Kem Nunn - Tapping the Source

“Shit. You should have somebody look at that.”

Preston put the arm down and opened his door. “Look,” he said. “You got a problem. I can dig it. But I told you what I would do. So that’s it, man. You understand?”

Ike waited a moment before replying. He felt dead tired himself and the pain in his jaw was filling the rest of his head. “She’s my sister” was what he finally said.

Preston just looked away and opened his door. “Yeah,” Ike heard him say. “She’s your fuckin’ sister.”

Ike guessed that he was meant to walk back to the Sea View, Preston having done all the driving he was about to for one day. He got out and stood in the lumpy grass, letting the door swing shut behind him. He went to the sidewalk and watched Preston moving away, walking slow and stiff, the way Gordon used to walk sometimes after a bad night. Preston was headed down the skinny concrete walk toward the duplexes, but then he stopped and looked around. His eye was swollen shut and the skin around it seemed to give off a kind of blue light. “Sorry you had to leave your stick,” he said.

Ike shrugged.

Preston’s face seemed to move into a more or less lopsided grin. “Glad you finally came through with that fucking rock,” he said. “I thought for a minute there you were going to go fruit on me.”

“No,” Ike said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Preston nodded and started away once more. Ike watched him go. He was almost to the door when a slim brown-haired girl Ike had not seen before came out of one of the apartments. She stopped when she saw Preston. Ike was too far away to hear what was said, but he could see that words passed between them. He saw the girl raise her hand to her head. He saw Preston brush past her and then heard the front door slam. It was the same door the girl had come out of. For a moment Ike and the girl stood looking at each other, then Ike turned and headed away. He had not quite reached the corner when he heard someone calling to him. He looked back and saw it was the girl. She was jogging across a corner of the lawn.

He watched her slow to a walk and come toward him. She was not very tall and her thinness made her seem young, but as she drew closer he could see that she was probably in her late twenties. Her hair was straight and fine, and the afternoon breeze lifted it from her shoulders. Ike felt uncomfortable waiting for her; he was certain she would begin asking questions about what had happened.

“You must be Ike,” she said as she reached him.

“Yes.”

“My name’s Barbara.”

Ike nodded. They stood for a moment looking one another over. Her eyes were dark, nearly the same shade of brown as her hair, and he guessed maybe it was the mouth, hard straight line without makeup, that added a certain toughness to her features. Still, she was not unattractive. She put one hand on her hip, as if to catch her breath after the short run, and smiled a bit. She had on a pale blue tank top and he could see her breasts clearly outlined beneath it. He supposed she looked like the kind of girl who “had been around,” as the old lady would have put it.

“Come on,” she said. “Let me give you a ride home. I have to park the truck anyway.”

Ike did not much care whether he had a ride or not. He would have preferred to be alone, but somehow he did not have the energy to refuse. He turned and followed her back toward the truck. She wore a pair of white shorts beneath the blue top. Her legs were thin but shapely and well tanned, dark against the white cloth, legs that reminded him of his sister’s.

“You’re at the Sea View, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Preston’s mentioned you. You did a nice job on his bike.”

Ike climbed back into the truck beside her. It seemed strange seeing her behind the wheel after Preston. Her arms were slender. There was a silver bracelet around one forearm. He noticed she had a funny way of tilting her head up when she drove, as if she were too short to see over the top of the wheel, although she was not.

“Preston says you’re a good mechanic, too,” she said. Ike made an effort to smile; he put his hands on his knees and watched the houses slide by in the sunlight. It was hard to believe that only a few hours before, he had been sitting in this same seat, bouncing along a dirt road, afraid for his life.

It was not until they were parked at the curb in front of Ike’s apartment that Barbara got around to asking what Ike knew she would. “Was it a fight?” she asked.

Ike nodded. He didn’t know what Preston would have wanted him to say.

She shook her head. She sat with both hands on top of the wheel. Ike reached down and unlatched the door. He put one leg outside, one foot on the running board. “I knew it,” she said. “Damn.” She turned to Ike and he could see that she was upset. “You don’t know how that made me feel when he said he was going surfing. I mean, it seemed like a good sign. He hasn’t done anything like that in a long time. I was hoping it would go all right.”

“It did go all right for a while, the first couple of days. It wasn’t Preston’s fault. Some guys jumped us.”

“At the ranch?”

“You know about the ranch?”

“The Trax Ranch. Sure. The place has been there forever. I remember guys going up to surf when I was in school. You had to sneak in or something. I didn’t know people still went, though, until I heard Preston talk about it the other day.” She paused and looked at him. “I was real surprised, I’m not sure how to say this, but it made me curious to get a look at you. I mean, no one has gotten Preston out on a board in a long time. And he seemed hot to go.” She stopped again and shook her head. “I might have known something would fuck it up.”

Ike squirmed at the edge of his seat. He watched a couple of small blackbirds pecking away at the Sea View’s lawn. “It wasn’t his fault,” he said again. He thought about asking her something else about the ranch, but then thought better of it. Perhaps it would be better to wait until he had talked again to Preston.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to keep you.”

Ike stepped out of the truck. He felt that there should be something more to say, but nothing came to mind. “It’s all right,” he said. “And thanks for the ride.”

She nodded. “Maybe you can get him to go surfing again,” she said. “It would be nice to see him get interested in something besides his bike. He used to be hot, you know.”

“He’s still pretty good, I was watching him at the ranch.”

“Yeah, but I mean really good. He used to win contests. He used to own that surf shop on Main Street. He ever tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t.”

She shrugged. “He wouldn’t. He never tells anybody anything. But he did own the shop, he and Hound Adams.”

Ike blinked back into the cab of the truck. He felt a little like he did that first day he hit town, as if the sunlight were going right through him, as if he were in danger of disappearing. “Preston and Hound Adams?” He repeated the names slowly, wanting to make sure he had heard correctly. Apparently Preston had not told her why he was in town, or about the scrap of paper with the names on it.

“The first of the local surf heros,” she said. “Come by sometime and I’ll show you his scrapbook.” She stopped to look at him. “But listen, I know you’re beat. Just come by, okay?” She pushed in the clutch and put the truck in gear.

“Okay,” he said. “I will.” He stood at the curb and watched her drive away. Going up the stairs was hard work. Once back in his room, he lay down on the bed, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Barbara had said, and when he closed his eyes he was back at the ranch, the weight of that rock pulling at his hands, wondering all over again what it had been about.