by Bryn Roar
“You have brown eyes, Ralph Tolson.”
“Hmmm. So it’s my studly physique?”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Making fun of yourself. I don’t like it. When you pick on yourself, you’re picking on one of me best friends…and it pisses me off.”
Despite Josie’s grim demeanor, Tubby couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Josie punched him in the arm, hard enough to leave a heckuva bruise later on. “OW!!”
“See? Don’t mess with my friends, Tolson.”
“Got it. And, um…thanks, Big Red.”
“Don’t mention it. Now, if you’re all done making me mad, I’ll tell you how you remind me of Bud.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s better. You have the same inner-something that attracted me to Bud in the first place. To be honest, I don’t understand why girls aren’t beating a path to you.”
“Inner something? Tubby laughed in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” Josie reared back her arm, her hand clenched in a fist, poised to strike him again. “Okay! Okay! I’ll take your word for it! But would you care to elaborate, Mrs. O’Hara?”
Josie shrugged and turned over, lying on her stomach. “I’d like to, Ralphie, but I don’t know how. You can’t define the indefinable, you know.”
“The indefinable?”
Tubby’s eyes ran the length of Josie’s body—from the back of her head, where her hair was tied off in a ponytail, down to her smooth, unblemished back, her muscles flexing just underneath the surface of her skin. His eyes caressed her every inch of the way. Down to her rounded buttocks, snugly encased in the green bottom, which, despite their modesty (by today’s standards, anyway), showcased that dual pinch of butt flesh very nicely; on down to her long legs, his gaze lingering at her feet, both of which rested on her very pretty toes. Flexed on top of the beach towel, digging into the sand underneath it.
Josie turned her head and saw his eyes undressing her. Despite her usual feelings about being ogled, she found herself enjoying his adoration. She wasn’t kidding Ralph about that indefinable “Something.” Like her Bud, Tubby had it in spades. A depth of character that neither boy was at all aware of. Josie found that level of sincerity immensely sexy in a man, whether he had the body of an Adonis, like Bud, or the complexion and physique of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, like Tubby. “Keep on losing weight, tiger, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If George Clooney gained a hundred pounds, would he still not be the same glorious hunk of a man?”
“Most people would disagree with you, Joe.”
Josie leaned up on her elbows and worked open her beach bag. She retrieved a bottle of suntan oil and tossed it to Tubby. “Yeah, well most people don’t have my insight,” she told him, completely in earnest. “Now make yourself useful and put some of that lotion on my back and legs.” She untied the back of her bikini top, laying the ends to either side of her now squashed chest.
Tubby gawked at the sight of Josie’s right breast, bulging out from the side. God, a woman’s body is a marvel of human flesh, he thought in awe. Rounded in all the right places. Soft, in all the right places. Curves, right where they ought to be. Well, in Josie’s case, anyway.
He swallowed down the lump in his throat and, like Bud earlier, did math problems in his head to keep a certain body part distracted. He squirted some of the oil on his trembling hand, flinching at the obscene sound it made, like the shampoo bottle in Josie’s bathroom. He gave a quick, guilty glance down the beach, looking for his other friends. Bud and Rusty were nowhere in sight, though. Resigned to the task at hand, he timidly rubbed the lotion on Josie’s bare back. He knew there was nothing wrong with her innocent request, but the imagery running through his mind (that old prevert, Benny Hill was back to his shenanigans), told his heart he was once again betraying a sacred trust.
He left her back half done, hoping it would suffice.
“Don’t be a wuss, Ralphie. I promise I won’t bite. Come on, be a pal and help me even out my tan.”
Tubby did as she asked, putting another coat of Coppertone on her back. He smoothed out the oil, and was wondering how he could get out of doing her legs, when he heard: “What’re you trying to do, Hoss? Steal my girl?”
He turned in horror to see Bud and Rusty ambling towards them, their hands full of dripping ice cream cones. Jeepers! Caught red-handed! Or so Tubby imagined.
He got up and raced to the surf before anyone could see the boner pushing out the front of his baggy shorts.
Josie kicked her legs in the air. “You get back here, Ralph Emerson Tolson! You didn’t finish the job! Okay! Just for that, I’m eating your ice cream!”
*******
As Hurricane Jack’s outer bands brushed the Wilmington coastline, and brought a light rain on the beachgoers, sending everyone scrambling for cover, the four kids from Moon Island picked up their belongings and made for the public showers. Tubby, of course, had worried for naught. Bud wasn’t the least bit jealous about him rubbing suntan oil on Josie’s back. After taking her cone from Bud, she’d simply assigned the unfinished labor to him.
From his lonely vantage point out in the tepid ocean, Tubby had watched Bud rub lotion all over Josie’s long legs, his thumbs teasing the upper reaches of her thighs before retreating to a more discreet distance.
Gee…those could have been my hands, Tubby had thought belatedly. It took fifteen minutes for his erection to wilt under the green waves.
When he finally waded out, his friends had fallen asleep. Tubby sat down on the Budweiser towel and pulled his wet sweatshirt away from his chest.
Ninety minutes later it started to drizzle.
Naturally, as soon as they showered, the sun came back out in force. They weren’t interested in going back to the beach, though. They put on their spare shorts and shirts Josie had pulled from her seemingly bottomless bag, and set off for town, feeling that pleasantly drowsy sensation that comes from lazing about at the beach. Josie must have brought along her shampoo, because Tubby could smell the strawberries as soon as she stepped out of the ladies’ shower. Strawberries, salt, and coconut oil. Tubby inhaled deeply, thinking he could make a million bucks if he could somehow bottle that intoxicating mélange.
They’d left their club jackets on the boat, so Josie felt they needed to make a fashion statement that connected them as a group. At a tacky tourist shop on the boardwalk, she bought four pairs of dark sunglasses: the kind the Blue’s Brothers wore in that movie. Josie, of course, looked like a film star on vacation, attempting to hide her identity from the teeming masses. And by the sidelong stares she received, as they walked arm-in-arm down the street, Tubby thought other passersby’s had had the same notion. Bud looked cool in his glasses, dark and dangerous. A beefy James Dean. Even Rusty managed to look good in the shades, perched atop his eyeglasses, even though he claimed all black people looked stylish in shades. Tubby saw his reflection in a passing window and cringed at how foolish he appeared. How the glasses made his face look even fatter. He was tempted to take them off but didn’t want to hurt Josie’s feelings. She was laughing and seemed so inordinately pleased by her idea that he made up his mind to deal with it. It was the least he could do for the woman he worshiped.
They had no real destination in mind; they were just having fun meandering down the boardwalk together. Stopping here, browsing there. No hurries, no worries. Rusty wasn’t buying it, though. He understood the underlying reason behind their aimless wandering. Josie and Bud were distracting themselves from the date at hand. In fact, no one had even made mention of the informal memorial service they had planned for later on that night.
They came upon an old run-down movie theater (the sort, Tubby noted, his dad used to flip) playing a Hitchcock retrospective. They were in time to see Psycho and The Birds back-to-back. It seemed fortuitous, and they decided to go in, even though both movies were old hat to them by now. Rusty offered to buy everyone popcorn. Tubby said no thanks. Josie asked f
or extra butter on hers, and she and Bud giggled wildly.
It was such a weird sight to see Bud Brown giggle that both Tubby and Rusty stared at him in open wonder.
They took their seats and Bud checked his watch as the house lights dimmed. “Three o’clock,” he said. “I wonder what the old man’s up to right now.”
*******
Ham had told Rusty to make sure they were back before eight o’clock, so they could have a late supper before making the return trip to Moon. Gnat hustled his friends along, all of whom wanted to linger in the shops and bookstores that lined the waterfront. They perused a huge comic book store and were delighted to find it didn’t have a thing on Moon Man’s. After picking up some flowers on their way back, Josie insisted on stopping off for ice cream again—demanding this time that Tubby at least have a low fat cone. Despite all the frequent stops, Rusty still managed to get them back in time.
Tubby was relieved to find his mom and dad feeling much better. In fact, they’d decided to make the return trip on board the Betty Anne. After the late supper, consisting of Mrs. Tolson’s homemade lasagna, they prepared to shove off. While Ham was having the Betty Anne refueled, Bud and Josie made one last run to the payphones. Frank and Emma took their Dramamine and crossed their fingers, while Betty Anne excused herself to go to bed. She hadn’t touched her food, and her eyes seemed to shine with fever.
“I think I might be coming down with a cold,” she mumbled to Ham on her way down to their bunk. Ham said nothing; just rubbed his shoulder where his wife had bitten him earlier. Like the scratch on Betty Anne’s wrist, it looked infected.
As soon as his boat was far enough offshore, where the coast was but a chalky line on the horizon, Ham shut down the engines and dropped anchor. He went down to the galley, where everyone but his wife had gathered together. It bothered him that Betty Anne was forgoing the memorial service they’d had planned since the day before. In fact, the memorial had been Betty’s idea and it wasn’t like her to skip it. No matter how poorly she was feeling.
Ham nodded to Bud and Josie. The two of them looked solemn and sadly introspective. Rusty handed him his well-worn Bible and smiled up at him, giving Ham the strength to carry on with this difficult task. He led the way on deck, the others following silently behind in single-file. The moon was full and bright, red as a ruby stone. He checked his watch and felt his goddaughter’s eyes upon him. Eight years ago, near about this time, Joe Rusty O’Hara was lost to them both, to the same sea now calmly lapping against the Betty Anne’s hull. Ham gave Josie an encouraging smile and then looked over at Bud standing tall next to her. An hour or so earlier that same fateful night, a lunatic had taken Bud’s mother from him, forever scarring the boy with those evil images seared into his young mind. He didn’t think it an accident that these two would eventually seek out each other. Their love seemed as ordained as Adam and Eve’s.
Ham opened the Bible to his favorite chapter and verse. “The Lord is my Shepherd…I shall not want…
*******
Afterwards, Josie and Bud dropped the flowers they’d bought in Wilmington into the churning wake of the Betty Anne, watching them float off into the dark sea behind them. Everyone else went below, leaving Bud and Josie alone with their thoughts, their memories, and more importantly one another. Many times, in both their lives, people with the best of intentions had often said to them:
I know how you feel…I lost my father at an early age, too…my mother was killed in a car crash…Time heals all wounds, you know…They’re in a better place…God never gives us more than we can handle…This too shall pass…I know how you feel. I know how you feel. I know how you feel. I know how you feel…
Fact was neither of them had ever met anyone who knew how they felt. For Josie the closest anyone got—besides Bud—was her Uncle Ham, who had lost his father in the exact same manner. Fallen overboard with no one to witness his misstep. Of course, Ham’s father was over sixty when he drowned. And they’d found Jessie’s body.
The young couple stood there on the stern, watching the stars show off above them. Neither said a word as they held on to each other and shared a grief that until that moment had always been a solitary burden. Their newfound love had been the first sign either of them had had—since losing their beloved parent—that life did indeed go on for the grieving. That happiness was still attainable for that sad, lonely lot.
Their tears became one as they leaned into a kiss.
Bud smiled at Josie and wiped away her tears. “I love you, Josie Lee O’Hara.”
Josie grasped his face and wiped his cheeks dry with her thumbs. “I love you, too, Bud William Brown.”
The Betty Anne sailed blithely on; her passengers unaware of the horrors which awaited them on the horizon; unaware, even, of the horror that resided upon that very vessel. Some of them would not make it home.
Others would wish they never had…
*******
Bill Brown listened to the sweet sound of silence as the last remnants of Hurricane Jack left Moon to the night’s tender mercies. The hurricane’s worst winds had come through at about eight o’clock, sounding very much like a freight train passing by on the sidewalk. Yet mingled in with the usual storm sounds—metal ripping, glass breaking, trees crashing, and the howling wind and rain—was something else. Something altogether worse.
At the time Bill couldn’t identify it—though, to him, it sounded like screaming. He’d intended on saving the gas in his emergency generator, until after the storm passed, but the unceasing screams had gotten to him. They had an unearthly quality that made him feel like a little boy again, awake in his bed late at night. Scared and all alone. Bill had cranked on the generator, and the light and loud noise of the motor had all but dispelled the outside shrieks and screams. Little did he know it saved his life as well.
To take his mind off the storm and what it was doing to his beloved building, Bill decided to develop the film from Josie’s camera. He was doubtful that the pictures would reveal much in the way of information. The words were likely to be a blur. Photos of documents usually were.
To his surprise, there was enough intelligible information there to chill his blood. As well as answer a few troubling questions. The pictures, while indeed blurry in most places, had revealed some frightening facts and history of the manufactured virus…
Bill strained to hear above the generator. Had there been more to the screams than just the wind shrieking through the Pines? He wasn’t so sure anymore...
Around about midnight, he checked the front doors for seepage. Dry as a bone. He knew it wasn’t some false lull, either. While he was downstairs in his dark room, the back end of the hurricane had passed over the island.
He pressed his ear to the plywood sheet covering the front entrance and listened to the sound of falling rain. He was about to pry off the board when he realized he still wouldn’t be able to see past the steel shutters on the other side. Besides, he didn’t want to open up the floodgates!
If there had been a storm surge, it would be better to wait for the tidal waters to recede.
He loped up the stairs, to get a bird’s eye view from the rooftop. The first thing that struck Bill was the absence of his son’s clubhouse. The hurricane had snatched the cinderblock structure right off the roof! The only thing left to prove it was once there were a few remnants of ugly shag carpet. He shuddered at the thought of all those flying missiles in the air: The cinder clocks, the Fridge, that big damn TV! The other thing that struck him was the near absence of sound. It was still raining, but the winds had died altogether. Except for the patter of rain, the night was eerily still. Bill skirted the large puddles on the rooftop, to get to the edge, fronting the street below.
By the light of the moon, now peeking through the thinning clouds, he could see Mr. Wilky’s small sailboat, beached right there in the middle of Main Street.
Beached, was the operative word. The waters it had once sailed upon were thankfully gone.
�
��Would you look at that,” Bill whistled, impressed. He was about to head back downstairs, relieved that the storm surge had receded, when he stopped, puzzled.