Funk-N-Fiction

‘Tis the season for festive outings with family! This morning, Gregory Ashe takes us along with some members of the extended Hazardverse. You know things never go smoothly, lol!

The pumpkin patch was busier than a whore on Fleet Week.

Which was exactly the kind of thing I wasn’t allowed to say anymore.

Families crowded around booths selling apple cider and funnel cakes and—fuck, I don’t know. Something with the word fritters in the name, probably. Big kids streamed in and out of the corn maze, little kids came shooting out of the slides to land on thick mats, and the queue for the hayride stretched almost to the gates.

It was a surprisingly pleasant day for the middle of Bumfuck, Missouri: cool, no humidity, leaves crunching underfoot. The air was dusty-sweet with the smell of all that hay, cut with the sweet tang of cider and the hot oil of the fryers. It would have been more pleasant if I hadn’t been stuck with Dr. Spock Jr.

“Can I have that?” Augustus baby-talked, crouching over Igz. “Gimme that. Gimme that. Give Gus-Gus your paci.”

“Leave her alone,” I snapped, and just for emphasis, I kicked him in the ankle

“Fer, Jesus!” My baby brother hobbled backward. Igz watched him with what looked like a surprising amount of satisfaction. My daughter might even have been smiling.

“Fernando,” Zé said, and there was a warning in his voice. My boyfriend—God, was I supposed to call him my partner? Barf—bent and took the pacifier.

“Mine!” Igz said.

“Only at naptime,” Zé told her.

Because it was Zé instead of me, she didn’t scream, cry, or perform a nuclear meltdown.

“Come on, Igz,” Lana said. My niece was ten years older than Igz, and although Igz was big enough—and independent enough—to want to walk everywhere, Lana tried now to pick her up: wrapping both arms around Igz and straining to lift her. She managed a few toddling steps before she looked around and said, “Daddy, help!”

Theo—Augustus’s ancient, decrepit husband—laughed and eased Igz free from Lana’s arms. “She wants to walk, sweetheart. Come on—do you want to do the slide?”

Lana shot toward the slides, skipping with excitement, and Igz trundled after her, with Theo bringing up the rear.

That was when Zé rounded on me.

“She got it out of the bag when I wasn’t looking,” I said quickly.

“We’re supposed to be weaning her off it,” Zé said.

“We are.” And when Zé put his hands on his hips, I said, “We fucking are!”

“Lana stopped using her pacifier when she was a year old,” Augustus said.

“Fuck off,” I told him.

“Fernando,” Zé said, and the warning was clearer this time.

“When she was a year old?” I said. “And how fucking old were you? Twelve and still beating off to the dads in the Kohl’s ad?”

“Fernando.”

“I like what I like,” Augustus said with a grin.

“Yeah, middle-aged White guys in those big, baggy khakis you can fish a cock out of.”

“Fernando!”

“Definitely,” Augustus said, nodding way too enthusiastically.

In what sounded strangely like an apologetic tone, Zé said, “We’re working on it, but sometimes it’s the only way she’ll sleep.”

“Oh God, I get it,” Dr. Spock said. “When Lana finally came to live with us, we had to work on a lot of new routines. Have you tried sleep training? It changed everything for us. You’ve got to try sleep training.”

“Of course we’ve tried sleep training—” I began.

“Why don’t you go check on Theo?” Zé said. Not loud. Not rude. Just a question.

After a moment, I said, “Yeah. Okay.”

I was about five feet away when Augustus said—in a voice not quite quiet enough—“How do you do that?”

When I caught up to Theo and the girls, Theo was saying, “We’ll get a drink after the slide, sweetheart. How about that?”

“No,” Lana said. “I’m thirsty now!”

“Do you want to get a drink,” Theo asked, “or do you want to go down the slide? Because there are people waiting in line behind us.”

“I want a drink and I want to go down the slide!”

“You want to get them something to drink?” I said. “I’ll stay here.”

Theo offered me a small nod. “Thanks.”

“Da,” Igz said, waving at me. Her thick dark hair curled over her ears. She pointed at Lana and announced excitedly, “La!”

“Yeah, baby, that’s Lana,” I said. To Lana, I said, “What’s up, princess? Want to fight?”

Which meant I had to spend the rest of the time in line fending off Lana’s chops, kicks, and wild roundhouses—one of which nearly knocked Igz on her tiny ass.

We were climbing the steps to the slide when a familiar voice broke through the noise of the crowd. “—screen free is so important,” my baby brother was saying. “And have you thought about only having Montessori toys? No plastic sounds crazy, and we’re not totally there yet, but it’s just so much better for them, you know?”

I managed to keep my mouth shut as Zé and Augustus joined us on the stairs. I loved Augustus, greedy little cock-hound that he was. I loved him more than just about anything in the entire universe, with the exceptions of Zé and Igz. I loved the fact that he was obsessed with Lana, and that he wanted the best for her, and that he had turned out to be such a great dad, in spite of the fact that he was essentially just one giant jizz stain that had somehow come to life. I reminded myself of all of that.

But there was still something seriously fucking galling about having to swallow parenting advice from the kid whose diapers you had changed.

A high-pitched whistle made me turn; Theo stood at one of the stalls, waving his hand—he’d ordered too many drinks to carry by himself, and he was obviously trying to summon help.

“Your pet dinosaur—” I began.

But before I could finish, Zé said, “I’ll help him. Be right back.”

And then it was just me and Augustus and the girls. Igz was holding on to the rail, climbing up onto the platform. Lana was trying to pick her up. Augustus moved into position to catch them if they fell, one hand held out, everything about it unconscious and automatic, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it.

“How many words does Igz have now?” Augustus asked as he steadied Igz.

“Hmm, let me think about it,” I said. “She has exactly none-of-your-fucking-business. I counted last week.”

“You should count, Fer. She seems really verbal, but it wouldn’t hurt to actually count.”

“Good suggestion, Augustus. Like this? Go.” I held up one finger. “Fuck.” I held up another. “Yourself. Three. That’s three, right? Should we count again?”

The teenager on the platform, in cowboy boots, jeans, a flannel shirt, and, yes, a cowboy hat, was staring at us. He’d been chewing a piece of grass, and now it drooped from his mouth.

“What?” I asked him. “You sit on your balls?”

The grass slipped out of his mouth and drifted down.

“Fer,” Augustus groaned. But he stepped onto the platform and guided Lana toward one of the slides. “Okay, love. I’ll meet you at the bottom.”

“Ready?” I asked Igz as I got her seated on the slide. “Set? Go!”

Igz went down the slide with an excited scream. Next to me, Augustus grinned down the enclosed tube of the slide as Lana disappeared.

As we made our way down the steps and toward the slides’ exit, Augustus said, “You know what I meant to say to Zé?”

“No, but let me guess: I’m going to hear about it right now.”

“Have you thought about transitioning to a toddler bed—oh my God, Igz, was it so fun?”

Igz was beaming as she slithered-scooted-crawled to extricate herself from the slide. She put her hands up toward me, jumped, and said, “Mo.’”

“We can go again,” I said. “But we have to wait in line.”

“Mo.’ Mo’!”

Laughing, I swung her up into my arms.

That was when I noticed the furrow on Augustus’s brow. “Lana?” He spun. “Where’s Lana?”

“She probably ran to find Theo,” I said.

But Augustus took a few quick strides, glanced around the slides, and seemed to be suddenly paralyzed. I knew, right then, that I’d been wrong.

Cold trickled through my gut.

And then, with an excited scream, Lana popped out of the slide.

“Papi!” she gabbled, high-pitched and rapid. “Papi! I can stop myself in the slide!”

Augustus literally sagged for a moment. I watched him blink tears away. Somehow, he managed to sound almost normal as he said, “That’s great, sweetheart. That’s so cool. You have to be careful nobody’s coming behind you, though.”

“I’m going to tell Daddy!” And Lana was off like a shot, beelining for Theo.

Augustus was still frantically trying to blink.

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Oh my God.”

“She’s fine.”

“Oh my God, I thought—” Horror filled Augustus’s face. “Theo, I let her go down the slide by herself! What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“Are you serious right now?”

“I should have gone with her. I should have—I should have waited for Theo to be at the bottom.”

“For fuck’s sake, Augustus.”

“I’m a terrible dad!”

I made a sound of annoyance that wasn’t quite words. And then I swatted the back of his head.

His eyes got huge.

I set Igz down and gave her a nudge, and she headed off toward Zé and Theo, who had stopped to give Lana her drink. “Do you know how many times I lost you in Marshalls, dumbass? Or at Vons? Or at the mall?”

Augustus was silent for several seconds. And then he sounded weirdly outraged when he asked, “How is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“In the first place, Lana is fine. In the second place, you had a line of sight on that slide from the minute you put her down it, so you’re not a neglectful parent or whatever else you’re beating yourself up about. In the third place, nuts for brains, kids are kids. They get excited. They want to explore. They don’t pay attention. Hell, some of them think running away is a game. I know you and Theo probably use those kiddie leashes for your freaky sex games, but someone invented them for a legitimate reason, namely: kids are fucking kids, and you never know what they’re going to do.” I offered him a cockeyed smile. “Like decide to hang out halfway down a slide.”

“I just—” Augustus stopped, pressed his hands against his thighs. “I just freaked the fuck out.”

“Well, yeah. You love her.”

“Oh my God,” he said again, more slowly this time, like it was leaking out of him. He pressed his hands to his eyes, and his shoulders softened. His voice was thick when he said, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” I hugged him. Gave him an extra squeeze and a shake, because he was my baby, and because I loved him, and I knew what it was like to be terrified. And then I said, “Now quit being such a fucking know-it-all.” And I kneed him in the nuggets.

CONTEST: If this was your first glimpse into Gregory’s companion to The Hazardverse stories, here’s your chance to get caught up!! He’s giving away three ebook copies of The Kiss Principle, which features Fer and Zé (from this story). To enter – we’d love to know if you’ve ever been to a fall festival. If so, what’s your favorite thing about them?
** Entry for this contest will ALSO count as your entry for the overall HFF event contest. **