Hydroplane: Fictions (13 page)

your father going, Are those your friends, those boys, and, Do you know them, and, What about those girls, and, They're looking at
you, pointing to the local kids who point back from where they stand behind the House of Mirrors smoking cigarettes, laughing at you, some of them waving, some of them calling out things to you like, Daddy's girl, like, Hi Daddy, like, Hi C. S. L., your father shaking his head at them, your father looking at the local girls, looking at their asses like peaches, their dynamite asses, your father looking at the way they hula-shake them into the boys to the music coming from the Flying Bobs, your father going, Will you look at that, your father calling them the local sexpots, his bear paw sweating around your hand, What are you doing with the local sexpots,

pushing slightly into the hard hot sand thinking, Do you want to go faster, Yes, Do you want to go faster, God, yes, God, no,

the man at the Ferris wheel going, No shoes no ride, your father pulling you out of line, the two of you walking to a souvenir shop to buy too-big shoes, plastic shoes, Maryland written across the sides in red,

the girlfriend chopping tomatoes faster, you going, You saw nothing last night, standing up from the table and pushing the girlfriend's pile of chopped tomatoes to the floor,

a short trip on the Ferris wheel, your father screaming, your gut caught in your throat,

the boys going, Cocktease, like you don't know this, like you don't know what you are,

knowing you can't go back to the boardwalk, not tonight, not ever, knowing the local kids will have something to go, this hard as coconut city girl, you, this stupid little girl, you, this stupid little fuck
letting your father hold your hand in line because you couldn't go no, because you couldn't make yourself invisible, you couldn't turn yourself to cloud, you couldn't freeze time by stopping all the clocks with your face as ugly and splotched as a face can be, because you have no magic force, letting your father go, Wheee, when the Ferris wheel brought you down and down, the kids all calling out, Daddy's girl,

walking a quick walk back to the beach house, a block ahead of your father, walking into the beach house alone, slamming and locking the washroom door, staring at yourself in the washroom mirror, putting on the girlfriend's makeup and heavy, like a fucking sexpot, teasing the hair into some big thing,

sitting on the sun porch thinking, I'm sitting on a chair, The men are looking, The men are looking at me, The men are looking at me sitting on a chair, My life is over, My life was nothing, But I could get up,

tiptoeing into the beach house at sunrise, your father asleep in a chair, your father waking and going, What, and falling back to sleep,

and it could have been good with your boy below the boardwalk, his hands caught up in your sunstreaked hair,

it could have been good had you meant it, had you not been such a cocktease, always wriggling, then wriggling away,

your fat ugly uncle looking at you how he looks at your father's girlfriend, his mouth forming a whistle you never hear because there's no whistle but your fat uncle going, Sexy, and the girlfriend
turns red, Sexy, and you run back to the washroom, screaming, Shut the fuck up, your fat uncle still calling, Come out sexy, your father going, Shut your fat face, your fat uncle still laughing his head off, your head a shadow in the corner, your hair a mess after all that teasing,

knowing it's over, the boardwalk, the beach, knowing you'll go back home, Baltimore, back to school, brick, smoke, gray, that nothing life of TV, you on the couch, your father sleeping on his chair, TV static, clear gloss on your lips,

knowing you'll still hear your fat uncle going, Sexy, in your head, like seeing a picture in your head, like seeing TV in your head, when you're a grown-up dragging your sorry ass through your house,

sitting on the washroom floor in the girlfriend's nightgown, the girlfriend's makeup, and you didn't mean to be so sexy in the nightgown, sitting in the corner when you've gone too far, and you didn't mean to be so sexy,

your father knocking on the washroom door, going, Come out now, going, Wipe that shit off your face, going, Put on some clothes and act like a grown-up, going, Walking around in that crazy getup, Where'd you get such a crazy getup,

your father's girlfriend rushing past the House of Mirrors when the boardwalk shuts down for the night, the local kids walking home from the boardwalk, you walking down to the beach,

your head like TV, pictures shifting, a switch and switch and switch,

and it could have been good in the cave below the boardwalk with your boy, but you're what, you're a cocktease, and there's no deep rut you dug below the boardwalk with your boy,

your head like TV, late night static, something forbidden behind the snow,

your father kicking open the door,

your father going, Come out, from his place in the doorway, his shadow filling the corner,

you going, Come here, from your place in the corner, your father not coming closer,

and it could have been good with your boy below the boardwalk, his hands caught up in your sunstreaked hair,

instead of you alone in the night-cold sand watching the waves until sunrise,

the trashpicker poking at trash with a stick, singing, Susie Q,, Oh Susie Q,

you running heavy on the still cold sand,

you running breathless into light blue light,

the Ferris wheel small in the distance, static,

This will be about several things—no surprise, what isn't.

But I'll start with a convention I went to each year.

This, despite my brother's words, my mother's, despite it all. For we all know of conventions and the ones who, each year, go.

Let me say this. I wasn't one of those ones, you know. You couldn't call me a die-hard goer. I mean I went to this convention yearly, yes. But I know I could have lived without it. I wasn't one of those desperate die-hards, living for the day we all convened.

My brother—let's face it—was jealous. He had no conventions to call his own. He had hobbies, however, as a kid. Model airplanes, butterflies stuck with pins.

He caught the butterflies with his hands in the field behind
our house. There was nothing much in the field. Wildflowers and tall brown grass.

There was a way he stood, bent and low, his hands an inverted cup.

He dropped the butterflies into a plastic bag. He sprayed something into the bag to make the butterflies stop flapping their wings. Then he tied the bag at the top.

From the field we could see the back of our house.

And the terror of this perspective.

My father went to conventions. Medical ones. Though he was not in the medical field. But he liked to meet people who were. Like, for example, nurses. Or those women who longed to be nurses.

When we were kids, my father said to me and my brother to choose a convention, any one, when we were grown. He said, It gets you out of the office.

So I, grown, chose a convention which seemed fitting at the time, its topic that is, which I won't divulge except to say it's in the field, though I am not, of showbiz. I saw the convention mentioned in the back of a magazine, and it looked to me to have potential, far more than my father's, which were often dull in dull hotels, men at tables in the saddest suits.

And they never gave us anything good. Tongue depressors with company names printed on them in red.

My mother, brother, and I spent evenings watching TV in the room. My brother built his model airplanes on the floor.

The room smelled of glue and paint. The fumes did something to my head.

My mother would say, without looking from the TV, Cap that glue.

My father went to cocktail lounges with friends from the convention. My mother waited up, ready to fight when he walked in late. My brother and I pretended to sleep.

My father would say, Can you let it go. He smelled of things. Sometimes we heard a crash.

We spent days at the beach if there was a beach. In rain we spent days in the room.

And now I associate hotel rooms with rain.

Which is to say the brochure arrived for the convention hotel—it arrived at the office—and I thought of rain.

The girls from the office looked over my shoulders. I pointed out the size of the hotel beds. They were very big, made for two, at least.

I pointed out, too, the indoor pool, the cocktail lounge.

The girls from the office, jealous I think, said, What a nice pool.

And there was the ballroom, the chandelier. I could see how the tables would get set up. I could see myself walking the ballroom at dusk, collecting things from the tables.

This year I would wear high-heeled shoes.

The girls from the office said, Why not swim.

Funny to be thinking of swimming. It was winter.

And I didn't even own a swimsuit.

Once, though, I did—it was two piece, blue—and once I could swim like a fish. I dove into waves and outswam my brother. He tried to outswim me but never could.

God I could tell you how he cried on the sand when a wave knocked him down to his knees.

In the room, later, I'd call him a baby and he'd catch me and pin me to the floor.

He'd whisper into my ear, You're dead.

I walked the ballroom in an evening dress and high-heeled shoes. I stopped at tables to have a look at the things the men were giving away. Pens, pencils. Handfuls of candies. The occasional tote bag.

I'd give the things to the girls from the office. They would fight for the tote bags. It was always this.

And I'll say right now—why waste time—that this year's convention was awful.

I blame, in part, a nonevent—I can say that now—which seemed an event as I, poolside, watched the men in the pool.

So I called my shrink from the room.

The operator said, What's your name, and I waited at first but then gave my name as one has to do this for collect.

The operator said, Well, how about that.

She said, My daughter has your same name.

And yes, I know—time has passed—how foolish it was to call my shrink collect.

On the first day, my shrink had said, Tell me about your father.

I said, He works in an office, and so on.

She said, Tell me about your mother.

My mother was dead, and my father had a girlfriend.

He said, I have a right to have a girlfriend.

My shrink said, How do you feel about that.

I thought up some jokes. How did I feel.

Well, I said, With my hands, of course.

When we went with my father to his conventions, I often ran up the hotel room bills. I called girls I knew from junior high when there was nothing else to do in the days. I knew many girls, though none of them well, and called despite how they likely felt about me.

My father pointed to the bills when checking out and said, You should have called collect.

He said, You'll send us to the poorhouse.

I sometimes imagined the poorhouse as a shack on the edge of some great road.

I talked with men in the ballroom before it turned dark. I laughed at their jokes.

So a man walks into a bar…

So a one-armed man…

A one-winged bird…

A horse and a nun walk into a bar and the horse says…

They loved to bend my ear.

It was so overwhelming. All those men. Their pathetic suits.

All those jokes to work through.

So a lady's car breaks down on the road, and she's walking along the roadside, and she sees a house with the light on—it's night—and when she gets to the house, she sees a man in the stable grooming the horses, and she walks up to the man and says, Mister, I'm wondering if you can help…

I looked into their eyes assertively. Longingly.

They were never looking at my eyes.

And I often laughed before the punch line. It was something
with timing. Something with their timing. It was always off. Or was it too on. There was often this pause before the punch line. And I often laughed in the pause.

Well, I knew about jokes. I was one to make them when I could.

Even when shopping for the swimsuit, I thought up a joke or two to tell.

The salesgirl had said, Can I help.

And I thought up jokes. I mean could she help. Of course she could. But not in the ways she thought.

I mean she could have helped me to be more assertive for one. Better looking for another.

She followed me from rack to rack.

She said, Are you going to the beach.

I said, No, a convention.

She said, Oh, what for.

But I couldn't come up with anything good. So I chose a swimsuit from the rack and parted the fitting room curtain. The suit fit tight in places—I'll just say it—tight all over.

The salesgirl called from the other side, Let's see you.

I pushed aside the curtain. She looked and said, Look at you.

She said, Well, you'll certainly turn heads in that.

And I almost made another joke. I almost said, Which way do you think the heads will turn.

Okay. But I didn't say it.

There were times to keep quiet and I knew these times.

The operator said her daughter had my name, and what was I supposed to say. She said something about how she chose
her daughter's name because it meant something else, the name, something beautiful in some other language. And she said something about names in general and something about my mother choosing the same name and then the joke about great minds thinking alike and so on, as if she were the one with a foot in the door of something showbiz.

There was an evening at home I called my shrink. She picked up quick, a fluke, that time, as she, too, was trying to make a call.

I felt awful that evening, desperate, frantic, sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth, clutching my new swimsuit to my chest.

I couldn't tell if she was disappointed to find me on the other end.

But we talked for a moment. About what. About my body. My body inside a cagelike swimsuit. And the salesgirl had looked. And the men would look. And how was I supposed to wear the swimsuit in front of the men in the indoor pool when the suit didn't even fit.

The salesgirl had suggested I buy a terrycloth beachrobe as well. And I felt awful, in part, because of this. I felt awful, in part, because I thought she thought I should cover the ill-fitting swimsuit. And I felt awful, in part, because I had never before owned a beachrobe, as I always thought beachrobes for older women, like women old as my mother was when we traveled, who, at the beach, sat beneath a huge umbrella in her terrycloth beachrobe, shivering, who knew why.

Because she was sick.

Yes.

We didn't know it yet.

But we should have known it by the way she stared, unblinking, at the TV

And her face was gray.

She slept like the dead.

My beachrobe, like hers, was short and white.

God, no one prepares one for anything.

The operator told me her daughter played several sports in high school, three sports, who knows which.

She said her daughter would someday be a professional something or other.

Had I been more assertive, I would have said, I don't care about your daughter. I would have said, Your daughter sounds like the bitches I knew in junior high.

Those girls ganged up on me for reasons I can't explain.

And did I play sports in high school, the operator wanted to know

No, I did not. I played no sports in high school.

But I could swim like a fish my mother said.

Often there was no beach or it was fall or winter or about to rain and my mother and brother would go to a nearby mall to buy model airplanes and the glue my brother used that sent my head through the roof.

On those days, I watched TV in the room and called the girls from back home. If one didn't pick up, I called another, often one I hardly knew. I called as many girls as I could think of until I got through to one and then kept her on the phone for as long as
I could, just talking about unimportant things, even when she said she had to go, her mother was calling her name.

What a sick feeling in my gut when we disconnected.

I had thoughts of, Who next, Who next, Who next.

And that dial tone, that terror sound from space.

The pool was filled with treading men, their heads bobbing in the deep end.

I stood poolside, half-in half-out of the beachrobe.

This shouldn't have been so intense.

But look. Once I was a girl.

And my father and brother fell to their knees, rolled to their backs.

My mother said from her place on the sand, Quit carrying on.

My father said, Would you look at that.

He said, You can't even pinch an inch.

Well, I was no longer that thin, for what that's worth. I saw that in the dressing room mirror. There was certainly more than an inch.

My father looked at my legs and laughed. My legs were like boys' legs then.

Well, I no longer had boys' legs for what that's worth.

My father said, Don't cry.

And I never knew which way to run. Either into the ocean or into the room. It depended on which way my brother might run. And it depended on the sky.

To make me laugh my father said, What's black and white and red all over.

I never laughed.

My brother said, What.

The operator said, Are you calling a friend.

And I said, Yes.

A good friend, I said.

The operator's daughter had good friends too. They all played sports and why was it, she wanted to know, I didn't play sports.

I just didn't want to. I was always traveling with my family.

Oh, travel is good too. Did you go to Europe.

No, we went to Detroit and Miami and Tuscaloosa.

The operator said, Sports keep you in shape.

I almost joked, In the shape of what.

The operator said, My daughter has a figure, I used to have a figure.

And as I waited for the phone to ring, I wanted connection already. I wanted that feeling of seeing a face, a familiar face one wants to see.

Like one's mother's face, to take this further. One's mother's face in a crowd.

But you get old, you know, the operator said, and the figure goes, Ha, I used to eat whatever I wanted, My daughter eats like a horse and never gains, And the boys, You should see the boys around her, I never had boys…

And as the phone started ringing, I considered saying that my friend wasn't home, that I'd try again later when she was sure to be home and waiting for my call.

I wasn't feeling right about calling my shrink collect.

I had not been back to see my shrink for weeks, and I wasn't, in general, feeling right.

But the operator wanted to know what was Miami like. And Tuscaloosa.

I didn't really know. I only saw the hotels and what was around the hotels.

She said, Tuscaloosa, Now that's a mouthful.

There was a nurse who came in to care for my mother.

She closed my mother's eyes and removed my mother's fingers from the edges of the bed one finger at a time with a pencil.

My brother said this on my machine.

He said, She used a fucking pencil.

Because my mother had died in her sleep, drugged, everyone called it peaceful.

But—maybe obvious to say—who can say what she was dreaming.

My father met the nurse at a convention. I imagine them talking beneath the ballroom chandelier. My father says, What's black and white and red all over. She says, What. He says, A newspaper. She doesn't get it. He says, A nun with a spear though her chest. She says, You're awful, laughing and smacks his arm. He says, A penguin who's been shot. She says, You're killing me, and covers her mouth. She's wearing white stockings. My father gets her number. She becomes his lifelong friend.