couldn’t see the black dude’s breath, either!”
Donna is too scared to gasp again. So she shivers. Her teeth chatter.
“A week later,” Kevin continues, “Uncle Rocco goes to visit the girls in the hospital, wants to see how they’re doing. They’re all fine. One of the girls, though, is black, and she’s got stuffed animals and flowers and a couple of framed pictures propped up on her bedside table there. ‘Who’s that?’ my uncle asks, pointing at one of the pictures. ‘My grandpa,’ says the girl. ‘He died last November.’ And the guy in the picture? Dig this: He’s wearing wire-rimmed glasses, a goatee, and a tweed sport coat. Just like the black dude with the invisible breath. To this day, Uncle Rocco swears it was the girl’s grandfather who told them how to find that wreck! The old man came back from the dead so his granddaughter wouldn’t have to die, too! He was like her guardian angel!”
Nobody said anything for about ten seconds.
The fire popped and crackled.
“That’s freaky,” whispered Donna. She hugged herself. I could see whole patches of goose bumps sprouting on her arms.
“You cold?” Kevin, ever the gentleman, offered her his leisure suit jacket.
“I know a better way to warm up.” She took Kevin’s hand. “You ever done it in the dunes?”
“Not with a fox like you!” Kevin grabbed a fresh six-pack and a beach blanket. The two of them headed for the privacy on the other side of the sand mounds.
Meanwhile, the totally trashed Kimberly, teetering in Jerry’s lap, was so stoned she had become fixated on the glowing tracers trailing behind the bright red embers drifting up inside the fire’s curling smoke.
“You know,” said Jerry, seizing the moment, “if you were the new burger at McDonald’s, you’d be the McGorgeous.”
“Shut up,” said Kimberly, stumbling up, noisily slapping some sand off her bikini-bottomed butt. Then she burped. “Let’s go screw.”
And they left us, too.
Brenda Narramore and I were all alone.
We silently smoked more of her Dorals. She twirled off the plastic wrap on a second pack. The sand around us started to resemble one of those ashtrays near the elevators at a fancy hotel. Stubbed-out butts stood at attention like tiny tombstones all around us. My chest ached.
About two cigarettes later, I heard soft moans rise over the dunes to the east.
I gestured toward her beach bag. “You bring a good book? We might be stuck here awhile.”
She dug into the canvas sack. “Yeah.”
I recognized the burgundy cover: The Catcher in the Rye.
“Good book,” I said.
“You’ve read it?”
“Hasn’t everybody?”
“Not Donna and Kim.”
I nodded. Fiddled with the label on the Boone’s Farm wine bottle. “I read it when I was like twelve, I think.”
Brenda slid her glasses up her nose. “I actually like books more than boys. Sorry, David, but, most of the time, there’s more going on between the covers of a good book than between most men’s ears.”
I nodded again. Message received.
I jammed the half-empty bottle of sickly sweet wine into the sand and reached for another can of Falstaff. At least my beer had promised me “man size pleasure” tonight.
I choked down a foamy swig and said, “Cool job.”
“What?”
I nodded toward her book. “Being a catcher in the rye. Standing on a cliff in a swaying field of grain, watching out for a bunch of kids playing tag. If they come too close to the edge, I’d catch ’em, too. Save ’em.”
“It’s not a real job, David.”
“Should be.”
She cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Way too many people pushing kids off cliffs these days. Making them grow up too fast. Sending them off to die in pointless wars.”
Her face softened. “So, tell me, David—exactly how old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“You seem older. Wiser.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Good.”
“Far out.”
That made her smile grow. Her lips were plump and moist. “You’re not like other guys, are you, David?”
I laughed. “Correct-a-mundo. Most of the other guys I know are over there in the dunes making out with the other girls.” I drained my Falstaff.
“So, Dave? What do you do?”
“Huh?”
“What. Do. You. Do?”
“I go to school. Verona High. Next year, I’ll be a junior.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
She moved closer. So close, I could smell the minty smoke trapped inside her tangled hair.
“That’s not who you are, Dave. What do you like to do when you’re you being you?”
I had heard college girls were into philosophical discussions about the meaning of life and stuff. Could shoot the bull all night. So I thought for a second. Gave an honest answer: “I like to draw some.”
“You’re an artist?”
“No. I wouldn’t say that. I just like to draw. I did that clown on the matchbook cover for the Famous Artists Correspondence School. Flunked.”
She grinned and dipped into her beach bag.
“Show me.” She held up a Bic ballpoint pen. “I’ll be the judge.”
“I usually work with a Flair or a Magic Marker . . .”
“Show me.”
Fine.
“You have any paper in there?” I asked.
She handed me her copy of Catcher in the Rye. “Draw inside it. On the blank pages up front.”
“Aw, I can’t do that.”
“It’s not a library book, Dave. It’s mine. I own it. I want you to draw in it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“What if I suck?”
“You won’t. Draw.”
So I flipped open the paperback cover. Started scribbling on a blank page near the front.
“You have pretty eyes,” she said.
“Thanks. They’re hazel,” I said without looking up from my sketch. “They change color depending on what I wear.”
“Fascinating.”
She arched up on her knees with both arms pinioned between her thighs so she could lean in and watch me draw.
Her breath was soft and rapid.
I had always had a knack for doodling cartoons. Read a lot of comic books when I was a kid. Really did take that Famous Artist test, only I drew Binky the Skunk, not the clown. Took a couple of their correspondence classes through the mail, too. And every time I hit the mall, I always checked out those humongous Michelangelo and Da Vinci art books at B. Dalton. However, the work of art I created for Brenda Narramore was chiefly inspired by the Bill Gallo School of cartooning as seen in the sports pages of the New York Daily News.
I drew her as a baseball catcher with a corked bottle of rye whiskey trapped in his mitt.
“Voilà!”
“Nice,” Brenda whispered, her voice as smoky as her ciggy-boo. “Sign it.”
I did.
“I was thinking about giving him a loaf of bread,” I said as I swirled out what my autograph still looks like to this day, “but the bottle was easier to draw. And how would you know it was rye bread? I’d have to dot it with seeds or something . . .”
I was babbling because Brenda Narramore had her warm hand prowling up my right knee, slowly creeping it higher, inching up and down toward my thigh. The front of my cutoffs was a pup tent.
Suddenly, Brenda stood and t
owered over me like the Colossus of Rhodes if Mr. Colossus had long tawny legs. She peeled her gauzy peasant blouse up over her head. Shook out her scrambled forest of hair.
“Have you ever drawn a nude, David?”
She held out her hand.
And, just like the other boys and girls that Saturday night, we headed off toward the privacy of the dunes.
WE slid down behind a protective bunker of sea grass and sand.
“I’ve never . . .” I mumbled as she unbuttoned my jeans.
“Don’t worry. I have.”
Her heavy breasts swayed as her fingers worked over my zipper.
“What about . . . ?”
She put a finger to my lips.
“Shhh. You’re just nervous.”
I nodded. I was.
“Here.” She dug into her beach bag. Found the crumpled Doral package. “Have another smoke. It’ll calm you down.”
“I thought we were supposed to, you know, smoke afterward.”
She lit two fresh Dorals.
“We will, Dave. We will.”
That’s when I saw it. Behind her. Just above her shoulder.
She held out a cigarette. I didn’t take it.
“Dave?”
I wasn’t paying attention to her anymore.
How could I?
How could anyone?
Ten feet behind Brenda Narramore, lurching out of the shadows, was the demon of the dunes! An ancient, decrepit man—no, the gaunt walking skeleton of an old man, all jagged bone edges and drum-tight skin. He was hunched over in pain as if his spine were fused into a crooked hump. The thing was barefoot and cloaked in a shroud of white that only fluttered down to his knees, fully exposing the dried scabs and weeping blisters tattooing his shins.
I shoved Brenda away. Roughly. The two cigarettes she’d been holding fell like fire-streaking comets to the sand. I fumbled with my zipper.
“It’s . . .”
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