SCREAMING WITH THE CANNIBALS

Thirty-Seven

272 Thirty-Seven Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. We had closed the rental shack the evening before, carrying all the stuff up to the pavilion and stacking it in the storage room. When the rental shack was empty, all the beach floats deflated and gone, it was a bad place to sleep. Even for me. And besides, Banger always hauled the shack to some storage yard for the winter. So, last night, I had slept in the rest rooms. It had been quiet in there, deserted, no one down there at first light to get an early start on the beach. The day before, while we had been were working in the storage room, I noticed a key hanging on a nail behind the door. It was a key to the back door and I doubted if Banger even knew it was there. I dropped it in my pocket. We were coming down hard on the end of summer and I wanted all the help I could get, even if it meant stealing a key to the storage room. Because Banger had made it clear: the day after Labor Day, nobody had a job. The season was over. The sun was hardly up when I walked out of the rest rooms, carrying my old canvas bag. Hugo was gone. We had shared a last beer at the pavilion—Hugo swiped the beer from the old cooler behind the bar when Banger went to take a piss—and then we just sat there for a while, staring out at the ocean. Finally, Hugo put his hand on my shoulder. I turned toward him, sticking out my hand, but he was already walking across the dance floor, then out the other side of the pavilion. In a few seconds he was gone into the darkness. Somehow, Hugo knew he would never see me again. I was on the outside again, about to be locked out, standing there alone, with everything I owned in the world stuffed inside 273 a bag that was stained, worn, and smelled like sun tan lotion and motor oil. But something felt different. Usually, I liked the idea of being outside , not belonging, wanting to be gone. And if I didn’t really like it, I was at least familiar with it, used to it. Back at Black Hawk Ridge, back at Crum, I would have been glad to be standing on a road with my bag packed, ready to leave. And here I was again, doing just that. But somehow it wasn’t the same, this time. It just wasn’t the same. I hung the bag from my shoulder and started up toward the pavilion , shuffling along in the weak silvered light that separated the night from the booming sunrise of the beach. Banger owed me for my last week’s work and I thought I would collect my money, wander down to the pier, take one last look, poke around a little. And then I would just walk the hell away from Cherry Hill, just walk away from whatever this feeling was that kept running down my back. Walk away. Doing what I did best. Leaving. Maybe walk all the way to Myrtle Beach. Maybe hitchhike farther down the coast, to one of those towns Hugo used to talk about. Maybe get a job down there. Maybe not. When I got to the pavilion it was closed tighter than Banger’s heart, all the shutters hung and locked from the inside. Without even thinking about it I knew Banger would be halfway to Ft. Myers, driving his convertible hard, the top down, the wind driving around the windshield and blowing out his mind. My last week’s pay in his wallet. The son-of-a-bitch. I fingered the key in my pocket but decided not to mess with the storage room door, not just yet. Maybe something else would turn up. Anyway, I didn’t feel too guilty about having the key, now. I was broke because of Banger; the bastard owed me. 274 I turned down toward the beach and took a few steps out onto the sand. And then I stopped. The sight sort of stunned me and all I could think to do was . . . sit down. I dropped the bag and melted down on top of it, my knees weak. What got to me was not something I...