Hard aground, p.2
Hard Aground, page 2
"Hey, sailor."
Hap looked up. Joyce Hardy was sitting limp on the edge of the bed. Naked, her stomach narrow and tight, breasts small and taut. A gymnast's build, though she wasn't an exercise person. It was one of those no-maintenance, good-gene bodies that she had no reason to be proud of, but was anyway.
She stood up, stretched out her arms to him, and he put the knife down and went over and kissed her. Held her for a moment afterward, and could feel himself thicken against her thigh. She hummed her readiness, shifted her leg so her quadriceps flexed against him. All it would take was his hand caressing her hip, or a nudge deeper into the embrace, any small acceptance on his part, and he knew she would pull away, quietly lie back on the bed, smile at him, and invite him down.
"Good morning," he said, and stepped back. "Sleep well?"
"Wonderful," she said. But her smile dwindled slightly.
He went back to the workbench and Joyce reached into the pocket of her T-shirt and took out a Salem. She smoothed the wrinkles back out of the shirt, realigned it on the chair, then picked up the Zippo lying on the bedside table and lit the cigarette. She took a long drag and let it out with a luxurious groan. She came over to take a look at what he was working on.
"I don't know, Hap."
"What don't you know?"
"I thought windsurfers liked pretty boards, snazzy, colorful. But yours are so boxy, so bland."
"Ugly and fast," Hap said. "That's what I do."
"You chop off their sexy curves. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Hey," he said. "This bland thing has an eighty percent hydrodynamic efficiency. When I'm done, it's going to be faster than any board out there. From light wind to gales, wave-jumping or slalom, it'll be out ahead of anybody."
"You should write ad copy, Hap."
He set the hot-knife down on the tool bench and opened the oak cabinet, took down his wood-burning set. He plugged the thing in a wall socket, waited a few seconds, then bent over the board and began digging deep gashes, from tail to nose, six parallel grooves two inches wide, an inch deep, that later he would fill with strips of ceramic, carbon, and Kevlar. He bought them from a gun manufacturer tip in Hialeah. Some guy who'd invented an all-plastic pistol for heating airport X rays. Guns, next to sunburns, being Miami's major export.
Those carbon-Kevlar strips would eliminate another six pounds, a pound for each groove, and at the same time make the board about twice as rigid. Bring its net weight down to twenty-eight pounds without losing any flotation. It would have a volume of 210 liters. A weight-to-volume ratio of point sixteen. So a ten-year-old kid could carry it, and a two-hundred pounder could get it up on plane in a five-knot breeze.
Joyce came around the bench and stood behind him. She lifted the hair that hung over his collar, breathed on his neck, pressed her breasts against his back, and kissed the thin skin behind his ear. The line Hap was drawing wavered.
"Well, it turns me on seeing my man so hard at work."
She waited for a moment for him to respond. But he held himself back, and in a moment she let go of his hair, took another drag on her Salem, exhaled it into his back, and began to wander around the boathouse, checking out some of the other boards that leaned against the walls.
She blew smoke tip at the rafters, where it tangled in the sprockets of light shining through the slits in the boathouse wall. Little galaxies of dust spinning in each one.
She had two earrings in one ear, one in the other. Her blond hair in a boyish cut with a part. Hap had worn his hair that way twenty years ago, at eighteen. Joyce had green eyes. A small straight nose. It was pretty face, with a flicker of irony in her eyes.
He'd met her at the Taurus bar, one of thirty trendy restaurant hams within a mile of his house. Any night of the week, a thousand stools filled and waiting. He could walk out at eight o'clock, walk back in at eleven with a giggling female. You live here, on the water? Sure do. All this land in the middle of Coconut Grove, it's yours? Belongs to my brother and me, yeah. Wow! Ever hear of Commodore Randolph Tyler? He asked them. Well, yeah, I think so. How about if I show you the boathouse he built a hundred years ago? It's down there, right on the shore.
Maybe it was the mischievous light in his eyes that attracted them. Or his eat-from-the-can approach to things. A certain air of reckless fun. He wasn't sure what made them break loose from their safe perches and swim home with him. But they did. Regularly.
"You ever heard of Radisson Acres?" he said to Joyce Hardy.
"Radisson Acres?"
Hap took a breath and gave her a long look. It wasn't too late. He could still go over to her, kiss those lips, one more time let his glands overrule his conscience.
"It's up close to Ocala," Hap said. "Rolling hills, lakes, a nine-hole golf course. Very nice place."
"I like Ocala," she said. "All the horses, white fences. It looks like Lexington."
"Yeah, well, you don't visit Radisson," he said. "You get sent there."
"Sent?"
"By court order," he said. "It was either there or Starke." Joyce was just holding her Salem now, letting it burn.
"Starke, the prison?" Hap nodded.
"I've had some lapses," he said. "Mental lapses."
"What're my saving?"
"I've gone nuts a few times. I mean, I could put it more politely, try to make it sound okay, but nuts is what most people call it."
"You're joking." She was trying to smile, but it was turning sour at the edges.
"Radisson wasn't all that bad, really. They had us play a lot of badminton, croquet. The staff spoke to us very politely. Wonderful enunciation, like we might not understand them if they slurred their words.'
"Tell me you're kidding, Hap. Come on, stop."
"I'm saving, Joyce, I like you. I'd like for us to get to know each other better, so I thought I should tell you about it. Be straight with you.
"You're insane?"
"I wouldn't go that far. Just a little ... I don't know, a little unpredictable. Like I got a screw loose. But just one, and just slightly loose."
"Unpredictable."
"I can be normal enough. And it's been a long while now since I was weird, but I thought I should tell you anyway."
"Weird how?"
"Just weird. I don't know how to describe it."
"Well, hell, everybody feels weird now and then. It's probably just a phase of some kind."
But he could tell she was trying to convince herself. And it wasn't working. Her eyes had begun to map the quickest route to the door. He considered for a second retracting it all, smiling at her, saying he was sorry, it was all a bad joke, slide back into bed, get to week number two that way.
"No, this is a different kind of weird," he said. "I might wake up in the night, or I could be walking around the grocery store, doing anything really, and there's a voice, it talks to me, tells me to do things. And I do them. I obey it. I think it's my grandfather's voice, the Commodore's. You might've read about me in the paper. I've made some headlines."
"No," she said. "Not that I recall."
She stubbed out her cigarette on the seashell she'd been using for an ashtray. She smiled painfully at him, with that funny squint she used when she didn't completely understand something. Craning forward, her eyes narrow like she was trying to peer through slits.
Hap looked away. The breeze was picking up, dust swirling faster in the wedges of light. He heard muffled thunder out to the west, a Miami August morning.
"I haven't done anything weird in a while," he said. "I might not ever again. I'm trying hard to be better."
She considered it a minute, looking at him blankly. Then she lifted her gaze to the dirty window, took a few breaths. Finally she brought her eyes back to him. They were sad, but hard. He knew what she was going to say. He'd heard twenty versions of it in the last few months, ever since he'd started telling them the truth.
"Thanks, Hap," she said. "I mean for telling me now, instead of later, when it might've gotten serious between us. That was thoughtful."
She looked at him for a few moments. Naked on the side of the bed. Her marvelous body. Goddamn, goddamn.
She said, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I don't want to be mean or anything. But you know, if you got mental-health problems, it's just not what I'm looking for."
"Yeah," he said. "I understand."
"You're a sweet man. You really are. I appreciate your telling me. Some guys wouldn't."
"You're welcome."
When she'd dressed and was at the door, she stood there for a moment looking at him.
"You gonna kiss me good-bye?"
He went over to her and kissed her.
"You're not just trying to drive me away, are you? 'Cause if that's it, tell me. Maybe it was something I did. I scared you sonic-how. Came on too strong. I can do that."
He kissed her on the forehead.
"You didn't do anything. You're fine," he said. "I told you the truth. I hear a voice. I do what it says. It's been a while since I heard it, so I don't know, maybe it's over now. But there's no way to know for sure.
"I hope so," Joyce said. "For your sake."
Hap saw his older brother, Daniel, and Marguerite Rawlings coming down the lawn toward the boathouse. Both wearing shorts, T-shirts, and baseball hats. They were holding hands, but they seemed awkward doing it, like school kids on a field trip, required by the teacher to keep a grip on their buddy.
"Bye, Joyce."
She smiled, told him goodbye. Maybe she'd see him around.
"Yeah, maybe."
At the end of the dock, she had to squeeze by Daniel and Marguerite. They exchanged a quick hello and then Joyce kept ongoing toward the main house, where she'd parked her new Porsche. Daniel and Marguerite watched her go, then came out on the dock. Hap sat down on the bench outside the boathouse door.
"She had that look," Daniel said. "Like she won't be back."
Hap said yeah, yeah.
"We're not even a week into August," Daniel said. "And that's eleven ladies since June."
"You missed a couple, I think."
"What was wrong with this one?" Marguerite said.
"She folded her underwear."
"Well," Daniel said. "We can't have that now, can we?"
"Why don't you give me some shit, Daniel? Huh? Why don't you grind my ass a little?"
"At least this one was out of puberty," Marguerite said. She stood behind Daniel, looking at the bay, at some low-flying sandpipers skimming along in the same convoy with a couple of grebes. She watched them intently.
"We wanted to know if you were interested in going diving," Daniel said. "We'll stop at the Yacht Club and pick up the tanks. Have an early lunch, be back in by one, two o'clock."
"I got work to do."
"Marguerite packed a couple of extra sandwiches for you."
"Can't do it," said Hap. "But I'll take a rain check."
"We don't give rain checks," Marguerite said, still not looking at him. "Unless it's raining."
"It'd do you good, Hap. A little diving, we're going to explore a wreck I know about."
"Thanks anyway."
Daniel gave Hap a look that he meant to be half sympathetic, half prodding. Come on, kid brother, pick yourself up, dust off, and get back to it. Hap Tyler had been seeing that look all his life, and not just from Daniel either. He was sick of it, and pissed off at himself for bringing it out in people.
"I appreciate the offer," he said. "But I have a couple of boards I want to finish today."
After they'd puttered away in the Boston Whaler, Hap went back into the boathouse and sat down on the edge of the bed. Joyce Harry's head print was still in the pillow. He picked it up, held it to his face. Coconut shampoo. A hint of vanilla. He'd read somewhere that when you smelled things you were actually coming into physical contact with the molecules of the thing itself, an invisible residue left behind.
Sound was simply air jiggling in the ear, and sight was only reflected light that flickered on the retina. But with odors, fragments of the goddamn thing itself trickled along the neural pathways. Maybe that's why it could hurt so much, catching a whiff of something that was gone for good, just those last few particles lingering.
Hap Tyler set the pillow down and went back to the workbench. If he stayed at it, kept his focus and didn't make any serious mistakes, he might have that board done by five this afternoon. So he made that his goal. Five o'clock. No mistakes, stay focused, get through the day. Just like ordinary people must do.
CHAPTER 3
IN THE WEEK AFTER HE SPLIT WITH JOYCE HARDY, HAP hatched a plan. Quit the bar scene cold turkey, put his jinxed love life on hold, sublimate like hell, redirect all those sexual juices into his board business. Turn them out faster and more economically, then market the hell out of the things. Yeah, Hap the businessman.
It was high time he got his ass out of that house, went out on his own, rented an apartment somewhere. And it was time he broke as many of the old habits as he could, wiped clean the brain stems. Started over, goddamn it. Acquired some new addictions, and chose them a little more shrewdly this time.
So he invited Daniel to an early breakfast Saturday at the Silver Sands on Key Biscayne. It was a funky fifties motel restaurant, big windows looking out at the beach, the sun easing out of the Atlantic, turning the clouds to jewel tones, pinks and blues. Across the dining room steaming trays of bacon, grits, eggs Benedict. The idea was, get Daniel relaxed, calm, his mouth full of good food, then Hap would make his pitch.
He'd gone over and over it all week, even had a notepad covered with scribbled numbers. Just where the money would go, what Hap could expect to clear his first year. Best case, worst case. Talk about the design of the board itself, show Daniel a couple of drawings, discuss buoyancy factors, speed-weight ratios. Prove he knew what the hell he was talking about.
But now, for the last half hour, Hap had succeeded in doing nothing more than stutter around, looking for a way to begin. Feeling more and more awkward as Daniel looked at him strangely. At this point Hap was about to scrap the whole goddamn thing. Finish breakfast, pay the bill, go on home the same failure he'd been when he arrived.
He should've realized it. Hap didn't even know how to chitchat with Daniel anymore. Lately, the ten-year spread between them seemed to have doubled, tripled. Christ, they'd never even been that close to begin with, not in the same generation. Didn't listen to the same music, watch the same movies, read the same books. Hap always thinking of Daniel as more of an uncle or a benign stepfather. On average, they didn't exchange more than five sentences a week. Days went by without Hap even bumping into Daniel around the house. What'd he been thinking! Ask Daniel for fifteen thousand dollars, Christ!
Hell, the last time he'd even been around Daniel for more than thirty seconds was a couple of weeks ago when Hap bumped into him and Marguerite in the kitchen late one night. They were having a brandy, and Hap stumbled in with an eighteen year old he'd met at CocoWalk. They hadn't exchanged names yet, though they'd been kissing down by the boathouse for an hour. He was on his way upstairs with her to show her the spectacular view of Biscayne Bay from his bedroom.
And the first thing out of Marguerite's mouth was, "Well, I see little brother's still splashing around in the kiddie pool."
"This the newspaper lady?" the young woman said. "One you warned me about?"
Hap said yeah, it was. The famous Marguerite Rawlings.
"I tried to read your column once," said the girl. "About saving the Del Monico Hotel, but it was too stupid. I couldn't finish it."
"Stupid, really?"
"Yeah, I been by the Del Monico. It's all run-down. Just a bunch of retired Jewish ladies sitting out on their aluminum chairs waiting to die. It smells bad too."
"Oh my, I didn't realize it smelled bad."
"It was a dumb article," the girl said, giving her hair a flounce, and suddenly looking a hell of a lot younger in the kitchen light than she had at the shadowy bar. She stood in front of Marguerite and said, "South Beach is hip now. It's new wave, live bands, bars, skaters in the street. Full of juice. They should put those old people in a van and drive them somewhere else. That's what I say. Knock that stinky place down and build a parking lot. There's not enough parking out there."
"God," Marguerite said. "What a great idea. How sensitive of you to think of it. How caring and humane."
"Hey, Daniel," said Hap, "could you curb your bulldog, please?"
Marguerite stood up, looked around like she was searching for something to bludgeon them with. The eighteen year old gave Hap a cold good night and stalked out the kitchen door and disappeared into the dark. Hap called Marguerite a goddamn pseudo-intellectual sarcastic bitch. She called him a cradle robber, and Daniel had to stand up, practically pull them apart.
After the scene was over, Hap went up to his room alone and lay in bed drinking rum from the bottle. A while later he heard his brother and Marguerite come upstairs and begin whispering in Daniel's bedroom. And still later he heard the quiet tap of Daniel's headboard against the adjoining wall. A languid rhythm, slower than Hap could manage with the women he brought home.
Now, that was really good. He didn't know his own brother well enough to have a decent conversation with him, but Hap knew how fast he made love to Marguerite Rawlings. Great.
Hap set his coffee cup down, wiped his mouth, cleared his throat, did a drum roll with his fingers against the tabletop.
He said, "Okay, Daniel, here's the deal. I want to start manufacturing sailboards. Fifteen thousand bucks should take me through a year. I need to hire a couple of part-time people, buy some hardware, mast tracks, custom daggerboards, the blanks themselves, a few tools, and there'll be some marketing costs. I got all the figures written down right here. I'm serious about this. It's something I can do. And I need to do it, to have a job, something more than the goddamn tours. It's my shot. My chance to get on my feet. I really want this, Daniel. A lot."
