Eight #2
“So, she was saying that being gracious was a virtue and that maybe you were nervous, which accounted for the monologue of your charitable … activities.” I cleared my throat. “And I got to thinking that maybe we could have lunch far, far in the future.”
“I just wanted to ask for some clarification on how you knew Kevin, but … am I understanding that you were making fun of me?”
“Just the”—I pointed at my nose again—“honking thing.”
“Mr. Harcourt!”
“It’s just Jory,” I corrected him. “Dane is the mister.”
“You—I—how dare you insult … why would you—I …”
How did I always end up making people sputter like that?
“Oh, I know.” I had an idea for a peace offering. “You like rich people. I could invite Aaron Sutter—you know him; everybody knows him—and as long as you talk about stuff that’s not, ya know, just you, then we could all hang out and eat some endangered species of pelican or something, huh?”
“Who are you?”
“He’s my brother,” Dane said from beside me suddenly. “Please go home.”
“I was,” I defended myself. “He’s the one who stopped me.”
Dane pointed toward the door, and I headed that way.
“You—he—”
“Come sit down, Randall.” Dane placated him as I opened the front door and then closed it behind me.
Sometimes, it didn’t pay to apologize to people.
“His shoes were made of seagull?” Kola asked me on the ride home from Dylan’s house. “That’s gross, Pa.”
“Yeah, I know.”
At the grocery store, we had to pick up milk and other various items.
“Hannah,” I called out in the cereal aisle when the distance between us was getting too great, “how far is too far?”
She turned and looked up at me. “If you can’t reach out and touch me, that’s too much.”
“Right.” I extended my hand.
It was funny how she walked backward until my palm touched her back; I thanked her for respecting my wishes.
“Nana says that you thanking me is bad, that I should just do what you say.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think she’s right, but I like it when you say thank you.”
I took Hannah’s hand as I watched Kola do some weird contortionist walk. “Why is he doing that?” I asked her.
“He doesn’t wanna break your back by stepping on a crack.”
“But you don’t care if you break my back?”
“I think you’d be broken already if it was a real thing. I think it’s like demons.”
This was new.
“What demons?”
“Suzy said that demons come up from hell through the floor and get you when you sleep.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But the floor is hard. How could they come through?” my daughter wanted to know.
“It’s an excellent point.”
“So, things like that, I don’t think they’re real,” she said, putting the topic to bed.
“I suspect you’re right.”
“On Saturday, after the movie, can we go to the aquarium?” Her mercurial mind flicked around even faster than mine.
“Why?”
“The dolphins,” she said flatly, like, What else could it be?
“We can ask everybody else, but I was thinking we’d go to the park.”
“Oh, the park is better. Never mind. You’re very smart.” She beamed up at me.
“Thank you.”
“Pa,” Kola said, obviously having tossed away his concern for my spinal column from the way he had reverted to his normal stride, “who will I marry when I get big?”
“I dunno. It depends on who you fall in love with.”
“But will it be a boy or a girl?”
“I have no clue, love. Whoever you want.”
He was thinking. “Do I have to go to college? Micah said that his dad said that he had to go to college.”
“Yes, you have to go to college.”
“Did Daddy go to college?”
“No.”
“Then how come I have to?”
“If you want to do a job like your daddy, then you don’t have to, but if you want to be a veterinarian and take care of cats like Chilly, then—”
“Yeah, I think I wanna do that.”
“Then you have to go to college.”
“Okay, then, I’ll go to college.”
“Think scholarship.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
As we waited in line to check out, Hannah, who had gotten tired of walking, was sitting in the top of the cart, humming and swinging her legs. The man behind us chuckled.
I looked at him over my shoulder. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his mid-sixties, nice face, handsome man.
He cleared his throat. “Is she humming ‘The Girl From Ipanema’?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “Oh God, it’s my fault. I do it, and now, whenever she’s bored … you get the idea.”
“It’s darling.” He smiled at me.
I winced. “Her teacher isn’t a fan.”
He laughed. “I would expect not.”
Hannah drew up her shoulders, tipped her head, and aimed all her cuteness at him, and between her little apple cheeks and tiny rosebud mouth and sparkling eyes, he was turned into goo.
“She’s a doll.”
“And she knows.”
“You’re gonna need a gun to keep the boys away.”
“We’ve got that covered,” I assured him.
Outside in the parking lot, I was handing the light bag to Kola when we all heard crowing.
“What was that?” Hannah asked me.
“Roosters,” I told her as we walked, me carrying three reusable bags, Kola one.
At the car, we heard it again.
“Pa, it’s coming from there,” Kola said, pointing to a parked Ford pickup.
“It’s not our business. Get in the car,” I ordered him, opening the door.
“But what if they’re stuck?” Hannah looked up at me, her big brown eyes worried.
“Fine, you two get in the car. I’ll see what it is.”
With my kids safely ensconced in the car, I checked around and then leaned over into the bed of the pickup and lifted a tarp.
There, underneath, were three large wire cages with roosters in them.
I had never been a big bird lover; the wings fluttering in my face was just cause for hyperventilation.
Clowns, birds, wasps, and flying cockroaches—which had gotten added to the list when I was in Hawai’i—all gave me the shivers.
I was not thrilled to find roosters, but that they were there at all seemed odd to me.
They looked like they had been trimmed weird; they didn’t look like the ones walking around the petting zoo.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I turned, and two men were walking toward me fast.
“My kids heard the crowing, and we thought the birds were in trouble.”
“Oh,” the first guy said.
Suddenly, I was looking at a badge that he had pulled from under his T-shirt. The other man followed suit. I heard the window roll down beside me, and Hannah poked her head out.
“Are the chickens okay, Pa?”
“Yes, B,” I assured her.
The policemen, Detectives Gonzales and Everman, explained to the kids, as one leaned against the truck and the other on my minivan, that they had taken the roosters from bad men who were going to fight them.
“Why do they fight them?” Kola wanted to know.
“People bet on which bird will win.”
“How do they know who wins?” Kola was tenacious when it came to something he didn’t understand. “Is it like boxing and there are points?”
I had to remind myself to talk to Sam’s father about watching the fights with my kid.
“No, they let them go at it until one of them dies.”
“Dies?” Kola was horrified.
Hannah, who was tired at that point, burst into tears.
“Really?” I scowled at both detectives, even though Everman was the one who had said it.
Gonzales elbowed his partner in the ribs, looking sheepish. “Sorry.”
But I had to comfort my girl and had no time for them anymore.
They left the parking lot first, and I noticed as I took a right out onto the street that we were following them.
The Chevy SUV that flew by me didn’t even blip on my radar until it slammed into the side of the pickup and forced it off the road. I was easily a hundred yards behind, but I quickly turned off my lights and pulled over to the side of the road.
“Pa?”
I hushed Kola and called 911 as the officers got out.
There were three men in the SUV, and they emerged from their vehicle, shooting.
“This is 911. What is your emergency?”
“Assault on an officer, or officers in this case,” I said quickly, remembering how Sam had told me to call those in. “I have two detectives in my sight.”