Page 78 of Alonzo

“Ummm… OK. I’m game.”

He leads me over to the rock and as soon as my feet touch it I suddenly understand why he took off our shoes. Because it’s warm. It’s not cold tonight—maybe low seventies—but this rock is still holding the heat of yesterday’s sun.

My toes soak up this warmth like they’re starving for it. “God, that feels good.”

“Yeah,” Alonzo agrees. “This rock, according to the story passed down by my grandpop, was where the sailors of long ago would come to celebrate after a day of good luck. There was a period of time in the seventeen hundreds when my mother’s family were pirates and this is when it was turned into a grave.”

“Wait, how is this guy buried under this huge rock? How did they lift it?”

“No one really knows for sure. But the plaque was already in place when people started asking questions about this little island. And my mother’s family held the deed. Or at least a deed. And people respected that piece of paper so the land was just ours. There used to be a shack here. I’ve seen pictures of it. When the Navy took over, they tore it down but they are not allowed to touch this rock.”

“Well, you haven’t even told me the story of the siren yet and I’m thoroughly intrigued.”

“We have to lie down for that part.”

He lets go of my hand and sits down, patting the hard stone to his left. I sit next to him and then we lie back at the same time. The combination of leftover heat and flat, uncompromising rock hit my spine at the same time. And I hold my breath as I let the feeling of hard warmth sink in.

It’s like a spa experience waiting to be discovered.

“The story goes like this,” Lonnie says. “Vasco was sailing along a dangerous reef because he had heard that rival pirates stashed booty there. His ship was too big to traverse the shallow water so he and a few of his men got into a rowboat and waited for the tide to go out. When that happened part of the reef was exposed and they saw a cave. But the cave was being guarded by a beautiful naked woman.”

“The siren Adrienne.”

“Exactly. And of course, everyone knows that sirens live to kill sailors. She called them towards her with a song. And one by one, Vasco’s men jumped into the water and swam to the reef near the cave. And one by one they were pulled down by some unseen monster in the water. But Vasco knew better than to go near the siren. So he kept his distance and sang a song back to her instead. Calling her off the rocks and into his boat. They fucked, of course.”

I laugh.

“He didn’t find any treasure, but the following year he came out to this rock just before dawn like he always did, and found a baby boy. He named him Alfonso. He knew the siren Adrienne was the baby’s mother. He had charmed her that day they had sex, but she had charmed him too. He never went back to the reef. Though many others did, and died when she called them to the monster that lived in the water. But he dreamed of her every night after he took the baby into his home.”

“Were they sexy dreams?” I waggle my eyebrows at Alonzo.

“Very,” he confirms. “But they weren’t just dreams. Because the next year she brought him another baby boy. And the next year she brought him a baby girl. The next year, another boy.”

“Wait…” I turn over on my side so I can look down at Lonnie’s face. “Two boys, a girl, and a boy. Isn’t that…”

“Yup. That’s my family. It’s said—and actually recorded in medical records—that every woman descended from Adrienne gives birth to babies in this order and of these genders. Just one girl per generation. But she keeps the line going with those boys.”

“Interesting.”

“It kinda is, right?”

“So what was Vasco’s beef with the siren? Why did she ruin his life? She gave him four children.”

“Yeah, but he had no wife. So he had to pay local women to take care of his children while he worked all day. They took all his money and he never owned anything expect this tiny island in the channel. Even when his sons grew big enough to help, they left him for better jobs with other pirates. The youngest son left to join the American Revolution. So that only left the daughter. She married and had four children. Two boys, one girl, and another boy. But she was too busy with her own family to take care of Vasco. So he died alone on this island. Poor and with no family or friends.”

“Then how did he get this amazing gravesite? Who did this?”

“No one knows. One day the girl came back with her children and found the marking on the rock.”

I sit up and look around. “What markings?”

“You can’t see them. They’re under the plaque now. But it said, ‘Here lies Vasco, devoted husband of the siren Adrienne.’ There was a threat there too. A curse for anyone who dared look for his remains. And there was an impression of a fin in the rock.”

I lie back down. “What a sad, odd story.”

“That’s how it’s been told, anyway.”

I turn on my side again so I can see his face. “What do you mean? It was a lie?”