Scout’s Honor: Chapter 4

The Catch 

The afternoon was warm: golden on the beach and lazy in the coffee shop where the Riviera Inn’s guests played bridge, swapping diets like recipes, smoking, reminiscing of foods past, gossiping. But for the professional scale against the back wall, the restaurant contained little to suggest a weight-reducing spa, furnished as it was with holdover Polynesian decorations from the Inn’s prior life as the Tiki-Palms Lodge. The picture-windows looked onto the pool where an ill-attended aquacise class was underway. A large woman was weighing herself for the fifth time that day, while a girl of perhaps nineteen sat cross-legged at a booth writing a letter, aloof from the tables of bridge players, pretending not to devour their bawdy conversations. 

The talk ceased when a stunning young man entered, promenaded to the nearest table, and, with an easy smile, asked if Eddie Kawadsky were around. Eight players and one kibitzer answered at once, contradicting and dismissing each other. 

Roy Cross flashed a perfect smile. “Is this, like, a multiple-choice quiz?”

 “His van’s parked behind the kitchen,” the letter-writing girl said. “You might find him there.” 

Eddie heard rock blasting from the parking lot. Striding through the breezeway between the coffee shop and the indoor pool, he saw his boyhood hero Roy Cross preening against the hood of a new Malibu convertible—top down, its car wax glistening circular in the slanting afternoon sunlight. Roy sang along with the Doors, seemingly unaware his singing voice suggested strep throat. Eddie walked around the convertible, admiring the chromed racing wheels, tracing a finger against the fat tires. “Jesus, Roy, you must be dealing a ton to afford this.”

“King. Roy is French for King. Everyone calls me King now.” 

“King’s a dog’s name,” Eddie said, stifling a laugh. Delighted as he was with his one-time idol’s visit, his guard was up. He’d instantly—irrationally—hoped Roy missed him, but knew better. The young men hadn’t been close for years, ever since Roy began his reign as the dope-smoking clown prince of junior high. Living three doors apart, the boys had been inseparable when Eddie was six and Roy eight, but their paths had branched far from one another. As the years passed, Roy had come to view Eddie as a playmate of last resort, almost never seeking him out. Eddie had been saddened by the loss, but understood he had no place in Roy’s sybaritic beach life. 

“Good to see you, dude.” Sliding off the hood, Roy frowned. “Whoa, I used to be way taller than you. What are you? 6’2?”

“6’3.”. What are you doing here, King?”

“Did you hear the one about the dumb priest who goes to the head nun, ‘Sister, what’s a blow job?’ She goes, ‘Ten bucks, same as downtown.’” 

Eddie shook his head at the old joke, chuckled at Roy’s full-throated laughter, warming despite himself to his old friend’s vulgar charm.

“You want to catch some waves?” Roy asked. “Come on.”

“No, I’ve got to study.” But Jonnie’s words tugged at him. He should have more fun. 

“Come on, Wad, you know you want to,” said Roy, using the nickname he’d saddled Eddie with years earlier. 

Eddie had an hour before he had to set up the Sea Grotto bar for the nightly cocktail hour, the hour he served sliced vegetables and diet drinks to the ravenous guests. He grinned and said OK. He stepped behind his van, snapped off his tie, pulled his shirt over his head, dropped his slacks, and slipped on his trunks. He grabbed his fins and a tattered Inn towel. 

They picked their way through the dunes onto the apron of gray-speckled sand. The beach was alive with vacationers, locals with night jobs, ankle-deep parents watching their toddlers play tag with the tide, soaked children shrieking with delight, teenagers entwined on blankets. Smells of mustard, chili dogs, and Coppertone carried on the breezes as the gently rumbling surf muffled sounds of ball games and rock and roll. A pack of boys played touch football amid a volley of Frisbees. 

 “What’s doing with you, Wad? You must be getting it night and day with all those lonely, starving chicks moping around. You just go, ‘Whoa, babe, this sausage ain’t fattening.’” 

“I’m working full time, going to school at night,” Eddie said glumly, knowing he was the ant to Roy’s grasshopper in Aesop’s fable, perhaps wishing the industrious ant wasn’t such a stiff. 

Roy took off running at the water’s edge, seeking to reestablish his dominance over the neighborhood boy he’d always envied. Each time Roy’s father told him he should be more like Eddie—more respectful and hardworking—his resentment hardened. The father who’d never loved him thought the world of Eddie Kawadsky. 

“Want to get high?” Roy asked. 

“No, I have to be back at work in an hour.”

“Then let’s hit the waves.” 

An excellent swimmer, Eddie loved bodysurfing. He had been an all-conference water polo player, and had his world not imploded at the beginning of his senior year, he might have been offered a scholarship to a lesser university. He powered through the small swells like a cormorant chasing fish. With a gap-toothed grin, he jumped a wave, raced ahead of its break, and—popping up in the foam—shook his long, curly brown hair and looked about for Roy. Eddie saw the back of his head, hidden at first behind the following swell, about thirty yards out—beyond the break—and swam to him. Just as he reached him, Roy spun around and blew a cloud of smoke in his face. 

“Want a hit, man?” 

Startled, Eddie took the joint, if only to keep it dry. “How did you do it?” 

“Toke first. Talk later.” 

Laughing at Roy’s trick, Eddie took a hit, but didn’t inhale. He handed the joint back, treading water effortlessly. Roy sucked down a monster hit and insisted he take another. Inhaling for real, Eddie fumbled the joint on his hand-off. 

“Sorry, Roy, I mean, your Highness.” Eddie laughed, his thoughts loosening. “Get it, King? Highness? Tell me how you did it? How you kept it dry?” 

Roy fished his hand below the surface and brought forth a thumb-sized steel cylinder, a waterproof match container. “Thought you were the only Boy Scout, dude? Be prepared. Always keep it in my suit—makes my dick look bigger.” 

Twenty minutes later, the two lay on the warm sand, Eddie unraveled by the pot, lost in a daydream.

 “This is a blast, man. Just like old times, Wad, old times,” Roy gushed, as he sat up to brush out his blond hair. He had to sell Eddie fast. “We should do this again soon. Hey, I have an idea. We go down to Mexico, do some real waves, not this chickenshit soup. 39 has the righteous waves. Yeah? That’d be cool. If we take your van, we camp right there. A little bonfire, fish tacos, some smoke, and the Mexican stars are like a light show. I’ll score a couple señoritas for us. Cool, huh? You listening, Wad?” 

Eddie was wiggling his toes in the sand—thinking the unthinkable—dreaming about screwing a woman his mother’s age, the youth of no experience aching to touch her long limbs. Roy’s purring was distant, indistinguishable, another instrument in the shoreline’s symphony. 

“You know what sucks?” Roy asked, pressing a little harder. He knew his pitch was perfect, but Eddie wasn’t catching. “Some Mex charges a buck and half if you leave your car at 39 overnight. Does that suck or what? Let’s do it, bud. I’ll pop for the buck fifty.”

Eddie lay scrunched down, face on the towel, hands shaping and cupping warm sand breasts, the leggy Jonnie panting beneath him. He heard Roy from far away.

“Are you listening, man? What do you say? Mexico—let’s do it. You and me, the dynamic duo together again.” Irritated, unaccustomed to being ignored, Roy shifted his position, reminding himself to work his tan. Eddie had to come to Mexico—everything depended on it—but now the dick was too cool to answer him. Roy nursed his useful resentment: Eddie was now taller, better muscled, and on his way. Frowning, Roy slunk to the water’s edge, needing to think. He had spent his life on the beach, from sunrise to sundown, waxing his board, acting older to fit in. He’d been prized first as a mascot, then as a leader, smoking cigarettes, dope, taking pills, drinking beer, wine, anything wet. And always surfing, always partying. The beach party would be endless if he saw his plan through. In his dreams, Roy acquired wealth with ease, winning big in Vegas or tripping over an egg-sized diamond. He scuffed at the packed, wet sand. Something was off. The score of a lifetime was only days away, yet his stomach ached. Was it the backwash of happy memories, simple times playing together as kids? Could he really set up Wad to take the fall? He consoled himself with the thought that the Eagle Scout with his unblemished record wouldn’t do more than a couple years of hard time. Despite the day’s warmth, Roy shivered, flicked his golden hair, and padded up the beach. 

 “C’mon, Wad,” he said, returning to Eddie. “My dope’s not that good. Don’t you have to be back at Fat City?” 

“What? What time is it? Oh, shit. I’m late.” Eddie staggered to his feet and sprinted toward the public showers with Roy chasing after him. He stood beneath the corroded shower tree’s miserable trickle, wiping away the sand with one hand while holding the shower chain down with the other. He pulled his trunks from his flat stomach to let the water run down his crotch, flushing out the sand.

“Are you in? Two days of K-39, no ties, no fat chicks, just righteous times. Let’s do it, man.”

“I can’t.”

“OK, Wad, time to pull out the big guns: You owe me. Where’d you stay after you ended up on the street? Whose mother fed you and did your laundry? She even nursed you through the flu.”

“I owe your mom, not you,” said Eddie. He did owe him, he thought, even if Roy had barely acknowledged him during the two months he’d lived in the Crosses’ spare bedroom. Contemplating their shared past and his debt, he sighed. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch, man.” 

“My ass,” Eddie called, laughing over his shoulder. There was always a catch with Roy. He still shuddered over the time when, as a ten-year-old, he’d been caught shoplifting a couple candy bars at the Thrifty Drug Store, a crime he’d committed at Roy’s urging. 

“OK. OK. The catch is we take your van. The Malibu would be toast if we took it. Fucking Mexicans. Besides, it’s easier to pop the boards in this old dude.” He patted the van like a dog.

“Tell me the truth, Roy. I’m not running any dope. No bullshit.”

“It’s King. OK, no bullshit. Absolutely no risk and you get, like…” He paused to consider pricing. “… a grand for surfing. A thousand bucks for driving—”

“No way. Oh, shit, shit, shit,” Eddie said, strapping on his Timex. “Jonnie will kill me.” 

“What’s wrong?” Roy asked, telling himself to stay cool. Wad would buy in. 

“What’s wrong is doing some crazy dope deal with you.” Eddie clipped on his polyester tie.

“But this is two hundred percent safe.” Roy explained that his partner Tommy Mahoney was a customs inspector who checked cars coming in from Tijuana and how Roy sailed right past him every time with a load. Now Tommy was getting weird—turning into an old lady—thinking Roy too flashy and his cars too wild, so he needed a new driver. “The dude is paranoid, man, but he calls the shots. I’ve got to use his lane. His freaking out is your gain.”

“It can’t be that easy.” Eddie remembered the border’s long lines, the exhaust-fueled smog, the stooped peddlers wandering among the cars with their serapes and velvet-painted bullfight scenes.

“Promise you won’t tell anybody, ever. Promise?” Roy urged. He could sell crows to a farmer. 

“Yeah,” said Eddie. 

“These guards rotate all day long, every hour, and it’s supposed to be anonymous, but Tommy broke the code and he can figure out which lanes he’ll get. Don’t trust me, don’t believe one word, just meet Tommy. OK? We’ll go to the A&W tomorrow? If you just meet Tommy, you don’t owe me a thing. We’d be totally cool. Deal?”

“And you’ll never ask me another favor?”

“Swear to god.” Roy hesitated a moment, flashed his shark smile, and pulled a roll of bills from a blue Maxwell House coffee can under the driver’s seat. “Do me this favor—take an advance.” 

“No. Put that away. I’m not doing it.”

“Come on, you know you want it.” He twisted a rubber band off the roll and peeled off bills. “If you don’t go, you can pay me back when you feel like it. This can’s jammed anyway.” Roy savored this fleeting self-image, giving money outright, his generosity softening the torment that had seized him on the beach. 

Eddie grabbed his hand. “Put that goddamn money away.”

“Cool, no problemo. But you can at least do this for me… for old time’s sake.”

“What?” Eddie shoved his hands deep into his pockets, as if that could thwart temptation. 

“Take the Malibu.” He tossed the keys. “I got to look at a car I might buy. Maybe have to drive it home. Tommy can bring me tomorrow. It’d be a big favor.”

Eddie rolled the keys in his hand. “OK, but I won’t drive it. I mean, I’ll drive it to meet you, but that’s it.”

“Whatever, dude. Take it to Frisco or let it rust. Later.” With a flip of his hair, Roy turned toward Orange Avenue, swinging the Maxwell can, wondering whether he really should buy another car. He assumed a hitchhiker’s stance at the curb, yet left his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, a study in surfer nonchalance. He remembered he had to talk to the crooked cop Schmidt, shivering at the thought. He still had plenty of time—tomorrow would be better. He’d have to get really high first, dealing with that dick was such a bummer. A Ford Fairlane braked a few yards past him. Roy nodded and sauntered toward it.

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