Flush

FIVE

Everybody was quiet at breakfast the next morning. Mom said she was taking Abbey shopping. I told her I was going fishing again, which was a possibility.

First, though, I had to have another talk with my father. I wanted him to know that Mom had mentioned the d-word-surely that would shake him up enough to come home.

As soon as Mom and Abbey left, I got on my bike and headed up the highway toward the jail. I wasn't sure they'd let me in without Mom calling to arrange it, so I brought along a letter that had arrived for my father at the house. It was from the U.S. State Department, and the seal on the envelope made it look very important.

I already knew what the letter said because my mother had opened it. The government was telling us (for about the fifteenth time) that the body of Robert Lee Underwood, my Grandpa Bobby, was still down in Colombia. They couldn't bring him home because there was a problem with the paperwork, and the police in the village “were not responding to inquiries from the United States Embassy.” The news wasn't going to cheer up Dad, but at least it gave me an excuse to see him again.

When I showed the envelope to the deputy at the desk, he didn't seem very impressed. He peeked inside to make sure that it was only a letter, and he said he'd give it to my father later.

“Can't I give it to him myself?” I asked.

“No, he's busy this morning,” the deputy said.

Busy? I thought. Doing what-pretending to play chess?

“Is he all right?” I said.

The deputy chuckled. “Yeah, he's fine. There's a TV crew that drove down from Miami to see him.”

“TV?”

“Yeah, Channel 10. They said they'll need at least an hour.”

“Then I'll come back later,” I said.

The deputy shook his head. “Sorry, sport. Inmates are allowed only one short visit per day, and we're already bending the rules for this TV thing. Maybe tomorrow you can see your old man. But call first, okay?”

Sure enough, there was a shiny new van from Channel 10 parked outside the sheriff's station. I don't know why I hadn't noticed it before. I rode away wondering how to tell my mother that Dad was now doing television interviews from jail. She'd find out sooner or later, when it was on the news, because all the Miami TV stations broadcast to the Keys.

So I'd have to tell her, even though she wouldn't be happy about it. Maybe Dad thought of himself as a political prisoner, but Mom thought he was being a selfish jerk.

Lice Peeking was actually awake and semi-alert when I stopped at the trailer. Shelly wasn't there, which was sort of a relief and a disappointment at the same time. She made me real nervous-but she also kept Lice Peeking from acting up.

“Well, lookie who's here,” he said with a wormy smile.

He was lounging on the front stoop, sucking on a cigarette. His hair was wet and tangly, and his shirt was damp. I couldn't tell whether he'd taken a shower or sprayed himself down with a garden hose.

“So, how's the jailbird?” he asked.

“Oh, that's real funny.” I didn't appreciate him talking that way about Dad. It was different when Abbey did it because she was family. Lice Peeking was just a lazy lump who didn't know anything about my father.

“Well, what'd he say?” Lice Peeking asked. “Can he come up with some money or not?”

I said, “We don't have any money, but he'll give you his flats skiff. It's worth twelve thousand dollars.”

Lice Peeking squinted one bloodshot eye. “Says who?”

“Come see for yourself. It's on a trailer behind our house.” I told him what kind of boat it was, and that the engine had fewer than a hundred hours on it.

“Seriously?” he said.

“My father doesn't lie.”

“And it's free and clear, this boat? The bank don't own a piece?”

“Dad paid off the loan last year,” I said.

Lice Peeking scratched his chin, which was raw and peeling. “Where's your house at?” he asked.

I gave him directions. It nearly broke my heart to think of a loser like that taking our skiff and selling it for cash. But what else could we do?

Lice Peeking flicked his cigarette butt under the trailer and pulled himself upright. “Let's go have a look,” he said, which caught me by surprise.

“It's a long way to walk,” I said.

“Who's walkin', boy?” He laughed and pointed at my bicycle. “Hop up on the handlebars.”

And that's what I did.

It had been a while since Lice Peeking had pedaled a bike, and he was wheezing by the time we got to the house. He seemed shocked that there was no beer in the refrigerator, but he settled for a Diet Coke. We went out back to see Dad's skiff, and Lice Peeking made up his mind right away. It was a cool-looking boat.

“We definitely got us a deal,” he said. “I'll be back with Shelly and the Jeep to pick it up-say tomorrow 'round noon?”

“Hold on,” I said. “It's not free.”

Lice Peeking sniffed. “Chill out, junior, I know that.”

“My dad wants you to sign a statement telling what you saw when you worked on the Coral Queen. You know, about Mr. Muleman making them empty the dirty holding tank into the water.”

“Sure, no sweat,” Lice Peeking said.

“And anything else illegal you know about. Like, if they're dumping garbage or oil, too. You need to write it all down.”

“You bet.” He was walking back and forth, admiring the skiff from different angles. “Now, the trailer's included, right?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Could you please bring the statement when you come get the boat?”

Lice Peeking made a face and looked down at me. “You want it tomorrow? Seriously?”

“Yes, sir. And Dad says it's got to be signed and witnessed,” I told him. “That's the deal.”

“Geez, you're quite the young hardass, ain't ya?”

“No, sir,” I said. “My father's in jail and I want to help him out. That's all.”

On the way back to the trailer court we passed Jasper Muleman Jr. and Bull pushing a wheelbarrow down the bike path. It was obviously a strain, and as we rode past I saw why. Balanced upside down in the wheelbarrow was the mud-splattered outboard motor from the johnboat that had sunk in Snake Creek. The engine's propeller was dented and caked with greenish crud.

Jasper Jr. called out something nasty as we rode by, but I was surprised when Lice Peeking braked the bicycle and spun around. I told him to forget about it, just keep going, but he was mad. He pedaled straight up to Jasper Jr. and Bull, blocking their path.

“What was that you just said, boy?” Lice Peeking demanded.

“I wasn't talkin' to you,” Jasper Jr. mumbled.

“He was talking to me. Honest,” I said to Lice Peeking. I didn't want any trouble right there on the main highway, where everybody could see us.

But Lice Peeking didn't let up.

“Sounds like you got your daddy's potty mouth,” he said to Jasper Jr. “Keep it up, you'll need a whole new setta choppers before you're eighteen.”

Bull said, “Come on, Lice, he didn't mean nothin'. That's the truth.”

“Shut up, Bull,” said Lice Peeking. “You wouldn't know the truth if it stung you on the butt. Now, Jasper, how 'bout you apologize to me and my friend?”

I could have gone my whole entire life without Lice Peeking calling me his “friend.” On the inside I was cringing.

Jasper Jr. shot me a vicious glare. Then he turned sulky and looked down at his feet.

“I'm waitin', boy,” said Lice Peeking.

“I'll 'polgize to you,” Jasper Jr. said finally, “but not to him.”

He jerked his grimy chin toward me.

Bull blurted, “Underwood's old man sunk Jasper's pappy's boat!”

“Like I care,” Lice Peeking said.

He placed one boot on the rim of the wheelbarrow and gave a push. It turned over sideways, toppling the outboard motor with a crunch onto the hard asphalt. A gush of oily gray fluid spilled from the cracked cowling.

Bull groaned. Jasper Jr.'s jaw fell open.

“Don't call people names,” Lice Peeking said. “It ain't polite.”

Then we rode away.

That night, after dinner, Mom put on a CD by a singer named Sheryl Crow. One of the songs was called “My Favorite Mistake,” and my mother liked to joke that she could have written it herself-about my dad.

This time, though, she didn't smile when the song came on.

I was going to tell her about Dad doing that interview with Channel 10, but I decided to wait until she was in a better mood. I didn't tell my sister, either, because she'd get ticked off and start throwing stuff around her room. Abbey has a hot temper.

Around ten-fifteen Mom turned off the stereo, gave me a hug, and went off to bed. I was pretty tired, but I stayed up reading a skateboard magazine and kept one eye on the clock. At exactly midnight I crept down the hall and tapped on Abbey's door. She was wide awake and ready to go. We snuck out through the kitchen and got our bicycles from the garage.

It didn't take long to reach the marina. The Coral Queen had just closed and the passengers were filing off, laughing and talking loudly. Abbey and I hid nearby, on one of the deep-sea charter boats. We crouched low in the stern so that nobody could see us.

A yellow crescent moon peeked out from behind the clouds, and the mosquitoes weren't too bad. We just sat there not saying a word, looking up at the sky and waiting for the docks to quiet down. By the time all the gamblers were gone, we could hear the jacks and tarpon crashing schools of minnows in the basin.

When I peered over the gunwale, I spotted Dusty Muleman's big black Escalade parked under one of the lampposts near the Coral Queen. The sound of men's voices carried across the still water, and I could see figures moving around on the casino boat. My sister got on her knees beside me.

“How long you want to wait here?” she asked anxiously. “Mom's gonna freak if she wakes up and we're gone.”

I checked my watch: ten minutes after one. “We'll give it to one-thirty,” I said, “then we'll go home.”

The way Dad had explained it, big boats like the Coral Queen are supposed to pump their toilet waste from onboard holding tanks into a sealed vat onshore. Later a sewage truck collects the stuff and hauls it to a treatment plant.

Dad believed that Dusty Muleman's boat was flushing hundreds of gallons of poop directly into the basin, which is not only gross (as Abbey would say) but also a big-time crime. All we had to do was catch him in the act and call the Coast Guard to come arrest him.

Then everybody in town would know that my father wasn't some kind of loony troublemaker, that he was just a guy who cared about the kids and the beaches and the things that lived in the sea. And when the truth about Dusty came out and everyone saw that Dad was right, Mom would feel better about staying married to him.

Maybe we were kidding ourselves, but that's how Abbey and I had it figured.

So we both got excited when we noticed the workers dragging a long thick hose toward the stern of the Coral Queen. We were sure-I mean, one thousand percent certain-that they'd open the valve and drop the end of that hose into the water.

But they didn't. They snaked it over to the dock and connected it to something that resembled a giant rust-freckled egg.

“Hey,” whispered Abbey, “that looks like a sewer tank.”

“Yeah, it does.” There was a knot in my stomach. I couldn't believe what we were seeing.

“What if Dad made a mistake?” she asked gloomily. “What if Dusty's totally legal? What if the pollution is coming from somewhere else?”

I had no answer. It had never occurred to me that my father might have blamed the wrong person.

“What do we do now?” Abbey said.

“I really don't know.”

“Noah?”

“Abbey, I said I don't know.”

“Noah!”

From the hitch in her voice, I sensed something was wrong. I turned and saw, in the pale glow of the marina lights, a thick greasy arm around my little sister's neck.