Car Trouble

by Robert Rorke

  “Eugene O’Neill,” she said. “He writes a lot about alcoholics.”

  Brian had filled me in after our last class together. He’d said, “O’Neill was haunted by his past but he turned it into art.” Knowing that I’d be seeing Brian so soon after he left school cheered me up. Come September, Larry was going to be my best friend—my only friend—at school.

  I told Immaculata Brian was leaving St. Mike’s for Brooklyn Tech.

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Well, we knew he wasn’t going to make it after that fight at McDonald’s with that Tilden crowd. That was ridiculous.”

  Immaculata could take a word like “ridiculous” and stretch it out to seven syllables. I smiled, but I didn’t say anything else; I figured she’d let it drop. She didn’t.

  “How’s your sister, Nicky?”

  “She’s living out here for the summer, helping my aunt out with her kids. She’s got a lot of little kids, and it gets Maureen out of Brooklyn for a while.”

  “Oh, brother. You said it. You still have that gold jumpsuit?”

  I laughed. “Yeah.”

  Vinnie came over to the blanket with a dripping vanilla ice cream cone, soft serve, with sprinkles. “You guys seen Gina?”

  I shook my head.

  Then I heard her voice. “I’m right here.”

  She was standing right next to us, facing the water. Except for the curly hair, which had grown back to half its Judy Collins length, I wouldn’t have recognized her. All that time in a cast had made Gina plump—she wasn’t even wearing a bathing suit, just denim shorts and some kind of loose-fitting muslin shirt, white with thin aqua stripes, that was long enough to cover her rear end. Her calves were wet, bouillon-colored.

  “I didn’t ask you to get that,” she said to Vinnie as he presented her with the cone. “Come on, I’m trying to lose weight here.”

  “Don’t ‘come on’ me. It’s a hot day.”

  Gina accepted the cone and licked the dripping vanilla ice cream off the sides. Vinnie watched her with a grinning satisfaction. For once, the smirk had left his face. He picked up a folding beach chair, the old-fashioned kind, with crisscrossing vinyl strips, and brought it over. This, I guessed, was Gina’s convalescent throne.

  “I can’t sit all the way down on the ground,” Gina explained, taking a seat. The chair’s strips were orange, shot through with silver fibers. They brightened the stripes on her shirt. “This is my first trip anywhere by myself, except for going to school to take my finals.”

  Immaculata picked at the blanket. I didn’t want to bring up the brawl at McDonald’s. It didn’t seem like Gina was going to either, but when Vinnie was out of earshot, she bent forward and said, “Excuse me, but he’s like my fucking shadow.”

  “Oh, brother,” Immaculata said, shaking her head gravely.

  “He called me almost every day after they set my leg, and at first I wouldn’t talk to him. And finally my mother said, ‘Talk to him for five minutes. It’s not going to kill you.’ And now I can’t get rid of him.”

  I had to ask. “So you forgave him?”

  Gina nodded. “But I’m not going out with him, even if in his mind he thinks we might be seeing each other. I mean, he was arrested, for God’s sake. Vinnie’s father had to pay to fix everything—the broken windows, all of it. It cost a fortune.”

  It was depressing to think Vinnie had worn her down to the point where she was almost taking his side. Immaculata shook her head; she’d heard enough. “It’s hot,” she said, “I’m going back in. What do you say, Nicky?”

  We didn’t have to walk out to meet the tide. The surf was rough and after a couple of cold slaps from the waves, I swam out past a group of guys who were holding Mary by her feet and hands and then tossing her into the water. I waved to Larry to meet us. The three of us swam over to the fence separating Riis Park from Fort Tilden.

  “Let’s check this out,” I said.

  The water was warmer on the other side of the fence and the waves gentler; we let them push us across several bays. The beach wasn’t entirely deserted. Scattered fishermen sat at the edge of the sand, squinting at the water, fishing lines stretching way out into the ocean. Jagged chunks of driftwood littered the shore along with pieces of Styrofoam and a few large-sized 7-Up bottles.

  Immaculata was the first one out. Her hair was tangled with seaweed. I told her to stand still while I separated her thick matted clumps of brown hair from the slick, shiny mess.

  We stood on the wet sand, just below the tide line. “What’s over here?” Larry asked.

  “Not much. There’s an old army base. My old man told me about it. Want to look around?”

  “My life is in your hands,” Immaculata said.

  The beach wasn’t as wide as Riis, with a border of dunes broken up by narrow paths. I picked one, and we trudged over. A discarded fish lay on the shore, gills still breathing. I picked up the slippery, silver thing and tossed it back in the ocean. Then I rinsed off my hand.

  “You really do throw like a girl,” Larry said.

  “Bite me.”

  Without the bathhouse and the concession stands at Riis, the sky here seemed limitless. A plane trailing a Coppertone banner growled overhead, passing under thin cirrus clouds. Seagulls dipped below the waves, hovering until it was time to dive again. We walked three abreast, enveloped in the quiet, me in the middle. Farther back, naked sunbathers camped out against the dunes.

  “You would never catch me doing that,” I said. “I’d fry.”

  I was following Immaculata across the path that crossed the dunes when Larry tapped me on the shoulder. I stopped and followed his gaze. In one of the depressions in the sand, a dark-haired guy was reclining on a rose-colored blanket. Next to him lay a woman in red bikini bottoms. Her forearms rested on his thighs and her head was positioned over his crotch. Straight blond hair curtained off her face as her head went up and down on his dick.

  “Fuck me,” Larry said, squinting. “She’s got balls.”

  “Man, she is really into it,” I whispered. “This sure beats the Rugby Theatre.”

  “I’ll say. Think I can get Rolonda to do that?”

  “You can’t even get her to go to the beach.” I burst out laughing and left Larry there to leer. Immaculata was waiting for us down on a cement walkway dividing the beach from a wide thicket of scrub pines, wild rosebushes, and honeysuckle. Monarch butterflies flickered past, their wings like saintly apparitions.

  “Where’s Larry?” she asked. “I’m ready to go back.”

  “Taking a leak,” I said. “Come on, let’s go this way.”

  A dirt path in the thicket beckoned us onward, under canopied trees that provided some welcome shade. I soon heard Larry’s footsteps behind us. Some of the ivy plants had red stems and leaves, which looked like trouble to me. “Don’t step on that,” I said to Immaculata.

  She jumped, and I caught her shoulder. “What is it? A bug? I hate bugs.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Larry asked. “Not for nothing, pal, but I am barefoot.”

  We emerged from the cluster of trees onto a soft sandy path that wound to a series of steps. A loose rope threaded through a procession of wooden posts provided the only banister. At the top of the steps, there was an empty bench and another path that split off to the left. We were standing above the scrub pines and a complicated tangle of honeysuckle and rosebushes. This was all beautiful, but I couldn’t shake the image of the woman going down on that guy. I was dying for a Coke or even a water fountain and thought we should turn back.

  Then I saw the bunker.

  “What the hell is that?” Larry said.

  “It’s a monstrosity,” Immaculata said, punching up the syllables.

  It must have been left over from Fort Tilden’s salad days. The sandy path took us to the right and then sloped down, ending at the base of a concrete prison with ominous rusted gates that looked like the entrance to hell. A black gravel path bordered by tamped-down, yellowed grasses divided the
bunker from the fenced-in forest we’d just visited.

  “This is not for me,” Immaculata said. She stood in the shade of a cottonwood tree and crossed her arms.

  I knew we should go back, but there was a wooden staircase on the right side of the bunker and I wanted to climb it. I couldn’t persuade Immaculata to come with us, so we agreed to come back down in five minutes. It was a tricky way up, an invitation to get splinters. The banister was loose and two steps were missing entirely, exposing the curved, blackened shell of the bunker. A few minutes later, we reached a landing and a small wooden platform with a sturdy railing on three sides. We could see everything: the bridge we’d crossed, the small collection of buildings at Fort Tilden, the sandy path to get here, and the beach dunes (but not the couple having sex). Something about the breadth of the ocean beyond made me choke up, like I was staring at my unknown future.

  “Well, we came, we saw, we’d better leave,” Larry said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, stammering. “I want to tell you something.”

  Larry put his finger to his forehead, as if he was wearing his glasses and wanted to push them back. “What’s up?”

  “My father. I think he’s leaving. For good.” I shrugged.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s going to be rough on your mother.”

  “It’s already rough.”

  “Forget about it for now,” Larry said, putting his arm around me. “Let’s enjoy the rest of the day.”

  We started walking down the staircase and retraced our steps to the concrete walkway by the dunes and followed it past deserted buildings with missing windows and long shadows that fell across the glass-strewn floors inside. Our feet were hurting, so we tried to walk on the sand under the cottonwood trees, the white undersides of the leaves showing almost indecently as they fluttered in the sultry breeze. The scene was pretty trashed when we made it back. Another volleyball game was going, but this one was happening in slow motion, the players’ reflexes blurred by all the beer they’d consumed. One girl missed the ball and went splat, facedown in the sand.

  I was wondering if anyone else was ready to leave Beach Blanket Bingo and suggested we go see Maureen at my uncle’s house. We could rinse off in the outdoor shower and maybe my aunt would give us something to eat. My sandwich must have turned to mush by now.

  “That’s enough incentive for me,” Larry said. “I still have to pick up Princess Rolonda, so I can’t stay long. Does anybody know what time it is?”

  “You have time,” I said, though I had no idea what time it was. I wanted a ride to Beach 138th Street. “It won’t take long for us to pack up.”

  Larry elbowed Immaculata. “Rainone, you in?”

  She laughed. “I love it when you call me by my last name. I feel like I’m in the in crowd again.”

  He put his arm around her. “You were never out, dollface.”

  She’d been waiting for that kind of encouragement all day and leaned into his armpit. I’ll always have that image of my Birdie friends from the last day I saw them together, Larry letting his arm lie across Immaculata’s narrow shoulders as they got ready to leave the beach.

  I carried the blankets and towels while Larry and Immaculata carried the cooler. The asphalt strip was packed with cars on both sides. I reached Larry’s car first, resting the stack of beach things on the hot trunk. I wanted to call ahead to Uncle Tim’s to make sure Maureen would be there, and jogged down the strip to a phone booth next to the bus stop. When the line rang on the other end, I was hoping my sister would answer, but Aunt Julie picked up instead.

  “I’m at Riis with my friends. We were gonna come over and see my sister. She there?”

  The line crackled, but I could hear enough of my aunt’s answer. “Went to the store,” she said. “She should be back in five minutes.”

  I put my index finger in the return coin slot. My dime came back to me.

  I started back down toward the Fury. Larry was walking my way, eyewear back on his face. He carried the cooler himself, awkwardly bouncing it off his thighs as he headed down the strip, talking to Immaculata on his left side. They too had put their clothes on over their bathing suits. They would have been hard to miss, right there in the middle of the sunbaked strip, but right then a bright green Volkswagen bug backed out of one of the parking spots closest to the boardwalk. It was packed with guys. One of them was standing up through the sunroof, arms waving, the upper half of his body gyrating as if rocking out to a song on the radio. The driver was going fast, and the car was weaving because the guy sticking out of the sunroof kept jumping around. He was an idiot. He had to be drunk.

  I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Larry! Watch out.”

  Why didn’t he hear me? Immaculata waved but must not have seen me pointing. And then the car swerved again to the right and Larry went flying, along with the cooler. I screamed and ran down the strip, an angry thud in my chest. The VW screeched to a halt; the guys inside jumped out, rushing over to Larry, facedown on the asphalt. I broke through the crowd and knelt next to him, calling his name, my voice breaking. He was unconscious.

  I picked up his cracked glasses and held them, stunned and shaking while bright blood pooled under his head. I wanted to put something under his head, the blanket stacked on the trunk, but I knew I shouldn’t move him. I got to my feet and turned around, staring at the guys. They were all muttering excuses and apologies. I recognized their faces from the hallways at St. Mike’s, the cashier’s line in the cafeteria, but I didn’t know them know them.

  “Don’t just stand there. Go to the firehouse and get someone,” I finally said.

  Immaculata was kneeling. She was bleeding profusely from her nose and mouth, but she was alive. The asphalt was doused with carbonated spray from the burst soda cans. The car was aslant on the asphalt, doors flung open, by the Fort Tilden fence. One guy was leaning against the green car, covering his face. I recognized the bandanna tied around his head. Sorrentino. He was the guy standing up through the sunroof. I ran over and jumped on him. He didn’t even push back.

  “Didn’t you see him? Tell me that you didn’t see him. If you killed him, I am going to kill you.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His eyes were glazed and tearful. He had a half a bag on; I knew that smell anywhere. Then he staggered away from me, over to the fence, and puked.

  Two firemen were standing over Larry now and a third was helping Immaculata to her feet. She limped a little, dazed and trembling.

  I went over to the fireman. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  “There’s an ambulance coming.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Wait here.”

  By the time the ambulance driver reached the firehouse, a crowd had gathered. The cops were there too. I had to give one officer Larry’s name and address; Immaculata was able to give him her phone number to call her family. The other officer was questioning Vinnie and the driver of the VW, a tall guy with a Yankees T-shirt and cut-offs. He thumbed through his wallet for his license. I watched the medics strap Larry to a gurney and load it into the back of the ambulance. Then I helped Immaculata climb in. We sat on gray benches and rode to the hospital with the fireman.

  He told us his name: Raymond. He wore a blue T-shirt and uniform pants. His hair was strawberry blond, his face covered with freckles.

  “So what happened?”

  “We were about to leave the beach. Then those clowns in the Volkswagen started veering all over the place.”

  Immaculata sat next to me, a terry-cloth towel pressed up against her face.

  “He’s dead, Nicky,” she sobbed into the towel. “He’s dead.”

  I put my arm around her shoulder; she was trembling. “Don’t say that. Let’s get him to the hospital.”

  The ambulance tore ass down Rockaway Beach Boulevard, siren blaring. I looked down at the gurney. Larry’s T-shirt was soaked with blood. The blanket wrapped around him was soaked too.

  “My head is killing me
,” said Immaculata.

  There were doctors waiting outside the hospital for us and they took Larry away on the gurney. I walked with Immaculata and the fireman into the ER waiting room. I was in a daze, the world shifting around me, from the beach to this dire place. It was all happening too fast and I felt suspended, like I was in the scene and out of it at the same time.

  I settled into an orange plastic bucket seat after the nurses took Immaculata to an examining room. I had to call about ten people, and I only had the dime that came back to me from the phone coin slot at the beach. I asked Raymond if he had any change. He dropped a handful of coins into my palm.

  The pay phone was down the hall. I loaded the first quarter and dialed my uncle.

  “Jesus,” Uncle Tim said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But my friend’s unconscious.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I hung up and wiped my eyes. I should call my mother; she would be home from the bank by now. I didn’t know how I was going to tell her.

  I went to the men’s room to wash my face. My face was bright red, and my hair was matted against my skull. I couldn’t wait to use the outdoor shower at my uncle’s house—as soon as I knew Larry was in good hands. I leaned against the sink and said a fast Hail Mary. I tried to think good thoughts. We had the whole summer ahead of us. Maybe I would get a job as an usher like Immaculata and have my days free. We could take those car trips out to Jones Beach. I could practice driving on the highway with Larry.

  A man in a striped bathing suit holding a surfboard was talking on the pay phone when I went to call home. He had a bandage slapped on his forehead. I wondered what bad news he was giving out. Uncle Tim and Maureen, in shorts and flip-flops, looking very carefree, came into the waiting room. Uncle Tim was twirling his car keys on his finger.

  “I’m over here!”

  They turned and smiled, relieved to see I was in one piece. Uncle Tim placed his hand on my shoulder. “Are you hurt? Do you need to see a doctor?”