Cape Cod Noir - By David L Ulin Page 0,26

of T-shirts, and the Scorpions one in the middle that I couldn’t buy. I’d already spent my money on a Sandy Koufax baseball card at the shop next door. It wasn’t his rookie year card, but a 1962 Topps that was still pretty sweet.

That afternoon was kind of a slog through the gift shops and kitsch stores. We tried to be good little tourists. It was hot, the streets were crowded, and other than the candy store (where I filled up on saltwater taffy and Nerds), we all wanted to go different places. I fought with Liz who didn’t want to go anywhere. Mom and Dad fought over where to eat. You could tell Aunt Christine was pissed, because she took Ronnie off on her own. Then Liz and Mom, arguing with each other but quietly at least, went off. I went with Dad to the baseball card store, then the record store, and Dad wouldn’t buy me anything.

When we all met back up later, Ronnie was smiling and carrying monster-movie posters. The kid was taunting me with them. I whined to Dad about how come he wouldn’t buy me a lousy T-shirt. Dad asked how old I was in a way that made everyone go quiet.

10.

I moved this picture to the end of the album. Notice how the empty rectangle of space is a darker shade of green compared to the rest of the page. It’s ironic that the original or true color of the page was preserved by the photo, preserved by that piece of the past.

11.

This one’s blurry because Ronnie hit my elbow as I was taking the shot of the movie marquee. He did it on purpose. I punched him in the shoulder and almost went at it with him right there in line. We were on edge because we were both nervous about how scary the movie was going to be. At least, I was on edge. Ronnie had seen tons of horror movies on cable but this was going to be his first in a theater. He didn’t say much as a kid, but he’d been talking about seeing this movie all day long.

Dad and Aunt Christine took us to see the remake of The Fly. Mom stayed home by herself and played solitaire. She said she didn’t like horror movies, but she’d been staying back at the house by herself a lot that vacation.

I arranged it so Liz sat on the aisle, then Ronnie, me, Dad, and Aunt Christine. During the movie Liz and Ronnie whispered jokes to each other, and Dad and Aunt Christine did the same. I hugged my knees to my chest and white-knuckled the whole flick. The slow and inexorable transformation of niceguy mad-scientist Jeff Goldblum into Brundlefly was terrifying, revolting, and sad in a way I couldn’t explain. I’d sneak peeks at Dad to make sure he wasn’t changing, wasn’t melting before my eyes, that he looked like he was supposed to.

Then there was that gross end scene, where Brundlefly vomits up his digestive enzymes on the guy’s hand and melts it. Man, I lost my breath, and my legs started moving like I was going to up and run out of the theater.

I looked away and watched Dad watching the movie instead. During the screams and other violent sounds of Brundlefly’s demise, I almost asked Dad who he was seeing in that motel.

12.

On Main Street, not too far from our rental, near the intersection of Routes 28 and 134, there was a pocket of kiddie places: an ice cream shack, an old bumper car place, and a trampoline fun park. It was just me, Ronnie, and Dad. The trampolines were sunk into the ground, surrounded by gravel. When you landed it felt like you were shrinking, or melting away like Brundlefly.

This is a picture of the parking lot at the bumper car place. We did the bumpers before ice cream, but after trampolines. Everyone, even people I didn’t know, would drive their bumper cars into Dad because he was laughing the loudest, calling people out, being a goof. Like I said, everyone loved him.

Ronnie and I got back in line for a second and third goround on the bumpers. Dad went out to the parking lot. I couldn’t follow him outside without being too obvious. Instead, from the bumper car line, I tried to get a shot of him. I couldn’t see who he was with, but I heard him talking. All you can see here is