The Practical Navigator (7 page)

Penelope hates doing dishes and invariably finds another chore far enough away from the sink to keep her hands dry but not so far she can't continue her end of what she feels to be a meaningful conversation. Her preferred task this evening seems to be refolding already folded dishtowels and replacing them in a different drawer.

“You want to keep your voice down?” says Michael.

“He's not listening.”

Jamie is in the living room, having returned to his usual place on the floor in front of the TV. This evening it's been
Bob the Builder
—a bobble-headed construction worker and his anthropomorphic equipment. Even with their inane chatter, Michael wishes he had heavy equipment that did construction work all by themselves.

“Don't kid yourself. He's always listening.”

*   *   *

After he drops Anita off at the Beacham house, Michael goes to Bev Mo, buys a six-pack and takes it down to the parking lot overlooking Tourmaline Beach. Alcohol is prohibited on San Diego beaches but the hell with it, let someone try and fine him. Michael pulls into a vacant spot, gets out, and six-pack in hand, walks down to the rail. He cracks a beer and drains half of it in one swallow. He closes his eyes and lets it settle. Why can't things ever be easy? Just when you think you might be heading in the right direction you find out there isn't one. You're back to the starting line, back to square one. He drinks again, sipping now. Tourmaline is a beach break, popular with young beginners and longboarders. This is where Michael first caught waves on his own, where, as a boy, he hung out all summer long. The bathrooms were especially gross, and because they were, Michael has never felt like he's at the shore if the public bathrooms and showers aren't contagious.

As he watches the surfers catch the last waves of the afternoon, he's aware of a spindly figure approaching. The man, bearded and with long, tangled sun-streaked hair, is barefoot, wears ragged jeans and a faded Quicksilver T-shirt. The man stops. He eyes the beer hungrily.

“Hey, got an extra, bra?”

The man looks familiar. Almost but not quite. Michael knows the type. A self-styled surf guru. An aging man-child who probably lives in his car and spends his days on the sand, smoking dope and discussing the wave conditions, past and present, with anyone who will take the time to listen. Michael lives now in an alternate universe. He pulls a beer from the plastic ring and flips it to the burned-out man who snatches it out of the air and grins. “Tight, bra.” Foam bubbles and spills as he pops it and sucks it in happily. He looks toward the water. “Dunzo out there, huh, dude?” Dunzo. Meaning the best ever. The guy would be funny if he wasn't serious.

“Yeah, pretty good.” In truth it's weak. Without even thinking about it, Michael knows the knee-high waves are coming in fifteen-second intervals, a northwest wind is working against a southwest swell. Crossed-up lines with some workable corners and a choppy surface.

The surf rat stares at Michael a moment. His brow furrows as if he's struggling to remember something. Where he lives. What day of the week it is. He gestures with the beer.

“Yo, you Michael Hodge?”

Michael answers before he thinks to lie. “Yeah.”

The bum breaks into a huge, happy grin. “Dude! Aw, man, whoa, it is a complete and total honor, dude.” He thrusts his sunburned hand out at Michael. Michael has no choice but to take it. The bum's fingers are dry and scaly. He pumps Michael's hand up and down with enthusiasm.

“I was on the beach when you took the ASP event up at Trestles. You were so totally, bitchin' badass, man?”

“Thanks,” says Michael, retrieving his hand.

“Michael freakin' Hodge!” The bum shakes his head as if he can't believe it. As if the name is as good as the cold beer. And then he looks lost again, as if he's suddenly not sure it really happened. “Hey, when was that, man, what year?”

“Oh four,” says Michael.

“Yeah!” The rat grins, both happy and relieved. “And bra, you were milfy. You were the boss!”

“I was lucky,” says Michael. “Garcia couldn't catch a decent ride in the final heat and handed it to me.”

“Yeah, but thems the breaks!” says the rat as if he remembers. “You put out or shit or lock the doors on Fort Pitt. And I was there!”

“I'm glad you were.”

The bum gulps some beer. He nods toward the water. “Hey, you should be out there with us. Showin' the newbies how it's done.”

Us.

“You know what's wrong with surfing?” says Michael. He doesn't wait for an answer. “The waves take you in the wrong direction.”

The bum frowns, then chuckles uncertainly. “Too heavy for me, man. I just like to get fucked up.”

“Be my guest.” Michael hands him the rest of the six-pack and turns back toward the truck. As he's tossing his unfinished beer into a trash can, he can hear the bum calling out to someone on the beach.

“Hey, dude, hey! Know who that is? That is Michael Hodge, man! He used to tear it up! He used to
be
somebody.”

Somebody.

Used to be.

*   *   *

“She's his mother,” Michael says to Penelope, trying to control his impatience. He puts the last plate into the drying rack and pulls the stopper in the sink. Time to get out of here now.

“No, I'm sorry. She forfeited that title when she ran out on him. What would make any rational person do such a thing, Michael, explain that to me, please.”

Drying his hands, Michael sighs. “Okay, you never liked her.”

“Wrong,” says Penelope. “I adored Anita. From the moment you first brought her home, my heart went out to her. But I will not forgive her for hurting you. And I will not forgive you if you let her do it again.”

Before Michael can answer, Jamie appears in the doorway.

“I'm ready to go now.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

One never attempts to win an argument with Penelope Hodge, one just leaves her to put away her own dishes.

*   *   *

Memories follow him home. He lets them. It gives perspective.

“I think you better take a look at something.”

It's two years earlier. Jamie has just turned five. It's quitting time and Michael and the crew have been pouring cement for eight hours and are exhausted. Leo has been acting strangely all day. At least strange for Leo. Quiet. Subdued. And now he hands Michael the slip of paper.

“What is it?”

“I'm not gonna say a word, just take a look.” Leo turns away to his truck. Michael looks at the slip of paper. It's a Web address.

That night, at home, a night similar to this one, with Jamie in bed and with a drink in hand, Michael goes into the small spare bedroom that is his semblance of an office, turns on the ancient computer, and taps in the link. He already knows, from the name of the Web site, what it's going to be. Michael isn't an avid fan of pornography but, unless it's crude and abusive, he doesn't have a problem with it. Leo, he suspects, is a connoisseur.

The clip begins and it's the usual fake moanings and groanings, nothing different from anything Michael has ever seen before. Several couples are in a brightly lit, badly decorated living room as if there's safety in numbers. The men are nothing more than their appendages. The girls are far too young and pretty to be pretending they like this. The video camera pans to the woman on the couch. She is on hands and knees. There is a scarlet ribbon around her neck. There is a faceless man behind her. She turns to look over her shoulder and in doing so faces the camera. Even in the long, dark wig and heavy makeup, Michael recognizes her. The sounds she makes are foreign to him. The look on her face is one he's never seen before. By the end of the evening, Michael has located the movie online and purchased it. It arrives a week later. The woman in the wig is in several scenes. Since then, not often, but usually after a couple of drinks late at night, Michael has thrown it in the DVD player. He does it so as not to romanticize the good times. He does it to make himself remember what she's capable of. He does it because it makes him angry and he has found that anger is a good insulation for the heart. Tonight is one of those nights. He keeps the sound low. He keeps the remote in his hand. As always, it's like passing a car wreck and seeing the body of someone you love.

Oh, Anita.

 

The good navigator thinks strategically, operationally, and tactically. He gathers information from a variety of sources and evaluates this information to determine his ship's position. He anticipates dangerous situations well before they arise, and always stays “ahead of the vessel.”

 

13

“I don't think we're giving him everything he needs.”

It is three o'clock, pickup time, and Michael has taken on the task himself today. Pickup is harder than drop-off. Most of the kids are running, screaming, and playing together after school, letting off steam. Jamie is, as always, by himself. He was hopping up and down when Michael entered the playground today, erratic and without objective, lost in his own world, shaking his hand in front of his face.

The village idiot.

Michael doesn't know the name of the father he overheard say it one day, thinking he was being funny. He knows that it was all he could do not to hit the man.

“I don't mean you,” says Mrs. McKenzie. “I mean the school. When you keep him on task, he does well, but when you don't…” She doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to.

“What about the extra teacher?” asks Michael. “A part-time aide was supposed to be part of his IEP.”

“The money's not there.”

“It's supposed to be.”

“That's something you'll have to take up with the school board,” says Mrs. McKenzie. Both of them knowing that the district is broke. They're laying off teachers. Transferring others. Cramming forty kids into a single classroom. The special-ed classes are even worse. Most of them nothing more than babysitting for troubled, hyperactive kids, half of them Spanish-speaking with little or no English. The mentally impaired children sit alone at separate tables, playing with Legos.

“I'm not sure you know this, but they've started a study program at UCSD for children with developmental disorders,” Mrs. McKenzie says.

Study programs. From what Michael has seen, people put more money into studying disabled kids than they do into helping them. “What, are they looking for guinea pigs?”

Karen McKenzie ignores the bitterness in his voice. She likes Michael. She likes that he faces facts, doesn't pretend or insist there isn't a problem as a lot of parents do.

“It's just a phase. He'll grow out of it.”

No, she all too often wants to say. He won't. Your child needs help.

“As a matter of fact, there's a waiting list. But I know some of the people conducting the study and I think I can arrange it.” Michael nods, already coming around to the idea as she knew he would.

“Yeah … okay, that'd be great.”

“We're all doing the best we can, Michael.”

“I know you are,” says Michael.

Both of them again thinking the same thing. What do you do when the best doesn't seem to be nearly enough?

 

14

Rats, rats, lousy, stinkin' rats!

Come quitting time, workers flee a building site like rodents from a sinking ship, thinks Leo, annoyed that today he's somehow been left to load his own tools onto his pickup truck, doubly annoyed because he usually manages his time better than this, making sure the job falls to someone else. Seniority and a bad back have their perks. But small annoyances are quickly forgotten as the Toyota Prius pulls to the curb in front of him and the driver gets out and smiles. It's that smile that turns your bones to jelly, the smile that he remembers so well.

“Well, look what the cat's drug by,” says Leo.

“You still imbibe?” Anita asks, holding up a large thermos.

“Does the pope shit in the woods?” says Leo. “Ding-a-ling-a-ling! The drinking lamp is lit.”

Five minutes later, they're sitting, legs dangling off what will be a rich man's back deck, Leo realizing that the slice of view might not show the ocean but that there is a breathtaking horizon. Anita has made her special tequila gimlets, Silver Patrón with Rose's lime juice, shaken with ice and strained into an honest-to-God real martini glass. No paper or plastic cup ever made good enough for Anita. Filling one to the brim, she hands it to him.

“Salud.”

“What about you?”

“Not drinking these days.”

“Oh. 'Cause I don't need to.”

“Leo. Enjoy.”

Leo sips and moans softly with pleasure. The drink is cold, smooth, and delicious. It is Leo's opinion that societies and religions that forbid drinking breed angry, aggressive men. What's worse, terrorists or alcoholics? It's probably a trade-off but Leo opts for the alcoholics as occasionally they can be amusing.

“So how you been?” asks Leo.

Off the cuff.

Anita shrugs and sips from a bottle of sparkling water. “Not great but no big deal. You?”

“Ah, you know. The good, the bad, the ugly. Mostly pretty good though.”

“You look good.”

“Since when you like bearded fat guys?” says Leo.

Anita smiles. “I was talking about your soul, Leo.” She refills his glass from the thermos, as Leo wonders when was the last time he felt this simple and content.

“How's Michael?”

Contentment vanishes to be replaced by caution. Leo sips, sucks the taste of lime off his tongue. How
is
Michael? For someone he's known for almost a third of his life and considers his closest friend, Leo realizes he isn't sure.

*   *   *

The kid comes wandering onto a building site one day, he's maybe nineteen or twenty, looking for work, anything. Usually Leo would tell him to beat it but the kid is strong looking and Leo has a no-show that day.