Tomorrow he’d bash them
into chips to build the ram- parts of his castle, but tonight he had another
use for them.
He swirled his legs through
the water, turquoise in the twilight, and at exactly
7:56, he snapped
on his gog- gles and adjusted them snug. “The
boy began to prepare
himself for the big event.”
He whispered the voice-over, in case anyone had their windows open, or the Twin Kings were lurking around.
The Twin Kings weren’t twins,
just two old men who dressed
alike in plaid shorts and bucket hats. They weren’t
kings either, but they paraded around
Sunset Palms Retirement Village
like royal tyrants, making life
miserable for anyone they
encountered.
Ware had studied the Middle Ages in school. Back then, kings could be kind and wise, kings
could be cruel and crazy. Luck of the draw: serf
or knight, you lived with it.
The first time the
Twin Kings had come
across Ware, he’d been cheek down in the grass, watching
a line of ants patiently climb
up, then over, then
down a rock,
thinking about how much harder human life would be if people
didn’t know they could just go around some obstacles.
“Space Man” they’d
dubbed him, claiming they’d had
to yell at him three
times before he’d lifted
his head.
Now, whenever they
found him, they
delivered some zinger they found so hilarious they
had to double over and
grab their knees.
The comments were not
hilarious, though. They were only
mean.
Which was okay—people made fun of him for spacing out; he was used to it.
No, the mortifying thing was when Big Deal came out and sent the kings
slinking away with a single glare. An
eleven-and-a-half-year-old boy was supposed
to protect his grandmother, not the other
way around.
“Oh, they’re harmless,” Big Deal had
said last night, laughing and making him feel even more ashamed. “They’re deathly afraid
of germs, so just tell them you’re
sick. Diarrhea works
best.”
As if he’d called them up by thinking of them, the Twin Kings rolled around the corner, hands
clasped around their royal bellies.
“Earth to Space Man!” the shorter one cackled.
“Don’t get your air hose caught in the
drain down there!”
Ware glanced back at his grandmother’s
unit, then faced them. “Better
stay away. I’m sick.” He grabbed
his belly and groaned in a convincing manner. The Twin Kings
scuttled back around
the corner.
Ware raised his eyes to the
clock again: 7:58. He kicked off the seconds in the water.
At 7:59, he picked up the bricks.
Then he slowly
filled his lungs with the sunscreeny air—hot and sweet, as if
someone was frying coconuts nearby—and slipped into the deep end. The bricks seemed to
double in weight, sinking him softly
to the bottom.
He’d never been on the bottom before, thanks to a certain amount
of padding that
functioned as an internal
flotation device. “Baby fat,”
his mother called
it. “It’ll turn into muscle.” Witnessing his
bathing-suited self in his grandmother’s mirror
every day, he realized his mother had omitted a crucial detail: how it would turn into muscle. Probably exercise was involved. Maybe tomorrow.
Ware located the four huge
date palms—each one anchoring a corner of the pool. Their chunky trunks staggered in the ripples like live gargoyles.
At eight, the twinkle lights winding up those trunks were
set to come on. Tonight he
would see it from the bottom of the pool. Okay, the big event was not exactly
a dazzling spectacle, but he’d discovered that everything
looked more interesting through water—mysteriously distorted, but somehow clearer,
too. He could hold his breath for over a minute,
so he’d have plenty of time to appreciate
the effect.
Five seconds later,
though—a surprise. The palm fronds began to flash red.
Ware understood right away:
ambulance. Three times already in the weeks he’d been at Sunset Palms, he’d
been awakened by strobing red
lights—no shock in a retirement place. He knew the drill: the ambulance cut the siren at the entrance—no sense causing any extra heart attacks. It parked
between the buildings, and then a crew ran around poolside where the doors to the units
were sliders, easier to roll the
stretchers in, haul the people out.
Don’t be afraid, he telegraphed to whoever lay on the
stretcher, the way he had the
other times. Scared
people seemed like raw eggs to him, wobbling around with- out their shells. It hurt just to think about people being
scared.
While he watched the date palms pulse, he thought
about being happy instead. How happiness could
sneak up on you, like, for
instance, when your parents
send you away for
the summer to your grandmother’s place, which you know you’ll
hate, but it turns out you love it there because for the first
time in your life you have long hours free and alone. Well, except
for maybe two old men so harmless
they’re afraid of germs.
An egret, as white
and smooth as though carved
from soap, glided through
the purpling sky. In a movie,
a sin- gle flying
bird like that would
let you know that
the main character was starting out on a journey. Ware wished,
the way he always did when he saw something wonderful,
that he could
share things like this.
You see that? Wow. But he didn’t
really know anyone besides his
grandmother here, and she
hadn’t been feeling well
today, had barely stepped out of—
Ware released the bricks, burst
to the surface, snapped off his goggles, and saw: Big Deal’s sliding
glass doors gaping open like a gasp, two EMTs inside, bent over a stretcher.
A third EMT squinted toward the pool, her white coat flashing pink in the lights, as if
her heart beat in neon. Mrs. Sauer
from Unit 4 hovered
behind her, bath- robe clutched to her chest, face clenched. She raised one bony arm
like a rifle and
aimed her finger
right at Ware.
Ware shot over to the ladder,
slapped the water from his left ear, his right, and as he scrambled out he heard, “That’s her grandson. Off in his own world.”
At
eight exactly, the twinkle lights came on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
