The Dysasters

by Cast, P. C.

  “I’m not hard to find. Not if you’re friend or family. And, no, you may not call me Linus. I’ll take two sugars and a dollop of cream in my coffee.”

  “Here you are, Mr. Bowen.” Eve handed him the steaming cup of coffee. He raised it to his lips as Bugsy whined pitifully up at him.

  “Sorry, old girl. I’m not myself today. Almost forgot.” Bowen put the mug down on the kitchen table and slowly began hobbling toward the front door, leaning on his stick and resting his other hand on the wolfhound’s strong back.

  He’d only gone a shuffling foot out of the kitchen when Luke was suddenly standing in front of him. “I think you need to sit down. You’re not moving so good.”

  Bowen looked up at him wearily. “’Course I’m stiff and hurtin’. You would be too if you were an old man and some young bucks had broken into your house and thrown you around. My hips don’t work like they used to.”

  “My brothers are sorry about that,” Mark said, coming up behind Bowen and circling around the slit-eyed dog. “But why don’t you have a seat in your recliner? We’ll bring your breakfast to you and anything else you need.”

  “Well, that sounds better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I gotta take Bugsy out first for her morning constitutional.” Bowen continued limping slowly, painfully, toward the door.

  Matthew stepped up beside Luke. “Can’t let you do that, Mr. Bowen.”

  The old man lifted his head and skewered the two men with his icy eyes. “Boys, you are damn lucky I’m not just a few years younger. Did you know I played football for the U of I? Didn’t know that, huh? Well, I did. Back when football players weren’t pussies and didn’t need titanium helmets and a mound of pads. Too bad you didn’t know me then. I would’ve enjoyed taking you out back and teaching you a thing or two about respect.”

  “Okay, okay, old dude. We hear you. You used to be the shit. Well, now you’re just old, and you’re not going outside with that giant thing you call a dog,” said Luke.

  “Riiiiight,” Mark drawled the word. “Because he can obviously run away—in the middle of a tropical storm—over sand and sea grass and whatever else is out there—when he can barely hobble to the front damn door. Step aside and let him take his dog out for a crap.”

  Bowen held his breath as Eve joined them.

  “Empty your pockets,” she told him.

  Slowly, making sure his hands trembled like a frail old man, Bowen emptied his pockets, which held nothing but lint. The money and ID pressed safely against his skin inside his hidden wetsuit shirt.

  “Where are your car keys?” she asked.

  Bowen pointed to a corkboard by the front door where a set of keys dangled.

  “You can take the dog out. But leave her out there,” Eve said.

  “Storms make Bugsy nervous,” Bowen said.

  “Put her in the garage,” Eve said.

  “Would you want to sit out a storm in the garage?” Bowen grumbled at her.

  “No, but I’m not a dog, either. And that’s the deal. You can take her out. Do whatever you want with her, but she doesn’t come back in with you. Got it?”

  Bowen stared down at Bugsy, fixing his face before he looked at Eve. When he did he made sure his voice sounded tired and sad, and he bowed his shoulders even more. “I’ve got it. I’ll put her in the garage.”

  “Excellent. Don’t be long. I’d hate for your breakfast to get cold.”

  Bowen said nothing. He continued to limp slowly toward the door, but before he could get there Mark had it open.

  “Do you need help? Want me to bring blankets for Bugsy? A water dish or something?”

  “No, son,” Bowen said, not unkindly. “There’re old work blankets in the garage, and I keep extra bowls out there. She’ll have water from the hose and her dry food.”

  “There’s nothing I can do to help?”

  Bowen looked into Mark’s eyes and saw the utter lack of hope that filled the space between his quiet demeanor and his obvious concern. Bowen recognized that hopelessness. He’d lived it as he watched his beloved wife slip away from him and leave behind the shell in which she used to reside, and then even that shell faded into dust. For a moment the recognition of hopelessness made him feel bad for the young man, and he used that moment. Bowen rested a trembling hand on Mark’s shoulder. “There is something you can do. Can you let me have a few minutes with Bugsy? Eve wants me to hurry, but I need to let the old girl know everything’s okay. I—I just don’t want her to be afraid. Do you understand?”

  “I do.” Mark nodded. “Take all the time you need, sir. I’ll be sure Eve doesn’t bother you.” He paused, and Bowen waited. Then he added, “And I’ll also make the rain hold off until you come back inside. No sense in you and Bugsy getting soaked out there.”

  “Thank you, son. Thank you.” Bowen squeezed Mark’s shoulder. Then he shuffled out onto the wide porch that framed his house. Slowly, carefully, he hobbled down the front stairs, making a show of stopping when he reached the ground and leaning against the railing like he was having a hard time catching his breath. Finally, he shambled around the side of the house, heading in the direction of the garage.

  Bugsy stayed close beside him, watching Bowen with wise, yellow eyes.

  About halfway to the garage Bowen dropped his cane so that he had to stop and bend painfully to pick it up, and as he did he glanced up under his arm at the house.

  Mark was standing on the porch watching him. Bowen straightened like he was the Tin Man needing oil and before he continued on his slow, doddering progress he gave Mark a thumbs-up. Mark waved and then disappeared inside the house. Bowen stood for another moment, pretending he needed to catch his breath. He saw no one watching. No one came out on the porch. No one was looking out any window.

  He could hardly contain his excitement, but Bowen kept in character—actually, he was enjoying his frail old man act. When he reached the garage he leaned against it, coughing like his lungs had suddenly gone old and feeble, too. Then he shuffled around the side of the building where the door was located—and where the garage blocked the view of him and Bugsy from the house.

  Bowen dropped the cane and then began to do several warm-up stretches as Bugsy started to wag and jump happily around him.

  “That’s right, Bugsy old girl. Did I tell you about the time I scrimmaged against Notre Dame with a broken arm? Back before football was for pussies? And those dumbasses inside our house think knocking me around a little actually stopped me? Hell, I was offered scholarships in track and football by a Big Ten university. I still go to the gym five times a week, and every morning, rain, shine, or hurricane, you and I jog up and down this beach in the sand. Let’s show ’em how real athletes age!”

  Then Linus Bowen, who was almost eighty years young, ran. Arms pumping, but upper body relaxed, he still had the form of the track star whose hundred-yard-dash record stood at his high school for almost forty years after he graduated. Beside him the huge wolfhound kept perfect pace.

  In no time he’d made it to the sand dunes and the tall sea grass that he’d let grow wild on his property because the old biology teacher in him loved nothing more than providing a natural habitat for what he considered after all these years his seabirds and his coastal flora and fauna. There he had some cover, and was able to slow to a jog, weaving his way easily between mounds of sand and scraggly bushes.

  “Steady old girl, steady,” he spoke to Bugsy between deep, even breaths as he stripped off his sweatshirt and tied it around his waist. “The Chevron station is two miles this way, on the other side of Cobb’s Cove. That’s where we’re headed. Then I’ll call real Texas law enforcement and they’ll be on those four like stink on shit.” Chuckling, Bowen jogged on, with the big dog at his side.

  27

  CHARLOTTE

  Charlotte’s phone blared the melody of Ursula the sea witch’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid, forcing her awake. She picked up the phone, sighing at the time. Eight a.m. sharp. At least
her mother was a creature of habit. Too bad she hadn’t remembered that the night before and silenced her phone.

  But because she had forgotten, and she’d never been good at ignoring this particular person, Charlotte cleared her throat and answered with her perkiest voice. “Good morning, Mother!”

  “Happy birthday, Charles.”

  Charlotte’s eyes went heavenward. “Mother, we’ve talked about this. Please respect the fact that my name is Charlotte.”

  Her mother’s voice was hard and cold, which was only intensified by her perfect Southern-belle accent. “It is the name your father and I gave you eighteen years ago, and that is the only name I will ever call you.”

  “Then I don’t understand why you call at all. Mother, I’m an adult now. I am no longer your responsibility.”

  “Thanks to that meddling old woman who calls herself my mother.”

  “I’ve told you before, if you speak badly of Grandma Myrtie I will not talk to you,” Charlotte said.

  One of her mother’s dramatic Southern sighs floated up from the phone, trying to smother Charlotte in a blanket of old guilt and wasted dreams. “You’ve always preferred her over me—your own mother!”

  But Charlotte was done being bullied by her mother. “Because Grandma Myrtie has always accepted me and loved me for who I am.”

  “Don’t you mean she indulged and spoiled you?”

  “No. I said exactly what I meant. Mother, I’m going to go now. I don’t think this call was about wishing me happy birthday. Sadly, I think this call was about trying to make me feel guilty for being myself.”

  “I cannot believe I gave birth to a child who would grow up to be so heartless to his mother.” Emotion intensified her accent so that Charlotte thought she sounded more like a caricature than a real person.

  Not that that thought was a surprise. The truth was Charlotte often thought of her mother as a caricature of the perfect antebellum Southerner—stuck purposefully in a rose-colored-glasses version of an ignorant, racist, and homophobic past.

  “I realize you’re incapable of understanding who I am. I stopped trying to get you to see my side of this years ago. I only wish you would learn to respect my decisions.”

  “Why, when you clearly do not respect your father and me.”

  “Mother, I respect you. That’s one reason I chose to leave North Carolina. I simply don’t agree with you. You can respect me, too, without agreeing with me.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why should I respect your homosexual desires? God doesn’t!”

  “Mother, I’ve told you over and over. I am not gay. I’m a woman. Liking boys has nothing to do with it.”

  “Tell that to someone who didn’t change your diapers.” Charlotte’s mother gasped before continuing in a hissing whisper, “Now look what you’ve done! You made me stoop to using vulgarity.”

  “I didn’t make you do anything. You chose to stoop. Just like you chose narrow-minded cruelness over compassion and understanding when I came to you with my truth.”

  “Because it was all a bunch of hooey instigated by your wretched grandmother.”

  “Good-bye, Mother. We won’t talk again until you can respect my decisions. I wish you a good day.”

  Charlotte tapped the END CALL button and threw her phone across the bed.

  I shouldn’t have answered. I should have known better. I should pull the covers over my head and cry myself back to sleep.

  But for the first time in her eighteen years, Charlotte didn’t.

  She didn’t cry.

  She didn’t allow her mother to ruin her birthday.

  Instead, she kicked off her pretty flowered comforter and went to the sliding glass door that led to her balcony. Not caring that it was raining and the wind was crazily whipping the seashell chime she’d hung the day she’d moved in, Charlotte grabbed her soft pink bathrobe, wrapped it around herself, and stepped out onto the balcony.

  Stretching her arms wide, Charlotte did what she’d done every morning since she’d arrived on Galveston Island—she embraced the vast expanse of gorgeous water that stretched before her as far as she could see.

  Waves crashed against the seawall and the slanting rain impaired visibility, but Charlotte loved every molecule of it. The water fed her soul, washing her clean of her mother’s anger and negativity.

  It’s my eighteenth birthday and no one here knows it!

  The thought didn’t make Charlotte feel sad—quite the opposite, actually. The fact that she hadn’t really made a friend yet wasn’t a big deal. Charlotte always took her time making friends. She’d learned years ago that people could be cruel. Very cruel. Especially people who claimed to be her friend. And not having any friends meant she could do exactly what she wanted to do on this big, important, life-changing birthday.

  Turning eighteen meant Charlotte would be able to complete her gender reassignment surgery next summer break!

  “And that is a fantastic reason for me to celebrate today—by myself—doing exactly and only what I want to do.”

  She checked the clock. It was eight-thirty. Grandma Myrtie wouldn’t call until around noon because, unlike her mother, her grandma understood her perfectly. She knew Charlotte loved to sleep in and wake slowly—and Grandma Myrtie respected that.

  Charlotte stared out at the seething waves for another moment before hurrying into her tidy kitchenette and blending a quick smoothie. She pulled on her wetsuit and tied her long blond hair up in a high ponytail. Then she grabbed a cover-up, beach towel, and her bag and skipped lightly down the stairs.

  She’d made it to her car when Kate, her next-door neighbor who was in her Intro to Marine Biology class, called from across the parking lot to her.

  “Hey, Charlotte! You’re not going to the beach, are you?” Kate eyed the beach bag and towel. “The hurricane’s been downgraded to a tropical storm, but it’s really not safe out there.”

  “Oh, I know,” Charlotte replied cheerfully. “I’m not actually going in the water,” she lied. “I’m just going for a quick jog.”

  “Suit yourself, but I say the school’s gym and a dry, warm treadmill is a better choice.”

  “I hear ya! Thanks!” Charlotte dismissed her with a wave and a smile as she slid behind the wheel of the old Focus. “And that is exactly why it’s good I don’t have any friends. Yet. Friends are nosy. Acquaintances are not so nosy.”

  Charlotte pulled out of the parking lot and let her instincts guide her. She turned east onto Highway 87 because it felt like the right way to go, and began to meander along the seaside, happy that the impending storm made the usually heavy weekend traffic sparse.

  She’d planned on parking and walking along the beach, listening for the sounds of singing in the waves, but decided to cross the bridge onto the Bolivar Peninsula instead. She hadn’t explored much there yet, and Charlotte quickly fell in love with the little strip of rugged lowlands.

  She’d gone quite a ways east when the sign for Cobb’s Cove caught her eye, and she took a right, bumping along the narrow, sandy road until she came to a small, deserted beach parking lot where she parked. Grabbing her bag and her towel, Charlotte locked her car and then hurried toward the waves and the sound of beautiful voices that called seductively to her.

  Mark

  “Okay, breakfast is more than ready!” Eve called from the kitchen. “Mark, I do not care if that old man is still French-kissing that damn dog. He’s been out there half an hour. Go get him. Now.”

  “I love it when Markey’s in trouble,” Matthew said without looking up from his laptop.

  “Ditto, my bro!” Luke’s laugh was tinged with cruelty as he and Matthew fist-bumped.

  “Grow up. Both of you,” Mark told them, then called to his sister. “I’ll go out and get him.” With one last frown aimed at his asshole brothers, Mark went out onto the porch.

  The old man wasn’t in sight, so Mark sighed in resignation and made his way slowly down the stairs to the garage. He liked Bowen. He also respect
ed him for not betraying his grandson, and for being a tough old guy and not being intimidated by the four of them. He stopped at the garage door, and then realized that he couldn’t get in that way without an opener, so he searched around and found the side door, which swung open easily.

  “Mr. Bowen, sorry about rushing you, but Eve says breakfast is ready. She doesn’t cook very often, so she gets pretty touchy about all of us sitting down at the same time to eat when she does. I know you don’t want to leave Bugsy, but I’ll come back out here with you afterward. Maybe we could even take her for a little walk if you feel up to—” Mark’s words broke off as he realized the only thing in the garage was the sporty Miata and a bunch of woodworking equipment.

  Mark backed out of the garage quickly, scanning the area nearby. With a terrible feeling of dread, he looked down and read the story in the sand.

  The cane was there, discarded as superfluous. Near the cane were the tracks of a large, excited dog and a man who was clearly not injured or frail. They disappeared, side by side, into the sand and sea grass that stretched between the garage and the dunes that began several yards away.

  Cursing under his breath, Mark sprinted back to the house.

  “He’s gone!”

  Luke and Matthew looked up disbelievingly as Eve hurried out of the kitchen. She wiped her hands on a dish towel; her expression was a storm cloud.

  “What did you say?” she asked ominously.

  “Bowen. He’s not in the garage. Neither is the dog. Their tracks lead off into the dunes.”

  Luke laughed sarcastically. “Well, I don’t know what all the rush and fuss is about. The old bastard could barely walk.”

  Matthew closed his laptop and stood, stretching like a lazy cat. “Yeah, the biggest pain in the ass about this is going to be hauling his crippled ass back here. Old geezer is thick. Probably weighs two-ten.”

  “That fucking dog’s a pain in the ass, too,” Luke said. “I think it’s time fire had a little talk with her. It’ll be payback for Bowen running away.”