The Icarus Twins
(Memories of the Plaza Club, Part I)
Donald
C. Wood
"Hurry
up! Let’s go!" I
heard Chef shout as I ran out the door,
clutching my sports bag, to join him and Jon and all I did was raise
my hand
in my own defense because I knew those guys wouldn’t listen to any of
my
lame
excuses. Chef was leaning against his
silver Honda, and Jon in the passenger seat puffing on a cig and
looking like
nothing mattered at all. I ducked by
Chef and just about dove into the back seat with my sports bag tucked
under one arm. Without another word
Chef sat down and closed the door behind him and started that little
engine - a good engine, but it tended to sputter from time to time. It did this in my driveway until he popped
it into reverse and zipped backward so fast I thought I was going to
fly right
up between them and land somewhere on the dashboard!
We
had no sure plan where to go, but it was a choice
between the Frio River, where the waiters were known to be spending
their
Memorial Day weekend tubing, getting drunk and Lord knows what else, or
just
hitting the beaches of Galveston all by ourselves.
It only took a few minutes to decide on the beach, and this was
despite the fact that – as we knew right well – where there are
water-loving
waiters, there are wet waitresses…in bikinis.
Highway
6 took us south as Jon puffed away, and his smoke
danced and twirled out the window. I
watched the scenery flash by and Chef – he just kept his hands on the
wheel,
his eyes on the road, and his mouth shut. In
fact, I hadn’t heard more than a few sentences from him when he
suddenly asked whether we were going to take Highway 290 south or 105
east. "You wanna go through Conroe?" I
asked and
ol’ Jon said that he did and that he wanted a change of scenery because
he "ain’t
been in them parts in a coon’s age," so we sped into the oak forest and
the
tall giants – which I always thought looked like broccoli – soon gave
way to
towering
pines that stood up nice and straight like proud soldiers.
Somewhere out there on that blacktop Jon
pulled out a shiny silver flask.
"I brought my friend Jack with me,
guys," he announced as he opened the cap.
Then he took a quick swig and raised the container to let the
sun
reflect off it, saying "anyone wanna meet him?" with a grin like some
kind of twisted circus clown, and I’ll tell you, it didn’t take long
for the
three of us
to drink it dry. Jon refilled it from
a bottle in his bag at his feet, and then he said something I’ll
never
forget. "I’m gonna enlist next week." I
asked him if he were crazy, because of all that stuff that was going on
in the
Middle East back then, but he said he had to get a lifetime career. "You’re gonna get yourself killed, dumb ass,"
I said, to which he responded, "You’re the one that’s crazy if you
think I’m
gonna work
at ‘Chez Whitey’ the rest of my life!"
Chef lit into him on that one – sure, our restaurant was a
private club,
but it wasn’t all that rich and fancy...just a little more
like "Chez
Whitey Light." Well, Jon let the
matter drop and we heard no more from him on that topic, and he never
did
enlist.
At Conroe we grabbed some burgers
from a drive-in joint and hopped onto I-45.
There must of been some talk, but I can’t remember too much
because we
also passed the flask around one more time and we were chewing on our
burgers and
fries. I do remember seeing the old
Goodyear Blimp hanger pass by, and then we zipped through Houston,
raced
past a
bunch of palm trees, passed that flask around one more time and there
we were,
bare-chested, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers rocking the car – beach
bums to a
tee – cruising down Seawall Boulevard.
I could see the waves breaking over and crashing into the
boulders, and
I thought, "This is the edge of the world!"
The salty smell of the sea was everywhere - it pervaded our very
beings. As
I stared out at the water it seemed to be alive...constantly moving
with its own rhythm, and I imagined that it was some
kind of
great creature with muscles under the surface.
Maybe it was just the whiskey.
"Look alive,
boys!" said
Chef. "Our season of sun has begun!" We parked the car on Stewart Beach, about
200 yards from a gigantic wooden thing – towering over the sand on huge
wooden
pillars, and the shadows were already growing long.
Chef opened a bag of sandwiches – ham and cheese – and we ate
them fast, and then he jumped up and headed for the water. Jon
and I both said that
it was
better to let the stuff digest a little first.
"You always do what your mama says?" asked Chef, and that was
enough for
us. We went in, and found that eating
before swimming was no problem. Then I
realized
that of course it wouldn’t bother us...because we were invincible.
After
swimming we pulled
out a small tape player and sat on the sand blasting Led Zeppelin's
Houses
of the Holy. Chef handed us
some cold cans of beer from a little plastic cooler and we gulped them
down
while the sun dipped low behind us. The
beach was almost empty, and that made it easy to see that people were
parking
their cars on the sand around that beach house down the way. All three of us stood and watched the
beach – our beach – change from a wild place of sand, waves, and sun
into a
strange, dark extension of the city. The
lights came on, and we saw a sign that said "Beach Club."
We watched the lines of slick cars and fancy
trucks fill up the space all around – closer and closer they got, this
invasion
force, taking over our paradise. The
music from inside sent out vibrations that our little tape player
couldn’t
beat, and the decks on the building filled with people.
"Let’s go,"
said Jon,
and I said there was no way he was going to get me in there – not on
his
life. "Just think of all the girls in
there," he said, but I pointed out that we all looked and smelled way
too bad
to be
thinking about that, which was right. "Look,"
he said, "it never hurts to try, man," as he flicked a cigarette butt. Just then, Chef rose to his aid, saying "Let’s
go for it. We conquered the beach. We can conquer that place, too.
You only live once." Two to one –
the deciding was done, so we
vagrants plodded through the sand, weaving through the cars, and then
went
under the big loft.
Jon went on
ahead, and
we heard him call us from a dark corner, and when we found him we also
found an
elevator. Some guy and two blonde
bimbos were eyeing us with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. He
looked like he was right out of a Miami Vice episode.
But we didn’t care – we were buzzing too much.
Hell,
it was our damn beach.
We just stumbled in that elevator after those jerks, and they
kept their
distance, and when the door opened we piled out and lo and behold, we
were at
the front door! All the people waiting
to get in were lined up way back with ID cards and cash ready. The fancy guy was on a first-name basis with
the silverback door guards, and he soon took his walking trophies
through the curtain. That was when we
realized it – we had found the
VIP elevator! The guards turned toward
us, and I wondered what to do, but Chef had already stepped up to them
and started speaking. "Reggie sent
us," he cooly said. That really threw them off. "Reggie,
who?" one asked. "You know," Chef
went on, playfully punching him on the shoulder, "the guy that
part-owned the old opera house and Guido's, but he sold his
share of both and
loaned the company that built this place what they needed to pay their
debts and
stay in business last year. It’s
because of Reggie that you have a job, man!" It was pure bullcrap.
Chef was just like some kind of
Jedi master, because those boneheads just gave up and waved
us
in. It was a small victory for the men
of the beach over the men of the city, and the first thing we did was
laugh at
ourselves for not only getting in looking so bad but for doing it in
such a
grand style – and totally by accident! Then
we paused
when we got our first look at the interior.
It was huge. It was also
packed. Basically it was a disco, with
colored lamps, mirrors, a large dance floor and all that.
Young people were hopping and bouncing to
the beat. The whole place was throbbing. We knew we didn’t belong, but it was our
victory, and were determined to enjoy it, so we made our way to the bar
and
ordered
Lone Star longnecks. After a round we
bought another and worked our way through the crowd.
The room spun and spun around my head and the
rhythm pulsed through my bones – up through my legs and then into my
skull. It made me feel absolutely crazy.
The three of
us got
separated in there, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, so I found a
balcony. Chef was there, too.
He was leaning over the rail and staring off
over the dark water. I said that it was
too insane in there for me, and he agreed and we clinked our bottles
together. "Look at the way the moonlight
sparkles on
the surface," he said. "It’s never the
same twice – you can really appreciate the fleeting things when you
look at the
moonlight reflected off waves in the night."
Now, I at the time I didn't have much of a sense for other
people's musings, but he
sounded
very poetic. "Yeah, it’s great," I
said, but he didn’t say anything else right away. I
was trying to focus my eyes on the oil platforms in the
distance when he broke the silence. "Sometimes
I just want to cry. You know what I
mean?" I was rather surprised because I
had no idea what the heck he meant, and I think he could see that on my
face –
he said,
"Ah, you don’t understand yet. You’re
too young." I wasn’t exactly overjoyed
then about
being called “too young," so I tried to think of something smart to
say,
but Chef just changed the subject.
"Where’s Jon,
anyway?" When Chef threw out the question
I
started wondering
myself, but all I could say was that I didn’t know.
We left our empty bottles on the wooden rail and looked for Jon
in the restroom, at the bar, around the tables, and even in the last
place we
expected to find him – on the dance floor – but he wasn’t there. We went back outside and scanned the beach
in the moonlight. We spotted the silver
Honda way out there – farther than any of the other cars – and Chef
noticed
first that there was some kind of dark shape on it…or maybe draped over
the
hood. We thought it was Jon, so we got
out of there and stomped, or more like stumbled, our way back
to the
car. To be honest, I had already had enough of the
place. Sure enough, it was Jon draped over the hood of
Chef's car. He was out cold, and his arms and legs were
hanging limply over the sides. He looked
like
a big rag doll!
Since Jon
was out, and
we were just about out of steam ourselves, we called it a day.
We tossed Jon in the back seat and Chef drove, looking for a
place to sleep. Jon mumbled nonsense
along the way and made us laugh. On the
inner side of the island we found a quiet stretch of road, and
Chef
spotted a
dark picnic area with concrete tables and benches.
There was a convenience store but it was pitch black inside and
out. Chef had a tent, so we set it up
next to a table and hoped there were no fire ants around.
Jon was unconscious, so Chef and I shared
the tent and let him have the car and before long all three of us were
sound
asleep. I was all right at night, but it
sure got hot after the sun came up – I was already sweaty when I first
saw the
light of day. At least there had been no
fire
ants. But we had to deal with Jon, who
wasn’t too thrilled about his sleeping situation – he really let us
have it. "What should we have done, man?"
asked
Chef. To this, Jon said, "You could’a left
a
window open, you bastards!" But I said,
"and then the mosquitoes would of eaten your ass alive!"
"Shut up," said the old sourpuss. Then
Chef told us both to shut our traps and
that was the end of that.
Pretty soon
we were on
our way back to the seawall to eat and play on the beach.
We were all tired and plenty hung over from
the day before, but our freedom was better than gold, and no little
headache was
going to get us down. We talked
about our victory over the city folk the night before.
"All
those dum-dums went home and slept in warm beds," I said, "but we’re
tough!" The salty air was all around
us, and all
inside us, too. We got what we needed –
cheap food and cold beer – and we drove down and claimed a spot within
sight of
the club. It was deserted – defeated –
but the beach itself filled with cars and holiday sun worshippers early. Bared to the waist, we champions of freedom
drank, smoked and played for hours.
"Well, we’ve
had pretty
much a full day out here," said Chef finally, and we saw that the sun
was getting
low again. "Where are we gonna
go?" he asked. "How about the disco?" I
suggested. It was just a joke, but Jon
thought I was serious. "No way, man! I’ll never go in there again," he
grumbled. Chef continued.
"It seems like we’ve done the beach thing
quite well, guys. You want to head
somewhere else? After all, we’re free
for another thirty-six hours." "How
about the Frio?" I said, but Jon groaned again, and then Chef asked if
we
should really go. "Screw that!" said Jon as
he struggled to light a cigarette in the wind.
Now, I don’t remember anymore how my little
joke became our real plan, but one way or another we ended up right
back on
that highway that heads to Houston We
knew it was more than three hundred miles, but we didn’t care, and Chef
said he
could handle it, and there were waitresses in bikinis waiting for us.
Well,
somewhere out
there on that road Jon and I realized that we had screwed up…big-time. Blisters were forming on our faces,
shoulders, backs, and even on the tops of our ears!
By the time we started heading west on I-10 the slightest
movement
hurt. The feeling of anything – even
clothing – touching our skin was extremely painful.
All the drinking and playing under the Texas sun had taken a
toll
even on Chef. He was getting tired, and
even though he might have been able to drive all the way to the Frio
River, Jon and I were dying. I knew a
place in
Sealy – a motel – which I had passed many times on my way to Eagle
Lake with a buddy on our goose-hunting trips back in high
school. We stopped there to stay for the
night – so
much for roughing it. When we got into
our room, Jon and I headed straight for the shower – we took turns,
of course
– and for both of us it was the last time to bathe for many days. When we stripped off, we could see how bad
it really was, and Chef made it worse by laughing as he reclined on one
of the
beds. We had big red ears and
flame-broiled blisters that were already starting to ooze pus. God, we were in pain…and defeated. There was nothing more we could do.
We showered
as best we
could, and those course hotel towels hurt like hell.
And even though we were both just as naked as jaybirds and red
as
boiled lobsters there in the middle of that room, we didn’t even care. It was too painful. Even
if the waitresses themselves had walked
right in, we couldn’t have done anything about it – couldn’t have moved
fast
enough if we tried. And we most likely
wouldn’t have cared. It was like nothing
else mattered…just the pain. And Chef
could laugh because he was part Mexican and so had some natural
resistance, and
he had had the sense to wear his shirt a little longer than us. So Jon and I shared a bed and Chef got one
to himself, and the last thing I heard before I fell into a fitful
sleep was
the sound of Chef chuckling and saying "the sun giveth and the sun
taketh
away."
Chef felt
pretty good
the next morning, but not us – our blisters were even worse.
The Frio River was off. We sped
home in Chef’s car, but it was more
like limping for Jon and me. We were
like whipped puppies. We had thought we
were invincible. We were wrong. "The
Icarus Twins," Chef called us with glee. Jon
and I had been tried, convicted, sentenced and punished
all in one
weekend for our foolishness. And even
though we didn’t make it to the Frio River, we mesmerized those waiters
with
our beautiful first and second-degree burns and nasty blisters. Being under the heat lamps along the hot
line in the kitchen was pure torture, and we were banned from the
dining room
for over a week for obvious reasons.