Dam It, Tommy

Dennis gripped and re-gripped the steering wheel. His eyes, strained and on the verge of tears, scanned the road ahead, watching each twisting turn. The old Ford surged with growls and relented with whines as its driver balanced urgency with safety on the narrow mountain road. The radio had long since gone to static but remained there, white noise of insufficient import.

The old dam road took a broad turn out to the right along a cliff face scattered with bushes and weeds, curving out to crest the massive cement structure that sloped down interminably. Blue skies, a blessing of Springtime, stretched out overhead, finally coming back into view. The beauty and majesty escaped Dennis at the moment as he searched the pullouts along the top of the dam, cursing under his breath as the sight of a rusted out Winnebago confirmed his fears.

With a gentle screech and stuttering skid the truck came to a disorderly stop at the pullout just before the one containing the errant RV. Dennis descended the cab in a huff and slammed the door shut. Partially this was out of anger, but also the door had been dented a half dozen time so a fair amount of force had to be used to shut it firmly. At this moment thought, Dennis was also quite upset, as evidenced by his stomping approach along the road, ignoring the heat, the wind, and the risk of being hit by the next car to come along. Teeth gritted, he fixed his eyes on the rear view mirror, searching for some sign.

At a flash of movement he called out hoarsely, “Tommy! You get out here right now, Tommy!” Breathing heavy with a tinge of a wheeze, Dennis wound to the right of the vehicle, trying very hard to not look down to the formidable drop to his right.

The door clanged open, followed by a harshly whispered, “Sto-o-o-op! I don’t want you to spook them.”

Dennis stopped, partially in response to the plea and partially because his heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going crack his sternum, “Pfft, Tommy, you idiot. You did do it, didn’t you?!”

“Da-a-a-ad, why are you here? You’re going to spoil it.” An unruly mass of black hair emerged slowly from the door, followed by the sunburned face of a man looking late middle aged, despite only being in his mid-thirties.

“Son, don’t…”

“No, no, no,” Tommy said sternly, “I do not need your negativity right now.”

Slowly, Tommy descended the steps and came into full view. His eyes were constantly darting. He clutched something in the crook of one arm while he stroked it with his other hand. Dennis could only sigh and place his weary head in his hand. The wind whistled around them. A small car, one of those new hybrid ones, hummed by, seeming to take no heed of them.

Dennis tried again, “Look, kid, I’m no lawyer, but this has got be against, like, a dozen laws.”

“No, it isn’t,” Tommy insisted with a stomp of his foot, “and besides, even if it is, this is a protest. California is a corrupt, authoritarian state, exerting far more control than they are right to do. A message must be sent!”

“Fine, fine, but maybe you’re not the one to send it, you know, all things considered.”

“Ha!” Tommy had said it sharply, suddenly. With trembling effort he brought himself back under control, petting the small thing in his arm more to soothe himself more than it. That being said, the poor thing was chittering and squeaking away. More composed, Tommy said coolly, almost aloof, “If you are referring to my supposed mental health history, ha, I say ha. Could someone with so-called disorganized thought processes spend nearly a year planning, preparing, and now executing the greatest April Fool’s prank slash protest ever? Huh, could they? No, they could not.”

He had gotten himself ramped up again, so Dennis knew not to answer right away. The older man focused on his own breathing, keeping it deep and slow, while giving his son the sign to slow down. Tommy again reverted to huffing quietly and stroking the animal in his arm; he centered his gaze off of the dam, towards the horizon.

“Obviously,” Dennis said calmly, “You’re very proud. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

Without looking back, Tommy explained, “One hundred. One hundred ready to go, all housed in quick release cages, five at a time, cages I designed and built, mind you. No, they don’t sell these kind of cages at the local PetSmart.”

“That’s a lot of work, son. Getting you into that wood shop program really paid off, huh?”

“Parachutes, dad. One hundred tiny parachutes, all set up, and tested, to self-open at velocity. I made them, dad. I made all of them. Totally organized.”

“Home Economics for the win, right?”

“Dad, I don’t think you comprehend. One hundred parachutes, crafted by hand, and then painstakingly put on each of these maligned, little angels by me over the course of the past three days.”

Dennis had inched closer by two steps, “That sounds like a lot of careful work, son.”

“No, dad, no! You don’t get it. Ferrets don’t like parachutes!” He dramatically extended a hand towards his father, showing an assortment of multi-colored bandaids nearly covering his fingers and hand.

“It’s almost as if they weren’t meant to wear parachutes,” Dennis ventured cautiously.

Tommy greeted this with a mighty harrumph, “They just don’t like being handled is all. They’re natural flyers, dad. I can see it in their beady little eyes.” Then, under his breath, “They told me so.”

Still tentatively inching closer, Dennis prompted, “So, tell me, what are we protesting exactly?”

“Dad, do you ever listen? If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times that you aren’t allowed to have a pet ferret in the state of California. It’s absurd. It’s derogatory. It’s inflammatory. And, it’s species-ist.” He ended his statement with a self-satisfied sigh, still surveying the wilderness and neighborhoods below the dam.

“Well, maybe they’re, like, you know, an evasive species or something. Did you think about that?”

Now Tommy sighed, looking upward as if for answers or consolation, “Father, you’re so funny. You mean invasive species, and they are where they are meant to be. It is God’s will.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve been taking your medication?”

“That’s a laugh. Could I have achieved any of this on those mind numbing medications? No. The answer is no.”

“No, I don’t suppose you could have or would have done any of this on the medications.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. I love you, son.”

“What?”

With that, Dennis punched Tommy square in the jaw, a thunderous right hook worthy of the man’s history in the Merchant Marine and subsequent years in and out of dive bars, strip clubs, and the local drunk tank. Tommy reeled, head cocked back and stumbling two steps backward to collide with the RV just to the side of the open door. He rebounded with a twang and collapsed forward into his father’s waiting arms.

The ferret escaped in the midst of all this, scampering right, then left, and finally up onto the low wall between them and the yawning abyss below. Dennis didn’t even have time to formulate any idea how he would coax a ferret back before the diminutive creature leapt over the side, as if somehow determined to fulfill the will of the almighty as communicated to its erstwhile owner. Or, perhaps more likely, the poor thing was fleeing the loud noise of both Tommy’s collision with the RV and the rumble of a tractor trailer that happened to be passing at that moment.

Carefully lowering Tommy to the ground, Dennis carefully approached the edge and looked over. After a panicked moment on behalf of the animal he spotted it. A tiny circle of white, halfway down the distance, floated lightly, almost magically away from the front of the dam. One ferret, a tiny blip of furry protest, gently gliding on the wind to a resting place in the scrub brush and rocks below the dam.