The Colorado Kid

5

But it was Dave who actually began.

“Twentyfive years ago,” he said, “back in ’80, there were two kids who took the sixthirty ferry to school instead of the seventhirty. They were on the Bayview Consolidated High School Track Team, and they were also boy and girlfriend. Once winter was over—and it doesn’t ever last as long here on the coast as it does inland—they’d run crossisland, down along Hammock Beach to the main road, then on to Bay Street and the town dock. Do you see it, Steffi?”

She did. She saw the romance of it, as well. What she didn’t see was what the “boy and girlfriend” did when they got to the Ti

“Nawp, ran that side, too,” he said. “Not holdin hands, but might as well have been; always side by side, Joh

Stephanie sat up straighter in her chair. The John Gravlin she knew was MooseLookit Island’s mayor, a gregarious man with a good word for everyone and an eye on the state senate in Augusta. His hairline was receding, his belly expanding. She tried to imagine him doing the greyhound thing—two miles a day on the island side of the reach, three more on the mainland side—and couldn’t manage it.

“Ain’t makin much progress with it, are ya, dear?” Vince asked.

“No,” she admitted.

“Well, that’s because you see Joh

“That isso cynical,” Stephanie said, not without youth’s admiration for the trait.

Vince shrugged his bony shoulders. “Hey, I’m a stereotype myself, dearie, only my movie’s the one where the newspaper feller with the armgarters on his shirt and the eyeshade on his forread gets to yell out ‘Stop the presses!’ in the last reel. My point is that Joh

“And she…in those skimpy little red shorts she wore…she was indeed a goddess.” He paused. “As so many girls of seventeen surely are.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Dave told him.

Vince looked surprised. “Ain’t,” he said. “Ain’t a bit. It’s in the clouds.”

“If you say so,” Dave said, “and I will admit she was a looker, all right. And an inch or two taller than Joh

“I think it might’ve been the ru

Stephanie said, “Back on message, please, both of you,” and the men laughed.

“On message,” Dave said, “there came a morning in the spring of 1980—April, it would have been—when they spied a man sitting out on Hammock Beach. You know, just on the outskirts of the village.”

Stephanie knew it well. Hammock Beach was a lovely spot, if a little overpopulated with summer people. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like after Labor Day, although she would get a chance to see; her internship ran through the 5th of October.

“Well, not exactlysitting,” Dave amended. “Halfsprawling was how they both put it later on. He was up against one of those litter baskets, don’t you know, and their bases are planted down in the sand to keep em from blowing away in a strong wind, but the man’s weight had settled back against this one until the can was…” Dave held his hand up to the vertical, then tilted it.

“Until it was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” Steffi said.

“You got it exactly. Also, he wa’ant hardly dressed for early mornin, with the thermometer readin maybe fortytwo degrees and a fresh breeze off the water makin it feel more likethirty two. He was wearin nice gray slacks and a white shirt. Loafers on his feet. No coat. No gloves.

“The youngsters didn’t even discuss it. They just ran over to see if he was okay, and right away they knew he wasn’t. Joh

“No,” Stephanie said.

“He was just sittin there (well…halfsprawlin there) with one hand in his lap and the other—the right one—lying on the sand. His face was waxywhite except for small purple patches on each cheek. His eyes were closed and Nancy said the lids were bluish. His lips also had a blue cast to them, and his neck, she said, had a kind ofpuffy look to it. His hair was sandy blond, cut short but not so short that a little of it couldn’t flutter on his forehead when the wind blew, which it did pretty much constant.

“Nancy says, ‘Mister, are you asleep? If you’re asleep, you better wake up.’

“Joh

“She said later she knew that, she’d seen it, but she didn’t want to believe it. Accourse not, poor kid. So she says, ‘Maybe he is. Maybe he is asleep. You can’t always tell when a person’s breathing. Shake him, Joh

“Joh

“He shook twice. First time, nothing happened. Second time, the guy’s head fell over on his left shoulder—Joh

Dave stopped abruptly, and stood up. “I want a CocaCola out of the fridge,” he said. “My throat’s dry, and this is a long story. Anyone else want one?”

It turned out they all did, and since Stephanie was the one being entertained—if that was the word—she went after the drinks. When she came back, both of the old men were at the porch rail, looking out at the reach and the mainland on the far side. She joined them there, setting the old tin tray down on the wide rail and passing the drinks around.

“Where was I?” Dave asked, after he’d had a long sip of his.

“You know perfectly well where you were,” Vince said. “At the part where our future mayor and Nancy Arnault, who’s God knows where—probably California, the good ones always seem to finish up about as far from the Island as they can go without needing a passport—had found the Colorado Kid dead on Hammock Beach.”

“Ayuh. Well, John was for the two of em ru

“Joh

“Nancy says, ‘Youalready moved him, I just want you to put him back where he was.’

“Andhe says, ‘I only did it because you told me to.’

“To whichshe answers, ‘Please, Joh

“Joh