0037 Chapter Thirty Seven

Squeegy was a bundle of energy. He read aloud every billboard along the way, trying each slogan several times to hear how it sounded in different ways. He pointed out every landmark, every store he’d been in, every street on the way to so-and-so’s house. He sat next to the window on the bus and kicked his legs, squirmed in his seat, pointed out the window, and described the who, what, where, and when. We were headed West. We were headed for the ocean.

An hour earlier I’d woken up from a deep sleep, and we’d kicked the blankets away in the night. The sun was bright through the gaps in the siding, shining its rays like razor-thin spotlights on the floor. Dust swirls sparkled and created their own universe.

It was warm already, the first day of the first heat wave of summer. I lay there postponing my morning piss so I could think about yesterday, put the events in some kind of order, turn that page in the book, and get some sense that I had it filed away. I carved the day into blocks, took what I needed to remember from each block, and kept those files near the top, easy to reach when needed.

I pulled myself away and headed for the bathroom. Donnie was still curled up, though he’d kicked his blankets away as well. Steve had never come in, and Joe, well you couldn’t make predictions about Joe, and that’s just how he wanted it. I pissed and lay back down watching Squeegy sleep.

Suddenly I had an idea. I wanted to get away, to see something besides Sunset and the garage. I got an overwhelming urge to escape. I still hadn’t seen the ocean, and since it seemed I might soon be busy, I decided that today was the day. It was extra warm, I still had a few dollars, Squeegy knew how to get there, Joe wasn’t around… Screw it, I didn’t need a reason. I was taking Squeegy, or he was taking me, to see the sea.

“Squeegy,” I whispered as I tickled his ear. “Mmmm,” was his answer. “Squeegy, wake up,” I whispered again. He moved a little giving me encouragement. “C’mon, wake up,” I said as I shook his shoulder. He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes in tiny slits as if he was afraid his dreams might escape. “Go pee, OK?” He lay there deciphering reality as I studied his sleep-puffy face. He slowly came around. “Go pee, alright?” I tried again. “Mmmmkay,” he mumbled as he sat up.

I watched as he stumbled across the sunshafts, creases in his skin from the blankets we slept on making lines this way and that. I waited and he returned, stretching, yawning and pushing his hair back. He grew more awake by the minute. With him the transition from sleep to awake was a slow one, it had to be done one layer of reality at a time.

“It’s hot, why did you wake me up?” he mumbled over slow, red lips.

“Sit down a sec.”

“Mmmmkay,” he replied as he sat in front of me rubbing his eyes.

“Squeegy, do you have any plans for today? I mean patients to see? Surgeries to perform?”

He stared at me through glassy eyes, “Huh?” he finally replied. He wasn’t ready for teasing for the first thirty minutes of the day.

“Let’s get dressed and take some money and go to the ocean today. We can grab some orange juice and donuts for the ride, and find some lunch later. You can show me the ocean, Squeegy! That’s what I came here to see, and I want you to show it to me!”

His eyes went from sleep to wide awake right before me. The corners of his lips lifted slowly to the sky and he sat up straight. “Really?” he asked.

“Yeah, really. Let’s go have us a day, just you and me!”

He knocked me flat on my back, planting kisses wherever he found an opening. Then he jumped up a whirlwind of activity, scattering clothes over the floor. “OK, you still have the money from yesterday?” he asked.

I found my jeans and pulled the wad of bills out. “Yup!” I answered.

“Is there enough? I have more you know! Oh yeah, I forgot, you know.”

I counted the money. “We have thirty nine dollars. That should be enough.”

“Yeah, that’s enough,” he said digging through the clothes.

“I have shorts,” he said holding up a wrinkled pair of faded red gym shorts.

“C’mon, James. Get dressed!” he implored as I watched in wonder his whirlwind of activity. “You have shorts, right?” he asked. I shook my head. “James, you gotta go in the water at least a little!” he begged.

He rummaged around and found someone’s extra shorts. I dressed while he waited by the door, his hand on the handle, rolling his eyes with exaggeration at every delay, the grin plastered on his lips canceling out the phony eye rolls.

I grabbed my rucksack and emptied it out on the floor. I stuffed some socks and a couple of shirts and a clean pair of jeans in it. “You’re taking that?” he asked, rolling his eyes again.

“Yup, we can keep we might need in it,” I tried.

“C’mon, James!” he giggled.

We hit the little grocery store on Sunset and bought six donuts and a carton of orange juice. Squeegy wanted any donut that had a pocket of jelly or chocolate inside. “I’ll show you why,” he promised as we headed to the bus stop.

It felt good to be out in the morning for once. The air was softer and smelled of things blooming. Sunset was different when you were on your way through, going somewhere better. It seemed like just another street in the morning when it wasn’t your destination. We were moving too fast for it to wrap around us like a thick robe made of stories and mysteries.

The bus came within minutes, nearly empty on a Saturday save for a few very tired looking workers coming from some dismal night shift. They looked resigned. Maybe they were headed home to bed. Maybe they’d stop at the store for a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of bread. Maybe they were headed to a second job. Was that my fate someday? Did they at least have someone meeting them at the door, someone who was happy to have them home? I didn’t want to think about it. The day was for him and me. I needed to stop thinking and just let it unfold.

Within a few blocks, as the bus rolled along, I was seeing things I’d never seen before. It was still just billboards and shops and parking lots, but they were new to me.

As we headed further West onto the new frontier, Squeegy ran a non-stop narrative and bounced in the seat barely able to contain himself. The filled donuts, he taught me, were for finding the hole and sucking out the sweet goodness of the insides as the donut collapsed. Then the empty donut was pressed gently so that when it was bit into, it was dense and slightly chewy. Absolutely brilliant, I thought. We passed the orange juice back and forth, washing it all down with cool sweetness. “Orange juice is the best, huh?” he asked the morning.

“Yup, the best!” I agreed.

“I like your backpack,” he said. “We can bring along stuff we might need, you know?”

“Yup, it’s actually pretty useful,” I answered as he snuck his hand into mine. For thirty seconds he broke free of his frenzy long enough to lean his head on my shoulder, and lace his fingers through mine.

“Miss Moon was right, you know?” he said softly.

“About what?” I asked.

“Wellll, I wouldn’t be going to the ocean right now without you. Soooo… I think you are my wings.” He could say something so simple, so pure, so right, that it took my breath away. I pretended to look out the window at more billboards, stores, and parking lots, as I let my lips fall onto his head. I breathed him in again. I squeezed his hand in mine. I wanted to live every minute of the day to its fullest.

We hit the boardwalk and were swept into the revelry. It was a circus, a carnival of humanity. It was overwhelming and addictive. We were assaulted by the colors, the skin, the tiny bikinis, the tattoos, the guy with the snake, the girls with the beads, the painters, the skateboarders, the unicyclists, the sweet smell of weed and incense, the bongo drummers, and the buskers. There was something to draw a persons attention at every step, mixed up in a riot of colors, sounds and smells.

Squeegy bounced along at a million miles an hour, his feet moving this way and that, his eyes darting. He ran everywhere. It just wasn’t fast enough to walk. It was as if he felt that if he didn’t get there fast enough to watch the jugglers, or the Krishnas in their ponytails and peach colored dresses, the scene, the experience, would vaporize, and he’d miss it forever. He took it all in, his mouth open in awe, his eyes as big as saucers. “Woah!” was the word of the day.

It was all I could do to keep up. He asked questions wherever we stopped. He engaged a scene, a person, completely devoid of assumption or prejudice. He soaked it all up. I was so afraid of losing him in the crowd that I decided I’d experience it all through his wonder, his big as saucers eyes. He seemed to get all the smiles and attention wherever he went. He was why those people did what they did. One look at the face of a child lost in imagination and wonder was their reward. They fed off of him. They watched his face. They played to children who were still children.

I kept sneaking glances at the water, the glistening blue across a wide expanse of sand. I felt calm. I knew that I’d have my time with the ocean. I could see it, I could smell it, I was close to tasting it. Squeegy needed his “woah’s!” No one could take the ocean away. It would be there, true as the pictures in the magazine I’d studied back in Iowa, when the time was right.

We became part of a slow moving stream. It seemed that there were spectators and performers, and some people were both. Most of the performers, those that painted, made crafts, played instruments too cumbersome to carry or had an established space, lined the path on the inside and outside. The spectators were a steady stream that moved together. There were also mobile performers, like the guy rollerskating with a huge lizard on one shoulder and a parrot on the other.

I was constantly wary of losing Squeegy in the crowd. My hand went from his hand, to his shoulder, to my finger hooked through a belt loop on his jeans. He was taking it all in. It was a lesson in osmosis. He had questions for every performer: “How do you keep your balance?” … “Have you ever wiped out bad?” … “Will it bite?” … “Awwww, what’s your dog’s name?” … “How long does it take to finish a painting?” … “How tall are you?” … “How many songs can you play?”

They all took to him of course. One look at his face and they were sold. He mixed a pale blue by combining dark blue and white, and swirled them together as a painter guided him. He strummed a guitar and learned a chord. He played a hippie’s bongos, and not too poorly. He dropped to his knees and cuddled every dog he could corner and not one seemed to mind in the least. He learned to throw a Frizbee from a girl who could throw one a mile. I took part too, but it was his wonder that pulled us along. His attention span was limited with such a variety of wonders to choose from. He gladly traded one scene for the next, always optimistic.

We both smelled it at the same time. He looked at me and I at him, and we followed a scent sent from heaven. “Playas Cantina,” the sign read. It smelled of Mexican food and the sign had crude paintings of tacos and burritos, the oranges and browns having faded and weathered. The sign may have been neglected, but they’d perfected the smell.

Squeegy ordered the number four combination for both of us: A taco, an enchilada, a tamale, rice and beans, and chips. We found a table looking out on the boardwalk and sipped cool water while we waited. Squeegy talked non-stop.. “Did you see that?”… “I sucked at the guitar, but the drums were fun!”… “Jeez, I wish we could have a puppy!”

“You are a puppy!” I teased him.

“Haha, I’ll be your puppy if you want.” he answered.

My stomach growled and did flip-flops as I anticipated a real meal. It had been nearly three weeks since I’d had a hot plate of food. The taco was a crisp corn shell filled with shredded beef cooked in spices, and topped with lettuce, cheese, and salsa. The enchilada was filled with pale, melted cheese, now and then a few diced, crunchy bits of onion, and topped with a red sauce and more melted cheese. The tamale was wrapped in a corn husk, and once opened with burning fingers, revealed a soft corn covering and shredded chicken inside. The rice and beans were hot and perfect for scooping up with the chips. There was mild salsa and a hotter sauce if you dared.

We ate and ate. We watched each other devour our feast. Squeegy hardly said a word after we’d begun. “Mmmms,” were involuntary and went back and forth with every third bite. “Dangit!” Squeegy cried as he remembered something.

“What?” I asked.

“I forgot the horchata!” he whined.

“The what?” I asked as he sat looking at me ashamed of himself.

“Horchata. It’s a drink. It’s like a milkshake… but not really. Its sweet!” I sat studying his face trying to figure out what the problem was.

“So, why can’t we get it?” I finally asked.

“Can we?” he replied.

“Stay here,” I answered, and I went and got two horchatas.

The horchata was slightly sweet, slightly cinnamon flavored, and creamy cool. It was the perfect drink to go along with food that was cheesy and meaty and hot. We sat and watched each other clean our plates, and sip horchata from our straws. I tried to figure out why he thought we had to order horchata when we ordered our food. He was a mystery, a mystery I was afraid to lose in the crowd.

“Squeegy, listen,” I said.

“Hmm?” he answered sipping his drink.

“If we get separated, I want you to meet me right here, right out in front, OK?”

“Huh?” he replied.

“Squeegy, there’s a lot of people here. If you get lost or we can’t find each other, I’ll meet you right here, out in front of this place. You stay here until I find you, and I’ll stay here until you find me, see?”

“Mmmkay,” he answered.

“Lets go to the beach now,” he suggested as we left with our stomachs full. “You have to take off your shoes and socks and wade in the water. It’s cool but not too cold, and the sand feels soft and squishy! We can find some shells and make sand castles too!” he went on as we walked away from the crowd toward where one thing ended and another began.

We turned off the path and headed across the grassy area filled with volleyball courts, and found the sand. This was it. This was why I came here in the first place. The pictures in the magazine had captured a tiny, single scene of what was before me, but they couldn’t possibly convey the vastness of the sparkling blue, the endless thing in front of me.

We walked along the sand until there were few people around, and I picked a spot and sat. I wanted to look out over it, feel its size, let my eyes accept it, imagine the weight and curve of it, picture the exotic, far away lands it licked somewhere over the horizon.

“What are you doing?” Squeegy asked.

“I’m sitting for a minute looking at the ocean,” I answered.

“Oh,” he answered, “Can I sit with you?”

“Sure, c’mon,” I said. He sat between my legs and rested his head against my chest. He got the idea. We sat in silence as the waves crashed toward us, salty air filling our lungs. The rhythm of it all was like a heartbeat. It was the earth washing itself, breathing, living.

My arms went around him and my chin rested on his head. We sat and sat. We were alone there, before us the most powerful force known to man. The size and depth was something I couldn’t measure. Underneath the shimmering surface, there were fish and whales and dolphins and creatures scientists hadn’t even discovered yet. An upside-down world. A world of secrets and darkness, of sunken treasures, of organisms that breathed water and looked like space aliens.

He couldn’t sit still for long. He jumped up and asked for his shorts. “C’mon James, you have to go in!” he implored. We dug the shorts out of the rucksack, and just as I began asking him where we could change, he stripped without a care in the world. I looked around and saw no one showing interest, so I trusted his judgment and put on shorts too. I stowed our clothes in the rucksack and looked up to see him in the water up to his belly button.

“Keep your arm dry!” he called to me as I dipped my toes in my first ocean. I smiled as I wondered if there was a photographer somewhere along the shore taking our picture for a magazine that some kid from the midwest would find in a library and use for his dreams of escape.

I forced myself further and further away from the shore. The surrender of earth to ocean was gradual. The waves that met my balls, and caused me to suck in air, were cool but gentle. The sun on my shoulders was the perfect remedy for the chill on my legs. The soft sand under my feet teased my toes, and my steps were slowed with the pull of both sand and water. The power of the waves, the suction of the sand, and the pure will of nature was astonishing. Green, white, and blue it changed, never still, and when I looked down my legs appeared broken, twisted this way and that below the surface.

I used my bandaged arm for an excuse to return to the sand and watch Squeegy. What I witnessed was a soul so completely absorbed by the wonder of it all that he was oblivious to anything else. He played, he frolicked, he kicked the water, he sliced at it with his hand, he tried to push it all back to where it came from, then he tried to push it all to shore. He ran, he fell, he jumped up, and did it all again.

Then he moved to the shore and held court with the sand. He molded shapes with his hands and kicked at the ocean when it threatened them. He built a mound and then fell on it, butt first, and admired the print his body made there. He threw cluster bombs of sand into the water and made machine gun sounds as it freckled the ocean in patterns different each time. He ran a narrative of ooh’s, ahh’s, gotcha’s, and woah’s, and hummed melodies, the soundtrack to a film only he could see.

His body glistened in the sun, all perfectly proportioned, a symphony of movement. He was where he belonged, in his own sing-song world of make believe. The joy it brought me to be able to see him in that world was immeasurable. It took my breath away. It made me smile. It bought tears to my eyes. It sucked me in and took me, a captive, along for the ride. It was a vortex, like walking through a museum and viewing historical and priceless art. It caused a hush and demanded reverence. I caught myself scanning the beach in every direction, always thankful that no one who might disturb his beautiful dance was approaching. I’d buy us a beach someday, and puppies, and crazy, unicycle-riding hippies who juggled fire, bowling pins, and swords.

We lay and let the sun caress us with the good that was in it. The warmth on my skin was medicine I hadn’t known I needed. He’d lay beside me for a few minutes and then his energy would urge him up again to battle the forces of nature. The result was more splashing, more running, more ass-prints, more cluster bombs. If I wasn’t watching, I was listening. I was always aware of where he was and what he was doing. If I hadn’t heard anything from him for thirty seconds, an alarm went off within me, and I sat up searching for him with a start.

The sun sank lower over the water and created liquid diamonds shimmering by the millions so bright that I watched them from between my fingers. I signaled to Squeegy, and he came and sat again in his perfect pocket of me. I held him and felt his motor wind down.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“The ocean?”

“Yeah, the whole day, the water, the beach, the people, the food, the whole thing?”

“Yup! I liked it all, Squeegy. It was real fun. I’m glad you took me here, and I hope we can do it again.”

“We can, I mean if you want to. We can come here once a week or something. I’ll bring you, OK?”

“Yup, that sounds like a good plan,” I replied as I gave him a squeeze.

We weren’t on the bus five minutes before his head hit my shoulder. His fingers laced in mine, my arm went around him, and he fell fast asleep. He’d done it again. He’d wound up his clock and then let it run completely down. He’d eaten the day presented to him, as well as what he’d made up to fill in the gaps. He had, by just being himself, brought smiles to many faces and warmed the hearts of peaceful people.

I’d dipped my feet in the ocean for the first time. I’d seen every kind of human and animal that I’d ever hoped to see. I’d heard drums, guitars, flutes, and tambourines. I’d felt the sun give my skin its warmth, a different sun than the one back home. I’d had a real hot meal, cheesy, meaty, crisp and melted. I’d had horchata, sweet, cool and creamy. I’d had him by my side, my finger hooked through his belt loop. His full belly meant more to me than mine. I was more than happy to keep an eye out for him, push the world away, watch for the right stop as he succumbed to his tired eyes, the hum and rocking of the bus his cradle, my shoulder his pillow, my arms his keeper.