Squirm

by Carl Hiaasen

  Jammer slides away slow and easy, like he owns the street. I watch until he disappears around a corner. Maybe he felt like he owed me a favor, but all I did was let him borrow my phone the day his car broke down. That’s nothing compared to what he just did for me.

  After taking a slow deep breath, I approach the door to the motel room, knock three times, and wait. Nothing happens.

  I knock again, louder this time.

  “Dad, it’s me! Open up.”

  No sounds of movement on the other side. Did he fall asleep? Or is he hunkered down, waiting for me to go away?

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I’m not giving up, Dennis. Deal with it.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!!!

  He’d have to be in a coma not to hear me.

  I back off and press myself against the wall, half expecting to see the two muggers returning with backup. I’m wondering if I’ll have time to dial 911 before they punch my lights out.

  Several minutes later, the motel room door cracks open. A head pokes out briefly, then disappears. After a while the man emerges and strides toward the red truck.

  I step forward yelling, “Hey, you. Wait!”

  And what does he do? My own flesh and blood? He runs.

  Unbelievable.

  “Are you nuts?” I shout after him.

  He glances back but he doesn’t stop. It’s pitiful, really, because he’s not very fast. I catch up quickly and tackle him from behind.

  So this is quite a father-and-son reunion—the two of us rolling around on the sidewalk along U.S. Highway 1.

  Once I get him pinned, I say, “What is your problem, Dad?”

  He’s panting like an old dog. “Billy Dickens, is that you? Let me up, son.”

  “You gonna chill, or not?”

  “We better get out of here before somebody calls the cops. We look like two drunks wrestlin’ in the road.”

  “No, the wrestling part is over,” I say. “This is the part where you say you’re sorry for running away from your own kid.”

  “You scared me, Billy. I swear I didn’t know it was you.”

  I won’t let him up until I’m sure he’s too tired to take off again.

  “Did you come alone?” he asks.

  “No, Dad, I brought SEAL Team Six.”

  I pull him to his feet and we go back to his motel room. In the light he looks just like he did in the photographs at Summer and Lil’s house—except tonight he’s wearing a wrinkled black business suit, black shoes, a white button-down shirt, and a crooked black-checked necktie.

  “Are you going to a funeral?” I ask.

  “Actually, I was on my way to see you,” he says, “and your sister. I’m real nervous, to be honest. That’s why I did the flyover with the quadcopter—I didn’t want to show up at the front door and find out your mom’s got a jealous boyfriend, or whatever.”

  Dad’s damp hair is mussed from our scuffle. His cheeks are flushed and shiny with sweat. I point to the drone, parked on the floor. “Am I the first person to shoot at that thing?”

  “No, but you’re the first one to hit it.” He’s still breathing hard. “Good thing all you had was a slingshot.”

  “Who put that bullet hole in your truck?”

  Dad chuckles sourly. “It’s what they call an occupational hazard.”

  “And your occupation is…?”

  “Geez, your mom never told me you play football.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then where’d you learn to tackle like that?” He’s rubbing his left side. “I think you busted some ribs.”

  There’s definitely something familiar about his voice. Is it possible my brain remembers it from all those years ago, before he left us?

  “Why didn’t you answer the stupid door? I knocked like a hundred times.”

  “I was in the shower.” He holds out his right hand. “Good to see you, son.”

  We shake. I nod stiffly. “Good to see you, too. In person, I mean.”

  I should probably be angrier than I feel, but I admit there’s a huge sense of relief to be done with the first face-to-face moment, as crazy as it was. At least no punches were thrown.

  A white paper bag from McDonald’s sits open on top of the TV set. The whole room smells like fries. In one corner is a large black duffel, zipped tight.

  When I sit down on the edge of the bed, the flimsy mattress sags. My father remains standing. He smooths his hair and brushes the smudges from the knees of his pants.

  “I was going to the house to apologize,” he says.

  “For everything? Wow.”

  “Do you think your mom and sister will want to see me?”

  “Is that really why you came to Florida?”

  “Full disclosure? I’m also here on business.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  A big-ass cockroach emerges from the closet and crawls halfway across the floor before Dad says, “Your call, Billy.”

  I motion to the door. He opens it. Together we watch the shiny brown fugitive scurry into the night. My father shuts the door and grins.

  “Most guys would’ve stomped that thing,” he says.

  “I didn’t want to mess up this lovely slime-green carpet. Why wouldn’t you come out of the woods and talk to me in Montana?”

  “It wasn’t safe. I was working.”

  “So, tell me about this top-secret job. Lil said you do surveillance missions for the government?”

  I do semi-snarky air quotes when I say the word missions.

  My father’s brow creases and his lower jaw grinds. I hardly know the man, but it’s clear he can’t decide how much of the truth to tell me.

  “Is it the CIA? FBI?” I ask. “The NSA?”

  “Let’s go outside, Billy.”

  “Are you gonna run again? Because, no offense, you’re not exactly Usain Bolt.”

  “No, son, I’m done running,” he says.

  * * *

  —

  Belinda and I have one living set of grandparents—Mom’s father and mother. They live in Portland, Oregon, on the other side of the country, which means we see them only at Christmas. That’s the time of year when Florida gets invaded by jillions of grandfathers and grandmothers desperate to escape winter.

  Grandpa Dan is retired from Boeing in Seattle, where he worked on an assembly line building jet airplanes, mostly 737s. Grandma Jackie taught elementary school for thirty years. In addition to my mom, they had four other daughters, so now there are at least a dozen other grandkids scattered all over the place—my cousins. Honestly, I can’t even name them all. Belinda and I have met only a few, and they seemed fairly normal. It’s possible we’ll never get to know the rest, because Mom’s not real tight with her sisters. Besides, we move around so often that they’ve probably lost track of us.

  On the other side of the family there are no cousins or aunts or uncles, because Dad was an only child. Mom said it was a brutal time for him when his mother and father passed away. How could it not be? Dad’s father had one sister—Sophie was her name—who made sure he was able to finish college. He might have mentioned her when we were little, but I can’t remember.

  “Aunt Sophie,” says my father, “was an odd character, though very kind to me. She lived all alone on a little island in the Bahamas.”

  “That’s cool. What did her house look like?”

  “I’ve got no idea, Billy. She never invited me to visit. In fact, I never met the lady in person.”

  We’re standing on top of the drawbridge that crosses the Indian River Lagoon. A breeze ripples the water, and I can see the red and green lights of the channel markers winking all the way up to Vero Beach. A power line strung parallel to the causeway is lined with birds—gray d
oves, I think—dozing shoulder to shoulder. There must be a hundred of them.

  I ask Dad if he and his rich aunt ever spoke on the phone.

  “Just twice. The first time was the day after my parents died. The second time was the day after I graduated from college—she called to congratulate me. She asked what I intended to do with my brand-new bachelor’s degree in wildlife ecology and conservation. I made up something that sounded righteous and noble, but I had no grand plan, obviously. Your mom found that out the hard way.”

  We’re in a narrow pedestrian lane used mostly by fishermen. Wearing a black suit at nighttime makes Dad almost invisible to drivers, but luckily there’s not much traffic. Since we’ve been here, the drawbridge has gone up only once, for a northbound sailboat.

  Below us a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins plays in the waves. I hear them breathing through their blowholes. It sounds like soft valves on a steam engine.

  “This would be an excellent place to launch the drone,” Dad says.

  I’m not sure how Aunt Sophie is connected to his secret missions, but I’m trying to stay patient and polite. Mom keeps texting, asking why the heck I haven’t come home.

  “Speaking of drones,” I say, “did the government train you how to fly that thing?”

  “I taught myself. It’s easy, really.”

  “But they paid for it, right? The CIA? Or whoever.”

  He shakes his head. “No, Billy. Aunt Sophie paid for it.”

  “But you made it sound like she’s dead.”

  “Oh, she is.”

  “This isn’t funny, Dad.” I start walking down the bridge, back toward the mainland. My father hustles after me.

  “Wait, son, listen,” he’s saying. “Not long after I moved to Montana—”

  “After you bailed on Mom and us. Right? Don’t forget that part.”

  “All right, yes. After I went to Montana, I got a phone call from some lawyer in Nassau. He told me Aunt Sophie had passed away and left everything to me and her pet parrot. I couldn’t believe it.”

  Now I’m walking faster. Apparently my father thinks I’m a total fool.

  “Please slow down, Billy! These church shoes are killing my feet.”

  “What was the parrot’s name? Make it a good one, Dad.”

  “She called it Hubert, after the prime minister at the time.”

  “Sure. Of course she did,” I say.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. She and the prime minister were friends. Wait up!”

  “So, how much did rich Aunt Sophie leave you and ‘Hubert’ the parrot?”

  “Enough,” Dad says.

  “Enough for what?”

  “To take care of you, your sister, and your mom. And Lil and Summer, too.”

  “Okay, but why do you need the money if you’re flying spy quadcopters for the U.S. government? I’m sure the pay’s pretty sweet.”

  He grabs one of my arms and hangs on until I stop walking. We’ve almost reached the bottom of the bridge.

  “Son, I don’t work for the government,” he says. “I work for myself.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Lil doesn’t know. Neither does your mom.”

  “The truth, please. Why are you sneaking around with that drone?”

  “I’ll tell you,” he says, “but first you’ve got to make me a promise. It’s a big one.”

  “All right, Dad, but there’s something I need in return.”

  TEN

  “Where’s your gun?”

  It sounds like I’m talking with a gangster.

  “In a safe place. Relax,” says my father.

  “You left a box of ammo on the seat of your truck at Tom Miner.”

  “That’s Montana, Billy, not Florida.”

  We’re riding through town in the red pickup. My bike is in the cargo bed.

  I give him the SD memory card that fell out of his quadcopter. “You’ll need this for future ops.”

  He slips the card into the breast pocket of his suit.

  “I flushed that baby tooth you gave me,” I say. “Whose was it, anyway?”

  “Yours, Billy. Who else’s would it be? I asked your mom to send me one. This was a couple years after I moved out.”

  “Dad, you didn’t just ‘move out.’ You bailed out.”

  When he says he’s sorry, I hear real pain. It makes me feel bad about getting rid of that dumb little molar.

  “There’s no excuse,” he says, “for how I’ve acted, for not calling you all these years. I just didn’t think I could handle it—the sound of your voice, and your sister’s. I was afraid I’d fall apart on the phone and make things even worse. It was me being a coward, Billy, nothing more complicated than that. As time went by, the fear turned to shame.”

  I’m not sure what he wants me to say. He’s right: there’s no excuse.

  “Sending that check every month—does that make you feel better?”

  My father chuckles bitterly. “Like I was a better person, you mean? I’ve probably talked myself into thinking that. But I don’t send the money just because I feel guilty. I feel responsible, too. There’s a difference, son. You understand?”

  Part of me likes it when he calls me “son,” and part of me gets a little ticked off.

  “The thing about the inheritance from Aunt Sophie—” Dad goes on, “it took away one of my worst worries. Because then I knew that, no matter what was going on in your mom’s life, you guys would always have a roof over your head and some cash in the bank.”

  When we get to the house, he parks in the driveway behind Mom’s car. We just sit there, and sit there, and sit there some more, while the engine idles. Finally I reach over to turn off the ignition.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I say. “She wants to see you. She sounded fine when I called.”

  His hands are still welded to the steering wheel. “I did a radius search using the GPS of this address as a base. That’s how I found her latest eagle nest.”

  “I watched the video on the SD card.”

  “The male bird chased after my drone! You see that?”

  “Yeah, it was sick. Hey, Dad?”

  “What?”

  “Are you ready to go inside?”

  “Give me another minute,” he says.

  Mom’s face is at the kitchen window. It breaks my heart to see that she’s put on some makeup.

  My father straightens his tie. He coughs a couple of times to clear his throat.

  “Let’s go,” I say. “You hang out with grizzlies and wolves, and you’re not afraid of them.”

  “They’re more predictable, Billy.”

  I walk around to his side of the truck and open the door. When I reach for his arm, he pulls away, saying, “Easy now. I seriously think you busted some ribs.”

  In slow motion he descends from the pickup and follows me up the walkway. The front door swings open, and there stands my mother, framed in the light.

  “Hi, Chrissie,” Dad says.

  “Hello, Dennis. Why are you dressed like an undertaker?”

  “Fair enough,” he says with a sheepish grin.

  * * *

  —

  My sister is hopelessly addicted to social media—SnapFace, InstaTwit, MeTube, whatever. Sometimes I hide her phone as a test. Her average freak-out time is between three and four minutes. After that, she starts dashing around the house like an insane person, flipping over sofa cushions, yanking out drawers, and groping blindly under the furniture. “Where’s my phone? Where’s my #&*! phone?”

  Truly, it’s entertaining to see.

  One night, while Belinda was in one of her online trances, I caught her staring at a photograph of a pot roast.

  “Now you’re scaring me,” I said.

  “Brittany’
s cousin posted what she cooked for dinner. I’m just ‘liking’ it, that’s all. Mind your own business!”

  “Let me get this straight. Some person snaps a photo of a greasy slab of meat and shares it with the world. Then the world is expected to respond.”

  Belinda frowns. “It’s rude not to ‘like’ somebody else’s picture.”

  “But what if you’re a vegetarian and don’t approve of beef? That’s called an ethical dilemma, right? Maybe your response could be a picture of an artichoke.”

  “Just shut up, Billy.”

  Belinda also posts random photos of food—and photos of her clothes and her shoes and, for variety, Muffin, the neighbor’s cat. I watch her taking these pictures, but I never see them because I avoid social media. It’s a choice, not a judgment.

  There are two types of people—those who want to be noticed, and those who don’t. I’m not saying one is better than the other. I’m just saying I’d rather be totally off the radar. Clearly my father feels the same way.

  Yet here’s Belinda, tracking him with her cell phone the moment he enters the house. She’s doing a video. He’s trying hard not to look miserable.

  “Hi, sweetie.” He manages a smile. “Wow, you’re all grown up.”

  “No kidding,” she says.

  I tell her to knock it off.

  “Why? This is a major family moment. Someday we’ll all cherish the memory. Not.”

  Mom steps between my father and my sister, blocking her camera angle. Belinda lowers her phone.

  Dad says, “You’ve got every right to be mad.” He seems thinner, almost shrunken, in that depressing black suit.

  My mother steers him to the couch and positions herself right beside him. “Belinda, could you please get us some coffee? Your father takes his with cream, no sugar.”

  Dad smiles gratefully. Mom and Belinda are locked in an icy stare-off, which Mom wins. My sister groans and stalks to the kitchen. I’m hoping she doesn’t come back and dump the coffee in Dad’s lap.

  “So, what’ve you been up to, Dennis?” my mother asks. “Billy tells me you’re married to a Native American.”

  You’re thinking: Could this possibly be more awkward? Answer: Nope.