appreciate your position, but it’s horse manure.”
Skip more or less snarled. “He’ll never have a dime. Look at how he’s dressed, like a rag picker. Katrina says he drives a piece of junk. This punk ain’t nothing.”
I leaned one hand against the Bull Run and considered telling them what the Callahan Magic Cart decal on the right front panel stood for—I could have bought their silly sporting goods store and turned it into a 7-Eleven—but I decided that was none of their affair. These guys were totally blowing fatherhood.
“All day long I’ve been driving around town meeting your peer group,” I said, “and Skip, you must be the most unpopular man in the South. None of your friends can stand you. Babe Carnisek is ready to break your neck on sight.”
“Babe Carnisek is a loser.”
“Your own wife called you a pinhead.”
“Don’t you dare slander my wife.”
I gave up on Skip and returned to Cameron. “This pinhead is your business partner?”
Cameron seemed vaguely amused. “I cannot allow you to frighten my family.”
“Look what you did to my family.”
Skip produced a checkbook and a Bic. “Let’s talk your language, pal.”
“I’m not your pal; I’m your son.”
“How much to change your story?”
“I hate to be disrespectful, but stick your money in your ear.” See how controlled I was, a lesser person would have said ass .
“I have associates who could hurt you real bad,” Skip said.
With each exchange, our voices grew louder. It had been a while since I’d dealt with a male long enough to argue. The feeling was like I’d separated from myself, as if I were watching TV and in the program at the same time.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. “You do an awful thing to a little girl thirty-whatever years ago and now you have the scrotums to act like the injured parties.”
That shut everyone up for a while. I think Skip was figuring out what scrotums meant in this context. Cameron put both hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. He seemed to be figuring repercussions. What I noticed was how pretty the day was—silver-blue sky setting off the sienna red of post oaks lining the fairways. That’s my pattern during heightened emotional states—I focus on irrelevant details.
“Would you mind taking off your cap?” I asked Cameron.
He considered refusal, then gave a what-the-hell shrug and took off his Duke cap.
Just as I suspected. “You’re bald,” I said. “You’re left-handed and edging into fat.” I left out tall. “You probably aren’t the sperm father anyway.”
I couldn’t believe the coldness of his eyes. The man could out-Indian Hank Elkrunner. I tried staring him down but lost and had to cover my loss with talk. “But just because you aren’t the genetic culprit doesn’t mean you aren’t morally responsible for what you boys did to Lydia.”
Skip blew up. “What we did to Lydia. Your mother was a whore.”
Time for the dramatic gesture. Lydia didn’t teach me much, but she was the queen of the dramatic gesture. I moved up within six inches of Skip’s face. “To hell with your associates, Mr. Prescott”—if you say Prescott right, spit sprays on the P—“either hurt me now or shut your ugly beak.”
Skip’s blotches spread down his cheeks to his neck and he blinked like a strobe light. I expected him to belt me and us to roll around the driving range grass like grade school ruffians. But Katrina was right—he was a wimp. Thank God.
I snatched the club from his hands, spun around, and walked back to the golf cart. “Here’s how we test our steering wheels,” I said, and I showed him a trick my sales manager, Ambrosia, taught me. I stuck the club handle through the wheel and wedged it under the instrument panel. Then I bent Skip’s golf club into a U.
Skip’s eyes went wide at the sacrilege. Cameron smiled.
Time for the tough-guy exit. I threw the ruined club in Skip’s direction. “Next time it’s your spine,
Skip more or less snarled. “He’ll never have a dime. Look at how he’s dressed, like a rag picker. Katrina says he drives a piece of junk. This punk ain’t nothing.”
I leaned one hand against the Bull Run and considered telling them what the Callahan Magic Cart decal on the right front panel stood for—I could have bought their silly sporting goods store and turned it into a 7-Eleven—but I decided that was none of their affair. These guys were totally blowing fatherhood.
“All day long I’ve been driving around town meeting your peer group,” I said, “and Skip, you must be the most unpopular man in the South. None of your friends can stand you. Babe Carnisek is ready to break your neck on sight.”
“Babe Carnisek is a loser.”
“Your own wife called you a pinhead.”
“Don’t you dare slander my wife.”
I gave up on Skip and returned to Cameron. “This pinhead is your business partner?”
Cameron seemed vaguely amused. “I cannot allow you to frighten my family.”
“Look what you did to my family.”
Skip produced a checkbook and a Bic. “Let’s talk your language, pal.”
“I’m not your pal; I’m your son.”
“How much to change your story?”
“I hate to be disrespectful, but stick your money in your ear.” See how controlled I was, a lesser person would have said ass .
“I have associates who could hurt you real bad,” Skip said.
With each exchange, our voices grew louder. It had been a while since I’d dealt with a male long enough to argue. The feeling was like I’d separated from myself, as if I were watching TV and in the program at the same time.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked. “You do an awful thing to a little girl thirty-whatever years ago and now you have the scrotums to act like the injured parties.”
That shut everyone up for a while. I think Skip was figuring out what scrotums meant in this context. Cameron put both hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. He seemed to be figuring repercussions. What I noticed was how pretty the day was—silver-blue sky setting off the sienna red of post oaks lining the fairways. That’s my pattern during heightened emotional states—I focus on irrelevant details.
“Would you mind taking off your cap?” I asked Cameron.
He considered refusal, then gave a what-the-hell shrug and took off his Duke cap.
Just as I suspected. “You’re bald,” I said. “You’re left-handed and edging into fat.” I left out tall. “You probably aren’t the sperm father anyway.”
I couldn’t believe the coldness of his eyes. The man could out-Indian Hank Elkrunner. I tried staring him down but lost and had to cover my loss with talk. “But just because you aren’t the genetic culprit doesn’t mean you aren’t morally responsible for what you boys did to Lydia.”
Skip blew up. “What we did to Lydia. Your mother was a whore.”
Time for the dramatic gesture. Lydia didn’t teach me much, but she was the queen of the dramatic gesture. I moved up within six inches of Skip’s face. “To hell with your associates, Mr. Prescott”—if you say Prescott right, spit sprays on the P—“either hurt me now or shut your ugly beak.”
Skip’s blotches spread down his cheeks to his neck and he blinked like a strobe light. I expected him to belt me and us to roll around the driving range grass like grade school ruffians. But Katrina was right—he was a wimp. Thank God.
I snatched the club from his hands, spun around, and walked back to the golf cart. “Here’s how we test our steering wheels,” I said, and I showed him a trick my sales manager, Ambrosia, taught me. I stuck the club handle through the wheel and wedged it under the instrument panel. Then I bent Skip’s golf club into a U.
Skip’s eyes went wide at the sacrilege. Cameron smiled.
Time for the tough-guy exit. I threw the ruined club in Skip’s direction. “Next time it’s your spine,
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