Thump, thump, thump!

"I wanna watch Bugs Bunny!"

"Mom said I could watch Power Rangers!"

"I don't wanna watch Power Rangers! I wanna watch Bugs Bunny."

Oh, the hell with it, Trey thought from the depths of his sleeping bag. There's not going to be any more sleeping now. Might as well get up and face the day, for what it's worth. Hell of a way to wake up. He opened his eyes, stretched and farted. Hope there's not a line at the bathroom, he thought.

His parents' house was small and on the grubby side, in the grubby part of town. It wasn't in real bad shape; his dad did what he could to keep it from falling apart, and his mom kept it fairly neat and clean. But the rooms were small and the furniture was old. Trey had grown up here but the couple days he'd been back were now giving him visions of the comfort of his dorm room back at Marienthal. This wasn't home anymore and it hadn't been for years, just the place where his parents lived. It was familiar, but it wasn't his any longer.

That fact had been made perfectly clear to him right at the beginning. There weren't any signs of him in his old room, the one he'd shared for so long with Robbie. Those days were long gone. In fact, his sister Carolyn and her husband Aaron were sharing the double bed in there now; there were two of her kids sharing the twin bed in the tiny room that had been hers, and a third sleeping on the floor. When they slept, that was; there always seemed to be one of them awake and raising hell. They got started early, and that damn TV set was going to be on all day. The damn kids did nothing but watch TV.

Trey had actually beaten his sister and her family home by a day. He'd gotten to spend one night in his old room, but she bitched and whined about the fact that since it was the only other double bed in the house except for Mom and Dad's, she and Aaron ought to have it. Trey had been relegated to the couch in the living room, living out of his suitcase. That meant that he couldn't go to sleep until everybody shut off the TV and quit gossiping, and that had gone pretty late the night before. So with the kids firing up early, that meant he was short a couple hours sleep already, and his head hurt. My God, two weeks of this? I'd rather be at Marienthal. Hell, I'd settle for Kosovo, he thought as he unzipped his sleeping bag and threw the top off.

He sat up, yawned, and did his best to ignore the squabbling kids. Only two of them, that meant that the other one had to be asleep or in the bathroom. No telling if anyone else was in the bathroom. Hope it isn't going to be too long if there is.

"Do you have to sit around the house in your underwear?" Carolyn asked in a snotty voice as she came into the room.

"Give me a break, Carolyn, I'm just getting up," he said, reaching for his pants.

"How do you think it looks for the children for you to act like that?" she yelled, totally ignoring his answer, as usual. "That's disgusting! You should be ashamed of yourself."

Oh, crap, it's going to be pick, pick, pick again, all goddamn day, he thought. As if yesterday wasn't bad enough. He missed Robbie, but Carolyn had been a pain in the ass as long as he could remember. It had been a happy day when she'd gotten married right out of high school. There'd actually been peace around the house for a while. Now she was running true to form. Damn, if he'd had any other place to go he'd have been there.

He took his time pulling on his pants; he wasn't going to hurry just because she was being her normal pissy self. Speaking of piss . . . "I don't know what you think has gotten into you. You act like an animal in front of these children." She went on. "Don't you have any sense of morality?"

"Don't you have any sense of quiet?" he said as he stood up and pulled his pants up. Hell, he was wearing underwear and a T-shirt after all; he could change to clean clothes in the bathroom. He grabbed clean stuff and headed for it.

"What in the world makes you think that you have any right to talk to me like that? You should be ashamed of yourself, talking like that to me in front of these children . . ."

The bathroom was next to the kitchen, and damn, somebody was in there, either the kid, Jimmy or Timmy or some damn thing, he wasn't real sure. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, and his mother was at the stove. Aaron might not take too long, but the kid might take forever. It was the only bathroom in the house, and he remembered how Carolyn could park in there for hours on end.

"Oh, you're up, Trey," his mother said.

"Didn't have a lot of choice," he said, trying not to sound grumpy.

"There's no way you think you should have been able to sleep all morning," Carolyn persisted, coming in from the living room. Apparently the squabble had been settled. Trey looked at his watch: 6:30. This was December, after all; he looked out the window, and could see that it was still solid dark outside. "You may be able to stay out till all hours and sleep in all day at that high and mighty college you're going to, but real people get up in the morning."

"And who had to watch the Tonight Show when I wanted to go to bed last night?" Trey asked with just a little edge in his voice.

"Don't you dare talk back to me, you lazy bum."

"Are you about ready for breakfast?" his mother asked.

Saved by the yell. Apparently the Bugs Bunny versus Power Rangers battle had erupted again. "Yeah, Mom. Just give me five minutes in the bathroom first."

"It'll be a few," she said, and added softly, "She sure has her tail tied in a knot this morning, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, a little," Trey smiled through the pain from his lower regions. Using the bathroom was starting to be an issue. "Not a lot worse than normal, though."

The bathroom door opened, and Aaron stepped out. "Hope I haven't kept you waiting," he said.

"No, not much," Trey said.

"The Lord has blessed us today, for giving us peace and health."

The Lord would best bless us with peace by locking a ball gag on your wife, Trey carefully did not say, but he was tempted. No point in getting Aaron pissed off with him, as well. He'd known Aaron a little, back when he'd been going with Carolyn, and he'd seemed all right then. But he'd blossomed into a religious nut, and Carolyn mostly had, too. Now almost any comment at all could set off a sermon, and Trey really wasn't in the mood for one right now. "Guess he has," Trey replied as noncommittally as he could, edging past his brother-in-law and closing the bathroom door before he could get started.

Peace for a moment, thank God. Yes, the Lord blessed us with peace, even if just for a couple minutes. Trey used the toilet, changed his underwear, and pulled his pants back on. His shaving kit sat on the shelf by the bathroom; he ran a comb through his hair, fired up his electric razor, trying to make it quick.

Thump, Thump, THUMP!!! "Are you going to stay in there all morning?" Carolyn's voice came through the door. "Timmy has GOT to use the bathroom!"

Yeah, that could be an issue, he thought. The youngest was barely housebroken, and accidents could happen. "Out in a second," he said, yanking the razor's plug out of the wall and throwing it in his shaving kit.

Thump, THUMP! THUMP!!! "Hurry up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he replied, heading for the door.

"You should be ashamed of yourself for sitting in there all morning," Carolyn said the instant he opened the door, and Timmy or Jimmy or whoever it was scampered by. He pushed himself back against the wall as she pushed past him, slamming the door. Well, at least another couple more minutes peace, maybe more if the kid had already gone in his pants.

"Coffee, Trey?" his mother asked.

"You bet," he said. He got a cup from the cupboard and poured it himself; she was busy, he could tell.

At least the coffee was good. It helped him open his eyes, not that he really wanted to.

"I'm sorry, Trey," she said quietly. "That was pretty rude of her."

"I hope she's not going to go on like that all day again today."

"I hope not," she shook her head. "But I'm not taking any bets."

Taking advantage of the break, Trey carried his coffee back into the living room. The two kids were yelling at each other; the Bugs Bunny versus Power Rangers battle was still on. Both were plopped up on the sofa, on top of Trey's sleeping bag. "Hey, let me pick this up," he said. He didn't need Carolyn yelling at him about him leaving his stuff strewn all over, but he figured that was coming. The kids didn't move easily; he literally had to pull the bag out from under them. He took a minute to wad it up and stuff it in the stuff sack, before one of them decided they wanted it as a blanket and then pissed all over it. They were capable of it.

He pulled a shirt out of the suitcase, a pullover, and pulled it on along with some socks, zipping up the suitcase so the kids would be less likely to get into it, and pulled on his shoes. He was ready for the day, as ready as he was going to get, under the circumstances.

"Mom said I could watch Power Rangers!"

"I don't wanna watch Power Rangers! I wanna watch Bugs Bunny."

Trey headed for the kitchen; Carolyn was still tied up in the bathroom, but she came charging out just as he got past the door. Maybe that would hold her for another few seconds. Trey took a seat at the kitchen table. There were only four chairs at the table, so he knew breakfast was going to have to be in shifts, and maybe the older kids would have their cereal or whatever in front of the TV. Trey just sat and tried to find the strength, somewhere, to cope.

"How do you want your eggs?" his mother asked.

"Scrambled, sunny side, I don't care," Trey said. "Cooked."

"You don't have to be crude about it," Carolyn snapped as she came back into the room, heading back into the bathroom apparently to help out Timmy or Jimmy or whatever, or else clean up the mess.

His dad shook his head. "She doesn't have to act like that," he said softly.

"She's under a lot of stress, I guess," Trey said. "I can understand." Not that she's not getting me pretty stressed out too, he thought.

"Son, I've been meanin' to ask," his dad said in a conversational tone. "You ever gonna use that surfboard you got out in the garage?"

"Maybe someday," Trey said. Back when he'd been at Ft. Stewart, he'd gone with some buddies down to some of the surfing beaches along the Florida east coast; over a couple years they'd made several trips, and he'd bought the board on one of them. When the warning orders for Kosovo came, he tried to sell it, but nobody bought it, even at a giveaway price. He'd thought about throwing it in the dumpster, but at the last minute he'd brought it when he'd driven back to Indiana. He'd left his car there while he was gone, and put the surfboard in the garage. When he'd come back to pick up the car, he knew that he was heading to Ft. Riley, so he'd left the board behind, saying, "There's not a lot of surf in Kansas."

"Just wonderin'," his dad said. "Kinda takin' up space."

"If you're not using it, you ought to get rid of it," he heard Carolyn snap. "What a childish thing for you to have, like you're some sort of surf bum or something. Can't you make decent use of your time?"

Something snapped. Trey felt the blood rush to his head, and knew he was on the verge of blowing if he couldn't control himself. It wasn't any of her damn business, just something else to pick at him about, and she'd take any opening she could get. There was no reason to think that the next two weeks would be any different. Keeping his voice level, he took a final sip of his coffee and stood up. "You know, Carolyn," he said as levelly as he could manage, "That's the first thing you've said all weekend that's made sense."

She started to snap back at him, but whatever it was, he wasn't paying attention. He set his cup down, headed toward the living room stopping to grab his shaving kit out of the bathroom. He stuffed it in his suitcase, picked it up along with his sleeping bag and jacket, and headed out the front door to the Cougar.

It was cold outside; he really needed the jacket, but he was too mad at the moment to stop and put it on. He tossed the stuff in the back seat of the Cougar and headed for the garage.

The surfboard was still there, up in the rafters. The garage was too full to actually get a car inside, and was really too small anyway. He found a step stool, got up on it and began to ease the board down.

"Here, son, let me help you with that," his father said. He hadn't heard him come in; now he was standing in the doorway, also without a jacket.

"It's OK, Dad, I can get it."

"Sorry you think you gotta do this, but I can't blame you. I don't know why she thinks she's gotta be on your ass all the time."

"I've got a pretty good notion," Trey said, sliding the board down to where his father could get hold of it. "She's jealous. She's got a dumbass job, Aaron has a dumbass job, and she has all those kids being pains in the ass. She has to take it out on someone. I don't have kids, I'm not married, I'm in college trying to make something of myself. That makes me a pretty good target."

"You might be right, but son, I hate to see you go," his father said, shaking his head. "Your mom and I don't see enough of you anymore."

"I'm sorry Dad, but if I stay around any longer I'll have to break her head, and maybe Aaron's, too, and that'd probably mean I'd spend Christmas downtown in the slammer. Might as well avoid that."

"Suppose you're right," his dad agreed thoughtfully, taking the board as Trey climbed down from the stool. "You want some rope to tie that down with?"

"Yeah," Trey nodded. "Maybe something to pad the racks with so nothing gets scratched up."

"Couple old towels do?"

"Sure."

Now, his mother came out, wearing a jacket. "Trey, you sure you don't want breakfast?"

"I'll stop somewhere," he said, setting the surfboard down in the snow and taking one of the old towels from his father.

"Trey, I'm sorry," she said. "She shouldn't have driven you out. She sort of invited herself, and we couldn't hardly say no."

"Maybe she'll get the message," Trey said, starting on the back tie-down as his father started on the front one. "But, I doubt it."

"I doubt it too," his mother said. "But I sure wish I was going with you."

"Me, too," his father smiled. "But I guess we can't. Gonna miss you son. Just don't let the fact that she drove you out make you think that we're driving you out, too."

"I know that," Trey said. "Look, I'll stop off on the way back through, and we can have some decent time together. She has to have a couple of those brats back in school on the second, and I don't have to be back till the eighth."

"Thanks, Son," his father said. "We'd both appreciate it. Where you goin', anyway?"

"I don't know," Trey said. "Somewhere where there's surf."

* * *

Ten minutes later, Trey was out on 31 heading south past the Air Force base. Only then, when he'd cooled off just a little, did he give any real thought to his father's question. Really, this time of year the choice was Florida or southern Texas. He'd heard the beaches were pretty cool around Texas, but he knew without looking at a map that if he was coming back through Indiana, it was closer to go to Florida. Besides, he knew Florida a little and didn't know Texas at all. That settled it.

He really didn't have money for a motel, but there ought to be a place he could camp somewhere. Other than his sleeping bag, he didn't have any camping gear, but he knew how to find the K-Mart in Kokomo, and knew they had some year around. He could get cheap stuff; it might come in handy sometime, and he could blow the cost of what he needed in a couple motel nights.

Cooling off a little more now, he punched "Play" on the CD player. A familiar voice came up, on one of the CDs he'd bought back in St. Louis: "Hello, everyone, and welcome to Saturday Night with Jenny Easton, here in the old Pike Bar with lots of good friends around us . . ."

Sorry, Jenny, I love ya, but that's not the music I'm in the mood for right now. He ejected the Jenny Easton album; put it in the cheap case he'd bought in the music store, and pulled out a CD he'd gotten out of a rack of 99-cent specials. This would be more appropriate. He punched the CD into the player, and a familiar group began to sing:

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