No one here can see me.
The bell sounded and the boxers began to circle each other. I didn’t understand how they were actually going to do this. It seemed like it would be so easy to dodge a punch in a ring that big. I suppose it didn’t occur to me that surviving the fight wasn’t the point. After a while my mind started to wander. I watched the strata of smoke in the air, concentrated on the gentle way they hung there. Every time someone leapt up in anger or excitement and broke through my layers of smoke, I hated them; they made them move too fast, disrupted the subtlety by being so brash, jumping through the pretty gray smoke ribbons to scream at the TV like agitated seagulls. Their bodies were made of noise and ash turned to mud with cheap beer.
The fight went on and on, gloves on flesh on bone, fighters clinging to each other like they were so tired they could drop dead. The referee pulled them apart and made them keep fighting. How could this be normal, pleasurable, thrilling even, watching two people burst each other’s flesh with the force of their punches? Why was it an occasion for the people on TV to dress up in suits and jewels, and for my parents to throw a party? Why did they all love this misery? Every time the bell rang I crossed my fingers, wishing for it to be over, but the boxers just flopped onto stools in opposite corners, drooling as they pulled out their wet mouth guards. I cringed when their coaches squirted water in their faces and in their mouths. Then the bell and they were back to the center of the ring, bouncing and attacking, crouching, blocking, bleeding gooey ropes from busted lips, then back to their corners, then back to the center again. Finally the one in blue had become a zombie, slick all over as if every part of his body was weeping. His punches stopped connecting and he couldn’t block the hits that sent him to the floor. He tried to get up when the referee counted to ten, but it was no use. Everyone was shouting now—some of them cheering in high tones, others flinging long bare arms over disappointed faces. Three . . . two . . . one. The boxer I’d put my money on lost.
I was still upset when my mother put me to bed. She kissed me on my temple and went back down to watch the second fight and I lay in bed and listened. The door of my room was ajar, the clang of the bell and the shouts of the crowd on TV and the crowd downstairs coming to me through the thick gray smoke ribbons lying on the air.
A shape stepped into the slice of light in my doorway; I heard the sound, and the sizzle. And then the smell. Downstairs a few people screamed. Something must have happened in the fight. The shape exhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke and came in. There was a small thud as he put his beer bottle down by the far wall. More screams from below. The smell of the beer-wet cigarette butt was so close now it stung.
I tried to be very still but my eyes were wide open. I thought he wouldn’t be able to see them. I don’t know why. Then he spoke to me. “I’m sorry you didn’t win.”
His sweat was oil, grease. What you might sweat if you were a machine. That’s what I remember about him, skin so slick with sweat it was too shiny to look at.
The air was so sour as he got closer. He put his hand on my face—it covered almost my entire face, as if to hold me there. His hand smelled like a match. My mouth filled with salt. I wanted my dad to hear me wishing for him, hear me needing him in that moment. But I didn’t call him, and he didn’t come.
Wait. What is that smell?
I sit up in my chair in Lolly’s spare room and the noise comes again. An explosion, not nearby but not super-distant either. Like cannons in historical dramas on TV. I listen for a while and eventually start to wonder if I’d imagined it.
I felt bad for him on Christmas. Dad. I never knew what to get him. December would come around and I couldn’t ever think of anything that he might like. Nothing I saw brought him to mind. Nothing ever made me think, Daddy would love that. How lonely. Yeah, I think he was pretty lonely.
The too-harsh bang of the bell to end the round. The smell of booze-sweat and matches—hot matches sizzling at the bottom of a beer bottle. The horrible thud of a boxer’s fist on another boxer’s face.
And then it happens again. My eyes spring open and my head turns toward the noise—the north side of the island.
I’ve developed the attention span of a retired person. Easily intrigued, ready to march to the village green or whatever and sniff out trouble. I guess everyone in a small town has this, the need to latch on to anything out of the ordinary. There’s no point thinking about it too much. I’m getting old, like everyone else.
Chapter Nine
By the dock at the north side of the island, a few Swans are gathered, looking out toward Duck Island, and some other Wrinklies who have been sunbathing on towels are sitting up, pointing or shrugging as they toss a conversation between them. There’s something I really like about seeing old people naked, but I’d never tell anyone that. It sounds too weird, though I actually don’t see why it should.
Earl seems like a good person to ask what’s happening. He’s really smart, plus he has a pair of binoculars pressed against the black freckles on his cheeks. I walk up and ask him if he knows what all the noise was about, and I know he hears me, but it takes him ages before he even turns his head in my direction. Then he just does this I’m really disappointed in you head shake, and I start to wonder if I should’ve asked Louise instead.
Earl finally decides to actually say something. “The problem is the methane. We told them. I went over there on Ted’s boat. No, it was the schooner, the little schooner that Lyall used to have, but he lost it in a bet. Or he sold it; that’s right, sold it to that fellow on Star . . . Eh . . . but I went over there and I told ’em . . .”
Okay, I don’t mean to be mean or anything, but old people take incredibly. Long. Pauses. They get it back eventually, a second before you start to wonder if they’d notice if you just walked away.
“There was probably a problem with . . . you know . . .”
I don’t know. I really don’t. I touch my pocket to make sure I have my phone. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time for my mother to call me? I’d have to take it—no one would think that was rude. My long-lost mother coming back to fetch me. Of course I’d have to take the call.
“. . . oh, you know.”
Jesus, Earl, no. I don’t know.
God, I’m hungry. What time is it? I could pull out my phone and look at the time, but I might as well say, Sir, you are so boring that I have completely given up trying to follow your demented ramblings, and he’d mutter something to Rose and she’d start to lose patience with me and that’s my only friend down the drain. I raise my eyebrows, face-language for Oh, that’s so interesting . . .
“Methane pockets!” Which he says like he’s talking about something really awesome but actually he’s just stoked to have been able to come up with the word.
“Of course, city hall was looking at near on fifty years of nil revenue from the landfill on the island. Might as well sell it to the Japanese, that’s what some folks said. Whole damn island . . .”
Then I’m thinking about sex with Jason, the way guys move when they’re having sex with you. Do guys keep their legs together when they have sex to protect their secret vaginas? No, of course they don’t. If dudes had vaginas, word would have gotten out a long time ago. They’d have, like, a documentary about it or something. Somebody told me that ducks have lots of vaginas. But that couldn’t be right, could it? God, what a weird train of thought.
“. . . so for near enough a decade the, ah . . .”
I am so fucking hungry. I could finish that pie when I get back to the house. No, wait, I gave it to Rose yesterday because Nick has the manners of a fascist and can’t even take a polite bribe. Shit.
“. . . Duck Island was one giant landfill. And all the way out here . . . ah . . . the . . . ah . . . regulatory framework is, you know . . .”
“Yeah. Totally.”
“And the stuff some people throw out needs handling a certain way. That’s why the regulations are there, not just to give the bean counters more beans to count.�
��
I imagine an assembly line in an old factory in the former USSR. It’s gray and the strip lights are blinking and men with mustaches in matching, boxy uniforms are making little lines on paper every time a bean rolls by . . .
“. . . which is why my wife only used cloth diapers on our four boys.”
Shit, I missed something.
“Not the explosions, of course. I don’t reckon we were thinking too much about explosions if I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. But pack them in too tight and pressure . . . it’s a . . . ah . . . it’s literally a ticking time bomb.”
I think I also heard that ducks have corkscrew penises. Wait, no way. Whoever told me that was totally fucking with me. Sometimes I’m so gullible it’s embarrassing.
“Ya see?”
“Yeah, wow . . . Intense.”
“Yep, just a matter of time—I told ’em . . .”
“Ahoy, Small-fry!” Rose, thank God. “Did Earl get you all filled in?” I nod. “Crazy stuff, huh?”
I nod again.
“So word is they’re evacuating Duck, that’s what Hazel says.”
For the next few minutes I just listen, and from what I’m able to piece together from Rose and Earl gabbing with the other Wrinklies, the explosions on Duck are from illegal trash dumping, like thirty or forty years ago. Portsmouth City used to pay the owner to bury garbage there because their landfill was full, and construction on the new one was running behind. The site out here wasn’t set up like a proper landfill (and this is where Earl loses me again, something about checks and standards and regulations and pressure gauges or something) so the trash didn’t get buried in the special, nonexplosive way that it usually is. Once the new landfill was finished they stopped the Duck Island operation. Once the island wasn’t generating income, the owner covered over the dumping site and sold it cheap to the University of New Hampshire, who set up a marine science research lab there. I don’t know why people need to come out to some nowhere island to study fish, but I don’t ask because Earl probably knows the answer, in detail. So anyway, the problem was disposable diapers. If they get put under too much pressure for years and years, they can just blow up. So now the college kids on Duck have to pack up their stethoscopes or whatever and evacuate or risk getting maimed by the most heinous landmines of all time.
While we’re hanging out with Earl still explaining the ins and outs of trash explosions and his late wife’s mothering philosophies, and how they hitchhiked to Woodstock from Vermont when she was pretty much ready to pop out her second ankle-biter, and he had the first one strapped to the front of his overalls, the boat from Duck leaves its moorings and bobs over the waves toward Swan. The idea of a small boatload of brainy college dudes rocking up here doesn’t bother me, but when they do that tossing-the-rope-on-the-pier thing sailors always do, the Swans are not having it.
Frances and Gretchen have come down from the Oceanic, and by now most of the Swans have assembled on the beach. One of the sunbathers starts to get up and puts a towel on, but seeing how the others stay where they are, naked and wrinkly and proud, she gets back down on her towel. She looks embarrassed, though, and that makes me pissed off at the kids on the boat, too.
So anyway, an older dude (older in mainland terms—like forty or something) hops off and approaches Frances and Gretchen on the dock. After a couple of minutes they come down to confer with Mrs. Tyburn and Giddy. The dude from Duck starts waving his arms around and pointing at the island. Another antique diaper blows a thick, soft-edged column of brown-gray smoke into the air; he points over and goes, See? like we didn’t see the six or seven that happened earlier, like we always just stand here staring at Duck Island in the afternoon.
Mrs. Tyburn, Giddy, Frances, and Gretchen walk him back to the dock, kind of half pushing him like bouncers. It’s pretty awesome. I move closer to the dock to listen in. Rose comes too. It seems like they’re letting Mrs. Tyburn do all the talking, which is appropriate, seeing as she always acts like she owns the place.
“We’re not unsympathetic, this much I’m sure you understand. But you simply must respect the basic rules of our community.”
The Swans are getting restless. “Take it to Star!”
“Thank you, Grover.” Mrs. Tyburn smiles at Grover, the island hobo. He’s really a retired investment banker, but he always wanted to be a hobo when he was a boy growing up in a fancy house, so on Swan he lives in a tent on an inlet on the north side and eats out of tin cans with a rusty old spoon.
Mrs. Tyburn goes on: “Yes, I’m sure they can spare some fresh water and camping space for the night on Star Island until you’re able to make meaningful contact with your university.”
I guess they wanted to stay here on account of all the extra rooms in the Oceanic.
“Shove off, smooth face!” Earl shouts.
“Go back to the Bad Place!” Giddy adds.
“What about her?” the science guy asks. He’s looking at me. Obviously.
“None of your business!” Grover yells.
“Special dispensation,” Mrs. Tyburn says.
“She’s not staying.”
That was Rose.
So they pull up their anchor. They probably don’t really have an anchor. It’s probably just an expression. All the Swans stand there and watch until they get to the dock at Star. I watch too because I don’t know where else to look.
Then there are hands on my shoulders. “Come on, Small-fry.”
I walk back to the shop with Rose. The bells chime when we walk in. And my stomach grumbles.
“Did any mail come today?”
“Nothing for you today.”
Rose’s cane is over by the fruit.
“Can I get a chicken, please, Rose?”
“Sparky?” Sparky’s the smallest.
“Actually, I think I’ll have Calvin.”
Rose takes her shears down from their hook on the wall, I get the knife from the crate under the counter, and we walk through the shop to her backyard, stopping in the kitchen on our way out so I can put a big pot of water on to boil. I find Calvin, all red and quick, trying to steal whatever the other chickens are pecking. When he sees me coming, he does that chicken jog, changing directions really fast, and I feel stupid chasing him in front of Rose. She’s laughing at me while she clips some tarragon in the herb patch, which is obviously really helpful. She’s much better than I am at this, but she always makes me do it myself. She says it’s good for me. She’s probably right but it’s a fucking pain in the ass.
I stop and act casual until Calvin relaxes and gets back to bullying the others. He’s not close, but I can tell he’s forgotten about me, so I lunge and get him by one of his legs. And of course he’s flapping and struggling hard, trying to pull his body away, but I position him in my arms and pull him into my body. I take him over to the bench where I’ve left the knife, sit him in my lap, and pet him. And when he’s nice and calm I say thank you, like Rose taught me to, find the place where his jaw meets his beak, place the knife in a tiny gap between feathers directly against his skin, and cut his throat. The knife is sharp; the only thing that could prevent it from slipping easily through the slim column of skin and tendon and muscle and organs is doubt. Hesitation causes unnecessary suffering at moments like these, so you have to cut with complete conviction or not at all. He’s completely still for a second while gooey red blood spits onto the grass in a stream the thickness of a nickel. Then his body spasms and his wings try to flap, but I’ve got him hard on my lap. And when his body is still again I take his head and pull it back, breaking his neck, and with a final twist pull off his head.
I hoist the pot of steaming water off the stove and into the yard and dip the carcass into it by its scaly feet. After a few seconds in the water, I loop a length of twine around one of the feet, hang it from a low tree branch, and start pulling the sodden feathers away from the bumpy skin. Rose comes over and hands me a burlap bag.
“Sorry.” I’ve forgotten to bring it o
ut and the feathers are starting to make a mess.
“It’s all right, junior. Just pay more attention next time.”
Rose does all this for the Swans but not for me. Which is fine. I kind of like doing it. Not in a serial-killer way. It just makes me feel like I can take care of myself. And the exposed skin, the swollen dotted lines that cover it—it feels like something I have to face up to.
“So you’ve been mouthing off to Mrs. Tyburn . . .”
“What’d I say?”
“You called her Cruella de Vil. To her face.”
“She killed a bee.” Rose appears unmoved. “They’re endangered!”
Rose takes a deep breath in, like she’s about to lay some heavy shit on me, even though I totally already know what she’s going to say. “Mind you, you’re a guest here. And Mrs. Tyburn’s peculiar project keeps you in chicken and pie. Keeps body and soul together.”
Something about that last thing strikes me as funny.
“So I’ll thank you to mind yer Ps and Qs, if it doesn’t inconvenience you terribly, mad-moi-zelle.”
“Yes, ma’am.” That’s what she likes to hear when she’s giving me a talking-to.
“That’s more like it.” She does her head-tilty smile like she’s satisfied. “So, Calvin, eh? Dinner for two?” See, I usually get the smallest chicken in the, like, herd, or whatever you call it when it’s chickens. “Jason stay over?”
“My parents are coming for me today.”
“Tap my feet and call me Bojangles! They called!”
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