Free Son of Fletch by Gregory McDonald Page B

again?”
    “Neither one of you has said to me, simply, ‘Hello. How are you?’”
    Carrie asked, “Did you or did you not arrive here out of a storm in the middle of the night, carryin’ three desperadoes with you?”
    “Still…”
    “I didn’t hear that you exactly knocked politely on the front door and came in all full of smiles sayin’, ‘Hello, I’m your son, Jack. How are you?’ Did you?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Besides,” Carrie answered in a milder tone, “generally, Fletch doesn’t hold much stock in simple questions. He says, when you ask a question all you get is an answer to the question, not the truth. He says, to get the truth it’s best to wait and watch and listen.”
    “Oh, yes,” Jack said. “I have heard that about him.”
    “From your mother?”
    “Yes. And others.”
    “Did your mother love Fletch?”
    “Yes.”
    “Does she still?”
    “Yes. And me.”
    “What does she say about your bein’ put in prison? I’ll bet she’s proud.”
    Jack turned his face away from her. “I’ll bet she is.”
    “Well.” Carrie sighed. “One thing is sure about Mister Fletch. We’re goin’ to understand all this before we’re done, or die tryin’. And that includes you.”
    Jack asked, “Why don’t you ask me how I feel?”
    “About what?”
    Jack lifted his arms from his sides. “About everything.”
    “Oh, yes,” Carrie said. “Fletch calls you
the tactile generation
. For short, he calls you the
scabpickers
. What you know, what you do isn’t important, only what you
feel
. Well, let me tell you somethin’, boy: what you feel is important, all right, but there isn’t enough time on earth to know or care about all that you feel.”
    Jack stared at her. “Suppress feelings?”
    “No, of course not,” Carrie said. “Take a potshot at a woman cop because you feel like it. Maybe you’ll get to go on a teevee talk show so you can talk about your feelin’s. For fifteen minutes some people will say, ‘Poor you,’ and you’ll still end up in the jailhouse.” More gently, she said, “So how do you feel?”
    “Weird,” Jack said. “I just met my father for the first time. I just met you. I see this place where you live.” He waved one arm. “You’ve got horses that sneak up behind you in the dark of the night and try to nibble the hair off your head! You’ve got goddamned oil paintings on the walls of your kitchen!”
    “E=MC 2 !” Carrie expostulated. “Don’t you swear in front of me!”
    “Swear! He had me put my ‘traveling companions,’ as he calls them, in a gully in a raging storm. He killed one and beat up the other two as surely as if he took a bat to them, and he never lifted a finger. My father!”
    “Scared?” Carrie asked.
    Jack took a deep breath. “I knew what I was thinking when I headed this way.”
    “Well,” Carrie said, “I surely don’t, but I’ve had enough of you and your feelings for now. We’ve got things to do.”
    “Yeah,” Jack said. “Clothes.”
    “There’s a pair of huge overalls somewhere there in the back closet, left here by a hired hand the whole county couldn’t afford to feed. Sent him to Kansas. Maybe if we split them down the sides we can make them fit that nasty-lookin’ thing asleep on the grass outside feedin’ the ticks and fleas.”
    Jack looked through the window. “He’s not feedin’ anything.”
    “Oh, yes he is.”
    “He said something about a suit for Kriegel. Shirt. Necktie.”
    “I’ll take care of that,” Carrie said. “I’ll go wake Kriegel up. I look forward to givin’ him his breakfast. How’d you like that country ham you had for breakfast?”
    “Salty.”
    “You want some more?”
    “Not just now, thanks.”
    “Okay,” Carrie said. “You can tell me how you feel about that ham later.”

9
    B
y golly, Ms
. Carrie,” Fletch said, bounding into the dining room where Professor The Reverend Doctor Kris Kriegel breakfasted in state. “We’ve never had house-guests so