Terminal Island Page 7

  “Hi, sweetie,” she said, peering at him over the tops of her lenses. “Well, well, well: Dr. Livingston, I presume.”

  “Hi, Mom,” Henry said. He handed her the wad of cash from his pants, then wearily sat on the edge of the bed and took off his sneakers and socks. Standing up, he emptied the socks onto the bedspread, money tumbling out like damp leaves.

  “What in the world?”

  Henry spoke the line he had rehearsed in his mind all the way across town: “Look what I found.” It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as he had hoped.

  His mother looked more worried than pleased. “You found this?”

  “Yeah. Just blowing around the beach. Pretty incredible, huh?”

  “Wow.” Something about the way she was looking at the money made Henry think she knew the truth. He almost wished she did—one word of doubt and he was ready to spill the whole thing. But all she said was, “It never rains but it pours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got a job.”

  She was going to waitress in the evenings—a bit of a comedown from the office work she was used to, but one with the advantage of a free hot supper every night for both of them. Going in that night, she showed Henry the place.

  It was an unassuming diner specializing in burgers, steaks, and chops—all of Henry’s favorites. It even had the homey, broken-in look of all the places they were so fond of back in L.A.: the faded leatherette upholstery and Formica countertops, the big plastic tumblers and crushed-ice machine. Henry was introduced to the head chef and manager of the place, Mr. Ragmont—Nick Ragmont—who looked as if he had been born with a greasy spoon in his mouth.

  “Hey, Henry, how ya doin’?” Nick said as they shook hands. His grip was crushing.

  “I’m okay, sir.”

  “Sir! I like that.”

  Henry’s mother said, “Mr. Ragmont told me he has a daughter your age.”

  Winking at them, Nick said, “I sure do! And if you’re not careful, Henry, she’ll have you jumping at her every whim. Beware! That’s what these women do!”

  Mr. Ragmont was like a corny character out of an old TV show: the funny, savvy, slightly sleazy short-order cook, with a chewed stub of a pencil tucked behind one ear. He looked like an aging Elvis. Henry knew at once why his mother wanted to work here.

  “Your mom tells me you like to fish, Henry,” the man said.

  “A little.”

  “Catch any whoppers?”

  “Not really…maybe a few.”

  “Get that: ‘A few,’ he says! Oh, we got us a real cool customer here! Your mom tells me you’re almost ten years old—practically a grown man. I hope you’re not giving her any grief.”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Haw haw!” Nick ruffled Henry’s abundant hair. “Say, you oughtta get a haircut. You don’t want people thinking you’re one a them hippies.”

  Beaming, his mother said, “It won’t stay cut. Did you say your daughter would be here tonight?”

  “She better be, if she wants her allowance—I’ve got her helping out in the kitchen. It’s good practice for later life.” He winked. “Christy! Christy, honey, come out here a second! I have a new friend for you to meet!”

  A pretty, straw-haired girl appeared from the back. Henry was mortified to be introduced to a strange kid—especially a cute girl—as a “new friend.” It made him feel like a puppy from the store. She was wearing cut-offs and a pink tank top, wiping her hands on a towel. Seeing Henry, she said, “Oh. Hi.”

  “Hi.” Henry bobbed his head sheepishly.

  “Try not to sprain yourselves,” said Mr. Ragmont.

  The girl gave him a look. “Dad.”

  “I’m just kidding—I know you guys are gonna hit it off. Henry, this is Christy; Christy, Henry.” To Henry’s mom he said, “These kids are way ahead of us nowadays. I can’t keep up with them.”

  “Gee whiz, who can?” Vicki agreed.

  “Okay, well—” Mr. Ragmont seemed suddenly rushed. Extending his hand once more, he said, “Henry, pleased to make your acquaintance. You’ll excuse me if I have to tend to the grill. How do you like your steak? You do like steak, don’t you? Medium rare? With a nice big foil-baked spud?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Attaboy. Man after my own heart. You can get your own soda right there—Christy will show you. I assume you kids wanna sit together, right?”

  “Uh—” Henry said.

  “Sure, we’ll sit together,” said Christy, snapping her gum.

  “Beautiful. Vicki, you want to get these two lovebirds set up?”

  Nick disappeared behind the counter and Henry’s mother set a back table for them, then went off to learn the cash register. As she left, she flashed Henry a look that said, You see? Isn’t this nice?

  Once they were seated, Christy asked, “So your mom’s gonna be working here, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you guys gonna live here all winter?”

  “I guess so. I mean, I hope so.”

  “I’m glad I don’t have to.”

  Henry was somewhat crestfallen. “You—don’t?”

  “No. I go to school on the mainland. I’ll be leaving next week. I can’t wait—it’s sooo boring here.”

  Henry didn’t want to hear anything bad about the island, still flushed with relief at being able to stay at all. “I kind of like it.”

  “Oh, man. You sound like such a tourist. Wait’ll you’ve lived here awhile.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “We only come here for the summers. We’re not islanders. I wouldn’t want to have to spend the winter here.”

  “Why not?”

  “The island empties out. It’s like a ghost town. They say weird stuff happens.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Nothing—forget it. What grade are you going to be in this year?”

  “Fifth.”

  Christy nodded thoughtfully, sipping her Coke. After a second, she said, “Well, just watch out.”

  Before Henry could ask what she meant, their food arrived: two crackling slabs of charcoal-seared steak and buttered baked potatoes. The heavenly smell drove all thoughts from Henry’s head and he ravenously fell to eating.

  Partway through the meal, Mr. Ragmont came to their table and asked, “How is it? Everything A-okay?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Henry said enthusiastically, mouth full. “Perfect.”

  “Great, Dad,” Christy said.

  “Glad to see you kids enjoying your meat.”

  Mr. Ragmont turned back toward the kitchen, then paused mid-step, his attention caught by something outside. He wasn’t the only one—the handful of other customers were also staring out the front windows, some getting to their feet with a scraping of chairs. Henry’s mother stopped what she was doing at the register and said, “Oh, golly.”

  Christy called to her father, “What is it, Dad?”

  “It’s a fire,” Mr. Ragmont said over his shoulder. “There’s a big sailboat on fire.”

  Chapter Ten

  FISH HEAD

  Henry was in love.

  He spent the next few days in a delirium of romance, the island taking on even more fantastical Technicolor hues than before. Everything Henry had been doing by himself, or with his mother—fishing, snorkeling, exploring the town—he now started doing with Christy, and it made all the difference. She brought a fresh perspective, a whole new way of looking at things.

  For instance, when Henry was alone he was accustomed to ignoring the pleas of the coin-divers—that group of local kids who loitered under the base of the pier in the afternoons, cadging quarters from tourists. In the company of his mother he might ask for some change to toss, mildly interested in the feeding frenzy it provoked, but otherwise he passed them by.

  Christy, however, took evil pleasure in tormenting them. She would fake tossing a coin, like a dog owner pretending to throw a stick, and when the boys were wise to that trick she
would toss a bottle cap, or flattened gum, or anything else resembling a coin, so that they dove furiously after these worthless items. When they objected she would harangue them with insults, long strings of the most extreme profanity Henry had ever heard. She didn’t do this out of any real anger, but only as part of the game, and as soon as she had her fill of screaming she would drop the pose like a cheap Halloween mask: “So, what do you want to do next?” After awhile she wore down Henry’s reluctance, so that hectoring the coin-divers became routine sport for both of them.

  This backfired the next time Henry took his mother to the pier. When he began insulting the swimmers, she was taken aback.

  “Stop that!” she said, appalled. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “It’s fun. Everybody does it. Watch: Hey fuckheads! Why don’t you get a job? See?”

  “Don’t do that! That’s rude!”

  “No it’s not. I see people here do it all the time; they don’t think of it like that.”

  “Well I do.”

  “Come on, it’s funny. You should try it. Look: Get lost, you fucking assholes!”

  “Henry, don’t!”

  As Henry was about to explain, You see? Nobody cares, a grizzled old fisherman from the boat rental concession marched over and said, “Lady, you better get that boy to control his mouth before someone else does. I don’t care how he talks to you at home, but this is a public place, and I don’t take to that kind of language from a child. Boy his age should know better.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sorry,” Vicki said, grabbing Henry by the arm and dragging him away. “I don’t know what’s come over him!”

  “What?” Henry protested. “What?”

  Sensing that Christy responded well to naughtiness, Henry did all he could to present an image of himself to her as a bad boy, embellishing his personal history to make himself seem reckless and tough. The problem was she tended to call him on these things. If he told her he had shoplifted, she challenged him to steal candy from the drugstore. If he told her he had stolen wallets and purses, she got all excited about robbing the tourists, pointing out likely targets everywhere they went: There’s an easy one! She’s not even looking! Go, go, go!

  Christy showed him all the points of interest that were not on the tourist maps, and not necessarily even open to the public. They got chewed out and chased off on several occasions. The last one she took him to was a tiny hole-in-the-wall shop that had no name or any kind of sign out front. It was in a back alley, and Henry would have never noticed it if she didn’t show him where it was.

  “I’ve heard there’s something funny about this place,” she whispered. “You need some kind of private membership to go in. I don’t know what it is, but my dad told me never to come here. I think it’s a whorehouse.”

  The doorway was dim as a cave, the window draped in black. A huge green dragonfly was trapped inside the window.

  “I dare you to go in and catch it,” she said.

  “I dare you.”

  “I will if you will.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You go first.”

  Trying to impress her, Henry crept through the doorway and into a tiny foyer. Inside was a second door padded with red leather, and he pushed on through to a dingy white-tiled room. It was chilly inside, lit with buzzing fluorescents. In the back was a refrigerated display case full of meat. Several spindly café tables and chairs stood against the walls, and at one table sat two emaciated old women, frozen mid-spoonful to stare at Henry. Trying to ignore them, he hurriedly pushed aside the heavy window curtain.

  There it was against the glass, the biggest dragonfly he had ever seen, perfect and still as a metallic green toy. Normally Henry had no fear of bugs, but this was an unusually large specimen, and he didn’t quite know how to take hold of it. He didn’t think it could bite or sting him, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure. He also didn’t want to hurt or kill it by accident. He had never caught a dragonfly with his bare hands before.

  As he hesitated, the dragonfly suddenly came to life, its cellophane wings battering between the drapes and the windowpane. Panicking, Henry hesitantly grabbed at the madly-whirring object, almost catching it but then fumbling so that it was loosed in the room. He ran after it, following below as the dragonfly sputtered against the ceiling. With Henry in hot pursuit, it flew over the counter and disappeared through a back doorway.

  Shoot, he thought.

  Creeping behind the counter, he could see something peculiar beyond that door. Behind a beaded curtain was a large metal tub. There was a naked person lying in the tub face down—Henry could make out waxy legs and callused yellow feet. He couldn’t see the whole body, but he could see bare buttocks and a bowl with something red in it. An array of shiny steel knives was laid out on a tray.

  It made him think of all the secrets he had glimpsed in the weird rooms of his grandparents’ hotel; visions into the scary inner workings of the adult world. Henry didn’t know what any of it meant, and didn’t want to know. All he knew—and not for the first time in his life—was that this was someplace he was not supposed to be. Then he heard approaching footsteps.

  Backing out as fast as he could, he ran into someone—a bony, unyielding body. Cool fingers pinched his earlobe, their long nails pricking sharply. He looked up.

  It was one of the old women, staring walleyed at him out of a face like a withered brown apple.

  “What’s your hurry?” she cooed. Before he could react, the woman put her nose in his hair and sniffed deeply. “Mmmm,” she breathed, nibbling at his scalp as if grazing.

  The other woman was pressing in on him as well, her claw-like hand caressing his face, her thumb in his mouth. And now Henry could see the figure of the Butcher charging out of the kitchen in his spattered apron. “Hold on, son, I gotcha,” the man called briskly. “I gotcha, hold on.”

  Henry dodged like a rabbit, moving faster than he ever had in his life. Without thinking, he spun clear of the women and barreled through the exit.

  “Wudja see, wudja see?” Christy pressed eagerly when he darted out. She hadn’t come inside at all.

  “Run!” he screamed, and the two of them flew halfway across town in delicious fright.

  When they finally ran out of steam, Christy gasped, “What—what happened?”

  “Nothing!” Henry said wildly. “It got away!”

  “What?”

  “The dragonfly!”

  “Oh…” She looked closely at the side of his head, reaching out to touch his ear. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

  * * *

  “I should have known. I should have seen it coming, oh yes.” Henry’s mother paced the cramped hotel room in a huff. “He promised me he was staying open at least until the end of the month. He promised me, and I believed him. That’s what gets me. That gets me every time. Hoo boy, what a dummy I am, getting suckered in by a handsome face. They get you every time.”

  Mr. Ragmont was closing the restaurant for the season—he had given her barely two days notice.

  “And the worst thing of it is,” she told Henry, “I just put down the first month’s rent on a beautiful little apartment. Just the cutest little bungalow, with flowers on the porch and everything! Now I don’t know how we’re going to afford it if I can’t find another job. That was gonna be my big birthday surprise, honey: a new home by the time you start school. Gosh darn it, I was hoping to surprise you, and now this…”

  The same old story: just when things were going good. Henry was scarcely even surprised. Actually they had hung on longer than he expected; he was almost bored with the island. But that wasn’t quite the end of it—he got to see Christy one more time.

  Perhaps to make up for leaving Henry’s mother in the lurch, Mr. Ragmont offered to take the two kids on a last little outing: the garbage run.

  This involved renting an actual pickup truck and hauling the restaurant’s weekly trash to the dump. If not exactly romantic, it was a slightly more interesting e
rrand than it seemed, because the city dump was halfway around the island, high on a cliff overlooking the sea.

  They followed the coast road south of town, past Lover’s Cove and around the point to the seaplane terminal. There the road cut inland and climbed a winding path into brown hills. It was all very scenic, Mr. Ragmont providing running commentary about this highlight and that:

  There were the stearite digs of the original Indian inhabitants; the condemned mine-shafts left over from the abortive silver boom of the 1800s; the secret camps of gangsters and rum-runners from the time of Prohibition; trails of pigs, goats and bison left over from the heyday of movie Westerns, when Catalina’s rugged chaparral made a perfect Hollywood backdrop.

  Of the last, Mr. Ragmont explained that it was actually a myth that filmmakers brought big game came to the island. Not only a myth, but a deliberate cover-up: The truth was that the islanders themselves had imported all the large animals for purposes of ritual sacrifice.

  “No way,” Henry said, smiling uncertainly.

  “Oh, yeah,” Nick said casually. “This whole place is drenched in sacrificial blood.”

  “Blood, really?”

  “Have you ever heard the phrase Natal Satanica—Satan’s birthplace?”

  “No.”

  “It’s an anagram for Santa Catalina.”

  “No way.”

  “They worship the Antichrist. You didn’t know that?”

  “No.”

  “Well…you will. Won’t he, honey?”

  Christy laughed, nodding. Henry couldn’t tell if they were putting him on. He thought that Mr. Ragmont was possibly insane.

  They arrived at the dump and got out. Helping pitch bags of trash, Henry surveyed the otherworldly setting: