And suddenly, from months ago, my father’s voice: “Here, Mim.” I take the bottle and roll my eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” says Dad. “I’m trying to help. Just get in the habit of taking one with breakfast every day. Habit is king.” I glance at the label on the bottle, wondering how it got this far. “Dad. I don’t need them.” He pulls orange juice out of the refrigerator, pours a glass. “I need you to trust me on this, Mim. You don’t want to end up like Aunt Isabel, do you?” That’s when I know he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel, searching for anything to get me to cooperate. Taking the glass from his hand, I pop a pill in my mouth and drown it down with the rest of his juice. Every last drop. I wipe my lips with the back of my hand, stare him dead in the face. “I’m not crazy.”
“Sure you’re not crazy, Caleb,” says the Pale Whale. “You just keep living your little fantasy life, son. Lord knows, I’ve been there.” He slaps his belly. “But damn it all, I wouldn’t trade these rolls for your level of crazy, not for all the rotisserie chickens in Kentucky. You know why? ’Cause at the end of the day, when my fat ass tumbles into its king-sized waterbed, I sleep like a baby. I know who I am.”
“Oh yeah?” Caleb twirls the knife again, arching one eyebrow unnaturally high. “And who are you?”
Albert the Pale Whale sips his daiquiri, smacks his lips together, then leans back and sighs. “I’m Albert, motherfucker. Who are you?”
As Caleb steps toward Albert, I grip the war paint in my pocket and picture the long blade piercing those layers of blubber. Gallons of fluid would gush from the wound like a fire hydrant; hidden arteries, having spent the last two decades being stretched and filled to their fullest capacity, would now be exposed, severed, freed from the heaviest of loads. The wailing, whaling mess would pool around his bloated ankles, gather under the folding chair, then rise up and up, lifting the leviathan carcass off the roof, spinning him like a top, and tossing him off the edge of his own broke-ass, off-white gas station. We’d be swept up in the Blood Flood, too, Walt and I, carried away like Noah’s Ark, or rather, like the animals of afterthought, left to fend for themselves in the apocalyptic precursor to the rainbow.
This is what I imagine.
But it never happens.
Just as Caleb reaches Albert’s chair, a blurred figure plummets on top of him, knocking him to the ground. Within seconds, Caleb is back on his feet, wielding the hunting knife at this new adversary. At first glance, the man seems too ridiculous to be real. He’s wearing a black strip of cloth around his forehead like a ninja, goggles, a long gold chain around his neck, a flowery wife-beater, and a pair of shockingly familiar cutoff jeans. Dripping wet from head to toe, he’s smiling like he’s having a ball.
Next to me, Walt claps, while Albert chuckles and sips his drink. “Fuck him up, Ahab.”
Never mind my epiglottis—my entire body flutters at this.
It’s him.
It’s them.
The fight doesn’t last more than a minute. In a roundhouse kick that would have made Jet Li proud, Arlene’s legendary nephew sends Caleb’s hunting knife sailing over the edge of the roof. With him disarmed, it’s hardly a fight at all. A couple of hook-kick combos and graceful strikes to the chest, arms, and head, and Ahab has a whimpering Caleb trapped in a half nelson on the gravel roof.
“Walt,” says Ahab, dripping wet, smiling from ear to ear. “Go downstairs, call the Independence police station. Ask for Randy, tell him to get his ass over here.”
Walt giggles, runs around to the trapdoor.
“You okay, honey?” Ahab looks up at Albert, leaving me to wonder at the sheer physics of their relationship.
“I’m all right,” grunts the Pale Whale. “Thanks to my knight in shimmering armor.”
“Shining,” I whisper, still gripping my war paint and trying to piece together the sequence of the last few minutes.
Ahab notices me, seemingly for the first time. “Who’re you?”
“That’s Ma’am,” says Albert, slurping the last of his daiquiri, then pulling a brand-new one out from under his chair.
I clear my throat. “It’s Mim,” I say, rapping my knuckles against the side of the tank. “What’s this?”
“We call it the Pequod,” says Ahab. “Perfect place for a little sun and relaxation.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What—inside?”
The Pale Whale chuckles and sips.
Ahab tightens his grip on Caleb. “It’s a pool, kid.”
Looking from Ahab to the tank, I can’t help but wonder what kind of people drink daiquiris and go swimming on top of a gas stations at eight a.m. on chilly fall mornings. But I’ll thank the gods of, you know, whatever, that they do. Because I’d be dead right now without these two.
Walt comes running around the tank. Pool. Whatever.
“Randy’s on his way,” he says.
“Good.” Ahab hoists Caleb to his feet. “You guys can hang downstairs till he gets here. He’s a dick of a dick, so he’ll probably wanna take you down to the station for questioning out of sheer boredom. Don’t say anything about the pool, okay? He’d find some city bylaw and have it removed.”
Walt gives him a thumbs-up, scurries down the rungs. I stand still for a moment, wondering if this is the right time. Certainly, it’s not how I pictured it happening.