Little Saigon

Chapter 20

Back home, Frye got into a pair of Mega-Trunks and waxed his board. He made the ten-minute walk to Rockpile while the first light of morning coalesced in the east.

The hurricane surf had hit. He stood on the sand and watched the horizon, the plate-glass water, the gray waves marching in, precise as infantry. Each crashing mountain sent a tremor up his ankles and into his legs. Eight feet at least, he thought, and all muscle. Hard, vascular tubes, well shaped. The air filled with spray, and the sand vibrated. Frye watched two surfers carefully picking their waves. One took off and got launched from the lip — nothing but the long fall down for this man — his orange board trailing after him like a flame. The other thought better and backed off. More like ten feet, Frye saw now, and getting bigger. The beach trembled. The wide white noose of a riptide wavered out when the set ended.

He could still smell the death in his nostrils, on his skin, in the air around him, everywhere.

What am I supposed to do?

I don’t know, Benny. If I did, I’d do it for you. But it’s clear to me that you’re over your head and so am I, and that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Frye sat on the damp beach, took a handful of sand, and let it run between his fingers. He wondered if he’d simply been there more, closer to Bennett, more involved with the family, more present, somehow this all wouldn’t have happened. Ridiculous, he thought. But little things can make the difference. The road is paved by degrees, the thousand paths taken, or not. We steer by the second. Take your eyes off the road, you hit a cement mixer or cream a nun in a crosswalk. Take your pick. It’s the small stuff that adds up, or doesn’t. Something here prevents something there — a word, a gesture, an action.

And Frye knew that the last ten years of his life had been a slow retreat from his family, his wife, his own future. When you ignore enough problems, he thought, they become one problem. And the more you ignore it the faster it grows until you end up sitting on a cold beach, wondering if the one thing in your life you do well is going to kill you. More than anything, you hate yourself for being afraid.

I want back in. I can try.

He paddled out. Past the shorebreak, he looked south to Cristobel’s faded blue apartments, which from this angle seemed to be spilling into the water. Brooks Street will be pumping, he thought, so will Salt Creek and Trestles. You have to admit it: Rockpile on a hurricane swell is one ugly break. A surfer waved; Frye waved back.

Sitting outside on his board now, he blew into his hands, tried to get the blood going. All he could feel was the damp chill of the tunnel, and the putrid cavern where Loc’s brother lay. He shivered. The morning sky was gray and so was the water, and somewhere far to the west they met without a seam. The next set lined up against it. He lowered himself to the board and paddled hard, rising with the first wave. He was surprised how big it was. The next wave came close behind, bigger still. He scrambled up its face and pitched over on the far side, ready for another. Third time’s charm, he thought, sliding for the sweet spot on the incoming mountain, finding it, pivoting his board and with three hard strokes of his arms, felt the wave’s mass catch hold of him, take him up, then hesitate and offer him that one last opportunity to get out.

Frye looked down, felt the panic clustering at the base of his spine. He looked down at the miniaturized shore, the tiny hotel and blue apartments, the toy cars inching along Coast Highway a thousand feet below him. He looked down at the water sucking out, the beach receding. He felt the wave rising, rising, rising with him into the gray sky, gathering its aqueous tonnage for final release.

He made one last terrified assessment, then bailed.

Grabbing his board with both hands, he yanked it back toward the ocean as hard as he could. He plopped down to safety as the wave rose, hovered for a moment, then boomed ashore behind him. Somehow he made over the next wave of the set. He sat up on his board, heart thumping, arms weak and cold. The board dipped and bobbed. He could see his feet below, pale smudges in the dark water.

Frye could never remember feeling so isolated out here, so separate and temporary. It is not good to feel part of nothing.

He just sat there and watched the next wave coming in, his face flushed, feeling some part of himself — a portion of what he’d always been, a sense of substance and character, a feeling of singularity, at very least a passion that defined him if only to himself — passing him up with every untaken wave.

The clean-up wave formed ahead of him, the last and largest by far.

What he did next was partly out of spite, partly out of desperation, partly out of shame. It was the one thing he could think to do that was positive. He did it for Li and he did it for Cristobel and he did it for Bennett and he did it for himself. He did it as a funeral for the way he had been.

He pivoted, stroked twice, and dropped in.

The downward rush was exceptionally steep and fast, his board trying to jet ahead without him. He eased a rail into the flank of water and shot laterally, the wave lip smacking his head. Then he was in front of it, banking back down, body bent and arms out for balance, centered for speed. At the bottom he snapped his heels out and leaned in, shooting up again as the board rose instantly and he loosened his knees for the shock, climbing up the vertiginous wall, looking back to the big cylinder that gained quickly on him. Near the top he crouched and leveled off and let the heaving barrel come over him, then stood and slowed just a fraction to get far back into it, where the sand and the foam swirl furiously and the world condenses to a roar that you can feel all the way to your bones. Frye gently traced his hand along the wall of water that enclosed him, fingers thrumming liquid ribs, feet vibrating with his board, looking ahead as through a fluid telescope to where the wave was forming — this momentary heart of things — fresh and big and new out of the sea. In a moment of purest velocity, knees bent slightly and his fingertips brushing the cylinder, he stood there: reduced, washed, opinionless.

As usual at this point, Frye never knew what hit him.

All he did know was that he felt suddenly dark and pressurized, strangely removed now, with only a dull thundering somewhere overhead. No light. A rotating kind of motion, but not self-governed, as if he were a gear driven by other gears in some great liquid machine.

He tried to let himself float to the top but the grinding of the huge wave held him down. A few kicks toward bottom — just where is it now? Eyes open: a gritty swirl of shadow and half-light, shapes moving within shapes. Blow out some air and follow the bubbles up. But he was tumbling still, and the bubbles simply joined the turbulence and disappeared.

Then this wonderment of the senses: a feeling of falling but not necessarily down, maybe up or sideways or all directions at once; followed by a realization that something is missing here, some fundamental faculty linking the organism to gravity. He pushed off the bottom with a fear-driven heave, but there was no bottom. Lights arced through his head. He thought of saving the last of his breath to simply float upward, but the last of his breath was gone.

He thrashed against the darkness, a burst of energy as he strained for the surface and finally gulped a mouthful of sandy water. He could feel the scream from his system: what is this, Chuck? God, please no. Then the weakness coming, and a warmth with it, and the uneasy hypothesis that he was really just dreaming and about to waken and everything would be okay and Hyla would be there with hot chocolate and let him watch TV awhile. Another breath of water. He could sense his arms out ahead of him in the murk, paddling, turtlelike, trying to lead his head to air.

Then Hyla had hold of him. She was dragging him. She was barking like a dog.

Her face finally congealed before him, at odds with memory. Blond hair and long, nothing like mom. Why is she barking? Hands under my arms now, some dragging motion on sand. Faces. Legs. Puke, then breathe, in that order. Then a hot rush of sea water up from the lungs, burning nose, mouth, ears, eyes, pores. A wolfish creature bearing down, speaking in tongues. Someone up there slaps it away. More shapes, all in black. I am in alien hands. I am on my back. Chest goes up and down. Air is good. Life is good.

Of course. Cristobel. Surfers. Dunce.

He worked himself to hands and knees, chest heaving, vomiting between breaths. Dunce barked and shot in and out of his vision with each wretched outpouring. He could sense someone beside him; bare feet, jeans, a spill of light hair as a hand tried to steady his back. In the mid-distance he saw more legs, heard mumbled concern. “Whoa, he’s like throbbin’ lucky he’s not totaled right now. Rad wipeout. Is that that Frye guy, or some tourist?”

Good God, he thought. Get me out of here.

Cristobel helped him up and guided him to where the sand meets the rocks. He settled down to the cool earth, still breathing heavily, lights still pinging around his skull. A moment later she returned with his board, both halves, which she leaned against a boulder. Dunce sat and studied him as Cristobel wrapped a towel around his shoulders. “I knew it,” she said. “I felt it, strong.”

He looked at her, hugging himself under the towel.

“I saw it. When you didn’t come up I waded out. Blaster helped.”

“Thanks,” he said. His voice was helium-high. He watched another set forming outside and shuddered, then launched into a new fit of coughing.

She knelt beside him and tucked the towel close to his neck. Her smell cut straight through his brinedrenched senses, an aroma of woman and earth so solid you could stand on it. The onshore breeze stuck a batch of golden hair to his face as she leaned in close. “Can you make it to my place?”

Awhile later he stood uneasily, straightened his shoulders and breathed deeply, which sent him into another paroxysm of coughing that bent him in half. When he’d discharged what seemed at least half a gallon of ocean water, he smiled like death at Cristobel. “Let’s go.”

“What about that?”

Frye looked at his board, halved neatly and leaning on the rocks. “Public service reminder,” he said, and offered her his hand.

Blaster led the way, his red scarf in a cavalryesque lilt to the east.

He sat in a sunlit rectangle on the floor, warming in the rays that came through the window. Jim was on a shoot in L.A. Blaster nuzzled against his leg, then turned over for a belly rub. Cristobel changed into dry shorts and a halter top, then went to the kitchen to make coffee. Frye regarded the dress she was working on, now hanging on a mannequin. He coughed. Cristobel’s humming came to him from the kitchen. He had always liked a woman who hummed. He liked it so much he fell asleep.

When he woke again the sunlight had drifted from his face to his stomach. Lying still, he watched Cristobel’s back and legs as she stood in front of the dress, as she then leaned forward to make some adjustment. Steam eased up from the floor a few feet away, and he rotated an eye for explanation: a coffee cup placed on the carpet, just far enough so he wouldn’t knock it over. She had put a pillow under his head. He watched her hands now, slender but large-knuckled: one pinching the fabric, the other reaching forward, a pin ready. She was up on the balls of her feet, springy, like a basketball player. She moved forward for a closer look and smoothed the silk with her finger. She arched her back, cocked her head, and crossed her arms in an analytical pause, then turned to look at him. “Well, sleeping beauty, what do you think?”

“Perfect.”

“Not much of a critic, are you?”

“I know what I like.”

“It’s not finished yet.”

“It will be soon. Then you’ll see what I mean.”

She bit her lip gently, looked at the dress, then back to Frye. “I designed it myself.”

She smiled, blushed a little. Blaster’s tail knocked against the hardwood floor. “Every time I look down to Rockpile I see you going over.”

“I’m glad you were there. You saved my life, Cristobel.”

“Aw, shucks.”

He sipped the coffee, leaned up on an elbow. “Now you’re stuck with me.”

“What’s a girl to do?”

“Could come over here and lie in the sun.”

She looked at the dress for a long moment, then at Frye. Blaster lumbered over, working his nose under one of her hands. She took a pillow and lay down beside him, a couple of feet away, braced on an elbow. She was back-lit by the sun. It made her hair even lighter as it dangled down in a loose braid, Frye looked long at her, and she looked back. “You look real beautiful to me,” he said.

“I’m glad that’s what you see.”

Blaster tried to squeeze in between them; Cristobel shoved him away. He lay instead on the other side of her, resting his head in the narrow part of her waist, watching Frye with big round eyes, affable, moronic. “You’ve got an admirer.”

“Isn’t he a sweetheart?”

Frye shrugged. He had learned years ago that a man can’t compete with a woman’s pets. He reached out and touched her face.

She reddened. “You feel okay?”

He nodded. He could feel himself getting sucked into her dark brown eyes.

Suddenly she was telling him about fashion design, how it started off as something to do to win trophies at the local fair. She explained that her older brother had Little League and Pop Warner trophies all over the place, that her father had Toastmaster plaques, that her mother had a whole roomful of civic awards and citations. “I had this dresser in my room with nothing on it but one picture of my horse and one of Mickey Dolenz. I decided to fill it up with hardware like everybody else had. I started entering all the little fairs and contests in Mendocino County, then some down in Sacramento and San Francisco. Sure enough, I heaped that whole dresser full of awards and ribbons. Then my brother became a hippie, so he tossed the trophies. And Dad had already won everything he could at Toastmasters so he quit. And Mom got sick of philanthropy so she stuck to the garden. I didn’t want to lose a good thing, so I just kept on sewing. Later, I started designing my own clothes.”

“You’re smart to stick with it. Now you’ve got something that’s yours.”

Frye reached out and touched her face again. It flushed, but she kept looking at him. He brushed back her hair. He could sense her body tensing; her jaw went tight. She lifted a hand toward him. It hovered a moment, withdrew. She looked away, took a deep long breath. “This isn’t anything like you think it is,” she said. “There are layers of me to cut through.”

“With a little luck, I’ll cut in the right place.”

She sighed and touched his face with her hand. “There’s no such thing as luck. We get what we ask for.”

“I feel lucky you were at Rockpile today. That you were there Monday morning when we met.”

She looked at him oddly, then away. “Anyway, what about you? Always surf and stuff like that?”

Frye told her about the first time he’d paddled out on a surfboard, one that Bennett had made for him, a cute little thing just under five feet long, with his name written in flashy red letters across the deck. He was six. Bennett was eleven. “I couldn’t stand on the damned thing, so I just slid around on my belly all morning, riding the Whitewater in. After lunch we went back out. It was one of those hot fall days when the water’s green and the waves are little and shaped perfect. Bennett said he wouldn’t let me back to the beach unless I stood up and rode back. He helped me find the right place to take off. I fell a hundred times, then finally got up. I can see it just like it was. I’m crouching down like I’m going a hundred, arms out, absolutely stoked. We stayed out until the sun went down, and I had big rashes under my arms from the wetsuit.”

“You’ll never forget that day.”

“No way.” Frye went on to relate how that night Benny and his friends had taken him down to the water at the island and performed the ancient Hawaiian ritual that all new surfers were allowed to enjoy. They made him drink three swallows of his father’s bourbon — part of the ceremony, they explained — then peed on him.

Cristobel laughed. Blaster looked up and panted knowingly. “What horrible little boys,” she said.

“I was deeply moved. I had my swimsuit on, so I just waded out and washed off. I was laughing like a fool. Bourbon hits a kid hard.”

Frye described his abortive college career, his attempts to major in geology, marine biology, English. Finally, he just flunked out and joined the surfing tour, to the horror of his father. He recalled Edison’s letter of acknowledgment, which arrived while he was competing in the miserably cold waters of Australia and getting rather creamed by unfriendly locals, saying, “If you choose to kill your mind, son, then your body will surely follow. With love and disappointment, Father.”

Cristobel frowned, then laughed again. “Sounds like my dad. They always want you to do what you want to do, as long as it’s what they want you to do. They try. Mine was extra hard on Mike, my brother. So when Mike was shot down over there, it tore Dad up.”

“Your folks still alive?”

She shook her head. “Just me now. Don’t say you’re sorry. I hate those words. Just put your hand on my face again, like you did.”

Frye touched her. He scooted closer, but not too close. She smelled so good. She kept looking at him. For a long time he just held his face close to hers, smelling her breath and the richness of her skin. What do I smell like, he wondered, seawater? When he moved his lips to hers, she turned away. He kissed her ear instead. She pressed up close to him. She was shaking. “Something’s starting. I don’t want anything to start. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But just hold on to me awhile, Chuck. Kind of light, like. I’m... I’m so damned glad you’re alive and here with me.”

He did, a long while, until his lower shoulder was asleep and the hand that stroked her head was heavy and tired. Twice he started to tell her about the tunnels and what he had found there, but he stopped, unwilling to bring that horror into Cristobel’s sunlit living room. The rays rushed the window and made her hair warm. Blaster, his head still resting on the small of Cristobel’s waist, looked up at Frye, yawned, and closed his eyes again. Frye could hear the surf pounding outside, and through the corner of window he could see the lanky palms of Heisler Park drooping far in the distance. The sun hovered, an orange disc. For the first time in two days he felt warm. He was glad to be alive too, and to be here with her. Some things, he thought, are so good and simple.

Then she was kissing him, lightly at first, then deeper. She moved closer. A hand touched his neck.

Inside, Frye shrieked with delight.

She sat up, cross-legged now. Frye sat in front of her, legs apart, scooting close. “I hope you don’t hate me for this someday,” she said.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t. You really don’t.”

He slipped the straps of her top away and kissed her round dark shoulders. Her breasts were soft under his hands. When he pulled away the halter she breathed deeply and her nipples stood up and he took one between his teeth. She leaned back, hands braced behind her. She lifted her butt as he slid her shorts down, then tossed them onto the couch. Frye looked down at her nakedness, her lovely round body, the plain of tan on her stomach, the narrow white section of hip, then the dark wedge between smooth strong thighs. Blaster gave him a concerned look. Then Cristobel moved forward and put a hand up his leg, all the way to the sandy lining of his swimsuit. He helped her get it off. Their mouths locked and she moaned. She pulled away. “I don’t know if I can do this.” She touched him gently. “I see that you can.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Be slow.”

Frye lowered her on her side and guided her hips toward him. The kiss got deeper and deeper, and he could feel the sunlight on his hand as he moved it across her shoulders and back, her butt and legs, down the outside, up the inside where, to Frye’s mild astonishment, she was very much ready for this. “Oooh, God,” she said.

He found her mouth again. He rolled her over and braced himself on his hands and knees.

Then she pulled away. “No.”

“Yes.”

When he tried to take her, her legs suddenly clenched, a corded flex that felt like steel. He tried to get a knee inside. “It’s okay,” he said. “Okay, sweet woman, okay.”

Her head was tilted back. Tears ran up her face, into her ears and hair. “This is wrong,” she whispered.

“This is right.”

He could sense her will taking over. Her legs opened, her stomach quivered. The moment he touched her, Cristobel grabbed his arms and pushed off him, wriggling away. She worked herself up with the unsteadiness of a foal. She stood there in the sunlight, trying to cover her breasts. She looked down at Frye with her hair a disaster and tears rolling off her cheeks. “I hate this,” she said. She turned and disappeared into the bathroom.

He sat there for a moment, his member aiming dolefully up at his own forehead, wondering what you do in a case like this. She was running water in the bathroom. He thought he heard sobs, too.

He went in without knocking and took her in his arms. She had already put on a silk robe. Frye took it off, and it melted to the floor. He held her close and rocked her like Hyla used to rock him, back and forth with his hands spread across her back and her face buried in his neck. “It’s okay, Cris. Forget it. We’ll do it when it’s right. It’s okay.”

“I don’t want to forget it, and it’s never going to be right. I want you.”

“Oh?”

He led her to the bedroom, a collection of purples and lavenders, a bright, sunny room. They fell onto the bed.

“What I want you to know,” she said, “is that this isn’t at all what I wanted to happen.”

She was stroking him again. The idea struck him that Cristobel was a contradictory animal, but he was soon past the point of ideas altogether. Then she guided him in, slowly, a little shudder as he entered and buried himself deep as he could go, a perfectly tooled connection.

“Oh no,” she said.

“Oh yes.” He let her have the control. She was tentative at first. She lay back her head and closed her eyes, and Frye wondered what visions were exacting themselves on the backs of her eyelids. Her face was dotted with sweat. Her hair was all over the place. Then the ancient rhythm took over and Frye joined her, chasing down that place in her where all the nerves converge, where the detonations begin, where the center explodes and reforms and sends out deltas of pleasure all the way to the fingertips. He could feel it gathering inside her, inside himself. There was nowhere else on Earth he’d rather be. He propped up her head with his hand and kissed her. When it came, she arched her back and cried out, and Frye joined her, shaking, planting everything he had to plant, shuddering while the quakes broke over him, electrocuted on his own nerves. Below him, petals of voltage opened and bloomed, muscles tightened, breathing stopped, sharp fingernails trailed down his back.

They lay there, locked in aftershock.

Then Cristobel took a deep breath, so deep Frye could feel her heart slamming away as her chest rose. She released. Her fingers relaxed. Her legs lowered to the bed.

Cristobel slept while Frye worked himself free and went to the telephone to call Westminster Hospital about visiting hours for Tuy Nha.

He looked at Cristobel sleeping in the bedroom and felt fatherly. He smiled, then stood there, browsing the sundry collection of odds and ends tacked to the bulletin board near the phone.

Funny, he thought, how when you like somebody, even their minor stuff seems important to you: coupons, phone numbers, two Florida postcards with alligators on them, an old photograph, some slick shots of Jim, looking very GQ.

The corner of the newspaper photo caught his eye, because he had seen it so many times before, because he knew exactly what it was.

It was thumbtacked up there, behind a city recreation schedule and a local nightclub listing. Less than an inch of it showed, but he knew what the rest of it looked like. He swung away the other papers and looked at himself, dressed in the ape costume, grinning like a fool, chasing the Mystery Maid toward the hedge of blooming hibiscus.

God, how I hate that thing, he thought.

He looked at Cristobel. And what are you doing with it?

You re Chuck Frye, aren’t you? I saw you in some contests...

Maybe she thinks it’s funny.

Maybe she saw it, thought I was cute, cut it out.

Maybe it’s Jim’s, not hers.

The hospital operator gave him visitors’ hours. He hung up.

He was curious. He picked up Cristobel’s address book and turned to F. No Frye. Nothing under C. He tried Z instead. There it was, CF, followed by his number. His address was under it.

She was still sleeping. Dunce regarded him blankly.

Does she have the MegaShop number too?

Under the Ms was no MegaShop number, but a regulation business card that said Mai Ngo Thanh Tong — Saigon Plaza.

He closed the book.

Cristobel was still asleep. He went in, pulled the pillow out from under her head and stood there. “What’s that picture of me doing on your fridge?”

She swam back from dreamland. “Picture?”

“The ape deal. And how come you’ve got my number in your book? We just met on Monday morning, didn’t we? A coincidence, right? Accident.”

She frowned, backed against the head stand, pulled the bedspread over her. “Jesus, Chuck.”

“Jesus, nothing. What gives?”

She looked at him hard, then down at the bed. When she looked back up, he could see the anger in her face. “You fuck me once, you think you own me?”

“I don’t want to own you. I want to know what you’re doing with my stats when we met three days ago.”

She shook her head, a bitter smile forming at the corners of her mouth. “Why don’t you just leave?”

“Not until I get some answers from you.”

“Wanna hit me? Maybe I’ll talk faster.”

“No chance of that.”

“What do you think, Chuck? That I wanted to seduce you? That I had it all planned ahead of time? Where to find you? What your number is? Where to find your house so I can bring flowers and a card?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I just did.”

She looked down again, bit her lip. Frye watched a tear roll down her face. She wiped it away with the sheet. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For this.” She looked at him, then out the window. She swallowed hard. “Well, that’s it. You can go now.”

“I’m listening.”

“What do you want? A confession?”

“Sure.”

“You’re an arrogant bastard, aren’t you?”

“I never looked at it that way. I just want to know what’s going on. And what about that Saigon Plaza number?”

“Okay, you deserve that much. I... I did plan it. I wanted it. I’ve had that picture for months. I got your number and kept it in my book for a long time. I made it a point to be at Rockpile that morning. It wasn’t the first time I was there.” She wiped her face again. “I’d seen you there a hundred times. I watched you from my window first, then I got a pair of binoculars. You were a man, but you were far away and I could see you when I wanted. I could control you. You couldn’t get too close. And believe me, that’s a nice option after being... put upon. I could see you and have the distance, too.” Cristobel sighed and looked at him. He couldn’t quite believe this was happening. “Look in the closet, Chuck.”

Frye slid open the door. A brand new MegaBoard rested inside, never used. The price tag was still on it. “I was hoping you’d be there when I went in. I did see you there a few times. Guess you didn’t notice. Those rolled-up things down by my shoes — they’re posters of you. And that Saigon Plaza number, that’s the fabric store where I buy my silk.”

“Oh.” Frye felt as stupid now as he’d ever felt in his life.

“I actually couldn’t wait for some excuse to come over to your house. I had it pictured as being sinful and full of... I don’t know. I heard it was a cave. When I moved to this place after the... after what happened, I started hearing about you. I saw you in a contest down at Brooks. I knew you were married so I didn’t do anything. I cut out the picture of you because — it was a picture of you.” She sobbed, looking away. “I thought I’d taken everything down. I forgot that Mystery Maid thing. I’m just a stupid fucking little girl. You can go now, Chuck. I just wanted you, and now I guess I’ve had you. Once isn’t quite enough, but it was still pretty sweet, wasn’t it?”

Frye sat on the bed. Then he rolled over and took her in his arms. She was crying now, and he could feel the warm tears running down his neck. “I’m awful sorry.”

“Go, please.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“So am I, Chuck. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Can we forget about this?”

“I’ll try, if you will.”

“Jesus. You saved my life. What I’d really like is to make love to you now.”

She moved closer to him and touched his face with her hands. “Yes, please.”