Dance the Rocks Ashore

by Lesley Choyce

  “Three lights up. On the right. Is it dead?” She looked at him in a very strange way. So did the other girl. Everyone else was simply ignoring him. Wayne was crying. It felt right; he didn’t know why. But it helped him to gather his wits.

  Hurrying back to his car, he set the dog down on the front seat, dripping blood on the rugs. He ran to the other side and got in. Now people were watching him with curious expressions. Dumb bastards. Everybody too busy to help.

  The light was against him again. He tried to signal the guy in front of him to move and let him get going, light or no light, but without luck. Cranking the wheel hard to the right, he let out the clutch and jumped the curb, cutting across the sidewalk and the drugstore parking lot, then out into the blasted highway and off toward the vet.

  He noticed the handbrake still on, cursed and let it out. That would screw up the rear brakes just great, he knew; they were already almost shot, and he’d been holding off on buying new replacements. Expensive. “I’ll put it on your tab,” he muttered to the bleeding dog beside him. He noticed that he was panting, a good sign. Wayne smiled and felt a rush of tears down his face. “You’re going to be okay, kid,” he said over and over. The girl at the bus stop had called the dog it. Something about that he didn’t like. Even if you didn’t know the gender, he didn’t like anything living to be called it.

  The receptionist was very cool and collected and asked Wayne too many questions about whose dog it was and what had happened. He didn’t need that. “Look, lady, would you get someone to take care of the thing and ask me that stuff later.” She focused on his tear-stained face and then proceeded to get the doctor.

  Back in his car, Wayne looked at the blood on his hands and all over the seat. He wondered why he had called the dog a thing.

  Late again. He figured he had a legitimate excuse and blood to show for it. All he needed now, though, was for some cops to pull him over, see the blood, find the booze. It would be a lot of fun explaining his way out. Not really. They’d nail him for something. He didn’t exactly have a great rapport with cops. The hair was enough to convict him these days, and he was used to being stopped and searched on a regular basis. He wondered why he was dumb enough to be toting around the burgundy.

  And then he remembered why.

  He tried to hide the blood on his hands as he walked through the sterile halls of the nursing home, heading straight towards the janitor’s closet, where he scrubbed his fingers to the bone with lye soap. The superintendent pulled open the door abruptly as he was finishing.

  “There you are, Murdoch. Would you get some new bulbs down to those end rooms in the west wing? Just ’cause the patients are blind doesn’t mean the nurses don’t need light.”

  “Sure thing.” The door was closed again and he was alone in the janitor’s closet staring at a cabinet full of bleaches and detergents and assorted cleaning aids. Carl had called them “patients.” That was even after the big lecture last week by the owner saying they were supposed to refer to them as “clients.” Couldn’t we just refer to them as people? Wayne had wanted to say. But he had kept his mouth shut.

  He found Denise in Room 134. Good luck, one of the rooms where he had to replace the bulb. She was standing in the half-light by the window, staring out at the highway. Old Mrs. Albright was asleep. Sometimes she complained a lot, and they gave her lots of pills to keep the noise down. Seemed a shame in a way to spend your last few years of living conked out most of the time.

  Denise yawned. She hadn’t heard him come in.

  “Goofing off?” Wayne asked.

  “A bit, I guess. I’m kinda tired.”

  “Too much wine.”

  “Could be.” She had a dreamy look, almost perpetually. A very cute girl in every sense of the word. Not beautiful, just cute. Wayne didn’t go for the real beauties. They were either too snotty or had nothing at all in their brains. School seemed to be full of them, too. Lots to look at, plenty to get worked up over, but Wayne had learned his lesson more than once. He was tired of being fodder for that mill.

  “Did your mother find out that you were drinking?”

  “She didn’t really care. I had a nice time.” Denise seemed like such a gentle person. Soft. But there was always so much that she didn’t say. He never knew what really went on in her head. She liked the old people as much as he did. They weren’t just lumps of flesh to be fed and cleaned and worked around.

  Wayne liked to just look at her in her white uniform. A nurse’s assistant — an impossible job. She had to change bedpans and dirty sheets, really dirty, that is. Had to give baths to patients and help hold down struggling old men who didn’t want to get lanced by a needle morning after morning. Denise didn’t seem to mind it too much. Like Wayne, she found her odd moments to sit down with the old folks and get them to talk about the past, the way things used to be.

  Wayne remembered Mr. Connally telling him that he used to live just down the road, a house right on the highway, lived there for seventy years. In the same house. In the old days, the highway had only been a dirt trail for horses and buggies. Took almost a full day to get to Camden.

  Denise was dusting a few objects on the dresser, slowly, methodically, with care. Wayne couldn’t help but look at her from the back. Nothing fantastic, but pleasing: the swell of her hips, the delicate legs under nylon stockings. Her long brown hair that last night fell down to her waist was now tucked up in a bun, the way they were required to wear it here. “You have to make some sacrifices if you want a summer job,” she had said. Wayne watched the reflection of her face in the mirror as he positioned the chair under the ceiling fixture, ready to change the bulb.

  When Denise looked up to polish the large mirror in front of her, she saw Wayne staring and smiled, saying nothing. Wayne couldn’t help but smile back. Something about her. Nothing that she said; in fact, she said so little it was hard to say that he even knew her. The bulb slipped from his hand and crashed to the linoleum floor.

  “Damn.” He looked down at the splinters of delicate glass, hoping that no one out in the hall heard. He was getting a reputation for breaking things. Denise giggled.

  Mrs. Albright woke up, or pretended to. She had been awake all the time. Giving Wayne a wink, she pretended to be falling back to sleep again, but the thin ribbon of her puckered mouth gave her away with a smile. Denise helped Wayne to clean up the glass, and they both departed to other tasks.

  A few weeks ago, they had both worked together in the kitchen while the two Pakistani immigrants were off on their yearly vacations, home to families. Wayne couldn’t decide whether he like the work there better or worse. He was cut off from the old people more and a bit at the mercy of a middle-aged dietician who seemed to be coming on to him. But he got to know Denise, who helped him dish out mashed potatoes and peas and all kinds of sickening institutional food that they joked about. Stacking dishes and slogging them into the washing contraption seemed like evil work, though. Once he had burnt the hell out of his hand when he grabbed a try fresh out of the steam. He had been alone in the kitchen with Denise, and she came to his rescue, running to him like he was a child and then putting his hand under cold water. They had looked at each other suddenly with a strong, fixed stare. Something connected. But even as she looked, something went away from her. She just spaced out.

  Nonetheless, it was enough. Then the dietician burst in with a cart full of vitamin pills and said jokingly, “Just keep your hands off, sweetheart, he’s mine,” and left just as suddenly.

  Ever since the kitchen work, Wayne had thought that maybe he and Denise had something. He hated dates, though, and ended up taking her out in his car a few times, parking. They would sit in the smelly summer air down by the river and talk, listen to the ever-repeating songs on the radio, and eventually get around to something physical. Wayne always half-expected the cops to hassle them, but they never did. He always kept the doors locked in case other i
ntruders were up to no good. The awesome stone fortress of a prison across the river was reminder enough of the violence of the world. Maybe he should have “taken her out,” gone out to eat, to a movie, to a concert. But that wasn’t what he wanted out of life. He’d rather talk and get close, and sure, there was a bit of lust in there somewhere.

  At five o’clock every day, he punched out. This single act seemed to remind him invariably, “Murdoch, ol’ boy, you’re more than just a kid, you’re part of the work force.” Today he was punching out for Bill Gibson, another kid on a summer job, who had to leave early to get a new pair of tires for his Volvo. He smiled at Denise, and they both went off in their separate automobiles.

  Wayne drove the back way home through dozens of suburban streets, avoiding the highway. Despite the fact that the subdivisions were only about ten years old, the pavements were a disaster, the sidewalks crumbling and the houses faded and worn. Trees planted by the developers had fallen prey to gypsy moth and Dutch elm disease and stood sentinel over the decay.

  Why the Jesus hadn’t he asked her out again tonight? Wayne asked himself. In a way, he had just simply chickened out. That wasn’t uncommon for him. And then there was that chasm, that big empty gulf that seemed to be forming between them that didn’t make any sense. It was like the closer he thought they were becoming the further apart they were drifting. Was it him or was it her? That blank spot at the core of her softness. That final fog bank of silence toward the end of an evening where he felt that he had bared his soul. Maybe he was coming on too strong. Or not strong enough. More than once, he’d learned from a girl he fell for that his hang-up was that he didn’t come on strong enough. And he thought that he was trying to be polite, be cool. Crap.

  Well, the wine should have done it. A full gallon. And Denise had said that she was up for a good drunk with him. That’s when the barriers should have come down. If the cops had come, he would have told them to go-to hell. It was an important night.

  They both got fairly plastered and laughed and hooted and pawed each other a bit, but as soon as his kissing started to get serious, she sort of froze up, retracted. They both fell back silently into themselves, drinking more but getting more sober with each gulp of the burgundy. Finally, he took her home. He wanted to ask her out again tonight, hoping to pick up where they had left off. He was dead certain they were almost in love. It would take just a little more.

  Wayne sulked through supper, told his mother about the dog but refused to answer her questions about the details. His father asked him how the brakes were on the car, he knew they had been giving him trouble. Wayne didn’t own up to driving with the parking brake on. A phone call took his mother from the table, and when she came back she said it was just some little bit of business with her committee, nothing important. Then she asked if Wayne was going to be home for a while after dinner, and he said he’d be around for an hour or so.

  Near the end of that hour, a car pulled up and a girl got out with a cake. It was Silvy MacDonnal, one of the real knock-outs of the school, a big bosomy blonde girl who was on the cheerleading squad. An unattainable. What was she doing here with a frigging cake?

  Wayne’s mother opened the screen door and let her in. She walked over toward him with the cake as he stood up to say hi, nervous as hell. “Thanks for saving Fang,” she said, and, leaning across the cake, planted a big kiss on the cheek. Then she gave him the cake, which had left two flowers of icing on her blouse at the tip of each amazing breast. They were both a little embarrassed.

  Her mother and a gaggle of four little kids then emptied from the station wagon and came into the house, each one in turn thanking him for saving the life of their dog. Apparently he would live, they said, although he would probably limp for the rest of his days. “I’m glad to hear he pulled through,” Wayne said, trying to be cool. He didn’t like the situation at all and felt very uptight. The mother said that she had phoned some Oldsmobile dealer and told him the heroic story, and that Smilin’ Fred Bascom wanted to make him Citizen of the Month, that he’d send a reporter from the Record to get a picture and the story. There probably was a hundred bucks in it for him there somewhere. Before they all exited into the living room to leave him alone with Silvy, the mother cloistered him in a corner and asked him if the blood from the dog had seriously damaged the upholstery of the car, and, if so, how much did he want to get it cleaned? That had been the furthest thing from his mind, and he told her to forget it. She beamed at him, amazed. A hero, and modest at that. He hadn’t saved the dog for these people, he reminded himself, he did it for the bleeding beast. Wayne didn’t know why, but this whole display made him angry. At what? At those other maniacs on the road? At being rewarded? It was all junk; he didn’t even like cake.

  Left alone with Silvy, he was even more embarrassed. He knew who she was, but she had never given him the time of day. Now she sat there with a big dumb smile on her beautiful dumb face and asked about John Hersting, a friend of Wayne’s who was on the football team, somebody more in her class. He wanted to say, “Hey, what is this, don’t I get to sleep with you as part of my reward?” but he kept his peace. In the end, he got up to leave. He had had enough. He excused himself as he overheard them in the next room talking about the new shopping centre going in and ran out to his car, only to have to come back in, red-faced, a few minutes later to ask the MacDonnal family to move their blasted station wagon so he could get the hell out of there.

  Wayne’s mother asked him where he was going. There was a good reason he didn’t answer; he didn’t know.

  As soon as he hit the highway, though, and passed the corner where he had picked up the dog, he knew. He drove the ten miles to Denise’s house slowly, not wanting to get there too soon. The burgundy was still rattling around in the back, and he hoped that it wouldn’t be too hard to get her out of the house for the evening. He tried wiping off the dried blood from the seat with marginal success and decided they’d be better off sitting in the back.

  Her house was one of those anomalies of the suburbs, an old three-storey wood-frame farm house left standing in the middle of a regimented suburban landscape of split levels and oversize copy-colonial homes. He pulled to a stop by her driveway, hearing the squeal of metal against metal, the rear brake shoes scratching against the drums. More bucks out the window. Up ahead a car was pulling away from the curb. He could see two heads, a guy and a girl, meshed together. That was exactly what he needed right now. In a rare moment of self-realized honesty, Wayne thought to himself that, despite all his ego cravings, he truly had no desire to get laid. He just wanted to be close, really close, with a girl for once. With Denise. They had something in common, and damn it, maybe they were in love.

  Leaping from the car, he bounded up the sidewalk to the house. After trying the doorbell three times, he figured it must be busted and hammered away at the wood frame door with his hand. Someone was home, a TV show was blaring away inside. Cops chasing criminals, sirens, noise. A bleary-eyed middle-aged woman came to the door.

  “Yes?” He could smell the booze on her breath, whiskey and cigarettes.

  “Hi. Is Denise here? I’d like to see her.”

  “Oh, yes, now I remember your face. Murdoch, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. Something was wrong.

  “Sorry, Mr. Murdoch, she just left.” Panic

  “How soon will she be back?” Something wrong with my voice. I think she could tell.

  “Probably gone for the evening. Sorry, son.” She could see the hurt look on Wayne’s face. “Oh, hey, I am sorry. Look, you wanna come in and watch TV with me for a bit? I don’t think she’ll be back for some while, but you could kill some time.”

  “No. Thank you, but I don’t think so.” She almost looked as hurt as he did. Wayne stumbled off toward his car again, realizing that it had grown dark very quickly. Like he had lost an hour somewhere. “Kill some time?” he repeated to himself. Jesus, Mary and Joseph —
maybe that’s what it comes down to after all.

  Wayne sat down on the blood-stained seat, reached back and pulled up the bottom of the seat in the back, lifting the enormous jug of burgundy. It had a rich crimson foam from being jostled around for twenty-four hours. Wayne wondered if that would improve the taste.

  “An enriching bouquet,” he mimicked. “Smooth, yet aggressive. Mild, yet tantalizing.” He took another gulp. It tasted like shit. He was amazed at how little time it took him to polish the whole thing off.

  In the morning, he was abruptly awakened by someone knocking something against the window. Cops. He looked down at the empty bottle on the floor, the brownish dried blood on the blue carpet: a dog’s blood, but the blood of a survivor. The doors were locked, he’d had the forethought to push down the locks before he conked out.

  The cops looked more than annoyed. They were serious about something, suspicious. He lifted the lock and got out, realizing that he was still in front of Denise’s house. Had she come home? Was she in there looking out? Oh, Christ.

  “All right, son, spread ’em.”

  “Huh?” There was a big patch of fog in his skull, behind it, something discovered, something big.

  “Your legs. Up against the car.” He moved sluggishly, directed by where they were pushing him. Then they searched him, found nothing and turned him around.

  “All right, kid,” one of the cops said, annoyed. “What happened?”

  Wayne tried to focus clearly, to look the cop in the face. In a second he could see him clearly. The sun was brilliant this morning.

  “I said, what happened?” he repeated, more annoyed.

  Wayne steadied himself against the fender, took a deep breath and looked up toward a window that he thought to be Denise’s bedroom. She had probably already gone to work. He tried to explain to the cops that he really didn’t know what happened. He honest to God just couldn’t figure it out.