Daddy sat up in a tangled mess of damp sheets. He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a Camel. As he smoked, he sipped a tepid Abita. Thinking the room smelled like the love child of a brothel and dive bar, he reached up and opened the window above the bed. A blast of cold air flooded the room.
He climbed out of his warm bed, shivered, and went into the tiny head to take a piss. He struggled to produce a weak, spitting, sputtering stream from his chapped member.
She’s gonna screw me to death, he thought.
As he grabbed his boxers and thermals from the sheets and pulled them on, he thought about the night he met Summer at the VFW Club. He and his blood brother, Sanchez, had been commiserating about their lives since their Hummer ran over the IED, when Summer walked into the bar. Daddy thought it would be a one night thing…Sanchez warned him.
He put on two pairs of socks. Daddy limped across the room to where he had hung his Dixies coveralls. He became winded pulling on his boots.
Summer returned from the kitchenette wearing a tight wife beater and black lace panties.
“I got you a fresh one, Daddy. That was a fun quicky.”
Quicky? Jesus…, he thought.
“You gonna get dressed before our clients get here?” Daddy asked.
He shook his head, thinking, I’m too old for this shit.
Then he noticed her new ink.
“When the hell did you get that tattoo of the naked she devil on your shoulder?” Daddy asked.
“I told you. Damn Daddy, your memory is for shit. I got it a week ago in NOLA. It even says ‘Daddy’ below it,” Summer said, looking hurt.
Daddy had put her New Orleans trip out of his mind, adopting a what happened in NOLA, stayed in NOLA, approach to Summer’s occasional solo sojourns. As he realized that most of her tats had some name inked in them or under them, someone knocked on the door.
Summer answered while Daddy buttoned his overalls. She opened the door to find two middle-aged guys wearing camo, staring at her dumbly in a combination of surprise and lust.
The slightly younger and shorter man closest to the door just gawked. His lanky, older, buddy saved him.
“Uh, hi…we’re here for our bowfishing trip,” he said.
“Oh hi! I’m Summer,” she said.
Daddy poked his head around the corner.
“You boys head on over to the little guest cabin down by the dock. Dump your stuff and make yourselves at home. There is a full cooler of beer by the airboat. Help yourselves. We’ll be right down,” Daddy said.
As they walked off, Daddy heard the taller man asked his buddy, “Is she his daughter of girlfriend?”
“Who cares if she’s wearing that tonight! But, down here, could be either. Maybe even both,” the shorter client replied.
Normally such a comment would have made Earl “Daddy” Montrose bristle but tonight it seemed somehow appropriate.
Daddy stepped out of the doublewide into the crisp night air. He could see his breath and he read his watch in the moonlight—7:30 p.m. Daddy didn’t mind taking clients so much on such nights. Between the motor’s roar, the whirring of the blades, and his earmuffs, and depending on the night, he could think, or not think. Either way, he enjoyed the cold air, breathing in the dank, brackish smell, finding respite in the stars and moon. And when the clients could shoot, the nights were easy and good. Daddy thought, I hope it’s a good-shooting, non-thinking kind of night.
Daddy put his clients on fish on the first stop. The older client arrowed a nice redfish on his first shot; the younger guy missed his first shot, shooting high like bow hunters often did, but adjusted and nailed the next shot. Daddy thought, these boys can shoot. It’ll be a short night.
As they slowly cruised the bayou, Summer spotted fish, offered sage advice on where to aim, and aptly netted each shot fish. She also flirted with the older client. Daddy grinned as he watched her work. He thought, damn, she’s a real guide now. I taught her well.
Daddy didn’t mind the flirting so much. He went into this…whatever this was … eyes wide open. He knew like the waterways in the bayou, an inevitable storm would come through and change everything.
At least I got her the hell away from that scumbag who used her as punching bag, he often thought.
By 9:00 p.m., the clients only needed a fish apiece to complete their limits.
Daddy shut down the boat for a smoke and beer break. He took off his earmuffs, lit a Camel, and climbed down to the deck.
“You boys are shooting great. We have time to check out a honey hole I haven’t fished in a month. There’s lots of gators and big reds back there,” Daddy said, while thinking and the long run will buy me some not-thinking time.
Summer passed out cold Abita beers to everyone.
“This is freaking awesome! Like fishing and hunting at the same time,” the younger client exclaimed.
“Summer here is a hell of a guide,” the older client added.
“Daddy, we got some real shooters tonight!” Summer said.
She rubbed the taller, older client’s back.
On the run to new spot, Daddy made the airboat glide, cut, and weave at full throttle through a dynamic labyrinth of channels, rills, and oyster beds. Cattails quaked, the fan skimming overhanging magnolias, their moss rippling like ghostly lace in a winter gale. Daddy felt alive on these breakneck runs, a rush much like being on patrol in Iraq but without the fear of being blowup again. Until recently, Summer was the same thrill.
Below Daddy’s perch on the captain’s chair, Summer sat on the bench seat between the two clients, her arm tightly around the lanky older client’s hip.
That’s new, Daddy thought, without jealousy.
###
Daddy took it slow on the ride back to the marina. After a few photos of the night’s catch, Summer cleaned the fish while Daddy stowed the gear and boat. Daddy and the younger client carried the cooler loaded with filets and ice to the guest cabin. Bathed in the soft overhead light, Summer and the lanky client, chatted by the filet table. Daddy looked back and saw them clink Abita bottles.
He thought, a toast to…what?
“They were good clients!” Summer said, as they walked to the doublewide.
“Yep. They were shooters. Did they get settled in the cabin?” Daddy asked.
“They’re starting a fire at the pit. I’ll go down and check on them,” Summer said.
Daddy went into the doublewide, stripped off his layers, and climbed into a steamy shower. He rubbed his reconstructed knee and the shrapnel scar above it, hoping to sooth the throbbing. He would take something strong for the pain tonight.
Daddy rested his head on the shower wall, closed his eyes, and let the steam and hot water go to work. Lost in the twilight between a long day and sleep, Daddy didn’t notice the curtain pulled back and Summer, naked save for her tattoos, step in to join him.
She drew him close, rubbing her firm breasts on his back as she ran her hand down his beer paunch to his flaccid tool.
“Sugar I just don’t have another one in me tonight,” he said.
“You just need a little help,” Summer said.
Daddy sighed.
“Summer, please… I can’t.”
Crestfallen, she climbed out of the shower.
Her back to him, Summer feigned sleep when Daddy climbed into bed.
“I’m sorry hun. I’m just too damn tired and sore tonight,” he said.
“It’s ok. I’m just…I…never mind,” she said, clicking off the light.
Daddy woke around 1:00 a.m. to take the first of his nightly pisses. When he returned, he noticed Summer wasn’t in bed. He walked over and looked out the front window toward the cabin where the younger client sat alone by the firepit, drinking a beer.
###
Two afternoons later, Daddy drove his old Ford F150 southeast on Route 1. The soft winter sun lit the empty thin ribbon of asphalt framed by trees, jungle-like fauna, and brackish water. He enjoyed driving the two-lane road from Houma to Grand Isle, one of the last untamed stretches of bayou.
He called Sanchez and invited him to come down to go fishing for a few days. Sanchez accepted; he could tell by his old friend’s tone he was needed.
Daddy snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray and rolled down the window to take in the vibrant scent of the bayou. He dropped his left arm down the outside of the door, feeling the air push his through his fingers. The cold air stung his face.
This was the right thing to do for us both, he thought.
About a mile head, he recognized old Tobin Parker’s truck heading up the road toward him. As he slowed to greet Tobin, an animal dashed from the swamp and bounced Daddy’s truck.
Both men pulled to the shoulder, stopped, and climbed out.
“What the hell was that?” Tobin asked.
Daddy walked over and peered over the shoulder. A very beautiful, very dead female bobcat rested in a puddle.
“Pretty cat. You want her?” Tobin asked.
“Nah. You want the pelt?”
“Yep. I’ll eat her too. Good meat for the slow pot,” Tobin said.
Daddy chuckled.
Tobin reached down and picked up the dead bobcat by the rear leg.
“Thanks, Daddy,” Tobin said.
“Tobin, it’s just Earl now. My Daddy days are over.”
His back to Earl, Tobin waved as he walked to his truck, dead bobcat in tow.
Earl climbed back into his truck and lit another cigarette. He turned the CD player on. Patsy crooned Crazy. He eased off the shoulder, slowly making his way home, taking in the bayou in the fading afternoon light, not thinking.
Learn more about JD on our Contributors’ Page.
Looking for more exciting new voices? Check out the Largest List of Independent Publishers to find your next read.
(Photo: Peter Clark/ flickr.com/ CC BY-ND 2.0)
*
Introducing the 2023 Best in Rural Writing Contest. $300 in prizes, as well as great exposure for shortlisted authors. Deadline: September 30th, 2023. For more details go here.
We’re grateful to partner with AcresUSA, who is North America’s oldest publisher on production-scale organic and regenerative farming. AcresUSA regularly organizes events to benefit farmers and ranchers who are actively improving soil health, agronomists breaking new ground in soil and plant science, and livestock managers cultivating holistic systems. Browse their events page to see what they have planned for 2023.
- The End of Summer by JD Clapp - September 28, 2023