Train Wreck Girl

by Sean Carswell

  I picked up my backpack and climbed into the Land Rover. “Hey, Sister Janie,” I said.

  Janie pulled out of the Greyhound station. “What happened to your Galaxie?”

  “I left it in Flagstaff.”

  “Funny.” Janie patted me on my belly. “You forgot your car but you remembered the spare tire.”

  “Go on,” I said. “Pick on the fat kid.” Which was actually okay with me. I’d rather Janie pick on me than talk about the real shit that we probably should’ve been talking about.

  Janie asked me how my car ended up in Flagstaff and I told her I’d been living there for a couple of years. Janie said, “Well, it was nice of you to come back for your brother Joe’s big send off.”

  “I didn’t know until it was too late,” I said.

  “So you did know?”

  I nodded.

  Like I said, I’d kept in touch with Brother Joe. He was kinda like a father to me. The long story short is this: my mother died two months after I was born. I don’t know much about it. All Joe told me was that she died of some kind of “woman’s cancer.” My dad died when I was four. He’d always been a heavy drinker and big eater and he was sixty when I was born, so his heart attack wasn’t really a surprise. Janie was sixteen at the time. Joe was nineteen. He was in Vietnam when Dad died. Janie and I were put in a foster home. Janie promptly left me and stayed with friends until she could get a job and apartment of her own. I stuck it out at the foster home until Joe got back and took custody of me. So Brother Joe was the closest thing to a parent that I had.

  And Janie, well, she was always just a lesson learned the hard way.

  Keeping up with the trend, Janie said, “Look, you can’t stay with me.”

  “I didn’t ask to,” I said.

  “You sent me two boxes of stuff… There better not be drugs in them.”

  “There aren’t.”

  “Okay, so you send me two boxes. Are the boxes for me? I don’t think so. I think they’re for you. And you come off a Greyhound with nothing but a backpack. And I guaran-fucking-tee you’re planning on staying in Cocoa Beach. So you’d need a place to stay, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I’m just telling you. You can’t stay with me.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You can take a nap. And you can eat some food out of my refrigerator, if you don’t eat all of it. But my husband gets home from work at five-thirty. And you’ll be gone by then.”

  I nodded. I had my ultimatum. It was fair enough. It was pretty much what I’d expected out of Janie. It was actually about a nap and a snack more than I’d expected out of her. She must be softening in her old age, I thought.

  The Land Rover rolled down US-1. The Indian River flanked us to the east. I rolled down the window and took a whiff of that hometown smell: swamps and salty air. And everything looked familiar. We turned east on State Road 528. From the top of the bridge as we crossed the Indian River, I could see the Vehicle Assembly Building. To my right was Merritt Island. We’d cross that and cross the Banana River and I’d see the launch pads of the Space Center from that bridge and I’d see Port Canaveral ahead of me and I’d feel like I was home. I rode along and waited until I was back on the barrier island that is Cocoa Beach. My home city.

  When I was there and feeling comfortable enough, I said to Janie, “You’re not still in touch with Sophie, are you?”

  “Of course,” Janie said. “I love Sophie.”

  “That’s why I didn’t call you for four years. ‘Cause I knew you’d tell Sophie where I was.”

  “And why shouldn’t I?”

  “She stabbed me,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Janie took her eyes off the road and glared at me. Her eyes always seemed so big to me. Chocolate brown, but they were like baking chocolate. Not sweet at all. Janie said, “I heard that rumor. I don’t believe it. Sophie said it’s not true.”

  I lifted my t-shirt up over my spare tire. “I got scars to prove it.”

  As if she didn’t believe her eyes, Janie ran her fingers across the scars. At first, she seemed surprised. The smart-ass in her came back quickly, though, and she said, “Well, those ain’t liposuction scars.”

  “Is Sophie still around?”

  “ ‘Born to lose,’ ” Janie said. “I remember when that tattoo went straight across your belly. Now it’s got a nice curve to it.”

  I pulled my shirt back down and asked again, “Is Sophie still around?”

  Janie shrugged. Obviously, she wasn’t gonna answer.

  I said, “Please don’t tell her I’m back.”

  “Of course I’m gonna tell her,” Janie said. Because that’s how she was. Fucking Janie.

  8

  The Fat Kid and the Phantom Ice Cream Truck

  I guess my self-esteem wasn’t low enough, because I decided to go surfing.

  Janie had taken off, gone to an aerobics class or some shit. I’d had my nap and snack and it was still before noon. I felt like I had time. I checked Janie’s garage and she still had my old Rainbow surfboard there, so I stole a pair of baggies from Janie’s husband—who, luckily, was rocking a spare tire about the size of mine—and walked the seven blocks down to 3rd Street North.

  Everyone out surfing was wearing a wetsuit, but I wasn’t worried. I’d just rolled down the mountain from Flagstaff. My body was still used to snow and sub-freezing temperatures. Sixty-degree water wasn’t gonna kill me. Besides, the waves were good. A solid chest high and pretty good form. I remembered enough about Cocoa Beach waves to remember that this wasn’t all that common. It was almost like things were looking up for me.

  I strapped my leash on my ankle and ran for the water and, just like a grommet on his first day out, I tripped over the leash and fell on the sand. Things got worse from there.

  My board slid out from under me the first time a wave came my way. By the time I was back on the board, a new set was coming in and I got crushed by every wave of that set. My timing was off. I would try to duck under the wave and start too early and pop right into the undertow. Or I’d duck too late and get spun around by the whitewash. One wave after another. It was ugly.

  It took ten minutes for me to finally get out to the line-up. By then, I was huffing and puffing like a fat kid chasing after an ice cream truck.

  The worst thing about it was that I knew I used to be good at surfing. I did this shit every day in high school. I’d catch rides with friends down to Second Light, right by Patrick Air Force Base, and I’d hold my own with the best surfers in the area. High school girls would come out and watch us and dig it and say to me things like, “How’d you learn to do that three-sixty?” or “I saw you totally spray that kid,” or “That was pretty gnarly.” And I’d try to ride it for all it was worth. It was all I had at seventeen.

  And now, here I was on the verge of thirty, hardly able to make the paddle out and so chubby that, when I sat on my shortboard, it was completely submerged.

  That’s okay, I told myself. It’s sunny and the air is warm in January and there are waves and I’m out here now.

  The line-up wasn’t too crowded and before long, a wave came right for me. I timed it right, paddled right into it, and promptly nose-dived. This kinda set the tone for the next twenty minutes. I took off too late on the next wave and got dumped. I stood on the next wave, tried to cut up off the lip, and wiped out. I stepped on my leash when I stood on the next wave and slipped off my board. And so on.

  Thirty minutes into my session, I was exhausted and a little frustrated. I felt like even the ocean was fucking with me. Which was ridiculous. The ocean didn’t give a shit about me one way or another. It was what it was. I just needed to relax.

  I took several deep breaths. I counted to ten. Out of principle, I let a wave pass underneath me. When the next wave rolled in, I timed it right, caught it just ahead of the break, and stuck with the face of the wave. I was too heavy for my board. I felt like the wave was dragging me more than pushing m
e. Water lapped over the tail of the board, and I didn’t have a whole lot of speed. But I was surfing. That was all that mattered. I rode the wave all the way in to shore.

  As I walked out of the ocean, I noticed an older longboarder heading out for a session. He had short, spiky hair on the top of his head and long, curly locks in the back. He looked kinda like my brother Joe. So much so that I did a double-take. Of course he couldn’t be Brother Joe, but just seeing this old longboarder made me feel good.

  I walked across the sand and toward the boardwalk. A young, black girl was sitting there. She made me think of Rosalie White. And, of course, she couldn’t be Rosalie, either, because this girl was only eleven or twelve years old and Rosalie was my age. But still, I liked it. I liked seeing ghosts of Joe and Rosalie and walking out of the ocean and feeling like I was back in that time when people were still alive and the future felt promising.

  I climbed up the boardwalk. The girl said to me, “Where’d you get that little board?”

  “It’s mine.”

  The girl said, “Oh, I thought you stole it from your son or something. It’s way too small for you.”

  This hurt. She could’ve have said she thought I stole it from my little brother or something. She didn’t have to say my son. Because was I really old enough to have a son who rode a six-foot shortboard? It’s one thing to call me fat. I can take that. But she could’ve left my age out of it. I said, “What’s your name, little girl?”

  “Taylor.”

  “Is that your first name or last name?” I asked, knowing that surely it was her first name and this question would probably piss her off. It did.

  She said, “Fuck you. I’m not the fat guy trying to surf on a potato chip.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re the little asshole who’s afraid to paddle out.”

  I thought I was just holding my own with this girl. She was the one who started it. Calling me fat and old. Right out of the blue. Right when I was finally feeling good. But I guess I was more than holding my own. I was being the bully, because as soon as I said what I said, little Taylor started crying. Just like that. In a flash. Tears coming out before she could stop them. She turned and ran down the boardwalk, away from me.

  I should’ve felt bad for making that little girl cry. I should’ve felt like a bully. But I didn’t. Not really. Later, I would. In a few months, this would become one of those moments that I really wish I could relive, that I could go back and fix. At the time, though, it didn’t really bother me at all. Instead, the whole scene made me think of Sophie: the way a girl could hit me right on my sorest nerve and run away crying like it was all my fault. That was Sophie’s trademark.

  And at that moment when I should’ve been chasing down a little girl to apologize, or at least thinking about Sister Janie’s five-thirty ultimatum, I sat on the handrail of the 3rd Street boardwalk. Looking out at the ocean. Wondering where Sophie was and whether or not I could get in touch with her.

  9

  Hurricane Sophie

  I thought I had it made in Kill Devil Hills until that hurricane blew in and brought Sophie with it. This was back in ’92. This was how Sophie and I met. She rode in on a storm.

  Before the hurricane had really hit, six of us headed for Jennifer’s place to ride it out. The night still looked like a typical summer thunderstorm, with palm trees bending nearly in half and sea oats pushed flat to the dunes and street signs flapping back and forth as if the signposts were stuck between huge, nervous fingers. The real destruction would come later. Later, porches would tumble down the street and roofs would get ripped off of houses and streets would flood. In the meantime, it was the rain and the wind and six drunk kids in my Galaxie, me drinking a beer as I steered toward Jennifer’s.

  I’d only known Rick before the storm came in. Rick was from Cocoa Beach. He’d moved up to the Outer Banks of North Carolina the year earlier. When iron working got to be too much for me down in Cocoa Beach, Rick helped me move to Kill Devil Hills. He helped me get a job as a bar back, too. The other four drunks, I’d just met them. The two girls and guy in the back seat were friends of Rick’s. Two of them, Marigold and Christian, nuzzled against each other like lovers. Marigold wore a hemp necklace and Birkenstocks and argyle socks. She had a tattooed flower on her shoulder. Christian had white boy dreadlocks and a face that was, to be honest, kinda pretty. Like he should’ve dressed in drag or something. Together, they looked like some Woodstock fantasy. Marigold wore a ring on her left ring finger. Christian didn’t. I took that to mean they were engaged.

  The other woman in the back was Sophie. She stared out the fogged up window as if we were on a sunny Sunday drive, not on the edge of a hurricane. She was decidedly not-hippie, so I liked her all the more.

  A drunk chick named Jennifer sat in the front seat, between Rick and me. She’d been sitting at the bar all night. I’d fed her drinks for free, and now at the end of the night, she’d volunteered to shelter us all until the hurricane passed. She told me to turn right the next time I could. I pulled the Galaxie into Jennifer’s front yard.

  Jennifer ran through the stinging rain first. She fought the pounding wooden screen door until she got the big front door unlocked. The other five of us ran from the Galaxie into Jennifer’s beach shack. We all got soaked on the run. The place was dry inside.

  Jennifer lit a bunch of candles and set them up on the hardwood floor. I went into the kitchen with one of the candles. The electricity was already out. I found a cooler and filled it with beers I’d stolen from work and dumped all the ice from the freezer into the cooler. By the time I got back, everyone was sitting in a circle on the floor. Obviously, a decision had been made.

  Sophie looked up at me with big brown eyes and said, “Strip poker, Danny.” Her voice dripped like watermelon. I started to slip. Sophie shuffled the blue Bicycle cards one last time, then dealt them. I tried my best to turn away from her and remember that I’d spent all night trying to seduce Jennifer.

  Jennifer went into her room after the first hand. She came back out after the second hand with a boom box. Rather than try to tune in news about the storm, she played a Willie Nelson cassette. Rick and Marigold complained. Sophie said she liked Willie, but she’d rather listen to the storm. I agreed. Christian said, “Willie Nelson is the perfect rainy day music.”

  Jennifer gave Christian a drunken smile. Marigold shot Jennifer a dirty look. Jennifer flipped her peroxided hair off her shoulders. Marigold turned her glare to Christian. He didn’t seem to notice. The game went on.

  We listened to Willie and the screen door banged itself into splinters and hurricane shrapnel pelted the house. We played slow games of draw poker. No bets. Just the one with the worst hand shedding one article of clothing. Rick was the first big loser. The poor kid was naked while most of us still had on shoes or at least socks. To make matters worse, when he dropped his briefs, he had a hard-on and a weird curve to his dick. Sophie said, “Jesus, Rick, you could stand at the toilet and piss in the sink with that thing.” Jennifer nicknamed him “Boomerang.” Rick lay on his belly until the hard-on went away.

  It took a while for the next one of us to get naked because, for some reason, Rick kept losing. Finally, we made the rule that if Rick lost the hand, the person with the next worse hand had to lose some clothes. This led to Jennifer’s nudity. She hadn’t been wearing a bra and had lost her panties a few hands earlier. She took off her shirt and sat on her knees. Her posture was perfect, probably because she was a little chubby and her belly looked flatter if she sat straight up. I liked the chubbiness, though. It made her full and round and that much prettier. Rick made a crack about her not being a real blond. She said, “I’d throw you out for that, Boomerang, but you’d just come back.”

  The card game went on. Sophie lost her clothes, but seemed glad to be rid of the wet rags. She was a lean girl. Not thin like she had an eating disorder or fit like an athlete. Just young and lean. She seemed real comfortable being nude, too, sitting like we were in an
art class and she were the model. Or at least it’s what I imagined it would’ve been if I’d ever taken an art class.

  The Willie Nelson cassette ended. Jennifer stumbled drunk—but sexy anyway because she was naked—back to her room. We played another hand that left Marigold without her summer dress, but with a bra. I got up and went to the bathroom. When I got back, Christian was gone. We played another hand. I lost my boxers. We played another hand. Marigold lost her bra. Neither Jennifer nor Christian came back to the game. The screen door kept slamming. The windows rattled. Drafts of wind crept through the house, making the candlelight dance. Sophie gathered the cards to deal another hand. Marigold stared down the dark hallway toward Jennifer’s bedroom. Sophie finished dealing. We all picked up our cards. Marigold stopped looking at the dark hallway long enough to look at her cards. We were all naked at this point. I didn’t know what the stakes were. Marigold slammed her cards against the dirty hardwood floor and said exactly what I’d been thinking for the past ten minutes. She said, “Goddamn it! They’re fucking in that back room, aren’t they?”

  No one said a word and that said it all. “Goddamn it,” Marigold said again. “That goddamn little whore. I’m gonna kick that little whore’s ass!”

  Sophie, very calm with a hurricane and Marigold raging around her, touched Marigold’s arm. “Come on,” Sophie said. She led Marigold away from the dark hallway and toward the kitchen. I could barely hear what they talked about.

  I was pretty pissed, too, because I’d spent all night at work trying to hook up with Jennifer. And I could’ve come back here without Rick and his friends and had Jennifer to myself. But no, I had to let everyone tag along. And look where it got me. But as I thought that, I looked to see where it got me, and realized that it got me into a room where I may have lost one girl, but there were still two naked ones hanging around. So I did some figuring.

  Marigold was a lost cause. I wouldn’t have gone after her even if she weren’t. There was something crazy about her. Her wild, curly hair or those big biceps. I don’t know. I was only twenty-two at the time, but I’d had my share of crazy broads and wanted someone who was calm and together, just like Sophie seemed. And I’d been digging Sophie all night, her whiskey brown eyes and the way her slender fingers dealt the cards. I also realized that Rick was lying on the floor right by me, and he probably had his eye on Sophie, too. So I said to him, “Dude, what’s up with you and Marigold?”