Chapter 10: Quarter Beers

Saturday February 18
Duke and I came back from our run to find Fritz drinking coffee with my parents. Peggy had taken the boys to Greg’s, where Angie had agreed to watch them so Peggy could go to a study-group session. When I’d heard about it, I was amazed that college kids would get together that early in the day on a weekend. I suspected that she might be meeting a guy for breakfast, but decided not to say anything about it.

“I don’t know why we don’t just go ahead and plant trackers in their little butts and be done with it. If any of them turn out like their father, they’ll be running off naked,” Mom said.

“Naked?” Fritz asked me.

I ignored them and began to make breakfast. According to my mom, I’d been an exhibitionist, starting at an early age.

Fritz had been working on finding GPS trackers for the little ones. We figured it was only a matter of time before one of them got lost or kidnapped, God forbid.

I heard the back door open. Duke, our trusty guard dog, raised his head and then flopped back down to continue his post-run nap. When I saw his lack of reaction, I stuck my head back into the refrigerator because it was probably Cassidy.

“What are we making?” Cassidy asked as she came up behind me and peeked over my shoulder to see what we had to use for breakfast.

“We could make a frittata. It looks like Melanie roasted some veggies for us to use this weekend.”

I was starting to be a fan of roasted vegetables, which intensified the flavors. I especially liked tomatoes done that way. Recently, the ones at the grocery stores weren’t that great. I expect it was because they didn’t get a chance to ripen on the vine, robbing them of flavor.

“That sounds a little complicated. I should probably get your dad to show me how to make it,” Cassidy decided.

My dad had been teaching her to cook like he’d done for Greg and me. Far be it from me to interfere in that. Dad was a good sport and took my place while I made myself a cup of tea. When it was ready, I joined Mom and Fritz at the table. He had three little watches laid out.

“I was thinking these would be better for Greg’s kids because they’re older. You download an app on your phone, and you can see where they are. The watch has an ‘SOS’ button that allows the child to call you if needed,” Fritz explained.

“If Kyle and Mac figure that out...” I left the rest unsaid.

Their idea of an emergency and mine were probably different. Fortunately, the call would go to either my brother or his wife and not me. I could just see getting a call from Mac saying she needed to go ride her pony.

“It also allows you to create what they call ‘security fences.’ You can designate areas that are safe, like their daycare. If they leave the area, you’re alerted,” Fritz explained.

“What about mine?” I asked about my five younger ones.

“Coby has been a problem,” Fritz said, shaking his head. “He seems to figure out how to take them off.”

Fritz had been testing ideas. If it survived my son, we would have our winner.

“As I said, we should just shoot a tracker into his butt,” Mom suggested again.

“I’m not sure that would be safe,” I said to voice my concern, once again, on the matter.

“Maybe we put one in you to test it,” Cassidy said to offer her unwanted advice.

“Nope, not happening.”

Fritz reached inside his bag and pulled out two different trackers. The first looked like security tags you saw on clothes so they couldn’t be shoplifted, and the second was a baggy full of rice.

“This one has a magnetic lock that takes a special tool to remove. Coby won’t be able to puzzle it out,” Fritz said proudly.

We’d see.

“What’s the rice?” I asked.

“Backup. These are tiny trackers that we will sew into their clothes, jackets, backpacks, shoes, and the like. If one of them is kidnapped, they’ll remove any obvious tracking devices. The rice-like ones just don’t have the range and features of the larger models. Another advantage of the snap-on one is that unlike the others, it uses a satellite phone system, so you don’t have to rely on cellular service for GPS tracking. It also lets you to listen in, like a baby monitor, so you can check up on them,” Fritz explained.

I foresaw that Carol would need this when she discovered boys so I could monitor her activities. Hopefully, that discovery wouldn’t happen until she was thirty and out of the house.

“We need to clip one onto David,” Dad said.

“Stay out of this, Old Man,” I shot back, suddenly seeing the downside of the eavesdropping device.

Funny how your perspective made you view everything differently. Honestly, though, until my kids were older, I wouldn’t feel bad about being able to check in on them.

“We already record him 24/7,” Fritz said, reminding us of the bodycams and surveillance cameras in the house.

The only saving grace with that was Fritz and his team would never ‘leak’ anything to my parents. Heck, they wouldn’t give me the video of when I found Jill. I’d been told they’d actually deleted it since she was underage.

“I also want to talk to you about getting more drones. I want to install them here at the house, the farm, your Malibu home, and I’d like to get them for Rita James’ two properties.”

“We need to talk to Darius and see if he wants to start making some money doing this,” I suggested.

That reminded me that I should call Brook’s grandmother and see about moving this drone project forward. I hadn’t shared with her what his latest iteration of the ‘flock of drones’ was capable of. I bet that Grace would want a flock at her place in Cincinnati, as would several of her relatives who had security concerns.

My flock was currently on chargers in my apartment because Paul and Cassidy had been ‘working’ with them. Those two were worse than Dare. They seemed to spend more time goofing off than actual security work when it came to the drones.

If Dare wasn’t game, we wanted a fallback plan for creating them. Actually, if Dare turned us down, I would have to check to make sure he wasn’t sick or something.

“I bet he has already figured more ways to improve them,” Fritz guessed.

“I’m sure it involves more Bitcoins.”

“What are you talking about?” Mom asked, latching onto the Bitcoin comment.

“Dare met this professor from State who put him in touch with some people that live overseas. It’s easier to pay them in Bitcoins,” I explained.

“People really do that?” Dad asked. “I thought it was risky.”

“So far, we’ve been lucky. Megan has been overseeing it,” I said to assure my dad. “Besides, it hasn’t been more than I was willing to risk.”

Mom gave me a hard look. I would bet a beach house that the amount she was willing to risk was much smaller than mine.

“The professor disappeared,” Fritz said.

“Hunter?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

“Well, ‘disappeared’ might be too strong. Hunter suddenly turned in his resignation and left State. When I tried to check on him, I got a visit from the FBI. They made it clear that further inquiries weren’t a good idea,” Fritz shared.

“Back up and explain all this. You aren’t mixed up with the FBI again, are you?” Mom asked.

I spent the rest of breakfast explaining how Hunter had helped Dare with the drones. The main reason I didn’t freak out was that Hunter hadn’t given off any signs of being someone to worry about. It did worry me when he couldn’t give me straight answers. I guessed that he was involved in something classified. The logical conclusion was that he was off working on a top-secret project. That made my inner geek do a little happy dance. It was why I looked forward to playing Ian Bond. That was the closest I would ever come to being a secret agent.

Cassidy and I had finished with our secret-agent training for the movie, so she wanted to get me into the dojo. I’d been lax in my martial-arts exercises for the last several months, having cut back when I hurt the recruit’s father in Oklahoma. I’d heard through the grapevine that the kid had ended up going to Rice University in Houston. Oklahoma had pulled their offer after his father had acted up.

I knew it was going to be a long day when Cassidy got on me as soon as we started doing our forms.

“Bend your knees, straighten your back, and lift your elbow. You’ve gotten sloppy,” she observed.

I predicted that before we finished, I was in for a butt-kicking to remind me that I should train more often.

“We should do something Sunday night. You need to get out of the house,” I suggested to break the building tension.

“Concentrate,” Cassidy warned.

“How about bowling? We could get a group of people together...” I started and suddenly found myself on my back.

That would leave a mark.

“This is my time. I expect you to respect that,” Cassidy said, sounding tough.

I leg-swept her, and she landed on me. I proceeded to tickle her.

“David!” she barked as she squirmed to get away.

She didn’t try too hard because I didn’t end up in extreme pain or bleeding. She lost her bossy teacher cred when she giggled.

Then she realized what I’d done and jabbed me under the arm.

“Ow!”

She kissed my nose, and we got back to it. She lightened up, but as predicted, I got an ass-kicking. I really did need to practice more to maintain my edge.

I’d decided I would make dinner for the grandmothers who were coming over to help watch the little ones. Since Mom and Dad were going out, I was able to make something with carbs. Lasagna with garlic bread sounded like a solid plan. That way, I would have leftovers I could take to school for lunch.

I decided against just making a salad to go with it. Melanie had bought a large bag of fresh green beans, and Mary had shared with me a recipe I wanted to try. It was fried in a pan bacon and garlic to give it some color. Then you added chicken stock to finish and then topped the whole thing with parmesan cheese.

I’d made two lasagnas, one with the roasted vegetables, and the other with meatballs for Greg. He contended that lasagna shouldn’t be ruined with green stuff.

Dad came into the kitchen, sniffing like Duke does when bacon starts to cook.

“What are you making?”

“Lasagna,” I said and then whispered conspiratorially. “There’ll be leftovers.”

“I heard that. That’s not on your diet, Rob,” Mom said, sauntering in.

She wore a cute dress. It looked like Dad would be spending some money tonight if her attire was indicative of the class of place he was taking her. He had on a sport coat.

“Where are you guys going?” I asked.

“The country club. Don’t wait up on us,” Mom said as she dragged my dad out the door.

Everyone began to arrive. My grandmother had brought Yelena, whom we were reintroducing to the idea of grandkids for when Yuri finally got busy. Lacy, Pam’s mom, came next. She volunteered to make a Caprese salad to help out. Both of Little David’s grandmas came. They’d been getting along better over time. Mitch still didn’t want anything to do with his son, but his mom did, so I invited her.

The back door crashed open, startling my guard dog.

“Unca David! Unca David! Come help,” Mac called.

Worried something was wrong, I ran to the back door, only to find that Ashley had just arrived. Greg and Angie were helping her get Carol, Allen, and Dawson out of their car seats as Kyle and Nate supervised. Greg handed me Carol, who grabbed my neck and gave me a big slobbery kiss. We’d been teaching them about kisses, and I wondered if it was such a good idea as I wiped the wet spot she’d left.

I noticed that both Angie and Ashley wore skimpy dresses.

“Where do you two think you’re going dressed like that?” I asked in my best judgmental dad voice.

“I asked the same thing,” Greg said.

Ashley looked a little worried. Angie, not at all.

“Ignore them. They have SDS,” Angie told Ashley.

“SDS?” Ashley asked.

“Swinging Dick Syndrome.”

Greg and I ignored Angie. Peggy came outside and smoothed down her short skirt while looking worried.

“Do you think this is too short?” she asked.

“Yes/No,” was said simultaneously by me/Angie.

“Quit being so bossy,” Angie said, glaring at me.

“You could all come in and eat. There’s plenty of food,” I offered.

“Not on your life,” Peggy said and then turned to the girls. “It smells delicious, but we can have some when we get in later.”

I started to wonder whether my leftovers would survive if they came back drunk and hungry. I might have to hide some of the lasagna if I wanted to take it for lunch.

“Let’s go before he tries something else to get us to stay,” Angie said.

I waggled my eyebrows at her. Greg slugged me in the arm to remind me she was married. Angie handed me Dawson and then left us to babysit while they went to dinner and clubbing for a girls’ night out.

I’d had the brilliant notion of calling Greg and Ms. Lawrie, our nanny, to come to help. She’d worked at our daycare before we hired her, and could juggle all the little ones with ease. Greg had more experience than I did with interpreting ‘kid speak.’ An example was when Coby grunted and held out a hand, Greg knew it meant the ball he was chewing on had rolled away. First of all, gross! Because it was Duke’s ball. How Greg deciphered what Coby wanted filled me with awe.

With those two busy watching the kids, Lacy and my grandmother were able to go to the basement and raid the wine racks. The grandmothers kicked back and had a glass while I finished getting dinner ready. Frankly, when I had my own grandkids, this was how I wanted to watch them.

Dinner was a success. The only incident was that Allen somehow dumped his juice on his head and needed a bath. Fortunately, mine were all about the same size. I borrowed some of Coby’s clothes to change my dirty boy.

While I gave him a bath, the grandmothers cleaned the kitchen for me. When I came down, Grandma Dawson pulled me aside.

“Mayor Duke has a volunteer project I was hoping you could help out with.”

“Sure.”

“Great,” she said and thrust a piece of paper with an address on it into my hand. “If you could get it taken care of before Monday, that would be ideal.”

Her little smile told me I’d been had. I trusted my grandmother not to take too much advantage of me, or I wouldn’t have agreed so readily.

“I might need a few details,” I suggested.

“Duke announced a beautification initiative yesterday,” she said and left me still hanging.

“First I’m hearing of it,” I admitted.

It cracked me up that she always attributed everything to our mayor, who Dawson was currently using as a climbing structure. He’d made some improvements to the town. The first was clearing up all the unpaid city fines by allowing people to drop off food items that were donated to charities. They’d also fenced off an area at the park close to my house for a dog park.

“We have some run-down properties that the city has decided are eyesores. I looked through the list, and there are a handful where the occupants can’t afford to make the improvements. I thought that you might be able to help them so we don’t have to levy fines,” Grandma Dawson explained.

“When you say help out...”

“I mean, volunteer your time to help clean up. Like at the address I gave you. Sidney Hytong is an elderly man on a fixed income who isn’t ready to go to a nursing home. His yard has been neglected for the past couple of years because he isn’t able.”

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Well, we’ve sent out a lot of notices to people, but I don’t think anyone has received more than Sidney’s 43. I talked to Margaret Rice, and she said that you can borrow what you need from the city. Mike Perovich suggested that you would need a brush hog to knock it down and a truck to take the debris to the dump. Oh, and a power washer,” she said with a straight face.

This project started to sound like more than a one-man job. Then I remembered my suggestion earlier in the day to Cassidy. What if I got a group of my friends together to help, and then we went bowling afterward to make a day of it? It might be fun to do some good and then hang out.

I smiled when I remembered what Hunter Jacobs had told me. I could solve problems if I took a step back to see the big picture. This fit with enjoying my senior year, hanging out with my friends, and also doing good.

“Okay,” I said, without elaboration.

Grandma looked shocked. I expect she thought I would push back when she started to list off all the equipment I would need.

“I’ll let Margaret know and have her load up a truck with everything you need. What time should I say you’ll be by?”

“After church. How about I pick it up around noon?” I suggested.

“Okay. When you’re close to finishing, give me a call. The mayor will want to swing by and inspect the results.”

This time, Grandma couldn’t keep a straight face. I stuck my tongue out at her and left her to call whoever she needed to get me the tools for the job.

I knew exactly who to call. Several of them owed me for Valentine’s Day.

When the kids had wound down, and the grandmothers had finished off another bottle of wine, Greg and I got a chance to talk.

“How goes Darius’s education?” I asked.

I’d asked my brother to help Dare learn about girls like he’d taught me freshman year.

“You owe me big for that one.”

“I considered us even when I got Joey to be your personal trainer,” I fired back.

“It might have been fine if everyone hadn’t horned in.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Mom invited everyone at her office, including Megan, and all your baby mamas. Angie has even been making noise about working out in the mornings,” he complained.

“But you get to see Joey each morning,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Thanks for that. I just can’t imagine what all that is costing you.”

“Honestly, I don’t care what it costs if it means you and Dad are healthy.”

“I appreciate it. I hadn’t realized how much weight I’d gained. Angie has me on the same diet as Dad to get the pounds off,” Greg shared.

“I won’t tell her about the lasagna then,” I assured him.

He just laughed. I’d forgotten he had three rug-rats that would let that slip. We had no secrets with them around.

Sunday February 19
Mom and I went to early church and then picked up Dad for brunch at Granny’s West. I almost felt sorry for him when I had to eat his cinnamon roll. Almost. When I got home, Cassidy looked unhappy.

“What’s eating you?” I asked as I got into the Demon’s passenger seat.

“Do we really have to volunteer today?” she asked.

“It’ll make you a better person.”

She didn’t think too much of my reasoning. We picked up Dare and then Chrissy. They were a little too happy for Cassidy’s mood, which put a smile on my face.

Dare impressed me when he picked up on her bad mood. He tentatively leaned over the back seat to show me his phone. I burst out laughing when I saw his calendar: it noted when Cassidy’s period would start, which was today. She glared at me, and I shut up. The little dumbass showed Chrissy.

“I have some Midol if you need it,” Chrissy told Cassidy.

It was a good thing we were all strapped in because the tires smoked when she slammed on the brakes. I heard her heavy breathing as she struggled to get herself under control.

“Going on the pill is supposed to help PMS,” Dare offered.

“Bless his heart,” I said in my best impersonation of Grandma Felton when I said something that set my mom off. I’d learned from some of my Oklahoman Team USA baseball friends that when a Southern woman says, “Bless your heart,” it translates to, “You’re an idiot.”

Luckily for all of us, Cassidy found the humor in that and began to giggle. It wasn’t a fun giggle, more the unhinged variety which made the hairs on my neck stand up. Chrissy handed me the bottle of Midol. Cassidy stopped her giggling for a moment and gave me an icy stare. My expression must have been funny because she started again, uncontrollably. I wondered if the mental hospital that Tracy stayed in for her depression took walk-ins for PMSing teens.

Upon our arrival, we discovered everyone had waited out front. My group designated me to go talk to the homeowner. Sidney Hytong was an elderly man with leathery skin, shiny gray hair, and beady brown eyes. He answered the front door in a pair of plaid boxers and a ‘wife beater’ undershirt with food stains on it. My first impression of the man was that he gave me the creeps. I would guess he sported a nasty frown 24/7 and always reeked of stinky old-man sweat. He looked at me and then my friends and frowned even more.

“What do you brats want?”

“We’re here to clean up your yard so you don’t get fined by the city,” I answered patiently.

“I pay my taxes, and you should have never let my property get like this,” he barked.

“That’s not how it works. The government doesn’t keep your lawn cut and yard clean because you pay taxes,” I said, shocked at his attitude.

“I don’t appreciate you lecturing me when you’re wrong. I’ve lived a long life, and I’m entitled to be taken care of. What I don’t need is a bunch of kids bothering me,” he said.

I considered calling Cassidy up to the porch and letting her talk to him. Her current mood and mine started to match.

“Are you saying you don’t want us to clean up your yard and just let the city fine you?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed, and he got a calculating look.

“Are you trying to con me? What’s this going to cost?” Mr. Hytong asked.

“We’re volunteers. It won’t cost you a dime,” I assured him.

“I’ll be watching you. If you do a bad job, I’ll call the police and have you all arrested,” he threatened.

If I hadn’t promised my grandmother, I would have left. I almost did anyway when Mr. Hytong slammed the door in my face. His nasty attitude and sense of entitlement rubbed me the wrong way. He should appreciate that we had reached out to help. It was much better than the alternative where the city fined him and forced him to pay to have his yard cleaned up.

Maybe ‘cleaned up’ understated the magnitude of the job needed. I’d wondered when Grandma Dawson had mentioned a brush hog. They were typically used to clear land that was overgrown to the point you couldn’t get a lawnmower to cut it. I’d used one on my uncle’s farm to reclaim acreage for pasture. Mr. Hytong’s yard was full of weeds over waist high. Small trees had also sprouted, making it impossible to just mow.

Another problem was that people had used his lot as a place to dump their garbage. We put Yuri, Roc, and Phil in charge of picking up the trash. Since I’d run a bush hog before, I was tasked with cutting down the yard so that Wolf could use his lawnmower. Tim took charge of Dare and Chrissy, and they helped him trim back the bushes that had gotten out of control. Cassidy returned to the car to take a nap.

Thankfully, it was February, and all the weeds were dead, making it easier to cut them all down. Wolf followed behind me and bagged up anything too big for his mower to chop up. We made the executive decision not to rake the yard. Wolf ran his mower over it a couple of times, and nature would turn the clippings into much-needed lawn fertilizer. I got the power washer out and started to clean the hard surfaces. Mr. Hytong’s sidewalks and drive were black with mold.

When we were almost done, I called my grandmother so Mayor Duke could come to inspect our work. I should have known that she would show up with the press to highlight the excellent work our mayor was doing. I was equally impressed when the cops arrived and was glad to see my favorite policeman, Billy.

While my grandma and I went to talk to Billy, Duke greeted all the workers to show his appreciation. Then again, it might have been that he wanted his ears rubbed.

Billy wasn’t happy when he saw a couple of local reporters follow us.

“Hey, good to see you,” I said in greeting.

“We got a call about kids trashing Mr. Hytong’s yard. I take it you’re the chief vandal?” Billy asked.

I rolled my eyes because the crazy old man was on my last nerve. My grandmother stepped in before I said what I really thought. She explained what was going on. Billy then walked up to the house to deal with the recipient of our free work.

My grandmother talked to the press and then gathered us all around for a group photo with our esteemed mayor. Cassidy jumped right into the middle of the group picture. Her contribution had been not hurting anyone while she took a nap.

As we were about to leave, Billy came to find my grandmother and me, shaking his head.

“After I explained that I wasn’t going to arrest you all, he had the nerve to ask when you would be back to fix stuff around the house. ‘I pay my taxes,’” Billy said as he did air quotes around Mr. Hytong’s rant.

“Sounds like someone needs to do a wellness check,” Grandma Dawson suggested to Billy.

“You’re probably right,” he admitted. “I’ll tell the appropriate folks at the station, and they’ll have someone come evaluate him.”

There were safeguards in place for people who were no longer able to take care of themselves. The problem was that people like Mr. Hytong flew under the radar because they were shut-ins or had very little interaction with others. I would feel sorry for him if he weren’t such an unpleasant person.

I thanked Billy for not arresting us and drove home to take a shower.

I invited everyone that helped with the volunteer work today to go bowling tonight. I hadn’t gone bowling in a long time. I also asked Gina, Pam, and Tracy so my dateless guys—Phil, Tim, and Wolf—would have someone to hang out with.

Cassidy had declared me perfectly safe and bailed on her security duties for the rest of the day. With her PMSing, I made the executive decision to cover for her and risk an outing. If I’d been anywhere else, like LA or New York, I wouldn’t have done it.

The person I worried about a little was Lisa Felton; I’d invited her as my date. While I was willing to date her regardless of my friends’ opinions, it would be better if they accepted her. I hoped that a group outing like this would make it easier.

We were going to Bulldog Bowl, which had seen better days. Back in my grandmother’s day, bowling had been a big thing. Dad had told me that his mom had belonged to a women’s league when they were kids.

Over the past several years, bowling alleys had started to go under. There were exceptions, though. When I’d spent time in Chicago, I’d been to a place that was a combination bowling alley, bar, and laundromat. It was the place to go on Friday and Saturday nights. They’d geared themselves to young single professionals and provided a unique way to meet other singles.

When we got there, we were the only ones bowling. There were a few older people in the bar.

“This is kind of sad,” Lisa observed.

I shrugged.

“I never promised going out with me was going to be fun.”

“You keep taking me to dives like this, and I’ll have to agree with you,” she said and then gave me a dick-hardening look. “Of course, this means you have to make it up to me.”

“Keep it up, and we’ll be skipping bowling,” I threatened.

“Don’t tempt me like that,” she fired back.

I could already tell I was going to enjoy dating Lisa.

Then I spotted Dare coming in with Chrissy ... and, wait for it ... his mom.

“Hold that thought,” I said and pointed at Dare’s mom. “I have to go deal with that.”

I handed Lisa money to go reserve the lanes and get us snacks.

“Dr. Rossetti,” I said in greeting.

“David,” she said, and then had the presence to look embarrassed. “When I saw the outside, I wanted to make sure it was safe for them to come in.”

I did see her point. I hadn’t realized how run-down the place had become. It wouldn’t be long before they shut the doors unless they did something to reinvent themselves.

“I’ll make sure Dare doesn’t touch anything he shouldn’t,” I teased.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Thank you. You don’t know how much you’ve helped him. I’ll leave him in your capable hands,” Dr. Rossetti said and turned to leave.

“Hang on. Just so we’re clear, I’m not babysitting Dare. If he messes up, it’s on him.”

She smiled at me.

“But I know you won’t let anyone pick on him. If he should ‘mess up,’ it might be good for him,” Dr. Rossetti said and then left.

I got my shoes and picked out a bowling ball. I quickly discovered that they didn’t have any balls that fit my hand. I picked the best one and found that Lisa had claimed four lanes. I was a little confused when I found ten 10-ounce beers on a tray.

“Where did you get that?” I asked.

“They have a special on Sunday nights. If you bowl, it’s quarter-beer night,” she explained.

“And they sold it to you?” I asked.