Train Wreck Girl

by Sean Carswell

  “I don’t know. A couple grand.”

  “How much do you think you’ll make off of this stuff?”

  “Who cares?” I said.

  “Humor me,” Joe said.

  “I don’t know. Helen and her ex-husband set up a gallery show for me. Helen said her ex-husband had friends with money. Maybe I can make some decent scratch. I don’t really care, though.”

  “Of course you care,” Joe said. “Everyone cares. No one wants to spend this much time and heart on something and not make at least a little dough.”

  I nodded. Fair enough. I wrapped the metal around the monkey’s leg frame. A couple of snips to adjust it just right and a weld down the back and the skin looked pretty smooth. Of course, there should be hair. I should do something there. But first things first. I picked up the flue and started cutting the skin for the next leg.

  Joe walked over to the workbench. “Another monkey,” he said.

  “Yep.”

  “You remember that monkey you made for me when you were in high school?”

  I nodded.

  “Whatever happened to that thing? I loved that thing.”

  “I think you know, Joe,” I said.

  Joe looked at the floor, at the metal shavings and his white bare feet and the way his tan stopped a few inches above his ankles. His legs got this way from years of working landscaping. It looked like he forever had on a pair of socks. “It’s hell raising a kid,” Joe said. “You should try it some time.”

  I kept cutting the flue. “I’m a dad, now,” I said. “Turns out Taylor’s my daughter.”

  “I heard,” Joe said.

  “How could you have heard? Who else talks to you but me?”

  Joe looked at me. “Sometimes I just float around in your brain, picking up bits of gossip.”

  I shook my head in short, tight jerks, as if I were trying to shake Joe out of my mind. His ghost or whatever he was still stood in front of me.

  “That’s some shit,” he said. “What kind of dad are you gonna make? You’re almost as bad as me.”

  “You were a good dad, Joe,” I said. I looked down at his white feet when I said it. I think Joe nodded. I kept making the monkey’s skin. Joe changed the subject.

  We chatted like that for the next few hours. Helen wasn’t around. No one could see what I was doing in that garage. No one knew that I spent hours talking to dead people in there. Sometimes it was Libra, but usually it was Joe. There was no harm in it, anyway. It kept my mind occupied while I welded the skin on my thinking monkey. The ghost of Joe even modeled the pained expression I put on the monkey’s face.

  By early that afternoon, the monkey was more or less done. I’d probably think of other shit to do to him. I’d probably tinker a little more before leaning him against the wall to sell. For the time being, I felt done. I started cleaning up and thinking about the Samoan.

  He was sitting outside of Helen’s garage, just as I’d expected. Helen’s truck was out of the driveway. That meant she must’ve seen him as she left for work earlier that day. I couldn’t have this. I couldn’t have a stalker watching me and all my friends. I couldn’t cause a traffic jam every time I rode my bike. I couldn’t just ignore problems and wait for them to go away. I leaned my bike against Helen’s garage door and walked over to the Samoan.

  I didn’t storm over there or anything. In my head, I thought about running over there, yanking him out of the car, and thrashing him. Giving him a good, sound beating. I was actually okay with that thought. The Samoan wasn’t in a wheelchair. He was big enough to defend himself. Hell, he was quite a bit bigger than me. I wouldn’t be a bully if things got physical. But I held off that screaming id and decided to just talk to the Samoan.

  I put my hand on the roof of his sedan. His window was open. Fast food bags and wrappers littered the floor of his car. He had a hamburger on his lap and a forty-four ounce soda between his legs. I said, “I can’t have you following me like this. Do what you have to do and move on.”

  He lifted the soda to his lips and drank. He said nothing. I looked into his sunglasses and saw my reflection.

  “I know who you work for,” I said. “You work for the Fultons. You’re the second dick they’ve sent after me. The first one is in a wheelchair.”

  The Samoan laughed.

  “So let’s get it out in the open. What do they want from me?”

  The Samoan lifted the burger to his mouth, took a bite, and chewed. I wasn’t going to say anything more. I’d already laid my cards down. If he didn’t start talking right after he stopped chewing, things were gonna get ugly. I waited. He chewed. He washed it down with more soda. I started the countdown in my head. Ten, nine, eight… The Samoan set his drink in a holder. I looked to see if his door was unlocked. It was. Five, four, three… “They want you to come to Flagstaff,” the Samoan said.

  “I’m not with Libra, anymore,” I said. “I don’t know where she is.”

  The Samoan looked at me like I was crazy. “Are you fucking kidding?”

  “You’ve been following me. You can see Libra’s not here. I don’t know where she is.”

  “Libra’s fucking dead,” the Samoan said.

  And I knew that. Of course I knew that. But he didn’t know I knew that and he knew good and fucking well that Libra and I had dated and even been serious and lived together and this is how he told me that she died? Libra’s fucking dead? What kind of bastard was I dealing with? I’d had enough of this guy. I yanked his door open and grabbed him by the throat and ripped him out of his seat.

  He was too heavy for me to lift out of the car, but I had a hold of his throat and heaved with enough force that he followed. He stumbled out of his car. I tripped him and forced him down before he ever got a safe footing. He hit the ground, flat on his back. I put my knee on his chest and leaned most of my weight into it. My first punch went for his nose. It’s a good place to start when the guy you’re fighting is surprised. I missed and hit the sunglasses. The frames flew off his face. A left followed that right, though, and my left hit his nose. It wasn’t as hard as I wanted it, but it was hard enough to hurt my hand and bust open his nose. His eyes teared up. Both of his hands went up to his face. Blood seeped between them. I leaned over and punched the hands on his face a couple of times. He kicked back. His knee missed my sack by inches. I couldn’t have that. He was down and I was up. There was no reason for me to punch. I jumped off him and started kicking him. The first couple of kicks went for his ribs. He tried to crawl away but I kicked his arms out from underneath him. My toe hit his nose on one of these kicks. He gave up at that point. He curled into the fetal position. It did me no good to keep kicking him. That was that, as far as I was concerned. He wasn’t fighting back anymore and I’d made my point.

  I checked his waistband and ankles for weapons. None there. I rolled up the window to his car, pulled the keys out of the ignition, locked the door, and shut it. I threw the keys about twenty yards down the middle of the street. This way, if he had a weapon in his car, he couldn’t get to it before I was gone. I kicked him one more time. Not hard. Just enough to keep him down. “There’s your answer,” I said. “Give it to the Fultons.”

  I walked back to my bike. The Samoan didn’t move. I rode away, wishing he would’ve fought harder so I wouldn’t feel so bad about what I’d just done.

  29

  It’s More Fun If You’re Scared

  I had no idea how to be a dad. I’d never had one myself. Or, at least I hardly remember him. And, as far as fathers go, I was a pretty shitty one. I didn’t even meet my daughter until she was twelve years old. I made her cry the first time we met. When I found out she was my daughter, I spent a week avoiding her. And now I wanted to do something and I had no idea what to do because all I’d ever done with Taylor was go surfing and the ocean was flat, flat, flat.

  Still, I had a plan. I figured we could borrow Bart’s car and go south to where the waves were better. So I woke up early on that Tuesday morning and I called
a surf report down in Sebastian Inlet and the waves weren’t great, but you could ride them. As soon as the surf shop around the corner opened up, I went over and bought some soft surf racks for thirty bucks. Then I called Taylor.

  Rosalie answered the phone. She’d been acting weird toward me, which was totally understandable, considering. Rosalie and I didn’t talk long. I just said hello and asked for Taylor. Rosalie went and got her.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as soon as Taylor picked up.

  “Sleeping.”

  “Let’s go surfing.”

  “There’s no waves.” Taylor sounded groggy, like she might fall back asleep in the middle of talking to me.

  “I’ll drive to where there are waves. Get here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay,” Taylor said.

  She was at my apartment ten minutes later. Still sleepy, but ready to go. I asked her if she’d eaten. She hadn’t. We went inside and I fixed her a bowl of cereal. While she ate, I went outside and strapped her board to the roof of Bart’s car.

  With the sun still hanging low over the eastern horizon, Taylor and I headed south down A1A in search of waves.

  It was tough at first. I didn’t know what to say and Taylor was so groggy that she wasn’t talking. I felt kinda trapped in that car. I’d only driven a few miles when I pulled off A1A onto 22nd Street. Taylor said, “Where are we going?”

  “You have to check this out,” I said. I pulled into Helen’s driveway.

  Helen worked nights, so I was careful to be quiet. I unlocked the side garage door, flipped on a light, and stepped inside Helen’s garage. Taylor followed me. By now, almost a third of the garage was taken up by the shit I’d welded together. I pointed that out to Taylor.

  “What is all this junk?” she asked.

  “It’s stuff I made.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s like art to me,” I said. “Helen set up a show for me in a gallery in August.”

  “Who’s Helen? Is she your girlfriend?”

  “No. She’s the woman who set up the show for me. This is her garage.”

  “Why’d she do all that for you if she’s not your girlfriend?” Taylor asked.

  “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this,” I said.

  Taylor looked at me like, no shit. I don’t know why you’re talking to me about this, either. She looked at all the metal welded in front of her. She kinda shook her head. She walked along the line of stuff. Against the wall, over by the garage door, was one of the first things I’d done when Helen let me get started. It was basically a picture frame made out of metal but shaped to look like a bamboo frame. In the middle of the frame was a metal mat that was supposed to look like it had been woven out of palm fronds. And on top of the mat was the silhouette of a turtle. I’d taken a roll of soldering wire and held it over the mat and held the flame to the wire and let little metal drops fall onto the mat until all the drops formed a turtle. I guess Taylor liked this one. She knelt down in front of it and reached out to touch it, then pulled her hand back. “Can I touch it?’ she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Taylor ran her fingers across the drops of metal. I knew what it felt like for her. Cold and smooth. Unnatural and fluid. Kinda bumpy but it all made sense in a weird way.

  It took us about an hour to get down to Sebastian. Taylor napped a lot of the way. I listened to music and drove along the ocean, checking everything out. I hadn’t been down this way since I was in high school.

  The water was pretty crowded when we got there, and unless things had changed drastically since I was in high school—which they hadn’t—the crowd wouldn’t be too friendly. I didn’t care. It was all worth it. There were waves. I stood on the shore with my board under my arm and looked at the water. Taylor stood next to me. “What are you waiting for?” she asked.

  I watched a few waves roll in. “Check it out,” I said. “You see where that group of guys is sitting there? Look a little bit to the right of them. See how the wave is starting to break there? I think if you stay out of the crowd and ahead of the drift, you’ll get better waves.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about half the time,” Taylor said.

  “Just follow me.”

  I walked down to the water and paddled out, past the crowd of shortboarders and to the spot that I’d noticed from shore. Taylor followed me. Within a minute or two, a set rolled in from the east. The shortboarders paddled in our general direction. Taylor lined up for the wave. I said to her, “Let this one go.” She stopped paddling. The wave broke in front of us and curled down the line toward the crowd of shortboarders. Taylor watched it go. She looked at me. I said, “Go now.”

  Another wave was coming in, only no one was jockeying for this one except Taylor. She was in the perfect spot. She caught the wave just as it was breaking, stuck her feet on the board, and took off down the line. It looked like a shortboarder might try to cut her off, but she gunned her board right at him. Playing chicken. And of course she’d win. I didn’t watch, though, because another wave was building right around me, and that one was all mine.

  Taylor and I caught a few set waves like that. Every time we’d paddle back out after a ride, more of the crowd was around us. This always happened to me when I went surfing: I’d stand on the shore and look for a spot where the waves were breaking and no one was catching them. I’d paddle out to that spot and get a couple of good rides and suddenly, everyone was around me, trying to catch the waves that I found. It didn’t bug me, though. It actually made me feel good. Like I was the wise man in the line-up.

  I could tell it bugged Taylor to be stuck in the crowd. She’d fight the other surfers for waves. Or she’d catch the wave and still some hot dog would cut her off. It was frustrating for her. Finally, I told her, “Don’t go for the first wave of the set. Let all these hot dogs fight for it. Go for the second or third.”

  “But what if there isn’t a second or third?” Taylor said. “Then what?”

  I told Taylor something that Helen had told me: “Compassion breeds courage.” It’s some Taoist thing. Like, if you have the compassion to give up the first wave to someone else, it gives you courage to wait for the better waves. I tried to explain this to Taylor, but she wasn’t having it. She just kept fighting for the first wave.

  After we’d been out for about an hour, I noticed a set building on the horizon, bigger than all the sets that came before it and breaking farther out. I started paddling east as fast as I could. Taylor followed me. The waves came at me pretty quickly. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out there soon enough to ride the set. I only wanted to get out far enough quickly enough so that I could duck dive under the waves. I paddled like mad and the waves kept coming and the first one broke right in front of me. I thrust my board down into the water and ducked down with it. Most of the wave rolled right over me. As soon as I popped up, another wave crested above me. I paddled straight for it. I wouldn’t be able to turn and ride this big sucker, either. I ducked under it. When I came up, a third wave was in front of me. It was gonna break pretty close to me. I had about a fifty/fifty chance of making it. But, what the hell? This was as good as it got. I turned my board and went for it. The wave looked like it was gonna break right on my head. That’s okay, I thought. It’s more fun if you’re a little scared. I paddled just a little and already felt the momentum of the wave. As soon as I did, I stood and stayed low. The wave was breaking right on top of me. I free fell a couple of feet but kept my balance and stayed in front of the break. It was perfect. No one else had gotten out this far this fast. I had the wave of the day all to myself.

  When it was over, I paddled back out to the spot where I’d been waiting for waves all day. One thing I knew about surfing in Florida was that, when a swell is building, you’ll occasionally have those big, outside sets. Every now and then, if you’re very lucky, you’ll be able to catch one of the waves. Like I just had. But they don’t come that often—only once in
an hour, if that—and there’s no point in sitting way outside and waiting on them. Most of the crowd, who’d been wiped out by that big set, paddled out to where I caught that big wave. Taylor was out there, too. I waved to her to come back in. She shook her head. I stayed where I was.

  A few minutes later, another set came in and I caught another wave all to myself. By the time I paddled back out to my spot, Taylor was waiting for me. “What are you doing in here?” she asked.

  “No point in hanging out there.” I pointed to where the crowd was. “You can’t catch waves that are already gone.”

  “What are you? Yoda all of a sudden?” Taylor said. “ ‘Stay out of the crowd and ahead of the drift.’ ‘Compassion breeds courage.’ ‘You can’t catch waves that are already gone.’ What is this?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t think I was trying to be all fatherly. I thought I was only talking about surfing. Not about life or anything. But I guess that’s not how Taylor took it. I said, “Look, we’re just surfing here. There’s nothing to it.”

  “There you go again, Yoda,” Taylor said. Already, though, she was lining up for the next wave.

  Taylor was awake for the drive home. We talked about waves we caught and surfing and all. She kept asking me if I thought she was getting better. Of course she was. I told her that. But I think she just wanted to keep hearing it. And it was good for me to know that, even with this big gorilla of fatherhood in the room, Taylor and I would still go surfing together.

  I played a few cassettes on the way home. It was all punk rock and Taylor didn’t really dig it.

  After a long stretch of no one talking, I turned down the stereo and said what both of us were probably thinking. I said, “I can’t believe you have a loser like me for a dad.”

  “No shit,” Taylor said.

  I looked over at her. She wasn’t smiling like she was kidding around. I wasn’t really kidding around, either. “At least you have a stepdad. He seems like a pretty good guy.”