Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
R arity…
Grandma and grandpa were back from the Keys, and so it was all seven of us for the Gator Farm that weekend.
Striker was meeting us there, and we all piled in to my mom’s van for the ride up to St. Augustine. I brought a backpack full of things for an overnight if I could somehow manage to get left behind. I knew Striker would be good for a ride home.
I really hoped that things went well, but Grandma was already in one of her moods, nit picking about everything from the passenger seat up front as Mom drove while Grandpa and I say back in the third-row seating behind the row of boys in front of us in their car seats.
While they hadn’t precisely gone back to being pious little angels, their fits and bouts had rapidly and diminished in the extreme enough that we were a go for the outing. Plus, how often could you get free admission to a place like the Gator Farm? We weren’t able to afford many experiences for the boys like that – so there was no way we could pass it up.
Striker was waiting for us outside in the parking lot, leaned up against his bike in the sparse shade from one of the flowering tall bushes planted between rows of cars in the parking lot.
He pushed off and started walking toward us as my mom crept down the lines of parked cars looking for an open space.
“Who is this man, again?” my grandmother asked, peering over her shoulder past me and Grandpa out the dusty back window as he strolled up the lane behind us and Mom turned us into a wide-open spot at the end.
“Rarity’s new boyfriend,” my mom answered and I felt the weirdest conflicting emotions. Like I both blushed and had the color drain out of my face at the same time!
On the one hand, my mom saying it so casually, and with not so much as a hint of having a problem with it in her tone, elated me. Of course, the fact that Striker and I were clearly outed in front of my grandmother gave me such a damn fright! It made everything feel like it was much higher stakes than it had the moment before.
The noise and the chaos of my family piling out of the van matched what was going on in my heart and my head as the panic rose and my grandmother’s voice, laced with a mixture of curiosity and disapproval just made my nerves jangle harder.
All of it was silenced when I hopped out of the back of the van, the last one out, and overbalanced, pitching forward only to be folded right into Striker’s arms.
I swear, the second they closed around me? Everything just… stopped.
I was home. The one and only place that made all the noise stop and that shut out all the bullshit. My brothers. My mom. My grandparents. The bar. The stress. The overwhelmingness of it all just gone – poof!
“Hey baby, you doin’ alright?” he asked close to my ear and I smiled and twined my arms around his neck and hugged him to me tight and said, “Never better, now.”
“Good to hear,” he said with a chuckle and I lowered myself from my toes down flat on my feet again.
Mom, Grandpa, and Grandma had one of each of the boys in hand, and Striker had mine in his as we traversed the sun scorched blacktop in the direction of the red building with its frescoes of swamp and alligators in bright muraled panels between the red painted supports and the like.
We went through the front door, and Striker stepped up to the ticketing window with me.
“Striker, party of eight,” he said. “It’s on the Boucher Brothers.”
The person behind the window checked a clipboard, got on a radio, and a minute later, Skull slipped into the box office from a door in the back, and plucked an envelope off the clipboard and slid it out the slot to Striker.
“Come on back, y’all – I got something good for the kids,” he said and he gave me a wink. I smiled and Striker stopped long enough to hook us all up with special guest wristbands before we went through the turnstile and into the park, or zoo, or whatever you called it honestly.
The building was sort of hollow, or a ring, around a big central depressed pool or lagoon surrounded by fencing. There was an observation platform that had a set of stairs up to it and Bones was up there, fiddling with something or other.
We went around the pool, the stink of lizard – or really rather gator, hanging thick on the humid air and boy did it stink . The mustiness of a giant lizard tank with underpinnings of rot and decay from the swampy brackish water the gators were in.
We followed Skull up the steps to where his brother, Bones, was tying rotten pieces of chicken to long, bamboo poles, like a fishing rod.
“Wanna feed some gators?” Skull asked the boys who all looked at each other and lit up like I’d never seen before.
“Yeah!”
It was fun watching the boys get to engage and do something so cool. Mom, Grandpa, and even I got in on the action and for real, even standing so high up above, feeling the gator snap on the end of the line on that piece of stinky chicken was something. The way the pole jerked in your hand as the animal did its death roll or whatever – lord .
I’d lived in Florida my whole life, had even seen some swamp puppies in the wild, sunning themselves on the banks of the waterways near the house – but I’d never been this close nor had I ever been on the other end of a pole or anything they actually had a hold of.
It was a whole new type of fear and respect I’d learned on that platform because holy Christ!
Aden, Braden, and Caden were bursting at the seams with questions; all of which, the Boucher brothers answered with patience and kindness that surprised even me. Striker winked at me when I looked up and marveled at him, and I couldn’t help but grin.
“What say we get washed up, have a little lunch, and see the rest of the place?” Striker suggested. “Catch the Butcher Brothers’ next show?”
We couldn’t argue with that.
The Gator Farm had a seating area and sort of a built-in kiosk with snack and lunch food items. You know, the kind of stuff you’d find at any ballpark. Hot dogs, nachos which were just tortilla rounds with the fake liquid cheese sauce in a cardboard boat. We all sat down at one of the big round tables, made for a big family, but still had to pull chairs from other tables to be able to all sit.
It was busy, in here, families and kids milling about and some looking at us with envy for what we’d gotten to do with the showrunners and the gators.
“So… Striker,” my grandmother said, and I felt myself freeze with a nacho halfway in my face. “What do you do?”
“I work in the warehousing and accounts division of my buddy’s custom bike shop here in St. Augustine,” he answered truthfully.
“Oh! And does that pay well?” she asked.
“Barbra!” my grandfather sounded horrified, even as my mom spat; “Jesus, Mom!”
“What!?” she exclaimed. “I’m just curious, that’s all.”
“It’s all good,” Striker said affably, putting a reassuring hand on my knee beneath the table. “I actually do better than you might expect. Our shop is one of the best in the country. One of those places that gets recognized internationally, even.”
“Really?” my grandmother asked, and didn’t bother to keep the genuine surprise out of her voice.
Like we were some kind of family with pedigree or whatever. Don’t make me laugh… Grandpa had done well for himself when he’d worked for NASA; and my dad had done well with what he’d done when he was alive, but Granddad was retired now, and that only went so far. His pension had been good, but the more that time went on and the more inflation rose, and the tougher things had gotten it didn’t go nearly as far as it would have, in, say, the 1990s.
They were with Mom and I because they were struggle-bussing just as much as we were and we were helping each other out… but to hear my grandmother tell it, it was her and grandpa and his retirement funding my mother, myself, and the boys after her son-in-law’s tragic death. Like we didn’t contribute at all. Like we were orphan waifs and desperate… and yeah, we kind of were screwed; but it wasn’t like I didn’t work two jobs, my mom didn’t hold down a fairly decent job of her own or any of that.
No, it was all my grandparent’s charity.
Like I could roll my eyes any harder…
It was so complicated though. Like, I loved my grandma, and I wanted her to love all of us back – but sometimes it just didn’t feel like she could… I mean, if you love someone, you can worry about them without the whole nitpicking them apart, or complaining or wildly gossiping or bandying about your disapproval of this, that, or the other – right?
When Dad was alive, interacting with Grandma had been much easier for both Mom and myself, being that he kind of acted like a shield for the both of us… but with Dad gone? It was like Mom was starving for Grandma’s approval all over again and she would bend the knee whatever it took, and most of the time? It took me going under the bus. Or at least, so it felt like to me.
I knew it was coming… but it was like any accident or collision – you knew it was coming, you could see it was coming, the dread and suspense and anxiety of it was building, the utter horror at what was to come – knowing it would be bad. Knowing that bones would crunch, blood would spray, and it would be all kinds of gory and you wouldn’t be able to unsee any of it, but God dammit, you still couldn’t look away.
I could do confrontation all damn night at the bar. I could even do it all damn day at the craft store… or when it came to keeping the boys in line, but when it came to my grandma or my mom – I couldn’t tell you how much I avoided it and didn’t want to deal with it.
My grandmother ran through a bunch of seemingly innocent questions with Striker, but I knew she was fishing and it would only be a matter of time before she found something to be unhappy about.
“How long have you been doing that? Working for your friend, I mean,” she asked.
Striker was polite and succinct in his answer, and I put my hand over where his rested on my knee and gave it a warning squeeze.
I’d come clean about what she could be like, had spilled all of my fears, and he was honestly the only person I felt like I was free to do that with, you know? He was certainly the only person I was comfortable doing it with.
“And before that?” she asked and I swear it almost felt like my throat was closing up.
“US Military service, Army Stryker brigade. I’ve done several tours,” he said and he definitely was clipped talking about his service. I knew he didn’t like talking about it. Hated the hero worship that came with it, because as he’d confided in me in one of our late-night talks – he didn’t feel like what he’d done over there was any type of ‘hero shit.’ His words, not mine.
“Well, thank you for your service!” my grandfather said, and all Striker did was give him a tight nod, once up, and once down acknowledging the thanks politely.
I could see my grandmother doing the calculations in her head, like that one internet GIF of the woman with that just look of confused concentration as the math equations in sheer gibberish went up around her head.
“How old are you, Striker?” my grandmother asked.
Shit. Fuck. Goddammit, here we go, I thought.
“I’m forty-two,” he answered honestly and the table suddenly went very still and very quiet as Grandma, Grandpa, and Mom all traded glances.
“Forty-two?” my grandmother asked innocently, as though she hadn’t heard him plain as day.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
My mom surprised me then. She met my eyes and with a faint smile said, “I always knew my Rarity would see older men, she’s got an old soul.”
Aw, Mom…
I took a deep breath, and tried not to tear up, because I hadn’t expected that. My mom hardly ever stood up for me where Grandma was concerned but she’d clearly just put out her flag on top of this hill and proclaimed she was going to die on it with that endorsement.
I stared at my mom and tried to telegraph all of my gratitude and love with that one look, and she smiled over the top of Caden’s head who was seated in her lap, and gave a slight nod back.
I don’t know why she did it, but it meant the world to me that she was on my side with this one.
Striker and my grandmother traded questions and answers, and I could tell Grandma was getting worked up and didn’t like things one bit.
I guess Striker saw the signs, too and rather than continue engaging to where my grandmother caused a scene, he said, “Why don’t y’all enjoy the park some more, I’d like to take Rarity over on yonder to see something cool about this place. We’ll meet back up at the bleachers for the show at three o’clock.”
“That sounds great,” my mom said with a big smile, heading off my grandmother’s argument which she had barely gotten to draw breath to try and make.
Striker stood up right then and there and held a hand down to me, I took it, even though I wasn’t done eating and I was still hungry. Anything to extricate myself from my grandmother feeling like she was some kind of bloodhound on a scent.
We excused ourselves and wandered in whatever direction he wanted to take me.
“Sorry, Princess,” he murmured softly as we went up over one of the boardwalks around the main alligator pit where the shows happened.
“It’s okay,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Anything is better than sitting through one of gran’s humiliating third degrees.”
“Still hungry?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said ruefully.
“Come on, there’s another concession stand thing over on this way, I’ll get you a cinnamon sugar pretzel.”
“That sounds really good,” I confessed. “What did you want to show me?” I asked. “Or was that just a ruse to get me out of there?”
He chuckled, “I actually did want to show you something. The accidental rookery.”
“Accidental rookery?” I asked.
“Yeah, you see all the nesting birds up over the gator pits,” he said pointing up into the trees over the ponds and enclosures.
“I wondered about that,” I said. “I thought it was a feature – you know? Like they brought the birds here.”
“Some of ‘em that are in enclosures, sure – but look up, past the trees, there’s no net keeping these birds in here. They build their nests over the alligators to keep ‘em safe from things like predatory raccoons.”
“Oh, shit!” I did a double-take, “That’s wild!”
“It gets really cool the other end of the park over this way,” he pointed in the direction we were going. “The birds are so used to the people, they got their nests at eye level and a little below.
“We can see eggs and baby birds?” I asked.
“Yup,” he grinned at me.
“Aw, yay!”
I wrapped both my arms around his one and laced my fingers through his and he chuckled.
“I thought you might like that,” he said, and the further I walked with him from my family, the more centered I felt. The more I felt like I could breathe.