Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl

“How’s school?” he asked Fry.

“Electrifying.”

“And your mom?”

“That’s sorta why I’m here.”

“I figured,” Perry Skinner said. “Pass the catsup.”

They were the only ones eating burgers at the Rod and Gun Club.

“She still call me your ‘ex-father’?”

“Sometimes,” Fry said, “and sometimes it’s just ‘your worthless dope-smuggling old man.’”

“That’s cold.” Skinner drew a smiley face in mustard on his burger. “Such bitterness ain’t real attractive,” he said.

“I don’t know that she means it.”

Like practically every red-blooded male of his generation in Everglades City, Skinner and his brother had gotten popped running loads of weed. “What happened was a long time ago, Fry. I went away and did my time,” he said. “Thirty-one months at Eglin, I made a point of improving myself. Where you think I learned to talk Spanish?”

“I know, Dad.”

“Your mom coulda divorced me while I was gone, but she didn’t.”

Fry emptied two packets of sugar into his iced tea. He’d already heard everything his mother and father had to say about each other. It was interesting to him that neither had remarried.

Skinner tore into his hamburger and asked, “How much does she need this time?”

“A thousand bucks,” his son said.

“For what, may I ask?”

“Two kayaks.”

“How nice,” Skinner said.

“Plus paddles and life jackets.” Fry hesitated before telling his father the rest. “See, she quit her job at the fish market.”

“Yeah, I know. Only she got sacked is the way I heard it.”

“Now she wants to do ecotours through the backcountry-nature trips for bird-watchers and stuff,” Fry said.

His father took another big bite and grunted.

“She might be good at it.” The boy spoke loyally but without conviction.

“What the hell happened at the fish market? Did she say?”

“What did you hear?”

Skinner put down his burger and sanded his chin with a paper napkin. “I heard she flipped out and attacked Louis Piejack with a claw hammer.”

“After he grabbed her boob,” Fry said. “And it wasn’t a hammer. It was a crab mallet.”

His father blinked slowly. “Louis grabbed her?”

“Yes, sir, that’s what Mom told me. And I believe her.”

Skinner nodded as if he believed it, too. “Then he’s damn lucky she didn’t crack his skull instead of his nuts.”

Fry could tell that his father was angry.

“Did he hurt her? Tell the truth.”

“No, sir, I don’t believe so.”

Skinner got up from the table and went out to his truck. He came back with a folded wad of hundreds, which he pressed into Fry’s left hand.

“Dad, there’s something else,” the boy said.

“How come I’m not surprised?”

“Mom needs two plane tickets. She wondered if maybe you could cash in some of your miles.”

Skinner was instantly suspicious. “She takin’ you somewheres on a trip?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You’d clue me in if she was, right?”

“For sure,” said Fry. “She didn’t say what the tickets are for, but she told me to tell you don’t worry, it’s no big deal.”

Skinner waved the waitress over and paid the bill. “Plane tickets are too a big deal,” he said.

“Mom said you could cash out your miles and it wouldn’t cost you anything-”

“Son, you don’t understand. Come on, let’s go.”

When they were outside, in the parking lot, Skinner lowered his voice and said, “I’m not worried about how much the tickets cost or don’t cost. I’m worried about what she’s up to.”

Fry thought: If only I knew.

But to his father he said, “So, what do I tell her?”

“Tell her to come talk with me.”

“Aw, Dad.”

“What-you think that’s my idea of a good time?” Skinner snorted. “Tell her to swing by and see me if she wants the damn tickets. Tell her it won’t take but a minute.”

He got in the truck and lowered the window. “What kind of grades are you makin’ these days?”

“Not bad. B’s and A’s,” Fry said. “Hey, thanks for lunch.”

“Anytime. Always great to see you, buddy.” Perry Skinner put on his sunglasses and fitted a plug of Red Man into his cheek. “I’m countin’ on you to let me know if your mom starts actin’ up again. You’ll call, promise?”

The boy got on his bike.

“Don’t worry. She’s all right,” he said, and pedaled away before his father could get a good look at his eyes.

Honey Santana didn’t despise her ex-husband as much as she claimed. She felt compelled to bad-mouth Perry Skinner because it was he who had filed for divorce, beating her to the punch. By that time they’d already agreed that staying married would be lunacy, their feelings for each other having been flayed raw by one emotional upheaval after another. Honey’s attorney had been fumbling around, trying to draft a basic divorce petition, when she’d received the court papers from Perry. Her pride had been scalded, because among the women she knew, it was always the wife who divorced the husband and never the other way around.

After the split, Skinner had been shockingly prompt with the alimony and child support. He’d also been cooperative on the numerous occasions that Honey Santana needed extra cash, mainly because these requests were passed along by Fry, whose affections Skinner prized. Honey felt lousy about sending her son on these begging missions, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Being alone with Perry still flustered her, four years after the divorce. It wasn’t his attitude that was intimidating but rather the way he’d look at her-like he still cared yet didn’t want her to know, which was, for Honey, difficult to handle.

Sometimes she envied her divorced friends, who seemed liberated by toxic and spiteful relationships with their exes. Of course most of those husbands had been caught screwing around, which wasn’t the case with Skinner. Honey Santana had simply worn him out with her bewildering projects and antic crusades. He was feeling whipsawed and she was feeling caged, and there had seemed to be no practical solution except splitting up.

Still, Honey couldn’t forgive Perry for filing first, which made it appear as if the whole damn thing was her fault when it wasn’t. He could have been a more patient and empathetic partner. He could have been a better listener, and not so quick to believe the doctors…

“I’m sorry, but at the customer’s request this number is not published.”

Oh please, Honey thought. He’s a nobody, for God’s sake.

She tried again, spelling the name more slowly, but she got the same recording. It was unbelievable: Boyd Shreave, anonymous low-life salesman, kept an unlisted home number.

Honey went outside and picked up a section of lead drainpipe and whacked it half a dozen times against the siding of the trailer. Feeling somewhat better, she went back inside and sat down at Fry’s computer, which he’d forgotten to disable, and Googled the name Shreave. Although only one match turned up, her spirits sailed.

It was a story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, appearing under the headline JURY BOOTS SALESMAN’S LAWSUIT.

A Tarrant County jury has awarded only $1 to a local salesman who claimed he was permanently injured while demonstrating corrective footwear to a prospective customer.

Boyd S. Shreave had sought more than $2 million in damages from his former employer, Lone Star Glide-Boots, following the mishap in August 2002.

According to the lawsuit, Shreave was making a sales visit to an elderly Arlington woman when he inserted a graphite orthotic device in one of his own shoes. While parading back and forth to show off “the comfort and unobtrusiveness” of the item, Shreave allegedly stumbled over the woman’s oxygen tank and ended up painfully straddling a potted cactus.