The Shark Curtain

by Chris Scofield

  Minutes, or what pass as minutes after I broke my wristwatch in the fall. I hold it up to the starlight. Its face is cracked.

  When I visualized us resting in front of the fire in my favorite Little Golden Book, the words came out: I confessed to barking in the bushes when I first met Beauty. I sang, “Beauty’s only skin-deep, yeah, yeah, yeah,” and I pointed out the constellations, both the real ones and the ones in Lauren’s freckles.

  We talked quietly for hours, and I made up stories, but Beauty’s favorite story was my favorite too:

  Dad is in the lead with the flashlight, a paper roll of star charts crinkling under his arm. Mom follows, the picnic basket with sandwiches, doughnuts, a thermos of hot chocolate, and tin cups knocking against her leg.

  Lauren and I giggle excitedly as we carry the blankets each of us will lie on when we stare at the sky counting meteorites out loud.

  “I love my life!” Mom calls out between the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth.

  We all join in: “Me too! Me too!”

  “I love doughnuts!” Lauren yells.

  “Hot chocolate!” Dad says.

  “Comets!”

  “Meteors!”

  “Painting!” “Newspapers!” “Babies!” “Summer!” “Monopoly!” “Princess phones!” “Shoe boxes!” “Gramma Frieda!”

  We list everything we can think of.

  We love the big stuff and the little stuff.

  We love the cold ground that burns through our blankets and gives us goose bumps all over.

  We love each other.

  Beauty’s ghost is still. He’s tired, like me.

  At home, my family’s asleep and don’t even know I’m gone. The house is quieter than usual with Mom sick.

  My arm stops hurting but I’m sure it’s broken again. If Beauty and I fall asleep, I hope Jesus doesn’t cover us with a blanket of moonbeams or some corny poetical thing like that. I don’t want Him touching me. I’d rather be cold.

  I’m uncomfortable but I like it here in a strange way. At home I don’t know what I feel.

  If Jesus were here, I’d say: I’m sorry bad stuff happened to You when You were human, but that’s not the Jews’ fault, or the kids in Hiroshima or Africa with flies in their eyes. It’s not Mrs. Wiggins’s fault, or Jamie’s, or Judy’s, or Beauty’s.

  I’d say, I don’t believe in you anymore. I’ll be my own savior, my own Jesus, but I won’t die in pain making everyone feel guilty. I won’t die at all, none of us will, if I’m the new Jesus.

  At least not until we have a chance to start over—not in Heaven but here on earth. I think everyone wants to. I’m pretty sure Mom does.

  I’ll start over too and be braver next time.

  As brave as the blind girl.

  As brave as Beauty.

  His ghost quivers under the stars, like a heat mirage.

  I lean forward, patting the hard dry ground around us for a rock. When I find one, I dig underneath it, deep enough for Mrs. Wiggins’s tooth which I slide off the chain and bury there. “It’s yours now,” I tell Beauty.

  An owl hoots nearby.

  Merlin’s owl was Archimedes, the most beautiful bird in Camelot, Mom’s favorite movie.

  What if Mom wakes up in the middle of the night and I’m not there to recite a poem or show her a scrapbook?

  Overhead is the Big Dipper, shaped like her cocoa pan with the chipped red handle. Mom didn’t replace it when we moved to the new house. She said it only gets better with age and makes the chocolate sweeter.

  I forget about my arm when I stand up to go. Then it hurts so bad I cry out, and slump against the quarry wall again. Overhead are either stars or spider eyes; it’s hard to tell when you’re dizzy and cold.

  “Baby,” I lecture myself.

  I think of Lauren spending the night in the woods, alone and scared.

  “Hello?” a voice rings out.

  Footsteps.

  “Anybody there?”

  Is that the Savage Boy’s voice? Is he the night watchman?

  A flashlight beam crisscrosses the dark sky. The pit is bottomless. I know he won’t be able to see the dead horse, but I lie on top of Beauty anyway, covering him with my body.

  Chapter 29

  Hey Seuss

  Someone drapes a blanket over my shoulders. Its sudden warmth surprises me, and I open my eyes.

  “Good morning, Lily,” says the quarry boss, standing in front of me. I recognize his plump red face, hard hat, tie, and short-sleeved white shirt. A bullhorn hangs off his belt.

  “Hi,” I mumble. How does he know my name?

  Where am I?

  A large dark-skinned man stands next to the quarry boss. Behind them is a steam shovel; a guy in a hard hat sits in the cab, his head out the window, watching.

  The quarry boss turns, looks up, and raises the horn to his mouth. “She’s conscious and talking.” On the rim, half a dozen men in work clothes applaud.

  “Mom?”

  The man smiles and lights a cigarette. “I’m sure she’s wondering where you are too. We called an ambulance for you. How you doing?”

  I smell coffee. The morning sun is low, but there’s enough light to see the steaming coffee mugs of the two men in front of me. While the men on the rim put their gloves and hard hats on, another walks off speaking into a walkie-talkie.

  “You want some coffee or something? Water?”

  “No thanks.” My arm hurts. It’s swollen to bursting in my pink windbreaker. When I try to lift it, it hurts like hell and I remember the fall.

  “Don’t try moving it, kid, I’m afraid it’s broken. Doesn’t look like you broke anything else though. You’re a lucky girl.” Lucky. Where’s Lauren’s jump rope? Boss looks nervous and spits. “Jesus found you first. He’s got the first aid kid around here. Said you’re going to be okay.”

  Jesus? My heart jumps, though slower than usual. My body is cold and empty like one of those abandoned refrigerators they find dead kids in, and I pull the blanket tighter around myself.

  “It’s Hey-SEUSS, boss,” corrects the big Mexican guy standing beside him. I stare. Jesus can be anything He wants, right? “You’re going to be fine,” he says to me. Smiling.

  I know I should keep an eye on Him, but I’m tired and warmer and I can’t help closing my eyes. Just for a sec.

  “Don’t fall asleep, Lily,” Boss says. “Stay awake, all right?”

  Just for a sec.

  My eyes are shut when I hear him say, “What do you think: a concussion? Great, fucking great. She falls in but her folks will sue the pants off Crawford, and I’ll lose my goddamn job.” He spits again.

  “Maybe you should wait for the EMTs to move her, boss. I mean, in case something else is wrong with her.”

  “You’re probably right, Jesus, but you checked her out and she’s been down here too long already. Screw the regulations . . . Lily? Can you hear me? We’re not waiting for the ambulance; we’re getting you out of there right now, okay? Lily?”

  Oh yeah, Mike Savage probably told him my name.

  “Polanski, throw Jesus another blanket!” Boss calls through the bullhorn. “Daniels, bring her bike to the office.” He takes a deep breath. “I suppose we should be grateful it didn’t rain after midnight,” he says to someone nearby. “At least her clothes are dry.”

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “Better be.” Boss clears his throat. “We need to get her out of here. We’re behind schedule. What do they call the pit, Martinez? An attractive nuisance?”

  “That’s right, boss. But it’s also a work site and well-marked.”

  “We’ll see, I guess, huh? . . . Goofy kid,” Boss says quietly. “I knew I should have slept in this morning.” The ground crunches under his feet, and he lifts the bullhorn again. “All right, gentlemen, let’s get this show on the road. Hoffman, start your engine in three! Gently. For God’s sake, be careful!”

  “Lily?” It’s Jesus. “Don’t know if you can hear me but we’re going to star
t up Big Betty. I’ll crawl into her with you and we’ll ride her to the rim together, okay?”

  Huh? Who’s Betty?

  “Once you’re on top we’ll take you to the office and the medics will look you over. You with me?”

  The prayer train picks up speed as it takes my bedroom corner, only Aunt Jamie is at the wheel. I don’t hear a prayer, or recognize my own voice when I recite:

  Yesterday upon the stair

  I met a man who wasn’t there.

  He wasn’t there again today

  I wish, I wish he’d go away.

  “Keep talking, Lily. That’s right.”

  My words are little blocks sitting beside each other in an ice cube tray. I feel my lips move though the rest of my face is frozen.

  My lids are heavy but I finally open my eyes.

  “It’s going to be loud when they start her up,” Jesus says, walking away, “but don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you, just like I said.”

  I will never leave you nor forsake you, Hebrews 13:5.

  “No!” I cry. I don’t want to go anywhere with Jesus. I try standing up but my knees crumble.

  “Hold on, kid,” Boss yells down. “You’ll be out of there in no time.”

  Halfway across the pit, Jesus stands in front of the steam shovel and smiles at me, holding out His arms like He does in the Bible pictures. “Mi amiga! Ready for a ride? It’ll be fun!”

  The pit spins when I shake my head back and forth. On every rotation, I look for something familiar but nothing is.

  A siren screams into the area and stops.

  Boss raises the bullhorn and counts, “Three . . . two . . . ONE!” And the steam shovel engine roars to a deafening start. A cloud of black smoke bursts from its exhaust pipe and the long rusty arm of Big Betty rattles and moans as it pulls free of a mountain of earth.

  “Cover your nose!” someone yells, but it’s too late. A curtain of thick dust rolls toward me, filling the pit, and through it, towering over Jesus, is a giant silver shark mouth with painted serrated teeth as red as Mom’s lipstick.

  Go away, go away, don’t you come back anymore!

  Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door.

  Tears roll down my cheeks. The engine roars, and the little chimney spits more thick blinding smoke. I pull up the blanket and stand, my body shaking with pain. The only way out is the steep dirt ramp behind the advancing monster. Was it always there?

  Should I say a prayer? I can’t think of one.

  I scoot farther back, but I’m already leaning against the wall.

  There’s nowhere else to go.

  * * *

  They say I took a roundhouse swing at Jesus Martinez, but I don’t remember doing it. Or being lifted in the mouth of the steam shovel, either.

  The medic looks familiar, though. When he treats me in the quarry office he says my arm has a clean break. “Been broken before?”

  I nod.

  He looks at my medical bracelet and makes a note. “How old are you, Lily?”

  “Fifteen.” Dad says people should be careful about giving out personal information.

  The quarry boss smiles. He sits at a cluttered desk, filling out a form. “A young fifteen,” he says, arching an eyebrow at the medic. Then, “Teenager, huh? I have one of those at home.” Mike Savage steps into the office. “Hey, Savage! How old are you?”

  “It’s right there on my pink slip, boss. Twenty next month.” He lights a cigarette and looks at me. “You okay, Lily?”

  I nod. Carefully.

  Boss hands him the paper. “Take this to your PO.”

  Mike shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t matter that I thought I heard something and came out to look but—”

  “Sorry, kid. But if you can’t do your job, you’re a liability. Being sued is not an option around here.”

  “It’s not his fault,” I say.

  The Savage Boy didn’t do anything. SOG shot Beauty. That’s why I was at the bottom of the pit.

  I see Mike’s face at my bedroom window. He can’t help it if a shark’s inside him.

  “It’s not his fault,” I say again, but the Savage Boy is gone.

  * * *

  Dad sighs when he opens the front door and sees me standing on the porch between the medic and Old Man Crawford.

  “I just checked your room,” he says quietly. “I thought you’d . . . I thought something had happened to you.” Dad looks at the strangers and clears his throat. “Thank you, gentlemen. I’m sorry for the bother. We’ll take it from here.” His face is red; I’ve embarrassed him again. “You scared your mother half to death,” he says. Which (I will remind them later) isn’t possible if no one was up yet.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble. But if Dad looks into my eyes, he’ll see Beauty and the night our whole family went meteor watching, and he’ll know it was important that I go to the quarry last night. Look, Dad, look in my eyes.

  “The soul lives for sixty-two hours after . . .” I start to explain. “Maybe it’s sixty-two days, I’m not sure. One book said . . .” My voice gets smaller with each word.

  Mom steps forward. She wears a robe and Dad’s pajama bottoms and wrinkles her forehead when she says, “Lil-ee? Who are these people? . . . What’s going on?” She looks at the strangers then at my arm. “Your arm! Again?” Her cheeks are flushed but she’s not wearing makeup. She never goes to the door without her makeup.

  Lauren’s there too, and reaches over to touch the splint.

  “Lily’s all right, Mrs. Asher, just a bit shook up,” Crawford says. “Had herself a little slumber party at the bottom of the quarry pit last night.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, then passes Dad his business card. “Hope you haven’t called the police yet.”

  “Actually, we just realized . . .” Dad reads the card. “Gaylord Crawford! For goodness sake!” Dad shakes his hand, he’s impressed. “You’ve been very kind. Lily is our oldest and, well, something of a handful.”

  Gaylord Crawford smiles. “I have children too. We do the best we can to keep them safe, but they have minds of their own.” He hands Dad another card. “My lawyer.”

  “I’m sure there’ll be no need.”

  “That’s all right—you may change your mind later.”

  “We tried reaching you by phone,” the medic says, “but then we realized you only live a few blocks away.”

  “We took it off the hook so my wife could sleep. She’s been . . . a little under the weather.”

  The medic clears his throat. “Lily broke her arm. It isn’t a bad break. We put a temporary splint on it in the ambulance.” He motions toward the driveway. “Gave her a Valium, also for the pain. We were cognizant of her health issues.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He nods at the medical bracelet I got at the hospital after the car accident: Head Injury, Possible Seizures. “After Lily gets some sleep and something to eat, you’ll want to see the family doctor. He’ll put a proper cast on her arm and check out her bumps and bruises. She may have a slight concussion, I’m not sure.”

  Now I know why the medic looks so familiar. I see it in Dad’s eyes too. Mom would be mortified if she knew that the very same emergency guy was here last night. Twice in twenty-four hours, and Mom didn’t want to make a scene in the new neighborhood.

  Lauren looks scared. “Are you okay, Lily?” she asks. “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes. Yes.” One for each question. “You were outside alone overnight, and now I was too.” It shouldn’t matter but it does—at least for a while.

  Mr. Crawford hands Dad the clothesline and Lauren’s jump rope. “We brought back Lily’s bike. Her flashlight is in the basket.”

  “You have my jump rope,” Lauren says, taking it from the strange man. She looks at me and smiles. “Did it bring you luck?”

  “Yeah.”

  The newspaper boy steps around the men standing at our door and hands Dad the morning paper.

  Mom turns to Dad, and wraps her arms around him. “What happened,
Paul?” she whispers. The back of her hair is flat; her scalp peeks through.

  “We’ll be going,” Mr. Crawford says. “You folks take care.”

  Dad shakes both men’s hands again and watches them walk away before gesturing for me to step inside. “Lily,” he says sternly, then closes the door behind me.

  He wears the same wrinkled dress shirt he had on last night, the same pants, and yesterday’s Gold Toe socks. He must have slept in his clothes. He hasn’t shaved either and stares somewhere over my shoulder, deciding what to say to me next.

  “Groovy,” Lauren says. “You’re the only person I know who broke the same arm twice. Too bad it wasn’t your right arm, then you wouldn’t have to do homework.” I smile at her. “Can I use the phone?” she asks Dad.

  I don’t care if she tells Simone. Everyone at school will know soon enough, anyway. Simone and Lauren are best friends; they’re the only ones who signed my cast last time. Someday I’ll have a best friend again.

  “It’s too early.”

  The house is quiet: no percolator, no morning radio, running water, crinkly newspaper.

  “Okay, I’ll wait. What time is it, Lily?”

  I take the wristwatch out of my pocket: 12:23 reads the cracked face. “It’s broken,” I say. “It broke when I fell.”

  Dad glances at the wall clock. “Six thirty,” he says. “You can talk to Simone at school later. Just no family gossip.” He hugs Mom tighter.

  “I know.”

  “I mean it.”

  “All right. Jeez. Don’t have a cow!”

  “Lauren!” Mom snaps.

  “Don’t be mad at me! I didn’t do anything, Lily did! I was home all night, remember?” She slugs my good arm, then runs upstairs and slams her bedroom door, but this time no one minds.

  “Look at you,” Dad says to me, impatiently. “You’re cut and bruised and covered in dirt. What the hell were you doing at the rock quarry all night?”

  “Paul,” Mom says calmly, “she’s home now.”

  “You broke your goddamn arm again!” Dad’s eyes grow black. “How could you do this to us after last night? Weren’t we giving you enough attention? Your mother was sick! That registered with you somewhere, didn’t it?”