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THE SUNDAY PAPER: “Blue Beach” by Suzanne Sutherland, part 3 of 4

Read part two of this story here.

I went back to our room. Nate was sitting on the bed cross-legged, flipping channels on the room’s small TV.

Watching your stories?

I just thought I’d see what was on.

They’re playing crazy Spanish music videos on the TV by the lobby bar. Why don’t we check it out and get ourselves some cocktails?

Why don’t you go get us some cocktails and bring them back here?

You sure you don’t to come with me?

No, I’m good, I’ll stay here.

You don’t mind the smell?

What smell?

The room, it smells like stale smoke, I can’t stand it. Didn’t we ask for a non-smoking room? It’s like whoever was here before us chain-smoked a whole carton before they checked out.

I hadn’t noticed.

And it doesn’t bother you how damp everything is in here from the humidity?

Not really.

Okay. Fine. Any requests from the bar?

Whatever, get us something fruity. Take my travel mug and get them to fill it up.

Sure, where is it?

In my suitcase.

Have you even opened this yet?

Not really.

So I went down to the bar and got us a blue beach with two straws: white rum, orange juice, and blue pineapple liqueur. We built a tent over the bed with the extra sheets in the closet, and lay inside it, just holding on to each other, for the rest of the afternoon.

We’d spent whole days like that back in Toronto. Turned off our phones and made each other giggle and squeal with funny looks and light touches. Staring contests that undid me and made me forget about whatever dumb shit was bothering me. Talking about that stuff with Nate never worked. He didn’t seem to understand how I could have so many thoughts and concerns in my head all at once, but the knot in my stomach—twisted tight with worry about anything, money or my parents, school, my job, or the future—always loosened when we lay together like there was nothing else we needed to do.

Later, when Nate wouldn’t come to dinner, I ate by myself and filled my purse with bananas I brought back for him. He ate three, and I called him a monkey man and kissed his hairy shoulders as we lay down to sleep, his back turned to me. He wiggled backwards and I put my arm around him.

In the morning Nate’s protestations weren’t nearly as cute. I slammed the door as I closed it on my way to the beach in the morning. I’d had a few drinks by the time I came back to get him after lunch.

I’m not sure I’m going to be able to explain to our friends how you managed to get bed sores on vacation.

My mom died.

I know that. But you told me you wanted to come here.

Maybe I changed my mind.

Yeah? Thanks for giving me the heads up.

He didn’t say anything. He looked at me like a scared dog.

I’m sorry, okay?

No response.

I’m sorry. Okay?

I heard you the first time.

And?

And I’m sorry too.

Okay.

Okay.

Will you come outside with me?

Is there booze outside with you?

Dude, two words: all inclusive.

I thought I said about calling me that.

Yeah, you did, and I don’t care.

I asked him if he wanted to change his clothes, but he said no, he was fine and looked hurt that I’d suggested it. Suggest that he change the clothes he’d been wearing for the last week and a half? How dare I. At least it was his old Black Flag shirt.

We went to the snack bar by the pool, where Nate ordered a grilled cheese and Cuba Libre and I ordered a piña colada. He finished his sandwich and ordered another drink, and then two more.

Why don’t we go to the beach?

No.

No?

I don’t want to.

You’d rather stay here by pool?

No, I think I’m going to go back to the room.

I pulled my chair up next to his and gripped his hand. I know you’re grieving. I know that. And I’m sorry this is all coming down on you so hard, but I didn’t come here to lie on the beach by myself while you hide in the room and hate the world. I’m right fucking here, you know? You can talk to me. Can you please talk to me?

He held on to my hand but wouldn’t look at my eyes. I’m sorry we came here. I’m sorry you had to come here with me.

I leaned into him and kissed his forehead. He sniffed hard, got up, and walked back towards our room. A few minutes later he was back.

You have the key card.

Oh right, shit, yeah. Here you go.

Thanks.

Tom “Cruse is an f d werewolf!!”

Well known lunatic Tom Cruse was arrested this morning, in conjunction with the so called “Lycan Murders.” The harrowing and bloody show down, that one spectator described as “positively wicked,” began at 3am and took place over the course of four hours in uptown Kansas City.

Mr. Cruise — who once played the starring role of Whatever-That-Was-Suposed-To-Be in The Last Samurai – was not at all what detectives were expecting.  “Because of the savageness of the murders,” said police chief Nikolas Drifter. “The bite and claw marks, the undefinable animal hair and teeth usually found at the scene, we were looking for a run of the mill nerd. We’ve been canvassing gamers, cosplay models, fans of the Underworld franchise. Werewolves were. . . well to be honest, we didn’t expect a werewolf.”

Local man Douglas Frink described the scene: “Well I knowed what I seeing right off.  All beastly and wild and the like.  Hunched in the car-wash with poor Miss Grace.  Mr. Cruse was just eating parts of her like she was a bucket of chicken. So I just started screaming like ‘f___! F___!’ only I wasn’t saying ‘F’ right? I was saying the whole word that starts with ‘F?’  And so I’m just screaming and screaming as hard as I can, saying things like ‘f___ing, f____ Mr. Cruse is an f____ d____ werewolf and he’s f_____ d_____ eating the s____ out of Miss Grace.’  But no one was answering me. Then I got real scared, so I just sat down on the pavement and started crying.  That’s when the police showed up.”

Chief Drifter confirmed Frink’s version of the story, “yeah when we got there Dougie was just sobbing. Not like, crying a little bit, or crying while he did something else, like find a gun or cell phone. It was a pretty dedicated cry. He was investing a lot into it.”

“I was kind of embarrassed, I guess,” Frink added. “But not really, cause I’d never seen a werewolf before, and I’d certainly never seen one eating poor Miss Grace.  I don’t think most people have. What would you have done? Shoot Tom Cruise, right?  That’s what everyone keeps saying, ‘why didn’t you shoot Tom Cruise?’ they say, ‘I would have shot Tom Cruse!’ Like they’re such big men. The police tried that! Why don’t you ask the Chief how well that worked out?”

“Forty men, and more then twenty-seven-hundred rounds of ammunition were required to subdue the suspect,” agreed chief Drifter.  “And before you ask: no, I don’t consider that use of force excessive. Mr. Cruise killed seventeen more people during the skirmish, three of them cops. We hit him with .38s, .45s, even a couple of shotgun shells.  The bullets were just bouncing off him.  I just thank sweet God the sun came up when it did, or Mr. Cruse would still be out there, gobbling up children and pets.”

Tom Cruse has been charged with seventeen individual counts of murder after this mornings rampage, as well as the murder of poor Miss Grace, and at least half of the twenty-six Lycan Murders.  Mr. Cruse’s layers have successfully refuted the charges of cannibalism, on the grounds that he was half wolf when he allegedly committed the offenses.  Mr. Cruse posted bail at five o’clock this afternoon and was released, pending the courts decision.  The preliminary hearing has been scheduled for late August.

by

Michael Scott

THE SUNDAY PAPER: “Blue Beach” by Suzanne Sutherland, part 2 of 4

Read part 1 of this story here.

We arrived at our resort, Villa Tortuga, at three-thirty in the morning. By then our silence had become a game of its own, and we felt each other up in the back seat of the bus from the airport without our mouths, or even our eyes, forming words. At the front desk I did all the talking, and we were each given plastic bracelets to wear for the week that snapped tight around our wrists and advertised us as tourists. We followed the porter to our room, thanked him, and made our way toward sleep.

I woke up the next morning at ten-thirty and tried to rouse Nate with a blowjob. He acted like he was still asleep, so  after a few minutes I stood up to go get dressed.But he opened his eyes and looked at me in a groggy, imploring way so I indulged him, then went to the bathroom to wash my face. When I came back out he was still in bed, lying on his stomach, snoring. I kissed the back of his neck and whispered, Hey, you wanna come see the morning with me?

He grunted and kicked his feet.

Okay, I said, I’ll be back before lunch. I got dressed, put the key card for our room in my wallet, and closed the door behind me.

I wandered through the hotel—three stars said the online reviews, two and a half stars said the brochure they gave us at the airport—and located the pool, the dining room, the beach, and four different bars. The one in the lobby was twenty-four hours so I ordered a mojito and found a lounge chair near a group of palm trees on the beach. I couldn’t believe the stunning blue of the water in front of me, or that Nate was sleeping in and missing it. I finished my drink and put the small plastic cup on top of one of the garbage cans nestled in the sand, already filled to the brim with yesterday’s Cuba Libres. Wishing I’d remembered to put on sunscreen, I spent the rest of the morning reading Vonnegut in the shade.

At twelve-thirty I put my shoes back on—high tops, I hadn’t been able to find sandals anywhere in town in January—and walked back to our room. Nate was still sleeping face down when I got there, and I climbed on top of him, spooning him from above. He made a contented growl and turned to look at me.

Come on, dude, it’s after noon.

Why do you still call me that?

What?

Dude. Why do you still call me that?

I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think it was an issue.

You’re my girlfriend, you know. We’re not just bros or whatever.

Can’t we be both? Come on, wake up, you’re missing Cuba.

We’re in Cuba, we’re here. Here I am.

Yeah, in bed.

Yes, in bed.

Get dressed, we’re going to lunch.

I’m not hungry.

So you don’t have to eat anything, just come with me.

Fine, okay.

In the dining room I loaded up on tropical pumpkin and pineapple from the buffet, and Nate ordered a beer. It came in a wine glass and he sipped at it while staring down the rest of the dining room.

A lot of people are ugly.

Here, you mean?

Yeah. And, you know, in general.

Everybody here’s just relaxed, that’s all. They’re letting themselves go for vacation.

What about the rest of the time?

Hey, don’t be mean.

This beer tastes kind of like soap.

I made him eat a banana, a small one, but otherwise he wouldn’t touch the food.

I wish we had a kitchen in our room.

You feel like cooking? He hadn’t in weeks.

No. But I know I could do better than this.

Nate and I had met two years earlier, and started dating about a year after that. We met through mutual friends at a show at Sneaky Dee’s. This was before they fired a bunch of their staff—or at least  that was the rumour—and most of the Dee’s shows started happening at the Garrison instead. Our first date was at the Garrison, on Dundas near Ossington, just up the street from my apartment. It was only a couple of days after he’d broken up with some other girl, but I didn’t find that out until later.

I liked Nate right away, that first night at Dee’s, but that was mostly because he was so good looking. That, and he was wearing a Black Flag t-shirt, one of my favourite bands. We flirted a bunch  but nothing happened. He went home with someone else, Aliegh. He and Aliegh wound up dating for just under a year and then broke up a few days before Nate and I got together. It sounds weird but he wasn’t a slut or  anything, just one of those rare solid guys who’s pretty much never single.

We were so nervous around each other the first few months. The night I asked him if he was okay with us not fucking other people was awkward as hell, but we fumbled our way through it. We negotiated the shift from having a beer together at a show to having dinner together and getting naked afterwards without too much incident, and I was surprised at how well we got along. He accepted my faults(my poor table manners, my muffin top, and my desire to start every morning with a little Dolly Parton, among other things)and made me laugh so hard that orange juice came out my nose on more than one Sunday morning, which stung like hell. Nate cooked us amazing meals, and I wrote him songs for every occasion. We were normal, not spectacular, just figuring out how to be good to each other.

After lunch I asked Nate if he wanted to take a walk into town. He didn’t. I asked him if he wanted to come down to the beach and work on his tan. He didn’t. I asked him how he imagined spending his day. In bed, he said. So I let him go back to the room alone.

I went into town  on my own, looking for a bank to change my money since I’d been told that exchanging my dollars for convertible pesos at the hotel would be a rip-off. I wandered down the main street for a while, passing several markets and many other hotels, but couldn’t find the bank I’d heard was close by. I watched old cars rolling down the wide street, shouting No, gracias! to several men driving horse and buggies, looking for customers. When my feet started hurting I turned back, with a tally in my head of all the beautiful dogs I’d seen, most of them strays.