by N. Godwin
“Mother, may I introduce Rudy Pulaski and his cousins, Ricky and Joey. And you’re from where?” Merlin studies his watch and asks Rudy then dunks him under again and holds him down while Rudy’s hands slap the air helplessly. He pulls Rudy’s head back up and grabs him under his throat and with one hand slowly lifts the gasping and struggling man out of the water, until they are face to face.
“1472 Mayfield, Apartment 3 C. Oklahoma City!” Rudy shrieks.
“Forty seconds flat,” Merlin says and nods at Rawly.
“Better drop the scum before you break him,” Rawly replies then averts his attention to the morons. “By the way, Rudy, was it? Ah, well, Rudy from 1472 Apartment 3 C, when we finish with your etiquette lesson and after you return to Oklahoma, you will be visited by—let’s call them associates, from time to time to check on your kids.” He types something into the gadget on his wrist.
“When’s the last time you had a job?” Merlin asks Rudy with disgust as he studies the information on his matching wrist gadget, too. “I’m tired of supporting lazy-ass cake-eaters like you, scum!” Merlin snarls at Rudy then flings him back down into the gulf as the other SEALs momentarily rev their engines as they snarl along.
“Screen could be brighter,” Rawly tells Merlin, adjusting something on his gadget. “But it’s a faster download.”
“We’ll have to work on the glare, too,” Merlin agrees as the two men shake their heads and study their wrists.
Rawly appears to be engrossed in playing with the gadget and doesn’t seem to be interested in the morons anymore or me because I am slowly drifting farther away from them still holding onto my lifesaver. I am surprised when I hear him address us again.
“What an asshole you are, Rudy Pulaski. Two DUIs, a juvey record an inch thick, assault, domestic violence complaints, petty theft,” Rawly reads his screen with an impatient chuckle looking back at the moron. “Here’s our bottom line, you piece of shit. If we ever see one little bruise on your kids ever again, and make no mistake, we will see if this happens, we’re coming to rip your eyes out.” The men rev their high-pitched engines as Rawly’s trigger finger points down at Rudy. “We can always use the practice. Romeo, Merlin, Alvarez?” he shouts over his shoulder without taking his eyes off Rudy’s face. ”How long did that take?”
“Only one fifty and a half seconds, Mother,” they answer him as they check their watches.
“Oops,” one of them says. “I’m off.”
“So, Rudy, Ricky and Joey, should you be lucky enough to have a second encounter with us, we’re bringing home your balls as souvenirs. I assure you, we have quite a collection.”
“Museum quality,” Merlin agrees and laughs.
“Believe it!” the SEALS shout as the Pulaski cousins look around in fear, then immediately begin a circling maneuver, revving their engines as loudly as possible to dramatically herd the cousins up on to shore for further humiliation in front of their wives and children. As they move away from us, jumping waves and submerging men, I am suddenly aware Rawly’s eyes are back on me. I watch as he looks down over me skeptically shaking his head back and forth then he reaches for his end of the rope to my lifesaver. He slowly begins pulling me in closer, because by now I’ve drifted even further. When I’m only ten yards away from the wave-runner, he stops reeling me in and slowly holds out his closed right hand and opens it to reveal my swimsuit top. He dangles it in front of his face and surveys it with a cruel grin.
“Well, well, well,” he says as he slowly begins to pull me in even closer. I immediately let go of the lifesaver. He drops the rope and watches me carefully while I dog paddle with one hand and try to hide my breasts with the other. “Why does this gracious overture from the gods not surprise me?” he asks. “True, it is over-the-top obvious; one could even call it cliché, but damn fine strategy none-the-less. Please tell me you at least agree with this.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” I shout and sputter at the same time.
“I’m talking about nuclear supremacy, Helen. How the fates keep throwing me right back in your face with ammunition, just like this.” He dangles my top again as he shakes his head laughing darkly and looks up at the sky.
“I’m not going to give you anything!” I glub as a wave washes over me.
“No? How long can you tread water?”
“You’re no better than the morons!”
“Hum, let’s see?” Rawly asks, contemplating his options with relish. “How about I give you back this—this… well let’s see,” he says finding the cup size on my bathing suit top and smiling broadly, “how about I give you back your size 32 D white, Roxy bathing suit top and you take it like a big girl and give me a great big--”
“You want me to just go at it right here with you! Is that it, you pervert?”
“And here I was willing to settle for a smile.” He pretends to teach me how by propping his face into a grotesque grin with his fingers. “Just one smile, for levity, or gravity, whatever emotion you can force yourself to muster.”
He balls up my top and throws it at me. I catch it and give him a hard smile as he begins to laugh. I turn my back on him and retie my top safely around me and breathe in deeply until I feel my equilibrium returning. I can feel his x-ray vision boring through my back.
“It’s not like you’ve never seen me naked before!” I snap, bobbing waves, trying to stay afloat as I turn back around to face him down. “Pervert,” I say for good measure, wondering why he thinks he’s any different.
“Here’s a hint woman,” Rawly says and leans his hands on his knees, frowning at my anger. “I’m the good guy. Remember?”
I realize I’m completely flustered and I feel myself blushing under this disadvantage. “Look, I was rude, mostly, but I hate it when people have the, the, you know, over me,” I manage to say.
“The advantage?” he offers rolling his hands and coaching me.
“Whatever,” I say as his wave runner glides silently towards me.
“Interesting.” He stops when he is directly in front of me and considers something, then slowly lowers his hand down to me, motioning me forward with the curl of his fingers. I dog paddle and stare at his offered hand, looking for hidden weapons. “Maybe you’d rather stay and play with your new friends,” Rawly offers. “What did you call them? Ah yes, morons.” His smile turns to a scowl. “We both know you’re not that stupid, Helen.”
I look at his hand then back to the rapidly growing distant shore. I sigh as I give in and let him hoist me up behind him on the wave runner. I straddle the cushioned seat and can feel the strong vibration of its throbbing engine between my legs and I tremble as I slide up next to Rawly. I can feel the heat off his flesh before I can even touch him, so I pause before I entertain putting my arms around him and holding on. We sit and bob in silence.
“We can’t go until you hold on.”
“I’m not touching you.”
“Then we can’t go.”
“Fine.”
“This is ridiculous! Put your arms around my waist.”
“No!”
“Ha! I knew it, you’re afraid of me!”
“So?”
“So?”
“So what if I am?”
“Oh, God, here we go again,” he sighs and buries his face in his hands. Silence follows. “Look,” he finally offers, “do you need a lecture?”
“No.”
“Really, because what you just did was stupid dangerous! Do you realize what those morons were going to do to you? Didn’t your mama ever teach you not to play with fire?”
“Oh yes, she most certainly did.”
“So?”
“So, that’s why I’m not putting my arms around your waist.”
“Good God, Helen!” Rawly roars with laughter as he turns to glare at me. “That’s really ripe, you’ll play footsies with a maniac’s kid but you won’t touch the man who just saved your butt!”
“So?!”
“I guess a simple
thank you is out of the question,” he chuckles.
“Thank you.”
“I believe I may need to rethink this adoration business because, frankly my dear, you may be too nuts, even for me. How many maniacs do you harass daily?”
“Gee, thanks for not giving me a lecture, Mother.”
“You are the most frustrating person I’ve ever known!”
“Ditto!”
“There’s another solution, you know,” he says, standing gingerly.
With one adroit swing, he pivots his body and slides down behind me on the wave runner. Before I can argue he directs my hands over the handlebars onto the gears and places his hands over mine, revving the engine.
“What are you doing?!”
“Having fun.”
“Fun?”
“Yeah, F U N. How old are you anyway, 90?”
He slides up too close behind me and his voice vibrates in my ear: “Have you ever driven a wave runner? I didn’t think so. I’ll teach you. Never touch this panel over here. Everything’s loaded. Now, see, these are the gears.” He squeezes my hands firmly as he instructs me. “This takes us forward, this takes us backward, and this makes us go fas--”
I’ve already gunned the powerful wave runner. I squeeze my knees tentatively around the bench to stay balanced as I head us full-throttle sideways into a big breaking wave. I hold my breath over the powerful sensation of the engine’s warm, intrusive vibrations between my legs and lean back when Rawly changes my course and firmly steers us out of harm’s way into a head long position through the waves, whispering more wave runner logic in my ear than I care to know.
I look down at his hands, marveling at how they dwarf my own, marveling more about how gentle his touch is, tender even, and notice with a start that where he’s touching tingles but it doesn’t sting. He lets me take control of driving again, and for some reason, right out in front of God and everybody, I laugh. I laugh because he’s right, this is fun!
It feels as if we are flying and I let loose a shriek of delight. We are bouncing across the top of the gulf and I am laughing. I feel his warm hands sliding down my shoulders, over my arms. He moves his hands around my waist and I hold my breath as his fingers open wide against my stomach and pull me back against his hot flesh. He leans his face down beside mine and whispers something inaudible into my ear. I feel what seems to be warm honey oozing down my neck, then back up and over to my ear and I realize he is kissing me!
I gun the engine to full throttle and spin us so tightly in a circle that it sputters and dies. As I angrily turn to face him he removes his sunglasses and slides them in a pocket. We are eye to eye, black on blue.
“How dare you!” I shout.
“Helen, Helen, Helen,” he sighs, reaching out to grab a strand of my hair and sniff it. “I was really willing to back off. Well, for now, but that damn persistent wind blows you right back in my path all fired up and icy.” He lets go of my hair and sighs again, looking out at a passing speedboat.
“My name’s not Helen!”
Rawly chuckles. “Jimmy-Sue is an absurd name for you. It conjures up images of fat rednecks with hairy legs, which is probably its primary purpose,” he says more to himself than to me.
I laugh at this revelation. “I’m not too fond of Harold myself,” I say. “It’s the kind of name that could get you in big trouble.”
“Oh?” he asks as we study each other. “Care to elaborate?”
“Nope.”
“Your secret debt keeps piling up,” he taunts. “What to do about this?” Rawly taunts in my ear.
“Whatever.” I shrug.
“Want to stay for the barbeque?”
“Nope.”
“Liar, you’re starving.”
“So?” Before he can mock me I quickly add, “I mean, even if I did, which I don’t particularly, I couldn’t because I have a date.”
“Yeah, I can tell. He must be having a hell of a time,” he laughs.
“We’re not glued to each other!”
Rawly thinks this is funny and places his hands back over mine and guns the engine. In a moment we are gliding over the gulf, slicing through wakes and waves. As we roar into the salty spray head first, Rawly winds us over the gulf then turns into the deep channel, gliding beyond the outer jetties and rocks and back into the sheltered bay, then slows down. We turn into the jetties and I spot Horst standing over by the granite rocks on the shore, staring at us. I wave big and happily, breathing a huge sigh of relief.
“Horst!” I shout and wave.
“By the way, Helen,” Rawly whispers, “You’re fully capable of handling a grown man, possibly even one like me.”
“Eeeew!”
“I won’t bite, honest. Well, unless you want me to,” he whispers in my ear and I can feel his smile. “And, Helen, if I bite you I promise you will like it.”
“Hey, Horst, I’ve missed you!” I shout as we cruise between about two zillion other boats. “Horst!” I shout as if we weren’t just ten feet apart now.
“I’m your new guardian angel whether you like it or not,” Rawly says, “so you might as well just lie back and enjoy it.”
I throw my head back and laugh angrily. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? Look at you, Commander Perfect; you might as well have a neon sign flashing over your head that says Demon! And even if you’re not, the last thing I need right now is for some egotistical G.I. Joe on a misguided mission of mercy. My life is complicated enough! I want you to go away and leave me alone before it’s too late and I’m forced to--.” I stop to collect my anger.
“Forced to what? Tell me, Helen, I’ve at least earned one of your secrets.”
“I’m forced to hurt you!” I blurt out in surprise then cover my mouth as I groan.
Rawly gives a chuckle as he pulls up on shore. He and Horst exchange masculine nods as he turns off the engine. As I climb off the wave runner, Rawly takes his sunglasses from his pocket and places them on my face, sliding them carefully on my nose.
“Then do your damnedest, Helen, because I’m not going anywhere. Deal with it.”
As I turn away Rawly restarts his engine and, laughing hard over some unknown gesture, he leans to the side and slaps me soundly on my butt. I turn around angrily to confront him and as we make eye contact his black eyes suddenly morph and flash a bright cerulean green for a moment. I cry out and take a giant step backwards, and another, and another still. He guns the wave runner backwards then turns to leave but pauses for a moment and looks at Horst.
“You need to keep a closer eye on this one.” Rawly says with a curt nod in my direction.
“Any suggestions?” Horst shoots back.
“Yeah, a shorter lease.”
The moon has finally crested on the unending day now and is beginning to cast glistening beams of lights and shadows between the sand and the water and the countless boats. Most people have scattered into their boats now and are motoring out to join in the massive cocktail flotilla to await the fireworks by water, knowing that the highlight of the biggest party of the year is about to begin. Once the sun sets our bay becomes a floating city inhabited by anyone patriotic, sentimental, or traditionally rowdy (which covers just-about everyone in these parts), on virtually any vessel that can float. Last year someone put a two-story, log cabin on a barge and floated it over to celebrate the 4th with us.
This rippling city of a thousand or more is where fireworks are at their best because, one by one, you are literally surrounded by fireworks in every direction in the sky and reflecting off the water beneath you: the Air Force Base to the east, the Navy Lab to the west, with the city and the beaches fireworks north and south with impressive private displays in between.
Horst and I opt out of the boat ride and choose to watch the fireworks from atop the tallest dune on the island instead. We pass around the sea oats that whisper at us, side stepping frantic children as they scatter last minute to find their parents. One lone musician, intoxicated by more than t
he moonlight, is having a go at Some Enchanted Evening on his colorful steel drums.
As we stop for a moment to watch him play, I am suddenly aware that Horst is unusually quiet, even for Horst. Come to think of it, he has been extremely quiet since dinner and I don’t think he or I have exchanged a word in over an hour. I look at him and realize he’s staring at me while I watch the musician bang his heart out.
“Why are you staring at me?” I ask, without turning to look at him.
“Jimmy-Sue, tell me something else honestly. Ok? See, I was watching you at dinner…”
“Yeah?”
“How you reacted to the different people all around us and how they reacted to you… It’s like you have a connection with people anywhere near you. Sitting next to you gave me this disturbing feeling in the pit of my gut. It was the strongest when you were watching that redheaded wife with the baby girl. I think her name is Candice. Remember, she graduated a year ahead of us? Anyway, I noticed you visibly stiffened when the two of you made eye contact. Why did you react that way?”
I realize Horst is trying to have an in-depth conversation with me despite the fact he seldom ever has much to say to me, or me to him, even though we both talk to Ken about anything and everything since he is Ken’s other best friend. But with me, Horst just lets comfortable silence fill in the blanks of a conversation and I wish he’d do that now. Besides, I’m still spooked by the shenanigans of my afternoon beast, the one who won’t leave well-enough alone, the one who I wouldn’t be at all surprised if his eyes were on us at this very moment. I shudder because this creeps me out.
“You did hear me, right?” Horst asks.
“It was nothing,” I reply. My mind is racing and I want to go home but I know that reality is at, the very least, a couple of hours away, and I’m stuck on this island with Horst and a giant shadow I know is out there somewhere in the night.
“Liar!” Horst says “So much for Ken-honesty.”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. Look, my reaction to Candice was just another of my prejudices rearing its ugly head,” I allow.
