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IT WAS A FEW MORNINGS later when P.J. returned from the hospital. He had stitches in his leg that climbed up at a slant. A fine laceration that flared out jagged and messy as though the author of it felt rushed and frustrated. Dennis drove him to their apartment and P.J. went off into his bedroom to lay down without a word.
In the hospital everyone discussed how intense the attack was. How it must've taken the child. How nobody had ever seen a feeding frenzy of that magnitude. The boat was devoured. But these claims, incorrect as they were, weighed heavy on P.J.'s chest. He knew what had occurred was not just a shark attack, but his mind couldn't suss out the truth. He came close though. Eyes closed and concentrating on what happened. The thread neared the needle's eye but just glanced it or folded unto itself. Everyone else's subconscious was afraid and aware of the horrors that lay submerged and so they walked around with a pall of ignorance draped over their unbelieving faces. Doubting Toms huddled shoulder to shoulder. Their sanity kept intact just barely by their deep inner psyche turning a blind eye, refusing, refusing, refusing.
But P.J. knew he had seen monsters down there, in that water, and he knew that somehow, some way, Rory was involved. He knew it was a targeted attack and he knew that whatever slammed his boat did so with intent and calculation. He pored over the details of the night and he started to sweat and grow queasy. He wanted to hobble to the bathroom but he didn't have the strength. His breath was shallow. He repeated the words "It was a shark attack" over and over again trying to pull apart the sound and dissect the syllables to unlock the truth behind it but the effort, this fruitless effort, manifested itself as vomit, over the edge of the bed, splattering onto the carpet.
Dennis rushed towards the door but it was locked. He heard P.J. retch and he jiggled the knob, but it wouldn't give.
"Are you okay in there?" Dennis shouted into the wood of the door.
There was some more retching.
"Are you alright?" Dennis shouted again.
"I'm fine..." Came the voice from the other side. Weak. Sick.
"Maybe you should unlock this door. Just in case anything happens."
There was no sound and Dennis pressed his ear closer.
"Maybe you should unlock this door," he said again.
Then he heard P.J. rustle in the bed. He saw the light under the door go black.
Dennis walked into the kitchen and made himself a drink with rum and pineapple juice, and he stood on the balcony to drink it. It was cold and tangy and it cut the rum right. The view from their balcony looked right into the parking lot of a beach diner next door. It was a cheap little surf shack. Light blue roof. Surfboards along the exterior. Yellow louvered windows. He could see on to the cheap roof and he watched people go in and out and if people sat in the booth at the end he could sometimes see what they were eating. He struggled to get his mind off P.J. He added more rum to his drink and he downed it and then made another.
He replayed the incident. The thought of losing his brother brought him to tears and his eyes watered up but he turned his head to the sea breeze and blinked them away. It unnerved him how the sea could simply go on with its routine. Rising and retreating. Like clockwork. Each wave lapping over itself. The seagulls looking for scraps. It all went on, like nothing had happened. For however long the earth had been blue this was the case. Nothing mattered to it. It was a breathing giant undisturbed by the toiling of men.
The only other time he feared for his brother's life was when they were both much younger. They were playing hide-and-seek in the backyard of their old house, the one back on the mainland. Dennis was searching for P.J. It was a Florida summer afternoon. The grass was dark green and the sky had deep clouds moving in. A storm was coming. Dennis found P.J. in the shed where they kept the shovels and rakes and to assert some sort of dominance, instead of opening the flimsy wooden door and ending the game, Dennis locked it. The lock was makeshift at best but it still held P.J. inside. It was a metal hinge that their dad put a big nail in and it would keep the door from opening. Dennis brought the nail down with a loud clunk and ran away inside and soon the deep black clouds broke over them all. The downpour was torrential and the power shut out and mom called for the kids to show themselves but only Dennis showed up. The rain easily made it through the cracks of the flimsy shed and inside of it P.J. cowered in the mud. The shovels and rakes rattled with every clap of thunder as if they themselves were rain sticks bringing the storm faster and harder. The mom scolded Dennis in the darkness of the living room, the open blinds letting in gray light to mix with candles. Dennis cried and he turned to run but mom grabbed his collar and Dennis cried more feeling that his brother was already dead and he pointed hopelessly in the direction of the shed in the backyard. The mom looked and shouted and slapped Dennis hard and ran outside to find her eldest.
And now, standing on a balcony that looked over a shitty diner, Dennis grew bleary on his rum drinks. He finished the glass and made another and this is how it went until the sky began to drizzle over the island and, in a drunken haze, Dennis called his mother. But she didn't pick up. It wasn't her number anymore. So fruitless was the effort yet he did not realize.
A moment passed and Dennis stayed quiet. He needed to tell someone. He wanted the validation. He thought that if he could bring about panic in his mother, then maybe there truly was something to panic about. That deep murkiness inside him, the pendulum swinging from certainty to uncertainty needed this. He needed to know a fear not just his own or his brother's, shaking and drunk and trying to explain what he saw several nights ago.
He imagined his mother standing up. Her pacing. But he didn't know what he would say. Would he call it a shark attack or would he call it something else? To him, that was the most important part. To say what it was and seal it as truth in his mind and in his heart. If he could get his mother to be afraid, then he could allow himself to be afraid, because for some reason P.J.'s fear wasn't enough. He wanted it from his mother far away as she was.
"There was a shark attack," he said aloud to the breeze and water. To nobody but himself. The words were taken by the wind, scattered pointless and absurd. Dennis paused. He didn't feel different. The pendulum still swung.
He dialed her once more, but she didn't pick up. He will never speak to her again and the memory that will stay the freshest, the most vivid, will be the shed and the storm. And this will haunt him.
Dennis walked back to his room drunk. He swayed like the ocean. And then he took a nap, closing his eyes and turning away from the day.
They did in fact tell their father what happened, or rather, there was an attempt. He was on the west coast at the time helping with other hotels and beach businesses. P.J. struggled to explain it over the phone, coming up short in breath and with his voice cracking before sinking into silence. And when Dennis took the phone he assured his dad everything was fine. The leg got its due stitches and P.J. could still walk on it well enough once fully healed. It was Dennis who told his father not to panic and not to come visit.
With his eyes closed, lying in bed, Dennis wondered why he refused their father's visit – why he talked him out of it while P.J. slept in the hospital bed. He decided that it reminded him too much of when they were children. How often they ran to help P.J. who was scared and crying. Dennis imagined a connection between himself and their father regarding P.J., and possibly, Dennis feared, its basis was mutual resentment. Years ago when P.J. was out of ear shot, Dennis and their father would joke and say phrases like scaredy cat and spazz. But even more so, Dennis needed to take care of P.J. without their father. Dennis needed to feel in charge.
Besides, their father had exhausted his tank of empathy. He'd show up and go through the motions of course. The pat on the shoulder. The reaffirming voice. But it'd all be for show, almost an obstacle more than anything. Even if this particular incident had resulted in real danger and wasn't just in P.J.'s mind, the father would deliver it all the same. That's why Dennis wanted his mother. If she came out of whatever corner of the earth she was hiding in and acted scared, acted terrified, and cried at the foot of P.J.'s bed, kissing his wound, and running his bath, then just maybe their father would be actually scared, and just maybe Dennis would too.
It was four in the afternoon when Dennis woke up. Everything was dark and outside was the sound of heavy rain and for one second he thought he was a child again. He had never grown up and the shed still creaked and moaned and his brother still screamed inside like a toy in a chest.
No sunlight broke through the polyester curtains. They were thick to keep the shoreline dark so the turtles could lay their eggs. And now he sat there in the darkness staring at the one narrow line of gray light where the curtains didn't meet. But then the doorbell rang and Dennis listened to see if P.J. would get up but no sound came.
At the door was Nina. She was wearing jean shorts and pink sandals and a wet shirt. Her hair was wet too. Dark rivers that stuck to her cheeks and shoulders.
"Can I help you?" Dennis asked. He didn't recognize her.
"Does P.J. live here? He does right?"
"Who are you?"
"I'm Nina... We met at Santiago's a few weeks back. Me and P.J. hit it off. And we came back here," she said. The implication that they screwed was packed in the statement like awkward luggage.
"Oh. Right."
"Are you okay? Is now a bad time?"
"No, you're fine. What's up?"
"Can I talk to P.J.?"
"He actually is in bed now. There was a shark attack and his leg got nabbed."
It sounded better now. It landed and Nina's expression made Dennis feel a type of way. It wasn't carried off in the breeze this time. It was here to germinate.
"Holy fuck, he got bit by a shark?" Nina said. There was the panic Dennis wanted. Something real, if not quite tangible. Still not his mother though.
"No, he got cut by glass on a boat and,” he stopped. Thought about everything he’d have to say. Everything he felt comfortable saying. “Look, it's a long story. But he got stitches and now he's feeling pretty sick I guess."
"Well it was raining and I was passing by so I ducked in here. Then I remembered this was his place so I thought I'd see if he wanted to eat next door," she explained. "I know how it sounds, but I promise I'm not like a psycho or anything."
"It's cool. I get it. It's a small island, everyone knows where everyone lives."
"Exactly. Right."
There was a pause. She held herself in the doorway cold from the rain. Her eyes moved around Dennis and surveyed the apartment behind him. It was like she didn't recognize it. Something was new. There was a different aura, something dark and chthonic dripping from the ceilings and soaking into the carpet.
"Don't bother him for me," she said. "I'll come by some other time a little less impulsive." She smiled and then Dennis saw it. She was sweet and he could understand why P.J. took her home. She was different than most of the girls he was around. Just by the way she spoke and carried herself it was like she knew her feet were on Earth and she knew the space she occupied. And as such, she was confident, but humble. She looked Dennis in the eyes and he could tell it was her habit to do so. He could envision a world where she woke P.J. up from nightmares and was happy to do it. But still, Dennis didn't want that for anyone. For some reason, he felt like it was his responsibility and nobody else's. The brother and his pain chained to his back for eternity. Climb the hill and die. Brood your resentment. Love him all the same. It'll never be settled, never really. Such is the ballet of siblings.
Then Dennis said goodbye and she left and a soft scent went with her. A scent he didn't know was there, something making the room feel fresh and warm, but now gone. Its absence felt more than its presence.
Dennis closed the door. After a second, he looked through the peephole at her. Her back was turned but she remained there. Then she walked away. Alone again, he walked to P.J.'s door and pressed an ear against it. There was a light snoring. Dennis felt good about it. He walked to his room and sat in his dark bed. The ceiling fan spun quickly. It gave a slight whir was barely audible over the rain outside. Dennis fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep. He had a nightmare and when he woke up it was night.
He got out of bed and went to P.J.'s door again. He listened. There was still a slight snoring. Dennis pulled away from the door and walked back to the balcony. The rain was still steady and the balcony was taking on a centimeter of water before pooling over the side. From the glass sliding door he looked at the diner on the street. He decided he was hungry and went and locked the door behind him.
He ordered a burger and a beer and ate in silence. The place was decorated in nineteen-fifties surfer décor. The booth he sat in was teal and chrome and the floor was checkered white and black. It looked like an Edward Hopper painting. A Beach Boys version of Nighthawks. He sat in the booth closest to the apartment and he ducked his head to see his balcony. Behind the sliding glass door was his brother. P.J. stood there on the other side, the rain distorting him, blurring his edges, but he looked afraid of what fell from the sky. He was holding himself and looking out past the glass into the void and he shook his head slowly as if making up his mind about something. Dennis put down his burger and watched his brother up above. He half expected him to open that door and leap off the edge but he didn't. He just stood there and held himself.
Back inside the two sat on the couch and watched TV. There was a tension in the room and Dennis wanted to ask what happened but he was afraid P.J. was not going to say shark attack. If he said something else, it would take the flooring from under his feet. He'd fall. Spiral. Panic.
"How's your leg feeling?"
"I have to limp a little, but I think it's healing," P.J. replied.
The rain grew heavier and it started to rattle the windows. Dennis thought of the shed.
"Nina came by."
"Who?"
"Nina."
"She came? Looking for me?"
"Yeah, I guess so. She said she ducked from the rain and then just thought she'd come up and say hi, but I told her you were sick so she left."
"This is when I was sleeping?"
"Yeah," Dennis said.
P.J. thought of something but kept quiet. He turned back to the television.
"So, uh, you know with the boat being gone," Dennis started, "We kind of have to decide what the hell we're going to do, you know? Like, are we gonna get different jobs at the Seashell? Jobs somewhere else? Maybe we can collect the insurance on the boat and get a bet-
"I'm going home," P.J. interrupted.
"What?"
"I'm going home. I'm going back home. I'll stay with dad and I'll get a job there. But I'm going home."
The rain picked up even more and when thunder clapped in the sky Dennis saw P.J. flinch. Right now, P.J. had had enough, and nobody could blame him. He had first-hand experience of destruction and chaos of the likes he had never known. And the possibility that it could happen again (which it absolutely will) petrified him from ever nearing another body of water. Part of the reason why P.J. was so afraid, was because there were no rules about what was going on. He had no knowledge of precedence and he had no idea what guidelines they were operating in, and because of this, everything seemed like fair game. He figured that rather than lose the game horribly; it'd be best to just forfeit and not play. He didn't owe heroics to anybody and he didn't have anything to prove or even anybody to save. He wouldn't let himself be trapped by illusory responsibilities. Not like this. And when he remembered having night terrors and Dennis running down the halls to wake him, and when he remembered the Bog Man by the lake, and when he remembered all of the times he was terrified, crying in the dark of his bedroom,, it all fell into place. There were two types of horror. Those he could make sense of and those he couldn't and right now the line had been drawn.
"How are you just going home?" Dennis asked. For him, the problem was a little bit different. All the horrors needed to be on the same side of the line because as soon as you acknowledge the other side, you lose. That other side? Please no. Please, God, no. Not that other side.
"There's some serious shit going on here."
There was a beat.
"It was just a shark attack," Dennis said. The line. Keep it on that side of the line please.
"Don't say that." Pushing it to the other side.
"But it was," Dennis insisted.
"What the fuck kind of shark attack was that then? Huh? What sharks did that?"
"I don't fucking know," Dennis erupted, "But that's what it was, right? Everyone's saying it." He stood in anger. He marched to the kitchen. He didn't know why but he couldn't sit down.
"I almost died, Dennis, and you're mad I want to leave? Are you crazy? Do you want me to die?"
The question struck Dennis a heavy blow and he put his hand to his stomach like he actually felt it. "Of course I don't want that. How can you even ask that?" The shed rattled, but the line held strong.
"I'm leaving."
"But...," Dennis stammered. P.J. was afraid of something that Dennis couldn't acknowledge. If he did, then everything would melt right in front of his eyes. P.J. had some cosmic horror spinning in his head and in his soul and if he imparted it onto Dennis, then Dennis would crumble. It would give credence to every situation when P.J. screamed and hollered. If this horror were real, they all might as well be. Every single one. And Dennis would lose that fight hard.
"But what? I'm not going to stick around and try to make sense of what happened. Not when I can just leave."
"What are you making sense of? It was some sharks that are hanging around on the beach." Dennis knows he should let P.J. go. He should let him go home where it's safe and where he feels safe, and, moreover, he should go with him. But if he does then he's admitting that something out there is bigger and scarier than he's prepared for. And he can't do that. Dennis takes care of P.J. That's always how it's been. Run down the halls. See the ghosts. See the muck. Wake him up. Wake him up. Redemption from the shed. Wake him up. Wake him up.
"No, no, this is so much bigger than that and you know it. Haley and Wes are fucking gone and –
"Dude, you didn't even know them!" Dennis grasped at anything he could. He felt P.J. slipping away through his fingers. He can't wake him up this time.
"And then I saw him, man, I saw him coming out of the water. But you didn't believe me. I saw him that first night staring at our boat. I was there when he came onto the boat. Then we heard that he was throwing chum off the edge of the pier. Then Haley and Wes disappeared and then I see that dude crawl out of the water? From absolutely nowhere? Then that little boy goes missing and when I go and check it out I get ransacked by... by -
"You're drawing imaginary lines. None of that stuff is connected. How the hell could it be? It doesn't make any sense!"
P.J. looked at Dennis. He was too tired to fight. He struggled and stood up. His leg throbbed. He had tears welling up in his eyes.
"Don't you get how that's the scariest part?"
P.J. hobbled slowly to Dennis. He put his hand on his brother's shoulder.
"We gotta get off this island, man. We gotta go far away. We gotta go far inland and stay away from this beach."
Dennis looked into P.J.'s eyes. His curls were getting too long. Looked like their mom.
"What's keeping you here?" P.J. asked
A moment of introspection. Perhaps a moment of clarity. No. The pendulum in Dennis swung with violence. He had to stay. He had to confirm that whatever was here was something fathomable and comprehendible. Those ideas. Those cosmic, otherworldly ideas, the ones that have been festering down below for eons, those were garbage. He would never agree that something sat right there, on the edge of his shore, that he didn't understand. But he looked at P.J. and the swinging inside ramped up. He couldn't verbalize it. Not like this. And the intense swinging proved too much and he burst into tears and started sobbing into P.J.'s chest and the two brothers embraced under the fluorescent light of the kitchen and the storm raged on louder and then just barely audible, in between sobs, one said to the other, "I was so afraid."
Part 2