by Jim Markson
“Thank you; you sure showed up at the right time,” Mike said.
“You’re welcome,” Erin responded, still looking at him, both being careful with their words.
“Can see you know your way around boats. That was a nice parking job when you picked me up.”
“My daddy was a shrimper out of Pascagoula; grew up on his boats. He drank a lot, and I learned how to fix things when they broke, and how to drive when he was sleepy. Joined the Navy and got formal training as a marine mechanic. Haven’t yet run into anything that floats that got the best of me.” She might consider the yacht hers, Mike thought, but there wasn’t a chance in hell she owned it. She could serve as a one-person crew for the beast, but she had never been around the type of money it took to buy a boat this size. The yacht was only four or five years old Mike estimated, probably worth close to two million. What the hell was she doing?
“That little boat you’ve got … ain’t much to her, but she’s a damn fine boat. Sits pretty in the water, even prettier in the rough stuff, and tougher than a mule. You build her?”
“No, my brother did,” he responded, looking at the food, another topic taken off the table.
“Well, he did as good a job as I’ve ever seen.” Mike looked up and smiled in genuine appreciation, but said nothing, not wanting the conversation to go any further in that direction.
“Where you headed to?” he asked, unable to suppress his curiosity. It was more than his reflexive law enforcement training; there was something about Erin that intrigued him, one of the few people he wanted to know better. Of course, there was almost certainly some criminal aspect to the story, and he couldn’t help but try to figure it out.
“Why, you want to come along, Detective?” she asked, deflecting the question without hesitation and with a skill and confidence that continued to surprise him.
“No, I’m gonna finish the course,” he said.
“That’s what I figured. You know, the race—I’m sorry, the ‘challenge’, officially ends tomorrow. You’ve made it about two thirds of the way. Only way you’re gonna make it in time for ceremonies is if I lend you one of my jet skis and a five gallon drum of gas.”
Mike looked at her and smiled, liking the way she busted his balls. “Yeah, I know.”
“Well, I can hang around for another day if you want to R&R—crash out in that comfy guest cabin.”
“Appreciate the offer, but if I can just get my water jugs filled up, I’d like to finish this thing one way or the other.”
“Figured that too,” she said. “I already cleaned them old milk jugs out and put some fresh water in ’em.” Mike smiled; he liked this girl.
“One thing, though,” Mike said. “Been thinking about what you said about being careful about what questions I ask. You don’t have to answer … but can you tell me what you were doing out there that night—the backstroke to Mexico thing?”
Erin looked at him without resentment, assessing him, weighing probabilities and consequences, guarded but unafraid. She tilted her head to the side. “Sooner or later, Mike, you’ll lose your curiosity about things like that. Sometimes things just happen, there isn’t any logic or meaning … it isn’t good or bad, it’s just life. But for now, are you asking as a cop or a friend?”
Mike also weighed his answer. He was a cop, there was no denying it. It was all he had ever done. But right now, he was mostly a lost sailor. “Friend,” he said.
Erin breathed deeply. “Like I said, I’m a good marine mechanic. Do a lot of freelance work at a reasonable rate and don’t ask too many questions. Had repaired a diesel fuel injector and agreed to go along with the owners for a check-out ride. They got high as hell and started talking about how they got this expert in concealed compartments, how much money they’re gonna make bringing shit in from Colombia. Same time, they apparently forget I’m the mechanic that fixed their boat, start thinking I’m a whore, thinking they can buy me with enough money.” Erin took a deep breath and looked up and to the left, recalling the incident of only a few nights prior.
“Well, they wouldn’t take no for an answer—ain’t the first time. Started to grab me and ripped off my shirt. I hit one of them good, hard as I could, but he was too high to go down, just started swinging at my head. They were pushing me up against the wall in one of the cabins, and there was a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall—like a gift. I cracked one of them in the head, and the other one goes crazy, pulls a gun out and puts it in my face. Kicked him hard enough between the legs to raise him up off the ground. I bolt for the door, and he starts shooting behind me. As soon as I hit open air, I jump into the water and start to swim … that asshole still firing the gun into the water.”
“You know the rest of the story; there was a squall line moving through, rough as hell. I’m a pretty good swimmer but had no idea where the hell I was. Next thing I know, you come sailing by talking to someone who ain’t there and looking to bury your boat in the storm.”
Mike looked at her but said nothing. She looked right back, no sadness, no regret, no remorse. Things happened; there wasn’t always any logic or redeeming moral to the way things unfolded. He finished up the Pedialyte and groaned at the taste, washing it down with the last of the Perrier.
Well, he thought, I guess that explains the boat. I wonder what she’s going to do with it. He had been in law enforcement all his life, and knew he was supposed to say something about going to the cops, prosecuting the two guys who tried to rape her. Convince her that, if she didn’t help catch and prosecute these guys, they’d do it to some other girl. But he couldn’t; he just didn’t have it in him.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” is all he said.
She smiled. “You already did. You picked me up, remember? I’ve also charged about five grand to your credit card. If things work out, I should be able to pay you back within the month.”
They both smiled, genuinely happy for the first time in a long time, so much understanding and meaning in words never spoken. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you again, Erin. And you’re right, the lobster salad was the best I’ve ever had.”
“And it’s been a pleasure to see you again, Detective Kelly. I hope you don’t kill yourself. I think I’d like to get to know you.”
Mike got up and walked down to the launch platform. Erin handed him a long-sleeved T-shirt, not unlike hers. “You gotta watch the sun; long-term effects are deadly,” she said, chuckling. He put it on, pushed the boat off the platform, and stepped in.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Where the fuck am I?”
“Where do you think you are?” she asked, laughing.
“Outside of Chokolosee Bay?” he said weakly.
“You’re ten miles south of there … missed the first checkpoint. You’re outside of Starter Bay.”
Erin watched as he hoisted the sail and the little boat eagerly jumped to attention, heading southeast true and steady. “Hey, Sailor,” she yelled as he checked his gear, “there’s a GPS under your center plank—use it!”
XIV
The next two days passed without incident for Mike. He laughed at himself and his feeling of invincibility with his new GPS. How could this little machine make so much difference? Four little batteries somehow powering magical communications with sister machines in man-made orbs hovering 12,000 miles above earth … was it even possible? Or was it simply the result of faith in a new mysticism known as science? Whatever it was, having the little machine tell him exactly where he was on the surface of planet Earth inspired confidence, a sense of knowledge and well-being, a feeling that he was headed in the right direction. He liked the feeling, and he thought of Erin every time he pulled it out and fired it up.
Erin had stored two additional gallon jugs of water, for a total of six, but he only had twenty miles to go before he rounded the southern tip of the Everglades and pulled into the last checkpoint of the race, at Flamingo. There was a shortcut, through Whitewater Bay, but he had seen enough of those inland waterway
s to last him a lifetime and, even with the GPS, he would be entering only under the direst of circumstances. Besides, he was not in a hurry. The adventure had been like a roller coaster ride and, right now, he was back to enjoying the ride.
A few hours after leaving Erin, he spied a sand beach and pulled the boat up before the sun went down. He sat on the center plank of his boat, looking out at the water and up at the stars, and thought maybe he was going mad—there was no angst, no desire for anything more, no concern about the next day—even the no-see-ums seemed to leave him at peace as the light breeze swept the smoke of the fire out over the waves.
He was up before sunrise, and the weather stayed fair. The movement of wind, known as a breeze, was something rarely noticed as you went about normal life, much less truly appreciated. It was an invisible thing, manifest only in its movement of other stuff, a leaf dancing sideways as it fell from a tree. A breeze meant nothing as you stormed along an interstate in a 2,000-pound mass of gasoline-powered steel. But all alone, in a small boat sitting atop hundreds of miles of ever-changing water, a breeze, and a sail to catch it in, meant all the difference in the world.
He pulled the sail on a beam reach, now heading due south until the point where he would round the southwest corner of the Everglades at Cape Sable and head almost due east toward Flamingo. He stretched the fingers in his hands, looking at the oars and thinking of the days he had spent laboring in the suffocating stillness. The blisters had busted and formed deeper calluses, ready for the next time they were called upon. But now the wind blew him along, and the boat skipped along the tops of the little waves, preferring the sounds of straining lumber to the creaking of oar locks.
He rounded Cape Sable and arrived at Flamingo well before evening. There was no sign of anyone associated with the EcoLoco challenge. Those who had finished were recovering and swapping stories down in the keys. Those who had surrendered, or broken down along the way, had long ago packed up their gear and headed back to wherever they came from, swearing to beat the challenge next year, or accepting the fact that this particular challenge was not meant for everyone.
Flamingo was a particularly crappy shanty town, even in its heyday. The area had been occupied by overly optimistic white folks since the 1890s, and there had been minor booms associated with prohibition, and again when rumors spread that Henry Flagler planned to build a railroad bridge to the Florida Keys. But dreams faded quickly to the reality of the oppressive heat, swarming mosquitoes, and the need to focus on survival in this hostile environment. Its inclusion as part of a National Park in 1947 had brought the area some status and tourism trade. Nowadays, folks came to camp, fish, and bird-watch during the more clement months, but no one would call it a popular destination.
Mike would have rented an air-conditioned hotel room for the evening, but the park’s lodge had been destroyed by a hurricane in 2005 and was never rebuilt; the closest lodging better than his boat was a fifty-mile drive on the only road in and out of Flamingo. So he tasted the water coming out of the hose by the fish cleaning table and made sure it was safe to drink. He rinsed out his jugs and filled them back up again. He pushed off and set back out to the mangroves farthest from shore, where the breeze tended to persist and the insects weren’t as bad. It was his ninth night sleeping with his boat.
A direct sail across Florida Bay from Flamingo to Marathon Island in the Florida Keys was about twenty miles. But it was truly open water and, even with the confidence derived from his new GPS, Mike thought it a foolhardy proposition in a nine-foot boat. At sunrise he headed south by southwest, hoping to make land at Islamorada or one of the Keys just south. There were islands between him and his destination along this route, and these were not just mangroves, but real sand and coral Terra Firma Islands. In the event of bad weather or nightfall, he would be able to find relative safety on short notice at any of them.
He landed at the southern end of Islamorada well before sunset and tied up at the dock of the Islander Resort. The security guard took one look at Mike and the boat and forcefully told him in heavily accented Creole not to bother getting out of the boat. Shaking his hand as Mike secured the bowline, the guard said, “You not welcome here. Find someplace else.” Mike lied and said he had reservations, which appeared to be a first for the guard, who was now not sure what to do. He pulled his personals bag out of the boat and climbed up the dock. With a big smile, he shook the guard’s hand and said “Keep an eye on her. I’ll be right back,” walking off like he knew where he was going. He found the reception desk and rented a room for one hundred seventy-nine dollars with his remaining credit card. The young clerk gave him a parking tag to hang on his mirror, and he walked back to the boat and stuck it between the mast and the main halyard. He pushed a ten-dollar bill into the security guard’s hand, saying, “Make sure there are no scratches when I get her back,” and walked to his room.
The shower felt great and he longed to fall asleep in a real bed, but knew he should eat before he called it a day. There was an outdoor veranda that overlooked the bay and, out of habit, he requested a table on the far side, where his back would be to a wall and he had a good view of the other diners. The shrimp appetizer was overcooked, but the blackened grouper was fresh and perfectly prepared. It made him think of Erin, and he wondered what she was doing, mocking himself at the frequency with which he found himself thinking of her.
Another day and the trip would be done. Nothing had really changed, but somehow, everything seemed different. He sipped his beer and loitered over the fact that he had no pressing desire to get drunk. Eating was no longer a chore; he tasted and enjoyed the grouper, appreciating the spices, considering the effort that had gone into catching and preparing the fish. He saw the sun setting for the spectacle it was, perceived the breeze that no one else felt, knew the phase of the moon without looking.
What a strange journey it had been. He’d had a plan when he had started, but now he was happier without one. He had been run over, capsized, lost his gear, lost his way, sailed with porpoises, faced off with a raccoon, been sped out to sea in a lightning storm, found a girl bobbing in the ocean, had a gun pointed at his head, damn near died of dehydration, dined on fresh lobster in a magnificent yacht—and it would all be over in another day. What would happen when the adventure was over, when he returned to his job? Had anything really changed?
Was there a lesson to be learned? A revelation to be carried from this point forward? A way to make sense of the real world and enjoy his remaining days? He ate his grouper slowly, relaxed but still searching. He thought back to Erin’s comments, about losing his curiosity, that things didn’t always happen for logical reasons, didn’t necessarily make sense, sometimes shit just happened. It reminded him of advice he had received somewhere along the way; he couldn’t remember from whom or when, but basically, it was that some things were beyond your grasp, and trying to understand them only brought unhappiness. Oh, yeah, he thought, remembering one very important lesson, you can only truly appreciate the value of a GPS when you have truly been lost. He leaned back in his chair and watched the last of the sun melt into Florida Bay.
XV
Mike awoke on the eleventh day of his own personal EcoLoco challenge stiff and cold. The hotel bed had been soft, but he had grown accustomed to the bottom of his boat, and the curves of the memory foam stretched his relaxed joints and muscles in ways they were no longer used to. And while he had prayed for relief from the heat for over a week, he now found the conditioned air of the hotel room as cold as a freezer. He loved the toilet, however, and whispered his newfound affection to the adjacent roll sitting on the sink.
As he worked out the kinks in his joints and paid the bill, there was life in his steps. He hadn’t resolved a single issue in his reflections the prior evening, but somehow felt like he knew something, just hadn’t realized yet what it was that he knew. He apologized to the boat for leaving her alone the prior evening and felt bad as he fetched out three empty beer cans someone had thrown in h
er hull during the night. He checked and made sure his precious GPS was still there, chiding himself for not bringing it in last night, but he didn’t bother to turn it on as he didn’t anticipate needing it on this, the final day.
The trip to Marathon Key was approximately twenty miles, and his plan was simple: parallel the western side of the Overseas Highway, also known as U.S. 1, as it wound its way through a narrow band of islands known worldwide as the Florida Keys. The dangerous parts would be the many cuts in between the islands on the way down, where cars soared across on concrete bridges, but little boats had to worry about tides, currents, fishing lines from the bridges, and bigger boats. The water on the west side was shallower and much safer than that on the east, but still deeper than most Mike had faced during the trip. The vortex of water being pushed through the cuts made each its own individual hazard, but none likely to be as strong as the force he felt at Port Charlotte.
By 1400 hours he saw a plane landing at an air strip running parallel to U.S. 1 and knew it was Marathon. He sailed into the first inlet past the airport and tied up at the Coconut Cay Resort where, nine days earlier, the first of the EcoLoco challengers had arrived to cheers of family and friends, and three days earlier, the last of official finishers had limped in burnt, sore, tired, and thirsty. No one was there to greet Mike now, but it didn’t make a bit of difference. He climbed up three feet of dock ladder, sat back down on the dock, smiling as he looked at the little boat and said to her, “Well done.”
He rented the cheapest room available and asked about local rental car agents in case there was some deal he hadn’t found on the Internet before he left; there wasn’t. He called U-Haul, and they agreed to bring the smallest moving van they had down from Key Largo for a two hundred dollar surcharge. “Welcome to the Keys, and enjoy the view,” Mike thought. “You’ll be paying for it.” He stripped down to his rugby shorts and went back down to the boat, pulling it up on the edge of the hotel’s tiny man-made beach. He rinsed her off with a hose, tied down the sail, mast, and oars, and threw away all the remaining perishables. He held the GPS in his hand, still marveling at how he had failed to truly understand its value. Trip’s done, he thought. I have to remember to get you back to your owner.