We're All in This Together (18 page)

One of the Laddies emerged from the dock and nudged at Dr. Vic's armpit. He pushed away the dog's nose. The Pekingese gave
a whine and trotted away. The dog squatted on the planks and began to shit. Dr. Vic sat up; speared on the end of the dowel
was a compact disc. The disc skittered down the dowel and he looked at me with an expression of triumph.

"I got the ice," I said.

"No Jacket Required!"
he cried, and shook the compact disc on the stick, like a warrior with a scalp on a lance. "I fucking love this album!"

He was still grinning, glasses streaked with water, when I handed him the tray of ice cubes. "Thanks, George," he said. "I
owe you."

The rain was steady now, thrumming off the planks. Dr. Vic sat on the bench and the supports gave a damp creak. He cracked
the tray on his knee. I watched him drop a couple of cubes on the deck, and then a couple of more into the tumbler. Soaked
through, the heavy material of his orange flannel L.L. Bean work shirt clung to his belly. He splashed in some orange juice
and started to pour the vodka. The glass slipped and clattered to the wood. It rolled and bounced swiftly down the planks
before flipping off the edge. There was a splash, bubbling. The orange juice on the deck melted away in rain.

Dr. Viogave a damp snort. His breathing was suddenly thick and emotional.

I glanced away: a good fifteen yards out, I spotted a silver wafer bobbing farther and farther out.

There was a slurping noise, and I turned around to Dr. Vic. He had poured orange juice and vodka into the ice cube tray, and
now he was sipping and lapping from the indentations. His eyes blinked at mine over the lip of the tray.

"Have to make do somehow, right?"

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Improvise," he said. "Improvisation."

Dr. Vic sipped his tray, smacked his lips. He smiled at me and gave a sob. I lowered my head to study the dark planks. He
breathed, thick and shaky. I could sense the dam about to give way, and the expectation numbed me.

But Dr. Vic started chuckle. The chuckle spilled into a deep laugh, and finally, became a high, wild cackle.

I followed his attention to end of the dock, where the Laddies were hunkered down together, nibbling at a fresh pile of shit.

"You know, George, it seems to me that about the only thing that could be worse than one shit-eating dog, is two shit-eating
dogs," said Dr. Vic.

After a few moments, he was able to stop laughing. He cleared his throat and sighed and set his tray down on the bench. His
chin trembled.

"George," Dr. Vic said, "I just want you to know that I think you're a super kid. It just didn't work out."

My sneakers carried me down the deck at a run, and I was moving faster when I crossed the lawn, plunging and squishing through
the grass, slipping and falling and picking myself up and not even hesitating at the sound of my mother's car pulling up the
gravel driveway, not stopping until the sky fell away and a branch stung my forehead, and I was safe in the woods.

15.

For a while, I followed the muddy path with no real idea of where I was headed. I concentrated on the hollow sound of water
dripping on the hood of my raincoat. I felt cold and loose-jointed in my clothes. Something about it put me in mind of the
Arctic, and the way that hikers sometimes found eighteenth-century explorers frozen on the peaks, perfectly preserved. I pictured
my own museum display. "Here is an Ungrateful Child, carbon-dated to the early twenty-first century," a tour guide explained
in a nasal tone. "Our studies indicate that this particular specimen ruined his mother's engagement and aided his grandfather
in a deranged revenge plot. Very nasty little monster. Died a virgin."

I sat down in wet leaves with my back against a tree. It was near dark and the rain was louder. The ground was cold. I smelled
smoke.

They had built a small twig fire in the empty hood of the abandoned Studebaker, and the air almost seemed to itch with the
oily smoke from it. The two soldiers sitting in the truck's cab were only faintly visible in the light, but I could see one
of them shift to watch me as I approached.

"We had an accident," said Sugar when I came up to the passenger side door. I wasn't afraid.

Beside him, Tolson sat with his head thrown back and his eyes closed. A large purple welt shone on his cheek. What remained
of his hair was a scorched mess, and a bloody bald patch lay above his temple. He opened a single eye to look at me, gave
two gloomy blinks, and then closed it again.

"Defective flare," said Steven.

"How bad is it?"

"FUBAR," said Tolson. He sounded understandably morose.

"It's not FUBAR," said Steven.

"What's that?"

"He'll be okay after a little R&R."

A gust of rain roared down through the trees, shooting BBs off the roof of the cab. I waved at the damp smoke. Sugar sat as
calmly in the front seat as if he were taking a Sunday drive, cruising aimlessly.

"What are you doing now?" I asked.

"Chilling," said Steven.

I nodded. He nodded.

"Wanna come in?" Steven delivered a well-placed heel to the door of the Studebaker and it scrutched open. I said sure and
climbed in. They shifted over and Tolson gave a grumble of protest. Steven told him not to be such a pussy. "You just lost
some hair, dude."

For a while we didn't talk, just watched the rain rattle the trees. The smoke of the fire billowed from the gaping hood and
spilled across the floor of the clearing in tatters. It was dry in the cab, and warm from our shared body heat.

"We've got a bunch of peat logs. We're going to keep it burning all night. Wait out the storm."

"So, you guys hang out here a lot?" I asked.

"Not really," said Steven. "We only set up a camp here recently. When we decided to burn down your house."

I took this in stride. "It's not my house. It's my mother's fiance's house."

"Well, be that as it may, we were going to raze the fucking thing. Send a message to Old Man McGlaughlin." The bigger boy
gave me a frank look. "Your grandfather's attitude has been chapping my ass—big time."

I met the look, shrugged. "Collateral damage, right? That's how it goes. So what happened?"

Steven Sugar grinned. "Tolson fragged himself." He elbowed his partner. "Hey, why don't you try not pointing the flare at
your own face next time."

"I'll frag you, you fat prick," said Tolson without opening his eyes.

"Does that mean you're not going to burn down Dr. Vic's house now?" I asked.

"Maybe," said Steven. "The situation is under review." He turned back to the empty windshield. "So what do you do, kid?"

It was the kind of question that wasn't really a question at all, but a challenge. Justify yourself, Steven Sugar was saying,
put yourself in the best possible light, impress me. Damp gusts rolled through the trees. Rain pinged dully off the roof.

I thought of my summer: of the hours I spent with Papa, the mission with my mother.

"I'm an activist," I said.

Sugar cast a sidelong glance.

"Activists fight to help people. I want to help people." I used my sleeve to wipe water from my face. "I'm pretty new to it,
though."

As night came on, the two boys produced a shopping bag with graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate, and a single beer. "Don't
slobber on the beer," said Steven. We passed it back forth and roasted s'mores until the food was gone and my mouth was rotten
and my stomach drum tight.

Steven told me about how he planned to join the army after graduation. He said he wasn't going in because he was some kind
of wannabe asskicker, he just wanted the free ride for technical school. "Not that I'm opposed to kicking some ass, mind you,"
he said.

I told him I wasn't sure yet, but I was thinking about heading right to college. "Vassar," I said.

Tolson absently plucked blackened tufts of hair from his scalp and cast them in the fire.

We talked until the rain cleared, and the stars came out. Tolson said I shouldn't feel bad about my grandfather. "Mine's crazy,
too. He's got that Alzheimer's, and he's, like, obsessed with Sears. Thinks we all work there and nobody is ever waiting on
him. He's always like, 'I want some service! I want some service!' Shit bums a guy out." Steven said all his grandparents
were dead, but he had a grandaunt. "She's cool. She just listens to the police scanner all day, does a little gardening and
whatnot."

A fox strode across the clearing. The creature's eyes glowed green in the dark, and its tail wound in slow circles. We just
watched it; no one said anything. The fox disappeared soundlessly into the brush.

We added more peat logs to the fire in the hood. The blaze rumbled higher; sparks wafted into the dark, and died in a blink;
the shadows drew long, sober faces across the trees.

"Check this out," I said, and gave Steven a nudge. I removed my shoe, my sock.

Tolson leaned forward to see, too.

I planted my right foot on the ancient dashboard.

"Wow," said Tolson.

"Hey now," said Steven.

"You know what they say about guys with six toes," I said to my new comrades.

I woke at dawn and knew that people were missing me. The other two were still asleep. In the daylight, Tolson's face had a
deflated aspect and the coloration of a plum. Steven's snores came in a low consistent rattle, like a generator.

I slipped from the Studebaker and went to piss in the brush. Leaning on a tree, I constructed a plan: I was going to say I
was sorry, a lot, to everyone. If I needed to, I would beg. I was going to make everything okay. I had to make everything
okay.

Stumbling footsteps carried Steven beside me. "Howdy," he said, and began to urinate.

"I should go," I said.

"Well, don't be a stranger." Steven saluted me with his free hand, and sighed in relief. "And tell your grandfather no hard
feelings.

Being a paperboy sucked anyway. Tell your grandfather I hope he catches that Nixon guy."

"What?" I asked.

"The guy in the Nixon mask." Steven tucked himself back into his pants. "Tolson and I saw him one night. The guy who sprays
shit all over your grandfather's sign."

It took me twenty minutes to jog to the Beachcomber Motel where I stopped to use the pay phone. While I waited I paced the
gravel lot. I hoped my father would hurry.

Before this, the last time I talked to Ty Claiborne was on the day of Nana's funeral, at the reception.

I was tired of condolences, tired of thinking. So, I had decided to clean the pool in the backyard, using the net to skim
the dead bugs off the surface. That was where I was when my father came out to see me.

"Hey, George," he said. "I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. And that's just for your Nana, for starters."

Ty wore a dark blue suit and sipped a Diet Pepsi while I walked around and around, skimming off the insects, not talking to
him. He was a thin, gray man with straw-colored hair. He looked the way I imagined an undertaker should look, drained of blood,
sort of dusty. (In fact, the undertaker at Nana's funeral had been a rotund and almost cheerful man, bustling around the funeral
home with boutonnieres.)

His appearance had changed a great deal since our previous face-to-face meeting, four years ago, at the incident in the parking
lot in Blue Hill. That was when he threatened to kill my mother, and Paul broke his nose with a snow shovel. His hair had
been very long then, and he'd lain in the snow, bleeding everywhere, and even after my mother rushed me inside and locked
me in the bathroom, I was able to hear him howling.

Looking closer now, I noticed the distinct bump on his nose.

My mother had told me about Ty's two years of sobriety, his new job, the college degrees he earned in prison, and the social
work he did at the YMCA. Emma told me how he wanted to talk to me. She said she thought I should. (It was around this time
that I had, in fact, stopped speaking to my mother.)

"I know 'sorry' sounds like an excuse, but it's not. It's the fact of the matter. There are no excuses in the program, George.
I was a lousy husband and a worse father. I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict and a recovering piece of shit. That's the fact
of it. I threw twenty years of my life down a hole and I pelted everybody who looked over the edge with my garbage." He took
a deep breath. "And I am sorry. I am so sorry."

Mrs. Desjardins had come out smiling with a garbage bag and collected Ty's Styrofoam cup, then patiently held open the bag
as I shook out the net full of dead bugs.

"Nana taught me how to clean the pool," I said to my father when she left.

"Well, then I think that's a fine thing to do today," he said.

We stood around for a couple more minutes, and I didn't say anything else. The pool was clean. Then he tried to give me his
phone number. "If you want," he said.

"I'm not taking it unless you promise not to call me," I said.

Ty promised, and kept his promise.

16.

When the taxi pulled up to the curb in front of the Beachcomber, I wasn't thinking about the promise. I was thinking about
the island of Rhodes and the article by the divorced professor. I remembered the writer's bizarre notion that the Knights
of St. John had transformed into voyeuristic stray cats, basking in the sun and admiring the ripe brown breasts of European
tourists. I remembered the cashier at the Citgo, the Goth kid with the fork on his Adam's apple who took so much interest
in the Desjardins. "Dammit. Janet."

The wheels of the station wagon crunched over the gravel and I ran from the phone booth.

I threw the door open and dropped into the cracked leather of the backseat. The car smelled like pine and cigarettes.

"Hey," said Ty, "I'm glad you called. You know your mother's looking for you?"

"I need to go to my grandparents' house," I said.

"Are you going to call your mother when you get there?"

"Yes." Then I added, "Please don't talk to me."

"Sure," he said. "Are we in a hurry?"