The Water Museum (12 page)

Sometimes he'd sit there with her until the morning shift showed up, and he couldn't tell how he'd stayed all night.

He was hurrying down the sidewalk when he felt the blackness sidle up to him.
Damn.
He pulled out the earbuds, and there it was: that Hemi engine gurgling through those twin glasspack pipes. That hot rod sound Moms called “rocks in a coffee can.” The long front fender of the Charger slid along beside him. Diesel and Death in the backseat like fat grandmothers.

Salvador rolled down his window.

“Jo-Jooooo,” he taunted. Yo-Yooooo.

“Hey, hotshot,” Butchie shouted from the driver's seat. “We got a date tonight! Don't screw it up. Hear me?”

Joey looked at them.

“It's your dad's play, Jo-Jo,” Butchie called. “I didn't think it up. And. Uh. You, like, owe it to us.”

“Yeah,” said Salvador.

He was pointing his finger at Joey.

“Pow pow pow,”
he said.

Joey didn't even get what about that was making them laugh.

“Whoa!” shouted Butchie. He held up a fist. “Knock it!” He and Salvador bumped knuckles.

“Blow it up!” Their hands flew apart, mouths went
BWOOSH!
“Make it rain!” Their fingers wiggled past their faces. “Hey!” Butchie hollered. “You goin' down to buy a donut?”

Joey shook his head right away.

“No? You look like a man looking for a donut!”

“How 'bout a churro?” Salvador asked.

This utterly busted up Butchie and he swerved and smacked the wheel.

“Beaner's the tits, ain't he, Jo-Jo?” he shrieked.

Joey nodded.

“You're sweet on that Sylvester Stallone–lookin' bitch in the donut shop. Am I right?”

Joey shook his head.

Salvador smacked his hand on the side of the Charger.

“I know all. Yeah?” Butchie called. “There are no secrets. So! Tonight, right? To-night!”

Joey shrugged.

“Yes?”

“Okay, okay. Yeah,” Joey said. His face was burning. He was not ashamed. But he was blushing like a mofo, and he felt dizzy. He felt like a tornado was coming down the street and his feet were caught in a huge wad of bubble gum.

“My man!”

“We be outside, güey!” Salvador shouted. “Waiting.”

“Just open that goddamned door,” Butchie said and shifted hard and chirped the tires as he burned away from the curb in massive blue exhalations and fartings as Big Black forced a Prius out of its way.

Joey turned back, worrying about Freddie Filgate. He didn't have the heart to see Sherri now. He put in the buds.
A young man don't mean nothin' in the world today.

The yard went down the slope of the canyon in seven terraces. Freddie had lime trees, orange trees, and lemon trees down there. One ill banana. The slopes below were crowded with ice plant. Freddie called it “pickle weed” and said it stopped wildfires.

At the top, Mrs. Filgate had her roses. Joey didn't know a thing about roses. All she told him was to trim the branches. He was trying to snip away with the little shears, and the thorns were doing a number on his fingers. Freddie ambled out of the house with a glass of lemonade.

“Willie,” he said. “You need to hydrate.”

“Thank you, Freddie.”

“Cut those twigs at an angle, son. Not straight across. Roses are oblique in personality, Willie. They like things angled.”

Joey smiled. Freddie was a trip.

He snipped.

“Like that?”

“Now you're cooking, Willie. Cooking with gasoline.”

Freddie smacked his big hands together. They sounded soft and dusty. White as paper. Freddie's little straw hat had a green plastic insert in its brim and cast colored light down on half his face. His glasses were about nine inches thick. He had hearing aids in his ears. One of them whistled and squealed. He shuffled around in slippers, his big old man pants tucked up to his ribs.

“God is great,” Freddie Filgate said.

“Can I ask you something?” said Joey, carefully snipping the rose branches. He didn't have any gloves. He was thinking:
OW,
and
FUCK,
and
BITCH
as the thorns poked his fingers. But he would never say those words in front of Freddie.

“Ask away, ask away,” said Freddie, waving a hand as he stared out at the canyon.

“Ah, hmm,” muttered Joey. “I was wondering how old you are. If that ain't rude.”

He gulped his lemonade.

“Rude! Oh my! Saying ‘ain't' in educated company is what's rude, Willie!” Freddie chuckled in his whispery way. “I am ninety-two and a half. But who's counting? Heard an owl last night, Willie. Apache Indians consider that a sign of death. But I'm not ready for that yet. Not by a long shot!”

“And Mrs.?”

“She is in the springtime of her life. A blushing and dewy sixty-one.”

Freddie smiled at Joey, and Joey smiled at Freddie.

He took Joey's glass and walked back toward the house.

“Bologna on onion buns. Mustard. Sound good? Finish up and join me,” he called. “It's almost dinnertime.”

Joey snipped branches and worried about Butchie and sucked tiny beads of blood off his fingers.

Freddie kept it burning hot inside. Joey figured it was an old guy thing—that and the musty smell. It smelled like mildew and Mentholatum and potpourri. He slipped out to the kitchen and peeked out the front window. No Big Black yet.
What if the old dude don't tell you where the good stuff is, Butchie? Shit, Jo-Jo, old men break real easy.

Freddie cut the onion buns in quarters and put potato chips beside each sandwich. He did everything neatly. The whole house was squared away. “Mrs. Filgate says I would use a spirit level to make sure the Christmas tree is straight every year, but she won't let me,” Freddie had told him.

Joey sat down. The plates were plastic. The sandwiches were thin. That had to be another old guy thing—not eating much.

“Let us give thanks, Willie.”

Joey put his elbows on the table and folded his hands in front of his face. He didn't know anything about prayers, but he liked that Freddie did.

“Sweet Lord,” Freddie said. “We come together in fellowship and gratitude. Thank you for this day, for this food, and for this life. May we make the most of them. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.”

“Um,” Joey said. He was listening for that big engine outside.

“Through the teeth and over the gums, look out belly, here it comes,” said Freddie.

Joey laughed. Every time he heard a car, he stopped chewing. “Good one, Freddie,” he said.

Dusk was turning the upper edges of the windows slightly maroon.

Freddie said, “Are you a man of faith, Willie?”

“Faith?”

“Are you a praying man?”

Joey was already done with his sandwich. He scarfed up the rest of his chips and reached for the bag. “Not,” he said, “really.”

“Because I notice you didn't say grace.”

Joey got up and looked out the window. He got a pitcher down from the cabinet and filled it with water. Got a red Kool-Aid and some sugar and stirred it in. The Filgates had plastic glasses with Mexican colors painted around the rims.

“Ice, Freddie?” he said.

“Oh, no. Ice is a little too strong for me.”

Joey brought the glasses to the table, collected the plastic plates, and took them to the sink. Quick glance. SHIT! There was Big Black, pulled over to the curb across the street. He could see the two idiots in the front seat, masses of shadow like big piles of spoiling meat.

Freddie had bits of chip stuck to his lips. He slurped his red drink. Joey handed him a napkin. His hands were shaking.

“I didn't get no church or nothin',” he said. “Didn't really, you know, learn to pray. Much.”

“Ah, Willie,” Freddie sighed.

Butchie couldn't get in if Joey just ignored him. The doors were locked tight. But he imagined the Visigoths putting their big boots to the wood until it broke. Then what?

“You see, son,” Freddie was saying. “You don't need a church to pray. Why, we are the church. Yes sir. You and I. Right here! Isn't that wonderful?”

Joey was staring at Freddie, his mind racing.

“I never studied up on that,” he said.

He went to wash the plates and the glasses and keep an eye on Big Black. It was almost dark. Butchie had turned on the inner light, and Joey could see him tossing snacks over the seat to his hounds. Suddenly, Butchie turned his head and stared back at Joey. Backlit, his face was buried in shadow.

Freddie appeared with a carved wooden dove. “Look here,” he said. “I whittled it myself. How about you take that to your momma?”

WTF, Freddie. Seriously.

“Holy Spirit,” Freddie said, as if imparting some great secret.

Big Black's door opened. Butchie got out, walked around, shook his leg. Stood with his hands on his hips, staring. He pointed at Joey. Got back in and slammed the car door.

“Willie, come,” said Freddie. Joey went back to the table where Freddie was sitting. He pulled his mom's cell phone out of his pocket and set it down beside the dove. Freddie said, “I pray, son. Every day. And now that my time is short, God has rewarded me with visions.”

“Visions, Freddie?”

“I was shown the meaning of life, Willie. I was on my knees in that very corner, and the walls peeled back and angels were before me.”

“Right here on Cowley Way?” said Joey.

Screw Butchie—that dick.

“The street was gone, Willie. What was before me? Nothing but light.”

Freddie patted the table as if it were his favorite pet—as if the table could feel his touch.

“And God showed me. This table is not made of wood. This table is made of light.”

Joey fingered the celly. Mrs. Filgate would be home in an hour. And then?

“Atoms, electrons. Yes?” Joey nodded while Freddie continued. “At base, pure energy. Pure…light. And we are made of it. Everything is made of them. Let there be light. And there was light. Every one of us, even the least of us, is a creature of mere light, Willie. Light. Oh, amen. Can you say ‘amen'?”

“Amen,” said Joey.

He went to the bathroom and flipped open the phone and linked to the police station and said, “There's some, like, crooks casing houses on Cowley Way. I think they're going to rip off this old man named Freddie Filgate. We're really worried.” He gave the address. “They're sitting outside in a black Charger. Hurry.”

He turned off the light in the kitchen and watched out the window. Freddie had already retired to the blue glow of
American Pickers
on cable. The police cruiser came down the street, creeping. They hit Butchie with a spotlight. Oh yes—panic inside Big Black. Butchie fired up the engine and pulled out and glared at the house. Joey stuck his hand in the window and shot him the finger as Big Black moved out with the white cop car tagging behind.

Joey was dead meat now. Freddie had started to snore. His bad hearing aid wailed in his ear. Joey took a crocheted caftan and put it over the old man's legs and sat there wondering how you started a prayer without sounding like an asshole.

Mrs. Filgate had given him his $30 and a $10 bonus for doing such a good job on her roses. Joey was jogging in the dark, pausing at every corner to make sure Butchie and Salvador weren't waiting to set the hounds on him. He was going to see Sherri, man, especially tonight. He just knew if he was near Sherri something good was going to happen. He'd be all right with her. It was coming on him in one big rush: Sherri, Sherri, Sherri.

He knew he could cut through the Buena Vista apartment complex and be safe for most of five blocks, cutting in and out of the buildings, scrambling across alleys like a cat. He was home free. Those losers were gone. He put in his buds.

Shawn Phillips. Tom Rush. Chet Baker. Biff Rose.

He watched the traffic on the main drag, not happy about all the lights. But there was no Big Black in sight either way, not hiding behind the bowling alley, not down the hill in the big parking lot of Vons market. Clear. He ran across, slapping his high-tops loud and sharp and the bell over the door in the donut shop pinged and Sherri came out from the back room and smiled at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How you?”

“Good. You?”

“Slow, hon. Slow night.”

He stared at her.

She busied herself with rearranging the bear claws. She glanced up at him, leaning on the glass case. She had this way of looking up from under her brows. She said, “What?”

“Nothin'.”

She gave him that woman-smile and said, “You don't look like it's nothing.”

“Sherri,” he said. “Do you pray?”

“I prayed you'd come in tonight,” she said.

She laughed when his mouth opened and nothing came out.

“Cutie,” she said.

Light. Everything is made of light. Me. Sherri. Light.

“Can I touch your cheek?” he blurted. He was in uncharted territory now. He was flying into a cloud.

Real slow, she leaned forward. She moved her hair away from her face. She closed her eyes. He swallowed. He reached across the counter and laid his hand on her cheek. She had three piercings in her ear. Her skin was so soft. He rubbed it with his thumb. She opened her eyes. He took his hand away.

Hazel eyes.

“What was that, Joey?” she asked.

“I…” Light. “I don't know.”

They laughed a little. Faces red. She breathed deep and shook her head and knitted her brow a little and stared.

A car pulled up. Cut its lights. He went to a table in the far end of the shop and listened to her sell a sailor a dozen donut holes. When she'd rung him up and he'd banged back out, she unlocked the white door to the back room and peeked out.