“Look at you, tough guy from Brooklyn.” Angela said. “We went to the bathroom by ourselves and already, you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared.” I said. “I just don’t want to get eaten by no bear.”
“We’re right by the highway.” Marty said. “No bears around here, maybe some wolves. Hey Angie, didn’t we see a wolf back there in the woods?
“You mean the wolf with the stripe down its side? That wolf?”
“Cut it out, you two. I see a wolf, I’m putting a bullet between its eyes and asking questions later.”
“You don’t see the wolf attack, it gets you from behind and bites your neck.” Marty said.
“Yeah, like a vampire.” Angela said, clearly enjoying teasing me.
“Oh, shut up already. You two with the jokes.” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We were driving for like a half hour or something and the sun started to come up. Now instead of just the occasional big truck whizzing by more cars were are the road. Looking out the window, I noticed that what I thought was the wilderness was actually the suburbs, big houses with lawns and trees and sometimes a swimming pool out back. The big green signs on the highway said we were passing Boston and heading out to the ocean. We drove for another hour or so and out of nowhere this big bridge loomed up out of nowhere. You could see it from a couple of miles away and it looked like it was suspended on air.
When we got closer, a rotary spun traffic in circles and we drove around it like it was a Hot Wheels track and got onto the bridge.
“Wow.” Angela said. “Would you look at this view, look how high we are. This is amazing.”
I hung my head out of the window and let the wind, which smelled like the ocean, blow across my face. The water was like hundreds of feet down and the boats I could see looked like toys in a tub.
“You like this, Marty?” I asked, but when I turned around she was sleeping.
“Look.” Angela said. “The sign, “Welcome to Cape Cod.” We’re here.”
I leaned over and kissed Angela. “Yup, we are.”
“Where should we go?” Angela asked. “And I need to stop, we have to get gas.”
“Stop at the first place you see. We’ll figure it out there, look at the map again. I want to go to those pirate towns down near the end.” I said.
“After we get gas, you drive, my ass hurts.”
I saluted her. “Yes, sir.” I said.
There was a big gas station attached to the highway and we pulled off and stopped. My legs were all tight and achy from the ride. The first thing I did was stretch out in the parking lot next to a little store. I bent down keeping my knees locked and touched my toes. I tried to hold it for ten seconds but Angela was pinching my ear so I stood up. “What are you doing?” She said.
“Stretching. That was a long ride.”
“Should we wake Marty up?”
“Yeah, get her up. She’s been sleeping for a while now. Maybe she has to pee or something.” I said. “I’ll do it.”
My first instinct was to scare her but she looked so peaceful curled up under a sweater that I didn’t. I brushed her cheek with my hand and whispered at her. “Hey. Hey.”
Her eyes opened slowly and she sat up and looked out of the car. “Where are we?” She asked, half-yawning.
“A gas station. A gas station on Cape Cod.”
“No shit?” She said.
“Shit.”
“Really?”
“Yup.” I said, probably looking like I owned the place.
Those pictures were in my kitchen for so long, I kind of thought this place didn’t exist. You know, like a place in a fairy tale.”
“It’s real, all right. Smell the air. That isn’t the garbage we’ve been inhaling all our lives. Nope, this is clean, ocean-fresh, one-hundred-percent real air, the good stuff. The kind of thing you read about in books.”
She inhaled. “Yeah, you’re right and this is just a gas station.” She got out of the car.
Angela came out of the store with some stuff and a tray holding three large coffees.
“What did you get? I asked.
“Coffee and some scones.”
“Scones? What the fuck is a scone? Something for the car?”
She laughed. “No, dick-brain. It’s like a little cake.”
“Never heard of it. Sounds like an insect, you know, a bug.”
“They’re like, English things, scones.” Marty said. “We’re in New England now -- you get English things here. Not like Brooklyn.” Then here face sort of crumbled and she started to cry. “They killed Junior.” She said. “They killed him. He was my boyfriend. I loved him so much. We were going to get married, maybe.”
The minute something bad happens to me, I bury it. I don’t know where it goes but as long as it’s out of sight I don’t care. Seeing Marty start crying like that, like automatically, like a light changing color, really struck me. I mean, I wasn’t going to start crying or anything but it reminded me that I had feelings too. And those feelings, all rushing to my brain at once got tangled in my throat and I struggled to say something. It sounded like I had a frog in my throat. I was just grunting words and not making sense. I mean, I was making sense from my perspective. I was saying that I was upset too. I just didn’t know how to express my feelings. Not that you can translate shit like that for someone. I cleared my throat and almost at the same time Angela and I threw our hands around Marty and let her cry.
Some guy in a suit came over and asked if everything was all right. I turned and told him to fuck off -- mind his own business. He looked at me like I was from another planet before walking away. He was right, I was from another planet, it was called “Look at me funny and I’ll knock your teeth out.” Well, not really. I mean I wasn’t like that.
After Marty settled down, we hit the road again. After a while the highway ended and we were driving on a small narrow street with the ocean nowhere in sight. In some places, sand was blowing across the road, so I knew it had to be somewhere. We passed a shop that was selling floats and surfboards, tee shirts and all kinds of shit. Both of the girls were sitting in the back and they started yelling. “Stop, go back. We need bathing suits and towels.” I pulled off the road and doubled back and angled to a stop in a parking lot covered with crushed seashells.
“You coming in with us?” Angela asked.
“Nope, I’ll wait here.” I said. “Here’s fifty bucks, get me some too. That should cover everything.”
They both trotted across the parking lot and ran into the store. I waited by the car smoking a cigarette and watched the traffic pass. Mostly, it looked like families in station wagons with shit tied to the top of their cars. One car looked like it was loaded with everything the family owned, including four or five bikes.
The girls were taking like forever in the store, so I walked over to this little shack and I bought a soda. By the time I walked back they were there waiting by the car. They were basically dancing around with excitement and holding up these tiny bikinis. Marty’s was red and Angela’s was blue. “What about me?” I asked. “I’m not swimming nude.”
“Oh, we’d like that, wouldn’t we, Angie.” Marty said.
“Yeah, but probably the other people on the beach wouldn’t. We got you this.” She said, holding up this crazy looking bathing suit. “It’s what the surfers in California wear.”
“Fuck California. I’m not wearing that thing. People will laugh at me.” I said.
“Maybe if you were wearing it on Kings Highway they would, but not here. Everyone wears them. I asked the girl in the store. She lives here year round. She also said there are some really cheap cottages about two miles down the road. Like ten dollars a night and they have everything, a kitchen, bathroom, and grills outside to cook on. She said they are just like a mile from the beach. Just down the road in a place called Wellfleet.”
“That’s the pirate place.” I said. “You get towels too?”
They both shook their he
ads. “Two towels each.” Marty said. “And we got flip-flops too.”
“Flip-flops?” I said. “What are they?”
“Beach shoes.” You’ll see.” Angela said. “Like sandals.”
“Oh, now I’m wearing sandals?” I said. “What next?”
“Oh, we got sunglasses too.” Marty said.
“Jesus Christ. You two can really shop.”
“We’re pros.” Angela said.
Marty put her thumb in the air. “Fucking A.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
We rented a cottage at this place called Pine Hollow, or some shit. It was off the main road and surrounded by trees. There was a television bolted to the wall and two beds that both seemed to sag in the middle. I guess if I knew what cute was I’d say it was cute. The girls were convinced that it was totally cute. Me, I’d call it beachy, mainly because sand was everywhere. Outside there was a little patio and a grill with a picnic table beside it. A line was strung between two trees so you could hang up your stuff after you went to the beach.
“Go ask the lady who runs this place where the beach is.” I asked Angela. We were just lying around relaxing after the long drive. “We might as well spend the afternoon there, right?” I said.
Marty called out from the bathroom. “I’ll go too.” Then, she came out wearing her new bikini. “What do you think?” She asked.
“You look good, Marty.” I said. Which wasn’t exactly what I was thinking. I mean “good” wasn’t even close.
“Oh.” Angela cooed. “Marty, you’re so pretty. I’m jealous.”
Marty didn’t disagree but just smiled at the two of us. “Go change, Angie. Then we’ll go over there and find out about the beach. And you….” She was pointing at me. “Change while we’re gone and then we can go.”
Angela changed and I watched the two of them walk over to the office, which was just down the road. Both of them were wearing their bikini tops and cut-off shorts. They both had their new sunglasses on and were wearing plastic sandals, flip-flops, whatever.
I went through my stuff, and found the gun and tucked it under the mattress. Then, I changed into my new bathing suit. There wasn’t a mirror in our room so I went into the bathroom and stood on the toilet to check it out using the mirror on the bathroom wall. The thing looked stupid just sitting there and worse on me. At least, that’s what I thought. I put my sunglasses on and brushed back my hair. Now we’re talking, this is better. Then I went outside and sat on the picnic table waiting for the girls to come back. I sat smoking in the sun and tried to put Brooklyn behind me. It wasn’t easy. I mean everything I thought about had to do with the place. Somehow, it followed me if you know what I’m saying. I was fine if I actually was thinking of something specific but if I drifted, I drifted right back there. It was like if you were trying to escape from some island by swimming away from it but the tide just kept pushing you back. No matter how hard you swam, it was pointless. Every time you turned around, the island was closer. Not that I wasn’t starting to enjoy myself, I mean, I was. Just seeing the girls in their new beach stuff cracked me up, among other things.
Someone whistled and I looked up. It was Angela. She started running and came up and hugged me. “Look at you, surfer boy.”
“These things look stupid.” I said.
“No they don’t.”
“You find out about the beach?” I asked.
“Yup. It’s just down the road. White Crest Beach. Woman says it’s the nicest beach down here, big waves too.”
“Where’s Marty?”
“She’s looking at maps and stuff. Talking to the lady.”
“Well, lets go. I’m ready for a swim. It’s getting hot already.” I said.
“She’ll be back in a minute.”
“You O.K? “
“Me, what? I’m fine. I mean I feel bad about Junior but I can’t think of any of that shit right now.” I said. “Not here. Not this far away from everything.”
“You looked like you were thinking about something.” She said.
“Trust me, I’m fine. And soon I’ll be sitting on the beach with a cold beer and two beautiful girls beside me. What more could you want, huh?”
“She is beautiful, isn’t she? I mean she takes my breath away and I’m a girl.”
“I guess so. But I was just saying… You know, not like I meant anything by it.”
“I know. I’m not accusing you of anything.”
I kissed her and she wrapped her arms around my neck. “Hey, you’re strangling me.”
“That’s nothing.” She said. “Wait till later.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Promise?”
“Yup. Promise.”
Marty came back and was shaking her head. “Woman in there said I had an accent. I’m like, you mean Spanish? She goes, no, New York. Cracks me up. You hear her, Angie? She thinks we have an accent.”
“I know.” Angela said. “People up here talk funny. Like they have stuff stuck up their nose, all congested, or something.” She made a noise. “I can’t do it.” She said. “But it’s funny that she thinks we have an accent.”
“Not to interrupt or anything, but let’s go to the beach already.” I said.
We all piled into the car with me driving. “Stop at a store so we can get some beer and sandwiches.” Angela said. “And maybe get a surf board for you.”
I punched her on the arm lightly. “I’ll give you a surf board.”
We drove a couple of miles before spotting this store that was off the main road. I drove up to it and stopped in front. “I’ll handle this.”
I went in and picked up a case of beer, some ice and this plastic cooler that had a shoulder strap. I got a couple of packs of cigarettes and asked for three Italian heroes, with everything. The woman behind the deli counter looked at me puzzled. “What do you want, a hero?” She asked.
“Yeah, three of them.”
She was acting like I was fucking with her. “Heroes?” She asked.
Yeah, heroes, you know, sandwiches. Italian with everything, oil and vinegar, some hots, everything.”
Oh, a sandwich.” She said. “We have ham, turkey, and roast beef. For cheese, we have American. For bread we white and bulky rolls. And you can get mustard or mayo on your sandwich.”
I’m thinking we’re talking two different languages here. “You don’t have Italian cold cuts?”
“They might be Italian, I don’t know. But all we have is ham, turkey and roast beef.”
“You have hots?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” She says.
I go. “You know, peppers. Hot peppers.”
She shakes her head no.
“Just give me three roast beef sandwiches on those rolls you’re talking about. Just make them plain.” I stand there and watch as she slices the meat and then opens a plastic bag and takes out these pathetic looking rolls. “No fresh bread around here?” I ask.
Brooklyn 1975 Page 27