Chapter 4 #2
“Really?” Sly appeared skeptical. “I’ve never seen Pretty Boy chase a woman before. Wish I’d been there.”
“It wasn’t pretty, especially fer Pretty Boy.” Cage ducked the pretzel Zach threw at him.
“I called Max and Hilda and left a message on their answering machine. I’m sure he and his family will be able to do something to help Britta...uh, transition,” he told them. “In the meantime, I’m just going to play it by ear.”
“Or by ass,” Sly contributed.
“Transition, my ass!” That was Cage’s opinion.
“In other words,” JAM interpreted, “he doesn’t have a clue.”
Zach stood and tossed some bills on the table, preparing to leave.
A group of six Navy nurses, still in uniform, sat down at a table nearby and placed orders for hot wings, a pitcher of beer and an extra helping of celery sticks with blue cheese dressing. He’d forgotten that tonight was wing night.
“Hey, Sheila,” he said as he passed their table. Then he greeted the others, “Candy. Fran. Dot. Beth. Wanda.”
He heard JAM mutter behind him. “Frickin’ unbelievable!”
“He’s like a chick magnet,” Sly responded.
“I’d lak ta have a few of his leftovers.” Cage sighed with exaggeration.
As if any of the SEALs had trouble getting dates!
And, yeah, he knew all of these women, but it was Sheila he knew best. They had shared an incredible night making love in the sand following a beach party a few years back after having drunk about two gallons of Dirty Gin.
The most memorable image in his mind of that night was Sheila showing him her new breast implants.
They had looked like bleepin’ torpedoes.
God bless silicone! He wouldn’t mind picking up where they’d left off, though why he hadn’t made a move since then, he had no idea.
Well, yes, he did.
Britta.
He’d stopped calling lots of women because he’d been hung up on Britta for a long time. Maybe it was time to get back in the game.
But just then, his cell phone rang. The caller ID indicated it was his home phone.
Uh-oh! “Hello.”
“I wanna go home,” his five-year-old son screamed.
Zach held the phone away from his ear. “You don’t have to yell. Besides, you are home.”
Sammy said a really bad word, for a kid, something about mother-sucking dickheads, meaning him, he supposed, and he heard Madrene in the background say really bad words for an adult around a kid, something about “bloody damn spoiled rotten bratlings and fathers who tup way too many wanton ladies.” Sammy did tend to bring out the worst in people.
“I wanna go to my real home.”
“What happened this time?”
“The witch,” he started...witch being the name he reserved for Madrene who took none of his crap, “she made me eat grass.”
“It was a salad,” Madrene yelled out.
“Spinach.” Sammy’s voice held all the disdain a five-year-old could muster.
He laughed to himself. He wasn’t too fond of spinach himself.
“And white worms.”
“Bean sprouts,” Madrene corrected.
“And she hit me just ’cause I pissed in her cat’s dish. Then she hit me ’cause I said her cat looks like a fat hairy hog. Then she hit me ’cause I tol’ her you prob’ly screwed five hundred women and didn’t even remember my mother. Then she hit me just ’cause I farted in the grocery store.”
“I did not hit you, you snotling. I just swatted your little arse with my palm.” It wasn’t like Madrene to lose her temper like this around Sammy. It must have been a particularly bad day.
“And what’s with this Scary Larry guy?” Sammy continued. “He looks like he eats little kids for breakfes’. Shiiit! What kinda father sends a scary monster to watch his kid?”
Zach had to smile. Wilson could be a little, well, scary, even to adults. The man never smiled, and he had strange gray eyes that sort of looked through a person, like ice.
“And I don’t need no watchin’ anyways. I can take care of myself. I been doin’ it for a long time.”
Oh, yeah! Six months is a long time. And you weren’t alone, kiddo. You were with good ol’ grandad.
He heard shuffling sounds then as Madrene took the phone from Sammy.
“You best come home now, you lustsome knave, or I will be paddling your arse, too,” she said, banging down the phone.
Zach headed off for home and the madness that had become his life.
Children are a gift? Says who?...
Samir lay in his bed, eyes scrunched shut, arms arranged at his sides, like a corpse, pretending to take a nap. It was a trick his cousin Taj had taught him one time, ’cept they had been pretending to be dead in case the Evil Americans attacked.
He still could not get used to the idea that he was part American. Did that mean he was evil, too?
Maybe, praise Allah, my father will forget some of the things I did today if I “sleep” long enough.
Despite his protests, he knew Zach was his father.
Even before he’d been shown photographs by Grandmother Floyd—or Nana as she’d told him to call her—he’d known the truth.
His Grandfather Arsallah had slapped him every time Samir reminded him that he was half-American, whether it be the color of his eyes, or a slip into the English language, or mention of his mother whose name was not allowed to be spoken.
Because of the way his grandfather treated him, his uncles and cousins felt free to treat him just as badly, or worse.
A bastard, that’s what I am. Don’t matter what my father says ’bout me bein’ his son. I’m just a dirty little bastard. I don’t care if no one likes me. I don’t care if my father likes me.
Sometimes he wondered why his grandfather wanted him back so bad. He’d never acted like he cared when Samir had been there.
And his father would be giving him up soon. He knew he was on his own. He had been for a long time, even when his mother had been alive. She’d said she loved him, but most times she paid more attention to her fighting pals than she did to him. She’d died on his birthday.
“Sammy.”
It was his father opening the bedroom door. Samir shut his eyes tighter and braced himself for the slap or punch that was sure to come. Or even worse, a whip. Oh, he hoped it wouldn’t be a whip.
The mattress shifted as his father sat down on the bed. “You’ve had quite a day today, haven’t you, kiddo?”
Samir was confused. Why wasn’t his father yelling? Why was his voice so soft? A trick...it was probably a trick. I am not going to talk. If he thinks I am asleep, he will go away. I hope.
“Why do you do all these snotty things?”
Because I like to?
“Do you want me to think you’re bad?”
I am bad, bonehead. Didja forget I’m half-American?
“I’m thinking about taking you to a psychiatrist. That’s a...uh, head doctor.”
Oh, no, you don’t. No one’s cuttin’ up my head.
“There’s got to be some reason why you’re acting out like this. I can’t believe you would want to go back to your grandfather.”
Where else would I go?
“As far as I can tell, you weren’t treated very well in his camps.”
What do you know, Mister Pretty Boy? Where were you when my mother died? Where were you when my grandfather’s men killed my nanny and dragged me into the desert?
“You do know that your mother wanted you to come live with me, don’t you?”
Why is he talking? Why isn’t he hitting me? That’s what everyone does when I do something bad. Even when I don’t do anything bad.
“Are you testing me? Trying to see how far you can push me before I explode? Ah, I can see by the flickering of your eyelashes that I’m getting close. Do you want me to explode? Then you can blame it all on me?”
Explode? My father exploding? Yeech, I don’t want any guts on me. What’s that name for what happens when a body explodes? Oh, yeah. Pink Mist. That’s just what it looks like, too.
“I’m running out of people to take care of you when I’m at work. I don’t want to send you away, but I’ll have to if you don’t shape up.”
See. Only two weeks and he’s ready to send me away.
He heard his father sigh heavily before saying, “I’m hungry. I’m thinking pizza, Pepsi, and a video game before bed. But you’re probably too tired to get up. Maybe I’ll save you a cold piece for breakfast. Unless you would prefer more spinach salad.”
Pizza...my favorite! He’s gonna eat my favorite food while I’m sleeping. What a pig!
Samir cracked open one eyelid. His father was already headed toward the door.
“Okay,” he said, sitting up.
He expected his father to smirk when he turned around or say something nasty about him, but all he said was “Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll eat if I have to.”
“Have to?”
“I’m not playin’ that Dora the Explorer game, though, I’ll tell you that right now. What do you think I am? A baby? I wanna play Firing Range: Blood and Guts.”
His father laughed. “In your dreams, short stuff.”
Samir made a face, but he kinda liked it when his father called him “short stuff.” He said it in a way that Samir thought other fathers might talk to their sons. “How ’bout Ghosts and Ghoulies?”
“Give me a break.”
“I still hate you.”
“That’s just great.”
Samir stood and adjusted his shorts.
“What’s wrong?”
He continued to pull at the waist and legs of his shorts. “Those stupid Superman underpants you bought me are stuck in my crack.”
“Way more intel than I need to know! What did you wear when you were in Afghanistan?”
“Nothing. When you gotta piss in the middle of a firefight, you don’t wanna take the time to pull your underwear down.”
His father’s jaw dropped open.
“What do you do in the middle of a battle?”
“I wear underwear, and don’t you dare try going commando around here. You’ll give Madrene a heart attack, and the little girls in the neighborhood will be filing sexual harassment law suits.”
“That witch needs a heart attack. An’ all the little girls ’round here are nothin’ but whiney ass split tails.” Anyhow, that’s what his uncles called most girls.
“That was not nice.”
He shrugged.
“Were you around actual fighting very much?”
“There was always bombs and guns goin’ off. Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam! Never knew when one would hit. A bomb hit our house one night. Ka-boom! Then we lived in a cave.”
His father stared at him as if he might be thinking about hugging him.
Samir ducked around him and started down the stairs.
“Kid, you’re gonna be the death of me yet.”