by John Rocco
“Nah, I don’t want to talk about it.” It sounds pretty weak, probably because I do want to talk about it. Darcy can tell.
“Come on, Jake,” Darcy says, looking around. “You got to let it out or your brain’s going to pop like that guy — what’s his name? — Ben.”
“Ben Dunn.” I laugh.
“Yeah, God knows we don’t need another Ben Dunn around here, so tell me what’s going on. Is your mom still talking about giving up the diner?”
“She hasn’t said anything lately, but I’ve been avoiding it with her anyway. Here’s the thing . . . we owe a lot of money to these guys, and if we don’t pay them by the end of the month, they are going to take the diner.”
“Oh, my God. I didn’t know that. How much do you owe, and to who?”
“Ten grand. To the Mafia . . . I mean, you know, those guys down at the Italian Club.”
Darcy’s eyes go wide. “That must be why she started in on you about moving to your grandmother’s.”
“Yeah, I figured out that much. Gene was going to help me. We were going to make the money to pay it off, and with Barrington Beach opening . . . but now that’s pretty screwed. I feel like all this stuff’s happening to mess me up, like it’s all a big test.”
“You mean like fate?” Darcy asks.
“I don’t know. Yeah, fate, I guess. Like Gene getting hurt just before the beach opens. I mean, why now?”
“Well, sometimes I believe in fate, but only when it makes sense or works out for me. Like the time I went to the movie theater, and that creepy guy followed me to the parking lot, and then, just then, my big brother shows up and chases the guy away. That was fate. And when I walked in to get some toast, and your mom said she was looking for waitresses, and she hired me right on the spot. That was total fate, because now I have tons of friends and Robin and Trax and Tommy and you. And I feel normal again.”
“Well, this fate thing isn’t working out too good for me right now.” I start playing with the saltshakers, because I’m feeling awkward and I don’t know what to do with my hands.
“Well, maybe it’s just bad luck,” Darcy says, eyeing the saltshakers that I keep knocking over. “We just have to work on changing your luck.” I’m running my fingers through the salt, creating little pathways across the tray.
Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Darcy puts her hand on mine. I can’t tell if she did it to stop my nervous twitching, or if she wants to hold my hand.
Maybe both.
I’m frozen stiff. I can’t move my hand, and I don’t want to. I force my hand to relax, and her slender hand softens and settles onto mine.
I can feel my ears turning red. Not because I’m embarrassed, but because I’m happy. No one’s saying anything; we’re just sitting together in the booth. I’m not looking at her, just staring out the front windows, and when my eyes drift down, I can see our reflection. Darcy’s looking too. She notices and smiles at me. It’s hard to see, but her eyes sparkle. I am afraid to look at her even though she’s only a foot away, and it feels like there is a fire burning between our hands.
In the glass, I see Robin walking in from the kitchen, carrying aprons. I pull my hand away quickly.
“Oh, sorry, sorry. I didn’t know you guys were in here . . . together.” Robin pretends to hide behind the aprons.
Darcy gets up and immediately starts cleaning the backs of the chairs at the next table. “We weren’t together.”
“She’s right. We weren’t together.” I scramble out of the booth, knocking all the saltshakers to the floor. I don’t know why I’m saying this because we were together for a minute or two, and besides, I like Darcy.
Now there it is.
I said it to myself and I keep saying it in my head. I like Darcy.
“I am glad you’re not together. I’ve been waiting for you to not be together all summer.” Robin piles the aprons into the hamper near the kitchen and disappears through the double doors. I look over at Darcy, and we both start laughing out loud just as my mom comes in and wrecks it all.
I know that I am going to be working with Captain again tonight, so when Tommy calls to see if I want to go skating, I think it might be a good chance to forget everything and blow off some steam.
“What’s up?” I say as Tommy slips through his front door, bringing his finger to his lips. I follow him down his steps and to the street. I motion to the window where his little sister, Annie, is staring hard and swishing one index finger across the other like she’s peeling a carrot. Tommy glares back and flinches at her with his balled up fist until she disappears and the shade settles back into place.
“Is she going to rat you out?” I ask, dropping my skateboard to the pavement.
“Nah. She’s all right. They’re all going down to the church today, some volunteer crap.” Tommy is about to put his skateboard down, then he looks at me. “But if you want to go with them, it should be real fun. I know how much you like to work.”
“Let me see, skating with you . . . or . . . working all day at the church with your five brothers and sisters.” I walk back toward his door.
“Come on, ya chowderhead.” Tommy punches me hard in the shoulder with his knuckle and takes off down the street.
For the next couple hours we don’t talk much. We’re just glad to be out skating around and practicing tricks. Tommy’s getting pretty good, and right now I suck. Unco on land, unco on wheels. I ollie up and try to grind across the curb on Water Street and fall headfirst into a parked car. Some people start staring, so we quickly cut over to Main Street and head north.
“Cherry Cokes at Deluca’s! I’m buying,” I say as we wind down the street.
“Of course you’re buyin’. What do you have, like six jobs now?”
We both get Cokes and continue to roll through town, playing follow the leader. Tommy takes a right on Kelly Street and heads down toward the Palmer River. I get this buzzy, hot feeling because the Italian-American Club is at the end of Kelly Street, and that’s where those loan sharks hang out.
“Where you going?” I kick my board to a stop about halfway down the street.
“Found something the other day. Come on.”
I follow Tommy toward the eelgrass at the end of Kelly, staring at the Italian-American Club on the right side of the street. It’s a one-story cinder-block building painted puke brown, with a big sign that’s exactly like the emblem that those guys who came into the diner had on the back of their jackets. There are eight cars and trucks in the lot, and a big sign over the windowless door that says MEMBERS ONLY. I want to take a wrecking ball to the place. I see it exploding in my head, bodies flying through the air and landing with a sucking wet thud in the marsh.
“Over here.” Tommy is darting through the eelgrass toward the beach. We used to come down here when we were little and collect old bottles and pottery ’cause it used to be the town dump. Tommy is sitting in an old rowboat half-filled with water, tied to a cinder block. The line is frayed, and it looks like no one has rowed this boat in fifteen years.
There’s a bailing scoop made from a cut laundry-detergent bottle floating in the stern. Tommy holds it up so I can see the bleached-out TIDE label printed on the side.
“Nice name for a bailer.” I laugh.
Tommy motions with his hands. “The tide runs into the boat . . . and the tide runs out of the boat.”
“Think it floats?”
Tommy steals a glance out into the Palmer River. “Only one way to find out. Be right back.” He jumps out of the boat and jogs back up the street. I grab the bailer and start getting the water out. Paint peels right off the deck with every scoop. I look up, and Tommy is lifting a set of oars from the back of a red pickup truck parked in the driveway of the Italian-American Club. He’s running with the oars, making twisted, serpentine movements through the marsh. Tommy’s always half stealing something. I mean, he borrows stuff he figures people don’t need, and then he brings it back later. I wonder if Tommy knows about the Law of Finds.
“It’s looking good now.” Tommy pants as he approaches and sees the nearly dry rowboat. He throws the oars in, and we both put our skateboards behind a nearby hedge because we don’t want anyone borrowing them.
Pushing the heavy, waterlogged boat over the shellcovered beach, I can see traces of oil oozing from the sand. It mixes with the water and creates colorful, swirling rainbows.
We cast off for Three Tree Island, which is a small, marshy island in the middle of the Palmer River. It has a sandy beach on one side, a rocky shoreline on the other, and three pathetic-looking trees in the middle. It used to have more trees, and a different name, but some kids were partying out there, and they had a huge fire going and they burned down almost the entire island. Idiots.
The boat seems to float, but it definitely requires two people to operate. One of us has to bail continuously while the other rows. I notice that every time Tommy pulls on the oars, his feet push the old plywood bottom down, and more water rushes into the boat.
“Step on these. You’re sinking us,” I say, pointing to the oak braces that hold the tub together. Three Tree Island is within a few hundred yards, so I figure we’ll make it there, but if we don’t, we can just swim it. God knows how we’ll get back.
To this point we are still dry, so I offer to row for a while. Tommy’s enjoying the ride, leaning back on the stern and letting his hands drag through the water.
I rest the oars on my lap and look back toward Warren. “Can I tell you something?”
Tommy sits up on his elbows. “What?”
I tell Tommy everything; the loan sharks, the money, how Gene was going to help me, the beach opening, Captain, the knife . . . everything. The only thing I don’t tell him is how I think this is all a test from my dad. He’d probably think I’ve lost it completely.
“So you’re going to work for a pirate? That’s awesome! Can I come?”
“No, you idiot. Captain would slice my throat for even telling you.” I say this as kind of a joke, but there may be some truth to it.
“You think you’ll make enough to pay them off ?” Tommy glances back at the Italian-American Club on the shoreline.
“I hope so.”
“I’ll figure out a way to help. I don’t want you moving away.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“I mean, where else am I gonna get free milk and donuts every morning?”
“You’re such a jackass.” I grab one of the oars and flick it hard on the water, sending spray all over him. Tommy grabs the other and does the same, and soon we’re both soaked from the volley of water.
Ten minutes later we hit bottom at the southern point of Three Tree Island. Tommy and I pull the boat onshore and tie the frayed rope around a barnacle-covered rock. People have definitely been out here. There’s a fire pit, and hundreds of beer cans and bottles litter the beach. Tommy’s already picking the cans up and tossing them into one of the onion bags also found onshore.
“What are you going to do with those?” I ask, sitting down on an old log by the fire pit.
“They’re worth five cents apiece over the border in Massachusetts. It’s like picking up nickels,” Tommy says, setting one bag into the boat and grabbing another. “Plus, this beach looks like a freakin’ dump.”
“Give me one of those bags.”
Pretty soon we’ve got five onion bags filled with cans, two bags of bottles, and one bag of trash all piled up in the rowboat.
“It’s looking good now.” Tommy surveys the beach with a broad grin.
I plop myself down in the sand and take off my wet sneakers and shirt, setting them out to dry. I close my eyes and feel the warm sun on my face. I’m feeling like a kid again. I’m feeling like I did last summer when things were easy, before my dad disappeared, before I turned into a freaky tall Unco. Before my world started falling apart. Let it go. Just let it go for right now. Let it go until tonight, until I meet up with Captain.
I hear Tommy marching off into the eelgrass, but I keep my eyes closed and lie still in the sand, waiting for that easy feeling to drift back into my body.
Tommy comes back to the fire pit with a rusty iron pot that looks like it belonged to a witch, a piece of angle iron that must have come off a sunken boat, and a pair of broken and twisted eyeglasses.
“Time to make a fire,” Tommy says, dropping everything at my feet.
“I thought your matches got soaked.”
“They did.” Tommy starts gathering some dried seaweed and crumbling it up into a small pile. I’m watching closely now as he moves the one remaining lens of the eyeglasses around, trying to find the best angle.
“Is that going to work?”
“I don’t know. I guess a magnifying glass would be better, or binoculars . . .”
“Or dry matches?”
“Those too.”
Tommy’s face is inches from the ground, and beads of sweat are gathering on his forehead as he concentrates on the pinpoint of light. Tommy is the thriftiest guy I know. He’s always finding ways to reuse stuff that most people would just throw away. I guess part of that comes from having two older brothers. By the time he gets their hand-me-down stuff, he’s got to find a way to fix it up and make it last all summer. The sneakers he’s wearing now have new soles glued on that he cut from old tires he found. Sometimes he’ll get caught picking through people’s garbage, so a ton of kids at school call him Trashman Tommy. He’s the best recycler you ever saw.
“Grab some small sticks, quick.” Tommy’s legs are twitching as a whisper of smoke begins to curl from the seaweed. I pick up some dried eelgrass and lay it in his outstretched hand. Tommy blows softly on the pile, and it sparks to life like magic. He cups his hand around the precious flame and arranges a bunch of the eelgrass sticks in a tepee around it. The sticks catch quickly. Tommy adds more fuel, and suddenly there is a beautiful, dancing orange flame.
“I MAKE FIRE!” Tommy is stomping around and beating his chest like a caveman. He puts the broken glasses on his face and dances, throwing both arms in the air. I’m staring at the fire, laughing my butt off because I am just so amazed he did it.
Tommy picks up the witches’ pot and hands it to me, speaking like a caveman. “I made fire. You make lunch, oooh, ooh.”
“All right, all right.” I grab the pot and take it down to the edge of the water. I lift a handful of wet sand into the pot and begin scraping its rusty insides until the original color of the metal comes back. It looks good enough to cook in. I fill the pot with salt water and add rockweed for flavor, then carry the pot back and rest it on the metal grate that Tommy set up with the angle iron.
“You gonna feed me rockweed?” Tommy asks, staring into the pot.
“Sit tight, relax, watch, and learn,” I say in a cocky tone.
The fire is going really good, and pretty soon the water on the outside of the pot begins to sizzle.
Stripping off my shorts, I walk into the Palmer River up to my chest, feeling with my feet for quahogs. The silky mud slides through my toes as I search. It’s not long before I find a nice little patch of quahogs, and I’m dunking under and pulling out one quahog after another, sometimes two at time. I forget to bring a bag or bucket or something to put them in, so I just stuff them into my underwear.
I must look pretty whacky, walking out of the river with twenty-seven quahogs stretching my underwear to the limit. I feel good, like I have accomplished something, just like Tommy did with the fire.
“I hope you’re not expecting me to eat those.” Tommy crinkles his nose, and his upper lip on one side is quivering dramatically as I start dropping them into the pot.
“Best you’ve ever tasted.” I laugh and grab the pocketknife out of my shorts. “Now I’m going to get some blue crabs.”
“You putting those in your underwear too?”
“No, yours.”
I find a straight stick and quickly shave the end into a point as I walk around toward the north side of the island, where there is some shade an
d I can see through the water better.
I’m real quiet, ready to stab crabs. They’re very quick if they sense you and can swim away with their legs. I’m crouching now and see one hanging out just behind a rock. Bam! I get one and then two and three and four.
The pot is boiling now, and the crabs are still fighting back with their blue pinchers. We watch them all turn red in a flash as we drop them into the water.
Fifteen minutes later we’re both eating like animals. Tommy’s a raccoon, crouching down at the water’s edge, using a small rock to crack the claws.
“We should just live out here, you know?” I suggest.
Tommy looks up at me, with pieces of white crabmeat all around his mouth. “What, out here on the Palmer River?”
“Yeah. Here, or Prudence Island, anywhere.”
Tommy drops a claw into the sand. “You don’t think you can get the money to save the diner, do you?”
“Come on, let’s start heading back,” I say, moving toward the rowboat, avoiding his question. Tommy washes off his hands and follows me.
“That’s a real question . . . isn’t it? It hurts like a real question?”
“Too real. You just ruined the day,” I say, totally bummed out now.
“What can I do to help?” Tommy asks, concerned.
“You have any way to make nine grand real quick?” I ask sarcastically.
“Bottles and cans, Jake. You know how much money we’re gonna make for returning this stuff?” he says, all serious.
“No, how much?”
“I’ll bet there’s fifteen, maybe twenty, bucks’ worth of cans and another five worth of bottles,” he says, all proud. “The other trash isn’t worth anything.”
“That’s great, Tommy. Now we just need to fill another two thousand bags of cans. That sounds like a perfect idea.” I laugh as I push the boat back out into the water.
The river is flat calm this afternoon, and I think we are going to be okay in this overloaded rowboat, until I see that snot, Vinny Vile, racing around in his Boston Whaler. I start to row, keeping one eye on Vinny’s boat. Now I’m sure that he is veering toward us.