“I’d rather know what happened to you,” Andy said to Trader.
Mrs. Crimm inferred from this that her handsome young dinner guest didn’t think for a minute that anything at all had happened to her. She always looked alluring and thoughtfully put together. It was irrational and Victorian for women to hide their bodies beneath thick layers of loose, long clothing. Andy’s attention would find its way down to the foot of the table any minute and linger to wander all over her. After dinner, the two of them would sneak up to the master suite and she would lock the door and say yes and mean it. Even if the governor came home, as long as she and Andy were quiet, he wouldn’t see them.
“Did you wander into a riot or a hurricane?” Andy’s attention remained on Trader, who went into a lengthy, breathless explanation, talking so fast that his words tangled and ran into each other midair.
“What on earth did he say?” First Lady Crimm asked Andy every few seconds. “I wonder if he’s had a stroke!”
Trader’s story could easily be summed up, although he took a long time to tell it and the facts changed like clouds. The gist was this: He arrived at the river at nineteen hundred hours and an African American male was fishing out by his bicycle. Trader greeted the man and they discussed the weather as Trader dumped the crabs and the trout overboard.
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Crimm interrupted. “He didn’t toss the crabs into the James, did he? Unless they can find their way back to the bay, they’ll die, sure as shooting.”
Trader rushed ahead with his story.
“He says there was a shooting, now that you mention it,” Andy translated. “A Lincoln with New York plates roared up and a Hispanic male in his twenties started firing a nine-millimeter Sig-Sauer pistol out the window and yelling obscenities. He shot the fisherman at very close range, probably in the chest, and the fisherman possibly caught on fire, possibly from burning gunpowder that was possibly fueled by a Bic lighter that was possibly in the fisherman’s shirt pocket.”
“How come he doesn’t know anything for sure?” Regina reached for another biscuit. “Didn’t he even check to see if the poor man just might still be alive or if he was really burning up? Why didn’t he try to put the fire out or call for help?” She fastened her eyes on Trader as she ate. “You just rush off and not try to help or anything? What kind of person are you?”
“He shit at me!” Trader raised his voice, not realizing that his sudden speech problem was due to post-traumatic stress that had somehow activated a genetic code that caused him to talk like a pirate.
“We don’t talk that way at the table!” Mrs. Crimm fired back at him.
“He shit at me again and again! I was afeared to get near him!”
“I can’t stand this.” Regina covered her ears. “Someone talk for him. Andy, just tell us what he says. And does he really mean to imply that the Hispanic was doing number two at him? Doing it or throwing it?” She scowled. “What does he mean that the gunman shit at him?”
“Regina!” her mother scolded her. “We don’t talk about bathroom habits at the dinner table!”
Trader started to make the point that he was talking about a shooting, when Andy cautioned him not to say the words shoot, shot, shooting, or shooter, but to simply simulate by mutely pointing his finger and firing it like a gun. This worked, and the First Family settled down and resumed eating as Trader claimed, through Andy, that he was certain the Hispanic was the one committing the hate crimes and was coming after the First Family next, so Trader had raced back to the mansion instantly to make sure all were safe and protected.
“He say he hated Crimm,” Trader blurted out. “And he thinks all Crimms should be put to death.”
“You sure he didn’t mean criminals, as opposed to Crimms?” Regina considered as she chewed. “Papa’s very much in favor of sending criminals to death row and is known for it.”