A Hispanic family, sitting around the picnic table next to us, ate sandwiches, drank soft drinks and passed around a large bag of potato chips. One of the boys, about six years old, offered Allie a handful of chips. He had small round shoulders and a brown belly. His jeans were wet and sandy from playing in the surf. Allie thanked him for the potato chips and offered the rest of her snow cone. He wiped his hands on his jeans and reached for the gift, never taking his large brown eyes off her.
The boy was instantly in love, watching Allie’s every move. She teased him by bending forward, returning his stare, opening her eyes wide in a contest to see who would blink first. His father told him to stop staring at the nice lady and return her snow cone. A group of teenagers zoomed by on skateboards.
We rode our bikes to the Flagship Pier. The pier extends a hundred yards beyond the beach into the Gulf of Mexico. We went to the end and balanced against the blue handrail. A man with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, reared back with his fishing rod, and cast a live finger mullet out into the pale green water. On the beach, a lifeguard scanned the surf with his binoculars.
“You’d be a good lifeguard,” I said.
Allie flexed her bicep. “I WAS a good lifeguard, for two summers.”
“No kidding? Did you rescue anyone?”
“Sure, it was my job.”
“Were there people who drowned that you couldn’t save?”
“There are always people who don’t make it,” she said.
I peered over the railing at the swells coming in. “If I fell from up here and started sinking, would you dive in and rescue me?”
“I’m out of that business,” she said and brushed blue flakes from the handrail. We watched the flakes flutter through the air and lite on top of the water. I turned my handlebars, bumping my front tire into her leg.
“I’m serious, what would you do?”
“Fall and find out.” She turned and rode off on her bike.
A young girl reeled in a catfish and dangled the twisting fish in front of her father. He held it with a rag and used pliers to twist the hook out before tossing the fish over the side. Allie circled back, and before speeding away, shouted, “Race you to O’Malley’s.”
. . .
“I don’t know how many,” is what she had told me. Hell, even I could probably come up with a semi-accurate number.
We were driving back to Galveston from the Houston Galleria, and I turned off the radio. I wanted a number.
“What about you?” she said. “I know you’re reputation. You’d screw a sixty-year-old-woman in a wheelchair.”
“Maybe so, but not anymore. Plus, it’s not the same with me. Our situations are the exact opposite. To me, the one-night-stands meant nothing.”
She switched the radio back on. “Same here, brother.”
I changed the subject. “Do you like motorcycles?”
“Sure, I like ‘em . . . Why?”
“Let’s stop at the Harley dealership and buy one.”
She turned to me and smiled.
At the dealership we both liked the Harley-Davidson Sportster. After a test drive, when I returned to the dealership, she had on a black helmet with red flames. “Allison, what are you doing?” I said. “I need to practice on this thing before you hop on the back.”
“On the BACK? What about driving it?”
“You’re crazy. You’re too small to drive this thing.” I got off the bike. “Listen, we can take it to the west end of the Island, and if there’s not much traffic, you can ride it by yourself.”
Inside the dealership Allie thumbed through a rack of Harley-Davidson t-shirts. I wrapped my arms around her waist, held her close and kissed the top of her head. “What if some crazy bitch runs me off the road? What if I crash?”
She held a pair of leather chaps to her waist. “What do you think?”
“Allie, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “You go ahead and crash all you want.”
. . .
Instead of a motorcycle, we ended up getting a membership to the Galveston Racquet Club. At night, after closing the bookstore, we’d go play tennis. She was a tough competitor and sometimes lost her temper. She wouldn’t get mad at me, she’d get mad at herself and bang her racquet against her shin, hard. I got her to stop by acting silly. Each time she’d slam the racquet into her shin, I’d jog to the other side of the court and kiss her leg, even if I had to chase her— I usually had to chase her.
Behind the clubhouse was an L-shaped swimming pool. After tennis, we usually goofed-off in it before going home. Allie swam in shorts and a shirt, whatever she happened to be wearing. One night, when it was only the two of us, she took off her shirt and threw it at me. She then unbuttoned, unzipped, and wiggled out of her shorts. Wearing a low cut black bikini, she posed for me, laughing and twirling around.
“You like?” she asked.
Allison, I’m in love with you. “I like,” I said.
She climbed up the diving board and bounced on the end before diving into the blue water. I dove in too and swam to the bottom so I could watch her from below. The underwater lights illuminated her tan skin and black bikini. She knew what I was doing and spread her legs open, kicking them back and forth.
On the surface we held on to the chrome ladder. “I used to do this when I was a kid,” she said.
“Do what, seduce older men at the pool?”
She took off her bikini bottoms, and I went under to see the triangle of hair between her legs. I cupped my hands around her ass and nuzzled my face up in her until I ran out of air.
Barbara, the night manager, opened the gate to tell us the pool lights would be going off at ten o’clock. She went back inside, and I reached over to remove Allie’s top. She watched me, tilting her head down so she could see her erect nipples above the water. We were both staring at her breasts, holding on to the chrome ladder, our eyes fixated on her nipples. I leaned forward, kissed one and then kissed the other.
“It isn’t fair,” she said, sticking her hand inside my shorts, wrapping her fingers around my erection.
“What isn’t fair?”
“You have one of these.”
“Do you wish you had one?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“If I gave it to you, what would you do with it?”
“Follow me,” she said.
Allie put her bikini on and led me through the pool to the shallow end. She pulled my back against her chest so that we were facing the same direction. She locked her legs around mine, drawing her hips tight against my waist, then reached around and gripped my erection. “If this was mine,” she said, “This is what I would do.” She began stroking me under the water, describing a fantasy in my ear. “I’m at O’Malley’s,” she said. “There’s a fine brunette with a sleeve tattoo sitting beside me at the bar. She’s wearing a tight black skirt making my dick heavy, so I adjust the monster and let it snake down the side of my leg.”
“What are you wearing?” I asked.
“I’m wearing jeans, my 501s. When the tattooed brunette sees my snake, I lean toward her and say something no one else at the bar can hear. ‘It’s the devil in my pants.’”
The pool lights clicked off. The pump beside the building went quiet. Barbara came through the gate and could probably see that Allie was jacking me off. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she went around the pool, straightening chairs, occasionally glancing in our direction before going inside the main building.
Allie continued her fantasy. “I hook my finger in her skirt and lead the brunette to the small restroom in back. I then unzip my jeans and push her down onto the toilet seat. ‘Sit down and shut up,’ I tell her. Looking up at me, the slut puts her hands on my hips and shoves me into the corner. My back crashes into the wall. It hurts but I like it. It makes my nipples erect, so I lift my shirt to show them to her. She reaches in my jeans to pull out my devil. Outside the bathroom door two guys are arguing ab
out a silly dart game, so I open the door and tell them to shut the fuck up. Their jaws drop when they see my breasts and see this fine bitch sucking my cock. I slam the door closed and brace myself in the corner, then kick off a sandal and slide my foot between her legs. ‘Lift your skirt, you little tramp,’ I tell her. She follows my instructions and slips her panties to the side. She grips my ass and pulls my cock deep into her throat. ‘Take it all . . . crazy bitch!’”
. . .
On the Fourth of July we drove to Gruene, to see Lucinda Williams perform at Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. We arrived late in the afternoon and hung out in the historic district. At the General Store, I bought a bag of pistachios and a patchouli candle for Allison. We followed the narrow road past Gruene Hall and walked down to the river. The Guadalupe was shaded with cypress trees, the water clear. There was a giant cypress tree on the river’s edge with large exposed roots running across the ground. Allie pranced along the roots, kicking up her legs like a dancer on a balance beam. “I could have been an Olympic gymnast.”
Sitting on a tree root, I asked if she was getting tired of Galveston.
She sat beside me and grabbed a handful of pistachios from the bag between my legs. “My car has been broken into three times, four times if you include the gang-banger who’s probably stealing my cheap stereo right this minute. And the guy next door sells weed, and maybe coke, to my favorite professor. I hadn’t told you about that.”
“Isn’t your favorite professor is a female?”
“That’s the one I’m talking about. She buys drugs from my neighbor.”
“You could move to a safer apartment.”
She tossed a pistachio shell at a line of carpenter ants. “Sometimes I think about moving to Manhattan. Sometimes I never want to leave Texas. Look at how perfect this place is. The way the open prairie eases into the Hill Country and everything grows wild along the river.” She leaned back on her hands, her legs spread open. I couldn’t help admiring her old pair of Levi’s, the way they fit tight between her legs and the frayed hole near her crotch.
“It’s peaceful here,” she said, gazing up through the tree branches.
With the scenic countryside, and Allison looking so damn hot, I got carried away and said the wrong thing. “There isn’t anyone I would rather spend the rest of my life with than you.” It sounded so absolutely sappy, especially for us—we never talked like that―but there was no way to recover from it, so I had to concede. “How corny was that?”
“On a corny scale, about a nine. On a truth scale, about a two?”
“You don’t believe me?”
She reached into the bag for more pistachios. We stayed there, sitting on the tree roots, snacking on pistachios and tossing empty shells at ants. A group of people floated by on inner-tubes, drinking beer, having fun. It reminded me of my father, and I told Allison about the time he bought my sister and me the biggest inner-tube I’d ever seen. “It was strapped to the top of his car.”
“Why should I believe you?” she asked.
“Because, why would I lie about something that happened twenty years ago?”
“Not the inner-tube,” she said, “I’m talking about the rest of your life thing.”
“It’s true,” I said.
“I don’t want that,” she told me and tossed a pistachio into the rushing water. “You see those narrow cypress trees on the other side? They look like stick people.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
“The branches are like arms that keep everyone separate.”
“Say something that makes sense.”
“Okay,” she said, “tell me if this makes sense? If you hit a carpenter ant just right, he’s a goner.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not at all. I want to ask you something and you won’t let me.”
“How am I stopping you?” she said and waited for an answer.
“Move in with me. The rent would be free, and you wouldn’t have to put up with crackheads breaking into your car.”
She gazed up into the tree branches again. “Let’s talk about normal people—no, let’s talk about how it is after everything’s not so great.”
“People live together. That’s normal.”
“Normal people don’t sneak out of my bed to sleep on the couch.”
“I thought you liked it when I slept on your couch?”
“I do but that doesn’t make it normal.”
“Then it’s not normal for either of us.” I leaned into her and put her in a headlock. “I still luv ya, though.”
She broke loose and straightened her tangled hair. “Cut the shit,” she said. “Never put me in an effin headlock again!”
Everything became quiet and still after that. Pastel colors from the sky mirrored off the river’s surface like a Southern oil painting. In the distance, I could hear Lucinda Williams starting her set.
. . .
We hung out all summer, went to movies, went dancing, and rode our bikes on the seawall. She taught me how to surf, and I taught her how to wade fish in the Gulf. She made soup for me when I got sick. I held her hand at the tattoo parlor when she got a black rose tattoo. We did whatever she wanted, and I enjoyed it all, but Allison never opened up, never shared her life with me or anyone else. She had friends, but most of her nights were spent alone in her candle-lit apartment, drinking red wine and listening to Billie Holiday.
Sometimes when I called her, I could hear Billie Holiday singing in the background and knew Allie was sad about something. It tore me up that she wouldn’t let me in, that I couldn’t help her. “Nothing is wrong,” she said. “Everything’s fine.” Try to get close to Allison and she’ll push you away. Try to talk about the past and she’ll change the subject. She dumped me is what happened. And although she’d been pulling away for a couple months, the whole thing ended recently at her apartment. She was in the kitchen washing her hands in the sink. “Things change,” she said, “You don’t love me, and I don’t love you.”
A patchouli candle was burning on top of the stereo. “Allison,” I said. “You don’t know JACK about love.”
She remained calm and told me that I’m one of those wounded freaks who will never get close to anyone. I squeezed the soft rim of her candle and watched it fold in on itself. “Thanks for ruining my candle,” she said.
So that was basically it, the end of summer and the end of Allison. Leaving her apartment, I went down the stairs thinking of Kim Sanders. Kim and Allie are identical, both damaged goods.
“You’re the same way,” Allie called out.
From the bottom of the stairs, I turned around and glared up at her. “Same way about what?”
“Same way about love. You don’t know jack!”
. . . . .
Alex
Jack McAllister is thirty-four: It’s two o’clock in the morning. He just got home from a Ducks Unlimited benefit auction and is trying to wake up his son, tugging on his pajamas. “Wake up, sleepy head. I bought something for you and your sister.”
Mitch pretends to be asleep. He knows his father is drunk and decides to ignore him. Jack tickles his son’s ribs and pulls him out of the bed sideways. Instead of using his feet, Mitch allows his limp body to slide over the edge onto the carpet. Jack opens a small box with a gold ring inside, “This is for Tracy. Do you think she’ll like it?”
“I guess. Why don’t you go wake her up?”
“The present I bought for you is a thousand times bigger.”
“No it isn’t.”
“It’s so big, I had to pull it behind my car. You’re gonna piss your pajamas when you see it.”
Mitch follows his father outside. Behind Jack’s car is a trailer with an aluminum boat and outboard motor. “It’s fast,” Jack says, “and check this out. It has a stainless steel propeller.”
Mitch is stunned and asks, “Is that really for me?”
“Watch this.” Jack connects the gas line, pumps the primer and pulls the start handle. The eng
ine roars to life and Mitch quickly jumps out of the way. Jack cranks up the throttle showing off the power. The engine is loud, three propeller blades spinning into one silver circle.
Mitch shouts, “Yeah man, I love it!” Jack laughs, while Mitch dances in the driveway, leaping into the air clicking his heels together.
“Now you do it, Dad. Dance like Mr. Bojangles.”
Jack waits for the smoke to clear, and with his son watching (he wants to get this right), he takes a couple steps across the driveway before jumping into the air and clicking his heels. “See that?” Jack says, “What do you think about your old man now?”
“Dammit, Jack! What are you doing over there?” a man calls out from next door.
“Go to bed,” Jack tells the neighbor. “Everything’s fine over here.”
Mitch turns toward his father. “We don’t care if we wake up the entire neighborhood, do we?”
“Heck no!” Jack says, revving the engine one more time before killing it.
. . .
Driving home from Allie’s apartment, I had to keep reminding myself that it was her, not me. She’s the freak! She’s the one who will never get close to anyone— Okay, stay calm, I know what I have to do. I have to win her over, let her know that I’m on her side, that she can trust me. It can’t be something silly like hanging an “I love Allie” banner across her street or desperate like banging on her door in the middle of the night. It will have to be something respectful.
At midnight I went outside to walk the streets of downtown Galveston expecting an all-nighter. The temperature was sixty-three degrees, the Strand decorated for Christmas. Red bows with green ribbons dangled from lampposts. A wreath hung from the town clock.
Mrs. Patterson was outside her condominium with her two cocker spaniels. Thanksgiving night at O’Malley’s bar, Mrs. Patterson’s daughter was all over me. I could have laid her.
Leaving Allison Page 10