Floater

by Gary Brandner

  “Everybody goes through it,” Roman said.

  “We just have a little fun,” Alec said. “No paddles or anything like that.”

  “We’ll do it Saturday night,” Roman said.

  “This Saturday? Isn’t that the Halloween Ball?”

  “Right,” Alec said. “This way you get initiated and welcomed into the Pack at the party. How does that sound?”

  “Well … fine, I guess.”

  “It’ll be kicks,” Alec said. “Right, Lindy?”

  She touched Frazier on the arm, and he fancied he could feel the flesh under his jacket sleeve turning red. “We’ll all be glad to have you, Frazier.”

  “I don’t have a costume or anything.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alec told him. “We’ll pick you up and bring a costume for you and everything. I’ll let you know where and what time. Cool?”

  “Okay,” Frazier said, breaking into a smile. “Cool.”

  Alec beamed back at him. “Good, good. Glad to have you with us.”

  He stretched his hand across the table and shook Frazier’s. Roman gave him a nod.

  Lindy smiled, then looked away. She said, “I’ve got to get home.”

  Roman and Alec slid quickly out of the booth to stand with Lindy. She looked as though she would say something more, but turned suddenly and walked out. Roman followed her.

  Alec lingered to repeat, “I’ll let you know where and when,” and he too was gone. The red Chevy roared to life and peeled away from the curb.

  For several minutes Frazier sat in the booth staring out the window after them. He could not believe what had just happened to him. The girl he secretly loved had smiled at him and touched him. The star of the football team had asked him to join the most important club at school. From a nothing he had become Somebody. He took off his glasses and wiped them with a paper napkin. Then he picked up what was left of his Pepsi and drained it in a gulp. This was shaping up to be the most important day of his life.

  • • •

  Alec MacDowell laughed, pleased with himself, as the three young people drove away from the Bean House.

  “He bought it,” Alec said. “Bought it hook, line, and sinker. And he’s supposed to be so smart.”

  Roman at the wheel was grim. “I’d still like to smash in his stupid face.”

  “This’ll be better,” Alec said. “You’ll see.”

  Lindy, sitting between them, was thoughtful. “I don’t know,” she said. “He seems so harmless.”

  “You ought to know better than that,” Roman said. “You’re the one he was peeping at.”

  “And who knows what he might do next,” Alec added. “Window peeping today, sneaking into a house tomorrow, the next day … who knows?”

  “I can’t believe he’d hurt anybody,” Lindy said.

  Roman gripped the wheel. “It’s always the quiet ones that go crazy.”

  “That’s right,” Alec said. “Lee Harvey Oswald was just a quiet wimp, and you know what he wound up doing.”

  Roman was scowling at his own thoughts. “Looking at you the way he did, we can’t let him get away with it.”

  Lindy chewed on her lip. “I guess you’re right. Just so nobody gets hurt.”

  “Don’t worry,” Alec assured her. “I’ve got everything planned out. It’s going to be a kick, that’s all.”

  Lindy sat back and stared through the windshield, saying nothing during the rest of the ride to her house.

  CHAPTER 13

  At dusk on Saturday, Frazier Nunley stood on the corner of Main and Elm streets with his hands buried in the pockets of his mackinaw, watching his breath make pale puffs of steam. The day had been cloudy and dark, and the streetlights had gone on half an hour ago.

  The little kids were already out with their Batman and witch and skeleton costumes, lugging their huge shopping bags to collect trick-or-treat goodies. Halloween officially fell on the following Tuesday, but by common consent the town of Wolf River had agreed to celebrate it tonight.

  The Chronicle had run the usual editorial about driving safely and watching for tiny ghosts and goblins, and the usual scare stories about the dreadful things evil people sometimes put in fruits and candy in Milwaukee and other large cities. Not that such a thing was likely to happen in Wolf River, but it wouldn’t hurt for parents to have a look at the goodies before the kids ate them. Nobody ever paid any attention to the warnings, and the little kids were usually half-sick with stuffing themselves by the time they got home with their loot.

  Frazier had never cared about trick-or-treating when he was a child. He preferred to stay home and read. Dressing up and going door to door for handouts struck him as degrading.

  He had been a little concerned tonight about what to tell his parents. Alec had made it very explicit that he was not to tell anyone where he was going. It turned out to be no problem, as his mother was playing for a group of faculty wives and had her mind on her program.

  “Going out, dear?” she said, concentrating on gathering her sheet music.

  “Uh-huh. Meeting some friends.”

  “That’s nice.” If she wondered where her son had acquired friends, she didn’t think about it until later.

  His father, with characteristic restraint, had looked up from his book long enough to say, “Have a good time, son. Don’t stay out too late.”

  Frazier thought all this secrecy was foolish, but if that’s what it took to be with the in-crowd, he would go along with it. He was relieved that he had not been forced to lie to his parents. Frazier was a terrible liar.

  Since the other day at the Bean House he hadn’t had a chance to talk to Lindy or Roman, and he hadn’t heard from Alec. He had begun to wonder if maybe they had forgotten about the invitation. Or maybe it had all been a cruel joke. Then Alec had called last night with instructions to meet them here, and to say nothing to anyone about the initiation.

  The idea of secret societies and clubs with passwords and grips and all that meant little to Frazier, but he could not pretend he wasn’t excited at the thought of being accepted in the Wolfpack. He would even wear their stupid ring, which he had always thought looked like something you might win at a carnival. You made a lot of concessions to be popular.

  “Hey, Frazier.”

  He started at the sound of his own name. Lost in thought, he had not seen the candy-apple Chevy drive up Main and roll to a stop a few feet away.

  “Get in,” called Alec from the window on the passenger’s side.

  Frazier walked to the car and climbed into the back seat. Roman was driving. He didn’t look around. Frazier was disappointed to see that Lindy wasn’t there.

  The Chevy pulled away from the curb. Alec turned in the front seat and handed a shopping bag stuffed with clothing back to Frazier.

  “Put this on.”

  “Right here?”

  “Sure, right here,” Alec said.

  Roman spoke without turning around. “Don’t worry, nobody’s going to watch you.”

  Frazier thought he heard an odd emphasis in Roman’s words, and frowned, but he forgot about it as he pulled the clothing from the bag.

  “This is a clown suit.”

  “Right,” Alec said. “It’s your costume. Put it on.”

  Had he been allowed to choose his own costume for the party, Frazier would sure as hell not have gone as a clown. Too close to real life. However, since he had no choice, he began awkwardly getting out of his clothes and into the garishly colored suit.

  “What should I do with my clothes?” he asked.

  “We’ll keep ’em for you,” Alec said.

  Without any more conversation they drove out of town and along one of the little-used county roads that led to Wolf Lake. From the faint aroma of beer in the car Frazier deduced that the party had already begun for his two companions.

  When the silent woods closed in around them and still no one had spoken, Frazier finally asked, “Isn’t the party at the Hartman cabin? Over on the othe
r side of the lake?”

  “We’re not going to the party yet,” Roman said. “This is your initiation.”

  Frazier completed the clumsy job of getting into the clown suit. It consisted of baggy green pantaloons, a pullover polka-dot blouse with a floppy collar, and a pointed hat with a ball at the peak and an elastic chin strap. There were big plastic feet that went over his shoes and a cutout Ping-Pong ball painted red for his nose. He must look utterly ridiculous, Frazier thought, and for the first time a glimmer of doubt crept into his mind as to whether this was such a wonderful experience.

  But it was too late for second thoughts. The Chevy crunched to a stop on the gravel next to a dark pier on a little-used part of the lake. Two rowboats, one with an outboard motor, bobbed in the dark water. A line from the outboard was tied to the prow of the second boat for towing.

  The boys in front jumped out and stood watching critically as Frazier climbed out in the clown suit.

  “Not bad,” Alec said.

  “It fits him,” said Roman, not smiling. He turned to Alec. “Have you got the blindfold?”

  “Right here.” Alec produced a wide band of dark terry cloth.

  “What do you have to do that for?” Frazier said.

  “They always blindfold initiates,” Alec said. “It’s traditional.” He reached out and plucked the glasses from Frazier’s nose.

  “I can’t see with out those,” he protested.

  “There’s nothing to see where you’re going,” Roman said.

  “Don’t worry,” Alec added. “We’ll take good care of them.”

  Reluctantly Frazier turned his back and allowed Alec to tie the cloth behind his head so it blinded his vision. A tickle of panic touched him, but he pushed it away. It was silly, sure, but as Alec said, silliness like this was a part of all initiations.

  Then he felt them start to tie his wrists together behind his back and reflexively jerked his hands away.

  “Hey, Frazier, it’s all right,” Alec said. “All part of the ceremony.”

  “Why do you have to tie my hands?”

  “Listen, we don’t have to do any of this,” Roman said, an ominous note in his voice. “We can just take you back and drop you where we picked you up and forget the whole thing.”

  “He didn’t mean that, Roman,” Alec said quickly. “He’s just a little nervous. Aren’t you, Frazier?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, anybody would be. But you’ve got to learn to trust us. Believe me, nobody’s going to be hurt.”

  Frazier hesitated a moment longer, then put his hands behind him, wrists crossed. He had come this far, he might as well go the rest of the way.

  “Way to go,” Alec said approvingly.

  Frazier winced as he felt his wrists bound tightly together with plastic clothesline rope.

  They walked him, one on each side, out onto the pier. A chill wind off the lake probed at the floppy collar and reached down inside the clown suit.

  Frazier shivered. “Where are we going?”

  “For a little boat ride,” Alec said. “I’ll explain what you have to do on the way.”

  “I don’t swim very well,” Frazier said. Hell, he didn’t swim at all, if the truth be told.

  “Nobody’s doing any swimming,” Roman told him. “Just stay in the boat.”

  He was eased down into the rocking rowboat and experienced a pang of dizziness. His foot bumped against the concrete block used for an anchor and he staggered. A grip on his arm pulled him upright and guided him onto the wooden plank that served as a seat. Someone sat next to him. Alec.

  He heard Roman’s footsteps up on the pier, then a clump-bump and the wash of wavelets as he stepped into the other boat, the one with the outboard. Alec shifted on the seat beside him.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  There was the grinding sound of a starter cord being yanked in the boat up ahead, and on the third try the outboard motor coughed to life. The plank jerked under Frazier’s buttocks as the tow rope pulled taut and his boat began to move forward.

  Alec sat close to him. “What we’re going to do,” he said, talking over the roar of the outboard, “is let you float out here for a bit while the rest of the Pack meets on shore to discuss you as a member and vote on you.”

  “Vote?” Frazier said.

  “Just a formality. You’ve got Roman Dixon for a sponsor, and that guarantees you get in.”

  “I have to stay out in the boat alone?”

  “Just during the ritual.”

  “What ritual?”

  “From time to time you’ll hear our call — like this …” Alec loosed a quavering wolf howl into the October night. “When you hear that, you answer back. Let’s hear you try it.”

  “You want me to howl?”

  “It’s the call of the Wolfpack.”

  Feeling cold and ridiculous, Frazier gave a halfhearted little howl.

  “No, no, you can do better than that,” Alec coaxed. “Come on now, let’s hear a real Wolfpack howl.”

  What the hell, Frazier thought. He threw back his head and wailed into the blackness, letting some of his misery come out with the howl.

  “That’s more like it,” Alec said.

  Abruptly the pitch of the outboard motor in front of them changed. The boat lost headway, and soon the other bumped alongside.

  “Sit tight now,” Alec said. “And remember to answer the call. When we come back to pick you up, you’ll be a full-fledged member of the Wolfpack.”

  There was a heavy splash. That would be the concrete anchor going over the side.

  Frazier gripped the seat behind him with bound hands while the boat pitched as Alec stepped out.

  “Remember,” Alec said, “listen for the call of the Wolfpack.”

  The outboard motor revved then and gradually diminished and died as the other boat pulled away. Frazier was left alone — cold, unhappy, and seriously wondering if he had made one of the more stupid decisions of his life.

  • • •

  Lindy was waiting for them when Roman and Alec docked the outboard at the pier down the bank from the Hartman cabin. Some of the kids had already got there, and the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody” could be heard blasting from the stereo speakers.

  The boys looked Lindy over, appraising the sleek cat costume.

  “Hey, you look really sexy,” Roman said.

  Alec nodded his agreement.

  “Where are your costumes?” Lindy asked.

  “They’re up at the cabin,” Roman told her. “We brought ’em out this morning.”

  Lindy looked out over the lake. “Did Frazier meet you like he was supposed to?”

  “He was there on schedule and came along like a lamb,” Alec said. “He’s out there now in his clown suit waiting to hear the call of the Wolfpack.”

  The boys snickered as the three young people looked toward the shadowy silhouette of the rowboat about a hundred yards offshore. Lindy frowned behind the domino mask.

  “I couldn’t believe it when you got him to howl,” Roman said.

  “I told you this would work. When he figures out what an ass we made of him, he’ll never show his face again.” Alec turned to Lindy. “Want a demonstration?”

  “Is he all right out there?” she said.

  “Sure, he’s fine. Just listen to this.” Alec cupped his hands around his mouth and howled out at the dark lake.

  After a moment there was a weak answering howl. Alec grinned at the others. Roman bent over to muffle his laughter.

  “He’s in good voice, huh?” Alec said.

  “How long are you going to keep him there?” Lindy asked.

  “Until he finally figures out he’s been had. There’s a little paddle in the boat he can use to get himself to shore if he wants to work at it.”

  “But if he’s blindfolded and his hands are tied …”

  “I made the knots real easy. A baby could get out of them.”

  “But what if he can’t?”

>   Alec shrugged. “Then we go out and get him when we’re good and ready. By that time he’ll know better than to go peeking in any more windows.”

  “I’m gonna try it,” Roman said. He cupped his mouth and loosed a full-throated wolf howl toward the lake.

  In a moment Frazier’s reply drifted back.

  The two boys laughed uproariously. Lindy looked out toward the lake. She didn’t smile.

  “Come on, pussycat,” Roman said. “Let’s go join the party. Alec and me will get our costumes on, and I can sure use a beer.”

  “Me too,” Alec agreed.

  Lindy looked at him in surprise. “You, Alec? I thought you didn’t drink.”

  “There’s got to be a first time,” he said, “and I think this is it.”

  • • •

  The cabin where the Halloween ball was annually held belonged to Amos Hartman, Todd’s banker father. It was easily the largest and most expensively furnished of the handful that were scattered along the shores of Wolf Lake.

  Actually, it was more of a lodge than a cabin, with a spacious dining hall downstairs that could be cleared for dancing, and four bedrooms on the second floor. Mr. Hartman himself used it for holiday entertaining during the summer, but whenever he wasn’t using it he made it available for his son, who was, naturally, a leading member of the Wolfpack.

  The Halloween decorations were extensive, if not very imaginative. Black and orange crepe paper streamers draped the beamed ceiling, and the usual black cat, jack-o’-lantern, and witch cutouts were stuck on the walls. Jointed cardboard skeletons jiggled in the doorways.

  A bar at the edge of the dancing area had been stocked with soft drinks and, supposedly unknown to the school and Mr. Hartman, a plentiful supply of beer, wine, and vodka.

  By nine o’clock the first floor was packed with enthusiastic high schoolers drinking, dancing, laughing, fooling around. Occasionally a couple would slip away and up the stairs for some more intimate fun.

  A pair of huge loudspeakers was set up at one end of the dining room with the volume turned to the approved ear-busting level. There were some up-tempo rock songs by the Beatles and the Doors and Little Richard, but more popular were the slow tunes by people like the Association and Frankie Valli and Bobby Vee.