Neon Nights Chapter 2

Marc McKinley swung his eleven-foot pintail glider around and stroked into a sheet glass wave on the outer sandbar at Blue House, his home break in East Bay. The moniker came after a lengthy creative process with his best friend Paul Jackson, which entailed looking up the beach at a blue house perched over the dunes. He had surfed here for decades, often defaulting to the wave’s consistency in favor of risking a session somewhere he didn't know better. Ifyou caught it at dead low tide, even as small as this morning was, and you had a big enough board, you would still gohome with a smile on your face.

The board felt like an oil tanker as he wrestled it around and paddled into a wave, but once he stood up and got itpointed down the line, it felt close to flying. No matter what kind of shit show awaited him at work, he could count on the ocean to fix his woes. He had let go of heartbreak, found answers to questions that nagged at his soul, and felt a connection with the natural world around him that he couldn't experience anywhere else through the countless hoursspent in the water here. And the water in late May felt incredible, a salty kiss on his skin that he was never in a hurry to wash away.

A gray fin breached the surface near him, causing his heart to jump and his hands and feet to find their way out of the water quickly. Moments later, the same fin crested again, attached to a smooth- bodied creature with a polite bottle-shaped nose.

He exhaled a sigh of relief and sat back on his board. Gray fins never ceased to get the heart revved up.

After his final wave, he walked back up the beach to his faded black Tacoma, grabbed his towel, and dried off as the sun continued its ascent skyward. He pulled a gallon of water from the back seat and downed a chunk of it in the first few gulps. He strapped the board to the rack over the bed and fired the truck up, the A/C on full blast from the start, whipping coolish air into his face.

He grabbed the black trucker cap with the white letters EBSC (East Bay Surf Club) screened onto the foam from thepassenger seat and pulled it down over his head. He cruised up the beach for a mile until the next drive-off point, hisleft arm hanging out the window, then took a right onto Dune Grass Way, the knobby tires finding asphalt again at thetop of a rise coming off the sand. At the first stop sign, he fidgeted with several CDs in the center console trying to find something that fit such a beautiful morning.

The King of Country seemed like as good a choice as any.

He slid the disc into the player and laughed at the first track that came through the speakers.

“Cowboy Rides Away.”

He couldn’t think of a better song to listen to as he drove to the East Bay Police Department to put in his resignation.

“What the hell is this?” Chief Matt Rome asked him as he looked down at the letter Marc had placed on his desk.

“My letter of resignation, effective one month from now.” “No, it’s not.”

“I wrote it. I know what it says,” Marc replied. “Just like that?” Rome asked.

“Not just like that. I said a month from now. I’ll get you through these big weekends ahead and wrap some things I’m working on.”

Marc looked at the pictures on Rome’s wall, not locked on to anything in particular. Rome had spent twenty-five years in the NYPD before leaving to take the job here in East Bay. There were photos of him graduating from thepolice academy, on the docks of the Hudson River with a record-breaking seizure of guns and drugs, and with some friends out on a deep-sea charter, beers in hand, shrugging off a day where they got skunked. There were also a few photos of his son Nate at about ten years old. Marc knew the boy was in his late teens now but hadn’t seen him in ages.

“I don’t get it. Out of the blue, you walk in and resign? Doesn't make any sense.”

“Time for a new chapter. There’s other stuff I want to do with my life.”

Rome stood up and stared through him. “You sober?”

“As a monk,” Marc replied.

“This all from that shit last year with Billy Adams and White Wave?”

“Last year has something to do with it, but it’s not all of it. It just feels like a change is in order. I set aside some cash,and I’m going to help Paul out a bit down at Fish Tales, until I figure out what comes next.”

Rome pressed him.

“It’s over, Marc … done. Leave the past where it is and focus on the present …”

Marc interrupted him.

“Chief, I just don’t have it anymore. She took something from me." “Don’t you owe it to her to right those wrongs?”

Marc’s face tightened.

“Yeah, I owe her … every day. But there’s no one left to pay anything back.”

The chief walked around the desk and sat on the front of it. “I tried to leave once, actually it was like twenty times.” Marc chuckled, and his shoulders relaxed a bit.

“The reason I didn’t each time wasn’t that I owed it to the people, or the other cops, or some spirit of justice bullshit. The reason I didn’t leave was because, in my core, it’s what I do. Without that

push and pull every day, without the worst that people can do around me, I’m not at my best. That girl needed more people like you in the world. People who took her life to mean something. Her death is not your fault. I know you want it to be, but it’s not.”

Marc felt like a truck had hit him. “I’m sorry, I’m not changing …” Rome cut him off.

“I’ll take the letter, but you have to give me another one each week, letting me know that this is going to stick. Deal?”

The room felt smaller, and Marc suddenly felt unsteady and unsure of himself. He looked at the floor, counting thetiles, trying to feign indifference to what his superior officer had told him.

“Deal,” Marc said through tight lips.

“Now get yourself ready because it’s going to be a wild weekend ahead. Last night we ended up with a handful of kids in critical condition from some pill making its way around the Fairgrounds, assaults, and a record number of charges for indecent exposure.”

“Kids can’t help themselves, can they?” Marc asked.

“No, they can’t. One of the critical condition girls is a local kid too.” The chief shuffled through a few papers on the top of the desk. “Kerry Baker,” Rome said.

Marc’s heart skipped a beat, and he felt a wave of anger start its ascent from his core up through his throat, a burnhe had come to

learn over the course of his life meant that he was about to lose his cool.

“No way. Kerry, for pills?”

“That’s what it says here. How do you know her?”

“She dates my nephew Logan and worked for Paul at the marina since she was like fourteen. Sweet kid, super smart.I'll swing through the hospital today to check on her.”

Rome grabbed his cup of coffee from the desk and took a sip.

“You a dance festival guy with the body paint and glow sticks? That’s not what you’re leaving here to do, is it?”

Marc grinned at him.

“DJ Speedo, that’s my stage name."

The chief nearly spit his coffee out and grabbed a paper towel from the desk to wipe the corners of his mouth.

Marc held out his hand and Rome shook it heartily.

“I appreciate everything you've done for me, Chief. It’s just time for a change is all.”

The older officer nodded and the corner of the left side of his mouth pulled up ever so slightly.

“I look forward to your letter next week.”

Marc walked down the hall to his office, pulled the blinds shut, sat in the black swivel chair in the darkness, and cupped his hands behind his head.

After only a few minutes, he felt trapped in the office; an animal caged up with a recognition that it couldn't leave itspen. Panic raced through his hands, and they shook as beads of sweat formed at his temples. He bolted out of hischair and clamored through the small office for an escape, knocking over some paperwork on the filing cabinet as hereached out to find the door handle. His vision blurred, and his breath was shorter now.

I don’t need this right now.

The hallway led to an exit out into the parking lot, and he walked towards it quickly while trying not to draw attentionto himself. He slammed into the bar on the exit door with his hip and gulped the first breath of fresh air he could get.Sometimes the anxiety pounced on him like a panther. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pretended to have a life-or-death interest in the marketing message about an upcoming sale on running shoes as more cops filtered into the building for the morning shift. Once he had composed himself and felt like no one was staring at him, he walked to his truck.

He cranked up the engine, the whiny V6 revving to life, and felt the cool air hit him. He put his head back against theheadrest and closed his eyes again as he tried some visualization exercises the shrink had told him to do.

But all he could see was the girl and the water, her fingers pruned, and her nails chipped. The heel of her shoe broken and black makeup like warpaint against her cheeks.

That’s what she had been reduced to.

Was it so hard to understand why he never wanted to see that again?

He slammed his hands on the steering wheel and screamed at the top of his lungs to an audience of one.

The drive home was silent and felt ten times as long as normal. He felt like a prizefighter who had gone the entirefight without hitting the canvas, only to discover he had lost by a punch when the referee held up the winner’s hand.

Marc lived down Route 11, a tree-lined corridor thirteen minutes without traffic from the beach. He had been lucky to buy property here when he left the Coast Guard a dozen years ago because he never would have been able to afford it today. The three and a half acres were his salvation from the world. The house was small; a Vietnam-era brick rancher with dark shingles, green shutters, and a front porch with a grey swing. It was just him and his dog, and they didn't need a lot.

The gravel crackled underneath the tires as he pulled down the driveway, and he saw two deer hanging out at theeastern edge of the property. There was an ease out here, a slower pace than the hectic go, go, go that surrounded thetown’s main drag. As he walked up to the porch, his shoes crunched the ground beneath him, and on cue, he heard a bark from inside the house.

Creatures of habit.

He fidgeted with the key, trying to get it into the lock as the barking and panting grew louder and more erratic frominside. The dog’s tail thumped against the door like the pounding of a headboard in a cheap motel, and Marc knew that once the door was open, he only had a split second to get out of the beast’s way. No sooner did he turn the handle than a stiff black nose and bull-like head forced its way around the corner. Marc tried to back up, but he was too slow for the one-eyed pit bull, who leapt onto his midsection looking for any opportunity to get to his owner’s cheeks with his wild tongue. Satisfied that he had given Marc a warm enough greeting, he hurled himself down the steps with such reckless abandon that Marc wondered what the dog would do if he had two good eyes. Clark ran in circles, dizzying himself and smacking the side of his face where he was missing an eye into the porch post. Unfazed, he located his favorite bush and lifted his leg, a ferocious steam of urine escaping him.

“Well, that bush is good as dead, buddy.”

The four-year-old dog had warmed immediately to the job of man’s best friend’ after Marc had broken up a dog fighting ring in the northwest corner of the county a few years earlier. Clark had been used as a bait dog because he wasn't mean enough to fight with the others. When Marc found him, he was buried in the back corner of the barn,terrified of anyone who came near him. Marc had sat down on the ground and waited until the dog came up to him. After thirty minutes, the dog limped over and sniffed him up and down. Satisfied that this man smelled nothing like the pigs who had kept him so far, he plopped down at Marc’s side and put his head on his knee.

Marc petted him for another half hour and didn’t even have to carry him to the truck. The dog attached to his side andfollowed him step for step. He had lost an eye, had permanently broken ear cartilage on one side, and had numerous scars on his stocky frame, but the men and the beasts had not broken his spirit. The dog’s temperament wasundeterred by the cruelness of the world, and there was not a sweeter, gentler animal around.

He sat on the swing and rocked back and forth as he watched the dog unsuccessfully try to make friends with a rabbit that had wandered into the yard. He needed a whole lot of nothing right now; tranquility, some animals running around, and maybe a cup of coffee. That required getting up though, and the thought was simply too much to bear, so he opted for the sweet serenity of a squeaky swing.