Wavemaker II

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  Timmy Mooney the pool boy had a bad attitude. So bad, the club manager said, that no matter how long Timmy’s aunt and uncle had been sitting on the board of directors, next summer, by God, he’d have a boy skimming the bugs out of the Olympic-size pool and changing the chlorine who could be relied upon not to give a lot of lip and to show up just when those procedures were chalked on the schedule. In the meantime, Timmy had been demoted to the umbrella hut. That much he could handle. Locate the beach umbrella with the member’s name Magic-Markered on the wooden pole, march it down to her usual spot, and stick it in the sand.

  Now, during the popular eleven to one o’clock span, Timmy could be seen twisting pointed stakes up and down the long beach. He knew the boundaries of all the enclaves. Knew just how many paced yards the McHeffies needed to be from the McCarthys. He knew the Sullivan twins had their own Wedgwood-blue umbrella, apart from the greater Sullivan family, to match their unbelievable bikinis and the blue of their eyes. He understood just how far their mother needed to be from that vortex. And he always knew which family Lou-Lou Clemens had landed with. He could read the glaze of obligation in the mother’s eyes.

  A quarter mile down the shore, he spotted Lou-Lou’s navy blue stretch one-piece and her belly, a round bump in the air, as she did an unspectacular half-gainer on the trampoline. No one watched her. The instructor, Lance DeMille, a blond half-wit with shoulders you could park a car on, gawked as the Sullivan twins adjusted in slow motion the tiny triangles of their bikini tops. But Lou-Lou never bounced high enough to be in real danger.

  Lou-Lou Clemens had a thing for Timmy, a crush, he supposed, so he tried to let his awareness of her happen below her radar, which was very good, he had to say. But at thirteen, the public attention of a chubby nine-year-old was undesirable. Lou-Lou landed belly-down, then bounced up once more. Timmy watched her scramble to the edge, slipping and falling, now jumping off into the hot sand. She tiptoed, pranced her funny-looking legs to her flip-flops and her towel. All without a glance from the asshole Lance. The guy really should be fired. Not likely, though, he was too decorative. Timmy turned back toward the boardwalk before she saw him. She’d show up soon enough, no need to speed the inevitable. Lou-Lou was like a game of social hot potato, everyone tossed her around. But he kind of liked her, he did. He just didn’t need that to be a known thing.

  Lou-Lou was flying. Spiraling up into the air, a hairpin turn, a double somersault, a giant explosion, a boomerang against the sky, before her feet hit the mesh again of the trampoline and her turn was over. Up once more and amazing! The ocean ten million stars. She squinted up the beach, bodies floated on sand like souls on clouds. She reached the zenith of her last ascent, she spread her hands wide, her pixie hair flew up, hilarious, up higher she flipped and dropped belly-down. Her french fries and Tab made waves in her stomach.

  Gert’s sister, Mrs. Murphy, told her to be back at the cabana by three sharp, but that was hours away. She could go to the pool, she could lie on the edge of the ocean and let the foam accumulate on her legs. She could go back to Mrs. Murphy’s umbrella. Mrs. Murphy had only boys, they were all older than Lou-Lou and mostly refused to acknowledge her. In the morning they’d gone into the cabana first, Sean, Reed, and Patrick. They came out in surfer bathing suits, and their mother said, Vamoose!

  Mrs. Murphy let Lou-Lou change with her, and that was hard. The cabana was big and whitewashed inside and smelled of baby powder and Bain de Soleil. Mrs. Murphy swept yesterday’s sand from everyone’s feet into a single pile. Later the cleaning service would come by and tidy up. The Murphy cabana was one of the grandest, situated just to the left of the high and low diving boards. While Mrs. Murphy swept and Lou-Lou unbuttoned the red plastic flower buttons on her blouse, the Murphy boys did screaming cannonballs off the high dive. The lifeguard shouted and threatened, Patrick Murphy, you’re on thin ice there, buddy, but Mrs. Murphy looked like she was deaf. Once her boys were out of her sight, they were out of her universe, a theory about raising sons Lou-Lou had heard her explain to Gert on the porch over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

  As far as Lou-Lou could tell, Mrs. Murphy always wore tennis whites. She had freckles and red hair. And as soon as she finished her sweep, she was out of those clothes, her mother belly poking out a bit like Lou-Lou’s. Mrs. Murphy turned away. Through her white cotton underwear, Lou-Lou saw a hair streak like a tail, Mrs. Murphy had hair coming up from the crack in her bottom, little tags of dark red hair peeking over the elastic. Lou-Lou sat down in the chair by the door. She couldn’t leave the cabana now, because then everyone in the deep end would see Mrs. Murphy’s tail. The lifeguard trilled hard on his whistle. That’s it, clown, outta the pool, Murphy. Now one of the Murphys would have to wait until after lunch if he wanted to swim again.

  Lou-Lou missed, in this order: Bo, Merrill, her grandmother, her mother, her father. Then she rearranged the order: her father, she hadn’t seen him the longest; Bo, he was the most changed; Merrill, because she was beautiful; her grandmother, because she was holy; and her mother, who could get along without her, she didn’t like to understand that, but she did. Now Mrs. Murphy was ready to open the door. She had all her beach equipment, and her tail was tucked out of sight beneath the gold and black of her swimsuit. Lou-Lou looked for a bump in the back, but there was nothing.

  Mrs. Murphy ignored Patrick, who sat huddled over, fake shivering, wet with pool water, his hair a greeny-blond slick. He stared at his bony feet rather than acknowledge his mother and Lou-Lou. On the way to the beach, Lou-Lou had been wedged in next to Patrick in the backseat of Mrs. Murphy’s white Lincoln. Under the cover of her lowered eyelids, a technique she’d invented, she studied the swirl of blond hair on his legs. Now those legs were matted with water. How long do you have to sit there, Patrick? But her voice could not be heard, no sign from Patrick that she existed, and Mrs. Murphy was already up on the boardwalk, on the lookout for Timmy. And there he was, hauling her white umbrella with the long gold tassels.

  Timmy, the demoted pool boy, was Lou-Lou’s favorite person at the beach. She loved him. When she said, Hey Timmy, he didn’t look at her either, but it was different. He was pretending, unlike Patrick Murphy, who really couldn’t see her and didn’t want to. If Merrill were here today, everything would be different. Like a parade. People would cluster around to have little chats with her, and Lou-Lou too. There she is! they’d say. When Merrill came to the Monmouth Beach Bath and Tennis Club, the members never knew what hit them. That’s what Kay said. In Man of La Mancha, the actor who was the Man of La Mancha put on all his makeup so that everyone understood the trouble he went to and how he had the effect he had. Not so with Merrill. She wrestled hot curlers and ribbons and loofah, all out of sight, and told Lou-Lou about perseverance, dedication, and discipline. Words Lou-Lou had heard applied to reading and science, now directed at her knees and her belly, and the changes needed.

  Lying facedown, cheek to her towel, in the shade of the umbrella Timmy had just erected, Lou-Lou had a crab’s-eye view of a cluster of girls about twenty feet away. The girls all wore headbands to keep their shoulder-length hair out of their eyes. The tops of their two-piece bathing suits were bands too. They buried their Barbies head-down and poured sand between the pale legs until just a tiny oasis of Barbie calves and feet appeared in the distance. When the girls spoke to one another, they put their hands lengthwise across their mouths so no one could hear them.

  The coolest, quietest spot at the club, cooler than the bridge room with its pink and green furnishings, cooler than the most exalted cabana, cooler even than the manager’s air-conditioned cube, was the nest of two abandoned beach chairs secreted away in the very back of the umbrella hut: Timmy’s hideout when the rush was over. Between one and four in the afternoon, he was rarely needed unless a sudden storm hit. He’d withdraw behind hundreds of umbrellas and blow smoke rings out to the ocean through the hexagonal window.

  When Lou-Lou visited Timmy in the umbrella hut, sometimes it took him a w
hile to acknowledge her presence. She took refuge in the salty-smelling low-slung canvas chair. She curled her legs up and waited for a signal. Timmy stubbed out his Parliament and dropped it in the coffee can where he kept the old butts. His radio was small and red, with poor reception. It had sand in the grooves. Timmy stretched his arms up above his head and yawned, tiny tufts of ginger-colored hair showing in each underarm. His white chest looked like a perfect snowdrift to Lou-Lou, his nipples were narrow oblongs, like pale squished pennies with indents in the centers. As if a tiny knife had entered each and left a clean mark. Lou-Lou decided to tell Timmy about the plan for her bones.

  She started out with just a word here and there, and he didn’t stop her, he just lit another cigarette, so she told him everything. How a knife would go into her biggest bone and stir up the soft marrow in the middle, then a vacuum would be attached. She’d lie down on a white table in an operating room and Bo would be on another. The vacuum would scoop out whatever was soft in her skeleton and send it instantly over to Bo on his table. The strength in her bones would be transferred to his, and Bo would automatically begin to feel better.

  Timmy looked at her hard in the eyes. He lit another cigarette. He watched her with the flame still burning in his hand, then dropped the match and stepped on it with his green flip-flop. There was a chance, Lou-Lou said, that things might not work out at the hospital. She’d lie there on the table after her bones had been vacuumed, and wait for spontaneous regeneration. She’d be like a lizard growing back a tail. But if they took too much, she might never move again. She’d have to live the rest of her life on the white table. And she hoped, she felt sick with hope, but she hoped that maybe Timmy would visit her if that happened, in case she couldn’t come back to the beach club.

  Timmy didn’t answer. He looked down and frowned, took a long drag on his cigarette, sat back, crossed his legs, tilted up his chin, and blew a series of expert smoke rings, one opening in the air to capture the next. He stared hard out the hexagonal window for a long time. Finally he looked at Lou-Lou’s face and didn’t smile. She looked back, in the eye as her father had taught her was polite, waiting for the answer. Here you go, he said. The sound of his voice made her blink. He offered her the rest of his cigarette. You take it, he said. So Lou-Lou took the filter in her fingers and put her mouth where his had been. She didn’t bother to do anything else with it and he didn’t tell her how.

  July 8

  Is there something you’re not telling me here, Dan? I mean, the guy is a doctor, why doesn’t he live in Scarsdale, or Pelham, someplace reasonable. What’s with the suite at the Delmonico ? What is that? Roy banged the black receiver of his car phone against the palm of his hand as if it were a clogged pipe.

  That’s better, I can hear you now, before it was like the Atlantic Ocean was in my ear. So tell me, is it the same nurse we met? A new nurse? What?

  I see. But do you think this might be a distraction? A wife can be persistent in a situation like this. I want this doctor to pay attention. If he sounds like his head is up his ass, I’m looking elsewhere. No skin off anyone’s teeth. Find out and get back to me right away.

  Yes, I’m aware of the timing. You think I’m not? I invented the timing here. Look, please, just do as I ask. Get the drift on the guy and his nurse, the level of distraction. He’s got to be able to orchestrate this whole thing over the phone to people who barely know a hypodermic, much less a setup like this.

  I know, I should have been a doctor. Tell Muddy. All right. We’re in agreement.

  I already talked to the warden. He’s in my pocket.

  Very funny. So he’s in everyone’s pocket. He’s a big guy. Enough to go around. Listen, I’m hanging up. You know what to do. Call me right back.

  Roy dropped the phone into the socket embedded in the upholstery behind his right ear. Strange design, don’t you think, Peter? What do you think of the blue? Maybe black would look better.

  The color gives a little extra life, Mr. Cohn.

  You’re so right, Peter. Roy rubbed his hand along the seat. he was glad at least he’d gone for the leather instead of plush. It smelled good, like aftershave, like someone’s neck, like a thought that wasn’t worth exploring because the five o’clock traffic on Park Avenue was a fucking zoo. The Delmonico. Peter, do you know anyone who lives at the Delmonico who isn’t a crook?

  Mr. Fumansor lives there, Mr. Cohn.

  Oh. Great example, Peter. I feel much better now. The guy could fill several volumes of the penal code. You know what a gigolo is, Peter?

  Of course.

  Well, if only. I mean it would be a big step up for Mr. Fumansor, a display of some natural, harnessed and developed talent. A move toward a contribution to mankind and maybe womankind too. You know, I don’t feel good about this.

  What’s that, Mr. Cohn.

  Make a U-turn. Let’s pick up Miss Kinder instead. I’ll wait before I pay any calls at the Delmonico. And Peter, a traditional route, please. Let’s keep Harlem off the tour today.

  Sir?

  You heard me. So, were you inside at all today? Did you catch any of those boneheads in action? I’m surprised the jury isn’t in a collective coma by now. Boredom as lethal weapon. They’re wasting themselves. They could bottle up those personalities and spray Russia. Our problems as a nation would be over. But not mine. No. They’ll bore me until I’m dead. That’s the whole point.

  All along the median strip on Park Avenue, heavy tulips bowed over. Petals splayed.

  Boy. What a sight. Better just to have dirt. You can’t expect a lot from flowers in July.

  No sir.

  Maybe that’s it, can’t expect so much. I hear that all the time. But you know what, Peter? That’s wrong. Expect a lot. Expect the fucking moon.

  July 9

  An odd feature of the infirmary of Woeburne was the weapons cabinet. It looked like a hutch to Will, something his mother might have liked if old Jack Clemens had thought antiques were in any way useful. Will had been staring at it since he’d regained consciousness. The weapons cabinet had beveled glass inserts, with strands of twisted lead. Spindle shapes wound through the panes in a trellis pattern. It sent a subtle ripple so the glass looked like water. Will studied the effect for a long time while his head throbbed and the medication wore off. He counted the pistols inside. There were seven, all with metal cables snaked through the triggers. By the time a guard or nurse could detach a gun, the danger would be over, or they would be dead or hurt. But the security system at Woeburne wasn’t Will’s problem.

  The sorrowful face of Arthur Schlenker, male nurse, attendant to any sick inmate, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and alternate weekends, slumped over Will’s cot to check on his own handiwork. He lifted a gauze patch the size of a small beret from Will’s head and tapped around the stitches with a long wet Q-tip. Will flinched. That smarts, I’ll bet, said Arthur.

  You win.

  You know what? Being just like that is what got you here to begin with. Arthur patted back down the loose gauze. This thing is already infected pretty bad.

  Will had heard about the infirmary, mostly from Sammy, as an oasis for the discouraged. But the lights were blinding, and back at his desk Arthur Schlenker adjusted an audible neck crick. Five feet away Will could detect the hollow stink of poor dental hygiene. Will leaned over the side of the cot, feeling the urge to vomit. All along the floor beside his bed, little tufts of hair. All black.

  What’s this?

  What does it look like.

  Will brushed up a few strands with his fingers. He could feel the soap slick.

  Hang down like that much longer, and those stitches’ll burst.

  Will tucked his fingertips beneath the edge of the gauze and felt the nubs of hair still left. He lay back on the sour pillow, closed his eyes, and hoped for sleep. One of the mental defectives carried in dinner on a tray. Meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Will retched on the first bite. When the overheads were finally shut off, Will could see the stars in th
e skylights to the north. The artists must have earmarked this place for their studio, for when they came back to live here.

  He slept straight until dawn, a first for him at Woeburne. Will saw the morning reflected in the trellis of the weapons cabinet, the guns like lilies, the steel cables licorice he could bite through. And he thought, not for the first time, that the people who waited for him would be better off if he never came home. He sat up to assess the condition of his headache but found that, in his sleep, someone had handcuffed him to the bed.

  On the second morning, he successfully swallowed oatmeal and a cup of weak sweet tea. Arthur Schlenker took Will’s temperature and pronounced him cured. Twenty minutes later, Pasteur arrived to escort him back to Kentucky. Pasteur was in a pensive mood. He walked Will to his cell without speaking, unlocked the single door instead of the whole row, and told him he could rest there for now. Will would be all alone until the eleven o’clock head count.

  In the last day or so, the accumulating solitude had become more frightening and electric than anything Loretta Lynn might have hidden in that petal skirt. His scruples, he thought now, had been ephemeral, the shock of the moment. He was, after all, a bad guy. And if he had fucked her, certainly he wouldn’t be thinking now about the logistics of tying bedsheets. He’d still be working in the orchard outside, making hand signals to Hank Williams through the branches. Making a deal. The way the hangman game was played, Sammy said, they tried, not always successfully, to rig a release. Will didn’t want or need that.