Leaving Allison Read online

  Leaving Allison

  All Rights Reserved © 2012

  Bluefoot Publishing

  Contact the author here:

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Family Prologue

  A Family Matter that Requires Your Attention

  Juggling Wine Glasses

  Running

  Erica

  Tough, Like John Wayne

  Allison

  Alex

  Allie Fisher Fan Club

  Let It Be Known To All Concerned

  Still in Texas

  Leaving Allison

  Hawaii

  Family Prologue

  In the mid-1970s, on the Wide World of Sports, my father and I watched Muhammad Ali fight Smokin’ Joe Frazier, Nadia Comaneci score a perfect ten, and Evel Knievel fly through the air on a motorcycle. When I told him I absolutely had to go see Andre the Giant, he took me. When the Harlem Globetrotters came to town, we went. I pitched for the Gator’s baseball team, beat Trapper in a foot race, and helped Grady Myers build a bicycle ramp in his driveway. Best of all, this was when my father caught the shark.

  Every Fourth of July, my father and his friends fished off shore in the Deep-Sea Rodeo, while the rest of our family had a picnic at my grandmother’s camp. The camp had a wide row of windows that looked out at the bay and a long pier. In the summer, speckled trout migrated into the bay from the Gulf of Mexico, seagulls dove into schools of bait fish, and brown shrimp filled our casting nets. When my mother was a young girl, she found arrowheads in shallow water coves and listened to her father tell stories of Indian burial grounds and fish so plentiful they would jump into your boat. My sister and I grew up hearing these same stories and lived this same magical childhood.

  . . .

  July 4, 1976, we drove up the long gravel driveway for our family picnic. My grandmother was decorating the pier with red, white, and blue banners. There were crocket balls on the lawn and wire arches stuck in the grass. My cousin Mandy and best friend Grady Myers, helped me set out crab lines under the boat house. We caught nine blue crabs and watched them blow bubbles in the bottom of a metal washtub. Mandy held a crab upside down and rubbed its belly until it passed out, its claws becoming limp. Grady poked in the washtub with a dip net, and when he lifted the net, five crabs rose with it clinging onto each another.

  Mandy and I jumped in the water and sat across from each other on large inner-tube, rocking back and forth until we tumped over. We tried to balance and stand up. She slowly made it to her feet, steadying herself with a hand on my head, and then I stood up across from her. We were holding hands, wobbling, about to tip over, and Mandy hollered for someone to take our picture.

  When my grandmother rang the bell for lunch, we ran up the pier, loaded our paper plates and sat cross-legged on the hill, twisting our bottles of root beer into the grass so they wouldn’t tip over. For dessert I found the largest wedge of watermelon, cradled it in my hands and smushed my whole sweaty face into it, chomping on red pulp and laughing so hard that I sucked a seed up my nose.

  Grady and I spent the afternoon skipping watermelon rinds across the water, lighting smoke bombs, and climbing the magnolia tree. At six-fifteen, Mom reached in her station wagon to honk the horn and tell us it was time to go meet Dad at Palm Park. I grabbed my Converse All Stars and dove over the station wagon’s tailgate, landing on the rear seat, smearing my dirty foot across Grady’s face. He hung his head over the rear window spitting dirt, claiming my toe went inside his mouth.

  Thousands of people were crowded into Palm Park for the fishing tournament, carnival and fireworks. The first ones there got the best parking spaces on the grass, where they set up lawn chairs and barbecued hotdogs. Near the tennis courts a purple K-ROCK van blasted Led Zeppelin songs from giant speakers on its roof. The DJ was tossing K-ROCK frisbees to people screaming with their arms raised. Grady and I hung around the van for a while trying to catch a frisbee, then weaved our way through the crowd to the jet boats tied at the dock.

  Mandy and my sister were hanging out at a vendor’s booth looking at blue-jean purses, while Mom and Aunt Claire smoked cigarettes at the rail, their poofed-up hairdos tilting in the wind. My sister’s boyfriend snuck up behind us and got me in a bear-hug, threatening to throw me into the water.

  When I saw Dad’s boat enter the bay, I dashed over to check Mom’s watch—fifteen minutes to seven. It didn’t seem like he would make the deadline. Getting nervous, I started biting the skin on my knuckles. Mom pulled my hand away and gave Grady and me five dollars to get something to eat. We each bought a funnel cake and Pepsi, leaned against a wooden barricade, and stuffed our faces.

  “Grady, what in the hell is that?” I said.

  “What?” he asked.

  I pointed to my funnel cake. “That.”

  He leaned in for a closer look, and I blew powdered sugar in his face. “Suckaaa!”

  Dad pulled up alongside the dock with a huge shark stretched across the back deck. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it; it was bigger than any fish I’d ever seen. Blood from its mouth collected in a thick pool on the white deck. Six men heaved the shark onto the dock, and Dad and his brother hooked gaffs in the shark’s mouth to drag it to the weigh-in scales. The crowd cleared a path, some pushing back to get out of the way, others pushing forward to get a better view. When the shark’s mouth opened, a woman screamed, “It’s still alive!”

  At the scales, tournament officials wrapped a chain around the shark’s tail and hoisted it up with a hand winch. Dad won a first place trophy. We stood beside the shark, and a photographer from the newspaper took our picture.

  “Can I have a giant shark tooth?” I asked him.

  Dad said, “A tooth? How ‘bout the entire jaws!”

  The shark was lowered to the ground, and while he cut out its jaws, a group of boys gathered around him. I wanted everyone to know he was my father, so I called out, “Hey Dad, need any help?”

  Grady grabbed my shirt, and we ran zigzagging through the crowd to the carnival tents. We tossed rings at Coke bottles and shot cork rifles at prizes lined up on narrow shelves. Whatever you shot off the shelf, you won. I carefully aimed my rifle at a throwing knife but instead knocked off a Zippo lighter with a Confederate flag painted on it. We walked past booths and rides looking for our friend Trapper, and when it got dark, returned to the boat for the fireworks.

  Dad had his friends with him on the flying-bridge drinking beer. Mandy stepped out of her clogs and perched on the front V of the boat, her feet dangling over the edge. Grady and I plopped down on either side of her. The show kicked off with enormous jets of colors shooting in all directions like missiles flying into the night sky. Grady stuck two fingers in his mouth and tried to whistle. Mandy clapped with her clogs. We leaned back on our elbows, and for half an hour, watched rockets burst into giant flowers above us and then slowly melt, dripping in long ropes of golden flames.

  “This is the best year ever,” I said.

  “Don’t expect so much next year,” Mandy told us. “After tonight, it won’t be America’s bicentennial.”

  It will still be good, I thought, and then a white sonic boom exploded in heaven like a huge flashbulb that, for a brief second, illuminated a hundred silent boats anchored on the bay.

  “Holy crap,” Grady said.

  Everyone started clapping. The boats started blasting their horns, and Dad got my attention. “Out there,” he said, and pointed to a gigantic cloud of blue smoke hovering above the water drifting towards the I-10 bridge.

  Mom took Grady and Mandy home in the station wagon. I stayed on the boat. “Here,” I said, and gave Dad my Confederate Zippo lighter. “I won it at the carnival.”

  On the way b
ack to the marina, I sat with him on the flying-bridge and listened while he described every detail about catching the shark. When the story ended, I asked him to tell it to me again:

  “After setting the hook three times, leaning back with all my weight, I climbed into the fighting chair and started reeling.”

  “What about the shark and how hard it pulled?” I asked.

  “The shark was so strong, I was worried he would pull me out of the fighting chair. Your uncle had to stand next to me with a knife ready to cut the line.”

  “And that’s when the reel started smoking, right?”

  “That’s right,” Dad said. “What happened was the shark dove into deep water stripping off the line, burning up the reel.”

  “Did the shark stink when you got it on the boat?” I asked. “Could you smell it?”

  Dad lit a cigarette with his new lighter. “If I had to describe the smell, I’d say it smelled like sweet magnolia blossoms.”

  “Really! The shark smelled like flowers?”

  He laughed and snapped his lighter closed. “Of course not.”

  We got home late from cleaning the boat and tiptoed silently through the kitchen. In the back yard, Dad shined a flashlight across the grass. Near the edge of the woods he found a large ant pile and placed the jaws on top. We watched as thousands of ants scrambled from their holes to swarm over the bloody jaws. “Come in closer,” he said, and aimed his flashlight. “You see that? They’ll clean it for you, and then we’ll hang it on the wall in your bedroom.”

  The next morning, I rode my bike down to Trapper’s house to tell him about the shark. I was worried he might still be mad at me for crashing his go-cart, but he didn’t mention it. Sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal, Trapper talked with his mouth full of Coco Puffs asking for every detail.

  “It was huge, longer than this room. Dad set the hook three times and the reel started smoking. My uncle had a knife ready to cut the line in case the shark tried to yank Dad off the boat.”

  Trapper kept turning his head from side to side, repeating “Oh MAN, your dad is WAY cool.”

  “If you want,” I said, “you can come over and see the jaws. We can get Dad to tell you how he caught it?”

  Trapper tilted his bowl to drink the last swallow of chocolate colored milk. “I’m going to Mitch’s house,” he called out to his mom.

  In my backyard, he rushed over, kneeled beside the jaws and examined the rows of teeth. He touched the point of a big tooth. “Dang, that sucker’s sharp.”

  I told him, “The ants will eat all the gunk off, then Dad’s going to hang it on the wall in my room.”

  . . . . .

  A Family Matter that Requires Your Attention

  I’m parked in front of Connie’s house listening to the end of a song trying to decide what to do, knock on her front door or leave. Last week we removed the T-tops from Dad’s Trans-Am and drove south on Plantation Road past hunting camps, rice fields and oil derricks. Under Talla Bridge, I revved the engine and cut a donut in the oyster shells near the boat launch. Then, to give her a thrill, I hit the blacktop with my tires spinning, rubber burning in the street, as she braced herself for Hackett’s curve.

  Tonight though, I don’t want to see her. She lives in a ranch style house on a large wooded lot that slopes down to Contraband Bayou. There’s a winding brick walkway leading to the front entrance and spotlights sunk in the lawn lighting tall pine trees. Instead of entertaining Connie, I’d rather go to my grandmother’s camp on and figure out how to get my father into the hospital. The doctor laid it all out for me. He said, “Your father has to quit drinking or he won’t be alive in two years.”

  After hearing this, acting happy and making my girlfriend laugh doesn’t seem important or possible; although the main reason I don’t want to see her is because I don’t want her to see me, like this, bummed out. She won’t like me this way. I don’t like me this way.

  The light comes on and her mom looks out the front door to wave at me. I wave back. Connie hugs her mom, hurries down the brick walkway and hops in my dad’s car. She rams her purse under the seat. “Guess whose parents are a zillion miles out of town—guess who’s having a party?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Donald Hanson. Everybody’s meeting there at eight, but we have to use the back door and we can’t park close to his house. His parents would literally have a cow if they found out.”

  “A party at Don’s? I sort-of had other plans.”

  Connie lifts the armrest, riffles through Dad’s cassette tapes but doesn’t find anything she likes. “We can start at Don’s,” she says, “then go to the Keg and see if Trapper's brother will let us in—if he’s workin’ the door. Oh, and just so you know, I’m getting smashed tonight, so don’t try to take advantage of me.” She reaches behind my seat for the six-pack of beer.

  “They’re all for you,” I tell her. “I quit drinking.”

  “Again?” she asks.

  “How can I blame alcoholics for not being able to stop drinking if I can’t stop?”

  “What alcoholics?” Connie says, snapping open her beer.

  “Alcoholics in general.”

  She rummages through her purse for her wallet. “My mom swears Coach Doucet is an alkie, but if that’s true, why doesn’t he get blotto at school?”

  “Because he has discipline. And probably because he’s not an alcoholic.”

  She holds her new driver’s license in front of my face.

  “What? I can’t see the road.”

  “Look at it, spazz. Does my picture suck or what? It’s too dark and makes me look like I have a mustache.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I know but it looks like I do, like I’m a little Mexican orphan girl begging for pesos, or whatever they beg for.”

  “Mexicans don’t have blond hair,” I tell her, then ask, “What about tonight? Nobody will be at the party. Trapper’s grounded and Grady Myers has to wake up early to help his grandfather pull out their duck blinds.”

  Connie opens a tin of lip balm and smears strawberry wax on her lips. “Wanna taste?” She kisses the side of my mouth. “Smells like fresh strawberries, huh?”

  “Yeah, it smells nice. So I was thinking instead of Don’s party we could go to the camp. Just us, without all those other people.”

  “You wish!” she says.

  “Why not?”

  Connie sighs and drops her lip balm in her purse. “Going to your camp, telling you NO for thirty minutes while you try to feel me up, is not going to happen.”

  “Okay, I won’t try anything this time. We can sit on the bench at the end of the pier and talk. We never do that.”

  “Umm, hello Mitch. It’s because you never want to.”

  “I want to now.”

  She doesn’t respond. I change the radio station from top forty to country. She makes a face. “What’s wrong with you tonight?” she asks.

  “What’s wrong with country music?” I say.

  “It’s like, old people’s music. Why don’t you drink a beer and stop weirding me out.”

  “I’m not being weird, I’m asking you to go to the camp.”

  “And I’m asking you to go to the party.”

  On the radio, John Anderson is singing about fallin’ stars. I turn up the volume. “Listen to this.”

  Connie looks at me like I’ve lost it.

  “What?” I ask.

  She sticks her finger in her mouth. “Gag me!”

  “Give the song a chance. He wants to know if someone will catch him when he falls.”

  “Oh my God, stop the car. Wait, wait, don’t stop, keep going.” Connie crouches down in her seat and points toward the car next to us. “Shit! This is bad. This is sooo bad.”

  “Who is it?”

  “That’s Lisa’s father with another woman.”

  “So, it could be anyone with him.”

  “Lisa is going to have a royal shit fit.”

  “Then d
on’t tell her.”

  We park one street over from Donald’s house and sneak through a neighbor’s backyard. A dozen people are here, some standing around the ice chest, others sitting on the patio swing. Connie goes straight to Lisa, snags her arm and leads her to the opposite end of the pool. Don brings the guys into the garage to show off his father’s new Jaguar, while Patrick Bertrand and I sit in the living room.

  “Hey, Bertrand, listen to this. The girl only loves me when I’m up . . . pretty lame, huh?”

  “Yep,” he says, and starts talking about Dukes of Hazzard on CBS.

  “Young man, I’m trying to tell you something mysterious and profound about women, so you won’t make the same mistakes I’ve made.”

  “Sure, McAllister. What mistakes have you made?”

  “Plenty, Patrick. Too many to discuss.”

  “Don will show you the Jag,” Patrick says, “but he won’t let you sit in the driver’s seat. Same with his father’s shotguns. He’ll show them to you but forget about holding one.”

  “I can’t blame him. You might hurt yourself, little man.”

  There’s a bowl of cut magnolia blossoms on the coffee table. I stick my nose in one of the large creamy flowers, inhale deeply and stagger up to Patrick. “Care to partake in a li’l magnolia buzz?”

  He declines my offer. I position my face six inches from his, staring at him in a trance, gyrating my head. “I’m putting a spell on you.” He pushes me away with his foot.

  Bumping into walls, wobbling, groping for something solid to hold on to, I call out, “Help me, Patrick. I seem to be losing my equilibrium. Patrick, my friend, where are you? Why won’t you give me your hand—”

  “Cut it out, Mitch,” he says and opens the TV guide. “After Dukes of Hazzard, we can watch Dallas.”

  I sink into the couch. “Forget it. I won’t be here long enough to watch Dallas. Connie wants to head out to the Keg, see if Trapper’s brother is working the door.”

  On television, Daisy Duke is speeding through town in her Jeep, her large breasts bouncing up and down. “Hey numb-nuts,” I say, “how would you like to get yourself a piece of that? She’d make a man out of you.”