Karolina Waclawiak - The Invaders

“They don’t, huh?”

“Bad for morale,” I said.

She smirked and said she guessed it would be. I considered her age and how many children she might have, or how long she had been trying. This was a family place, so people who weren’t starting families, like me, made everyone uncomfortable.

“Why don’t you tell me something about yourself?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. A secret,” I said.

She closed her eyes and slid down in the chair and giggled. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you my secrets.”

“That’s the whole point. I don’t know who you are, so I’ll never tell.”

She kept her eyes closed and said, “Maybe I had too much to drink.”

I knew it was time for her husband to come find her. I wanted to go down to the dock, anyway. I slipped down the stairs. The bells on the boats jangled in the wind and some had their cabin lights on. If things got rough, I could live on the boat, I thought. I passed the big ones first, the Last One III and Ruthless for the guy who bought his boat after his divorce from Ruth, a real ballbuster of a woman who watched everyone out of her bedroom window.

And then my favorite, Dr. Luewken’s boat — Sir Osis of the River. How did these old fuckers come up with these names?

I found my dad’s small boat next to these monsters. Simply named Joanne after my mom. I’m sure Cheryl loved to see that, Joanne in big sweeping cursive letters, when she climbed in. My dad had wanted to change the name, but I wouldn’t let him. She had loved to sail, the water. When I was younger, I had convinced myself that some part of her was still down there. Shifts of light off the side of my boat told me she was. I used to take the Sunfish we had out and spend hours tooling around in the water, just talking to her like she was ever going to say anything back. My dad never dealt with the boat, just left it to drift around in the slip year in and year out. I was pissed at him for letting it fall into disrepair like this. It looked so small and weak next to these other shining boats, each a measure of its owners’ girth.

Pauline had found out I was home and texted saying I could come over if I promised to fuck her; it seemed like as good a place as any to go. I knew that I could do better, because she treated me like I was something really amazing. We both knew I was doing her a favor and she let me do whatever I wanted to her, which was nice.

She was all right looking, but what she really had going for her was that she had an amazing assortment of painkillers. Her dad suffered from some kind of degenerative knee thing and he always got top-shelf stuff. It was easier to fuck on Percocets than drunk and it just seemed like more fun. Less labored and I could go for longer. If it were up to me, I’d always fuck on painkillers. She whispered “Teddy” in my ear when we fucked and it sounded accusatory. So I said, “What?” And she started pouting and said, “Nothing.” And then I realized she was just trying to be sexy, but it wasn’t working.

Pauline was sort of chubby around the waist and when she was lying down she looked flat and thin, but when she’d get on top her belly would hang over and hit my stomach as she bounced up and down. It was somewhat disconcerting. Equally fucking weird was her need to exercise on the elliptical machine in her parents’ bedroom after we had sex. She always did it and her thighs rippled with every step. I closed my eyes and listened to her huffing on the machine as I was lying there, naked and surrounded by fake ivy plants. She shook me awake and told me I better get dressed, I couldn’t stay over because her parents were coming back early in the morning. I felt like a child again and knew that I had to find a girl who had her own place.

Her parents’ bathroom was repulsive, with clashing floral patterns on the wallpaper and shower curtain. Her father was obviously ball-less. I would never stand for this shit. I shook my head as I rifled through his medicine cabinet. Along with the usual Percocets and Vicodins I found some really great shit: Dilaudid. Mr. Kemble had turned into quite the pill popper. Thirty dollars each on the street last time I checked. I took five. No, I decided to take six. I thought about taking more. I probably wasn’t going to see Pauline for a while and did I really even care if she got into trouble? Dilaudid was golden, not something you find in everyone’s medicine cabinet. I wondered what was wrong with him. Maybe he was dying. Then I felt bad. If he was in that much pain, I probably shouldn’t take all of it, so I put four back. It would give him enough time to get a refill. I wasn’t an asshole.

I kissed Pauline on the way out and promised to call. I always did, but she always ended up calling first, never giving me a chance not to. Maybe this time she wouldn’t call. I always thought that and never got lucky.

I went back to the Joanne to sleep in the cabin.

Tomorrow, when I woke up, things would be different, I thought to myself. I would get my life in check, maybe sail somewhere first to clear my head. I could go to the Cape or even farther up to Maine. I needed to know I could do things like this — be alone and self-sufficient. I had gone as far as Fishers Island at the mouth of the Long Island Sound in high school once. I was proud to have gotten there on my own and I wanted to keep sailing, go on forever, but for some reason I got scared. Like I couldn’t do it, like it was a mistake to go in the first place. The open ocean looked choppy and I chickened out. I had spent the afternoon watching bigger boats with waving families sail past me into the Atlantic as I sat hunched over, drinking beers, wishing I had the guts to run away.

• • •

I woke up and didn’t know what time it was, but it was so nice out that I decided I would go sailing and save the pills for later. No one was on the water yet, but I saw the sailing instructors readying the Sunfishes for the little kids. In the daylight, I could see the boat was in worse shape than I’d thought. From the looks of it, seagulls had spent months dropping oysters and clams onto the deck of the boat, scattering seashells everywhere. I picked them up and threw them overboard, uncovering the grime underneath. Why did my father even bother keeping it in a slip if he was just letting it waste away? I went back into the cabin, looking for cleaning supplies. Poor Joanne, I thought. I would bring her back from the dead. I spent the morning cleaning every part of the boat until she glistened. No one paid any attention to me as they wandered around the docks, and that was just fine with me. Men in deck shoes and white shorts showed off their boats to their friends, talked about the Cape, the Vineyard, and sailing down to Florida.

I pulled at the sail and started the engine, motoring out of the small harbor past the kids who had started crowding in around the Sunfish boats in their life preservers. I could hear them complaining as I floated by — it was too hot, their life preservers were itchy, one even pointed to me and said, “He’s not wearing one!” I gave him the finger.

They all turned to look at me and I waved at the annoyed instructors as I passed. Once out in the sound, I cut the motor and opened the sail. It felt good to be out here alone, just listening to the water.

I was happy it wasn’t that choppy and I hugged the edges of the islands trying to get a closer look at the houses. I took my shirt off and raced along the waves, trying to get to my favorite island. When I got there, I hung back and stared at the Tudor house and watched three little girls all dressed in white chase one another in circles. I would have thought they were ghosts if I hadn’t seen their nanny, sitting up by the house with a book, not paying any attention to them. I sailed around the island, stared at the tennis courts, at this world cut off from the mainland and seemingly cut off from time. I sailed out farther, away from the small cruise ship calling out state history and the power boats with guys drinking beer and looking for rocks to jump off of. I didn’t recognize any of the guys yelling off the side of their boat, but I knew the Coast Guard would probably roll up on them soon enough. I held the rudder tight and sailed away from all of them. I ran my hand through the water and thought if this was all I ever had to do I would never complain.