The Far Shore

by Paul T. Scheuring

  Enough absences, oversights, documented things where you’ve cost the company.

  I’ve cost the company a hell of a lot less than most people in that place!

  It’s a clown factory!

  A ding-dong festival!

  A bunch of zombies trying to chew on other people’s brains because they’ve got none of their own!

  Wes smiles at this.

  And I’m fine with that, Wes, I am, but they’ve got to stop singling me out, because I’m not the bad guy.

  Wes bobs his head, squints a poor man’s Clint Eastwood squint at the horizon.

  He takes a big hit of air into his lungs, holds it there briefly, then lets it go.

  Look, we want to do this as amicably as we can.

  You don’t want to be here, it’s obvious.

  That’s not true!

  (Funny thing, Lily,

  is he’s the one not lying here.)

  The decision has been made, Wes says.

  But you know, Wes.

  You know what I bring to the company.

  I do.

  Then advocate for me; you’ve got sway with the board….

  Not that much sway.

  Is that true, or do you just not want to go to bat?

  Don’t grovel; working at a clown factory isn’t worth it.

  The way he says this last sentence, she knows she’s struck a nerve.

  His pride’s been wounded.

  Nobody wants to be seen as Senior VP of Clowns.

  And maybe that’s the problem with their relationship.

  She wounds his pride too much, which is perhaps the greatest sin a subordinate can commit.

  You do not emasculate a boss by conveying the sense that you cannot be controlled.

  You do not emasculate a boss by conveying the sense that he is incapable of breaking you, no matter how much work he drops on your desk.

  You do not emasculate a boss by conveying that the airy hierarchy of authority means nothing to you, and by your actions implying that because we are two human beings standing in the same room, we must and will afford each other the same dignities.

  You do not do that.

  And mostly, you do not emasculate a boss by conveying the sense that he cannot in the end dominate you in that most fundamental way, through sex.

  (No, Lily, he is right.

  He is not the one lying here.

  You are.

  You were never made for this job.

  Both suffer because of this lie.)

  She eyes Wes.

  And in this moment, she sees how caged-in his eyes are.

  How his life has pinnacled here, and that without her, he will have one less body with which to build a bridge, across which he will one day trod to the promised land of Self-Worth.

  (No doubt a new body will show up within the week, to populate her old chair and desk, and the bridge construction will begin anew.)

  The earth seems to be letting go of her feet, like it is losing its battle with the sky for possession of her.

  She swears she is nearly levitating, if only a hundredth of an inch.

  The storm in her: hurricane force.

  Weather fronts slamming violently into each other: abject fear with possibility, heartbreak with emancipation.

  She is so colossally alive in this moment she expects she will shatter into lightning.

  And the world will know, if only for a moment, the electricity of her.

  She clinks Wes’s bottle and walks away.

  She can feel his eyes on her the entire time.

  She stops finally after a dozen steps, looks back.

  Think it would’ve helped if I fucked you?

  Wes eyes her with faint suspicion, but a tiny shred of hope escapes him in spite of himself.

  Are you saying you’d do that now?

  You tell me.

  She surveys him for a long time.

  He does the same, trying to gauge her.

  I don’t think you’d do it, he finally says.

  She smiles a little bit; sometimes he’s indeed smarter than she is.

  She turns again, heads off.

  He calls after her, calmly, but as truthful as a man can be.

  Yeah, it might’ve helped, Lily.

  She does not look back.

  She paces around her apartment.

  Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

  From the kitchen to the back sliding-glass door.

  Oh my god, you are an idiot.

  From the sliding-glass door back into the kitchen.

  Oh my god, you are free.

  She stops halfway, the upturned edge of the carpet under her toes.

  Oh my god, what does this mean?

  She calls Bruce.

  If only to talk to someone who is still on her side.

  She asks about his text, what B Westover is a bingo means.

  It means, he says, that you’ve found a real, living human being.

  One we can talk to.

  One who’s met your grandfather.

  And may in fact be the last one to have seen him alive.

  This man, Bradley Westover, is ninety-one years old.

  Lives in Hawaii.

  She learns this at the Tattle Tale.

  She has agreed to meet Bruce here for a beer.

  It is a dim-lit hole half full of bottle monkeys and slumming college kids.

  There is no pretense here.

  She can come in with her hair up in a scrunchie and she will not be out of place.

  Points to Bruce for suggesting it.

  He has also noticed her subtle (or not-so-subtle) combination of anxiety and enthusiasm.

  He asks her if everything’s all right.

  Points again.

  She tells him about work, and that maybe it’s a good thing, or maybe it’s a bad thing, but all she knows is it’s a Thing right now, and it’s a pretty Big thing.

  Well, shit jobs are shit, he says.

  You don’t owe anybody anything, except maybe God a death, so if you’re not feeling it, you’re not feeling it; good riddance.

  And if we find your grandfather, you can buy that shipping company.

  Last thing I’d want to do with my money.

  (Would it be strange to tip the bartender a hundred—that is, if she ends up with the money?

  Because she’s working hard, has that familiar too-many-plates-in-the-air look.

  Just a different form of customer service.

  Everyone treats you like shit.

  God, it’d be good to do the world a few solids.

  Just start giving it away, giving it all away.

  Pass through a few people’s lives.

  A few seconds each.

  A whirlwind of love.)

  They get down to business, though she doesn’t really want to; she’s enjoying this, the tickle of the third beer, these absurd holy thoughts, and Bruce with his naughty-boy smile and fatboy-mustache across the table from her.

  I’ve made preliminary contact with him, Bruce says.

  He’s a whippersnapper; wouldn’t know he’s ninety-one.

  And get this, he works for JPAC.

  She arches an eyebrow at him as she swallows more beer: what?

  Sorry. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

  They’re based in Oahu.

  They’re dedicated to recovering MIAs/KIAs, that sort of thing, bringing the remains home.

  This is the guy he served with in Okinawa?

  From what I understand, it’s because of what happened in Okinawa that he’s with JPAC now.

  I don’t understand.

  Neither do I; not exactly.

  But he says he’s got a whole massive file on your grandfather.

  Filing cabinets full.

  Why?

  Guess your grandfather made quite an impression on him.

  Lily mulls this, squishes a little beer between her teeth.

  He say what it was, what was in the cabinets?

  He said
it was everything; all dead ends to him, but he said we could look at it if we wanted.

  He was excited, actually, when I told him about you.

  It’s always that little something, seemingly inconsequential, that family members have, that suddenly break these cases open.

  He said if and ever you’re in Hawaii, you should look him up; he’d walk you through it all.

  Can’t I just call him?

  I’ll give you the info and you can ring him in the mañana.

  They lapse into non-heir-finding conversation after that.

  Which is a relief to Lily.

  So much consequence.

  So much at stake these days.

  Goddamn just to catch a breath, drink a beer, and bury yourself in the jukebox.

  To hear the laughter of the place.

  (To Really hear it and not just cull it from your consciousness as you are almost programmed to do now.

  Laughter, by other people, in public spaces: a distraction, isn’t it, Lily?

  An encroachment on your own mental airspace.

  But right now it’s good to hear.

  The world is a big, slobbering, good-natured, air-headed thing, isn’t it?

  Full of people too dumb to be troubled.

  Labradors.

  Laughing at nothing.

  But free of these layers of thought.

  The constant whir within.

  [She will come here one day, on the other side of the rainbow, and make this place rain money.

  Everyone will drink free.

  And she will sit with these Labradors like they are gurus, and let them teach her how to laugh.

  How to laugh at nothing.])

  Bruce, in his own way, is a Labrador.

  All bewhiskered and unapologetic and enthusiastic.

  He’s making friends left and right, high-fiving people at the jukebox.

  He’s Driving the Bus.

  He’s doing some sort of Hippy-Hippy Shake thing.

  He’s singing into his bottle.

  He keeps telling people they were made at the Awesome Factory.

  Or that they’re the Mayor of Radicalville.

  He’s infectious.

  Everything in him says yes I’m fat, and yes I’m past my prime, but I might as well go down swinging, goddammit.

  Let your hair down, he says to her at one point, seeing her still staring into the jukebox, We’re all idiots.

  And so she does.

  But not before bombing down the rest of her beer.

  The song on the jukebox is the Gap Band.

  You Dropped a Bomb on Me.

  And it is just one of those things, where the chemistry of everything has accidentally fallen into perfect balance: the jukebox’s speakers, with just the right amount of bass; the people tonight, a perfect population of upbeaters and not downbeaters; the booze in their veins in spiraling ascendancy, not yet peaking, but still in hopes of peaking, the draining swoon on the backside of all that beer and Jack hours away yet.

  The rocket ship of the night is just taking off.

  It’s maybe a dozen people packed into the corner of the place by the jukebox.

  It is not a dance floor, but they have willed it into one.

  They are shaking ass and doing poor man porn thrusts with their hips.

  Everyone is putting on the Extra Sexy.

  Men that minutes before had never seen each other have got long-lost-brother arms around each other.

  Bruce cannot hug enough of them.

  And the women are these gorgeous, glistening Rubenesque creatures, their curves, these oppressive things and for them so long the subject of ridicule, are freed by this music, Made for this music in fact.

  Only curves like that can do justice to bass like this.

  They are bouncing, jouncing, rolling landscapes of love, these curves.

  And this is the Gap Band, goddammit.

  The GAP BAND!

  Don’t bring your A-game!

  Bring your C-game!

  Own it!

  Because nobody’s actually a Good dancer, but if you know that, you have a chance to be Great.

  Bruce grabs Lily—not in an I’m-gonna-capitalize-on-this-moment kind of way, but in an inclusive kind of way.

  Hey-sister-get-in-here-with-us-idiots.

  She’s in that scrum before she knows it, being bombarded by hips and flesh and high-fives and sweat and errant splatters of beer.

  It’s warm in here, perfect.

  She dishes it out just as she receives it—throwing sexy hips into men and women alike, pumping, grinding, clinking beer bottles, wagging a wide-eyed face and upturned mouth in front of whoever’s face appears before hers.

  But mostly she just surrenders.

  Lets the Gap Band pound some sense into her.

  And dances.

  Lord.

  Let.

  It.

  Be.

  Like.

  This.

  Forever.

  They drink water now.

  Expensive twelve-ounce bottles that you can probably get for twenty cents each at Costco.

  But who cares tonight.

  Who cares about anything.

  They’re seated up at the bar.

  Half the place has cleared out.

  The slummers have moved on to the next place.

  The bottle monkeys have staggered into the night.

  Bruce checks his watch, finishes his water.

  After doing some form of physical inventory on himself, he declares that he’s diluted his buzz enough that he’s capable of driving home.

  If she’s interested.

  She says she just wants to sit some more.

  If that’s okay.

  Of course it’s okay.

  She asks him if he’s rich.

  Am I rich?

  Do I look like I’m rich?

  I just, I don’t know, assumed, if you’re taking twenty percent off of all these assets you find, you’ve got to be doing all right.

  The agency does all right.

  I just work for them.

  So then what percentage do you get?

  I get ten percent of what I bring home to them.

  Two percent, then, of what you find.

  Yeah, but framed that way, it looks small.

  But you’d still be pulling what, half a million on this one?

  Be my biggest get.

  Honestly, most of the reason I do this is because of the expense account.

  I get to travel, get all nuts on the Gap Band every once in a while, see things.

  How big’s the agency?

  Got two guys above me: old dogs, made their money in pawnshops, payday loan stores.

  He sees her knit her brow at this last thought.

  Not quite as romantic as you’d think, huh.

  She shrugs: If the numbers are the numbers, it doesn’t matter how romantic it is.

  Well, the numbers Definitely are the numbers, I can assure you of that.

  The old dogs are vultures, but they do what they say.

  And they don’t hold too tight on my purse strings.

  They let me do my thing, as long as I continue bringing home the bacon for them.

  Candidly, they’d probably pay me twenty percent, but they see my expenses, and figure that’s sort of salary too.

  He crinkles his empty water bottle: As long as the credit card’s valid, keeps this circus moving, I’m good.

  Something’s percolating in her head.

  She should really wait until tomorrow to say this.

  When she’s sober, and not still wearing the euphoria of the dance floor in her veins.

  But…

  Maybe we go to Hawaii then.

  (Ay ya ya.

  You naughty one, Lily.)

  Listen to you, he says with a smile.

  I mean, it’s not like that; it’s clearly not like that—

  You don’t gotta worry.

  I’m so far gone with women, you
don’t gotta worry.

  Two divorces, last one was four months ago.

  May not see it, but at my core, I’m a bitter, bitter dude.

  I’d be gay if I could.

  She laughs at this.

  Hey, laugh if you want, but I know men.

  I can see inside their heads; because I live in the same type of head.

  Women, I don’t even try.

  Not anymore.

  He says this with a light in his eyes, as if he’s been emancipated.

  Good thing about middle age is the testosterone goes.

  Combine that with obesity, and the testosterone Really goes.

  You’re not obese, she says.

  He shrugs like he appreciates the gesture, but ultimately doesn’t need it.

  My dad was a son-of-a-bitch bastard, didn’t do shit for the world.

  But he did say something wise one time.

  Took me a long time to realize it was wise.

  Took me ’til about four months ago.

  He said: A man’ll go with a stiff dick and a bottle of bourbon where he wouldn’t go with a shotgun.

  He holds up his crinkled water bottle in toast to his father.

  So true it should be in the Bible.

  He drops her off at home.

  Says to her before she climbs out: If you’re serious about it, I’ll go.

  She’s calmly thrilled by this.

  She looks to him.

  I just figure, maybe I lost my job for a reason.

  (Yeah, because you pissed it away.

  [Or was there a higher imperative?])

  I’ve never been all-in for anything in my life; and this is screaming for me to be all-in.

  I’ve got no job, no life.

  Alternative could be me just sitting in my apartment watching reality shows for the next week.

  He nods.

  I’ll send you some itinerary ideas in the morning.

  She smiles.

  They do not touch.

  She climbs out of the car.

  He rolls down the window as she moves for her front door.

  You really believe there’s a Reason?

  You want the truth?

  No, lie to me.

  It’s said with just the right degree of eat-me in it.

  She takes a deep breath, considers the sky, tries to think of something profound to say.

  No, she says finally.

  She offers him a smile because that’s what he deserves at the end of a night like this.

  And goes inside.

  XIV

  They are in Hawaii three days later.

  It is a welcome absurdity to her.

  Bruce had called the following morning, had asked whether she still meant it.