The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel

by Patry Francis

  “Of course, he’s different,” Nick said when she told him about it. “Underneath all the sorrow, he’s plain angry. He’s got to be.”

  Hallie caught a glimpse of that anger when Johnny Kollel taunted Gus with the rhyme he’d made up after the murder:

  Little Cod, Little Cod,

  the orphan of Race Point.

  Mommy’s in the graveyard,

  Daddy’s in the joint.

  Johnny was older and stronger, but he was no match against Gus’s rage. The gym teacher intervened, but two days later, when Johnny joked with his friends about how Little Cod had “gone mental over a silly poem,” skinny Neil had put his head down and charged him like a bull. The older boy had Neil on the ground and was pummeling him when Hallie spotted them from the window of the art room. As soon as she saw blood spurting from her friend’s nose, she dropped the brush she was using to decorate a pumpkin for Nick, marking the floor with what looked like an exclamation point in black paint. “Sorry—emergency!” she yelled to the startled art teacher as she streaked outside.

  Hallie had never been in a fight in her life, but she dove onto Johnny’s back and pounded him with her small fists. The crowd whooped, finally alerting the playground monitor, who had sneaked around the building for a cigarette. She rushed toward them, her words indecipherable to Hallie in the heat and exhilaration of the fight. Johnny tossed her off just as Gus, careening out of the school building, a flash of jet black hair and speed, arrived.

  Though blood was still spraying from Neil’s nose, he scrabbled to his feet. “I guess I showed him!” he said. Then he pulled Hallie into their defiant circle. “I mean we did. Right, Hal? She fights pretty good for a girl; doesn’t she, Gus?”

  Gus touched a scrape on her cheek, then ducked out from under Neil’s arm. “You could have gotten hurt,” he said. There was gratitude in his tone, but also a sternness that made Hallie think of her father.

  Neil ended up with several stitches, a scar on his upper lip, and a discolored tooth that would mark the day for life. They were all suspended for a week. Nick grounded Hallie for the duration, exiling her from the sweetest week of Indian summer, and gave her a serious lecture about the dangers and futility of fighting.

  “I understand why you did it, Pie,” he conceded a few days later. “You were defending a friend. But if you ever try something that irresponsible—and just plain stupid—again, you’ll be grounded till you’re fourteen. Got it?”

  Hallie assented gravely, but all she heard was I understand.

  Throughout the fall and winter, Hallie kept her promise, but one Thursday in May, Neil convinced her to get off the bus at the wrong stop and go to Beech Forest. He and Gus had planned a blood brother ritual. Blood brothers, and a sister if you come, he added, snapping his jackknife open. Gus and Neil were drawn to the older boys who swore and played rough games on the playground, and Hallie couldn’t believe they wanted to hang out with her. Initially she said no, but at the last minute, she jumped from her seat and followed them as they got off the bus.

  When they reached the spot they had chosen, Gus frowned at Hallie. “This is dumb, Gallagher. We should head back to town before she gets in trouble.” Though he was speaking to Neil, he continued to look at Hallie.

  But Neil had already cut himself. “You can’t back out now, Gus,” he said, triumphantly squeezing a drop of blood from his index finger. “We’re going to be brothers, remember? Your blood in me and mine in you.”

  Turning back to his friend, Gus quickly repeated the ritual, pressing his finger against Neil’s. But when Hallie reached for the knife, he gripped the handle tightly. “Not you. This is for blood brothers only.”

  Determined not to be shut out, she pushed the tip of her finger against the blade just as he jerked away. Blood flared.

  “Jeez, Hal. You were only supposed to get a drop.” Neil went so white that even his freckles looked blanched, while Gus tore a piece of cloth from the sleeve of his shirt and handed it to her. “My cousin’s house is down the road,” he said. “I’m gonna call Nick.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Hallie said firmly, imitating the calmness her father always displayed on house calls. While the boys watched, she tore the cloth into strips and wove it expertly around her finger to stanch the bleeding. Then she started toward the path. “And don’t either of you try to follow me, either.”

  She started off slowly, but once she was out of sight, she broke into a run. She didn’t notice anyone was behind her until Gus sprinted to her side on Route 6.

  “Man, you’re fast,” he said when he caught his breath. “And you bandaged that finger just like Dr. Nick.”

  “See, it’s okay.” She held up her injured hand. The blood had turned the yellow strip of fabric orange, but it wasn’t leaking through.

  “That’s not why I ran after you.” Gus looked down and crossed his arms the way he had when he challenged Johnny Kollel to a fight. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Now?” Hallie said, feeling confused. She glanced toward the road that led into town as if expecting to see her father’s truck on the hill.

  “It won’t take long, and if I don’t do it now . . . Look, I just want to say I don’t need anyone coming over to read me stories, or cutting herself up to be my blood sister. And I sure don’t need a girl getting in fights for me. Us Silvas, we take care of ourselves. Got that?”

  “I told you I was okay.”

  But Gus shook his head, clearly determined to finish. “And you can have your book back, too. I can’t read it, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.”

  Those last words struck their target. “Are you saying you don’t want to be my friend?” Hallie wasn’t sure if she was more offended for David Copperfield or for herself.

  Gus stared at the ground.

  In that instant, Hallie’s hurt turned to anger. “Well, fine. But if you don’t want the book, take it down to the pier and throw it in the harbor. ’Cause us Costas? When we give something, we don’t take it back. You got that?”

  Gus glanced up at her. It only lasted a second, but the compassion she saw made her chest ache. So that was what this was all about. He wasn’t excluding her or trying to hurt her; he was protecting her. She darted into the road so quickly that a man on a bike had to weave perilously close to an oncoming car to avoid her. She turned and recognized Stuart’s boyfriend, Paul, who had nearly succumbed to a serious bout with pneumonia that winter. Hallie was as surprised to see him as he was her.

  “Hey, Hallie, watch where you’re going,” he yelled. He stopped on the side of the road, straddling his bike. “What are you doing over here, anyway? Does Nick know where you are?”

  “I’m sorry, and no . . . and I’ve got to go,” she called back from the other side of the street. She was unsure if she was apologizing to Nick for disobeying him yet again, to Paul, or to Gus Silva. When she reached the bottom of the hill, she stopped and looked back, half-expecting to see Gus behind her. The street was empty. She stood there for a full minute, tears stinging her eyes, before she spun away and ran the final half-mile back to her father.

  PART TWO

  RACE POINT BEACH

  { 1985-1987 }

  Chapter 6

  Hallie loaded her backpack carefully: a pound of Jamaican coffee, a woolen hat for the winter that would soon be upon them, some Truro honey, and two books, one a heavy oceanography tome she’d borrowed from her father and the other a volume of poems by Kabir. Before she hiked out to the dunes, she planned to stop at Cap’s and pick up some oyster stew.

  It had been six weeks since she or her father had seen Wolf. Just after her sixteenth birthday, a letter from the Park Service had arrived informing him that he’d been granted a lease on one of the storied shacks in the dunes. Hallie hadn’t expected to miss him as much as she did. Since she’d entered high school, she was home less, and often preoccupied, but the house felt empty without him. She begged Nick to go out to the shack and convince him to co
me home, but her father was as adamant as Wolf had been. “You know, I kind of miss the old crank myself—and I’m worried about his health, too, but this is important to him.”

  The shack was buried so deep among the dunes that Hallie thought she’d never find it, and the heavy pack cut into her shoulder blades. Then, just when she was about to give up, it came into view. Poised between two crests of sand, it offered a stark view of ocean. Hallie never failed to inhale sharply when she hiked across a high dune and saw the muscular swells of Race Point Beach. The shades in the shack were down, and a hand-painted KEEP OUT sign was staked in the sand out front. She marched to the door and knocked. When it winged open, she took a step backward, startled by the man who confronted her.

  A patchy beard obscured Wolf’s bony face, and there was something wild and untamed in his eyes. Had he really been so feral-looking when he lived with them? she wondered. Her father’s words rose to mind: Don’t romanticize him. He’s nobody’s uncle, Pie. But as soon as Wolf spoke, she relaxed.

  “Jesus Christ, girl! Now you’re going to torment me out here, too?” The hint of a smile crossed his face.

  “I hiked for an hour carrying this heavy pack, and that’s all you have to say?” she joked back, wondering how long it had been since he’d seen another person.

  “Oyster stew,” he said, catching a whiff from the take-out container she’d brought. “From Cap’s.”

  “So are you going to invite me in or not?” Peering over his shoulder, Hallie saw that the shack was laid out remarkably like the attic had been, with the futon in the corner, a small table and solitary chair where he took his meals near the window, and his easel in the center of the room.

  Wolf was looking past her, too, and abruptly his mood changed.

  “No one comes in here,” he growled, like an animal defending his den. “That’s the point.”

  When Hallie didn’t budge, he grew agitated. “Don’t you get it? I want to be left alone.” He took the container of stew from her hands, muttering the most ungrateful thanks Hallie had ever heard as he slammed the door.

  Hallie raised her fist to knock again, but it lingered in the air. Nick was clearly right. Wolf, the eccentric uncle, or the wayward older brother, was as much a figment of her imagination as the romantic sea captains she used to conjure when she sat on the roof. She kicked the door, wondering what had gone wrong.

  “Well, thank you, too!” she yelled. “The hospitality was amazing.” In her mind, she heard her father’s robust laugh. She had always loved its sound, but like many of her father’s formerly endearing traits, it had recently begun to annoy her. Did he always have to be so right? You visit a hermit and you expect to be invited in for tea? he’d say later.

  She turned to escape the unstable porch when she was startled by the sight of Neil Gallagher sitting cross-legged on top of a nearby dune. He was wearing a pair of jeans with a hole in one knee and a sweatshirt with the words PROVINCETOWN THEATER emblazoned across the front.

  “Gallagher, what the hell—” she said, realizing why Wolf had turned her away. “You followed me out here?”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Neil said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Honest. I didn’t even know where you were headed when I—”

  “When you what? Tracked me like a bloodhound and ruined my visit? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen Wolf?”

  But Neil looked so open-faced and apologetic that her anger quickly fell away. When she reached the top of the dune, Hallie offered him a hand up.

  He stood, brushed the sand off, and took Hallie’s backpack from her. “The least I can do,” he said. “What’s in this thing anyway—rocks?”

  “Presents for Wolf,” she replied, listing the contents.

  “I see nothing has changed,” Neil laughed. And when Hallie answered with a curious glance, he said, “You still think a book can cure anything.”

  “And you still don’t know how to dress for the weather. It’s November, Gallagher. Don’t you own a jacket?” Hallie studied the moody clouds that were easing toward them. “We probably should get going.”

  Neil looked up as if noticing the weather for the first time. “Jeez, it does look like rain. But now that you dragged all this stuff out here, don’t you think you should leave it for him? It’s a long walk to the road. And since I stopped pretending I was a jock, I’m out of shape.”

  “Nope. He already got my oyster stew. If he wanted the rest of it, he should have invited me in,” Hallie said before she visibly softened. She stopped and looked back at the shack. “Stubborn fool. I bet he’s dying for a good cup of coffee.”

  Quietly, she carried the bag back to Wolf’s porch, where she carefully stacked her gifts.

  Neil was smiling when she climbed toward him.

  “What?” she said.

  “You, that’s what. I knew you couldn’t deny him his presents.” Neil took up the lightened pack again as they started toward the road.

  “Shouldn’t you be home practicing for your play or something?” Hallie said, feeling embarrassed by the admiration in his eyes.

  In freshman year, when he failed to make the basketball team, Neil had been crushed. But after an English teacher suggested he try out for a school play, he’d discovered his passion. He’d starred in every production since; and recently, he’d landed a part in a famed local theater.

  “I’m practicing or thinking about it wherever I go,” he said. “In fact, when I was hiking out here, I put on a one-man show for the gulls.”

  “How did they like it?”

  “The reviews were unanimous: I’m gonna be the next big thing.”

  Hallie laughed. “How about trying your lines out on a real critic?”

  Neil didn’t need a second invitation. As they trudged through the sand, his voice resonated through the dunes, captivating Hallie.

  They’d walked halfway to the truck when Neil wandered off the path and sat down. “Break time,” he announced. “Anything to drink in this thing?” he said, opening the pack.

  Hallie passed him a bottle of orange-mango juice as she took a seat beside him. “The seagulls were right, by the way. You were awesome.”

  Neil grinned widely. “You really think so?”

  “I wouldn’t lie. Now it’s your turn to be honest. I want to know what you’re doing out here. And please don’t tell me you wanted to meditate in the dunes.”

  “I wouldn’t insult your famous intelligence.” Neil picked up a stick and concentrated on drawing in the sand. Interlocking squares and circles, looping ovals and blunt triangles. The sand was so thick and dry that the shapes vanished as quickly as he drew them.

  “Last spring you asked me why Gus acts so strange around you, why he never flirts with you like he does with every other girl on the lower Cape,” he finally said. “Do you remember that?”

  Hallie took a deep breath. “You want me to believe you walked all the way out here to talk to me about some stupid conversation we had last spring? Come on, Neil. This is me.”

  But Neil, who had always talked to her so easily about any subject suddenly seemed edgy and evasive. “Do you remember or not?”

  “Okay, I might have mentioned that it’s kind of weird the way he avoids me, but I never said anything about flirting.”

  “Well, did you ever think it’s because he’s had a huge crush on you for years? Ever since you first showed up at his house with that book. In fact, crush isn’t a big enough word to describe it.”

  Hallie shifted uncomfortably in the sand, hoping Neil didn’t notice. “That was a long time ago. I hardly know Gus anymore.”

  After he had ended their friendship on that desolate strip of highway, Gus had remained polite but distant. Hallie had been secretly relieved when she heard that he was transferring to the regional school twenty miles away for freshman year. Still she couldn’t help hearing about him. By the time he was a sophomore, he was playing quarterback for the varsity team, and half the town was making t
he trek to Eastham to watch him play.

  He even made the pejorative name he was called after his mother’s murder his own, choosing it over the one he’d inherited from his father. He was Voodoo now, Voodoo who could charm a spiraling football or a girl with equal ease. Voodoo who lived with his aunt and uncle in the rundown house on Loop Street but was rarely home. He seemed equally untouched by its dismal atmosphere, and those who tried to chain him to the past.

  Neil closed his eyes as if he was determined to get through his prepared speech. “Listen, some of us are going to hang out at the beach on Saturday night if you want to come. We’re gonna build a bonfire and drink a few of my special rum and Cokes.”

  “You mean a party?”

  “More like a few couples. I’m going with Christina,” he said, referring to the girl he’d been seeing for several months. “And Voodoo really wants to hang out with you.”

  Hallie’s color deepened. “What is this—a summons? The great Voodoo Silva has chosen me as the girl of the week? I thought he was going out with one of Daisy’s cousins from Truro, anyway.”

  “Over,” Neil said with a dismissive swoop of his hand. “Come on. What do you say? He would have called you and asked you all nice and proper. It’s just—well, like I said, he gets nervous around you.”

  “Are you trying to tell me Voodoo is shy? Please. He’s got to be the most arrogant boy I’ve ever met,” she said.

  She got up and resumed walking, but Neil didn’t immediately follow. He was out of breath when he finally caught up to her.

  “Listen, if you don’t want to go out with him, fine. But don’t talk about him like that. Not to me.”

  Hallie turned around and hugged him. “I know you love him, Neil . . . but sometimes I wonder if he deserves your loyalty.”

  Neil, who was usually easy and affectionate, pushed her away gently. “Don’t go there, okay?”

  Hallie was confused. Was he talking about the hug or her doubts about Gus? She started down the path, grateful for the sand that pushed back against her feet, giving her something physical to resist. Soon she heard Neil behind her. She waited for him to sing out the lines he’d been practicing earlier, or to break out in a song from Metallica or Cole Porter as he often did, but he stayed silent.