by Jack Riggs
We wait for the second ambulance and Teddy's backup to come before we wrap our gear. I call Lori to request a 10- 79 because a coroner's going to have to be involved in this. There's going to be an investigation, which means more paperwork before I can get away.
“How does that happen?” J.D. asks when he comes up besideme.
“What?”
“The boy drowning while his parents are on the pier like that. How does that happen?”
I look at J.D. for a minute because I forget he's still a rookie. “I don't know,” I say. “It's just life, brother. And sometimes we get to clean it up.”
He looks at me and I can see that's not going to do it for him. He's going to be a good fireman if he learns to let it go. You got to learn to do that if you're going to last any time on this job. “Let's finish this up,” I say, and he hikes up the gear onto his shoulders, moves down the pier to the truck where small boys have gathered. They ask him if he can turn on the siren, but J.D. ignores them, just keeps storing the gear and dwelling on something he can't change.
“Hey, let the boys have a look inside,” I say. “I'll finish up out here.” I stow the ropes and J.D.'s medical supplies. He uses a large tackle box to carry his gear, and when he pulls it out, it looks like he might be going fishing instead of heading out to save a life. We tease him all the time, tell him there's nothing in that box a fish would care to eat, that we'd never let him on a boat with that thing. He's a good rookie, a good sport with all the shit we dish out. I look up toward the front of the Pirsch. J.D.'s letting the boys sit in the driver's seat with the lights flashing. One of them is wearing his helmet. They all seem to be having a good time, the tragedy out on the pier finding a perspective. It's a good sign.
When the truck is packed, I tell the boys to stand clear, then I jump in shotgun, and we are on our way back to the station. My watch says 4:45, so there's no way I'll make Kelly's game.
“Think she pitched good?” J.D. asks. He looks over. I can see his eyes, dark pools of blue. He knows Cassie and I are having trouble.
“Guess so,” I say, “but she's just fifteen. I don't think it matters much.”
“She's got an awful good arm, Peck. Fifteen or not, I bet she's good.”
“Still, it won't matter much,” I say.
J.D.'s seen Kelly pitch. Early in the spring, she called Lori to remind me about a game in Litchfield. J.D. was rotating off duty at the same time, so he volunteered to tag along. I was staying down at the fire station pretty regularly because Cassie didn't want me at home. We were fighting then as we are now about disappointments she felt had ruined her life. I know there are things she didn't get to do because of what happened with Kelly, and at times I wish I could just tell her to go, come back when you're finished doing whatever it is you got to do. But I don't say that. She has a daughter to raise, and I've told her time and again that Kelly's more important than anything bad between the two of us.
She told me she needed space, so I started staying at the station, checking in when Kelly would come to the beach to surf or just drop by to let me know how her mother was getting along. I probably take more rotations than I should, stay at the station when I ought to be home trying to make it work with Cassie. But life becomes a habit if you live it the same way long enough, and we've been at this for years.
We drove over to Litchfield in my truck, rain threatening the skies, but it never showed up. There were only a handful of folks at the game when J.D. and I got there, mostly parents of the kids on the Socastee team. We watched Kelly throw six perfect innings, miss the no- hitter, and end up losing the game with four hits in the top of the seventh. Kelly's only in the ninth grade, pitching against girls three years older. I can only imagine what she'll be like in a couple of years.
The game helped Cassie and me get along that afternoon. She let J.D. come back to the house, and he took it on himself to cheer Kelly up. He let her pitch for about an hour out in the backyard while Cassie and I tried to work things out. I think Kelly's crush on him started that day. She's fifteen, J.D. twenty- four. I know couples who are married and have more years between them, so I'm not telling J.D. anything about the crush. There're some things he doesn't need to know.
When we get back to the station, only Partee's there for the shift change. He's looking around like he lost something when J.D. kills the engine. “Where's Clay?” he asks.
“He called in sick,” Lori says, rolling her eyes. She's waiting when I climb out of the Pirsch waving forms in my face that need filling out already. The loss of life makes the pile of paperwork that much more urgent.
“He ain't sick,” Partee says. “He just ain't here, again.”
“I know that,” I say.
Partee leans a hand against the Pirsch, sweat darkening his shirt into a half- moon under his arm. “Who wants to stay this time?”
J.D. walks around from the front of the Pirsch, gathering and putting equipment back in order. “I'll stay,” he says. He looks at me then. “You go on and try to make some of that game.”
It's a nice gesture on his part, but I just shake my head. “Nah, it's probably over,” I say. “You don't need to do that.”
“Rookie wants to stay, let him stay,” Partee says. “Otherwise it's going to be you again.” He smiles then, his wide white grin glowing against his dark skin.
Partee's black, the darkest black I've ever seen. He still has family that lives out on one of the old barrier islands. They've been around these parts for generations, descendants of slaves who worked the rice and tobacco fields. Some of the firemen have a problem with Partee being black. But hell, Partee's always got your back, and that's a lot more than I can say about Clay Taylor right now. There're still a lot of people in these parts who can't see past a man's color. But I hardly ever think about it with Partee, except when he smiles. It's just too hard to miss it then.
“Seems you should be out doing something more exciting than taking an extra shift,” I tell J.D.
Partee smiles that smile again. “Rookie's too young to do that, ain't he?”
“They still card him at Maggie's,” Lori says, turning to leave. We all get a good laugh out of that, the way she just throws it out there like it's truth.
I look at the boy. He's doing all right with the teasing. He's a good rookie. “You don't mind hanging around then?”
“Nah,” he says. “You go on home, see Cassie.”
I think about that for a minute, but I know I won't go. “Better I just head on down to the beach for a while,” I say. “Let Cassie get home before I do.”
Nobody argues with that. They all understand my situation. Partee says, “You go on then, enjoy yourself. We'll take care of business around here.” Then he offers to help J.D. finish cleaning the Pirsch.
I tell the boys to be safe. J.D. looks out from around the back of the Pirsch, says, “Let me know about Kelly now. I want to know how bad she smoked them.”
I give him a thumbs- up as a promise, then Lori comes out of the office to tell me she's radioed Surfside that I'm 10- 42, off duty.
In my truck, I reach over and pop the glove box, fish around inside until I come up with a small Skoal tin. In it are a few roaches, good weed that Teddy shares with me when we get together. The traffic has quieted down, everyone out to dinner or getting ready to go. I make it across fast, the evening light raking the cordgrass, burning the back side of the cottages along the shore. I pull a right onto South Waccamaw, head out to the dunes where the marsh and the ocean meet. There's still room on this end of the strand, Myrtle Beach not yet reaching its tentacles this far south, but it's coming. There's talk of a private beach somewhere out past the marina headed toward the point, but I haven't heard much more than rumors about that.
I remember 1954, after Hurricane Hazel. We could drive out here and be on deserted beach for miles, but I was just nineteen back then. The storm destroyed all but two houses along the strand, swept across the marsh on an eighteen- foot tidal surge and wreaked havoc for
miles inland, killing more than a thousand people before it ended its path of destruction somewhere in Canada. In the aftermath of the storm, many wondered if Garden City would stay deserted forever. That was nearly sixteen years ago, and it's becoming hard to find anywhere along the strand that's untouched, where I can surf and not see houses and people crowding the beach.
Still, there's nothing that can take the place of an evening on the water, the way the light pearls the sky and the ocean so flat you can see a wave form long before it gets to you. I climb into the back end of my truck, shed my uniform and underwear right there, change into my cutoffs, and grab the board. I climb the dunes and walk down the beach past a few tourists who are starting to take their evening strolls. We exchange glances, but I don't want to think about people who come here for a week and then disappear, skin burned and nursing weeklong hangovers.
Right now, I'm looking out on the ocean, watching the lineup coming in, waves I should be catching. I wish Kelly were here. I taught her to surf when she was just ten, and I bet if you asked her where she'd rather have been today, pitching softball or surfing, Kelly would say the beach, riding waves with her old man. It's all that matters when you're out here. It's all I care about once I feel the water float the board, my arms pulling to take me out beyond the break, out beyond where anything can get in my way, until the light is gone from the sky and I have to return to shore. And when I feel the lift, the push a wave gives me sliding down into its trough, the board no longer floats still but is caught in motion moving forward, slicing toward the beach, my mind clear, wet and cool, easy.
WE LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE of the marsh, down along the salt creeks, but to get there takes time. The roads are narrow, congested with ribbons of tourists, two lanes not enough to keep the flow moving. It gives me time to think about Cassie and what she might be like when I get home. We haven't talked for a few days. When I call she's not there, or just won't answer the phone. I know she's suffering, but I don't know what more I can do. We've been at it for fifteen years, a love that comes and goes, more going than coming lately, and now Kelly's getting in the middle of it. She can see it when we fight, knows that I stay away from the house, and that worries me. I don't want her hurting about her mother and me; she's not supposed to. It just seems everything down here is suffering right now, Cassie and me further apart than I can remember. I try and do what I can to keep Kelly out of it, keep the calm.
Once I turn off pavement, there's no light at all for about a mile. The land's so dark it moans. My truck finds every rut in the sandy unpaved road as it winds through thick old- growth oak and magnolia. Kelly and Cassie have often begged to sell this house and move farther toward Conway. “We need to be closer to civilization,” they complain, but I won't budge. I just can't leave this place.
When Pops saw the house for the first time, he stood on what little of the pier was left after Hurricane Hazel came through. He looked out across the marsh like he was measuring the distance to open water. On the beachfront a mile or more across, they were struggling to rebuild where the storm had shifted land and reshaped the point. He came back up into the yard after a few minutes, a heaviness already settled in on his life. He said, “This house was built before Hazel came through and look, it's still here.” He turned then, his arm making a great sweeping motion to take in the whole of the marsh. “You can't say that about anything else.”
Cassie was still in the truck, Kelly not yet born. But already, her attitude had turned against the place. “If Hazel didn't get this house,” Pops said, “nothing will. Now count your blessings and move on in.”
And that's what we did; at least, that's what I did. It's the one place I come home to, where I can leave everything else behind. Living out here on the marsh helps me get through the rest of my life. I wish Cassie understood that, and I wish it were true for her, too.
I take a curve. Spanish moss, like the fingers of ghosts, pulls at my truck. The headlights keep me from driving into swamp on either side until the road abruptly dead- ends into our backyard. The house is two stories in need of a paint job. It's surrounded by red cedar and oaks, tall trees that keep us cool except during the hottest part of the season. The house looks out onto the salt creek, seems abandoned in the darkness of night. I park behind Cassie's Bel Air, can't see any lights, but I know she's up. I know she's waiting for me to come home.
When I step into the screened- in porch, I see the living room is lit, the pier too. There's a familiar boat tied up, Cassie talking real friendly with someone. I know who it is, but I won't go down there yet. I want to say hello to Kelly first, see how she played this afternoon. When I come through the door, she's stretched out on the couch, still in her uniform, reading a book.
I head to the refrigerator for a beer.
“Hey,” she says, the word short like a bark. She holds the book on her belly, not lifting her eyes from the page. I pull a cold bottle from the fridge, know I need to answer, but I wait. Down on the pier Clay Taylor is talking to Cassie, their laughter floating through the opened windows of the house. “Sorry I missed the game,” I say. “Did you win?”
“If you'd have been there, you'd know.” Kelly drops the book like a curtain, her eyes watery, tired. She holds me in her gaze, challenging.
“I got a job, Kelly, you know that.” We look at each other for another minute before she gives up.
“Whatever,” she says and then starts reading the book again.
I stay put, look out to where Cassie and Clay are standing. Cassie glances toward the house then back to Clay, wrapping herself in her arms like she might be cold, impossible as that is. She's never been comfortable here, winter or summer. In the fifteen years we've been on the marsh, I think she's lived alone, even when I tried to help her live with me. From the looks of it, she's got a new helper now.
I watch Clay flick a cigarette into the black water. All this is pissing me off, but I don't want to take it out on Kelly. It's hard to hold back. “You didn't answer my question,” I say. “I asked if you won. You want to answer me this time?”
“It's not about winning in an All- Star game,” Kelly says.
“That still doesn't answer the question, does it?”
“We lost four to two,” she says, putting her book down to look at me again. “I pitched three innings and then played center field.”
“Anyone hit you while you pitched?”
“Only this girl from Aynor. I really just lobbed one over and she creamed it.”
“Little nervous out there?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Kelly stretches, the couch no longer easily holding her. She's not a little girl anymore. At fifteen, she's starting to look like a woman. She's sleepy, bone- tired. I can see it in her eyes, half- mast and red, so I try to ease up. Even though I'm happy for how well she's done in her freshman year, I'm glad it's over and she can have some fun again. It's summer, let her be a kid without the pressures to be something more.
“I wish you'd have been there,” she says. “That's all.”
“I know you do,” I say. “I couldn't make it this time, but I imagine there'll be others, don't you?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She thumbs the pages of her book. Dark outlines of dirt cross her ankles to mark the shadow of her shoes. “Did the kid drown off the pier?” she asks.
“Yes ma'am,” I say, but I don't want to talk about that. “Rather have been watching you,” I tell her.
I walk over to stand in front of the couch, lean over and kiss her forehead. I can taste salty skin, evidence of the hard work done earlier in the day. “You don't need to hear the particulars,” I say. “Besides, it's time for bed.”
“Well, I was just waiting up for you,”
“To give me a hard time?” I say.
“You deserve it,” she says, smiling finally.
“I probably do at that.”
She closes the book, lifts herself up. “Think I'll go take a bath.”
“I caught some four- footers this evening,” I te
ll her. “Might be around tomorrow morning if you want to go.”
“Okay, but Momma needs to talk to you about my softball,” she says, her words pushed out through a tired sigh. “She's down on the pier with Clay.”
“What's he doing here?”
“You need to ask her that,” Kelly says.
“Hey.” I walk over to the stairs. Kelly stops, her eyes nearly shut. Her hair falls in tangled curls around her face. She's growing up fast, but in the shadowy light of the stairs, I can still see my little girl. “I didn't miss your game because I went surfing. By the time we took care of the boy your game was over. I don't know what your momma told you, but I never would've made it to Georgetown.”
“She didn't say anything about that, Daddy. She was too busy talking about seagulls.”
“About what?”
“Just ask her, I'm too tired to tell you.” She reaches down from the step and wraps her arms around me, squeezes tight.
“Hey, I'm sure you did just fine today,” I say. “You got a lot more All- Star games left, so don't go worrying over lobbing some pitch to a girl from Aynor.”
“I won't, I promise.”
I can smell her skin, sweet, earthy, and I want to hold her there forever. I don't want her to grow up, but I won't ever tell her that. I don't want her to feel guilty for doing what we all do. I just love her so much because when I look at her I see Cassie before things went bad. I see in our little girl another chance at life, and I want to make sure she does it right, college and a career, wherever she wants to go in this world.