11. Rhodes #2
The elevator takes me down through the empty tower, and that wrong-looking date sits somewhere behind my eyes. I'm sure it's nothing. Ridge sits on things all the time, decides when and if he gives me information all the time. This will is a prime example. Who knows how long he's had it.
I pull out of the garage and turn right on Prytania. I don't take the ramp home, convincing myself the interstate's backed up, and that I want the surface streets. But I know it's not true. My hands turn the wheel toward the river.
The levee road runs along the water past the wharves, and I pull off where the grass shoulder widens, and the batture opens up below, cut the engine, and roll the window down.
A tanker's working upriver, riding so deep it looks like it should sink and doesn't. Its hull is red, rust streaks bleeding down from the waterline. Behind it, a tug shoves a string of barges the other way, and somewhere past the bend a horn goes off.
I sit there, not thinking, just watching.
The tanker has a place it's going. Somebody plotted it, gave it a heading, told it where to be and when.
It doesn't drift or wonder. The engines turn, and the screw bites.
The whole thing does its job, because that's the only thing a job is: a set of instructions and a result.
Vin's hands come up once, grease in the knuckles, a rag over one shoulder, his thumb dragging along a fuel line to feel for a crack he already knew was there.
The windshield's gone cool under my palm where I've got it braced against the dash, and the light's dropping fast now. The water's gone from brown to something darker, the far bank down to a line of dots.
I lose track of how long I sit there. When the first lights come up along the bridge, I turn the key and go home. I don't want to meet Deuce and Nash any more. I don't bother texting them to let them know.
Her Cruiser's parked in the driveway in the same spot.
Inside, the house is dark. I flip the kitchen light. The hall stays black except her door's standing open now. On the way past, I catch it, something floral in the air that isn't her morning soap. It's the going-out one.
Her car's here, and she's not. Somebody came and got her. I bet she’s with that douchebag.
I smell perfume wafting up from down the hall. She got dressed up for him. My hand closes on the counter edge until the stone hurts. Then I put the phone face down and go find the eggs.
I get the pan out. Butter goes in and hits the heat with a hiss, and I crack two eggs, then two more, out of habit more than hunger. Dropping a slice of bread in the toaster, I turn back to the stove and push the yolk around.
The eggs spit and bubble at the edges. I flip them, break the yolks, grab the toast, and lay it down over the grease. Cutting them into two sandwiches, I slide them onto a plate, and stand at the counter with it, not the least bit hungry.
My phone lights up on the counter, and I turn it over.
brOTHER.
Then right after it, a photo of Coop's face, sunburned across the nose, grinning like an idiot in front of a stone building with a harbor behind him, fills the screen. He's holding a plate piled with something dark and knuckled I don't recognize.
you will not BELIEVE what I ate today.
Looks like something off the bottom of a piling.
It's called percebes. they are gooseneck barnacles they pull them off cliffs with the tide coming in and it's insane. guys die doing it. twelve euros a plate and I ate three plates.
I set the plate down and lean on the counter. My thumbs move on their own.
You're going to die eating shit like that. I hope it doesn't give you dysentery.
worth it. this place, man. the whole town runs on the water. everybody's got shell under their nails. it's home but Spanish.
He sounds like himself, and that's what makes me smile, even after the shitty day I've had. He sounds like Coop before the funeral, before the flat, careful voice he used the whole last month. Whatever Galicia's doing to him, it's the right thing.
Good. You look good, so they must be doing something right.
how's it going with the wild animal? she break you yet?
She's good. I helped her with a shoreline build yesterday out in the marsh. She's a machine out there.
I think about her text from Trey. Fucking Trey.
she let you help?
Grudgingly.
that's my sister. i'm glad she let you come do that with her. that says a lot. maybe she's coming back.
I know what he means by coming back. He says she's different since she got clean: more angry, guarded, hellbent on being self-sufficient. I say she’s always been like that
No, she's out doing something. She was gone when I got home.
good. she needs that. thank you, man. for real. I sleep better knowing it's you.
Enjoy Spain, Bro. Eat another barnacle.
cheers-
The screen holds a second, then goes black. My face comes up faint in it, then that's gone too.
I gave him the clean version and called it handled. She's good, she's got people, she's out. Every word of that is true, and I kept the rest back. That’s not lying.
I throw the egg sandwich in the trash, put the plate in the sink, and don't wash it.
The house is too quiet, and the hall still smells like her. I go to my room and shut the door out of habit, since there's nobody here to shut it against.
I lie down on top of the covers with my arm over my eyes.
It's the perfume. I'm hard before I've decided anything.
I know what I'm doing when I get my hand around myself. There's no talking myself into it and no pretending it's about somebody else. It's the green dress, it’s her on one knee under my sink with those shorts riding up while I stood over her counting tile like a coward.
It's fast, and it isn't good. It's a job I give my own hand to shut something up.
After, I lie there in the dark. My chest heaves, the fan clicks, and the goddamned perfume is still in the hall.