Zed

by Jason McIntyre

  But Tom didn’t wait. He ran into the clearing, past the grouping of white pines. They didn’t need flashlights. The three pools were lit in piercing waves of neon blue and green. And there, stumbling out of the middle pool was Zeke, also lit by the pools.

  Farrah caught up to him. They watched Zeke emerge from the light, carrying some of it with him. “Hello?” Zeke called again and looked out into the blackness like a blind man fresh to the world of sight, seeing it for the first time, and searching for comfort. He shielded his eyes as if from a bright sun. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me,” Tom said with relief painted across his voice. “It’s Tom. You okay?”

  “What’s making it do that?” Farrah said, to no one really.

  “Bioluminescence,” Tom said. “Microorganisms in the water. Thousands of them. Maybe millions. They come up from underground. In the water.”

  “What are they doing?” she said, whispering in awe as Zeke trod toward them, lumbering like a giant alien, awoken from deep slumber

  “Looking for a mate,” Tom said to her. He raised an eyebrow at her and cocked his own grin. Then, to Zeke and with more volume, he said, “Am I glad to see you, champ.”

  Zeke gave a weak smile. He looked worn out but, as they entered the circle of light and the old man laid eyes on the lad, he looked pleased to see him too. The bright blue and green faded from his shoulders and groin, dissolving into simple, black darkness to match the rest of the world around them. He was soaking wet and his exposed skin rippled with gooseflesh. But the pool seemed to illuminate a generous portion of the clearing. Each blade of grass, each rustling leaf, flickered with bright blue light. It looked completely and utterly phony, but Tom remembered reading about it in senior biology class. It was a real thing. Bioluminescence.

  And, of course, his camera sat on the passenger seat of Ocean View’s short bus back at the house. He’d have to come out here another night and take pictures. This was incredible.

  “Zeke, buddy. You been here this whole time?” he said.

  “Yuh,” Zeke said, looking stoned.

  “I was worried sick—” Tom said, but Zeke interrupted him.

  “Who’s this?” he said, eyeing Farrah.

  Tom looked at Farrah, “Uh, a friend. From yesterday, you remember. Come on, buddy, we should get you home—”

  Then, panic-stricken, Zeke grabbed Tom, fisting his shirt and glaring at the boy with wide eyes. “Where’s Mary?”

  Startled, Tom blurted out an answer. “She’s safe, Zee. She’s back home. Asleep. She made it just fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “Really—?” Zeke said. It looked like he was processing things. His eyes moved from Tom to Farrah and back to Tom. But they did so slowly, like he really was drunk or stoned. His words came out all dreamy. “That’s so good, Tom,” he said. “That’s just... sure-shootin.” He let the boy go. He relaxed. And so did Tom.

  Tom took a head-clearing breath of clean, cool ocean air. It smelled of salt and something stronger, something he couldn’t quite place. “You tired, champ?” he said, and clapped Zeke on the shoulder.

  “Yuh,” Zeke said. “Am so. Can we go home?”

  “Excellent idea. I’ll drive your truck. You look wiped out, m’man.”

  “Okay,” Zeke said, studying his hands in the blue light.

  Tom looked at Farrah. Next, he’ll get a case of the munchies, Tom thought deliriously. And he’ll be calling me ‘dude.’ “Thanks for the... uh... drive,” he said to Farrah and smiled. She laughed.

  “No problem-o.” It was her Vinnie Barbarino again. “You two better get some rest.”

  “Yeah,” Tom said with a look that said, now that’s a no-brainer, doll-face.

  He began leading the stunned and troubled Zeke through the clearing back to the vehicles beyond the pines, where the world was swallowed by darkness. Tom felt okay with Zeke and Farrah around, but he knew he’d hear that howling dog again and wanted to be inside a running vehicle when it came. In his shorts and sandals, he was also getting cold. He knew Zeke must be frigid. The poor bugger was soaking wet. Had he just sat down in the water and waited all these hours? Did the guy black out on his vitamins?

  He was too tired to consider the Rubik’s cube of possibilities. He just had to get home and sleep.

  Zeke sniffled. “Almost forgot,” he said. As they passed a dark patch of grass, Zeke bent down and reached into it, like a man placing his hand into a black hole of nothingness and knowing it would not be bitten off. The blue light turned the blackness of the object into Tom’s new camera case. He stood, then handed it to Tom.

  Stunned, Tom took it. He gave a shrug and pursed his lips at Farrah who returned his look with one of confusion. This whole thing, since finding Tom in a stupor on Mikey’s front steps, was surreal and senseless to her.

  The three of them walked back to the vehicles in silence. Farrah reached out for Tom’s hand and took it in hers. He didn’t pull away.

  “After you get him home, you sure you don’t want to come for the fire?” she said and then added, “with me?”

  Tom looked wrecked. And as soon as she said it, she realized she shouldn’t have bothered. “I just can’t,” he said. “You know I can’t do it tonight.”

  “Make you a deal,” she said. “I’ll tell you my name tomorrow if you come out with me.”

  “Deal,” he said quickly.

  “Promise?” she said.

  “Promise,” he said impatiently. “But I—”

  “I know,” she said. “You gotta get home. And crash. Get some sleep, okay?” She let his hand go and said goodbye. She got in her dad’s sports car and drove off, throwing her arm in the air and giving a finger-waving tootle-loo.

  With his head hanging and his shoulders sagging, Tom got into the driver’s side of Zeke’s truck and found the keys already in the ignition. He said a silent thank you and turned over the engine. It rattled but ran fine in a few seconds. It was hot and salty-smelling in here. Body odour and a mustiness mixed with dirt. On the other side, looking equally defeated by the day and now the night, Zeke took his place beside Tom in his own passenger seat. He closed his eyes and took a breath that seemed to make him look and sound more mature than Tom had ever seen him before. Maybe the stress of Mary running off in her tantrum had bore a big hole in Zeke too.

  Tom drove off, but realized something as he looked over at the man in the dim light.

  “Zeke?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where are your glasses?”

  Without hesitation, Zeke said, “Left em in the water. Don’t need em anymore.”

  7

  Tom and Zeke snuck in the back door a few ticks past midnight, Thursday morning. It was earlier than he’d thought. In fact, Tom expected the sun to be up soon. The weight of responsibility makes time slow to a drag, he realized.

  They both headed down to the basement and went right to bed. Neither changed out of their dirty clothes. Zeke even laid down in his dry bathing suit and was snoring in two or three minutes. Tom was too tired to let it bother him. He was out soon after.

  Morning came too fast, but when light from the stairway hit Tom’s eyelids, he opened them and looked over at his alarm clock. It was six minutes after six A.M.

  Again, Zeke was gone. And again, his bed was perfectly made, standing in a shaft of light in the corner, shed by the basement stairwell feeding it from the screen door at the back of the house.

  Tom skipped his shower. There was a sink, a bar of soap and a towel in the basement, but no toilet or shower so he splashed some water on his face and armpits and headed up for a piss in the main floor loo. Dar was the only houseguest who needed help and he usually laid in bed longer than the others. Tom guessed he’d trained his bladder a bit better than the others. It was a necessity of needing others for your mobility.

  In the living room, Smitty sat in his usual spot, clicking through the channels and looking for whatever program he watched this early. The others tottered around and b
abbled to themselves and to each other. Mary looked untouched by yesterday’s drama. She and Ingy played pat-a-cake on the big couch.

  Tom wheeled Dar into the living room and said his good-mornings to everyone. Each echoed some form of acknowledgment back to him, but they all seemed sapped by the heat of these last few days. No one had too much enthusiasm. Fidela may have already handed out their morning vitamins.

  Dar took over operation of his chair and spun himself on the hardwood over to the card table to begin the process of staring at his world map puzzle.

  From the kitchen, Tom could hear Fidela cooking the customary pancakes, eggs and bacon of Thursday breakfast. She did those today rather than the weekend because Karen hated the smell of the grease and Thursday afternoon was the day Fidela gave her thorough once-over of the kitchen with Pine-Sol. It sufficiently covered the smell of burned bacon and fat for the sensitive sniffer of Ocean View’s co-owner/operator, the woman who could pick her least favourite employee at a moment’s notice and make that person’s life hell until they quit.

  That was the story told to Tom by the last employee who did an eight month stretch over the winter. It seemed Karen was able to piss off each of her employees to their breaking point just at the time when another was scheduled to come on board. Rarely did she have them overlap for long.

  It was a woman coming in starting September, he believed.

  Tom went in and got a plate. He liked Fidela’s breakfast much better than her lunches and much, much better than her suppers so he tended to fill up in the mornings and then reduce his intake over the course of the day, often snacking from the fridge after Fidela left for the evening.

  The kitchen smelled glorious. Tom was hungry. He sat down and helped himself to a heap of hot scrambled eggs, a piece of buttered toast, six slices of back bacon and maple syrup poured over everything but the eggs. Spiced ketchup drowned those. He downed a black coffee and chased it with orange juice. He started feeling better almost immediately.

  He remembered that his camera and wallet were still on the passenger seat of Ocean View’s new bus so he cleared his plates—Fidela gave him a smile—and headed back to the living room to check on the gang. Fidela’s Spanish radio programme faded as he left the kitchen. The two rarely talked to one another unless they needed to exchange rudimentary knowledge or scheduling issues. In the beginning, Tom found it weird being in a room and not speaking with the only other person in it, but the two of them had developed their own rhythm, just as he had with Karen, just as he had with the houseguests.

  In the living room, they all seemed content. No one was scrapping at the moment. He knew from experience, they would start to get rumbles of hunger by about seven and, one by one, they’d toddle into the kitchen and eat. They were well-behaved most of the time and Tom, in a way, had grown to love each of them over the last stretch of months. He would miss them.

  He put on his Birks and made his way out onto the porch, then down the front steps.

  Nurse Karen was coming up the front walk, in her cleanest, brightest whites. She wore her chunky rings and big round sunglasses. Her lips always matched her fingernails. Her purse swung from one hand. The heat of the day was already starting to come on.

  “Morning,” he said, squinting at her in the brightness of the day, all green and blue in the lush, overly treed front yard.

  Nurse Karen did not reciprocate. She was all business, he knew. Even first thing in the morning, and she rarely slept in. Since some of the Banatyne businesses had suffered and been sold off, Nurse Karen had found renewed focus in her cash cow: Ocean View Manor.

  “You get those vitamins catalogued for the week?” she asked in a bark.

  “Not yet, Ms. Banatyne,” Tom said. He made sure to hit the appropriate zee sound on her salutation. She hated being called missus. “Wanted to grab my stuff from the van before it goes,” he said. “I’ll do the cataloguing right after.”

  “Better hurry up,” she said with her brand of snark. “Van’s going back. Pronto. I called the guy yesterday after What’s-His-Ass left town.” By What’s-His-Ass, Karen meant James Roundtree. The two of them had not seen eye-to-eye. That was probably clear even to Dar and Smitty and Ingy.

  “Will do,” Tom said, not bothering to get into it. The cataloguing of the pills he’d procured back on the mainland during his away-day could wait a few hours. Hell, a few days or weeks even. Nurse Karen’s supplier dished them out when he got a hold of them, not before. Karen bought them when she could, oftentimes, well in advance of when she needed them. The supplier gave her the rate she wanted and until that changed, she bought them when they were available.

  The guests had plenty already. They were catalogued into their weekly ration dishes and even Fidela could hand them out without getting confused. Because of the language barrier, Karen would give one of her exasperated eye-rolls and think the woman was useless for anything other than cracking eggs and wiping the counter.

  Just as they passed on the walkway, Karen stopped. “Listen, Tom...,” she said, as if something weighed heavy on her mind. In the past, it usually meant she either had some choreographed praise to deliver, followed by a favour. Or she was about to give him hell for some transgression or another.

  Tom stopped and turned back to her. He almost expected her to say something heartfelt. He should have known better.

  “I’ve got some work to do here this morning. I can have Fidela mind the troops. Between the two of us, we can manage the day. If you take the van back to the leasing agent for me, I’ll let you have it off.”

  Tom shrugged. “Sure,” he said. Simple as that. Sounded like a good offer. He waited for the addendum to come, but it didn’t. He wouldn’t mind getting some shut-eye but if he stuck around here he wouldn’t get any sleep. When he took his off-time at Ocean View, it was like he was still on duty. Maybe he’d go to the beach and have a snooze in the shade somewhere along the treed section. Surely, taking the van back wouldn’t take too long.

  “You got the address?” he asked Karen.

  “Oh, I think you can handle it, pipsqueak,” she said. Her usual sarcasm struck Tom as particularly harsh after the night he had. He bit his tongue. He knew he was tired and there was no point in dishing it back to her. He’d kept it in all summer. There was no point in tussling with her now. “It’s out by the docks. The old ferry terminal. You know where that is?”

  He nodded and bit his lip from saying anything he might regret.

  “It’s called Lawrence Leasing. He’s agreed to take the van back. He has a whole fleet of rentals. This is a drop in the bucket for an operation like his.”

  “Sounds fine,” Tom said, feigning diplomacy as best he could.

  “But I need you back at seven when Fidela goes home. Okay?”

  “Sure thing,” he said, turning to go.

  Beating the proverbial horse, Nurse Karen called after him. “Key’s inside!”

  “Got it,” he said, not turning back. He was glad he was on his way out for the day. If she had to do paperwork at Ocean View, she’d have all kinds of her stories and advice to share throughout the day. Given Tom’s mood, he’d not be able to hold his tongue for more than a half hour.

  As he drove off, he looked down at all the canisters of 35 millimetre poured out of his pockets and into the empty passenger seat. He was struck by two thoughts.

  One, could he maybe forego the nap? He felt a lot better since the breakfast and black coffee took hold in his system. Wouldn’t it be better if he could find out if there was a community hall or another place where he could print some of the photos he took yesterday? He’d gone to hell and back to snap-snap Mary out there at the spring. He might as well see if any turned out.

  And two, where did Zeke run off to now?

  8

  After an argument with the counter guy at Lawrence Leasing who said Karen Banatyne stiffed him $7500 on a bunch of equipment, Tom was able to hitch a ride with some fishermen heading into town with their fat wallets, dirty hip wader
s and stinky backpacks. They were laughing about how they’d heard of this one girl. “Name o Fanny Mae,” the driver had said. “Yeah,” said the other, “but I heard she’s out. In the baby way.”

  “There’s some poor bastard out there,” the driver said. “If she can pin it on him.”

  They laughed uproariously at that. Tom was glad he was in the truck bed. The hot wind carried most of their volume and raw fish smell off with it. But he was grateful for the ride.

  Again, he saw Mikey coming out of Harlow’s with a Coke on Main Street.

  “Hey,” he called.

  “Hey yourself, fag.” Mikey said with a sardonic smile and a tilted head. That kid was cocky, Tom thought.

  “Making a habit outta that,” Tom said, impressed with his own coolness. “Coke addict?” he added with a cleverness that doubly impressed him.

  “Haha,” Mikey said. It was fake and sarcastic. “I like to get out of the house these days. My Dad’s laid off and he and my mom go at it pretty hard by about mid-morning.”

  Tom raised his eyebrow.

  “Not that, gutter head. They shout. At each other. I wish I would have volunteered as a camp counsellor. Or something.”

  “Sorry, man,” Tom said. What do you say to that?

  “It’s okay. What ya got there?” Mikey said, looking at Tom’s black camera bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Camera,” Tom said with a shrug, as if it was the most uncool thing on the planet and he didn’t want to confess it was his.