“You’re the boss. Or at least you’re one of the boss’s sons. That counts for something.”
“It’s the difference between us.”
“It’s one of them.”
“It’s the Grand Canyon, my man.” Without waiting for a reply, Edmund turned around and walked to the stairs, heading up toward his office. Dave waited until he had gone inside and closed the door, and then he switched on the chop saw again and started cutting out lumber for frames, deliberately sawing off a half-inch at a time so that he would have to make about twenty cuts before a piece was short enough. He considered putting a dull blade in the saw so that it would whine louder. Clearly he should have said something that would count as the last word, but, as usual, he hadn’t been able to think of anything. Making a lot of noise with the saw was a childish comeback, but at least it was immediate and effective.
Two years ago he had been employed by an advertising agency in Irvine, but the work didn’t suit him; all it did was make some sham sense out of the years he had put into college. What he was doing working at the Earl’s he couldn’t say, except that it did suit him, at least right now—except, of course, that he had to put up with Edmund. The job paid the rent on his house downtown, and, with his own key to the door, he could come and go as he pleased, working alone until midnight or coming in at four in the morning, whatever seemed right. And he was attracted to the dusty, museumlike atmosphere of the warehouse, to the pure gaudy clutter of stuff in the farthest corners of the old building, to the mice that appeared and disappeared among the lumber of props late in the evening, to the sound of winter rain on the metal roof, and to the ten thousand shadows cast by a hundred hanging lamps.
Also, the Earl himself had no problem with Dave working on his own projects when he wasn’t building something for Collier or for the company. This morning Dave had brought the chop saw out front by the door instead of assembling the frames back in the shop at the rear of the building, just because the frames were big—fourteen by six feet—and the shop was too cluttered. There were industrial-quality power tools in the shop—a big planer, a horizontal mortiser, a twelve-inch radial arm saw, drill presses, band saws, a lathe, an old green-painted table saw that was nearly as big and heavy as an automobile. Dave had half completed a replication of two mission-style Morris chairs, and this evening, if he could finish enough of Collier’s sets during the day, he would steam-bend the slats for the chair backs.
Working at the Earl’s hardly qualified as a job at all from Dave’s point of view. Maybe someday things would change, although for the Earl himself things never had, at least not for the last forty-five years, and each added prop, like an added jewel in a kaleidoscope, had thrown a new pattern of shadows on the walls and floor, and the old warehouse had accreted a more complicated and unfathomable magic as the years had fallen away.
Tired of irritating Edmund, Dave pushed the wood forward to the pencil line and depressed the switch in the handle, making the last cut. The saw wound down, and Dave stood up, taking a step back and laying the wood onto the pile with the rest. There was a crash directly behind him just then, and he leaped forward, kicking the saw table and staggering into the lumber pile. He turned around and saw that the tiki in the Hawaiian shirt had fallen off the balcony, hit the floor, and knocked through one of the panels of the Duke of Albany’s palace, smashing it to pieces. Edmund stood at the railing, looking both sorrowful and surprised.
“My God,” Edmund said. “The damn tiki fell right over the edge. I think its belt was rotten. I tried to stop it, but I just couldn’t. It didn’t hurt anything, did it? Tiki all right?”
“Tiki’s fine,” Dave said flatly, his heart still hammering in his chest. He picked up a scrap of painted Styrofoam, rejected the urge to throw it, and tossed it back onto the floor instead.
“Uh-oh. It didn’t damage your work, did it?” Edmund bent over the railing now, as if to get a better look at the smashed facade. “What was that thing? Nothing important, was it?”
“About two hundred dollars worth of castle,” Dave said evenly.
“And all that work, too! Well, I knew something like this was going to happen. The only thing I can say is that it’s lucky you weren’t standing any closer. That tiki would have crushed your skull, falling like that. To hell with the castle. I couldn’t stand it if one of my employees got hurt. Our workmen’s comp would go through the roof.” He snorted with laughter, walked back into his office, and shut the door.
Various options ran through Dave’s head: going up there and throwing Edmund over the balcony railing, putting a carborundum blade in the Skil saw and chopping pieces out of Edmund’s Mercedes …
He looked out at the car in the lot, picturing the car destroyed, and just then Casey’s old Chevy pickup truck pulled in, driving up to within an inch of Edmund’s car before stopping. Dave walked outside and motioned for him to stay in the car. He opened the door and got in on the passenger side. “Just go ahead and drive,” he said.
13
CASEY BACKED OUT ONTO 6TH STREET AND HEADED slowly down toward the Highway, craning his neck to see the ocean. “Breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“Doughnut?”
“Absolutely. I need a little more self-abasement.” Dave laughed derisively, and Casey gave him a look of mock astonishment.
“That laugh tells me a lot about you, believe it or not. And the first thing it tells me is that you’ve been fighting with Edmund again, despite what I told you.”
To whatever degree such a thing is possible in human beings, Casey was his brother’s day-and-night opposite. He wore a white peasant shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of old Levis, and hippie sandals, like an escapee from the late sixties. The shirt had flowers and vines embroidered on the front—the work of his girlfriend Nancy, who taught in a Montessori school in Seal Beach. Casey’s shoulders and chest were muscled from twenty years of surfing, and his hair was uncut and scraggly, as if he hadn’t washed the salt out of it after yesterday’s session. Although he didn’t eat meat or white bread, his usual breakfast was the top end of a six-pack, and, if he could find a restaurant open, Mexican food. He pulled around onto the Highway and directly into the parking lot of the Supreme Doughnuts, where he cut the engine.
“So what’s wrong?” he asked. “You’ve got some kind of vibe here.”
“I’ve got a hell of a vibe,” Dave said, looking straight out through the window. “If you hadn’t shown up, I’d be burying your brother in the vacant lot about now. I might yet.”
Casey shook his head, no longer joking around. “You shouldn’t let him get to you. He’s not worth it.”
“He could get to the Pope.”
“The Pope wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t lower himself that far, and neither should you. Personally, I’ve got a lifetime of dealing with Edmund, and with me it’s just water off a duck. I learned that years ago.”
“You learned it.”
“Just like you’d learn anything. You’ve got to understand that he’s a game-player. Just don’t play with him. Life’s not about winning and losing, you know. That kind of thinking is toxic.”
“Spare me, okay? You know as well as I do that dealing with people like your brother can eat you up.”
“Me? I won’t let it eat me up.”
“You’re human.”
“That’s why I don’t have to let it eat me up. When you’re human you can throw it out. If you’re a gorilla you’ve got to beat on your chest and make noises. I choose not to be a gorilla, that’s all.”
“You mean you can talk it out. Emote.”
“No. I mean throw it out. Close your eyes and picture the wind blowing it away. Watch it get small like a kite rising in the sky. Pretty soon you lose sight of it. You cut the string, and it’s just gone. Most of the time it doesn’t come back.”
“Where’d you read that?”
“I made it up.”
“It sounds like something out of a low-rent self-help book.”
<
br /> “Who cares what it sounds like? Just do it.”
“I can’t just do it. Now you sound like a shoe commercial.”
“Sure you can. You just don’t know it yet. And forget what I sound like. This isn’t easy, trying to talk sense to you. You’re slippery as hell, man. You’re like a fish. Every time the talk gets serious, you crack a joke and change the subject. I tell you the truth here, and you talk about shoe commercials. Listen to me, for God’s sake.”
“I think your brother tried to kill me with the tiki. How’s that for a joke?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m not making this up. He unbelted the damned tiki and shoved it off the railing. Nearly hit me in the head.”
“How close?”
“A couple of feet. My back was turned.”
“That’s his idea of fun again,” Casey said uneasily. “That’s part of the game. You see, from his point of view, the ball’s in your court now. He’s waiting for you to pick it up and knock the hell out of it. But don’t do it. Just let it lie there. Make him pick it up. Pretty soon he’ll get tired of it.”
“Edmund’s games are getting a little too vicious. I think part of him—a big part of him—wanted like hell to drop that tiki right on my head. He was playing around with the idea.”
“Playing. That’s the key word here.”
“I think so too. And I think that half the monsters you read about in the newspapers started out playing with the idea of doing what they did. They toyed with the idea, getting closer and closer, getting used to the concept.”
“You know I don’t want to be giving you any advice, Dave.”
“I know. So go ahead and give me some more advice, now that I know you don’t want to.”
“Well, my advice is that you don’t let Edmund take you along on his bad trip. You know what I’m talking about? There’s something you’ve got to understand about people like my brother—and this is true for any kind of crazy person. You’ve got to get it out of your mind that you can deal with him by pulling him up to your level, you know? You can’t smarten him up. You can’t make him see reason. What he’ll do is drag you down to his level, and that’s a cold and lonely place, man. There’s nothing much happening when you’ve only got yourself for company. I’m not big on pity, but Edmund’s kind of a pitiful case when you look hard at him. He actually thinks it’s important that people call him Edmund instead of Ed. He’s got his degree in business, but there isn’t any business he really knows anything about. It’s a generic degree, and he knows it. He’s had a couple of years of martial arts, and he thinks he’s Kung Fu. He shoots mediocre golf. He’s all haircut and Italian shirts and tanning salons. He’s all surface. And he’s always been that way, and that’s partly why he’s so full of anger. And now look at you; you’re full of it too, and you don’t have any kind of excuse, except that he poisoned you with it. Am I right? It’s all directed at him, isn’t it? I know it is. I’ve been there.” He opened the truck door and slid out now, and Dave got out too.
“Okay, you’re right about that, at least partly,” Dave said to him. And it was true. Dave had been baiting him with the saw, cutting up ten thousand little bitty pieces of wood in order to drive Edmund crazy, in order to show him. But ignoring Edmund was impossible unless you were some sort of Zen master. Or unless you drank a case a day, maybe, which was Casey’s patented method of tolerating the world.
They bought doughnuts and went back out, sitting on the hood of the pickup while they watched the waves break on the north side of the pier.
“Outside,” Casey said, pointing at a set rolling in off the horizon. The fog had mostly burned off, and the morning ocean was glassy and bottle green. There was only a handful of surfers out, and one of them drifted over a small wave, spotted the incoming set, and paddled furiously out to sea. In a moment all of them were stroking hard, trying to make it over the top of the first wave of the set before they were buried by it.
“Big swell,” Dave said.
“Biggest in a couple of years, anyway. Are we on it? It’s still early.” He looked at his watch. “What do you say?”
“Maybe you’re on it. I’m maybe a little out of shape for a swell like this.” Dave watched the ocean intently, avoiding Casey’s glance.
“Right. Try a different excuse. That one’s pathetic.”
“I don’t have a board, remember?”
“So you say. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got something hidden up in the rafters. Anyway, I’ve got one. I’ve got that seven-ten Windansea that I bought from Bill sitting right there in my garage along with my own. That’s plenty of board for this swell.” Usually Casey didn’t push it, but would accept Dave’s excuse and back off. This morning he seemed to want to make an issue of it. “Why don’t we just run down to your place and grab your wetsuit?”
“I sold it, too.”
“When?”
“Last year. Garage sale. Twenty-five bucks. I bought a set of chisels with the money.”
“That sounds like a lie, bro.”
Dave shrugged. “It’s all the same. We’ve been through this before, Case. Nothing’s changed. And anyway, the swell’s too big. I’m not up for it. You know how long it’s been. I haven’t been wet for years.”
“Hell, I haven’t been dry for years. But I’m stone sober this morning. Never drink before you surf, eh? That’s worse than drinking and driving. And what do you mean, wet? You’ve been in the shower, haven’t you? You’re halfway out to the lineup every morning when you turn on the faucet. You’ve been working on a comeback and you don’t even know it.”
“This is no kind of swell for a comeback.”
“We’ll go down the coast and check it out. It’ll be cleaner down south.”
“Actually, I’ve got these sets to finish for Collier. He’s starting to worry.”
“Collier’s like my old man; he doesn’t worry. It’s not in him to worry. This afternoon’s soon enough for Collier’s sets. Besides, we interviewed that new artist. She starts any time now. She’ll knock these sets out in two days. Her stuff’s good—too good for us, really, but this is what she wants to do, she says, so we’re going to give her a try. She’s a knockout, man.” Casey squinted at Dave and nodded his head to underscore this last statement.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“If it wasn’t for Nancy …”
“If it wasn’t for Nancy you’d be the biggest derelict in H.B.”
“I won’t argue. Now listen. Here’s the plan. First things first. We grab the boards, rent you a suit, and go. I can’t believe we’re wasting a swell like this. What are we, old?”
“We’re busy. At least I am. Hell, I’m old, too.” He listened to the sounds of the morning—the traffic, a radio playing inside the Java Hut next door, laughter from three surfers out on the street throwing pieces of doughnut at each other. All of it together masked the sound of the ocean.
“Throw it out, Dave.” Casey said this quietly, and then the two of them sat in silence for a moment while they watched an incoming wave.
“It’s not that easy for me.”
“It wasn’t your fault. We’ve been through this before, haven’t we? Didn’t we discuss this once or twice?”
Dave was silent.
“Nancy and I were talking about this last night. If you were blind or had polio or something, then I wouldn’t open my mouth about it. But what you’re carrying around happened fifteen years ago. You’re holding onto it like a suitcase.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Don’t push me, man. The more you stonewall me, the more I’m going to speak the truth. When you broke up with Kelly it was over kids, as I recall. She wanted kids and you didn’t.”
“I’d be a lousy father.”
“Now that’s almost funny. You’re a shrewd judge of character.”
“Hard to say.”
>
“I think it’s easy to say, and I’m going to say it. You didn’t drown that little girl, Dave. You tried like hell to save her. I know you did, because I myself am a shrewd judge of character. You have been purely screwed up since, whether you want to admit it or not. And if I weren’t your best friend, I wouldn’t be saying what I’m saying.”
“Who says I don’t want to admit it? You think I’m not familiar with being screwed up? I’ve been thinking hard about it for a long time. Here’s something else I know. We’re living in a world in which children drown, man, and there’s not a damned thing we can do to save them. If she had been my own kid, I’d be a hell of a lot crazier than I am. I’m never going to find out how crazy.”
“But she wasn’t your kid, and you didn’t let her drown. So quit beating yourself up.”
After a moment Dave said, “How about you? You and Nancy have been together for a few years. Where’s your family? What’s your excuse, as long as we’re speaking the truth?”
“I’m a drunk.”
The silence was heavy for a moment. “Then throw it the hell out,” Dave said finally. “Take your own advice.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Yeah, well, so am I,” Dave said. “And right now I ought to be working on Collier’s sets. In another hour I’m on company time.”
“Company time,” Casey said, letting the phrase hang there. He looked at the half of a doughnut that he’d been holding in his hand for the last ten minutes and then lobbed it into the trash can by the door. “Morning’s wearing on. In another couple of hours it’ll be blown out.”
Winter Tides Page 8
