The Bear in a Muddy Tutu (5 page)

The boy shrugged his shoulders and Billy Wayne relaxed a little
. S
o far so good.
Take it slow
, Billy Wayne reminded himself and then did a quick
mental review of step number twenty-four
of his book: “Most young people respond to the
‘
Us versus Them
’
scenario. A child is alone for a reason
;
either
he’s escaping
an angry parent or older sibling or
he’s having
trouble with a teacher or the kids at school. Show you understand, and that you
, too, hav
e suffered the same unfair persecution. Soon you’ll develop a bond that will lead to loyalty and dedication.
”

“You remind me of myself when I was your age,
”
Billy Wayne began, but the kid’s bulging eyes at the
im
possibility
of this statement
made him
backtrack
. “I mean, I spent a lot of time alone when I was young. My dad used to drink and beat the pants off me.
”

“You ain’t a homo are you?
”
the boy asked earnestly.

“Ah, no, son
, I ain’t a homo
,
last I checked.
”
Billy Wayne
r
egroup
ed
his fake smile. Why did people keep asking him that? “If I swear I ain’t a homo, can I take a load off?
”

“Yeah, whatever
.
”

Billy Wayne dropped to the sand with a grunt, leaning back against the white cinderblocks of the lighthouse foundation.

O
kay, this is good, this is very, very good
, Billy Wayne thought, although both his shoes were now half-filled with goddamn sand.

“I’m Tommy,
”
the kid said.

“Nice meetin’ ya, Tommy.
”
Billy
Wayne
a
djust
ed
his coat to proudly display his belly while
trying
to
hide
the fact that his legal pad was blank. He’d have to write some things down and busy it up for the next time. Maybe some math problems would look good.

“Tommy, you believe in God?
”

“My mom does.
”
Tommy
pu
ll
ed
a crumpled green soft-pack of Marlboro Menthols from the back pocket of his cutoff jeans. “She believes God is who put my
good
-
for
-
nothing father and her piece of shit son on this earth
to torture her each and every day
.
”

Us versus
Th
em
, Billy Wayne thought as the boy lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke out both nostrils, then turned his head away. Billy Wayne had read that when someone turn
ed
just their head away from you, it meant a level of trust had been achieved.

“Wow, so you know what I’m saying about my dad, huh?
”
Billy Wayne said. “Parents can be pretty screwed up.
”

“You can say that again.
”

“My mother was pretty tough, too
.
I couldn’t hang out with my friends. Seemed like I always had to be doing homework
and never got to watch TV.
”

Billy Wayne didn’t blush one bit at these lies. He
, of
course
,
ne
ver
had any friends to go anywhere with, stopped doing any sort of school work at an unusually early age, and was always welcome to lie down on the living room couch and watch soap operas to keep his mother company. He was pretty much free as a bird, as long as he kept
his mother
stocked with cans of Coke and bags of sugar cookies from the dollar store.
She sometimes even paid Billy Wayne a quarter for slathering her feet in Vaseline Intensive Care lotion, rubbing real hard between her toes.

“So you became a preacher?
”

“Yes,
I guess y
ou could say I found my calling.
”
Billy Wayne was trying to figure his next move, maybe see if
the boy
was hungry and buy him a cheeseburger or something. Bringing out the big guns and announcing he was God didn’t seem the right tact
ic to use
with
a kid. Not yet, anyway.
Although
Billy Wayne was feeling more and more at ease as a counselor.

“Hey, you hungry at all?
L
et’s go grab a bite and talk over a burger or somethin’. Be my treat.
”

“I got no place else to be
.
”
The
boy hopped to his feet with ease,
while
Billy Wayne had to grope at the side of the building to rise from the deep sand. Christ, his shoes were
more
than half-filled with this goddamn sand. The
dark
-
haired
boy was taller than Billy Wayne had estimated and a lot broader in the shoulde
rs
.
He ha
s
the makings of a fine first disciple
, Billy Wayne thought. And the kid actually had some
manners
, gesturing for Billy Wayne to go first down the narrow sand path that led back to the parking lot.

Billy Wayne was feeling like a fisherman, coming back to port with a
big
trophy catch hauled in from the high seas. He felt better than he’d felt in
weeks, maybe months. Heck, m
aybe ever! This might not be so hard after all. It
was
just about being able to talk to people, being yourself.

“My car’s up here or we can
…
Ouch!
”
Billy Wayne screamed, stars flying across his vision and his knees buckling from the staggering weight
that
had banged across the back of his head. Billy Wayne
lurched first
on
e way, then the other,
as though
trying to
stand up on
a
floating lounge chair in a swimming pool. The world was rotating but his eyes couldn’t keep up
, and he realized he was going down just as another heavy blow cracked down on the top of his skull, sending him sprawling
in
the sand.

“Fucking homo,
”
he heard from somewhere in another room or maybe another planet, what with all the stars and blackness. He tried to blow some of the sand from his mouth, but it was all coated and stuck to his tongue. Billy Wayne then felt he was being levitated
and realized the kid was lifting him by his belt. The muscular boy rummaged through his front pant’s pockets and then dropped him to snatch the wallet from his back pocket.

Billy Wayne’s ears were receiving a high pitched ring
and it
felt like a
sizzling-hot needle had been plunged
into his right temple
,
but
he
was still able to hear the boy unzipping his jeans somewhere up above. A warm stream of piss started at the back of Billy Wayne’s neck and then drew a line up the back of his head, finally finding his right ear. The boy’s piss sent the ringing underwater, dulling the pitch, which actually made the sharp pain subside a bit.

Then Billy Wayne lay there alone, only moving enough to begin taking inventory of
the
damage. His vision had returned
a
nd he could see the very top of the lighthouse, just above the gr
a
y fence and stubby trees. His feet moved and he wiggled the toes on his bare l
eft foot; he’d apparently lost one of his good
shoe
s
in the attack
and would have to find it
.
His book said how important it was to have good shoes.
Billy Wayne concluded he was probably okay, except for the salty taste of sand and piss and one thumping headache. He used the
front
of his incisors to scrape the sand off his tong
ue, spitting out little clumps.

Jesus was a martyr
, Billy Wayne thought. He sacrificed his life for his beliefs and to redeem us from the original sins of his forefather, Adam.

Step number twenty-six
in
How
t
o Become
a
Cult Leader
i
n 50 Easy Steps
: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! When suffering your own seemingly monumental setbacks, take into consideration that the original cult leader was
beaten
,
stoned
, whipped, and nailed to a cross. Now, as you stand there feeling sorry for yourself, has your day really been that bad?
”

“Yes,
”
Billy Wayne groaned
as he found
his
way to his
knees before trying out his legs. He resisted the urge to
remain
kneel
ing
, whimpering there in the sand for the rest of his life. The smell and taste of urine was horrible, and the wet sand st
ic
k
ing
to his arms and face was itchy. He knew his mother would let him come home. He could tell her how sorry he was for leaving, that he couldn’t live without her.
He could
promise to be a good boy from now on, to stop being foolish
. S
he’d
have to
take him back because she needed him.

“No.
”
Billy Wayne leaned forward to punch the
deep
sand
.
“I’m not giving up.
”

Billy Wayne let a new wave of nausea pass
before
r
i
s
ing
to his feet
and
stumbling down the path toward his car, spitting tiny grains of sand as he went.
He spotted his lost shoe on the other side of the split
r
ail fence
near the parking lot and strained to squeeze his fat torso through to reach it. The shoe was also damp with piss. Billy Wayne
decided another long hot shower should wash this day away
. M
aybe
buying
a gun
would help him
avoid another one like
it
.

The phone book in the Belmar Arms Motel was so fat,
its
soft spine and pages rubbed so smooth by age, it acted like liquid in Billy Wayne’s lap. Each time he
attempted
leafing through a section, it tried pouring itself onto the floor.

The old guy planted behind the counter watched Billy Wayne’s struggle.
“Book is old like me
.
Ain’t got no bones left.
”

The stub of a pencil and scrap of paper Billy Wayne also held made it even harder to corral the phone book. His head was tender in two spots, but the headache had
mostly
passed, and he was determined to continue his mission properly armed.

“If you’re looking for a massage girl, you best make certain it ain’t for no house call
.
I’ll kick your
butt
right outta here
,
and don’t even think about a refund.
”

Billy Wayne had decided the old clerk wouldn’t be the best p
erson to ask about buying a gun, so he
’d
opted for
the Yellow Pages.

Every
thing Billy Wayne knew about guns
had been
learned from cop shows. His mother sometimes mentioned
them
, but only to tell Billy Wayne he might as well go down to the corner store and buy a gun so she could kill herself. When he was little, he pictured a real store down on the corner
that
stocked these special suicide guns, with curved barrels that aimed the bullet back at the shooter. He imagined the proprietor wore a sinister black cloak, face hidden deep within the dark hood so nobody could tell which person from the neighborhood was the
owner
. Maybe
,
wh
ile he gave
you your change, the
man
would reach out with your dollar bills clenched in a white, bony skeleton of a hand.

Billy Wayne found a sporting goods store
that
promised guns and ammunition of all sorts and sizes, and jotted the street and town on
a
slip of yellow paper torn from his legal pad. The listing was in the
Y
ellow
P
ages at the back of the book
and
included
two lines advertising how they served the brave men, women, and families of Fort Dix. Billy Way
ne considered asking the old clerk
for direction
s b
ut decided to make this journey
on
his own.
Now that h
e had a plan
,
he
needed to stop relying on others. He knew Fort Dix was maybe a half
h
our away, somewhere off to the south.

Billy Wayne followed
road signs
and found the turn for Tom
River with gratifying ease.
But after a
n hour of hopeful turns, Billy Wayne’s Dart had begun to overheat and was nearly
out of gas. Giving in to ask
ing
for help became much easier, and he found a group of teenage boys hanging around the front steps of a convenience store in a place called West Tuckerton.

“You can’t miss it,
”
the boy
said of
the sporting goods store. “Left out of the lot, then the second right. Then just keep on going.
”

“It’s kind of
in
the middle of nowhere,
”
added another boy
, and Billy Wayne misinterpreted
the
snickering
from two others
, used to having teenagers laugh at him for no reason other
than his presence.

“Thank you, boys, and God bless.
”
Billy Wayne
b
acked his Dart out of the space to another round of sni
ckering
.

He
drove his old Dodge Dart down the long, straight road, all his windows
open
to let in the salty air.

As suspicious as Billy Wayne currently was of teenage boys, it didn’t dawn on him that they might be sending him down a long, dead end road into the flat, grassy marshes for a laugh.
He
drove
over
the last small bridge
, which
stood about six feet
above
the water and muck, scanning the gray horizon for any signs of a bigger road
that
might lead to a town and a sporting goods store. The only sign of anything other than nature was
the gravel drive running
off to the right, returning on his left after it appeared to make a large loop. He also noticed a weathered wood sign p
ainted with the words
,
“Fish Head.
”

“
Fish Head Island,
”
Billy Wayne guessed and then drove down the other side of the bridge onto the island, using his blinker to turn right. He was deciding whether to risk getting stuck in the mud turning around
or
to
just drive all the way around the loop, when he came to a spot where the bay opened up to the ocean off to his right. He stopped his car
to
watch
several
specks race and bob across the horizon, finally recognizing them as jet skis.

It was in this remote place that Billy Wayne began to feel something foreign,
a
sense of unease. Other than
the times he
locked
himself
in his bedroom, he
had
rarely
been
alone
,
always
in
call
ing distance of
his mother
. Every peaceful moment was always tarnished by the cringing
awareness
of his mother’s impending plaintive demands. Billy Wayne was a beaten dog when it came to enjoying peace and quiet. He mostly winced through those calm moments
, too jittery to ever enjoy them
.

He parked his Dart and stepped out into the morning sun
,
which
rose up over this calm section of water. Facing due east,
he saw
a fairly narrow channel out to the Atlantic, wh
ere
strips of land rea
ched
from both the left and right across several hundred yards of glassy water. Off in the distance was
a
gigantic tanker ship, big and dinosaur-like
,
silhouette
d by
the glare of the sky.

For as far as Billy Wayne could see, there wasn’t another human being other than those hidden inside the far
-
away tanker, now that the jet skiers had disappeared. Billy Wayne could almost taste the
solitude
, his senses
sharpening
like someone who
had been
deaf
but could suddenly hear. He
was
certain there
was something very special about this place.

On Fish Head Island, the sky was a blue-gray dome, a steel cathedral over
h
ead. Billy Wayne thought he’d been sent to this place by
a
power greater than a juvenile delinqu
ent
;
there was an undeniable
spiritual
aura,
notwithstanding the crumpled condoms underfoot.

There simply had to be
an
important reason he’d been led to this bleak
but glorious
spot, busy only with darting seagulls and tiny fish breaking the surface of the bay to escape bigger fish. Billy Wayne felt for the little ones under assault, leaping into what was
to them
an airless world for momentary
freedom
. He’d suffered a thousand dreams of being chased by something with awful teeth and scales.

Billy Wayne regretted wearing his best shoes
but felt compelled to explore, especially since
there
se
e
med to be no dangerous teenagers lurking about. He reached back into the car for his yellow legal pad, just in case, and took a walk down a path through the sea grass off to the right.
He
was a little surprised at all the trash in such a remote area
; then
he
remembered watching a television show with his mom about places
in
Hawaii where all the garbage from Japan would wash up, making that tiny slice of paradise look like a garbage dump. Maybe this was the same thing. Maybe even Heaven had a big pile of soiled mattresses and non
-
biodegradable debris stacked up agains
t the Pearly G
ates, flotsam and jetsam from
mortals
below.

The path was interrupted by a narrow canal
that
seemed a little too wide to hop across. Litter was strewn
throughout
the sea grass, from faded Dunkin Donuts boxes to mashed beer cans an
d nasty, poop-streaked diapers.

The path continued on through slightly taller grass on the other side, and Billy Wayne stood for a moment to calculate his chances. Throughout his entire life, this was the exact type of
challenge
he’d
avoided, opting for
safety. But that wasn’t how he was going to
live
the rest of his life. Things were different now, and he could feel
the power and strength of his new
purpose
-
driven
existence
.

“I can do it
.
”
H
earing
his own
words encouraged him even more.

He took a few steps back to allow for a running start, clutched his legal pad so as to not flap and create drag, and twisted from side to side to
limber up
his back and legs. Billy Wayne eyed the landing
,
bent his knees and said, “On your mark, get set, go!
”

The last step before take
-
off was
more
slipper
y
than expected. Instead of
taking
a graceful leap out and over the narrow canal, Billy Wayne’s feet were suddenly headed skyward
. It was like
slipping on a banana peel
the way people did
in cartoons or in old slapstick movie
s
. Billy Wayne entered the warm, salty water head first and was practically pile-driven through the three feet or so of water, deep into the brown muck. Letting go of his prized legal pad,
he
sank both hands into the slime all the way to his elbows before gaining
enough
leverage to extricate his head. Despite ears filled with years of decaying flora and fauna, Billy Wayne heard the loud sucking pop as his head was freed from the bottom of the canal
. H
e splashed and flailed to his knees. On all fours, Billy Wayne arched his back to get his chin above the water line and gulped a mouthful of air, gasping for breath.

“You okay, buddy?
”
a man’s voice called down from somewhere behind him.

“Help,
”
was all Billy Wayne could manage. He froze, trying not to shift his knees or hands for fear of sinking
deeper
into the mud and back under the
stinking,
horrible tasting water.

“Hang on
.
”
Billy Wayne heard the man step into the water, sending a series of miniature waves to break against his raised ass. The man straddled Bill Wayne from behind, reaching under his chest to pull him to a more stable sitting position, and Billy Wayne was grateful to have his face
clear of
the churning
brown water
, where h
e
imagined there must be a thousand poisonous snakes.

“Gimme your hand, boss
.
”
Billy Wayne
blinked away mud
and looked up to
see a wrinkled and splattered tan uniform. Not a cop, but some sort of ranger reach
ed
out to lock hands with him. The ranger guy had a scruffy, unshaven face
,
an
d
Billy Wayne was immediately envious of the big gun strapped inside a holster
and
hanging from his hip. Leaning away, the man pulled Billy Wayne to his feet, then steadied him for the three sloshing steps to dry land.
F
irst
one then the other
shoe
was
sucked off, claimed by the muck at the bottom of the canal.