Before Waze, before GPS, before MapQuest, there were road atlases, and before forgotten drinks in the trunk of a grandfathered vehicle – exempt from emissions testing – burst at some point at the start of June, ruining the pages of old interstates, kids knew how to get to the ocean.
Fidal’s driving east, pier-bound. Alone this time. June’s gone, so is July, one month left before senior year of high school. He had been carting around younger friends, without licenses, the whole summer, until he asked the group, at large, not singling anyone out, for some gas money. There was a great silence, a falling out. Probably Carlene, the punk, turning the others against him. But Fidal’s a punk too, would have done the same thing, he thinks, taking an exit at random, navigating to water by pure instinct, getting it wrong, steering in circles till sand can be seen.
Carlene hardly needed the excuse. She’s had it out for him since winter, when word got around that she liked him. He thought he handled it well, let her down easy. How could he help it if he wasn’t attracted to her? But he said something wrong, of course. Like usual. How many damn times will it take to learn, he thinks, parking far from the beach to avoid the exorbitant fee at the lot, that it’s better to say nothing, to take no course of action. So, then what? Let Carlene hold onto a fantasy? Isn’t it crueler, dragging everything out, rather than putting things to a stop, early?
He walks past the shops, sparse at first, then bunched, one on top of the other, the closer he gets to the pier. Some kid by the fake rifles pretends to shoot him. Idiot. Groups of teenagers look his way, momentarily, then go back to pinball. Two older people, already drunk before noon, are each holding onto handles protruding from a large box. He’s played that one, plenty. You don’t really get shocked, it just feels like it, because of the vibrations. But the woman is screaming like she is dying. It’s enough to make him slow down, adjust his shoes, feign interest in the nearby Skee-Ball lanes.
The woman is really hamming it up. The man doesn’t look at her. He keeps his grip, determined, sweating. The woman has let go, on the ground, laughing, flailing her body on napkins and seaweed scraps. The man shakes his head, mutters something. She says, “Speak up, Paul! I’m six feet under!”
Paul opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Only his tongue, which sticks past his gums, at an angle Fidal, though some distance away, can tell is not right, is odd. It’s curling to one side, with the tip pointed straight to the sky. And it’s changing color.
Maybe he misled Carlene? They were paired up after Christmas break, in geography class. The teacher was drunk, just like every adult, it seemed. At least with him, it made sense; he worked in a bar to, in his words, “supplement the godawful income I get from smelling your farts all day,” and on mornings when you could tell it had been, mere hours earlier, a rough night, he told the class to read from their textbooks for the whole period. He said, “Happy New Year, welcome to Africa,” that day, throwing puzzle pieces of the continent’s countries to different parts of the room. The assignment was to develop a five-minute presentation relating to the landscape, of whatever you caught. Fidal had said, “Um, Tanzania has lakes and mountains. Which do we pick?” The teacher’s answer was, “If you have to ask, then both.” He researched Lake Victoria, while Carlene took Serengeti National Park. She kept showing him pictures of giraffes, saying, “Look, look, ew!” “So what,” he had said, “they have to be able to reach the trees.” “Not the length you dummy,” she snuggling closer, “the shade.” “Gray?,” he asked, leaning toward the book she had open, but OK, maybe also leaning toward her, fine, he was cold, lonely, post-holiday depression, etc. “Worse,” she said, snaking her leg around his, under the desk (did he move his foot away? well, no…), “purple, with wild, electric-looking veins running through.”
That’s the color Paul’s tongue is turning. He still hasn’t let go of the handle, even though the woman is standing now, hitting him, imploring him to leave, saying, “Let’s go babe, c’mon, who cares about…” unable to finish her sentence. Does she see the smoke, too? Fidal blinks, because it must be someone puffing a cigarette, around the corner, or maybe, the guy with the hot dog cart, across the street, that has to be it, an optical illusion, the soot from the frying food finding the right gusts of wind to latch onto, giving Paul the appearance of being burned alive.
No, he’ll admit it, now, when it’s too late. He didn’t move his foot. He probably should have. But the heat, from Carlene, felt nice.
He’s starting to feel it again, that heat, watching the woman try to tear her beau away from the machine. He crosses through the particulate matter, coming upon the couple so quick that the woman takes a step back from Paul. Is she impressed? Thinking he came to help?
Fidal can feel the fire flicking his ears, as he turns his back on the man, giving the woman his full attention. He made a mistake, with Carlene. Instead of researching Lake Victoria, he told her the story of his dog, and how it had gotten a skin disorder from licking itself so much. She told him he was hilarious. No small talk, this time. He’ll be clear, this time.
The woman is standing on her tiptoes, craning her neck to try and see Paul, around Fidal’s frame, which makes sense, because he feels taller. This feels right. “Can I have your number?” he asks.
Then Paul lets go.