Frank releases the brake and throttles gently. The plane rolls forward.
ROB AND MARY at Buddy Tub’s. Splitting the breaded shrimp and a basket of fries. Sipping Corona. Grease stains on the paper lining of the fried shrimp basket. Mary thinks Rob is acting strange. Distant. He isn’t talking much, eyes everywhere. She’s worried, then afraid. Is it her? Is something wrong?
They’ve been together three years. Oddly, although they’d both gone to the same college, it wasn’t until after graduation that they started dating. Throughout their tenure at Cal State they’d been merely acquaintances. He a friend of a friend. Occasional parties. A few words in passing once. A baseball game when the Titans were in the playoffs. A few months after graduation, she’d been invited to a dinner party. Her old roommate’s new apartment. A housewarming. Rob was there and when they saw each other that night it was like they knew. They’d had their flings, their experiences. And now. Now was the time for that next level. The real relationship. A night out minus the handle of cheap vodka, the drugs she was always too nervous to try. Sure, she’d pop the occasional tab of ecstasy, maybe a small line of coke. But she wasn’t into it like the others. She supposed she was boring for a college girl. Only two boyfriends. Very little experimenting, sexual or otherwise. At the party, they talked about their mutual college experience, and she could tell he’d led a similar path. Over the course of that evening, they’d separate, as if not stuck to the other, but she’d find herself searching the room while everyone mingled, music played too loudly. A wistful homage to dorm life. With increasing tension, she’d try to find him. At one point, she’d thought he’d left, was caught off guard by how hurt she’d been. Panicked in search for a trace of him. She found him on the small balcony, chatting with another girl she didn’t know. Relief mingled with new hurt.
Then his eyes found her. He smiled, and she knew it was private. For her. The hurt went away, and she relaxed, knowing – at that moment – things would be fine.
They shyly exchanged numbers. Words bumped awkwardly in the air between them. He called her later that night, and she floated. Adrenaline capsized rationale. Her words forgotten the second they left her lips.
They dated voraciously, fed off each other like starved cannibals. It was obvious from the first date it was going to be forever. The realization was a shock, both frightening and luxurious. Together.
Three years later. She wondered if he knew it was the anniversary of their first date. A bad horror movie and drinks at a tucked-away speakeasy in Culver City, where the bartenders wore suspenders, grew beards and waxed their hair. She’d been snapped at by the bartender for stirring her newly-prepared drink too vigorously, and she and Rob had rolled their eyes, laughed, enjoyed the pride of the mixologist. It was strange to think it was only three years in the past. It seemed to her a lifetime with him had already been lived.
ROB ACHES. THE fried food sits in his belly like lead. His nerves are rattled. He’s anxious for the moment to arrive. He glances out a window, sees people beginning to climb aboard the Ferris Wheel, feels a new surge of delicious panic. He’s decided they’d skip the arcade, go straight to the wheel. He wants to get through it, then they’d have all night to revel, to celebrate. He looks at Mary, tries to smile, but she looks wary. She knows something’s up. He was always been terrible at secrets. He nearly laughs out loud at his own tension. It’s time to go.
“You done?” he blurts. Mary nibbles a lone French fry survivor.
She pops the fry into her mouth, sips her Corona, eyes darting up and left as she does so. She’s annoyed. He knows. That’s her tell. If she had locked eyes with him while drinking, they were good. If she looked down, or absently away, no problem. Up and to the left? Danger Will Robinson. He almost laughs again at his nerves, relishing the fact she’s pissed at him. He imagines her relief, her joy, when she discovers the reason he’s acting like a distracted, pushy idiot.
“Sure,” she says, curt. “Didn’t know you were in a hurry.”
“I’m not,” he lies. “Just done eating.”
She softens, worry filtering her features like a black-and-white movie star. “Are you okay?”
He smiles and can tell it relaxes her. She’d know if the smile was a lie. “Totally. Just a little antsy tonight. Sorry.”
She shrugs. Apology accepted, but he knows she’s waiting for him to mention the anniversary. Maybe he’ll mention it after. Part of him enjoys playing the lout. Like the friend forced to lie to pull off a surprise party. It only feels gross until the shouting starts.
He drops a twenty on the table. “Let’s go.”
“Like… go home?” Brow furrowed.
He wants to hug her, kiss away the pain in her eyes. “No. Hell no. I want to ride the Ferris Wheel.”
She laughs, relieved, confused. “Really?”
“I’ve never done it.” He stands, put out his hand. She takes it. “Come on, let’s go see what’s at the top.”
4
JEREMIAH ISN’T FEELING so good. His heat is up. The women… my god, the women tonight.
It isn’t even high summer. Not yet. Early June. Traces of spring still in the air before the heat of August and September. In Los Angeles, there are no winter months. There are hot months, warm months, cool months, and some weeks when it rains. The warm months are March through June. Heat kicks in at the end of July. Really gets cooking, then. Stays that way through November, typically. If residents are lucky, it’ll cool down for December and January, but no promises. If they are incredibly lucky, it’ll rain a few weeks around that same time. Off and on, if you please. Just enough to avoid the perennial drought, to keep the reservoirs and basins full, to keep the hills green. To wash away the pollution, the smog, the filth on the streets. Push it all back into the massive sea, the all-consuming sea. The great devourer.
No, June isn’t too hot. But it’s a warm night. Jeremiah wipes sweat from his brow, despite the encroaching night. Normally, he can contain the urges – the intensity – of his desires. But the way they dress! In all the nights Jeremiah has worked the pier, he has never seen a parade such as this. Beautiful young women, lined up in butt-clinging, thigh-grabbing shorts. Sheer tops, for the love of Christ. So much flesh, so much flesh! he thinks. In you go, dear, in you go, watch your head, my god your thigh right there and he restrains his own hand from reaching out, from touching a barely-covered breast, an ass. Rub his fingers along a long bare leg. Torture.
Jeremiah keeps loading them in, loading them in. His heart beats fast, his brow leaks tendrils of salty sweat from under his ballcap. His neck wet, his crotch swampy and hot. “Okay, miss, in you go.” He’s trying not to do anything stupid. That last one’s boyfriend, the tough guy with the tattoos and permanent scowl? He saw Jeremiah’s lust. The men often do. Hard to hide lust from another man, especially when it’s directed toward a girl that man is with. Sixth sense. Primitive radar. But Jeremiah only nods and smiles, latches them in. Up they go, up and away until the next girl comes up, and he fights the battle all over again.
And now this one. Oh sweet lord! Look at this one. So pious, so innocent. Sweet tangerine. Twenty-two, twenty-three? An angel.
“You two are next. Uh, tickets please.”
The young man with her, a bit of a model type himself. Fit and athletic, but not dumb, no, not stupid. But innocent like her. Naïve like she most assuredly is. Jeremiah takes the tickets from the young man, studies the girl more closely.
No. Wait a second, now… maybe not so innocent. But for him, yes, for him she would be. He tries to rein in the rabid stallions of his desire. Sure, he thinks, leering at the young couple, I’ll tame that gorgeous thing.
“HOW LONG IS the ride?” Mary asks the sweaty guy running the wheel, who she is already thinking of as “the old pervert who works at the pier.” I mean, look at him. Gross. She clutches Rob’s hand, steps closer to him.
