Ten Mile River (10 page)

Ray had been holding the towrope the whole time. He and José reeled in the boat.

‘How we get up and into it now?' José's teeth chattered.

Ray's teeth too. ‘Here's how we gotta do it—ah! Cold!'

‘How? How we d-do it?'

‘You one side, me th'other. Pull up the same time. So's we don't—'

‘So's we don't tip it,' José said. ‘Ah! Daaag! Hoooo chu-hilly!'

‘You laughin?'

The tide pulled them fast into the middle of the river. José swung around to the other side of the rowboat. ‘Ready? One, two, three.'

They kicked up and pulled. José grabbed the seat bench and humped himself into the boat. Ray, much heavier, pulled his side down into the water. José leaned back to balance the boat as he grabbed at Ray. Ray swung up into the boat, but the boat had taken on water, three inches by the time it sloshed and spread over the boat's floor.

Ray didn't know what was worse, being in the river or on it. The wind sizzled him in his wet clothes. He puked what was left of the morning's pancakes into the river. José chucked up Cap'n Crunch.

‘Where's the oars?' Ray said between coughs.

‘I left 'em back in the shed. Don't look at me like that. I didn't think we was gonna put the boat in the water, Ray.'

‘Sure, why would a
boat
go in
water
of all things?'

‘In Febriary, asshole?'

Ray paddled with his hands, but the water was too cold. ‘Burns!'

‘Get your fool hands out the water. We're the tide's boys now. Freezin to death out on the river. That's just lame with no glory to it.'

Ray punched the gunnels. ‘Why'd you have to jump in?'

‘Scarface don't play, baby. The Scar gets his friends to where they got to go, word up.'

‘Hate you, man.'

‘Yeah, and I'm thrilled with you.'

‘Yo, I just rode a half year a juvie 'cause you just had to get a goddam used Ninja!'

‘I didn't tell you to drive into a tree! Raymundo of Ten Mile River, patron saint a the fuckin squirrels.'

Ray swung at José, José ducked, swung back. The boat rocked, the boys stilled and stared at each other. Ray laughed and cried.

José just laughed. ‘Help me roll out the tarp.'

They rolled out the tarp, used it to bail the water, doubled the tarp, huddled under it back to back, shuddering. José took off his jacket, then his shirt.

Ray howled.

‘Go 'head and fun me, but you oughta do the same. Get some a that water off you.' José wrung out his shirt over the side.

‘My blubber-a keep me warm. Good day to be a fat boy.'

‘All them extra cheese slices finally paid off, huh?' José chattered as he put on his shirt. ‘Wind's west. We'll make Jersey before long. I never been to a foreign state before.'

They were in the wide water now, the tide fast north.

The bottom of the boat was icy, but their tarp cover trapped warm air around them as their bodies shivered to make heat.

‘Smells like juvie under here, huh?' José said.

‘Puke if I could.'

‘Tell me words. Like bollard and hawser and stuff.'

‘Too cold. I forget all the words to everything.'

‘I don't wanna know any more fancy words anyhow. I'm about to fall asleep, you believe it?'

‘Me too. Maybe we're freezin to death.'

‘Maybe we're just exhausted because some jackass got us swimmin in the winter river.' José yawned.

The tide yanked the rowboat north up the Hudson toward the George Washington Bridge.

Ray couldn't keep his eyes open. He shivered himself into what he hoped was the last sleep.

He hadn't closed his eyes more than fifteen minutes when a moan woke him, then a gasp. He jumped to a sit.

‘It's the ice,' José said. ‘It's breakin up.'

‘How come you didn't wake me?' Ray said.

‘I tried but you batted away my hand.'

All across the Jersey side the icepack had splintered. The icebreakers had opened up lines to the George Washington's towers. Ice plates stacked atop one another chaotically like debris from a demolished building.

‘You hear them rumbles and clicks?' José said. ‘It's the devil's bowling alley down there.'

A slo-mo shockwave rolled under the ice, a pump of tide.

‘We're goin south now,' José said.

‘We gotta get off the river. Boat here's flimsy fiber-glass. We cut the bottom of it on a jag of ice, we're the blue folks.'

‘Ray, you mention them folks again I'll chuck you overboard, the three of y'all can
leave Earth
together, knock yourselves out. I already saved your lame ass once today. Double wrap your arm in tarp. We're close enough to paddle now.'

They paddled toward the Jersey shore some fifty yards off. Past that were thick woods and a few mansions. ‘Swank, huh?' Ray huffed.

‘Swank or not this is our stop. See that huge house uphill there? Folks'll help us if we cry right.'

‘I'm cried out.'

‘
Now
he can't cry. Dag, son. You just about kill me.'

They rode the tide and wind on a southwest cut to a yacht club dock.

‘Mind the river mud now,' José said. ‘Suck our feet right down into the bed, we'll never get out.'

They jumped from the boat to a concrete ramp used to trailer boats in and out of the water. They misjudged the ramp's slope in the dark, jumped in a little too early. The water was up to their waists. They muffled their screams, hissed curses instead on the odd chance any security guard happened to be down by the river smoking a blunt. They didn't need to worry. There was nothing to guard this off-season night, the yachts in dry dock.

‘
Leave
the rowboat,' José said.

Ray let the boat drift but snatched the tarp.

On the dock, they shook and stamped like dogs after a bath. Their pants, which had started to dry a bit in the heat under the tarp, were soaked.

José bent over and grabbed his guts.

‘The hell?' Ray said.

‘Your hair.' José fell to his knees, screaming laughter. ‘You look like Don King! Your do got all bunched on top your head there under the tarp! Standin off your head like you got your finger in the toaster! Look at that nappy juvie pile, frozen rusty Brillo.'

Ray tried to smooth his frozen hair, pointed to José's head. ‘Your cornrow tails froze. You're the Dominican Statue of Liberty.'

‘Don King's bastard son. The one who ain't gonna inherit!'

‘Hell we laughin about? We're about to die out here.'

‘I know it.'

They laughed until they forgot they were on a dock at the edge of dark woods in a foreign town, freezing to death. The snow clouds ran away east, leaving behind wide western sky.

‘Hoo.' José laughed himself quiet.

On the other side of the woods were manor grounds and uphill the mansion they spotted from the water. ‘Looks like a liberry,' José said.

‘Like you been to the library ever.'

‘I seen 'em from the outside.' José slapped Ray's back. ‘Let's check it out, partner.'

The tarp wrapped around them, they worked their way uphill over the frozen snow to a back patio and a greenhouse connected to the mansion. The flower beds were bare. José tried the greenhouse door, locked. ‘You go right, I'll go left,' José said.

They both went right.

‘Oh,' José said, spun off left.

Ray went around to the right side of the greenhouse and found two Dobermans staring him down.

14

The Dobermans came on a run out of their greenhouse doggy door, tackled Ray with kisses. They were old, flabby, toothless. One rolled for Ray to pet its belly, the other ran around the side of the house. A few seconds later Ray heard a scream, a clang, a yelp and then breaking glass, all muted in the heavy wind. Ray and the other dog ran around the side of the greenhouse, found the first dog quivering in the patio snow, a blood halo black in the moonlight. Wrought iron patio chair legs stuck out from a smashed greenhouse window. José held another chair over his head, saw the second dog, wound up to club it.

Ray tackled José before the J-man could swing the chair. ‘Hell you doin?'

‘Get offa me, Ray! Dog's gonna kill us!'

‘They're nice, man! Yo, stop! They're old! They're submissive!'

‘Damn dog bum-rushed me!'

‘To lick ya!'

The second dog came up to the boys, licked Ray, whimpered, ran back to its brother convulsing in the snow.

‘Dag! Dag.' Ray checked the dying dog. ‘God-dammit now.'

‘How was I opposed to know! Git out the way, lemme put it out of its misery.'

‘You will not.'

José pushed past Ray, clubbed the dog with the chair, killed it.

The second dog hid behind Ray, shivered. ‘J-man, you're evil.'

‘He was a goner, man. He was suf—'

The greenhouse phone rang.

‘Ah hell,' José said. ‘Silent alarm.'

José, Ray, and the dog, all shivering, ran through the broken window into a greenhouse just warm enough to keep the water pipes from freezing, in the far corner two ratty dog beds, empty food bowls, soiled newspapers. The place reeked of dog waste. The boys searched the dark greenhouse for the phone.

‘Check it,' José said, ‘sticker on the window got a bell and a ear with a slashed circle over it so even retards like me can figure it out. Alarm stickers for thieves with disabilities now. Here we go.' He nodded to a small wall-mounted box next to the door, snapped his fingers for Ray to check out the box. ‘Ray-Ray, just like a bennie, yo. Now where's the damn phone?'

In the boys' experience homeowners stuck security code stickers on the alarm boxes in case they forgot their numbers under pressure. Ray leaned on the wall to steady himself as he searched for the code, his legs dead man loaners. He found the code sticker on the bottom of the box.

José found the phone hanging from the back wall of the greenhouse, picked up. ‘'Lo? Thank you, yes. Yup, false alarm.
Yes.
Yeah, I'm standing by.'

The phone was old school, the cord knotted like a chromosome during mitosis. Ray knew if he even mumbled the word
mitosis,
José would smack him.

José mouthed to Ray,
Gimme the code
.

Ray forced his frozen fingers to make the code numbers: flipped José off for number one, then two, three, four.

José rolled his eyes. ‘Code number one two three four. Yup. Yup. Yup. All good. Right, we're real happy for your business too. Uh-huh, you too.' José hung up the phone.

‘Poor dog's all freaked out,' Ray said.

‘
I'm
all freaked out. We gotta get outta these wet pants and boots, son. I can't feel my feet.' José dialed 1234 on the keypad next to the back door.

They rushed the warm kitchen, ripped off their damp clothes to their drawers, except Ray kept his T-shirt on.

‘Get that shirt off, Ray.'

‘Worry about yourself, man. Lemme catch my dag breath.'

The dog bounced into the kitchen from the greenhouse, its empty water bowl in its mouth, dropped the bowl at Ray's feet. ‘Who'd leave dogs like this?' Ray said.

‘I'm gonna find the shower,' José said.

‘Careful. Maybe somebody's upstairs.'

‘Have you left Earth, son? Nobody picked up the phone, not to mention I threw a chair through a hothouse window. I think they woulda let us know they were here by now.'

Ray got the dog water, found a garbage can half full of moldy dog food in the pantry. He hit the fridge, fed the starving dog cold cuts. ‘Hell's goin on here? No food or water, no heat, no company. Surviving on snowmelt, huh? You're a tough old boy. How long you been alone?'

José quick-limped into the kitchen. ‘Who you talkin to?'

‘The dog.'

‘Why'd I ask? I got two mad hot showers runnin upstairs. Get your fat butt up there before you die of cold.' José ran upstairs, Ray ran after him. ‘Yours is over there.' José pointed right, peeled off left.

‘Thank you, God,' Ray said as he sank into the steam and bled the cold from his bones.

Ray slipped into a ski suit he'd found in a closet. The ski hat was definitely the old lady's—pink and yellow stripes—but it was fluffy and soft and felt nice on his forehead. He hit the kitchen, the dog at his feet. The dog hadn't left his side. ‘Yo, yo, I smell the J-man's cookin!'

‘Yo, baby! I got a feast goin here.' José had a cigar in his mouth, a flapjack flipper in one fist, cognac in the other. He brushed cigar ash off his lapel. He wore the old man's robe, a silky number printed out in leopard.

‘Nice robe,' Ray said.

‘Nice ski suit, woman. Want a cee-gar? Guy's got a whole humidifier full of 'em.'

‘Humidor.'

‘Exactly.' José fired up another Cuban, blew a perfect smoke ring, gave the cigar to Ray, who couldn't blow smoke rings worth a damn. ‘I cranked up the heat,' José said.

‘I feel it. I'm wonderin if we should mosey.'

‘We're good,' José said. ‘I seen it on the calendar over the counter there. Says France clear to Monday. Double-check my dyslexic ass, you want.'

‘You spell good enough to get
France
right.' A haze of frying butter smoked up the kitchen. ‘Hell you makin here?'

‘Flapjacks of course. They got a Deepfreeze full of pre-made in there. I chucked some Crunch in 'em for sweetness.'

‘The Cap'n lives here?'

‘White folks ain't stupid. Plus I'll sink some booze in 'em too, unless you got any objectives?'

Ray smiled. ‘No objectives here.'

‘Attaboy.' José poured cognac into the pancakes. ‘I'm curious what they gonna taste like, these boozy Cap'n flapjacks here.'

‘They got syrup?'