A mighty wave struck amidships. The brothers clung to the sheets to keep from being washed away. The wind moaned all around. After a while the brothers realized it was a real moaning, the moaning of a woman: Mom, to be precise. The sound came through the thin partition.
Then they heard Mel: “You like that, don’t you, babe,” he said.
No answer. The boys clung to the sheets.
“Say you like it. Then maybe I’ll do it again.”
Pause. “You know I like it.”
“Say you like when I do that to you because you’re such a hot slut.”
Sir Wentworth tugged on One-Eye’s pajama sleeve. “We’ll have to make a raft,” he whispered. “She’s sinking.” One-Eye didn’t move.
“Say it,” said Mel, on the far side of the wall.
“I like when you do that because I’m just a slut,” said Mom.
“Good enough.”
Sir Wentworth tugged again at One-Eye’s sleeve. “Help me,” he said.
“Help you what?” asked One-Eye.
“Build a raft. The good ship
One-Eye pushed him away. “Stop being a jerk,” he said. He rolled over and closed his eyes.
Sir Wentworth built a raft out of pillows. The
There had been a succession of Mels, each one harder to live with than the last. Maybe their own father had been just another Mel too; the boys didn’t know. He’d checked out early, and Mom didn’t talk about him. The last Mel liked to slap the boys around a bit. One day Jack slapped back. The scene that followed prompted Mom to farm the boys out to Uncle Vic, on the New Town side. She and the last Mel moved to California a few months later. That was that.
Eddie stood in front of 23 Turk Street, Uncle Vic’s house in New Town. It wasn’t much of a place; they’d known that even then: a shotgun house with wavy floors, depressing wallpaper, grimy trim. But Uncle Vic wasn’t even their uncle, just some old friend of Mom’s. He didn’t have to do it. That was a plus. Another plus was that he kept his fists to himself.
Uncle Vic worked the night shift at Falardeau Metal and Iron. In the afternoons, he coached the high-school swim team. That had been the biggest plus of all: he had taught Jack and Eddie how to swim, really swim, and they had swum their way out of town.
Twenty-three Turk hadn’t been much of a house then. Now, like the rest of the town, it was past saving. Eddie walked across the sagging porch and knocked on the door. No one came. He knocked a few more times, then put his ear to the door, listening for movement inside. Someone said, “Tonight at seven-nudist camp murders.” Then came a Coke commercial.
Eddie knocked once more, harder. He was ready to do it again when the door opened. A tiny man with a matted beard and stringy white hair looked out, blinking. He shrank back a bit when he saw Eddie’s hand, in knocking position. Eddie lowered it.
“Whatever you’re sellin’ I’m not buyin’,” the old man said. Alcohol fumes drifted into the space between them.
Eddie didn’t recognize the man at all, but he knew the voice. “Vic,” he said.
The old man peered up at him. “Do I know you?”
“Uncle Vic,” Eddie said.
The old man studied his face, then looked him up, down, up. “Shit,” he said. “You still competin’?”
“Competing?”
“Is why you shaved your melon. Unless you’ve gone bald or some-” Vic remembered then, and his face, hard enough, hardened more.
“I got out yesterday,” Eddie said.
“Just yesterday?” said Vic, puzzled. “Well, if it’s money you want, I got none. Don’t need no jailbirds around here. No offense.”
The wind gusted across the porch, spinning a white cone before it like a seal toying with a ball. Vic, in a sleeveless undershirt and long johns, shivered.
“I don’t want money,” Eddie said. This wasn’t what he’d expected. But what had he expected? An embrace? No; but a handshake, maybe.
“Good,” said Vic. “ ’Cause I got none. Those fucking Falardeaus laid me off, laid off half the town. I suppose you didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t.”
Vic snorted. “Restructuring.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell me.” Vic glanced up and down Turk Street. No one was out. He looked again at Eddie. “You don’t want money?”
“No.”
Vic opened the door wider. “Might as well come on in.” Another gust ripped up the porch, blowing a tiny white storm inside before Vic got the door closed.
Same house, same layout: front room, stairs on the left, bathroom down the hall, but much smaller than in memory, and all comfort gone. The shag carpet, Vic’s La-Z-Boy, framed photos of Johnny Weissmuller: gone. There was just the TV and a stained sofa sagging crooked on the warped floor. On the screen, a man in a party hat was jumping up and down.
“Bank’s got the place now,” Vic said, watching him. “So who gives a shit?”
