Free Wish by Joseph Monninger Page B

a convenience store and bought ten Arnold Palmers, a half lemonade, half ice tea drink that Ty and Little Brew drank like water. Tommy took a few sips of one, then passed it to me. It tasted sweet and a little tart.
    “So what’s Little Brew mean, anyway?” I asked when we got underway again. “Is that your Native American name?”
    “Oh, man,” Little Brew said. “You don’t even want to know.”
    “Tell them,” Ty said, his eyes looking in the rearview mirror. “Or I will.”
    Little Brew sighed and said, “There was a baseball player a long time ago named Harmon Killebrew. He was mydad’s favorite player, because my dad was from Minnesota and Harmon Killebrew was like the only decent player to ever play for the Minnesota Twins in those years. So somehow I got it into my head that his name was Little Brew and they didn’t correct me or anything for about, I don’t know, a hundred years. They thought it was cute every time I said it, and of course I was being a donkey.”
    “My dad would make an announcer’s voice and say,
Now batting, Jasonnnnnn Little Brew
,” Ty said. “And my dork little brother used to think it was the right name.”
    “It stuck,” Little Brew said. “That’s how it goes.”
    “So your real name is Jason?” I asked.
    He nodded.
    “Little Brew is way better,” I said.
    He smiled. His leg slid over a little and brushed against my calf. I felt a stone roll off a big pile in my gut. It kept going down the stones below it and rattling like an avalanche. I was afraid if he spoke I wouldn’t be able to hear him.
    “You think so?” he asked. “I went through this thing last year where I started asking people to call me Jason. Teachers and friends. But no one stuck to it. Some people say L.B. But no one calls me Jason.”
    “How long have you been surfing?” I asked him.
    “I started surfing way young. They just put a board in the shallow water and let me jump on and off it. I was, like,three or something. Then you start climbing up on it and riding a little. Ty learned the same way. Our dad got us into it.”
    “You know, my dad had a white trail him once,” Ty said, looking over at Tommy and changing the subject. “He was in a kayak with a group of people and the white trailed behind him for about fifty yards, then disappeared. A big fin, my dad said.”
    “We have some weird shark mojo in this family,” Little Brew said. “No doubt about it.”
    “Do your parents live at the house?” I asked.
    “Divorced, like, to the tenth degree,” Little Brew said. “Mom’s down in Mexico doing art tiles and Dad sells surgical supplies. He travels a lot. They bought our place as kind of a beach house years ago, but we took it over. Dad comes whenever he can.”
    “Snow Pony,” Ty said, pulling into a parking lot next to some dunes with a path running down the center, “you ready to see some shark damage?”
    “Bring it on,” Tommy said.
    I had to help him climb down out of the van. Tommy didn’t like that, but he endured it. While the guys were still on the other side of the van, Tommy leaned close to me.
    “Little Brew is
so
into you,” he whispered.
    “Cut it out, you weirdo,” I whispered back.
    “I know what I know.” He held up his two fingers likebull’s horns, jabbing at me to make his point. He was feeling good and I couldn’t help smiling. I also couldn’t help thinking about what he said.
    “I hope they haven’t moved it,” Little Brew said, coming around the backside of the van. “Frankie saw it here yesterday.”
    We smelled it before we saw it. Seagulls flocked the air above it and even a few crows hopped on the dunes, looking down like old ministers waiting their chance. We had to go over a small rise and I stopped to help Tommy kick out of his shoes. Ty and Little Brew were already barefooted. I stepped out of my flip-flops and the sand came up cool and smooth between my toes. Even with the horrid smell, the ocean air pushed around and filled in