War and Watermelon

They had another night swim tonight, but there was no sign of Patty and Janet.

“They can’t make it too obvious,” Tony says as we’re walking up the hill. “Believe me, they know what they’re doing.”

The sun is down, but there’s still a bit of light. I’m dragging my butt, worn out from another hard practice. It cooled off about a quarter degree, so the coaches had us running lots of laps and sprints.

My hair is dripping; we were the last ones out of the pool at nine, and the lifeguards hustled us through the gate in a hurry.

As we get near my house, we see Ryan and my father in the driveway. My dad is yelling at Ryan, but not loud enough that we can hear him. He yells in a way that doesn’t carry, but it pierces.

“Right.” I hesitate for a few seconds, then head up our sidewalk.

“Do you have any idea how hot it gets in that car during the day?” Dad is saying. “It’s been in the nineties all week; it’s probably been a hundred and forty in the car.”

“She didn’t make you leave it in my backseat for the hottest week of the year!”

The back hatch is open. Ryan reaches in and grimaces as he lifts out a dripping chunk of green and brown goop.

“It’s bad enough you put your little brother in jeopardy with that all-night stunt at the hippie circus,” Dad says. “But you stink my car up to high heaven with a rotten corpse.”

“Oh, hell’s bells, Ryan. You’re the one who left the stupid melon in there.”

Ryan keeps pulling bits of the melon out of the back and tossing them over the hedges that line the driveway.

“Keep the hatch open all day tomorrow so the sun can shine on that spot,” Dad says. “Make sure it doesn’t rain.”

Dad goes in the house. Ryan flicks a bit of rotten melon at me and smiles.

We take a seat on the curb. Ryan starts laughing. “Dad drove down to the hardware store after dinner. He said he’s driving around wondering what smells so bad. So he rolls up the windows because he figures it must be outside. It got so bad in the car he almost puked.”

I turn and look at the station wagon. Even from eight feet away I can smell it. “It is pretty bad.”

“It’s disgusting. But nobody’s even moved the car since we got back.”

Mom walks to the swim club every day, and she does the food shopping on Friday mornings. Dad got his beer for the week on Saturday afternoon when the melon was still intact. So the thing had the better part of a week to go bad in there without anybody noticing.

Dad comes out of the house with a bucket of soapy water and a brush. He’s also got two cans of Rheingold and one of Shop-Rite lemon soda cradled against his chest. He puts the bucket next to the car and hands me the soda. He nods to Ryan and sets a beer on the hood of the car, then pops open his own and takes a long swig.

Ryan starts scrubbing. Dad sits on the curb next to me with a giant grin. He holds up his beer and says, “Cheers, LaZekiel.”

“You got an opener?” I ask. The beers have pop-tops, but the soda doesn’t.

He nods and reaches into the pocket of his shorts for the opener. “Put some elbow grease into that,” he says to Ryan, but his voice is way different now, like he’s joking around.

“Nothing like the smell of rotten melon on a summer evening,” Ryan says. “It’s kind of poetic, you know? The moon, the crickets, the unbelievably nauseating aroma.”

“It’s one of the true natural wonders,” Dad says, going along with the new direction of the conversation. He stands and steps over to the car, inspecting Ryan’s work.

“Dump that in the gutter,” Dad says, pointing to the bucket. “Sit down and take a load off.”

Ryan dumps the suds, and the water rushes down the hill. “That one mine?” he asks, pointing to the beer on the hood.

So we sit on the curb, our legs stretched out into the street, and look up at the stars. Dad points out constellations.

“There’s Orion,” he says. “And the Big Dipper, of course.” He motions toward the horizon with his beer. “That one’s Brody, the horse’s ass. And over there”—he points above the neighbor’s house—“that’s Ryan, the wandering knucklehead.”

“They were losing the last I checked,” Dad replies. “They’ve won six straight, though.”

“Don’t blink,” I say. “Before you know it they’ll lose six in a row.”

Dad leans back and winks at Ryan. “How’d your little brother turn into such a pessimist?” he asks.

“Beats me,” Ryan says. “Come on, Brody. You gotta believe. This is their season. I’m feeling it.”

A car goes by, way too fast for this street, and we pull our legs in. “Slow down, Henry!” Dad says. He calls every bad driver Henry. I don’t know if that’s out of the Bible or what. Maybe he saves all the biblical names for me.

Ryan takes a swig of his beer. “I don’t want to kill people,” he says softly, jumping into that conversation they’ve been having all summer. It’s always there, even if a week goes by without any real talking. “I sure as hell don’t want to be forced to kill people.”

Dad hesitates and looks down the hill. “You have an option,” he says.

“Yeah,” Ryan says softly, “but that’s being forced on me, too. I’m not ready for college. Cowards avoid conflict. I’m not avoiding anything.”

Dad shakes his head slowly. “Well, I guess you’re trying to make sense. . . . Not quite succeeding, though.”

We’re quiet until the cans are empty. The crickets are even louder now. The night feels cooler for a change, but the mosquitoes are swarming anyway.

“It’d be different if the war was here,” Ryan says. “If they were trying to kill Mom or Brody or Jenny. I’d be first in line then. But I ain’t about to get ambushed over in that swamp . . . get a bayonet stabbed between my ribs. Why the hell are we even over there?”

Dad scrunches up his face in a frown. “It’s complicated,” he says.

We sit there for another ten minutes or so until Dad stands up and yawns. He holds out a hand and pulls Ryan to his feet. They look at each other for a few seconds, not glaring this time, just looking.

I get up on my own and head inside to see if I can catch the end of the Mets game.