THE USS CROAKER
Tracy ran her fingernail in small circles over the waxy tablecloth. She looked out the window of the restaurant to a shabby little beach that was empty except for some charred Budweiser cans and a flip-flop stuck upright in the sand. The lake was army green and the water seemed thin and volatile in this heat, like it might take the form of powder if you lifted a handful of it. A motorboat with a faded Buffalo Bills insignia painted on the side bobbed in water that seemed too shallow, and its driver was drinking straight from a two-liter bottle.
“Do you know what you want?” Greenie said.
Tracy ordered water and a six-dollar fish sandwich.
If she had been paying for lunch, she’d have gotten a lemonade too, and the sandwich platter, which included fries and a tiny cup of coleslaw. But since Greenie had already offered to pay, Tracy was determined to order as little as possible. It was their last meal together, and she didn’t want him to leave with the impression that he’d been generous with her.
“That was nice of Chef to give you the day off,” Greenie said.
Tracy nodded. She raked her fork across her paper napkin. “You all packed up?”
“Yeah,” Greenie said.
“Did you have any trouble fitting it all in your car?”
“Nah,” he said. “I’m leaving some stuff behind with my folks for now. My TV, and some of my kitchen stuff, which they’ll probably destroy. Oh well.” Greenie’s eyes were pale in the sunshine and his hair was the color of ink.
“What do you mean?”
“My Teflon pans,” Greenie said. His mouth was full and he spoke out of one corner of it. “You can’t use a metal utensil on a Teflon pan. It scratches it. Ruins the surface. I’ve explained it to ‘em a million times, but they still do it. I’m like, ‘Well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t put those new scratches on my Teflon pan.’”
Tracy had spent the night at Greenie’s place once, long ago, when his parents were out of town, and she tried to remember now if she had used a metal fork while preparing eggs in Greenie’s Teflon pan.
Greenie was leaving that afternoon for New Jersey, where he would work as the manager at his cousin’s new restaurant. He hadn’t suggested that Tracy join him. Tracy didn’t actually expect that he would; it had always been so on-again, off-again. But when the Buffalo Jill had lost interest, and things kicked back up between him and Tracy in the spring, it had started to feel good, and maybe true. He was the first unmarried guy Tracy had dated in ages; the first guy with whom there was some real potential. He’d been spending a few nights a week at Tracy’s place since March, up until he received this job offer.
Something about the way it had all gone down had left Tracy feeling small and sour. Perhaps it was the way he’d gleefully announced his cousin’s offer without a trace of apprehension, without a single acknowledgement of the five hundred miles it would place between them. He’d called his mother right there on the spot, to share the news, and Tracy could tell from their conversation that his mother didn’t even ask what it might mean for the two of them. Tracy still hadn’t met the Greens.
“What about your fixer-upper?” Tracy had asked. “With a view of the lake?”
Greenie said, “Trace, we’re talking Jersey. Jersey versus the Southtowns.”
“I love the Southtowns,” she said quietly, and she thought of all the times she and Greenie had shared.
“You just don’t know better,” Greenie said.
“That’s quite a shade,” Greenie said, nodding at her fingernails on her water glass.
“It’s called Radioactive,” Tracy said, spreading both hands out in front of her.
“It’s like that slime from Nickelodeon,” Greenie said. He spooned an ice cube into his mouth. “I hope Monkey does all right on the drive.”
“You’re taking Monkey?”
Greenie nodded. He’d had the orange tomcat since he was a boy and Tracy knew he was attached to the thing, but Monkey was such a mess, such a hassle these days. The cat was incontinent, and had to be force-fed expensive medications twice a day.
Tracy held her tongue, but fumed on the inside. She couldn’t freaking believe he was taking an incontinent tomcat on that long drive and to live in his new home, and yet he hadn’t even asked Tracy when she might want to visit.
When their food arrived, Greenie pointed out that the lettuce on his burger was wilted and the tomato was whitish and tough and tasteless, but he wasn’t going to complain.
“See, now I’ve had the burgers before,” Tracy said. “I told you the fish is better.”
“Stuff like this won’t happen at my cousin’s restaurant,” Greenie said.
Tracy wondered what the waitresses at Greenie’s cousin’s restaurant would look like. She wondered if they would all be college students. A fly cut the surface of her water and she just stared at it.
After they finished eating, Greenie said, “Do you wanna walk along the harbor? I’ve got a few minutes before I should hit the road.”
On their way to the harbor, they passed the Naval & Military Park, where a lone attendant sat in a folding chair next to a sign that said, “$10 Tours By Request Only.” The attendant wore denim shorts, a Sabres jersey, wraparound sunglasses, and a proper ship captain’s hat: white with a black brim and gold piping. He held an unlit cigarette in one hand and a paperback in the other. He waved the book mildly at the two of them. An old dog at his side lifted his nose off his feet and snarled quietly.
It was a steamy Buffalo June and the air was fat with humidity. Tracy ran her finger across her damp upper lip and wiped the moisture into her shorts. A single row of geraniums lined the walkway of the harbor. The Niagara River was subdued. The air smelled of burnt seedpods and mildly of sewage. A monarch landed on her forearm and she was surprised by the tiny strong grip of its feet, before a moment later it lifted and danced away.
They walked past a boat with the words “Dale’s Dream” in neat blue cursive on the side. Greenie made a terrible joke about how Dale’s Dream was wet and Tracy laughed much louder and much longer than a sane person should have. They turned around at the lighthouse and didn’t talk at all on their way back to the lot. The skyway zoomed in a broad, graceful arc over downtown. Tracy pulled a little cluster of sticky red Life Savers wrapped in wax paper from her pocket, and she held these in her hand for a moment, then stuffed them back in to her pocket.
When they reached his car, Greenie said, “Cool, cool, cool.”
Tracy knelt to untie and retie her shoe.
A dusty trembling Plymouth Acclaim pulled up next to them and a woman lowered her window.
“Which way to the arena?” the woman shouted over a roaring commercial on her radio. “Seven to eleven, ladies drink free,” the commercial bellowed.
“Take the overpass toward the 290,” Greenie yelled, pointing. “Turn right onto Pearl. The arena’s right there.”
“Go Sabres!” the woman yelled.
Greenie gave her a thumbs-up and the woman drove away.
Greenie turned back toward Tracy and hugged her.
Her sadness swelled so hard and so high that she almost could have mistaken it for euphoria. He kissed her. He tasted mossy and mild and his tongue was dry.
He climbed into the car, rolled down his window, and opened the sunroof manually. Tracy’s heart was screaming.
“Sayonara,” Greenie said.
Tracy didn’t want to go home just yet. Shelly was in town for a wedding and staying with Tracy for the weekend and Tracy knew what she would say: “He left already? You take the day off to spend it with him, and he leaves before two o’clock?”
Tracy walked slowly past the naval park again. She stared at the three sullen gray ships that loomed and groaned, stationary on the Niagara River.
The attendant was still sitting out front. Tracy got closer, and saw that he wore a sticker nametag, and Todd was handwritten in sloping capital letters.
Todd looked up from his book when she approached and he
lifted the brim of his captain’s hat half an inch with his index finger. His eyes were soggy. The sunshine on his chin illuminated a broad plum-colored bruise that spread across his jaw.
“I’d like to do the tour,” she said.
“Where’s yer boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I thought I just seen him kissin’ on you.”
“Can we get started?” Tracy said.
“That’ll be ten dollars.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a five and five ones. Todd licked his finger and thumb and counted the bills. He folded them in half and put them into the back pocket of his shorts. The dog at his feet was staring unpleasantly at Tracy, his top lip fluttering to reveal teeth.
Tracy held her open palm out in a peaceful gesture. The dog growled low.
She said, “Come on, guy,” and moved a little closer.
With unexpected agility, the old dog whipped his head out and made a move to chomp on her hand. Tracy snatched her hand back to her chest.
Todd said, “Don’t mind him, he’s got a bum leg and a tumor on his butt.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Wounded dogs,” Todd explained, “tend to get snappish. He wasn’t always this way.”
“Not much of an excuse.”
He walked Tracy down the dock a ways so they were centered in front of the sub. He spread one arm out in a wide angle behind him. “The USS Croaker,” he announced. The sub was massive. A yellowed flag hung motionless at the front of the thing and otherwise it was just an immense plane of dull gray with bolts and handles and hinges.
“Do you mind if I sit down?” Tracy said. She didn’t wait for his permission before lowering herself cross-legged onto the bleached and splintering wood.
“The USS Croaker” Todd said again. “Three hundred eleven feet long, fifteen hundred tons, eight torpedo tubes. They called it the Croaker because of the noise it cranked out. It was launched December 19, 1943.”
Tracy wondered if Greenie had reached 1-90 yet and what music he was listening to. She wished she had more photographs of the two of them together.
“Now this here Croaker was built just prior to the US entry into the World War II. My dad fought in that war. The Croaker was sent to the Pacific to fight against Japan’s merchant marine and navy.” Todd’s words swam above Tracy like a fog, shapeless and peaceful and out of reach.
“This Croaker” he continued, “claimed eleven Japanese vessels. That included a cruiser, four tankers, two freighters, an ammunition ship, two escort craft, and a minesweeper. Am I boring you yet?”
Tracy shook her head.
“You look bored.”
“Please, keep going,” she said. “Just keep going.”
THE COIN
Greenie’s cousin’s restaurant hadn’t survived the summer. The liquor license fell through after some hang-ups with the paperwork, and they couldn’t work out the kitchen ventilation system to the satisfaction of the health department. Greenie found himself suddenly jobless in August, living in central New Jersey with Monkey, his incontinent tomcat, and two thousand dollars less than he’d arrived with.
A buddy from his high school was living an hour away, in Ocean City, and when Greenie contacted him, the guy offered Greenie a temporary position with his T-shirt shop, which was located right on the boardwalk. “Only for a month or two, though,” the guy warned. “Things get real quiet around here when the season changes. We’ll board up and winterize the place by the end of October.”
It was the second weekend of October now, meaning Greenie had ten days to find something else in order to make rent. He’d had a hard time locking down an apartment that would allow pets, but eventually he found a tolerant landlord, at the duplex he now shared with an old Chinese couple. The apartment was a few blocks off the beach, next to the boardwalk entryway with the grimy little stucco changing rooms.
To the left of his apartment was a mint-green two-story building that was advertised in elegant cursive as a “VIP Day Spa,” but also included a handwritten sign out front that read in crude Sharpie, “Eggs for Sale, $2 Dozen.” Greenie had never seen anyone enter the place, but he worked long days at the T-shirt shop, (he was the only employee), so he didn’t know what went on at that spa when he wasn’t around.
On the other side of his home was a little seafood joint, Spadafora’s, with a big faded sign that read “Best Crab in OCNJ” and had a picture of a smiling pink crab in a chef’s hat. The place pumped out a powerful stink of grease and fish and salt every evening during service, then they stacked up their garbage in the alleyway between the restaurant and Greenie’s apartment. Sometimes, on airless nights, it became so foul and overpowering that Greenie couldn’t sleep. Not that the smell inside his apartment was a whole lot better.
Monkey had been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism back in Buffalo, which explained the weight loss and shedding. Greenie had stocked up on Monkey’s pricey medications before moving to New Jersey. Greenie’s mother had always done most of the cat cleanup at their home, but since moving out, Greenie had become accustomed to it. He kept a box of cleaning supplies on his kitchen table for easy and immediate access upon entering the apartment; a box of latex gloves, baggies for the solid messes, carpet spray, Tilex, Febreze.
Lately, though, Monkey had taken a turn for the worse. He’d lost more weight and his coat had gone to hell. It was patchy at his joints, and lopped over his spine like an overcoat three sizes too large. Greenie had become concerned and did some research on the most affordable pet care in the area. He’d settled on a clinic called Pawscienda, located near his home. It had some good reviews on Yelp.
When Greenie dropped Monkey off at the Pawscienda that morning, he explained about the hyperthyroidism, filled out some paperwork about the cat’s medical history and the medications he was currently on, and asked them to run whatever tests they’d need to. The place seemed all right. It smelled clean and plasticky, like the first day of school. The woman at the front desk had thin, shoulder-length blond hair and darkly pink-streaked cheeks. A sparkly, expensive-looking watch was buried within her fleshy wrist. She was chewing gum.
She said, “How’d you come up with the name Monkey?”
“I asked my folks for a monkey for my tenth birthday,” Greenie said. “I got what I got.”
“We all get what we get, don’t we?” the woman said. “No matter what we ask for.”
Greenie said he’d be back for Monkey around six.
The air was gusty and damp and the boardwalk was deserted. Greenie saw a lone surfer in a wetsuit coming in from the water. He balanced his surfboard on the top of his bald head and his bare feet slapped along the splintery two-by-fours. Greenie entered the T-shirt shop from the back entrance, then raised the chain link drop door on the boardwalk side to open the place up for business.
In the narrow but high-ceilinged T-shirt shop, three walls were covered with T-shirts, popular designs in a variety of colors and sizes. Phrases like “Shoulda Put a Ring On It” and “Ocean City Gal” and “Surf’s Up.” The artist’s studio was a small area partitioned off at the back of the restaurant, containing spray guns and lots of extra paint canisters. The system was digitized; all Greenie had to do was enter the design choice into his computer at the front of the shop, go to the back and load the proper colors, spread the T-shirt over the canvas board, and within a minute or two the design was complete. Then he had to let the thing dry in front of a powerful fan for a few minutes, so the paint wouldn’t drip. It was easy work compared to the stress and demands of a restaurant, but time crawled on these gaunt, gray days, when he’d make five or six T-shirts in the entire shift, or sometimes not a single one.
He had all too much time to worry about next month’s rent and car payments, and Monkey.
The jangle of bells at the front door startled Greenie out of the ESPN skate competition he was watching on the miniature TV that rested on a stool next to the checkout counte
r. He looked toward the door, where an enormous figure was entering the shop. It was a woman, the largest woman Greenie guessed he’d ever seen; she had to be well over six feet, maybe even closer to seven. She carried a bag over one arm, and Greenie quickly realized it was a metal detector. She had a strong, arched lump of a nose, long black hair, a way of moving that was graceful yet not entirely human, like a wild creature that was trapped uncomfortably in human garb. She was deeply tan. Greenie saw folks with metal detectors on the beach all the time, but he reckoned he’d never seen this woman before. She would’ve stood out. Most of them were slow-moving white-haired men with Star Trek sunglasses and crooked pastel baseball caps. Greenie wondered where this woman was from, where she was headed, what she’d found to dig up on this beach.
She walked slowly in front of the display wall, gazing up and down and thoughtfully taking in the shirt designs. She paused for a long while in front of a neon green women’s T-shirt with an American flag at the center and the word “Free” written in a classic black graffiti scrawl. She wore brown leather gloves and brown leather boots with tight-fitting jeans tucked into them, a hooded sweatshirt, a red New York Giants scarf around her neck. Greenie could see that the woman had already tracked in a fair amount of sand. Most customers did, but it bothered him less when it was girls in bikini tops. The woman removed her metal detector and propped it next to the umbrella stand near the front door.
She approached Greenie at the register. He was fingering a tiny surfboard keychain.
“How much for an XL?” Her voice was deep and soft.
“Depends,” Greenie said, “on the pattern you choose. How many colors and all that.”
He pushed the book of laminated design pictures toward her. She skimmed the book, at one point sticking a finger in a page to hold it. Greenie hummed quietly along to “Two Girls for Every Boy.” His boss insisted that The Beach Boys play on a constant loop, all day long.
Another Place You've Never Been Page 14
