Surfing the Gnarl (2 page)

“Shake a leg or we'll be late,” shouted Mr. Karst. “Hi, Jack and Tonel. Wait till you see who I've got with me, Gretchen!”

“I'll deal with you later,” said Gretchen to Jack with a slight smile. Surely she'd only been teasing him about the pregnancy. She made the telephone gesture with her thumb and pinky. “We'll coordinate.”

“Okay,” said Jack, walking with her toward her father. “I'm visualizing hole six.” Hole six of the KCC golf course was the popular place for the club's young workers to party. It was well away from the road, on a hillock surrounded on three sides by kudzu-choked woods.

Right now, Jack figured to eat dinner at Tonel's. He didn't want to go to his own house at all. Because this morning on the way to the Killeville Country Club, he'd doubled back home, having forgotten his sunglasses, and through the kitchen window he'd seen his mom kissing the Reverend Doug Langhorne.

It wasn't all that surprising that Doug Langhorne would make a play for the tidy, crisp widow Jessie Vaughan, she of the cute figure, tailored suits, and bright lipstick. Jessie was the secretary for the shabby-genteel St. Anselm's Episcopal Church on a once-grand boulevard in downtown Killeville, right around the corner from the black neighborhood where Tonel lived, not that any black people came to St. Anselm's. Jessie's salary was so meager that Reverend Langhorne let Jessie and Jack live with him in the rectory, a timeworn Victorian manse right next to the church.

Doug Langhorne's wife and children shared the rectory as well. Lenore Langhorne was a kind, timid soul, nearsighted, overweight and ineffectual, a not-so-secret drinker of cooking sherry, and the mother of four demanding unattractive children dubbed with eminent Killeville surnames. Banks, Price, Sydnor, and Rainey Langhorne.

Setting down his bicycle and stepping up onto his home's porch this morning, Jack had seen his mother in a lip lock with Doug Langhorne. And then Mom had seen Jack seeing her. And then, to make it truly stomach-churning, Jack had seen Lenore and her children in the shadows of the dining room, witnessing the kiss as well. The couple broke their clinch; Jack walked in and took his sunglasses; Lenore let out a convulsive sob; Doug cleared his throat and said, “We have to talk.”

“Daddy kissed Jack's mommy!” cried Banks Langhorne, a fat little girl with a low forehead. Her brother Rainey and her sisters Price and Sydnor took up the cry. “Daddy's gonna get it, Daddy's gonna get it, Daddy's gonna get it …” There was something strange about the children's ears; they were pointed at the tips, like the ears of devils or of pigs. The children joined hands in a circle around Doug and Jessie and began dancing a spooky Ring-Around-the-Rosie. Lenore was trying to talk through her racking sobs. Doug was bumblingly trying to smooth things over. Mom was looking around the room with an expression of distaste, as if wondering how she'd ended up here. On the breakfast table, the juice in the children's glasses was unaccountably swirling, as if there were a tiny whirlpool in each. Jack rushed outside, jumped on his bike, and rode to work, leaving the children's chanting voices behind.

Jack had pretty much avoided thinking about it all day, and what should he think anyway? It was Jessie's business who she kissed. And surely he'd only imagined the pointed ears on those dreadful piggy children. But what about Lenore? Although Lenore was like a dusty stuffed plush thing that made you sneeze, she was nice. She'd always been good to Jack. Her sob was maybe the saddest thing he'd ever heard. Grainy, desperate, hopeless, deep. What did the kiss mean for Mom's future as the church secretary? What did it bode for Doug Langhorne's position as rector? What a mess.

Jack's plan was to stay out most of the night or all of the night with his friends, grab his suitcase in the morning, and get the 8:37 a.m. bus to Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg. And there he'd begin his real life. Let Mom and Lenore and Doug work things out in pawky, filthy Killeville. Jack's bag was packed. He was ready to set off for the great outer world!

With these thoughts running in his head, he followed Gretchen to the parking lot, Tonel tagging along. Mr. Karst was mounted in his battered secondhand Ford SUV. Sitting next to him was an unkempt, overweight, luminously white guy smoking a filter cigarette.

“Albert Chesney!” exclaimed Gretchen.

“Him!” said Jack. The thirty-year-old Albert Chesney was a Day Six Synodite and a convicted computer criminal. He'd just gotten parole; his release had been a topic in the
Killeville Daily News
for several days. Three years ago, Chesney had brought down the entire Internet for a week with his infamous e-mail, which had combined the nastiest features of spam, hypnotism, a virus, a pyramid scheme, a con-game, a worm, and a
denial-of-service attack. At the cost of infecting seven hundred million machines, had netted seven converts to the Day Six Synod.

“Don't ride with him, Gretchen,” said Jack, suddenly visualizing a defenseless big-eyed fetus within Gretchen's slightly curved belly. He seemed to recall that Chesney had always been interested in Gretchen. Chesney was single, with no relatives.

“Oh, now you're all protective?” said Gretchen. “Don't worry. I can handle myself. Welcome back, Albert. Are you fully rehabilitated?”

“I've hoed a long, lonely row,” sighed Albert Chesney. His voice was husky; his head was big and crooked like a jack-o'-lantern. “The Pharisees say I'm not allowed to live in a house with computers. What with the Synod having the tabernacle on my farm, I'm exiled to a humble abode on Route 501. Leastways it won't be but one night. The last battle's comin' tomorrow morning, hallelujah and pass it on. Armageddon. Angels and devils fighting for the fate of our world. Drive your chariot onward, Karl. I need a taste of my sweet country roads. And then I'll prophesy to the fellowship about the Shekinah Glory.”

“You bet, Albert,” said Mr. Karst. “Don't he look good, Gretchen?” Mr. Karst liked Chesney because he'd let Day Six use his farmhouse for their tabernacle the whole time he'd been in jail. Swaying and backfiring, the rusty SUV lumbered off.

“Do he say the world ends tomorrow?” asked Tonel.

“Don't worry,” said Jack. “They always say that. Back in May, Mr. Karst tried to stop Gretchen from buying a prom dress because the last battle was due to come before our graduation.”

Turning back to the clubhouse, Tonel and Jack encountered muscular Danny Dank, who'd just finished setting up the giant propane-fueled two-whole-hog barbeque wagon that the club used for their galas. Tomorrow was the day of the club's annual Killeville Barbeque Breakfast Golf Classic, starting near dawn.

Danny tightened down the cover of the quilted chrome wagon and unwrapped a stick of marijuana gum, the pricey brand called Winnipeg Wheelchair. Grinning and chewing, he gestured for the two caddies to sit down with him on a low wall facing the eighteenth green and the last glow of the sunset.

“Listen to this,” said Danny, pulling a folded up newspaper from his hip pocket. He hawked some spit on to the ground, then read, more mellifluously than one might have expected. Danny had gone to C. T. Piggott High School the same as Jack and Tonel; he'd been a senior when they'd been freshmen. But he'd been expelled before his graduation.

“Falwell County's most notorious computer criminal is temporarily lodged in the Casa Linda Motel on Highway 501 southeast of Killeville, next to a tattoo parlor and a liquor store that rents adult videos,” read Danny. “His neighbors include a few parolees and at least one registered sex offender. His second-floor room in the thirty-four-unit motel overlooks the parking lot of a strip club.”

“Punkin-head Chesney,” said Tonel. “We just seen him. He and Gretchen goin' to church.”

“Gretchen?” parroted Danny, as if unwilling or unable to understand. He was intent on his presentation. “Do you dogs grasp why I read you the news item?”

“Because you're spun,” said Jack, laughing.

”Give me a piece of that gum.”

“Three dollars,” said Danny, reaching into shirt pocket. “Casa Linda is my crib. The county thinks they can just dump any old trash on my doorstep. I been planning to write a letter to the paper. But—”

“Who's the sex offender, Dank-man?” interrupted Tonel.

Danny looked embarrassed and chewed his gum in silence. The sex offender living at the Casa Linda was Danny. He'd been expelled from Piggott High for putting a Web cam into the girls' locker room. One of the girls who'd been showering there was frosh Lucy Candler, the pluperfect cheer daughter of Judge Bowen Candler and his wife Burke. The Judge had thrown the book at Danny. Racketeering and child pornography. Even though, Danny being Danny, the Web site hadn't worked.

“Here's three bucks,” said Jack, pulling the singles out of his wallet. “This is my last night in town, Danny. Disable me, dog.”

“I'm on the boat,” said Tonel, getting out his own wallet.

“I'm up for a power run,” said Danny, taking the money and fishing out two sticks of gum. “But Les Trucklee says I gotta be here at dawn for the barbeque. All I do in that kitchen is, like, fry frozen fries for freezing. I can't hack no more of that today. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. You dogs got any booze?”

“We know where there's a lot of bourbon,” said Jack, impishly curious to see what might happen if he encouraged Danny. “Right, Tonel?” Ragland had fiercely enjoined the caddies to keep mum about the mibracc's lockers, but tonight of all nights, Jack could afford to be reckless. “You
get Ragland to chasing you, Tonel,” continued Jack. “And I'll scoop into Mr. Cuthbert's stash.” Anything was better than going home.

“What stash?” asked Danny.

So he told Danny, and they talked it over a little more as the light faded, in no rush to actually do anything yet, the three of them chewing their Winnipeg Wheelchair. They strolled into the patch of rough between the first tee and the eighteenth green. There was a grassy dell in among the trees where they could stretch out without anyone coming along to boss them.

“Danny!”

It was the voice of Les Trucklee, the personnel manager. The boys could see him standing on the floodlit terrace next to the barbeque wagon. He wasn't a bad guy—he'd hired Danny despite his record. Les Trucklee was gay, not too bright, in his thirties, a wannabe yuppie, with thinning blond hair in a comb-over. He had very large ears and a fruity voice.

“Oh, Danny!” repeated Trucklee, peering out into the night. “I need you. I know you're out there! I hear your voice. You're making things hard, Danny.”

Jack or Tonel could have made a lewd joke then, based on the obvious fact that Les had a crush on Danny, and on the rumored likelihood that the two were having an affair. But they knew better than to tease their older friend about so delicate a topic. Danny could turn mighty mean. And he carried a sizable pocket knife. Finally Trucklee went back inside.

“Let's get that bourbon,” said Danny, breaking the strained silence.

Circling around behind the barbeque wagon, the
three made their way toward the locker room door. It had a sliding dead bolt on the outside so nobody could get out, but it had a keyed lock as well. Danny undid the bolt, but the doorknob wouldn't turn. And they hadn't even seen Ragland and the mibracc go out.

“I know another way in,” said Danny. “Through the ceiling of the furnace room. You can hop up through a hole I found.”

“Go in the ceiling?” said Tonel.

“There's a crawlspace,” said Danny. “It goes to the ladies' locker room. There's a grate over their showers. The men's is the same.”

“You're still peeping?” said Jack, a balloon of mirth rising in his chest. “You really are a sex offender, Danny. Keep it up, and the Man's gonna cut out your balls and give you Neuticles. For the public good.”

“Laugh it up, bagwort,” shot back Danny. “Meanwhile Albert Chesney's off with your girl.”

Climbing into the ceiling was a dumb idea, but, hey. It was the end of summer. So yeah, they snuck to the furnace room, got up into the ceiling, and made their way across the hanging supports. Danny kept making snorting noises like a wild pig, and then Tonel would say “Neuticles,” and then they'd laugh so hard they'd flop around like fish. They were riding the Wheelchair for fair.

Eventually they found themselves above the ceiling vent in the shower room of the men's lockers. There were voices coming up. Ragland and the mibracc. Still in here after all.

Peeking through the grate, Jack saw Ragland in the shower with the old men, all of them naked. The men looked sluggish and tired. One of them—Mr.
Gupta—had collapsed to the floor and looked oddly flat. Just now Ragland was pulling something like a cork out of Mr. Inkle's navel. A flesh-colored bung. A stream of straw-colored fluid gushed out of the mibracc, splashing on the tile floor and running toward the drain.

“Smeel,” whispered Danny.

“You mean lymph,” murmured Jack.

“No, dog, that's smeel,” hissed Tonel. “The Dank-man knows.”

They were trying to act like what they were seeing was funny—but they were realizing it wasn't. It was awful. The air smelled of urine and alcohol, meat and feces. It would be very bad if Ragland found them watching. There was no more joking, no more chat. The boys peered through the grate in silence.

Actually the smeel wasn't all running down the drain. The smelly dregs were sliding away, but a clear, sparkling fraction of the smeel was gathering in pools and eddies near the drain, humping itself up into tiny waterspouts, circling around and around, the smaller vortices joining into bigger ones. A spinning ring of smeel slid across the tiles like a miniature hurricane. It headed right out of the shower stall and disappeared into the locker room.

Meanwhile Mr. Inkle flopped over onto his side like a deflating balloon. Ragland pushed the skin around with his bare feet, then trod along its length, squeezing out the last gouts of smeel. He nudged the Inkle skin over next to the Gupta skin. After draining the three other mibracc— none of whom seemed to mind—he wrapped the five skins into tight rolls, and went out into the locker room. The clarified smeel gathered into five watery columns like miniature typhoons and followed him.