The Send-Off
Rust and Luch Series: Part 20
The kiddy pool was blue plastic with cartoon fish on the sides and a slow leak near the bottom that Kevin swore wasn’t there when he found it.
“Found it where?” Joey asked.
“Around.”
“Around where?”
“Around somewhere. What does it matter? It holds water.”
“It’s leaking.”
“It’s leaking slowly. That’s different.”
The pool sat in the middle of Carl’s backyard, which wasn’t much of a backyard. A square of grass maybe twenty feet on each side, bordered by a chain-link fence and the Kowalskis’ above-ground pool on one side. The Kowalskis’ pool was a real pool, twelve feet across, with a ladder and a filter. But Mr. Kowalski had called the cops on Dave twice in the last three years, so that wasn’t happening.
Hence the kiddy pool.
“This is pathetic,” Dave said. He was standing on Carl’s back porch with a beer in his hand.
“It’s not pathetic,” Kevin said. “It’s resourceful.”
“It’s four feet wide.”
“Four and a half. I measured.”
“You measured the kiddy pool.”
“I wanted to make sure we could all fit.”
“We can’t all fit. I’m six feet tall. My legs are going to be hanging out.”
“So your legs hang out. You’ll live. Or you won’t, because you’re going to Marine boot camp tomorrow and they’re going to make you do push-ups until you die. Either way, the pool is fine.”
Dave looked at Kevin. Kevin looked at Dave.
“I hate you,” Dave said.
“I know,” Kevin said. “Get in the pool.”
Dave stepped off the porch. Looked at the pool. Looked at the cartoon fish.
“There are cartoon fish on this,” he said.
“They’re friendly fish.”
“I’m about to go kill people for my country and my going-away party has cartoon fish.”
“The fish are patriotic. Look, that one’s smiling.”
“I’m going to drown you in this pool.”
“It’s eight inches deep. You’d have to hold me down for a while.”
“I’ve got time.”
* * *
They filled it with a garden hose. The water was cold. Not refreshing cold--garden hose in September cold.
Tommy was sitting on the edge of the pool, his feet in the water, the rest of him wrapped in a jacket.
“This is freezing,” Tommy said.
“It’s not freezing,” Kevin said. “Freezing is thirty-two degrees. This is maybe fifty-five.”
“That’s cold.”
“That’s brisk.”
Joey sat on the grass next to the pool, watching the slow leak create a dark patch in the lawn. Dave was in the pool, his knees sticking up like two pale mountains, his beer balanced on his stomach. Carl was on the porch steps with his guitar. Tommy had his feet in the water and his eyes on the sky. Kevin was supervising.
It was ridiculous. Five grown men, a leaking kiddy pool, and a Tuesday night in September.
It was perfect.
* * *
“I can’t believe Angela said no,” Kevin said. “Her parents have a real pool.”
“Her parents said no. Because of that party two summers ago.”
“What happened at that party?”
“Something happened to the dog. Nobody knows what. But the dog pees on the floor every time a Ford station wagon passes the house.”
Kevin considered this. “That’s very specific.”
“The vet says it’s psychological.”
“The dog is traumatized by Ford station wagons.”
“The dog is traumatized by Ford station wagons.”
Kevin looked at the leaking kiddy pool. “So this is what we’re working with.”
“This is what we’re working with.”
* * *
The mood was easy for a while. Then Kevin said something about Ralph’s, and the air changed.
“I’m not going back there,” Tommy said quietly.
“I know. I didn’t mean...”
“I know you didn’t.”
Joey looked at Dave. Dave was staring at his beer.
“The guy’s doing okay,” Joey said. “I asked around. He’s out of the hospital. Back at work.”
“Good,” Dave said.
Nobody said anything for a minute.
“That’s why I’m doing this,” Dave said. “The Marines. Because I need to learn how to control it. Whatever it is that makes me swing first and think later.”
“The guy swung first,” Tommy said. “You swung second.”
“I swung harder. That’s what matters.” Dave sat up in the pool, water sloshing over the sides. “I’ve always been like this. Ready to fight. Ready to blow up. It was fine when we were kids. But we’re not kids anymore. And I put someone in the hospital.”
“He’s okay now.”
“He’s okay because I got lucky. A couple inches different and he’s dead. A couple inches different and I’m in prison for manslaughter.” Dave’s voice was flat. “That’s not okay.”
Joey didn’t know what to say.
“The Marines are going to teach me discipline,” Dave said. “That’s what they do. They take guys like me and break them down and build them back up. They give you rules. Structure. They teach you when to fight and when to walk away.”
“You think it’ll work?” Kevin asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s gotta be better than what I was doing.” He finished his beer. “And if it doesn’t work, at least I’ll be fighting for something. Not just because some asshole made a joke about my mother.”
“That was a terrible joke,” Tommy said.
“Worst yo mama joke I’ve ever heard.” Dave almost smiled. “But I shouldn’t have cracked his skull over it.”
“No,” Joey agreed. “You shouldn’t have.”
“So. The Marines. Four years. Maybe I’ll come out as someone who can take a bad joke without committing felony assault.”
“That’s a low bar,” Kevin said.
“It’s my bar.”
* * *
Carl played “Brown Eyed Girl” on his guitar, and Kevin sang along badly, and Dave splashed water at anyone who got too close.
“You know what I’m gonna miss?” Dave said. He was still in the pool, even though the water was down to his ankles now. “This. Just sitting around doing nothing.”
“We’re not doing nothing,” Kevin said. “We’re having a pool party.”
“In a kiddy pool that’s leaking.”
“The quality of the pool doesn’t change the nature of the party.”
“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’ve said dumber things.”
“That’s true.”
Joey looked around the backyard. At Carl with his guitar. At Tommy, quiet as always, showing up even though he had an early shift. At Kevin with his new haircut and his dreams of being a cop.
And Dave. Dave in a kiddy pool, his hair buzzed short for boot camp, looking younger than he had in years.
“Hey,” Joey said. “I’ve got something.”
He went to the porch and grabbed a brown paper bag. Inside was a bottle of whiskey. The good stuff. Twenty dollars, almost a day’s pay.
“Going away present.”
Joey cracked the seal and poured a measure into Dave’s cup. Then Kevin’s, Tommy’s, Carl’s, and his own.
“To Dave,” Joey said, raising his cup. “Who’s about to become Private Murray, United States Marine Corps.”
“To Private Murray,” Kevin said. “May the Marines teach him not to hit people with pool cues.”
“Or at least to hit the right people,” Tommy added.
“With government-issued pool cues,” Carl said.
“In service of his country,” Kevin finished.
Dave looked at them. At his four oldest friends, standing around a leaking kiddy pool, holding cups of whiskey and making jokes about his worst moment.
“You guys are assholes,” Dave said. His voice was thick.
“We know,” Joey said. “Drink.”
They drank.
Kevin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The whiskey had hit him harder than the others -- he’d started earlier, and he hadn’t eaten.
“I love you guys,” he said.
Nobody moved.
“I mean it. All of you. Even Dave.” He pointed his cup at Dave, sloshing whiskey onto the grass. “Especially Dave. You’re going to war, man. And I just -- I want you to know -- I love you guys.”
The silence stretched. Then Dave laughed.
“You’re drunk.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re drunk *and* serious. That’s worse.”
Kevin opened his mouth like he was going to say something else. Then he caught himself. Shrugged. Took another drink.
“Forget it. I didn’t say anything.”
“You just said you loved us.”
“I said forget it.”
But he had said it. And nobody was going to forget.
For a moment, nobody moved. The backyard was quiet. Carl set his guitar down. Tommy shifted so he was sitting fully in the pool, cold water and all. Kevin lowered himself in next to Dave. Joey climbed in last, wedging himself between Tommy and Carl, knees up to his chest.
Five guys in a kiddy pool. Cartoon fish. A slow leak darkening the grass. Stars overhead, more than you’d think you could see from a backyard in Kearny.
They didn’t talk. They just sat there, shoulder to shoulder, the water barely covering their legs, looking up at a sky that didn’t care about any of them.
If someone had taken a photograph right then -- five grown men crammed into a plastic pool, beer bottles balanced on the rim, faces turned toward the dark -- it would have looked ridiculous. It would have looked like everything.
Dave would carry that image with him. Through boot camp. Through the desert. Through all of it. Five guys in a kiddy pool, looking at the stars, the night before everything changed.
* * *
The party wound down around midnight.
Tommy left first, apologizing, his shift started at six. Carl walked him to his Civic.
Joey watched from the porch. He couldn’t hear what they said -- if they said anything. The two quietest guys in the group, standing by a car in the dark. Tommy’s hand came up and rested on Carl’s shoulder. Carl nodded. Tommy nodded back.
That was it. That was the whole conversation.
But Joey saw Carl’s hand come up and grip Tommy’s forearm. Holding on. And he saw Tommy let him.
Then Tommy got in his car and drove away, and Carl stood in the driveway for a long moment before walking back.
Kevin left next. But before he went, he pulled Dave into a hug, which was not something Kevin did, and held on for longer than was comfortable.
“Don’t die,” Kevin said.
“I’ll try not to.”
“I’m serious. I need you to be around when I become a cop so you can tell everyone we grew up together.”
“You’re not going to become a cop.”
“I’m going to become a cop. And you’re going to be at my graduation. In your dress blues.”
“Fine. I won’t die.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
Kevin let go and walked away without looking back.
Carl went inside around twelve-thirty. Angela was picking him up early.
“Thanks for the backyard,” Dave said.
“Thanks for not destroying it.”
Carl shook Dave’s hand, then pulled him into a half-hug.
“Good luck,” Carl said.
“Yeah. You too.”
And then it was just Joey and Dave.
* * *
They sat on the back porch, looking at the empty kiddy pool.
The water had leaked out completely. Just a blue plastic shell with cartoon fish on the sides.
“Hell of a party,” Dave said.
“Hell of a party.”
“A kiddy pool. You guys threw me a going-away party with a kiddy pool.”
“Kevin found it.”
“Kevin stole it.”
“Probably.”
They sat in silence for a while. Just the streetlamps and the stars and two guys who’d known each other since they were eight years old.
“You scared?” Joey asked.
Dave didn’t answer right away.
He was looking at the empty pool, but Joey could tell he wasn’t seeing it. His jaw was working, the way it did when he was trying not to hit something. Or not to say something. Or not to feel something.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I’m scared.”
“That’s okay.”
“I’ve never been scared of anything. My whole life. I’ve been angry, I’ve been stupid. But never scared. And now I’m terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Everything. What if I can’t do it? What if I wash out?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What if the Marines break me and there’s nothing left?”
“Then you’ll handle it. You always do.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. You do. You screw up, you get knocked down, you get back up. That’s who you are.”
Dave looked at him. “When did you get smart?”
“I’ve always been smart. You just never noticed because you were too busy being an idiot.”
“That’s fair.”
They finished their drinks. Somewhere far away, a train whistle sounded.
“I should go,” Dave said. “Bus leaves at six.”
They stood up and faced each other in the dark.
“Thanks,” Dave said. “For everything. For tonight. For the pool.”
“It was Kevin’s pool.”
“It was our pool.” Dave’s voice was steady, but his eyes were bright. “This group. You guys. It’s the only thing I’ve ever had that mattered.”
“We’ll be here when you get back.”
“You promise?”
Joey wanted to say yes. Wanted to make it true just by saying it.
“I hope so,” he said instead. “I really hope so.”
Dave nodded. Like hoping was all any of them could do.
Joey pulled him into a hug.
He could feel Dave’s heart pounding through his shirt. Fast. Too fast for a guy who was never scared of anything. Dave’s hand came up and gripped the back of Joey’s neck -- hard, almost painful -- like he was holding on to something that was already slipping away.
Neither of them moved.
Joey thought about thirteen years. Billy Kowalski. The Ford. Every stupid thing they’d ever done and every night they’d wasted on that porch and how none of it was wasted, not one minute of it.
“Come back,” Joey said. Not don’t die. Something truer than that. “Just come back.”
Dave’s grip tightened. Then released.
He stepped away. Wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. Didn’t try to hide it this time.
“Allergies?” Joey said.
Dave almost laughed. Almost. “Indoor allergies. Bad year for them.”
“That’s what Kevin said.”
“Kevin’s a smart guy sometimes.”
“Tell Kevin he’s still not going to become a cop,” Dave said. His voice was wrecked.
“Tell him yourself. Four years. You’ll be back.”
“Yeah.” Dave nodded. Swallowed hard. “I’ll be back.”
He walked through Carl’s house and out the front door. Joey heard the screen door close, heard footsteps fading away.
Joey went to the window.
Dave was at the end of the driveway. He stopped. Turned back. Raised one hand -- half a wave, not quite a salute -- and held it there for a second.
Joey raised his hand back.
They stayed like that. Two guys who’d never learned how to say what they meant, saying it the only way they knew how.
Then Dave turned and walked into the dark, and Joey couldn’t see him anymore.
* * *
Joey sat back down on the porch.
The kiddy pool lay empty in the grass. The whiskey bottle was almost gone. The stars were out.
He thought about the Ford. About all those miles, all those nights. The car was scrap metal now. Parts of her were probably already in other engines, keeping other Fords alive.
He thought about Dave. About the kid he’d met in third grade, the one who’d punched Billy Kowalski for calling Joey’s mom fat. They’d been friends ever since. Thirteen years.
Four years was a long time.
Joey poured the last of the whiskey into his cup. An inch, maybe less.
He didn’t know if they’d all be back. He wanted to believe the porch would always be here, that the friendship would survive distance and time. But he’d seen it happen to other groups. Guys who swore they’d be friends forever, who drifted away after high school, after jobs, after marriages. You run into them at the grocery store ten years later and you don’t know what to say.
That could be them.
Tommy was working nights now, building a life that didn’t include Wednesday nights at Ralph’s. Carl was in college, talking about becoming a teacher. Kevin had cut his hair and was dreaming about being a cop.
And Dave was on his way to Parris Island.
Joey finished the whiskey.
They’d spent the whole summer pretending things weren’t changing, sitting on the porch like they were still seventeen, like the Ford would run forever, like time didn’t apply to them.
But they’d known. Somewhere underneath, they’d always known.
But time applied to everyone.
He stood up and looked at the backyard one more time. The empty pool. Carl’s guitar leaning against the railing.
This was it. The end of something.
Not the friendship. He had to believe that. Just the version of it they’d had. The version where they saw each other every day, where the porch was home base, where the Ford could take them anywhere and nowhere mattered as long as they were together.
That was over now.
Joey walked through Carl’s house and out the front door. The street was empty. The houses were dark.
He started walking. His mom’s house was fifteen minutes away. He wanted to feel the night air and the weight of everything that had happened.
They’d grown up. Finally.
He didn’t know what came next. He didn’t know if they’d stay close or drift apart, if Dave would come back the same person or someone different.
But he knew one thing.
Tonight had mattered. This summer had mattered. These guys, this group, this stupid leaking kiddy pool.
It all mattered.
And whatever came next, whoever they became, Joey would remember this.
The walk home was quiet. The stars were out.
When he got home, when he climbed the stairs to his room, when he lay down in the dark, he felt something break open in his chest. Something holding on all summer.
He was twenty-one years old. His best friend was going to war. His car was gone. His group was scattered.
Tomorrow he’d go back to work. Tomorrow he’d be the Joey everyone expected him to be.
But tonight, alone in the dark, he let himself grieve.
For the Ford. For the summer. For the boys they used to be.
They’d never said it. Guys didn’t. You showed up. You stayed. That was how you said it.
And now that was over.
Years from now, Joey wouldn’t remember most of it. He’d forget the jokes, the arguments, the girls Kevin loved and lost. He’d forget what they talked about on all those nights that felt like they’d last forever.
But he’d remember this:
Carl’s porch light, left on even when nobody was coming.
Tommy’s nod. The one that meant everything was okay, even when it wasn’t.
Kevin, drunk and ridiculous, saying I love you guys and then pretending he hadn’t.
Dave -- Jesus, Dave -- standing at the end of the driveway tonight, turning back one last time like he wanted to say something. And then not saying it. Just raising one hand, half a wave, before the dark swallowed him up.
And the Ford.
Not the way it looked, not the rust or the dents. The way it sounded when Joey turned the key and the engine caught. The way it meant they could go anywhere, even if anywhere was just the diner, just the shore, just driving until the sun came up because none of them wanted to go home.
The way it felt to have somewhere to belong.
Joey lay in the dark and let it come. All of it. The weight of five years, settling into the place where it would live forever.
He wasn’t going to see them tomorrow. Not all of them. Maybe not for a long time.
But they were in him now. Ordinary as his own heartbeat.
He didn’t wipe his eyes. There was no one to see.
He didn’t need to.