Eating Memories (10 page)

Then he turns and makes his way back into the carrier. He’s not moving very well. I cross the stream and hide in some bushes. In a few minutes he lowers the back of the carrier and rides out on a digger.

He has to stop every few minutes because he can’t plough a straight line. Finally he manages to dig a hole. He makes it deep. When he’s finished, he comes back and picks up the boulder. It is a big boulder, and must be very heavy, but he carries it gently. He lays it in the hole and stands over the hole for a long time.

He’s started to shake again. I want to go over and say something to him, but I’m afraid. In a little while he fills in the dirt, gets back in the carrier and lifts off. I think I won’t ever see him again.

The next morning the carrier wakes me up. Mike lands and leads out the kids. They pile out of the ship and stand around him. Mike is walking a lot better now, and the kids are doing kid-things.

I’m hungry. Towards noon I can’t stand it any more, and I stand up in the bushes where I’m hiding. Some of the kids look over, but Mike doesn’t notice.

“Hi, Mike,” I say, wondering if he’ll shoot me. He still has the pulse pistol in his belt.

Mike is solid; the only solid thing here. He’s so real that it makes my chest hurt. If he’d look around at me I’d touch him. Maybe I’d cry. “Mike?” I call. He is fiddling with the aircrate machine, and even though it’s making noise, he should have heard me. He doesn’t turn around.

I walk up the ramp and go into the kitchen.

“Who are you, mister?” a little girl asks me. She comes up to about my waist.

I’m stuffing food in my mouth and putting freeze-dry envelopes in my pockets. I look down at her. She’s blond and small like some white kind of spider.

“Who are you?” she asks again, but I don’t answer. She is too pale to be real.

I walk out of the ship and back to my hiding place. Mike doesn’t turn to see me go.

Mike does real good with the kids. In the afternoon he makes them nap. When evening falls he builds a fire. He tells them stories about Cinderella and the tortoise and the hare. Then he tells the kids how their parents, who wouldn’t have survived freezing, loved them so much they sent them away.

And when the kids at the edge of the circle are falling asleep, he explains how he was put in charge. He tells them how much he loves them.

When they’re all asleep, he goes around, picks them up, and carries them into the cabins he’s made. Then he goes outside and stands guard for a little while. When everything is quiet, he walks over to where he buried the rock. He sits there for a long while. He sits there so long that I get tired of watching and go back to my hiding place. I sleep for a few hours.

The next day I go to the ship for more food.

“Who is that man?” one of the kids asks Mike.

“What man?” Mike asks. His gaze slides past me.

The kid, a dark one, doesn’t ask again.

Hiding is lonely, so I sort of hang around with the kids. They tried to talk to me yesterday, but I didn’t talk back. Today they don’t look at me much.

Mike’s finished with the cabins and he’s putting in the gardens. He plants peas and beans and squash and hangs the empty little packets of vegetables on tiny crosses at the end of the rows, like something he loved was buried there.

When he is finished planting, he straightens. I am standing down at the end of the rows.

“Hi, Mike,” I say.

He looks down and dusts his hands.

“Thank you for not killing me. I know you were supposed to.”

He pretends like he doesn’t hear. After a moment he picks his way through the rows to the ship. He makes a big white cross out of two sticks and pounds it into the dirt where he buried the rock. He stands over the cross for a while. When two of the kids get into a fight, he goes to them.

Mike gently pulls the two kids apart. He kisses the one kid who’s crying and hugs the other who’s not. Then he gives every one of the kids candy and tells them to take their naps. I guess being a babysitter is what his program is all about.

That night, around the campfire, he tells them the story of Beauty and the Beast. Mike tells
a story good. His voice is all hushed and tense at the exciting part; his tone loud and happy for the ending.

When the story is over there are a few minutes of quiet. I’m not sure if the kids are just tired or if the story got to them. Then one of them turns around towards me and points at my chest the way Mike had pointed the pulse pistol. “Who is that ghost?” he asks.

The kid must have asked the right question, because Mike stiffens. He finally looks around the flames, sees me in the orange shadows and closes his eyes. His face looks like they had programmed him to understand pain.

“That used to be Danny,” he says. He sounds like he wants to cry.

Author’s Note:
This story has a supernatural base, but it springs from the same horror-of-aloneness that is found in “Guardian of Fireflies.” And to think that this comes from a person who was an only child, who is happiest when not married, and who has no problem whatsoever spending time by herself. It’s just that every once in a while you want to get on the phone, call a friend, go to the supermarket, that sort of thing. It proves that you never can tell what fear lies around the next corner in your mind.

The Yankee was standing by the rail in his white pants and sweater. Looking at him nearly made me laugh. The sweater had that tiny yellow piping around the bottom that expensive sweaters have. I wondered if he thought we’d get busted, and he wanted to impress the Coast Guard.

He was looking into the water, and just seeing him standing there, the yacht going up and down, made me feel funny,

The deck was slick, so I slid more than I walked over to where Dale was. Being on the bridge wasn’t good, but it was better. We were traveling into the wind, and when the prow sliced the swells, a fine spray washed over the rails.

“He carrying?” Dale asked; His hands were sure and steady on the wheel. Looking at his hands made me feel safe.

“No.”

“Stupid of him. Trusting of him. Ease on down, son.” Dale chortled. “Easing on down.”

I bent out of the Yankee’s sight and pulled the Browning 9mm out of a cabinet. When Dale cut the engines, the wash nearly threw me off my feet.

“Watch it,” I snapped, grabbing Dale’s seat to keep myself from falling.

“Gotta get your sea legs, boy.”

“Do it to him quick, Dale. I just want off this fucking boat.”

Dale didn’t pay any attention. He was used to my grousing. “Amateur Yankee’s gonna get his sea legs,” he laughed. “Deep down, twenty-foot sea legs. Leaning to his side, he picked up the Uzi that had been resting under a sky-blue cushion.

We were counting down to zero minutes. I was standing half in and half out of the shadow of the bridge, and the Texas sun burned where it hit. In the shade my right arm was cold. The patterned gun grip felt clammy.

“Mr. Morrison?” Dale called.

The Yankee started walking up the deck to where we stood.” I glanced around Padre Island was a blue haze to my right. To my left was the exposed hump of an oyster reef dotted with neat gray-and-white gulls that looked like they’d cleaned up for the party.

“Yes, Dale? Anything wrong?”

“I don’t know. Come see.”

Stupidly, the Yankee came on, no fear at all in his face.

“You did put diesel in this thing, right, Dale? Port Aransas’s still a good fifty miles away.”

I was watching for the Yankee’s expression when Dale pulled the Uzi.

It was a good one.

“What . . .”
was all he said.

“Thought we might do some fishing,” Dale told him with a smile.

“Thought we might get us some bait and fish Troll a bit. Don’t you think that’d be fun, Billy?” he asked me. I was laughing too hard to answer. A little trolling might be in order.”

“Trolling,” I said, and bent over to laugh again. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t hold the gun straight. It didn’t matter. Dale had the Uzi.

“You don’t want to do this,” the Yankee said, sounding a lot calmer than he should have.

“I don’t know, Mr. Morrison. Ain’t the stars propitious?”

Being with Dale always made me feel good. A few minutes ago, knowing we were counting down to zero, my chest had felt so tight it had been hard to breathe. Now that Dale had taken over, my chest had unkinked.

The Yankee backed up a step, but there wasn’t anyplace for him to go.

Dale’s smile sort of shut down, the way it did when he started getting serious. “We got the names of your contacts in Cabo Bueno. We got $3 million of coke in the hold. It’s my boat. As I see it, I got salvage.”

The Yankee was quiet for a minute. He had a funny little smile on his face like he was hoping this was all a joke. “But you were recommended to me by a client of mine, you understand? A powerful client, remember? He wouldn’t be happy to know you backed out on the deal.”

“You won’t be around to complain, will you, Mr. Morrison?”

“O.K. All right.” The Yankee backed away, hit his hip against the railing, and stopped. “We’ll work this out.”

“I think it’s already worked. And I think we’re going fishing.”

Dale held the Uzi on him while I tied the Yankee’s hands. Up close I could tell the Yankee was scared. He stank of sweat. There were beads of it on his upper lip. His hands weren’t steady, not like Dale’s which were always steady.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said again. This time it sounded more like he was pleading.

Dale told me to tie some rope around the Yankee’s chest, up under his arms where it couldn’t come off. Then he had me tie the other end of the rope to the boat.

“Jump in the water,” Dale told him.

I stood out of range of the Uzi.

The Yankee stayed where he was, sort of shaking. “What do you think I do for a living, Dale?”

“You’re some big-deal psychic. Old ladies come to you to find their lost poodles. I guess with the money you make, you bang ’em a little, too. Like when Aquarius is in the seventh house or something.”

“Venus,” the Yankee said, sounding more like his old self. “It would be Venus in Scorpio. I’m warning you.”

I laughed so hard I had to sit down. Dale cocked his head as if he were really interested. “You’re warning me?”

“I’m a demonologist, Mr. Griffin. -Not an astrologer. Not just a psychic. A demonologist. Do you know what a demonologist is?”

Dale’s smile had sort of faded down into a washout of a grin. It was the sort of expression he got when he was tired of the game. “I know what it means, Mr. Morrison. But I don’t believe in demons. Please get into the water.”

“Nobody screws around with a demonologist, Mr. Griffin.” The Yankee sounded perplexed. “Nobody’s that stupid.”

The Uzi ripped a few bursts past the Yankee’s head, making a sound like the end of the world. The Yankee toppled over the railing and hit the water with a splash.

I jumped up, ran over, and saw that he was treading the green-gray water. He couldn’t tread with his arms, of course, but his legs must have been going great guns.

He looked up. His fifty-dollar haircut was plastered down over his face. He was whispering something that didn’t sound like English.

Dale cranked the engines and raced off so fast that the bow jerked up and knocked me to my knees. Behind the boat the Yankee made a frothing wake of white.

In a little while, Dale cut the engines back to idle and told me to go see if the Yankee was dead.

He wasn’t. He was huffing, and looked tired. His legs weren’t keeping him afloat very well anymore, but his head was more or less out of the water.

“I’m warning you,” he said. I could hardly hear him over the growling of the engines.

I couldn’t think of funny things as quick as Dale could, so l just leaned my arms on the brass rail and watched him.

He spat some water out of his mouth. “You’re afraid of the ocean, aren’t you?”

Dale came out from the bridge to look.

“I’ve watched you two. I’ve watched you a lot. Dependent on each other, aren’t you? Billy more than you, Dale.” At that moment a wave caught him, banged him pretty good against the side of the yacht, and slapped water over his face.

When he came up, he was spitting. It was awhile before he could speak. “Get me out now before it’s too late. Dying is bad, but other things are worse.”

I leaned most of my weight on my arms and watched him. The movement of the boat bothered me; but not so much that I would miss the show. “You think you know so much, but you don’t know shit. There ain’t nothing worse than the way Dale kills people.” I turned to Dale, expecting to see him grinning but he wasn’t. He was looking real serious, and he wasn’t looking at me.

“You think your demons are gonna save you?” Dale asked.

The Yankee laughed tiredly. “No. They won’t save me. They love fear and death, even the deaths of the ones who serve.” For a moment he looked resentful, then the frown was gone. “Everyone has a special demon, Billy. Did you know that?”

His dark eyes gave me the shivers. I wished that Dale would shoot him or start the boat again.

“Their own special demon. I have the name of yours, Billy. All I have to do is call his name, and he’ll come. Get me out of the water.”

Dale asked for the Browning and I gave it to him. He raised the automatic and took careful aim. I saw the Yankee’s eyes grow wide. His lips moved a mile a minute, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. At this point most people prayed, but I wasn’t sure what a psychic would do.

The clap of the shot was so loud that I shut my eyes and went deaf for a moment. When I opened my eyes back up, I saw that Dale had wounded the Yankee in the shoulder. Blood streamed, making rusty red patterns in the water.

The Yankee was gasping.

“I got my own demons,” Dale said. “And in a little bit they’ll be coming your way.”

He walked up to the bridge, put some gas to the engines, and dragged the Yankee a few yards. When he stopped, the Yankee was still treading water. Dale cut the engines and came back.

“The name of my demon is ‘shark.’”

The Yankee was beginning to tire. His head didn’t stay above water as much anymore. He went under, not over, the small waves.

“What’s the name of your demon, Mr. Morrison?” Dale asked him.

The Yankee looked as if he was too tired to answer. A few yards away, I saw the first of the dorsal fins. The Yankee turned his head and saw it, too.

Dale was enjoying himself at last. There was a big smile plastered across his face. I tried to enjoy it, but instead of thinking of how the Yankee was about to die, l was thinking of buying myself a big-busted, dark-headed whore, taking her to an air-conditioned motel back in Corpus, banging her, and watching some TV. Then I’d go out to dinner with Dale. We’d drink a lot and laugh. Dale liked the zero hours, but I liked the partying afterward.

“What’s the name of the demon, Mr. Morrison?” Dale asked. He looked like he was having fun, and that made me feel good. I liked it when Dale was happy.

The Yankee was holding up better than what I’d thought he would. He didn’t scream. He didn’t beg. All of us, especially the Yankee, watched the fin slice silent and easy through the small waves.

Then the fin disappeared, just like that. One minute it was plowing water, and the next minute it was gone. A second or so later, the Yankee was jerked down, just like a cork when a bass strikes bait.

He surfaced the same time all the blood did. The water erupted bright red. There was enough blood for me to think that the shark had cut him in half. Only, if the shark had cut him in two, he wouldn’t be treading water anymore.

It was almost over now. I could taste the beer in my mouth. I could almost hear the noise of the bar. I could picture the way the whore would rub up against me. I could imagine how Dale would kid me the way he liked to do when zero hour was over and the fun started.

Now there were more fins in the water; at least ten or so. Some were big and nasty; some were small and mean.

The Yankee either didn’t have enough left in him to cry, or he’d decided to go out brave. The Yankee turned his face up to us. His eyes were wide open, so round it looked like it must have hurt to hold them that way. It was the way I’d seen eyes before when zero hour came around—like people, when they’re about to die, want to see everything one last time.

His body splashed around a lot, so I knew his legs were still connected, but he was tired, and they didn’t move smooth the way they should have. They didn’t keep him much above water, either. A dorsal fin swept by his right side and bumped him. I wondered if the shark had taken a chunk.

The Yankee didn’t pay any attention to the shark. His dark gaze settled on mine. All of a sudden his eyes relaxed, and there was a strange stillness in them. His mouth sort of turned upward a moment, and I wondered if he was trying to smile. “Alone,” he whispered the minute before he was dragged under.

There was sun in my eyes.

I winced and put my hand up quick. Then I wiped the tears away. I hated that. Dale would think I was crying.

Blinking and squinting, I looked down to see that the Yankee was gone. There weren’t any sharks, and there wasn’t any blood. l guessed the sharks had eaten the blood, and I thought that was neat, so I turned to tell Dale.

He wasn’t there.

“Dale?” I said.

I went to the bridge, but the bridge was empty. The boat was moving hack and forth under my feet like it was alive.

“Dale?” I clambered down into the cabin. The beds were made. The john was empty, the door ajar. I walked into the tiny kitchen and stared at the bags of coke on the counter. The sun flooded in the round window, turning the cocaine blinding white.

“Dale?” My voice seemed to go out of my mouth a ways and disappear, like the silence had swallowed it up.

Stumbling back up the narrow stairs, I bruised myself pretty good. “’Dale!”

I checked the bridge again. He wasn’t there. The engines were off, and the air was heavy and quiet except for the soft slap, slap of the waves against the hull. To the side where the oyster island should have been was nothing but open water. I glanced around and couldn’t see Padre Island anymore.