Isle of Gods I: Damek

by H. Lovelyn Bettison

  She smiled. “Do you like the glitter? I’m just trying it out.”

  I shrugged. “It seems cheap.”

  She laughed. “He’s calling me cheap now,” she said to no one in particular. “He’s got some nerve. He brings a baby into a bar and he calls me cheap.” She looked around the bar and seeing that no one was paying attention to her she lowered her voice again. “What’re you doing around here anyway? I mean, I’m not into breaking up families really. You got kids now. Maybe you should be at home watching cartoons or something.”

  “I got a kid. Just one. I’m not here for trouble. I just wanted a beer.”

  “You could’ve gotten that anywhere.”

  “But I was in the neighborhood and this is the best place.”

  She stepped back and crossed her arms, looking at me like she was waiting to see if my nose would start to grow. A customer sat down at the other end of the bar and called her over. “I’ll be back to deal with you in a minute,” she said.

  Some habits die hard, but I’d made good on quitting Brenda so far. A few fun nights weren’t worth losing what I had with Lourdes. If I was willing to give up the sea for her I certainly could manage to give up Brenda too.

  Our fling started three years ago and it was mostly flirting that’s all. We’d only actually had sex enough times to count on one hand and every time we did I felt so guilty I could hardly look Lourdes in the eye. Then I’d stop going to The Tornado for a while. I’d put some distance between us, if you know what I mean. Then something would start to be off with me and Lourdes again and I’d start hanging out here. Then next thing you know … next thing you know … that’s real weak. I knew it was weak, but sometimes I was weak. I hated that side of myself, but it was a side just like all the rest. I had to acknowledge it if I wanted to change it.

  Brenda listened to me. She wanted to hear my stories about going out to sea unlike Lourdes who wanted to pretend my life at sea wasn’t real at all and only complained when she knew I was leaving again. It was nice to have a woman in my life who seemed to love my job as much as I did. If only that woman was Lourdes, my life would be perfect.

  This time I really was looking for a beer and some good company. That was it. Sometimes a guy has to be around familiar faces and it was good to see Brenda. I’d been so lonely since me and Lourdes split. Brenda strolled back over to me as I sat Tati on the bar.

  “You’re such a good father.” She was being sarcastic.

  I sipped my beer. This was a mistake.

  “Maybe Daddy should take his little girl home and go back to his wife. Isn’t that right?” she said to the older woman who had just taken the stool next to me.

  “That’s right,” the woman said, lighting up a cigarette.

  “Come on, Brenda. Give me a break.” I glanced around the bar wondering how many in here knew about us. “I just want to relax.”

  “He just wants to relax,” Brenda said to the old woman. Her voice rose over the murmured conversation of the afternoon bar crowd.

  “He doesn’t look very relaxed to me,” the old woman said. She took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke in my direction.

  The muscles in my neck tightened as I put my beer on the bar. “Do you mind, lady? I’ve got a baby here.”

  “Looks like you’re bothering my friend.” She looked at Brenda and back at me. Her sagging cheeks wobbled as she moved her head. She looked a bit like a Saint Bernard. I tried to picture her with one of those tiny barrels around her neck.

  “Most of the time he doesn’t bother me at all. He just comes here to relax, let off some steam. Then he goes back to his nice family and doesn’t come back here until he wants to let off some more steam, if you know what I mean,” Brenda said to the old woman, her voice so loud that other customers were starting to look in our direction too. “He thinks you only come around here to let off some steam. He’s lucky that way. Meanwhile all the rest of us have to stay here all the time. We don’t get any vacations to let off steam. We stay stressed. We go home to an empty bed, junk mail and an inbox full of spam. Then we kneel at our altars and thank the gods for what little we have and maybe ask for just a little bit more. Then we wait for those prayers to be answered. Guess what? They usually aren’t.”

  “Some people don’t know how good they have it.” The old Saint Bernard looked at Tati and then back up at me.

  “Some people will never know,” Brenda said.

  “Enough. I’m going.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out my wallet to pay.

  “Don’t worry. It’s on the house.” Brenda held up her hand. “I mean it’s an honor seeing someone as good and family oriented as yourself in a place like this.”

  I dropped some wadded-up bills on the bar. It was too much for the beer, but I wasn’t going to wait for change. I hoisted Tati up over my shoulder. She waved as we left.

  “Bye Tati,” I heard Brenda say.

  On the way back to the car I was fuming, but more at myself than Brenda. I should’ve never gone in there. I didn’t know what I was thinking.

  I put Tati on my shoulders and held onto her ankles as we wandered back to the car, stopping to look in shop windows along the way. Tati held onto my ears which wasn’t exactly comfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to make her stop. Occasionally I’d do a few little hops and she’d laugh wildly. Sometimes I liked to roam aimlessly around downtown people watching, especially on days like today when I was in no hurry to get anywhere.

  We passed an electronics store. One of the news channels was on the TVs in the window and they were talking about a ship that had just disappeared in the Sacred Circle. I’d seen a newspaper headline about the story that morning. Anytime a ship disappeared in the Sacred Circle I was interested. A small speaker mounted above the window broadcasted the sound to the passersby on the sidewalk.

  “This mysterious area of our planet has been plagued with tragedy and disappearances,” the anchor woman said, “but a brave few continue to venture into it hoping that luck will be on there side. Unfortunately for the crew of the Santa Cruz that wasn’t the ...” The newscast faded away into static. The buzz of white noise shot from the speaker.

  “Can you believe that?” I asked the old man next to me.

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe people are still going out there. I wouldn’t do it. Too dangerous.”

  I looked back at the static-filled screen and then at him. “I’m talking about the cable going out.”

  “Shhh,” the old man said. “I’m trying to listen to the story.” He turned his attention back to the snowy television screens.

  I looked at his bird-like profile and then back at the screens, nothing but static. I didn’t know what he was looking at. I looked around at the other people standing with me. They were all still staring at the televisions in the shop window.

  The static on the screen faded and the woman I had seen on the dining room wall was looking out at me from the television screens. She sat there blinking at me. I turned and looked at the teenage girl standing on the other side of me to see if she noticed. “You see that?” I asked.

  “They shouldn’t have gone out there in the first place,” the teenager said.

  I looked back at the screen. “No, the woman.”

  “I can’t stand her. I don’t really watch the news, but when I do I never watch this channel,” the teenage girl said.

  I looked back at the screen and the woman I’d seen at Lourdes’s house was still there. Then I heard a voice coming through the speaker. “Help me,” the voice said, but the woman on the screen wasn’t moving her lips.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked the teenager.

  She rolled her eye and shuffled down the street while mumbling something about me being crazy.

  “Help me,” the voice said again.

  “Help you do what?” I asked aloud. The people on either side of me turned and looked at me.

  “What?” one asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing.” Was I
the only one who could see this woman?

  “Please help.” She reached out her hand just as the picture began to fade into static and then back again to the news. I was too shaken to watch anymore.

  “Let’s go home,” I said to Tati.

  I woke up in the night, startled and sweating. I must’ve been having a bad dream but couldn’t remember what it was. I lay in bed listening for the sound of Tati breathing in the crib in the corner. I looked at the ceiling in the dark and kept thinking about the woman on the TV screen. Every time I closed my eyes I could see her face imprinted on the insides of my eyelids: the way she seemed to move in slow motion, how she talked to me without moving her mouth. I wanted to know who she was and where she was. I tried to recall the things I saw in the background. There was a painting, complicated yet primitive, covering the wall; she filled most of the frame so I couldn’t really make out what it was.

  How could I help her? What did she want from me? As I thought about her I started to feel pulled toward the ocean. I had an urge to get up and go out to the docks. It was like an itch that needed to be scratched. I couldn’t scratch it though because Tati was here and didn’t want to wake her. I couldn’t leave her alone in the apartment either. So I lay in bed thinking about the woman and the ocean and the voyages I’d taken before.

  Eventually, I got up in the darkness and walked over to Tati’s crib. Dim light from the street lamp leaked into the room through the blinds. I watched her sleeping on her back. Her bottom lip, glistening from spit, stuck out slightly. Her right fist was raised next to her ear. I wanted to give her a good childhood. I wanted her to have the best, but I was so inadequate.

  Sometimes I’d think about the gods and what it might be like to be them. Being responsible for Tati was enough for me. I couldn’t imagine being responsible for all of the people on the planet. I thought that if I stopped depending on them to make my destiny maybe that would give them a little less pain in the world. I didn’t stop wearing the Sacred Circle because I no longer believed in the gods. I believed. That’s why I still wanted to find them. I just stopped waiting for them to give me what I already knew I wanted. I needed to take responsibility for myself. I always knew that, but on the day Lourdes put me out it really hit home. I needed to learn how to make the hard decisions, like staying home and being here for Lourdes and Tati, even if Lourdes didn’t really want me anymore.

  Chapter 4

  There I was knocking on my own door again with Tati standing at my side on wobbly legs her hand gripping my pants. She’d wanted to walk from the car. I picked her up as I waited for someone to open the door. Lourdes's mother answered.

  “You,” she said. She reached out to take Tati from me. I stepped forward to enter the house and she put her hand out to stop me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Inside.” I walked past her. “You don’t live here.”

  “Last I checked neither do you,” she said from behind me.

  I ignored the altar as I passed.

  “No respect for the gods either I see. You’re a disgrace,” she said. “It’s a good thing Lourdes put you out.”

  “I already know how you feel. You don’t have to tell me again.” Every time I saw Lourdes’s mother these days she said the same things.

  Lourdes came down the stairs in black yoga pants and a red tank top. “Damek, I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Your mother wasn’t going to let me in.”

  Lourdes rushed over to her mother and kissed Tati’s face. “Hi baby girl. Mommy is so glad you’re home.”

  Tati squealed with delight.

  Lourdes took her from her mother and turned her attention back to me to ask about the weekend. I wanted to tell her about seeing the woman again but I didn’t want to say anything about it in front of her mother. So I told her about the playgroup, leaving out our visit to The Tornado, of course. When I asked her if I could see the remodeling she did in the living room Lourdes’s mother quickly answered.

  “You’re not welcome in this house,” she said.

  Lourdes waved her hand dismissively. “It’s fine. I actually want to show off my work.” Lourdes’s mother stayed in the entryway scowling with her arms crossed as we went into the living room. Lourdes had a little bounce in her step that made me smile.

  “You’re in a good mood,” I said.

  “You could say that.”

  “Any reason?” I was fishing, for what I wasn’t sure.

  “No reason.” She smiled and held out one arm in a sweeping flourish as we stepped into the living room. “Ta-da.”

  The remodeling wasn't major. Because she was so eager to show me I was expecting more. I thought maybe she had knocked out a wall or something. She hadn’t. She’d painted the living room walls powdery blue, put down a floral throw rug, added some bright pillows to the couch, and changed around the living room furniture but only a little.

  “It looks good in here,” I said. It really did. I never realized before how much of a difference a few small changes could make. It was almost like I was in a different house all together.

  She beamed. “Doesn’t it? I didn’t do a bad job at all.”

  “You could have a future in interior design,” I said.

  She smiled even wider and gave my arm a little slap. “You’re not serious.”

  “Don’t let him come in here saying a few nice things and decide to take him back.” Lourdes’s mother walked into the room behind us.

  Lourdes shot her a sharp look. “I can handle this, Mother. After all it is my marriage.”

  “Divorce,” her mother said. “Remember that? Screwing around with other women and leaving you alone with a baby most of the time. Don’t forget that just because he likes the way you decorated the living room.”

  “There was only one woman,” I said.

  “Does it really matter?” her mother said.

  “Stop it, Mother. I was having a good day.”

  “Until he came over,” her mother said.

  “No. He isn’t the problem right now.” She pointed at her mother. “You are the problem. I’m trying to have nice conversation with my daughter’s father. I’d appreciate it if you let me do that. I don’t need all of your reminders. I’m not stupid. I know what I’m doing.”

  Her mother’s face dropped. “I’m just looking out for you.”

  “I know and I appreciate that, but I’ve got this under control.”

  I felt like I was racking up points. Lourdes’s mother was overbearing and whenever Lourdes stood up to her I felt like she was inching a bit closer to me.

  Lourdes’s family and friends never approved of me. At first they said it was just because we were so different. I was a bit of an outcast, too busy thinking about what I would do once I got out of school to pay attention to what was going on in class. I wasn’t interested in most of the other kids there so I didn’t bother talking to them really.

  Lourdes was smart and friendly. She wasn’t one of those geeky smart girls with no friends who sat alone at lunch. She was a varsity cheerleader for the basketball team, on the school paper, and involved with a bunch of other school activities that I couldn’t even begin to name now. She could’ve dated any guy in school. Back then I used to go to the basketball games just to watch her. Football was always more my sport, but I wanted to see her in that little maroon and white cheerleader skirt doing high kicks. She was flawless.

  I didn’t have the nerve to ask her out. I spent more time on the docks than in class and my grades ... well they showed it.

  One day Lourdes came up to me in the library and started talking. She was telling me about her life and how all her “friends” were fake and how she was so tired of trying to keep up with everything all the time. I listened and didn’t say much because that’s all she seemed to want me to do. Then the bell rang and she said she had to go to class. She rushed out leaving me sitting at the table feeling real good about myself. I swaggered around the hallways the rest of the day and daydr
eamed through my classes.

  Lourdes was popular and she didn’t have to be nice to anyone. Most of the popular kids in high school weren’t nice at all. Not Lourdes though, she was nice to everybody. Beside being beautiful, that’s what I really liked about her back then. I’d never approached her to talk before because she always seemed to be talking to someone and I didn’t want to interrupt. I wasn’t blind. I knew I wasn’t in her league.

  After our talk, I started hanging out in the library hoping to see her again. She’d come in every day at about eleven fifteen and I was always there. She’d sit down right next to me and start talking. It was great for me and after about a month I started thinking that maybe I should ask her out or something, but I never really got around to it. I was sixteen and terrified of being rejected. I’d felt rejected most of my life. One day she said to me, “So when are you going to ask me out?” That was how we started dating.

  I always thought I was lucky that a woman like Lourdes married a guy like me. Now I was twice as lucky because we got Tati. I could picture all three of us hanging out in this new powder-blue living room on a Tuesday night watching a movie as Tati slept in Lourdes’s lap. That would be good. That’s what I had to get back to. Lourdes still hadn’t filed divorce papers so I knew she was thinking about getting back together with me too one day.

  I looked at her standing there with Tati leaning against her chest. Lots had changed between us, but lots had stayed the same too. There were times, like now, when she forgot she was mad at me. That was when I’d catch her smile and see that old spark in her eyes.

  Swept up in the moment I said, “Maybe we should have dinner together. We haven’t really talked about what happened.”

  Lourdes’s mother threw her arms in the air. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”

  “Mom,” Lourdes said. She looked at me, her expression already dropping. “I’m not ready yet.”

  “Even if I cook?” I asked.

  She laughed. “You can’t cook.”

  “I’ll learn if you say you’re coming for dinner.”