by Steve Amick
She just kept doing it, faster and faster, grinding her hard bony pelvis against him like that, little bunny moves, and he was starting to feel like Hello! I’m here! Remember me? Like he was a goddamn armrest or something. And she kept saying, “Come on,” over and over. But real low, like it wasn’t even meant for him to hear, which was another slap in the face: “Come on, come on, come on . . .” Like that.
He tried getting her attention. Not stopping and saying, Hold on a second, you crazy chick, but just by sitting up slightly. It was hard to do with her straddled on his junk, pressing down, but he managed to sit up enough to almost kiss her. It was clear she was going to have to help, to span the distance, and he whispered, “Come here . . .”
“Don’t,” she said, wincing, possibly annoyed. Which was crazy because he just wanted to kiss her. She pushed him back down and kept him there, pressing with her palms against his chest, holding him flat and sort of using his nipples as handholds as she increased the frequency of her wiggle. “Don’t move, okay? Just . . . yeah . . . yeah . . .”
She was talking to herself again. It was the kind of thing he knew if he’d tell it to his buddies back home, they’d say, Shit, man, what is your problem? That sounds hot as shit! And he liked her talking, saying those things. It was just he wanted to feel she was saying them to him. Not like he was eavesdropping on her, intruding. He reached up tentatively, to hold her little breasts. “Can I . . . ?”
“Fine, yeah.” Just a mini lip snarl, no actual frown or wince: an improvement. But this didn’t feel like a connection either. He felt like she was lending them to him, like they weren’t attached. He wanted to touch her hair, her face. He reached up, brushing it from where it hung down, swinging. “Can I at least—”
“Dude! Jesus! I’m close, okay?”
He pulled his hands away and lay there, afraid to move. He didn’t want to do anything wrong again and risk getting scolded. Better to let her handle it, he decided, or she might get pissed off or bored and climb off and leave him, and the idea of her running off again was too much.
But Jesus, he just wanted to touch her hair, hold her face in his hands. Weren’t girls supposed to like a guy who wanted to do that sort of thing? Normal girls, at least? From what he heard on Loveline, it seemed like half the guys his age were trying to put their fingers in their girlfriend’s butthole. It’s not like he was trying to do that. He had no interest in her butthole. Zero.
She was really moving now and it felt like she was shaking his entire body, sliding him back and forth against the stone floor. His skin would be raw tomorrow, he was sure. He’d have to stay covered up, in long sleeves and jeans, or his mom might ask about it. She’d ask if he was in a fight, maybe, but she’d probably have her suspicions.
But no, wait, the floor was moving.
He laid his palm flat on the floor beside him, felt the tremor, the sprinkling of something coming down on them—dust? Crumbs? They were shaking the whole place.
“Wait. Wait!” He tried to sit up again, tried to tell her. It was all in her hair, glowing.
She shoved him back down, growling this time, saying, “Goddamn it—can’t you even—” There wasn’t even time for her to open her eyes.
72
WHAT WOULD IT HURT, Janey Struska decided, to give the Letterman thing one last solid try? Everything Roger had said the other night, right before he kissed her, the night of the sketchy goings-on over on the other lake—all that still made a load of sense and the thought of pursuing this further, or of Roger catching wind of it, made her feel a little silly, even deluded and stalky, but she did have this one good hunch and the night was clear and fair and that dickwad Hatchert was off-duty, settled in, no doubt, for an evening of watching midget leather bondage porn, so who would know?
There was a big sailboat, a three-master, that had been seen anchored out past Sumac Point for two days. It was the sort of charter boat only someone very wealthy could swing. And the distance from shore seemed to indicate privacy was preferred. If the rumors were true, he had to be out there. The police boat could cut the distance in no time and it was sort of within her charge, wasn’t it, to make polite inquiry? She took along a small foam cooler with a couple frozen packs of Don Sloff’s sausages, thinking it would be a nice gesture, a welcome-wagon gift from her and the village. Really, it would just be an excuse to get the conversation started. He’d invite her aboard, of course—the big brown star on the hull of the boat would ensure that. Not that he had to legally—she wasn’t the Coast Guard—but she felt confident the boat and the uniform would be enough for him to come out on deck and say hello.
She would tell him she just came out to make sure he wasn’t being bothered and to offer the services of the sheriff’s department during his stay. He’d have to act grateful, even though she was sure he got that kind of thing all the time from people who just wanted to tell their kids they met David Letterman.
Maybe she’d do it in phases. Get in and out tonight, give him the SloffBrauts, make him laugh, and get the hell off his boat. Then come back in a few days, earlier in the day, and stay a little longer—bring some brochures or something . . . fudge. Tell him facts about the area. Only, tell him in a funny way, demonstrate the wit. Maybe hint at the fact that sheriffing may not be the thing for her anymore.
The third visit—that would be the time to admit that she’d like to write comedy. Tell him how Weneshkeen was getting too small for her, how she needed to reinvent herself, how life had bigger plans for her, she just knew it. Impress him with her spunk, that she was a “spunky gal,” because wasn’t it a well-known fact he admired spunky gals?
Well, it was an idea, anyway. At the least, she thought she’d determine if he was actually on board. At least give him Don’s sausages.
But she never got that far. She didn’t even get past the lighthouse, really, because as she was bringing the patrol boat gently to starboard, coming alongside Sumac Point, thinking she was just seconds away from opening her up full throttle, hearing those big twin 200s roar to life and feeling the spray in her hair, it dawned on her, suddenly, that something was wrong. Yes, there was a familiar glow in her periphery, off the port side, but it wasn’t tall. It was horizontal, sort of. The whole base of the lighthouse was glowing, the whole tip of Sumac Point. She cut the engine and really looked now and saw a flash of white movement—a windbreaker or piece of clothing—and the glowing was all jumbled along the rocks, phosphorescent rubble, some of it underwater, just off the port-side rail, emanating up through the lapping waves.
She snatched at the spot, swiveling it around and clicked it on. The lighthouse had collapsed all right, and there were people in there—two at least. “Hey!” she yelled. “You okay? I’m Deputy Struska of the sheriff’s department.”
The way they lurched and tried to scramble out from under the rubble, despite being hurt, at the mention of her official status, told her they were just kids. Adults wouldn’t be thinking they could be in any more trouble than being trapped on the edge of Lake Michigan under a bunch of possibly radioactive rubble. Adults would be demanding service, not trying to evade the police.
“Relax!” she commanded. “I’m just here to get you out of this. Boy, what a mess, huh?” She could see them moving now, crawling. One was a girl, long blond hair hanging down, clotted with blood. She couldn’t tell about the other. “Don’t move! You might be hurt.” The one who was definitely a girl gave her the finger. She couldn’t quite stand, her foot or something snagged in the rubble, and she fell back with the effort of flipping the bird. Well! Janey thought, I guess I know which one I’m rescuing first.
But the truth was, she really couldn’t just hop over the boat rail and scoop up either one of them. There was no dock or way to get up close to the tip of Sumac Point normally, and now, with jagged chunks of concrete and rebar sticking out, she’d certainly tear a hole in the hull if she pulled in any closer. And it would be irresponsible to try to get them to swim out to her. They might have concussi
ons or just not be up to it and drown in the short span of a couple yards.
She really didn’t want to call for backup on this one. The Coast Guard station was too far off and if she called Hatchert, he would probably first demand a lot of information about why she had the patrol boat out in the first place.
And she was already here. She could do this.
Then she figured it out. Shining the searchlight around, she could see now that, there on the other side of the narrow pile of rocks, sticking out more toward Lake Michigan than inland, there was a good solid section of the tower that had fallen more or less intact—a section maybe twenty feet long that had retained, mostly, its columnar shape. It looked sort of like a giant stepped-on paper towel tube, but at least it wasn’t rubble. “Sit tight!” she yelled, then eased the throttle up and slowly skirted around to the western side, dropped anchor and stepped down on the makeshift dock.
They were both naked as monkeys. She wrapped them up in the first-aid blankets that were stowed in the hold. It was hard to tell, even once she got them in the boat, if they were any worse than just badly banged up. The boy, she could tell, had taken the brunt of it, though you wouldn’t have guessed that from the girl’s histrionics. They were both covered with cuts and bruises, though she didn’t see any spurting arteries or anything that needed a tourniquet. Janey knelt in front of them and gave them each a quick, rough once-over, giving everything a wiggle and tug. No bloodcurdling shrieks, though glares from the girl and a homophobic “I’m not like that, okay? You try anything and you are so sued!”
The boy spoke for the first time, a slurred garble, but clear enough. “Pie . . . hole . . .” he told the girl. “Just . . . shut it . . .”
They seemed to be able to move their arms and legs, though she wasn’t sure yet about parts of the boy—his ankles and wrists and neck seemed real tender to the touch. She wouldn’t be surprised if he would end up needing a cast or two for sprains that he was either currently too much in shock to notice or too cowed by his pit bull of a girlfriend to mention.
The girl complained that her blanket was scratchy. And that it smelled like fish. Janey gunned the engines, heading for the hospital. Time was of the essence: the longer this took, the more she’d be tempted to toss this bratty little stick-bitch back in the drink.
73
THE FIRST SHERIFF HATCHERT LEARNED of the lighthouse collapse was on the goddamn CNN. He was at home, in his lounge pants, and he wouldn’t have known anything if he hadn’t realized he’d already seen that particular episode of Cheers at least twenty times and so he started surfing and, though he rarely watched CNN, he was stopped by the familiar shape of a green mitten. They had a hasty cartoon map of Michigan up on the screen and a red star right around Weneshkeen, with the words SUMAC POINT floating in the blue of Lake Michigan. And the voice, over a phone line, was so everyday familiar to him, that at first he couldn’t place it. But it was, of course, Jane Struska.
He couldn’t believe he hadn’t been notified, that Struska took the call and did not check in and had violated at least a dozen different regs and procedures, just thinking off the top of his head, which meant probably at least twice as many if he got the book out and dug a little. Here now was the perfect excuse to get rid of her. There could hardly be any PC wrangling over her being a gal or any more of this “I’m a local” nonsense—he’d have whole sections and subsections of the manual he could cite. Hell, it was so cut-and-dried, he could even allow himself the luxury of acting all forlorn about it, shake his head like he hated to do it, but here it was, in black-and-white. Can’t argue with regulations.
But then the coverage continued. He wasn’t there to see the story evolve and balloon—he’d already dressed and headed off to the station, then up to the county hospital, the lights there much brighter than normal as he approached and saw the media was in full frenzy.
He pushed his way through the milling crowd and the various reporters, each with their own little island of technology, doing their stand-ups, reading from notes and forming serious faces for the camera, gesturing to the little hospital behind them. It was an odd sight, this much press in the parking lot, since there wasn’t a local TV station for several counties. Everyone here must have driven in from pretty far off. He wondered how fast they’d driven to get here. Lots of speed violations, he imagined.
He scanned the parking lot. Twice he tripped on their stupid cables and several times someone bumped into him or jostled him. No one asked him any questions, which he found surprising, since he was in charge here. Then he pushed on, through the sliding emergency room doors. It was like arriving late to a party and not recognizing anyone. What was weird was, Struska wasn’t anywhere around. He didn’t get it, because there she was, up on the waiting room TV, talking in a split screen with that Natalie-what’s-her-name at CNN. No way was Struska down in Atlanta or wherever and there was no TV station for miles and miles. He turned on his heel and marched back out to the parking lot.
The most likely source was the rather obvious white panel van, larger than the rest, with the extended antenna cranked up at least two stories out of the back like a space-age hook-and-ladder. There were no windows, just call letters and a phone number for the action news in Grand Rapids in a bold blue flash that ran the length. He thumped on the side of the vehicle and a woman in a black windbreaker popped out of the front, asking in a patently lowered voice if she could be of assistance and walking him deliberately away from the van. He took this to mean his hunch was right: they were interviewing Struska inside the vehicle and broadcasting it live somehow.
“You’re with CNN?” He identified himself with his badge and asked if she had any questions for him. She said she herself wasn’t with CNN, they’d just been called to freelance a live remote feed for CNN, since her team had to race up there anyway to get some footage for their own local eyewitness news.
He offered to let her interview him once they were done interviewing his deputy. She appeared confused, then stated that she and her crew weren’t actually interviewing the deputy, just providing the feed. “She’s talking to Natalie Allen right now. It’s been a slow news cycle.”
“What about you guys—the local news in Grand Rapids? Would you like to interview me for that?”
“Oh, you have some additional information? We haven’t been expecting any updates . . . Are the kids still stable?”
Information, he thought. He’d only heard about this whole thing maybe a half-hour ago. He wasn’t even clear what had happened, never mind what the hell kids she was talking about. He straightened; set his jaw. “I’m the sheriff.”
The woman smiled. “Yes. I know. I think we’re all set, though.”
“You’re all set?”
“For the late local, yes. We’re all set. We’re not going to break back on the air unless there’s . . . But thanks.”
This was not happening. No way could they be all set. They didn’t want to talk to the top command? He looked past her, at the white van she now seemed to be guarding. What the hell could they be in there talking to Struska about for so damn long? Man, they must be starved for news these days. “Maybe . . . maybe CNN’d like me to add a few words?”
He thought he caught her glancing down at his holster. She smiled that curt little smile again and pulled out her cellphone and hit redial or something. She held up her finger for him to hold on, then stepped away, wandering over toward the van. She returned, clutching the phone to her chest. “I’m on with Atlanta. Producer says they’re pretty much set.”
“I see. They’re set, too. Everybody’s all set.”
“Yes. Unless you’d like to say a few words about Deputy Struska in general, give us some background . . .”
He stared at the phone she had buried in the baggy front of her sweatshirt, considering. He could get on camera, but he’d be on camera praising his deputy. And maybe they’d ask questions about the specifics of the rescue, answers to which he had none. Either situation would not be politic.
>
He waved her off, tried to beam a smile, clapped his hands together like a leader in full command, addressing all those gathered in the parking lot. “Okay! Sounds like you people are all set . . . Very good!” He turned and strode back across the empty asphalt, trying to think of something to whistle, to show he was perfectly cool, just doing his job, just another day as sheriff; trying not to think about the fact that he would probably never again get a chance to sit in a little van like that with a blue curtain behind him and talk to someone on CNN. That Warbucks guy had promised fifteen minutes, but it was people like these who’d managed to whittle it down to mere seconds.
He thought if he got in the cruiser and drove home slowly, it might all be off the air by the time he got back. And maybe that would be better. But no, he was a glutton for punishment. He’d have to watch. Besides, it was better to know what he was up against. He headed back in though the electric-eye doors of the emergency entrance and flopped down in a row of empty plastic seats in front of the TV.
It was a nightmare.
They had footage now of the lighthouse, circled from above, a helicopter shot. The whitecaps were really picking up now, breaking against the rocks, which only made it look more dangerous, anyone who ventured in there, heroic as Audie Murphy. The way they had it framed, too, you would’ve thought it was miles offshore, unreachable, rather than a lousy quarter-mile away from a row of fudge shops. Hell, he’d seen old-timey sepia-tone photos of kids in sailor suits, a long time ago, before the rotten paint, when an actual keeper lived out there with his family and the kids in the picture were playing with their toy boats out there, off the rocks, one calm and sunny day. They didn’t show that picture, now did they?
