We got the last of the balloons and flowers all loaded that Donette insisted on bringing home with us, even if they were already looking pretty sorry, like they were withering and starting to die. It was a hot day for a wedding. So I got in and started the car and ran the AC a while before Donette got in with the baby. I\u2019ve been in here so long it\u2019s gone to blowing only warm air. Donette will have something to say about that.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how many years I\u2019ve sat round, waiting on Donette. I reckon I must have spent a third of my life sitting round, waiting. I\u2019ve gotten real good at sitting. There were decades I thought barking would help move things along, but after a few more decades turned over I learned there weren\u2019t nothing more to do but sit round and wait. There\u2019s God\u2019s time and Donette\u2019s time. Ain\u2019t no time in between.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow come there\u2019s no cold air?\u201d she says on opening the door, moving the box of candles on the floor so she can scoot the ice chest closer up toward the fan. She\u2019s holding Baby Henry in one arm and the ice chest in another. \u201cPut it down on cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was on cold, but a car insists on moving if it wants to keep on blowing cold air.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell then let\u2019s get on the road. I told Val and Jeff we\u2019d send photos of Henry asleep in the crib before they land.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Val and Jeff on their way to the honeymoon, we\u2019re looking after the baby. When I was her age I thought I was living the high life, going to Florida and staying at a friend of a friend\u2019s. These days kids ain\u2019t ever content unless there\u2019s a celebrity\u2019s been there or unless they can take a million photographs to post all over the internet.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re almost at Houma and she\u2019s still going on about stuff we brought back from the wedding, the baby fussing, wanting his mama, sounding like a squeaky door creaking closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remember for Kate\u2019s we saved the top layer and then it melted right away? Well I talked to Liz and Liz told me she learned a good little trick where you wrap the cake up in saran wrap\u2014you have to be okay with the icing not being so pretty when you open it up after defrosting everything\u2014and then rather than put it directly on top the ice where the cake\u2019ll get all melty, you set a layer of packing peanuts in between, and that way it stays cool and won\u2019t get melted on the ride home. Isn\u2019t that something? Hey,\u201d she starts, looking over. \u201cHow come you always munching? Always got that munching look going on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t help it. It\u2019s something of a tic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell cut that out. You look mad and a little bit touched. Doing that through the wedding. Lord have mercy, I hope you weren\u2019t making them funny faces through the photographer.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we pull up into the driveway, Baby Henry is sound asleep, and Donette goes in to lay him in the crib while I unload the stuff for now in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere,\u201d she says, a bright light under my chin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the ocean in Costa Rica. Val says the turbulence on the airplane gave her a migraine, but she took a few aspirins, and Jeff had to carry her down to the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat old Jeff is sure gonna have his hands full from now on. He\u2019ll have to start feeding himself with his feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh you just hush yourself, mister,\u201d she says. Soon she hollers out from the kitchen: \u201cWhat you wanting for dinner? You feel like grilling some of this steak?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoney,\u201d I says, \u201cI just drove \u2026 drove \u2026 drove \u2026 drove \u2026\u201d The word keeps sticking against my tongue.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right, I\u2019ll go and fix it myself!\u201d<\/p>\n
Over dinner we\u2019re keep on interrupted by the news in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, that\u2019s them with coconut daiquiris. What\u2019s that you think on top, whip cream? Val says that\u2019s coconut-flavored ice cream. She says Jeff just had one sip and decided to order a beer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh huh.\u201d She fixes me with that stare that says it wants more than the minimum tribute. \u201cCute.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Cute\u2019 ain\u2019t the word for what that there is. That\u2019s what they call real romance. She says it\u2019s hot and Jeff\u2019s worn out and is wanting to go to bed, but Val won\u2019t let him. She\u2019s making them go to the fireworks show.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought she had a migraine?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess she must be over that.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re sitting around, the dishes rinsed, the balloons and flowers everywhere all over the kitchen, the cake put away in the freezer, Donette in her modal pj\u2019s, now and then hmphing over the phone, my ears still ringing with that accordion, the news on for just some old noise, and I\u2019ve got me a bundle of Little Debbies I\u2019m working my way through, when Donette says, unlooking up, \u201cWhat you think about going on vacation over to Florida?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSay what? You mean right now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took the whole week off to be with Henry. When else we going some place until two years, once after you\u2019re retired? It\u2019s October and prices\u2019ll be real cheap. We\u2019ll leave first thing in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere ain\u2019t\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI ain\u2019t asking you, Claude. Think, when\u2019s the last time we spent real time together romancing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere ain\u2019t no room for any romancing with a baby crying every two minutes and diaper-changing by the side of the pool. Besides, you can\u2019t drive no baby ten hours to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t talk drivel. It don\u2019t make no difference to him if he\u2019s in a car or in a playpen. Let\u2019s go. Let\u2019s take a honeymoon for ourselves, for old time\u2019s sake. Let\u2019s go to St. Petersburg like we used to. For old time\u2019s sake. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most days I have to sort of remind myself I pretty much take for a fact that Donette is a better person than me. She\u2019s got her eye out on living life like a good person\u2014and not just regarding herself but looking out in most ways for all the rest of us. There\u2019d be nights where I\u2019d come home dog-tired from building all day and running around, and she\u2019d force me into doing some board game or into some outing, which at the time I fought against wanting to do but now see the why and how come of it, why she done what she did, and I\u2019m most grateful for it. She knows what she\u2019s doing. She always did.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, if I do go, I\u2019m set on bringing my golf clubs.\u201d Because after all I got to have me a little vacation if I\u2019m on vacation.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just be careful you don\u2019t go hurting yourself. You ain\u2019t as young and fit as you used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
We left before dawn, only us awake and the frogs and crickets. The last thing we brought from the house was the baby, whining that he be left alone. I\u2019d been up all night myself trying to get me some sleep. I can\u2019t remember the last time I got a good eight hours of solid night\u2019s sleep, nor what that done to me physically. I suppose it\u2019s like being in good health\u2014you don\u2019t know what it was you lost until you don\u2019t have it no more. Now being awake all the time is just one of those things you do, like taking a stool softener four times a day.<\/p>\n
In Mobile the rain starts coming down, big, thick, loud drops of it, so big I can hardly squint to make out the stripes down the road. \u201cDidn\u2019t you bother checking the forecast?\u201d<\/p>\n
And soon enough the shower is pouring down on us, lightning every which way and corner. Baby Henry must sense our nerves are up and won\u2019t hush despite Donette\u2019s sweet-talking. So much rain there is everywhere swimming across the windows; it reminds me of one of them visual aids you see of all the sperms swimming off toward the egg. But as soon as we pass through the tunnel and are up out over the bay the rain tapers off, and we pull over for Donette to change the diaper and for us to eat some breakfast up on the fort.<\/p>\n
Back on the road, the baby is wide awake and done fed up; he wants his mama, nothing else.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeed him a bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just was fed a bottle, Claude.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell then try feeding him another.\u201d<\/p>\n
But nothing will calm him down, keep him from squeaming, so Donette turns on the radio, searching for some music that may help to get him to hush.<\/p>\n
Well, she\u2019s my first wife (first wife!)<\/em><\/p>\n
Yeah, she\u2019s pretty good, but she ain\u2019t no second<\/em><\/p>\n
First wife (first wife!)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But all it is is just a bunch of old noise, noise in organization.<\/p>\n
Finally we decide on the AM Bible show, Donette bouncing Henry upon her knee while the preacher in a low, deep tone reads out Scripture, talking about angels coming down from heaven with seven big bowls they gonna pour all over the face of the earth and wash away the sin like they done in the time of Noah, each of us listening, even Henry, who seems to understand all them words. I guess you could say I do and I don\u2019t. Now and then a fellow gets himself to thinking, which, I think, is a good thing. I believe He wrote the Good Book for a reason, and there weren\u2019t no reason to lie about none of it, but cut my corn if He didn\u2019t take such simple-sounding words and fill them up until He makes them so durn complicated \u2026 and yet with the way folks get to talking like they were filling up a shaker of salt with salt or a shaker of pepper with pepper \u2026 I spent years working on some of them words like cracking some kind of nut and still can\u2019t get to the flesh of them, words like good, bad, evil, wicked. Time and again you see folks speeding past, only eyes to get down that road, eager to tend to business, and you know there ain\u2019t nothing there at the end, that they\u2019re only gearing up to turn back around. I don\u2019t mean to question His wisdom, but in my sixty years on this earth I seen both good folks being evil and evil folks being good, and I\u2019m mighty curious to know how the Lord determines in between. Most days I reckon it\u2019s just better to throw away them words like tools for a different trade\u2014even sometimes love and faith\u2014and do the best you can with the leftovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou making that munching face again, Claude.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI told you I\u2019m just thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we\u2019re reaching close to St. Petersburg, we\u2019re greeted by a gridlock of honking and so many highrises angling for a view you\u2019d never know a beach lay around the corner if it weren\u2019t for the salt on the wind. Donette this whole time has been telling Baby Henry what\u2019s out the window he can\u2019t see: \u201cThere\u2019s the rain clouds we passed under.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re coming out Pensacola.\u201d \u201cThat boat\u2019s washing up on the sand.\u201d When Donette and me first came here there weren\u2019t nothing around but sandtraps and a handful of bungalows. Now it\u2019s all rich folks moving down from the city, building condos where they can hibernate for the winter, hogging the view and raising the prices up on the rest of us. For years we were going to this place the Gulfside Inn, but once the girls were all grown up we quit coming. Most trips these days are spent on seeing family.<\/p>\n
\u201cOoooo, big old stretch!\u201d<\/p>\n
For the life of me my fingers won\u2019t quit jerking where I took the keys from out the ignition. About everything looks the same. Even though new highrises are popping up everywhere, it\u2019s nice to know the Gulfside hasn\u2019t changed except the fresh coat of paint since I last seen it some fifteen, twenty years ago. Donette sets me down with Henry, and I\u2019m doing the best I can to catch the door from closing, but that boy is pure dead weight.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello,\u201d she says to the gal at the reception, both of them ticking their nails on the desk, in different places. Her hair\u2019s done up like a beehive on the flat side of her head and is the color of honey dripping down toast, and she don\u2019t pretend to wear the bare minimum amount of makeup. \u201cWe don\u2019t have us a reservation, but we\u2019re hoping to rent a room for six or so nights. Is Mr. Angus in?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d says the little old gal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy that would be Allen Angus. He was the general manager during the several years Claude and I have been coming here. This was probably before your time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yes, Allen Angus. No,\u201d says the girl. \u201cI knew I heard of him, but I actually don\u2019t know him. I believe I remember hearing someone say he died some time ago of a stroke. That was at least four years ago. Did you all know him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see,\u201d says Donette, \u201cI see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like a one-bedroom room or a two?\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the condo everything smells the same, looks the same, feels the same. You\u2019d think I\u2019d forgot, but I guess I didn\u2019t. They got these big glass bowls on the table filled up beyond the brim with seashells they found on the beach\u2014I remember one time Kate stole one of them sand dollars that we found out about only once we got home and Donette made her mail it on back\u2014and on the walls petrified starfish framing the mirrors. The whole place smells bright and clean and faintly of the ocean; that thick carpet everywhere reminds me of the kind Donette put on the rim of the toilet seat to make sure I keep on lifting it. I see to it that all the bags are brought in while she\u2019s still sitting on the sofa, bouncing Henry. \u201cNow you the one that\u2019s scowling. What\u2019s eating on you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe I\u2019m getting a migraine. I believe I may go lay down for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I was wanting some food.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go get you some food. Just do me the favor of bringing the baby along with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, if that weren\u2019t for a woman! Drive me twelve hours across the country, she insists, and when she\u2019s there it\u2019s something else. She ain\u2019t had one of her sick headaches in fifteen-odd years, but what can a fellow do? It\u2019s like them boxers that get whupped upside the head so hard they can\u2019t do nothing no more but laugh.<\/p>\n
So I take Henry with me to the grocery store; it\u2019s in the same place that it used to be, only the name\u2019s been completely changed\u2014it used to be a Blair\u2019s or Bell\u2019s or something\u2019s\u2014now it\u2019s a new ValueSave, and while me and Henry are scrounging for food, I can\u2019t help but think to recall about Daddy. Come this May it\u2019ll be forty-two years since he passed\u2014that\u2019s two years older than me. Lord knows He didn\u2019t make it easy. Hollering and gibbering with that touched speech like a man gone out his wits. That year in bed. Spouting all kinds of nonsense like some obscene kind of baby. And screaming. Lord, that terrible screaming that kept us wide awake. Pouring his meals ground up between his teeth, hoping a little bit might take. Poor Daddy. What\u2019d that fellow think it was\u2014Huntington\u2019s disease? Whatever the name, that don\u2019t make suffering that kind of pain easier. For, as they say, band-aids don\u2019t patch bullet holes. Poor old Daddy.<\/p>\n
Donette\u2019s still laying in bed when we come home with the groceries. Laying there like something that\u2019s been washed up onto the sand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fixed you a sandwich. Potato chips on ham.\u201d Only there in the dark she waves the plate good away.<\/p>\n
After the crib is fixed up and Henry sound asleep and I relieve my sweet tooth with a helping of oatmeal pies, I go in there myself, not kidding myself I\u2019ll be able to sleep a wink but just doing it out of practice, hoping that the motions might mean maybe the same thing as effect. She\u2019s changed into her pj\u2019s, Donette has; her eyes are closed, but I can tell by the way she\u2019s breathing she\u2019s still awake, though only a fool would try and engage her and hope to back away unscathed. That long body rising and falling, getting bigger under the covers, then a little less big. There\u2019s something about another body lying round to make it known a man\u2019s alone. It\u2019s like that echo that comes from far off. You wouldn\u2019t have thought to even think about that echo if it hadn\u2019t echoed at you in the first place. And hers once just like Val\u2019s, and me once just like Jeff, just itching to get my hands all over it. She was fifteen when Donette first gave her the talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what about Daddy? He don\u2019t have one thing on his mind. Or else he couldn\u2019t do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did have one thing on his mind, at one point, yes, your daddy did. Your daddy\u2019s just like all men.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen how\u2019d you know\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen how\u2019d I know then that he was the one? I guess I just kinda knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
And them hardly caring one way or the other until they run it out of us and then us the same as them.<\/p>\n
At one point in the night Baby Henry is up and crying, and I don\u2019t need the wrath of my beloved to go telling me twice he\u2019s awake. We go out into the den, then out onto the balcony, where I bounce him against my chest and say to him, \u201cNow, now; now, now, little man,\u201d hoping that that sliding door is sound proof enough not to wake Donette. He\u2019s crying because he wants his mama: his diaper ain\u2019t wet. Then after a while he\u2019s only sniffling. He\u2019s just confused like all the rest of us. I feed him his bottle while we\u2019re sitting out on the chair, feeling the warmth of the salt sea breeze and hearing the surf and the cars not too far off. After I get through with burping him, he gives me this sleepy-eyed look. Sleepy but also alert, like the look of a captive animal. Who of us\u2019ll be the first to break his stare? It\u2019s enough to shake me to the core. Those pale little blue eyes, thin and also alert, nervous but know what they\u2019re saying, not stammering but insisting, insisting on their questions. I can read them in his eyes. It\u2019s as if he\u2019s saying, asking me: What am I to you, old man? Are you all that I have left? And I can\u2019t help but wonder whether a part of him will maybe remember this when he\u2019s an old man too.<\/p>\n
Next morning we went out alone, Baby Henry and me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t guess you\u2019re feeling much better,\u201d I says, saying it from the looks of her.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake Henry with you when you go,\u201d she says just long enough to fix me with that stare that means nothing but only one thing. \u201cAnd turn the air down, would you.\u201d Then she rolls back over, squeezes a pillow over her face.<\/p>\n
I scratched my nose. Another night not sleeping a wink.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay what? You can\u2019t bring no baby with you on no golf course. They got rules and regulations. And spend five hours in the boiling sun where\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
From underneath the pillow: \u201cYou only playing nine holes these days anyway, Claude!\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s got sharp eyes out, Donette. I swear I could have brought the fellow who invented the sport, as God as my witness, and Donette would have told him point-blank to his face he\u2019d gotten it all wrong: \u201cWe\u2019re playing it now with a bat and wiffleball,\u201d and by golly he\u2019d have to listen.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want what?\u201d says the teller there at the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stroller, it\u2019s got a cover that comes down,\u201d I go, \u201csee, so he won\u2019t be hurt by no stray balls or burnt by too much sun. It ain\u2019t my idea but you-can-guess-whose.\u201d<\/p>\n
And them old boys in the lounge there grinning and snickering.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour tee time\u2019s in a quarter of an hour.\u201d He hands me the receipt. \u201cFeel free to have a beer while you wait or an apple juice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure enough, once we\u2019re out on the course, we\u2019re catching some funny looks.<\/p>\n
\u201cY\u2019all play through, play through,\u201d I wave them, everybody, on. \u201cI got to change me a dirty diaper. A bowl of old monkey sausage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you improving your lie,\u201d says a fellow, \u201cor just making matters worse on yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHawdy haw haw. Y\u2019all boys have a nice day.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a time when I was close to hitting par. I even got invited to a few nice tournaments. I remember going out with these boys we were doing business with out to Pelican Point and hitting a hole-in-one onto the fifteenth green. Not an easy feat, if I do say so myself. And all them boys just standing around, slack-jawed. Then going and doing it again on the sixteenth. It was like I was Jesus walking on water. None of them boys could believe it, looked at me like I done that sort of thing every day of the week, like brushing my teeth. But golf ain\u2019t no blink-of-an-eye game, and there was always some work to be done around the house, some errand to run with the girls, and I suppose it just made sense not sticking with it the way I might have wanted.<\/p>\n
Lining up on the fourth fairway, I suddenly feel myself sort of besotted and let go the iron, finding myself sitting over it spraddle-legged. My left foot twitching and jerking. Ain\u2019t nobody around to see or call the ambulance, which is lucky for me since it saves the whirlwind of trouble of explaining how to handle the kid and them working up Donette to take away my car keys and not liking herself to drive, but within about a minute I\u2019m back up on my feet, only my left foot still is jerking, and of course a few minutes later I duff the shot.<\/p>\n
When two years ago I had the accident the doctor prescribed a bottle of oxycodone to take the sting out of my leg. I saved me most of that bottle, and it was then at that point I told myself, If you ever know for a fact you\u2019re going down the same road as him, if it\u2019s ever there right as rain round the corner, you take these right away. Don\u2019t you hesitate even a minute; nothing ain\u2019t worth that. There ain\u2019t no amount of days of living on this earth worth going through that kind of pain, and putting other folks through that kind of pain too. And they been hid in my drawer ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou taking him next to see the Dal\u00ed Museum?\u201d says one fellow at the clubhouse. \u201cSeems like you\u2019re endowing him with rather sophisticated tastes from a young age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back home Donette\u2019s still laid up in bed and fiddling over her phone. Even in the dark I can see where the tears have stained the pillow.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow you been with that migraine, boo? Looks like you been up and about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI took me some Advil,\u201d and now she rolls over under the covers, \u201cbut I\u2019m still under the weather. I just prefer to keep here in the dark and you and Henry use the living room. Val and Jeff\u2019ve been texting all day. She says they\u2019re commencing to get heavy rains coming up toward Panama. They\u2019re keeping a close eye on everything. They\u2019re starting to close up the shops and stores.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPanama\u2019s a long way over from Florida. Everyone can just cool it and hold their horses. The governor\u2019ll send word it\u2019s time to ev\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey ain\u2019t in Florida, Claude; they\u2019re in Costa Rica, don\u2019t you remember? They\u2019re on their honeymoon, Val and Jeff. And Val\u2019s the one who\u2019s wanting to stay; it\u2019s Jeff\u2019s the one who\u2019s been texting me about all the trouble. Who you think we\u2019re talking about? You gotta keep up with what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is my firm belief that a fellow should always marry a gal who\u2019s head and shoulders smarter than he is, that way he knows he\u2019ll never be having to worry about having to worry about nothing.<\/p>\n
We spent the rest of the evening not doing much different than usual, Donette fooling around on her phone and me scrubbing the dirt from off my shoes with a sheet of newspaper and during the news fixing myself a healthy proportion of honey buns. Ain\u2019t no way I could get her down to the beach or even go for a walk, so I just fixed us a sandwich and let the TV jaw on until it was time for going to bed. If I had any dream it was a dream about being awake.<\/p>\n
Next morning I put Henry into the car because I\u2019m taking him to see the dolly museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat like Dolly Parton?\u201d says Donette, always skeptical.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, like GI Joe and figurines.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you mean like baby dolls and Hummels? Precious Moment stuff sort of thing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them boys on the course recommended it to us yesterday when we were out horsing around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think Jeff will approve of you making his boy into a sissy,\u201d she goes, thumbing the screen on her phone, \u201cbut you go on and be my guest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe ain\u2019t no sissy so long as he stays with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust don\u2019t come back with no Barbie dolls, Claude. Jeff will not be amused.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turns out we was both wrong. There ain\u2019t no dolls; there ain\u2019t no tribute to the lady of \u201cMy Old Tennessee Home.\u201d Turns out it\u2019s all just a bunch of junk. Strange stuff in a building made of \u2026 very suggestive glass blobs. A sort of funhouse, I suppose, for uppity smart people, and bad paintings filled with melting clocks and deserts and half-naked ladies and oddball gizmos, strange stuff made by a mad man to make a man mad. Baby Henry didn\u2019t care for it one bit. The only one I might hang up somewhere in my garage\u2014and I\u2019m not claiming it\u2019s even worth paying money for\u2014I\u2019m talking like if maybe you gave it to me as a present\u2014was this one they had a whole chorus of angels of and in the middle of them they got this fellow pulling a boat. That I can understand. I understand you got to bring a boat ashore. That idea makes sense. Everything else was just money flushed down the commode, but I reckon I\u2019d be more steamed up if I\u2019d been charged a second price of admission for Baby Henry, who they let come in for free.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoudreaux, isn\u2019t it?\u201d says the gal at the reception right as we\u2019re coming in. The sparkle in her eyes making me wish I was running round, forty years ahead of the wind. \u201cI was thinking this might be of interest.\u201d She passes over a book and points with her bright red fingernail to a line there on the page.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I supposed to know this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the guest book from ninety-three. I\u2019ve been typing names onto a spreadsheet all morning, and I came across this entry. I remembered you saying you used to come here way back when. Right there,\u201d she taps her nail. And sure enough unhidden there on the page is the handwriting of my wife\u2019s cursive:<\/p>\n
Dear Allen,<\/em><\/p>\n
Thanks for the time of a life!<\/em><\/p>\n
xxoo<\/em><\/p>\n
Claude and Netty Boudreaux<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cThink that might be y\u2019all two?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s us all right.\u201d I hand her back the guestbook. \u201cThere\u2019s sure been a lot of water drawn under the bridge since that there writing was done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought you\u2019d like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYup. Thank you, doll.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in the condo, Donette\u2019s changed out of her pj\u2019s and done her hair and makeup and is lounging in front of the television, where she\u2019s got the volume jacked to the max. The louder it is the more she can get all worked up about everything and the more what\u2019s happening sounds all dramatic.<\/p>\n
\u201cShut the door, Claude,\u201d she says, sipping a ginger ale packed with ice cubes. \u201cThere\u2019s a hurricane coming this way, and Jeff and Valencia are fixing to come over. Everything\u2019s been evacuated. Everything\u2019s under red alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell then we gotta pack our bags and get a move on if\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, a red alert in Costa Rica, Claude. Val and Jeff had to evacuate this morning, so they\u2019re flying right now to Tampa. They should be in by three o\u2019clock.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust hush and listen.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s right. There\u2019s a big old storm coming their way, already hit Panama and dumped a buttload of rain on the Caribbean, and they\u2019re not sure where it\u2019ll go or how far it will move up the Gulf, but already a dozen people have drowned and it\u2019s looking like it\u2019ll hang around Costa Rica for a period of several days, which means Val and Jeff are coming, getting clear out of her way. Which is just what in fact they do. Bags and luggage and everything. Fighting with the noise over the TV, Val and Donette, as to who can make the most of it. I told Donette we ought to spring for their own room, but she insisted we\u2019d done enough, on camping us all together, with me on the trundle and her out on the couch and all of us sharing a bathroom and only one dresser. Baby Henry was happy to see his mama, but it didn\u2019t take long for him to find himself something to cry about. Jeff has already settled himself a space on the far side of the couch.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how bout them Tigers?\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s always struck me as a good kid. Like somebody with friends. He started a job earlier this year fixing up his own concession stand out there on the lake that he\u2019s hoping is going to expand. Lord, I\u2019d tell him he\u2019s likely to go off on one thing now as another, no better than a toddler bearing off a bucket of seashells.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got any money on Saturday\u2019s homecoming game?\u201d<\/p>\n
He starts up from his phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh you know me, Mr. Bou \u2026 Claude. I keep the irons in a few different fires.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJeff said we could go to Paris next year so long as we use half our gifts to pay down some of his credit cards,\u201d says Val.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaude, when we going to Paris? You know he ain\u2019t ever talked to me about taking no trip to Paris. Jeff, you coming strong out the stalls, setting the bar up mighty fast, boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeff casts up and nods and goes back to the stuff on his phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cVal, honey, how come\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, what we eating for dinner?\u201d says Val. \u201cOoo, I know! Let\u2019s go out for ichiban! Jeff and I lately\u2019ve been getting into ichiban. We just love us some Japanese.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJeff, that right? You getting into Japanese?\u201d says Donette.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, you know. It don\u2019t make no difference to me, whatever winds up in my gut.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody turn down the air,\u201d says Val.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is turned down. All the way to the max.\u201d<\/p>\n
With everyone coming and going and opening all the doors, the condo is stuffy and hot.<\/p>\n
I like to think God invented air conditions to keep women happy, but where exactly all her wants come from, where all those tastes and whims and needs, if it ain\u2019t like looking at a high-watt light bulb sometimes: you can see the brightness; you can feel the heat; but you can\u2019t look directly right at the filament \u2026 that is, unless, I suppose, you wear sunglasses.<\/p>\n
Well, the next day they say twenty-four folks have perished in Costa Rica due to that storm, and now the weathermen\u2019s not sure where it could be going to next\u2014some think round Gulf Shores, others to around New Orleans, so that the lot of us figures the best course of action is just to stay right where we\u2019re at and see what happens next. And everyone seems okay with that. Jeff has his seat staked out in the corner; Val and Donette are happy making all kinds of plans for Henry for when they get back and when he grows up that they don\u2019t mind me bumming around, watching reruns of Moesha. They brought back a refrigerator magnet for Donette and tried bringing me a stash of Little Debbies, but all they had over there in the grocery store, says Val, was Hostess.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, Claude, wake up!\u201d<\/p>\n
I must have been fast asleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cWake up, Claude! You was grinding your teeth again. I\u2019m gonna make you an appointment when we get home with Dr. Gortzman. Maybe he\u2019ll have something to say about you making them funny faces all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPapaw\u2019s been making funny faces?\u201d says Val. Val\u2019s bouncing the baby on her knee, making funny faces at him herself. \u201cWhat kind of funny faces he been doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I\u2019m just saying sometimes he goes like this, and sometimes he goes like that! Don\u2019t you, Claude? Show them some of the funny faces you do.\u201d And the three of them have a good laugh. \u201cHe says it\u2019s only a little tic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Bou \u2026 I mean Claude, you best not keep them faces up, especially if the winds change. My grandma always said, \u2018You make funny faces when the wind change, your face\u2019ll like to stick that way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure enough they\u2019re calling for that big storm to head for over the house. Both of us called out work, but it didn\u2019t matter because no one\u2019s going to work anyway if a category-two hurricane is passing right over town. The storm\u2019s a good excuse to sit by and be with family. Even if the group of us has been cooped up longer than we\u2019d want. I do have to say it\u2019s nice just sitting around, being under one roof. Once the kids grow up it\u2019s rare to have so much time together. Family becomes something different, feels sometimes like pretending, like a sort of make-believe of the past. But for the life of me I don\u2019t know what to do with that little message: Thanks for the time of a life! Netty. Ain\u2019t nobody calls her Netty no more except for me and rarely her sister, and she ain\u2019t called herself that since, I believe, she was a twenty-four-year-old girl. It makes a man sit up and wonder, and if he ain\u2019t careful he can allow himself to get somewhat suspicious, but I ain\u2019t never found any of that to be all that helpful. But still a man can\u2019t help but doubt. And you and all those other folks fixing to stay dead a long, long while. And then in all that thinking I can\u2019t help but also recall some things forgot in the past, stuff I forgot from so long ago. For instance, one time we had this gal, this pretty little hen of a secretary working for us with a nice set of curled-up hair. I always thought she might have been giving me the goo-goo eyes, but I didn\u2019t want to assume nothing. Then one day she up and tells me while I go running past, fanning herself:<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Claude, how come you got to be so darn handsome. You sure make it hard on a gal to get her work seen to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, my apologies, ma\u2019am. My apologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
And cut my corn if some crazy ideas didn\u2019t start popping into my head that I felt like a crazy man for not acting on them, running at full speed past her desk. I believe she got married not long after that, that gal, and I don\u2019t guess I should\u2019ve done different.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s old news and long been over.<\/p>\n
I believe that door is closed. I believe that ship\u2019s done sailed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is my firm belief that a fellow should always marry a gal who\u2019s head and shoulders smarter than he is, that way he knows he\u2019ll never be having to worry about having to worry about nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-devin-jacobsen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19273,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19264\/revisions\/19273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}