by Tim Dorsey
The group walked up the driveway past a new golf cart. Wilma was already at the screen door. “Come on in! The brisket is almost done.”
“But—” Serge looked up the street toward the trailer they’d just left.
“I invited you to dinner,” said Lawrence. “I didn’t tell you where.”
As they were about to enter through the sliding glass, Wilma spontaneously grabbed Serge for a tight, tearful hug. “You’re a good person.”
Grandfather and grandson were talking a mile a minute on the sofa. They saw Serge and lit up. Granddad shook Serge’s hand so hard he thought his arm would fall off. Scott arrived belatedly with his cane and began misting up.
“Hey! Don’t start!” said Serge. “I’m a sucker for tearjerker movies, so if you keep that up I’ll begin bawling like a baby.”
“Sorry.” Scott dabbed his eyes. “Will you sit by me?”
“That would be an honor.”
They all took seats around the dining table. It was time to say grace, which meant it was time for Coleman to reach for a biscuit. Serge slapped his wrist.
“Ow. Why’d you do that?”
Serge gestured at the others.
“Sorry.” They bowed their heads.
Wilma led the prayer, and it took some time: a lengthy appreciation list of all the little things that most take for granted. “. . . Thank you for returning Scott to our home, and last but not least, thank you for bringing new friends into our lives. Amen.”
Coleman looked around, then whispered, “Who’s she talking about?”
“Us,” said Serge, passing a serving bowl of salad.
“Wow,” said Coleman. “Nobody’s ever thanked God for us before.”
“I told you these people were special.”
“Don’t be bashful,” said Wilma. “Dig in.”
Buford went to the refrigerator. “I didn’t know if you guys drank, or what you liked, so I got beer and wine.”
“Right here,” said Coleman.
“Which?” said Buster.
“Yes.”
Serge forked meat onto his plate. “Now serving chaos.”
“Anyone want coffee?” asked Wilma. “I usually make it after, with the dessert.”
“Oooo! Oooo!” said Serge.
“Coming right up . . .”
There was laughter and good times and second helpings. Serge got more coffee, and Coleman stuck himself with a fork. The conversation turned to current events.
Wilma took a sip of sweet tea. “Have you watched the news lately? It’s gotten so depressing.”
“You’re not kidding!” said Serge. “I used to need more facts, but now everyone just makes up their own. You can accuse a politician of being a deep-sea squid with a giant eyeball under his shirt, and draw an overnight poll of at least twenty percent. And I hate to get religious, but now they want to teach creationism in schools as alternate science. Great! I’ll be the first to give God credit for a job well done. But then I learned that they’re saying the Earth is only five thousand years old. Seriously? Written history goes back that far, and yet not one mention of dinosaurs in the Dead Sea Scrolls. You’d think if the Earth were only that old, they’d be talking about nothing but dinosaurs: ‘I was over at the Euphrates yesterday and another T. rex came out of nowhere and grabbed Billy, just his legs kicking out its mouth. This is no way to live.’ More coffee, please?”
The plates were cleared, but nobody had to labor at the sink because of the industrial dishwasher the salesman had sold them. Wilma cut the key lime pie. “Let’s all go in the living room.”
“Let’s watch the local news!” Serge ran over to the set. “It’s a scream! Some bank robber used black electrical tape for a fake mustache, and another guy with a twelve-pack of beer put a propeller on a Weed Eater and sailed a little plastic tub out to sea until the coast guard told him to knock it off. And the family that was attacked by their own pit bull for trying to dress it in a Christmas sweater. You can’t make this stuff up! Here’s a photo on my smartphone of a hearse pulling a wood chipper. That’s a red flag.” Serge got up and reached behind the TV for the cable wire. “How about static? You don’t know what you’re missing. Everything!” Eyebrows pumped. “No? Okay, I guess it’s Dancing with the Stars, an unforeseen consequence of the Big Bang.”
“How about no TV?” said Lawrence.
An hour passed, and the living room chatter dribbled off. Arms stretched and mouths yawned. “I better be getting to bed,” said Wilma. “Not as young as I used to be.”
Buford patted his stomach and stood. “Me too.”
“I’ll get the walkie-talkies,” said Scott.
Serge had gone uncharacteristically quiet, just staring at a point on the wall. The point was in the middle of a Norman Rockwell painting of a holiday feast. It was sinking in all at once. What a family. What great people the country still had. He wished it were his family.
“Then we’d better be leaving,” said Lawrence.
“Yes,” said Nancy. “Thanks for the dinner. It was wonderful.”
“Serge, you coming?” said Lawrence. “Serge?”
“Huh, what?” He looked up from the trance.
“We’re leaving.”
“Do you think it would be possible for me to just sit here a little longer?”
Buford headed for the bedroom. “You can stay as long as you like. Just lock up on the way out.”
Serge went back to staring and worked on keeping a lip from trembling.
Lawrence watched him a moment and smiled sentimentally. He took his wife’s hand. In a low voice: “Let’s go.”
The living room became quiet. Coleman sat next to Serge, zonked, with his head far back over the top of the sofa in a way that his neck would remind him of in the morning.
A world of thought swirled inside Serge’s head. He heard a distant, strange noise. He got up. It was coming from down the short hallway. He removed his shoes and crept across the carpet. The bedroom on the left was Wilma’s, and the door was closed. Buford had the one on the right, and liked the door ajar to let the air circulate. The odd sound became distinct as Serge approached. The squawking of walkie-talkies.
Serge knew it wasn’t appropriate, but he couldn’t help himself. He flattened against a wall and slid the final few feet until he could eavesdrop.
Tshhhht! “Grandpa, remember when you took me to that spring training game in Saint Pete when I was six?”
Tshhhht! “I remember you got sick on hot dogs and peanuts.”
Tshhhht! “It was the best day ever! Remember when you took me to get catfish at that tiny restaurant on the bay that’s no longer there?”
Tshhhht! “Remember those great deep-fried hush puppies?”
Tshhhht! “I really love you, Grandpa.”
Tshhhht! “I love you, too, Scott . . .”
Serge slunk back into the living room and took a seat again and stared.
Coleman came out of his self-induced coma like he was in post-op. “Serge, you’re zoning. What’s up?”
Staring continued.
“Is that a tear?”
Serge wiped it.
“What’s the matter?” asked Coleman. “Why are you sad?”
“I’m not.”
“Then what’s going on?”
Serge looked toward the hall. “Life is good.”
Chapter 16
1970
Palm Beach International Airport.
Starting in the late 1960s, airline flights from Florida were being hijacked to Cuba so regularly that it was considered more of an inconvenience than anything else, and passengers practically baked the potential delays into their travel schedule. It was the era before you had to walk through metal detectors, and families and friends were allowed to go all the way to the gate to greet loved ones.
Glenda Pruitt and Tofer Baez stood with homemade signs, watching eagerly as arriving passengers entered the terminal from a square tunnel. The two had become unlikely friends ever since Tofer had
gotten Glenda’s son out of Vietnam.
She pointed. “There he is!”
They both yelled and waved their signs.
Welcome Home!
Ted began running when he saw his mom, and they shared a tearful hug. Then she held him out by the arms. “Look at you, my big navy hero!”
Tofer and Ted grasped each other’s hands in a freak-power handshake, and Tofer playfully elbowed him. “Better than combat, eh?”
It was a big celebratory dinner of Ted’s favorites: Salisbury steak and tater tots with lots of A.1. sauce. Glenda allowed herself a rare glass of wine, then a second. She got emotional. “I’m so glad you’re home!”
“Mom, take it easy. Everything’s okay.”
“I can’t.” Dabbing her eyes. “I’m so happy.”
Soon everyone was stuffed.
While Ted was at sea Tofer had turned into Eddie Haskell.
“That was a fabulous dinner, Mrs. Pruitt!” Tofer stood. “Let me clear the table for you.”
Glenda started to stand. “Let me help.”
“I’ve got this,” said Tofer, grabbing her plate. “You need to catch up with your son.”
Once the kitchen was tidied: “Ted, let’s go to your room . . .”
Tofer strummed his guitar. “How was the cruise?”
“It was great!” said Ted. “So exciting I don’t know where to begin! We did evasive maneuvers, and blew the ballast tanks, and conducted torpedo hot-run drills, and security exercises where a small-arms team ran through the sub with pistols, and the guys in sonar let me put on headphones and listen to whales, and I got a blue-nose initiation when we crossed the Arctic Circle and crawled through all this slop in my underwear and had a raw egg cracked in my ass . . .”
“Ted . . .”
“And we conducted a mock missile launch while listening to Jimi Hendrix, and I got to sneak a look out the periscope when it was slow one night, and my bunk was right outside one of the missile tubes, and we played poker and watched movies and shared girlie mags and I learned karate and—”
“Ted, slow down . . .”
“No, wait, wait. I haven’t gotten to the most excellent thing,” said Ted. “You know how they get rid of your crap on subs? They have these huge sewage tanks that they pressurize with air, and then they open a valve and blow it out into the ocean. But since you’re so far down with all that sea pressure, the air in those tanks has to be super compressed, and since the tanks are attached to the toilets where they get the crap in the first place, they have to be special toilets. They only pressurize the tanks a short time each day when you can’t use the bathrooms, and the rest of the time you go through this funky procedure to use the toilet: Instead of regular flushing, they have these heavy-duty ball valves at the bottom. Now imagine the biggest cast-iron monkey wrench you’ve ever seen and triple it. That’s your flush lever that rises straight up from the side of the toilet. When you’re done, you simply pull the lever forward, which opens the ball valve, and you turn a knob that runs the rinse water, and finally you push the lever back upright again to close the valve—”
“This is all very interesting, but—”
“Hold on! I had to explain all that for the best part!” said Ted. “The ball valves have to be extra strong so they can withstand the super-pressurized air when it’s time to blow the sewage tanks under the sea. But even then, if you look in one of the toilets during the pressurization, you’ll see all these little fizzing bubbles around the ball valve. An ensign told me that if I ever see bubbles in a toilet, do not under any circumstances pull that big flush lever. Everyone knows this, and it’s become the least likely mistake anyone will ever make on the sub.”
“That’s fascinating, but—”
“I’m not done! So one day, in the middle of pressurizing the sanitation tanks, they ran a drill called angles-and-dangles, where they run the ship through steep climbs and dives and everyone must secure their stations so pots and pans and stuff don’t fly all over the place. And during one of the severe climbs, all of those extra-heavy cast-iron flush levers fell forward, spraying shit everywhere! Isn’t that great?”
“I’m sure it was fun for all,” said Tofer. “Do you have your diary?”
“Right here.” Ted dug through his military-issue duffel bag for a small olive-green notebook. “I did just what you said, except I had problems with an alphabet code, so I drew a bunch of pictures of model rockets and shortwave equipment. And I hid little lines and circles in the drawings to help me remember.”
Tofer flipped through the pages. “Good idea. Rockets and shortwave are your hobbies, so it would appear normal if anyone checked.” Tofer reached into his own hippie backpack and unfolded a map on the desk. It was a different kind of map, highly detailed and scientific, with topography of the ocean floor.
“That map looks familiar,” said Ted. “No, it looks exactly like . . . the navigation chart on the sub. Where’d you get it?”
“The professors.” Tofer then opened a leather case with precision drafting instruments. “Now go through your diary and help me plot your course . . .”
. . . Thus was the beginning of a rigid routine that proceeded steadily for the next two years, until 1972.
“I don’t want to be in the navy anymore,” said Ted. “My draft requirement is over, and I’m not going to re-enlist.”
“Good for you,” said Tofer. “Vietnam’s winding down, so what’s the point of still being part of the war machine?”
“But I thought you’d be disappointed. You won’t get your charts anymore.”
“They’ve had their usefulness. It’s time to move on.” Tofer now had an electric guitar. He strummed it unplugged. “Hey, you know what you should do? Join the FBI.”
“The FBI?” Ted recoiled. “That’s about the last thing I thought you’d suggest.”
“And normally you’d be right.” Chords from “Harvest” by Neil Young. “That damn J. Edgar Hoover! He’s turning our country into a police state! Keeping files on all my friends in the anti-war movement, as well as the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the farmworkers’ movement. It’s un-American! One of my professor friends was even threatened with violations of the Espionage Act, which by extension means you and me as well.”
“What!” Ted jumped up. “You said we weren’t doing anything wrong!”
“We weren’t,” said Tofer. “We’re innocent, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to worry.”
“What does that have to do with the FBI?”
“You’d be in a position to hear stuff, and you could tell me, and I could warn our friends.”
“Okay, now this definitely sounds like spying,” said Ted.
“What the FBI is doing is spying! On its own citizens!” said Tofer. “If they’re trampling the Constitution, then whatever we do in opposition is defending it.”
“That makes sense,” said Ted. “But you have to have a college degree for the FBI.”
“Only to become an agent,” said Tofer. “You can do filing or work in the mail room, and as soon as you can, put in for a transfer to counter-intelligence.”
“But why would they hire me?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” said Tofer. “Spotless military record, honorable discharge. And you enlisted when others your age were trying to avoid the draft. You’re exactly what they’re looking for.”
A week later, Ted knocked on Tofer’s door. “Guess what? They hired me!”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“And I’m on the clerical staff in counter-intelligence.”
“What? You mean like immediately?” Tofer blinked hard. “That I wasn’t expecting . . .”
. . . So started another era of Ted feeding Tofer a steady stream of information nuggets from the office. At first it was anything he might overhear concerning protests and radicals. Then Tofer abruptly requested something different: anything personal on the counter-intelligence agents themselves. Home life, vices, affairs. Five years passed, then t
en. The eighties became the nineties. The Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union became Russia.
The pair met for drinks in a balcony bar on Clematis Avenue.
“What do you mean you don’t need any more information?” said Ted.
“This hippie’s gotten old,” said Tofer. “Protest is a young man’s game.”
They promised to keep in touch.
They lost touch.
Chapter 17
Sarasota
The Ford Falcon sat on the grassy shoulder of a quiet county road.
Coleman picked at specks of dried salsa on his shirt. “What are you doing?”
Serge maintained attention with the binoculars. “Another stakeout.”
“For what?”
“That.” He pointed up the street.
A windowless white van with no markings entered the Boca Shores retirement park. Serge started up his car and followed.
The van stopped at a trailer, and the driver went inside with a small white box. The Falcon parked discreetly four doors down.
“Another scam artist?” asked Coleman.
Serge jotted notes on his clipboard. “Not this time.”
The driver returned to the van, drove up ten more homes, and got out with another box. Serge clicked his pen again, recording the time and address. The process continued until the truck had stopped at a dozen more mobile homes and left the park.
“Who was that guy?”
“Meals on Wheels,” said Serge. “I drove by their headquarters yesterday to see what kind of vehicle to expect.”
“But why would you stake out Meals on Wheels?”
“So tomorrow we can beat him to the punch and deliver our own cuisine.”
“You don’t mean . . . ?”
“That’s right,” said Serge. “Xtreme Meals on Wheels!”
“You’re taking retirement big.”
“I’ve been meeting lots of wonderful people for my oral history, but only in restaurants. I’m not getting an accurate statistical sampling of those who can’t get out much, and who would most appreciate our offbeat menu.” Serge turned out of the park and headed for the grocery store. “Plus I didn’t realize how slow the restaurant process would be for my project. Meals on Wheels is like senior-citizen speed dating.”
