Chatters on the Tide

  Chapter 23

  Loud music on the boom box covered Brenda's entry. She stood there for a couple of minutes looking at Tonya from behind as she packed a corrugated box and sang the Top 40 lyrics right along.

  "What are you doin' honey?" Brenda said.

  She whipped around and stared back. "Oh thank God, it's you. You scared the crap out of me!"

  "What's up?" Brenda asked.

  "I'm packing, like we talked about," Tonya replied.

  Brenda reached over and turned off the music. Tonya was still staring at her the way road kill does before it gets dead.

  "What's wrong? You're looking at me funny," Brenda asked.

  "Nothing honey, nothing. I'm just surprised to see you. I thought I wasn't going to see you until after I got to Linda's."

  "Yeah," Brenda said, "that was...the plan, that we talked about. But I was thinking..."

  "Yeah?"

  "I was thinking I want to find out who the cops were who came by. Can I have the card?"

  "What card?" she asked.

  "The business card," Brenda said. "Cops always leave a business card and tell you to call them if you think of anything."

  "I don't remember a card," she said. "Maybe one of them gave me a card, I don't remember."

  "That's funny," Brenda said, "they always leave a card. Do you remember either of their names? I really want to know if these are cops that have dragged me in before. I want to know what I'm up against, you know?"

  "One was named Green and other I don't remember. Green did most of the talking."

  "And Green didn't give you his card?" Brenda asked.

  She shifted her weight onto her left foot and looked at the ceiling and Brenda knew that was the tell. She was lying. She said something, but Brenda didn't pay attention.

  "You aren't going to Linda's, you're leaving, with the money, for wherever," Brenda said and pulled her .38 out from under her t-shirt.

  Outside there was the sound of somebody on the steps. They both looked up but the curtains were drawn. Brenda pulled one back and looked outside.

  Harold walked up the four wooden stairs to the trailer's little stoop and knocked. "This is Harold Mooney; can I talk to you a minute?"

  "Sure, hold on a second."

  The door opened and he saw a girl in her late twenties he thought he'd seen before. Her face was set, as if its flesh was no longer elastic.

  "I remember you, you're the fortune teller from the club, right? What are you doing here?"

  "Shhh," she said, "get in here."

  Harold came in and Tonya shut the door and locked it.

  "What's going on?"

  "I did some investigating on my own," she said, "and I used the cards of course. This is where the thief who took the rings used to live. As you can see, she didn't get done packing before she left. I've been searching the place for over an hour and I can't find the rings or any sign of where she took off to. What are you doing here?"

  "Same as you, trying to find out what happened to the rings. How come you didn't call Lucas and tell him what you knew?"

  "I wasn't sure I was right," Tonya said. "I'm the newest member of the club. Lucas isn't going to trust my hunches, you know."

  "And you were hoping against hope," Harold said smiling wide, "that you could prove yourself to the group by bringing back the rings."

  "Yeah..."

  "You know what," Harold said. "What you did is bad enough, but lying to the club is worse when you think about how they welcomed you in and trusted you."

  "What?" Tonya asked.

  "Knowing Lucas, if you had just told him what you did, he wouldn't have even kicked you out."

  "What did I do?" Tonya asked, her face becoming plastic long enough for her forehead to crack in the middle. "You must be mixed up..."

  "No mix up. I might be crappy at self evaluation, but I know how to read people, and you are full of crap. You’re a con artist aren’t you?"

  "That's what you're doin' too," she said, "playing the prophet and taking them for a ride. You're just scared I'm going to wreck your gig. Well I won't. It's cool."

  "Actually," Harold said, "It's the other way around. We all kinda got played. Tell whoever's over there to come around the corner. I got a thing about people peeking at me from around corners."

  Brenda came in from the hallway pointing her pistol into the space between Harold and Tonya.

  "I want to hear this," Brenda said. "I got played. How'd you get played?"

  "It's kinda personal," Harold said. "It's a great story if you want to hear it."

  "We got time. Go ahead."

  Harold said, "Sure. I know you're probably used to talking with a gun in your hand, but I'm not used to talking with one even in the room, much less while having one pointed at me. Do you mind?"

  Brenda didn't answer, she just redirected it at Tonya.

  "Thanks. How much do you know about the motorcycle club?"

  "All of it," Brenda said. "Everything she knows, I know. Pretty much. Except for the lies."

  "Okay," Harold said. "It was all a big set up from the beginning. Do you know who Gator is?"

  "Not really,” Brenda said. “Tonya mentioned him, some bum.”

  “Well I haven’t talked to him since I figured this all out, but…”

  “He doesn’t talk,” Tonya said.

  “He talks, but only to me. It’s complicated, and I don’t one hundred percent understand it myself. But anyway, I haven’t talked to him yet to make sure, but it looks like he told the club I was the prophet they were looking for because he wanted me to learn something about myself. I think he thought that I would learn and grow from it. So here I am, everybody thinking I'm some a prophet with powers, and I'm just a guy that got tricked. I don't have any powers, the rings don't have any powers, it's all bullshit."

  "Uh huh," Brenda said. “I knew that.”

  "Except for one thing. And that's how Gator felt about me. He was my friend when we were kids, little kids. His memories of our friendship saved him from a future he didn't want. And he was trying to save me from a future I didn't want. Now that -- that is special."

  "I had a future I wanted," Brenda said to Harold, but while glaring at Tonya. "She screwed it up. I stole for her, after I swore I wasn’t doing that anymore. I got the cash for the rings and she was going to take it and run off."

  The crash that came made them all jump. The door burst in and caught Harold on the back and shoulder, propelling him him deeper into the living room to land on his side on the dingy carpet. Tonya fell back and tripped on the rug, hitting the floor hard too, and in the middle of them Billy, who hadn't expected the door to give way with such ease.

  Aside from backing up a step, Brenda was unshaken. "Stay right there," she said. “All of ya!”

  "You mean to tell me this was all bullshit!" Billy screamed. He was scrambling over to Harold on all fours. He took Harold by the throat with both hands.

  "I trusted Gator and he did this to me? He was always clinging to me, he didn't say nothing, but I thought we were friends, and I trusted you too, and now..."

  "Chill out," Brenda ordered. "I said -- chill out!"

  Outside in the front yard Lucas was wrestling with Bonnie who was fighting to get inside.

  "Greg! Greg!" she screamed. She could see through the doorway that Billy was on top of Harold.

  "Don't!" Lucas cried. "Wait here, I'm goin' in, you wanna get shot or something?"

  Brenda gave her order again and Billy looked up from his work, loosened his grip. Harold pushed the hands away.

  "Damn it Billy...let me talk, get off me..."

  "Don't anybody do nothing," Brenda said.

  "Look, everybody, this isn't as bad as you think," Harold said. "It's not, but you have to listen to me, all of you."

  "Bite me," Billy said. He was baring his teeth, like he did we wanted to be scary, but Harold could tell he was on the verge o
f tears.

  "What's your name?"

  "Call me ‘Gun’, cause that's what matters," Brenda said.

  "You’re Brenda, right? The one who stole the rings? ‘We ran the tag on your bike," Harold said. "Brenda, I know how you feel. Awhile back I thought my wife betrayed me. I thought all she wanted was for me to be successful. I even made a half-assed try at killing myself because of it. But I found out that she was the best thing in my life, and I'm so glad I got my head on straight, thanks to Gator. You don't know if it's true that Tonya was all about the money. Let's talk about it, okay?"

  Brenda thought Harold was saran wrap, pretty much transparent, and she'd be able to tell if he was smoking her. "How come you think you know so much about us," she said. "You don't know shit."

  "I don't, you're right, just what I heard. I was listening a little before I knocked on the door..."

  "It's because..." Brenda said. "It's because of the mark. She decided she couldn't be with me because of the mark."

  "What mark?" Harold said.

  "Don't screw with me!" Brenda yelled, pulling the hammer back on her revolver. "My face, because of my face!"

  And then Harold saw what she was talking about, a purple birthmark on her cheek about the size of a dime. Not much really, not enough spoil her attractiveness.

  "Honest, I never noticed it until you just said something."

  "Everybody says that," Brenda said. "I got at least one bullet for each of you. You're going to have to do better than that."

  "I'm with you sis," Billy said and stood up. "This is a crock of shit and I'm leaving."

  "No you ain't," Brenda said. "Sit down."

  "Better do it," Tonya said from the floor. "She's done time for cappin' somebody before. My baby's a bad-ass."

  "You can all eat me," Billy said, and sat down.

  Harold started again. "Listen to me. You have a mark and so do I. This guy Gator pinned it on me, that I was some kind of prophet, you see? And it wasn't true, but when he made me look at myself to figure it all out, I saw that the mark wasn't me at all. Somewhere in there I figured who I was and who I wasn't. You can do that too."

  "Do what?"

  "Look at yourself," Harold said. "Is that mark part of you? It's on your face, not on your soul. You can be whoever you want to be. You don't have to be a killer. You've known love, and so what if Tonya was only about the money..."

  "I wasn't," Tonya said.

  "...it doesn't matter. There was something pure and trusting in you, without a mark. Think about it," Harold said. "That spot is nothing. Nothing."

  Harold looked at Brenda, his teeth squeaking dry on the backside of his lips from all the talking and the tension. She was still holding the pistol like she meant business and her face was showing the strain. He took in the other players. Billy was looking out the window with this mouth open. Maybe he was mulling over his own mark and what it meant to him. Tonya's face was as unknowable as it had been along. When she wasn't acting it was a block of unsculpted clay, but still he saw there were tears brimming in her eyes.

  "What if there was no money?" Brenda said. "What if I burned it? Would you be with me, the way like it was?"

  "I..." Tonya locked up. "I..."

  There was a rustle of cloth and Harold looked that way. He saw Bonnie for the first time, still pulling away from Lucas outside.

  He smiled and Bonnie could not smile back because she was too afraid, but at the same time she wanted to go inside and throw her body across him to protect him. She had heard it all and she knew that he was himself again, he was the man she had spent all weekend with in the apartment reading a dumb book and making love and cooking on the grill at midnight. All she could do was shake her head left to right wanting him to be out of there and away from that gun.

  The bang inside the little trailer was loud.

  "Say something!" Brenda yelled, pulling the gun down to level after firing one up into the ceiling.

  "I don't know if I can trust you!" Tonya yelled. "I don't know if I can trust anybody, but I guess if I could, it would be you. Yeah, now that I know how you feel, I would rather be with you, money or no money."

  Brenda studied Tonya and made her decision. She made the revolver safe and turned it around butt first. She walked up to Tonya and handed her the pistol.

  "Then prove it," Brenda said. "You got the gun now. Give the cash to them, it was their rings I stole anyway. That should shut up ‘em up, then you and me can hit the road. "

  Tonya stood up, slung her cash-heavy purse over her shoulder, and took the gun.

  "Dumb-ass," she said, and waiving the .38 at everyone, laughed and gently stepped through the remains of the door. The trailer was silent as they heard her start the El Camino and head out.

  "I guess we’re all done here," Brenda said, and flopped onto the sofa. “You cats can blow now.”

  "You know what?" Billy said, "I want you in the club. You got balls."

  “Screw your club.”

  Billy went on. “So, your license plate, ‘DUN TIM.’ Does that mean you did a guy named Tim, or does that mean you did time?”

  “God I wish I hadn’t given her my damn gun,” Brenda said.

  On the other side of the room Bonnie and Harold were hugging. Lucas was looking away and working his jaw to keep anyone from spotting the way his chin was starting to bunch up.

  “You were coming to save me,” Harold said.

  “I got sick of waiting, but I was too late.”

  “No you weren’t, you did save me, you just didn’t need to be here to do it,” he said.

  “I heard what you said.”

  “About what?” Harold asked.

  “About Gator. Tell me what happened.”

  “Yeah," Harold said, “I should have realized that Gator couldn’t have known all those things magically, but when you’re into a situation, it’s hard to think straight.”

  Bonnie took him by the hair on the back of his head and gave it a playful shake. “Come on, tell me what made you realize all this?”

  “I’ll tell you later, all about it. Basically, I figured out that I have the ability to make my dreams come true, just like everybody does, you know? The usual way, not by waving a magic wand, or by having some mystical dream.”

  “What about Gator?”

  “I think he’s this kid who used to live on the farm next to us. He had a lot of problems as a kid, and he moved away when I was a teenager. They said he had gone mental, nothing specific, you know back then it wasn’t like it is now and people weren’t as savvy about stuff. Mental illness was a bigger deal than it is now.

  “A few nights ago we were out in the woods, and he told me that he knew everything about me. He said he had had a kind of daydream and saw my whole life flash before him. At the time, I thought it was evidence that all this stuff was real. But then he showed up at the condo. I was there, waiting for you, but you were out looking for me. He snuck in a window or something, and he was hiding around a corner. That made me remember playing hide and seek, and then I realized how he knew all that suff about me. He must’ve forgotten some of his childhood memories, and then one night he remembered everything in a rush. Maybe he looked me up and followed me around, trying to work up the guts to talk to me.”

  “What about the toy car?” Lucas asked, cutting in.

  “He used to work in a body shop, he mentioned that. He fixed it up while he was living with you, and he put under that tall bed in the spare bedroom where I found it. I bet recovering his memories started his healing...”

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “Back up.”

  “...it started his healing, you know, remembering everything. He was following me around, and he saw that I was having problems. Hell, he might have even been the one who pulled me out of the bay that night.”

  Lucas was no longer looking away, he was staring without shame, leaning against the door jamb.

  “A
fter I jumped into the bay he saw I was struggling,” Harold said. “So he led the group to me. He doesn’t speak, so when he pointed me out, you guys made all of the assumptions, that I was the prophet. Maybe he knew that laying that mark on me would make me look in the mirror and help me to see what was real and what wasn’t. When I got wrapped up in The Congregation and left the LEGION OF KRONOS, he snapped. It was do-or-die time. He talked to me because he thought if he didn’t I might never get back to reality.”

  “Why do you think that?” Bonnie said.

  “The Congregation is very homey and comfortable, very seductive,” Harold answered.

  “Uh, there’s a worm in your ointment,” Lucas said.

  “What’s that?” Harold asked.

  “Gator pegged you for the prophet two months before you jumped in the bay. He’s why me and Opal moved in next door to your grandparent’s place. And he was with the club a year before that.”

  “Maybe it was my drinking, my move to the old home place that made him decide to make me into a prophet. Either way, it still works,” Harold said. “I don’t know why he joined the club. That’s the one thing I can’t figure out.”

  While Harold was talking Lucas had sat on the stoop’s top step with his elbows on his knees. Harold took Bonnie's hand and went outside. She understood when he let go her hand and sat down next to Lucas.

  "I'm sorry Lucas," he said.

  "It's not your fault. It is what it is. Give it a name and we can all call it somethin' I guess," Lucas said.

  Thinking carefully, Harold looked over at the back of Lucas' head with the brown and gray braided pony tail hanging sadly down. Lucas was looking out into the yard. Harold took so long thinking that Lucas spoke again without turning.

  "I wanted to believe that there was something at work in the world. I've spent my adult life trying to find a message, you know, something recent and firsthand, some kind of proof that we can receive messages from beyond this dirty world. I guess I was wastin' every minute."

  "No," Harold said. "You weren't. You kept the club going, and who knows how many lives you saved just keeping people off drugs and alcohol. Besides, you got your message. I still don't know why Gator did what he did, but I know that there's not much chance of everything shaking out like it did by chance. There's magic in the world, just not the kind you were looking for. It’s more...subtle than that."

  "Thanks Fred," Lucas said. "Me and Scooby'll meet you back at the Mystery Machine."

  "Okay, that was a little corny, but it's true. I can't wait to talk to Gator. I have a million questions," Harold said.

  Lucas let out a puff of air from his nose that signaled he did too. He finally took his eyes off the yard and looked at Harold.

  "It's been nice knowing you. You're a hell of a guy," Lucas said.

  "Where am I going?" Harold asked.

  "Well I figured..."

  "Figured what? Prophet or no prophet, I'm the new club Prez," Harold said, "and my first order is for you to get off your fat ass, get Billy, and let's get out of here."

  Lucas smiled and stood up. "Awright then," he said. "C'mon Billy!" he hollered, and began to haul his gut down the steps. He stopped on the bottom one, and when no one could see, he dragged a thumb through the wrinkles beneath his eyes where the tears had been trapped, snorted hard, and blasted spit into the tree line at the edge of the yard. Somebody was pulling into the driveway. Lucas looked up and saw the El Camino pulling in. Tonya got out, slammed the door and plodded the twenty paces up to Lucas.

  “Excuse me,” Tonya said looking down to avoid his eyes, trying to squeeze by.

  “First gimme that roscoe,” Lucas said sticking out his arm to block her way.

  “Roscoe?” she asked.

  “The gun.”

  Tonya pulled it out of her bag and put it in his wrinkled, earnest hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Shut up and get in there,” Lucas said.

  She didn’t look up, just turned sideways and went by him up the steps and into the trailer, past Bonnie and Harold on the landing, and over to stand in front of Brenda.

  “Billy, let’s go,” Harold said, and the big man responded by getting up to make room.

  “This is screwed up,” Tonya said. “I can’t leave. I know I’m being stupid, stupider than the butt-holes who pay me twenty bucks to read the cards or the lines on their hands. I’m a sucker, just like them, and I’m sorry.”

  Brenda didn’t get up, she just sat there staring, so Tonya knelt on the floor at Brenda’s feet.

  “Hell yeah!” Billy said.

  “Don’t even think about making a smart-ass remark,” Harold said. “Shut your mouth.”

  Brenda took Tonya’s purse and tossed it at Harold. “There’s twenty thousand in there that’s yours,” She said. “Does that square us?”

  “Gotta clear it with the guys,” Harold said. “They weren’t my rings, they were the property of the club. But I guess no harm no foul. They didn’t have any powers anyway.”