Jumping off the Planet

THE GULF

We drove south, down the coast of Mexico, and by the end of the second day it was obvious where Dad was headed: Beanstalk City in Ecuador. He didn't have to say anything. After all of his talk about space and the moon and the stars as a way out, where else could we be going?

Weird had been real silent all day, but Stinky had gotten the way he gets and he kept demanding to sit in the front seat so he could watch for the beanstalk, so Weird and I let him. I was kind of interested in the beanstalk myself, but I didn't want Dad to know it.

But finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked, "We are going up, aren't we? At least as far as One-Hour, huh? Huh, Dad? Please?" Weird and I did a couple of rounds of this, until Stinky joined in for the chorus.

Dad smiled, satisfied. "I was sort of planning on it. Actually ... " His voice trailed off.

"What?" I demanded.

"It's a shame to come all this way and not go to the top. I was thinking of taking you boys all the way up to Geostationary. That is, if you want to go that high ... ?"

"Geostationary? Really!"

"I assume that's a yes. How about you, Douglas?"

Weird just grunted. "Does Mom know?"

Dad hesitated. "I didn't tell her we were going this far. We can call her from the top, okay? We'll surprise her."

"Let's call collect," I said. "And really surprise her."

Dad laughed at that. "Your Mom is taking a vacation of her own. At least, that's what she told me. But we can try to call her, if you want."

"Yeah!" Stinky said. "I wanna call Mom from the top."

"Then it's settled."

Weird said, "Dad, we gotta talk. You and me."

"Right now?"

"No. Just you and me."

"All right," Dad said. "There's a beach up ahead. Why don't we let your brothers play in the surf for a while."

"There's no surf here. This is the Gulf of Baja." Weird was like that. If you told him it was 6:30, he'd check his watch and announce, "six twenty-eight and thirty seconds." Like it made a difference.

"Check the map," Dad said dryly. "We're already to the mouth of the gulf, just north of Mazatlan." I guess Weird inherited it from Dad.

Dad pulled the car off the road onto a wide patch of packed dirt that served as a parking lot. There was no one else around, so Stinky and I stripped down naked and went running into the water, screaming. The sand was so hot we danced across it, keeping our feet in the air more than on the ground.

The water was warm and salty and didn't smell bad at all. Stinky and I splashed around and screamed at each other. The sand under the water was as soft as mud, but there were rocks in the sand too, so mostly I floated on my back and paddled gently, just lazing in the sensation of not having to go anywhere or do anything. After that got old, I just stood and watched Stinky. He wasn't doing anything, so I looked up onto the beach. Dad and Weird were talking about something; I couldn't tell what, but it looked serious.

"I gotta pee," Stinky said.

"Go ahead," I said.

"Right here?"

"Right here."

"Shouldn't I get out of the water?"

"I hardly think it matters."

"But I hafta get out of the pool when I hafta pee, why don't I hafta get out of the ocean?"

"Because it's the ocean. Everybody pees in the ocean."

"Teacher says that's why the oceans are so stinky. Because everybody pees in them. And poops too."

"Go ahead. I won't tell."

"I already did," Stinky said. "I made the water warmer. Didn't you feel it?"

"No, I didn't." And I was just as glad I hadn't. I moved a little bit away from him anyway and watched the water lapping around us, wondering how long it would take to dilute his little contribution.

Dad and Weird were apparently through talking. Dad was leaning against the van with his hand over his eyes as if he had a headache, or maybe he was crying. Weird was walking down the beach, kicking at the sand. Every so often, he'd stop and look back at Dad, and then he'd turn around and walk a ways farther. But it was clear he wasn't going to walk too far. He was just angry. That was weird—even for Weird, because he never got angry. And now, this trip, he'd been angry almost since we'd left. What was going on between them anyway?

Stinky started coughing then—he'd gotten a mouthful of water, so I had to duck under and grab him and pull him up. It wasn't really anything, but he started crying anyway, so I picked him up and carried him as far as I could across the hot sand. Dad met us halfway and took Stinky from me. "What did you do to him?" he asked accusingly.

"I didn't do anything!" I protested. "Don't yell at me. He did it himself. He was fooling around and got water up his nose. I pulled him out."

"I'll deal with you later," Dad said, turning his attention instead to Stinky's tears.

"Yeah, right. Tell me again how you're trying to reach out to me too." I grabbed a towel and my shorts and stalked up the beach after Weird. "Hey, Douglas—wait up!"

It was my use of his real name that made him stop. He glowered, but he waited for me. "What do you want, Chigger?"

"Nothing."

We walked in silence for a bit, while I tried to figure out what to say. Occasionally, Douglas stopped to pick up seashells. He'd look at them for a bit, then hand them to me. They were little gray things that looked like cornucopias. "Periwinkles," he said. "They always spiral out the same way. Clockwise. How do you think the periwinkle knows which way to turn?"

I shrugged. "Who cares?"

"I dunno. It's just—how come periwinkles are so stupid but they always know which way to turn, and human beings are so smart and we hardly ever know?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Douglas." I tossed the shells away.

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does. I'm part of this family too."

"It's not your business—"

"Now you're acting like Dad," I said. Doug gave me the sidewise glower, so I blurted, "Well, just because Dad's acting like an asshole doesn't mean you have to."

Douglas shook his head.

"Well what's going on?"

"Never mind."

"Tell me—"

"It's kinda personal, okay?"

"So?"

He gave me the look. The one when somebody says something too stupid to reply to.

"So?" I repeated, pretending I hadn't seen it. "Who else do you have to talk to?"

"It's not anything I want to talk about."

"It's about UCLA, isn't it?"

"Partly," he admitted. And then after another moment, he said, "I got approved for a conditional scholarship. Dad won't sign, but he doesn't have to. I'm almost eighteen, but—" He stopped himself. "You don't know what's going on, do you? Between Mom and Dad, I mean."

"They hate each other. What's to understand?"

"Mom thinks Dad is crazy. She went to court last month to have his visitation rights terminated. Dad counter-sued. He had some big New York lawyer on his side, so he won. Now he gets us four weeks a year instead of two. But Mom still thinks he's going to try something."

"Like what?"

"Like not bringing us back. Or something stupid like that."

"Dad isn't that crazy. Where would he take us?"

"Well ... think about it, Chig. What's he been talking about?"

I thought about it. It didn't take much thinking. "Oh," I said, a sinking feeling in my gut.

"Uh-huh," said Weird.

We walked for a while, neither of us speaking, just pushing forward through the sand, while I sorted stuff out in my head.

Finally, I said, "So if Dad isn't trying to kidnap us, then Mom is schizo-paranoid. And if he is, then she's right and he's crazy. But either way, we lose—because either way we've inherited the genes of a crazy parent."

Douglas half-smiled, that funny expression he gets when somebody says something scientifically.

"So, how do you know all this?" I asked.

"Mom told me. She told me not to tell you. She said you'd side with Dad."

"Mom obviously doesn't know me as well as she thinks. I'm not on either of their sides." And then I realized what else Douglas had said. "You didn't keep your promise."

"It's our family too. I'm tired of all this back-and-forth stuff and nobody ever listening. Aren't you?"

I stared at my older brother as if I'd never seen him before. I couldn't remember him ever being so ... so adult. Finally, I said,

"Thanks, Doug." And I meant it. After another minute, I asked, "But what were you and Dad arguing about?"

"My scholarship. Dad doesn't want me to take it. He doesn't like the conditions."

"What conditions?"

Doug shook his head with a sad smile. "It's kinda personal."

"It's one of those rechanneling scholarships, isn't it?"

"You know something, Charles? You're too smart for your own good."

"I knew it."

"You don't know the half of it."

"Well, you can't do that. You won't be you anymore."

"Yes, I will—" He looked like he wanted to say more, but suddenly, Dad was honking the car horn at us. He'd finally calmed down Stinky and put him in the front seat, and the two of them had motored half a kilometer up the road to catch up to us. Douglas nudged me and we headed across the hot sand to meet them.

It was all too much. I didn't know what to think anymore.