but I don’t move and they don’t notice me lying there, among the weeds, in the darkness.
triathlon
The bachelor party started Friday night: a dozen horny drunks careening among the strip bars and the neon smoke. We left guys asleep in their cars and passed out at tables and propped in alleys, until Bruce and I were the only ones left. Just after dawn he hot-wired a Jeep we found in a parking lot and there were all these expensive rods and reels in the back. So we headed over the bridge to Dauphin Island, half an hour’s drive from Mobile, for the shark fishing.
Prissy’s was a tiny dive on the west side of the island, the last stop before the oyster-shell road ended and you needed a four-wheel-drive to go farther. Inviting beer signs gleamed in the windows. The pool games cost seventy-five cents each and we knew Paul, the bartender. He used to work at the chemical plant with us. We were night watchmen. Prissy was his old lady and she owned the bar, but she was divorcing him, and until she fired him and kicked him out, he’d give his friends drinks on the house.
The parking lot was empty and Paul was alone, playing the blackjack machine, when we walked in. Bruce went to get quarters for the pool table.
“Man, where is everybody?” he asked.
I went through the swinging doors to the pay phone and punched up Jan’s number.
“It’s six A.M. ,” she said. “Where in the world are you?”
I told her.
“ Jesus .”
“Look—” I said.
But she’d hung up.
When I stepped out Bruce and Paul were playing eight ball. I walked to the pool table.
Bruce glanced at me. “Everything hunky-dory?”
“Swell.”
Paul handed me a beer. “Bruce says you’re getting married, you idiot.”
I looked at my watch. “Tonight.”
“Shit. Why?”
Bruce looked up from the table. “Because the rabbit died.”
Paul lit a cigarette and smoked. His eyes were red. Balls clacked on the felt and thumped as they died in their pockets. Bruce moved around the table, smoking and inspecting the layout of things.
“Nine, side,” he said, and then it was.
Paul drained his cup, then went over behind the bar.
I watched Bruce puzzling at the table, chalking his cue. He shook another cigarette from his pack and lit it and sipped his beer. He was older than I was, and taller. He was an ex-marine, had survived a tour of duty in Vietnam. He’d come home and witnessed the Kent State massacre in 1970. He’d played semipro baseball in Italy after that, been an extra in a spaghetti Western, done acid on a subway in Japan.
But this was all before I knew him.
What we did together was run—he bragged that he’d come in 314th in the ’83 Chicago Marathon—and drink. We met at work and started going to bars together. We’d run in local marathons on weekends, get drunk afterward.
In a few minutes Paul brought over a pitcher of margaritas, a thick crust of salt on the rim. He poured me one and I tasted it.
“I’ve been here for four days without going home,” he said.
“Your shot,” Bruce told him.
Paul nodded sadly. He walked over and, trying to make the four, knocked in the eight ball. We moved and stood on either side of him and Bruce asked him to come fishing with us. Paul said he had to stay, in case the phone rang. Bruce said he was crazy, told him to shut his eyes, for God’s sake. To picture us there on the edge of the island, fishing until the sun went down and the moon rose from the bay, our lines stretched out of sight and heavy with cut bait, the three of us propped in aluminum chairs and drinking cold beer from one of Prissy’s kegs, our rods leaping in our hands as the sand sharks hit, and then the long, exhausting battle of pulling them in. We’d build a giant bonfire out of driftwood, the shark spines lighting up on the sand, the rubbery blue skin turned inside out, the black dead eyes. We’d have to keep sliding our chairs back as the tide closed in and—near dawn—took the fire, an early fog drifting out
triathlon
The bachelor party started Friday night: a dozen horny drunks careening among the strip bars and the neon smoke. We left guys asleep in their cars and passed out at tables and propped in alleys, until Bruce and I were the only ones left. Just after dawn he hot-wired a Jeep we found in a parking lot and there were all these expensive rods and reels in the back. So we headed over the bridge to Dauphin Island, half an hour’s drive from Mobile, for the shark fishing.
Prissy’s was a tiny dive on the west side of the island, the last stop before the oyster-shell road ended and you needed a four-wheel-drive to go farther. Inviting beer signs gleamed in the windows. The pool games cost seventy-five cents each and we knew Paul, the bartender. He used to work at the chemical plant with us. We were night watchmen. Prissy was his old lady and she owned the bar, but she was divorcing him, and until she fired him and kicked him out, he’d give his friends drinks on the house.
The parking lot was empty and Paul was alone, playing the blackjack machine, when we walked in. Bruce went to get quarters for the pool table.
“Man, where is everybody?” he asked.
I went through the swinging doors to the pay phone and punched up Jan’s number.
“It’s six A.M. ,” she said. “Where in the world are you?”
I told her.
“ Jesus .”
“Look—” I said.
But she’d hung up.
When I stepped out Bruce and Paul were playing eight ball. I walked to the pool table.
Bruce glanced at me. “Everything hunky-dory?”
“Swell.”
Paul handed me a beer. “Bruce says you’re getting married, you idiot.”
I looked at my watch. “Tonight.”
“Shit. Why?”
Bruce looked up from the table. “Because the rabbit died.”
Paul lit a cigarette and smoked. His eyes were red. Balls clacked on the felt and thumped as they died in their pockets. Bruce moved around the table, smoking and inspecting the layout of things.
“Nine, side,” he said, and then it was.
Paul drained his cup, then went over behind the bar.
I watched Bruce puzzling at the table, chalking his cue. He shook another cigarette from his pack and lit it and sipped his beer. He was older than I was, and taller. He was an ex-marine, had survived a tour of duty in Vietnam. He’d come home and witnessed the Kent State massacre in 1970. He’d played semipro baseball in Italy after that, been an extra in a spaghetti Western, done acid on a subway in Japan.
But this was all before I knew him.
What we did together was run—he bragged that he’d come in 314th in the ’83 Chicago Marathon—and drink. We met at work and started going to bars together. We’d run in local marathons on weekends, get drunk afterward.
In a few minutes Paul brought over a pitcher of margaritas, a thick crust of salt on the rim. He poured me one and I tasted it.
“I’ve been here for four days without going home,” he said.
“Your shot,” Bruce told him.
Paul nodded sadly. He walked over and, trying to make the four, knocked in the eight ball. We moved and stood on either side of him and Bruce asked him to come fishing with us. Paul said he had to stay, in case the phone rang. Bruce said he was crazy, told him to shut his eyes, for God’s sake. To picture us there on the edge of the island, fishing until the sun went down and the moon rose from the bay, our lines stretched out of sight and heavy with cut bait, the three of us propped in aluminum chairs and drinking cold beer from one of Prissy’s kegs, our rods leaping in our hands as the sand sharks hit, and then the long, exhausting battle of pulling them in. We’d build a giant bonfire out of driftwood, the shark spines lighting up on the sand, the rubbery blue skin turned inside out, the black dead eyes. We’d have to keep sliding our chairs back as the tide closed in and—near dawn—took the fire, an early fog drifting out
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