Crying Wolf (10 page)

“A misnomer,” said Professor Uzig, “dating back into the academic mists. Three twenty-two is now for freshmen only, selected freshmen.”

“It's full, isn't it?” said Grace.

“Oh, yes,” said Professor Uzig, “long full.”

“What's it about?” said Nat.

“You haven't heard of the famous course that teaches people to think?” said Mr. Zorn. “Isn't that the one, Leo?”

“You know my thoughts on that subject,” said Professor Uzig.

“It's called ‘Superman and Man: Nietzsche and Cobain,' ” Izzie said. “Isn't that cool?”

“Cool?” said Grace.

The girls stared across the table at each other. Izzie looked down.

“I don't know anything about Nietzsche,” Nat said; he didn't know much about Cobain, either.

Professor Uzig turned to him, his hair washed and dried now, but still wild, his teeth and the whites of his eyes the same color as the Meursault. “Of course you do, young man,” he said.

“Nat,” said Izzie.

A quick smile crossed his face as the professor continued: “That's like saying you don't know anything about Christ or—”

“Walt Disney,” said Mr. Zorn.

Everyone laughed, except the professor, and Nat, who wanted to hear what he was going to say.

“Yes, or Walt Disney, I suppose, but that simply demonstrates the power of the trivial in our times,” the professor said. “Nietzsche, on the other hand, is not trivial, and, unlike Mr. Disney, is inside all our minds at all times, whether we are aware or not.”

“That sounds almost scary,” said Mrs. Zorn. “Like that movie, oh, what was it again?”

“
Night of the Living Dead
?” said Anton.

“No.”

“
The Little Shop of Horrors
?” said Albert.

“No,” said Mrs. Zorn. “Oh, why won't it come to me?”

“Go on, Leo,” said Mr. Zorn. Mrs. Zorn's end of the table quieted.

Professor Uzig was sitting back in his chair, arms crossed. “I think I've said enough.”

“Please go on, Leo,” said Mrs. Zorn.

“Yes,” said Grace. “You're just getting to the good part. What's Nietzsche saying inside my head?”

“You already know what he's saying—if you choose to put it that way. None of us would be the way we are without Nietzsche.”

Nat saw Anton—flexing his forearm in the candlelight—pause.

“But give us some idea of his philosophy,” Izzie said.

“So, you want spoon-feeding,” said Professor Uzig. “Since it's Christmas, then, and such a beautiful night, and since the concept of learning to think, by which I mean to think originally, is in the air, and since, as an original thinker, Nietzsche has no superior—” He paused, took a drink, looked at Mr. Zorn. “Here is some idea of his philosophy, then, as it applies to the act of thinking, thinking of the first water. Our supreme insights, he says, should sound like follies, even crimes.” He downed the rest of his drink, almost the whole glass, in one gulp. “Even crimes.”

“Like Galileo and the Inquisition,” Nat said; it just popped out, he had no business speaking at all.

Professor Uzig turned to him, eyebrows, gray and wild, rising. “Exactly.”

A bare foot pressed itself against his.

Mr. Zorn laughed. “I love your bullshit, Leo, I really do. World-class. But if you picked that quote—or invented it—to goad me into endowing that Leo Uzig chair of yours, the answer's still no.”

“Does he have to be so rude?” Grace said.

“Grace,” said Mrs. Zorn.

Grace gave her a furious look. It made Mrs. Zorn's hand shake. Nat saw the reflected candlelight from her rings making jagged patterns on the far wall.

“Nietzsche didn't mind a little rudeness, did he, Leo?” said Mr. Zorn.

“He was rather correct in his personal dealings, in fact,” said Professor Uzig. “Excluding the period of his madness, of course.”

“Let's exclude Lizzie Borden's one bad day while we're at it,” said Mr. Zorn.

 

M
r. Zorn was gone by the time Nat got up the next morning; the noise of the takeoff woke him. He went onto his balcony, found the skimpy European bathing suit gone, American-style trunks in its place. He put them on, went down the path to the beach. On the deck of one of the villas lay a pile of snorkeling equipment. He borrowed mask, fins, and snorkel, as well as a large fishnet, and jumped into the sea.

The sea calm, without a ripple, the sun rising directly in front of him, changing the color of everything moment by moment; and the water itself, as he sank into it, still that perfect temperature: it relaxed him to the core. Trailing the net as he'd seen Izzie trail her speargun, he set off toward the point.

Nat saw brightly colored fish, coral heads and fans, a ray, a barracuda, all things the Discovery Channel had prepared him for. It hadn't prepared him for the feeling of this sea, the experience of being in it. He thought of all kinds of metaphors—amniotic, baptismal, blood—none of them quite right.

Nat was around the point, rising and falling with a swell so gradually begun that he was hardly aware of it, watching a tiny purple-and-gold fish nibble at a piece of coral that resembled antlers, and thinking
antlers, St. Nick,
and smiling into his mouthpiece, when he heard a low whine. It grew louder. He raised his head, saw that he'd gone much farther than he'd thought, all the way to the back side of the island, and, once again, a surprising distance from shore; was there some sort of current? As he oriented himself, he saw the cigarette boat, source of the whining sound, come shooting out of the natural harbor, throwing a frothing bow wave in front, a rooster tail behind. As it came closer, he could make out Grace at the wheel, Professor Uzig in the stern. Their course would take them hundreds of yards to the north, but Grace suddenly changed it and bore straight at him. Nat felt an adrenaline rush, was just about to do something, maybe dive straight down, when the cigarette veered sharply, reared up like a reined-in horse and settled rocking beside him. Grace and Professor Uzig, a book in his hand, gazed down.

“Scare you?” Grace said.

“No.”

She laughed. “I'm dropping Leo at the Sir Francis, then going over to Pusser's for supplies. Want to come?”

“Think I'll just stay here.”

“Not permanently, I hope,” said Professor Uzig.

“Suit yourself,” Grace said. “And if you spit in your mask, it won't fog up like that.”

“You're supposed to spit in it?”

“Unless you're too dainty.”

She gave him a look. Professor Uzig, laughing, didn't see it. The book in his hand had a German title. Grace hit the throttle, circled Nat once—she shouted something at him, might have been “Don't get eaten”—and roared away. Nat caught the name on the stern:
Manchineel.
He spat in his mask, swished it with seawater, kept going, his vision much improved.

Some time later, how long he didn't know, but the sun was high in the sky, warming his back even though he'd begun shivering, Nat swam toward shore. He came to a beach he hadn't noticed before, a small beach beyond the harbor, almost hidden by rocky outcrops at each end. He took off his gear, saw a few strands of seaweed and some shells marking the high-tide line, carried everything above it. That was when he noticed Izzie, previously hidden from his sight on a patch of sand among the rocks. She lay facedown on a towel, reading a book, wearing nothing.

Nat stood there as though cast under a spell, aware of her, aware that his mouth was open. What was the right thing to do? If she'd been wearing something, anything, even just bikini bottoms, he could have spoken. But not like this. Therefore the right thing was to quietly, very quietly, without making the slightest—

Izzie stiffened, jerked her head around, had the towel over herself in a moment.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't know—”

“That's all right.” She sat up. “I thought it was that creep Anton.”

“He's a creep?”

Izzie ignored the question, looked past him, saw the snorkel gear, the net. “Catch anything?”

“Didn't try. I was hoping for one like Lorenzo.”

“Have to go to the Pacific for that. No clown triggerfish here.”

“That's what he is, a clown triggerfish?”

“Yeah. And sit down. You're making me squint in the sun. I'll get wrinkles.”

He sat on the sand.

“What are you reading?”

She held it up:
Young Goodman Brown
.

He thought:
We'll be in class together.
“Have you come to the part about him being the chief horror?” he said.

“That's where I am right now. You think it's important?”

“Probably. The ending doesn't make sense otherwise.”

She looked at him. “Like it down here?”

“How can you even ask?”

“Is it your first time?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone's like that their first time. After a while you learn the truth about the Caribbean.”

“Which is?”

“It's one big slum when the sun doesn't shine.”

“I don't believe that.”

“Neither do I, actually.”

“Is it something Grace says?”

Pause. “Maybe,” she said. A shadow passed over them. Nat glanced up, saw a pelican; had to be a pelican, with that fish dangling from its long beak. “Let's go for a swim,” Izzie said.

She rose, dropped the towel, ran down the beach, dove in with a whoop. Nat ran down the beach too, dove in too, even gave a whoop, though he wasn't one for whooping. She was already thirty or forty yards out, her stroke effortless, her speed astonishing. Nat splashed after her.

Izzie treaded water over a reddish bottom. “That's my favorite coral head,” she said, gazing down.

“How deep is it?”

“Forty feet, on the bottom.”

“You use scuba, right?”

“Scuba's for wimps,” she said. The next moment she did a duck dive and kicked down; became blurrier, smaller, and stayed that way for what seemed like a long time; then grew bigger and clearer again. She came bursting through the surface, took a deep breath, handed him something.

“What's this?”

“A sand dollar. Keep it for luck.”

He tucked it in the pocket of his trunks. “Are you on the swim team?” he said.

“Swim team?”

“At school.”

Izzie looked incredulous. “Sis boom bah,” she said.

“But you're an incredible swimmer.”

“You should see Grace.”

They rose and fell with the sea. Again, it seemed to be pushing her toward him. The reply to her last remark had come at once, but he held it in, held it in, while the sea moved them closer and closer, and the sun made gold sparkles all over the surface, just like those gold sparkles in her eyes, and finally it came bursting out, as though he too had come up from a deep dive.

“I want to see
you,
” he said.

One more swell and they were touching. This time Izzie didn't back away. Her arms went around him; his circled her; they kissed, warm and salty.

 

A
fter, lying in the sandy patch between the rocks, they were thirsty. Nat climbed a palm tree, not a tall or particularly straight one, but still a palm tree, plucked a coconut—“no, no, the one to the left”—smashed it open on a rock. They drank its milk. Smashing a coconut! Drinking the milk! Some ran down his chin and she licked it off.

“One thing,” she said.

“What's that?”

“It might be a good idea to keep this a secret, at least for now.”

“Why?”

“Grace can be funny.”

“How?”

“Trust me. Who knows her better?”

“What is it we're keeping secret, exactly?”

“Whatever's going to happen with us.”

“Keeping it from Grace means keeping it from everybody, doesn't it?”

“You're so smart.”

Smart, sweaty, coated here and there with sand. Did keeping it from everybody include Patti? He had to tell her soon, didn't he? Whether or not he had to morally, he knew that he would tell her the next time they spoke; he couldn't lie to Patti. At the same time, he thought:
Our best ideas should sound like follies.

He said yes.

 

O
ne more vacation note. There was a birthday party for the twins on the thirty-first. Boats overflowed the natural harbor, four or five planes landed, perhaps a hundred party goers came in all, although not Mr. Zorn, en route to Zurich, or possibly Lahore. Nat learned that Grace had been born on the thirty-first, at 11:53
P.M.,
but Izzie hadn't arrived until 12:13
A.M.,
on the first. They hadn't been born on the same day, not even in the same year.

Let's have a little fun today. What would Nietzsche have thought of contemporary American culture?

—Professor Uzig, opening remarks at a Friday afternoon seminar, Philosophy 322

S
aul Medeiros had an auto body place called Saul's Collision on the outskirts of Fitchville. An auto body place, not a high-tech store: because of that, Freedy left the HDTV in the van—that rusted-out VW van of his mother's, with the stupid flowers painted on the front—and went into the office.

An old son of a bitch with hairs growing on the top of his nose—no shit—sat behind a greasy desk, and a woman in a quilted parka stood on the other side.

“Will it be as good as new?” she was saying.

“Oh, sure,” the old guy told her, rubbing his chin, unshaven for three or four days. “Hunnert percent.”

“That's a relief,” she said, leaning over the desk and signing some paper; the old guy's eyes followed the movements of the pen. “I know it's crazy, but I'm really attached to that car.”

“Yeah,” said the old guy, “it's crazy.”

She left. Freedy lounged against the doorpost, cool. The old guy lit a cigarette, looked him over, dropped the match on the floor. It came down to who was going to talk first, although Freedy didn't know why. He talked first.

“You Saul?” he said.

“Depends who's asking.”

“Says Saul on the sign on the roof.”

No answer. The old guy folded his stubby arms over his gut.

“Freedy's asking,” said Freedy. “Me.”

The old guy nodded. “Ronnie mentioned you. My nephew, up the valley.”

“Right.”

“What d'ya think of him?”

“Who?”

“Ronnie. My nephew up the valley.”

“What I think of him? You know, he's just . . . he's Ronnie, right? We played football.”

“How was he?”

“Huh?”

“Ronnie. At football. Any good?”

“You know Ronnie. He's a pussy.”

Saul Medeiros smiled; his teeth were the color of nicotine. “And you? Were you any good?”

“I was a fucking leg breaker, Mr. Medeiros.”

“Attaboy,” said Saul Medeiros. He took a deep drag from his cigarette. “What's the story with this girl Cheryl Ann?”

“Huh?”

“You and Ronnie and this piece of ass, Cheryl Ann.”

“That was a long time ago, Mr. Medeiros. How do you even know about it?”

“One of those family legends. All families have them. Maybe it's kind of a legend in your family too.”

“It's not.”

“No? Don't think I know your family, comes to that. Know a lot of families in the valley, but not yours.”

“We're not really from the valley. I am, like. Born here. But my mom came from out of state, back in the sixties.”

“And your old man?”

“Fucked off.”

“He from here?”

“Don't know where he was from. He was just some hippie, with one of those hippie names.”

“Like what?”

“Walrus. They called him Walrus.”

“Googoogajoob,” said Saul Medeiros.

Freedy, suspecting that Saul Medeiros had lapsed into Portagee, remained silent.

“Lot of hippies came here back then,” Saul Medeiros said.

“Must have been a fucked-up time.”

“Hell, no. Never got laid so much in my life.”

That surprised Freedy. Then came another surprise: a mental picture of this toad with the hair on his nose putting it to his mother. “What was
your
nickname back then?” he asked.

“Some people don't get nicknames,” Saul Medeiros said. He stubbed out his cigarette. “That it, then?”

“What?”

“Just getting acquainted, or you got something for me?”

“The second one.”

“Thought so. Let's go out back.”

 

S
aul Medeiros offered him seventy bucks for the HDTV.

“What's this,” said Freedy, “the Comedy Channel?” A good line, real quick, real cool, showing that California polish.

“Seventy bucks,” said Saul Medeiros. “Take it or leave it.”

Just what Ronnie had told him, probably where Ronnie had got it from. Freedy decided right then he didn't like negotiating with the Medeiroses, didn't like negotiating at all, when it came down to it. For a second or two there, he'd had enough, enough of negotiating, which always meant somebody—like the spics at A-1—cutting a piece out of him. Come to think of it, what was the difference between a spic and a Portagee? Not much, which had to be a brilliant observation, made him feel better and forget all about the speedy little movie that had just flashed through his mind, a movie that ended with Saul Medeiros on the floor. No matter what, bottom line, he himself was no spic or Portagee. He was . . . whatever the hell he was, kind of depended, it suddenly occurred to him, on who his father actually was. What the fuck: he could be any goddamned thing.

“In a coma or just thinking it over?” said Saul Medeiros.

“Another good one, Saul. I like a sense of humor.”

Saul checked his watch.

“Know what these things cost new?” Freedy said.

Saul shook his head. “Means nothing. Like with a car. Drive one off the lot, it's worth half. What you pay for that new-car smell.”

“I don't think it's half.”

“Don't tell me. I'm in the business.” He lit another cigarette. “But I'm a soft touch,” he continued behind a cloud of smoke, “so I'll tell you what. Think you can get more?”

“More what?”

“Stuff.”

“Sure.”

“You got some kind of contact?”

“Trade secret, Saul.”

“Very smart. Thing is, if you're in a position to get more stuff, then maybe we could build us a working relationship. You follow?”

“Yeah. A working relationship. I can get stuff. Don't you worry about my end.”

“Good. Then what I'm going to do, an investment in goodwill like they say on Wall Street, is give you ninety for the goddamn TV.”

Freedy smiled. Didn't actually smile on the outside, much too sharp for that, or if he did he wiped it off his face real quick, but, hey—here he was not just negotiating but negotiating the shit out of an operator like Saul Medeiros.

“Appreciate your sentiments, Saul. Sincerely. But you know what sounds better than ninety?”

Saul smiled that nicotine smile. “Some round number, Freedy?”

Freedy smiled back, on the outside this time. He himself had great teeth. “You got it.”

Which was how Freedy squeezed a C-note out of Saul Medeiros. He really was an amazing person.

* * *

O
n the way home, meaning on the way back from Fitchville to his mother's place in the flats, all that talk about Cheryl Ann gave Freedy an idea. Cheryl Ann hadn't made the cheerleading squad—lost by two or three votes, as Freedy remembered—and even then had been kind of chubby, and maybe a little annoying with that loud laugh of hers, showing the fleshy thing that hangs down at the back of the mouth and all, but none of that was important about her. What was important about her was that she'd meet him behind the field house after practice sometimes—and that she must still be around. The fact was that Cheryl Ann remained the only girl who'd given him a blow job; meaning by that a complete one and for free. And she'd still be around, for sure: Freedy'd done some growing up by now—hadn't he carved out a place for himself across the country?—and knew that a girl like Cheryl Ann would never go anywhere.

Cheryl Ann didn't live in the flats. Her place was actually on College Hill, on the dark side but still almost halfway up. What was her father? Plumber? Septic guy? Something like that, enough to put them on the Hill. Freedy drove past the Glass Onion, the last of the boarded-up buildings at the bottom, turned onto her street; no need to even think where he was going, not like LA. He parked in front of her house.

Only it was gone. And so were the houses around it, replaced by a huge rounded thing, all glass and smooth red-brown concrete. Freedy drove to the end of the block and checked the street signs. He was in the right spot; everything else was wrong.

Freedy got out of the VW van, walked up to the main entrance, read the bronze plaque:
The Avner K. and Rita M. Budnoy Multicultural Studies Center
. What was this? Some college shit where Cheryl Ann's house used to be? Since when was the college on this side of the Hill? He crossed the snowy lawn to the first normal house and knocked on the door. An old bag answered.

“Lookin' for Cheryl Ann,” Freedy said.

“You don't mean Cheryl Ann Crane?”

“Why not?”

The old bag gave him a long look. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Nope.”

“But you're looking for Cheryl Ann Crane?”

“Yup.”

She waved her hand at the new building. “Long gone. The Cranes sold out to the college, as anyone can plainly see.”

“Long gone where?”

“Florida. What with the money they got paid they set themselves up in Florida. Why couldn't the college have planned that place just a tich bigger is what I want to know.”

“And Cheryl Ann, she went too?”

“She surely did. Climate must of agreed with her. Hadn't been there more than three months but she married a doctor. One of those Cubans, but still, a doctor.”

“Cheryl Ann married a doctor?”

“They sent me a picture from the wedding. One of those real dark Cubans, but a doctor.”

“With that fat butt, she married a doctor?”

“Some men can't resist a fat butt—don't you know that by now?”

 

F
reedy went home. Not home, but to his mother's. On the way he sniffed up the last of his crystal meth. Tweak. Zing. Snow started falling, or maybe not.

This was all temporary. What he needed to do was put together one of those nest eggs, and then . . . start a business, say. Since pools were what he knew, why not a pool business? Had to be in a warm climate, not California, too superficial, like everyone said. Warm climate, not California: Florida! And would it hurt to look up Cheryl Ann while he was at it?

The kitchen was a mess: muffin tins everywhere, jars of ingredients with the tops off all over the counters, milk and eggs that should have been put back in the fridge left wherever she'd happened to put them down. He dug a muffin out of a tin, took a bite, threw the rest in the trash. Didn't even taste like food.

Freedy stood over the trash, having smelled a familiar smell. He saw the stubbed-out end of a joint in a discarded tuna can. That meant she was in her bedroom, having one of her naps. Get fucked up, take a nap—part of her life cycle.

Freedy heard the mail falling through the slot, went to get it. Electric bill, phone bill, coupons, something about hunger in Guatemala, and a letter addressed to his mother. He held it up to the light, rubbed it between his thumb and index finger, thought he felt a little crinkling. Made him curious, like Curious Whoever-he-was, some monkey she'd always been reading to him about when she wasn't painting nightmares on his walls. He was curious and she was napping—how the goddamn hippies lost the world.

Freedy had heard about steaming open envelopes but never actually tried. How hard could it be? He plugged in the kettle, always handy for tea—there were dozens of different teas on the shelves, chamomile, lemongrass, raspberry, banana, pick-me-up teas, relax-me teas, teas for thinking, teas for feeling, teas for wiping out cancer. Steam came boiling out of the kettle. Freedy held the envelope over the spout.

Nothing to it. The flap loosened all by itself, and Freedy peeked in the envelope, saw a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it: no writing on the paper, but C-notes inside. Two of them. Suddenly it was a C-note kind of day: had to be a good omen.

Two C-notes in an envelope and nothing else. Couldn't be her welfare or her disability or whatever the hell it was: the government didn't send cash. Some muffin buyer? With no statement, no name? Some pot thing? But drugs weren't dealt like that. There was an exchange, this for that, at the same time. Still, with her, maybe a pot thing. What else could it be?

Freedy heard her in the hall. Before the kitchen door opened, he had the money resealed and on the counter with the rest of the mail. Moving at the speed of crystal meth.

“Hi, Freedy,” she said, yawning and scratching under her tit. “I had the most amazing dream.”

Freedy kept his mouth shut; he never wanted to hear another one of her dreams.

“What are you up to?” she said after a little silence.

“Just making tea.”

“You are?”

“Want some?”

“Why, sure, Freedy, that's very thoughtful of you.” She sat down. “The mango-ginkgo would be nice—that orange box.”

Freedy had never made tea before, but how hard could it be? He opened the box, took out a handful of teabags, dropped a few into each cup, poured in the boiling water.

They sat at the table, drinking tea. “My goodness, Freedy,” she said after the first sip. “You've got a knack.”

“Don't mention it.”

She smiled at him. “It's nice having you home, Freedy.”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea how long you're—any idea what your plans are?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact. But it's too early to say, if you know what I mean.”

“I do, Freedy. I know that one very well.” She turned her shadow eyes on him. “We have something in common after all.”

The fuck we do.
“This, uh, father thing,” Freedy said.

“I'm sorry?”

“Walrus.”

“Walrus?”

“Wasn't that what he was called? My father, I'm talking about.”

“I beg you not to raise your voice, Freedy. You know I can't deal with violence of any kind.”

“I'd just like a few facts about him, is all. I'm not a Portagee or something, am I?”