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“You don’t have to be eighteen to bartend now. ” Gloralai led him to the right of a dune and onto a path. A group of kids sledded past on sheets of tin, screaming and laughing. “You gotta be eighteen to work in the brothel upstairs,” she said.
Conner choked on sand. He fumbled for his canteen, even though he knew it held the barest of splashes.
“I’m only kidding,” she said, laughing. “My dad just says until I’m grown I have to live with them and obey their rules. Typical parental bullshit. ”
“Yeah, typical,” Conner said. But what he thought was how great it would be to have someone else setting the rules. All he and his little brother had were each other. Palmer and Vic had gone off to make their fortunes diving, leaving the two of them to fend for themselves. When their father disappeared, he had left the entire family destitute when once they’d had everything. And their mom—Conner didn’t know where to start with her. He sometimes wished he didn’t have a mom.
He pushed this out of mind. Just as he pushed tomorrow's camping trip back to some dark corner. He concentrated on Gloralai there at his side—tried to live in the moment while he could. Together, they angled toward a half-buried strip of shacks jutting out of a low dune. A generator rattled and smoked on the roof of one. Inside, there was a glow of light, and hanging from the sand-dusted roof was a neon Coors sign with the jagged shape of the westward peaks lit above. Conner nearly pointed out that his sister had salvaged that sign, as he often did when he saw something she’d found and had rescued from the sand.
“Hey,” Gloralai asked, “are you going to Ryder’s bash on Saturday?”
“Uh … no. ”
She must’ve caught his accompanying wince. “Look, he can be a dick, but it’s gonna be a good time. Laugh Riot is playing. You should come. ” Gloralai held up two fingers to the man in the window and placed a couple of coins on the sill. Conner spotted the small homemade tattoo on her wrist and wondered if she had others.
“It’s not because of him,” he said. “I could give two shits about Ryder. Me and my brothers are going camping this weekend. ”
“You and Palm are taking Rob camping? That’s sweet. ” She handed him one of the foaming jars of beer. Conner took a sip. Cold from the deep sand. He wiped his lips.
“Yeah, it’s not really sweet to be honest. It’s something we do once a year. ” He didn’t say that he was dreading it, that he was nervous, that he was packing for a much longer hike. This was too good a moment to spoil.
“So how is Palmer? He moved down to Low-Pub, right?”
“He’s good, I guess. He spends his time back and forth. He stopped by last weekend on his way to some salvage job. Probably back at my place right now. Unless he’s flaking out on us again. ” Conner took another sip of his beer. “He’s the one who’s supposed to be looking after Rob, not me. ”
“You do a good job. Besides, Robbie can look after himself. ”
“Let’s hope,” Conner said. He took another sip, then caught the questioning look on Gloralai’s face. “To annual traditions. ” He raised his jar.
“Yes, to this date. ” Gloralai raised an eyebrow.
“The … uh … the actual date’s tomorrow,” Conner explained.
“Well, to the weekend, then,” Gloralai offered.
“Yeah. The weekend. ” They sloshed their beers together. And then a flurry of sand blew off the roof, and they both shielded their jars with the flats of their palms, laughing. The wind carried the puff westward toward the setting sun, and all the dunes trembled in that direction a fraction of an inch, beams creaking, the residents of Shantytown glancing up from their various tasks and distractions at their sagging ceilings, a hungry bird crying out ha ha.
“Hey, thanks for this,” Conner said, saluting with his beer. He leaned back on the bar post and watched the sky redden, the little people up on Waterpump Ridge marching like ants, the lanterns and electric lights flickering on as shifts changed and day steeled itself for night, and the angry desert whispered right along.
“Yeah,” Gloralai agreed, seeming to know what he meant, that it was more than the beer. “This is nice. Why can’t it be like this all the goddamn time?”
12 • Father’s Boots
It was late by the time Conner got back to his place. There were lamps burning higher up his dune, two men on the scaffolding there hammering away at the new home being built on top of his. A scrap of tin fell from the scaffolding and pierced the sand outside his door. One of the men above peered down after it, the scaffolding creaking. He showed no remorse for narrowly missing Conner, no apology, just an annoyed grunt at gravity’s tricks and the tiring prospect of climbing down and back up again.
“I still live here, you know,” Conner called out. But one glance at the sand wrapping around his home, and he knew this was a complaint with an expiration date.
He pulled the door open and kicked the scrum6 off his boots before stepping inside. “Yo, brother! You home?” Pulling the door shut required heaving up with both hands to get the doorknob to latch. Sift7 fell from the ceiling, and the rafters creaked. There was no sign of Palmer, no boots or track of sand, no gear bag or detritus from a raided pantry. Just a voice calling out from below, muffled and distant. Sounded like Rob. The hammering overhead resumed. Conner aimed a middle finger toward the ceiling.
“You had dinner?” he called out. He set his leftovers on the rickety table by the door—half a can of cold rabbit stew from the Dive Bar. His little brother shouted another reply, but again his voice was a dull rumble. It sounded like he was a shack down.
It took four strides to go from the foyer, through the kitchen, and into their shared bedroom with the two little cots on their rusted springs. Rob’s bed was shoved off to one side, and three of the floor planks beneath it had been removed. It was dark below. The only illumination in the small house was what little lamplight filtered through the cracked glass set into the front door. A candle by Rob’s bed had melted down to nothing. Conner rummaged through the bin by his cot and grabbed his flashlight, turned it on. Dead. He threw it back into the bin. Three strides, and he pulled down the gas lamp from the living room. Shook it and listened to the splash of oil. Fumbled to get it lit. “You getting the gear together?” he asked.
Rob didn’t answer. Conner adjusted the lamp until the room was flooded with light. He sat on the bedroom floor and dangled his feet into the pit, then lowered himself down and reached up to grab the lantern. A pale glow filled someone’s former home.
What had once been rafters holding up a roof were now floor joists in Palmer’s house. Someone else’s house stood below theirs, long abandoned and unclaimed. Soon, his own home would be someone’s basement and this a sand-filled cellar. And so it went, sand piling up to the heavens and homes sinking toward hell.
Conner swung the lantern around in the small space. He and Rob kept the few things they owned stowed down there. The bag that held the tent and all their camping gear was undisturbed. It sat right where they’d left it a year ago. It was covered in sift. Conner dusted some of the sand off the bag and wondered where the hell Rob was. He pushed open an old bathroom door and saw more floor planks removed. A light danced below. “What the fuck’re you doing down there?” he asked.
Rob peered up at him through the hole in the old floor and smiled guiltily. He was sitting on a pile of sand one more shack down. It was as far down as one could go, this next buried home nearly full of drift8. His brother’s hair looked wet, was matted to his forehead, like he’d been exerting himself. Conner quickly looked away.
“Aw, c’mon, man. You’re not down there jerking off, are you?”
“No!” Rob squealed, and Conner peered back into the hole. He saw his brother wiggling back and forth. Rob glanced up at him and bit his lip in frustration. “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “I’ve been calling for you and calling for you. ”
Conner realized now that
his brother was in trouble. Crouching down, he lowered the lamp below the floorboards and saw that the sand was up to his brother’s hips. There were gouges where Rob had been digging.
“What the fuck have you done?”
“I was just playing,” Rob said.
Conner hung the lantern on a nail and worked his way down another level. “I told you to stay out of here. Drift can dump through in a flash. ”
“I know. But … it didn’t dump in. I kinda buried myself. ”
Conner spotted the wires trailing out of the sand. He tried to pry his brother out, but Rob wouldn’t budge. The sand around him was hard as concrete. “What’ve you done?”
“I’ve been working on … something. ” Rob showed Conner the band in his hand, a cluster of wires trailing off and disappearing into the hard pack. “I wasn’t diving, promise. Not all the way. Just trying to see what I could do with my boots—”
“With your boots—?”
“Father’s boots. ”
“You mean my boots. ” Conner snatched the band out of his brother’s hand. “Eleven fucking years old, Rob. You’re gonna get yourself killed playing with this shit. Where’d you get the band?”
“Found it. ”
“Did you steal this?” Conner shook the band. He had half a mind to leave his brother there for the night, just to teach him a lesson.
“No. I found it. Swear. ”
“You know what Palm would’ve done if he found you playing with this? Or Vic?” Conner checked the band. It belonged to an old pair of visors, but someone had removed those. “Did you find this in the trash? Because that’s where this piece of shit belongs. ”
Rob didn’t say. A scavenger’s admission.
“Did you do the wiring?”
“Yes,” his brother whispered. “Con, I can’t feel my feet. ”
Conner saw that his brother was crying. And one of his arms was pinned. Rob didn’t need to be told how serious this shit was.
“Look,” Conner said, “you can’t leave these contacts exposed like this. They’ll work for a while until you get a sweat going, and then they’ll short. ” He used his shirt to dry the inside of the band. “Once that happens, everything you try just gets worse and worse. You were tightening the sand by trying to loosen it. All we’ve gotta do is kill the power and the sand should unclench. ”
Rob sniffed. “I put the power in the left boot,” he said.
“In the boot? Why the fuck would you do that?”
Rob wiped his cheek with his free hand. “’Cause I thought I could make a dive suit without the suit. Just the boots. ”
“Jesus Christ, how did you make it to eleven?” Conner checked the band, made sure it was dry, and was about to press it to his forehead and release his brother when he thought of his sister and what she would do.
“Hold still,” he said. He pulled his shirt over his head, found a dry patch, and patted his brother’s forehead dry.
“I’m not crying,” Rob said quietly, as Conner dabbed his head.
“I know you’re not crying. I’m drying your temples. ”
His brother held still. Conner checked the dive band to make sure it was aligned right, then paused a moment to admire the tiny solders his brother had made. “You’re a piece of work,” he said. He slid the band down on his brother’s head. “Now listen, I don’t want you to just release the sand, got it?”
Rob nodded.
“I want you to flow it down around your legs, okay? Feel it move. Direct it. And then let it push up on the bottoms of your feet. You have to picture two hands down there beneath you, lifting you up. Two hands with good grips on those boots, okay? Can you feel the fingers? The palms?”
“I think so,” Rob said, biting his lip.
“Okay. Try it. Quick, before you start sweating. ”
“’S’not helping,” Rob grunted. He squinted his eyes and concentrated. Conner felt the sand stir and loosen beneath him.
“Good,” he said. “Now up. ”
Rob yelped as he shuddered skyward. His head nearly bumped into the rafters. The sand lifted him through the hole in the old bathroom, until his boots were high and dry on the pile of drift.
Conner laughed and brushed the spill9 off his lap. Rob whooped and pumped his fists.
“Awesome job,” Conner said. “Now take those boots off. You’re fucking grounded. ”
13 • Son of a Whore
Conner stayed up late that night and waited for Palmer to get home. He finally passed out beside Rob on the tiny cot and woke in the morning to find his own bed undisturbed. He had left it open for Palmer, but his brother had probably gotten lucky with a girl. Totally flaking out on them again this year, even after promising. After really promising. And now Conner had a crick in his neck for nothing.
He got up and stretched. Rob grabbed the loose sheets, rolled over, and cocooned himself. Conner grabbed a white open-front shirt that tied shut around the waist. He stepped into the washroom and rubbed sand on his face and hands, exfoliating the sweat and grime and stink. With some sand in the shirt, he rubbed the fabric together with his fists. The sand in the basin still had the faint smell of old dried flowers crushed up in there. Damn faint, though.
He shook the sand back into the basin and got dressed, leaving his shorts on and knotting the shirt. Hurrying out into the morning chill, he pissed in the general vicinity of the nearby latrine, steam swirling off in the breeze. After kicking some light sand on the dark sand, he hurried back home.