Little Did I Know: A Novel (20 page)

Now on our way back to Plymouth, JB was none too pleased with Secunda either. The exhilaration of our narrow escape from an enraged press intern was replaced by our mutual frustration with Secunda’s disappointing efforts. No one had spoken a word in hours. We passed the time with the radio on, not paying much attention to it. As we rolled over each concrete block of the seamed highway, the tires made a rhythmic flip-flop sound; its hypnotic cadence could have easily lulled me to sleep. The top was down, and the smoke from JB’s ubiquitous cigarettes cast a fleeting shadow on her expressionless face. There was no fun in this journey.

For some reason, JB looked prettier than I had ever seen her. Her dark eyes glistened in the night. Her hair was full and lush. She had no idea I was studying her and so her face was open, hiding nothing. She resonated intelligence and, in a strange way, peace.

“Hey, Joanie,” I asked. “When did you start smoking? I mean, how old were you?”

She thought briefly. “Eleven.”

“Wow.”

She took a long pull on the Marlboro.

“Why?”

“I don’t really remember. To get attention, I think.”

“From who?”

“My father. Boys. Anyone.”

The words held their place in the air. The speed of the car could not disperse them. They were heavy and made me sad. “Did it work?”

“To some degree, yes. More with boys than with my father. Nothing works with him.”

“You guys don’t get along?”

“We don’t
get
. We just are. He’s mad at the world for what he went through. He’s embarrassed by his past and his accent, and he thinks I’m ashamed of him.”

“Why?”

“My father spent four years in a camp. I will never know what he endured because he will never tell me. So I will never truly know him. I love him. I let him know that as best I am able.”

I turned the radio off; it had just become noise. We sat in an awkward silence.

“I’m not, you know, embarrassed by him,” she said. “I think he’s amazing. What he has done with his life. What he’s given me and my sister.”

“Do you tell him
that?”

She smiled weakly but without regret. “I’ve tried, but he’s never heard me. I’ll start again when he’s ready to listen.”

I considered this for several beats and then said, “Joanie, why are you working with me? Giving so much for so little?”

“You’re like my dad, Sam. I’ll tell you when you’re ready to listen.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not. Trust me. But I love you, so I’ll let you know when it’s time.” She lit a cigarette off the fading ember of her last. She turned on the radio and Nat King Cole came on.

“Unforgettable, that’s what you are. Unforgettable, in every way.”

We drove north about an hour from home, arriving before midnight.

W
e made a quick stop at Garden’s Liquor Shop on our way into Plymouth. It was minutes before they closed, so we raced through, buying jug wine and a case of cheap local beer. The clock struck midnight as we turned down Rocky Hill Road and saw PBT on the left.

James had worked his magic. The old marquee was painted. Just days ago, the letters had hung randomly on the sign spelling nothing but gibberish. Now they were all in perfect alignment:

NEW SEASON OPENS JUNE 24TH

FOR INFORMATION AND TICKETS CALL 617-242-1200
.

I felt like crying. JB shrieked. I stopped the car. We jumped out, did a little dance, and hugged each other. Then we returned to the car giggling, hugged each other yet again, and proceeded to the parking lot.

There was an impromptu gathering around the redwood picnic table. James sat stoned, refilling his bong. Diana Cohen and Debbie Racer, who had arrived that morning from Boston, were seated across the way from Doobie, the bartender from the Full Sail. He was drinking Jack Daniel’s from the bottle. The drinking and smoking had clearly been going on for a while.

A few hundred feet from the front door of the red house and halfway to the party lay four huge dead raccoons with frozen, angry faces.
Maybe the Bronx wasn’t so bad
, I thought.

“What’s on the agenda for tonight?” I asked. “Are we getting arrested for smoking pot, public intoxication, or animal cruelty?”

Doobie drained at least a third of the Jack, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and said quietly, “I shot ’em. Had to be done. They were after the girls here. Mean sons of bitches.”

James, Debbie, and Diana nodded without a word. James took a toke from his homemade bong and the water bubbled inside the jug.

“This sucks,” I said.

“Worse for them raccoons,” Doobie offered.

“What did you shoot them with?” JB asked, sounding a little frightened.

Doobie held up a huge shotgun. “This.”

I looked at the dead animals. They were extremely dead. “Doobie, are there any shells left in that gun?”

He thought a minute, and drained some more Jack. James’s bong bubbled. Debbie and Diana joined in with James. More bubbles. “Don’t think so,” Doobie replied.

“Hey, Doob. You’re a little more than lit. I think you should let me take a look at the gun and put it somewhere safe,” I suggested.

He sighed. “Suits me. Done enough shooting for the night.”

More bubbles from James and the girls. I took the gun and carried it carefully into the office, placing it under the desk. Then I walked back to find out what had happened.

Diana and Debbie got up slowly, each taking one of my hands. They walked me toward the far end of the red house. James and JB followed. Doobie remained seated. We got to the side door, old and covered with years of cracked paint, which opened directly into their bedroom. Debbie nudged it open then ran three–four steps away from the entrance. James pushed it open all the way, inching his way inside. I followed. The room looked ransacked. The girls’ suitcases lay open on top of the two old sleigh beds that hugged the walls. Clothes peeked from the partially open drawers of the dresser nearby. The ceiling had caved in, and there was dust and plasterboard everywhere. In the middle of the room were three more dead raccoons. The two large armchairs that overlooked the massacre were covered with a nasty mixture of wine and dust that had met unexpectedly during the raccoon fracas.

“What a fucking disaster.” I said.

The smell was more than putrid. James looked both high and nauseous. I decided to take my leave. He followed, closing the door behind him. I walked with the girls back to the table, grabbed the bong, and made some bubbles. Then I opened the wine JB and I had purchased, poured a full glass, and chugged it. Then I drank a beer. Finally, I sat down with the group.

Things were quiet and still. And very weird.

Diana and Debbie were Jackson girls who had wanted to join the team. From their expressions and the bombsite that was their bedroom, they would surely reconsider and return for a fifth year at Tufts.

Debbie had volunteered to work as the house photographer. She had grown up outside of Kansas City and had been taking pictures of the vast endless sky that blanketed her father’s farm since she could remember. Debbie was a big-boned, tall, and awkward girl with large breasts and a shy but pretty smile. I don’t think she had ever kissed a boy. In addition to working with her camera, she would also help out on tech crews. Diana was a Park Avenue prep school princess here to work as our marketing director. She had porcelain skin, light eyes, and a short bob haircut with a sexy wave that dropped over her forehead. She was thin, with boobs smaller than Secunda’s. She loved Dr. Rosenstein, and we all believed she was saving herself for him.

Right now, both looked ghost white. I drank another sixteen ounces of jug wine.

James spoke at last. “I was helping the girls set up their room. We had all done a cleanup this morning. Painted the place and washed down the floors. I set up their music and had the bong going all day.”

The girls nodded in silent acquiescence. Numbed, they moved very little.

James continued. “Around six o’clock we all seemed to have an urge to eat. Admittedly, it was dinner time, but to be honest I think the bong exacerbated everyone’s hunger.”

Debbie croaked out, “I was starving,” then continued to stare ahead.

“When we got back, we started to unpack,” Diana said. “The music was loud and fun so it took a while.”

“Took a while for what?” I asked.

“For us to hear the scratching.”

“It just got louder and louder,” James added.

No one spoke. With eyes still closed, Doobie reached out and found the open bottle of JD and drank as if he were a thirsty man stranded in the desert.

“The scratching got louder and louder, almost manic,” Diana said. It sounded like there was a ghost or a demon in the room . . .”

Debbie picked up in midsentence. “Then this huge raccoon fell out of the ceiling and landed on my head. The dust and dirt were like an avalanche and the raccoon held on to my head.”

She was sort of laughing. Or was she crying?

“She looked like Davy Crockett with a big coonskin hat,” Diana said with a hybrid of tears and laughter. “Then three more raccoons fell out of the ceiling and onto our heads and then onto the floor. They were waving their paws and they were pissed off. It was really scary. We screamed and ran from the room.”

No one was laughing now. “The four raccoons had me trapped,” said James, “and I shouted to the girls to call Doobie before they called the cops.”

The girls hugged and James bubbled. JB smoked. Doobie’s head rested facedown on the table. I took another shot of Jack.

“This really does suck,” I said to no one. A dead raccoon stared from under the dozens of fireflies blinking light.

James continued. “I’m playing lion tamer with the four raccoons, using the end table to keep them at bay. The girls are screaming outside, the raccoons are definitely stoned by osmosis, and they are eating everything in sight. I figured I was next and imagined the headline in the local paper: ‘Future Surgeon Coon-killed in Beachside Love Nest.’”

Doobie lifted his head from the table. “I got there as soon as I could. I shot three of the bastards right away, but the fourth one got away.” His face returned to the table. “Then James ran outside and closed the door.”

Suddenly everyone started to relax, then smile, then we all broke up. Crazy loon laughter filled the night.

S
oon the laughter died. It was just short of 3 a.m. and we had no place to sleep. My room was in disarray, and who knew what furry creatures might visit later that night. The girls refused to risk another attack of the black-eyed monsters. James had set up shop in the attic of the white house, but even if we all crashed there the compound had no hot water yet.

I decided to call Veronica at home. Fuck Barrows and his innuendo. Last I checked, there were no puppet strings on me. Despite the hour maybe she would take my call, perhaps arrange a room at a low rate, or at least allow us all to crash for one night at the group rate of six shit-faced fools at a dollar a head.

I walked somewhat shakily into the office and dialed her number. I hoped she would pick up and not some angry father or protective older brother. Good fortune was with me.

“Who is this?” she said after answering on the fourth ring.

“It’s me,” I replied, holding my breath.

“Sam, are you all right?”

I exhaled. “Veronica, we had a shootout here at the Plymouth Corral and we need a place to stay.”

“Shootout!” she screamed in a loud whisper so not to wake her family.

“No people were shot, but we are in a bit of a conundrum.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

She hung up before I had a chance to respond.

Veronica pulled into the lot in less than ten minutes. She wore a hard expression that was only mitigated by her PJ bottoms and a tight tank top that revealed more than necessary unless you wanted the navy to follow you around. She walked purposefully to the middle of the compound and saw the coon massacre, then continued toward the red house and peeked inside. The ruins did nothing to lighten her mood.

“Where is the gun?” she asked, addressing no one in particular.

I told her I’d put it in the office.

“Who brought the gun?” she said.

“Doob.”

She walked over to Doobie and lifted his head off the table by his long hair. She looked him dead in the eye. “Do you own a license for that gun, Doobie, or is everyone here going to jail?”

“License,” Doobie uttered. Then she just dropped his head and it splatted on the table.

She looked at us, her eyes burning. “This is what is going to happen, and it is going to happen fast. Ladies, get the trash barrels and throw all the liquor into them. If anyone wants any more, then drink it within the next thirty seconds or you can all go to hell.”

Everyone suddenly found their sea legs and the booze; all of it was gone before time ran out.