Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle

by English, Ben

  Max laughed. “That there’s the high school. Another reason for the kids in Forge to go a little crazy sometimes.”

  They left the highway and crossed another bridge. As they wound through town, Mercedes was struck by the fact that she couldn’t see a single stoplight. One movie theater, a single screen. A modern-looking library, across from the ancient brick junior high school her father had attended for part of a year. It was so quiet.

  “Not much to look at,” her grandfather said lowly, smiling and waving at a passing motorist. “Not exactly Chinatown or Market Street, is it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s peaceful, kind of nice. Relaxing.”

  Her grandfather looked across at her. “Good. Relax, Mercedes.”

  They pulled into an elm-lined neighborhood. Max’s house was larger than Mercedes expected, and as the car purred to a stop in the short driveway, the side door opened with a bang and out came Britta, trailed by three girls. Mercedes’ grandmother was a blond giant in a flour-covered apron, and she trundled forth, kneading small bits of dough out from between her fingers.

  “Hey,” was all Mercedes could say by way of greeting before she was swept up in a hug. She wondered if her smile would one day be as beautiful as her grandmother’s, framed by jowls as pink as a baby’s.

  Max took care of the luggage while Mercedes was bustled inside, borne on a wave of her grandmother’s exuberant chatter. The house smelled of cinnamon rolls; absolutely redolent with the aroma of whatever spicy was simmering in a huge black pot on the stove. She was introduced to her cousins: Diane, Irene, and Alice, who each had mahogany-colored hair and deep-set eyes to match.

  “We didn’t know you were so pretty,” blurted Alice.

  “What, me?” Mercedes set her suitcase on the big bed that would be hers for two months. She noticed with pleasure that the second story offered a view. “You’re the ones who are pretty.” She cupped Alice’s chin in her hand. “Absolutely a little doll! Tell me,” she sat on the bed. “How many boyfriends do you have?”

  The little girl blushed, and Irene said, “Tell her about Tommy!” Alice blushed an even deeper shade of red. “You’ll see him when we go swimming this afternoon. We are going swimming, aren’t we? Right?” All four laughed.

  Diane, the tallest, sat down on a cedar chest that poked out of the closet. “Aunt Sylvia called about an hour ago, asking if you’d gotten here yet. I think she’s going to call the airline and complain. Oh, she also told us that you should look in your suitcase the minute you got here, and that we should watch.”

  Puzzled, Mercedes stood and began dialing in the combination on her suitcase. She was pleased her cousins had turned out to be so nice. Of course, they would know Sylvia, too. Mercedes kept forgetting they were all members of the same family, the same clan. It felt good to be in a normal house, with normal people for once. So what if Forge was a minuscule town, a dot on the map. Maybe she needed a good, healthy dose of normal, boring life. “Did she tell you what it was?” she asked, unsnapping the lock.

  “Aunt Sylvia said it was something that would help you take it easy while you were here. She said it would help you make friends or something.”

  Mercedes opened her suitcase and choked on a very unladylike guffaw. It was a black Jantzen bikini.

  She held it up by its underwire for the girls to see. Except for Alice, they were speechless. “That looks like underwear,” she said.

  Mercedes smirked. “Anybody got a real suit that I can borrow?”

  *

  The pool was actually pretty nice, she decided one swimsuit later, as they waited in line outside. From the street she’d been impressed with the surrounding park and the ten-meter platform that rose above the pool like a monument to some techno-aquatic god. The other side of the fence was a maelstrom of color and noise, shouting and splashing supplicants at the temple of summer. Mercedes felt vaguely disjointed in the summer heat, but not uncomfortable. Part of her couldn’t believe she’d actually left home. She was sure she’d blink and find she was still in California.

  Everything looked new, and she said as much to Irene. “Pretty nice for a one-horse burg like Forge.”

  Irene’s voice was muffled by the pile of towels she carried. “New pool. It was a donation by one of Grandpa Max’s friends, Sean Lyons–I think he’s an architect.” She went on to explain how the pool had become the place to hang out, at least until the water in the reservoir warmed up.

  Inside, the little kids made straight for the water, while Mercedes followed Irene and Diane as they hunted for a dry place to spread the towels. If there was anything lacking in the pool, it was deck space. They finally laid down next to some other high school students on a wide square of concrete awash in hard sunlight. Her cousins’ friends were a pretty clean-cut bunch. “Mercedes, this is Ryan, Chad, Ken, Lani, Neal, . . .” Irene’s list went on and on. Mercedes went through the motions of saying hi to one and all. Not much use. The heat was like a solid presence, a thick, humid quilt blanketing one and all. The monolithic diving platform stood unused.

  Mercedes found a spot between a Coke machine and a blue iron trapdoor about two feet across. The trapdoor was open, and two little boys crouched over it, squinting down into the blackness. They were in her way.

  “You guys mind?” Mercedes made as if to unfurl her towel over them, and they scuttled halfway out from under it, embarrassed. She was beginning to get annoyed. Little boys. They were just sitting there, like they were fishing or something. “Hey, amigos! Habla ingles? Move over.”

  “Duane!” Diane said, reprovingly. “Close the door and give us some room, will you? Don’t make us call a lifeguard!”

  The little blond boy stuck his tongue at her and swatted his companion. “Come on, Abe.” They left.

  The water in the surge tank below them gurgled. Sunlight slanting inward refused to illuminate more than a narrow rectangle. No telling how deep or wide the dark chamber was.

  It took Mercedes and Irene together to lift the edge of the trapdoor. None of the sunglass-veiled guys laying out a few feet away offered to help. As they tipped the heavy door over, Mercedes caught a glimpse of the murky water below. The smell of chlorine and other chemicals was intense. The door shut snug with a flat clang–

  –and almost immediately swung open again. Mercedes and Irene stepped back, startled, as a figure emerged from the dark tank, streaming water. One palm flat on the trapdoor, the other gripping the side of the gaping hole, the young man shook water from his eyes and levered himself out of the miniature abyss. He stood just over six feet tall, a good four inches over Mercedes, and he was covered in paint chips, bits of plastic, and strands of hair from the tank. In his hand he held a pair of goggles tangled with hair.

  “Excuse me,” he said, and moved to the side, ostensibly so as not to drip on Mercedes’ towel. He closed the trapdoor and walked to the outdoor shower, puzzling over the enshrouded goggles.

  “Hey, Jack,” said a few of the other kids. “Way to go, man,” added another. Jack nodded and smiled, still blinking. He wore a black racing suit. Sitting, Mercedes watched as he yanked the silver chain and embraced the sparkling cascade of water.

  Nice.

  The hot summer sun streamed over him as if he were a part of it, not glaring down as it did upon the layabouts on the deck, but seeming to favor him, accenting the glow of his tan and the glimmering shine of the water as flooded through the deep grooves in his arms, back, and legs. His hair was blond with a dark coppery luster; burnished by the summer sun. As he turned and directed the shower onto his back, Mercedes watched the water shed off the line of his jaw and cheekbones. He was still smiling, but it was a slow, simple smile, as if he was relieved to be out of the dank, black surge tank to which she’d nearly consigned him.

  Mercedes had the funniest, prickly feeling then, as if she alone could see his smile; almost like he was smiling just for her and no one else, though plenty of eyes had riveted on him, no doubt, as he had sauntered across the deck. />
  He leaned back, and the spray pummeled his hair, his shoulders, his raised arms, his soft smile. Then he opened his eyes.

  She’d been expecting arrogance, or at least a vague sort of haughtiness that would indicate vanity, but Mercedes was surprised by the expression and depth his eyes lent his sharp face. His eyes were uncommonly fierce. They looked directly, easily into her own.

  She smiled back.

  The young man, now water-blasted clean, turned off the shower and strolled over to where the tow-headed boy was playing. “Here, Abe. Next time, keep them on your head.” Mercedes watched as he slipped a pair of dry shorts over his suit, then grabbed sunglasses and a whistle before heading for the lifeguard tower at the farther, shallow end of the pool.

  “Hey, knock it off!” Mercedes twisted on her towel to see another boy, a newcomer, bending over Irene, shaking water from his thick, black hair. Droplets flew everywhere. One girl, sheltering the paperback book she’d been reading, called out playfully, “Kyle, you look just like a dog.” A few of the others laughed and stirred briefly in the hot sun, squirming around to watch.

  Kyle crouched down on his haunches in front of Mercedes and Irene. He had a swarthy, ragged look about him, but his lips were heavy and delicate, like a woman’s. The rest of him was a solid knot of muscle. “Hey, babe, you didn’t call me last night. S’problem?” His hand snaked out and snatched Irene’s sunglasses before she could stop him, then dodged back as she tried to reach for them. He laughed loudly and grabbed her leg, just above the knee.

  Mercedes was not impressed. She’d seen this kind of beach-thug act before; heck, half the guys she went to high school with acted this way. The small-town punk version was a new one on her, however. She looked at Irene as the bigger boy began to speak. Her cousin drew her knees up, quivering, indecisive, and as Mercedes watched, something like fear and uncertainty passed briefly beneath her chestnut eyes. The skin on her leg immediately around his thick fingers was white under her tan. Irene hesitated, then opened her mouth to speak, but Mercedes heard her own voice.

  “S’cuse me, you want to give my cousin back her shades, acne-boy, or what?” What? Mercedes couldn’t believe she’d actually said that. The self-satisfied smirk on his face wavered for a minute, though, and his attention turned fully to Mercedes. He sneered.

  “You got something to say, milk-cow, you need to speak up.”

  They’d drawn the attention of pretty much everybody on the deck. A few of Kyle’s buddies (same shaggy hair, same vacuous expression) propped themselves up on the side of the pool. Ah, well, out of the frying pan . . . “You got a face underneath all those pimples, or does your mama just read your collar to remember your name, you pus-faced mistake.”

  Kyle looked at Irene, sticking his thumb at Mercedes. “Who the hell is this?”

  Diane was a bit dumbstruck. “My, um, cousin. Mercedes.”

  His eyebrows waggled. “Mercedes, huh? Like to take you for a test drive.”

  Mercedes sniffed. “You get that line from a Corey Feldman movie, or what? Pathetic. Listen, loser: there’s nothing here for you, get it? Don’t call my cousin anymore, capisce? Not--going--to--score--to-day. Too many syllables for you?” Mercedes felt her face harden with each word. What was she doing? She’d never gone looking for trouble before, and definitely not like this, with some ignorant, hopelessly clichéd, shovel-faced punk. Yet the anger was right there, not coming in a slow rise at all like she’d read about in books, but right there, right here, blue-hot bright and at the surface.

  She ripped the sunglasses off his face, nearly slapping him, startling the older boy.

  “We pay to come in here and lay out, not to be hassled by some overworked farm boy. Why don’t you go on down to the gym and pump yourself, little farm boy?”

  He was red-faced and breathing hard, and his eyes were two coal-black ingots of hate. Kyle grimaced as laughter bubbled through the crowd. His hand twitched off the pool deck, then relaxed as a lifeguard walked by, swinging her whistle. It was half past the hour; time for all the guards to rotate to a new tower.

  Abruptly Kyle got to his feet, sneering at Mercedes. As the others watched, he strode to the base of the diving platform and mounted the ladder. At the top he took one look around, one pointedly toward Mercedes, then threw himself off the lip of concrete, crashing into the water nearly a second later. Afterward, he and three of his lookalikes pulled themselves from the water and walked out with nary a glance in their direction.

  Mercedes had already put her arm around Irene’s thin shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  The other girl shuddered once, and said, “I can’t believe you said those things to him, right to his face. Are you okay?” Irene was absently rubbing her leg where he’d latched on.

  “Hey, don’t mess with the Italian chick, know what I mean?” she replied, dipping deep into the accent. Mercedes smiled and shook her cousin’s shoulders. “That was dinner-table conversation for my Mom’s family. The kind of chit-chat the ladies engage in while knitting in the sewing room. Or sewing in the knitting room. Which is it?”

  “Sewing room,” supplied a grinning Diane. Slowly, they managed to coax a smile into Irene’s face. Mercedes continued talking to her cousin in subdued, relaxed tones, but underneath her placid exterior she was boiling with anger and something of surprise. Why did men have to act like this? Kyle’s assumption of unequivocal ownership of Irene sickened her to the point of fury, while her own reaction to him, despite what she’d said about her Italian family, had been completely uncharacteristic of her.

  During the past year since her mother’s death Mercedes had felt the wide, hollow chambers of her heart fill at times with sadness, with despondency, and with frustration. She hadn’t realized until now that those black emotions were merely the surface, like thin films of oil atop a deeper, murkier intensity. Mercedes felt like a liar now, mouthing platitudes to her shaking cousin. She wondered if there were any tenderness left in her at all.

  Irene looked up into Mercedes’ face. “He’s very popular.”

  Diane spoke up. “He’s a jerk.”

  “Amen,” said Mercedes. “Did you see the way he was looking at us?”

  “Eww,” Diane made a face. “Good thing you didn’t wear your bikini after all, Mercedes.”

  “So now what? Do you want to leave?”

  Mercedes shook her head. Her insides were still a Gordian knot of anger and indignation. Kyle had fled, but the flat, acrid taste of the confrontation lingered in the back of her mouth. “No. Let me borrow a hair tie.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “You got anybody around here who knows how to use that thing?” she asked, indicating the diving platform.

  “Why,” asked Diane, “You gonna—that’s right! Aunt Sylvia said you did gymnastics and stuff.”

  “Not anymore,” said Mercedes, standing. “Not since my mom got sick.”

  The others watched as Mercedes climbed the platform and steadied herself on the railing at the top. The pool seemed farther away than thirty feet–an illusion, she knew, caused by her own height of nearly six feet. She looked around, feeling her body calm itself and get ready for the dive. The strange rage inside her began to subside, to wisp away in the slight breeze she felt at the top of the tower. Her anger seemed so odd, so completely disproportionate now to the boy’s clumsy offense. In the heat at the apex of summer, Mercedes shivered, then stepped cleanly off and into suddenly rushing air.

  *

  That night, Mercedes could barely keep her eyes open at the dinner table. Despite Max’s attempts to draw her into a conversation, Mercedes found that a basic combination of the sun, the heat, and her flight on the airplane was working its subtle magic on her. Sleep was a second guest at the Adam’s table that night.

  Britta noticed her granddaughter’s drowsiness, and made a point of firmly taking the meal’s dishes out of Mercedes’ hands when she silently began clearing the table. “No, dear, go keep your grandpa company. I’ll do these. I need to get
my hands clean, anyway.”

  So she dragged herself across the hall and sank into the overstuffed chair across from the old man, who was just in the act of putting on a pair of half-glasses to read the cover of a CD case. He paused and considered her. Max looked at home here in his pine-paneled den. A trophy steelhead trout graced one wall, next to a grandfather clock and a sideboard that looked like it had been whittled from a single piece of cedar.

  Bookshelves covered the other walls. Mercedes had always been proud of her family’s immense appetite for good books. It was the one characteristic identical to both her mother’s and father’s clans.

  Max cleared his throat. “Sylvia wanted you to call before you went to bed, but if you’d rather wait ‘til morning—”

  “I’ll be okay, Grandpa. Just too much good food.” That makes two identical characteristics, she amended. “Do you think Grandma Britt and my Mom’s mother made a bet when I was born to see which of them could get the most food into me?”

  Max laughed. “You’ve stumbled on the great conspiracy of all grandmothers, plum. We grandpas have something along those lines, but it has to do more with pocket change and loose dollar bills.” His eyes twinkled.

  Her smile turned into a yawn. “Sorry; I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m usually up way past this, back home.”

  “Your dad says you do all the housecleaning and other chores at night.”

  “Yeah. It’s the only time I’ve got, with school and all.”

  Her grandfather put down his book. “Merce, I sure hope you can take it easy while you’re with us. You know, you can do whatever you want while you are here. Britta’s anxious to have you help in the garden, but I told your dad we would show you the town first, maybe help you meet some of the kids your age.”

  Mercedes shifted in the chair, throwing one leg over a hassock. “I saw some at the pool today, Grandpa. Except for Diane and Alice, they’re a pretty stiff bunch.”