The Cutlass Cruiser station wagon sat still at the four way stop. The driver, Melvin B. Langerhans, Melvin B to his friends and the people on the boat who he called his friends, could hear a siren blaring, getting louder and louder. An ambulance or a fire truck, he wasn’t sure which. He stayed there at the stop long enough that the car behind him honked, once, twice, then spun loose gravel and went around him. Even at 6:30 in the morning, the sweet, salty air was somewhat humid coming up from the bays and inlets a little farther south. The siren got closer and closer. He panicked as he always did, as most people probably would. Maybe the siren, the ambulance, the fire truck, the hearse, were all headed the same place he was going, his home, or his former home, that sat caddy corner to the intersection he had placed himself at for several minutes. But he could see no smoke, could hear no screaming, and no one was running from the white painted brick house, yard immaculate with shrubbery, a crisp American flag flying from the painted porch with a red door. He thought to himself that everyone must be safe, and he felt good about that, taking a breath as he put the station wagon back in drive and began to pull forward past the house, just as the crunching siren from the fire truck blared in his ear, causing an involuntary shuttering, deep in his bowels and ribs and shoulders. His hands gripped the wheel tighter than usual til the red giant passed. The lone fireman hung onto to the back, poor bastard, uniform flapping in the wind, looking down at Melvin B. in pity, thinking to himself that they needed to stop, here was the real fucking emergency.
Shaking, Melvin B. began again, drove down the street, thinking to himself that he had a group coming in early for an excursion/sightseeing venture, but then with all the excitement, he had forgotten to see if the black Dodge Ram had been parked near the house or the side street, or anywhere near that street, so instead of turning right, back toward the interstate and down to the bay harbor, he did the opposite and made the block again.
It was difficult to keep the car quiet with the rattling it made, some clanking that came from what Melvin B. thought was the muffler, where the muffler attached to the engine, something loose, something clanky, something clanky and expensive and made a lot of noise, enough that all the neighbors knew when he would drive the street “checking” to see if everything was alright. And everything was alright, everything was fine, even though he was still shaking from the fire truck adrenaline injection. He couldn’t stop thinking about that scare, and how there was a guy on the back of the truck. No one did that anymore, not in this modern day. But there was no emergency, and his nerves began to lessen as he scanned the vehicles along the street, seeing nothing but familiarity. His heart steadied and he looked ahead, thinking that he could just roll up the window and turn back toward the interstate, toward work and what had always been his first love, his first pleasure, semi-open water, free but secure, sanitized adventure.
He didn’t mean to slam the brakes, but his fast reflex, his jittering response, caused the front wheels to lock in place and slide over the pebbles until they ran out and the rubber hit the pavement without thought or sound or any forgiveness. The car was still lurching from front to back as he looked into his driveway and saw the black Dodge Ram, not just in the driveway, but parked there, like it belonged there, not behind, not to the side or on a side street or even resting on the street itself. It was parked in front of her brand new Corolla. There was no exhaust coming from the truck to say that maybe he had just stopped by to talk that morning. The windows were covered with the night dew. Melvin B. turned the key to off, and, leaving the car in drive, walked up to the curb, stepped into the yard, his flip-flopped feet wet from the grass. He stood there for a long time, looking intently at the outside of the pristine, bricked place. He had painted it for her. He had manicured the shrubs, her shrubs, while she painted the door, her hair pulled back in Rosie the Riveter fashion, or at least that was the way Melvin B. chose to remember it. That excursion could wait. He was always late. It was part of the charm, the old pirate, the old boat captain dragging himself out of the bunk after a night of heavy rum drinking and whoring and card playing and such, the gruffness, the struggle, the idea that something should be dead but breathes life, all of it was a draw for his industry, a spark, a tingle, a tingle growing into sharp, stinging, myriad pains in his right foot as he looked down in time to see all the fire ants release their formic acid onto his delicate human tissue all at once, arthro versus anthro. He lept about five feet from the small bed and began beating his pulsing foot with the other foot’s flip flop, leaving the other flip flop in the ant bed, abandoning it until he could get the situation under control, knowing that if he could, it would be the first time in five years, maybe six, that he would have been able to bring any situation, in any aspect of his life, under control.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sylvia yelled, her slim figure obscuring only a small slice of the red door, her pink hand seeming to blend with it, the door cracked as Melvin B. continued to beat his foot, then both his feet, thinking that his pain might somehow alleviate her anger, possibly extract sympathy, but to the contrary, she remained as adamant as ever.
“You know what, I don’t care, I already, yep, there he is.” She motioned toward the cop car that was pulling in behind the Cutlass Cruiser. Melvin B. hadn’t thought about him being in the cop car.
“Fucking shit.” Melvin B. said to himself, then backed onto the sidewalk. Officer Plemmons got out and began walking toward Melvin B. The muscular, well fit man reached up and gently tapped the walkie talkie, a buzz emitted, fuzzy sound of velcro letting dispatch know not to send anyone else. He walked up to Melvin B., looked at him closely, sniffed, then walked by, past the ant bed, past the whole yard as she stood in the doorway, past the Corolla, then to the truck. He walked around it several times before going back to the front porch.
“You okay?” Officer Plemmons asked her.
“Yeah.” I’ll be right back.” Sylvia said and began walking in the house.
“Least he didn’t get my truck this time, if I had to repaint it again we wouldn’t have to worry about him ever again I can tell ya that.” He spoke as if Melvin B. wasn’t even there.
“I know I know…” She said hurriedly and somewhat annoyed, in a way, with both of them, waving to Officer Plemmons and disappearing inside.
Officer Plemmons, walked back over to Melvin B.
“You can’t keep doin this man.” Plemmons said.
“You stole my house, Rockford.” Melvin G. said.
“What?” He paused like he was thinking of the answer to a trivia question. “Same ole bullshit. I didn’t steal anything Melvin B., now get outta here and go to work.” Officer Plemmons spoke as if Melvin B. were a hunting dog.
“Wait!” Sylvia yelled from the front door that burst open with her excitement. She carried a ziploc bag filled with paperwork. She had learned over the years to give him paperwork, and most other things, in ziploc bags because he carried everything onboard. He recognized it, as paperwork she had given him before which he would treat in the same way. Melvin B. loved the way the other ones had burned, the ziploc plastic melting and molding around the papers as if to melt around the divorce itself and his life from several years ago, freezing it in place.
“This is the last one.” She said, angrily shaking the bag of severage. “Don’t make me sue you for it.”
“What if you have to?”
“You know it’ll cost you a lot more money, maybe that boat I own.”
“You do that, so help me God.” Melvn B. said.
“Go-tuh work!” Officer Plemmons said.
“An….” Melvin B. shot his head toward Officer Plemmons. “I’m glad you’re here. Tell Herman Gohring here that if he lays a hand on one of my girls, I don’t care if he is a cop, I’ll…”
“Tell him yourself, pussy!” Sylvia said.
Barefoot Melvin B. looked over at Officer Plemmons and held up a bony, weathered finger. “Never, I better never hear that you..”
“We have a hugs only policy here Melvin B., you know that.” Plemmons said.
“Somehow that sounds worse.” Melvin B. said defeatingly. “Ow!”
She jabbed the ziploc bag into his chest. He turned slowly and began to walk away, knowing he was late for the excursion, that some of the people had probably already gone, would be calling to get their money back. He sat down and pushed the gear handle back into park and cranked the car, lastly throwing the bag onto the back seat, where he threw all of his trash. He cranked it and began to pull forward. He was nearly at the stop sign when he could hear Plemmons yelling for him to stop, motioning with his hands in an incongruous clockwise and counter-clockwise fashion. As Melvin B. put the car in reverse, he could see Officer Plemmons running back toward the house and disappearing around the side to where the car house and workshop lay at the back of the property. As he put the car back in park and got out, Melvin B. thought to himself of the many hours, all the hours that he had spent in that shop, planing, fixing, tinkering, putting together pieces of art and substance and meaning, how the walls could speak of overheard conversations about jazz music and the whiskey and savoring coffee stout beer and listening to Townes Van Zandt records. Now the ultimate Bizzaro, the final insult, Melvin B. was glad he could not be there to hear the same walls screeching their disgust, their rape, this new one, this new guy, an off duty cop etching thrifty, uplifting bible verses on distressed tin he’d bought from the Home Despot while listening to his George Strait Pandora station and unwinding with a light beer. All of it was too much for Melvin B. He sat back against the hood of the car and wiped dirt from his flip flops, banging them against the fender. He could hear the door, the creak of a door he would always remember, then heavy, slow footsteps against the beaten path around by the patio and then another creak of the gate Melvin B. had built himself, opening, shutting, like the many opportunities Melvin B. had to change all of this if he’d been half human, but he wasn’t half human, not enough mathematically to round up to half human or even one quarter human or a Canadian penny human. Officer Plemmons cradled something in his bulging arms, as if trying desperately not to crush whatever it was.
Melvin B. and Sylvia had gone to Mardi Gras about every year for as long as they had been married. On one of these trips, they had been walking down a side street when one of the off duty Indians had been passing by. Melvin B. tipped his head in deference and respect. The Indian replied with a nonchalant nod and kept walking. Melvin B. didn’t think much about it until they reached the next block and he noticed something on the sidewalk that didn’t belong there, something shiny and bright and beautiful, something that had fallen off the Indian’s costume. It was a little rough, but the colors, the oranges and yellows and reds jumped out at him, a perfect match to the Indian’s dress, small, millimeter sized beads put together in a spectacular mosaic, except for one thing. Within the bright, spectacular colors, there was at the center a large brown fist with a properly extended middle finger and on the back of that hand, Melvin B. could see an exacting of famed painter and former Hurricane Katrina specialist, George W. Bush.
It was too perfect not to fold up and place in his pocket. It had been a conversation piece, a decoration, by then, a lost friend.
What was left? W.’s right eye and part of the forehead glared at Melvin B. from a sandwich bag being handed to him and lectured that it was inappropriate anyway, kids didn’t need to see that thing, it had broken while he was exercising, no big deal, sorry about it, whatever, fallen off the fridge I thought you had gotten everything.
Melvin B. wasn’t sure which was worse, that it was broken, or that it was broken like this, as collateral damage to something so unnecessary as a sit up or a chin up, or whatever up this goddamn son of a bitch was engaging in when he had knocked it to the floor. Melvin B. took the bag, clinched his fingers into the plastic, continued to stand there for a few moments in a silence broken by Officer Plemmons.
“We’re done here.”
“Yeah? You think so?”
“I don’t like the way you say that. You can’t keep this up.”
“I know.” Melvin B. relented in a quick, sudden way that let Officer Plemmons know Melvin B. was telling him what he wanted to hear so the conversation would end. Melvin B. had had enough for the morning, and he was feeling a stronger need to get to work. He puffed a sigh and then turned to get back in the station wagon.
“Hey, look….” Plemmons said in a fatherly tone, nurturing and warm. “Come by next wednesday. I’m off that night. We can have a beer.”
“What!?”
“We can have a beer.”
“Where?”
“We can go out to the shed.”
For some reason, this was worse than the miserable piece of shit breaking the Indian bead mosaic. Melvin B. wasn’t sure if it was the flake of his former life being offered, or who was offering it that made his stomach begin to turn and then feel as if there was nothing in it, like when he would get into trouble as a kid, that empty stomach feeling coupled with light headedness and worry and shame. But unlike his childhood response, when he would cry, sleep, or run, this time he began to feel something else. It was as if everything to that point had been a lackadaisical game, the calling, the late night and early morning drives by the house, talking to her friends and family in an attempt to ingratiate himself to them, all in futility. This, this peace offering, olive branch, was a glimpse into a world from which Melvin had been excluded. Now, everything was serious. Anger filled his stomach, anger made his palms sweat, anger caused his heart to race, his pressure to rise, and worse than all the feelings, there was this, that the son of a bitch was seriously genuine about the offer, because Officer Plemmons was a good person, because he was better than Melvin B., to his wife, to the girls, to everyone. It was like getting angry at someone for being a faster runner, needless yet sincere.
“I gotta get to work.” Melvin B. said, getting back into the Cutlass Cruiser. Five minutes later he was taking the exit that led down toward the back bay, the sound of the small rocks beneath the tires and dust clouds in the air were a welcome to him as he eased into the lot and attempted to find his parking spot amongst the cars that had crowded in, almost obscuring completely the office of his charter tour and excursion company. He snaked through it, counting and thinking to himself that there were far more cars than people who should be on this first trip of the day. He always purposefully underbooked the first trip because it gave him a chance to wake up, sip some coffee while the people looked over the sides at the dolphins and in rare cases, manatees.
“Shit.” Melvin B. said sharply, pulling past where his spot was, a black SUV parked diagonally, as if the owner was a DEA agent who had swerved the vehicle into that spot as part of a raid.
He begrudgingly parked on a side street and walked back to the office. He had never seen it so full of people. When he opened the door, they had to move to let him in.
“There’s our captain!” A little woman, shorter than the front counter, her weekly permed hair just visible over the top said jovially. He had hired Marie several years before. She was a retired English teacher and drama coach and bus driver who needed an excuse to get up early. She opened the business for him and played interference in situations just like this, but her joviality, her spunk, her work ethic, all of these were darkened and smeared by the fact that she still managed to bungle reservations from time to time, and on this day, maybe the worst mistake in her history, she had scheduled four tours at the same time that were all supposed to leave a half hour before Melvin B. had arrived for work.
He nodded and smiled at the people, shook some hands, nodded as if he understood their plight and would do everything he could to change it. He was a reluctant politician then, seeing and unable to ignore the majority of faces, some bored, some disappointed, most incredibly angry at the imposition and stealing of their time. He walked past Marie and told her that the first trip would be leaving in twenty minutes.
“But who goes?”
“Draw numbers.” He said to her, opening the door to his office. The brim of his skipper’s hat gave a sharp knock against the door as he forced it closed with his foot. He thought to himself that he would have to fix that door one day too. Get in line with all the other fucking chores. He thought.
He could hear their muffled voices outside. They went like this:
“Draw numbers?”
“I gotta be at a deepsea fishin charter in an hour!”
“How long has this place been here? Can’t last much longer if it always goes like this.”
“This never happens.” Ms. Marie gently and reassuringly lied to them all.
After a few minutes, some refunds, leaving, more angry voices, Melvin B. stepped from his office, the hat from the door pulled lazily onto his head, not noticing that the noises had died down. Almost everyone had gone.
“What’s left is out there. I’m so sorry for the trouble. It’s all my fault.” Marie said, pointing outside.
“It’s alright.” Melvin B. said, wanting to jump behind the counter and slam her pinkish face against the drywall til her brains dripped down over the baseboards.
“But I’m just so sorry.”
“I know.” Melvin B. said, hardly able to hide his impatience.
Out on the porch there were barely enough people left to make for a full boat.
He nodded to them, then, without words, he stepped down a gang plank toward the boat and unhooked a thin chain that could have been the Berlin Wall for the separation it offered between their world and his, or so Melvin B. liked to think. Within a few minutes he was able to get onto the boat by himself and go through his checklist for safety and electrical and whether there were snacks and drinks. What he saw when he opened the ice chest was a murky purple soup, that within, was populated with candy bars and waterlogged individually wrapped lifesavers candy. The water, not lukewarm but close, swirled as Melvin B. stuck his hand in and fished around for three generic Mountain Dews. This would have to keep for later, because as he was fishing for sodas, he looked up to see something cutting his view of the horizon over the bay. He blinked several times, then realized what it was. If his chain going onto the boat separated one set of worlds for his passengers, this chain that stretched across the dock, gently draped, was surely his own insurmountable barrier. He jumped up and ran down the edge of the dock to retrieve a handwritten note that read poetically “No rent, no excursions. Still owe 450. Nice Try. MGMT.”
The note referred to a barely legible check Melvin B. had posted two weeks earlier, written poorly on purpose and anything but absent minded.
He shook his head. “Damnit, today?” He said to the dock. He turned again and looked back toward the top of the gang plank, to the small crowd of people, then he tore down the note and jammed it in his pocket, hiding it from them like an animal hoarding food scraps, as if they could read it from where they sat stewing.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Shit!” An older man said from the end of a bench.
“Harold!” An older woman, probably his wife, said.
“Come on, let’s get off ah this thing!” Harold said, motioning to his group of six grandchildren.
“NOOOOOO!” They all said in debate.
“I ain’t got time for this. I’ll buy ya a candy.” He offered.
“NOOOOOO!” They answered again.
“Where are you going?”
Marie asked as Melvin B. ran by her in the office.
“ATM I guess. I gotta pay this so we can leave.” Melvin B. said, walking out the door. He noticed that the parking lot was basically empty as he walked to his car, thinking that it would take him at least ten minutes to get to the atm and back with the money, including dropping it off at the landlord’s place. He figured that he could just cut the chain when he got back without having to worry about it. The early morning traffic toward the beach was picking up, the usual for a Friday. He turned quickly into the bank, under an awning that stretched out just over his car. He leaned uncomfortably over the window opening, stuck the card in and punched the pin into the keypad. Inside the machine, gears clicked and the data crunched as if there was some person or animal inside the thing. Finally, his fate was decided. The atm kept his card because it had been reported as either stolen or in a state of fund insufficiency. Either would doom him as well as the other. He hit the outside hard with his right hand, nearly falling out the window he had to stretch so far. Then, realizing that he might be on camera, he petted the screen as if to sooth it before slamming the car back in gear and speeding away, trying to hurry back to what he was sure would be future bank owned property.
The bodegas had sprung up back in the 1980’s when Melvin B. had first started his charter business. He loved going in and haggling over something as trite as an out of date candy bar and getting foreign, exotic drinks one could never get at a standard seven eleven. Now they all had atms, and he did still have a credit card, one Sylvia had forgotten to cancel. It took him four bodegas, 30% interest, and 42 dollars in other processing charges to get the 450 dollars he owed. He could see the landlord’s car at the real estate office just off the parkway that led down to Melvin B.’s dock. Before getting in the turn lane, he called Ms. Marie and told her to go ahead and let the passengers on the boat and go through safety checks.
“Sure I will.” She responded.
If he wasn’t careful, the landlord would keep him there all day, lecturing to Melvin B. about how in his home country, this would have landed a person in jail, you people get everything handed to you, I am a self made man, etc. etc. etc. None of this could be disputed, but Melvin B. cared little about geo-politics, poverty, or the South American Way.
All he wanted was…
He had said it to himself millions of times, every day of his life, from the time he could think and talk and feel. And now, years later, having acted on impulses from one minute, one second to another, he found himself with a dingy, used envelope full of cash on interest, a failed business, failed marriage, and then a failed car that was sputtering, pulling itself to the curb as if to say “I quit too you worthless fucker.” Then it died as well. Forgoing the landlord’s office, Melvin B. began walking down toward the dock.
“All I need to do. All I need is… All I want to do… I just wanted to…!!! Aaahhhh!!!” He yelled for only his station wagon corpse to hear in the distance. But it didn’t answer. Nothing answered him.
What seemed like only minutes later, the chain was being broken apart with a $25 plus tax pair of bolt cutters he would never use as a deduction. The dingy envelope of cash hugged the pennies and nickels and quarters as they jingled in the pockets of his loose cargo shorts. He tossed one end of the chain into the water, the other links following the momentum until the tautness seized the whole of the serpentine ovals, making a loud splash into the water.
“Dolphins!” One of the little granddaughters screamed from the boat at some small fish popping up out of the water, nipping at the air. This family, like the remainders of a POW camp, were all that remained of that giant mass Melvin B. had seen in the parking lot before. They hurried themselves back to their seats.
“Nope, but we’d better see some goddamn dolphins.” The grandfather grunted at Melvin B.
“Safety check.” Melvin B. called out like a reluctant cook offering a tomaine soaked meal at an old folks home.
“She already done that!” The grandfather pointed inside the office at Marie’s permed silhouette. “Twice!”
Melvin B. also noticed for the first time that she had started the engine to an idle as well. Good Marie, she could go back home after all of this and enjoy her retirement, her fixed income from the state, her cost of living adjustment check at the casino. Instead of fixing his problems she could attend to her grandchildren, if she had any. He was sure she had some, probably many. Grandchildren that wouldn’t neglect her, subject her to verbal abuse from every John Q. Asshole that wanted a beach escape and some Corona and lime and to see a few fucking dolphins. “Are we ever gonna get out to sea!?” The man yelled.
The boat lurched backward from the dock as Ms. Marie waved to them from the open door of the office, her hand giving the universal yet obsolete gesture that he had a phone call. Melvin B. felt in his pocket for his phone, the only thing on that boat with a real job. Eleven missed calls, and the twelfth coming in at that moment, and the Venezuelan or Colombian or Bolivian at the other end. Melvin B. hit the accept button then tossed the phone over the edge. The bubbles, the sinking, the dying of the device, would be the most productive conversation he’d ever had with the corpulent, tanned gentleman who drove a tan mercedes Melvin B. could see coming down the road that hugged the shore leading to the excursion office.
“Dolphins!” The little girl yelled out again.
“Sidown!” Melvin yelled at her as they picked up speed.
“What!? Who in the hell do you think!” The grandfather said, jumping up from the vinyl seat. As the roar of the boat muted what seemed to be a rather lively conversation, the little girl stood up and poked her little head over the side, pointing and pulling at her grandmother. The grandmother, voice dead over the engine and waves hitting the sides looked over and saw ahead. There were several beautiful dolphins defying all nature and its laws of gravity, gracefully leaping from the water in their aquatic ballet, nothing on stage or film able to truly capture what she was seeing, and more importantly, forgetting about her own life.
As the seconds passed, she became bored and checked her watch and glanced back at her husband, handcuffed to the quite nautical, wooden polyurethaned wheel, large eyes looking to her for help. He wore Melvin B.’s skipper’s hat. Her eyes were torn between him and the dolphins, and seeing for the first time that they and the boat would soon collide. The propeller! She thought. Then she saw Melvin B. giving her the same sign as the obscured Mardi Gras Indian image as he jumped over the railing with his life vest.
The money was getting more soaked by the second as Melvin floated as an orange cork in the water that was becoming more koolaid red, gently backstroking his way to the shore, thinking to himself,
“All I need to do is…”