Black Light

43

Nicholas Bama, fourteen, was dreading his biology test, because he hadn’t really studied for it—or at least to the degree he was expected to. He had small gifts for certain things—math, for example—but not for biology.

And Mr. Bennington, St. Timothy’s School for Boys’ entire biology department, was known as a mean and nasty sucker, even in the summer semester, which was saved for boys who possibly weren’t up to the relentless course as part of their five majors during the regular academic year.

So Nick sat with a combination of self-loathing and anxiety in the school’s lab, as Mr. Bennington, a large man who peered at the world through flat pale eyes over the half-crescents of reading glasses, bore down on him like the bad news that couldn’t be avoided.

The test was distributed.

A word flashed from the text that terrified him: pith ray. Now, what on earth was a pith ray? It seemed somehow to touch something he knew, someway, somehow, but … pith ray? He felt his mind purge itself of its few torturously acquired biological concepts, yielding a great empty void.

Yet suddenly there was a commotion and he looked up astounded to see the headmaster, Mr. Wilmot, and his stepmother, the beautiful Beth, Miss Runner-up 1986, as everybody called her behind her back, earnestly conversing with Mr. Bennington.

“Mr. Bama?” spoke Mr. Bennington in his best fake English accent. “Your services are required.”

Nick turned the test over and obediently trotted to the front of the room, the immediate envy of all the other non-biology geniuses in the lab.

“Well, aren’t you the lucky boy?” said Mr. Bennington imperiously. “Saved from yet another brush with distinction. Madame, take him, he’s yours, is he not?”

Beth didn’t know quite what to do in the face of this Continental hauteur, but she managed her best thing, which was a smile of such glacial, aching beauty that its failure to impress Bennington proved for once and all the man was homo, and she nodded to Nick and out they went.

“Beth, is anything wrong?” he asked. “Is Daddy all right?”

“Keep the long face up, hon,” she said conspiratorially, “I told them he was in the hospital. He’s as right as rain.”

Beth ushered Nick through the signing-out-of-school process, down the dank, frosty corridors—“It looks like a morgue, Nicky,” Beth whispered, and it would, to a girl who grew up in a town called Frog Junction, Arkansas—and out into the sunlight, where her gleaming black Mercedes S-class awaited. Nick could see that he was the last pickup: Beth’s own twins, Timmy and Jason, were in the backseat, looking grumpy for having been pulled out of soccer camp, Nick’s older brother, Jake, lounging in the front seat, his hair a thistly un-showered mess, as if he’d just been roused from his bed (he had), and his oldest sibling, Amy, pert and pretty and perfect, looked, as usual, pissed off at being hauled out of her job at the tennis club by a stepmother who was closer to her own age than her father’s.

“What’s going on?” Nick asked.

“Oh, you know your father. He called me at nine and said ‘Get the kids. All of ’em! It’s time for a party.’”

“A party?” said Nick.

“Yes,” said Beth, “a party. That’s what he said. You know your father and his ways.”

They drove through town and in twenty minutes Beth had driven them up Cliff Drive to Hardscrabble Country Club, of which their daddy was majority owner. It was a vast, baronial building, red ragged stone and gabled windows, set on the highest point in a lush kingdom of golf course and tennis courts and swimming pools. The doorman ushered them in.

“This way, please,” he said mysteriously. “Mrs. Bama, Jeff will park the car.”

The whole unruly, unwashed mob straggled in, through the foyer and into the banquet hall, making odd sounds of confusion and alarm. What on earth?

What they saw astonished them.

The long table had a groaning buffet on it, all the styles of eggs in the world, sausages, pancakes, mounds of fluffy grits, fruits, pastries.

“Golly,” said Nick.

And next to it: Nick blinked. This was the craziest thing his father had ever done. Next to it, a twelve-foot, fully decorated Christmas tree, heaped underneath with presents.

“Is everybody here?” his dad said, stepping out of the kitchen. “Come on, let’s eat. Then we’ll open presents.”

“Uh, hello?” said Amy. “Earth to Daddy: It’s August. I thought Christmas was in December.”

“Oh, we’ll have one then,” Red said. “But I thought we’d have one today too.”

“Red,” said Beth, “when did you start planning this?”

“Believe it or not, less than three hours ago. I called the staff of the club to get them going, I called that Christmas All Year Round place out on Rogers and I called Brad Newton.” Brad Newton was the owner of Newton’s Jewelry, Fort Smith’s most exclusive store, sole Fort Smith importers of Rolexes.

“But I—”

“Honey, you have no idea of the power of cash money. Now come on, y’all, let’s dig in and then open our presents.”

The family, all the kids, the new wife, the old wife, who showed up presently, and all the bodyguards, had themselves a fine old time chowing down, with the exception, of course, of Amy, the Smith freshman, who stood apart and would not participate because she considered such ostentatious displays of wealth and capital …

“Vulgar,” she pronounced.

“I am vulgar,” said her father, twitting her. “I admit it. Gauche, even. What about crude, overbearing, ostentatious, self-indulgent, selfish and boorish? But, honey, you have to admit: vulgar puts the food on the table. Lots of it.”

“Daddy,” she sniffed, “you are so gross.”

Then it was time for presents.

“Each one of you,” Red said, as he took command of the assembly, “each one of you should have a Rolex. Life is much better with a Rolex than without one. So the theme of today’s Christmas-in-August celebration is: Rolexes for everyone. Even those of you who have a Rolex, now you have two Rolexes.”

He walked among his children and wives with an armload of gift boxes.

“Let’s see,” he said, “I think this one is for Timmy. Oh, and what do we have here, we have one for Jason. And, I … think … this … one … is … for … Jake.”

At last he got to Nicholas.

“Now, Nick, isn’t this better than biology?”

“Yes sir, it sure is,” said Nick, gazing up at the loony tune who was his father.

“Go ahead,” his father said, “open it.”

Nick opened the package: yes, it was the Oyster Master Submariner with the day/date and the red and blue bezel.

“You wear that on biology field trips and you’ll never get lost,” Red said.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“I just want everybody to be happy.”

He gave each wife, Miss Third Runner-up and Miss Runner-up, a diamond necklace. They oooohed and ahhhhhhed appreciatively.

“Red, I don’t know what you just survived,” said Susie, his first wife, “but it must have been a honey of a fight.”

“Sweetie, you don’t know the half,” he said.

Then he turned to Amy.

“I know you’ve got one. This one is different.”

“Oh, Lord,” she said.

“Go on, open it.”

She opened it. It was different. It was solid gold.

“How’s that for vulgar?” said Red. “Let me tell you, they don’t git more vulgar than that!”

“What am I supposed to do with this? I can’t possibly wear it.”

“Sure you can, honey. You’re a Bama. You’re the eldest daughter of Red Bama, you can wear anything you like. Or, if you want, since it’s yours, you can do with it what you want: return it to Brad Newton and give the twelve thousand to the homeless.”

“Well,” she said, looking at it, “it is beautiful.” She decided she’d think about it.

As he walked away to join his wives, Red looked back: well, well, well, wasn’t that just a smile on the face of dour Ms. Amy?

Someone touched his arm.

“Mr. Bama?”

“Yes, what is it, Ralph?”

“Telephone.”

“Ralph, I’m with my family now. It can wait.”

“Mr. Bama, it’s Washington. They say it’s urgent.”