Éxodo

By Gene Isaacs

The Pope sends a trusted Jesuit to reconnoiter the Mexican border before his visit. This involves a bloody crossing while masquerading as an illegal. The story dramatizes the complexities but doesn't take sides: the supposed saints are often bad; the supposed sinners are sometimes good. Everything, however—both the good and the bad—is leavened with generous sprinklings of humor and romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gene Isaacs
• Release date: May 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370643592

Gene Isaacs

After an adventurous life in the Marine Corps, the GI Bill helped me earn a BA in Creative Writing (specializing in Literary Fiction) from the University of Arizona. I deliberately don't write about myself; however, what I am and what I've done has undoubtedly, although unintentionally, colored my narratives. I create a diverse cast of fictional characters, put them in problematic and often dangerous situations, and let them tell me their experiences. Practicality and cussedness often trump institutionalized correctness in both their lovings and their deadly brawls. I enjoy hearing their tales, and I hope you'll enjoy reading my version of them.

Book preview

ÉXODO

A Novel

By

Gene Isaacs

Published by Says It All Publishing

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design and Photos by Bernice Isaacs

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2016 Eugene Edward Isaacs

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be distributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Other books by Gene Isaacs:

Metamorphosis 1983

Ebbs and Flows

The coaster rumbled.

The Ferris wheel twirled.

The waves banged the shore.

The sunset turned the sky to gold.

The stars began to twinkle.

And the moon rose silver.

Everything changed,

But somehow stayed the same.

—Bernice Isaacs

PROLOGUE

AUGUST, 1975

HANNAH MADDALENA followed her mother across the hot sand, both of them running because it was burning their feet, both absurdly carrying shoes in their hands because the San Diego tourist industry had promised that Southern California beaches, unlike those in Florida, would always be cool and soothing and barefootable. Some of the sand had been cool but only where the waves lapped. The water itself was cold when it first splashed Hannah; but, when her legs were finally numb, the wetness felt back-home, summer-camp good. She had chased the surf, and the surf had chased her, until the proverbial seventh-wave soaked her sun-warmed belly. Cold legs were acceptable, but a cold belly wasn't. The damp T-shirt, and the soaked shorts that she held up with her free hand, modestly covered a skimpy bikini as she ran.

Hannah carried a pair of stylishly-scuffed penny loafers', de rigueur for Floridian teenagers. Her mother carried spike-heeled pumps. She would have put them on and walked with dignity except the deep sand made that impractical. She was tall and slender and smartly dressed in a gray, pin-striped business skirt and lavender, short-sleeved blouse, smartly dressed for an office or for airline travel but not for the beach. She had, however, wisely removed her pantyhose when she first set eyes on the gritty sand and realized the possible consequences. They were stowed in the leather handbag dangling from a long shoulder strap that bumped against her shapely bottom as she ran.

They stopped on the boardwalk in a shadow and breeze-cooled area beneath a sun-faded sign that was impossible to read. That boy said Jimmy would be here somewhere, the mother complained while looking at her over-sized wristwatch.

This area of the beach was divided into a series of volleyball courts, each of them hosting a game. The locals—the next-up, four-person teams and a few of their friends—watched from behind the short brick wall that separated the sand from the boardwalk. The players on the male teams wore tank tops, board shorts, and baseball caps. The players on the female teams wore skimpy bikinis, and their ponytails were held in place by the little strap on the back of their caps. All of them, both men and women, had on wraparound sunglasses, and their bodies were toasted to a golden brown.

How do they do that? Hannah asked, pointing vaguely in the direction of their bare feet.

I don't know, her mother answered, intuitively understanding what her daughter was indicating. Barefooted from birth, I suppose, feet hard as leather. Then, as an afterthought, I like my men to have soft feet.

Me too, Hannah agreed. It was a reflex response, an automatic deference to adult sensibilities. But, after staring at the young beach bums and bunnies, she thought she might prefer hard-footed men.

The weather was perfect for a crowd of sunbathers, but this end of the beach was practically empty: only the recreational volleyball players and a few elderly, zinc-oxided tourists acting out their California Dreamin' were here. It was a weekday afternoon late in August and school was about to start in most parts of the country, explaining the abnormal absence of a hoard of vacationing tourists.

However, further down the boardwalk, in front of the Center Court where the elite two-man teams played, the wooden stands were crowded with very-loud, very-physical, backslapping and trash-talking aficionados. This nearby excitement was compelling and, re-shod and on a cement walkway, Hannah and her mother quite naturally wandered toward the action. They found some empty seats for themselves on the third row of the elevated stands that put them high enough to see over the heads of the walkers and standers. The vibrating bleachers and the cloying coconut-oil and healthy-sweat smells of close-packed bodies informed them that they had fortuitously made themselves part of a genuine happening.

Hannah was far from being unawares, but she was at an awkward age where disinterest and sprawling were the requisite norm. Despite the contagious excitement, conforming to a generational standard, she acted bored and hung her legs over the seat in front of her and leaned her back against the seat behind her. Because of her braces, she tried hard not to laugh or smile or otherwise call attention to herself; however, she was full of life, a thoroughbred filly with fine lines, long legs, knobby knees, and a great deal of enthusiasm bottled up inside. She found sullenness in the party atmosphere to be impossible and belied her feigned teen-aged ennui with giggles and metal-enhanced grins whenever she saw things that amused her.

In contrast, her mother, Gabriela—she called herself Mrs Maddalena, although, as far as anyone knew, there had never been a Mr Maddalena—sat as primly as she could on an open bleacher with the wind gusting hot air up her skirt and against her panty-less derrière. But, despite feeling excitingly naked, the scanty beach togs of everyone else made her uncomfortably aware that she was dressed like a prim-and-proper old lady. She had been raised in an era (the forties and fifties) and in a place (the South) where a woman's classiness was measured by her ability to maintain an Amy Vanderbilt dignity no matter what the circumstance—this is an important skill when your pantyhose are tucked away in your purse. In fact, Gabriela had not unskillfully sprawled like Hannah since August 16th, 1949, when her Sunday school teacher had whacked her with a ruler because her white bloomers were showing. But now, older and bolder, she wished fervently that she, like her daughter, had changed into a swimming suit and cover-up—the sexier the better—when they had first arrived at the house on the boardwalk.

Gabriela disregarded the game and the beach people as much as she could—some of the goings-on were impossible to ignore—and looked around for her long-time friend, Jimmy, the make-believe brother of her make-believe husband. According to the young man who had picked them up at the airport, his boss, Jimmy, had said he would meet them on the beach, but exactly where on the miles-long stretch of sand was a mystery.

Hannah, while her mother dithered, watched the game, or, more accurately, watched the players. She didn't understand anything about volleyball, but she was fascinated by the outrageously healthy men who where tossing their sweaty bodies around with such reckless abandon. Three of the players in the Center Court looked like Greek gods. They were graceful beyond anything she had ever seen, floating through the air rather than plodding through the sand, levitating rather than leaping awkwardly.

The fourth player was obviously younger—not much older than herself. He was the tallest of the four but slender to the point of emaciation. He wasn't exactly ugly, but he didn't fit the beach-boy archetype either. For one thing he seemed to be super clumsy. He was quick enough, but he wasn't a soaring eagle like the others. He spent most of his time with his face buried in the sand. But, invariably—or at least often enough—his outstretched hand managed to pop the ball back into the air where his partner was waiting. Hannah's eyes always followed the ball—it's a natural, uncontrollable reflex—but, whenever she looked back at the boy, he had already jumped to his feet and was in a position to make another graceless flop for his team.

His awkward play was fascinating for a few minutes, but Hannah soon lost interest and turned her attention to the fabled California beach zeitgeist and the strange milieu of local characters parading before her. The near nakedness of just about everyone soon became ordinary as did the toing-and-froing of runners and skaters and skateboarders and bicyclers and obvious stoners and the just-plain crazies. A bearded transvestite in a sweaty evening gown caught her eye but only momentarily, strangeness being a relative quality that quickly loses all meaning on California beaches. Hannah had terrific peripheral vision and the nascent observational skills of an accomplished people-watcher. Not much escaped her curious attention for more than a few seconds.

Relax Mom. There's Uncle Jimmy with that Mexican boy. She pointed to where a middle-aged hippie with a long-and-gray, George Carlin ponytail was walking. He was dressed in a garish, tie-died shirt and psychedelic-green shorts; and, he barefooted his way through the crowd, glad-handing most everyone and waving to the ones he couldn't reach. A less-flamboyantly-dressed Chicano, smiling and basking in the reflected glory of his boss, followed in his wake.

Hannah flew down the steps and leaped into her uncle's waiting arms. Gabriela was a little slower, but her reception was a lot warmer—the hugs and kisses were embarrassingly intense even by Californian standards.

The third-row game watchers moved over to clear a space for the popular beach celebrity and his guests. The foursome stood momentarily in front of the stands before climbing and squatting down in the ersatz royal box. Uncle Jimmy, forgetting that on his orders the girls had already met his Mexican shadow, introduced him. This is my main man, Beto. He runs the store for me. He hugged him around the shoulders with one arm to confirm this obvious exaggeration.

We've met before. He gave us a ride and told us we could find you somewhere on the beach, Gabriela said, her hand shading her eyes as she looked facetiously down the boardwalk in both directions, her playful smile mollifying any implied complaint.

The introduced leaned across each other and shook hands and exchanged names, something they had not done at the airport. With a slight Mexican accent—slower and more musical than the rapid-fire lisping of Cubans in Florida—Jimmy's main man said: My name's Roberto Luppino, but everyone calls me Beto. With a nod, the girls agreed to call him Beto, the nickname being quirky enough to suit their blithe mood.

Beto settled down on the far side of the once-again-sprawling Hannah. Uncle Jimmy sat—half sprawled his own self—between her and her mother. It was boy-girl, man-woman: an elegant arrangement.

The young people, Beto and Hannah, didn't talk at first. There was an age difference, a cultural difference, an accent difference, and a complete-lack-of-common-experience difference that prevented instant friendship. Instead of talking, they watched the game with a false intensity, seemingly unaware, but acutely aware nevertheless, of each other's presence.

The older folks, in contrast, twittered animatedly, reliving memories and reporting recent happenings, their speech so elided that it was unintelligible to casual listeners. That they were long-time and very-close friends was perfectly clear: they were oblivious to everyone but themselves, and they shamelessly petted each other with a physical familiarity that spoke volumes.

The bleacher crowd, suddenly standing in mass and cheering, interrupted the juxtaposed tête-à-têtes. Most of them were cheering, but a goodly number were looking crest-fallen because they had supported the losers. Hannah stood automatically when Beto jumped to his feet and started yelling at the top of his lungs. When the hubbub died down a little, he turned to his not-quite-yet friend with a beaming face: That's my little brother, he said proudly, pointing at the tallest and the blondest and skinniest and clumsiest of the two warriors on the victorious team.

You mean the one that looks like a sugar cookie?

Yeah! He's a sugar-cookie guy! He laughed. But I doubt he's very sweet.

After looking back and forth between the short, slightly pudgy and very brown Mexican-American and the tall, Nordic-looking, sand-covered young man he had indicated, she started to question Beto's unlikely claim of brotherhood. This notion, however, was interrupted when she saw Uncle Jimmy, out of the stands and down on the sand, pounding the winning teammates exuberantly, hugging them in turn, lifting them off the ground and swinging them around as if they were rag dolls, even though they were both a head taller than him. He gave the same treatment to a bunch of older, prosperous-looking beach bums, shaking the hands of the happy ones and obviously chiding the unhappy ones—the latter good-naturedly pshawing the outcome and loudly predicting retribution when the rematch was played.

A persistent whistle finally interrupted the overly-long celebration. Arguments, and sometimes bloody fights, settled disputes on the fringe courts, but the city paid sanctioned officials to keep the peace on the Center Court. A new team had replaced the losers and was warming up. The winners, including Beto's supposed brother, had held the court. They sat on a splintery bench and rested between games, catching their wind and sucking Gatorade, not bothering to brush off the sweaty grime, intently watching the challengers pop the practice ball back and forth. All four of the players, seated winners and hopeful next-ups, nervously smoothed the sand with their bare feet.

A beaming Uncle Jimmy had returned to his place between Gabriela and her daughter. He reached across Hannah's lap and shook Beto's hand enthusiastically. I told you Alex was the real thing, he said. Beto looked surprised, as if the tellings and doubts were reversed. Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad and peeled off several hundred-dollar bills. Your share, he said to Beto as he let Hannah pass them along.

Only right, Beto quipped while he playfully riffled the windfall. I taught Alex everything he knows, after all. He crammed the money into his pocket, without counting it, while he beamed a thank-you grin at his boss.

Uncle Jimmy exaggerated a theatrical double take, smiled broadly, faked a drummer's roll with his hands, and said, Ta-da! Both men laughed with an insider's laugh that was meaningless to Hannah. Still grinning, Jimmy started to say something else, but instead, remembering that he had a good-looking female next to him and responsibilities, he turned toward his overdressed visitor: I'm sorry, Gabby—there was no sorry in his voice, though, just happiness and exaltation. But that's my team out there, and they've just made me a bundle of money. He waived the neatly folded bills at her before putting them in his pocket.

Hannah's supposed father, Mr Maddalena, was an enigma. She didn't even know his first name, and her mother claimed that anger had made her destroy the only pictures she had of him. Hannah guessed that she had prepared a mental file of similar evasions in order to neutralize any embarrassing questions. Gabriela need not have bothered because Hannah had precociously surmised early in life, when she was still in grade school, that Mr Maddalena was just a convenient explanation. There was also the fact that her maternal grandmother, the only relative she had ever met, a little black-dressed woman that spoke Italian and died when Hannah was in kindergarten, was called—instead of some other, matriarchal name—Nonna Maddalena.

Hannah was born in a pre-pill era when pregnancy subterfuges were still commonplace, but her mother's supposed deception had never bothered her: she didn't know and didn't care if her father was dead or alive. And she never asked about him when she was a child or later on in life. But she did like her paternal figment's brother, Uncle Jimmy, although she doubted that claimed relationship: the pretend brothers didn't share the same name—the blond Uncle Jimmy was a Germanic Huttendorf not an Italian Maddalena. But, there was always the possibility that she too was half German.

Gabriela had a bi-coastal relationship with Jimmy. They had exchanged same-time-next-year visits for as long as Hannah could remember. The one tryster, with her child in tow, had always met the other tryster at a neutral resort. This was the first exception and the two Floridians' first trip to California. The presence of a youngster had never been a problem, though: the adults were reasonably discrete and could afford separate rooms, a baby sitter, and whatever else they thought necessary to preserve the proprieties.

At home in Florida, Gabriela had other lovers—not promiscuously but with a healthy regularity—and Hannah had grown up wondering what all the fuss was about. Early in life, of course, she didn't understand the physical and emotional complexities of sex; but, when she later became famous—professionally she was Hannah Harris and had considerable clout—she made it perfectly clear that she would not tolerate priggishness or prudishness, not that she had often encountered these attitudes in New York or Hollywood or at the celebrity hangouts she frequented. She became an A-listed sex symbol, but her celebrity was based on talent not transgressions; and the tabloids, after many years of trying to embarrass her, sensing the futility of any further attempts at dirt digging, finally gifted her with a measure of privacy.

As a youngster, back in the early fifties, way before he met Gabriela, Jimmy Huttendorf had lived The Endless Summer life of a California surfer. His runaway teen years were spent in California and Hawaii, flopping wherever he could find floor space, surfing at Ocean Beach and Mission Beach, Makaha and the North Shore, riding the big waves at Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay. He had been good enough and gregarious enough to attract generous sponsors, and for several years he was a contest regular. He once made a promotional tour of Australia and New Zealand—the agency he was working for used pictures of him plunging over the breaks of various monster waves to promote exotic tourism. However, the physical pounding of the sport—along with overindulging in the peripheral pleasures and forbiddens—had forced him to retire from competition at an early age.

He remembered the California contacts he had made, though, and, more importantly, they remembered him. With their help he rented a small shop on a Mission Beach side street and manufactured quality long boards for a couple of years. He eventually sold this successful business and opened a surfing store on Mission Boulevard near Belmont Park. Yeah, it's location, location, location, he blithely preached, but the game's also in the name. And he proved this bowdlerization by using his locally-famous name to sell expensive, name-brand surfing gear—and a lot of name-brand junk—to the nameless hodads and wannabes.

The dudes and dudettes made his store their hangout because they recognized that he had once been a star: advertising posters with him in the curl confirmed his celebrity. He was their kahuna, and he encouraged their presence—even if they didn't spend a lot of money—because they were the real thing: they walked the walk and talked the talk and their knees were definitely knobby. He employed Jocko and Alex and the well-known surfers, Richard and Mindy and Mitsy, as shills: working and playing hard in a lighthearted way that is an athlete's inherent nature, and they turned out to be joyful greeters and gladhanders who brought in the big spenders.

There were also a couple of older, homosexual salesmen named Fred and Frank who added the requisite measure of acumen and gravitas to the otherwise dilettante staff. They had read all the how-to-sell books; had listened to all the how-to-sell tapes; and had the inventory, procedures, and pitter-patter memorized. The customers, young or old, didn't stand a chance when the fun-loving, beach-bum employees and the all-business professionals teamed up against them.

Beto was not part of this efficient sales crew. He was a student at a community college when he hired on, mostly because of the geography: he lived in Mission Beach, didn't have a car, walked almost everywhere he went, and the need for creative scheduling put limits on where he could work. Once employed by Claudine, however, his practical intelligence, his willingness to be a talented gopher, his panache while pushing a broom or grinding out the unpopular chores kept him employed. Everyone, Claudine most importantly, liked him. But he was anxious to move on toward adult normalcy, which to him meant a respectable and permanent position somewhere, a wife who loved him, a bunch of over-achieving kids, and a green-grassed home in the suburbs.

Claudine, Jocko's pretty wife, had been with the firm the longest. She had worked for Jimmy at the board manufactory when she was still in high school, and Jimmy treated her like a daughter. He had paid her way through college, and she became the store's very efficient bookkeeper and office manager. She would inherit the business when Jimmy died, although, in all but the legal technicalities, it was already hers.

Because of Claudine, Jimmy never worried about money. It wasn't a consideration whatsoever. When it was needed—to pay off a bet for instance—it was always there. The store was successful, and Jimmy's undeclared, un-taxed volleyball winnings made his nabob lifestyle possible. But, despite the universal perception that he was a high-rolling spendthrift, he was actually quite frugal. His real property was old and paid for; and except for special occasions, like the visit of Gabriela and her daughter, he dined mostly on fast-food and cheap beer. He didn't waste a lot of money on fancy clothes, didn't own a new car, and only rarely had to pay for the pleasures of a professional lover.

Jimmy had never married—another reason he wasn't broke—but he eventually toned down his sleep-around habits and bought a boardwalk home. It was small by the standards of his rich cronies—only fifteen-hundred square feet of living space—but it completely suited his iconoclastic life style. He had torn out the interior walls on the first floor and converted it, along with its beach-facing patio, into a big party room with all the fun-time accouterments. He had turned the second floor into two guest suites. They were nice but not ostentatious. And he had turned the third floor into his own, soundproofed bedroom. It was soundproofed because, although his reputation as a party animal was important for business, he actually preferred quiet nights alone with a good book or a good woman. He was tone deaf and didn't like music; he had never liked music of any kind, but he was obliged to pretend otherwise. What he did like, late at night when everything was quiet, was to open the French doors and go out on his small balcony and sit in the dark in his rocking chair and listen for hours to the roar of the nearby surf, the same sound that had originally captured his pre-pubescent soul.

Jimmy had enlisted close friends, old surfer dudes who had shared the thrills, who owned their own rocking chairs, trusted friends with reciprocal wants who had promised to steal each other's freshly-dead, corpora maki die, bodies, when they had really died and not just because they looked dead—a drunk can fool another drunk that way—and not just their ashes but their whole about-to-rot bodies, and have midnight paddle-outs to bury them at sea. The collective, under-the-influence, Buddhistic reasoning was that their bodies' water molecules would eventually reincarnate themselves into the big boomers that crash eternally on the pristine beaches of the world. The only real bone of contention was whether they were to be immortalized bare-assed or in their baggies.

This Alex that Uncle Jimmy's talking about, that's your sugar-coated brother? Hannah asked, trying once again for an explanation as to why they didn't look anything at all alike.

My brother? Yes, he's the skinny, blond kid, Beto answered, pointing toward center court where the new game had already started. Alex was once again lying with his face buried in the sand.

She decided to let this incongruity of brotherhood slide for the moment. Uncle Jimmy's not quite as happy about his team winning as he seems. I detect a little disappointment.

Beto wasn't used to Hannah's people-watching skills, and his mouth gaped open. Wow! Are you a witch or something?

"I'm an Italian something-else. Mom says I have the makings of a witch—she calls me pre-strega, that's Italian for pre-witch—but I'm just a plain old … young … something-else."

Beto looked around and saw that his boss was too preoccupied with Gabriela to pay any attention to what a couple of kids were talking about. You're right. I think he's a little upset, not much but a little. I'm amazed that a tyke like you can sense such a thing. Jimmy doesn't exactly wear his feelings on his sleeve. Being in the dumps has nothing to do with you or your mother, though; it's just that Alex turned seventeen yesterday, and, right away, he joined the Marines. He leaves for boot camp tomorrow morning. It's something nobody but him, and my mother, and his caseworker—and maybe Jocko—knew about. It'll break up the team. Everyone thought Alex and Jocko had big plans for owning center court, but the only one with big plans was your Uncle Jimmy. He'll blame Jocko, though, because he was in the Marines and filled Alex's head with a bunch of gung-ho nonsense. But it won't matter for long. The one thing you can say about Jimmy is that he doesn't hold grudges … unless the grudge leads to a big payoff.

What kind of nonsense did he fill his brain with? And I'm not a tyke. I told you that I'm a something-else. Tykes are … pre-somethings. I'm a pre-witch but a full-fledged something-else.

Excuse me, your somethingness! Beto said. I didn't mean to offend you, but I'm an expert on nonsense, and non-everything-else for that matter; and, if you want, I'll gladly share my non-knowledge.

Yes! Please share! Tell me everything you know about nothing.

I don't know anything about anything and nothing about nothing, and I can't answer your question about everything. But I can answer your question about this Jimmy-Jocko-Alex nonsense. Claudine said Jocko loved the Marine Corps. He wanted it to be his career, but he was wounded somehow. He never talks about it. I guess he just wants to live his lost dream through Alex. But, like I said, it's just a suspicion: Jocko doesn't talk about such things, at least not to us normals. I don't know what happened to him, but he has some impressive scars, and he gets a disability check.

Beto's shrug summed up what he had to say on the subject, but he also, non-verbally, expressed his perplexity about Jocko's disability by pointing toward the man's obviously well-conditioned, athletic body, just then leaping high in the air and slamming the ball into his opponents face.

"Jocko plays volleyball in the summer, but his real love is open-water swimming. He trains year round in the cove at La Jolla. He enters a lot of different races, all over the world, but his goal is winning the Gatorman—that's the local biggie, a three-mile race. He's come close, and he's won a couple of the other big races; but, for someone from San Diego, that's not quite the same thing as winning the Gatorman.

Last … maybe it was in January … I took Alex to the store and introduced him around. Alex is a runner and endurance crazies recognize other endurance crazies. Jocko and he became friends. Their schedules coincided. They are both early-morning people, and Jocko talked Alex into the swimming thing, even though the water is cold in the winter, freezing cold. Alex didn't know how to swim, though, so Jocko had to teach him. Can you imagine him not knowing how to swim, considering how he has lived within walking distance of the ocean all his life? Anyhow, Alex would run down to the cove from our house (a long way), and then he'd swim with Jocko to Script's Pier (another long way), and then he'd run back home (an even longer way). He'd do whatever Ma wanted and then get ready for school. It was his last semester, and all his classes were in the afternoon. Volleyball is just a recent wrinkle. It's a summertime thing that Jocko talked him into. Jocko's been the best on the beach forever, but Alex is just getting started. Matter of fact … I'm not totally sure, but … I think this is the first time he's played in the center court.

Hannah corrected him. I guess it's at least the second time he's played in the center court, now that they've won the first game. Correcting grown-ups ad nauseam is one of the coming-of-age, biological necessities that makes it easy for parents to kick their smartass kids out of the nest when they turn eighteen.

Where is everyone going? Hannah asked suddenly, all but shouting the question while looking incredulously up and down. Her flattering fascination with Beto's story had been interrupted by the discovery that the players were milling around, packing up their gear. The watchers were wandering slowly down the boardwalk. She was loud enough that her mother and Uncle Jimmy looked up from whatever they were talking about. There were still some people playing on the peripheral courts, but the center court and stands were completely empty except for them.

Nobody cared about this match, Hannah, Uncle Jimmy said after noticing her befuddlement. And then, when she made it plain with her hand gestures that she didn't understand his explanation, he said: There was no money involved. It was a 'who cares' game. Nobody wants to watch a nothing match during Happy Hour.

That was your team! she said, pointing accusingly toward the deserted court. You mean they lost, and … and you don't care?

By this time they had rearranged their seating assignments—the stands emptiness made it possible to gather loosely together—facing each other instead of sitting side-by-side. Hannah and Beto were leaning on the low wall between the court and the stands with Gabriela and Jimmy parked comfortably on the first-row bench.

The team that just beat us wasn't nearly as good as the one we whipped, Jimmy said with a sigh, trying to teach his small class the rudiments of successful gambling. He looked from face to face, as if this simple statement explained everything. Their puzzled looks, however, told him that nobody, except perhaps Beto, understood. Look, he persisted, every good team has strengths and weaknesses, and the real art, the betting-man's art, the art of picking winners, is the ability to correctly analyze the matchups. The game—no matter what the game is—is all about the matchups.

And the matchup in the game you won was a good one? Gabriela asked, catching on to the essence of the conversation immediately. As a successful realtor she already knew the importance of a good matchup but was eager to learn more about the nuances of creating one and profiting from it.

It was the best! Jimmy confirmed. Jocko and his old partner, Chase, had dominated the beach for a couple of years. They always won. I couldn't make any money off them the way things were because nobody would take my bet, no matter what odds I offered. When Chase boogied off to never-never land, Jocko experimented with a bunch of replacements. Finally he decided on Alex despite the boy's not being very competitive: he truly doesn't seem to care if he wins at anything. Jocko saw his possibilities, though, possibilities that even I didn't see, at least not right off. He said Alex already had the height and a dominating quickness, and that his clumsiness was just a kid's thing that would evolve into gracefulness and agility with age. Claudine agreed, which closed the discussion. But we had to enlist her help to talk Alex into playing: she can talk any male (if he has any hormones) into just about anything. She gave him a part-time, minimum-wage job with only a few hours work on weekends greeting customers. For her it was strictly a business decision. She says Alex is a chick-magnet, and the teen tourists are willing to spend their daddies' hard-earned money just to be near him for a few minutes.

Hannah was already an avid observer of life, a student of interesting and complex characters, and there would be, in her future acting roles, bits and pieces of everyone she had ever met, and everyone she had ever read about. Ordinary people were her teachers, and ordinary conversations were her textbooks. She absorbed details and nuances from casual chitchat, things that normally didn't seem important enough to hide from a kid. Nobody realized that she would ponder what she had learned for days afterward, mulling the details until they made some kind of practical sense. She judged all things by their theatrical believability. Implicit to her was the fact that most people are acting out a self-authored role in the Shakespearian sense that All the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely players.

It bothered her that she couldn't keep the characters straight in a Chekov short story that was on her school's summer reading list because of its reliance on names that bounced back and forth between patronymics and diminutives, often on the same page, often in the same paragraph. It made everything seem less real. Later on in life, her confusions would abate as she became familiar with the Russian literary norms, and she would voraciously read Pushkin and Tolstoy and Gorky and Dostoyevsky and Turgenev. She learned to love the complexities of Russian literature. She would eventually win an Obie for her empathetic portrayal of Anna Karenina in an Off Broadway adaptation based on the steeplechase-denouement chapters of Tolstoy's voluminous book because she knew exactly how to portray passionate people living their lives passionately.

What happened to Jocko's old partner? Hannah asked.

I don't know what happened to Chase, Jimmy answered in a voice that was saying he didn't care what happened to Chase, the man's perfect play being the primary reason he couldn't make a profitable bet. He fell in lust or something and moved to Chicago. He looked around and fidgeted, as if he was bored with rehashing this kind of ancient history.

I didn't know volleyball was a profession. Gabriela's voice made the statement a question that she knew would interest her lover. She didn't care a whit about sports of any kind, but she did know that fawning on every word a man says about his favorite pastime is a powerful aphrodisiac.

It's not a professional sport, not like basketball or football, Jimmy answered quickly, surprised that she'd think people might pay to watch kids play. I mean they've had some sponsored tournaments up in LA, and I suppose someone, somewhere is trying to make something happen. It hasn't caught on, though, not as far as I know, at least not on my beach. I don't think it ever will. You just can't organize beach bums that way. Then, without realizing that there was no real curiosity behind Gabriela's question, he accidently stumbled onto a theme that was important to her. It's all about gambling, playing the odds, messing with each other's minds, losing small and winning big. He said this while patting the bulge in the front pocket of his shorts.

She raised her eyebrows.

"Did you ever see The Hustler?" he asked.

You mean with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason? Of course! Her eyebrows raised another notch. Movies were her second-favorite entertainment.

Well, it's not exactly like that. We don't break anyone's thumbs. The good players have God-given physical skills. It's true: they're all athletes, amateur athletes, but they make some money occasionally. The real money, though, is passed back and forth between the sponsors. Most of the top teams have sponsors who take care of the expenses and provide regular jobs for their players. It's an investment for us: it makes us insiders, like horse trainers or the managers of the 'Fast Eddie' types. And, because of that, we know things the suckers don't know and can pick up a few bucks from them. But the real action—the heavy money—is always between us owners. He thought about the word owners for a moment then corrected himself: "We don't own the players, of course, not like Steinbrenner owns the Yankees. You can't own a free spirit.

Endurance is all Alex had going for him when Jocko started his training, that and the quickest hands I've ever seen. He is quick. There's no doubt about it. He can bury himself in the sand, come up with a dig, and be on his feet just like that, but he doesn't know squat about the finer points of the game.

So, he's a lot faster than the other players? Gabriela interrupted.

"No! He's not fast; he's quick. He'd be third or fourth in a high school track meet at any of the short distances. Jocko says he swims well, but he wouldn't have been in the top one-hundred in next month's Gatorman. He's just not fast enough. Alex is super quick, though, and that's altogether different. Good players, Jocko included, look like they're quick, but with them it's mostly anticipation. Experience has taught them where the other player will spike the ball, and they'll invariably be in the perfect position. A doctor friend of mine said there's a place deep inside the brain—I don't know the name of it—where automatic reactions originate. Obviously these brain cells are highly developed in Alex. Even if he doesn't see them hit the ball, he unthinkingly calculates where it will land and pops it up to Jocko; there's no cognitive mental process involved; they hit the ball, and he automatically reacts.

In the game they won, Jocko had told Alex to forget all about strategy. His only job was to dig the ball out of the sand and get back to his feet. His ineptitude worked to our advantage: the other team saw him as the weak-link and deliberately hit the ball to him. Jimmy's enthusiasm interrupted his own monologue. That's what we hoped would happen, he interjected loudly. Then he shouted and pumped his fist into the air, and we won the big one!

Alex's quickness and Jocko's smarts … that was enough? Gabriela's persistent practicality calmed her lover's exuberance.

Well … not exactly, he said. The fact is that we couldn't have gotten the job done without the remarkable endurance of both of them. They sped up the game, never giving those guys a chance to rest; the other team was sucking wind big time! They'd lose a point; and, before they were back on their feet, our serve was on the way. You can't spike a return when you're still on your knees!

It certainly seemed close, Gabriela said.

It was a squeaker, Jimmy admitted. But I didn't have to eat a ton of Tums beforehand because lots of people had given me some great odds. I wouldn't have lost very much. You've got to understand that betting on anything is a game of percentages. Alex's endurance and quickness, unknown to the others, changed the probabilities: instead of sixty-forty in their favor, it became fifty-one, forty-nine in our favor. With a little luck on our part, and a lot of arrogance on their part, we outsmarted and outplayed them.

Jimmy, translating Gabriela's body language, realizing that she was excited by his enthusiasm, looked at his watch-less forearm—watchlessness being the reason he had missed part of the game in the first place—and told Beto: It's getting late, and I'm taking Gabby back to the house so she can change into something more comfortable. Why don't you and Hannah make a tour of the beach and meet us at the Shanty at eight for dinner. He didn't wait for an answer. He was used to having his orders obeyed instanter without a lot of pointless palaver. He turned and sauntered down the boardwalk with his conquest clinging to his arm. Neither of them bothered to look back.

Hannah, almost never perturbed by what her mother did, watched them for a moment then looked briefly at the now-in-charge Beto