John Varley - Red Thunder

Kelly… well, Kelly had been riding in a plane much like this for as long as she could remember. Her father and a few other businessmen [238] leased one together, the price tag for one of these babies being a bit steep even for a Mercedes dealer.

I HAD NEEDEDa rest, or at least some kind of break, and the trip back to the Blast-Off, while you couldn’t say it was restful, was certainly refreshing. These people talked a lot, loudly, and laughed a lot, just as loudly. They hadn’t seen each other in a year in one case, and three years in the other. There was a certain amount of catching up to do, though they talked and e-mailed frequently. Patty’s stories of bush piloting in Alaska and Africa had me anxious to hear more, and I was sorry to hear she wouldn’t be staying on beyond the next day.

I felt enveloped and warmed by a feeling of family I’d longed for all my life. An extended family, something the racism of all my grandparents had deprived me of. By the time we arrived I was ready to change my name to Broussard… but eventually realized I didn’t have to, as I’d already been adopted into this big, messy, ornery clan.

FOR THE FIRSTfew minutes things were a little chilly when we arrived at the Blast-Off. Caleb, Salty, Grace, and Patty immediately picked up on the hostility between Mom and Travis. You would have had to be in a coma to miss it. But between Aunt Maria’s determined efforts and the magic of the Broussards, it was soon put away. Grace insinuated herself into Maria’s kitchen without making Maria feel crowded, quite an achievement, and soon it was clear we were about to be treated to a Battle of the Brunches, Cajun versus Cubano. The only sure winner in a contest like that was our pepper-blasted taste buds, and the only sure loser was our waistlines.

We pulled all the outdoor tables together around the pool, and when that whole bunch sat down around them it was a toss-up, for me, as to whether I’d rather go to Mars or just stay right there, soaking up the love.

“Will somebody say grace?” Jubal asked.

“Grace,” I said.

[239] “What?” Grace asked, and first the Broussards, then the rest of us, broke up. Then Jubal offered up the prayer-”Please bless dis fam’ly , O Lord!”-and we dug in.

Soon it became clear to me that the new arrivals were aware of the nature of the Red Thunder project. I wasn’t worried about that. It was clear to me that “family” meant as much to these people as it did in the Mafia. Being closemouthed was deep in their genes, they would never reveal anything important to any outsider.

Without ever asking a question, I learned a lot about them from the constant happy chatter. I learned, for instance, that Salty was an electrician. And I learned that, among many other skills, Caleb was a welder, that he plied that trade on offshore oil rigs when his family’s myriad other enterprises weren’t bringing in enough cash.

Somehow, I doubted this was a coincidence.

“So,” I said to Caleb at one point, “did Travis hire you to do welding on… the project?” He laughed, finished a mouthful of boudin sausage.

“Travis couldn’t ’ford me, Manny. I get union scale, and triple time on Sundays.” I must have looked confused. “But that’s when I hire out. I got me my own company, too, and I can charge as much or as little as I like, since I’m the boss.”

Kelly had been listening.

“Caleb, Travis didn’t tell me he’d offered-”

“He’s not buttin’ into your department, Kelly. We done our own deal, I’ll get my money outta Travis and Jubal’s share. Keep it off the books, that way, help keep the expenses down under one mill.”

Kelly didn’t look entirely convinced, but she let it go. It turned out Salty had the same arrangement. By bringing in a professional electrician, I thought maybe Travis was horning in on my department. I told Dak about it, and we drew ourselves up in righteous indignation… for two seconds, purely for form’s sake. I was never so delighted to see someone in my life, and Dak felt the same way. We were in way over our heads, trying to design a system to meet all the electrical needs of Red Thunder.

The brunch meeting went well. I saw Caleb talking shop with Sam [240] Sinclair, and Salty sought out me and Dak and questioned us about the work we’d done so far, mapping out the electrical system. I gradually realized he was a lot more than an electrician, he was an electrical engineer, with a degree from LSU. And Dak and I were about to become apprentice electricians, in a big hurry.

The only worry was when I saw Travis take my mother to the other end of the parking lot. They talked for a long time, mostly with my mother shaking her head in that dogged way she can do better than anyone else. You don’t have a chance , Travis , I thought. No matter what you’re trying to sell her.

It turned out he was selling her some free help… and he sold it, which was a first in my memory. Not long after that she pulled me aside.

“Grace and Billy are moving in for the duration,” she said, not making eye contact with me. What was she worrying about, that I’d think less of her for accepting help? “It was either that, or pack it in. Shut the doors and let the sheriff put all the furniture out on the street. I almost wish I’d done that, too.”

“I’ll support you either way, I hope you know that.”

She put an arm around me as we walked, and she hugged me close.

“I do. The only reason I’ve kept at it so long is… it was your father’s dream. And it wasn’t even really a dream, I guess, I think it was more of an obsession.”

“You don’t need to let it be your obsession, too.”

“But I did. You’re right. Your father was determined to make it work, he wanted to show his parents… and even more, my parents, the white folks who never said a racist word to him but always managed to let him know he was their social inferior, right up to the day we married.

“He wanted to make it work so bad… that he got a little stupid. Just once. He did something he’d never have done if he hadn’t wanted this so bad, for you, and for me.”

And what was the stupid thing? What would be the worst possible way for him to die to perfectly satisfy my mom’s parents’ expectations? Why, a drug deal, of course.

[241] Just this once, it was going to be. He lived long enough to tell Mom that, as he lay dying in the hospital. I remember Mom was crying, not much else.

It wasn’t even a very big drug deal, certainly not by Florida standards. Just two Cubans and three Colombians and half a kilo of cocaine. But one of the Colombians was flying high, and he got mad, pulled out his gun, started shooting. None of the others could even recall what the fight was about. None of the others were hurt; the Colombian was too stoned to shoot very well, except for that first shot at point-blank range.

They left my father there, all four of them, to bleed almost to death in a deserted parking lot and die of septic infection the next day. All of them are out of prison now except the one who was killed inside. I know their names. Maybe one day I’ll do something about that. Or maybe it’s better to just bury that kind of hatred.

“Travis made a lot of sense, Manny,” Mom went on. “He asked why I hang on here. Why work so hard to keep this goddam place running when I know, when everybody knows, that one day it’s all going to come together at the same time, all the bad things, no customers, a big lawsuit, a hurricane, and the only thing different than if we’d gone belly up ten years ago would be ten years less of heartbreak.

“When I think of selling it, it just hurts that after all our hard work it’s come to nothing. I think about getting another loan, someplace, do some renovation, make it nice, like your father wanted it. But this place is Old Florida, and it always will be, until some New Florida outfit comes along and puts up a shopping mall.