Chapter 2

Paul’s turn:

At the time this all happened I considered it to be me getting used to the neighborhood, such as it was, and the friendship of Barb was just a little part of it.

And I can always use a couple of liters of home made ginger ale. The house smelled good, too, sealed up and air conditioned against the late summer heat.

I resorted to bachelor chow – ramen noodles – for my dinner, then dove back into the possible novel I was working on. I forced a couple of thousand words out, not really happy with the work, then shut it down for the night. There’s a couple of hours before bedtime, maybe a movie, maybe a documentary, coupled with online browsing and reading.

And just because I’m in bed by ten-thirty doesn’t mean I won’t wake up and work madly in the wee hours of the morning. It happens pretty often.

Didn’t happen tonight. I woke up a bit before seven, did myself a couple of English muffins, one with an egg, the other with orange marmalade, for breakfast while a carafe of coffee brewed. When it was done I moved myself downstairs with my laptop to listen to the world coming alive. Well, to be honest I should’ve gotten down here a little earlier to hear the world wake up.

I was sipping coffee and staring at the last line I’d written when I heard Barb.

“D’ya mind if I sit in that other chair? I brought a book.”

“C’mon,” I said. “What are you reading?”

“It’s a civil war history.”

“You’re reading that for fun?”

“Grampa said it was a good book. I’m giving it a chance.”

“Admirable. Be careful, though. Reading non-fiction may make your brain swell.”

Grand smirk. “So does reading sci-fi and fantasy cause it to shrink?”

I laughed. “My stories are very therapeutic.”

“Escapism,” she smirked.

“And reading about a war a century and a half ago isn’t escapist in its own right?”

Her eyes twinkled. “That’s an interesting idea. I may analyze it.”

I’m new to this ‘Barb’ thing so I’m mulling over the whole conversation right up to the prospect of analysis. Nothing seems to fit and I’m sorting things into categories of ‘special’.

Still, I glance sideways at her lounging with that book open. Benign. Maybe pleasant is the word. I look back at that last sentence and suddenly words come out that actually push the story forward. I resume typing at near my peak speed, a sentence, then a paragraph, then another paragraph.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, leaned back.

“You really got into it, didn’t you?”

I looked over at her, book folded on her chest. “Yes, that was a couple thousand words.”

“What’s it about?”

“Tired old soldier tries to retire in peace in a remote colony on a remote planet in a faraway solar system.”

“You know it’s been done, huh?”

“You think?”

“Maybe not in sci-fi, but there are only so many stories, Gramma says. So you add spaceships and aliens and stuff, you get to reuse the old story.”

“What made you so smart?”

She smiled. “Just told you. Gramma. At least when it comes to literature.”

“Precocious,” I said.

“Maybe. That might be on the stack along with that ‘on the spectrum’ thing. I’ve heard I’m hard to measure, but I know about schoolwork at my grade level.”

“You’re past that.”

“I am. So did that ginger ale do anything?”

“It did. I put the bottle in the fridge when I went to bed last night. It’s ready.”

“Might be just the thing when it gets hotter this afternoon.” She smiled, standing. “I’m going back home. Time to help Gramma around the house.”

“I’ve seen your house. Nothing out of place. Sparkly clean.”

“Yeah. Because we keep it that way. Are you trying to keep me here?” Her eyebrow arched in a query.

“Nah, just a comment. You’re welcome here any time.”

“I’ll come back this afternoon and we can try that ginger ale,” she said.

“I’ll be here.”

And she bounced off in that energetic gait common to the youthful.

I went back to work. Yes, it’s Friday, but among us self-employed it’s best, at least to me, to stick to a somewhat regular schedule. I don’t force things, but I think that one becomes a writer by writing. If I get stuck in a dry spot on one project, I can usually slide sideways into another already in progress.

We were in the house pouring ginger ale when I head a motor outside.

“It’s starting,” she sighed.

“It’s Friday. Gonna be a nice weekend. Expect the place to be busy. You don’t sound excited.” I pushed a glass of ice and fizzy ginger ale across the counter to her.

“Noisy. Too much random activity.” She eyed the glass. “It’s ... cloudy...”

“It’s real. Particulate matter is likely ginger root solids and yeast bodies...”

“Bodies? Like DEAD?”

“Dormant. That’s why I put it in the fridge. Temperature drops, yeast goes to sleep. Stops digesting the sugar and producing carbon dioxide. Otherwise we’d over-pressure the bottle. Could explode.”

“They’d do that?”

“Yep. Keep digesting sugar and producing CO2 and alcohol until the alcohol level got too high...”

“This has ALCOHOL?!?”

“Just a tiny amount. Less than a percent at most. You’d fill up way before you got high.”

Her eyes sparkled and she put on a mischievous smirk. “So you’re not giving a kid alcohol, then?”

“What do you know about kids and alcohol?”

“Oh, c’mon, Paul. Beach community. Drinking in the open all up and down the beach. I get to see people drinking and getting drunk – all that stuff. So Gramma and Grampa gave me a long talk about it.”

“This ain’t that, Barb.”

She kept her grin, side-eying me. “And it’s the weekend, so the place is gonna fill up and we get to see all that all over again. You know what?”

“What?”

“The people that OWN these cabins, they’re not the BAD ones. Lotsa people drive down here and camp on the beach ‘n’ it gets WILD.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’ve heard. And I’ve seen. I gotta be careful.”

“You do. You’re a cute teen girl...”

“In a month I’ll be fourteen.”

“Doesn’t matter. Young female around a bunch of drunks, men...”

“I’ve been warned.”

“Just be careful.”

“I don’t do well with people MY age, sober ones, much less drunk adults.”

“And not just alcohol...”

“That, too. You can smell it...”

“Grass is probably the least I’d worry about...”

“Yeah, I know.” That smirk again. “Drugs’re bad, mmm-kay?!?”

“Yeah, be a smart-ass.”

“Sorry. Rude of me. But I know about drugs. Including somebody putting them in your drink.”

“Just be careful.”

“I am.” She took a sip of the ginger ale. “Wow! That’s assertive!”

“Don’t want anyone saying ‘Hmmm, what’s that flavor?’ when they drink it. Too strong?”

“No way. But I could definitely pair it with chips ‘n’ queso or something like that.”

“And a movie?”

Smile. “Yeah. We’ll have to talk about that. You might be into some weird movies.”

“Care Bears?”

“How OLD are you? Those are historical!”

“I haven’t kept up.”

“Seriously!” she eyed the soda bottle from which I’d decanted our drinks. “You need to have another one going.”

“I have enough ginger root for a double batch. Let’s get on it.”

The brewing procedure, especially with a bouncy almost teen Barb for help, was a pleasant departure from staring at the screen all afternoon. Conversation ranged from a discussion of the task at hand to almost inane banter with twisted words and varying subjects.

My phone rang. I looked. “It’s your gramma. Here.” I passed it to her.

“Hi, Gramma!” cheerily. “We’re brewing ginger ale. His is GREAT! Y’all need to try it.” Pause. “No, I’m not being a pest.” Sigh. “Okay. But I need to come back later and see those bottles pressurize. I’ll be there in a minute. Bye, Gramma!”

To me she said, “I gotta go help out. It’s okay if I come back later, right?”

“Sure. I’ll probably be downstairs when you get here.”

She left. I tossed a couple of slices of bread through the toaster, made myself a sandwich for lunch, decluttered the kitchen, then went back downstairs to write in the comfort of the breeze.

From the vantage of my chair I noted several cars now, unloading adults and kids in various cabins up and down the beach road, people taking advantage of the moderating heat levels, down from the scorching Louisiana summer, and a break from the school schedules. Another spate of denizens would show up tomorrow morning, having made allowance for high school football.

I didn’t need the noise, but it wasn’t bad. I noted a sheriff’s department SUV making a slow patrol of the community. Weekend crowds, a little (who am I kidding – a LOT) of drinking, toss in some poor judgment and they’d be busy.

I can say that some of the scenes from a busy weekend have made it into my writing. Just when you think you’ve imagined it all, a few drunks in a crowd will show you that there’s more. Add sand, water, motor vehicles ranging from family mini-vans to race-tuned ATVs and you’ve got a potent mix. Doesn’t take much of a leap of imagination to go from an earth-bound contemporary ATV to an alien technology personal transport speeder. That scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi where there’s a speeder chase through the forest? Put two or three drunk rednecks on four-wheelers on a beach and they’ll add new dimensions to it, including the missing “Call an ambulance! Billy-Bob’s done broke a leg!” scene.

Frequently I like to take my bicycle for a ride up the beach. Early morning, gulf breeze, sound of knobby mountain (! – three feet from the Gulf of Mexico) bike tires on wet sand, I can get some exercise, commune with nature. On weekends, even early in the morning is an iffy proposition. Those damned four-wheelers get out early, often at the hands of kids who still lack a lot of skill and self-restraint.

Those are some of the factors that make me very selective of activities on the weekend. Introvert? Yeah. A lot. Occasionally I’ll get dragged out to join a group for seafood or barbecue and a bonfire and a beer or two, but again – selective. I knew a few families that I considered ‘safe’ for socialization. Too many others had a tendency towards excess.

And I won’t even go into the bunches that bring tents or RV’s and find spots on the beach. On historical maps, the map-makers would note “heare there be dragones”.