Red Thunder (16 page)

My mother is not so artistic. While Aunt Maria glues her shells
together, Mom paints four-inch plastic replicas of the Blast-Off Motel
sign, mounts them on bases, and puts them in clear globes with water
and plastic snow or glitter.
Snowing in Florida?
is usually the first thing the tourists say, but then a surprising number buy one.

Over the years we've made and sold dozens of different kinds of
kitschy items like the snow globe and the shell people. I put out a
plywood sandwich board every morning advertising SOUVENIRS, LOWEST
PRICES IN TOWN. It made the difference between staying open and filing
for bankruptcy, sometimes.

Jubal was sitting on a folding chair at one end of the table, bent
over a "tree" of six plastic Blast-Off signs, all connected like the
parts of a polystyrene airplane model kit before you break them off. He
would frown intently at the sign, laboriously trace one of the letters
with a fine paintbrush, then sit back to regard his work. He saw me
looking at him and held up another tree he had finished.

"You ever made none of dese, Manuel?" he asked.
About ten thousand,
I thought.

"A few, Jubal. I've made a few."

"I'm makin' a dozen, me. You mama, she—"

"Betty," Mom said, smiling at Jubal.

"You Betty, she give me dis one here." He picked up a finished globe
and shook it up, hard, then held it up and watched the snow swirl. "I
never see no snow, me," he said.

"One day, Jubal, one day," Travis said. He was sitting between Mom
and Aunt Maria's empty chair, working on some unidentifiable shell
sculpture. There was glue on his fingers and a small patch of his hair
was standing straight up with silicone sealer in it. He seemed to be
enjoying himself.

I suddenly felt feverish and a little sick to my stomach. I needed some fresh air. The closest way was through the kitchen.

Aunt Maria was in there, cooking up a huge pot of her famous
picadillo. Nothing makes Maria happier than new mouths to feed, and I
could tell from the empty jars on the stove that she was pulling out
all the stops. Picadillo is basically just beef hash, but then you add
olives and raisins and
huevos estilo cubano
and three or four
kinds of peppers, pickled or fresh, all of them hot. We had it fairly
often, but without all the trimmings and with cheaper cuts of meat than
Maria was using today. I could smell her wonderful coconut bread baking
in the oven.

No friend of mine could possibly enter Mom's and Aunt Maria's house
without being offered food and invited to stay for dinner. Anything
else was unthinkable. But the snack would be nachos and salsa and the
dinner would usually be macaroni and cheese until they knew you better.
The plantains and fritters and picadillo told me that Travis and Jubal
had charmed them pretty quickly.

I hurried out the back of the kitchen, which led to the busy street
outside. I couldn't seem to get a good breath, so I walked up and down
the sidewalk for a bit, and finally started feeling better.

I watched from the street corner as our back door opened again and
Travis stepped out. He was dressed a lot like Jubal today, with sandals
and a Hawaiian shirt. He cupped his hands and lit one of the short,
thin cigars he smoked every once in a while, then stood there with his
hands in the pockets of his shorts, looking up at the Golden Manatee.
For a moment, in profile, I could see the family resemblance with Jubal.

He caught sight of me, and ambled down the sidewalk.

"Bummer about the hotel," he said, pointing at the Manatee.

"Lot of bummers around here," I said.

"Shouldn't let it get you down, though. Maria sent me out to get a
few things. She said there was a good bodega around here somewhere...."
He looked up and down the street.

"A few blocks inland," I said. "I'll take you."

WE DIDN'T SAY anything for the first block. I could tell he was watching me.

"I like your family," he said after a while.

"What there is of it," I said.

"What's that mean?"

"Means my father is dead. My mother's parents won't speak to her
because she married a spic. My dad and Maria's family won't speak to my
mom because she's a gringa and they blame her that my dad's dead."

"Yeah? Well, you're better off not knowing assholes like that."

"My dad's family, the Garcias, could help us put the motel on a good
financial footing, maybe help us sell it. Mom won't hear of it, of
course."

"Goes without saying, Manny. That's one of the reasons she's good people. She won't kiss anyone's ass."

"Instead, we turn our living room into a third-world sweatshop."

Travis puffed a few times on his cigar, which had almost gone out.

"You got nothing to be ashamed of. It's honest work."

"I just wish you had... maybe given me some warning...."

"So you could fold up the table and vacuum and dust? That's what
Betty said when I knocked on the door. Ninety-nine out of a hundred
women would have said the same thing, whether they lived in a pigsty or
a place as clean as yours. I'll say it once more: Don't be ashamed of
them, or of your work, or of yourself.

"Happens to most of us, Manny," Travis went on. "Rich or poor, we
get ashamed of Mom and Dad and what they do, or how they talk, or how
they don't have any money or how they have too
much
money, the dirty capitalist pigs.

"The year I started school, my dad was out on strike. Money was very
tight. You want humiliation, try showing up for the first day of first
grade in a pair of Kmart sneakers with holes in the sides and have half
the school calling you a barefoot coon-ass. I ran all the way home and
cussed my daddy with every step."

I mulled that over while we shopped, mostly for fresh fruits and
vegetables. I could see Tia Maria was going to set out a Cubano feast
we might all be a week recovering from. Travis paid with a
hundred-dollar bill, which Mr. Ortega, the greengrocer, held up to the
light and examined suspiciously before making change. We packed most of
the greens in a plastic bag, and the heavier stuff in Aunt Maria's
souvenir mesh shopping bag from the Bahamas, which Travis produced from
his pocket.

We stopped on the sidewalk outside, and Travis got out his wallet
again. He counted out thirty hundreds, folded them once, and held the
money out to me. I made a move toward it, pure reflex, then backed off
a step.

"What's happening here, Manny, is I'm going to have to go off for a
while. I haven't learned much yet about the silver bubbles, but I know
some people in various places who will give me an hour or two with some
very large and expensive machines, and they won't ask to see what I'm
doing and they won't blab about it later. I'll be going to Huntsville,
Houston, and Cal Tech, and maybe all the way up to Boston. I'll be gone
at least a week, maybe two weeks.

"Now, Jubal ain't a dog, and he ain't a child, but I can't leave him alone at the ranch for that long. Just can't do it.

"So I arranged with your mother to get a room for Jubal at the
Blast-Off. He'll do fine there, so long as he knows Maria and Betty are
around somewhere. He's okay with walking down to the Burger King by
himself. I'm paying for his grub in advance. If y'all would take him to
the movies a time or two, I'd really appreciate it."

I wanted to grab him and shake him and shout out
Take me with you!
But I knew he wouldn't, and I really couldn't get away, either, with
the extra burden of work Jubal's presence was likely to bring about. So
I took a deep breath and nodded, and Travis stuffed the money in my
shirt pocket before I could stop him.

"Betty wouldn't take the money in advance, so this is how we'll do
it. You give her the bread after I've eased on down the road. Okay?"

"O... okay," I said.

"Good enough," he said, slapping me on the shoulder. I didn't say anything.

Two weeks of baby-sitting—in spite of what Travis said—a
230-pound semiautistic genius second-grader with attention deficit
disorder, or something very much like it.

Oh, boy. I could hardly wait.

IT WAS WELL past dark when we all finally managed to
refuse another slice of pie and push away from the table. Travis
wouldn't hear of leaving the apartment until the dishes were washed and
dried and put away, with his help. Mom and Maria wouldn't hear of
letting him help. I thought they might get into a very polite fistfight
until Kelly and Alicia took him by the arms and hustled him out of the
kitchen, which was crowded with only two people trying to work. So then
Mom and Maria had to chase Kelly and Alicia out, too, and finally
things could be cleaned.

Travis decided he would help me at the front desk then, and watched
over my shoulder as I checked in the late-night trade. We don't rent to
women we know are prostitutes, but we don't know all of them. As for
the other couples who check in at ten and are gone by eleven, what are
you gonna do? None of our business.

A few minutes before midnight, when I was about to turn off the
VACANCY sign, I got called to one of the rooms with fresh towels, and
when I got back Travis was checking in the last couple of the night. He
was frowning at the computer screen, then slowly shook his head.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but we already have a 'Tom Smith'
checked in. We don't want to cause any confusion. But you could be Bob
Smith, or Bill Smith."

The guy looked confused and I thought he might get angry, but his girlfriend or bar pickup got it, and laughed.

"Bob will be fine, won't it, Bob?"

Bob put his cash down on the counter and Travis gave him a key and
waved them out the door. Dak was there, and twisted the key in the
lock, then sat down on the floor, unable to hold in his laughter
anymore. Kelly came in and looked at him.

"What's his problem?"

"Come on," I said, "let's get Travis out of here before he puts us out of business."

I'VE GOT TO admit, Travis really knew how to sweeten the pot.

There was an old Triumph motorcycle in the back of the Hummer. We
wrestled it out and set it on the ground, then pulled out an old
sidecar. Travis showed me how to attach the sidecar to the bike.

"All it really needs is some paint," he said. "Runs like a top.
Jubal is the world's worst driver, don't ask me why. Anyway, he loves
to go for rides in this thing. He likes to go real fast. I trust you'll
keep it below about Mach one, not cause any sonic booms."

He showed me where to put the key, how to start it. He was right,
the thing purred like a kitten. At that moment there probably wasn't a
happier man in Florida than me.

Dak and Alicia, and Mom and Maria came out to see him off. Mom knew
there was something going on we hadn't told her about, but she kept
quiet about it. Travis was paying his way and seemed to be good people,
so that was enough... for now. Mom shook his hand and Maria actually
gave him a hug. Then Travis hugged Kelly and Alicia, climbed into his
outrageous suburban assault vehicle, and pulled out on the almost
deserted streets of Daytona.

I looked up and saw Jubal standing at the second-floor railing in
front of his room, watching Travis's Hummer out of sight. He turned and
went back inside.

I SETTLED JUBAL into the room next to mine with a set
of our best big towels, not the little scratchy ones nobody bothers to
steal from the regular rooms. The television was one of our best ones,
too. I showed him how to use the remote... feeling pretty silly halfway
through the demonstration when I remembered this was the guy who turned
remotes into magic wands with no batteries.

He had brought a very old suitcase made out of thick cardboard,
stuffed with Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts and lots of clean
underwear with—I swear—JUBAL written on the elastic band in
black felt tip. I wondered just how big a deal was this for Jubal,
being away from Travis? Part of him was perpetually twelve, I kept
reminding myself.

I helped him stow his stuff away and headed back to my room, fifteen
feet away. It had been a long and eventful night. I was dead on my feet.

AN HOUR LATER I still hadn't managed to get to sleep. I was thinking about too many things.

Jubal, and the responsibility I had assumed for him.

Travis and his mysterious mission. The Squeezer, and all it might mean.

Kelly, and why she had decided to drive home instead of spend the night.

The Triumph, what it would be like to ride it tomorrow, where to go,
whether or not Travis would sell, and if he'd take payments or if I
should just offer to cut off my right arm and give him that.

There was a knock on my door and I jumped out of bed. Kelly? But
before I got to the door I knew who I'd find there. Sure enough.

Jubal was dressed in baggy yellow pajamas. His pillow was tucked
under one arm, and he was dragging the bedspread behind him. All he
needed was a teddy bear to look like one of those Norman Rockwell
framed prints we used to sell in the store. He was looking down at the
floor.

"Cain't sleep, me," he mumbled.

"Come on in,
cher
," I said. Now he had me doing it.

"I'm not usual a'scared," he said. "Not by country noises, no. But I heered people's voices goin' by outside, and
po
-lices and
fahr
engines and
am
-malances and what-not...."

I hadn't heard a thing. It was a city boy, country boy thing, I
guess. I'd never spent much time sleeping in the swamp. A bullfrog
croaked, I'd probably wet my pants.

"Yeah, it can be a hel— ...a horrible racket, can't it? We'll
get you squared away, I've got a king-size in here, it won't be a
problem."

"I kin sleep on da couch."

"Wouldn't hear of it. I'll shut that street-side glass door and turn the air on low, unless you think that'd be too—"