Beyond the Station Lies the Sea Page 2

  “Tell me all about it,” says Niner. “What’s your plan?”

  “I know this bar,” says Cosmos. “It’s called Caracas. Some pretty shady characters hang out there. But people with money, too, if you’re lucky. A lot of money, if you get my drift. The kind that are bored, ’cause they’re so rich. The kind that pay for everything, just to keep from bein’ alone.”

  “Like those dumbasses with the mansions and fancy cars?”

  “Like those dumbasses with the mansions and fancy cars. Fisher and Frost Jr. and such. They have money, we need money, and you know how to look hungry. Tonight’s our lucky night!”

  “Well then, let’s go!” says Niner. “What’re we waiting for?”

  IT’S A LONG WAY to the Caracas. First an overgrown dirt path, then a gravel path that runs past the neon signs. “Your jeweler” flickers in red from a wall. “Your jeweler.”

  And right next to it are ads for an insurance company. Three guardian angels in a row. Wasp-waisted women in chic clothes with transparent wings, holding their hands over deeply tanned men and their expensive cars. “Always here, always near,” it says in green letters beneath the guardian angels.

  Suddenly, it seems to Niner as if the entire city had been papered with these ads. Overnight. Always here, always near. A path lined by guardian angels.

  “Cosmos? Do you believe in that?” asks Niner after the fifth ad.

  “In what?”

  “That,” says Niner, and points to a guardian angel with transparent wings.

  “Do I believe in guardian angels?” Cosmos laughs, “You sure do ask some funny questions.”

  “So tell me. Do you or don’t you?”

  “Fairy tales,” says Cosmos. “Guardian angels are fairy tales. It’s a buncha crap, if you really wanna know!”

  Cosmos shakes his head.

  “But if you didn’t have a guardian angel, then . . .”

  “Then what? Then you fall out the window? Break a leg getting up? Get run over by a car? Think about it, man. I ain’t got no guardian angel! And? Have I got a broken leg? Been run over by a car? Fallen out a window? Of course not. So there you have it!”

  Niner hangs his head and thinks it over, but somehow he doesn’t believe Cosmos. Maybe Cosmos does have a guardian angel. Maybe there’s an invisible woman standing right behind him, but Cosmos doesn’t know it. After all, you can’t see guardian angels. And you definitely can’t touch them.

  “I do,” says Niner, “I’ve got a guardian angel.”

  After the seventh guardian angel ad, they come to the Caracas. Or at least that’s what it says on a big sign over the door:CARACAS

  Niner had expected the bar to be bigger and much more attractive.

  But Caracas is actually one of those dark, smoke-filled dives where drunks line the bar next to women with bright red lipstick who are always laughing too loudly. Where the wheels of the slot machines spin around endlessly and no one ever looks up, except when the bell above the door rings.

  This is the place where Cosmos wants to rustle up some cash?

  “You go on ahead,” says Cosmos. “They already know me here. And you got your guardian angel anyway. But look good and hungry. And come get me if someone offers to help.”

  NINER GOES. HE TAKES a deep breath, opens the door to the bar, and can’t look hungry at all, for the air is blue with smoke and his eyes fill with tears. He blinks, standing there like a lump.

  Then someone yells at him:

  “Hey, you. This ain’t no kindergarten!”

  “Get lost, sonny!” calls another. And up front, at the bar, a lipsticked woman cackles loudly into the blue haze.

  Niner hesitates. He feels like turning around and running back out into the night to Cosmos.

  The one who yelled out that this is “no kindergarten” slides off his bar stool and approaches Niner slowly. He’s just like Mama’s new guy. Niner knows the type. He can smell it. He’s the kind that hits.

  Niner looks around. It’s only a few steps to the door, but suddenly the other one is there. The one who yelled “get lost!” Both of them are approaching him now. One from behind and one from the front.

  Niner is trapped. He quickly plans to wait them out, then duck away, under and through their arms. And then take to his heels and run.

  Out of the corner of his eye he sees a woman in a fancy suit with a string of pearls around her neck sitting at a nearby table. Suddenly she stands up and says: “That’s enough!”

  The two men stand still and the place goes dead quiet.

  “Sit back down,” says the woman, “and leave the boy alone!”

  “No harm done, Queen. No harm done,” says the one who yelled “get lost,” and shoves the other back toward the bar.

  “You heard what the Queen said. Leave the boy alone.”

  “Come here, sweetie, sit by me,” says the woman.

  She doesn’t look like the other women at the bar. Her suit is light blue and shimmers a bit. The string of pearls is light blue too, and on her finger sparkles a ring with a big, dark-blue stone.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  Niner nods and tries to look hungry.

  She sees it and laughs and says, “What do you want to eat, then?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I eat everything,” answers Niner.

  “Then pick something out,” says the Queen, handing him the menu. “Are you out alone?”

  Niner shakes his head. “My friend’s outside.”

  “Then bring him in! It’s my treat!”

  Niner runs outside.

  “Come on in, Cosmos. There’s a queen in there, and she said she’d treat! It’s our lucky night, for sure! The Queen, she’s got money, I swear!”

  “A queen, huh?” Cosmos shakes his head. “Well aren’t you special.”

  “It’s nothing to do with me,” says Niner. “They call her the Queen in there, and they do what she says!”

  “Oh, man!” says Cosmos. Suddenly he’s all excited. “Could it really be the Queen? Do they snap to it when she waves her hand? Does she have a light-blue suit on? Is she wearing a light-blue pearl necklace?”

  “Yeah,” says Niner. “That’s right.”

  “Then it must be her. It’s the Queen of Caracas! I’ve never met her myself, but Bald Pete and Buddy Sloop have told me all about her. C’mon, you lucky dog. Can’t keep the Queen of Caracas waiting!”

  Niner has never seen Cosmos like this. So excited and unsure of himself. He keeps trying to hide his dirty hands, and he’s even taken off his red baseball cap. And he’s at a complete loss for words. All he can do is nod his head. At least at first.

  Cosmos stares at the menu the Queen slides over to him and has to keep swallowing, because on top of everything, he’s hungry.

  Cosmos reads the menu quietly to himself for a long while. But then he starts reading aloud.

  “Hawaiian toast,” reads Cosmos. “Caracas pork and onion special,” and “curried chicken with rice.” And then “vanilla ice cream in warm cherry sauce, cinnamon parfait over wine-poached plums.”

  And now Niner swallows too.

  The Queen smiles, then signals to a waiter—a guy in a black dinner jacket who seems oddly out of place.

  “Joseph, please bring one of everything! The gentlemen are very hungry. But one at a time, please. All right?”

  “Very good, madam!” says the waiter, and bows lightly without batting an eyelash. He acts as though he takes orders like that five times a day.

  A little later, Cosmos and Niner are sitting in the land of plenty.

  They eat the Hawaiian toast, then the pork and onion special, and then the curried chicken with rice. Next comes the vanilla ice cream in warm cherry sauce, and then the cinnamon parfait over wine-poached plums.

  Niner has never eaten so much in his entire life. And nothing in his entire life has ever tasted so good, either. Not even Mama’s chocolate pudding.

  When the two of them are completely stuffed, Cosmos wipes th
e sweat from his forehead with the napkin.

  The Queen smiles.

  “And what are your names?” she asks.

  “Niner,” he says, “and this is my friend, Cosmos.”

  “Have you been on the road a while?” asks the Queen.

  Cosmos nods.

  “And where are you headed?” she asks.

  “To the sea,” says Niner. “We wanna go to the sea. Where the orange trees grow.”

  “Well, that’s quite an undertaking,” says the Queen. “You do know that it’s very far away?”

  “We know,” mumbles Cosmos. “We’re not idiots!”

  Niner kicks Cosmos in the shin under the table. “Sure it’s far,” he says quickly. “But we just have to get there, no matter what. ’Cause it’s summer there, an’ you can live the good life, and ’cause we’ve never been. You see, we’ve never seen the sea before . . . never!”

  “It really is beautiful,” says the Queen. “I used to go to the sea every summer. I always fed the gulls there. I had a house on the beach . . . a white house with a red roof and blue shutters . . . first, there are the dunes, and then the sea. The sea is really blue, and it’s incredibly salty. You can smell it long before you see it. And you can taste it too, if you lick your lips. Ah, the sea, . . . ”sighs the Queen. “It’s particularly beautiful in the evenings, when the sun grows larger and larger, until finally, it looks like a big, glowing orange. Then it slowly sinks into the sea, very slowly, very far on the horizon, where the sea meets the sky.”

  Niner listens carefully to every word, filled with longing. Then he swallows, as if wanting to devour the glowing orange for a final dessert.

  And then Cosmos says quietly, “But we need money!”

  The Queen seems to waken from a daydream. Her expression is confused at first, then suddenly stern and fully alert.

  And Niner knows that Cosmos has just made a mistake.

  Cosmos knows it too.

  “So,” says the Queen. “You need money, you say. And who doesn’t?”

  “He means,” says Niner, beginning to answer before he knows what he wants to say. “He means, if you, maybe . . . if you could lend us a little? . . .”

  “Lend?” The Queen laughs, but it sounds bitter.

  Niner is both alarmed and confused.

  “No . . . no. I didn’t mean lend,” he says. But he doesn’t know what more to say.

  And because she sees it, the Queen reaches over quickly and strokes his hair.

  “Paying for dinner is no problem,” she says. “But lending money is out of the question! You know the saying: Neither a borrower nor a lender be!”

  “But the sea,” begs Niner, and his eyes well up with tears.

  “We’re never gonna get there otherwise!”

  “Come on,” says Cosmos suddenly. “We gotta go. Good night, and thank you very much for the food!”

  He stands and pulls Niner up with him.

  They are reaching for the door when the Queen suddenly calls out, “Hey, wait. Come on back! There may be a way after all.”

  They turn around.

  “Yes?”

  “Sit down. I have a business proposition for you two.”

  “A business proposition?” asks Cosmos. “What kind of business proposition?”

  “An exchange of sorts,” says the Queen. “You give me your most valued possession, and I give you the money to get to the sea. Do you have anything of value?”

  “We have absolutely nothing,” says Cosmos.

  “Everyone has something that is valuable,” says the Queen and stands up. “I’ll let you have some time alone. Perhaps you’ll think of something.”

  Niner watches the Queen walk through the bar. She walks ramrod straight, with her head held high. And it looks as if the men clear a path for her, as if they step back when she passes by.

  The men grin in embarrassment, and Niner watches them lower their heads.

  It’s like a fairy tale, thinks Niner. It really is just like in the fairy tales that Mama used to tell.

  Niner would like to know if the Queen is really a queen. A real queen like the ones in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and all the other fairy tales Mama used to tell him.

  “Well, Cosmos?” asks Niner. “What do you think we can give her?”

  Cosmos shrugs his shoulders.

  “Go on, tell me, what have you got there in your bags? There must be something valuable in there.”

  Niner grabs one of the bags and is about to start rummaging around in it when Cosmos snatches it from his grasp.

  “Hands off! There’s nothing for her in there!”

  “What about your baseball cap?”

  Cosmos taps his forehead with his finger.

  “Oh man, come on Cosmos, d’you wanna go to the sea or not?” Niner asks impatiently.

  “Of course I wanna go to the sea, you dope! But what’s the Queen of Caracas supposed to do with my old cap?”

  NINER THINKS OF WHAT he used to give his Mama for Mother’s Day. It was stones, mostly. Pretty, smooth, polished stones that he would look for by the riverbank. And how glad Mama always was to get them. She even put the smoothest stone in her coat pocket and kept it with her every day when she went off to Fisher and Frost in the mornings.

  “That’ll be my good-luck charm from now on,” Mama said. “And whenever I touch it, I’ll think of my Little Hobbin.”

  BUT NOW, THE RIVER is far away, and so is Mother’s Day.

  Niner feels around in his pockets, but doesn’t turn up a single stone. He finds just a single green glass marble, a smushed-up stick of gum, and a rusty key that doesn’t fit any lock.

  “That’s it! I’ve got it!” cries Cosmos, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.”

  “Well, go on then. What is it?” asks Niner.

  “D’you remember the guardian angel posters? The women with the wings guarding the guys and their cars? Always here, always near!”

  “The guardian angel posters? What have they got to do with our business proposition?”

  “Lots,” says Cosmos, grinning. “We can do what they’re trying to do, easy!”

  Niner is confused. “Whaddaya mean? What’re they trying to do?”

  “They’re trying to sell guardian angels to rich people!” says Cosmos.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Man, are you slow! The Queen wants something valuable, right?”

  And then, finally, Niner gets it.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “And how,” says Cosmos. “If I had a guardian angel, we could use mine. I wouldn’t care. Not if it was the only thing we could trade for the money we need to get to the sea!”

  “Well, we’re not doing that. My guardian angel belongs to me, and I’m not giving it up. Not for nothin’! Never!”

  “Probably wouldn’t help anyway,” says Cosmos. “What use is a guardian angel to the Queen of Caracas?”

  Niner hesitates, thinking it over.

  “And what happens if you sell your guardian angel? Is it gone for good, even if you believe in it?”

  Cosmos shrugs his shoulders.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he says. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout guardian angels. I only know one thing: we wanna go to the sea and we need money. And we ain’t got nothing better than your guardian angel.”

  Niner hesitates.

  “Well, just take a look at me, now,” says Cosmos. “I get by just fine without any angel. And when we get to the sea, you won’t be needing one anyway. ’Cause then we’ll have everything we need, understand? We’ll open up a little stand, with a great big sign: COSMOS AND NINER: ICE COLD DRINKS. And you’ll go walking up and down the beach with a cooler and serve ’em up. We’ll get rich down there, I promise, Niner! And once we’re rich, then we’ll just buy you back your guardian angel!”

  Niner is still uncertain.

  Mama’s new guy used to say, “Close your eyes, and whatever you see will be
yours.”

  Niner had tried, but he’d never seen anything. Other than a pair of red squiggles, there was nothing but pitch black. But today feels different.

  When Niner closes his eyes, he sees a stand on the beach and a white sign with big red letters:COSMOS AND NINER

  ICE COLD DRINKS

  He also sees the blue sky, and the sea is wonderfully blue too, and on top of the big white sign, three seagulls sit and watch as Niner opens bottles.

  Yeah, he thinks. Maybe Cosmos is right. Cosmos, who bears the name of a seaman. Cosmos, who finds abandoned houses and conquers dogs. Niner has never had a better friend than Cosmos. And when you’ve got a friend like that, then maybe you really don’t need a guardian angel. In any case, one thing’s for sure, thinks Niner: we have nothing other than the guardian angel to offer the Queen. And that notion of buying him back may be a good idea. We could at least try it, thinks Niner, and if I’m lucky, she won’t believe in it. Just like Cosmos.

  SUDDENLY, THE BELLS GO off on the slot machine up front by the counter and the colored lights flash like crazy. Niner turns around.

  “Drinks all around!” yells the guy who’d wanted to throw Niner out earlier. “Herbert, the drinks are on you. Crazy bum’s hit the jackpot again.”

  “Lucky at play, unlucky in love!” cackles the woman with the lipstick.

  “You just keep quiet, Lola!” bellows Herbert.

  Then the slot machine begins to whir on the inside. One coin after another falls out into the catch tray.

  Cosmos stares.

  “With some people, money falls into their laps,” says Niner. “They don’t have to sell their guardian angels.”

  He looks around for the Queen, but he can’t find her. Maybe she was just joking anyway. Maybe she’s gone home already.

  “Well, at least our bellies are full,” says Niner, and turns back to Cosmos. “C’mon, let’s go, Cosmos. That’s enough for one lucky night.” He sounds almost a little relieved.

  “What’s this about a lucky night?” asks the Queen from behind Niner.

  Niner jumps and turns to face her. She stands there, smiling.