Full Measure: A Novel (20 page)

When the boat had settled enough, Ted stood up and leaned into the railing, slipped, and fell overboard. Patrick heard his quick yelp and the snap of his rod against the boat and the splash of him hitting the ocean. Ted reached his free hand over the gunwale but the next swell pried him loose and carried him toward the rocks. Patrick pushed his rod into the holder and got the gaff and scrambled fore. Ted was side-stroking toward
Fatta the Lan’
with the broken rod and reel still in one hand but the swells pushing against him. He was already half sunk in his heavy clothes and coat. Patrick leaned far out with the handle end but Ted was out of reach.
“It’s cold in here, Pat!”

Patrick stashed the gaff and got the rope from the bow compartment and hurled it to his brother. It slapped over him and the next swell lifted, then dropped the boat into a watery bowl. The same swell lifted Ted and carried him fast toward the rocks. He was riding lower in the water now and breathing fast. He found the rope with his free hand and tried to haul himself forward but the rope was long.
“Drop the rod, Ted! Drop it and use both hands!”

But Ted held fast to the rod, grabbing short lengths of rope with his left hand while the surge moved him faster out. Patrick swayed greatly on the casting deck, stripping rope with both hands. A swell dropped him so steeply that his feet left the deck and for a moment he was midair, then the deck jumped up under him and he crashed to his knees, jaw crunching, but still hauling. When the rope was tight he stood again and put his back into the tug-of-war. The swells pushed Ted toward the rocks, then Patrick pulled him closer. Ted still held the rod butt and reel. After a long minute Patrick had him halfway back. Then the fly line flew off the stump of the broken rod and the reel screamed.
“I’m hooked up, Pat! I’m hooked up!”

“Hang on! I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

Patrick felt the swells lose some of their power as he pulled Ted into deeper water. Then Ted dropped the rope and tightened up the drag on the reel to better fight the fish. Patrick yelled to pick up the damn rope. Ted began to sink and a strong swell dragged him back toward the rocks until he took up the rope again. He was gasping deep and fast while Patrick pulled. A long minute later Ted was close to
Fatta the Lan’,
holding out the rod to his brother. Patrick took it and felt the heavy pull of the faraway fish. “Jeez, Ted, nice fish.”

“I told you. I’m thinking snapper. Rocks. Deep.”

“Me, too. Can you hold on? I’m going to back us out of here so we can get you aboard without the surge.”

“Amen, Pat!”

“Feels like ten pounds of fish down there.”

“Oh, at least.”

“Hang on, I’m going to weigh anchor and get us out of here.”

“I hope it’s a snapper! Mom’s favorite.”

“Just hold on, Ted.”

“Dad shouldn’t of yelled at me for taking the bark off the trees. That was a mistake anybody could make.”

“It’s over.”

“It’s never over! I scared a woman out by the stables a couple a nights ago. Dora. I like her a lot. I feel everything she feels, like a connection. I didn’t mean to scare her.”

Patrick reversed them further offshore, steering with his hips, one hand on the rope and the other on the rod. The fish had taken half of the backing but it was losing strength. When he felt less turbulence he put the motor in neutral. He drew Ted close and cut the engine and pulled his brother around to the stern where the gunwales were lowest. Ted was able to get both hands up onto the boat railings but he was too tired and too heavy to hoist himself up and over.

Patrick let go the rope and pulled on Ted’s jacket and felt his brother’s legs pumping and his feet flailing against the hull. Ted panted with this exertion and Patrick put his shoulder down and latched his free arm around Ted’s big neck and pulled. He felt Ted’s heavy exhales on his skin and he crouched for lifting power. There was a moment he thought he might go over, rather than Ted come in, but then Patrick felt his brother’s legs stop moving and a sudden lightness to him. Patrick pulled with all his strength and Ted came up. Patrick slipped and hit his butt hard as Ted surged in and flattened him. They screamed and cursed, fighting for breath, Patrick with the broken butt of the rod still up and the line tight to the fish, Ted crushing the breath out of him. Patrick was weak with suffocation and laughter by the time they got unraveled.

It took Ted another twenty minutes to get the fish in, a bruising red snapper from the rocky depths, twelve and a half pounds according to the Boga Grip that Patrick deployed from his tackle box. Patrick took a dozen pictures of Ted and the fish. Both men were still breathing hard when Patrick pushed the camera back into his shirt pocket and buttoned it.

“We gotta take this home for dinner,” said Ted.

“I’d say so.”

“You’ll make a good guide, Pat. Maybe I could be your first mate.”

Patrick muscled the spent fish into the cooler in the hold and closed the lid. He had put in a block of ice just in case. Patrick loved being prepared for things, as he was in Sangin, twenty-four hours a day, even on the burn shitter, even in his sleep. “I’d like that.”

“You don’t need a mate on this little boat, though.”

“I’ll have bigger ones someday.”

“I’d probably screw up.”

“No, you wouldn’t, brother. Look at that fish.”

“Okay, Pat—you and me on a boat, fishing and making money and having fun. Now I got something to look forward to. I’m cold.”

“Get that jacket and shirt off.”

Patrick worked off his jacket and handed it to Ted then started up the Mercury. “Hold on, big brother.”

The sun hung orange in the west as they rode back to the ramp. Ted sat on the aft bench and every time Patrick looked back he was shivering in the too small jacket but still chattering away. Patrick was used to him not speaking for days or weeks, then unleashing a river of words, and now the river came.

“But you know, Pat, there’s this other woman who’s a mystery and I really like her, too. Lucinda. She called Friendly Village Taxi like over two weeks ago and I got her. And she’s called other times—either Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ve gone to the market, the pharmacy, the dry cleaner, Joe’s Hardware, and either Las Brisas or Rosa’s for takeout. She doesn’t hardly talk. Doesn’t take her sunglasses off, so maybe she’s hiding something. I think she’s troubled. I feel it but I’m not sure what it is. She lives in a condo with flowers on the balcony. She’s very pretty and healthy-looking but really unhappy. She has great sadness. I’m driving tomorrow just in case she calls. I can’t take much more of Dad. And I know he can’t take much more of me. I wonder if Mom will do that snapper Veracruz style.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Under a gray-bellied sky Evelyn Anders began her walk from the post office on Mission Road toward the largest shopping center in Fallbrook. She took long strides and counted each one. It was six on a Tuesday evening and the traffic was steady and swift. She paused to look at the burn marks left by the flares that had marked the place where George Hernandez was killed three weeks ago—right there in the first southbound lane—carbon-gray flowers scorched into the asphalt. She thought she saw a bloodstain, too. Was that even possible? Oil, she thought, surely. Or transmission fluid.

It was downhill in this direction and ahead she saw the proud retailers of the republic: the KFC bucket in the sky, Albertson’s and Blockbuster and Baskin-Robbins, Verizon and AT&T, Taco Bell and Carl’s Jr. and Payless Shoes. And so on. She was long resigned to franchise America here in Fallbrook, and often patronized some of these places just like everyone else. But her heart stayed in the older part of town, back on Main with history and art galleries and public sculpture and most things mom-and-pop, such as Anders Wealth Management. And I’m the mom, she thought, class of ’85 to Mom in the blink of an eye.

After step one hundred and fifty-five she stopped and looked back. She was about halfway to the shopping center, and sure enough, not twenty feet from where George had been killed, a young woman with a stroller and two very young children waited, ready to cross. Another mom, thought Evelyn. The woman was already off the curb and onto the asphalt of Mission Road, waiting to run for the relative safety of the median strip. Her hair lifted each time a car sped by.

Evelyn watched her take two little hands in one of her own, grab the stroller handle midway, and push off. The hole in the northbound traffic looked good. The woman locked her stroller arm and bent her back and dug in with her legs. The children hustled along tethered and unafraid. The woman’s face was steadfast at the approaching cars and her hair stood out behind her. The stroller bounced along and Evelyn pictured a tire coming off but before it could happen the woman was standing in the safe zone, cars roaring by on either side. The problem with this median Evelyn knew, was that it was also a turn lane, so you never knew when a harried driver might swing in. Rushed drivers were looking for cars in front of them, not people. Evelyn saw that a lighted crosswalk right
there,
activated only when someone needed to use it, could save a life.

She continued her way downhill to the next safe place to cross, which was the traffic signal way down at Ammunition. She had had no idea how far it was between crosswalks until walking the distance herself. Looking back toward the post office where she’d started—what?—a half a mile?

She waited out the light then crossed. She dashed across the wide entrance-exit of the Happy Jug Liquor store—
WE SELL LIVE BAIT!
—then started up the sidewalk for the climb back up Mission. All of this to get to the trailer park where George had lived, and to where he was returning, in the dark, on the night he died.

Evelyn waved to Iris Cash, waiting at the entrance to the Meadowlark trailer park as planned. With her were George Hernandez’s two young friends, McKenzie and Dulce, who had contacted Cruzela Storm about the show to benefit the crosswalks. Evelyn shook their small hands, then Iris introduced her to photographer Natalie Llanes, who had a nice Canon DSLR slung around her neck. Iris and Natalie positioned the girls for a photograph with the battered Meadowlark sign in the background. Evelyn stood back and watched the two girls smile momentarily, then catch themselves.

Looking past them Evelyn realized she’d never set foot in Meadowlark, though she’d driven by it thousands of times, as had anybody who lived in Fallbrook for long. It was right in the center of town but because it sat in the low creek bed, Meadowlark was easy to miss if you were in a car. She looked at the closely spaced trailers, many colorfully painted, some stout and some slouching. Eucalyptus and palms grew high amid them, and the trailer awnings hung heavy with mandevilla and nightshade and jasmine. Satellite dishes stood on nearly every roof, sometimes two or three of them, old models as big as flying saucers and newer ones small and sleek.

Iris waved Evelyn over to pose with McKenzie and Dulce under the Meadowlark sign. Natalie wanted the pretty evening sky as a backdrop. The girls had obviously dressed for this and Evelyn sensed their nervousness. McKenzie wore a dress and Dulce a hint of rouge. Their black hair shone even on the gray day. They were twelve. Natalie, the photographer, chattered away with them in Spanish.

Evelyn brushed a fallen flower petal from the hair on McKenzie’s shoulder. “I spent some extra time on myself too, girls. A good
Village View
photo one week from the election can’t hurt.”

“You’ll win,” said McKenzie.

“Absolutely,” said Dulce.

Evelyn wondered about that, given the wildfire that had occurred on her watch, the arsonist lurking unchecked, her defeat on the crosswalk issue, and the rife public anger at government incumbents in general. Next week’s Cruzela Storm fund-raiser could be a factor with the undecided. She wondered if she needed to nail up another fifty
THIS TOWN IS YOUR TOWN—RE-ELECT EVELYN ANDERS FOR MAYOR
signs before election day. Her opponent, Walt Rood, with his pleasant face and
SMALL GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS
posters, seemed to be watching her from everywhere she looked. Natalie fired away.

“Can we shoot a few in front of one of your houses?” asked Iris.

Evelyn saw the girls glance at each other but neither spoke for a moment. Dulce looked down at the patch of brown grass under the Meadowlark sign and McKenzie looked back at the trailers as if she’d heard someone call to her. “They’re trailers,” she said.

“Trailers are homes, too,” said Iris.

The girls looked at each other again and Dulce shrugged. “Okay.”

Evelyn followed them in. The road had been paved years back but had crumbled away to half-paved. She wondered why the city hadn’t maintained it—privately owned, probably. The creek ran through in a trough of cattails and she noted the dank wet smell of it. She heard Mexican music and television voices and smelled food cooking. A boy sped by on a bike and rattled off something in Spanish to the girls. Evelyn was surprised how subterranean and out of sight she felt down here. Just a few yards away, but high above, SUVs and luxury sedans and snappy hybrids sped up and down Mission, the drivers—if they were anything like her—largely unaware of the hidden world below.

“It’s called the cans,” said McKenzie. “Because of all the metal and aluminum.
Las latas.
As in,
vivo en las latas—
I live in the cans.”

“That’s funny but not funny,” said Evelyn.

The girls self-consciously glanced at each other again, then continued walking past trailers of many colors—lime green, tangerine, yellow, and pink. They were crowded tight but most had tiny gardens out front or decks. Many of the decks had sides and roofs made of trellises, shot through with vines. Evelyn could smell the blossoms, faintly, mixed in with the aroma of the fast-food places above them on Mission. Most of the decks had patio chairs or old couches and lavish potted plants and flowers. McKenzie stopped in front of a slouching sky-blue coach with a rainbow and puffy white clouds painted on it. “George’s house.”