Chapter 24 Knock ‘Em Down!
knock ‘em down!
FRANKIE
LOCKWOOD NIGHT CARNIVAL got some big scars in the process… you?”
He doesn’t hesitate, or waste time telling me how sorry he is, he just whistles and points to the small hearing aids in his ears. It’s refreshing.
“Broke my neck. Hit my head so hard I gotta wear these ‘cause I lost about 40% of my hearing.”
He throws his balls one after the other, one miss, then two. The third one almost takes out a few bottles at once, but all three wobble and straighten right back up.
“Before your title match, right? Back in 2019?”
I was excited for that match. Roman and I had a whole fantasy wrestling pool going.
“Yep. The plan was for me to walk outta there with that belt, but instead I got wheeled out on a gurney. Spent three weeks in the hospital, and then way longer in physical therapy.”
“Dad, pay attention!” Violet snaps as the employee sets out another three baseballs for each of us.
Huxley grins at me.
“We can swap more war stories in the beer garden later.”
I realize I haven’t thrown anything yet, so the pressure’s on considering this was basically my idea. I do my best impersonation of a pitcher, lean back on my dominant foot, and…
Miss spectacularly, hitting the back wall.
That tracks. I was always picked last in gym.
I glance at Huxley who’s working on perfecting his aim, closing one eye and holding his ball out toward his target. Violet, on the other hand, has already thrown her second set of baseballs. All of her bottles are still standing.
I pick up my second ball, this time breathing out as I let it fly. It’s kind of like shooting a rifle, or at least that’s the advice I’ve heard in the past. This time, I hit the center of the pile, but only manage to knock two of them down. The third barely moves.
“Shit’s so goddamn rigged,” Huxley grumbles.
“Yeah, but it’s kind of fun!” Daphne laughs, hurling another ball and nicking the edge of one of them. “Oh, so close!”
It looks like pooling our efforts isn’t turning out as well as I’d hoped.
“Mom, you missed hard.”
We all run through our remaining balls, with mine taking a bit longer than the rest because of my slow start. Of course, that means by the time we get to my last throw, all eyes are on me.
I watch closely as the employee sets the bottles up one final time, careful to place them in a very specific formation.
I’m almost certain now that only one is heavily weighted, to give you the impression that you’re really close when you manage to knock a couple down.
If I can knock that one over, the rest will follow.
No tower of stupid ass bottles is going to defeat me.
Huxley pats me on the back.
“It’s all on you, Frankie.”
“No pressure or anything!” Violet echoes.
“Yeah,” I laugh. “No pressure.”
I shift the weight to my right leg, lean back, wind up, and release.
The ball hits the stack almost dead-center.
Bingo.
Violet squeals with delight, flinging her arms around me and giving me the tightest hug.
I have to admit, I’m a little shocked.
“Nice work, blondie!” The operator calls out. “You can pick anything from the top row.”
I point out my prize, and within seconds, a big purple unicorn with a rainbow glitter horn is thrust into Violet’s arms.
“Thank you, Frankie!” She coos, somehow managing to squish me and her new stuffed animal into a single hug. “She’s beautiful!”
“Hey, no problem, kiddo.”
Daphne pulls out her phone, clicking her tongue.
“This is adorable!” She coos. “Hux, get in the shot!”
“I’d love to, Daph, but, uh… pap at three o’clock.”
I glance over my shoulder to see a man with a camera, aimed straight at Violet.
“Son of a bitch,” Daphne grumbles.
In an instant, I see that protective mother-bear instinct come rushing to the surface as she storms toward the photographer like she’s Michael Myers.
“Couldn’t that just be a random dude?” I ask Huxley.
“Yeah, normally we’d be pretty careful about that, but I’ve seen him hanging around her place in SoHo.
Clocked him a few minutes ago and was hoping he’d just ditch.
He sells pictures for a bit of cash, usually nothing major, but sometimes he snaps something lucky, and some rag gets to run an obnoxious headline.
Once he realized he could get more for certain kinds of shots… well, he can be pretty invasive.”
“Invasive how?” I ask.
“Dude climbed onto Daphne’s fire escape during a Christmas party, and snapped pictures of the three of us through the window. Sold them to TMZ. And insider told me he got something like 15 grand.”
“Jesus.”
“That guy’s on my Instagram account,” Violet chimes in.
“Aren’t you a little young for that brain-rotting social media stuff?”
“Nah, I run it,” Huxley cuts in. “She got this idea to start an Instagram of all the paps who take photos of her and Daphne in public. It’s pretty funny, actually.”
“It’s called CreepWatch! You should follow it.”
“I said delete them!”
Daphne’s voice rings out from across the way. She’s standing her ground, but the photographer doesn’t look afraid of her. In fact, he looks like he’s laughing, which only seems to be pissing her off more.
“Actually Frankie, can you stay with V for a minute? I’m afraid Daph might tear that camera apart, and I’d rather avoid a lawsuit if we can.”
“Sure, man. Do your thing.”
He sprints over to the scene as I glance down at Violet, who seems like she’s already lost interest, eyeing a rollercoaster near the edge of the carnival.
“Does this happen a lot?”
“Sometimes,” she chirps. “Last year one of them was following us around a farmer’s market in LA, and got on mom’s case just because she asked him to leave us alone. She hit him with her bag, and grandpa had to pay the guy a lot of money.”
I snort, shaking my head. Seems clear that her fiery temper has never faded.
“Yeah, that sounds like your mom. When we were growing up, she wasn’t afraid of anyone,” I laugh.
“She said you were best friends.” Violet rocks back and forth on her heels, squeezing her unicorn a little tighter. “Why’d you guys stop hanging out?”
“Oh, uh….”
God. I wonder how much this kid knows. I blow out a breath, not quite sure how I’m going to go about this. She’s too young to know the whole truth, but it’ll probably be fine if she hears the sanitized version. Worst case I’ll get an earful from Daphne later.
“Well, your mom moved to New York, I had to stay here, and things just kinda got complicated from there.”
Perfect. That’s straightforward, clean, and best of all, it doesn’t make either of us look like the villain. Great job, Frankie.
“Complicated how?” Violet asks.
Shit.
Of course that didn’t work you idiot! How the hell did you think ‘it’s complicated’ was going to cut it?
“I, uh… well, I got into a really bad accident.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough I had to learn to walk all over again.”
“Whoa!” Violet whispers. “Do you have scars?”
“Yeah. Lots of them on my legs, and some on my chest where they had to cut me open and massage my heart to restart it— just like on TV.”
I used to get really embarrassed about this part, but I’ve changed a lot over the years. Besides, she’s just a curious kid.
“I got a huge one on my knee, check this out.” She shoves the unicorn into my arms and immediately rolls up her pant leg showing me a large red scar that runs all the way down her kneecap. “I crashed my bike and flew over the handle bars. Broke my helmet right in half!”
“That’s gnarly!” I lean in close to get a better look. “Did you get stitches?”
“Yeah, a lot! Mom bought me like 50 sets of knee pads after that.”
She beams with pride as Huxley and Daphne saunter back toward us.
“Showing off your big scar?” Huxley asks, ruffling Violet’s hair.
“Yeah, Frankie said it was gnarly!”
He gives me a nod of approval.
“Gnarly. I like that.”
Daphne still looks a little pissed, her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed as she watches the photographer head toward the exit.
“How’d it go over there?” I ask. “Seemed pretty intense for a minute.”
“He won’t be publishing the photos,” Huxley replies with a shrug. “Watched him delete them all right in front of me. We’ll call that a win.”
“He deleted the ones you know about,” Daphne mutters under her breath.
“Mom, can we go on that?”
Violet’s eyes are glued to the rollercoaster again, having already moved on from the both photos and our scars, and I watch Daphne push down all of her anger to force a smile.
“You and dad can. I’ll keep your unicorn safe, alright?”
I wonder how much of parenting is just having to put aside your own bullshit.
“I’ll hang back with you,” I offer. “You look like you could use some mini donuts.”
“Save some for us!” Violet calls, grabbing her dad’s hand and yanking him toward the roller coaster. “We’ll be back!”
“Is there something about me that exudes mini-donut-energy?” Daphne asks as she waves the two of them away.
“It doesn’t have to be donuts. It could be a shoulder to cry on, or even just a distraction.”
She grins, her eyes sparkling.
“Yeah? Maybe the haunted house is open. If I remember right it really gets the blood pumping.”
Oh. Oh.
“Are you choosing… sexy distraction?”
“I’m not sure, Frankie. You should know, I’m really fond of mini donuts.”
I click my tongue, trying to play it cool as I keep my goofy grin in check.
“I think we might just be able to manage both.”