by Alex George
“You’re in an excellent mood,” I said.
Nathan did not reply. He took a step away from me and lifted my arm into the air. I dutifully pirouetted under his wing, beaming for the watching crowd. Soon after that Nathan released me, our impromptu dance done. He bowed deeply; I lifted up my cassock and curtseyed back. The crowd applauded good-naturedly. As I walked back to the Ferris wheel, I wondered what was going through Nathan’s head. He had gripped me and spun me and danced with a silent joy that was palpable even from within all that fake green fur. But I had no idea what it meant.
—
THAT EVENING WE MET as usual by the park gates.
“Let’s go to the beach,” said Nathan at once.
“Again?” I said.
“She’s got her guitar,” whispered Nathan. I glanced across to where Faye was standing. Her guitar case was slung across her back. Her hair was gleaming in the evening sun.
“How about the mill instead?” I said.
“I don’t want to go to the mill.”
“Come on. I’ll send you flying on the hook.”
Nathan shook his head. “I want to go to the beach.”
“But we don’t go to the beach, do we?” I said. “We hide behind a sand dune and spy on people who actually go to the beach.”
Nathan looked at me, his eyes walls.
“We don’t have to go to the mill,” I said. “We could go to my house and watch some TV.”
Nathan reached out and gripped my arm.
“Robert,” he said. “Please.”
And that was it. We would go to the beach.
When we finally arrived at the sand dune where we had hidden before, Faye was already playing her guitar. There were shallow troughs in the ground where we had lain two nights previously, and we settled back into position. I stared up at the sky while Nathan crept forward and peeked over the crest of the dune.
“There are more people than last time,” he reported. “Hollis Calhoun is there, of course.” He fell silent, and I knew he was thinking about Hollis’s whispered croon as he had his filthy way with Pocahontas the previous night.
Nathan stood up.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“Where do you think?” He bent down and brushed the sand off his knees. “I’m going to talk to Faye.”
“What?” I said.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” said Nathan. “That’s why you gave me the book to read.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“You think I’m going to make the same mistake as Betsy Cribbins, don’t you? You think I’m too scared to tell Faye how I feel.”
“Well actually, now that I’ve had more—”
“You’re going to get your way, Robert. I’m going to walk over there right now.”
I grabbed his arm and hauled him back down to the sand. “Stop fooling around,” I hissed. “Somebody might see you.”
“I’m not fooling around.” Nathan got to his feet again. “Remember Betsy,” he said. “There’s no time to lose.”
“Nathan, you can’t make decisions based on a stupid book!”
He looked down at me. “Why did you give it to me, then?”
Just then Faye began to play “Annie’s Song.” Under Liam’s tutelage, Nathan had learned to hate John Denver with a near-religious fervor, but to my dismay, when Faye sang the opening lines he hummed right along with her.
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until there aren’t so many people around?” I said.
Nathan laughed. “I’ve waited too long already! I see that now.”
I thought of Gatsby again, facedown in the swimming pool. “This is an incredibly bad idea,” I said.
Faye’s lovely voice was floating through the air. I saw a new serenity in Nathan’s eyes, and I knew that it was too late. “Sorry, Robert,” he said. “I’m not going to be another Betsy Cribbins. No more hiding in the sand dune for me.”
With that he began to walk toward the music.
TWENTY-FIVE
My brother used to tell me stories about the musicians who played at CBGB, the grimy club on Manhattan’s Lower East Side that was the birthplace of punk rock. A small roster of bands played there, pummeling audiences with their raw energy and sloppy three-chord progressions. The presiding spirit of the place was Iggy Pop. Smashed out of his head on whatever barbarous cocktail of drugs he’d scored backstage, he clung to the microphone stand for dear life, long haired, bare chested, and whippet thin, so wasted he couldn’t remember his own lyrics. Members of the crowd hurled beer bottles at him in disgust; he smashed them beneath his boots and rolled around on the broken glass. When he climbed to his feet, shards remained stuck in his back, his punctured skin a tapestry of feral derangement. When the Stooges were on the bill, people came just to watch Iggy’s torrid whiplash of self-destruction. He would wade into the crowd, looking for a fight. Sometimes the fight came to him—people would get up onstage and kick the shit out of him, leaving him sprawled motionless in a pool of his own vomit while the band played on.
When my brother told me these stories, I liked to imagine that I was there myself, but watching from a safe distance. In my mind those scenes always unspooled in total silence, like an old black-and-white movie, which gave Iggy’s manic disintegration an almost formal, mournful inevitability.
I think about what happened on the evening that Nathan finally spoke to Faye in a similar way. Once he had made up his mind, there was nothing I could do to stop any of it. I just had to watch.
—
I SCRAMBLED UP the sand dune as Nathan strode across the beach. If I’d given him Gatsby instead of V. V. St. Cloud’s stupid book, he would have realized what a disastrous mistake he was making. But Nathan was going large, doubling down, and in front of an audience, to boot.
Just then another question occurred to me: What if his plan actually worked?
Nathan and Faye!
Even contemplating the possibility of the two of them together made my stomach lurch in envy. As I watched Nathan approach the group, I realized that whatever happened next, there would be no good outcome for me. I didn’t want Nathan to be hurt. But if by some miracle his gambit paid off, I would be so lacerated by jealousy that I wouldn’t be able to be pleased for him, either.
I followed Nathan across the sand. I reasoned that nobody was going to notice me if I stayed in the shadows, especially not with the floor show that was about to start.
Nathan walked into the middle of the group until he was standing a few feet in front of Faye. After a few moments she stopped singing, her fingers resting uncertainly on the guitar strings. There was no noise except the distant pulse of the waves. She looked up at Nathan with a quizzical expression.
“Please don’t stop,” said Nathan. “That was beautiful.”
“Hey, I remember you,” said Hollis Calhoun.
Nathan didn’t even glance in his direction. “Do you know the problem with John Denver?” he asked Faye.
“No,” she said. “What is the problem with John Denver?”
“The problem,” said Nathan, “is that every song is a fucking question.”
I closed my eyes.
“Oh, really,” said Faye. She peered at Nathan more closely. “What do you think I should do about that?”
“You should play some songs with answers,” said Nathan.
“What’s your name?” asked Faye.
“Nathan Tilly.”
Faye inclined her head to one side. “Hello, Nathan Tilly,” she said. “I haven’t seen you around before.”
“I work at Fun-A-Lot,” Nathan said coolly, as if there weren’t a group of people hanging on every word he said. “This is actually my second season there. Last year I was in the kitchen. I was in charge of onions.”
There was a pause.
“Uh-huh,” said Faye.
“Maybe you noticed them. The onions.”
Oh, Nathan, no, I thought.
Faye shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“They were always perfectly caramelized,” said Nathan.
“Sorry,” said Faye.
“Well anyway,” said Nathan, recovering gamely, “this year I’m the park mascot.”
“Really? You’re the dragon?”
Nathan beamed. “That’s me,” he said.
“I’ve seen you dancing,” said Faye. “You do a nice job. People are always laughing at you.”
“You should get to know me better,” said Nathan. “I’m a pretty funny guy.”
By then some of the other girls in the circle were leaning toward one another, whispering. Hollis was glaring at Nathan with undisguised hostility. But Nathan did not take his eyes off Faye, and Faye did not take her eyes off Nathan.
“What do you want, Nathan Tilly?” asked Faye. “You don’t want to talk about John Denver, do you?”
“No,” agreed Nathan, “I don’t.” He was silent for a moment. I circled quietly around the group so I could get a better view. Nathan pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He took two and bent down to light them from the fire. He handed one to Faye, who took it hesitantly.
“Thanks,” she said.
The two of them smoked in silence for a moment. All those months of stealing his mother’s cigarettes were paying dividends now. After Nathan drew the smoke into his mouth he opened his lips and let the smoke linger there for a second before languidly pulling it into his lungs. Each time this maneuver was accompanied by a sultry little twist of his head, but even then he did not relinquish eye contact with Faye. Nathan was smoking like a movie star.
“I’ve been thinking about you since last year,” he said.
“Wait, I know where I’ve seen this guy before,” said one of the other girls. “He was always hanging around in the hallways at school.”
“Maybe you do look familiar,” said Faye.
“It’s been a great summer, so far,” said Nathan. “Mainly because I can walk over to the concession stand and see you whenever I want. That’s made me pretty happy.”
Faye was completely still. “Okay,” she said.
“Then I read a book,” said Nathan. My stomach performed a somersault. “And this book made me realize that life is not a dress rehearsal.” I recognized the line. Unable to resist such an obvious theatrical metaphor, V. V. St. Cloud had used it more than once in Star-Crossed.
Faye said nothing.
“And so, since life isn’t a dress rehearsal,” continued Nathan, “I wanted to invite you for a trip on my dad’s lobster boat.”
Hollis Calhoun began to laugh—a high-pitched, ugly noise that reminded me of the whinnies of the park’s Shetland ponies.
Nathan still didn’t take his eyes off Faye. “That’s the other thing,” he said. “I’ve been watching these baboons who prance around in front of you every night.”
“Oh yes?” said Faye.
“Baboons?” said Hollis.
“They like to show off, but it’s just a dumb act,” said Nathan. “They want to impress you because you’re pretty, that’s all. They don’t care about you.”
Faye looked at him steadily. “But you’re different, I suppose.”
“I am,” agreed Nathan.
“He just called me a baboon,” said Hollis.
Faye sat back. “You don’t know me, Nathan Tilly.” I could hear the warning in her voice. “You don’t know me at all.”
“Sure I do.” Nathan was so focused on maintaining eye contact with Faye that he didn’t notice that Hollis Calhoun had clambered to his feet and was coming at him, low and hard and fast.
“Nathan!” I yelled, just as Hollis rammed his shoulder into Nathan’s ribs. Nathan’s head twisted sideways as his body hit the sand. A second later, Hollis landed on top of him. He leaned forward, his face so close to Nathan’s that it looked like they were about to kiss. It was a move I knew well.
“Stay there,” hissed Hollis. And then, to my horror, he raised his head and looked in my direction. Nathan hadn’t heard my warning shout, but Hollis had. “Who’s out there?” he yelled.
I’ve never wanted to run further or faster than I did just then, but I wasn’t going to abandon Nathan. I took a deep breath and slowly walked out of the shadows. “Hello, Hollis,” I said.
“I might have guessed,” said Hollis with a sneer.
“Hey,” said Faye. “You’re Sam’s kid.”
I blinked in astonishment. Faye knew who I was!
“It’s Robert, right?” she said.
She even knew my name! I nodded dumbly.
Hollis had climbed off Nathan, who was stretched out on the sand, gasping to pull air back into his lungs. Now he approached me, that familiar glint of malice in his eye. “Are you two clowns in on this together?”
“In on what?” I asked.
“Whatever stupid stunt your friend is trying to pull,” said Hollis. “Interrupting our party and bothering people with his dumb pickup lines.” He pulled his lips back in an ugly grin. “Is there anything you want to say?” He grabbed my arm and squeezed it hard.
“Let him go, Hollis,” said Faye.
Hollis knew that all eyes were on him. “That little prick called me a baboon.” He nodded at Nathan, who had rolled away from us, his face half-buried in the sand.
“So?” said Faye. “Just forget it.”
Hollis let go of my arm and idly cuffed me on the back of the head. “Hey, Tommy,” he said. Another kid got to his feet. I recognized him from school. He was one of the goons Hollis hung out with. “Here,” said Hollis, shoving me toward him. I collided with the boy’s chest. It felt as if I had been thrown against a brick wall. “Let’s take these boys for a swim.”
I looked toward Faye for help, but she was staring at the sand in front of her. She did not look up as Nathan and I were hauled away.
Moments later we were moving down the beach toward the ocean. The kid called Tommy had me in a fierce arm lock, which he twisted a little tighter every couple of steps. Hollis had wrapped an enormous arm around Nathan’s body and was dragging him across the sand. It was astonishing how quickly it became cold and dark as we left the warmth of the fire behind. I glanced back at the flickering light. The other kids were still sitting around the flames. None of them had moved.
We scuttled awkwardly across the sand in our ungainly twosomes.
“Some people just don’t ever learn,” grunted Hollis as he hauled Nathan toward the water’s edge. “That stunt you pulled in the locker room got me out of being held back in middle school, so I left you alone last year. You know, as a reward. But this?” He cuffed the back of Nathan’s head. “It’s like you want the attention. You came looking for it.”
I could hear the ocean grow louder, and when the waves lapped over my feet for the first time I caught my breath in surprise at how cold the water was. Tommy twisted my arm until I fell forward onto my knees, just as another wave rolled in. The water crashed against me, soaking me up to my chest.
Tommy looked across at Hollis. “Now what?” he shouted.
Nathan was kneeling in the water, where Hollis had dropped him.
“We should wash out their filthy little mouths,” said Hollis. He lifted Nathan up by his shirt and dragged him a few steps further forward into the surf. Nathan’s arms dangled limply beneath him. As the next big wave rolled in, Hollis grabbed Nathan’s hair and yanked his head back so that the water hit him full in the face. Nathan began to cough, but Hollis held him steady and waited for the next wave. When it came, he pulled Nathan’s head back again and another wall of freezing seawater smashed into him.
Tommy dragged me further into the waves. As we moved forward I began to struggle. His fingers w
ere in my hair and he pushed me down. My ears filled with the roar of the ocean, and then the water hit me.
The shock of the wave’s impact obliterated everything else. The back of my nose erupted with the power of a well-executed uppercut. Ice-cold saltwater filled my mouth. It flushed through my ears and filled up my eyes. I could not breathe. In my panic I inhaled some of the ocean into my lungs. I struggled and fought, but Tommy’s hands remained on the back of my neck, holding me down. Beneath the waves, the ocean was eerily silent. Then I was hauled out of the water. I gasped as I pulled air into my lungs. My whole body was shaking with cold.
“Having fun yet?” shouted Tommy. When the next wave rolled in, he plunged my head back beneath the water again.
I tried to escape, but he was too strong for me. I twisted my head toward Nathan and Hollis. Hollis was holding Nathan’s head beneath the waves, that familiar smirk on his face. Nathan hadn’t made a sound from the moment that Hollis had first hit him.
As the submersions continued, the cold crept deeper into my bones. My teeth had begun to chatter ferociously. Just as I was starting to wonder whether Tommy and Hollis would ever get bored of their vicious little game, there was a yell from somewhere behind us.
“Hey!”
Tommy straightened up warily, pulling me up with him. Faye was striding across the sand toward us.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
Hollis grinned at her. “Quick swimming lesson.”
“Jesus, Hollis, you’re drowning them.” Faye ran a hand through her hair. “What is wrong with you?”
“They asked for it,” said Hollis.
“But they’re just kids, for God’s sake.”
“So?” said Hollis.
“So there’s no need to be a complete asshole.”
At this Hollis shrugged and dropped Nathan into the water. Nathan slowly got to his feet. Tommy let go of my shirt. The four of us stood there with the freezing surf washing over our ankles, all watching Faye. She looked at me and then at Nathan. “Are you guys all right?” she asked.