by Jack Riggs
“He got called out, a boy drowned or something at the pier,” I said. “Didn't you see them down there?”
“No,” she said, her voice breaking, giving her away. “I should have gone by there myself and picked him up.”
“You know what kind of good that would have done,” I said.
Kelly stood there like she was waiting for me to say something more, like this was one of those moments where if I opened my mouth, whatever came out would explain the whole world to her. I know she deserves someone who can give her that, a way for her to understand what she can't see through her own eyes yet, but I wasn't in the mood. I was caught up in Clay's offer in Walhalla and the possibility of a new life. I just sat there, looked at her and raised my hands. “So what are you waiting for?” I said. “Scoot.” She turned, running into the house, the door slamming shut behind her.
There is no letup in the heat on the field, the high sun bleaching color out of everything. Stagnant air from the paper mills finds us when the breeze shifts, making breathing all that more difficult. The umpires change out for the second time in the top of the fifth inning. All the girls hover around the water buckets, drinking and pouring it over their heads and necks to keep cool.
Clay is still talking to the man behind the backstop. They concentrate on a clipboard, watch Kelly field a pop fly to end the inning. Clay turns and shakes the man's hand, then takes an envelope before he leaves to return to me. Kelly comes in from the field. I watch her cross the third- base line, throw her glove into the dugout, and dowse water on her face.
“I've got more good news,” Clay says when he sits down. He opens the envelope, hands me papers, some sort of application to be filled out. “Coach Lambert over there,” he says, pointing to the sheet of paper I am holding, “guess where he's from?”
“Where?” I say. I look at the man as he writes on his clipboard.
“Guess,” he says.
“Clay, I have no idea. He could be from Mars for all I know.”
“He's from Cullowhee,” Clay says, his face broadening into a smile. “Cullowhee, North Carolina.”
“That's real nice,” I say. “But I don't know what that means.” I glance back to the papers in my hand looking for answers.
“He coaches softball for Western Carolina. He likes what he sees in Kelly.”
I look toward the man again, this time seeing more of a threat than anything else. “She's only going to be a sophomore, Clay.”
“He knows that. He wants her at his camp this summer.”
“Where?” I ask, though I heard what he just said. Cullowhee's less than an hour from Momma's house in Whiteside Cove.
“At Western Carolina,” he repeats while pointing to the application, tapping it with his finger. “Camp starts on Monday.”
“Monday,” I say. My heart races when I realize I am holding papers that give our plans legitimacy, a real reason to leave early and be with Clay.
“Monday,” he says, winking at me. He takes a drag from his cigarette then flicks the ash into the sand. Around us, the trees drop leaves like it's fall. “It's perfect, Cassie. I've given Surfside my notice, so Peck won't find out until Monday. You can take Kelly up to Cullowhee. Peck won't stop you. Then we can meet up in Walhalla for the summer, get things started.”
At first I'm elated, my heart racing, remembering the promise I made to Clay on the dock earlier in the afternoon. Then hesitation like a cold tide rises through me, a question forming that I did not expect. It surprises me, almost takes my breath away. Clay Taylor is a fireman too, and what good would it do to live with him, trade one fireman for another? It's odd that I would feel this as soon as there is a chance to go, as soon as there are no more excuses to keep me from leaving Peck, but there it is, hesitation enough that Clay asks me if I'm all right.
“Yes,” I say. “I'm just hot, this heat is stifling.”
“Well, if you're worried about it, let's talk,” he says. “We've waited too long.”
“I'm fine,” I tell him. “It's just happening so fast, that's all. I need time for it to sink in. Now let's watch the game.” I touch his hand for reassurance, but it's too brief, a light pat, affectionless, a touch that I know will confuse him more than settle any concern.
I don't tell him that after almost seven months of scheming to be together, I am suddenly questioning my motives. I can't afford the doubt. I'm too close to finding a way out of this life for good. In my reasoning, I remind myself it's his way out too, so I let Clay enjoy the moment. “I'm excited about the future,” I say. “It's all going to work out.”
He smiles at me then. “It's going to be perfect,” he says, then turns, like a proud father, to watch Kelly come to bat.
He stretches his lips with forefinger and thumb to let out a shrill whistle when Kelly steps to the plate. It's her last at bat. She looks at me, her stare cold, her stance angry when she lifts the bat to her shoulder, stabs the ground with the toe of her cleat to plant it firmly in the batter's box. And then, taking the first pitch, she sends the ball out over the fence in deep center field.
It flies through air hot enough to catch fire, doesn't stop until it is in the street rolling toward the steel mill. The crowd sitting around the field erupts while she stands watching the ball leave the field. Then, as if Kelly couldn't care less, she turns and looks at me, her face expressionless, pale in the heat as she begins to run the bases. She jogs like what she has just done means nothing, but I know it does. I know how important it was to her to do well here today. She is a standout, the one everyone is talking about, heads leaning to ears, voices whispering about her future.
Though she no longer looks at me, I can still see her there at home plate, our eyes locked before the ball had even cleared the fence. While I watch her run the bases, I cannot help but feel she is trying to leave me, trying to get away because I am here with Clay and not her father. Kelly is a child and will not understand for years what is to come, even though she will have to endure it all. I have to wonder if I will destroy her very understanding of love and family. “I'm sorry,” I whisper, apologizing for what I am about to do.
Clay asks what, thinking my words are meant for him. I smile, say “Nothing, never mind,” and then watch Kelly touch home plate, raising her hands to the high fives of her cheering teammates. Peck is in that girl more than me. It's as plain as the heat and sweat of this boiling summer. It's a shame he's not here to see it all, but then he never has been. Peck Calhoun Johnson is first and foremost a fireman and saving a life is more important than living his own. I wish he could be here to see Kelly's home run, but he has trouble on the beach. There's trouble everywhere now, I think. Peck always told me that in a fire there's nothing good for anyone, not those caught in it or those that have to fight it. “Flame don't choose who or what to burn,” he says. “It burns blind.”
When the game is over, Kelly walks toward where Clay and I sit. She drags her bag, the sun blanching the world around us.
Peck
IT DOESN'T OCCUR TO ME until we get the call, an eight- year- old boy off the pier at Garden City Beach. I'm not supposed to even be here. Clay Taylor is scheduled for rotation, but he's been about as dependable as rain lately, so I stick around, take the call. I'm over at the window that closes off the small office from the rest of the station when it comes, a feeling that pulls at my stomach, washes across me like a faint breeze. It makes me wait a second longer than I should. Intuition maybe, I don't know. It's just all over me when I stick my face into the small hole in the glass and yell at Lori, the sound of the fire bell and the Pirsch pumper roaring to life hiding any signs in my voice that I feel something's wrong, somewhere something's not right. “Call Cassie,” I say, “tell her there's a drowning. I'll get there when I can.” I can see the disappointment when I tell her this. Lori knows what I'll be missing, knows what it will mean. I'm last to get into my turnouts, J.D. already behind the wheel waiting as I lift myself up to ride shotgun. J.D.'s new, a rookie in his first year, but he
's got an old heart. You can't hide much from that boy. “You all right there, Chief?” he asks.
“Right as rain,” I say.
He looks at me then, a question growing in his eyes that I won't let him ask. “Well, are we going,” I say, motioning toward the opened garage door, “or do you want to sit here all afternoon and talk about the weather?”
J.D. smiles at that. “Well,” he says, putting the Pirsch into gear, “you're the one who brought up rain.” He turns on lights, pops the horn twice to let Lori know we're on the move. I keep quiet about what I felt when the call came in. I don't want to raise any concern. Everything we do out here on the beach is about danger and death. I can't tell my crew that something I don't even understand myself has come over me. If they think I'm worried, it could put us in even more danger than we'll have to face, so I stay quiet and look around for my sunglasses. A chief has to be a chief, mind clear and eyes wide open. I yell at J.D., “You seen my shades?”
He looks over, a smile pulling at one side of his face, his eyes bright when he yells back, “Yeah.”
He swings the Pirsch pumper out into oncoming traffic, emergencies flashing, the siren piercing the mid- afternoon heat, warning other drivers to let us get on through. I pull the hand mike from its cradle to let dispatch down in Surfside know that we are on Atlantic Avenue, 10- 76, responding and en route.
J.D.'s young, twenty- four back in April. He's been with the station since last fall. It looks like he's lived on the beach all his life, even though he grew up in Columbia, his daddy a retired firefighter up there. I can see by the way Lori watches him that he's a real looker. He's got a strong jaw, sandy blond hair that I need to remind him to cut. He has a fortress face, looks like it was chiseled from stone. It makes people turn around and listen when he speaks. “I ain't got all day here,” I yell. “Where are my shades, J.D.?” He taps the top of his head with a hand to say right where you left them, then grabs the wheel with both to whip the truck onto South Waccamaw.
The road across from the beach is full of pedestrians watching us run up to the Kingfisher Pier. We pull in underneath the decking, a small arcade and snack bar full of tourists right above us. It's the only place on the whole beach where there's good shade, where the breeze tries its best to be cool. We're the first on the scene—no law enforcement or ambulance yet. I don't like it, but it happens.
“Radio Lori, tell here we're 10- 23,” I say, “and keep your radio on. No one else is here yet.”
I head out toward the end of the pier to assess the situation while J.D. preps the gear. All the while I'm wishing that I was going home to pick up Kelly and Cassie for the drive over to Georgetown. It would be hotter than scorched earth at the softball field, but that's nothing compared to what I'm about to confront out here.
On the end of the pier, it's not good at all. There's a man and a woman huddled in chairs, the woman hysterical to the point that she's probably going into shock. The man is trying to console her, but he's not getting anywhere. I can tell they've been drinking. It's all over them, and it's not good.
Out off the pier, a boy is floating limp and facedown in the water. Several men have him on their lines. They've hooked his shorts to keep him from floating away. There're kids screaming and gawkers trying to take pictures. One of the men pulls me off to the side, his breath full of alcohol when he tells me that the boy's been in the water a long time, that he's got to be dead. He leans closer, whispers about a spinner that's been hanging around that's nearly six feet long. Even though the shark's not likely to care about a dead boy the idea worries me. I don't need a spectacle like that going on down here.
Another man smelling of hot sun and booze comes up while I'm looking over the side. “We got a net, but ain't got no rope to tie it off,” he says. “Jimmy over here was going in after him, but I said wait.”
This guy Jimmy's wearing a pair of cutoffs and no shirt, his skin burned a bright pink. His eyes are almost slits. He's drunker than his buddy who's telling me about the net.
“Show me the net,” I say. The man hurries me around the back of a small covered shed while I radio to J.D. to bring the hundred-foot lifeline from the truck. I settle in to the call now, measured patience taking over.
The man brings me around the shed to find a round wire mesh four feet in diameter leaning against the rail. “We got it sitting here just in case someone hooks a turtle or a skate or something like that,” he says, “but it'll hold that boy too. We just need a rope.” He smells like a brewery when we're out of the breeze.
“Let's see what we can do with this thing,” I say. When we get back, the father is at the rail. It looks like he wants to go over, and we don't need that happening. J.D.'s right there doing what he needs to do. I can hear him talking, the man's wife screaming from her chair. It's like something out of a bad movie, the screams notching up the tension.
Now some man who doesn't belong on the pier decides to take charge. He gets up in my face. “Somebody's got to get that boy out,” he screams. “What the hell's taking so long?” I put the net down and walk him over to the middle of the pier.
“Sir,” I say, “you need to move on back, right now.”
He seems startled that someone's put a hand on his chest and is pushing back on him like this, but I don't care. I don't need any more chaos out here than I already have.
“Are you in charge of this?” he asks, his words slurred in the air.
“Yes sir, I am.”
“Well goddamn, man, get a rope. We got to get that boy out!”
“We're working on that,” I say. “Now I really need you to move on back, sir, please, right now.”
That's when I see Teddy coming down the pier. He's the Horry County deputy sheriff who works Garden City Beach during his weekday shifts. We go way back, past high school even, still surf together when schedules allow. It always helps when he's on scene. Teddy's a stand- up guy. I let him have this one and go back to the net and J.D. at the rail. The father is down on the decking, J.D. holding him there asking him to be a good man and go back to his wife.
The men who told me about the net have started tying off the rope to the lead lines. They've mangled the job, and that pisses me off too. It's part of the problem, being thin in personnel on a beach that is busting out of its seams. I take a minute to look around, assess the situation, make sure that everything is falling into place. I learned a long time ago that you have to pull yourself out of a call to take account of things, to make sure nothing's overlooked and that we don't invite any unnecessary danger.
Teddy's pushing the public back, putting chairs out in a row to move onlookers a safe distance away from the scene. J.D.'s with the mother and father, checking vitals, trying to console. The men with the lines on the boy keep him there, spotting the water just in case that spinner shows up. With everything accounted for, I get busy untangling the line, the circus of dunces watching me undo their mess when Teddy comes over and tells them to leave. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, now that you're here.”
He looks at the spaghetti of rope tangled around my feet and says, “You must have been a Boy Scout.”
“All the way to Eagle,” I say, and then we both smile.
When the rope's ready, I look over to the boy's parents for J.D. The mother's on her knees throwing up, maybe going into shock. The father's crumpled down next to her, no help at all. I know this is a recovery, not a rescue, so their boy won't need what J.D. can offer. I leave him where he can do some good and call Teddy in, tell him what I want to do.
There's nothing that can be done to save this child, but we still hurry, lower the net, the wire mesh slipping beneath the water when a wave slops past. When I feel the tug against my grip, I say “Pull,” and Teddy starts backing toward the other side of the pier. He's a mule of a guy, the half- inch line wrapped around his thick waist two or three times, a firm counterweight to the bloated body we catch on the first try.
The boy rolls down into the basket and stay
s there in a fetal position, small crabs falling off his back as the rope is drawn up to the top of the pier. For a moment there's hope that he's alive, his mouth almost in a smile, his eyes opened. The movement of the net and the lines still attached gives the impression that the boy is moving. It's macabre, a little puppet on strings rising out of death. The image taunts, fools those on top who don't know any better. The father is holding on to his wife, and they have edged out onto the pier, J.D. standing with them.
“You might want to get them back,” I say, but he can't make the boy's parents leave the rail. I don't blame them; if it was my kid, I'd be there too. I don't know how you live without your child. I see this too much, and I still never get used to it.
An ambulance crew arrives just as we get the boy on the pier. He flops out of the net like some kind of odd fish, water pouring out of his mouth. It's horrible and Teddy doesn't waste any time pushing the crowd farther away. The mother starts screaming again, tries to crawl into the net, the father too. They're so torn up they're just crazy. The ambulance crew holds them back so J.D. can get to their boy. He's over the body checking for vitals and clearing airways, trying to do what he can to find any signs of life. But the boy's just dead, that's it. The father walks over to ID the body while the mother is put on a stretcher and rolled back down the pier. There's a few on the beach who cheer when the stretcher rolls away thinking the boy has survived, but the father knows better.
He knows they let the boy get away and the most horrific thing that could have ever happened did. J.D. stops working and lays a blanket over the body. The man walks to the end of the pier still holding on to a beer and that sort of pisses me off until he heaves the can out into the ocean, his cry so full of hurt and grief that it makes my stomach hurt.
And though the man doesn't come right out and say it, I know he wants to be under that blanket instead of his boy. He'd trade anything so his boy could live. I'd want that if it was Kelly. It hurts to see it, but it hurts more to think all of this could have been avoided. Somehow the boy just got away from them, got on the beach and then the ocean had its way. Fault will be for Teddy to figure out, to see if the parents might be charged with some kind of negligence, though I doubt he'll want to do anything more to these people. I mean, my God, what more could be done to punish them?