“Don’t pin this on me,” Alix says from my side. She has moved next to me, is leaning in and listening intently to a story we all know by heart. This is a tale from our earliest mythology, something from chapter one in the Book of the Better Buddy.
“Like I was saying,” I tell Brook, “bottom line is that when I turn back from your mom, I see your wubbie drifting down into Otter Land. It slips down the smooth concrete side and not three seconds later one of those slick suckers shoots out of the water, snags the blanket in the corner of its mouth, and bolts up Otter Mountain. Well, you unload with a sound like an air raid siren. I mean, the missiles are clearly on their way.”
Alix chuckles. “God, Brook, could you scream.”
Brook shoots her a half-dirty look, but it’s pretend.
I’m almost at the best part. “So what are my options? I pass you to your mother, and I vault the wall. My ass hits the concrete side and down I slide into the pit. Then I’m splashing through the little green pond and scrambling up the side of the concrete mountain. Time is a factor because the otter has taken a real disliking to the wubbie, is shredding the material like it’s crucial evidence. But I come up behind him, and surprise is with me. He’s never seen a human being come up Otter Mountain. Not from that direction. So before he knows what’s what, I get a good grip on one end of what’s left of the blanket and try to snap it away.
“By now a crowd has formed. People are staring. Somebody with a walkie-talkie is running along the side of the quarry and yelling at me. You’re still screaming. But I try to block all that out. I’m in mortal combat with this water rat. And I’ll tell you, he’s no wimp. He has blood lust in his eyes. Our tug-of-war is going to rip the wubbie in two, and I realize I’ve exhausted my nonviolent options. I yank the wubbie up a little to lift his chin and I kind of, well, tap him under his jaw. Gently, with my boot.”
“For Christ’s sake, Coop,” Alix shouts, “you punted the poor thing.”
“I think the word punting is a gross exaggeration.”
Brook laughs. “Why didn’t you just let it have the stupid blanket?”
“Because you were six and crying and I didn’t think like that. Anyway, I won. He let go.”
“Sure,” Alix says, “and we got ejected from the park. A lifetime ban.”
“But I got the wubbie,” I say, remembering how the men above me in the pit cheered my victory. How, while I waited for zoo personnel to open the secret door, the other otters kept their distance.
“That’s not all you got. That bill was how much? Seven, eight hundred?”
I shake my head. “Otter orthodontics,” I say. A phrase like that you don’t forget, especially when it’s on an inventory of charges with your name attached.
Alix giggles. “Who would even go into veterinary dentistry?” This was a standing private joke we ran for years after that zoo trip. We used the voice of that elf from the Christmas special, I want to be an otter dentist.
“The best part is,” I start, but Alix steps in, and her voice is light and young. “The best part is that back at the Duster, you made us put wubbie in the trunk,” she says to Brook. “It smelled like a sewer. And no matter how many times I cleaned it, you never wanted anything to do with it again.”
Brook starts laughing again, knowing she made trouble for us, and Alix laughs with her, probably thinking of the shreds of purple blanket that we found in the washing machine for months. We’ve stopped walking on the trail, and even though I’m not laughing with them, the three of us stand in a circle together, and I feel like I’ve found something I thought was lost forever. I understand this as rare and precious, golden.
From behind us sounds a man’s voice. “Beg pardon. But have you seen the painted bunting?”
Alix and Brook stop laughing. I turn to the voice, which belongs to a thin guy about sixty or so, holding a set of binoculars. None of us says anything, and so he smiles and asks again, “Have you seen the painted bunting?”
I shake my head. Brook shrugs. “I don’t think so.”
“No,” Alix says. “We haven’t seen any panting bunting.”
“Painted bunting actually. A bright blue head? Prominent crimson breast? A bit smaller than a finch.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar,” Brook says. “There were some ducks back by the bridge.”
I check out the binoculars. They’re high-end field glasses. Three, four hundred bucks easy. One of his sneakers, ancient red Keds, is patched with a piece of duct tape. He has a Band-Aid across the back of one hand.
“Yes, some mallards and a pair of green-winged teal. Not uncommon. But the painted bunting would be quite a find. Such a shy bird. There was a sighting reported on the Internet this morning. A member named Mansfield. I drove in from Charlotte. This is Greenfield Lake, is it not?”
“The one and only,” Alix says. “Maybe your bird is gone.”
“That’s quite possibly the case. You see to find the painted bunting here now would be highly unusual. Mansfield suggests it may be the odd weather.”
“Could be that asteroid,” Alix offers.
The bird-watcher frowns, understands instantly that he’s being insulted. “Indeed. My apologies for having intruded on your outing. If you happen to—”
“If we see any panting birds,” Alix stabs out, “we’ll send up a flare.”
He grins awkwardly and walks in the direction we came. Before he’s even out of earshot, Brook says, “How come you were so mean to him?”
“Oh please. Painted bunting. There’s no such bird. Internet posting. Prominent red breast my ass.”
“Mom, he’s just, like, looking for a bird.”
He’s halfway down the path. Siding with Brook, I say, “Those binoculars were high priced. The real thing.”
“No doubt,” Alix says. “The better for him to look at little girls.Do I have to spell this out for you two?”
Past the bird-watcher, across the bridge, I can just make out the hot dog family. The husband stands on the water’s edge with a beer. The wife sits on the picnic table, the boy cradled on her lap. I turn away.
“I believe him,” Brook declares. “He wants to see this bird, you know? This bird means a lot to the guy. Can’t you see that, Mom? Is that such a crime?”
We’re quiet for a moment. Brook folds her arms across her chest. Alix says, “Baby, I’m sorry. But you need to understand that the world’s a lot meaner than you think. That’s all. I only want you to be safe. I want you to be happy.”
“I’m safe,” she says. “I’m here with my mom and dad walking through the park on a sunny day. How could I be, like, safer or happier? I may just explode with joy.”
“C’mon,” I say, reaching out for both their hands as I start walking. Alix and Brook move to either side of me, but neither takes my hand. In this uneasy truce we round the north end of the lake without saying much. We pass a couple more family picnics, and a group of retarded teenagers playing volleyball in red T-shirts. Nobody’s keeping score and there isn’t a net. The T-shirts say CAMP FRIENDLY.
After a few minutes of silence, I again pull up the script in my mind and remember that I should be more curious about Brook’s life. The wording is tricky here—you rarely have to ask your daughter how the last four years have been. Ultimately, I take a deep breath and say, “So Brook, what’s been going on with you?”
Brook brightens some, recalls the play we have going on. She slides into a long explanation of many of the things I know. She tells me about high school and dance and the trip she took last summer to California. Alix and she visited Trevor’s family—went to Disney and all. Oddly enough, this was a vacation about which I heard remarkably little, so I’m suddenly interested in a genuine way. Unfortunately, her details don’t reveal much about Trevor’s extended family. She focuses instead on the important things: The highways there have eight lanes, Bruce Willis smiling at her outside a McDonald’s.
“We did a lot of fun stuff,” Alix says, almost protesting. “Tell him ab
out the opera. Tell him about the museum.”
“Right, the wonderful opera,” Brook says. “What a blast. Never had such a good time in my whole entire life. They were singing in, like, this other language. I didn’t even know what was going on.”
“You told Trevor you loved it. He bought you the CD.”
“I wanted to stay up late.”
I’ve watched operas on PBS. Like Brook, I have trouble following the plot. I always think the wrong guy is going to die.
“And all the museum had was these creepy bones. Giant skeletons of dinosaurs. Jurassic Park was so much more realistic.”
Alix sighs. Things are not improving. The mission objective is in serious jeopardy. I need something to turn this around but can’t think of any magic words. But then all our heads lift just a little at distant tinkling sounds, and I smile. Deus ex ice cream truck. Not fifty feet ahead of us, right by the main pavilion, the Captain Ice Cream van is mobbed with children, its happy xylophone song chiming out like a church bell. A white-shirted man leans out the service window, pulling money from straining hands, passing out cold treats.
Without even asking, the three of us move toward the chaos and join the mob.
As we work our way in, we scan the pictures posted on the side of the van. This Captain Ice Cream has potential to turn pro-wrestler. He’s got a whole arsenal of ready-made moves: a Freezie Bomb, the Red Rocket, a Choco-Blitz. I tap Alix on the shoulder, point to the picture in the upper corner: Nutty Buddy. “Think that’s me?” I whisper. She doesn’t laugh.
When we get to the front, Brook orders something called a Fudge Nightmare, Alix gets a small vanilla shake, and, convinced my joke is funny, I go with the Nutty Buddy. After I pay, the three of us walk to a bench on the edge of the playground, a series of wooden jungle gyms anchored in bark chips. I settle between the two of them, and the three of us sit quietly licking and slurping at our treats. Anybody walking by wouldn’t guess the truth. We seem the absolute perfect nuclear family.
Despite my warnings of an ice cream headache, Brook plows through her Fudge Nightmare and is left with an empty cup and a spoon. She stands, looks around, and heads for a garbage can by the seesaw. As soon as she’s out of earshot, Alix says, “I caught the payper view highlights. Be straight with me-what the hell happened at the beach?”
“That’s a good question.”
“Trevor got two calls last night. Three more after the news. If the public bites, we may be looking at a movie of the week somewhere down the road. He’s half-afraid Quinn will try to renege on the Under the Gun contracts.”
“No,” I say. “Quinn’s excited to get started.”
Alix looks over her shoulder, and together we see Brook staring up into the sprawl of a cypress. While I scan the branches for color, Alix asks, “Don’t bullshit me, you guys planned the whole thing, huh?”
I look at her. “What whole thing?”
“The healing. That girl.”
“The miracle wasn’t part of any plan I was given. And Quinn looked pretty damned surprised after the fact.”
“So who rigged this? Snake? Who set this up?”
I picture Hardy’s hearing aid, him covering both ears, and think of a song Brook played for me once with a line about your own personal Jesus.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe nobody rigged it. Maybe it wasn’t rigged at all.”
Alix studies my face, trying to figure if I’m serious or not.
“Hey,” Brook says, “I think I maybe saw that funky bird. Should I track down Mr. Rogers?”
“No,” Alix says.
Sensing that something is up, Brook doesn’t argue. She sits next to me again. Twice Alix leans forward to say something, but both time she sits back without speaking. Finally, it is Brook who breaks the silence. She reaches for my chest and says, “You’re wearing my vsaji.”
I look down at the pendant, hanging off my neck. I’d forgotten I put it on this morning. “Say, what does vsaji mean anyway?”
“Sacred truth from the heart.”
“In what language?” I ask.
“The language Jhondu speaks.” She stops there, but then remembers my amnesia and goes on for Alix’s sake. “He’s my dance counselor. He’s from someplace way off. Like Malaysia or Kuala Lumpur, I think.”
Alix tenses on my right and I remember her concern about this Jhondu character. I ask, “What’s Jhondu do? I mean, other than being your dance instructor?”
“Oh he, like, counsels all kinds of people. Coach Hallorahan had him in at the high school and Eddie Jawolski made five out of five three-pointers that night. Jhondu helped Jack Lahnstein’s dad increase car sales by thirty-four percent. It all has to do with manipulating your natural energies. Boosting your inner confidence.”
Violently, Alix sucks on her straw.
Brook ignores this and continues. “Jhondu says the path to outer peace is inner purity.”
Since I have no idea what this means, I nod and say, “I understand.”
“Tell him about the cold showers,” Alix prompts.
“Hot water steams the mind,” Brook explains. “Cooks the brain.Cold water clarifies. Back in his homeland he once stood naked under an icy waterfall for ten hours until he achieved jalcina.”
“Naked?” Alix says. “You never said he was naked before.”
“Well,” Brook says. “He was under a waterfall. Duh.”
“Don’t say duh to your mother.”
“He could have been wearing a swimsuit,” Alix says, still hoping. “You know, like when people go swimming.”
“Back up,” I say. “What exactly is involved in achieving jalcina?”
Alix crosses her arms. “Well, apparently you have to be naked.”
“Mom thinks Jhondu’s a whacko.”
“Nobody said whacko.”
“Just ’cause he doesn’t think the same way she does.”
“That’s not fair,” Alix says.
“But it’s true.”
Our orbit is deteriorating rapidly. I stand up, clap my hands together. “Who wants to take out a paddleboat?”
They both stare at me, united in their complete and total indifference.
“Come on,” I say. “It’ll be fun.” The Better Buddy will not be denied.
Ten seconds of stillness, then Brook’s eyes lift and she suddenly becomes enthusiastic. Looking at her mother, she says, “Don’t be a Gloomy-Gus.” This is something Alix used to always say to her when she was sad. The nostalgia makes Alix smile and just that quickly we’re on track again, heading for the pavilion dock.
Alix and Brook walk over to pick a boat while I take care of business at the snack shop. Grendel T-shirts, which feature him chomping a canoe in half, are ten percent off. It’s been a while since he made the news. I hand the woman two bucks, and in return I am given three life jackets. She recites:
“Greenfield Lake is not responsible for any injury which may occur during your rental. Keep your life jacket on at all times. No more than four occupants allowed in one boat. Do not stand up in the boat at any time. Do not leave the boat for any reason in the open water.”
From the dock I hear Alix shout, “Wait!” and turn to see Brook alone in a paddleboat, motoring out into the lake. I’m about to bolt after her when the woman says, “That’s another two dollars, sir. And please get a jacket on that child. These are Coast Guard regulations, not ours.”
Cruising away from the dock, Brook yells over a shoulder, “You’ll never catch me, coppers.”
I pay up, then join Alix on the dock. I hand her a life jacket. She says, “I guess we’re together.”
Once we’re conforming to Coast Guard regs, we move to a boat tied to the end, a blue one. I hold Alix’s hand, steadying her as she steps across to the far plastic seat. I lower myself in. My right hand holds the metal rudder, positioned like an emergency brake between us. Together, we start pedaling.
Since the pedals are connected as one mechanism, there is the illusion that Alix and I ar
e in perfect natural sync, that we’ve been practicing this for a long time. Whether she’s getting flashbacks of the trips we took here years ago or not is hard to tell. I pump with a bit more gusto and Alix’s feet basically ride the pedals.
“Slow down,” she says. “It’s not like she’s heading for a waterfall.”
Brook’s got a good fifty yards on us. She’s making a beeline for the cypress forest.
“She’s a great kid,” I say. “You’ve done a really great job raising her.” This is a line I had ready for Alix, and I hope the fact that nothing has happened to prompt such a comment will go unnoticed.
Alix thanks me. “You raised her too, Coop. Really, all along we’ve been together when it comes to Brook.”
I nod. We are silent. The next line seems inevitable. “But not when it comes to other stuff, huh?”
“I guess not. You need to be clear on something. We both agreed to the divorce. You understand? It was best for both of us. It was a crazy time.”
“I understand,” I say. “I just hope it wasn’t bad.”
She shrugs. “Well, it wasn’t all peaches and cream, you know?”
Brook has reached the tree line, and slowed, almost like she’s waiting for us.
Alix’s face is down, but suddenly her shoulders jerk. Though she tries to hold it in, in three seconds she’s laughing out loud. On the open lake, the sound echos.
“What?” I finally ask her.
“Know that scar on your butt? Thirteen stitches? That’s me.”
The Spock plate. I reach back, rub my back pocket, and act like I didn’t know that. “So, that’s your handiwork. Well thanks, Al.”
Still grinning, she says, “Hey, you weren’t the only one in the emergency room that night.”
My feet freeze in midkick, and for a second Alix’s pumping legs have all the weight. We slow, then when she notices I’ve stopped, her feet fall still. Our paddleboat starts to drift toward the forest, twirling softly. She understands what she just said, but can’t pull the words back.
Buddy Cooper Finds a Way Page 22