Comment and judge on this short story: Vacation

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by

Peter DeMarco

Henry tells the twin girls he almost got hit by a bike.

They’re all over the place, one says.

Like New York City taxis, says Henry.

We’ve never been to New York.

It’s being cleaned up now.

The girls are in Amsterdam on break from college in L.A.  Henry asks if they’ve ever been on the Universal Studios tour.  That’s for tourists, they say.  But what if you like movies, he asks.  They tell him that when you’re from a place that’s known for something, it doesn’t mean that much.

            I think I know what you mean, says Henry.  I’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty.

            That’s crazy, one of them says.

            See, we’re all tourists, Henry tells them.

            Outside, they smoke hash alongside a canal. 

            I haven’t ridden a bike since I had an accident when I was a kid, says Henry.  He points to his a scar on his forehead.

Someone told us that there are a lot of bikes in the water.

Like a cemetery, Henry says.

They smoke in silence and stare at the water, as if the rippling current were a kind of lullaby.

            What do you do back home, they ask Henry.

            I go to the movies, he says.  So do you like movies, or am I asking another stupid question.

            We like the old ones. 

            Like Charlie Chaplin, Henry asks.

            Whose that?

            He was a silent movie star.

            Not that old.  You know, from the eighties.

            Henry shakes his head. 

            The other twin asks him if he travels a lot.  This is my first time abroad, he says.

            Really.  You’re brave going by yourself.

            Not brave, just bored.

            The girls tell him that their parents let them travel because it was their 21st birthday. 

            That’s sweet, Henry says.  Then he asks if they know how to say goodnight in Dutch.  The girls shake their heads.

            Henry waves goodbye and walks away.

_________________________

            Henry visits a prostitute in the Red Light District.         

            Once, I came home from school, he tells her, and heard some weird chanting or something in the living room.  I peeked in and saw my mother and some friends with the Pastor from our parish and they were talking, but it wasn’t words, it was like mumbling.  My mother was sick and they were trying to heal her.  It scared me.

            I went back outside, Henry says, and got my bicycle.  I pedaled really fast and wasn’t paying attention, there were tears in my eyes, and I hit a tree.

            The prostitute strokes his hair as if he were a prize mare.

            Later, Henry rents a bike and pedals along the canals.  He thinks about the abandoned bicycles the girls mentioned, sturdy new chrome that once sparkled in the sun, now rusted and disfigured.  In school, a teacher once told the class about the Pearl Harbor memorial, how you could see the sunken ship just beneath the water.

            There is a resting place for everything.

About Peter DeMarco

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Troubled young suburbanite Henry Walker is on a one-man mission to clean up his town, protect his property, and chase after fantasies of a better life ahead. From an alienated adolescent to a frustrated young adult, Henry encounters one disappointment after another. While suffering the loss of close family members and friends, desperately seeking companionship in the form of unconventional friendships, and becoming a victim of extreme bullying and violence, Henry ultimately becomes an outcast in the only town he knows. 

As Henry immerses himself in his past, memories become guilt, guilt becomes regret, and regret becomes obsession—until violence seems to be the only logical response.

Written as a collection of interwoven short stories, told in sparse, piercing prose, this haunting novel examines Henry Walker’s transformation from the misfit and the victim— to vengeful retaliator. But does the justice he metes out make him a popular hero or an enemy of the people? In razor-sharp prose reminiscent of Haruki Murakami, Peter DeMarco startles the mind while touching the heart.