“What?” he inquired at their continuing grins.
“It’s jist hard ta believe, cher, that a player like you could be so…domesticated.” Cage, named for his Cajun heritage, enjoyed poking fun at him. They all did.
“I am not domesticated,” Zach protested.
“Oh, yeah? What time do ya have to be home, Mr. Pussy-whipped…I mean, Kid-whipped?” Sly asked. Sly was a big black dude who once modeled tighty whities for Esquire and other hoity-toity magazines.
“A half hour ago.” He grimaced as the truth hit home.
They all gave him a pitying shake of their heads.
JAM, who used to be a Jesuit priest, or at least he had studied in a Jesuit seminary, wasn’t any more sympathetic. Too many years of yours truly rubbing my sexual conquests in their faces. “You are so screwed. You’ve suddenly got a kid, you’re on the Taliban shit list, and now a thousand-year-old girlfriend shows up. How lucky can one guy get?”
That’s all I need, a reminder that an eleventh-century Viking woman has landed in my lap. A sexy-as-sin Viking woman, thank you very much.
“Were you really nailing a female tadpole in the rehab center on the first day of training? And what the hell is this thousand-year-old reference?” Sly asked. Sly hadn’t been with them on that ill-fated trip to Norway.
“Even fer you, first day hanky-panky, thass remarkable,” Cage observed. “Talk about!”
“I wasn’t nailing anybody.” Although the thought did enter my mind. “I was just helping Britta to shower and get rid of first-day kinks.”
“Kinky. Did ya say kinky?” Cage grinned at him.
Zach stopped talking when he realized his buddies were all smiling and that his explanation was more incriminating than what had actually happened. Besides, he couldn’t think about Britta right now, or he would go crazy. “Back to my problems with Sammy, they should soon be over,” he said. I hope.
“How do you figure?” It was Sly getting his digs in now.
“My lawyer is handling the Afghan government and U.S. legal process proclaiming Sammy my son. My dad is hiring professional bodyguards to keep the kid from being kidnapped. And Geek is helping me investigate boarding schools.”
“Boarding school for a five-year-old? That is cruel.” It was JAM speaking, but the others nodded their heads in agreement. “I was sent to seminary when I was twelve, and that was painful. He’s only five.”
Five going on fifty. “What else can I do? I’ll be back on active duty soon, and I can’t just leave him with a babysitter for weeks at a time.”
“Dum-dum-de-dum,” Sly sang.
“Do y’all smell weddin’ cake?” Cage added.
“Whaaaat? Marriage? Are you two nuts?”
“Listen, mah friend. If ya get hitched, ya have sex whenever ya want and a resident babysitter. As my maw maw usta say, ‘Ya gotta jump the fence iffen ya wanna taste the berries.’” Cage had a thing about hokey Cajun sayings, which he attributed to his grandmother but probably made up himself.
“That makes absolutely no sense. And I’d like to meet the woman who would want that job.” Actually, he’d already offered it to Britta, sort of, and she hadn’t been interested.
“I don’t know,” Sly said. “There are a lot of chicks who would love to park their Jimmy Choos under your bed.”
“Not anymore.”
“Who’s Jimmy Choo?” JAM asked, frowning with confusion. “Why would a woman want to put another man under Pretty Boy’s bed?”
“Shoes. Jimmy Choos are shoes, you moron. Dontcha know anything about fashion?” Sly jabbed JAM in the arm.
“Apparently not,” JAM said, jabbing him back.
“Back to my plan. I’ve got to get out of this WEALS instructor billet. ASAP. Arsallah, Sammy’s grandfather, is one of the worst tangos in al-Qaeda. He pretends to be all religious and Allah-be-praised in public, but he’s the bastard who beheaded those Marines last week.”
“Why does Arsallah want the kid?” JAM asked. “I mean, under normal circumstances, yeah, I could see a grandfather wanting his own blood kept close to home. But these fundamentalist Muslims would consider him an infidel, wouldn’t they?”
Zach nodded. “I suspect this is all just a power play. The Ugly Americans steal our children, that kind of thing.”
“Reminds me of that Elián González case,” Cage mused. “Remember the Cuban kid whose Miami family wanted him to stay here, but his dad wanted him back with him in Cuba?”
Zach nodded again.
“I might be able to use my situation to draw Arsallah out of his hiding hole. I can’t do that when I’m teaching misguided women how to do jumping jacks.”
“You’d use your son as bait?” JAM was staring at him as if he were lower than a snake’s belly.
“No, knucklehead, I wouldn’t use Sammy. He would be in deep hiding by then.”
“We’ll do whatever we can,” Sly said, “but in the meantime you’ve got to keep your nose clean. Do jumping jacks till your balls are in shell shock. Otherwise, you’re gonna be leadin’ females off to war, buddy.”
He nodded.
A waitress walked up to the table and put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Want a refill, Pretty Boy?”
He peered up over his shoulder at Maudeen. “No thanks, honey. Gotta leave soon.”
“Hiiiii, Maudy darlin’,” Cage drawled, his voice dripping with innuendo.
“Go screw one of your gators, redneck boy,” she snapped.
They all laughed.
Maudeen was a five-foot-two bundle of sexy curves and a smile that would light a black op sky, not to mention a mouth that could turn a sailor’s tongue blue. She was also the ex-wife of a world-class spouse abuser and was a single mother of twin toddlers. She was trying to get a teaching degree. Sexual harassment wasn’t a word in her dictionary; she just gave back as good as she got with the horny sailors who hit on her.
“How’s that education loan coming?” he inquired, patting the hand that still rested on his shoulder.
“Great. Thanks for recommending that counselor at San Diego State.”
After a bit more chitchat, Maudeen left, and he turned back to the table where all his buddies were gawking at him. “What?”
“Do you know how many men have been trying to get in Bawdy Maudy’s pants this past year?” Sly asked.
“I haven’t been anywhere near Maudeen’s undies.”
Cage made a snorting sound of disbelief. “Didja notice, cher, that she dint ask any of the rest of us if we wanted a refill?”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “She probably forgot.”
“Earth to clueless Navy SEAL,” Sly remarked. “Maudy has had the hots for you from the get-go.”
“Probably,” he admitted. No false modesty here. Attracting women had never been a problem for him.
“What a shock to see Britta on the grinder today!” Good ol’ JAM to the rescue, changing the subject.
“Tell me about it!”
Zach, along with JAM, Cage, Max, and Geek, had fallen into the most bizarre situation two years ago. They’d been on a reproduction Viking longship on some godforsaken fjord in Norway when they somehow landed in the eleventh century. Yeah, yeah, it sounded insane. It had been. While there for a few weeks, they’d defeated some tango named Steinolf, Max had met Hilda, the love of his life, whom he brought back to the future with him, and Zach had fallen for the infamous Britta the Big, whom he’d left behind. Or so he’d thought, until today.
“I don’t understand,” Sly said. “How do you all know this Amazon babe?”
Every one of them shifted uncomfortably.
Sly narrowed his eyes. “Is this tied into that crazy-ass trip you guys took to Norway?”
Oh, yeah! “Sort of.”
He and his buddies never talked about the experience. If they didn’t analyze it, they could pretend it never happened. Plus, they’d all find themselves strapped to a table in a mental hospital or under some scientist’s dissecting knife if word got out. At the
very least, they would be living in a bubble. Instead, they chose to believe it had all been a communal bad dream, a hallucination.
But now there was Britta, bringing it all to the forefront again.
“What’re you gonna do about Britta?” JAM asked.
“Why should I be the one to help Britta? Why not you guys?”
“’Cause yer the one that chased her tail twenty-four/seven two years ago.”
“Really?” Sly appeared skeptical. “I’ve never seen Pretty Boy chase a woman before. Wish I’d been there.”
“It wasn’t pretty, especially fer Pretty Boy.” Cage ducked the pretzel Zach threw at him.
“I called Max and Hilda and left a message on their answering machine. I’m sure he and his family will be able to do something to help Britta…uh, transition,” he told them. “In the meantime, I’m just going to play it by ear.”
“Or by ass,” Sly contributed.
“Transition, my ass!” That was Cage’s opinion.
“In other words,” JAM interpreted, “he doesn’t have a clue.”
Zach stood and tossed some bills on the table, preparing to leave.
A group of six Navy nurses, still in uniform, sat down at a table nearby and placed orders for hot wings, a pitcher of beer, and an extra helping of celery sticks with blue cheese dressing. He’d forgotten that tonight was wing night.
“Hey, Sheila,” he said as he passed their table. Then he greeted the others, “Candy. Fran. Dot. Beth. Wanda.”
He heard JAM mutter behind him. “Frickin’ unbelievable!”
“He’s like a chick magnet,” Sly responded.
“I’d lak ta have a few of his leftovers.” Cage sighed with exaggeration.
As if any of the SEALs had trouble getting dates!
And, yeah, he knew all of these women, but it was Sheila he knew best. They had shared an incredible night making love in the sand following a beach party a few years back after having drunk about two gallons of Dirty Gin. The most memorable image in his mind of that night was Sheila showing him her new breast implants. They had looked like bleepin’ torpedoes. God bless silicone! He wouldn’t mind picking up where they’d left off, though why he hadn’t made a move since then, he had no idea.
Well, yes, he did.
Britta.
He’d stopped calling lots of women because he’d been hung up over Britta for a long time. Maybe it was time to get back in the game.
But just then, his cell phone rang. The caller ID indicated it was his home phone.
Uh-oh! “Hello.”
“I wanna go home,” his five-year-old son screamed.
Zach held the phone away from his ear. “You don’t have to yell. Besides, you are home.”
Sammy said a really bad word, for a kid, something about mother-something dickhead, meaning him, he supposed, and he heard Madrene in the background say really bad words for an adult around a kid, something about “bloody damn spoiled rotten bratlings and fathers who tup way too many wanton ladies.” Sammy did tend to bring out the worst in people.
“I wanna go to my real home.”
“What happened this time?”
“The witch,” he started…witch being the name he reserved for Madrene, who took none of his crap, “she made me eat grass.”
“It was a salad,” Madrene yelled out.
“Spinach.” Sammy’s voice held all the disdain a five-year-old could muster.
He laughed to himself. He wasn’t too fond of spinach himself.
“And white worms.”
“Bean sprouts,” Madrene corrected.
“And she hit me just ’cause I pissed in her cat’s dish. Then she hit me ’cause I said her cat looks like a fat hairy hog. Then she hit me ’cause I tol’ her you prob’ly screwed five hundred women and didn’t even remember my mother. Then she hit me just ’cause I farted in the grocery store.”
“I did not hit you, you snotling. I just swatted your little arse with my palm.” It wasn’t like Madrene to lose her temper like this around Sammy. It must have been a particularly bad day.
“And what’s with this Scary Larry guy?” Sammy continued. “He looks like he eats little kids for breakfes’. Shiiit! What kinda father sends a scary monster to watch his kid?”
Zach had to smile. Wilson could be a little, well, scary, even to adults. The man never smiled, and he had strange grayish green eyes that sort of looked through a person, like ice.
“And I don’t need no watchin’ anyways. I can take care of myself. I been doin’ it for a long time.”
Oh, yeah! Six months is a long time. And you weren’t alone, kiddo. You were with good ol’ grandad.
He heard shuffling sounds then as Madrene took the phone from Sammy.
“You best come home now, you lustsome knave, or I will be paddling your arse, too,” she said, banging down the phone.
Zach headed off then for home and the madness that had become his life.
Children are a gift? Says who?…
Samir lay in his bed, eyes scrunched shut, arms arranged at his sides, like a corpse, pretending to take a nap. It was a trick his cousin Taj had taught him one time, ’cept they had been pretending to be dead in case the Evil Americans attacked.
He still could not get used to the idea that he was part American. Did that mean he was evil, too?
Maybe, praise Allah, my father will forget some of the things I did today if I “sleep” long enough.
Despite his protests, he knew Zach was his father. Even before he’d been shown photographs by Grandmother Floyd—or Nana as she’d told him to call her—he’d known the truth. His Grandfather Arsallah had slapped him every time Samir reminded him that he was half-American, whether it be the color of his eyes, or a slip into the English language, or mention of his mother, whose name was not allowed to be spoken. Because of the way his grandfather treated him, his uncles and cousins felt free to treat him just as badly, or worse.
A bastard, that’s what I am. Don’t matter what my father says ’bout me bein’ his son. I’m just a dirty little bastard. I don’t care if no one likes me. I don’t care if my father likes me.
Sometimes he wondered why his grandfather wanted him back so bad. He’d never acted like he cared when Samir had been there.
And his father would be giving him up soon. Samir knew better than to get too close. He knew he was on his own. He had been for a long time, even when his mother had been alive. She’d said she loved him, but most times she paid more attention to her fighting pals than she did to him. She died on his birthday.
“Sammy.”
It was his father opening the bedroom door. Samir shut his eyes tighter and braced himself for the slap or punch that was sure to come. Or even worse, a whip. Oh, he hoped it wouldn’t be a whip.
The mattress shifted as his father sat down on the bed. “You’ve had quite a day today, haven’t you, kiddo?”
Samir was confused. Why wasn’t his father yelling? Why was his voice so soft? A trick…it was probably a trick. I am not going to talk. If he thinks I am asleep, he will go away. I hope.
“Why do you do all these snotty things?”
Because I like to?
“Do you want me to think you’re bad?”
I am bad, bonehead. Didja forget I’m half-American?
“I’m thinking about taking you to a psychiatrist. That’s a…uh, head doctor.”
Oh, no, you don’t. No one’s cuttin’ up my head.
“There’s got to be some reason why you’re acting out like this. I can’t believe you would want to go back to your grandfather.”
Where else would I go?
“As far as I can tell, you weren’t treated very well in his camps.”
What do you know, Mr. Pretty Boy? Where were you when my mother died? Where were you when my grandfather’s men killed my nanny and dragged me into the desert?
“You do know that your mother wanted you to come live with me, don’t you?”
Why is he talking? Why is
n’t he hitting me? That’s what everyone does when I do something bad. Even when I don’t do anything bad.
“Are you testing me? Trying to see how far you can push me before I explode? Ah, I can see by the flickering of your eyelashes that I’m getting close. Do you want me to explode? Then you can blame it all on me?”
Explode? My father exploding? Yeech, I don’t want any guts on me. What’s that name for what happens when a body explodes? Oh, yeah. Pink mist. That’s just what it looks like, too.
“I’m running out of people to take care of you when I’m at work. I don’t want to send you away, but I’ll have to if you don’t shape up.”
See. Only two weeks and he’s ready to send me away.
He heard his father sigh heavily before saying, “I’m hungry. I’m thinking pizza, Pepsi, and a video game before bed. But you’re probably too tired to get up. Maybe I’ll save you a cold piece for breakfast. Unless you would prefer more spinach salad.”
Pizza…my favorite! He’s gonna eat my favorite food while I’m sleeping. What a pig!
Samir cracked open one eyelid. His father was already headed toward the door.
“Okay,” he said, sitting up.
He expected his father to smirk when he turned around or say something nasty, but all he said was “Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll eat if I have to.”
“Have to?”
“I’m not playin’ that Dora the Explorer game, though, I’ll tell you that right now. What do you think I am? A baby? I wanna play Firing Range: Blood and Guts.”
His father laughed. “In your dreams, short stuff.”
Samir made a face, but he kinda liked it when his father called him “short stuff.” He said it in a way that Samir thought other fathers might talk to their sons. “How ’bout Ghosts and Ghoulies?”
“Give me a break.”
“I still hate you.”
“That’s just great.
Samir stood and adjusted his shorts.