Flush

SEVEN

The speeding ticket that my mother had been waiting in line to pay when she met my father was the only one she's ever gotten. She isn't a person who breaks the law, no matter how small the law might be. Most of the time Mom is steady, careful, and totally in control-in other words, the polar opposite of my dad.

Like him, she was born in Florida-a place called Kissimmee, up near Orlando. Both her parents worked as performers at Disney World, which sounds like more fun than it was. Grandpa Kenneth was Pluto, the cartoon dog, while Grandma Janet played one of Snow White's seven dwarfs-either Sleepy or Grumpy, I forget which. Mom still has a framed photograph of her mother and father dressed in costume, standing with their heads off in front of Cinderella's Castle.

According to Mom, Grandpa Kenneth didn't like his job from day one. The Pluto outfit was top-heavy and hard to navigate, and the temperature inside was about 105 degrees. The tourist kids would poke Grandpa Kenneth in the ribs and pinch his nose and yank on his floppy ears, but he wasn't allowed to say a word. That's because Goofy is the only Disney dog character who talks-Pluto just whines or yips. So when the kids started hassling Grandpa Kenneth, all he could do was bark or shake his head or wag his paw, which almost never worked.

One day he just “snapped.” That's Mom's word for what happened. Some brat yanked once too many times on his tail, and Grandpa Kenneth spun around and punted him halfway down Main Street USA. The kid's family sued Disney World for some insane amount of money, but by then Grandpa Kenneth and Grandma Janet had already packed up and moved to Moose Lick, Saskatchewan, where they opened a snowmobile dealership and never laid eyes on another tourist. We've gone up to visit them two or three times, but they refuse to come down to the Keys. Grandpa Kenneth is sure that the Disney people will have him arrested if he ever sets foot in Florida.

My mother returned when she was eighteen, to attend college at the state university in Gainesville. She was on her way to becoming a lawyer when she met a guy and got married and dropped out of school. The guy turned out to be a “knucklehead” (Mom's word again), and after only two years she pulled the plug. She was driving to the courthouse with the divorce papers when she got the speeding ticket that led to her meeting my father. They got married the day after her divorce was final.

Whenever Dad starts telling that story, my mother goes out to stack the dishes or fold the laundry. She doesn't like anyone bringing up her first marriage in front of us. I know that Dad's crazy for my mom, but sometimes he's totally clueless about her feelings. Abbey gets frustrated and tells me to talk some sense into him, but what am I supposed to say?

Better shape up, Dad. Remember what happened to the last knucklehead she married.

Even if I said something, he wouldn't take it seriously. He'd tell me not to worry because Mom was his “biggest fan.” My father has a bad habit of overestimating his charm-and also my mother's patience.

When I got back from the trailer park, she was standing in the driveway and talking with Mr. Shine, the lawyer. I waved and hurried inside the house, where Abbey was waiting to fill me in.

“I was right!” she said. “They're going to ask a judge to decide if Dad's a certified wacko.”

“But he's not,” I protested.

“The point is to get him out of jail, even if he doesn't want to leave,” said Abbey. “The judge can order him released so he can get tested by some shrinks. That's the new plan.”

“Does Mom really think Dad's a nutcase?”

“Noah, you're missing the big picture.”

“Did she tell you all this, or were you spying on her and Mr. Shine?”

“No comment,” my sister whispered. “The good news is, I didn't hear the d-word. Not even once.”

“Excellent.” I decided not to mention that Mom and Mr. Shine had gotten real quiet when they saw me riding up the driveway.

“So what did Lice Peeking have to say?” Abbey asked. “Or was he crashed out on the floor again?”

“He wasn't even home.”

“I was right, huh? He chickened out on the deal.”

“His girlfriend thinks he skipped town,” I admitted, “but she promised to help us nail Dusty Muleman.”

“Oh, please,” my sister sighed. “Earth to Noah: It's a lost cause.”

“No, Abbey, it's not.”

She eyed me closely. “You're not done with bad news, are you? I can tell.”

All I could do was shrug. “Dad's going to be on TV tonight.”

“Why? For what?”

“He gave an interview to Channel 10 at the jail.”

“Oh, brilliant,” Abbey said, and sank into a chair. She and I were worried about the same thing: What would Mom do when she saw my father on the five o'clock news?

“How much does a new television cost?” my sister asked.

“Too much. I already thought of that.”

“A baseball would do the job,” she said. “I could tell Mom I was tossing it around the living room when it accidentally-on-purpose hit the TV screen. I'll take all the blame. Come on, Noah, how about it?”

“I've got a better idea,” I said.

One that wasn't so messy.

Shortly before the news was supposed to come on, a hideous scream arose from my sister's room. Even though I knew she was faking it, Abbey's yowling still gave me goose bumps. She could make a fortune doing horror movies if she wanted.

While Mom went running to see what was wrong, I slipped out the kitchen door. I grabbed my fishing rod from the garage and dashed to the corner of the house where Dad had mounted the TV satellite dish. It took me only three casts to snag it with the bucktail. I jerked hard, and I kept on pulling until the dish rotated toward me. Then I clamped down on the spool of the spinning reel and backed up until the line snapped.

When I went back inside, there was Abbey sniffling on the couch in the living room. Mom sat beside her, pressing an ice pack to the back of her head.

“She fell off her bed,” Mom reported sympathetically.

“Is that all?” I said. “It sounded like she was being boiled alive.”

“Noah!” Mom scolded, and instantly my sister started bawling again. Abbey can cry at the drop of a hat. I avoided making eye contact because I knew we'd both break up laughing.

At five o'clock Mom reached for the remote control to turn on the news, but there was no picture on the television screen-only ripples and fuzz. Mom switched to another station, and it looked the same.

“What's wrong with the set?” she muttered, and began clicking through the channels.

When I snuck a peek at Abbey, she gave me a congratulatory wink. The TV wasn't working because the satellite dish was no longer pointed up at the satellites. It was pointed at the ground.

Eventually I'd have to explain how one of my fishing lures got hooked on the dish, but for the moment I was proud of myself for sparing my mother from seeing my jailbird father on the Channel 10 news.

That good feeling lasted only a few minutes, and then our phone started ringing. Apparently everybody else on the island had watched Dad's big interview, and many of them wanted to share their reactions with Mom, who was mortified. At least three of her so-called friends had even videotaped the show, and one of them stopped by after dinner to drop off the cassette.

Abbey and I were curious about what my father had said on TV, but neither of us was brave enough to sit up with Mom while she watched the tape. I'd thought about trying to mess up the VCR, but Abbey said it would be a waste of time. She was probably right-Mom was determined to see Dad's interview, one way or another.

So my sister and I retreated to our rooms. I couldn't get to sleep, so I sat up playing my Game Boy and reading skateboard magazines. At one in the morning I was surprised to hear the telephone ring, and someone picked up right away. When I peeked down the hall, I saw that the whole house was dark except for a light in my mother's room, just like the night before.

This time, though, I could hear her voice. She was talking with Grandma Janet up in Canada. I couldn't make out everything Mom was saying, but I heard enough to know that she wasn't impressed by Dad's performance on television.

What I also heard, too clearly, was the d-word.

I'm not scared to be out alone at night. Actually, I enjoy the peace and quiet. Sometimes I sneak away from the house and ride down to Thunder Beach, or Whale Harbor. The main things to watch for are drunk drivers and, of course, police cars. It's unusual to see a kid on a bicycle after midnight, so the cops automatically figure that you're either running away from home or out stealing stuff. More than once I've had to lay down my bike and duck into some trees when a police cruiser went by.

Mom was still on the phone when I went out the back door. On the way to the marina I didn't see a single car-a Greyhound bus was the only thing that passed me on the highway.

The Coral Queen was dark and the docks were quiet, but I didn't take any chances. I left my bicycle in the mangroves and checked out the place on foot. It was a good thing I did, too. The crooked-nosed bald guy who'd grabbed Abbey was sitting in a beat-up old station wagon, parked beside Dusty Muleman's ticket office.

I crouched behind the sewage tank and watched him for several minutes. He never moved even slightly, and when I edged closer, I could hear him snoring. He sounded just like Rado's dog, Godzilla, when he sleeps.

Finally I got up my nerve and crept past him. That turned out to be the easy part. Getting off the Coral Queen was a different story.

I'd been rummaging through the wheelhouse, hunting for any scrap of evidence that might help Dad-a note in the crew's log, an order in Dusty's handwriting to dump the tanks, whatever-when a mullet boat rumbled into the basin. A man in rubber boots rose in the bow and started tossing a cast net. The noise woke up the bald guy, who got out of the car and stretched his arms and lit up a cigarette.

Now I was stuck. There was no way to leave the Coral Queen without being spotted under the dock lights. I could see Dusty's goon guy sitting on the hood of his station wagon, the tip of the cigarette glowing orange whenever he took a drag.

On tiptoes I made my way down a stairwell to the second casino deck, which, like the others, was enclosed to keep out the rain. I snooped around until I found a rack of poker chips that the crew had forgotten to lock away. I carried the rack up toward the front of the boat and opened one of the side windows. I waited there until the mullet netter motored out of the basin and the marina was quiet.

Then I reached out the window and dropped the poker chips. They made a very impressive racket, clattering on the hard deck and rolling in a hundred directions.

The bald watchman tossed his cigarette, slid off the hood of the station wagon, and headed for the Coral Queen. He was bounding up the aft stairs as I was sneaking down the forward stairs. When I heard his heavy footsteps on the deck above me, I hustled to the stern, stepped lightly onto the gangplank, and then bolted for cover.

I made it as far as the sewage tank, where I huddled in the shadow and tried to catch my breath. My heart was beating so hard that I thought my chest might split open. Behind me I could hear Dusty's goon cussing and kicking at the spilled poker chips. When I looked back, I saw him moving through the gambling boat and shining a flashlight.

It seemed like a fine time to run away.

But as I rose to my feet, a car came bouncing down the dirt road toward Dusty's dock-a police car, with its headlights off. Immediately I dove back to my hiding spot, which would have been a nifty move except that I banged my head on the sewage tank.

The pain was ridiculous. At first everything went bright, like a starburst, and then suddenly it was as black as a tunnel. My skull was ringing like a gong.

As I lay there, trying not to cry out and give myself away, I heard my own voice say, “It's empty.”

Empty!

It wasn't my skull that was ringing; it was the sewer tank.

Which should have been full, if the Coral Queen had emptied her hose into it that night.

I watched the police car roll to a stop near the boat. The bald goon hurried down the gangplank and waved at the deputy, who hopped out of the car and followed Dusty's man onto the boat. Both of them were shining flashlights back and forth.

I rolled to my knees and sat up too fast. As I waited for the dizziness to go away, I noticed a dark, powdery tracing on the concrete slab under the sewage tank-something so small that the pollution inspectors might never have noticed. I touched it and, in the faint light from the docks, saw red on my fingers.

Rust. The old tank was rusting away.

I reached underneath and found a patch of pitted metal that crumbled like stale crackers. Peeling it away, I made a hole so large that I could stick my fist inside.

The sewer tank wasn't just empty, it was wrecked and useless-a phony prop in Dusty Muleman's scam.

Suddenly the knot on my head didn't hurt so much. I stuffed a handful of rust into my pocket, and took off.