Drunk on a Plane

by Zane Mitchell

  Kid.

  I was a thirty-five-year-old man with a full beard after two days of non-shaving. I hadn’t been called kid since my first year in the academy, and that was only because the training officer had a chip on his shoulder.

  But I appreciated the offer and didn’t have enough energy to pass it up. So I’d pulled the blanket up over my head and was out in less time than it took to count the number of chin pubes on Ozzy Messina’s face.

  Now it was morning, and from beneath the blanket, I heard voices. Without opening my eyes, I uncurled my long body, sticking a bare leg out of the blanket and over the arm of the Becker’s three-person sofa. I followed it up with two arms out over my head and gave a good solid stretch. The sofa had been comfy as I’d drifted off to sleep, but by about two a.m., every part of my body had ached for more room, and I’d struggled to find a good way to lay.

  “Maybe if you poke him,” said a little voice.

  I envisioned Mrs. Al standing over me with a yardstick. My eyes flashed open beneath the blanket. Slowly I pulled it down just below my nose, wincing as the day’s rays hit my sensitive eyes.

  “Good morning!” said Al brightly. “See, no poking required!”

  “G’mornin’,” I mumbled as the early warning signs of a headache nibbled at the insides of my brain.

  “How about a cup of coffee?” asked Mrs. Al, gesturing towards the kitchen with a rolled-up newspaper.

  “Mmm,” I groaned. “Not much of a coffee drinker.”

  Al turned and looked at his wife curiously.

  “He’s not much of a coffee drinker!” she hollered into his good ear.

  Al looked appalled. “Not much of a coffee drinker? You got hair on your balls, don’tcha?”

  Mrs. Al swatted her husband with the newspaper. “Al!”

  I cracked a smile. This was why I already appreciated Al. Any man who could insult me with a crack about my balls before breakfast was high on my friend’s list. Al was steadily climbing the charts. “Wouldn’t you like to see,” I said with a crooked smile. Then I glanced up at Al’s wife. “Oh, excuse me ma’am.”

  “Oh, don’t excuse her,” said Al with an emphatic frown. “And don’t let the pretty face fool ya. Evie’s no shrinking violet.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I put both bare feet on the rug in Al’s living room and sat up, making sure to let the blanket cover the morning tent I’d sprung. Mrs. Al might not be a shrinking violet, but I was certain my mother’d kick my ass if I surprised an old woman like that after she’d done me a solid and let me sleep on her sofa. “I just never acquired a taste for coffee. You don’t happen to have a Dr. Pepper lying around, do you?”

  “We haven’t been shopping since we got to the island,” said Mrs. Al. “Shopping is on my list for today, though. I’ll pick some up for you.”

  I waved a hand at her. “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

  “What’s he want?” Al asked his wife.

  “Dr. Pepper!” she hollered at him.

  Al wrinkled his nose. “Is he a specialist or something?”

  “He wants a soda, Al.”

  “Oh. They have soda in the dining hall.”

  I scratched the back of my head and yawned. “What time is it?”

  Mrs. Al looked at her watch. “Almost noon.”

  “Noon? Damn!” I said, scrambling to my feet, careful to keep the blanket swathed around my waist. “I better leave you two alone and get checked into my room.”

  “Artie sent someone down with the key this morning. I’ll walk you over there whenever you’re ready,” said Al.

  I grabbed my tank top from the coffee table and tugged it on over my head, ensuring it covered the zipper on my shorts before dropping the blanket on their sofa. “I’m ready. Just let me grab the rest of my stuff.” I slid my feet into my flip-flops and hooked a finger into the handle of the bag of clothes I’d bought the night before. “Ready.”

  That got a laugh out of Mrs. Al. “I hope your trip to Paradise gets better, Drunk.” She thought about it for a second. “That’s quite a name. I can’t imagine your mother calling you Drunk.”

  I laughed. “No. Mom calls me Terrence.”

  “Terrence? I thought your name was Daniel. Why does she call you Terrence?”

  “Because my pops is Daniel Senior. She calls him Dan, or Danny. She calls me by my middle name. Most of the kids in elementary school did too.”

  She lifted her chin. “Ah, that makes sense. Mind if I call you Terrence?”

  I smiled. “No, not at all. It’ll make me feel like I’m at home.”

  She patted my arm. “Good, I’m glad you could stay with us last night, Terrence. Maybe you’ll join Al and me for dinner again sometime.”

  “Consider it a date,” I said. I leaned over and gave Mrs. Al a side squeeze around the shoulders. “Thanks for dinner last night. Having a home-cooked meal was exactly what the doctor ordered to get my head on straight.”

  “Alright, sweetheart, I’m going to show Drunk his new place. I’ll be back.” Al kissed his wife’s cheek while I put on my new hat and shades.

  Seconds later, the two of us stood outside on his deck. It was the first time I’d seen the area in the light. The night before had been a blur, and I’d only blindly followed Al to his cottage, so I had no idea what to expect.

  Standing outside now, in the daytime, I was shocked at what I discovered. Al’s cottage faced out to the ocean with only a white sandy beach separating his place from the water’s edge. The undisturbed ocean view made my jaw drop. The salty ocean air. The peaceful sound of the water lapping at the shore. The gulls squawking and the sound of the breeze rustling the palms overhead played like a nature soundtrack. I stood staring, taking it all in, for what felt like minutes. “Holy shit, this is amazing!”

  He gave a gentle backhand to my arm. “Right? Now you get it!”

  My brain was still in awe as I mumbled, “Yeah, I get it alright.”

  “Eh?”

  “Now I get it!” I hollered.

  Damn. I didn’t just get it. I was jealous.

  To live out the rest of your years like this? Al had it made in the shade. Literally. I looked up to see a grove of coconut trees overhead. The fronds swayed in the gentle ocean breeze, shading his deck.

  “Come on,” he beckoned. “Your place is down this way.”

  16

  Al led me around the back of his cottage, which I discovered was actually a duplex.

  “Glenn Anderson and his wife, Fern, live on the other side. They’re from Atlanta. Glenn moved here full-time about a year ago. He’s a retired orthopedic surgeon. Evie and Fern are good friends. She’s the one that put the idea in Evie’s head to move here permanently. Glenn’s alright, but all he talks about is his food allergies. He’s even allergic to dairy, and yet the man eats more cheese than anyone I’ve ever met before. Drives me nuts.”

  “What’s it to you if the man eats cheese?” I said loudly.

  Al stopped walking and looked up at me. “You ever meet anyone allergic to dairy or that’s lactose intolerant?”

  I shrugged. I mean, it was possible, but no one readily came to mind.

  He pointed at his stomach. “Their gut. It doesn’t know what to do with cheese. So it sits in there and ferments and ferments, and by the time it comes out, it’s the worst-smelling byproduct you could ever imagine. Toxic chemicals. Literally. It’ll knock you out. The man’s like a walking stink bomb.”

  I suppressed a grin. “You’re saying you don’t like Glenn Anderson because his farts smell bad?”

  “I mean, I’m eighty-seven years old, so I don’t have a lot of room to talk, but yeah, it’s a bothersome quality for a friend to have.” He shrugged and started walking again.

  On the other side of Al and Glenn’s cottage, a sky-blue Toyota Land Cruiser filled the dirt parking stall.

  “Well, this is a beaut,” I said, patting the back of the vintage vehicle.

  “This is Gary Wheelan’s. It’s a ‘78 FJ40. Gary b
ought it at an auction about fifteen years ago and spent almost ten years restoring it to mint condition. It’s his baby. He spent a bundle to have it shipped over here when he moved to the island full-time.”

  “Wow,” I said, nodding in appreciation.

  Al kept walking and gestured to the cottage next to the Toyota. “Of course, this is Gary’s place. He’s a pal of mine. He’s single. His wife passed a few months before he bought the Land Cruiser. Now he’s got one of those yippy dogs.”

  “Yippy dogs?” I asked, looking at Al with my head tipped sideways.

  Al nodded and held his hands out in front of him about two feet apart to explain the size of the dog. “Yeah, you know, one of those little dogs that yip—a little ankle biter. Pain in the ass is what it is. Gary’s a nice guy, but he’s a little uptight, sort of like his dog. You know? He’s former military. Got out early, though, then went on to do security.”

  We passed a couple golf carts and two more duplexes. Al was able to name the residents of several of them and tell me a little about them. A couple of the rooms didn’t have full-time residents and were still being rented by the week.

  The duplexes were all alike. They’d all been stuccoed and painted Pepto-Bismol pink with white shutters and trim and white flower boxes brimming with colorful flowers beneath the windows. The front of each duplex shared a deck that faced the ocean. The back faced the cobblestone road that led back to the resort. Each duplex had a side door that opened to a picnic table and a parking space for a golf cart or a vehicle. Al explained that most of the people in the cottages either rented or owned private golf carts. Hardly anyone owned a car as the resort provided complimentary shuttle service into town to shop or go to the airport. Al said he and his wife were planning to buy a golf cart now that they were permanent residents.

  “But why spend all the money to live in a resort? Why not just a rent a condo or something?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Eh, Evie and I have friends here. We’ve talked about maybe buying our own place on the island someday down the road, but I like the idea of being able to eat at the restaurant whenever I want. There’s something to be said for a good buffet. The cooks here are top-notch. And if I can afford it, why not?”

  Why not, indeed.

  Finally, he stopped walking and pointed. “This one was Vic Hoffman’s. Vic’s a retired lawyer from New York. Glenn told me that he went back to the States two days ago because his granddaughter had her first baby. He’ll be back next month.”

  He handed me the key to Vic’s place.

  “Vic’s not going to mind me staying here?”

  Al waved a hand. “Eh, Vic’s a cheapskate. He refuses to pay for his cottage while he’s gone, so he knows it’s gonna get rented out and there’ll be someone else sleeping in his bed while he’s gone. He’s used to it. One time his wife found the vase on her end table stuffed full of women’s underwear. I guess some guy had a bachelor party at their place while they were gone. He knows the risks.”

  I climbed the two steps to my side door. Unlocking it, I walked into a furnished living room almost identical to Al’s. The five-piece floral rattan living room set looked like something that had come off a Golden Girls’ garage sale. Straight across from me was a flat-screen television set. Forty inch at best. And to my left was the small cottage kitchen that housed full-sized appliances, a two-person kitchen table, and a slider to the deck and my ocean view. Beyond the living room was a bedroom on the left and a bathroom on the right. Everything was neat and tidy. Of course, it wasn’t as new and sleek as my motel room had been, but there was more room and it was definitely homier and more comfortable. I was pleased.

  “Great place, Al. Why would Artie do this for me?”

  Al looked at me curiously, then cupped a hand behind his ear.

  “Why would Artie do this for me?” I hollered.

  “He’s not doing it for you, Drunk. He’s doing it for me.”

  “I got that. But it seems sort of like Artie Balladares owes you one. What’s the story?”

  Al grinned. “Artie is the new owner of the Seacoast Majestic. He hasn’t owned the place for long. But I’ve known Artie for years, long before he ever bought the resort. See, he used to own an International Harvester dealership in Bridgeton, New Jersey. And as owners, you know, from time to time we would get these all-expenses-paid incentive trips from the dealers.” Al lifted his brows. “Oh man, they’ve sent Evie and me all over the place. To New York City, to Las Vegas, to Cancun, and of course, to Paradise Isle.”

  I grinned at Al. “Sweet! Sounds like I went into the wrong business. The only place the station has ever taken us was to Q39 for our Christmas party. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s the best barbecue in Kansas City, but it certainly was no Cancun.”

  Al chuckled. “Yeah, we had a pretty good deal going. Well, on one of those trips, I met Artie. And he and I became pretty good friends. We kept in touch, and we’d see each other on trips every year. Our wives got along really well, so we always double dated for dinners and went on excursions together. And we liked the island so much that even after we’d sold our respective implement dealerships, we continued to make annual trips down to visit each other and the island. By then, our wives had become dear friends. Though Artie lost Jennie in 2013, we still all enjoyed visiting each other.”

  “So that’s why he was so willing to help you out? Because the two of you were such good friends?”

  Al smiled and shook his head softly. “Well, that’s part of it. But you know, I’d told you that I cashed out my Bitcoin back in December, when it was at its peak. Originally I’d invested in 2011. It was a project I’d started with my oldest great-grandson to teach him about the importance of saving and compound interest. He told me about this new thing he’d learned about in these chat rooms, cryptocurrency. He tried to tell me it was the wave of the future. And I had some loose change floating around in my pocket, so I decided what the heck, I’d put a few hundred bucks into it. They were only a quarter at the time. I mean, I had the money to lose. Shortly thereafter, in June, a single Bitcoin was up to thirty dollars! Well, that was right around the time we were to fly out to the island to meet Artie and Jennie. I told him all about my investment and how it had already grown, but I also explained cryptocurrency’s weakness, which in my mind was its severe volatility. Up, down, up, down—the stuff could be all over the place, but I could see how it might make a decent investment if held over time. Artie researched it. Gave it a while. Watched the ups and downs and did some reading and ended up making his own investment when it got back down into the five-dollar range.”

  “Ahhh.” I nodded. “I think I know where this is going.”

  Al’s head bobbed. “Yes. Over the years, Artie kept investing. Now, see, I just did my initial investment and let it sit. I kind of forgot about it, in fact. Every once in a while, my grandson would fill me in on the price, but Artie, he was always trying to time it just right. In the end, he did quite well for himself. He cashed out in November when it hit twelve thousand dollars a coin. He didn’t think it was going to get much higher, but I held out a little longer and ended up cashing out at just shy of twenty thousand a coin only a month later.”

  My jaw dropped. “A month later? I bet he was kicking himself that he didn’t wait!”

  Al shrugged. “That’s the breaks, you know. And Artie knew it. But he’d invested more than I had, so he walked away an incredibly wealthy man, and he’d been wealthy to begin with! Artie already knew what he wanted. After Jennie died, he’d set his sights on someday moving to the island. But cashing out in November was the final catalyst. The resort had been for sale for a while, and so he decided that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. It would be his legacy. It was a cash sale, so it happened fast. By Christmas, he was the proud owner of a Caribbean resort.”

  I shook my head. The story was amazing. I realized in that moment that I needed to get my shit together and put money away so I could have my own legacy someday
. “So impressive.”

  Al nodded. “Thank you. It is rather impressive,” he said with a chuckle.

  “So Artie feels like he owes you for helping him get the resort?”

  “In a way. He feels like I was the one that pushed him to invest in cryptocurrency.”

  “Well, I sure appreciate you scoring the room for me,” I said, taking the opportunity to shake my new friend’s hand.

  He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, you know. I’d rather have you here than some pain-in-the-ass guy who’s gonna throw some wild bachelor party and disturb the peace around here.”

  The truth was out. Al liked me. I quirked a grin. “Thanks, Al. I like you too.”

  17

  I dawdled away the afternoon by unpacking my new clothes and trying not to give Jimmie’s dead body too much thought. I was, after all, innocent, on vacation, and, in truth, not an overly ambitious cop. I was more of an I’ll let you slide on that speeding ticket kind of cop. Especially if there was a pretty woman behind the wheel.

  I’d actually only been on the force for about two years. When I’d made the commitment at age thirty-two to clean up my life, stop drinking, and find a wife, I’d also decided I needed direction. Up until then, partying and chasing women had taken top priority. So when my pal Mikey had suggested that I join the police academy, I’d thought that sounded like a cool thing to do. Of course, not being a big fan of studying, I’d barely graduated from the academy, and then once I’d joined the force, I’d only made it off probation by the skin of my teeth and likely at the urging of Mikey, who was much higher up the ranks than I could ever hope to be.

  I refolded my three new pairs of Calvin Kleins and put them in the top bureau drawer, tucked my swim trunks in next to them, and put my new shorts and my remaining tank top in the middle drawer. I wondered if this was the kind of shit that Al did all day.

  When that was done, I walked up to the resort to partake in their lunch buffet. According to the A-frame chalkboard by the entrance, the theme was Taste of Italy. Preparing for a night of drinking margaritas at the bar, I decided it would be best to carb up. I even did something that I didn’t usually do, and I loaded up on water. I’m sure that there are idiots in the world that don’t realize a human body needs water to survive, but I’m also sure that there are even more idiots in the world that assume there’s enough water in the food that they eat and the soda that they drink to get by without actually having to drink water.