The Wild Card (12 page)

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Authors: Mark Joseph

BOOK: The Wild Card

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Dean hopped into the boat and glanced at Bobby who looked away, muttering, “There goes the game.”

“We can still play,” Alex said.

“Play what?” Bobby sneered. “Pin the tail on the donkey?”

“She's stranded,” Nelson said earnestly. “It wouldn't be right to leave her here, a girl like that. She'll get in trouble.”

Gazing down at Sally who stood on the dock smiling up at him like a teenaged vixen, Bobby said quietly, “Let's go inside and talk this over.”

Below, Bobby took a seat at the table and waited until the others filed into the cramped galley.

“Nelson is right,” he began. “She'll get in trouble because she is trouble. You guys don't see it. She's got you all excited, thinking you're gonna get laid like this was some dirty movie gang bang. You know what? That's bad news because if it happens you'll feel lousy and dirty and cheap. It isn't worth it. And the next thing you know she's running to the cops and we're in jail.”

Charlie snickered and Alex rolled his eyes. Across the river a flock of coots thrashed river water into foam and lifted into the sky. Unseen, a train rumbled in the distance. The gas man had disappeared.

“If we don't take her,” Alex said, “we'll spend the rest of our lives wondering what might have happened if we did.”

“Nothing is going to happen,” Bobby said.

“You never know.”

“I'll tell you what,” Bobby said, suddenly inspired. “Swear you won't touch her, and she can come on the boat. Otherwise, I'm going back to San Francisco right now.”

“She's just a broad,” Dean said. “Maybe we can have some fun. I'm the captain. It's up to me.”

“Shut up, Dean,” Bobby snapped. “You're the boat driver, not the captain. We don't have a captain. You swear to leave her alone, or I'm gone.”

“Who are you all of a sudden, our daddy?” Dean demanded. “I think you just want her for yourself.”

“You swear, or as far as I'm concerned this trip is over,” Bobby insisted.

“What if she touches us?” Nelson said.

“You're not gonna let that happen, Nelson. That's what.”

“You're serious,” Charlie said.

“Damned straight. We've done a lot of shit together, all of us, but taking advantage of some girl who's lost and scared and alone is over the line.”

“She doesn't look scared to me,” Dean said. “She looks hot to trot.”

“Bobby's right,” Alex said, placing his hand over his heart. “Besides, we all saw how she looked at him. There's nothing to lose. I swear.”

“Me, too,” Charlie said with a little laugh. “You know I'm not going to touch her.”

“Okay, let's do the right thing,” Nelson agreed.

“Dean?”

“Oh, man, it ain't no big deal,” Dean said. “All right. Cross my heart and hope to die. Ha! What a hoot.”

“You better mean it, you big son of a bitch, or I'll have your ass.”

“I'd like to see you try. Who is this guy?”

“He's just being Bobby,” Alex said. “Humor him.”

Bobby drummed his fingers on the table, fatigued by the constant play of threats and counterthreats. They'd done as he'd asked, yet he considered packing his gear and taking a hike anyway. Something had clicked in his mind and he saw his friends in a new light, as overgrown children with trashy minds and overactive hormones. As pals, a royal flush, they'd run their course and it was time to move on. In a few weeks he'd be in Berkeley strolling through Sather
Gate and pitting his wits against the big brains on Telegraph Avenue. If he bolted, he'd have to hitchhike to San Francisco and explain to his parents why he was thereâit wasn't gonna happen. Maybe it would be all right. Maybe the girl would behave and allow the boys to act like gentlemen. He picked up a deck and began shuffling while the others trooped back up on deck.

“Hey!” he heard Dean shouting to Sally, still on the dock. “You coming?”

Sally grabbed her suitcase and radio and scrambled onto the
Toot Sweet
before the boys could change their minds. By teasing them to get aboard, she'd created a ticklish situation. She knew what “You won't regret it” meant to them and hoped she didn't regret having said it, but after one look at Bobby she'd made up her mind to say anything to get on the boat. It had happened so fast, out of the blue, but once she was on the deck, theatrically patting her chest and catching her breath, she saw the boys were merely boys, a species she understood. They were close, one girl and four boys standing in the compact stern of the boat, close enough for her to smell beer on their breath. She made them nervous.

“I'm dealing,” Bobby shouted from the cabin, and that's when Sally noticed the tattoos. In 1963, an era of crumbling conservatism when tattoos on middle-class youth were almost unheard of symbols of rebellion, she guessed their defiance was only skin deep.

“You guys are really nice to take me along. I won't get in anybody's way.”

“It's a small boat,” Dean said. “We can show you around.”

Touring the tight spaces of the twenty-seven-foot cabin cruiser, the galley, and forward cabin with two bunks, they tripped over themselves staring at her ripe chest while trying desperately not to touch her. Amused, when the brief tour ended she resolved their confusion by stationing herself on a deck chair on the polished mahogany bow.

Dean started the engine, they cast off the lines, and the journey up the river started anew. Within a few minutes Sacramento was a haze in the southern sky.

They weren't kidding about being gamblers. While the big one
drove, the others played poker in the cabin, the crude, exuberant sounds of the game drifting up from below like pungent clouds of smoke.

“Pair of fours bets a dime.”

“See your dime and raise a quarter.”

“See your quarter and raise another two bits.”

“On a pair of fours? You gotta be kidding.”

“Put up or shut up, man. C'mon.”

“Okay. I see your two bits. Whaddya got?”

“There it isâtrips. Three of a kind, the two fours you see, and presto, from the hole, the four of hearts, the whore of farts. Haha.”

Upstream from the state capital the river changed color with astonishing quickness. The
Toot Sweet
chugged along, engine generating a pleasant exhaust note, the water reflecting a palette of green from the trees and brambles along the banks. Suddenly, the wake from another boat would rock the cruiser and turn the river into a stream of gleaming metal. Straight down alongside the bow the water was dark green and murky brown speckled with flakes of pure light. Sally remembered from the eighth grade that gold had first been discovered near Sacramento, and as far as she knew it might have been at that exact spot. It looked rustic enough, and she could imagine miners toiling in the sun with pan and sluice box. That made her feel like a pioneer, a circumstance that suited her just fine. She liked Westerns.

Above and behind her on the flying bridge, guzzling beer and indulging in the crudest pornographic fantasies his overheated mind could concoct, Dean was having difficulty keeping the boat in the channel. Suddenly he kicked down the throttle and yanked the wheel to avoid a snag near the eastern bank, almost spilling Sally into the water. She grabbed a handrail and twisted around, shouting, “Hey!”

When the boat suddenly swerved to the left and tilted deep to the right, chips and cards slipped off the table and clattered onto the deck. Charlie fell off his chair and beer cans rattled in the galley.

“Christ. What the hell was that?”

“Dean's so toasted I don't think he could drive a toy boat in a bathtub.”

“Well, damn, if this ain't up shit creek without a paddle. Who can drive this tub? Nelson?”

“No way.”

“Maybe the broad.”

“I don't think so.”

“I can,” Bobby said, rising from the table and climbing the ladder. “It ain't no big thing.”

“Studley,” he hollered from the stern, “you can't drive the boat anymore. You're drunk.”

Dean drained a can of Schlitz, hooked the empty into the river and firmly grasped the wheel, eyes dead ahead. “Go fuck a duck, McCorkle.”

“I'm gonna drive.”

“What? You can't do that. That's mutiny.”

“That's what it is, yes sir, a rebellion at sea.”

“This is my boat.”

Bobby stepped up to the bridge and laid his palm on Dean's cheek. “I'll go into the engine compartment and pull the distributor cap and close the gas valve, Dean. Either let me drive the boat, or we drift back down the river all the way to the bay.”

“Shit.”

“C'mon, man. Go play cards.”

Dean took off his tri-cornered hat and dramatically tossed it into the river. Laughing, he abandoned the bridge and, casting a soulful glance at Sally, went below, yelling, “Who wants to play low hole card wild?”

“No wild cards, goddammit!”

Bobby knew next to nothing about boats and quickly discovered that turning the wheel to the left made the stern swing to the right. Furthermore, the current affected the boat's direction. When he pushed the throttle lever, engine noise increased but forward progress as measured by the shore was less than expected. Meanwhile, shouts of glee rose from the cabin as Dean joined the game and attacked the cards with zeal.

The river was mellow, Huck Finn-like in its serenity, and he was alone above deck with a mystery named Sally. She watched him experiment with the controls, gently zigzagging the boat against the current, and after a few minutes she asked, “Do you know how to drive a boat?”

Pretending to ignore the question, he tried to keep a straight face but after a few seconds he cracked a smile.

“No, but I'm learning.”

“Should I be scared?”

He laughed, saying, “I'm scared, but if we're going to get up the river, someone has to run the boat.”

“At least you're honest.”

“No, I'm not,” he said. “I lie all the time.”

She thought that was cute. “Me, too,” she said, and when he said nothing, she asked, “Where are we going?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Another question.”

“Why didn't you want me to come with you?”

“Like machine-gun bullets, zow zow zow. Maybe I'll just pull over to the side and put you ashore.”

He turned the wheel a little to the right and the stern came around and began pushing the boat toward the river bank. Fifty yards east of the wooded bank a thirty foot levee supported a highway where a semi rolled south toward Sacramento.

She couldn't tell if he was serious, but in case he was, she said, “If you want me to get off, I will. Just tell me why.”

Bobby realized that at one level the answer was: Because you're a girl who asks too damned many questions. With that in mind, he said, “This would be a good time to lie, but I'll tell you the truth. There's five of us, see, and we've known each other since we were little, and in a few weeks we're all going our separate ways. We got this boat to have one last adventure together, to go up the river as far as we can go and play cards as long as the money holds out. With you here, well, that makes you the adventure, you understand? And that wasn't the idea. It changes the equation.”

“Hmmm.”

“Do you understand âequation'?”

Bobby spoke this last question in such an undertone that Sally had to get out of her chair and climb to the flying bridge to continue the conversation.

“I'm not a dummy,” she said. “I'm just trying to get to San Francisco.”

“We're going the other way. Those trucks on the highway are going to the city.”

“I'm sick of truckers, if you want to know the truth. They're nasty.”

“I bet they're not sick of you.”

“Are you?”

Bobby had to admit that he liked her feistiness, but liking her only made her presence more complicated.

“You know you drive these guys crazy,” he said. “You do it on purpose.”

“I just want to get to San Francisco. I told you.”

“What's so special about San Francisco? It's just a city.”

“I won't know until I get there, will I? I heard about beatniks. Maybe I can be a beatnik.”