Satisfied with our effort, Earl, the boys and me went back inside and I fed them some shrimp grits and country ham biscuits with red eye gravy. We sat and talked about the storm and drank coffee.
At one point I asked them if they'd seen anything on the roof of the store.
"Like what?" Earl said.
"I don't know, I just thought I saw something up there."
"Like a cannon?" one of the sons said.
We all laughed and I changed the subject.
Beth came down to start putting things in order for the big Fourth of July breakfast, and I got up to help her. The men left. It felt comfortable, the two of us working together. We didn't talk much, and didn't feel like we needed to.
The way I figured, it would take about eleven hours for the pig to be fall off the bone perfect, which meant dinner would be ready around six o'clock. In the meantime our guests could enjoy the beach, play golf, or shop in nearby Fernandina Beach. Rachel and Tracy would serve drinks to the beach group, Beth would run a shuttle service for the others, and I'd handle an all-day food and beverage shift. The pig roast would be over by eight-thirty, at which time we'd shuttle our dozen house guests to the big fireworks display at the Fernandina Beach marina. All in all, it would be a Fourth of July to remember.
At least that's what I planned.
Unfortunately, none of those things happened.
Except for the memorable part.
Chapter 18
IT HAD BEEN a rough couple of weeks for D'Augie.
First, he'd nearly died on a sand dune swarming with fire ants. Then he'd been saved by Donovan Creed, the man he tried to kill, a situation made no less mortifying to D'Augie after hearing that Creed and his girlfriend stripped him naked during the rescue. And of course Creed had stolen his prized knife, the only gift D'Augie had ever gotten from his father.
Then Rachel told him that Creed took a caretaker's job at The Seaside Bed amp; Breakfast, where he planned to rid the attic of squirrel infestation. So D'Augie snuck out of the hospital and hid in The Seaside's attic, hoping to catch Creed by surprise. But the surprise turned out to be on D'Augie, who broke an arm and leg after being attacked by angry attic snakes and hungry squirrels.
After dragging his broken body a quarter mile to his car, it took a super human effort to make the forty minute drive to Jackson Memorial, where ER personnel set his fractures and re-treated his festering fire ant bites.
During the course of his treatment, D'Augie had an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics they administered, and nearly died again. He spent more than a week mildly sedated as they pumped him with steroids and pain killers. Eventually they got him back to normal, if you can call an arm and leg cast normal. Worse, both casts were on the right side, which made it impossible for D'Augie to drive a car.
But D'Augie was nothing if not determined, and he aimed to kill Creed. He'd traveled more than a thousand miles over two years to get the man who killed his father, and he wasn't going to give up because of some plaster.
He hired a cab to pick him up at the hospital and take him to one of the airport motels. He'd wanted to stay at the Amelia Island Resort, or in Fernandina Beach, but it was Saturday, July third, and everything on the island was booked. He got a second cab to take him to Wal-Mart, where he bought a buck knife, a sharpening tool, some food, and several bottles of water. He spent most of the night putting a fine edge on his blade. Next morning he put his supplies in his shoulder bag, caught a cab to St. Alban's and told the driver to let him out two blocks south of The Seaside Bed amp; Breakfast. The driver did so and D'Augie gave him a fifty and said he'd catch a ride back with a friend.
D'Augie's arm cast was more of an inconvenience than a problem. It could actually be considered a benefit, since the sling that held it in place could be used to conceal his knife. But moving around with the leg cast was proving to be an issue. The cast ran from his ankle to the top of his thigh, and forced him to turn sideways every time he took a step with his right foot.
His right foot was bare, since the nature of the cast's construction prevented him from wearing a shoe. He supposed he could wear a giant sock, but he didn't happen to own any giant socks and hadn't thought to buy one.
Now, standing on the street, watching the cab drive away, D'Augie wished he'd thought to buy a dozen socks. The thought came to him when he realized he was standing on a live cigarette. D'Augie cried out and lifted his bare foot off the pavement, hoping to get relief. But his leg cast caused him to pitch forward. In order to keep from falling face first, he had to plant his casted foot back on the street. Even though the smoldering cigarette was inches behind him at this point, the noon sun had rendered the pavement blazingly hot, a situation that worsened the wound he'd received from the cigarette. He yelled again, lifted his leg again, spun sideways and was again forced to put his casted foot back on the hot pavement to keep his balance. Unfortunately, that step burned the tender bottom of his foot even worse, and he screeched. He lifted his foot again, spun sideways again, nearly fell again, put it down again, screamed again, and kept repeating the process, over and over, like some "cast" member from Night of the Living Dead.
D'Augie did manage to accomplish something he hadn't meant to do. It was imperative, his doctor had said, that D'Augie not attempt to walk forward without first turning his leg to one side. Otherwise, the top of his cast would cut into his left thigh and chafe it badly.
The doctor had been right about the pain. D'Augie could feel the cast tearing into the flesh of his upper left thigh. Up to now, though he'd traveled a distance of maybe five feet in forty seconds, he'd been yelping every time he took a step with the right foot. Now he was also crying out with every step of his left. He knew he must look like some kind of freak show, hopping and spinning and screaming and tearing his flesh as he kept circling round and round.
Eventually, he got dizzy and fell face first into the pavement. The good news was, his arm absorbed most of the blow and his right foot finally stopped hurting. The bad news was, the arm that broke his fall was the same one he'd recently broken. In addition, he sustained a cut forehead and what felt like a severely broken nose.
"Motherfucker!" he screamed to the sky.
The young man making love to the older woman in the rental unit twenty yards away heard the scream as if it were just outside the window. Rattled, he jumped up and ran to the window, looked around the yard, but saw nothing.
"What's wrong?" his friend's mother said.
"Someone's watching us."
"That's ridiculous."
"Seriously. Some guy just called me a motherfucker, and since you're a mother…"
"The weed's made you paranoid," she said. "Come back to bed."
He lay bleeding in the street. He wanted to cry, but he was too angry. He screamed the word again, louder this time: "Motherfucker!" – and thought he heard a young man shout "Jason? Is that you?"
He cocked his head, listening, but didn't hear it again. D'Augie lay in the street, trying to imagine what could possibly be worse, and then came up with this: How about if a truck was barreling down the highway, directly in his path, refusing to slow down?
Because that's exactly what was happening.
D'Augie rolled onto his side and screamed, then onto his back and screamed, then onto his other side and screamed, then his front and screamed, and repeated the cycle until he'd gotten out of the truck's path-just in time. He raised his good arm and flipped his middle finger and cursed. The reason for his rolling screams were two-fold: first, he hadn't realized it at the time, but the recent fall on the pavement had re-broken his arm. Worse, he'd stabbed himself in the chest several times with the knife he'd hidden in his sling.