Chad stood around and watched his brothers eat a greasy dinner with their father. He was vaguely hungry but didn’t see any reason to punish himself with a 101 gut bomb. Normally the aromas of charred burgers made him salivate, but the astringent smell of hospitals always caused his stomach to go watery.
Old dad had only eaten a few bites of his cheeseburger before an angry nurse came in and took it away. Why, he’d asked in disbelief, and she reminded him again that he was supposed to fast before surgery. His sun damaged face had crinkled up like a paper sack as he watched her plop his prize in the trash. At that point Chad’s brothers were coughing into their shirts to hide their laughter, but old dad knew better and his face grew long and ashen and they saw a man terrified of hospitals and after the nurse left the room, his sons offered up bites from their own dripping sandwiches. When everyone finished eating, a pint was hastily passed around until it was empty and they made Chad take the bottle so he could dump it into another garbage can.
There was no reason to stick around after he disposed of the bottle, Chad decided. Old dad was drifting in and out anyway, was more cooperative now than he’d been since he’d fallen onto the deck clutching at his side and screaming curses at them. The brothers had known right away what had to be done. It wasn’t the first time they’d seen the old bull taken down a few notches in the last few years. The time before it had been a kidney stone and they’d acted too late. There’d been a high price tag for all the damage he’d caused to hospital property, not to mention the doctor who’d had his nosed stitched after making the mistake of thinking old dad was too sedated to hear him bad mouthing his family.
Chad loved his family but there were times when they seemed like they were from a completely different pack. His brothers were several years older, and Chad’s earliest memories were mostly images of their ruddy hands reaching down to pick him up, wild drunken Christmas gatherings and sunny days out on the boats. Ever since he was a young boy he’d wondered about the time his brothers had spent with their father before he was born, and even then he’d sensed that he’d reached a new state of awareness from which he couldn’t return. It had always struck him as strange when he overheard them talking about events he remembered nothing of, and if he ventured to ask too many questions they’d usually take turns responding with such an ill conceived piece of fiction that it crashed before barely getting off the runway. For Chad it wasn’t ever his brothers’ awful storytelling that bothered him, but the underlying feeling they weren’t telling him everything-secrets to an impenetrable fortress he’d never see the keys to.
Of course he was wise to keep his suspicions to himself. He didn’t want his brothers to have another tool in their arsenal to tease him about, because nothing was off limits except for what had happened to their mother, what she was doing these days watching over them and their boat, speaking to them through the voice of water.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Ann. She’d been the last person he’d expect to see. He hated to admit it, but Ann still held the same magic over him that he’d been unable to escape since he’d ridden his gold Stingray and fished trickle creeks for rainbow trout. Back then if she’d asked him a question he’d forget how to talk, so there had been marked improvement since then.
After leaving her a voicemail, Chad found himself driving around Buoy City for no reason other than the fact that he didn’t want to go back to his apartment and watch the storm cause more water damage. The place was a mildewed dump and he was embarrassed. No one came by except local stoners wanting to see if he had anything to sell, but most of the time he’d just end up smoking with them and watching crappy shows on television until all hours.
Unless he was busy working the family crab business, Chad never had much ambition other than catching up on sleep and going to concerts. He had money to spend-sometimes more than he should have-and there were always women in Portland who knew how to have a good time if he wanted to. Lately he’d grown tired of the city women and their insatiable hunger for cocaine and overall hostility toward daylight and fresh ocean air. They weren’t vampires, but they were damn close to it. And that thought would be all it took for him to roll out of a dirty motel room with a bitchy strung-out chick who’d just locked herself in the bathroom and drive back home to Buoy City where he could clear his head with a long walk on the shore, lie on the sand and listen to the concert of waves that seemed to know what he needed to ease his unhappiness.
Most people Chad knew enjoyed wallowing in their misery, just scraping by somehow and spending their lives haunting the local bars. Chad didn’t want to end up like them and if it wasn’t for old dad and the family business his brothers might already be there. All three of them were divorced now, paying child support and living together in the same house they grew up in where over the years broken windows had been replaced with plywood and the yard had turned into a jungle littered with broken cars. No, the life he’d born into was going to get harder and harder, and if he didn’t wake up, he too was going to wind up moving into the house with the old man.
It was dumb idea to be out driving during the storm, but he’d decided to head out to Traitor Bay anyway. Maybe he’d get a chance to talk to Ann again without his brothers showing up and telling him he had to go.