Fair warning: There is almost no actual bow-chicka-bow-wow in this chapter. There is plenty of sexual and embarrassing subject matter, but this is only a little more than a simple father-son camping trip.
A trip that advances the plot....
Please remember, as with all my stories, should you be looking for 'Realism', just move on. I aim for 'Ridiculously Plausible'.
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I only had one traditional final exam that Fall semester. Aside from our now performed final scene in Acting 101, I only had final papers and a writing assignment. Those were all completed and handed in well before I walked into that one exam. I was already packed for Christmas break at my parents', and when I handed in the two blue books I had filled during the test, I went straight to the car and headed off north to my home in Winston-Salem. I was barely across the border into South Carolina, when my phone started getting texts. Fortunately, the Tesla is pretty good with reading aloud and taking text dictation, so I could keep driving and did not have to pull over to reply to Steff.
Steff
: How did your exam go?
Steff
: My first is this afternoon, and it should be really easy, which has me worried
Steff
: LOL
Me
: Mine was harder than I thought. But I still crushed it, I think.
Steff
: Good
Then, a half hour later...
Steff
: Got all your shopping done for your family?
Me
: Yep. Have to have. Dad and I have our trip starting Wednesday.
Steff
: Going to go kill some poor woodland creatures with your big, bad gun?
Me
: It is mostly fishing.
Steff
: Don't drown
Me
: Let's hope.
A little while after that last exchange, the phone rang. It was Meredith.
We chatted for quite a while. She asked about my exam as well, then grumpily complained that she had a matter at work blow up all of a sudden that would keep her inordinately busy over the whole holiday season.
"What the Hell do we have judges for," she groused, "if not to issue continuances over the holidays so lawyers don't have to toil in their offices while everyone else is guzzling eggnog at the firm's Christmas party?"
"I have complete confidence that the Mighty Meredith will subdue her paperwork dragon sufficiently to enjoy some mulled wine and bad caroling with her office colleagues," I said with merry reassurance. "Just don't get too collegial with any coworkers," I added teasingly.
"Don't worry, darling," Meredith replied softly.
My mother was typically effusive when I arrived home, fussing over how 'tired' I looked, demanding to know why I hadn't brought any laundry for her to do, and asking for details of how the semester had gone. She also told me she had planed dinner early, so I could go out later and see old friends.
I told her, in order, to stop fussing--I was getting plenty of sleep; that I was a grown-ass man and could do my own laundry without bringing it home to Mommy; and that, although I was not behind on sleep, I was tired and just wanted to hang out with her, Dad, and my sister. Maybe we could play Bridge, please?
The next day I spent driving my little sister around, doing Christmas shopping and running errands for Mom. Someone had to, because Sarah had chosen to leave her car at school and fly home. Sarah is a frosh at Ole Miss and is astoundingly pleasant and fun to talk to... for a little sister. One long afternoon of one-on-one time was exactly as much as I needed.
I spent that afternoon interrogating her about the college boys I knew would be all over such a cute girl like white on rice, all the while carefully lying through my teeth about my own love life. I became convinced that Sarah was getting laid, possibly regularly, and began, with utterly
astounding
hypocrisy, to plot an unannounced visit to Oxford, in order to put the fear of God into a few selected dudes.
(Spoiler: I did make that visit, and it turned out that there was just the one guy, his douche quotient was unfathomably low for a sophomore, and he and Sarah ended up as a couple for more than a year before she finally drove him nucking futs and he moved on.)
After my sister and I made it back to the house, we all four went out to eat together. Mom seemed surprised that her children wanted to spend time with her, and she asked us, well... me, twice if we wanted to do something on our own with friends instead. After dinner, Sarah did end up hitting a movie with an old buddy. Mom seemed puzzled that I was content to hang out with her and Dad, and make sure I was fully packed for Dad's and my annual trip together.
"Are you trying to get rid of me, Mom?" I complained. "We leave early-early tomorrow, and I don't want to sleep the whole ride there. That would be especially bad for the parts where I drive!"
"Late nights never stopped you before now," she just replied.
"I'm an old man now, I need my rest," I snarked. "Seriously, Mom. Chuck is doing Christmas in Vail this year with his family, and Pete has to work tonight."
She finally got off my back and when I got home, I packed and we three watched Netflix.
The next morning, my father and I hit the road. There is plenty of nice wilderness and easy drive west of where I live, and he and I always took three or four days right before Christmas to chill out in the woods and get some time away from the women in our family, who seemed to outnumber us about four to one, even though there were only the two of them.
My father is a very successful man. He may have been born with a silver (plated) spoon in his mouth, and that gave him a certain boost at the start, but he has made far more of himself than most men from similar circumstances. The long hours and near-constant travel meant that he was by necessity a distant figure most of the time. But when he was there for his family, he was always
fully
there. And the times he was able to plan to set aside as just for us were set in stone.
He made it to very few of Sarah's or my softball to lacrosse games, but any time he specifically told us that he was, in fact, coming, he was there the whole time, trying not to jeer the refs (and failing) and flirting with our teammate's moms, in the best tradition of youth sports parenting. For him, there was none of that last-second ghosting you see in the movies, where the shitty dad decides to take a last-minute meeting instead, absolutely proving to the kid that they are not his priority.
Dad also carved out specific times for each of us each year, plans that went off
without fail
. He and my mom took a trip outside the country twice a year, every year... usually outside the continent. In the rare event that wherever they went had internet at all, his phone and laptop remained buried in the suitcase. Honestly, how Sarah and I don't have more siblings was beyond me. He takes Sarah to New York every year before school starts to let her shop without Mom's interference. (And he gets to drink weird cocktails in Manhattan bars till the wee hours without Mom's interference.)
Just before Christmas was
my
block of time. Four days. In the woods. We took two small tents (Dad had a pop-up trailer for years it might rain or snow), coolers, beer, camp chairs, and all the other simple amenities for a comfortable campsite that still earned the name. Our fly rods were securely tucked behind the seats in the cabin of Dad's beat-up old F-150, which he kept for this trip, runs to Home Depot, and to otherwise annoy my mother. On the rack behind us was my vintage thirty-ought-six with the brand new scope I had bought myself for my birthday, and Dad's black rifle. The trip was always primarily about fishing, but we would spend the last day hunting wild boar. Feral swine are dangerous and a huge and growing problem for everyone from farmers, to ranchers, to gardeners, to owners of small dogs. That is why they are always in season. And, since I've never killed anything except insects that I didn't eat, it is fortunate that game pork can be quite tasty, if you know how to cook it.
By the afternoon, we had found a likely site, pitched camp, donned our waders and were in a small river, casting our flys across a likely looking bend.
After almost a half hour of companionable silence, my Dad, out of the blue, asked, "So, who is the girl?" This set off all manner of alarms in my head. Dad and I talk a lot on these trips, but not usually when we are in the river. If he talks here, it means something.
"Who is what girl?" I replied cautiously, wanting to figure out what he knew. What he was
supposed
to know... was nothing.
"I don't know who she is," Dad said in an idle voice that was not fooling me. "That's why I'm asking."
"What makes you think there is a girl?" I asked. "I do not have a girl," I added in what I thought was a very clever lie. I did not have a girl, I had two women, only one of which could even be plausibly thought of as a girl, which I did not.
"Pull the other one, Scott," Dad laughed at my weak denial. "Your mother specifically tasked me with finding out about her during this trip, but even I could tell all on my own that you have a girl, without her far superior detective skills."
"How?" I asked vehemently, already moving past denial to damage control. Full disclosure of the current state of my love life was not in
any way
on the table.
"How do I know? Karen Courtney," Dad replied calmly, flicking his fly a little further out.
"Karen Courtney is not my girl."
"A fact that you have not seemed to be able to accept for the last six years," Dad laughed. "Every time you come home, item one or two on your agenda is always calling or, more often, visiting Karen, just to see if you are off the rejected list."
Karen Courtney was a life-long friend, but when she turned seventeen, the Boob Fairy backed up an eighteen-wheeler at her house and my perceptions of my tomboy buddy... evolved. Her perceptions of me remained forever unchanged, unfortunately.
"This year," Dad said, "even I noticed that you didn't go hound-dogging off as soon as you got home. And the way you turned down all her subtle reminders that you had time to go see the Courtney girl has got your mother all fucking excited now. So give."
