by C G Cooper
“Aloha,” he said, never having meant it more.
“Hi,” she said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. A watchman keeping watch.”
“Watchman. Is that what I am?” he asked.
“Aren’t you?”
“I like to think of myself more as a listener.”
“Good,” Mikayla said, smiling suggestively. “Then you should be able to hear the beat.”
He covered his heart with his hand. “I can feel it already.”
“With lines like that, I’m going to have to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m not hard to spot,” he said, and followed Mikayla to her idling Kia.
Chapter Seventeen
Thumping bass shook the sidewalk outside of the brick-and-neon nightclub. A flashing sign in the smoky window said “Grover’s Hangout.”
As they climbed from the car, Mikayla’s eyes drank in the night sky. “I never come here alone. It’s kinda rough. Mostly students, folks I know, but a lot of drinking.”
Cars and pickups were parked behind the club and all up one side of the street. Through the smoky glass, Mac could see shadows cracking like whips in sinuous motion. He watched the gyrations, feeling the pulse of energy from the sound system ripple through the indistinct forms. If he could just convince himself that there were no dancers, that the shapes were reflections on the water, insubstantial as moonbeams, maybe he’d be able to make it through the night.
“Are you okay?” said Mikayla, who was looking at him with concern.
He realized he was panting and calmed himself with an effort. “Yeah. I’m fine. Okay. Wanna go in?”
“Unless you wanna dance out here.”
“Can we? Nah. Little cold.” Putting all the swagger he could into the movement, he headed for the door. Mikayla slipped by him into a short hallway.
The walls were floor-to-ceiling blackboards with chalk murals on either side. One showed a Chinese dragon ridden by a character in a saddle whom Mac thought might be the Krampus. A bunch of children fled before the great beast, trying to take shelter in a field of corn. One of the smaller kids had tripped and another had fallen back to help him up as others shouted through cupped hands. It didn’t look like any of the kids were going to reach the corn in time. Not that it mattered. A titanic scarecrow with glowing red eyes loomed above the field, sickle in mid-swing. Mac thought of Paul Arken and shivered.
The other mural was less dour though equally garish. Two figures flanked the head and shoulders of a Frankenstein’s monster. One was an orange-and-gold phoenix that looked like a logo from a box of Turkish delight, while the other was an anime girl in a light blue dress. The head was incomplete with a gap under the right cheekbone where the jaw showed through. The anime girl was consulting with the phoenix about slapping a T-bone steak that she held in one gloved hand over the hole. In her other hand, she held the stick end of an orange push-pop.
For Mac, the best detail in the whole display was the way the girl was extending her elbow, keeping the push-pop as far from the monster’s head as possible. Her concern for the treat was about to end tragically. She’d waited so long to eat it that it was about to melt out of its paper. Now that Mac looked closely, the implication seemed to be that this was the fault of the fiery bird.
“Wild, I know,” said Mikayla. “Done by a Schuyler alum.”
Mac nodded, trying to keep his mind on the murals and off the pounding music he could hear through the walls. The closeness of the hallway was hard enough to take. As the door swung closed, the smell of sweat and alcohol hammered his senses. He trudged up the hallway on autopilot, following Mikayla’s red overcoat, sure that mixed with the other odors he could detect the tang of blood.
A decrepit wooden door rattled on its hinges. On a plastic chair just past it sat a bouncer. He looked up from his phone and smiled at Mikayla, an expression that fizzled when he saw Mac. Barrel-chested and keg-bellied, it was clear that he used his size to intimidate. Even after pushing himself to his feet, he was eclipsed by Mac’s head passing in front of the fluorescent lights.
“Five bucks for you, Professor St. Simone,” he said. “Fifteen for Mount Marcy there.”
Mikayla looked at Mac.
“I’ve been called worse,” he said. Looking at the bouncer, he added, “Fifteen bucks to get in? Pitbull must be the deejay tonight.”
The bouncer shrugged. “Comes with a voucher.” He handed over a coupon printed with the legend,
ONE (1) FREE BEER
ON TAP DOMESTIC
“Great,” said Mac. “It’s fifteen bucks to get in and the beer’s overpriced.”
Mikayla said, “Why are you trying to rip off my friend, Eddie?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Mac. “Just having a little fun.” He pulled his wallet out and handed over a twenty.
Eddie gave Mikayla a voucher. “Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t.” He jerked a thumb at the door.
Mac took a deep breath and tried not to gag. He forced himself to smile at Mikayla. The door was so flimsy he was afraid it might splinter at his push. But it didn’t. The wave of sights and sounds that hit him when he spilled through were a pulsing cataclysm, a pneumatic drill to the central nervous system.
Bodies wriggled against the kaleidoscopic back lights like serpents ringing the circles of hell. Music throbbed, thrummed, and twittered into peeps of white noise, blending with the shouts and catcalls of the dancers. The smell of beer and armpits was poignant and spongy. Swirling arms circulated the stinking air, and thudding speakers pumped so much pressure that Mac’s lungs sucked in against his will.
He brought a fist to his mouth, pressing his back against the door. The skin of his face began to tingle as the night-dark room with its thundering noise and frothing celebrants swelled into a tidal wave. He reached for Mikayla, brushing her shoulder with the back of his hand.
“I can’t,” he said. “Sorry. Gotta go.” He couldn’t tell if she understood the words, but his gestures were clear enough that she stood out of his way. Eddie the bouncer wasn’t so lucky. He took a shoulder block that knocked him against the blackboard wall. Mac ricocheted off him, throwing up a hand to steady himself. It smeared the top of the incomplete monster’s head into the sharp lines of the phoenix.
“Hey!” coughed Eddie, but he didn’t follow Mac outside.
Mikayla ducked out behind him. Mac stood with one foot on and one foot off the curb. As she walked over, he pressed on his chest, trying to expel the cherry-puke brimstone of the club.
“Sorry,” he managed to pant out. “Sorry.”
“God, Mac. Are you sick? What’s wrong?”
“Noth— I’m—”
“Take your time,” said Mikayla. “Breathe.”
He hunched over, hands on knees. “I’ve got some—” he swallowed. “I don’t deal well with loud music. Lots of people. Clubs. Can we go someplace else?”
“Of course,” said Mikayla. “God. I’m so sorry. Do you need me to get you home?”
“No,” he said. Part of him did want to go home, but he felt sure that if he ended the date here, at the peak of humiliation, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to face her again. “I just need a minute. Maybe we can go someplace where we can talk.”
“Sure. I like talking.”
The door to Grover’s Hangout swung open and a man said, “You okay, Mikayla?” Mac looked up. The speaker was Tad Marshall, Mr. Slick himself. “Hey, that you, Mac? Aloha, dude.”
“Aloha,” said Mac.
Mikayla said, “We’re okay, Tad. Thanks for asking.”
“You don’t have to front with me. Mac and I are buddies. Right, dude?”
Mac gave him a thumbs-up. “Temperature change. Blood sugar thing. I’m fine. Just felt woozy for a sec.”
“Gotcha,” said Tad. “Coming back in?”
“No,” said Mikayla. “We’re going to get something to eat. Something better than bar food.”
“There is nothing better,” said Tad. “But I can take a
hint. You two look good together, by the way.”
Without looking in his direction, Mikayla said, “Thank you, Theodore.”
“Theodore? Ouch.”
From the hallway, Eddie said, “Hey, that ain’t an exit, you know.”
Tad looked back. “Chill, Ed.” To Mikayla, he said, “Hey, do me a favor and give Mac my number, okay? Mac, call me if Paulie gives you trouble.”
“Thanks,” said Mac.
Tad gave a little bow. “Don’t mention it. Have fun, you two.” He backed in through the door.
Mikayla let out a breath.
“Nice guy,” said Mac.
“Yeah. Nice,” said Mikayla. “All the girls whose hearts he broke say so. C’mon. You wanna talk? I know the place.” She took his arm.
Chapter Eighteen
There were no ponds worth naming in Wilburville. The closest thing was a natural pool with shriveled remnants of reeds poking through the ice. Mac and Mikayla sat in her Kia with sandwich wrapping paper unfolded on their laps and watched the moonlight. When they had finished eating, she opened her door and motioned him out.
“Like the food?” she said as she lifted the car’s hatch.
“Believe it or not, that was the best meal I’ve had in a month.”
“Yeah? Did you go for the fifty-cent guacamole?”
“I did. But I think it was the company that made the difference.”
“Ha! You do talk pretty,” she said. “Look here.” From an unzipped gym bag, she produced a pair of ice skates with red laces and matching poofs.
“You are bizarrely prepared for this date.”
“If that were true, I’d have brought you a pair.”
She sat down on the front bumper of the Kia to lace up. “Grandma drove me to practice twice a week for three years. Three years, Mac! I put in more hours skating than most people spend walking.”
“That is not a brag I can make.”
She held out a hand for him to help her up. “I said you could watch me dance, so watch.”
After a short duck walk to the ice’s edge, she floated away on one foot, propelled by thought and frictionless momentum. When she came to the end of the pool, she leapt into a single axel, dropping directly into an orbit that took her for a flyby past Mac and back again. He applauded as she skidded to a stop.
“Come with me,” she said, holding out her hands.
“Not a good idea. I don’t think you’ve done the math.” He indicated his footballer physique.
“Half-an-inch will hold a horse, inch-and-a-half a plow,” said Mikayla. “My grandpa taught me that.”
“My grandpa was drunk six days out of seven.”
“Mine too. But he knew where it was safe to pass out.”
“This isn’t fair. I can’t say no to your eyes.”
He let her draw him out onto the slick surface of the ice, his smooth-soled Oxfords offering no resistance. Normally, he considered himself up for any athletic challenge that didn’t involve masses of people, but Mikayla had a general unbalancing effect on him. She sucked him into her gravity, gliding them both around in a slow circle.
He tried to keep smiling, but between the ice and her closeness, he felt unmoored. She let him go, and he drifted away, unable to stop. His right leg shot out to one side while the left buckled. He was falling. And then she was there, propping him up, telling him it would be all right.
Taking both his hands again she said, “Talk to me, Mac. That’s what you said you wanted, right?”
They were spinning very slowly now. Every time they got close to dry ground or any of the bunches of reeds sprouting through the cold glass, she kicked them back toward the middle of the pool.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“You want me to point out the elephant? Okay. What happened back at Grover’s?” she asked.
“You really wanna hear that story? It goes back a long way.”
“I’ve got all night,” she encouraged.
“Okay. Let’s take a trip. Spin me back to land first, though.”
She did, then swept into a pirouette and started doing laps around the pool.
“The first time it happened,” he said, “was at a family reunion. Paying my respects, sort of thing, to a great-aunt.”
Mikayla slowed down. “Did she pass?”
“No, no. I mean, she did a few years later, but she hadn’t then. She was just old. Lived out on one of the little islands. Tiny. Before Google you couldn’t find it on a map. Every few years the family would get together over there. Roast a pig, the whole deal.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was. Only, this one year, I don’t know. I was twelve, all knees and elbows. Something about being in the middle of all those people, it got to me. Even though they were family, I kept thinking somebody was going to stick a knife in me. One of my cousins pushed me, just playing around. I took a swing. Pop! Right in the eye. Then I ran out of the house. Didn’t stop until I reached the coast. Fortunately, that didn’t take long.”
Mikayla laughed. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I’m sure that was terrible for you.”
“It’s okay. My family thought it was funny, too. Everybody except my cousin. She’s still mad.”
Bending her knees to make it easier to keep her balance, Mikayla wrapped her arms around her belly and guffawed. “Wow,” she said. “Wow. So, after that, what? No more family reunions?”
“Actually, after that I was okay for a while. Hawaiians, we kinda live on top of each other anyway, but you can always get out, catch the air. That’s why I took up surfing. You’re not the only one who spent a lotta time on top of water. Mine just moved.”
“Cool,” she said, extending her hands to the sky as she aligned her feet to glide laterally. “I’ve never surfed.”
“I’d teach you, but it looks like the tide’s sucking out right now.”
“I didn’t bring my wetsuit anyway.”
“Wetsuit nothing, I’ll take you out when it’s bikini weather.”
“After the winter we’ve had? No way I’m gonna turn that down. But don’t change the subject. You seemed okay. What happened? Was tonight the first time you’ve had an incident since the reunion?”
“You can say panic attack. It’s okay. And no, there were others. In high school, the football coaches wouldn’t leave me alone, so I joined the team as a defensive tackle. Some games I didn’t think about the crowd. Some games I did. I practiced using the panic, pushing it down until just the right moment. Then whomp, like my cousin. Junior year, I led the division in sacks.”
“I bet you did.”
“Senior year, the scouts came calling. I went to Montana.”
“And at 17, you saw your first snow.”
“Right. To be honest, I only went there because they asked first. When I got an offer to be a Grizzly, it was too good to pass up.”
“You know how crazy you sound, thinking about leaving Hawaii for Montana? People save up all their lives to move the other way.”
Mac shrugged. “Sure. Any place you’re in, it’s a trap until you walk out. It’s only from the outside you can see how great it is. Back then, I thought if I could go someplace nobody knew me, I’d be okay. No more getting the shakes when the fans stomped the bleachers.” The sounds of metallic bangs echoed in his ears as he spoke. “No more staring at the ground while I listened to the count, psyching myself to kill, kill, kill instead of run, run, run. My friends used to dream about going to the mainland, making that tourist money themselves instead of watching it get spread around.” He shrugged. “I just thought, once I get out of here, it won’t matter how many people there are. I’ll have room to disappear.”
Mikayla skated to a stop in front of him, sat on the bank, and took his hand.
Mac continued.
“I started for the Grizzlies twice. That was it. My whole dream came down to two consecutive weekends. First game I did okay. I got out there, in front of thousands of screaming fans. Did my job. I was shaking so hard a
fter the first quarter, coach made me sit on the bench. But I still felt good. Second game, I faked an injury on the first hit. Got carried out on a stretcher. The doc kept telling me he wanted to see my eyes, but I didn’t open ‘em until I was off the field. I couldn’t without screaming. That was 2002. After that, the war came.”
“Wait. You mean you enlisted in the Army?”
“Yeah. Kinda felt I had to. Not just because I was a wash out. At my grandmother’s, we hoisted Old Glory up every morning.”
“I have to admit, I wouldn’t have guessed that. My family isn’t patriotic.”
“I’ve got an uncle who talks about Hawaiian sovereignty. Says it’s part of his mana, his energy. America is part of mine.”
“You left football to go to war. That’s kind of amazing.”
“I was gonna leave football anyway. This way, it was for a cause I believed in. I figured on coming back to school after my tour, but best laid plans, you know? Because I felt so strongly about defending our country, I was able to control my behavior. In fact, the attacks stopped as soon as I decided to enlist and I didn’t have one for the longest time.” He rolled his shoulders to relieve some of the tension telling this story created. “I spent time at Benning, deployed to Iraq in April ‘03. On my very first patrol, I was riding shotgun in an armored vehicle. An RPG got us, flipped us over on one side. I had a driver and a gunner. I was the only one who made it out.”
Mikayla gripped his hand, reminding him of an older cousin who had looked after him as a kid.
“I was in the hospital longer than I was in that country. It was touch and go, but my luck held. Eight surgeries later, I walked out under my own power.”
“That’s incredible.”
“I had good doctors.” He studied her face for courage. “Since Iraq, the crowd thing has been worse, although I somehow kept my feelings in check enough to join the Agency. Company shrink says I’ve got a form of agoraphobia. That term’s kind of broad, though. I don’t have trouble going outside. You’re never inside on the islands. But crowds, bridges, and loud noises trigger me.”