The Rower on the Bluff

Chapter 1

Dad hasn’t been his worried self. And him not worrying, well, it makes me worry. When he gets in one of his good moods, it’s usually because he thinks something good is going to happen. And since it never does, the outcome is obvious.

My job is to keep Dad right in the middle, not too optimistic and not too pessimistic. It’s not an easy job considering his dreams. But no job is easy, especially when you’re in the business of chopping down trees for rich people. He tries to squeeze in other stuff, too, but tree-cutting is what brings home the bacon.

That’s one of his typical sayings. You can’t beat it with a stick is another, and then there’s You can’t buy common sense. Sometimes he changes it up and adds his own twist of wisdom. Last week he said that beauty was only skin deep but some people needed a shovel. Next week he might add that they only need a shovel if they want someone to really dig them. He won’t stop there; he’ll have a dozen offshoots before long.

Dad should come up with one about the American Dream. If you looked inside our garage, you would know what I mean. He thinks it’s a warehouse rather than a place for cars; but I think the garage is more symbolic—like a walk-in grill, with eggs one side and home fries on the other, and Dad somewhere in the middle searching for the bacon.

On the safer side of the grill, the one with the steady heat of weekly cash flow, he keeps his chainsaws, ladders, and climbing belts—the tools of the trade. The other side is filled with steel shelving and stacked with boxes of Amway products, water filters, vitamins, energy bars, and other goodies he’s been talked into selling. This is the American Dream side—and either Dad is doing his best to come up with a recipe for success or he’s figured out the perfect way to annoy his clientele. Knowing Dad, it’s a combination because, like me, he resents everything around here but he’s also desperate to have what he resents.

Guess which side of the garage has been growing since my mother died, which seems like a thousand years ago. I’ll become a strong woman as a result of her early departure, at least according to what I read on the Internet. I might even become another Madonna, or so they say, if I survive the support groups that await me. The only problem is, Mr. Garage, I’m strong enough already, and I know all about you.

On one side of you are my dad’s dreams of freedom, and on the other is how he brings home the bacon in the truck parked in the driveway. The neighbors complain about it being parked outside, but there’s no room inside you for actual vehicles - the dreams are in the way. Even if there were enough space, how could Dad sell the energy bars if they’ve spent the night under a tire or smelled from exhaust fumes?

But it’s not like we couldn’t have money. Our family’s been in this village forever, and my grandfather, who’s a little bit crazy, owns a serious piece of land right on Jericho Turnpike. It’s one of the busiest roads around here, and you could easily stick a shopping center on his place. The only problem is he won’t sell or develop because he lives there—in a shack at the rear of the property. He’s not supposed to because it’s zoned for business, but that’s what he does.

Of course, he runs a business of sorts on the land, but you won’t read about it in Money magazine. He sells firewood and gives pony rides, not to mention the barbecue pit that he fires up when he’s in the cooking mood. That’s when he throws up a sign that he’s selling burgers and hot dogs. Pretty dicey; it’s the kind of place where someone without teeth or with out-of-state license plates might pull in to eat. And any parents thinking about treating their kids to a pony ride better know that my grandfather doesn’t believe in insurance. Also, from what my dad tells me, the firewood throws off smoke rather than fire. I always thought wood was wood, but this stuff’s too new to burn properly. And my dad ought to know. He’s the one who dumps his trees there. The joke between them is that they’ve never had a repeat customer.

My grandfather also sells large wooden figures that he carves and paints. They’re as ugly as can be—and I’m not sure if he’s ever sold one, not that he’d ever want to part with any. They’re all over the property—six-foot wooden Indians and giant Smokey-the-bears—a perfectly hideous outdoor sculpture garden, with a few old refrigerators and busted TV sets thrown in, just to make sure the place is ugly enough. Maybe he thinks that his creations might get hungry or have a favorite TV show. Grandpa’s not without a sense of humor. Tied to the rickety fence out front, he’s got this plywood sign filled in with Magic Marker: THE BLIGHT OF JERICHO TURNPIKE.

Underneath those words, just like we’ve signed a masterpiece, rests our signatures, first my grandfather’s, than my dad’s, and finally mine—our little Thank You card to the village. But we didn’t sign the card together. We scribbled our names separately, as if to say, This is my message, dear reader and no one else’s—my middle finger.

Dad’s not too happy about my name on the sign. I think it’s because he doesn’t want me to inherit his middle finger; he would prefer that I inherit his dreams. In a way, I am. I already told you about the dreams inside the boxes in the garage. But he’s got this one big outside dream. He wants to convert grandpa’s land into a nursery. It would be the opposite of his tree-cutting business. All he needs is money and a change in heart from grandpa. Whatever happens, I just want my dad’s heart to stay as good as it is. I want happy blood flowing through his veins, especially to his eyes because I’m having trouble looking at them lately.

They’re sensitive and blue and always a little bloodshot, like the sadness has fought through the dreams and won the battle over his capillaries. He says it’s an allergy to the bark constantly raining down on him. I say it’s still sadness if you’re allergic to what you do for a living.

Anyway—late crew practice today—the bus will be waiting by the school to take us to the Neck. Funny how, around here, the poorer you are the closer you live to school, but it’s got its upside; I can walk there. You can’t beat it with a stick, my dad would once again say. And right now I’d add especially when you’re supposed to become as tough as nails on the end of that stick.

But I have different nails on the ends of my oars. They’re un-bitten and they’re un-polished, and they really gouge into the water. I’m what they call a water ringer, a mini-Moses, and maybe, one day, Mr. Garage, I will part the waters and cook up some serious bacon for you. Would you prefer wood floors or tile…a nice paint job… a new door perhaps? But after I fix you up, you better turn Dad’s boxes into his dreams and let us keep the truck inside. Is it a deal? Think about it, Mr. Garage, but I have to go. It’s time to catch the bus.

Time to drive by my classmates’ houses—first the mini-mansions that fill every inch of their two acres—and then, after we pass over the causeway, the real ones. They sit atop the bluffs with their fat tummies hanging over like Buddahs. But Dad is up there, too. He may be clinging to a limb and crawling with the squirrels, but he’s still eye to eye with them—Mr. Rick Jones, tree-cutter extraordinaire, the father of Kim Jones, the best rower in Spring Harbor High.

Chapter 2

Elliot Reiter, ace treasurer of the Duck Pond Road Association, stared around the Habermans’ living room at his neighbors, all of them successful—or at least handed money in some way. Yet in this role he was a king among kings, sticking his little yardstick into the books and letting his royal chums—royal assholes, more like—know where each dollar was, or in this case, wasn’t. He would have loved to embezzle from this group, not that he was a thief. He’d just give anything—or in this case, take anything—to see their jaws drop and their capped teeth pop out of their mouths and bite daddy’s money-giving ass.

Shall we begin with the treasurer’s report? said Bob Flynn, the oversized president and sole heir to some obscure but annuity-reeking patent. Reiter was fascinated with where Flynn had positioned himself. Despite the fact the twenty or so people who’d shown up for the long overdue meeting had formed a circle of mismatched chairs, Flynn had managed to place himself in a corner, embarrassed either for his huge size or for his incompetence in the meager task of running the road—or both. He’d served on dozens of boards. This position was nothing to someone of his caliber—or to any of them—but somehow the moron had trouble just getting speed bumps installed or Slow Down signs erected.

Ready? the pompous ass asked him.

As I’ll ever be, Reiter said. He had a vision of the lot of them on their deathbeds, where all the money in the world wasn’t going to soften the bedside manner of that big Haitian nurse. No matter who they were, she’d be a clone of the one who’d commandeered his father’s final days, changing him whenever she damn well felt like it. Not that he would have done a better job, Reiter thought, dividing the circle of egos into two groups: young swaggering couples, with big money and little kids on bikes; and the older ones, with their places in Vero Beach. The horny and the horned, whatever the hell that meant. It must have had something to do with him being the only Jew on the road.

How about now? Flynn said. Some of the others, including Reiter’s wife, giggled. She was the only one who had a right to laugh since she did all of the work and all the spreadsheet king did was make the numbers look pretty. Too bad lovely Linda never spread for the king these days. All she did was go to sleep early and leave him with the remote and the porn station. The problem was that Reiter had seen the films so many times he could recognize the males from their penis sizes and the ladies from the stretch marks on their implants. Some of the women had half-moon, smiley-faced scars just at the lower swell of their breasts. When you put the two together, all he had to do was catch the slightest glimpse of a scene, a bit of hair brushed away during a suck or a tattoo on an ass, and that was enough. He’d score high on some Jeopardy-like show called Identify the Porn Star. Still, there was something comforting about this kind of trivial familiarity. It was less lonely being in someone else’s bedroom while you were trapped in your own.

We need money, Reiter said, looking over at Mrs. Cunningham, a short-haired fifty-year-old sitting with her legs leisurely crossed and her Birkenstocks grounding her like some sort of highfalutin earth-mother. Like Reiter’s wife, she was right out of a Talbot’s catalogue and there without her husband, who was off fly-fishing. More likely, whatever he was doing had nothing to do with fishing, though it probably had something to do with his fly, although Reiter should not be talking, given his fantasy life. Was it fantasy?

So we need an assessment? Flynn said.

We’re only in May, Reiter said, as a Jeopardy question/answer floated to the surface: Who was Eric Everhard?

By the time winter comes around we won’t have a penny for snow plowing, he said.

It’s because of Archer, Dr. Pollock said gruffly. He was the oldest one in the room and sitting next to Reiter.

And Miller, Reiter added, checking out the speed bumps on the newest member of the road association, a divorcee with two young daughters who’d just moved in a few houses away. He had no idea what her name was, but in a perfect world, Reiter would be clicking the remote her way. And a few others.

It’s those two, Flynn said haughtily. I can understand Miller not paying because it’s just land and he can’t build where he is, but Archer—it’s not right.

We’ve talked about filing liens, Reiter said, shaking things up but thinking of how, whenever he had to reset the stations, the TV would filter through the channels and come to a random stop, like it had suddenly mastered life and was going to make everything just right, starting from the beginning, channel 1—the womb.

And someone was shaking up Reiter’s life. Only two days ago, out of the blue and into his blue, he’d received a short phone call from Liana Petrik, an old friend he’d slept with twenty years earlier because she slept with everyone—she was the kind of woman who could easily sleep with two or three different men during the course of a day. Even at her tiny wedding—also twenty years earlier—which had literally taken place in a New York apartment, most of the males had been with her at one time or another. Reiter recalled the wedding and the dozen couples sitting on the living room floor while Liana tied the knot with some Italian guy who didn’t know what he was in for. In fact, only a week before the wedding, she’d arranged a date with a professor through a personals ad, slept with the happy academic, and then told him she was getting married the next week. Apparently he hadn’t taken it too well. Only a week before the professor, she’d slept with Reiter, perhaps realizing she’d overlooked him along the way. Maybe guys were like credits and she needed a few more to graduate before the wedding day.

We have no choice, Dr. Pollock said, and Reiter chuckled inside at how the rest went right along. He pictured Liana and her groom in the center of the room with the Tibetan monk look-a-like who’d married them.

I know Mark Archer pretty well, Reiter eventually said, after the others had gotten out all of their cheapo frustrations.

We’ve been speaking to him for years, Flynn said. He has no intention of paying unless the dues are equal.

He still won’t pay the back dues, no matter what we do going forward, Reiter said, although he knew where it was going.

The by-laws state that the dues should be based on acreage, said the retired doctor. They’re not supposed to be equal!

They’re equal in other road associations, Reiter said. He was going to shake things up if it meant having to give CPR to Dr. Pollock. He’ll pay the back dues if we make it equal retroactively and we all kick in some money.

Never, Pollock said. And now, Holden’s not paying her dues either. She’s protesting because we’re too easy on him. We have to do something. We’ll have no road association left if we don’t enforce the dues. They’re the two richest people on the road!

Then we all better buy Hummers, Edmonds said, laughing.

Reiter joined right in with the forty-year-old bond trader. He envisioned a road full of yellow Hummers. If we don’t have money for plowing, we’ll need them.

Shall we put it to a vote? Flynn asked. He had curly reddish hair and thick-rimmed glasses on a small head, all on top of that giant body, making him look like a pyramid. Over all, you didn’t have to be a woman to find him grotesque, and Reiter wondered if Mark Archer, during his four years at the Brevenport country club, had experienced some version of Flynn.

Put what to a vote? Reiter asked, looking at the sexy new neighbor. "The dues being equal or filing the lien?

How about both? she answered, probably thinking that he’d directed the question at her.

We can’t have both, Pollack said. At that moment, Reiter visualized how cheaply the doctor must have operated his practice. He pictured him using the same stethoscope for thirty years. Of course, he should be focusing on his own life rather than those of the assholes surrounding him.

I put to a vote that the dues be equal going forward.

No way.

I put to a vote that we file a lien on the Archer property, Flynn said, the top of his head bobbing like an Easter egg about to hatch.

Second.

All those in favor.

Reiter watched every right hand in the room rise and then felt his own follow along. Who had the remote? He’d pushed them right along, but now the clicking was coming from somewhere else. His mind flooded with loose associations. Ironically, all those raised arms reminded him of the missing leg of the younger brother of a business contact. He had survived a small plane crash and was now a wealthy man. He’d retired at forty and was even running in New York City marathons with his prosthetic leg, perhaps to the resentful accolades of his jealous brother.

Unanimous. I’ll get someone to file the lien.

What about the Miller property? Reiter asked, remembering, like an assassin at the finish line, how he’d commiserated with the brother. You can’t file on one without the other. And it doesn’t mean we’ll ever see the money unless they sell their properties.

I move that we file the lien on the Miller property, Pollack said, like he already had the money in his pocket and was ready to purchase that new stethoscope.

Second.

All those in favor.

Put it in the minutes that we file a lien on the Miller property along with the Archer property. Okay, next order of business.

What about the speed bumps? Reiter asked, watching his wife enter the minutes while sipping her wine. He pictured her along with the rest taking their big fish dive into Duck Pond. It was funny how you didn’t need to stock this pond with people. I’d still like to have one more talk with Mark, Reiter added.

Fine, I won’t talk to the lawyer for a couple of weeks anyway.

And the speed bumps? the new neighbor said. It was over now. Reiter would just sit back and entertain himself, thinking about the prosthetic leg and listening to the cacophony that was road association government. There was a Wild West feel to it—in this case, Wild East.

I have little kids.

Me, too.

The workers drive too fast.

It’s the people on the road.

It’s the landscaping trucks.

It’s someone with a red Mercedes.

It’s the garbage guys.

It’s the visitors.

It’s you.

It’s the fact that your mothers once carried you in their tiny little wombs, Reiter thought, and now you’re living in six-thousand-square-foot houses. You changed the ratio of freedom and now there’s not nearly enough amniotic fluid. He thought of poor Miller with his lot on the wetlands, so close to the fluid but no building permit to suckle on, no umbilical cord connecting him to the Duck Pond cesspool. Wasn’t it a status symbol these days to have a Porto-san on your property for the workers while you moved your family to an extended-stay facility? It was the badge of major renovation. Maybe Miller would be allowed to build if he kept multiple Porto-sans outside his house. If you didn’t need plumbing you should be able to build where you wanted. There was something deeper there, now that he thought about it.

Then Reiter finally honed in on the one thing he should be focusing on, the tax shelter he’d sold to Mark Archer before Archer got sent away and how it would have been better if it had gone under the tubes while Archer was still at Brevenport.

Of course, it would have been best if he’d never sold it to him. But why should Reiter be the only one without money? His kids had to go to college, too. Were they supposed to attend state schools while the assholes’ kids got the best schools or studied abroad? He’d already suffered through their high school years, where 25% of the kids in the neighborhood attended private day schools and another 25% went to boarding schools like Andover while the remainder parked their BMWs in his used Subaru face. In other goddamned words, he had not even kept up with the Jones’ kids.

And although Reiter had wiggled out of nasty situations in the past and was in fact a bit of a lucky snake, he’d never faced someone like Archer, an opponent who would go the distance to right a perceived wrong. The question rang in his brain, Why would you screw Mark Archer when you knew payback would be impossible? It was like he’d done it on purpose, just to see if he could slither out. If he didn’t, his next voluntary position, perhaps as treasurer of the Broken Cocoon Association, might not be so voluntary.

The good news—more of an omen—was that recently he’d eyed a book on Chinese astrology that zeroed in on his extreme survival skills. According to his birthday, he was a Metal Rabbit and accurately described as remarkably slippery and devious, able to get out of anything—a true prick in disguise. Of course, if the book had been more specific and said smiling horny Metal Rabbit taking under-the-table commissions and kickbacks from tax shelter sales and going on a date with an old lover, he would have bought it on the spot. He even had a discount card for the store itching to get out of his wallet.

Okay, let’s get to the water situation, Flynn said, but Reiter didn’t remember them finishing with the speed bump situation. Then the voices started pouring in from all directions.

Most of the other associations have agreed to have the utility lay down the pipes.

They’ll ruin the road.

But we won’t be dependent on our damn wells.

What’s wrong with the wells?

They always break down.

There’s too much iron in my water.

Yeah, you can’t even go on vacation because when you get back all your pipes are clogged.

I had no water last Christmas. My well guy was on vacation.

There are no well guys left.

My whites come out red in the wash!

But we don’t have the money for repaving!

The utility will subsidize us.

We still don’t have enough.

It would be good for us.

That doesn’t matter here.

Elliot, the meeting’s over, Linda eventually said, and Reiter’s instincts again had him going for the remote like they were in bed with the sound on by accident and some G-stringed lady moaning and threatening to wake her up. But he still loved her, even if she wasn’t the one wearing the G-string, even if he had agreed to meet an old lover. He was starting to believe in God, too. Someone had to be up there watching the Metal Rabbit because maybe what Reiter needed more than anything else in the world was a wife who was a heavy sleeper. Because during that hour or so every night, when his thoughts were swirling and mixing with the porn, there was something about it, something ready to happen, almost like he was graduating, going from punching remote-buttons in a bedroom to admiring the view of a wilderness, advancing from his semi-dream state to a place where he could look at a tree or a leaf or his wife or even a guy like Flynn in a whole different way.

So it’s lien time, he said, watching Flynn shaking hands like he was running for a real elected position. You would think that the meeting had been held in Flynn’s house and he was the one saying goodbye. But that was the way these people were. They lived in their own private Porto-sans, and all they did was defecate on you. Lien and mean, Reiter said, recalling his visit to Brevenport. A couple of famous, one-time heavy hitters were tossing an absurdly small football while he and Archer were walking down a path like a couple of freshmen on a college campus. The only thing missing was a group of coeds with backpacks and tank tops. They did allow conjugal visits, however, and now Reiter wondered what it was like for the Archers? Did they get a special room for the occasion? Was there music?

Knowing what he did about Archer, the time was likely spent not seeking