The Bear in a Muddy Tutu (28 page)

“C
omin’ along just fine.
”
T
he l
ead mechanic startled
Billy Wayne enough
that he sloshed
hot coffee on his wrist. Billy Wayne had learned the man’s name was Happy, or just Hap, because of his general good disposition. He’d learned it from a routine the two mechanics went through each time there was cause for an introduction. The other mechanic’s name was Dick and claimed to be named for his genitals, or just because he acted like one. Billy Wayne hadn’t really been able to follow
the joke
through to the punch line, but he now knew
that
one was Happy, the other
,
Dick.

“I
t’s going to be a fine building.
”
Billy Wayne didn’t bother
to mask his outright joy, despite the new burn on his wrist he was licking and blowing on. He wanted to use words like temple and cathedral to describe it but knew he shouldn’t get carried away. Each time he pictured the word “shrine
,
”
the corners of his pudgy mouth curled up, and his eyes drifted far away. He’d also had the words
“
pantheon
”
and
“
tabernacle
”
reach the tip of his tongue, but he wasn’t certain what exactly they were
,
just that they also sounded formidable, worthy of this project. They were words his Pollack minister had used in his preaching.

“I never seen these boys work so hard,
”
Happy said, as the current crew was joined by those
from
the second breakfast shift. There were now more than two dozen pairs of hands setting huge pieces of wood on the pilings,
which one of the mechanics decided had set enough,
using those things with bubbles in them to make
sure everything was level
. “Especially not this early in the mornin’.
”

“I imagine it’s the sense of community
that
has them so moti
vated.
Like an Amish barn raising, you know?
”

“Yeah, could be the Irish, or maybe just most of them boys really lookin’ forward to usin’ a
n indoor shitter
.
”
Happy
took a long pull off a can of
Old Milwaukee
. Billy Wayne noticed he also had a can in each front pocket of his jeans. “Them
port-o-potties
get mighty hot, and
we ran outta chemicals
years back. They didn’t used to smell so bad.
”

The two men stood in the shade of one of the main tents, Hap with one foot up on a stake, while Billy Wayne leaned one arm against the angled rope it was anchoring. Billy Wayne turned back toward the New Jersey mainland
.
S
quinting into the morning mist, he could make out one of the pickup trucks with the Pisani Brothers Circus name painted on the driver side door. It was coming fast and hard toward the Fish Head bridge
. S
everal men st
ood
in the truck bed, whooping and laughing, holding on with one hand, beer cans in the other.

“Look
s like them boys found a goodie
.
”
Happy
followed
Billy Wayne’s gaze as the truck went up and over the bridge too fast, nearly launching the men and whatever cargo
was
in back. “I heard they got twenty bucks riding on the first ones to come up with a hot water tank. That’s a case of beer and change back.
”

The truck threw up a rooster tail of dust as it barreled down the gravel road, the driver eventually jamming his brakes and sliding sideways in the wetter muck near the construction site. The commotion had even interrupted Gracie’s morning frolic through the marshes, as the old bear lumbered home to investigate what had
gotten
the humans all excited.
The bear shuffled up to where Hap and Billy Wayne stood staring, leaned back on her haunches and shook mightily. Neither seemed to care about the flecks of muck they
now wore
.

Billy Wayne held his ground alongside the mechanic, as they watched the figures dismount and begin to taunt the men who’d returned earlier with what were apparently lesser finds. Those men now peered over the sides of the pickup, shaking their heads in what might have been jealousy or respect, as the tailgate was dropped and a large object wrapped in heavy plastic was carefully slid out.

“What in the hell
can
that be?
”
Happy wondered aloud
.

But once the object was set in the mud correctly, a rush of adrenalin
e
coursed through Billy Wayne’s body like the night he’d first watched
Amira
Anne’s heated undulations in blue spandex. Billy Wayne licked his lips, his heart
beginning
to race
, as he watched the men cut and then slowly unwrap the heavy plastic, exposing the first signs of beautiful, deep wood grain.

The shape was unmistakable. There was no doubt
what this precious object was.

Billy Wayne was unashamed of the tear
that
rolled down his pink, freshly shaven cheek. Didn’t care who saw his shaking hands
,
which were barely able to hold his now lukewarm cup of coffee. With each twist of the plastic, more of the object was unveiled. Billy Wayne felt the power of this Holy Grail delivered by such humble and ignorant people. They might as well be unwrapping the helm from Noah’s ark, or an especially beloved Moai Head direct from Easter Island.

With the last bit of plastic tossed aside, Billy Wayne could read the words on the beautiful lectern, recently unscrewed from its pulpit and absconded away to its new home on Fish Head Island: “Welcome to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
.
”

Bless the sinners, Billy Wayne thought. Bless each and every one of these magnificent, whore-mongering sinners.

The c
louds slowly tumbling across the dreary sky were as dark as ever.
It seemed like
a
mistake that the rain had stopped.
S
omething
was
wrong,
as though
a steady drumbeat lasting for days
had
quit for no reason, or a car on a highway
had
stall
ed
with a half tank of gas left. Perhaps if the sun had broken through to return some of the color to the world, the circus folks would have been quicker to venture out from their damp, hollow spaces. Even a traveling circus growing roots
was
vulnerable to wretched weather.

Two bad fights had broken out during the rainy spell. A combined twenty-six stitches were knitted into the faces of four men and two women. Three teeth could not be salvaged. All would make up once the weather turned nice and the money started flowing again. It had happened before and would happen again.

Billy Wayne’s nervous energy matched the swirling skies above. He paced back and forth in the muck, rubber boots stamping their imprint in the mud. The footprints lasted for a few seconds, then water seeped from below
to
flood the impression.

“I just can’t believe it.
”
Billy Wayne paused
directly in front of the finished building. Hap stood cowering in what would be his shadow, if the sun were out.

“I know what you mean,
boss
,
”
he said, mostly under his breath
.

“They really did it.
”
Billy Wayne stood staring, eyes wide as they could be
.

“Well, ya ever see postcard pictures of that building in Europe? Whatcha call that place?
”
Happy scrunched his face to search his memory, great lines erupting across his eyes and forehead. “Mother of Christ if I can’t see it clear as day.
”

“Va
tican City?
”
Billy Wayne tried
, as the pair stood side by side facing the first building ever
constructed
on the marshy shores of Fish Head Island.

“Nah, it’s close to Italy,
or maybe inside Italy.
”
Happy tilted
his head to get a proper perspective on the canted structure. “But it’s got something to do with pizza.
”

Billy Wayne realized what was on the tip of Happy’s tongue. The mechanic was trying to come up with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but Billy Wayne didn’t care to give him the satisfaction. The tilt
of his marvelous new cathedral
was a technicality. Would you turn your back on the love of your life over a third nipple? Or a couple of webbed toes
?

Billy Wayne saw perfection
. He
half expect
ed
the clouds to part at any moment. A marvelous ray of light would stream down to highlight this creation, just like in the pictures
in
the Pollack minister’s
Bible
. How could anyone not see it?

T
he tilt was merely an act of God, Billy Wayne knew.

Globally speaking,
that August
was one of the hottest months in recorded history, and there was no exception on Fish Head Island. But sandwiched in between strings of ninety-plus degree days
was a week of torrential rains over
the course of
which more than five inches fell.

The nearly intolerable heat had sent the roustabouts into a case of the doldrums,
while
Billy Wayne
mostly
la
y
in his muggy tent dreaming about
air
-
conditioning, counting the painfully slow pounding of shingle nails. What had previously sounded lik
e the rapid fire of a Tommy Gun
had fallen off to uneven and intermittent sniper fire. When the rains came, the exterior work was dec
lared complete and
the
install
ation of
the two
likely
-
stolen toilets and all the pilfered kitchen appliances
began
.

Billy Wayne preferred not to know how
seemingly
brand new items kept showing up on the island, yellow energy saver tags still attached, instruction booklets tucked away someplace inside. But the afternoon hit-and-miss thunderstorms and seasonable heat of July had given way to one intolerable weather pattern after the next, and the cash flow had dried up as fast as the rain fell. The pile of surplus cash had taken a hit, as there really was no good way around feeding man and beast. Sure, the rice, beans, and bulk hot dogs could be supplemented with the big bags of chicken necks sold as crab bait, but the soup it made tended to taste like crab bait.

The scav
enger hunt was secretly
welcome
d
. Billy Wayne considered his quiet consent the equivalent to turning the other cheek.

“Swear to God, somebody just left i
t right on the curb. Just i
magine how rich you gotta be to throw away a perfectly good refrigerator like that? Be a crime to let it just be hauled to the dump.
”

The pilings on one side of the building had sunk another six inches, but it surely couldn’t rain forever. Maybe the weight would eventually level them off? Three of the eight windows had been hung upside down, and there had been quite a bit of creative carpentry
involved
after
they had discovered
the walls ranged from eight to nine feet
high
at various spots around the six-
hundred
-
square
-
foot kitchen, toilet, and temple. But with a coat of white paint, the one-story building was to be a fine foundation for Billy Wayne and his people. So what if the peas were going to roll to one si
de of the plate? And a slight
uphill walk to the toilet never killed anyone.

“Appears some of them windows
are hung
upside down
.
”
Happy
’s voice was filled with
sympathy. “Could very well pinch off your fingers trying to get some air.
”

The low spots on the road to Fish Head Island were covered in water, especially at high tide, and the big circus trucks themselves had turned into islands. The circus spent the long days in a kind of lockdown, with no customers and no performances. The only occasional flourish of activity
took place
when an especially heavy gust of wind pulled up a stake and put one of the smaller tents in peril of being lost at sea.

There was a lot of drinking, but not much more than during the average week.
When the rains finally let up, Happy had fetched Billy Wayne to come have a
look.

“They shoulda knowed to dig deeper to get do
wn to bedrock with them pilings,
”
Happy said, as the two stood with their backs to the mainland, the cockeyed building between them and the inlet. Some of the braver seagulls had come out from where they’d huddled in crevasses, battling the swirling wind to search for bits of food.

“My momma had
a book with pictures like this.
”
Billy Wayne gestured
to his new cathedral with both hands.

“A lopsided house book?
”

“What? No,
”
Billy Wayne said. “There was a famous painter who had gone to school to be a draftsman, some sort of architect, you know? His name was Salvador Dali, and he liked to paint these really crazy things.
”

“I heard of him. T
he guy from India that got killed for having a hunger strike.
Terrible
way to go.
”

“Dali painted
wonderful images
, like pictures of melting clocks, and there was one where a fish is trying
to
swallow up a big tiger, while another tiger is about to pounce on a naked woman.
”

“He paint her bush?
”
Happy
jabbed
a pointy elbow into Billy Wayne’s soft side.

“I don’t remember. But I’m saying that for all its flaws, it’s still a piece
of art.
”
Billy Wayne stood
admiring his crooked temple, hoping air conditioners could still be installed in the screwed up windows.

“Long as it don’t sink down all the way and fall over in the mud.
”

“Sometimes, you just need faith,
”
Billy Wayne said.

“Or maybe two-by-fours
to prop it up with
.
”