Breathing Water (16 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

Tags: #General Fiction

BOOK: Breathing Water
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July 1994
I
took the butterfly box out of the drawer and carried it down to the kitchen. I used a sponge to clean the glass and polished the wood with lemony oil. Outside the sun was falling swiftly behind Franklin. Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and I jumped.
“Hello there,” Magoo said. He was standing in the doorway holding a bucket.
“Hi, Mr. Tucker,” I said. “Whatcha got there?”
“Birdseed.”
“Birdseed?”
“I noticed your Grampa's birds haven't been around this summer. Thought they might be hungry.” Magoo set the bucket down on the kitchen floor and motioned to the breakfast nook. “May I? An old man's legs don't hold up so long as a young man's.”
“Oh sure, I'm sorry,” I said. “Can I get you something?”
“You got any coffee?” he asked and started to fill his pipe.
“Just instant,” I said.“I used the last of the beans this morning. That okay?”
“Um-hum,” he said and puffed on his pipe. “So Gussy's thinking of selling this old place, I hear.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I hope not, but the property taxes are so high now that they've built the ski resort. That and it's hard to take care of without Grampa.”
“Your Grampa took care of most things.” He nodded. “Did you know the first time I met your grampa he saved my life?” Magoo puffed on his pipe, and the smoke made strange halos around his head.
“I don't think I've heard this one.” I laughed.
“Back in forty—two. We were just kids then, fifteen, sixteen, I think. He and your great-grandfather had just built the camp. We didn't know each other then. My folks and I were living up here for the summer, and of course I knew who he was. He was a year ahead of me at school. But he didn't play sports, so I didn't know him
too
well. Quiet kid. Spent most of his time at the library if I recall, nose in a book, that sort. I was an athlete. Track and field. Football. But up to Gormlaith there weren't any other kids my age. Just a bunch of old people, and I wasn't looking forward to spending a whole summer wandering around by myself. I suppose my parents thought it would keep me out of trouble to be away from my friends in town.
“Well anyways, I was bored one day and I decided to introduce myself. He and his dad were finishing up, putting on the shutters or some such thing. I walked over and said, ‘Hey, McInnes, you wanna row out to the island with me?' Well, he looks about startled out of his skin, but he goes inside the house and comes out in a couple of minutes with his shoes on.
“We didn't say more than a few words the whole way out to the island. He sure was a quiet fellow.” Magoo puffed on his pipe. “So there we are in the middle of the lake not talking. Finally, I decide to tell him I got some liquor I stole from my daddy's liquor cabinet. I figure maybe that'll loosen him up some. Well, when I pull the bottle out of my bag, his face lights up like Christmas.
“We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking that nasty booze, smoking cigarettes, and diving off the rocks into the lake. It's a wonder we didn't break our necks. I was so drunk by the time it started to get dark, I could barely remember where I'd put the boat. Finally we found it and managed to get headed back toward our camps.
“It must've taken us an hour and a half to maneuver our way back to shore. It was pitch black and neither one of us was in any condition to be operating any kind of vehicle. Your grampa could handle his liquor a lot better than I could though; I must have announced to the entire lake that I was crocked off my ass.
“I was hooting and hollering so much, drunk so blind, that I didn't even notice my mama's shoes standing at the landing. Your grampa noticed though. He must've known that she'd be there to meet us. Because before I lay down in the back of the boat to take a little nap, I heard him fabricating about the best story I ever heard.
“He told her that we'd gone out to the island to go fishing. He said that he'd asked me to come along because he'd heard that I was a damn good swimmer and seeing's how he himself couldn't swim too well, he thought it would be a good safety measure to have me with him. And then he told her that while we were fishing I stumbled into a hornet's nest. That I got stung about fifty times. A hundred. And that no matter how many times I got in the water I still couldn't make the sting go away. That's when he got the brilliant idea to look in his father's fishing box. He knew that his daddy kept a bottle of whiskey in there for just such emergencies. What he didn't know was how little it took to heal a man. That sooner than he could say
bottom's up,
I was drunk as a skunk and falling all over myself.
“My mama stood at the edge of the lake with her arms crossed, her face not flinching or giving show of whether or not she was buying this fib at all. Now, my mama was never one to let her leg be pulled. But your grampa was so earnest, so sincerely concerned about my impaired condition that my mama never asked why there weren't any fishing poles in the boat. Never asked why not a single sting left a welt on my skin. She just left me in the bottom of that boat to sleep it off. And your grampa brought me three aspirin and a soda pop in the morning.”
“How did he save your life?” I asked, smiling.
“You'd have needed to see my mama mad to understand.”
“I'll make sure to feed the birds,” I said, pointing to the bucket of seed. “Grampa never told me he fed the birds.”
“He was a man of few words. But all his words were good ones.” He grinned.
After Magoo left, I went outside to put the birdseed in the feeders. It was chilly for a midsummer night. I went back inside to get my sweater and the butterfly box. The sweater came down over my hips, enclosing me in the warmth of wool and the faint smell of mothballs. Everything on my body was soft tonight. Grampa's flannel pajama bottoms held up with a safety pin. Soft socks and tennis shoes worn to the exact shape of my feet.
My heart was thudding in my throat as I approached the Hansel and Gretel house. The air was still. The sky was streaked with the brightness of moon-illuminated clouds. My hands were cold. There were no lights on in the cottage, and the bicycle was missing. Relief rushed through me like a breath of warm air. I stood in the road looking at the house for a long time before I moved toward the door. The shingled roof pointed up sharply into the night sky. The front door was bright blue with a knocker shaped like some sort of night creature. There were tulip stalks standing like silent guards at either side of the door. Ivy climbing bravely up the side of the house, clinging like a lover to the trellis.
I could barely feel my feet when I walked across the yard, aware only of the winding flagstone path leading to his door. When I got to the door, I saw that there was a chalkboard for messages, clean and bare. A piece of chalk still sharp and white cradled in the tray.
I set the box down, turning it this way and that. Upside down, right side up. On its side, turned face down. I finally left it right side up, the butterflies facing the door. It was hard to walk away from this, hard to leave this gift behind.
As I was about to run back to the safety of the camp, I spotted the swing. I looked again at the dark cottage. The bicycle was missing; no one was home. I walked slowly to the swing and touched the wooden seat. I sat down carefully, afraid that it would crumble beneath me. I forgot that I was the size of a child now. I was lighter than air.
I pumped my legs underneath me, remembering other swings. Remembering how to go so high I could see the tops of trees. But this swing was made of wood, not the iron of elementary school playgrounds, so I swung gently.
I leaned back, letting my hair drag on the ground below, and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I heard something behind me. Startled, I stopped swinging.
“Evening, Miss Greer,” he said.
I didn't speak or turn around in the swing.
“You need a push?” he asked softly. His voice was as deep as pockets.
I felt myself nodding, my shoulders trembling as he touched them. And then I let his hands push, and I flew higher. His hands were there each time I swung backward toward earth, catching and then pushing gently until I was flying again. When I wanted to slow down, when I was ready to land, his hands caught me and resisted the pull of gravity for me.
When I stood from the swing my knees were weak. I moved into the safety of the shadows of a tree. I could barely see him in the darkness.
“Do you often swing in strangers' swings at night?”
“No.” I smiled. “Not often.”
“Are you cold?”
I shook my head, but I was shivering.
“Would you like to come inside and warm up? I could make some tea.” He was standing only a few feet in front of me; I could smell the sweet tobacco smell of him. His head was cocked slightly, his hands in his pockets.
“I really need to be getting home,” I said softly. “But thank you.”
“Any time.” When he reached his hand out to me in the darkness it looked like a giant's hand. I accepted it tentatively. His skin was warm. He covered my hand with both of his larger ones, and I shivered again.
“You sure you don't want to borrow a jacket at least?”
“No thanks,” I said, drawing my hand back quickly and folding my arms across my chest.
“Okay then, you have a good night,” he said and put his hands back in his pockets. He smiled and then turned to walk back toward the cottage.
I walked quickly back to the camp, pulling the sweater over my hands to make them warm. The clouds moved across the sky, thin white dresses on an invisible line. I dreamed his hands the color of night. Warm on my shoulders.
 
In the morning, I woke early and made a huge breakfast. Leaving the kitchen a mess, I carried two plates of bacon and eggs and toast out to the picnic table and skipped over to Magoo's to invite him to join me. I knocked on his door and listened to his dog, Policeman, yipping and scratching at the screen.
“Mr. Tucker?” I said loudly. I didn't hear the shower running, but his Fairlane was in the driveway so I knew he was home.
Policeman yipped inside.
“Mr. Tucker!”
My palms were sweaty. I opened the screen door and peered through the window. His kitchen has looked the same since I was little. Yellow curtains, Formica table, and red vinyl chairs. I knocked again and then opened the door gently. “Mr. Tucker?”
Then I saw Magoo's shoes, his body curled up on the floor.
“Mr. Tucker, it's okay. I'm calling nine-one-one. Just hang in there.”
 
The last time I was in an emergency room was with Max when his mother took a half a bottle of tranquilizers. We spent twenty-four hours holding hands in the fluorescent waiting room. There is no day or night in a hospital, there is only
now.
“He's going to be fine, thanks to you,” Gussy said, emerging from the ICU room where Magoo was hooked up to wires monitoring every beat and breath.
She sat down next to me and held my hand. “He's a lucky man.” She smiled. “To have such a good neighbor.”
“God, Gussy. We almost lost him too,” I said and suddenly I was crying so hard that a nurse came out from behind her station and offered to get the doctor to give me something to calm me down.
My heart thudded dully in my chest, and I took the two pills with some lukewarm water in a paper cone–shaped cup she offered me. Soon I felt the pounding in my head and chest subside, and I curled up in the plastic seat and slept with my head in Gussy's lap.
Gussy drove me back to the camp and tucked me into my bed like a child. My tongue felt thick and my head woozy.
“He'll be fine, Effie. You get some rest.”
She kissed my forehead, and I fell asleep before she even got to her car.
I woke up disoriented and confused. I sat straight up in bed, an awareness of everything that had happened like a buzzing alarm. I thought at first that it was morning, but the clock said 4:30
P.M.
The sun was bright outside.
I went downstairs and outside for some fresh air. I went to the backyard and saw that the breakfast plates on the picnic table had been licked clean.
Policeman.
I forgot about making sure he stayed inside when the paramedics came.
“Policeman!” I hollered. “Police!”
I walked to the water to see if he had gone for a swim. He, like Grampa, could float for hours without being disturbed. I started walking toward the Foresters'. “Police!”
Nothing.
“Are you okay?”
I jumped. Devin was on his bicycle coming toward me.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You were hollering for the police,” he said, stepping off the bike. “Are you in trouble?”

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