Chapter 3 #3
He chatted with the women for a few minutes more as they examined his and Becca’s arms for signs that one of them wore a sticker or for anything else that explained his clear skin and the signature on Becca’s arm.
Then, he made his way down the shore, taking two more videos of similar tricks—Becca’s was the best and he was unlikely to use the rest of the footage, but it was good to hang onto B roll for later, if nothing else.
After all that, it was late afternoon and too early to get dinner just yet, but too late to do anything committing if he wanted to get ready for that night’s show on time. He picked a spot near the water and stripped off his shirt to soak in the sun while it still sat above the trees and buildings.
James waded in, unfortunately within shouting range two men stood waist-deep in the waves and bikini-clad women sat on their shoulders, trying to force the other woman into the water.
From the sand, their friends filmed the game on their phones.
James noticed that the men on the shore were more enthusiastic about it than the women who sat a few feet away, also recording but looking put out.
One of the women finally forced the curvier woman from the shoulders of her teammate and both losers fell sideways into the ocean.
He kept his head from going under, but she emerged from the waves with hair plastered to her face and used both hands to part it like a wet curtain.
“Are you okay, Daze?” the heavily tattooed woman in the sand with the messy brunette long bob asked. The woman next to her dropped her cell phone and put a hand to her mouth, feigning shock but stifling a laugh.
The drenched woman opened her mouth in a wide O, sucking in desperately needed air after taking a fall she clearly hadn’t anticipated, and wiped salt water from her eyes.
“I’m okay,” she said after a moment and waded back to her friends.
The winning team dismantled, high-fiving when they were both in the water.
The men began a splash fight that James found himself in the crossfire for.
He swam away from them and back to the shore where his stuff lay just a few feet from the group of women.
Daze laid on a towel, drying off her pale skin and blue bikini in the hot sun.
Tattoos sat on her left and another woman with Dutch braids and oversized sunglasses sat on her right.
Both women wore t-shirts and bikini bottoms, focusing more on their cell phones than the beach in front of them or their wet friend between them.
James watched the waves, feeling rejuvenated by the cool of the ocean and the bottle of water he drank. He started thinking about his trip around the island, all the buildings and the people, and his mind slowly began to wander as the crash and pull of the waves hypnotized him.
If I only saw a maintenance worker, why am I so bothered by it? He wondered. Something about the way it moved…
The screams startled him back to reality.
“What the fuck?” Dutch Braids shouted. White sand covered her head and shoulders and slowly poured out of her hair as she stood.
Tattoos remained on the ground, trying to process why sand suddenly poured through her long bob, but Daze, who retreated to her towel to dry off from getting soaked, got it the worst. James turned just in time to watch her sit up, looking like some sort of beach creature from a B-rated horror movie.
The sand clung to her hair and damp chest when she sat upright, and her eyes and mouth pinched shut to keep the granules out.
A man stood above the group and laughed.
He held a red bucket loosely in his hand and didn’t even take a step back as Dutch Braids stepped forward, full of fury and swiping coarse sand from her skin where it stuck to her sunscreen and sweat.
He just continued to laugh like an idiot, his ribs clearly outlined just beneath his pale skin with his irregular exhales.
Dutch Braids probably had a good fifteen pounds on this scrawny asshole and could definitely take him, but James stood up, offended on behalf of the women.
He knew who this man was—a teenager stuck inside the body of a 20-year-old man.
They attained their fame on the same platform and some even considered them peers—or competitors.
James never called them that, though. He insisted that they catered to distinct audiences; his magic videos were watched by men and women across all age groups, while prank videos of this nature appealed to a younger, predominantly male crowd.
Ryan LeHane’s camera boys, two more pale stick figures in board shorts with iPhones, stood a couple feet behind him and tried to keep him in the shot as they laughed.
Dutch Braids shoved Ryan with both hands, and only then did he finally take a step back and stop laughing.
“Hey, hey! It’s just a joke!” he said.
“Well, we’re not fucking laughing,” Dutch Braids said. Tattoos stood behind her now, but Daze remained seated, struggling to wipe the sand off her face.
“Oh no, did you get a little sand on you? At the beach?” Ryan mocked.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Tattoos asked. Her hands balled into fists by her sides, but she didn’t look to James like the kind of person to get physical. Dutch Braids, on the other hand, looked like a fighter.
“Uh, only the biggest fucking creator on YouTube,” Ryan said.
“Duh,” one of the camera men said.
“Only because your audience is toddlers on iPads who accidentally find you after their cartoons end,” James said, stepping forward.
Ryan only took a moment to recognize James before turning to the camera with a shit eating grin.
“Well, well, look who it is. Grandpa James is on Island X, too! What are you gonna do, Grandpa? You gonna pull a quarter out of my ear?”
Ryan stuck his thumb in his mouth like a baby and made direct, malicious eye contact with James, who stepped toward him until they were almost chest to chest. Ryan stood a good six inches shorter than James and needed to look up to maintain eye contact.
“Aw, you trying to intimidate me? Or kiss me? I bet your viewers would like if you gave me just a little peck on my forehead like my Pap Pap.”
Ryan’s cronies snickered.
“Your pranks aren’t funny, Ryan. Your jokes aren’t funny. You aren’t funny.”
“So, it must be my ten million subscribers who are wrong,” Ryan said.
“No one here thinks you’re funny,” Dutch Braids said. She still fumed but stopped trying to get the sand off her and maintain some of her dignity. The tiny grains continued to loosen with each movement.
Daze finally stood and faced Ryan, still hopelessly covered in a thick layer of white crystals.
“Aw, you don’t think I’m funny? I guess I should just go cry about it in my private villa and wipe my ass with some hundred-dollar bills,” Ryan said, but he faced directly into his friend’s camera as he spoke.
He turned back to James, croaking a laugh like a bullfrog with his tongue sticking out. James thought that Ryan might lick him, but Ryan put his tongue away and grinned again.
“I would hold onto your money. You’re going to need it to replace your phone,” James said, holding up an iPhone in his left hand.
For the first time, real emotion ran over Ryan’s face, first confusion, then surprise as he patted the right pocket of his dark blue board shorts and found it empty.
James only allowed him enough time to confirm that it was, in fact, Ryan’s own phone before he took two quick steps back and frisbeed the phone into the ocean.
Ryan’s face went pale with disbelief, and his friends mirrored his expression as they stood with their mouths open.
He turned red with anger and faced James.
“What the fuck!” Ryan shouted.
“You fucking deserved it,” Daze said.
Ryan’s face turned from James to her and back again.
For a moment James thought that Ryan might actually step forward and start throwing hands, he looked so angry.
Then Ryan’s eyes flicked to a pair of wide-shouldered security guards with yellow vests and black shirts that hugged their biceps walking down the beach toward them.
James thought Ryan to be the kind of rich white kid to tattle to authority to save his skin, but to his surprise Ryan just stormed past him toward the ocean to retrieve his phone.
“Put it in some rice!” James shouted at Ryan’s back.
Ryan gave him the middle finger but didn’t turn around. The two boys with Ryan put their devices away and walked past James and the women to help their friend locate his phone.
“Asshole,” muttered one of them as they passed.
“Your friend is the asshole,” Daze said.
Her voice clipped with anger and humiliation.
She picked up her towel, which remained irredeemably covered with sand even as she tried to shake it out.
Her friends gave halfhearted efforts to wipe the grains off her shoulders and back and gathered their own towels.
“Thanks for giving that asshole what he deserved,” Tattoos said to James.
“Yeah, that was a pretty neat trick you pulled there,” Dutch Braids said.
“Well,” he shrugged, trying to stay humble. “Tricks are what pays the bills. I’m a magician.”
All three of the women widened their eyes. James could almost hear what they were trying to ask one another telepathically.
“For real?” Daze asked.
“Yeah,” James said. He was used to this kind of response and was hoping he could turn it around like he usually did and make a video out of it.
Daze exhaled deeply. “Cool. Card tricks and edited videos that make little kids do stupid shit with their parents’ stuff.”
“Uh, no,” James corrected, taken off guard.
“Daisy!” Tattoos snapped. “I’m sorry, ignore her. Are you here with anyone?”
“I was supposed to be here with a friend,” he said, feeling the shame of admitted to an embarrassing secret. “But no. I’m by myself.”