THUGLIT Issue One - [22]

“Call me back when you have a fucking answer.” Big Dan hung up. He lumbered to the door, worked both deadbolts and yanked open the oversized knob.

The roar of the storm barged in, bringing water by the bucket to spatter his slippers. It hazed the figure into a ghost. For a moment, Big Dan could have sworn he was looking at his daughter, Andrea, from decades back.

But Andrea knew better than to visit.

“Who’re you?” His tone left no question that the answer would only piss him off more.

“Papa,” the girl said, forcing a smile while the rest of her shivered in a soaked-through hoodie, water pouring up from inside her Vans. “It’s Darlene.”

“Darly?” Big Dan was surprised to feel the brick in his chest soften. The sensation was like a wish he’d long forgotten being answered. He nearly smiled. “What the hell are you doing out in this weather?”

“I’m on my own now,” she said, tucking hands embedded in her sweatshirt pockets tighter about her middle. “Mama and I had a parting of the ways.”

Big Dan grunted. The kid was probably looking for charity, ducking out on her welfare mother for a taste of her grandpa the dealership owner’s wealth.

Still, Darly could be a welcome distraction. Ten years parted left a lot of catching up to do. Besides, anything that would rile Andrea suited him fine.

“Come on in, then,” Big Dan said, waving her on. He considered wrapping an arm around her willow-branch body, something to soothe that shivering, but thought better. It would only soak them both. “Kick your shoes off, though.”

She did. Big Dan scowled to see a dark rainbow of chemicals fringing their soles. The rogue’s gallery of toxic waste Delacey had listed echoed: Carburetor cleaner, transmission fluid, battery acid, antifreeze, oil.

All headed out of the Mississippi mire to swamp his business. His house. Him.

Big Dan gave a wistful look across the street to where the dealership sign should have glowed. The storm had stolen the power, but he imagined it, lit and looming bigger than one of those faggy euro coupes. Potter Chevrolet of Wiggins-a declaration of dominance over his plot of land.

He slammed the door rather than look at the flood swallowing that land a moment longer.

Darly was pivoting, taking in Big Dan’s den with baby-doll eyes wide under the seaweed fringe of her black-dyed hair. He ate up her awe-her wonder at the garfish with its prehistoric snarl jutting over the mantle, the out-sized furniture of imported leather and antique wood, the clusters of photos, fleur-de-lis and American flags.

He’d enjoy his castle as long as he could. To hell with the doubters-his dead wife, his pastor, the Sheriff. It was fucking great to be the king.

“So, Darly,” he said, clasping her shoulder and steering her shocked face around for his stare to savor. “Tell me how your bitch of a mother is.”

*****

The photo albums were all organized, but Big Dan yanked them from the cupboards and stacked them on his teak coffee table. They tiered in towers, forty years of family memories and booming business. It reminded him of the Norman fortresses he used to model out of hub cabs behind his old man’s scrapyard.

“We don’t really have to do this, Papa,” Darly said, “if you need to sleep, I mean.”

He turned to her and sipped Dewar’s through his smile. It felt odd to smile without bitterness on the backs of his teeth. The whole sensation-genuine happiness-felt odd, a warm softness running from his neck to his bulging belly, like the filling of a birthday cake.

“I’m a night owl and an early bird both, Darly, don’t you worry.” He put a canny bend in his grin. The girl mirrored it. Big Dan figured this apple fell right onto the roots of the tree.

“Okay, then.” She perked her plucked eyebrows. “Think I could have a scotch, though?”

He chuckled in time with a wagging finger. The girl had his guts, too.

Her hair was dark, but Big Dan bet there’d be his rye-colored roots under the dye. Her jaw was slender, but her chin had the same die-cut square. Her sharp eyes, her hard brow, her high cheeks-all pieces of his mirror turned into something beautiful.

“You’ll settle with that coffee, kiddo.”

Darly shrugged and rubbed her arm. She’d insisted on keeping the hoodie on. Big Dan insisted she at least change into dry jeans, for the sake of his couch if nothing else. He wondered if she’d kept her damp panties on or went bare.

Was that wrong to wonder about his granddaughter? Big Dan smirked to himself as he sorted out an album. As if he gave a tin shit about “wrong.”

“Here we go,” he said, raising up from popping knees and ambling over to Darly with the album. “2002. Your last visit, right?”

“I was six, so, yeah, I guess so.” She fixed a hopeful look on him. “Is Grandma in this one?”

He nodded. They paged through it. Image after image of his wife, his pairs of sons and daughters, his four grandkids. They huddled together on picnic tables at the park ground on the 4th of July, stood before the Christmas tree’s glister, crammed around the Thanksgiving spread. Every picture gleamed with tight smiles and flashbulb happiness.