Flush

NINETEEN

Naturally the story was huge in the Island Examiner. The headline blared:

CASINO BOAT BUSTED IN POLLUTION PROBE

Miles Umlatt wrote the article, which explained that the flushed waste was traced easily to the Coral Queen because the crud contained “a highly visible, inky-colored substance.” The front page of the newspaper featured an aerial photograph of our incriminating fuchsia stain. Not to brag, but it was impressive.

As my father had predicted, the Coast Guard shut down the gambling boat right away. Dusty Muleman was not available for comment.

Miles Umlatt and a couple of other reporters called our house and left messages. They all wanted to interview Dad, now that his accusations against Dusty had been proven true.

The old Paine Underwood would have eagerly picked up the phone and ranted, but the new Paine Underwood took Donna Underwood's advice and let it ring off the hook.

My father didn't need to say anything to the newspaper because everyone in town knew the truth by now. They knew he was right about Dusty after all.

The following morning Grandpa Bobby borrowed Dad's pickup and drove to Miami Beach to surprise Uncle Del and Aunt Sandy. He said they were really happy to see him alive, but after a while they started acting kind of nervous and weird. They were probably freaking out, trying to think of a way to explain how they'd spent all that money my grandfather had left in the bank box.

A day later he returned to the Keys and stayed with us for a week-one of the neatest times of my life. Even Abbey got jazzed. Every night we'd stay up late, listening to his Caribbean adventures. In the daytime we went snorkeling or crabbing or wakeboarding behind the skiff. One afternoon we took a metal detector to the sandbar where all the drunk tourists from Miami hang out, and we found thirteen dollars in change, four rings, two bracelets, a brand-new Swiss army knife, and somebody's gold molar.

Suddenly, over breakfast one morning, Grandpa Bobby announced he was leaving.

“Where?” I asked.

Dad answered for him. “Back to South America.”

Grandpa Bobby nodded. “You're not gonna come huntin' for me, are you, Paine? I want a promise.”

“You've got it,” my father said, not happily.

Grandpa Bobby hitched a silvery eyebrow at my mother. “Donna, I'm countin' on you to keep this hotheaded husband of yours from runnin' off the rails.”

Mom told Grandpa Bobby not to worry. “We'll miss you, Pop,” she said.

“But why are you leaving?” Abbey blurted. “Why won't you stay here with us?”

“It's tempting, tiger, it truly is,” my grandfather said, “but don't forget, the U.S. government thinks I'm dead. When the time's right, I'll be proud to march into the American embassy and stamp my fingerprint on a piece of paper and clear up all the confusion. But for now it's useful that certain folks don't know I'm alive. I've got some important business to clear up, before I can come home for good.”

My sister bolted from the table, but she didn't get far. Grandpa Bobby snagged her as she dashed by and pulled her into his arms. He used his faded bandanna to dry her cheeks.

“What if something bad happens?” Abbey cried. “I don't want you to die for real.”

“But I can't live for real until I finish this thing,” he said. “Please try to understand.”

He fished something out of his pocket. “These are for you, Abbey. It's only fair, since your brother got the queen's coin.”

Abbey's eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Whoa,” she said under her breath.

We all leaned in for a close look at the two green earrings. The stones were small but the color was brilliant, like reef water.

“Emeralds,” Grandpa Bobby said.

Mom was dazzled, too. “I won't ask where you got them,” she said.

“Oh, probably another ‘poker game,'” Dad remarked.

“Don't worry, I earned 'em fair and square,” said Grandpa Bobby. “I've been carrying 'em around for years, hopin' to meet just the right girl. Now I have.”

He dropped the emerald studs into Abbey's palm and said, “Those little greenies are worth more than diamonds.”

“They're worth even more than that,” said Abbey, “to me.”

I'd never seen my sister so excited. After Mom helped her put on the earrings, she ran to check herself out in the hall mirror.

Grandpa Bobby said, “Abbey, you're as lovely as your grandmother was. I only wish you could've known her.” He looked at my father. “And, son, I wish…”

He didn't finish the sentence. Slowly he got up and went out the back door. Through the window we could see him sag against the trunk of our big mahogany tree. He was rubbing his eyes.

“Do you still remember her?” I asked my father.

“Like it was yesterday, Noah.”

Then he went outside and put an arm around the old pirate's shoulders.

Sometimes my parents make me slightly crazed, but the thought of losing either one of them is so unreal that I can't imagine it. I can't even try to imagine it.

All these years, I never considered the possibility that my father-my well-meaning but occasionally whacked-out father-might be walking around with a broken heart, carrying a pain too awful to talk about.

I mean, his mom died when he was a kid. Died.

How could anyone be the same afterward? How could there not be a huge sad hole in your life?

And how could it not get worse when somebody calls up to say that your father's gone, too? The father you idolized-dead and buried in some faraway jungle.

So maybe Dad filled up all that emptiness another way. Whenever he saw something bad or wrong, he'd do just about anything to make it right, no matter how reckless or foolish. It's possible he couldn't help himself.

I think Mom understood. I think that's why she's been so patient through the rough times.

And maybe Dad will be better, now that he knows Grandpa Bobby is really alive. It's something to hope for anyway.

On the afternoon before he left, my grandfather knocked on my bedroom door and said he wanted to go fishing. We grabbed a couple of spinning rods and headed off to Thunder Beach.

The water was crystal clear, and we waded up to our knees. Scads of minnows flashed like chrome spangles in the shallows, and right away we spooked a snaggle-toothed barracuda that had been hanging motionless near a coral head.

Grandpa Bobby started casting a small yellow bucktail, hopping it through the grassy patches where the snappers hang out.

“How are you going back?” I asked.

“Same way I got here. There's a freighter leaving Key West for Aruba tomorrow,” he said. “From there I'll hitch a ride on a banana boat.”

“You sure about this?”

Grandpa Bobby said, “Oh, I'll be fine. Your mom even packed me a suitcase.”

“Not the plaid one?” I asked.

“Yeah. What's so funny?”

“That's the one she takes out whenever she's thinking about dumping Dad.”

“Well, I guess that's not in the game plan anymore.” My grandfather tucked the butt of the fishing rod under one arm and took out another old photograph to show me.

“There she is,” he said proudly.

It was a picture of the Amanda Rose. She was a classic, too.

“That was taken in Cat Cay,” he said. “Summer before you were born.”

“Wow.”

“She's forty-six feet. Twin diesels, eight hundred horses.”

The gleaming sportfisherman was tied stern-first to a wooden dock, where a monster blue marlin hung glassy-eyed from a tall pole. In the picture Grandpa Bobby's curly hair was so long, it looked like a blond Afro. He was poised on the teakwood transom, raising a beer in a toast to the great fish.

“The dirtbags who hijacked my Amanda Rose, they've repainted the hull and changed her name. But that won't fly,” he said confidently, “because I'll recognize her, no matter what.”

“But what if you can't find her?” I asked.

“Oh, I most definitely will, Noah. You can bet the damn ranch on that.” He didn't take his eyes off the photograph. “I built her myself. Started shortly after your grandmother passed on. It was this boat that carried me through those terrible times. That, and raising your daddy and his brother and sister.”

He folded up the snapshot and went back to fishing.

“All this might be tough for you to understand,” he said quietly.

“Not at all.”

“Ten years is ridiculous, Noah. Ten years without so much as a postcard. I'm lucky your father forgave me.”

“I wish I could've seen his face the night you showed up,” I said.

Grandpa Bobby laughed. “Know what he did? He jumped from the truck and snatched me up and swung me 'round in circles like a doll-same as I did to him when he was a little shrimp! He's got some serious muscle on his bones, your old man does. Hey, what's this? Finally somebody got hungry.”

He jerked up on the rod and reeled in a small blue runner, which he tossed back. He caught another one on the very next cast.

“Hey, aren't you gonna fish?” he asked me.

“Sure.” I threw my bucktail into the deeper water and started bouncing it along the bottom.

“How come you're so quiet?” he said.

The truth was, I felt as bummed out as Abbey-I didn't want Grandpa Bobby to go away again. At the same time I didn't want to make him feel guilty by saying so.

He said, “You don't believe I'll ever be back, do you?”

“I'm worried, that's all.” It was impossible not to worry. The knife scar on his cheek was a pretty strong clue that the men my grandfather was chasing were not model citizens.

“Whatever else they say about me, champ, I do keep my promises.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Hey, are you snagged on a rock?”

“No, I don't think so.”

It was a fish. As soon as I set the hook, it smoked thirty yards of line off the spool. Grandpa Bobby whistled.

“Probably just a big jack,” I said.

“Wanna bet?”

The fish fought hard, dogging back and forth across the flats. It made several more zippy runs-one between my ankles-before I was able to steer it to the beach.

My grandfather was right. It wasn't a jack. It was a fat pink snapper. Triumphantly he pointed at the black telltale spot on its side. “That's a muttonfish, Noah!”

“Sweet,” I said. It was the best snapper I'd ever caught. “How big do you think it is?”

He smiled. “How big do you want it to be?”

“Just the truth,” I told him.

“The truth? Six pounds,” he said, “but that's still one helluva catch on a bucktail jig from a shoreline.”

I held the fish still while Grandpa Bobby unhooked it. You have to be super careful because snappers can bite through a human finger, no problem.

“Noah, you hungry? I'm not.”

“Me neither.”

“Good,” said Grandpa Bobby.

He nudged the fish back into the water. It kicked its tail and tore off.

“Must be some kind of mystic Underwood karma,” he said. “This looks like the very same spot where I caught that nice mutton with your daddy, gotta be twenty-five, thirty years ago.”

“How big was yours again?” I knew it was either fourteen or fifteen pounds, depending on who was telling the story. I was curious to hear which version Grandpa Bobby was in the mood for.

He said, “Your daddy recalls it as fourteen on the button, and his memory's likely better than mine.”

“Still a beast.”

“Yeah, but you got your whole life to catch one bigger. You'll do it, too, there's no doubt in my mind.”

“Because of the karma?”

“Somethin' like that,” he said. “You done fishin'?”

“I think so.”

“Me too.”

We put down our rods and sat on the sand. With the change of tide a breeze had kicked up, blowing in from the direction of the lighthouse. We could see two tankers and a cruise ship, all northbound in the Gulf Stream.

Another loggerhead turtle surfaced in the chop off the beach. It was twice as big and crusty as the one I'd seen with Abbey and Shelly. This time, though, I didn't need to jump in and scare it away.

Today the water looked perfect, the way it was a million years ago, before people started using the ocean as a latrine. Today it was awesomely pure and bright, and totally safe for an old loggerhead to browse the grassy flats. Chow down. Chill out. Take a snooze.

“Don't be surprised,” Grandpa Bobby said, “if one sunny day you're swimmin' here at the beach-or maybe just takin' a stroll with some girl-when a certain magnificent forty-six-footer comes haulin' ass over that pearly blue horizon, yours truly up in the tuna tower.”

The thing was, I could picture the moment perfectly in my mind. All I had to do was close my eyes, and there was Robert Lee Underwood streaking across the waves in the Amanda Rose.

“Now, Noah, I'm not tellin' you to sit around and wait for me. That would be downright pathetic.” He laughed and chucked my arm. “All I'm sayin' is, don't be surprised when the day comes.”

“I won't,” I said. “Not even a little bit.”