Rainy Season (3 page)

We walk outside, down the front steps and into the shadowless heat. Ted swings his toolbox and whistles. The black plaque, stamped out like a license plate and fixed to our front door screen—#4J LT. COL. BECK—is the one thing that distinguishes our house from all the others on First Street.

Ted looks up. “Gonna rain today.”

I look up, too. “Negative.”

“Around four. You watch.”

I give the sky a double-check and decide Ted is
loco.

All the houses on our street are built to look exactly alike; white-walled, double-decked plaster-and-concrete boxes with black metal roofs. Only the General’s house is bigger. It’s at the very end of the road, shaped like three sides of a rectangle and half-hidden behind a prickly hedge and an unfriendly square iron gate. Dad says that military architecture is uninspired, but I like the exactness of all the straight, clean lines.

We skitter down the steep hill to the bottom of the base and I nod and wave to the MP on duty in the control box. Ted salutes, which seems a little bit obnoxious, but very Ted-ish. His truck is parked at the bottom of the hill. It doesn’t have a military pass sticker, since the truck belongs to his dad, so Ted has to park it off-base. You need a pass sticker to drive onto any military base here, and you need an ID card if you want to buy anything from a U.S. government store. It’s strict down here, because the country is in what Dad calls “uneasy time,” especially now with President Jimmy Carter about to give the rights to the Canal over to the Panamanian government. Panama is the first place I’ve lived where I feel that I fit in on the base, but I don’t belong anywhere else; not downtown and especially not on the Zone.

“Hot seats,” Ted warns. “Towel in the pit.”

I dig out the towel and fold it over the vinyl before sitting.

“This thing’s such an old hunk of junk.” I sigh as the truck rattles onto the strip. “Plus it smells like hamburgers.”

“This beauty? This is a priceless ’66 Ford pickup you’re talking about—only one year younger than you.”

“Too old.”

“Yeah, well, so’s this stupid road,” Ted grumbles as the truck clanks over a pothole. “Anything that’s non-military gets low priority around here, I’m telling you. Makes me think about joining the army sometimes. Live on a cushy base like Fort Bryan.”

“You’d make the worst soldier, Ted. For one, you’d always be trying to get out of doing work and stuff.”

“So how does that make me different from anyone else in any other job?” He laughs. “I wonder if I’d be a good construction worker, though. I’d like to learn for myself how to fill some of these potholes.”

We bounce and jolt along the roads that separate Fort Bryan from Fort McKenna. The intersections are swarming with slow-walking venders carrying plastic bags of plantains, limes, and scraggly lettuces. Little boys holding sponges and buckets run to the stopped cars, trying to wash a windshield for a quarter.

“Váyate.
” Ted bats his hand out the window. I dig in my side pocket and pull out some change; the boys grab for my money.

“Lane, come on.” Ted snaps. “You give one quarter to one local, you get twenty more holding out their hands. It’s like seagulls.” I know it’s nothing like seagulls, but I keep quiet. Sometimes Ted talks thoughtless like that.

Ted turns onto a back road to get to McKenna; it’s just a strip of dirt that cuts through the jungle. The riding’s actually smoother once we hit the red-packed soil. We drive by a girl and boy, each lugging two plastic milk containers filled with water. The girl stares unsmilingly at our truck but the boy raises one hand and waves and some of his water sloshes out onto the road. I wave back at him. Ted looks irked.

“Wasn’t that local kid asking for a lift?”

“I think he was just waving.”

“They all want lifts, and then they’ll steal your wallet while they’re saying thanks for the ride. You shouldn’t’ve waved.”

“Oh, how many Panamanian kids do you know who have done that to you, stolen stuff from you?” I ask him. Ted scrunches his nose.

“None, but I just know. Locals, man. They hate the Zone and they hate military worse. Think they own the country, just cause they were here first.”

“But they do own—”

“Oh, they do not, not really. They own barely anything.”

“They’ll own the Canal now.”

“That’s a good one. You think the U.S. is really going to hand over the Canal to Panama? It’s just a lot of talk, Lane.” Ted speeds up the truck so that we go flying over a bump and I try to laugh even though going fast always makes me feel sick.

Today marks the second week of November, almost the bottom of 1977. In Rhode Island, where we lived before here, November means cold—a month of bleak sunlight icing the dead grass on our lawn. Down here, November is the rainy season, which means feeling slow and dumb from heat until we’re soaked by the violent relief of a dark afternoon downpour. Right now, though, the sun is screaming hot.

“We live on one of the most boring bases on the Pacific side,” I sigh. “Mom always says the Pacific side’s better than the Atlantic side, since the Pacific side’s close to Panama City with all the good shopping and restaurants. But Fort Bryan’s dull.”

Ted nods. “Yeah, well, it’s a small base. No room for jump grounds or a high school, or a PX or dinner theater like there is on McKenna. But if I had to live on a base, I’d rather do the Atlantic side thing. Gotta love the Caribbean; way better beaches, way cooler scuba.”

“Ugh, I’ll never scuba dive—all those scary fish faces up close.”

“Lane-insane.” Ted shakes his head. “If they took the word scary out of your vocab, you’d be a mute.”

We turn off-road just before Fort McKenna, bumping down the side of a hill so fast that I grip the dashboard. We park just outside the base again, and the walk to the McKenna jump field is enough of a stretch that by the time Dad waves us over, Ted and I are both glazed with sweat.

It looks like almost a hundred people have collected on the field to watch the jump. Everywhere, families lounge on blankets spread over the stubbly grass. A batch of little kids churn up and down the far edge of the field, trying to work a Chinese Dragon kite into the air.

Ted cups his hands over his mouth. “Too much string, kite people!” he yells. “Goofy little squirts,” he says to me.

“Ted!” Dad smiles. He’s sprawled out on a poncho liner. He raises his hand so that Ted can smack him with a high-five.

“Where’s Charlie?” I ask. My eyes scan the sunburnt turf.

“Went to find a bathroom,” Dad says. His eyes are resting on the sky and his hands are propped behind his head. “Sit down, you. I guess Mom made it back in one piece?” He’s teasing me, but I don’t smile. I’m thinking of other things. Last time Charlie and I went to a jump, Charlie swore he’d figure out a way to get Major Brandt to take him up in a plane. My nerves are already jangling.

“When did Charlie leave?” I ask.

“Lane, come on. You heard your dad.” Ted throws himself stomach-down on the poncho and reaches up to tug the hem of my dress. “Sit down with us. It’s so pathetic when you do this.”

“It’s just that last time we went to a jump, he said—”

“We’re not listening to you, Sarah Bernhardt,” says Dad. “Take a seat.”

I drop with a huff, cross-legged, onto the poncho liner. Dad and Mom sometimes call me Sarah Bernhardt, who was some outdated, overdramatic French actress. Since I never saw any Sarah Bernhardt movies, I don’t exactly see the humor and Dad’s comment just makes me mad.

When I was younger, I liked it when people would remark that I was like seeing Dad all over again. I like the way we can find the upper harmony to any song on the radio and know how to throw a Frisbee perfectly flat and how we both write out daily schedules on index cards in one color and then cross each thing off in another color.

Now I stare at my dad’s profile and think about how old he looks. Little tinselly strands of gray sparkle through his dark crew cut, and an age line hooks a path from his nose down to his mouth. I try to imagine him skinny and playing guitar in his college band. I try to picture him calling Mom up for a date, and Mom being all excited and writing her name plus his name with a heart around it, like Rachel Orndorf who’s in my grade and always does that with anyone she thinks is cute.

“I can feel you scowling at me.” Dad speaks without looking my direction. “Watch the sky instead; you’re about to miss it.”

“I am not scowling at you.”

“Watch the sky.”

I hit my chin higher to absorb the sky. Suddenly I see the jump plane; its outline jags a black scar across the thin blue skin of the horizon. I hold my breath as the paratroopers drop, shapeless blots at first like a spray of pea gravel, until their chutes pop and release, billowing into silk bubbles above the specks of the soldier’s bodies. Now they’re easily visible, sinking without noise through the distant air.

“Charlie’s missing it, wherever he may be.” I address Dad, who doesn’t react. “Wherever he may be,” I repeat. “Which is not here.” Dad’s just staring across the field. I follow his eyes to spot Charlie, who’s sprinting toward us. His bad leg kicks out crooked to the side as he runs, like a stork. For a minute Dad’s face looks shocked and sad, and I wonder if Charlie’s leg is making him think back to the accident.

“Charlie,” he shouts. “Over here!” I squint, something’s not right in Charlie’s face. He’s moving fast across the ground, eyes trained on Dad, and his face is twisted up.

“My knees,” he hollers once he’s in earshot. “I skidded in the parking lot.”

“Oh good grief.” Dad climbs to his feet, brushing the grass from his hands. “Lane, stay put, okay? As much as I love watching your hysterics at the sight of blood …” He heads off in a half trot across the field.

“Charlie-horse is one reckless fellow.” Ted laughs. “Should
I
go help?”

“No, Dad’s got it.” He’s crouched down now, examining Charlie’s knees.

“What happened to Charlie?” Ted and I turn at the voice behind us.

“Steph, take a seat.” Ted points to the space on the poncho where Dad had been lying.

“Hi, Steph.” I flutter my fingers in a wave. “He scraped his knees or something. Are you here with your folks?”

“My mom’s over there.” Steph points vaguely behind her and plops down, squeezing into the narrow space between Ted and me. She looks up at the sky. “My dad’s jumping today. He already went.”

“Wow, Steph, guess you make a tasty feast.” Ted pokes his finger against one of Steph’s white legs, which are scattered with blooming pink mosquito bites.

“No kidding. My blood must be gourmet.” Steph presses one of her fingers onto Ted’s leg. “All you ever get’s a tan, Zonie.”

“Steph, remember you’re building the fort with us later on today,” Ted tells her.

“No problemo. Coronado and Kobbe are getting so old. Besides, you should see the fort those winky kids from the other side have built. It’s got a chained door and everything. Rat and I sneaked over to see it the other night.”

Rat Wagner is Steph’s twin brother. His real name is Ray. They’re both in my grade but they fight so much in school that for two years in a row they had to be assigned seats at opposite sides of the classroom. Out of school, Steph and Rat usually stick together like two sides of a coin, although I wouldn’t say they get along, exactly. But at least when they’re not in school one won’t put the other in a headlock over who can do fractions faster or exactly why General Lee lost the battle of Gettysburg.

“Where is the Rat, anyway?” Ted asks.

Steph runs her hand through her rusted-iron colored hair. “He killed a fruit bat,” she exhales all at once, like a confession. “I mean, it must have been sick or something anyway, since it was in plain sight, just lying in our carport this morning. Rat thought it was a rock because he didn’t have his glasses on when he went out to get the paper and he stepped on it and killed it—squished it to death.” Steph makes a noise that I guess is supposed to be the sound of a bat getting squished.

“That’s so sad.” I chew at the skin around my fingernails. “Poor little bat.”

“What’s worse is Rat was barefoot. He’s really upset about the whole thing.”

Ted sort of chokes through his nose and it sounds a lot like a laugh. Steph lifts her eyebrows at him, then continues.

“So he’s home making a coffin and digging a grave for Robin—that’s what he named the bat. I have to go back home soon for the funeral. You know how Rat gets so upset about that kind of stuff, like last summer when those little kids at Fort Hastings were squishing up butterflies to see if they had yellow blood, remember how Rat yelled at them and called all their parents on the phone?”

I nod. “I’ll come back with you, if you want. To go to the funeral.” I feel sorry for the little dead fruit bat, but also sorry for poor old Rat. He acts tough around the edges, but he’s pretty soft in the middle, especially about animals. Softer than Steph, who probably would have put the blame on the bat if she’d been the one to step on it.

“Great. Let me ask my mom if you can come for lunch. Ted, you wanna come too?”

“Actually, I have to get stuff for the fort.” When Steph had mentioned how good the other side’s fort was, Ted got all clenched up. Suddenly he jumps to a stand and walks away from us over to Dad and Charlie.

Steph pushes her lips out like a fish, watching him go. “I think the sky show’s almost over,” she says. “I’m gonna ask my mom about lunch. Be right back.” She darts away, less interested in hanging around since Ted isn’t with us. I stretch out flat on my back on the poncho and close my eyes, letting the sun lash down on me, the strength of its heat planting me into the ground, into sleep. Dr. Forrest used to say that calm moments were better times than crises for meditation, so in my head I start repeating my secret meditation word
vi-ta, vi-ta,
very slow, the way they taught me at the center.

“Check out my knees!” I open my eyes to see Charlie’s standing right over me. “Especially the left one.” The puffy scab on his left knee from when he fell off his bike last week is split open in a thin crooked line, leaking a smear of fresh blood.

I sit up and scoot away from him crabways. “Cut it out, it makes me sick.” Charlie touches some of the blood to his fingers, then flashes them in my face.