by Dan Dillard
CHAPTER TEN
The beach
Sometime after 4:00 pm, Rusty woke from his nap. He felt groggy, but one hundred percent less hungover than he had that morning. He opened the curtain and looked outside to see the shadows had begun their afternoon stretch to the east. His car sat in the lot like a prop from the Mad Max movies.
He began the mental preparation it would take to drive to the Four Winds Restaurant and Lounge, have drinks and be social with people he didn’t know anymore. Swollen, balding versions of people with whom he used to share the small world of Smithville. He would lie and tell them he had his shit together and Chicago was great, that his job was great and he loved it there. He would smile at photos of their children and make lame excuses for why he didn’t have any of his own.
Though his lungs ached, Rusty lit a cigarette like he’d never quit and turned on the television. He flipped channels for a while before deciding he was starving. He hadn’t eaten since morning and the nap hadn’t changed his thoughts about Robyn. Maybe being clean would.
In the shower, he felt the sting of busted knuckles and an ache in his lower back from playing auto mechanic. He tried to remember some of the songs from the year he graduated, but nothing immediately came to mind.
Surely those tunes will play all night at the bar tonight and if not, we’ll be treated to bad fake book versions by some half ass band all night tomorrow.
Then he had another thought.
Iron Rod. They had that one song, “Stretch You Out.” Played on the radio several times around here. They would’ve made it if the guitarist wasn’t too busy puttin’ the meat to the lead singer’s wife. Shame.
Toweling off, he checked out his physique in the steamed up mirror. Not bad. Not impressive, but not bad for a man his age and quantity of hair. He thought about Robyn and then he thought about Tanya. A warm feeling came over his groin and it made him smile.
A real estate agent, Robyn had said. It didn’t suit Tanya at all…unless she’d changed. Or maybe Rusty didn’t know her like he thought he did. Maybe she was never the person he wanted her to be, the person he’d made her out to be. Maybe reuniting with Robyn first was a good thing. Maybe it would soften the blow he knew in his head was coming.
He thought about his dream of sweeping Tanya up and taking her away to the metropolis like some skinny Superman. All of their history would be water under the proverbial bridge. It seemed silly now. Robyn had eclipsed every bit of it and she was standing right there in front of him. Tanya was out of sight, still an ideal in his head—now and forever a figment of his fucking imagination. She was still making him angry because she was a real person with real feelings and real needs.
We were so young. I messed things up. I expected too much. I. I. I.
Suddenly, Rusty Clemmons—Strings to his oldest friends—felt like the troll under that same proverbial bridge, a troll who maybe should’ve stayed in Chicago.
After a quick shave, he got dressed. Real clothes, not a t-shirt and shorts or a t-shirt and ragged jeans. A button-down shirt and clean jeans. The shirt was lavender, something he would never have picked out for himself. It was a present from a female coworker he dated a year or so ago. She said it made him look sexy. Amanda was her name. It wasn’t love, and there was never any sex, but there was a mutual respect between them and her opinion about that shirt had stuck with him.
When he wasn’t thinking about Tanya, he sometimes pondered the possibilities of a relationship with Amanda. Another thing Tanya kept from him. Amanda got married and transferred with her family to some place out west about a year before, but Rusty kept the shirt.
He opened the door, checked to make sure the room was in decent shape and that he had his key in case he did bring someone back with him. It was a longshot. With a deep breath, he stepped out into the June heat, walked around the corner to the restaurant and in the door where he expected to see Robyn or maybe Sue. Another woman was there, and there was a man working behind the bar. The bar stools were occupied as were most of the tables for dinner. Friday evening at 6:00 was quite different than Thursday. Music played softly on the speakers. The place had actual atmosphere.
“Just you, sweetie?” the hostess said. She was young, mid-twenties, and wore a black dress which accentuated her youthful figure. Her features were sharp but not wholly unattractive and her hair was long, dark and straight. Simple and elegant. He smelled cigarettes and perfume on her.
“Yes. Sad as that sounds.”
“Not sad at all. Would you like a seat at the bar?”
He glanced over at the bar, pictured Shrimp sitting there, then laying dead…Thomas staring down at him, gray-faced, panting and spattered with blood. There was a bloody, broken guitar in his hand and he was shouting, “You inspired me to pick up the guitar. I put it right back down again on this old fucker’s skull!”
Rusty shook his head to clear the image. “I’d prefer a table if you have one. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy.”
She nodded, started walking and Rusty followed.
“How’s this one, sweetie? Not fancy enough for you?”
It was a two seat table around the corner from the bar. He could see the water through the windows from there. “This is perfect, thank you.”
“My name is Kirsten. Can I get you a drink while you look at the menu?”
“Miller Lite?”
“Sure thing. Linda will be by to take your order in a minute or two.”
Rusty looked at the menu, felt a bit of nervous energy fluttering inside his belly. In a moment, his beer was in front of him and immediately after Kirsten set it down, Linda appeared with a smirk and a Jersey accent.
“How are you this evening?” she said.
“I’m good. You?”
“Dandy.”
“Dandy, huh? Good word. Should use it more often.”
She wrote down his order and later brought out his food. Rusty ate in peace and quiet listening to the low mumble of the other patrons mixed with the terrible selection of canned easy-listening music. He laughed when “Careless Whisper” by Wham! floated from the speakers. It had to be from his graduation year. He looked around to see if anyone else was tuned in, maybe on their way to the same party, but the patrons were either much older or much younger and toting small children. He wondered if Robyn was going to show up or if she already had a date—perhaps the police sergeant—and just didn’t want to tell him. His sunburned face suddenly felt hot and he was embarrassed for having asked her.
He ordered another beer and let Linda take his plate away while the overly dramatic Wham! saxophone solo made him giggle to himself. In spite of the song, he started to hum along and suddenly, two mugs slammed down in front of him, each foaming over.
“Are you going to ask me to slow dance if they play this tomorrow night?” Robyn asked.
Rusty looked up at her and relief filled him, followed by embarrassment at being caught humming along to Wham! “Why wait? We could dance now,” he said.
“Nope. Not a dancer. Maybe a slow one if I’m really drunk or really horny,” she said.
“How are you right now?”
“Too nervous for either one of those.”
“Damn,” Rusty said. “Might as well pull up a seat then. Say, does this mean you’ll give me that ride?”
She slid into the chair across from him. Her dress was sapphire blue and draped across her body nicely, flattering her curves. The fabric shimmered and danced in the light all by itself. Her hair fell onto her shoulders in a natural way and her makeup was minimal, lovely, fun.
“Did you fix your car?”
He balked, wanting to lie.
If you tell her yes, she’ll leave without you.
Then,
You’re a grown-ass man. Start acting like it.
“I did, and I’m pretty proud of myself.” He formed a confident smile, but his insides were primed for the rejection.
“Wow. It might be handy to have a guy like you around.”
&nb
sp; “Sure. If your 1972 vehicle needs a simple repair, I can do it in only twice the time it would take a crappy shade-tree mechanic.”
She laughed. It sounded genuine.
Like Thomas. Just like Thomas sounded. Thomas is a killer.
Robyn went silent and her face tightened—her shrewd, let’s-make-us-a-deal face. “The deal was, if your car wasn’t fixed, I would give you a ride.”
Rusty sank. He hoped disappointment wasn’t obvious on his face when he said, “Aw. Really? It wasn’t a rule was it?”
“Let me finish,” she said.
“Okay.”
“If the car was broken, I would give you a ride. Since your car is fixed it’s still a date—but—you have to drive.”
Redemption.
“You want to go to the reunion in The Bat?”
She smiled and drank some of her beer. It was a flirty smile. “I do.” When she put the mug down, it had left a foamy mustache on her upper lip. Rusty reached over and wiped at it with his thumb.
“Well, let’s hit the road then.” He got up and offered her a hand, which she grabbed and stood next to him. Her arm slid into the crook of his elbow and she pulled him toward the exit, leaving two mostly full mugs of beer.
“Let me pay for my…”
“On me. Linda! His dinner is on me,” she said.
Linda looked up from pouring refills in the back of the restaurant and waved.
“Can I at least leave her a tip?”
Robyn looked at him and something like frustration crossed her face. “Fine, but you’re really ruining my exit. I was supposed to enter with a flourish, whirl in and take you away from all of this.”
Rusty didn’t know what to think about that. “Hold that thought,” he said. Then he fished a five dollar bill from his wallet and dropped it on the table before returning with haste to Robyn’s side.
“Okay, Miss Scott. Flourish away!”
“I shall.”
She all but danced him out the door into the soupy atmosphere of a southern June evening. The buzz of the busy restaurant disappeared as the door shut and the sounds of the waterway, passing traffic, the hum of the street lights and the hum of the people in the park filled its absence.
“Are you in a hurry?” Rusty asked.
“Me? No. I’m just nervous, I guess. I haven’t seen most of these people in twenty years. I mean some of them still live here or came back like me, but most of them. I’m just nervous.”
“Come on, Robyn, how many people could it be? We graduated with what two hundred?”
She looked up, as if calculating the numbers in her head. “Yeah. Something like that, but they have wives and husbands and children and jobs and what if I don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
She looked at the ground.
“Are you worried about measuring up? To what? I mean, in forty-eight hours they’ll all go back to their lives and whatever happens this weekend will be a memory. Hopefully a fond one. Hell, half of them will lie about where they are and what they’re doing anyway.”
Do I really believe that? No matter. It’s whatever relaxes her. It’s a date now, don’t fuck things up.
Her eyes gleamed. “What should we lie about?”
“What?” Rusty said.
“What should we tell them we do for a living?”
“Bank Robbers,” he said.
“Too unbelievable.”
“Circus performers?”
“Nah.”
“Rock stars,” Rusty said with a wink and then a raised eyebrow.
“No one has heard of us.”
Rusty smiled. “We could be religious zealots! An evangelist and his bride in between revivals. You’d be the leader of the choir. I got the tent in the trunk. Hell, it’s big enough.”
“Nah, that might offend people.”
“So?”
They passed the door to the motel’s front desk and Robyn tapped on the glass and waved to Kelly. Kelly rushed to the door and hugged her mother.
“Have a good time, y’all,” she said. “And you have her home at a decent hour, Mr. Clemmons.”
“I will,” Rusty said with the chivalrous tip of an invisible hat.
Kelly backed up into her lair with a wave and Rusty and Robyn walked on to his car.
“What about hard core politics?” Robyn asked.
“I hate politics,” Rusty said.
“How about illegitimate children? We could have three or four of them, right?”
Rusty chuckled. “Wait there a minute” he said and hurried around to hold the massive door to The Bat open for her. “How many are yours?”
“I don’t know, Russ. Those little bastards never keep in touch.”
His laughter burst through before he could get to his side of the car. A couple, walking toward the waterfront gawked at him, then smiled politely and continued on their way. Rusty slid into his seat and shut the door, his cheeks were hot with embarrassment, but he continued to laugh. After a deep breath, he said, “Are you ready?”
“Yes sir. Stomp the pedal…Does this baby have light speed?”
“I just hope she’ll start.”
The Bat did start. Its big motor rumbled to life and only spit a tiny bit of smoke out from the exhaust. He lowered the windows and backed up.
“No AC. It’s hell on a hairdo,” Rusty said.
“Whatever. The beach is hell on a hairdo. Let’s get going before I lose my nerve.”
He whirled the large steering wheel in the other direction, pulled the gear lever into drive and eased it out onto Bay Street. The turn signal clicked a half dozen times before they moved left onto Howe.
“See if you can find something appropriate on the radio,” Rusty said.
“What is appropriate?” she asked.
He was thinking eighties music, something hair-band if possible.
“How about some Ratt?”
“Ooh, okay. Let me see what I can do,” she said.
Rusty detected a hint of sarcasm in her voice. What she found was Madonna begging her papa not to preach on an oldies station. It worked for the moment. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and gave her a look that begged for approval.
“Absolutely. I thought you’d never offer,” she said.
He shook one out where she could grab it and pushed the lighter in on the dashboard.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve used a car lighter. I don’t really smoke anymore. Not like I did in high school. Maybe that’s why I want this one so badly.”
“Once the liquor starts flowing, I’m sure you’ll want another. I smoked most of a pack the other night in your restaurant.”
“Yeah, about that. It’s supposed to be smoke free in there. It’s been the law for a few years now…but we were all having so much fun.”
Her face lost its glee and he knew she was thinking about Shrimp and Thomas.
“Hey, I meant to mention that. I’m sorry about your friend. Both of them. What happened was terrible.”
She smiled, a weak thing which dangled on her lips for a blink before losing its grip and falling to its frowny death. “It’s like I said, Russ. Something is wrong with this place.”
Nothing more was said about it. Rusty turned left at the next traffic light. He had no idea what the actual street name or number was. Everyone had always called it Beach Road when he lived there. He was sure it was still so.
Businesses had popped up where he didn’t remember them. Names on buildings had changed, but the old Food Lion grocery was still there. He remembered folks used to smoke inside. The joys of living in tobacco country. They passed a movie theater on the left.
“You have a movie theater?” Rusty said.
Robyn didn’t answer. He looked at her briefly and saw she was staring out at the passing scenery, letting her cigarette’s ash burn down as tiny, orange, glowing bits of it escaped out the partially opened window. Her eyes were moist and sad. Rusty tucked his cigarette between the fore and middle fingers
on his left hand and kept that one on the wheel. He grabbed her free hand with his right and gave it a gentle squeeze. Robyn looked down at their hands, squeezed back, and looked up at him with a gentle smile. Her eyes were still sad. She puffed on her cigarette, but left her hand in his.
You’re comfortable, Robyn Scott. Just like an old guitar. Comfortable.
The Bat came up over the high arching bridge and crested like the first hill of a roller coaster. The world disappeared beyond the long hood of the Riviera, and it felt as if they might come crashing down into the marshes underneath to live forever with the alligators and fiddler crabs and whatever else roamed, lurked or scurried.
For a few seconds, he could see the ocean over the trees that lined the island. It was the beach where he spent most of his teenage nights trying to get drunk or laid or both. Oddly, he felt he was doing the same just then even though he had eclipsed twenty-one over a decade ago and Robyn had quickly become more than a conquest, if that’s ever what she was. She had become a fast friend and that was a welcome surprise. If they became lovers as well, it was some luck for which he felt long overdue.
On the other side of the bridge, the ocean breeze was more prevalent. As the sun was setting and the heat of the day eased. The stress he felt in Smithville was gone on the island.
There should be a sign: Leave your troubles at the bridge.
He smiled and thought it was funny how that always seemed to be the case. Madonna faded out and Cyndi Lauper sang of “Love She-bop” on the all eighties power hour.
He turned and ran The Bat westward along the south-facing strand and drove past over one hundred rental houses, each named something clever like Great Escape or Court’s Adjourned. They passed from one small town on the island to another, riding by a community center and a volunteer fire station, a miniature golf course filled with fiberglass flamingoes, rows of transplanted palm trees, a gas station advertised great coffee and boogie boards, a rundown Dairy Queen and a greasy spoon with letters soaped in the window which read BEST BREAKFAST ON THE ISLAND. Rusty believed it. Eventually, he pulled The Bat into the parking lot of the Four Winds Restaurant and Lounge. It was attached to an old fishing pier.
Other thirty-somethings wandered around outside shaking hands and hugging. Rusty knew they were there for the same reason he was, but he felt out of place. They all looked out of place, maybe they felt it, too. Against the wall of the restaurant, a handful of teenagers smoked and made plans for trouble later that evening. They watched the thirty-somethings with disapproval. Rusty shook his head, seeing himself in them as well. A brutal before and after scenario. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for so much nostalgia all in one dose.
“Are you all right?” he said to Robyn. They were still holding hands. She squeezed his tightly and held their hands up as if to show him her white knuckles.
“I’ll be fantastic. Just don’t leave me alone in there.”
Rusty smiled and their hands broke apart. She pulled the visor down on her side and frowned.
“There isn’t a mirror. Sorry,” he said.
“How’s my makeup?”
“You look beautiful,” Rusty said. He regretted the words for a moment.
“Why thank you, sir.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. It lingered for a pleasing amount of time. Her lips were warm and she smelled of lotion and shampoo and cologne with just a hint of cigarette smoke.
“Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late to go catch a movie, order a pizza. Go walk with the baby sea turtles.”
“Not quite time for that,” she said. “The sea turtles, I mean. You have to give them another month or so.”
He thought for a minute she might want to leave. It was in her eyes. She might want to go somewhere with him and miss all the so-called fun. What ruined the moment, what shattered their silent understanding of each other’s fear of the dreaded high school reunion was a familiar voice.
“Holy dog shit! Rusty? That can’t be the motherfucking Bat, can it?”
He looked up and saw a pudgy man in a short sleeve button down shirt and a tie walking toward them. The whole of the man was unfamiliar, but the walk—god Rusty remembered the goofy walk—and the dopey face underneath that bald head. Those things he knew and they belonged to Chris Padre St. Claire, the drummer from his old garage band.
Something in Rusty’s stomach relaxed while something else revved up like a boat motor.
“I guess this is a done deal, then,” Robyn said. “I’m in if you are.”
“I’m in,” Rusty said as Chris tapped on the window.
“It is The Bat,” Chris said, pounding a fist on the roof. “Christ, I think I got laid for the first time in this car!”
Chris was shouting. Embarrassingly loud, just like always. There was a chorus of chuckles from the gathering crowd of twenty to twenty-five graduates of the Smithville High School class of 1985. A few shook their heads. The stiffs—probably the same stiffs he remembered from back in the day. One thing Rusty knew all too well: A few cocktails and even the stiffs came around. Rusty looked back at Robyn. “We’re in hell,” he said. “And I’ll be your tour guide.”