Summer People (9 page)

In the winters, he would spend the afternoons and evenings with three or four of the regulars, old timers, who would make a beer last an hour as they smoked, talked, or peered at the TV that was always running above the bar.

In the summer, like this early July afternoon, Jack was busy. It was more than he could handle by himself. He had a couple of local women who helped with the afternoon and evening crowd.

The locals held down the right side of the bar and the tables near the pool table. The summer people liked the area near the windows where they could get a glimpse of the lake. The regulars drank beer, the old brands, from long-necked bottles—sometimes with a shot of blended whiskey. This hadn’t changed in more than thirty years. The summer people drank light beer, gin and tonic, or gin and bitter lemon, and white wine—sometimes white wine and soda with a slice of lime. Jack remembered that in the old days— for the most part these were the children of the summer people he had served earlier—their parents and grandparents drank martinis, Manhattans, Scotch, bourbon, and tap beer.

The left end of the bar, near the TV, was usually occupied by Roger Grimstock. He was there every afternoon and evening through most of July and August and had been for years. Roger had frequented the Last Chance for years, first as a minor, standing in the parking lot at night trying to get someone to buy for him, and then as a college boy bringing in the other summer kids. In the winter he brought his fraternity brothers up between semesters for skiing and weeklong drunks.

Jack had never liked Roger. At first he didn’t like him because he was afraid that the kid would get him in trouble with the liquor commission. And later, when Roger was of age, Jack didn’t like his nasty manner. He was always unpleasant, always looking for a row.

Roger would show up in the early afternoon, and like some of the locals, start with shots-and-beers, and then continue on with beers, sometimes until closing. The regulars had learned years ago to stay clear of him.

This Saturday Roger’s pattern was the same as always. He arrived before 2:00 p.m., quickly had two shots-and-beers and settled into an afternoon of drinking and smoking. Jack moved with the rhythm of the bar, filling orders, chatting, listening to the stories of patrons. He usually wasn’t given to introspection, or to considering the interior worlds of his customers. This day, however, as Jack slid a fresh pack of cigarettes across the bar, he tried to remember what Roger had looked like in those early years. He closed his eyes for a long second and remembered the kid, skinny, tow-headed, with the light skin and the bright blue eyes. Looking again across the bar it was hard to see the kid in this man—his eyes were pale and watery; his face, soft, fleshy, and swollen like a dead animal, his flesh forming layers of bulges under his knit shirt.

Their conversation followed the same routine, usually confined to orders and running a tab, with an occasional reference to the weather or the Tigers’ current losing streak. Jack wondered what Roger thought about during those long hours at the bar, hours spent smoking and looking across at the bottles behind the bar or occasionally at the TV set. Jack wondered why Roger came to a public place if he wanted to be left alone. Why didn’t he stay at his cottage and drink?

The rain, little more than a light mist for most of the evening, had finally become a steady shower. Roger Grimstock swore as he got to the car. He got a towel from the trunk and dried the driver’s seat, then dragged the top from behind the seats and struggled to secure it to the windshield. He pulled the choke out and turned the key; the old engine sputtered to life. After lighting a cigarette, he sat for a few minutes and let the engine warm up.

He drove east about a mile and then headed south on Ely road. The rain intensified; his wipers—old, hard, and cracked— left the windshield badly streaked; the dim, yellow headlamps— generator driven—weakly reached into the rain and fog.

He slowed. Even in his alcohol-dulled state, he sensed something. At first he couldn’t tell what it was. But as he began to climb a long hill, over the noise of the old sports car engine, he became aware of the sound of another engine. He felt it behind him, but there were no lights. He accelerated; the sound of the other engine intensified. He clutched to down shift. The pitch of the other motor increased. Lights came on behind, high, over the cab, not on the fenders. He heard the bellow of the big V8 behind him. He accelerated. The gap closed.

Roger crested the hill. He hit the switch and the overdrive kicked in. On the long descent he started to pull away. He could see the other vehicle slowly falling back, but as he started climbing, the gap narrowed again. He switched off the overdrive. As the revs dropped, he pulled the car into third. The engine bellowed. The needle on the tachometer was well into the yellow. The truck pulled closer.

The lights of the truck disappeared just as the blade hit his rear bumper. He held on for control. He jammed the accelerator to the floor. He started to pull away from the truck, first by only inches, then the gap gradually widened. He looked at the dash. The needle was in the red; the engine screamed. Then there was a loud metallic explosion and a half-second of silence before the car started to spin. The wheels caught in the soft shoulder and the car rolled, side-to-side, down a steep embankment until it struck a large oak tree. Then the wreckage tumbled forward end to end until the vehicle came to rest, top down, in a rain-swelled marsh.

The truck on the road above stopped, and backed onto the shoulder. A figure emerged, walked to the side of the road, looked down into the darkness, listened, and after several minutes got back into the truck and drove away.

Marc was tense; he had been tense from the moment he awakened shortly after five a.m. He had rushed to shower and dress, so he could drive Lisa to the airport in time for a 7:00 a.m. flight.

They stood in the departure area and drank black coffee from paper cups. At last her flight was called and as they walked toward the gate she said, “Remember to pick me up on Wednesday.” She kissed him warmly and, without looking back, headed toward the boarding gate. He watched her go through the door, watched until he couldn’t see her anymore. Then he went to the window and saw her walk across the tarmac to the aircraft and climb up the stairs.

As Marc walked back to his car, he felt down—lonely, sad, and angry. He had finally gotten used to the idea that Lisa had moved in with him. Now she was leaving for a few days to take part in the wedding of a friend. She had invited him to come along, but he wasn’t comfortable with the idea.

Marc drove through Traverse City along the bay and then took the highway that ran along the shoreline to Suttons Bay. He stopped for breakfast at a small restaurant overlooking the water. He tried to interest himself in the Detroit Free Press as he ate, but he couldn’t concentrate. He searched for the cause of his anxiety. Was he upset that Lisa was going to be gone for a few days, or was he feeling anxious that things had moved too quickly and he wasn’t in control? Perhaps it was good, he thought, that he would have time to think things over. He left a half-eaten breakfast and barelyread paper and drove back to the lake. He was still tense when he got back to the cottage and decided to take a long bike ride.

Marc needed to think. As an adolescent he discovered that he did his best thinking on a bicycle. He carried his bike, top tube resting on his shoulder, from the cottage out to the paving; he didn’t like rolling it through the wet sand of the two-track. He rode south at Burdickville, went west at Fowler Road and south again at Indian Hill Road. He used roads that he knew from long experience would be lightly traveled.

Marc was thinking about Lisa. He was trying to think about what he was feeling. An old acquaintance, but a relative stranger, had suddenly been living with him in complete intimacy. He was not used to the closeness. He tried to remember if he and Elaine had ever shared such relaxed intimacy.

He remembered the feelings—strong emotions—he had years ago. But those weren’t feelings he had ever had for Elaine.

Lisa had rekindled those old feelings, feelings that had once scared him so much. And, he thought again, it was moving too fast. He was not used to being close to anyone or letting anyone close.

He worked his way along the back roads until he got to Crystal Lake and Beulah. After twenty miles of hard riding and some difficult hills, he was starting to feel better. Nothing was resolved, but he was less tense. He stopped in Beulah for a Coke. The girl at the refreshment stand, probably fifteen or sixteen, he thought, also offered to fill his water bottles. He watched as she rinsed them and took the time to fill them with small ice cubes before she topped them with water. She was tan, blond, and had a bright smile.

Marc walked to the beach and sat on a cement wall at the end of the beach to rest and finish his drink. A warm breeze filled sails far out on the lake and the July sun burned high in a cloudless sky.

On the area of beach nearest him, a group of teenage girls in two-piece suits—bright pinks, greens, blues, and oranges hiding and highlighting their barely concealed parts—were stretched out on towels, listening to music and sunning. Cars with boys crept back and forth on the road just behind the narrow beach surveying the scene in a kind of motorized mating frenzy; windows open, arms hanging out, sunglass covered eyes fixed on the nubile forms on the beach. The village’s police officer, parked on the opposite side of the street, leaned against his car and gazed out at the lake through mirrored glasses. His presence prevented any overt display of testosterone-induced behavior—there were no roars from the minimally muffled engines or squeals from the tires rolling on the blistering blacktop.

Farther down the beach, families were bathing, picnicking, and building sand castles. Just beyond the swimming area a trio of novice sailboarders bobbed in the waves. Occasionally one would manage to stand on the board and pull the sail from the water, only to be dumped into the surf again as the board leaped forward.

Marc finished his drink and started the long ride back. He took Cinder Road south of Honor and then Ely north. As his fatigue increased, the hills seemed to get longer and steeper. Near the top of one long hill, a large black dog came charging out of the tall grass on the side of the road with a bellowing attack bark. Knowing he was too tired to outrun the dog, he stopped and prepared to defend himself with a water bottle and frame pump. The dog—tall, bone-thin, with straggly hair, floppy ears, and long face hair like an untrimmed terrier—stopped his charge and then approached meekly, whimpering and finally gently licking Mark’s outstretched hand. His curiosity met, the dog turned and ambled down the road.

The adrenaline generated by this encounter gave Marc a new burst of energy, and he rode several more miles before he stopped again at the foot of a long hill to adjust the rear derailleur. That done, he sat on the side of the road resting and drinking water, his legs pushed out in front of him on the steep embankment. He was hot and tired; he felt like stretching and dozing in the shadow of the hill.

His attention was suddenly attracted by a glint of something shiny in the tall grass of the swamp below. He looked again, but could not make out what the object was.

He carefully worked his way down the gravel and clay sides of the embankment; the hard soles of his bike shoes made the descent more difficult. He worked through the tall grass and ferns until he reached what looked like a new path through the lush vegetation of the swamp. At the end of the path he could see the object that first caught his attention, the chromed end of a tailpipe. He could also see four tires turned to the sky and part of a badly smashed trunk. He worked his way forward over the partially flooded marsh on clumps of grass and decaying logs until he reached the car. It had settled into the muck, only the bottom third of the car was above water. The door on the passenger side was sprung open. He kneeled carefully on the remnants of an old birch log and tried to look into the car. His view was limited, but he thought he saw what might be a body. He pulled at the door, but it was too mired in mud to move. He decided not to look again.

Marc retraced his steps, this time taking less care to find dry footing. He scrambled up the embankment, retrieving his bike on the way. A mile up the road he came across a Consumers Power truck; the driver was sitting on the tailgate eating his lunch. After Marc told him what he had found, the man called his dispatcher and asked that the sheriff be notified. He than drove Marc back to the scene and waited with him until the first sheriff car arrived.

Ray arrived a few minutes later and surveyed the scene. Marc stayed above while Ray and the deputy, after pulling on rubber boots, made their way to the car.

When Ray came back up the hill, Marc asked, “Someone in there?”

Ray nodded, “I’m afraid so.”

“How are you going to get the car out of there?”

“We’ll have to get a small bulldozer with a winch. It’s going to be a while before the equipment gets here. I can have someone run you home,” Ray offered.

“No, I am trying to work some things out—I need to do more miles.”

Ray sensed Marc’s anxiety and gave a knowing nod. He watched as Marc started climbing the long hill, standing, leaning forward, pulling the bike from side to side with each forward thrust.

Gawkers, a dozen or so, stood on the side of the road watching the activity below. Some of them had just been passing by and had been attracted by the emergency vehicles. The remainder—people who sit at home and listen to police scanners, people who seem to be driven by a morbid interest in the misfortunes of others— rushed to the scene. Deputies kept them by the side of the road, preventing them from going down to the wreck.

The bulldozer operator, Ronnie Toole (known locally as Little Tarzan), thirty-something, small, wiry, in jeans and a sleeveless denim jacket, no shirt, and heavy black leather boots, carefully backed his rig off the trailer. He followed an old fire lane from the highway and then picked his way through the scrub oak close to the wreck. He finally positioned the dozer on relatively firm earth, turned 180 degrees, and released the winch.