by Bret Lott
But he cannot find any way to turn it off, any sort of temperature control switch. The air conditioner is only a large brown box stuck in the window, cold air pouring out into the room. He cannot even find an electrical cord he can unplug.
“Call the front desk,” Carol says to his back. Lee stands in his underwear, staring at the air conditioner, his arms around himself. He does not move.
He says, “Call up there yourself, you like that old woman so much.”
“I will,” she says.
She lets it ring four times, seven times, twelve times before hanging up.
“No answer.”
“I suppose now you want me to go up there and knock on the door,” Lee says. He turns around. Carol is silhouetted by the lamp on the nightstand. He sees her profile, but then she turns to him, and he loses her face in the dark. “Right?”
But there is no one at the front desk either. Lee bangs on the door, waits, bangs again. He puts his face to the window, cups his hands around his eyes, but the office is dark. He has on only a pair of shorts, and feels sweat trickle down his chest and the small of his back. He bangs on the door again, waits, then leaves.
He sits on a lounge chair by the pool, looking at the night sky. The moon is brown through the smog and the temperature is only a few degrees cooler than during the day, but the darkness makes all the difference. In the darkness he cannot see everything.
He wonders how they will pay for the motel room for two nights, and how the air-conditioning in the room really works, what kind of wiring the contractors had done when they built the place. He wonders about new jobs, about money, about Carol. Mostly, he wonders what will happen. He wonders what will happen with the three of them, and has no answer.
Then Carol is standing next to him, silent, wearing the T-shirt and gym shorts. He looks from the moon to her. The baby is on her hip, asleep.
He likes it out here, Carol thinks. He likes being out here in this heat.
“Let’s go for a swim,” he says.
“Okay.”
The pool is dark, and Lee quietly slips in. Carol places the baby in the middle of a lounge chair, then steps into the pool. When she is waist deep, she takes off her T-shirt and shorts, then slips out of her underwear. She tosses her wet clothes onto the cement, then swims to Lee, who is taking off his shorts. He tosses his clothes onto the cement, too, and they swim back and forth across the pool.
“I fixed the air conditioner,” Carol whispers. “I kicked hell out of it, and I guess the control switch turned down a few notches. Anyway, it’s a lot nicer in there.” While she says this, though, she thinks, I do not want to go back in there. I want to stay out here. I want to swim.
Lee stops and stands up in the water. The water is chest-high, and Carol curls around him. They begin making love, the two of them there in the water, in the cool.
Lee opens his eyes, and the Vietnamese woman is standing at the edge of the pool. He thinks first it is his imagination, that this woman’s image has come to haunt him, but then he blinks, and knows she is real. He quickly pulls away from Carol, who wonders what it is, what she has done to him. Is it me? she wonders. Me?
The woman laughs the same laugh she gave earlier, when Lee had come into the office. She says, “No swim after ten. I give you ten minutes for getting out, then you go back your room.” She shakes her head, turns, and starts away. But then she stops, turns back to them, and says, “No, I give you half hour. Half hour for Masons.” She laughs again. As she walks away, she says, “This heat wave never end. This heat last forever. This heat go on and on.”
A few moments later, Carol turns back to Lee, who has not moved. He watches the woman move away.
“Lee,” she says, “Lee, how much money do we have?”
He does not answer.
She puts her arms around his neck, and says, “How much longer can we stay here? How many more nights? I want to take off work tomorrow and just swim all day.”
Lee looks at Carol. He can see her face in the light from the brown moon. Even in the pool he can feel the sweat trickling down his back, mixing with the water.
Carol is crying, and Lee does not know. To him, the tears are only water running down her face, water from the pool.
“Lee?” she says.
1
SUMMER SUNDAY MORNINGS WE WENT TO THE BEACH. MOTHER and Dad heaped blankets and quilts over Brad and me in the cold bed of our green Dodge pickup. On our backs in the pickup bed, our eyes to the gray morning sky, I thought: I am tall. Lying on my back, my feet and the top of my head touched the side walls of the pickup bed, but I remembered Brad’s knees were already bent. His head and feet touched both sides a year ago.
We rode in the pickup down Beach Boulevard while the fog lifted and cool air flapped the corners of the quilts; past the empty Hwy 39 Drive-In and down to Huntington Beach, the sand a half-mile wide and already warm. For lunch we sat in the sun and ate fried chicken cooked the night before.
Riding back evenings, sweatshirts on, hoods drawn tight around our faces and tied off in perfect Mother-bows, we passed a movie at the drive-in, Mary Poppins the whole summer long. We didn’t speak, never spoke, until the screen ducked behind trees and disappeared.
Weekdays we laughed while folding newspapers we were to deliver, pulling rubber bands taut and shooting them; laughed reading headlines, not understanding what news was, what a box in the bottom corner of the front page meant listing something called Casualties: LtCol, SSgt, PFC and more PFCs. We didn’t know what they meant.
One Saturday night, Mother and Dad went out. Dad sat in the living room in his peggers and penguin shirt and watched television, Mother in the bedroom in front of the mirror, still in bra and slip. The smell of cologne hung in the air. To me it was not unpleasant but was just Mother’s smell.
“Charlotte will be here in a minute, boys,” she said. She held a clear plastic mask in front of her face and sprayed her hair with another smell.
Brad and I sat on the edge of the bed, watching her reflection in the mirror. Brad said, “Mom, we don’t need a babysitter. We’re too old.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I want you boys to behave tonight. She complained last time about you boys not behaving.”
Brad turned to me and rolled his eyes. He hopped off the bed and left.
“We will,” I said.
Mother sprayed deodorant. I picked up the plastic mask, held it to my face. I looked in the mirror.
“Don’t play with that,” Mother said, and took it from me.
Charlotte came to the front door a few minutes later, having walked from her house four doors up the street. She was old, in high school, and wore a red scarf over soupcan-size curlers, a man’s white shirt untucked with the sleeves rolled up, black stretch pants with stirrups, and huarache sandals. Brad said she wasn’t pretty. I didn’t think so either. She had her own smell, but not as thick as Mother’s.
Mother came out from the bedroom, zipped up the hip of her skirt, and instructed Charlotte: “Put them to bed at nine-thirty. No later. They can have some pop and chips, but not too much. They’ve already had dinner. Bed at nine-thirty.” She turned to us. “You boys are on your best behavior. Kiss me goodbye. Brad.” He gave her a reluctant peck on the cheek. “Richard.” I did the same.
Daylight savings time, for a reason we could never figure, made the days longer. We could still play 500 in the street, find an ice-cream man somewhere in the tract, ride bikes to the playground and swing, swing high, and drop from the sky to the sand. But when Mother and Dad went out, we had to stay home.
On those nights we would stand in the front yard, kick off our thongs and look to the sky, then spin in circles, arms out to either side, until we fell like dead tops to the ground and watched the street, the world, spin around us, and felt our stomachs do somersaults.
Or we were in the backyard with our G.I. Joes, army men dressed in fatigues and black plastic army boots. We had a jeep for them, a truck, a cannon, guns, rat
ions, ammo, more fatigues and boots. In the backyard was a pine tree, low and spreading. G.I. Joes would climb the tree to scout Russian territory. We dug dirt out from under some of the roots of the tree and built a command post, an ammo dump, a garage for the jeep.
G.I. Joes were always getting shot. Brad would put a G.I. Joe on the highest branch he could reach, and we would sit and throw pebbles and sticks until one of us knocked the doll down. The better the fall, the happier we were. If it got hung up in a branch, twirled its way down and around, and struck its head on the ground, we laughed.
Or we were in Dad’s garden, the side yard between the Petersons’ fence and our garage. Cherry tomatoes were all Dad grew, and in the early summer the plants crawled with tomato worms. Brad would get the lawn mower gas can and fill a jar, drop worms in, pull them out, and light them. They glowed and rolled like snake fireworks on Fourth of July afternoon sidewalks. We laughed at this, too.
“Don’t go out of the backyard,” Charlotte said this night, as soon as Mother and Dad had closed the door behind them.
“Don’t worry,” Brad said.
“Yeah,” I said.
We went to the backyard and straight to the garden, ignoring the G.I. Joes. The tomato worms had all been gone some time; where they went we never knew.
But there were tomatoes. Dozens. Hundreds. Brad sent me in to get a paper bag from the kitchen. Charlotte, seated on the sofa and watching television, asked, “What do you want that bag for?” She didn’t move her eyes from the set.
“To pick tomatoes,” I said.
“Okay,” she said.
We filled the bag with tomatoes. “Why are we picking so many?” I asked.
“Because,” Brad said.
“Oh,” I said, and picked.
After we’d filled the bag, Brad led us into the garage from the back door into the garden. Mother kept sweet things in the refrigerator in the garage—Fudgsicles, Popsicles, watermelon, Kool Pops—tempting us both all summer long. Back from the playground on hot summer afternoons, we went inside to the cool dark of the garage. Brad and I would open the refrigerator, take a Fudgsicle apiece, and swallow it whole.
One time Mother came from inside the house, apron on, plaid shorts to mid-thigh. “Are you still hungry? Still hungry?” she said. “I fed you two lunch not two hours ago. And you’re still hungry? I’ll teach you to be still hungry.” She didn’t have the Mother smell of Saturday nights, but instead smelled of oil and lemon and ammonia. “I’ll teach you hungry. Every day I come out here and find two or four or eight less Popsicles. You’re still hungry? Come with me.”
She grabbed our wrists, Brad on one side, me the other, pulled us to the backyard, and sat us down on plastic lattice patio chairs. “You don’t move,” she said. She went back to the garage and brought back every box of ice cream, every Popsicle, the watermelon, Kool Pops. “You will eat all of this. Now. Start.”
We ate, pretending we were hurt and sick and sorry; ate all the ice cream, spit out every seed, sucked all color from the frozen ices, and smiled and laughed when Mother didn’t see.
That night at dinner we were silent. “Your sons ate all the desserts in the house,” Mother said to Dad. “I made them. They were stealing ice creams and things out of the refrigerator in the garage when I told them not to.”
“You boys,” Dad said.
Brad and I pretended we were hurt and sick and sorry, and kicked each other’s legs beneath the table.
On this night, though, the freezer was empty save for a bag of ice and five pounds of ground beef. We went back to the garden, to the backyard, and brought the tomatoes inside. Brad put the bag on the camel saddle at the foot of his bed. Charlotte hadn’t seen us bring them in.
“What are you doing in there?” she called from the living room.
“Nothing,” Brad yelled back.
“Nothing,” I said too.
Brad turned to me. “Watch,” he said. We went from the bedroom to the kitchen, Brad leading, and out to the backyard.
“Where are you boys going?” Charlotte called again, without looking up from the television.
“Out back,” Brad said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Okay.”
But instead we went to the front yard, Brad tall enough to unlock the gate. I closed the gate behind me. “Why are we out here?” I asked. “We just told Charlotte we were going to be in the back.”
“Because we want to.”
“Oh.”
There were no neighbor kids around, so we stood in the front yard and spun, arms out like helicopter blades, eyes to the spinning sky. I fell first, Brad a few spins later. We laughed.
I was panting, trying to get my breath back. “Charlotte—don’t—know—we’re—out—here?”
“Yeah.” Brad was out of breath, too.
“Should we go back into the backyard?”
“No. We’re out here. She doesn’t care. She’s ugly.” His breath was coming back.
“Yeah,” I said. “She doesn’t care.”
We lay there on the ground a few minutes, letting ourselves breathe easier and our stomachs settle down. Then Brad got up from the grass and went to the garage door, tried to lift it but could not.
“What are you doing?” I rolled my head over on the grass until I faced him. My head was still on the ground so that Brad and the driveway and the house were all sideways.
“Help me,” Brad said.
I rolled over and got up. We both pushed the garage door, but could only get it three-quarters open. Brad froze, hands up to catch the door if it fell, but only stood there a moment. “Let’s get our bikes,” he said. He dropped his hands from the door and went in.
“Huh?”
He was already in the garage with his hands on his bike, his foot toeing up the kickstand. I took two slow steps for my bike.
The front screen door opened and banged against the side of the house. Charlotte came toward us, her fists clenched.
“Listen, you little bastards. I’m not going to put up with any more crap from you two. You punks don’t think I can hear a garage door opening? Get back in the house.”
She took my wrist and moved toward Brad.
Brad slowly put down the kickstand, put his hands in his pockets, and started off for the house. Charlotte tried grabbing his wrist, but Brad shook her off, looked at her through eyes half closed, lips thin, straight.
“I’m going,” he said.
Charlotte hesitated a moment, then said, “Well you damn well better be.” She gripped my wrist tighter. “I’m telling your parents!” she yelled.
Brad was already on the porch and pulled the screen door open with one hand, the other still in his pocket.
Charlotte half pulled me into the house. “You bastards,” she said again as she pushed me into our bedroom. “Don’t even try coming out of this room until I say so.” She slammed the door, bouncing our framed cowboy and Indian pictures against the wall.
“I don’t care,” Brad said. He stood up from the bed and looked out the window onto the front lawn.
“We’re going to get a whipping,” I said. “She’s going to tell Dad and Mother, and we’re going to get a whipping.” I started crying then, hissing air out and taking quick breaths in.
“Oh, shut up, you wimp.” Brad stared out the window. “I’m too old for a babysitter. You should be too.”
He looked out the window a few seconds longer, then blinked, turned from the window. He looked at the bag of tomatoes on the camel saddle and blinked again.
Then he picked it up, opened the door, and went out into the hall. He didn’t even look at me.
But I followed him, wiping tears from my eyes with the palm of one hand. He stopped in the living room. Charlotte sat on the couch and faced the television, her back to us.
“We’re going,” Brad said.
I didn’t say anything.
Charlotte jumped. She turned her head around, her eyes already slits, her lips pursed. She stood up
slowly from the couch. “Going where?”
“Outside.” Brad put his hand inside the bag of tomatoes.
Charlotte came slowly around the edge of the couch. “You get back to your room. Now.” She shot her arm out as though it were a bayonet pointed toward our room. “Now!”
Brad pulled a tomato out of the bag and cocked his arm back. “Don’t touch me.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You going to throw that at me? Huh?” she said, and cocked her head to one side. “I dare you,” she said. She took a step closer. “Come on, I dare you.” She stopped. “Twerp.”
Brad hesitated a moment, then threw the tomato.
It hit her shoulder and burst open on the white shirt. Charlotte stood looking at her shirt, then at us. She took a step backward.
There was nothing she could do, so I threw tomatoes then, too.
We emptied the bag, backed Charlotte into a corner of the kitchen until her white shirt was covered with seeds, skins, and tomato juice. We ran out of the house and into the garage, rode to the playground, and stayed there until dark.
When we came home Charlotte was on the couch, the television still on. Her shirt was still dirty, but she had managed to get most of the seeds and skins off. She didn’t say a word.
Brad stood before her in the middle of the living room. “We’re going to stay up,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
We sat down two feet from the set and watched television.
And later heard the car outside. As though on cue we three jumped up, Brad and I running to the bedroom, Charlotte out the front door. We couldn’t hear what she said to Mother, but watched from our darkened room as she waved her arms, pointed to her shirt, and shook her finger in Mother’s face. Charlotte left for home without letting Dad pay her.
I started crying again. “What do we do now?” I said. Through wet eyes I saw a tear drip down Brad’s face to the corner of his mouth and in.
