Flotilla

by Daniel Haight

  I had to hike back down to the beach where they had dropped my sea bag. It was right at the water line and a few waves had reached it: all my clothes were soaked and if I hadn’t packed all my electronics in little Ziploc sandwich baggies, they would have been ruined. That is, everything except for my phone. The bag had punctured and my phone was sitting in two inches of sandy salt water. Somehow, I don’t think the warranty was going to cover that one. I stayed there on the beach, crying for a while. Why not? At least on a beach nobody can hear you bawl.

  Part of me died in the sand there. I know that sounds sad but I think it happens for everyone. You have to get over the fact that nobody is going to help you and you have to take care of yourself. No one should have to learn it the way that I did but I didn't have any choice in the matter. After a while, I thought about getting out of here. Behind me, back at the parking lot, an RV that had camped there overnight had lights dimly glowing inside. I picked up the bag and walked toward them.

  Early risers, I thought, wondering what time it was. I wiped my face on a damp sleeve and tried to blow the snot out of my nose without getting too much on my hands. The orange glow behind the curtains looked friendly and as I approached the rear door, I could smell the coffee brewing. “Hope they have a phone,” I muttered under my breath. I was about to raise my hand to knock at the door politely when I heard the schkk-shckk! of a pump-action shotgun on my left.

  “You hold it right’chere,” the old Midwestern voice bit out. I instantly raised my hands and froze, dropping my sea bag next to my feet. I’d never had a gun pointed at me but I knew what the appropriate response was. Now what?

  I finally risked a turn of my head to see who it was. A wiry old man with a bristly, white mustache wearing nothing but an old Western shirt with fake pearl buttons, faded blue boxers and a pair of battered cowboy boots was holding a pump-action shotgun at the hip. “I was watching the whole thing. I’ve called the po-lice…they should be here directly.”

  “What a night,” I muttered. Did this ever end? The comedy of errors that this evening started out with just kept getting better and better. Now I was at the scene of a drug shipment, with the cops on the way, no phone, no ride and no money. If this was happening to anyone else, I’d have laughed my butt off. All I wanted to do right now was cry. I can’t believe this is happening to me.

  “You with Al-Qaeda?” the old man asked suddenly. I should have seen this coming…

  “What?” I asked, carefully.

  “What?” the old man repeated sarcastically. He stepped forward aggressively, putting the muzzle of the shotgun into my face. “Are you a terrorist? Are you with Al-Qaeda?” Before I could respond, the muzzle was pushed almost into my eyeball. “Don’t you lie to me, boy!” the old man shouted furiously.

  I couldn’t keep up with all of this crap. Mitch and Yusef. The botched ‘electronics run’ that was nothing more than a badly-disguised drug shipment. Left at the shore to fend for myself ... we all know how good I am at that. Now there's an old man in his underpants with pointing a gun at me, interrogating me about terrorism. All I could do was stand silently and hope the old man was smart enough not to pull the trigger.

  “I saw you come outta the water with them other boys,” he drawled. “I saw you carry them boxes fulla junk. You makin’ bombs? Who’s your contact?” The geezer grabbed me by my shirt and threw me against the vinyl wall of the RV. “What did they give you to betray your flag?” he shouted. The old man raised the shotgun up to chest-high and it seemed like he was going to try and run me through with the muzzle.

  “Let it go, Bob,” a voice from my right said wearily. A female voice, older and also from the Midwest. She was thickly built with red hair that had rusted from age and wispy with bedhead. She put her hand out gently to Bob and his shotgun. “Put it down.” Bob suddenly looked confused and embarrassed, holding the weapon and walking around outside in his unmentionables.

  “Grace?” he asked, bewildered.

  “It’s okay, Bob,” she said. “Go on inside.” Bob looked confused, like a lost child, suddenly looking from the gun to me. His face crumpled slightly and he looked like he might burst into tears. Bob lowered the gun and leaned against the RV, trying to pull himself together. “I’m sorry about that. Are you alright?”

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering what had just happened. Bob walked away like a man carrying a heavy load and disappeared around the backside of the RV. I could hear the scrape of his boots as he walked around to get into the vehicle from the driver-side door. “Um…,” I began, trying to say something by way of explanation but since that seemed to be impossible, I just repeated himself. “Yeah.”

  “I’m very sorry,” she said. “Bob’s still dealing with it. Gets up and thinks someone is about to attack us. The gun wasn’t loaded.” She took in my appearance or the first time. “Are you alright?”

  I looked down at myself. My pants were soaked and I was covered in sand. The dark windbreaker I was wearing was half-off of my shoulders and my eyes were red from screaming at Emil. I wasn’t sure who the weirdo in this picture was, Bob or me. Maybe this place brings out the weirdness in everyone.

  “My friends were fishing,” I explained. “They had a problem and I had to get off.” The woman took this in and I could tell she knew I was lying … I took a second stab at it. “The boat was overweight and they needed to make it lighter.”

  “Are they coming back?” she asked.

  “I think so … I just need to use the phone.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said, hurrying to get inside and get a phone for me. She passed it to me and I tried dialing Dad’s cell number but got only voicemail. I tried it a few more times and then tried Mom. Same result.

  I tried for an hour but I wasn’t able to reach either of them. While we waited the woman, Grace, told me that she and her husband Bob were retirees. They traveled all over the country and actually turned out to be quite hospitable given the circumstances. Thank God they didn’t ask any more questions about my story … I didn't have any answers.

  “We're heading north on Highway One,” she explained. “We can't drive you to West Covina but we can take you into Oxnard to the bus station, no problem.” I could get Mom to buy a bus ticket and I’d be on my way home.

  That sounded like a solution to me. After a couple of cold pieces of Danish and a hot cup of coffee that tasted absolutely wonderful, they grumbled north into Oxnard and dropped me off at the Greyhound station on Fourth. I had to borrow the phone to call Mom and I finally got through. I also had to ignore the creep behind the counter. He was being unusually helpful and after I had hung up I saw the look in his eyes.

  Oh, gross, I thought. Disgusting. No real surprise after what I had gone through and would probably endure when my mother arrived. The entire trip was such a mess and I couldn’t imagine explaining this it to Dad, much less Mom.

  Why had Mitch lied about what the trip was … or did he not know? Did Dad or Miguel know? Why didn't they tell me to be more careful with the cargo? Was dropping me off part of the plan or did Yusef decide to improvise? What should I say to my Mom? The questions just kept spinning farther and farther from center … it didn't make sense no matter how hard I tried.

  I was exhausted but this wasn’t the kind of place to fall asleep in. A headache was throbbing behind my right ear and the pain traveled across the top of my head stop just behind my eye. Miserable, exhausted and in pain – this is how I ended my first summer on the Colony.

  I was taking my first steps on the road to adulthood in that waiting room. Doing something that was real, something that was important and even a little dangerous felt better to me than getting baked and sleeping until 2PM.

  I wasn’t afraid of a man’s job and I had survived the previous day’s nonsense. Getting high and partying all the time … that wasn’t who or what I wanted to be. Whenever I was hung over or coming down I knew that I wanted something else out of life but I had no idea what it was I wanted or how to get to it. I
really thought spending the summer with Dad would help me figure everything out.

  Until now.

  This little adventure poured a bucket of water over everything. I felt like I was back at square one. I was stuck in this bus station and Mitch was probably back home by now, telling Dad whatever he felt like. Then there was Yusef and Emil, who knew what they were capable of? I felt like I was waiting for another shoe to drop.

  I dozed in the nasty black chair all that morning waiting for her to show up. The Greyhound Rent-a-cop hassled me a few times but I kept repeating that my Mom would be there. Please God, let it be true. Mom finally showed up around noon and looked about as sour as I had ever seen her. It was the same kind of look she gave me him I got probation and my heart sank again. I’d left home under a cloud of trouble and that was exactly how I came home.

  At least, that’s what I thought. Her face was sour and at first, I thought she was angry about me. It turns out that she was violently angry at whoever left her boy to hitchhike into the Greyhound station from some cold, dangerous beach on the coast.

  When she opened the door to let me into the car, her face melted and she pulled me close. In seconds we were both in tears. I was home again and realized with a rush of emotion how much I had missed it. It was the first hug she gave me since I left almost three months ago.

  Our current position is: 34°29'31.63"N 120°33'28.95"W

  Chapter Eight – Intermezzo

  It took a while for everything to calm down after my ride back to the mainland. My mom was livid pissed; that’s a direct quote. She screamed at Dad when she finally got him on the phone later that day. I had slept on the ride home and woke up when we pulled into the driveway. Madison and Marty were on the lawn and the house looked weird after not being there for an entire summer.

  You know that feeling you get after you leave your house for a week or two and then you get home and it feels like you’re visiting for the first time? Imagine how it feels after three months … it made my flesh crawl.

  After I unpacked I took a nice shower with hot water that didn’t go cold after four and a half minutes. It was the most luxurious thing I’d ever felt. I stayed in there until my hands turned wrinkled and plump. The bath towel felt like something out of a hotel after a summer of line-dried castoffs. My room, my real room, was larger than the salon on the Horner and my bed felt almost too wide after sleeping all that time in a bunk.

  All Mom wanted to know how it was that I ended up in Oxnard while she was waiting for me on the docks in Long Beach. I told her the entire thing was a big misunderstanding and they had gotten lost on their way. She didn't buy it.

  “They got lost up in Oxnard?”

  “Yeah … kind of,” I said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means they got turned around and then they ran out of gas,” I was making this crap up and she knew it. She was dropping my wet and sandy clothes into the washing machine but paused to give me her full attention.

  I started babbling – I hate when I do it but I couldn't help it. When I was lit or high, I could talk my way out of anything. I can't really do it when I'm sober and the more I talked the worse it got. “They borrowed some to get home but it wasn’t enough to get me back to LA and they didn’t to be asking you for gas money when they arrived.” Blah, blah blah … so much crap. I finally ran out of words and prayed that she wouldn’t give me the third degree this time.

  She stared at me for a long time, months it felt like. Then all of a sudden, she took a deep breath and said, “Okay…I believe you.” My mouth almost fell open but I clamped shut before it could. “I’m just glad you’re okay, Jim.” She turned her attention back to the laundry and before I could slink away she said, “I hope you ride with people who are more responsible this time.” Trust Mom not to see a belt without trying to hit below it.

  My first day back just felt strange. I’d say it felt like a hangover but I hadn’t had a drop in 2 months. It just felt weird … everything was suddenly out of place. Everything was too comfortable and that made me feel unsettled. We sat down to dinner that night and I regaled them with tales of my crazy summer. Madison had been collecting the pictures I sent home and I did a little slide show of everything. Mom had probably looked at the pictures every day but she made a big show of listening to my stories.

  I went to sleep that night in a bed that wasn’t gently rocking on the water. The lack of motion felt strange and I kept jumping awake again at the street sounds of the neighborhood outside. Cars swishing by weren’t the same as boats in the early morning. A cat knocked a garbage can over and I almost fell out of bed. My body clock had changed and I had to work hard to go back to sleep after I awoke at 4:30. It took a while and mostly I just listened to the silence of the house and smelled the warm, clean smell of a home as opposed to the dank, fishy smell of the Horner.

  I finally heard from Dad. He laid low after he heard from Mom but I got his mail, telling me to call, about a week later. It was the day before school started. When he picked up I could hear that he was at the Gun Range.

  “Hey, sport!” he shouted into the bad connection. I could hear the tinny pop of guns behind him. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay now,” I yelled back. “You know what happened?”

  “Yeah…I’m so sorry, Jim,” he yelled. Imagine that, I thought – Dad apologizing for something. “Mitch and Yusef are banned from using the boats ever again. I had them go back out there to find you as soon as they told me what happened.”

  Dad knew that something was up when they arrived back so early. He threatened them with an ‘anchor chain party’ unless they got back out there to take me home.

  “What's an 'anchor chain party', Dad?”

  “Never mind,” he said ominously. I thought back to that guy who disappeared around the Big Fourth. “Let me finish.”

  Dad forced them back on board and they immediately headed out to the beach to see where I was. I was gone by then and Dad was near frantic trying to find out what had happened. Mitch and Yusef were no help, Emil was gone…Bob and Grace were dropping me off at the Greyhound station by that time. Dad was convinced that those knuckleheads had done something to me and was getting ready to waterboard Yusef to get the truth out of him.

  “Your mom’s phone call got put through before anything happened that couldn’t be undone,” he reported. Dad apologized profusely, swearing that those two were ‘on his list’ and that 'he would make things right … eventually.' He sounded relieved to hear that I wasn’t angry with him. He was wrong about that. Not that I really want to get into it, but how bad do you have to screw up to lose your son? I mean, seriously? I couldn't believe that Yusef was still breathing after that…

  No, I wasn’t over it but I didn’t let on when Dad called. We kept it light and cheerful and he kept making a big deal about 'the good memories we made' out there. I was depressed for the rest of the day without really knowing why.

  Then I got an email from Riley. He told me that not much had come of Mitch’s electronics run and as far as Dad was concerned, all was forgiven. I couldn't talk about any of this with Mom. I didn’t tell her about the drugs or about Dad.

  My probation officer was pleased to see me. “I've been keeping track of your progress this summer, Jim – you're doing very well. Keep it up.” She showed me a few of Dad's emails … I had to stifle a laugh because his mails were almost total fiction with a few pictures thrown in for good measure. She had no idea what went on out here … why would she? Dad took advantage of this fact. I wasn't going to challenge it, though. I wanted to be done with probation.

  School started a week later and I did the rounds as The Colony Kid. The part that sucked was having the kids I had been hanging with yawn over everything that I told them. They spent the summer drunk or high or getting laid and I couldn’t relate. I mean bully for them, right? It was a big ol’ thorn in my pride that I didn’t have anything to top that. I did…sort of…but sex tends to trump anything else,
especially when you’re 14.

  My English teacher was politely interested but wasn’t assigning a “How I Spent My Summer” paper so there went any potential A+ papers for me. Schoolwork has always been kind of a walk for me but they never get tired of telling me that I’m not living up to my true potential. I found myself thinking back to everything that had happened back out there.

  As the months of fall passed by, my grades started slipping again and the kids who were previously unimpressed with all my experiences started coming around to hang out with me. My mom was nervous about it … what a shocker Other than saying “remember what happened last summer” she left it more or less alone. That was weird, having her do that. Before she’d be on me like our dog, Molly, on a piece of steak that falls off your plate. You couldn’t get a chance to move because she was there stopping you before you even realized you were thinking about it. Things were a little different now.

  So my friends and I hung out for a while but my heart really wasn’t into it. The work of the Colony, the weirdness, the hijinks … the danger. How was getting baked and sitting on your friend’s couch all afternoon going to compare with that?

  I'd tell them stories about it and they were bored. Who cared about Tribe of the Burning Man doing primal scream rituals at dawn while the Gloucester West fisherman chucked empties of Steel Reserve in their general direction? We saw each other less and less.

  Before the final kiss-off, I did down a couple of beers with them on one afternoon. A brownie got passed my way and, well, it probably had pot in it. I didn’t check. When I got home that night Mom, Madison and Marty were eating dinner like a normal family in the dining room and ignoring me. I was lit and feeling pretty gross anyway but it really got to me how happy they seemed. It reminded me of something they said during rehab about the rest of the family working to be as normal and happy as possible. What was I going to do, pick a fight because they didn't wait for me? I blew them off to go hang with my friends. I suddenly hated myself…hated the partying and hated getting drunk or high. A moment of clarity, if you will.