Our Brothers at the Bottom of the Bottom of the Sea

by Jonathan David Kranz

  That Curtis did enthusiastically, gripping the wheel in complete concentration, pounding squawks from its horn as he howled along. An elderly couple, following the progress of their granddaughter—a little blondie immobilized with seasickness—were a whole lot less appreciative. The old man’s video camera bobbed in synch with the boats, rising with the appearance of his little sunshine, dropping to his side as Curtis crossed his view.

  With every Curtis howl, Grandma looked more disgusted. “Zoom, zoom, Gracie,” she called out to her girl. “You go zoom!” There was a pride in her voice that suggested no other child could zoom quite like her granddaughter. But little Gracie remained silent. When the ride stopped, Grandma and Grandpa moved with unexpected speed to shepherd Gracie from boat to stroller; together, they darted rapidly among the rides to the carousel at the opposite end of the pavilion.

  “She was slow,” Curtis said. “My boat was much faster.”

  Curtis burned through a number of tickets on the kiddie rides and once again got bored. He wanted action; I wanted to sit down. Exasperated, I rolled my eyes. But looking up, I suddenly saw the Ferris wheel in a new light, realizing that it’s just a chair in motion—and a slow motion at that. Curtis eagerly approved my suggestion. Big is good. Height is good. He grabbed my hand, and we went almost instantly from gate to gondola—there was no line at this time of day.

  Once we got moving, our carriage swayed gently like a boat in calm water. The beach and the boardwalk rose and fell under us, the sounds yawing and fading like a slow lullaby. At the top, I counted forward from familiar landmarks—a corner ice cream parlor, an abandoned drive-through bank—trying to find our street, our home among so many look-alike houses. I was just beginning to feel at ease when, bam, my stomach spoke up. I squeezed my knees together and, focusing on the rocking motion, closed my eyes. When I opened them, Curtis was standing, leaning over the rail. In a flash, I saw Curtis up on his toes and nothing but empty space all around, ready to suck him into the sky.

  Without a moment to think, I rushed at Curtis, pulling him back into his seat by the wrists. “What the hell are you doing?” I said wildly. “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  I regretted my words as soon as they had left my mouth. When Curtis cries, his face riots: his eyelids flutter, his lower lip trembles, his noses flares hot and red, while tears roll down the sides. “Okay,” I said, wiping his face with the sleeve of my windbreaker. “That was a moment, and now it’s over.”

  It was a phrase we shared in crisis, one I’ve used so often I can’t remember when it started or why. But it was a handy tool for getting unstuck, for jimmying us out of tears, tantrums, or disappointments. “That was a moment, and now it’s over.”

  I reached into my pocket: five tickets left, just enough for one of us to go on one good ride. “Tell you what,” I said. “How ’bout the Rock-It Roll-It Coaster?”

  If only. If only I had run out of tickets. Or suggested the flume ride. Or led him out of the park altogether.

  But I didn’t. I led him up to the Rock-It Roll-It Coaster—again, there wasn’t much of a line—and to Leonard. I didn’t know him then, of course. He was just another attendant in a red Happy World vest. Skinnier than most, with a head of shaggy hair—an animated Koosh ball on a cane.

  Leonard waved Curtis forward and placed a measuring pole, like an inverted hockey stick, up to his side. “He just makes it,” he said. “You riding with him?”

  “I don’t have enough tickets.”

  That was the first time I saw the smile that he would roll out at SeaSwift and the coffee shop. “I won’t say anything if you won’t say anything.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll pass. I don’t feel quite up to it.”

  “Really?” he said, opening the gate for Curtis. “It’s not so bad. Its bark is worse than its bite.”

  “I’m good.”

  If only.

  I am trespassing in someone else’s journal. But I’m adding my voice here because his story is connected to Curtis’s story; his brother’s story to my story. And ours to many others’. Maybe telling them changes nothing. But I think that somehow, the pieces do fit together.

  This is my piece:

  The last time I saw Curtis alive, he was in the front seat of the first car with a world-eating grin on his face. The Ferris wheel was forgotten. The tears were over. A crash of guitar chords thundered over the PA, and an excitable voice asked, “Are you ready to rock?” Another blast of chords. “I can’t hear you! Are you? Ready? TO ROCK?”

  “I’m ready!” Curtis shouted to the mountain of tracks that towered in front of him. I shielded my eyes from the sun and followed the back of his head as the coaster rattled into motion and climbed up the hill, unsteadily, like an arthritic old man. Then it reached the top, Curtis’s head eclipsed the sun, and everything old and slow dropped away as suddenly as a magician’s cloak.

  I found a bench by the Tilt-A-Whirl and sat down to wait, looking away from the ride. I just wanted a moment’s peace.

  “That was a moment, and now it’s over.”

  No, it’s not. It never will be. It keeps climbing up over the hill and into the sun, down and back again.

  All these years, I’d been lying to Curtis.

  That’s what’s over.

  chapter seventeen

  fathers and daughters

  On what had once been a theater marquee, the letter n in STRAND MALL stumbled out of line, leaning drunkenly on the letter a for support. As promised, the front gate beneath the marquee hood was not fully closed, drawing short just a foot from the ground; the remaining gap, black as tar, was about as inviting as a wolf’s jaws, but after a third look-around to be sure she wasn’t seen, Rachel dropped to the ground, pushing her backpack ahead of her into the darkness. She slid in after it.

  Inside, once her eyes had adjusted to the dark, various exit signs and security lights brought shapes out of the gloom, glass display cases and steel racks pinned with swimwear on either side of her; between them, a narrow walkway with an inclined floor opened into a vast womb of darkness. The floor spread wide, cluttered with shop counters and kiosks made small, almost toylike, by the great vaulted ceiling high above them. At the apex of the vault, imprisoned above an iron grill, a lone black fan chopped the air slowly. Although the theater seats, the screen, the little running lights along the aisles had been removed years ago, the space retained a gutted feeling, as if it hadn’t quite finished spitting itself out.

  Rachel settled the pack on her shoulder and listened. Faint voices emerged from the back—a male one, chesty and abrupt, and a female one, much less loud, like a whisper Rachel couldn’t be sure she heard. She advanced toward them, her footsteps echoing in the hall, drawing closer to the “smoke shop” displays of glass pipes and plastic grinders, Zippo lighters with grinning skulls. Something clipped her shoulder, and Rachel jumped back, startled. A mannequin swayed from a length of chain suspended from the ceiling—a come-on for this season’s Sea Town T-shirt, the town’s name spelled out in splatters of phosphorescent paint. A few steps beyond it, a horseshoe array of stools surrounded an island of oxygen tanks and hoses. Clear masks, like fruit, hung from a wire tree topped with a sign, THE O2 BAR. It promised rejuvenation and clarity of mind that could be bought in five-, ten-, or fifteen-minute sessions. A BETTER MORNING AFTER, AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE, it said.

  A funny proposition for a dry town, Rachel thought. She wished she had brought a flashlight, and it occurred to her that this was the second time she had forgotten to carry one: there was the fiasco with Betty, the beach, and Curtis’s shells. But this time, she promised herself, what she needed to leave behind, she would leave behind. The exchange would be as sharp and quick as a ripped-off Band-Aid. In a gesture of good faith, Leonard had been released from jail. Now Stone would get the journal.

  When she reached the room Stone had told her to look for, around the corner from the wall of blacklight posters, she found the people behind the voices. A young
woman Rachel had seen once before sat at a card table with a bottle of Frangelico in front of her—the glass friar stood with his hands tucked into his robe, as if patient, ready to offer wisdom should the need arise. Stone stood behind the girl, similarly cross-armed but with a clear plastic cup he swirled in his hand. A weak gray light came from a computer monitor set upon a workbench along a side wall. The computer’s cooling fan whirred softly; the old theater’s great fan made a slow and steady chop-chop sound.

  Rachel removed the bag from her shoulders, holding it from the strap like a severed head by the hair.

  “Have a seat,” Stone said. He nodded to a folding chair leaning against the table—a guest too tired to stand on its feet.

  The chair squealed as Rachel opened it. The table was scarred with random box-knife cuts and fragments of packing tape. The room, and everything in it, felt disposable—to be used, then thrown away. “This is yours too, this place?”

  “It’s all his,” the girl said, her face obscured by her hair. Stone nudged her shoulder with the knuckles of his drink hand. “Ours,” she said.

  “This is my daughter, Diana,” said Stone. “Diana, this is Rachel Leary. She works for me at the Playground. Someday she might work for you.”

  “Not likely,” Rachel said. “I got other plans.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Stone said. “My staff is filled with people who thought they would move on to bigger things.”

  Rachel wondered how long he’d been pulling at the bottle. Kid stuff: sweet and heavy. A smell like burnt pancake syrup hung in the air. She wanted to blow it all away: the smell, the dark, the tension. “What I don’t get,” she said, “what I can’t figure out, is how you moved Jason.”

  For the first time, Diana looked up. The gray light didn’t do her any favors. Hints of smeared mascara—from tears?—hid in the creases along her nose. It may have been the makeup, but something about her looked shriveled. Rachel wondered what Jason had seen in her. But then, Rachel hadn’t been part of that special moment—the threatening drunks, the retrieved soda cup—that changed everything. She marveled that one moment, like the push of a button, could reset the world. Was that the power of fear or courage?

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Diana said.

  “I read the journal,” Rachel said. “From Happy World to the beach. I figure he must have been, what, at least a hundred sixty, a hundred seventy pounds? And carried over the boardwalk too.”

  “Must be a magic journal,” Stone said, “if the dead can write in it.”

  Rachel struggled not to smile. “So Jason was at the park that night?”

  “Dad,” Diana said, trying to pry the drink from her father’s hand. He pushed her back into her chair.

  “She’s bluffing,” he said. “Watch. Watch and learn. That’s what you’re here for.”

  “I figure,” Rachel said, tracing stars on the table with her finger, “what would I do? I’m Diana. I’m in a place I shouldn’t be with a boy I shouldn’t be with. Now he’s on the ground, and he isn’t moving. I check his breathing, his pulse. Nothing. What do I do? Call an ambulance? Call the police? No, I go straight to the top. I call Daddy.”

  “Ask her if she brought the journal,” Stone said to Diana. “Go ahead.”

  Her head down again, Diana’s hair fell like a curtain across her face.

  “Something went wrong with the Magic Carpet,” Rachel continued. “It had worked before—in the summer. But it was winter. Jason was smart, very smart, but he hadn’t accounted for the weather.” She looked straight at Diana. “The freezing cold.”

  “Ask for the damn journal,” Stone hissed.

  “You ask,” Diana said.

  “I don’t care which of you asks,” Rachel said. “I’ll make a deal with either one of you.”

  Stone took another sip. “A deal? You think there’s going to be a deal?”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  The fan chop-chopped in the silence. Rachel wondered if a little green ribbon was attached to its grill.

  “You’re going to give the journal to us,” Stone said softly. “And I mean, give. You know why?”

  Rachel shook her head.

  “Because we’re friends, Rachel. We’re all friends here.” He frowned into his cup. “I’d offer you a drink, but you’re underage. And this is a dry town, after all.”

  “Some friend,” Rachel said. “I’ve got my own people to look after.”

  “Let’s be real. One way or another, I’m going to get that journal. You know that, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. You know that. Why do this?” He spread out his arms, encompassing what, Rachel wondered: the cruddy room, the cruddy table? His daughter? This night? This world?

  “Why fight?” he asked, dropping his arms.

  “Because I owe it to my brother. And to Jason. And Ethan. Leonard.”

  Stone waved his hand dismissively, swishing drink out of his cup. “You owe them nothing,” he said. He wiped his fingers on his shirt. “Leonard? The kid was stoned. Did he tell you that?”

  “In his way.”

  “And Jason, he was reckless.”

  “Maybe. He slipped up. But not from the jetty. Was there water in his lungs?”

  Stone brushed that aside too. “It wasn’t drowning. It was a contusion or a concussion or some such thing. A blow to the head.” He punctuated his recollection by slapping his thigh. “That’s what it was. From the rocks.”

  “Stop it,” Diana said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “That’s what we’re here for, sweetheart,” Stone said.

  “Rocks, my ass,” Rachel said. “A magic carpet ride that went wrong.”

  The room was too dark to detect any change of color in Stone’s face. He filled the pause before he spoke, not with a sip, but with a long, cold look into his cup. “Bullshit,” he said. “There’s no evidence of that.”

  “If there wasn’t,” Rachel said, “you wouldn’t have asked me to come here.”

  “It was an accident, for Christ’s sake.” He caught himself, waving his free hand as if erasing a chalkboard. “If such a thing had happened, which it did not.”

  “He didn’t accidentally drop his own body in the ocean, did he?”

  “That’s just what I was trying to say,” Stone said, sliding into a chair beside his daughter. “That’s responsibility. You, of all people, should appreciate that.”

  Rachel gripped her backpack. “What does that mean?”

  “Judgment,” Stone said with some heat. “Look at you.” He pushed the Frangelico bottle to one side, opening his hands to encourage confidences. “You’re hurt. You’re in pain. You’re looking for someone to blame. But come on. Tell me something. Your brother should never have gone on that ride alone, right? Don’t tell me that’s never crossed your mind.”

  “All the time,” Rachel said. “But it doesn’t matter. He was old enough. He was tall enough.”

  “He was retarded.” Stone dropped his hands on the table. “You were the responsible one. You were the one supposed to exercise judgment. If only you had.”

  “If only the ride hadn’t malfunctioned.”

  “You’re doing it again—making stuff up. That’s grief talking, not brains.” He tapped his temple. “But I’m not here to judge. No, I’m not.” Again, a sip from his cup. “Look. There are two kinds of people in this world. Most of them are weak, needy, always waiting for someone else to tell them what to do. To set things right. To make things work. You know that. I mean, look at Chuck Waters. Decent guy, but come on. A hopeless case.”

  “And you give them hope?”

  “I give them work,” Stone said. He looked quizzically at his cup, saw that it was empty, and reached for the bottle. “Tell me, where are your friends? Where’s Ethan?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. He’s at home. Safe.” Stone looked Rachel in the eye. “Forgive me for getting
personal, but … where’s your mother in all this? How long are you going to carry her? Who’s the adult? Who’s the child?”

  He’s really drunk, Rachel thought. “What’s this have to do with you?”

  “We’re the other kind, Rachel. Don’t you see? The kind who take responsibility. Who make decisions. Who think things through—who think and take action. We clean up the messes other people leave behind.” He draped his arm around Diana. She squirmed free, lifting the weight of his arm over and away from her.

  Stone laughed. “I wonder if you two were switched at birth. You,” he said, pointing an unsteady finger at Rachel, “you I can see running this place. You”—this time nodding to Diana—“you I worry about. But you’re what I’ve got to work with.”

  “I wouldn’t trade places for all the money in the world,” Rachel said. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”

  Diana lifted her head. Streaked mascara made her look like a jungle cat. “So what’s stopping you?” she asked.

  Rachel couldn’t think of anything to say. She stared into the table as if the scars would speak for her.

  “That thing with Jason,” Stone said. “If he had been found in the park, you know what that would mean?”

  “Your park would close,” Rachel said. “You would lose money.”

  “People would lose jobs. The town would lose taxes. The shore would lose tourists. It might be years before we recovered. If we ever recovered.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Really? Think, Rachel. Use the gifts God gave you. Why should the many suffer for the one? And for what? He was dead. There was no bringing him back.”

  “What about the truth?”

  “Truth is what we make of it,” Stone said, finishing his drink. “Sometimes we make tough calls, hard choices. But who has the right to judge us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No one, Rachel.” Stone rose from his seat, taking up a stance behind his daughter. She seemed to shrink under him. “You don’t even have to hand the journal to us,” Stone said. “Just put it on the table and walk away. You never have to see me pick it up. And you can tell your friends anything you want. I forced it from you. I threatened your mother. I promised not to press charges against that Washington kid. Or you can make it simple. In all the confusion, you dropped it on the boardwalk by accident and don’t know what happened to it. You have no idea.”