Bulls Island Read Free Page A

you’ll have to live with it for the rest of your life. Your sister, Joanie, has completely demonized you and you let her. You need to seriously repossess her high horse, and her little soapbox, too. And, missy? You’re still dead in love with J.D. and you always have been. And here’s the killer—”
    “Not true! Stop! I can’t listen to this now!”
    “Look, Betts. I love you to death. You’re like the sister I never had. But this isn’t a bunch of baloney and there are other people here who deserve a fair shake.”
    I knew she was right. “Oh Lord.”
    “Are we in prayer?”
    “Yes. I am deep in prayer.”
    “You know, Betts, it’s time to pull the boogeymen out from under the bed and deal with them. Just deal with them.”
    “You’re right.” I did not believe she was right.
    “I’m guessing there will be a whole lot of hell-raising to follow, but I’ve got ten bucks that says it will be worth it in the end.”
    “Ten bucks? That much? You’ve got more confidence than I do, Sela.”
    “Nah. I just like a good scrap. And since when did you ever walk away from a challenge?”
    “When I couldn’t predict the win.”
    “You can’t see a victory here?”
    “No. This looks like a minefield.”

CHAPTER TWO
Meet J.D. and His Tribe of Malcontents
    D o we have a ceiling fan in the dining room? No. Why? Because five years ago, when we built this massive house, my wife, Valerie, insisted on buying and installing the largest and most expensive chandelier in the Western world. Was the room air-conditioned? Yes, of course. The whole house was air-conditioned. But it was turned off because Mother believed air-conditioning was unhealthy.
    If it wasn’t a hundred degrees in the dining room, it was damn sure close to it. The wiry horsehair in the ancient cushions of the chairs coiled its way to freedom to itch and torment the backs of my legs through the thin seersucker cords of my trousers. Not that sweltering or oppressive heat was unusual for any Lowcountry July. But my short list of petty grievances seemed to have conspired to compromise my normally hearty appetite. That was a bothersome thing given the platter of roasted quail sitting right in front of me. These days, a man had so few pleasures left in life. You couldn’t smoke cigars, eat rare meat, drink too much whiskey…it was a tremendous disappointment. The glistening sliced tomatoes from my garden had the perfume of Eden, the parsley on the roasted and buttered fingerling potatoes…well, there it was. One of my favorite suppers was sitting right there and it was too damn hot to eat.
    The weather had been stifling for weeks. An early riser, I woke at first light to a slice of hell combined with humidity so fierce that it steamed and actually burned the green from the grass. Our huge lawn that rolled down to the Wappoo River was pockmarked by large irregular brown patches of scorched earth. Even my old chocolate Labs, Goober and Peanut, usually howling with excitement to see me, were downright sleepwalking, having spent the recent days searching for shady spots and drinking bowl after bowl of water. It was even too hot to fish. If we’d had sidewalks, you could have sunny-sided up a slug of eggs. We did not have sidewalks, but I did have a neck, and you could’ve grilled a steak on it.
    The mercury rose with each hour until around four in the afternoon, when the world would darken like a warning to prepare humanity to meet its Maker. With the first thunderclap, you would hear a sigh of anticipated relief from everyone around you. It meant that while the approaching storm would split the skies wide open with screaming lightning and pounding rain, it would end as quickly as it began, leaving the earth slightly cooler for a while. Just for a little while. I mean, I’m not trying to exhaust you with a weather report, I’m just telling you that you may be able to run from the federal government, but there was no running from the Lowcountry heat.
    It