Crazy for the Storm (13 page)

An hour later my dad started the truck and drove it a few
feet forward, then turned it off and got out. He peeled off several paper bills and the mechanic took them and said nothing and left. My dad put the guitar and my suitcase in the cabin and locked the door. He helped me onto the horse and we followed Ernesto back to the village.

It started to rain late in the afternoon so my dad went to talk to Ernesto about leaving sooner rather than later. I wondered where Papaya was and I walked up and down the dirt path saying
Adios
to the kids and their mothers, all the while looking for Papaya.

My dad returned on horseback led by the youngest
vaquero
. I handed my dad the surfboards and he set them across his lap. I got my foot in the stirrup and he helped me up. He waved and thanked everyone and they all waved back without speaking. I waved and hoped to spot Papaya.
Nada
. We trotted into the jungle and something squeezed my heart. I wondered if my dad had said good-bye to her secretly.

The rain was steady and weak and when we reached the truck the ground was beginning to soften. My dad spoke to the
vaquero
and he waited and my dad started the truck and drove forward. The tires only dimpled the ground. The traction was fine. My dad thanked the
vaquero
and he actually smiled and shook my dad’s hand. Then my dad’s horse followed the
vaquero
around a bend in the trail.

We have to wait until dark. Right? I said.

Yep.

We stood there and he handed me water and I chugged it down. My dad dug his toe into the softening dirt. There sneaked in the notion that if the rain got much harder we might get stuck again, and even if we made it onto the highway it would be hard
to see. Then his head moved as if remembering something. He reached into his pocket.

She made this for you.

He handed me a puka-shell necklace. I slipped it over my head. The shells were cool on the back of my neck.

We stood under the drizzle and let the mist coat our faces.

When we came out of the jungle backward and jolted up the embankment and reversed onto the highway it was pitch-black beyond the headlight beams and raining hard. My dad rolled down the window and stuck his head out and we crept along slowly. At the first sharp turn in the road the slashing rain took the shape of a roadblock and I gasped and my dad hit the brakes.

God dang it, Ollestad.

Sorry, I said.

We went through a dark little town made of corrugated tin. An hour passed and there was nothing except the edges of the jungle and the rain splattering on the road. I finally relaxed.

We spent the night in Sayulita, sleeping in the truck. As the sun rose we entered Vallarta and my dad got a little tense. He slouched in his seat and his eyes shifted from side to side. I pretended not to notice. The truck chattered over the cobblestones and it was weird to see cement buildings, a soccer stadium, churches and shops. We crossed the bridge and I knew we were close.

My dad floored it up the steep cobblestone road to my grandparents’ house. The house clung to the hillside and overlooked the entire Vallarta bay. We parked in front of the open garage
where the sign
CASA NORMAN
was screwed into the stone wall. My dad looked at me. He twisted his lips to one side.

Well that was quite a journey. Wasn’t it? he said.

I nodded.

Maybe we don’t want to scare Grandma and Grandpa, you know? he added.

He patted my leg. He looked in the rearview and brushed down his mustache with his fingers. He hadn’t shaved in days and his whiskers poked out, gray ones appearing.

You got some blond surfer hairs, I said, thinking I was awfully clever repeating back to him one of his own jokes.

He smiled and then Grandma came out of the house.

There was a lot of kissing and hugging and she was ecstatic about the new washing machine. My dad said it was
no problemo
and talked about my great tube rides. Grandma took a deep breath, put her hand on her chest and lifted onto her toes.

Oh my, she said.

Grandpa came home and kissed us all and he and my dad carried the washing machine up some stairs, grunting and groaning until they got the machine onto the deck above the garage and Grandpa hooked it up. Grandpa knew how to fix things because he used to be a telephone repairman. He could climb a pole faster than any other man in his unit, only missing one day of work in thirty years. Thinking of him shimmying up the pole reminded me that he was a great dancer like Dad. That’s how he had wooed Grandma, dazzling her with his waltz and swing moves. He married Grandma after her first husband left her with two kids—Uncle Joe and Aunt Charlotte. Grandpa was willing to take on a preformed family, which was rare in those days, said Grandma. Then my dad was born and, last, his sister Aunt Kristina.

We all went swimming, then after dinner we played a card
game. Grandma asked me about my puka-shell necklace. Already what had happened seemed like a dream in another time long ago.

I found the shells where I got tubed, I said. Somebody strung them for me.

They sound like wonderful people, she said. That’s Mexico.

For dessert we had apples that had been brought down from California by one of the many visitors my grandparents took in each month. Dad bit into a worm and Grandma got excited.

Great, Norie. Now we know they’re organic, she said.

After the card game, Grandma wrote the
Mexico Report
, a monthly update sent to the entire family. But Bob Barrow and my mom said that it was the occasional letter by Grandpa that proved he should have been writing the report, and Al said that Grandpa’s letters reminded him of Hemingway.

It was a real luxury to sleep on a soft mattress that night. I slept in a separate room, hearing the bugs buzzing and the animals thrashing around, and I wasn’t scared at all.

My dad had arranged a special treat for me. We went to the airport the next day and Chris Rolloff, my friend who I surfed with at Topanga, stepped off the plane.

You bought him a ticket? I said.

Well you said you missed your friends.

Grandpa and Dad took us surfing every day, driving Grandpa’s orange jeep. In Sayulita Grandpa would order
ostras
from the only restaurant in the village while we waxed up the boards. The waiter would write down the order, take off his shirt and then drive his boat out to the rocky headland. When we came in from the surf the oysters would be waiting for us under the
palapa
.

Finally having a buddy of my own to surf and pal around with instead of my dad gave me a taste of what pure fun was like. There was no one pressing for more. I loved when Roll
off and I just hung out, sometimes letting good waves go by while we made up our own surfing lingo like
tweak-mondo
and
hairball-McGulicutty
.

One day we rode burros up to a waterfall and all four of us had a contest: who could swim under the waterfall and back the fastest. It was tricky because the current tried to sweep you into the boulders and tried to tow you into the rapids just below our pool. After Dad and Grandpa clearly let us boys win the contest, declaring a tie, Dad dove off the top of the waterfall. Grandpa spotted a deep hole in the pool for him to land in. I could tell that Rolloff thought my dad was the coolest guy in the world, and it made me proud. Too bad it only lasted a week, I thought when Rolloff boarded the plane home.

F
ROM AN ELEVATED
position above the crash site I could see Sandra and myself under the wing of the airplane.

We were fused together. An ice-clad heap. Frosted hair. Blue lips. It took me a while to understand that I was dreaming. I felt like I was swimming and swimming and swimming. Never reaching the top. Running out of oxygen. A last gulp of air trapped in my throat.

Yielding to the warm water I sank. A pebble landing softly on a cushioned floor. Safe. Comfortable. Warm at last.

I saw this as if from outside my body and finally realized I had to pull myself out of the sleep. Move your arm, lift your head, I told myself. I used all my strength but to no avail. Instead I waded in blobs of glue. Drunk and unable to coordinate my muscles. The feathery bottom was irresistible. Cozy and inviting.

No. Get up, I insisted.

I bucked. My lids cracked, then closed again under pneumatic pressure.

Now my fingers wiggled. They are wiggling. Or I just think they are—a dream within a dream within a dream. No they are wiggling. And then a vacuum of bliss drew me deep into a heated cave. I countered the seductive sleep by trying to move my fingers again.

One eye splintered open. Light. White. Cool. But dark warmth enveloped me once more. Mmm. Goodnight.

I ordered my fingers to spread. A pitchfork. Elbow unbend. Elbow unbend. Unbend!

My arm was reaching up. But it would hit the wing. I see from my elevated perch that I am only dreaming this. Reach, I urge. Punch the wing.

My fingers struck metal.

Pull open your eyelids. Use anything. I used my stomach muscles. My forehead muscles.

The lids peeled open and my hand banged against the metal roof. All was blurry and I lunged toward the light. Don’t close your fucking eyes, Ollestad.

My body corkscrewed as if wringing itself out. I was in the snow. My eyelids dipped and then ripped free of the last tugging webs of sleep. I saw the snow and the tree and the wing. It was darker now and that accentuated my panic—afternoon is here, next is night, no chance then.

The horror of having observed myself slipping away widened my focus, allowing my dad’s crumpled body, the pilot’s leaky brains, and the wound in Sandra’s forehead to assault me. I wanted to roll back under the wing and say good night to this cruel hell.

Fight through it, Ollestad, boomed a voice. Keep moving.

I shouted under the wing.

Get up!

Sandra did not flinch.

I reached under the wing and shook her violently.

Get up! You can’t sleep.

Norman?

Get up.

I’m tired, Norman. Very tired.

I know, but you can’t sleep. My dad said when you freeze to death you feel warm and then you fall asleep and never wake up.

Her head moved toward me and I saw that her eyes were wide open. She was staring at me but was focused somewhere else.

Big Norm is dead, she said.

The bad thoughts tried to get me. I lolled my head and arched my shoulders.

We have to go now, I said.

They’re coming.

They’re not coming.

She stared at me. I studied the wound caving in one side of her forehead by her hairline, her dislocated shoulder that made one arm dangle like a partially severed branch. She receded farther under the wing, as if to hide this from me, and her eyes dimmed and her face looked like a skull.

Sandra. We have to go, I said.

No.

I’m going, I said.

You can’t leave me here.

Then come on.

I waited. Scoped out the conditions. Heavy snow falling. Now there’s going to be a layer of snow dust over the ice. It’ll be really difficult to tell where the
grippier
snow is. Shit. How will we hold on? Especially Sandra.

I reached up and touched the branches sheltering me. Some
of the branches were stiffer than others. I broke off two long stems, then snapped off as many twigs and needles as I could. My hands were frozen again and my dexterity was awkward.

We have to go now, I called to her.

I kneeled down to see under the wing. She was squirming, her good arm oaring her forward like a bird flopping along the ground dragging a broken limb.

Sandra emerged from under the wing. Her eyes lolled in their trenches and the skin around them strained as if trying to compose the landscape.

It’s icy, I said. Use this like an ice axe. Okay?

I illustrated by jabbing the stem into the snow and tugging on it.

I can’t use my arms, she said.

Use that arm.

I handed her the stem. She gripped it and held it up to her face like a baby pondering a toy she didn’t understand.

I’ll go below you. Use me to step on, I said. Stay right above me so I can stop you from sliding. Okay?

Fuckin’ hell.

Okay?

Your face is cut open, she said.

I touched my face. Felt around. Traced frozen blood over a gash in my chin. Another gash on my cheek.

It’s not bleeding, I said.

Am I okay? she said.

You’re fine. Let’s go.

M
Y DAD AND I
took the ferry directly from Puerto Vallarta to La Paz, avoiding any chance of running across those
federales
again. From La Paz we drove the Baja highway north, homebound. In Tijuana we went to a bullfight. I rooted for the bull.

We spent the night in a hotel in San Diego and the next morning my dad woke me and we were in front of my mom’s house on Topanga Beach. He opened the door to the side walkway and I listened for sounds of Nick coming down the corridor. My dad knocked on the sliding-glass door.

Hey hey, said my mom as she opened the door. It’s the Dynamic Duo.

I peeked inside. She leaned down and kissed me.

Hi Mom, I said.

Look at you. Brown as a berry.

My dad stepped inside and went to the fridge. My mom patted the back of my head.

So blond, Norman, she said. How was the trip?

Good, I said.

My dad bit into a peach and he shut the fridge and peered at me over Mom’s shoulder. In his eyes not a trace of those rifle barrels or the gunshot or the days we spent adrift—just the afterglow of tube rides and sunshine.

So it wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be? she said.

I shook my head.

It wasn’t until dinnertime that I asked about Nick.

He’s away for a few weeks, said my mom.

I switched on the TV to my favorite show,
All in the Family
, and we watched it while we ate. When the first commercial came on I turned around and looked at my mom. No bruise, no scratch, exactly the same as the other eye.

It was quiet around the house for the rest of August. My mom didn’t have to teach for a few weeks and I just hung around Topanga and skateboarded and surfed and played with Charley and Sunny. Everybody on the beach was talking about eminent domain and I gathered the county or the state, somebody, was trying to kick us off the beach. Someone said they could do it because we didn’t own the land, just the houses. That seemed impossible.

Hockey camp filled my weekend mornings and football practice filled my weekday afternoons and I alternated my nights among my mom, my dad and Eleanor. Eleanor was the only one
I talked to about Nick and my mom. She mostly asked me questions, and I liked how she listened carefully to my answers.

One night Eleanor and I were in her kitchen preparing dinner. She asked me how I felt when Nick called me a failure and a liar and such, or when my dad made me get up at four in the morning to go to hockey practice. I didn’t like it of course, I told her. Then her husband Lee opened the front door, walked in and set a broom against the cabinet, heading for the bedroom.

Where’s the rest, honey? said Eleanor.

What do you mean? said Lee.

The chicken and the salad dressing.

You never said anything about getting chicken, said Lee.

You think I wanted you to go to the market at nine o’clock at night to buy a broom?

Well. I thought it was kind of strange.

They stood watching each other. They were both very small people, very gentle and sensitive. So they studied one another as if trying to feel the other out.

Lee, said Eleanor. It took you forty-five minutes to buy a broom?

I wanted to get the exact right one for you, Eleanor, he said.

Like gas leaking from a balloon laughter seeped out of my mouth. I couldn’t control it and I threw back my head, surrendering. Eleanor was next, then Lee, and soon the three of us were keeled over in the kitchen.

Lee said he was exhausted from the laughing and had to go lie down. Eleanor prepared dinner. While boiling the spaghetti she explained to me about
bad pretends
and
good pretends
.

You have a choice, Norman. You don’t have to believe Nick’s bad stories. Those are his bad pretends about what may or may not happen, she said. You can make up your own good stories. Good pretends.

But then it’s just made up, I said.

So are the bad stories, she said. They’re about Nick. They’re not really about you.

That’s not fair, I said.

No it isn’t, she said.

Eleanor probably sensed I was getting overwhelmed and announced that dinner was finally ready.

We got into bed with Lee and watched a TV movie and ate spaghetti. I did not comprehend every nuance of the
pretends
concept, but it made me recall a photograph of Nick wearing a military uniform, from one of those military schools I assumed. He was strikingly handsome and he looked like he knew it. Maybe he’s the one that woke up one day realizing that the world did not revolve around him, I thought, and he’s having a bad pretend that the same will happen to me.

On Sunday I wandered down to Barrow’s to get a longboard. A bunch of boards poked over the rotted wood fence where the outdoor shower was, next to Barrow’s deck on which poker was played almost every weekend, rain or shine. I was hoping to spot the red board that was already dinged up so I wouldn’t have to worry about it hitting the rocks at low tide. As I angled up the sandbank, Sandra and my dad appeared, stepping out of the window-door onto the deck. I stopped below the sandbank because they were holding hands. She was back, and I knew there would be no explanation from my dad.

My dad sat down at the poker table and Sandra rubbed his neck while he got his poker chips. I changed my mind and took Sunny up the creek to my fort.

A week later I came home from football practice and my mom was taping together cardboard boxes.

Well, she said. We finally lost.

You mean we have to move for sure?

Yep. The state won. They’re kicking us off the beach.

There was a big party the following weekend and Nick came home. Everyone on the beach gathered at the yellow submarine house where Trafton, Woody, Shane and Clyde lived. Trafton and Clyde’s band, Blue Juice, played and everyone danced. Sandra wore a green silk bandanna and a white miniskirt and no top. I watched her dance and I compared Papaya’s slow rhythm and long banana-shaped eyelids to Sandra’s hardened expression. Even their breasts were opposites, Papaya’s so round and plump compared to Sandra’s torpedoes.

Later I got a hot dog and Nick tended the barbecue with his shirt off. His neck and face were red and his body was pale.

Life is a long series of readjustments, he said. Remember how I said you need to be prepared?

I nodded.

Well this is what I meant. And there’s more of it coming, he said. You understand?

Yeah it’s like when it’s all sunny and you’re skiing and by the afternoon it’s snowing and freezing cold. You gotta adjust to it, I said.

Nick’s eyebrows perked up and he opened his palms toward the sky and stretched his arms out. Right on the money, he said.

I moved along before he could bring up the skateboarding lie. I found my mom dancing with our neighbors, Wheeler and Maggie. It was peculiar because Nick had broken Wheeler’s ribs a few months ago in our kitchen—how could they still be friends? Next to them boogied Sandra and my dad. I sat on a rock and watched the action.

Late that afternoon the wind died and the ocean glassed over and I paddled out with my dad. It was small and we were the only two surfers in the water.

Well you’re getting your wish, Ollestad.

How?

I bought a house in the Palisades for you and your mom. I got a great deal on it, Ollestad.

Right on. Does it have a pool?

No pool.

Doesn’t matter. I can bike around and go to friends’ houses like every day.

Yep. But one day you’ll miss old Topanga Beach. You were born here.

I looked over the backs of the waves and followed a roller-rink curve of sand past Barrow’s deck, then back along the beach. Dogs moved in packs, Sunny chased a stick, Carol walked her llama by leash around the point, Jerry did wheelies on his dirt bike, and the dancing bodies weaved together like a parachute undulating to the music.

My dad put his hand on my back, as if to connect us, and we watched Topanga Beach for the last time. A set came and he told me to go. We rode those stained-glass waves lit from behind by the dying orange sun until dark.