Little Crew of Butchers

by Francine Pascal

  By now Larry’s face has become bright red, caught between fury and tears. He shouts, “He’s a liar! I seen ’im steal some toothpaste. He shoved it in his pocket. Ya could look. Go on, look in his pockets!”

  Luke turns to the adults and shrugs, giving them an embarrassed smile, embarrassed more for the boy than for himself. He lifts his arms as if to say, go ahead, take a look. Be my guest.

  The manager is uncomfortable, but he has to quiet the boy who is now close to hysterics and shouting at the top of his lungs. “He took it! Look in his pockets!”

  “Yeah, I saw ’im too,” Dennis joins in.

  The manager excuses himself to Luke and gingerly pats at his jacket pockets and then the pockets in his pants. At which point, Luke stops him and, putting his hands in his pants pockets, takes out the few dollars he has along with some coins and then proceeds to pull the linings inside out. Of course, his pockets are empty. The pilfered merchandise was dumped when he “accidentally” bumped into the chocolate counter.

  Now Larry is crying in earnest. Blubbering about how he’d seen Luke do it.

  But Luke, Mr. Nice Guy, smiles down at the boy, not the smirk of a victor, but the kind smile of an understanding adult. Actually, he does feel a little sorry for the kid, but he can’t afford any trouble.

  “Come on, Mac,” Luke appeals to the manager on Larry’s behalf. “He didn’t mean any harm. They’re just kids. You know, out for a little excitement. Right, kids? Tell him you’re not going to do it again, okay?”

  Now there are five children, counting Larry and the little girl from outside the store. The children are frightened and confused and grab the first way out. “No.” They shake their heads. “Never …”

  But Larry is having trouble. He’s still sobbing.

  “Come on, son.” Luke turns to the crying boy. “It’s okay. I’m not angry.” And then to the manager and the other sales help who have abandoned their counters to gather around the action. By now even Daisy is there watching and he’s playing to her. “He didn’t mean to lie. He was just scared. How about giving them all one more chance?”

  “Well …” The manager pretends to be thinking it over. “This man’s been such a good sport, I think if he gets an apology from you that’ll be enough for me. Providing I don’t see you around for a while. Okay, kids?”

  All except for Larry shake their heads in agreement. But Larry isn’t buying it.

  “Let’s hear it, young man,” the manager says, but Larry won’t budge. “Unless you want me to call your dad.”

  That does it. Fear overtakes outrage, and Larry mumbles a sorry someplace in Luke’s direction.

  Luke munificently accepts the apology and has smiles in all directions as he heads out the door. He’s pushed his luck far enough. He can hear the manager launching into a sermon on honesty and truthfulness that promises to go on for a good while.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Luke sees Daisy coming up the street. The late-afternoon sun is behind her, low light outlining her slim body under her thin cotton dress and shining through her hair, whitening the blond blur of ringlets. Her dress isn’t LA short; rather, it falls just a little above the knee. Her shoulder-length hair is pinned in a style that could have easily worked just as well eighty years earlier. Except for the plastic bag she’s carrying, Daisy would fit perfectly into that 1940s movie he worked on.

  He likes her look. More than he expected. For a moment he regrets his bullshit.

  When Daisy sees Luke, she smiles. He walks toward her, surprised at how excited he really is. He reaches for the plastic bag she’s holding and finds it heavier than he expected.

  “This feels like dinner for four,” he jokes, holding it up to measure the weight.

  “It’s the water. I probably got too much. A gallon jug. That was dumb, huh?” The sweetness of her tone adds to her fragility.

  “Hey, no, I’m a big water drinker. And it’s great with Stoli, too.” The alcohol, compliments of the liquor store guy who was too busy with a customer to notice the guy browsing through the vodkas. Luke wasn’t happy to have done it, but it couldn’t be helped. “You like vodka?”

  She nods her head with the polite enthusiasm of a nondrinker. Too bad, Luke thinks, liquor makes everything easier. And, looking at her, her light dress whispering against her skin, he really wants it to be easy. More than that, he wants to make love to her.

  “C’mon,” he says, taking her arm. “Show me the beach. I’m getting thirsty.”

  Together they cross Main Street and walk down an alley to the woods behind the stores. Luke does most of the talking, nice, gentle talking, the kind that seems to ask questions that don’t need answers. But he does learn that Daisy’s parents divorced when she was seven, that she has a younger brother who lives with her father in San Diego, a father she hadn’t seen in over five years and a brother she hadn’t seen for almost fifteen. Her mother had died five years earlier, which was the reason for her father’s visit. He came to the funeral mainly because he thought maybe he might be a beneficiary of some insurance policy he’d taken out years before. Turned out her mother had cashed it in as soon as he walked out.

  There’s a strange lack of bitterness or anger in Daisy’s voice; she gives a simple, nonjudgmental recounting of a sad, quiet life without many choices.

  Rather than spoil the mood with bullshit stories, Luke talks about his hometown in Australia. Nostalgic memories of kind moments. Not the wildness of teenage life, just the turning leaves and the good smell of autumn air, the colors and the peace.

  Their memories are similar. It makes them feel close.

  They walk for about ten minutes until they reach a sandy beach bordering the bay. Next to the sign with all the prohibitions—no pets, no skating, no littering, no bikes—is a sign warning visitors that the beach would be closed until July 15 for reconstruction. A half-hearted line of green plastic fence extends for about one hundred feet along the shoreline.

  Daisy smiles. “It’s okay; they’re not working at night.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “See all that metal stuff? They’re building a sea wall and a jetty to save the town’s main beach.”

  Like all inland-waterway beaches, this one is rocky with clumps of weeds and a mixture of dirt and sand. With the exception of two fishermen on a distant pier, they are alone. Luke leads Daisy past the construction to a sheltered nook where the beach curves into a small, weedy dune.

  “I didn’t have time to go home,” Daisy apologizes, “so I couldn’t get a blanket. I hope it’s all right …”

  “Okay for me. Here, you take this.” Luke slips out of his windbreaker and spreads it on the sand for her.

  Daisy settles on the smallest corner of the jacket. Luke chooses a piece of sand just alongside and adjusts the rest of the jacket underneath her.

  “How about cups? Did you bring any?”

  Daisy reaches for the Dixie cups in her plastic bag and takes out the gallon bottle of Poland Spring water, paper napkins, and her prize contribution, a tube of Pringles. “For hors d’oeuvres,” she says.

  “Great.” Luke pours her a good-sized cup of vodka. “Don’t worry; it’s only a Dixie cup. À votre santé,” Luke says, lifting his full cup. Daisy mirrors him.

  “Yes, santay.”

  They drink, Luke taking a healthy swallow while Daisy barely wets her lips.

  “I guess I’m just not a drinker. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make up for it.”

  “I brought sandwiches. You like baloney?”

  “Love baloney. Could live on it.”

  “You’re teasing me. I know it was dumb bringing something like baloney with you being a movie star and all, but the ham looked so gray …”

  “Hey, forget about that stuff. I’m a regular guy—like you, only not so beautiful.”

 
Daisy blushes and mumbles something about Luke being very handsome.

  He can see Daisy is nervous. The kind of nervous where you can’t stop talking. She’s going on how her friends at Smilers had kidded her about going out with a movie star and did he mind that she had told them he was a movie star? Before he can answer, she dives on, her mellifluous voice sprinkling the air with words that dance lightly over the gentle splash of the bay. After a while Luke lets his mind wander to where his eyes are playing, past the few sailboats and out to the empty horizon.

  Just seven days ago he was in Malibu, on the beach, watching the heavy monotony of powerful waves breaking and sending the waiting surfers sliding over the top. From the distance, the surfers were like sticks being knocked about, going under, popping up again. Like LA itself, no feel of people at all.

  But here, on this ordinary little beach, even the distant fishermen seem personal. The people in the boats, too small to actually make out, probably belong to Shorelane; certainly the fishermen do.

  And Daisy does, too.

  “You like it here?” he asks.

  “Not so much, but I’ve lived all my life in Shorelane. Never went to college, babysat with the same family for five years, and now I work at Smilers. I suppose the only way to change that is to get out of here.”

  Daisy turns and finds Luke’s face closer to hers than she expects. She pulls back and smiles, not the polite smile and not the humorous smile, but a smile with intimacy and a promise. But she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she looks down and begins to unpack the picnic.

  “So why don’t you?” he asks.

  “And go where? I told you, I’m not prepared for anything. You can’t just pick up and go when you’ve got nothing to offer.”

  She’s caught him. Nailed him perfectly without even knowing it. “Hey, you’re smart, you’re beautiful. Give yourself a chance. Don’t say no before you even try.” And then he goes too far; he doesn’t mean to, but he wants to stay in touch with this girl, and the words slip out before he can think.

  “Maybe I can help you.”

  “Oh my god. You would do that?”

  “Sure. Why not? I think you’re terrific.”

  Maybe he can help her. It wouldn’t be as a movie star but as someone who has plenty of experience and isn’t stupid. And someone who cares. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone in her life who cares. Goddamn it, why shouldn’t he help her?

  Daisy is overcome with gratitude. She can barely raise her eyes to look at Luke. To cover her embarrassment, she busies herself with the picnic.

  Luke reaches out and touches her hair lightly. She doesn’t seem to notice, just hands him a sandwich. He can see through the plastic that it is, as promised, baloney.

  He’s surprised at how much he likes Daisy. Daisy. He even likes the name.

  “Do you like being an actor?” she asks.

  “Actually, no. In fact, I don’t know if I’m going back to LA.”

  She’s shocked. “You’re going to walk away from Hollywood?”

  “Before it walks away from me. I don’t have a real talent for it. Not like some of those guys; they live and breathe and eat it. To tell you the truth, it always embarrasses me a little.”

  It’s a truth he hasn’t told himself before, but something about Daisy makes him want to be open. She’s so straight that to lie would be like shooting fish in a barrel. He knows he could say anything, but somehow he doesn’t want to.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Right now?” It’s more a caress than a question. He puts his hands on her shoulders lightly, feeling her warm skin under the soft, thin cotton of her dress. He lets his hands run down her silky arms, come to rest on top of her hands, which are splayed on either side of her body holding her upright. She says nothing. She has no choice but to look into his face, inches away, his dark-blue eyes trapping hers.

  Gently, he pulls her in until he can feel her breasts against his chest and the fullness of her lips spreading on his. In that instant, in the brief second it takes for the charge of heat to speed along the nerve lines to her sexual corners, Daisy clenches her arms around Luke and presses her open lips hard against his, taking his tongue deep inside her mouth.

  And then they’re scrambling and grabbing and holding each other, hands and mouths and bodies hungry for contact. Frantically, they tear at their clothes until their bodies, naked and burning, are pressed against each other and find their fit.

  Just at the penultimate moment, something hits the side of Luke’s head hard enough to stun him, to whip his head sideways. To stop him.

  Daisy opens her eyes.

  “What happened?”

  And then she sees the thin line of blood trickling from the skin just past Luke’s eye. “Oh my god!” She sits up, his penis still inside her, and reaches out for him. It’s then that the rain of pebbles begins pelting both of them.

  Daisy pulls away from Luke and rolls over, wrapping her arms around her head to escape the cascade of stones. Luke hunches his shoulders, burying his chin in his chest, all the while covering Daisy with his body, protecting as much of her as he can.

  Then they hear the shouts and high-pitched wild screams of laughter. The pebbles keep pummeling them, nipping at Luke’s back and buttocks and bouncing off his head.

  “Sons of bitches! Cut that out!” Luke shouts, covering his face with his hands as he struggles to see his attackers.

  From under his arms, he sees them, not ten feet away. The five little kids from town, from Daisy’s store. The ones he had the shoplifting contretemps with. Just little kids. Luke begins to rise from his crouching position, still holding his hands over his face.

  “Stop that, you little bastards, before I rip your friggin’ arms off! Get outta here!” He lunges toward them, and as he does they spin and scramble away like crabs, scattering over the beach. Luke stands there, naked, roaring and flailing in all directions like an impotent Goliath monster, but the kids are safely beyond his reach. He makes a running movement toward the big one and they all take off; within moments, they are out of sight.

  “Damn bastards!” he curses, kicking at the sand and mumbling as he makes his way back to Daisy. She’s up, dressed, and searching for her shoes.

  “Those little creeps! Don’t worry, they’re gone.” Luke sits down next to her. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” Daisy says. “I know them. Every one of them, and their folks. God!” She finds her shoes and slips them on. “I have to go! I have to get out of here! I’m sorry …”

  And with that, she takes off, racing over the dunes and disappearing, leaving Luke standing, stupidly naked, alone and out-of-his-mind mad.

  He shoves his legs into his pants, almost ripping through the seam in his anger, throws on his shirt, and curses as he sits down on the sand harder than he means to.

  “Shit!” he says, and takes a long, long drink of the vodka.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Daisy doesn’t stop running until she hits the alley behind Main Street. The lightning and thunder accelerate her flight to a mad dash. A hard, heavy two-minute cloudburst catches her crossing the parking lot behind the beach. She’s instantly drenched, but she keeps running. Only beneath the safety of the Main Street buildings does she slow down. Staying close to the brick walls, she peeks out to look for any trace of the children. Nothing.

  Walking quickly, she heads up Main to Pocker Road and home. The horror of the beach scene plagues her steps; her mind recounts over and over the sight of the children standing, watching her having sex with a near stranger, someone she had only met that afternoon. And there they were, just like the description she had read one time, “the beast with two backs.”

  What a hideous beast they must have been for those young children. A lasting, scarring memory like the one Daisy had from when she was eleven and her ex-babysitter described her wed
ding night, the terrible soreness, how she could barely sit on a chair afterward. The story gave Daisy years of worry until at last she had her own experience—and had no trouble sitting down.

  Walking faster now that the rain has stopped, a slim hope presents itself: maybe they hadn’t recognized her. She was lying down, and when they started throwing the rocks she had rolled over and covered her face. But the opposing argument made more sense. The children were less than ten feet away, almost on top of them, and on higher ground. God knows how long they had been watching. Additionally, it was still light and they had seen her in the store that very afternoon.

  What was she thinking? They knew her. There was no anonymity in Shorelane. Shit!

  All the delicious passion of the evening turns rancid. It’s become a disgusting spectacle, and Daisy thinks that she’ll probably be stuck reliving the nightmare reality for weeks, months, perhaps forever.

  But oh, how sweet it was. God, she liked him. Even if he wasn’t a movie star, she would have liked him. He threw his body over hers to protect her from the stones hurled by the children. Hero stuff in Daisy’s book. Too bad the evening was hopelessly ruined right along with her reputation.

  Daisy wonders where is Luke staying. He didn’t mention a hotel or friends. What difference does it make? By now he’s long gone from Shorelane, and she’ll never see him again.

  As Daisy walks up her street, she sees her landlady, Mrs. McDonnell, sitting on the porch. Probably listening to the radio; certainly crocheting. She couldn’t have heard the gossip yet. It’s been only fifteen minutes at most since it happened.

  But Mrs. McDonnell will know soon enough. Shorelane is just that provincial. Despite the fact that it’s on Long Island and not that many miles from New York City, it’s a world away in desirability, unhappily situated in the flat nowhere of the South Shore. Not close enough to the city to be a suburb, and not near enough to the Hamptons to be chic.

  Daisy checks her dress, making certain it’s closed in the back. The bottom of her skirt is wrinkled and wet, but it doesn’t look much different than it would on a normal hot working day if you got caught in a downpour. All perfect—except that it’s inside out.