The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(94)

“I was thinking…” he said, and got quiet again.

I sat on a lawn chair, not caring that it was covered with dust and sand, and took a sip from my Budweiser. “How’s Annette?” I asked. “Everything okay between you two?”

“We’re okay. It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“I sold my store sign today.”

I should describe this sign, because A.J. built it himself. He’s always had an artistic streak—he can draw almost anything—so when he opened his doggie-daycare business, he put a lot of heart into the signage. He built a five-foot collie out of painted steel, with a bone in its mouth that glowed at night, and mounted it on the roof of the building. It caught the eye, and his customers always talked about it when they came in, it made for a conversation starter. I knew what that sign meant to him, and I was surprised that he’d parted with it. “Who’d you sell it to?” I asked.

“Some guy who wants to melt it. Got forty bucks for it.”

“Well, that’s good.” I was trying to sound encouraging, though of course forty bucks was a drop in the bucket of money he owed to the bank.

“Dad,” he said, “what do I do now?”

He sounded so scared, it reminded me of the time he was four years old and the doors to the elevator in our hotel in Las Vegas closed behind him and we got separated. It took us twenty minutes of riding up and down that damn elevator before we found him. He was crying, and holding on to his crotch to keep from wetting himself. Afterward, he held Helen’s hand all day, he wouldn’t let go.

I took a sip from my beer and wondered if he really cared what I had to say. He’d never before asked my opinion about anything, but as the silence stretched I realized he was serious. “Why don’t you come back home?” I said. “You could work for me, save on your bills, get back on your feet.”

“And you would be okay with that?”

“Of course, I’m okay with that. You’re my son.”

He moved back in with us later that spring, along with his wife, his daughter, her hamster, and his collies. Overnight the house got smaller and busier and louder. Much louder. It took a little getting used to. Annette managed to find a job at a title company in Palm Springs, and A.J. came to work for me, but they were still behind on their credit cards and some of their bills. It wasn’t easy, is what I’m trying to say. We were all under a lot of pressure, both at home and at work. Still, for the first time in our lives, A.J. and I spent entire days together. We talked a lot, he would ask me all sorts of questions about the business. It made me feel like we finally had a connection.

Of course, he shouldn’t’ve been driving that night. But Helen couldn’t drive much, on account of her tremors, and our daughter-in-law wanted nothing to do with the bowling alley. That didn’t leave us with much choice, if we wanted to run our business. And I can tell you, he only took the car a few times, when there was no one who could drive him. What happened with the guy next door was just an accident. It wasn’t A.J.’s fault, but I knew with his record they’d make it seem like it was. All I know is that my son isn’t a bad guy. At heart, he’s a good kid. I wish I could close the gap between the way things used to be and the way they are now. Maybe that’s why I’m trying to tell this story.





A.J.




A couple of days after my arrest, someone tipped off a reporter and she went through my social media accounts, clipped a couple of comments and quotes out of context, and turned me into a brute. The readers of the Desert Sun ate it up, of course. It’s funny, everyone goes on and on about celebrating diverse cultures, but the minute you bring up white culture, the oh-so-enlightened liberals turn on you and call you names. Someone sent a letter to the editor calling me a racist, which is what they call anyone who’s a straight white man these days. Everyone else can be proud of their heritage, but not me?

What was infuriating to me was that after I posted bail and came out, some people started acting like I was a monster, a creature with horns and fangs. But I wasn’t. I was just like them: I loved my family, played with my dogs, bought lottery tickets whenever I filled up at the gas station, then spent days fantasizing about what I’d do if I won millions of dollars. If anything set me apart from everyone else, it was only that I took charge of myself. When I graduated from college, for example, the country was in the middle of the worst recession it had seen in a century, but I didn’t sit back and play the victim, the way so many others do all day long. No, I borrowed some money from my folks and started my own business in Irvine, a doggie daycare.

Of course, my dad wasn’t thrilled about lending me money. He was tightfisted and didn’t think dogs made for a good investment, but my mom talked him into it. And he turned out to be wrong, because my business did very well. Paws & Claws, it was called. Aside from daycare, I offered all kinds of other services, like grooming and kenneling. By the end of my first year, I’d already built a solid client base from the tech start-ups in the area, programmers who worked long hours and didn’t have time to walk their dogs or play with them every day. I married my college girlfriend, Annette, and we had a baby girl. Everything was going well. We were happy. I didn’t realize this until almost three years later, when it was all taken away from me.