The Adored (9 page)

Don Quixote had nothing on him; Mark Wheelwright laughed out loud, half in, half out of sanity. He was fighting windmills on every front. He had been named in five lawsuits stemming from bank losses in the recent great recession. He filed his own lawsuit against his former employer, Oceans Bank, and he had even filed a lawsuit against the golf course his property abutted, claiming adverse possession of land that he had tended for twenty years that the golf course claimed as its own, and that he knew was theirs, but since they wanted to put a fence up he decided he’d put up a windmill. His anger began with the wrongful death lawsuit against the Riverside Memorial Hospital and two doctors who had misdiagnosed pancreatic cancer that killed his wife of thirty-five years. And he was in the battle of his life with his alcoholism.

It was 7 a.m.; Mark Wheelwright again lifted the glass of bourbon and shook his head. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

*********

“You left some stuff out last night,” Edward began as he entered the room noticing his father with a drink in his hand.

Mark Wheelwright had a hangover, a bad one. They were all bad lately. His capacity for alcohol had diminished; he was drinking more and remembering less. “Like what?”

“In the office. I was using the computer, and it was there.”

“What was?”

“Letters from Valerie’s mother.”

Edward did not notice his father’s reddened face as Edward had looked away, embarrassed to bring this topic up.

“And you read them?”

“Yes.”

“Why?’

“Because I saw Valerie’s name on the first page I glanced at.”

“And?’

“You paid for Valerie’s college?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know that?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“How did this happen?” Edward said, and proceeded with what he thought was the answer; he assailed his father. “You and her mother?”

Mark thought of trying to duck, but he was on the ropes, cornered. “Yes,” he blurted out.

“Mrs. McGuire and you?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mom know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How long did this go on? Is it still going on?”

“No, it’s over.”

Edward’s face was crimson with shame and anger. “How long?’

“Long.”

“Long? A year, two years?”

“Almost three.”

“Three years. Three goddamn years you had an affair with Valerie’s mother! And you knew we were in love, wanting to get married?”

There was a pause, a deafening silence in the room as Mark tried to hang on from the pounding in his head and salvage the relationship with the boy he loved. Edward looked at his father, unmoving, trying to think of the many things this meant.

“Why aren’t you two together? Mom’s dead. Is this the reason Val’s father took off?”

“Probably. She said he suspected something,” Mark was breathing heavily, “That he confronted her several times when she was out late. When she seemed a little too close to me or when we would fool around or when the four of us would sail on the boat.”

“You were friends with her father. And you would fool around in front of mom?”

“No. It wasn’t like that. Look, Val’s parents were a great couple. Your mother and I had a lot of fun with them. But they didn’t have a pot to piss in. We all knew Val was a top student, that she was going to be part of the family, so when she got accepted to Columbia, Sue confided in me that they had no way to pay for it. We had more money than God, so your mother and I agreed to pay for it. Only Sue knew, Bill McGuire would not have accepted it, so only your mother, Sue, and I knew.”

“And the affair, when did it start?”

“Right after Val went off to Columbia. Sue was so proud of Val, so happy and so thankful. It just happened.”

“And Val’s father never knew?”

“Bill wasn’t dumb. He knew they couldn’t afford Columbia even on both their salaries. Sue tried telling him it was a combination of student loans and scholarships and their savings. She said he accepted it at first, but then Bill started putting two and two together.

She said he confronted her several times about how they were paying for it all and still had money for travel. Then the questions shifted to her and me. Bill had figured it out. His wife and his friend. He left—just walked out the door.”

“And what happened with you and Mrs. McGuire?”

“It took off. Val off in school, Bill gone. I was with her every night.”

“And mom?”

“I covered fairly well with work. I always did work long hours. Only then, did I cut back.”

“Mom never confronted you?”

“No. I really don’t think she knew. She knew Sue was a flirt, but Sue was very sweet to your mother.”

“How did it end?”

“Guilt,” and Mark Wheelwright paused. Edward could see the tears in his eyes. “I screwed everything up. When your mother was getting sick, I should have reacted sooner. She didn’t want to bother with the doctors. Later the doctors said we could have caught it if we had acted sooner.”

“What?” Edward fumed.

“I know.”

The dreadful pause reappeared. It was a silence between a father and son and all the air was leaking out. A lifetime of love was damaged, maybe beyond repair.

“And once mom dies?”

“When your mother died I knew what I did or rather what I didn’t do. I drank more—and more. I went to Sue’s every night—drank all night. Could barely get to work. Wasn’t effective in work during the financial crisis. Drank more. Sue finally ended it six months ago.”

There was no air left in the room. Neither man could breathe.

“I’m sorry, Eddie.”

The young Wheelwright got up, looked at his father still seated, and left the room. He did not see Valerie McGuire again. He could not face her, did not return her calls, and when she came to his door, he did not answer.

Chapter 16

Recife, Brazil, is that point in South America that juts furthest east into the Atlantic Ocean. If Pangaea, the original supercontinent of earth, were put back together, Recife would tuck nicely into the African country of Cameroon.

In the sky above the city of Recife, on a day when the sun is not baking the red clay roofs, it is filled with clouds. The clouds come in columns, like they were puffed out of a great chimney. Straight as arrow columns, then rows of them. But not too far inland, mainly along the coast, they float along, like a quiet army.

The boy sits on the sand of BoaViagem beach looking at the clouds, thinking about them. He is the only figure on the beach on this cloudy day. The boy is sitting there in tan shorts with no other clothes. It is not that he is going swimming; these shorts are all the clothes he has. He sits with his arms wrapped around his knees.

A dog has been swimming, and now, emerging from the surf, notices the boy. He shakes the water off of his long, short body. It is sort of like a chain reaction; the water flies off in small beads, beginning at his head and progressing all the way down his body.

Chunk smiles as he sees the dog looking at him. The dog notices the smile and comes slowly to the boy and sits beside him. The two sit on the beach, not communicating, just each with their own thoughts beside each other.

After some time the dog gets up and walks off. He stops once and looks back at the boy. Then the dog turns and goes further down the beach before heading to one of the seaside carne-de-sol stands that specializes in sun-dried beef. Usually the dog can count on the owner for a scrap.

The following day the boy Chunk is walking across the Santo Antonio Bridge, which crosses over the Juquia River as it flows to the sea. The river is a filthy brown cesspool carrying all the elements of city trash: papers, boxes, plastics, rubber, fruit, vegetables, and occasional dead birds. Pieces of clothing float lazily on top, next to tree branches.

At this moment late in the afternoon, four brown mulatto boys, clad only in the same type shorts as the boy, are running on the far side of the bridge, their shoe leather like feet scurrying across the hot cement. They have hold of the same dog that sat beside Chunk yesterday. They lift the dog up and toss him in the river. Then the four boys climb the cement rail and one by one dive into the ooze after the dog. All five swim to shore and climb back up to the street to once again to escape the steaming humidity by launching themselves into the river.

As the boys grab for the dog, he barks, then snaps at them, trying to escape their grasp but longing to be with them. As the four mulattos get their hands on him by grasping one leg each, Chunk approaches them. He is smaller than the other four, but about their age, somewhere in the early teens.

“Hola,” he calls. “Put the dog down.”

The tallest of the four boys looks over his shoulder and laughs, “OK boys, let’s put him down—in the water.” And they proceed to toss the mangy cur into the slime.

The new arrival runs to the rail and watches as the dog struggles to get to shore.

The older boy approaches Chunk and tells the others, “Now let’s throw this nosy dog in.”

As they all laugh and start to move in on Chunk, he promptly flattens the older boy with a punch squarely on the nose. With lightning speed and a face now twisted into a battle glaze, looking more bulldog than human, he rapidly punches and kicks one, then another, till all four boys are down on the cement bridge at once.

He does not say a word; he turns his head and walks away. The four boys, not sure what hit them, all get up and watch as Chunk heads toward the beach. The dog now back up on the bridge, looks at the four boys, and then looks at Chunk. After weighing his options, he follows Chunk.

Chunk walks to and then along the beach that has many bathers in the water this day. He finds a place to sit. Walking along the beach about fifty yards behind him is the dog. And about another fifty yards behind the dog are the four boys.

Chunk DeLuna is fourteen the day he meets his new friends. He has been in Brazil for nine months. His father, who took him with him from Puerto Rico, abandoned him after six months, and for the past three months, Chuck has been living along the beach, sleeping on the beach, or when rousted by the police moving under the piers in the harbor. But now he is no longer alone. He has a dog; he has a group of four new friends.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” asks the older boy, the first to be punched and the first to go down.

“My father taught me,” Chunk tells him.

The littlest one, the boy named Rafael, with a dirty patch over his right eye says, “I never saw that punch coming.”

The twins, Pedro and Paco, begin laughing, “That’s because you’re blind.”

“Don’t make fun of him,” Chunk says. “What happened to your eye?”

“I don’t know; it got infected or something. I can’t see out of it any more. When I put this patch over, it doesn’t hurt as much.” Raphael says.

“Can I see it?” Chunk asks.

“Sure,” and he lifts the patch up. Chunk winces. It is a mess of infection and oozing puss, red and blue and purplish.

“You need to get to a hospital.”

“I’ve been. They clean it up for me, give me some medicine to wipe on it,” Raphael said.

“They’ve got to do more than that,” Chunk says firmly. “I’ll go there tomorrow with you.” Chunk suddenly feels better than he has in the three months since his father left him.

The older boy Carlos asks Chunk,” You talk a little different from us; where are you from?”

“Puerto Rico,” he says.

“Where’s that?” one of the twins asks.

“It’s an island in the Caribbean Sea,” Chunk replies.

After a brief geography lesson, Carlos asks him his name.

“Chunk.”

“Chunk? That’s different. What’s it mean.”

“Nothing, it doesn’t mean anything,” Chunk says, realizing he has no idea why his name is Chunk. He knows his given name is Juan DeLuna, but he never thought to ask where Chunk had come from.

The boys tell Chunk their names. They too are homeless, living in the basements of the public housing buildings inland from the beach.

“I used to live down here at the beach, but the police kept hassling me,” Carlos tells Chunk.

“Yeah, they do that to me too, but I just move along down by the piers. Mostly it’s OK sleeping along here,” Chunk replies, adding, “Tonight you boys stay in my house.”

The boys smile, knowing they have a new leader. Carlos has been deposed with one punch, but he does not seem to mind.

They talk the rest of the afternoon, and as the sun goes down, they move towards the street to hustle some food from the beachside vendors. The dog tags along.

“Whose dog is this?” Chunk asks.

“No one’s, he just comes around,” the twin named Pedro says.

“Well, he’s part of our gang now,” Chunk laughs and reaches back to pat the dog who growls as Chunk approaches too fast. He calms down once he realizes the boy means no harm. Chunk looks at the hair falling out of the dog and notices the mange infestation on his skin.