Apalachicola

A Short Story of Summer

This was an original submission included in the WBS Pool Side Reader by the Double Dealer….

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I could hear the gravel popping as we eased to a stop, the sound of each crunching pebble under the tires marking our arrival. We had finally made it. Four hundred miles from home, from friends, from summer ball, and four hundred miles from Jennifer Mitchell and her C-cups

“We're here.” I opened my eyes to find my father leaning over the back seat, shaking my knee.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t sound so happy.”

“Yeah,” I repeated, stepping out of the truck and into the salty ocean breeze. What peace the Gulf provided was instantly interrupted by the perpetually drunken figure that was Uncle Ron. He stood with both hands on his hips, his gut hanging low over his worn-out belt, his long gray hair greased back. His face was unshaven, his left cheek was packed tight with chew, and he wore a tattered black eye patch that concealed an empty socket. As a child, I was told the missing eye was a tragedy of war, a permanent reminder of his heroism. But like everything with Uncle Ron, the truth was less honorable, they don’t give medals for losing your eye to a rogue fishing hook and too much rum.

“Welcome to paradise,” Uncle Ron slurred, through his gap-toothed grin. The cabin behind him somehow looked worse than he did, with its peeling paint and sagging roof, a rotten time-worn shack waiting for the next hurricane to put it down. How I was going to spend my summer here I didn’t know.

“There’s my favorite nephew,” Ron said, grabbing the back of my neck.

“Yeah,” I muttered, shaking my head and pushing his hand away.

Ron turned to my father, “What's his problem?”

“He’s got a stick up his ass. He thinks he’s missing all the essential trouble a sixteen-year-old boy needs back home.”

Ron laughed and spit a stream of tobacco into the dirt and it splashed onto his feet and he wiped them off in the grass. “Must be a girl?”

“That’s always a part of it.”

“You got a girlfriend?” Ron asked, shielding his eyes from the sun.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Then why you look so sour?”

I didn’t want to answer, but I was tired and irritated, and my words took on a life of their own. “Because I don’t want to be here. I had plans—summer ball, the 4th of July at the Millers'. I don’t want to spend my summer sitting on your boat taking a bunch of drunk tourists on fishing trips.” I could feel the anger in my father's eyes the minute the last words left my mouth, but before he could strike me down, Ron stepped in.

“Well, you must have grown some hair on your balls talking like that,” he said, “Don’t worry, we're gonna see if you got some ass to back up that mouth.” Ron walked to the back of the truck, grabbed my bags, and tossed them to me. “Here. Head out back and down the dock. There’s a bunk in the boathouse where you can make yourself at home. If you got any questions, Charlie will take care of you.”

In the corner of the boathouse was a cot that looked as if it had been pulled from the dumpster of an army surplus store. It was a sun-faded olive green, and its fabric was stretched tightly and frayed at the ends. I tossed my bags to the side of the cot and walked back out on the dock, where the blood-orange sun hung over Apalachicola Bay.

“Careful, that railing is loose. You don’t want to go swimming with boots on,” she warned.

I leaned back and gave the rail a shake, and it rocked back and forth like it was hanging by a thread. When I turned around, I saw her leaning against the doorframe of the boathouse, her sun-bronzed legs glowing against her white cutoff jeans. I did my best not to stare but I couldn’t look away. She stood there sun-kissed and perfect, in the way a dream is perfect, like when you’re asked to describe a starry night, and in your design, not a single star is absent, not a cloud threatens the view.

“If I fall in are you gonna save me?” I asked doing my best to play cool.

She laughed and shrugged her shoulders and her breast moved full and free under her light blue linen blouse. “You look like you could save yourself,” she said, brushing her ocean-curled hair behind her right ear.

“If I could I wouldn't be here.”

“Then where would you be?”

“Home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Tennesse.”

"You're a long way from home then," she said, as she took a step closer.

"Yeah, well, I’m stuck here all summer," I replied, trying to hide my nerves.

She nodded, her crystal blue eyes watching me closely. "That makes two of us. I've been stuck in this place every summer since I was ten."

"Sam," I said, extending my hand. "Just got in from…."

“Tennessee,” she interrupted, shaking my hand gently. "Your uncle told me all about you."

“He did?”

“Yeah, something about baseball and a cowboy hat,” she said, nudging my boot with her bare foot. “I’m Charlie, by the way.”

“You’re Charlie?” I ask, trying to hide the surprise I knew was written on my face.

“Were you expecting somebody else?”

“Umm… I assumed Charlie was older and more… of a man.”

“No,” she said with a laugh, “Charlie is sixteen… and a girl.”

“I can see that. Well, Charlie, my uncle said you would show me around?”

“Okay Sam, first rule around here: if something looks like it's about to break, it’s probably broken already."

I nodded, glancing back at the rickety rail. "Got it. Anything else I should know, like do you have a boyfriend?"

She smiled softly, cutting her eyes like the answer was hidden in some far off place beyond the horizon. “Here,” she said, holding out her hand. “This is the key to the boathouse, the lock sticks from time to time so you gotta jimmy it a bit. And word of advice don’t trust the cot in there, I've got a spare hammock you can use.”

“Thanks,” I said, sliding the key into my pocket.

“I’ve got to run to town, but when I get back, I'll show you around,” she said, before heading back up the dock.

“Sounds good.”

“And Sam,” she said looking back over her shoulder, “I don't.”

She didn’t look back again as she walked toward the shore, her curves framed in sunset orange. Home faded from my mind with the sway of her hips, and I forgot about everything, about baseball, about friends, about the 4th of July. In that instant, nothing else mattered, and I knew this summer might be alright after all. It might be the best one yet.