Buddy Cooper Finds a Way

by Neil O'Boyle Connelly

  “Are you talking to him now, Hardy?”

  “No sir,” he says. “He’s just talking to me. But I’m listening.”

  I look up at Hardy’s bright shining face and I envy him. I wish I could believe that Jesus was speaking to him now. That bullets had miraculously passed through him in the ring last week. That Paul’s eternal soul had been saved. That Rhonda could see the future. That the Svobodians were coming for Dr. Winston and all believers. That my plan to get my life back is anything but a joke. But I’ve learned the truth about such things. I’ve learned the cost of believing things might get better. So as much as I’d like to follow, when Hardy wades into the water, I simply can’t go with him.

  He steps into the sea strong and sure and confident, no doubt that he is exactly where he’s supposed to be in the universe. The waves break against his muscled legs and when the water rises past his hips the ocean ripples his red cape out behind him on the surface of the water. The two of them seem like newlywed lovers, like he’s carrying her across the threshold into a new life fresh from the wedding. When the waves get higher he turns to protect her, letting them smash into his broad back. Above the roar I hear Marna giggling, squealing with delight. There is no other sound but the waves and her laughter. I’m afraid Hardy’s going to keep going, that he’s heading for the horizon and that waterfall tumbling off the edge of the world. But then he stops. He’s standing in the deep water just past the breakers, where the waves seem calmer.

  Their heads bob with the rolling ocean, and each time they disappear behind a rising wave, I worry they won’t reappear. Hardy must be holding her away from him, because her head is no longer settled on his shoulder. A wave comes up, a wave comes down and there’s more distance between their faces. I don’t want to believe it, but after the next one there’s no doubt—she’s too far away for Hardy to still be holding her—he’s let her go.

  A dozen fans appear at my side, leaning out, but no one goes in.

  When the next wave crests and falls, Marna’s head is gone. A Dark Disciple with a bloody nose next to me says, “Christ!” and starts in. But he stops when her face reappears, closer to shore. She must be floating, about ten feet ahead of Hardy. Just her face is there, nothing else, but we all can see she’s smiling, and something holds us all in place. Even when a small wave swallows her from behind and her face vanishes for a moment, no one panics. And sure enough, there is her face and neck, closer to us now. After the wave behind that comes and goes she is closer still and somehow we see her shoulders, draped in the soaked T-shirt. Her body is bobbing in a familiar way that can’t be possible, her freckled face is rising out of the water as she comes toward shore, lifting out of the waves like someone walking. We all can sense it, but no one believes it—even when her chest and stomach lift straight and true from the water. Only when the waves give way and reveal her legs—her legs supporting her weight—do people begin to whisper it: She’s walking.

  Appleseed healed her.

  It’s a miracle.

  With that the fans surge, splashing into the water to meet Marna, whose head is still tilted and whose eyes still roll, whose hands are still bent back into her elbows. But who is standing now on her own. A few Disciples plunge into the waves and start throwing seawater onto their faces, rubbing at white face paint and black lipstick. A group of fans lift Marna on their shoulders, begin passing her around on their outstretched arms. And her laughter ignites theirs and suddenly they’re all applauding and laughing, security guards and smeary-faced Dark Disciples and bruise-knuckled fans. As for Hardy, I force my way through the crowd and see him well out beyond the breakers, flat on his back, arms lifting from his side and stretching backward toward his head, angling along the beach, executing the backstroke perfectly.

  -----

  A Walk in the Park. Not Bread but Meat.

  Bewaring Alligators. The Planning of Ducks.

  Otter Orthodontics. Jhondu Achieves Jalcina.

  As I’m crossing the arched bridge, two yellow paddleboats putter beneath me, heading toward the cypress forest that sprouts from the center of Greenfield Lake. These Tupperware cheapos are the illegitimate descendants of the elegant Awooden crafts Alix and I rented over a decade ago, early in our courtship. A teenage boy and his father pilot the boat in the rear, pursuing a woman and girl with nearly identical ponytails. The mother and daughter’s laughter skips across the lake. Below me in the water, turtles float suspended just below the surface, their sharp little heads stretched expectantly toward me. But I have no food to offer. Under them, a murky junkyard of items discarded from this bridge: a beach chair, a tricycle, what looks like a perfectly good baby stroller. I keep moving.

  The path winds along a parking lot filling with families who decided against church this fine Sunday morning. A bright-faced boy tumbles from a minivan to help his father heft a blue ice chest. Carrying the crooked cooler between them, they walk through the shade toward a woman drifting a red-and-white checkered cloth over a picnic table. Nearby a white-haired man and a girl loft horse-shoes in smooth arcs. Horseshoes! This is a game I thought people simply didn’t play anymore.

  Joggers bounce around a curve in the path, nod as they pass and trot by, working their way around the five-mile course that circles the lake. From a pine tree overhead, a bluejay cackles, though when I look up I can’t find him. A chubby little boy in green overalls stands along the water’s edge. In front of him, a congregation of ducks spreads out on the still water. At first I think he’s heaving hot dog rolls at them, but as I near I realize it’s not bread but meat. A package of Ball Park franks dangles from one hand, and with the other he’s reaching in and lobbing the dogs one at a time. But the kid’s got no technique, and the hot dogs drop one by one into the city of knobby cypress roots skylining the bank. The ducks seem unsure what to do. None of them appear hungry enough to risk coming ashore, but some of the ones in the back are honking. Ducks, like all of us, have only so much tolerance for inadequacy and failure. I look again to the parking lot, but there’s still no sign of Alix.

  I turn back to the boy and raise a friendly hand. “Hey, kiddo.”

  He smiles up at me, shows me the missing tooth just off center on bottom. At his feet sits a bag of Wonder Bread hot dog rolls.

  “I’m five,” he says, holding up a handful of fat fingers.

  “Five’s a great age.”

  He flops another hot dog into the roots and the ducks quack.

  In the way-back-when, at this same park, I showed young Brook how to squeeze bread into tiny balls, toss them high so the ducks would pluck them from the air. Helping the boy is what the Better Buddy would do, and that’s who I’m supposed to be now. I scan the park, find his parents twenty feet beyond the trail. The father presides over a pyramid of charcoal briquets, squirting lighter fluid from a square, white can. Next to him, mom holds a Budweiser and gives me the hard stare. When I try a smile, she taps her husband’s shoulder and points at me. Just stopping here has branded me a pervert. Somehow the rule of the Army has made the leap to the civilian population: Presume all unknowns hostile. So I walk on without saying good-bye, and when I look back I notice the mother is heading for the boy, probably to be sure I didn’t scar him for life with foul words or bad intentions.

  Every fifty feet or so along the path, faded signs nailed to pine trees warn BEWARE OF ALLIGATORS. The alligators that lurk beneath the surface of Greenfield Lake are hardly worth bewaring. Sure, there’s a handful of five-, six-footers, but they’re overfed and lazy. Rumors of Grendel, a fifteen-footer with a taste for human blood, have circulated for years. Some field-tripping eighth-graders capsized their canoe a decade back, and every now and then a neighborhood dog goes missing. This is all the evidence a myth needs to maintain credibility.

  I’m just considering what those smaller gators might think of the smell of Ball Park franks when a shout rings out from the park. “Poppa-San!” I turn to see Brook charging across the grass and pine needles, weaving through the trees
. I raise both arms—the left one against its will—and she slides inside my embrace.

  “Baby Bird,” I whisper.

  Chin on my shoulder, she says, “Mom’s right behind me. Don’t forget your amnesia.”

  I open my eyes and sure enough, Alix approaches through the pines, a thin, uncertain smile on her face.

  Brook pulls back and I stare at her. “You got so tall,” I try awkwardly. “Where are your glasses?” This is a line I had ready.

  Brook points to the same blue eyes my mother had and announces, “Contacts.”

  “Sure,” Alix says, now next to our daughter. “Couple years back.”

  “It’s so good to see you,” I say, though I make sure not to direct the comment at either one of them. Maybe they’ll both think I’m talking to them.

  “Where’s your sling?” Alix asks.

  I rotate my arm in a slow windmill to demonstrate my range of motion and say, “I’m a healing machine. I’ll be back to a hundred percent before long.” While this is not a complete lie, my real motivation for not wearing the immobilizer has more to do with not wanting to show up looking wounded and weak.

  “That’s great. You’re off the Percocet?”

  At AA, they made it clear that any addiction is an addiction. “I’m popping a few a day, Al. Everything’s under control.”

  “How ’bout the rest of you?” Brook asks. “Like, y’know, your memory?”

  A conspiratorial spark shines in her eyes. “Coming along,” I say.

  “In my head you’re still in junior high and only this tall.” I hold my hand at her shoulder and she smiles. “I can’t get over how long your hair is, Bird.”

  “Did Mom tell you I’m going to be an extra?”

  “An extra what?”

  “In the show you guys are making. At the studio.”

  I bring my eyes to Alix, who dips her chin and says, “Trevor thought it would be a good experience.”

  “Trevor,” I say. “A good experience.”

  “I want to be an actress,” Brook announces, “but not a stuntperson.”

  “You can be anything you want to be, Bird. As long as you work hard at it.” Fatherly clichés such as this are usually the best I can muster.

  “We’ll all be, like, working together,” Brook says. “It’ll be bullet sweet.” She steps between us and takes hold of our hands and we start walking, three abreast down the path, back the way I came.

  Alix looks over at me. “Quinn’s back at the house with Trevor, working over the script.”

  I try to imagine Quinn in the house on Asgard, sitting on my deck, drinking from my glasses. “It’s a reality-based show,” I say. “How much can they work it up?”

  “They’re massaging some of the facts, dramatizing. Plus they’ve got yesterday to consider now.”

  Brook says, “The paper said that girl couldn’t walk, and then she could.”

  The article was front page of the local section. “I read the story, Bird.”

  “Yeah, but you were there too. What happened?”

  Together, Alix and Brook wait for an answer. I see a BEWARE OF ALLIGATORsign rotting in the bushes. “I’m not really sure what I saw.”

  Neither is pleased by my nonresponse, but since most have got me figured for either crazy or amnesic, I’m not about to go spouting miracle healing. Last night when I got home, I looked up the number for Sanctuary House, hoping Rhonda could supply some reliable information on unexplained phenomenon. But I never called. What do I say, I kept wondering, if she asks what I’m doing tomorrow?

  “Nobody’s claimed the poor girl yet,” Alix says. “Doesn’t that seem odd? I’d hate to think somebody could just abandon a sick kid like that.”

  “The world’s full of twisted people,” I say. According to the paper, Quinn has petitioned the court for temporary legal guardianship, claiming he feels “a powerful moral obligation to care for the weak in society.” But I’m not here to waste time talking business. I go to my list of prepared questions. “So, Bird,” I say, “Mom said you had some deal in Raleigh.”

  “We were righteous, but the Dance in My Pants sluts stripped down to thongs so of course they took first.”

  “She’s not exaggerating,” Alix says. “Those mothers need to have their heads examined.”

  “So you switched to dance after you got your black belt or what?”

  Alix looks away and my daughter shakes her head. “Nah. You guys sold the dojo. I stalled out at brown but I’ve been thinking about checking out Dragon Steve’s.”

  “Dragon Steve’s a loser,” Alix says. “If you want to continue training, I’ll train you myself. I thought you liked dance.”

  “I think I was acting out. You got ticked when I mentioned dance. It began as an attempt to generate negative attention.”

  “You need to stop reading so much,” Alix says.

  I smile at Brook. “I’ll bet you’re a great dancer.”

  Brook pirouettes in front of us, but when she lands she assumes a fighter’s stance. Her hands thin into blades and she bends her knees. “No,” Alix says. “Your father’s arm.”

  Playfully Brook flips a kick at my head, which I block with a forearm. I bring the same hand in and tap her on the forehead, my only attack whenever we sparred. Brook spins and leaps, driving an elbow into my ribs. I fold sideways. “Thought you were head-hunting,” I explain. “You got faster.”

  “I got smarter,” she answers. “And whether you remember or not, you got older.”

  “Enough, you two,” Alix commands. “We’re drawing attention.”

  I turn to Alix, my hands now loose fists. “What’s the matter, Al? The good life soften you up?”

  “Not funny,” she says, but when Brook and I take up offensive stances on either side of her, like we used to so many times after hours in Tae-Kwon-Do for Tots, fighting instincts take over. Alix halfheartedly snaps a punch in my direction, a fake that Brook bites on, advancing too quickly. Alix’s leg blurs as she twirls and sweeps Brook’s front foot, knocking it out from under her and spilling her onto the grass. Completing her spin, she faces me again, fists up front, knees flexed and ready to spring. A strange grin on her face.

  “You want a shot at the title?” I joke.

  “I think I’ve earned that much.”

  From the ground, Brook says, “So, Dad. In your head, you’re like, still married, right?”

  Alix’s face jerks sideways as if she were punched. “Brook. You need to remember your father’s condition. We talked about being delicate.”

  “This is delicate.”

  “Yeah, Bird,” I say. “That’s about the size of it.” Since I know Brook knows the truth, I’m not sure what she’s up to.

  “Well, how does that feel? I mean, do you like the feeling of being married to her?”

  I look to Alix, who’s dropped out of her fighting stance. Her arms hang at her sides. I wonder what answer she’d wish for.

  “This is making your mom uncomfortable,” I say. “Let’s just walk.”

  I start down the path and after a moment of whispered scolding, Alix and Brook catch up to me, though we no longer hold hands. My ribs ache from Brook’s elbow. We pass the duck boy, who is now trapped inside a small circle of mallards that have braved the land. He’s out of hot dogs, but something keeps him from going to the rolls, still bagged at his feet, for which the ducks clearly have plans. The boy’s father, just across the trail, stands over an open flame leaping through the charcoal grill. He shouts to his wife, “OK, Maddy, break out the Ball Parks.”

  Knowing where that scene is heading, I turn away and find Brook looking into my face. “So, like, do you remember my eighth-grade graduation?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember promising to buy me a car?”

  Alix laughs. I say, “Can’t say that I do.”

  “Do you remember all the times we ate dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s and watched movies?”

  I don’t smile. “No. I remember you as a li
ttle kid. That’s it. I told you this.”

  Brook nods her head. “I understand,” she says. “So tell me something you do remember about me.”

  This, I clearly sense, is a request she wants answered, amnesia or no. I’m being tested. My mind scurries for a good response, something warm and happy and family-oriented. Not her in the hospital with those tubes up her nose. Not her pouring my whiskey down the toilet. Not her hiding in the branches of the pine tree out back, afraid I’d be angry at her for skipping school. Just as we reach the bridge, I stumble on the perfect flashback. “I’m thinking of the Asheville Zoo,” I say. “This is when you’re five, maybe six, but you’re still carrying around that purple wubbie blanket.”

  “I remember wubbie.”

  “Yeah, your mother and I were desperate to get it away from you. Dr. Spock thought it would impair your ability to interact with others.”

  “Chapter Seven,” Alix says, with all the respect of someone quoting the Bible. “Developing Your Child’s Sense of Self-Security.”

  “Exactly. Anyway we’re in the parking lot, fighting with you in the Subaru about it, telling you that big girls don’t need wubbies.”

  Alix says, “The Duster. The Subaru had just died.”

  “Sure, the Duster. So Brook, you’re in the backseat of the Duster screaming bloody murder because we want you to leave the blanket in the car. But just like always, we finally cave in and let you bring it into the zoo. You drag this wubbie around through dirt and grass, through the Reptile House and across the walkways over Monkey Island. Finally the three of us are watching the otters play. They’ve got this dug-out playground all their own, a little quarry with a green water pool and a molded concrete mountain to frolic on. The whole nine yards.”

  “I remember this,” Brook says, and her smile beams. It is perhaps the first genuine one we’ve seen all day. She wants me to go on. Alix is trying not to smile, but failing.

  “We’re leaning against the brick wall around OtterLand and I’ve got you sitting on it with my arm around you. Your mother’s nagging me that this is not safe, so I was distracted.”