Chapter Eight Fran #2
There was a “courtesy round” in the morning, a chance for everyone to try out the pole and get a feel for the thing.
It was sloppy with Crisco, dyed green this year for some mysterious reason, and the main rule was that nobody was allowed to grab the flag.
If you made it to the end you had to jump into the water.
Back in the seventies some moron had grabbed the flag in the courtesy round and had been reprimanded so severely for it that he ended up with a broken jaw.
Fran needn’t have worried about RJ in the courtesy round because he made it two steps before falling, arms pinwheeling, into the water a few yards off the pier.
Fran and the boys watched the courtesy round from the beach and then headed off to eat lunch and explore the carnival rides while RJ put on his costume and pregamed with the other contestants.
RJ had decided to go as a greenhead fly, wearing lime-green spandex, black butterfly wings, and goggles.
He was delighted with himself, and as Fran shepherded the kids from the beach, she saw him raise a can of Coors Light over his head and holler “Viva San Pietro” before running off with a bunch of men in long red wigs and mermaid skirts to go party in someone’s yard. She rolled her eyes.
Are you at the fiesta yet? Fran’s brother Kon texted.
He had been messaging and calling her all week, asking to “swing by and talk.” Fran suspected he wanted to apologize for the Yankees game, but his apologies always ended up being defenses of his shitty behavior, so she’d done her best to put him off.
Yeah the boys and I are doing rides, she replied. If Kon wanted to apologize so badly he could come join her on the teacups.
Fran and the boys worked their way through the carnival, first the Ferris wheel then the Gravitron, and then she held Hale’s hand and pretended not to be sick with anxiety while London went on a ride by himself that swung chairs around in a circle thirty feet off the ground.
They split a cheesesteak sub and a plate of fries, and when the boys asked for ice cream, she splurged even though she’d already spent about seventy dollars.
Her brothers found her sitting at a picnic table, Hale perched on her lap and dripping ice cream on her bare legs. Kon and Damien were holding foamy cups of beer, and they sat down on the opposite bench and together they listened to an old Sicilian man singing Sinatra covers.
“I can’t believe you let RJ do the Greasy Pole.” Damien shook his head. “Have you ever seen how hard those guys fall? I value my balls too much for that.”
“I’ve got two kids. What do I need his balls for?” Fran asked, and Damien snorted.
“Can we talk for a minute?” Kon tipped his head to Hale.
“Hale can hear it. He was there for the Yankees game.”
“Just give the grown-ups a minute?” Kon tried again.
She gently lifted Hale to his feet and nudged him over to join London with a scrum of boys throwing snaps on the ground, little twists of paper wrapped around gunpowder that hit the pavement with a pop.
“We all had a lot riding on that Yankees game last week,” Kon said quietly. “They were supposed to win, they had everything going in their favor. It was bad fucking luck. But now we have a problem.”
“What? You were all betting on that game?” Fran asked, looking from Kon to Damien. The betting apps were so insidious, just sitting there on the phone, waiting for you to fritter away your money. Kon and Damien had all the different ones downloaded, FanDuel, DraftKings, Fanatics, you name it.
“It was a lock. The Red Sox pitchers were rested, and it was a bullpen game for the Yankees. The Sox had been crushing the home games and the Yankees were dealing with injuries. It was a no-brainer. But I guess Dad overextended himself.”
“What do you mean, overextended? How much did he lose?”
“Sixty grand.” Kon flicked at the foam on his beer.
“Sixty grand?” Fran didn’t believe it. “Dad doesn’t have sixty grand. He doesn’t even own that car.”
“I know.” He rubbed his face.
“Where’d he get it from?”
“It was his mortgage payments, his car payments, everything in his and Mom’s account.”
“Why would he do that?” Fran asked in disbelief. It seemed so unlike her father.
“Because he was already down. He’d been trying to catch up but got himself in a hole.”
“How much of a hole?”
“He’s twenty thousand behind on the mortgage and has another twenty-something in debt on credit cards.”
“So he’s a hundred thousand dollars in debt? Does Mom know?”
“She’s pissed. She’s threatening to go stay with Aunt Eileen.”
“He needs a loan,” added Damien.
“You guys.” Fran shook her head sadly. How stupid could they be?
Imagine having sixty grand and letting it go in a day.
Then there was Fran, carefully saving London’s clothes to pass down to Hale, buying her Costco shampoo, searching for coupon codes every time she ordered anyone a new pair of soccer cleats.
“He needs to catch up on the mortgage payments. When you miss four the bank starts foreclosure. We just need your help, Fran. We’ll chip in next month when we have something.”
She looked at her brother. Kon had held her head underwater in the swimming pool as a kid.
Kon had locked her out of the house while her parents were at an anniversary party.
Kon had taken her Halloween candy, had kicked a soccer ball at her as hard as he could, had called her “the Unibrow” until she was an adult. And yet. This was her father.
“I don’t have a hundred grand, guys.” Fran stood up from the table.