Saint X

by Alexis Schaitkin

  Another thing: I think he waits because this way, if the girl regrets it, by the time the feeling sinks in, she’s on the plane to Chicago or in she pretty purple bedroom in Boston, and what’s she going to do then?

  A few months ago, a girl almost made everything go bad. Julie. A California blondie, pretty pretty. Julie was quieter than the ones Edwin usually picks. A good girl. She barely touched her drinks at Paulette’s, and when we offered her the spliff in the car park, she said, “No, thank you,” like she was declining a fresh towel on the beach. I thought she was a lost cause, but then she spirited Edwin away one sundown to she room. With Julie, he didn’t wait; he went right along with she. When she bled, he knew it was a mistake. Virgin girls are not a thing to mess with. They think they know what they want, but how can they? And a virgin Yankee girl who decides this is how she wants to lose it? Holy shit.

  After that, Julie started acting funny. Her daddy wasn’t stupid. He knew something was going on. One sunup when we arrived at work, he was waiting for we in the car park. He marched up to Edwin and grabbed his shirt and told us to stay the hell away from his daughter and threatened to get both our asses fired and to beat the shit out of we if he found out Edwin had laid so much as a hand on his little girl. First time I ever heard a guest threaten to beat the shit out of someone. We were lucky. Julie was so embarrassed she kept she trap shut about what happened. Ever since, Edwin waits. You never know when a girl will get vex. You never know what a vex girl will do, or say.

  These girls have a danger to they. He likes that, too.

  * * *

  WHEN WE meet the girl in the car park after work today, she appears troubled. Restless. Maybe it’s the rain. It fell all day, constant. Her fingers keep moving like they’re not ruled by she. She drums she fingers on the hood of Edwin’s car. Then her fingertips circle she scar, around and around. Maybe something happened between she and Edwin. Maybe with this one, so pretty, he failed to wait. Shit.

  Then she furrows she brow and says a thing I never expected.

  “When I was swimming today I saw a woman on Faraway Cay.”

  For a moment nobody says a word. I look at Edwin. I expect him to grin and brush her off, but his face is dead serious, even a bit afraid. I shiver.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispers.

  “What?” she says. “Do you know her or something?”

  “Woman you say you saw—she have long hair, black black?” Edwin asks.

  The girl nods.

  “White white skin?”

  She nods again. “She was, like, staring at me.”

  I’m thinking, it can’t be. But this girl freaks me out a bit. She fingertips never stop tracing she scar. A silly notion comes over me that this scar is the source of she power.

  Edwin looks across she to me. “Tell her, Gogo.”

  I tell her about the Faraway woman’s hooves for feet and her wildness. I tell her how she lures people to Faraway and leads them across the cay, how if you follow the woman to the waterfall and see the stars reflected in the water you will lose all sense of up and down, earth and sky, you and she, and they say that’s how she takes you.

  “I saw her,” she says when I finish.

  I shiver again.

  Edwin snorts. He claps his hands, tosses back his head, and laughs.

  “Check you two,” he says. “Girl, only thing you did see was a goat. Faraway’s overrun with they.”

  I should have known he wasn’t being serious with his Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  “It wasn’t a goat,” the girl says. “She had black hair and white skin, just like you said.”

  “Old nanny goat, probably.” He shrugs.

  “Why you think Faraway is overrun with they in the first place?” I say. I turn to she. “Every time someone vanish on Faraway, a new goat appears. She turns they.”

  Edwin cracks up. “Goges here’s the only one under sixty who believes that nonsense. Tell me something: What you ever see a goat do beside eating, shitting, and rutting? How do you think that cay became overrun with they?”

  “How you explain the planes, then?” I say. I can’t tell anymore if I’m defending she from Edwin’s ridicule or fucking with she, too. Maybe it’s some of both.

  “Oh, yes!” Edwin says, grinning. “Let it be known that there are not one, not two, but three downed planes on Faraway Cay.”

  “And they form a triangle,” I say.

  “Three things always form a triangle,” Edwin says.

  He’s right. Shit.

  The girl appears nervous.

  “But the triangle’s not the point,” I say. “Guess what’s at their center? The waterfall. She lures they. How else you explain it?”

  “Drug runners. In shit prop planes.”

  The girl chews she lip and looks down at the ground. “Maybe I didn’t see it as clearly as I thought.” I’m pretty sure she only says this to please Edwin, though, because she gazes past the parking lot in the direction of the cay with this dreamy look, like something legit is happening to she. Like she thinks she’s special now because we local folkloric creature has taken an interest in she. I feel so annoyed then I wish I didn’t argue with Edwin on she behalf. Anyway, he’s probably right. Must be a goat she saw.

  We change the subject. We smoke we spliff. We pass around a bottle from Edwin’s car—hot, unpleasant liquor. We’re ready to leave when the girl asks, “Why is it called Faraway Cay anyway, if it’s so close? Is that supposed to be, like, a joke or something?”

  “No, miss,” Edwin says. “This is a deadly serious matter. This name protects us from the cay’s proximity.” He snorts. “Typical superstitious island shit, thinking if we call it so, it will be so, when that goat-infested cay is staring we right in the face. Better take care, now, girl. The Faraway woman has she eye on you.”

  * * *

  TODAY WHEN I arrive, Sara opens the door with a basket in she arms. “I thought I’d take him to Little Beach,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

  She looks at me with softness in her face. “Come with us.”

  We stop off at the food mart on Hopper Lane and I buy three Cadbury bars, one for each of we. We arrive at Little Beach at that magic hour just after sunset when everything is veiled in blue—the sky, the sea, the sand. The guests at Indigo Bay miss this hour. They take their photographs of the sunset and then they go inside and they miss it. Little Beach is quiet, but not empty. We choose a spot a bit away from the others. Sara takes a cloth from the basket and spreads it on the sand. I set out the Cadbury bars. Bryan pets the sand beside the cloth like it’s a living thing. Sara lies down, closes she eyes, and lets the remains of the day warm her.

  In the distance, one fishing boat is still out, a small dinghy with a fishing pole planted at the bow. The boat is a black silhouette. The fishing pole appears to lance the clouds. At the water’s edge, a shirtless man in track pants sprints down the sand. A few strays follow after him, yapping and so happy. Boys scamper onto the pier, then dive into the sea. Not long ago this was me, and someday it will be Bryan. The lampposts on the pier are rickety and their white paint is nearly all flaked away. The lampposts have no lights and they never have and I’ve never known why, and I like this.

  “Should we draw shapes, my Bry?” I say.

  He doesn’t reply. A shy day. I hoist myself from the cloth and squat in the sand. I trace a balloon with a squiggly string. A bird. A sailboat. Bryan looks at the shapes with interest and also some wariness. “Do you know what that says?” I ask, pointing. He shakes his head. “B-R-Y-A-N. That’s you, Bryan.”

  He murmurs something.

  “What’s that?”

  “A nana.”

  “You want me to draw a banana?”

  His lips part and release the faintest, “Yes.”

  I do my best, a thin shape that looks more like a crescent moon. “Like so?”

  He nods. “Thank you, Dada.”

  It’s n
ot me who taught him thank you. It’s Sara. Already she’s showing him good manners. I didn’t even notice it happening.

  Bryan is still shy with me when I tear the corner off a Cadbury wrapper and show him how to press out the melted chocolate. My boy accepts the chocolate I squeeze onto his finger like it’s something holy. He licks it off with his small pink tongue. Sara’s tongue.

  Sara sits up. “Should we go in?”

  I undress Bryan and take off his nappy. My son’s skin is dark and even and supple. His belly button is a small sweet nut. Sara removes her shirt and her skirt to reveal her swimming suit. I take off my polo, so I’m down to my shorts and singlet. I’m a bit embarrassed for Sara to see me, but she doesn’t stare.

  With Sara beside me, I take Bryan in my arms and carry him into the sea. At Indigo Bay, the guests pause on the sand before they walk into the water, as if some sort of preparation is required. It’s different here. We walk into the sea as easily as taking our next step. We are not alone in the water. I see a father with a daughter. A woman in a pink bathing cap. An old man holds an old woman by the arm and guides her through the soft waves.

  We wade out until the water comes to Sara’s waist, Bryan nestled in the crook of my arm. The water is warm, almost the same as the air. Then I feel something warmer on my arm. At first I think it’s the last of the day’s heat, but the warmth is moving, flowing. I look at Bryan. My boy is laughing—big laughter, full and free. Sara and I look down at my arm at the same time. Urine, trickling in a small channel. We laugh, too. Then Sara closes her eyes, leans back, and floats.

  I see us then, a family together in the sea. And something happens to me that maybe I can’t ever explain. On this evening, I am a father. Later, Sara and I will tuck Bryan’s sleeping ragdoll body into bed. Later still I’ll lime with Edwin. For the first time ever, my life feels like my life.

  * * *

  ISN’T IT the fuck of it all that tonight of all nights, when all I want is to lime with my mate, to feel my life being my life, we’re saddled with the girl? We’re in the car on the way to Paulette’s. Engine sputtering, chicken in the road, and she. Tonight’s she last night. Edwin knows what this means and from the way she’s dressed in a short skirt and a top that ties with a string around she neck, she knows it, too.

  “You ready for a wild night, girl?” Edwin says.

  She scoffs. “Paulette’s is not exactly the pinnacle of wild.”

  “Maybe we’ll take you out to Faraway,” he says with a grin. “See if the goat lady take an interest in you.”

  “I’m down for whatever,” the girl says, like it makes no difference to she. But I see she hidden smile, so pleased to think we’re going to do something big for she last night. What is it about this one, so convinced she’s special? I want to tell she there was Julie and Callie and Lisa and Lauren and Molly before her, and there will be plenty of pretty pretty girls after her. She may be a bit sharper than most, she may be quicker with her tongue, but in the end she wants what they all want: to take home the story of how she fucked the man who brought she towels on the beach. But so what? She’s using him, but he’s using she, too. They get their story and he gets them.

  At Paulette’s, Edwin buys all of we a round of ganja shots. Next, rum. At some point I must switch glasses with he, because soon both of ours are finished. I buy another, and another. I’m getting good and gone now. Music playing, bottles clinking, mutt begging. Sounds of Edwin and the girl.

  I watch them dance. She does have a nice sway. Together they move so right. You can’t learn this. You want to know the secret of life? You will never be they. They is always someone else.

  We’re at Paulette’s an hour or so when the girl says, “I’m bored. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where do you have in mind?” Edwin says.

  “I thought we were going to Faraway?” she says with a glint in she eyes.

  He laughs. “You mad, girl?”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “I was just messing with you. Anyway, how you think we would get there?”

  She looks down at the floor. “Whatever,” she mumbles. “Forget it.”

  “Relax. Plenty of wild places to go.”

  Next thing we’re in the car. Edwin drives fast. Windows down, radio blasting. The potholes give a good bump—the girl bounces so high she head hits the roof, hard, and she laughs. We’re all good and drunk. Ready for the night to take we.

  When Edwin pulls off the road at the spot where the scrub leads to the nameless cliffs, I turn a hard gaze on he. I don’t want to take some Yankee chick to this place. But Edwin pretends not to notice. He turns off the car and climbs out. He grabs a bottle of rum from the car and says, “Follow me.”

  We walk single-file, Edwin then she then me. We’ve limed here pretty regular over the years since we found the spot in the boat with Keithley, and there’s a path carved into the scrub, so faint you have to know it’s there to find it. But the ground is uneven and the path is narrow and the scrub is so thick sometimes you have to shield your face as you walk. I see the girl turn around and look behind she. The road is gone.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” she asks. She tries to make her voice calm, but she’s nervous, and I feel a bit pleased to see this cocky one brought a little low. She stumbles as she walks. This is she drunkest night yet.

  “This wild enough for you, miss?” Edwin replies.

  She wraps her arms tight across she chest like she’s cold. She’s scared for true now, and just when I’m about to break and tell she everything’s fine and where we’re going, the scrub parts and we’re here. The stretch of smooth, flat rock that leads to the edge. The ocean lit up by the moon. The girl doesn’t hesitate. She dashes right up to the edge, so fast for a second I think she’s going to go right over.

  “Shit, girl, watch yourself!” Edwin says.

  She turns to us. “This place is amazing.” She kicks off she sandals and we do the same, leaving we shoes in a pile. She walks the edge like a high-wire walker in the circus, up on she tiptoes with she hands out to she sides. Next, she stands with she toes curled over the edge, looking out. In the distance, Faraway is a black shadow against the black sky.

  Edwin nudges me. “She ripe to be fucked or what?”

  Then he runs at she, his bare feet soundless against the rock. When he reaches she, he puts his arms around her and she shrieks. He scoops her up. He twirls her around.

  “You scared the shit out of me!” she says, laughing so hard she’s gasping. She hits him, but not hard; she’s not angry, she’s flirting. She leans back in Edwin’s arms and looks up at the stars and kicks her feet like she’s swimming through the air. He puts her down and we sit together on the rocks.

  Edwin passes the bottle of rum around. He pulls a spliff from his pocket. We’re having a real bacchanal now, the three of we. The rocks are smooth and cool. The sky offers we everything: crescent moon, stars so bright it’s like they’re fucking with we.

  She tips the bottle back and lets the liquor flow down she throat. She blows smoke into Edwin’s face and he breathes it in. I reach for the spliff. She shakes she head, wags she finger.

  “Not yet.” She takes another hit, brings she face close to me, and exhales. Then her mouth is on my mouth. I’m so gone I don’t wonder what or why. Her tongue twists around my tongue. I take she hips in my hands. She berry lips. She little tits pressing against my chest. I feel myself going hard.

  She pulls away. There’s a twinkle in she eyes. She turns to Edwin. Then her mouth is on his mouth and I watch she kiss he. Her ponytail tosses in the wind. He unties the string around her neck. He runs his hands up and down she sides and groans.

  She pulls away from he, same as she did from me. I look to see if something’s wrong, but she still has the twinkle in she eyes. She twirls her ponytail with her finger, like she’s alone here, amusing herself. Then she looks at we. “Your turn.”

  I laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” she says
.

  “You shitting we,” Edwin says.

  “You scared, boys?” She makes a big show of tying the string around her neck again, though she’s so drunk she does it sloppy. “I thought you were up for something wild. Never mind, I guess.”

  Edwin shakes he head. “Fucking girl.” He grabs me and pulls me toward him. Next thing I know, his lips are on my lips. His tongue pushes into my mouth. Quick, he pulls away. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and I do the same. We spit onto the rocks. He kissed me hard, like a smack across the mouth. At first I want to laugh. Can you believe what we just did? Can you believe how far my bred will go to fuck a girl? But then I look at he and he looks at me and something in his face stops me. For the first time in we life, Edwin appears afraid.

  I hear the girl clap, slow slow. I hear she say, “Bravo.” We don’t move. “Guys?” she says. “Hey, guysss.” Out of the corner of my eye I see she stumble. She falls to her hands and knees like she’s going to be sick. Then she lies down on the ground, curled up like a baby.

  Edwin snaps back into the moment then. He turns away from me and faces she. “You satisfied, miss?” he says.

  “Shhh. The stars,” she mumbles. Her eyes are closed.

  Edwin goes over and sits next to she. He takes the string of her shirt in his fingers and pulls. She lets him. She shirt falls down to she waist. She’s not wearing a bra. Her tits are like Sara’s, small small, the kind that remind you a woman was a girl. He unbuttons his trousers. He runs his fingers up she leg, she thigh, under she skirt.

  “Mmm.” She says it so faint I barely hear it.

  I go off to give them space. I walk to the edge of the rocks and lie down and listen to the sea crash. I close my eyes and for a moment I’m falling, weightless. Then I hear Edwin.