The Water Museum Read online

  “Yeah?”

  “Got money?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m good,” he said. He had seven dollars in his pocket. There was no work around here anywhere. If the old man hadn’t taken the fall, Joey’d still be in Arizona, working for his uncle Victor putting in swamp coolers on Indian roofs in Sells. He’d been out there sleeping on Vic’s couch since he’d dropped out. He glanced back at Moms. She was smiling at him with that You’re a dumbshit look on her face. “Oh,” he said. “You meant money for you.”

  He gave her the five and kept two bucks for bus fare and a donut.

  “Love you,” she said.

  “Love you back.”

  It was the rule.

  * * *

  Pops had been Sergeant-at-Arms for the Visigoths MC. That was one reason Joey’d gone to Arizona. The war between the clubs.

  Joey had Wyatt’s colors in the closet on a hanger—the VISIGOTHS upper rocker curving down over a lurid iron fist, and the bottom patch curving back up, saying DAGO. 1% on the front along with swastikas and the number 13 and a pentagram and some various German medals. They called him The Philosopher, since his name was Phil, Philip Wyatt, but mostly because of the crazy books he read. They were out in the garage with the big Indian and the Iron Butterfly records. The Philosopher or, yeah, more commonly, Philthy Phil. Joey smiled. He knew that if he stepped outside wearing the vest, he’d be dead in an hour. It gave the colors a weird sense of dark power. That kind of freaky-deaky stuff Pops was always reading about.

  Joey shuffled along under the weak beach sun burning through the haze. He bobbed his head, rocking that Walkman, trying to understand Doug Kershaw’s Cajun English, trying to see what Philthy Phil enjoyed about this fiddling country jam. His Chuck Taylors slapped on the sidewalk—half mile to the bus stop, catch the 8:00 up Balboa, transfer to the 8:38 number 5 down toward Tecolote Canyon, hop off at the old elementary school, and hoof it a half mile over to the Filgates’.

  There’s never been a man alive who lived his life and died fully satisfied.

  He glanced around. He was paranoid. He thought he might make it to work as long as that fucking Butchie didn’t come banging after him in his black 1968 Charger: Big Black. Butchie and his Mexicali gangster partner, Salvador. Out for blood.

  * * *

  He made it to the corner in time to catch the bus. No freaks. No Big Black.

  Joey sat in the backseat and listened to Jack Bruce sing about having a ticket to the waterfall. He loved that. Weird lyrics. Dreamy, like. Mysterious. He almost didn’t notice the Charger pulling up behind the bus and cruising in its wake like a black barracuda.

  Butchie and Salvador. It was all stupid, really. So lowlife, when you thought about it for a minute. Joey was pretty sure they’d leave Moms out of the ugly. She didn’t have anything to do with it, aside from Butchie popping a boner every time he saw her. But he himself was starting to feel like he was toast.

  The troubles had started when the Visigoths ran afoul of the Mongols. The Mongols did not approve of the new club forming and crowding the territory they’d already fought the Hells Angels over. When the war broke out, the Visigoths were doomed—you didn’t take on the Mongols MC unless you were ready for Armageddon. Philthy Phil might have been ready, but guys like Butchie were not. Joey didn’t know if Pops did the shooting, but somebody did. And when Pops was taken in, he’d left hidden weapons in the garage. Including Butchie’s WWII Nazi Luger.

  The club disbanded, and the smart members moved to Nevada. But Butchie wanted his gun back. When he came sniffing around, Joey had stupidly lied to him. He didn’t even know why—after all, he had all his dad’s crap. Butchie didn’t know he was lying, though he figured everybody was a crook. He was studying Wyatt’s boy like a textbook, looking for the penetration points. He could swallow the Luger scam if this new play paid off. Though Joey would still probably have to pay, get a li’l discipline for lying to Uncle Butchie.

  Butchie’d shown up at the screen door while Moms was at work last night. He was raggedy and yellow-eyed. Two big Rottweilers in tow.

  “Jo-Jo,” he said. “You seen a fine example of German military design hereabouts?” He sniffed and giggled.

  “What’s that?” Joey said, looking at the beasts standing behind Butchie.

  “Aryan dog flesh, Jo-Jo. That’s what that is. Diesel and Death.”

  The big dogs slobbered and grinned when Butchie said their names.

  “I don’t know nothin’ about no gun,” Joey said.

  “Who said anything about a gun?” Butchie cried. He’d been sniffing some joy, for sure. He waggled an accusatory finger at Joey.

  “Yo,” said Joey, thinking fast, “what else would it be? Like, a Panzer tank?” He snorted.

  Butchie scratched his chin: whiskers went scritch.

  “Cool,” he said. “But see you tomorrow? We cool? You cool with that?”

  “I guess,” Joey replied.

  “Cool!” Butchie enthused. “Come on, children.” He shook the chains and the dogs shuffled after him.

  * * *

  Joey was stuck. Butchie had been hanging out at the Catamaran, dropping sweet tips and sweet talk on Moms, all to get a handle on the whole Filgate scenario.

  The Philosopher had drunkenly spoken of the old man’s antiques and samurai swords and big glass water jug full of change (probably $300 right there) in that house. That locked-up house—had locks on the gate and locks on the garage and about five deadbolts inside, and Butchie and Salvador were going to wait till Joey was inside to unlock Fort Knox for them. Hell, they’d already dreamed up gun collections and aged bourbon in hundred-dollar bottles. All Joey had to do was open the door. Butchie figured Jo-Jo owed him that much.

  Butchie lounged around like a dirty shirt hung on a nail, his teeth black at the roots, his tweaked-out eyeballs jumping like Mexican souvenir beans in little bone bowls. He had a waxed-up flattop haircut like some bogus marine.

  Pops had dissed Butchie round the clock. Loser. Joey was thinking about this when he got off the bus and hustled to the stop in front of Del Taco. Screw it—he was early. He was going on down to Dunkin’ to see if Sherri was in. Sometimes, though she worked late nights, she hung out in the shop with a tall coffee and some day-olds and shot the shit with the day girls. Ever since her divorce, she had no place else to go.

  But what he really liked was that she was the only chick he’d ever met who had read the same books as Philthy Phil. Crazy books—she actually had the same paperback Necronomicon Spellbook that Pops had. And it was cool that she was older. She could tell him all about the secret magic signals in Zeppelin songs. There was nobody around now with secret stuff in songs like that. Well, maybe Tool. But he didn’t understand what Tool were talking about.

  Sometimes he’d sit there with her until the morning shift showed up, and he couldn’t tell how he’d stayed all night.

  He was hurrying down the sidewalk when he felt the blackness sidle up to him. Damn. He pulled out the earbuds, and there it was: that Hemi engine gurgling through those twin glasspack pipes. That hot rod sound Moms called “rocks in a coffee can.” The long front fender of the Charger slid along beside him. Diesel and Death in the backseat like fat grandmothers.

  Salvador rolled down his window.

  “Jo-Jooooo,” he taunted. Yo-Yooooo.

  “Hey, hotshot,” Butchie shouted from the driver’s seat. “We got a date tonight! Don’t screw it up. Hear me?”

  Joey looked at them.

  “It’s your dad’s play, Jo-Jo,” Butchie called. “I didn’t think it up. And. Uh. You, like, owe it to us.”

  “Yeah,” said Salvador.

  He was pointing his finger at Joey.

  “Pow pow pow,” he said.

  Joey didn’t even get what about that was making them laugh.

  “Whoa!” shouted Butchie. He held up a fist. “Knock it!” He and Salvador bumped knuckles.

  “Blow it up!” Their hands flew apart, mouths went BWOOSH! “Make it
rain!” Their fingers wiggled past their faces. “Hey!” Butchie hollered. “You goin’ down to buy a donut?”

  Joey shook his head right away.

  “No? You look like a man looking for a donut!”

  “How ’bout a churro?” Salvador asked.

  This utterly busted up Butchie and he swerved and smacked the wheel.

  “Beaner’s the tits, ain’t he, Jo-Jo?” he shrieked.

  Joey nodded.

  “You’re sweet on that Sylvester Stallone–lookin’ bitch in the donut shop. Am I right?”

  Joey shook his head.

  Salvador smacked his hand on the side of the Charger.

  “I know all. Yeah?” Butchie called. “There are no secrets. So! Tonight, right? To-night!”

  Joey shrugged.

  “Yes?”

  “Okay, okay. Yeah,” Joey said. His face was burning. He was not ashamed. But he was blushing like a mofo, and he felt dizzy. He felt like a tornado was coming down the street and his feet were caught in a huge wad of bubble gum.

  “My man!”

  “We be outside, güey!” Salvador shouted. “Waiting.”

  “Just open that goddamned door,” Butchie said and shifted hard and chirped the tires as he burned away from the curb in massive blue exhalations and fartings as Big Black forced a Prius out of its way.

  Joey turned back, worrying about Freddie Filgate. He didn’t have the heart to see Sherri now. He put in the buds. A young man don’t mean nothin’ in the world today.

  * * *

  The yard went down the slope of the canyon in seven terraces. Freddie had lime trees, orange trees, and lemon trees down there. One ill banana. The slopes below were crowded with ice plant. Freddie called it “pickle weed” and said it stopped wildfires.

  At the top, Mrs. Filgate had her roses. Joey didn’t know a thing about roses. All she told him was to trim the branches. He was trying to snip away with the little shears, and the thorns were doing a number on his fingers. Freddie ambled out of the house with a glass of lemonade.

  “Willie,” he said. “You need to hydrate.”

  “Thank you, Freddie.”

  “Cut those twigs at an angle, son. Not straight across. Roses are oblique in personality, Willie. They like things angled.”

  Joey smiled. Freddie was a trip.

  He snipped.

  “Like that?”

  “Now you’re cooking, Willie. Cooking with gasoline.”

  Freddie smacked his big hands together. They sounded soft and dusty. White as paper. Freddie’s little straw hat had a green plastic insert in its brim and cast colored light down on half his face. His glasses were about nine inches thick. He had hearing aids in his ears. One of them whistled and squealed. He shuffled around in slippers, his big old man pants tucked up to his ribs.

  “God is great,” Freddie Filgate said.

  “Can I ask you something?” said Joey, carefully snipping the rose branches. He didn’t have any gloves. He was thinking: OW, and FUCK, and BITCH as the thorns poked his fingers. But he would never say those words in front of Freddie.

  “Ask away, ask away,” said Freddie, waving a hand as he stared out at the canyon.

  “Ah, hmm,” muttered Joey. “I was wondering how old you are. If that ain’t rude.”

  He gulped his lemonade.

  “Rude! Oh my! Saying ‘ain’t’ in educated company is what’s rude, Willie!” Freddie chuckled in his whispery way. “I am ninety-two and a half. But who’s counting? Heard an owl last night, Willie. Apache Indians consider that a sign of death. But I’m not ready for that yet. Not by a long shot!”

  “And Mrs.?”

  “She is in the springtime of her life. A blushing and dewy sixty-one.”

  Freddie smiled at Joey, and Joey smiled at Freddie.

  He took Joey’s glass and walked back toward the house.

  “Bologna on onion buns. Mustard. Sound good? Finish up and join me,” he called. “It’s almost dinnertime.”

  Joey snipped branches and worried about Butchie and sucked tiny beads of blood off his fingers.

  * * *

  Freddie kept it burning hot inside. Joey figured it was an old guy thing—that and the musty smell. It smelled like mildew and Mentholatum and potpourri. He slipped out to the kitchen and peeked out the front window. No Big Black yet. What if the old dude don’t tell you where the good stuff is, Butchie? Shit, Jo-Jo, old men break real easy.

  Freddie cut the onion buns in quarters and put potato chips beside each sandwich. He did everything neatly. The whole house was squared away. “Mrs. Filgate says I would use a spirit level to make sure the Christmas tree is straight every year, but she won’t let me,” Freddie had told him.

  Joey sat down. The plates were plastic. The sandwiches were thin. That had to be another old guy thing—not eating much.

  “Let us give thanks, Willie.”

  Joey put his elbows on the table and folded his hands in front of his face. He didn’t know anything about prayers, but he liked that Freddie did.

  “Sweet Lord,” Freddie said. “We come together in fellowship and gratitude. Thank you for this day, for this food, and for this life. May we make the most of them. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.”

  “Um,” Joey said. He was listening for that big engine outside.

  “Through the teeth and over the gums, look out belly, here it comes,” said Freddie.

  Joey laughed. Every time he heard a car, he stopped chewing. “Good one, Freddie,” he said.

  Dusk was turning the upper edges of the windows slightly maroon.

  Freddie said, “Are you a man of faith, Willie?”

  “Faith?”

  “Are you a praying man?”

  Joey was already done with his sandwich. He scarfed up the rest of his chips and reached for the bag. “Not,” he said, “really.”

  “Because I notice you didn’t say grace.”

  Joey got up and looked out the window. He got a pitcher down from the cabinet and filled it with water. Got a red Kool-Aid and some sugar and stirred it in. The Filgates had plastic glasses with Mexican colors painted around the rims.

  “Ice, Freddie?” he said.

  “Oh, no. Ice is a little too strong for me.”

  Joey brought the glasses to the table, collected the plastic plates, and took them to the sink. Quick glance. SHIT! There was Big Black, pulled over to the curb across the street. He could see the two idiots in the front seat, masses of shadow like big piles of spoiling meat.

  Freddie had bits of chip stuck to his lips. He slurped his red drink. Joey handed him a napkin. His hands were shaking.

  “I didn’t get no church or nothin’,” he said. “Didn’t really, you know, learn to pray. Much.”

  “Ah, Willie,” Freddie sighed.

  Butchie couldn’t get in if Joey just ignored him. The doors were locked tight. But he imagined the Visigoths putting their big boots to the wood until it broke. Then what?

  “You see, son,” Freddie was saying. “You don’t need a church to pray. Why, we are the church. Yes sir. You and I. Right here! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Joey was staring at Freddie, his mind racing.

  “I never studied up on that,” he said.

  He went to wash the plates and the glasses and keep an eye on Big Black. It was almost dark. Butchie had turned on the inner light, and Joey could see him tossing snacks over the seat to his hounds. Suddenly, Butchie turned his head and stared back at Joey. Backlit, his face was buried in shadow.

  Freddie appeared with a carved wooden dove. “Look here,” he said. “I whittled it myself. How about you take that to your momma?”

  WTF, Freddie. Seriously.

  “Holy Spirit,” Freddie said, as if imparting some great secret.

  Big Black’s door opened. Butchie got out, walked around, shook his leg. Stood with his hands on his hips, staring. He pointed at Joey. Got back in and slammed the car door.

  “Willie, come,” said Freddie. Joey went back to the
table where Freddie was sitting. He pulled his mom’s cell phone out of his pocket and set it down beside the dove. Freddie said, “I pray, son. Every day. And now that my time is short, God has rewarded me with visions.”

  “Visions, Freddie?”

  “I was shown the meaning of life, Willie. I was on my knees in that very corner, and the walls peeled back and angels were before me.”

  “Right here on Cowley Way?” said Joey.

  Screw Butchie—that dick.

  “The street was gone, Willie. What was before me? Nothing but light.”

  Freddie patted the table as if it were his favorite pet—as if the table could feel his touch.

  “And God showed me. This table is not made of wood. This table is made of light.”

  Joey fingered the celly. Mrs. Filgate would be home in an hour. And then?

  “Atoms, electrons. Yes?” Joey nodded while Freddie continued. “At base, pure energy. Pure…light. And we are made of it. Everything is made of them. Let there be light. And there was light. Every one of us, even the least of us, is a creature of mere light, Willie. Light. Oh, amen. Can you say ‘amen’?”

  “Amen,” said Joey.

  He went to the bathroom and flipped open the phone and linked to the police station and said, “There’s some, like, crooks casing houses on Cowley Way. I think they’re going to rip off this old man named Freddie Filgate. We’re really worried.” He gave the address. “They’re sitting outside in a black Charger. Hurry.”

  He turned off the light in the kitchen and watched out the window. Freddie had already retired to the blue glow of American Pickers on cable. The police cruiser came down the street, creeping. They hit Butchie with a spotlight. Oh yes—panic inside Big Black. Butchie fired up the engine and pulled out and glared at the house. Joey stuck his hand in the window and shot him the finger as Big Black moved out with the white cop car tagging behind.

  Joey was dead meat now. Freddie had started to snore. His bad hearing aid wailed in his ear. Joey took a crocheted caftan and put it over the old man’s legs and sat there wondering how you started a prayer without sounding like an asshole.

  * * *

  Mrs. Filgate had given him his $30 and a $10 bonus for doing such a good job on her roses. Joey was jogging in the dark, pausing at every corner to make sure Butchie and Salvador weren’t waiting to set the hounds on him. He was going to see Sherri, man, especially tonight. He just knew if he was near Sherri something good was going to happen. He’d be all right with her. It was coming on him in one big rush: Sherri, Sherri, Sherri.