KooKooLand (17 page)

After stuffing myself to the gills, I went out onto the pier that stretched for miles. I listened to the water sloshing under my feet and looked over the side. I stared at the ancient moss-covered pilings and wondered how long they'd been there and if they might collapse while I was standing there.

I soaked it all in. I ate it all up. I spent all my dough in one night.

Then I hung around the ticket booth with a long face until some rube tourists asked what was wrong. I told them I'd lost my tickets and they took pity on me and bought me a few.

I rode the Mighty Mouse three more times and the bumper cars twice and then I walked over to the arcade and found Virginia. She was standing with some punks watching a greasy-haired punk play pinball. She didn't look thrilled to see me.

Tommy, the pinball player, started teasing us, calling us jailbait.

I told Virginia we should vamoose and she said to quit being a killjoy. We watched Tommy play pinball some more. Watched him until he flipped his flippers too hard and punched the machine and made it freeze and say
TILT
.

“Look what you made me do,” he snapped at us. “You were breathing down my neck.”

“Sorry,” said Virginia, and lent him money to play again, although I didn't think he'd ever pay her back.

Finally it was late, really late. We ran all the way back to the apartment, concocting alibis in case Jimmy and Shirley had beaten us home. The one we settled on was we had smelled something burning and ran out of the house to save our lives.

But the alibi wasn't necessary 'cause they weren't home. We jumped into bed without even brushing our teeth and I lay there with Poochie, Lambykins, Barbie, and Chatty Cathy and thanked God for saving my keister once again. Virginia and I talked about what a blast we'd had and how we couldn't wait to do it again and we finally fell asleep.

How long I was asleep, I don't know. I woke up to the crash of pots and pans.

It was still dark outside, but the light in the kitchen was on and Shirley appeared to be cooking up a storm. I heard Jimmy's voice and a young wiseguy's voice.

Jimmy said, “You shouldn't have done it,” but he was laughing and I could tell he didn't mean it.

The young guy answered Jimmy. “Hey, man, if you don't want any, all the more for me.”

I heard a weird scratching sound that I couldn't quite place, like somebody trying to get out of a coffin. Or, rather, like a bunch of people trying to get out of a bunch of coffins.

I got up and staggered into the kitchen.

All the stove burners were fired up and covered with pots of boiling water. Shirley was dropping a big, black lobster with waving claws into one of the pots. Three bushel baskets of the lobster's relatives were on the floor. The lobsters were scratching against the sides of the baskets and against each other, vainly trying to escape a similar fate.

“Hey, who's this?” the young guy said. He had a goofy, friendly smile and dirty blond hair that hung in his blue bloodshot eyes.

“That's Dracula,” joked Jimmy. He put his hand in front of his mouth and wiggled his fingers.

“Quit it,” the guy said. “She's a cute little kid. You call her that again and I'm takin' back my lobsters.”

“All right, all right,” said Jimmy, backing off. “She knows I'm just kidding around. Don't you, kiddo?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, smiling, careful not to show my choppers.

Shirley kept drowning more lobsters. A chorus of screeches rose up from the boiling water.

“Who's gonna eat all those lobsters?” I asked.

“We are,” said Jimmy. “We're gonna eat lobster like there's no frickin' tomorrow.”

“Do you like lobster?” the young guy asked me.

“Don't know. Never had one,” I mumbled.

“Well, step right up, sit right down.”

He pulled out a chair for me like we were in some swanky joint.

“Lobsters are what rich people eat,” explained Shirley.

I was stuffed to the gills from all the crap I had eaten, but I didn't care. I absolutely positively wanted to eat like a rich person.

The young guy sat down next to me, still grinning like a goofball. He began drumming on the table to music only he could hear. He smelled like horseshit and seaweed.

“Are you a fisherman?” I asked.

“Only when there's no moon in the sky,” he laughed.

Jimmy split a gut and I laughed too, covering my mouth, though I didn't know what was so goddamn funny.

It turned out the guy's name was Bruce. He was a groom down at the track who messed around with a few other things on the side. One of those things was lobsters. When the moon was dark, Bruce would go out in his crappy boat and pull up other people's traps. He'd swipe a few lobsters from each trap and nobody'd be the wiser. Sometimes he sold the lobsters for a few bucks and sometimes, if he liked you, he'd give 'em away.

I knew right away Bruce was going to be a part of our lives, at least for a while. I was used to Jimmy adopting punks like him. Guys named Ron or Ronnie or Bob or Bobbie. Guys like Susan's brother, Terry, who knew how to throw a goddamn punch. Jimmy always insisted it was a great deal for me having the punks around since I didn't have a big brother. But the punks never gave me the time of day. As far as I was concerned they were just big-fisted boys. Big-mouthed boys I wanted to moider 'cause Jimmy mouthed off about them so much.

But at least this one, this Bruce, had stood up for me.

When the first batch of bright red lobsters was yanked from the pot, he scooted his chair closer to mine and tied a dish towel around my neck like a bib. He showed me how to twist the claws off the beady-eyed creature that was staring me in the face. Then he held up the claws so I could drink the briny juice
from them. He crushed the claws with his big, strong fists and dug the meat out all in one piece shaped like a mitten.

He fed me my first taste of lobster.

I decided he could be my big brother forever.

I forgot how full I'd been and filled myself with lobster.

We all did.

“This is the life,” said Jimmy. “The life of Riley.”

“Imagine eating like this every day,” sighed Shirley as she cooked batch after batch of lobsters, piling them up on the table, on the counters, on sheets of yesterday's
Racing Form
spread out on the floor.

Sylvester finally crept out of his cupboard. Jimmy threw him a lobster carcass to pick over and he grabbed it with his big, fat, double paws and tore into it.

Virginia came out to see what all the commotion was about. Jimmy told her to join the party. Virgina watched Shirley plop another live one into the water and I could tell she didn't like staring into its beady eyes as it was boiled alive.

“I'm not hungry,” she said.

“Try it or I'll golf you one,” said Jimmy. “They're a present from Bruce. Somebody brings you a present, you don't turn your nose up at it.”

“That's OK,” said Bruce. “She can try it tomorrow. I think there'll be a knuckle or two left over.” He was trying to be funny, trying to lighten things up.

“She's going to try it right now. She's gonna be polite.”

Virginia forced down a bite of lobster.

“Mmm, it's yummy,” she said. “Can I go back to bed now?”

“Go ahead, killjoy,” snapped Jimmy. “More for us.”

“Now, Jim . . . ,” said Shirley, her face sweaty from all the steam coming out of those pots.

“Now, what? I try to do something nice for her, for all of you, and she acts like the Queen of Sheba.”

“I'm just tired from havin' so much fun,” yawned Virginia as she slipped away.

“Lobster isn't good enough for some people,” he called after her.

“How am I ever going to fit them all in the fridge? It's impossible,” Shirley said, trying to distract Jimmy from Virginia's snubbing of the lobster. Shirley knew Jimmy would rise to the fridge-packing challenge just as he always did whenever she panicked after he brought home twenty-five ducks or fifty mackerel or one hundred pounds of deer meat.

“Relax, will you,” he told her. “None of these sweet babies are going to waste. I'll fit 'em all in there.”

And that's what he did. After Bruce took off, Jimmy packed dozens of lobsters into every crevice of the fridge.

I went back to bed with a lobster bellyache. I lay there and suddenly got a whiff of something going bad. I realized Virginia had forgotten to leave the mackerel for the Polish eagles and it was stinking up her pocketbook.

If I didn't get rid of it there would be holy hell to pay in the morning.

I waited until I heard Jimmy begin to snore. Then I grabbed the mackerel, crept down the back stairs, and stuffed it in the neighbors' trash can.

Early the next morning we were woken by a loud pounding on the door.

“Open up! Police!” a deep voice barked.

This is it, I thought. We're all going to the slammer. I grabbed Lambykins and held on tight.

I could hear Jimmy trying to hide stuff in the bedroom.

The knock came again.

I peeked out into the hall and saw Bruce's face in the window of the front door.

“Open up, Jimmy. It's just me,” Bruce said.

The rustling in the bedroom stopped. Jimmy stormed out in his boxers and I thought for sure Bruce was gonna get golfed.

“I oughta kill you, you crazy son of a bitch,” he hissed.

“Can't you take a joke?” Bruce asked. He had the same goofy smile, but he was all fidgety and his eyes were glassy and even more bloodshot.

“No, I can't take a goddamn joke. You're as high as a kite, aren't you?”

“I'm not feeling any pain,” Bruce said. “You want a taste?”

“I told you I don't do that crap. What the hell do you want? You're gonna wake my goddamn kids.”

“I think they're already awake.” Bruce had spotted me looking around the corner. He waved. “Hey there, little lobster-eater.”

I waved back.

“Vamoose. Get the hell back to bed,” Jimmy barked.

I vamoosed. But the apartment was so small I didn't even need a glass against the wall to hear every word they were saying.

“Spit it out, hophead. What are you doing here?”

“Some fishermen reported the locks on their traps had been sprung. The cops are nosing around the barns.”

“I thought you knew how to pick the locks so no one would know they'd been skimmed.”

“I guess I fucked up a little, busted a couple.”

“How the hell'd they trace it to the track?”

“Beats me. They just think racetrackers are a bunch of lowlifes.”

“Yeah, and it's numbskulls like you that give them that impression. C'mon, Bruce, who knows about the goddamn lobsters besides us?”

“I dunno. I owed this guy fifty bucks and paid him off in lobsters. Maybe he shot his big mouth off.”

“I oughta shoot your big mouth off. I oughta go in the bedroom, get my goddamn .38 special, and shoot your big mouth off.”

“They're never gonna trace it to us, Jimmy. I'm one hundred percent sure, OK? One hundred percent sure. But just to be one thousand percent sure, I think we oughta put the lobsters on the next train outta town.”

There were train tracks right behind the house. Cargo trains rumbled by every few hours and shook the house like an earthquake.

“Are you nuts?” said Jimmy. “I'm not throwing away any goddamn lobsters on any goddamn train. I'm not wasting lobsters when people are starving in this world.”

“A lotta winos still ride those trains,” said Bruce. “They'll have a poor man's picnic, I promise you that.”

Bruce also promised Jimmy he'd get us more lobsters when things quieted down. But, for now, he said it was better to be one thousand percent safe than one million percent sorry.

I heard them pack up the lobsters and drag them down the stairs.

After a while, a train came by and blew its horn and took the lobsters far, far away.

A
few days later, we were back at the beach. Jimmy and Shirley were lying on the blanket, drinking highballs and handicapping, and Virginia was frying herself to a crisp 'cause Tommy the greaser had said tan lines were S-E-X-Y.

I went out bodysurfing on my own, without Jimmy. I was pretending I was on a surfin' safari in KooKooLand with Susan and the Beach Boys.

All of a sudden a big wave hammered me from behind and sucked me under.

It slammed me hard against the sandy bottom. I gulped in mouthfuls of salty sand and felt myself tumbling around. I tried to get to the surface, but just ended up tangled in seaweed that seemed to tie me to the ocean floor.

I'm going to die, I thought. I'm never gonna make it to KooKooLand.

And then I had a revelation.

It's OK. I've been to church. I'm going to heaven.

I relaxed.

And the ocean spit me out onto the shore.

I stood up, heaving water out of my lungs, my eyes burning, my neck bent at a strange angle. I hobbled back to our blanket.

Shirley went to wrap a towel around me.

I screamed bloody murder when she touched me.

Jimmy threw down the
Racing Form
. I had done it now. I had disturbed the genius at work.

“What the hell's the matter with you?”

“Her neck's all weird,” I heard Virginia say.

“Oh, my God, she's got a broken neck!” Shirley wailed. I could hear the terror in her voice and I started to shake.

“Straighten up, Quasimodo,” Jimmy ordered me. “You're scaring your mother.”

I tried to straighten up. I screamed again.

“I can't,” I heard my strangely calm voice say.

I tried not to move an inch. If I didn't move, it didn't hurt so bad.

Jimmy felt around my neck bones like he did with a deer whose head he was about to chop off. I yelped some more and other people began to gather around.