Our Brothers at the Bottom of the Bottom of the Sea

by Jonathan David Kranz

  What could I say? I don’t go to Carnegie Mellon for another three months, and I’m not going to hang around Ethan all summer.

  “I’ll take it,” I said. But I don’t plan on being anything other than mini enthusiastic about it.

  chapter three

  plan rachel

  Betty had once said about Rachel’s father, “I have no idea where he is,” with a look on her face that meant, And I could not care less.

  Pressed, Betty had added, “He looked a lot like you,” which felt like a counterpunch to a jab Rachel had not even made.

  Betty said there were no whys, there were just things that happened, like rain and stomachaches, and kids who were born with Down syndrome, and bad vibes on the beach. She insisted they should not feel sorry for themselves.

  After the fiasco with the shells, Rachel opened her laptop and ran another search for her father. She did this sometimes when she was lonely or bored or angry with Betty. Just typing his name into the search bar felt like an act of defiance.

  He would certainly be “Leary,” but he could be “Robert Leary” or “Bob Leary” or “Rob Leary” or even “Bobby Leary,” although Betty also said he went by “Sledge.” Why?

  “It made him sound tough,” Betty had said.

  “Was he?” Rachel had asked.

  “Not enough.”

  Maybe the name didn’t fit. But on Facebook and Google and even LinkedIn (which seemed the remotest possibility), she tried “Sledge Leary” too.

  She made a few assumptions—some firm, like his age, “around forty, forty-one now,” Betty suggested; some reasonable, that he would be likely to live where it was warm (“he hated the cold”) and that he worked with his hands; and some gut guesses, such as a home hundreds of miles from Sea Town and that he probably hadn’t aged well. She looked for worn faces, smiles that seemed a little forced. His looking like her didn’t seem especially helpful. Brown eyes, brown hair, a nose interrupted with a bit of a bump as it sloped down. That could be anybody. And Betty insisted she didn’t have any pictures.

  “What about from the wedding?”

  “Burned them,” Betty had said matter-of-factly—as if, of course, what else could she do?

  Rachel imagined the fire in the rusting grill behind their bungalow, saw the pictures curling in the flames, the progress of the fire crawling from the outer edges in. She couldn’t decide whether Betty had been drunk, buzzed, or sober, but she could picture the lighter fluid in one hand and the match in the other—a balance of forces with her mother in the middle. It would have been night, and the firelight would have danced on her face.

  There was a Robert Leary on Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. He had a rusty tan and a cockeyed grin and a way of looking into the camera as if it were a familiar and almost beloved enemy. But he was in insurance and had been for over a decade. Neither fact fit—the field or its duration. The Robert Leary she was looking for wouldn’t be in anything for the long run.

  Bob Leary, Santa Barbara, California. He liked local wines, selling antiques, and his committed relationship—with a man named Reggie. With antiques, there was a hustle behind all the rosewood and chipped porcelain that fit the idea Rachel had of her father. Gay did not. She suspected her father wouldn’t own it, even if it were true.

  Rob Leary in the Florida Keys wore a Hawaiian shirt open to his navel, displaying a carpet of gray chest hair. In his beard and his fish-stained safari shorts, he looked like a cross between Ernest Hemingway and a rumrunner—too good to be true. He was a retired fund manager who liked to keep in touch with his classmates from Yale.

  There were Learys all over the country, up and down both coasts, in patches throughout the middle and southwest, and plenty across the border in Canada’s bigger cities. There was even a Sledge Leary, but he was an action hero in an amateur artist’s comic panels, buried deep on a cosplay site that was half swords-and-leather, half soft-core porn. This Sledge had fists of steel and a heart of gold and, for comic relief, made mashed potatoes with his fingers. Although the hero wasn’t helpful, Rachel liked this Sledge and bookmarked the site.

  “What’s the point?” Betty had warned. “He won’t take you. You’d just be deadweight to him.”

  But that’s what Learys do, Rachel thought. Carry deadweight. She looked around her room. Shells, toys, PowerPuff Girls posters—there was still too much of Curtis everywhere, hanging around. Guests who wouldn’t take a hint and leave.

  * * *

  “If you were going to college in September,” Mrs. K said, “you wouldn’t need a Plan Betty or a Plan Leary or anyone else’s plan.” For an old woman not much taller than a corner mailbox, she had a big voice with a lot of muscle, like a soft hand with a surprisingly strong grip. Stretching over the coffee table, she passed a novelty serving dish—the Campbell Soup Kids—stacked with homemade sugar cookies. “You’d have Plan Rachel,” she said.

  Mrs. K’s cookies were too sweet for Rachel’s taste, but she took one out of politeness and ate it slowly so that she wouldn’t be invited to have another. Mrs. K had made a fresh pot of hot tea, which Rachel loved, and for her money, Mrs. K’s sofa was the best. It swallowed her when she sat down, pillowing her on both sides with comfort. The bungalow smelled of mentholated arthritis cream and cinnamon-scented candles.

  “I’m not ready,” Rachel said between nibbles.

  “So you say,” Mrs. K said, but she didn’t push. It was an old argument, and neither of them was up for it. Instead, Mrs. K sighed. With the rise and fall of her breath, Mrs. K’s cotton housedress rustled like a bush shaken by a landing of small birds. Rachel marveled at her arms, sinewy, long, with skin the color of old piano keys. For the longest time, she had been Curtis’s friend, not Rachel’s, but Rachel had inherited her, and Mrs. K did not seem to mind, although it was obvious to Rachel, from the sweet treats that were her brother’s favorite, that Mrs. K still missed him very much.

  “Give me some sugar,” Mrs. K used to say, surrounding the boy with her arms when Rachel brought him around. She was willing, even eager, to take Curtis for an hour or two when Rachel was at wit’s end and needed a break. Over checkers, cookies, and TV, the two of them were thick as thieves, their brows nearly touching in their private conspiracy of affection. Almost all the smaller objects in Mrs. K’s house, from tissue boxes to the television remote, were wrapped in cozies Mrs. K had knit herself. Returning to pick up Curtis, Rachel half expected to find him snug, head to toe, in a cozy knit just for him. At Curtis’s wake, all his old friends—and many of them really were old—had lined the walls, casting shy glances at the casket. Mrs. K wasn’t among them. Her absence had touched Rachel more than anyone else’s presence.

  “I don’t want to rush into college,” Rachel said. “I want some time to find out what I want. You know, find myself.”

  “College is just the place for that,” Mrs. K said.

  “Did you go?”

  “Didn’t have the opportunity.”

  Rachel sipped her tea, looking for something to rest her eyes on other than Mrs. K. She found the cat clock on the wall, keeping time with its tail and the goggling back and forth of its eyes. Without meaning to, Rachel nodded her head in time with the clock. She caught herself and held up her cup. “Great tea,” she said.

  “How’s your mother?” asked Mrs. K. Her gaze never moved from Rachel.

  “Same old, same old.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Good enough,” Rachel said quickly. Mrs. K didn’t reply. When the silence grew too uncomfortable, Rachel asked, “Do you know why anyone might be nicknamed Sledge?”

  “You know someone named Sledge?”

  “I might.”

  “Sounds like someone to keep at arm’s length.”

  “That’s easy,” Rachel said. Crystals of sugar stuck to her lips. She reached for them with the back of her hand. Mrs. K, stretching again over the table, passed a paper napkin.

  “Thanks.”

  Mrs. K returned to her seat, the
cushions sighing for her. “You need company your age,” she said. “I’m an old pain in the ass. And your mother has her own stuff to work out. You need friends.”

  “What would I say to them?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  Rachel wasn’t so sure. In high school, she had felt like a perpetual exchange student—always at the edge of conversations she pretended not to understand. Translating her terms to theirs and vice versa seemed too much trouble.

  “You need to get out more.”

  “I am out,” Rachel said, admiring the cozies around her. “I’m as out as out can be.”

  * * *

  In the logic of amusement parks, someone had thought it clever to paint the ticket booth walls in a pattern of stones, and over its window, construct a lattice of iron bars, as if the booth were a dungeon prison—punishment for Pirate’s Playground pirates who didn’t play nice. The booth, little larger than a refrigerator carton and nearly as flimsy, could hold only one person at a time, and most people did not like being that one person behind the bars.

  Rachel didn’t mind. After Betty and Mrs. K, it was something of a relief, even if the patrons were sometimes odd or difficult.

  “Fifty tickets,” the customer at her window said, fishing a credit card from her purse. Two pink grandchildren stared up at the booth, one at either side of the woman. She dressed far too young for her age—fringed T-shirt and cut-off jean shorts—as if fifty-five were a rumor about someone else.

  Rachel processed the card and produced the tickets without speaking, eager to keep conversation to a minimum. It was still early in her shift, daylight, and she felt achy all over from staying up late searching the Web for Learys. She worked in a hangover fog, even though no drinking had been involved. It didn’t seem fair.

  “How many should I get?” the next customer asked, surrounded by a restless group of kids, a cloud of noise and motion. Rachel wondered if the woman had to handle them all by herself. Were other adults waiting for her in the park? Or had they abandoned her, with the kids, to enjoy a few hours of peace on the beach?

  “Get the Big Book,” Rachel said. “One hundred fifty tickets.” The Big Book was a hundred dollars, a nice round figure. Even though Rachel was hardly concerned about the park’s bottom line, she liked selling them. She found something satisfying about passing over the Big Book, about keying one hundred dollars into the register.

  “Why?” the woman asked, hesitating.

  Rachel took in all the kids, fingers in noses, punches on shoulders—hands everywhere they shouldn’t be. “It’ll keep them busy,” she said. “All day.”

  She made the sale. After a few more—to a young couple with a toddler, and a handful of tweeners who had won permission to roam the boardwalk on their own—the stream of customers turned into an intermittent trickle. The little air conditioner set in the wall wheezed asthmatically; being in the booth when business was slow was like sharing a hospital room with a dying patient.

  Rachel had the job because Bobby Stone had made a surprise appearance at Curtis’s wake. A big man who could make any room feel crowded, he’d made the funeral home airless. When he approached Betty and Rachel on the receiving line, the low whispering of the room dropped even lower. All eyes turned to him, and because he was next to her, those same eyes fell on Rachel as well. She had a vague sense of having disappointed everyone, that she had not kneeled quite long enough or shed enough tears. In fact, her eyes were dry. Everyone else’s were wet.

  Even Stone’s eyes were damp. In a voice louder than it needed to be, given how close he was, he had said something about wanting to do all that he could to help in this difficult time. Betty, her face buried in a hand clustered with tissues, nodded graciously but said nothing.

  It had occurred to Rachel that without Curtis, she would have a lot of free time on her hands. “A job,” she had said.

  And Stone had said “of course” with a slack smile. Only later did Rachel consider that hers was a face he would not be eager to see every day. But when spring rolled around, she realized he wouldn’t have to.

  “It’s the ticket booth or nothing,” an elderly woman with a white sweater shawled around her shoulders said when Rachel had turned in her application. In exchange, Rachel got a badge, an employee handbook, and two blue polo shirts stitched with the Pirate’s Playground logo: a grinning bear with a scimitar clenched between its gleaming teeth.

  Rachel yawned. She filled the dead time by bringing order to the shelf under the counter, stacking the tickets, sorting out the maps and brochures. She read and reread the employee manual. She gazed through her bars at her little square of Pirate’s Playground: the entrance gate, the back end of Blackbeard’s Boat. Few people walked by. Rachel felt sleepy, as if lullabied by waves she could neither see nor hear. Then a glint of light caught her attention. She blinked, refocused. At the entrance gate, a boy in mirrored sunglasses stood face-to-face with the park’s mascot pirate as if absorbed in conversation. He looked left and right, over his shoulder and behind the pirate, then lifted his hand to the pirate’s chest. Rachel almost looked away, the moment was so private and strange. She felt embarrassed for the boy but also fascinated: what was this peculiar intimacy about?

  At the end of her shift, the good feeling of being freed from the booth was compromised by the clinginess of the late-afternoon air. Much of the boardwalk crowd had scattered for dinner and aloe vera and petty family arguments in rented condos. Rachel stopped by the pirate that had held the sunglassed boy’s interest. She inspected his chest. On his billowy white shirt, in block letters carefully printed in red ink, there was a fresh violation: Don’t fall.

  June 6, 2013

  Nothing like “free” to drag in the bottom-feeders. Walter stopped at the ticket office after his shift at Happy World to angle for a few passes. He’d never come out and say so. Instead, he just happened to be dropping by. He asked about the Rock-It Roll-It Coaster, but he was hopelessly obvious.

  I shook my head to discourage the confidence he imposed on me anyway. He leaned into me and whispered that I was right, the restraining sensor is messed up. Sometimes it says they aren’t locked when they really are.

  And the other way around, I told him.

  Walter sliced his hand through the air as if chopping off a snake’s head. “No way,” he said. “We’ve looked into it. Not happening.”

  I made a crack about Stone’s certified team of qualified professionals. Did they know? Did Stone?

  He looked at me as if I were an idiot. “What do you think? You can’t cut the cheese in his parks without him knowing about it.”

  Or score free tickets, I reminded him.

  Walter put on his “who me?” routine and pouted. He had cousins coming in from Philly—have mercy.

  I reached under the counter and pulled out a stack of complimentary passes. I told him to use them before four or after ten. If they came when there was a crowd, Mike would give me shit.

  Walter thumbed through the tickets and said Mike wasn’t like that—he was one of us. We all look out for each other, right?

  I’m not sure I share the sentiment. Too often, watching someone’s back means looking away from something else.

  “Why?” I said. “Is there something to see?”

  Walter stuffed the tickets in his pants pocket. “Man,” he said, “there’s always something to see.”

  chapter four

  careful with tools

  Chuck Waters spent so much time on the living room sofa, stretched across its length, bare feet drooping over one end, his head cradled in his hands on the other, that even when he rose to pee or grab something to eat, the cushion dents marked his spot, a crushed echo of his presence. He didn’t leave the sofa often. He didn’t need to. There was a flat-screen television to watch, a coffee table crowded with necessities: the television remote, his cell phone charger, a Swiss Army knife he idly toyed with as he watched CNN, opening and closing knife blades, scissors, file, saw, magnifying glass�
�tools gleaming with the potential to do something useful.

  See? he seemed to say, although he spoke as infrequently as he moved. It’s all under control. Everything’s within reach. Ethan took a seat on the edge of the coffee table.

  Chuck shook his head in disapproval. “Off the table. You know what your mother would say.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” But he didn’t put up a fight.

  “I was on the boardwalk,” Ethan said.

  “Still in one piece?”

  A running gag. It had been jogging and wheezing since Chuck had been fired by Bobby Stone late last September. Without his sharp eye and attentive care—without the vigilance and dedication he had applied as Stone’s lieutenant—the boardwalk would crumble into timbers and wash out to sea.

  It was only a matter of time.

  Ethan looked at the television without really watching it. Earlier in the morning, he had spied on his graffiti to see how people would respond, and he had made a few observations: that the “double take” is entirely an invention of the movies, which no one makes in real life, ever; that if the grand plan is to see responses to your message, writing that message on the inside of bathroom stall doors is probably a bad idea; that in general the overall machinery of the boardwalk moves swiftly. Within twenty-four hours, most of his marks were already gone, either scrubbed clean or painted over. The Pirate’s Playground pirate must have posed a special challenge, however; he and his upraised boarding ax had been lifted from his spot, leaving his two rumpled boots in place with screaming-red traffic cones front and back to prevent guests from tripping over them. It was odd. If you’re going to carry off the pirate, why not take the boots as well?

  His father would find it funny, this thing about the pirate and the boots.

  “Left behind?” Mr. Waters asked quietly, as if interrogating himself. “Classic.” He sighed, sat upright, and grabbed a short stack of graham crackers from a box on the table. “That’ll give us confidence in the park’s maintenance. It sends a message.”