Two

My first day out I was sitting under a palm tree like some wasted survivor on a desert island with the typewriter on my lap. Above me I had thumb tacked a big sign: POSTCARDS WRITTEN AND MAILED. ONE DOLLAR

Business was slow. In fact, I hadn’t scored a customer all day. I hadn’t even seen a mirage of a customer, and I was in a bad mood. Every time I looked up to make sure my sign hadn’t blown away, the sun scorched my face and I thought of rats turning my brain into Swiss cheese. I had to make some money before Dad returned.

Pete was sitting next to me. He was so sluggish he looked like a snake propped up on a stick. “Give me a dollar,” he moaned, and stuck out his hand. “I want to buy a Slim Jim.”

He was like BeauBeau, only with a slightly larger brain. “No way,” I snapped back. “Buy it yourself.”

“You own me so you have to take care of me,” he whined, as if it were a law.

“I own you so you have to work for me,” I replied. “Now it is time for you to get your rear in gear. Because if I end up killing rats for a living, you’ll be the first rat I kill.”

“I just want to buy a Slim Jim, then take a swim, then fall asleep under a picnic table.” He pouted.

“Wrong,” I replied. “You will do none of those things. You will put your mind to a moneymaking task.”

He groaned. His head drooped over to one side.

“Let me explain the number-one lesson of life,” I said. “See those people all over the beach?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “So what?”

“Well, millions of years ago the beach was covered with fish with feet.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“Let me spell it out,” I labored, and tapped him on the head. “Once upon a time we were all just single-celled dots in a pool of slimy water. Then we were fish. Then we were fish with feet. Then we were people. And now our next step is to make money. And if you can make lots of money while doing what you love to do, then it automatically means you are a genius. We didn’t go from single-celled slime to people just so we could eat Slim Jims and sleep under a table.”

He looked at his feet, then squinted up at me. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” he said. “No wonder everyone thinks you’re an idiot.”

I almost slugged him, but it wasn’t in my best interest. “Let me spell it out even more,” I said. “If fish didn’t decide they wanted to walk, we wouldn’t be here today.”

“You’ve been out in the sun too long,” he cracked.

I was losing patience. “We’re growing up,” I said.

“No kidding,” he sputtered. “Nobody grows down.”

“I don’t mean that.” I sighed. “I mean it’s time to make something of ourselves. Take the next step. Make some bucks.”

Pete’s eyes glazed over. If I were a book, he was ready to close me.

“The point is all about you and me. Look at it this way. Some fish were dumb. They walked in the wrong direction and died. But the smart ones kept walking from one puddle to the next. The same for us. You and I are—”

“Going from puddle to puddle.”

“There you go again,” I moaned. “Missing the—”

“I have an idea,” he said abruptly.

“That’s it!” I said, encouraging him. “Evolve. Be something. Turn your idea into money.”

“Dad says, It takes money to make money,’” he said, and held his hand out again. “I need to go home and get Dad’s old Polaroid. Then I’ll need ten dollars to get started.”

“Started on what?” I asked. “What?”

“It’s a surprise,” he replied coyly.

“Well, if I’m gonna bankroll your lazy butt,” I stressed, “everything you earn belongs to me.”

“I’ll save you from rats eating your face off,” he said, and made a bucktoothed rat face.

That got me. I gave him the ten.

He jammed it into the pocket of his cutoffs, then began to half flop and half crawl across the sand like a fish with feet. After he had gone about ten yards he turned to grin at me. “When I come back, I’ll have evolved,” he said.

“Yeah. You’ll be a newt,” I muttered under my breath.

As soon as Pete left I opened my black book and began to wonder what awful things I could write about. I looked around the beach. I knew that beneath the normal surface of society lay hidden the twisted underbelly of life. That’s the good stuff I wanted to write about, but everything looked pretty normal from where I was sitting. The lifeguard stood in his orange tower. The tourists were spread out on hotel towels, and after baking under the sun all morning they looked like neon-pink hors d’oeuvres on crackers. The palm readers were setting up their striped tents, and the ice-cream vendors were working the crowd. Nothing looked suspiciously abnormal. I stared at the blank pages of my book and thought, Don’t panic, you’ve always been a magnet for weirdness. Sit tight, it will come your way.

Suddenly a bald guy with a swollen belly and a gold chain around his neck so thick you could anchor a ship on it slogged a path through the sand and stood in front of me. He had on so much suntan lotion he glowed like a freshly glazed donut.

“I want ten cards, dated the next ten days. On each one I want you to make up an excuse why I can’t return to prison on time. And make it believable. You know, like my mother died and I have to attend her funeral. Or they’re throwing me a parade for pulling kids out of a burning building. Stuff like that. I’m on a furlough and I have to send them to my parole officer. Fil pick ’em up after lunch.”

He pulled a folded ten-dollar bill from the little mesh pocket inside the waistband of his stretchy tiger-print swimsuit.

I held out my hand, and he dropped it in. The bill was damp. I’ll sterilize this later, I thought to myself as I smiled up at him.

“Make ’em good,” he warned me. “You have a nice typewriter. I’d hate to see something bad happen to it.”

“Don’t worry about a thing,” I said nervously, then smiled at him as I recited my business jingle. “You go free, and leave the writing to me.”

He marched off, probably to go kick sand on little guys with cute girlfriends.

I gave him ten days of the worst bad luck I could imagine: Sun-poisoning rash on privates from day at nude beach. Stung on eyeballs by man-o’-war. One hundred stitches in foot from stepping on child’s rusty sand shovel. Inner tube swept out to sea by rogue dolphins. Needed blood transfusion after wicked mosquito attack. Witness to a lifeguard mugging. Ear infection from sea monkeys. Amnesia caused by heat stroke. Buried in sand while sleeping and left for dead. Needed hip replacement after crippled by suicide surfer.

I closed the typewriter case with a snap. I figured if my postcard business didn’t work out I could write headlines for the National Enquirer or The Weekly World News.

When he returned he read each one, slowly, with his lips moving. “You have a sick mind, kid,” he declared.

I was thrilled. “I’m going to be a writer,” I said to him. “The sicker the mind, the more money you make.” I held out my hand for a tip.

“I’ll give you a tip,” he said, and ripped the cards in half. “If my parole officer read this junk he’d probably track me down and have me tossed in a padded cell.” He flipped the pieces back over his shoulder and they blew across the sand. “Now give me back my ten-spot.”

“No way,” I said. “I worked really hard.”

He stuck out his open hand. “I’ll count to three,” he growled. “One.”

I stood up. “I did what you asked,” I said.

“Two.”

“I did the best I could. I’m not the governor. I can’t write you out a pardon.”

“Three!” He lunged forward and pulled the typewriter out of my hands.

“No!” I yelled as he spun around and ran down the beach with the typewriter held overhead.

“Come back with that,” I shouted.

I was too late. He waded into the water and heaved the typewriter about twenty feet farther out, past the drop-off. At first the machine, in its closed case, floated and bobbed up and down on the waves. Then slowly it began to tilt to one side and sink, going down like the Titanic. I dove for it. The water was all sandy, and it disappeared before I could reach the spot.

I came up for air and looked back at the bully. He was a big single-celled blob that hadn’t evolved.

“Let this be a lesson to you for now,” he shouted. “I’ll get my ten bucks later.”

I hated people who tried to teach me a lesson. I was going to say something that would probably get me killed, but at that moment I spotted Pete and my mind went spinning out of control.

He was tapping his way across the beach with a fake blind man’s walking stick made out of a painted cane fishing pole. On his face he had a pair of huge wrap-around sunglasses that were tinted so dark I couldn’t see his eyes. Hanging from his neck was the old Polaroid camera. He tapped a few more feet, then hollered, “Get your picture taken. Two dollars. Have a lifetime souvenir of you and your loved ones on Fort Lauderdale beach for only two dollars.”

No wonder Mom was concerned about his behavior. And if Dad found out about this he’d have the stick and I’d be the rat. “Over here!” I hollered, as I dog-paddled toward the shore. “Hey, blind boy, over here!”

“I’ll be right there to take your picture, sir,” he shouted, and waved his arms around. “Don’t move.”

He stirred up the sand with his cane as he clumsily made his way toward me. I wanted to kill him. But then I thought better of punching him in the head in front of people who might really think he was blind. They’d probably beat me to a pulp, and pamper him.

“What are you up to?” I growled when I got my hands on his shoulders.

He rotated his head back and forth, and smiled widely.

“This is not what I meant by evolution,” I said. “What you are doing is criminal. Mark my words,” I stressed. “This is going to lead to trouble.”

“It’ll lead to big money,” he said. “See.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. “I bet you don’t make this from writing postcards.”

I snatched the money out of his hands and began to count. “Wow,” I said. “Sixteen bucks.” I put it in my pocket.

“Some fish were smarter than others,” he replied. “I’m already on my second box of film. Watch this.”

He tapped a zigzag path through the beach crowd. I watched as he whacked a few of the sleeping sunbathers on the butt with his pole. They flipped over with a shout and he began to apologize wildly. Then he acted as if he had gotten turned around and began tapping his way directly toward the crashing waves. The people he had whacked saw him as he sloped down toward the water and they ran to catch him and turn him in the proper direction. I didn’t hear what he said next, but in a moment he had them all lined up and was preparing to take their picture.

I couldn’t stand still any longer. I’ve created a monster, I thought, a deviant fish with no shame.

I arrived in time to hear him say, “Sing out loud and I can aim for your voice.” Then he held the camera up and wiggled it around. One by one they sang like opera stars and, of course, he took a perfect shot. When they saw the result they “ohhed” and “ahhed” over his ability to capture them right in the middle of the picture. He just smiled brightly and said, “It’s a gift.”

He had a lot of nerve. I thought I would burst their bubble and tell them about Pete’s 20-20 vision. But when I saw them reach for their wallets I changed my mind.

“That will be two dollars a picture,” he informed them, and stuck out his hand.

“For his operation,” I pitched in, and winked.

“I take tips,” Pete announced. They shelled out and drifted away. Before I could pry that money out of his hands he said, “Treat you to a Coke and a Slim Jim.”

Now, that was impressive. “You’ve definitely evolved,” I said.

“Money makes you smarter,” he replied. “You should get some.”