Cape Cod Noir - By David L Ulin Page 0,16

day, Moshup declared war against the Pukwudgies. He gathered his sons and set out across the Cape to hunt them down. At night, while Moshup and his boys were sleeping, the Pukwudgies snuck up on Moshup’s sons, blinded them, and stabbed them to death. Moshup buried his sons along the shoreline. He was so aggrieved he covered their gravesites with rocks and soil to create enormous funerary mounds. In time the ocean rose, carrying the mounds—and the boys’ remains—to here. All the islands here in Buzzards Bay—Naushon, Pasque, Nashawena, Cuttyhunk, and Penikese—are what remains of the great giant’s sons.”

The wind was threading its way through the holes in the stonework, curling itself around us, sliding across the backs of our necks.

“You mean we’re sitting on some Indian grave?” DeShawn asked.

Cunningham nodded. DeShawn shuddered.

In the silence, you could hear the ocean churning underneath the wind. That was when I heard what sounded like a small mewling thing. I looked around. DeShawn caught my eye and nudged his head over toward Tiny who started bubbling up like a hot two-liter that had just been cracked open. “She-she-she—”

DeShawn scratched at the ground with a rock. It smelled like fresh dirt.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Tiny gurgled. “I loved her.”

Tiny was now going like a geyser. I just kept watching the water, the blackness moving out there, flashing like silver in the moonlight.

“I liked her so much.”

DeShawn looked like he wanted to dig his way to China with that rock, anything to get out of there. Then he suddenly stopped, like he remembered he was digging on someone’s grave. He sat on his hands and glanced away.

Tiny curled up in a ball and put his hands over his head, as if he was scared he was gonna get hit. Cunningham scooped him up like Santa Claus picking up some big fat kid who was crying because he wanted a new fire truck, only it wasn’t a truck Tiny wanted. It was a new life. That was all Tiny wanted. At age seventeen.

The world is full of people like us. Floating out here like these half-sunk islands covered in shit. We’re drifting through your city, your town, cutting across your backyard, walking up your fire escape, sliding a slim jim between your car window and door, slipping into your leather bucket seats that smell like money—your money. We’re wiring your ignition, busting your satellite radio, rifling through your shit, tossing out manuals and hand sanitizer, tissues, registration, and pens, until we find that emergency envelope full of freshly printed twenties. We coast along your streets, caught up in the current of something swirling inside us, riding swells of blacktop anger with the wind at our backs. We don’t really want your car, your daughter, your jewelry, your things. Just like with you, that shit helps us forget why it can hurt to be alive, but only for a little while.

We snuck away, DeShawn and me, leaving Tiny to be lectured by Cunningham about “crossing the treacherous waters,” “a new day dawning,” and “making the journey called Second Chance.” Somewhere behind us on that dark path, we could hear Tiny say he wanted to be different, but he just didn’t know how. He just didn’t know how, he repeated again and again, the sound of his voice echoing in the wind.

Later that night, we could hear Tiny crying himself to sleep, rocking back and forth. It was like we were all at sea, rolling through the waves of regret crashing around inside him.

“Feckin’ A,” Freddie said. “Feckin’ knock it off, you pansy.” Freddie had calmed down since earlier. At dinner that night he was so cool it was spooky, like Stubby and Da Cunha had worked him up something good.

“Shut up,” DeShawn said. “I’m sick of you and your freakass shit.”

“Yo, homes,” Freddie said. “I didn’t mean nuthin’ by it. You and me, we’re cool, a’ight?”

“No,” DeShawn answered. “We ain’t never been cool.”

We had all been pretending to be asleep, just waiting for Tiny to knock it off, which he did, eventually. Then the house slowly quieted down as the other guys stopped tossing and turning and dozed off for real. But after all of Tiny’s tears, that silence kept me awake.

I stared out the window and watched the moon rise higher like a giant eyeball staring out over the hill where the leper cemetery was. In the silence, I could tell someone else was awake and knew I was up too. And he—or it—was