Page 5 - Castles Made of Sand - Novels and Novellas

"I can't think of a reason to stay," I tell her. "Did Sully call?"

She takes a half-second too long in answering.

"They found him yesterday."

"Where'd they pick him up?"

I am comfortable in denial.

"They found him. A drainage ditch off the highway a half a day south. Someone cut his throat, Charlie."

I am an empty foundation.

The beams and studs are a skeleton of what was once a shitty summer home.

Now I'm just a shitty collection of broken boards and mildew.

"What did the police say?"

Even the rats find no protection in an empty concrete palette.

See your brother lying dead in your mind's eye.

"There's nothing on him. It all got washed away in the ditch."

Wipe something from your eye.

"When's the funeral."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"When's the funeral."

"Tomorrow morning. Oak Park Cemetary."

Sully's head would poke out from the top bunk and his hair would fall down like a blond halo around his head.

"Wanna' hear a story?"

Wipe something from your eye.

Sully was a castle in the sky.

And I'm not even a shack.

"Is your shit packed."

"We have to go to his funeral!" She's crying.

Maybe some things do.

"We will. Is your shit packed."

"Yes."

"I'll be home around midnight."

"We're gonna' get out of here, right?" She's crying.

"Yeah. Stay cool, Ainsley."

"You too."

I turn around and look at The Lincoln, packed heavy with seven-hundred-thousand dollars worth of pot and young women of great expectations. Madeline is content to stretch out in the back seat and sip her soda.

Her tiny bare feet visible above the doors.

Alanna is perched on the passenger seat headrest. The Sun behind her. A glowing line of orange and yellow traces her as the wind blows her hair into her face.

A bare arm reaches up, and she pulls down her sunglasses.

Those huge, perfectly perfect green eyes.

"What's going on?" she asks.

I want to be golden.

I want to be something better.

I want to clutch her and tell her everything.

I want to break down and sob like a fuckin' pussy.

I want to breathe smoke.

"Sully's dead."

Madeline's not so perky any more.

The silence is deafening.

Baby steps. Drop the girls off.

Baby steps. Pussy out and don't tell Alanna anything.

Don't tell her you feel golden when you're holding her hand.

I wish I were golden.

Baby steps. Find a longterm storage garage and load the pot into it. Look at the key. "28" in big bold letters on it. Foot-thick concrete walls. Nothing's getting through.

Baby steps. Drive to the other end of town and rent another. Look at the key. "53" in big bold letters on it. Foot-thick concrete walls. Nothing's getting through.

Did you know that with equal parts of gasoline and melted styrofoam (plus one half part oil) you can make plastic explosive?

If you're making it with the intention to kill someone, not with blowing up a building, you can add nuts and bolts. Maybe some nails. Those nuts and bolts and nails will penetrate a brick wall.

Can't get more than two inches through concrete, though.

You can throw the mixture to detonate once it's set, but it doesn't always go off.

An electric charge always works best.

Baby steps. Go home.

Baby steps. Don't say hi to your father or your sister.

Baby steps. Take a shower.

"Ainsley."

She looks up from her bowl of rainbow cereal.

"Have you slept at all?" she asks.

See your brother lying dead in your mind's eye, and suddenly you're in love with your little sister.

"You wanna' go get some real food?" I say. "We'll smoke a joint."

"What about Dad?"

"Let him find his own pot."

there was young girl

whose heart was a-frown

'cause she was crippled for life

and she couldn't speak a sound

and she wished and prayed

that she could stop living

so she decided to die

she drew her wheelchair

to the edge of the shore

and to her legs, she smiled

"you won't hurt me no more"

but then a sight

she had never seen

made her jump and say, "look,

a golden-winged ship is passing my way"

but it really didn't have to stop

it just kept on going

and so castles made of sand

slip into the sea

eventually

Jimi Hendrix plays softly in my head.

The supple layers of my black suit offer just enough protection against the semisweet chill of the autumn wind.

Storm clouds are coming on. Dark and heavy and ready to break open.

I wonder, if you opened my ribcage, would you see something dark and heavy and ready to break?

The minister is saying something I can't understand. Something in Latin.

A deep ebony coffin with silver trim.

Fifty-four hundred dollars.

Perfect Uncle Steve seemed to have little to complain about when Ainsley asked him to take care of the arrangements in my absence.

Apparantly the fifty-four hundred dollar coffin won't start to degrade for three hundred years, and it's airtight.

My brother will not be food for worms.

For a moment, I envy the minister's simple black-and-white wisdom. God in Heaven and life eternal.

I wonder what that collar feels like.

I wonder if they would accept an ex-drug dealer at theology school.

I wonder if I could feel forgiveness.

Ainsley reaches down to grip my hand, her fingers nippy and cold in the fall air. Through my peripheral vision I see my father sway gently in the breeze.

ALCOHOL: tequila; three ounces of

vodka; two ounces of

whiskey; five ounces of

He's too drunk to realize he's losing his balance.

I turn my head and look down at my little sister. A silent drop rolls down her cheek and collects between her lips.

Ainsley doesn't blubber or break down. She stares straight ahead and silently sheds tears.

Ainsley doesn't know it, but she's golden.

"In nom a'de pardre, et feile, et spirite asante," the minister says.

I understand that much.

I nod to Ainsley, and she steps forward to drop an orange rose onto Sully's fifty-four hundred dollar worm shield. I hear a sob. I can't tell if it's Ainsley, but she walks back and clutches me as I toss my orange rose into the grave. Her face leaves a wet print on my suit jacket.

I am the chocolate starfish. And I feel a gentle squeeze on my other hand. A wisp of perfectly perfect wavy blond hair dances across my face in the wind as I turn, and her perfectly perfect green eyes are huge.

"Dad didn't want me to come," she whispers, and a glance to Perfect Uncle Steve confirms. "I'm so sorry."

"Did you kill him?" I whisper back.

She shakes her head.

"What are you sorry about."

"What can I do?" she asks.

I wipe something from my eye.

Ainsley grips my hand as the first drops of rain begin to fall.

The wind blows the mouners away and out of the cemetery along with the early autumn leaves. Alanna has taken Ainsley back to the house to get her things.

I'm a solitary figure rising above the tombstones of the Oak Park Cemetary. I am blurry though the heavy rain. I could be a ghost. But I am there.

I stand, cloaked in my black, soaked to the bone by the pit they lowered my brother into a half-hour before. The rain leaves my hair slick and masking my eyes.

If I'm crying, it can't be noticed.

Maybe the rain is salty too.

I kneel.

I'm a soltary figure kneeling before an unfilled grave.

I am blurry through the heavy rain.

But I am there.

I'm whispering something to the unfilled grave, and you think better than to disturb me and continue on your way.

I'm whispering something to the unfilled grave, and you wonder if I'm praying.

I remove an ounce of pot from my jacket and let it fall down into the unfilled grave. The rain makes it stick to the smooth surface of the fifty-four hundred dollar worm shield.

You see me turn my head up and around, as if someone has just touched me on the shoulder.

Sullivan in his ugly camo pants is grinning down at me.

You see me say something into the rain. Some noise. But you can't hear it through the downpour.

You just see a solitary figure kneeling in the muck.

Sullivan tells me he's proud of me.

I'm his boy.

You wonder if I'm alright in the head.

I want to tell Sullivan I'll take care of Ainsley.

I want to tell him I think I'm in love.

I want to tell him that all I ever wanted to be is like him.

But I'm just staring into the rain. The tombstones twenty feet away are hazy.

Sullivan tells me he's proud of me.

I'm his boy.

But there's one more thing he needs me to do.

He puts something cold and smooth into my hand. Something heavy.

I look down into my hand, resting on my knees above the muck and shit and piss of the world.

I'm holding a nine millimeter Beretta.

He's proud of me.

Fifteen rounds in the clip.

I'm his boy.

One in the pipe.

But there's one last thing he needs me to do.

PART EIGHT: STARING AT THE SUN

The rain is loud enough to drown out four hundred and fifty horses.

The Lincoln pulls up to One-Oh-Three Dunkirk. Alanna's light is on, but the house is dark.

I turn the key and the engine dies as I stare up at the window.

I want to tell her I'll take care of my little sister.

I want to tell her all I ever wanted to be is my brother.

I want to tell her I think…

She opens the curtains and looks down at me.

Ainsley appears in the window beside her, and she waves.

Good.

I turn the key and drive away.

Sullivan's apartment building is an old mental hospital, refurbished into suites for the hip and trendy on a strip of hip and trendy stores called the Corydon Village Area.

When I was seventeen, I convinced myself Sully's building was haunted by the ghosts of the former tenants.

Also called the Italian District, the Village became trendy when gelatti did, and stores began to pop up.

DIRTY LAUNDRY.

ROCA JACK'S.

CLUB ITALIA.

COLLOSEO.

UOMO.

The neon and metal signs are blurs in the rain as The Lincoln pulls into Sully's parking spot.

Sully's apartment door has a strip of police tape across it.

I rip it down and use the extra key he keeps in the Lincoln to open the deadbolt.

When I was seventeen, I convinced myself Sully's building was haunted.

Now I wonder if I'll see him standing there in his ugly camos, grinning his grin.

The apartment is as dark and dead as the box they put in the ground.

I hit the lights and begin to poke.

His collection of old and rare books. He always told me I should read more.

All I ever wanted to be.

His copy of a Latin bible.

Sully spoke the dead language like it was English. Self-taught.

All I could ever understand was "in the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit".

Amen.

Sully once showed me a passage in the bible. He read it in Latin and explained it in English.

He said God created pot for our enjoyment.

It was just a herb from the land of Milk and Honey.

All I ever wanted to be.

He taught me all kinds of things. Things he'd teach himself and pass on to me.

Did you know that with equal parts of gasoline and melted styrofoam (plus one half part oil) you can make plastic explosive?

You can throw the mixture to detonate once it's set, but it doesn't always go off.

An electric charge always works best.

I find his desk and turn on his computer.

It warms up and beeps a harsh beep, and I close and re-bolt the door as it continues booting up.

A password lock.

'Ainsley.'