The Taste of Salt (19 page)

“No problem, man,” the kid said, a wide, genuine smile on his face. “I think I know where you're at. I've been there myself. You stay strong, bro. Try to get to a meeting up here.”

He slid a sheet of paper across the counter toward him. It was a list of local AA meetings. Tick took it. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem. Take it light, all right?”

“I will. I will.” He pushed his way out of the store. The air was soft against his skin.

The kid was right. It was a long walk, all uphill. He was finally beginning to feel hungry and it weakened him. But after a long while he saw our street, Daniel's and mine. He thought it was pretty. The houses were set back from the curb and each had a small front lawn and a porch. It was hard to see the addresses. Some people had those reflective numbers but many didn't. He thought he probably should have called first. But what would he have said? What on earth was there to say? He just kept walking. He was almost there.

The street was quiet and still. He checked the scrap of paper he'd written my address on again. His feet hurt and his chest was tight. He wished for a drink. But instead, he climbed the steps and rang the bell.

A year passed in silence. Then he heard footsteps. And the door opened. I can't imagine what went through his mind. Every detail of that moment is crystal in my mind. I even remember what I was wearing—a ratty old blue bathrobe that used to be Daniel's. I took one step toward Tick, then another. And then I slapped him across the face as hard as I could. Tick stood with his head turned, not touching his sore cheek, as if frozen by my touch. My heart pounded furiously and we stood there for another moment. Then he looked at me, so sad and lost, and all the anger drained out of me. How could I hit him when life was hitting him so hard already? I reached out and pulled him toward me.

“Damn it, Tick. You make me so fucking mad. I know I had no business hitting you like that but … damn.” I said all this into his neck, holding him like a lover. His breath on my neck was hot and stale. He smelled sweaty and scared. He still hadn't said a word. Daniel came out and stood uncertainly a few feet away. With him there, I felt self-conscious and moved away from Tick. He stood there, biting his lip.

“I'm sorry, Jose. I didn't have anywhere else to go.”

“I know.” I sighed. “I know. Come on in.” I stepped aside so he could pass.

Tick and I sat at the kitchen table and Daniel started making coffee. I could tell by the set of his back how angry he was, but he was still doing the right thing, still helping. I sat across from Tick and pulled myself together. Our hands rested on the table between us. The only sound in the room was the hiss of the coffee maker. Finally, I spoke. “Tick. Tick. What are you doing here?”

“Dag, Josie, why'd you hit me? Ain't seen me in I don't know how long and first thing you do is haul off and slap me? Damn. Ain't that about nothin'.”

“I'm sorry about that, Tick. I just reacted. I've been so worried.” I took another deep breath and went on. “Mom says you've been using again. I guess I hit you for her sake. I can't believe you'd do that to her again, Tick. I really can't.”

Tick lowered his forehead to the table and rubbed his temple as though he was in pain. I'm sure he was. “Yeah. I can't believe it either.” Daniel put a cup of black coffee in front of him without a word. He actually hadn't said a word yet—to either of us—since the doorbell rang. “Josie, you know I didn't mean to. You know I didn't mean to hurt her. That's why I came up here. I thought if I could get the hell out of Cleveland … you know, stay with you a while … that I could get clean.” He lifted the coffee with shaking
hands. “I thought maybe I could get clean up here. It's nice up here. I can see that already.” If I could have seen his thoughts, they would have been these: The kindness of the kid in the coffee shop. The sun off the ocean downtown. Maybe a person could start again here. With the sea close at hand.

And what of my good, kind Daniel during all this? When I hit Tick, he was the one who tried to make it right. When Tick needed a place to stay, he was the one who didn't say no. But he's not a saint. He's a man. He's a man I was pushing about as far as it was possible to be pushed. As the cliché has it (and as we in the sciences know), something had to give.

We sat at the table a little longer. No one seemed to know what to say. Tick stared into his black coffee as though the answer lay there. After a while he lifted his head and gave us a weak smile. “I really need something to eat and a shower and a nap,” he said. Thank God. Something concrete to do.
Daniel and I both practically leapt up from the table, flying into awkward host mode, finding towels and putting sheets on the guest bed in the office and studiously not talking to each other (or even looking at each other much) until Tick was safely stowed away.

I did one other thing in this hostly flurry. While I was in our office/guest room alone making up the bed and Daniel was rooting around looking for towels, I called Ben. Right from the house—an enormous risk. I was past caring. Tick's arrival had removed the last vestige of that from me. I didn't talk to Ben for long. I just told him I needed to see him. I wished I was diving, somewhere far away from all this. Somewhere safe and cool and blue. I looked out the window. The sun splashed onto the houses across the street. My heart quieted for a moment. Then I went up to our bedroom, where Daniel sat on the edge of the bed.

“So, Jose, how about all this?”

“How about it?” I sat down beside him and sighed. “Well.”

“Well what do you want to do? Have you told your mother that he's here?”

“No. No—when would I have done that?” I sounded petulant. I didn't mean to. “I'm sorry, Danny. But when
would I have done that? He hasn't even been here three hours yet.”

“Some people would have called their parents first thing when something like this happened. Some people would not be so afraid of where they come from.”

“What?” Had he heard me on the phone with Ben?

“I just think. I've watched you run and run and run from them.” He took a deep breath. “I've watched you run from me. And now he's here. Your drunk, drug-addict brother is here and you can't run anymore. Can't you try to be here with it? Be here with me?”

Something cracked in my mind. I stood up and knocked everything off my dresser, in one smooth motion. The crash made me jump, even as I thought about how dramatic the gesture was. The picture of Tick and me fell face down. I was supposed to be a rational soul. But I wasn't now. I was only impulse. Daniel jumped off the bed, shouting, “What is wrong with you, Josie? What is wrong with you?” He grabbed my wrists and I looked straight into his eyes. My breath whistled in and out, rapidly. Daniel held my wrists a little longer. We had never been in a place like this. We stared at each other. Daniel was the first to speak.

“I've been walking around like I've got a sock in my mouth for months, but I can't fucking stand it anymore.
Jesus Christ, Josie. Jesus Christ. What the fuck is going on with you?”

“Daniel, my brother just showed up with nothing left in this world. What do you think is going on with me?”

Daniel looked at me silently. Then he let go of my wrists and sat back down on the bed, like an old, old man. “Josie, it's not just your brother. You know that.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don't make me say it.”

“Say what?” I was whispering, too. The room smelled like flowery lotions and perfumes from some bottles that had burst open—girly creams he'd given me that I didn't value enough.

He looked at me. If I lied now, I'd lose him. But maybe that was best. Maybe I didn't deserve someone like him. “There's nothing to say, Daniel. It's just a hard time. I've been having a hard time.”

He looked away from me with a slight nod, out the window. “Right.” He drew a deep breath and started speaking, still looking out the window. “I remember the first time I saw you years ago at that seminar. I remember looking at you and listening to you and thinking, ‘She's interesting. And she's really smart.' But I didn't think much else. Until the next day. I woke up and looked at the ceiling and I
knew
I had dreamed about you. I knew it. You had invaded
my sleep.” He laughed a little. “I remember looking at the ceiling and wondering what had happened. How you had gotten inside of me so fast.” He looked at me for a long moment. “You're still there. But I that doesn't make everything all right.”

Tick hadn't been in Woods Hole more than a couple of weeks before he knew he was in trouble. He should have seen the trouble coming when he stood on that porch and I slapped him in the face. He should have seen the trouble coming when he just couldn't get himself to those AA meetings the very day he arrived. That nice kid had even told him where they were. But he didn't go. He was so tired. The bus ride had been so long. It was so good to sit on my porch drinking coffee and watching the birds fly by. He kept thinking of that kid's smile. The one in the coffee shop. He thought maybe remembering that would be enough.

He heard Daniel and me whispering fiercely to each other in our bedroom, in the study, in the kitchen, over
and over, all the time. He heard his name sometimes in the midst of these whispers. Then he'd make a noisy show of entering the room and we'd stop talking and look at him guiltily and say a loud fakey, “Hi.” Or “How are you doing? What do you need?”

We couldn't help him with what he really needed. What he was starting to feel like he needed. He was past all the sick feelings; that was the funny part. He'd ridden out the shakes, the nausea, the grinding in the bones. Now he just … missed it. Right under his heart was painful and tender. Raw. He didn't have that feeling when he was drunk or high.

He started taking long walks on the beach to try to take his mind off the wound. Being outside and moving around helped a bit. It made the aching subside, if not cease altogether. He wasn't sure how to outrun it. He thought he ought to talk to someone. But he was so tired of talking. Talking and fighting this thing with all that one-day-at-a-time crap was all he'd done for so long. He was so tired of it.

He ran into Ben on the beach during a very early morning walk—he was finding it harder and harder to sleep. Tick felt compelled to speak to him—he hadn't seen another black guy in days and days.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” said the other guy. He was thin and dark-skinned,
bookish and thoughtful looking. “I never see people out this early. That's why I like to come out now.”

“Yeah?” said Tick. “I just couldn't sleep. That's why I'm out here. Better than laying there, staring at the ceiling. Listen, I gotta introduce myself. There just ain't that many of us here. My name's Edmund,” he said. “But everyone calls me Tick.”

The guy took a step backward. Tick wondered if Josie had told everyone in town about her fuck-up brother. “So you're Tick,” the other man said. “Nice to meet you.”

“What do you mean, ‘So you're Tick?' How do you know me, man?”

“Oh, sorry. My name's Ben Davidson. I work with your sister, Josie, at the lab. She mentioned you to me.”

“Mmm.” Tick nodded. They had fallen into step. “So you're the other one.”

“Other what?” His voice climbed a little. Tick looked at him sharply. Ben had that look in his eye, that look a man gets about a woman. Well. Looked like Josie might have her own secrets. But he couldn't blame her; both he and his sister had their own hellhounds on their trail. And he did not want to step into her pile of shit. He had enough of his own.

So all Tick said was, “You're the only other black doc at the institute. She told me that there was one other black guy. She likes you.” Tick couldn't resist this little dig, just
to see what the guy would do. He held his ground, but the air between them shifted a little. Tick picked up a rock and slung it with unforced grace toward the ocean.

“What do you mean, she likes me?” Ben asked.

“She just said you were an all-right guy. That it was nice to have somebody else black around the office. You study fish, too, right?”

“I'm a marine biologist. Specialize in the life of plankton.”

“Plankton, huh? Seems kind of hard to study that stuff. It's so small. Just all one big mush.”

“Not exactly,” Ben said uncertainly. “It's an ecosystem. Part of how everything in the ocean lives together.”

“I know what an ecosystem is,” Tick said testily. “I went to the same high school as Josie. I've got some education.” Suddenly, Tick started coughing so hard that he had to stop walking and bend over, leaning on his thighs. Ben stopped with him and put his hand on Tick's back. It felt good to have another man's hand on his back in that friendly, caring way. He'd divorced himself from so many things, even warm regard from another man.

When he was able to stand he said, “Sorry, man. Sometimes this sea air gets to me, you know? Anyway, what are you doing out so early? I know why I can't sleep. Why can't you?”

Ben looked out at the water and narrowed his eyes.
“Sometimes I just can't sleep,” he said after a while. “The ceiling starts pressing down on my head.”

Tick nodded. “I know what you mean.”

They both fell silent, walking along companionably. Until Tick banished the silence with his next words to Ben: “You wouldn't happen to have ten dollars I could borrow, man, would you?”

“What?”

“Ten dollars. You wouldn't happen to have it on you. Would you?”

Ben stepped away from Tick, shaking his head. He looked sad and sorry, like he'd seen something beautiful lying dead in the road. Tick felt like the lowest form of life there was. He couldn't even believe that those words had just come out of his mouth. And yet—he did want it. He needed it. He wasn't going to use it for booze. But still. He was a grown man. He hated walking around with no money, no nothing. Josie didn't trust him with anything.