Our Brothers at the Bottom of the Bottom of the Sea (3 page)

A cluster of high school girls crossed Ethan's path in overly optimistic clothing
—
shorts, spaghetti-strap tops, flip-flops that slapped the wood boards. With some alarm, he saw Garrett's right-hand man, Mitchell, trailing behind them, his Labrador-black hair falling over his eyes as he followed the scent of girl, girl, girl. Ethan turned away, concealing himself behind his hood, watching them parade past and hoping that Mitchell's presence would not be a sign that Garrett was close behind. He waited, they passed, and Garrett did not show. It was just Mitchell, freelance, playing lover boy to girls who might giggle among themselves but wouldn't give him the time of day. He didn't seem to mind, and that amazed Ethan.

But the important thing wasn't Mitchell the fool but the mission ahead. Ethan, still giving his friend and the objects of his fascination wide berth, assessed his own progress so far. He had started from the north moving south, maintaining a low profile by keeping his appearances on the boardwalk to a minimum, leaving after each hit for the adjacent streets before reemerging on the walk near his preselected targets
—
a tactical consideration Jason would've approved. First, he had hit Happy World, tagging the wall above the water fountains in the rest area. Then he targeted the notice boards on the music pier near Eighth Street, the information kiosk at Tenth, and the covered seating area for smokers near Eleventh Street and the Pirate's Playground. Gaining confidence, he had tagged the Sizzleator, a fried food place even he found disgusting, making his mark under the counter as he pretended to tie his shoes, a clever touch that gave him a tingle of pride
—
who said he wasn't creative?

From there, he made his bravest move yet, marching down the Pirate's Playground alley to the fiberglass mascot, a pirate in red-and-white-striped pants and sagging boots, his boarding ax raised high
—
a meeting of the bold, Ethan thought. When he was confident the girl in the ticket booth wasn't looking, Ethan attacked the exposed belly of white pirate shirt just begging to be marked.

One target remained: the men's room he now approached from the Thirteenth Street ramp. On the map in his pocket, this final destination was marked appropriately with a capital
M
. It occurred to him that if someone read the same map upside down
—
and there was no compass rose to indicate north or south, up or down
—
that same
M
would be a
W
and would indicate exactly the wrong place to go. It didn't matter. The map was for people who would never see it anyway. Ethan's heart beat triumphantly. Had he executed his mission at night, after the boardwalk had officially closed at eleven, he would have attracted the attention of police officers riding electric three-wheelers, humming along the boards or racing across the packed sand above the surf line. Now, just before noon on a discouraging summer day, he was what he was supposed to be
—
just another bored kid hanging out. Not doing anything in particular.

Nothing noteworthy in that.

Ethan entered the men's room, sliding his sunglasses into his sweatshirt pocket, eyes blinking in the sudden, cinder-block gloom. Above the sinks, a fluorescent fixture crackled spastically. The dim room smelled of urinal cakes, tart and fruity. He scanned the floor
—
no feet in the stalls. That was good. He slipped into the nearest stall and closed the door behind him, shifting the latch shut. Facing the door, almost eye level to its hook, he took out his marker. As he pulled the cap free, it made a popping noise much louder than he had anticipated. He paused, listening. But other than the crackling light, there wasn't a sound
—
he was alone. He pressed the tip to the door, savoring the clean, wet strokes against the smooth, cooperative steel. In crisp block letters, his message seemed to write itself, the marker squeaking softly with each stroke, the red ink stinking of ammonia.
Don't fall,
he read, as if the words had always been there, as if he hadn't applied them himself, as if they had emerged here and everywhere else from a plain, irrepressible truth neither he nor anyone else could deny, cover, or bury. To admire the words from an even broader perspective, he stepped backward and banged his bare calves against the toilet, nearly falling over. He was glad no one was there to see that.

He tagged the two remaining stalls. Still, no one came in. When he finished, marker returned to pocket, he felt torn between the prudent need to get off the boardwalk, away from the scene of his crimes, and an urgent need to pee; he hadn't gone to the bathroom since he had begun his mission with a Mountain Dew two hours earlier. He picked the urinal at the far left of three and took aim at the cake.

Now that the mission was over, Ethan felt diminished, sad. The essence of his plan was secrecy, but the same secrecy denied him the satisfaction of telling his friends, of seeing the small awe in Mitchell's eyes, the envy Garrett would try to conceal by making his big talk even bigger. Ethan was thinking that the best, most exciting part of his summer would remain tragically unknown when the sharp squawk of a radio drew his attention to the restroom entrance. There, silhouetted by a rim of daylight, a broad-shouldered mass as ominous and indistinct as a shadow filled the doorway. Ethan squinted. Between himself and the only exit stood a police officer in a navy blue shirt packed with the paraphernalia of authority: badge, radio, pen, and pad. Had the officer followed him? Had someone tipped him off? Had Ethan done something to give himself away? In a flash, he envisioned his escape, a bold dash across the boardwalk, down the ramp, and into the back alleys, where he stood a good chance of losing anyone whose advantage in size would become a disadvantage in speed.

What would Jason do? He would say running was ridiculous, out of the question, even if Ethan somehow managed to get past an officer who was nearly as big around as a harbor buoy. And Jason would have been right. Once, two summers ago, as Ethan trailed his father around Happy World, his shoulder had been clipped from behind, nearly tumbling him across the Tea Cup railing. Turning, he came face-to-face with a teen in a ripped denim jacket, the boy's eyes wild with panic, his hands steadying Ethan apologetically by the shoulders. The boy opened his mouth as if to say something, but a burst of shouts sent him running recklessly, arms and legs flying out from him as he turned first one way, then another, until he cornered himself between the flume ride and a row of porta-johns. Within seconds, Happy World was swarming with cops; like iron filings to a magnet, they fell upon the boy, now the hidden center within a storm of arms, truncheons, and a flash of silver handcuffs. There were screams and shouts, but it was hard to tell which came from the desperate teen and the cops enclosing him, and which were the natural cries of a crowd having fun. Ethan watched, horrified and fascinated, until his father pulled him aside, out of the dark corner and into the brighter light, where park patrons had no idea of the beating being unleashed just a dozen yards away. Ethan feared he might get sick, and the feeling must have been visible on his face. “Don't worry,” his father had assured him. “He won't get away.”

Fortunately, this police officer hardly glanced at Ethan before choosing the urinal on his right, taking what seemed like forever to unzip his fly. With his free hand, he lowered the volume on his radio, braced in a pouch beside his service pistol.

All the adventure had evaporated. Instead, there was fear
—
and worse, an emptiness where anticipation had been. Jason wouldn't have been impressed by all this; he would've been disgusted. There was nothing clever about writing on a wall, and being caught doing it was even more stupid. Ethan just wanted to retreat home without incident; there, a bag of chips, the living room couch, and a cartoon program would settle him. He flushed the urinal and, with as much nonchalance as he could fake, washed his hands at the sink where no one could notice they were shaking. Somehow, the warm, soapy water was encouraging
—
he was coming clean. In a few moments, he would be in the clear. He dared lift his eyes to the mirror; with a shrug of his shoulders and a quick zip, the officer was finishing his business. Ethan dried his hands and started for the door, balling his used paper towel and tossing it casually into the trash can. He was just three steps from getting away.

“Hey, kid,” the officer said sharply.

Ethan stopped, turning around with his hands frozen in his sweatshirt pouch. His ears seemed to swell with heat.
Come on,
he thought.
What would Jason do?

“What's going on?” the officer asked, pointing to Ethan's sweatshirt. “You bleeding?”

Ethan looked down; there was a red stain about the size and shape of a bloodshot eye on the front of his sweatshirt. For a split second, he panicked
—
he had taken a hit! But by what, and how and when, he had no idea. Then he realized something worse: he had forgotten to replace the cap on his marker.

“No,” Ethan said. “Just tomato sauce, I guess. I just had a slice. Of pizza.”

The officer leaned in for a closer look. “There's nothing homemade about that sauce,” he said. “Is that Tommasi's? You'd think they'd know better, being Italian and all. But you don't go to the boardwalk for fine dining, do you?” He flicked the stain with his index finger and rose to his full height, meeting Ethan's eyes, inspecting, it seemed, every feature on his face. Ethan could smell an undercurrent of coffee on his breath and over that, the sharp scent of spearmint chewing gum. “Aren't you Chuck Waters's kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Thought I saw a resemblance,” the officer said brightly, congratulating himself on his powers of observation. But then his face fell, as if recalling something unpleasant.

Ethan checked the doorway. He had a shot, if he moved quickly. But what was the point? Where would he go that he wouldn't be found? He was spotted, he was known, he was trapped.

“I'm sorry,” the officer said, turning aside to wash at the sinks. “About your brother.”

“Me too,” Ethan said. He capped the marker within his pocket, waiting to hear anything else the officer might want to say. But there was nothing more. The radio barked back to life, the officer mumbled a few words to the handset clipped to his shoulder, and with a swiftness Ethan hadn't expected from a man of his size, he stepped through the doorway, turned to the right, and disappeared. Between the officer's stride from sink to sunlight, Ethan had been tempted to hold out his wrists.
Get out the cuffs
, he wanted to say.
Make me talk
. But the officer was gone, and Ethan stood alone by the sinks, pulling his hood up over his head.

No one had captured Ethan Waters.

 

 

May 24, 2013

My summer job search has come to its suckwad conclusion. I was hoping for the maintenance crew. I would've settled for ride operator. I got the Moon Walk Mini Golf. Mini golf.

What's the deal? I asked my dad. He pretended he didn't understand.

I told him what we both knew was the truth: I knew the rides better than half his engineers, maybe all of them. And what's my reward? The mini golf.

He looked up from his desk and said maybe I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Our eyes met. When I didn't look away, he said his maintenance guys had to be certified.

Please. I've been telling these guys what to do for years. Who found the axle fault on the Billy Goat? The water pump failure on the Log Hill Flume? The malfunctioning armature on the Twirl n' Spill? The certified guys? The guys with a piece of paper in their files and a few hours of classes to their credit? If a mechanical failure jumped up and bit them on the ass, hard, they might find one. But I wouldn't put money on it.

I brought up the Thruster. That was the big whoop-de-do this year, the exciting new ride that would pull in the crowds. For all the hype, the Thruster was basically a large letter “U” with a launcher at the base: riders rocketed up the track to the peak of one side as if being sent off the rail and into space. At the last few feet, just before the precipice and the prospect of sailing, carriage and all, into the sea, the carriage brakes to a lurching, head-snapping stop. Then it rolls backward, past the base and up the back half of the track, before it settles at the bottom again. All in all, no more than thirty seconds from launch to dismount. But we expect it to inspire long lines of customers—and it cost Stone a bundle.

My dad said the Thruster only made things worse. “Money's tight.”

But the mini golf? Couldn't he have pulled for me? Didn't he have influence? I asked. He's Stone's right-hand man after all. Shouldn't that count for something?

There was something rigid about my dad's face and hands, as if someone had just turned a ratchet in his back and drawn his skin together, that made me regret my words. Dad said he had a stack of applications two inches thick, and that I got more than most kids got. “You want the job or not?”

What could I say? I don't go to Carnegie Mellon for another three months, and I'm not going to hang around Ethan all summer.

“I'll take it,” I said. But I don't plan on being anything other than mini enthusiastic about it.

 

chapter three

plan rachel

Betty had once said about Rachel's father, “I have no idea where he is,” with a look on her face that meant,
And I could not care less.

Pressed, Betty had added, “He looked a lot like you,” which felt like a counterpunch to a jab Rachel had not even made.

Betty said there were no whys, there were just things that happened, like rain and stomachaches, and kids who were born with Down syndrome, and bad vibes on the beach. She insisted they should not feel sorry for themselves.