The Boat

by Jim Markson

  But maybe he had misunderstood. His communication with Erin was indeed different from anyone else he had ever met. In reflection, it was close to how he had communicated with John, both often knowing what the other was thinking, but keenly aware that uttering the words could give life to bad things that had not yet been born, and the pain caused by a single spoken word could never be taken back, no matter how many words of regret and sorrow might follow.

  “You are an idiot, plain and simple,” the biggest demon said. “You actually believe that girl could know what you are holding back, that she could read your twisted and warped mind? If she had any inkling of how the few alcohol-soaked brain cells you own worked, she would have swum into the shark’s mouth rather than get into that boat with you.”

  Another valid point, Mike conceded. So I should have talked more, tried to communicate better?

  “No dipstick, the more you communicate, the more she realizes how screwed up you are. You did the right thing and rode the pony for as long as you could; but sooner or later she was bound to realize you’re a loser who can’t hold a job for more than a couple of years, has no idea of what he wants from life, and cries when he gets drunk.”

  Shit, that last one hurt.

  The big hairy guy in the back of his mind was right, he was a loser. But his mind drifted back to some of his conversations with Erin, and the one thing he was sure of, was that he had been a good listener. He could recall the specific words she had said at almost any time they had been together. He listened hard, in rapt attention, to every syllable that fell from her mouth. He had taught himself to be a good listener when it came to interviewing suspects and witnesses, but with Erin, his focus came naturally, watching her lips move as he listened to her words like the lyrics to a favorite song. They may not have had many long conversations, and there were certainly conversations that had been avoided, but he had heard and understood everything she had said. He had also understood what she hadn’t said.

  And in all that time, he had never once suspected that her words, or anything else she did, were intended to conceal or mislead. And though he might be a loser, there were some things he was good at, and there were some things that were true. And in his whole life, he had never once been wrong about what was true, and never backed down from facing it. And that was why he was driving to Key Largo. They’d find out soon enough. The demons chortled but said nothing.

  XXII

  He pulled the jeep into the sandy parking lot and immediately spotted her standing on the patio of the small bungalow. She turned around at the sound of his car and looked directly at him. She was wearing the cotton sundress with blue and coral flowers, standing firm, arms crossed across her chest, and then one hand reaching up to cover her mouth.

  He turned the engine off, and they sat there staring at each other, both wondering what was going to happen next. She unfolded her arms and started to walk toward the car, a walk and disposition Mike had not seen before. She held up her hand, motioning for him not to get out of the car, upset.

  “Goddammit, Mike, I told you not to come. What are you doing here?” He was still in the car. Her voice was nothing he had ever heard before and he was stunned. She was angry, but more than angry; he thought she might be crying.

  “Don’t even get out!” she said firmly, but with a quiver in her voice. She looked away from his face, maybe looking at the door mirror, avoiding eye contact. But her voice was emphatic. “I mean it, Mike! I told you not to come. Get the fuck out of here and go back home.”

  He put his hand on the door handle. He wanted to run to her, to hold her. But he had no idea what was going on. He quickly scanned the property, looking for another man, looking for some clue as to what was going on. Why wasn’t she wearing her cutoffs? Where was Jeep?

  “Do not get out of the car!” she yelled. She was crying. “Can’t you understand what I’m saying … get the fuck out of here … I do not want to see you!” She was looking away but pointing at U.S. 1. “Just go—leave now.”

  He sat there, looking at her, completely lost and wanting nothing more than to fix whatever he had done wrong. “Oh, this is even better than we thought it would be,” the big demon said with glee. “Why don’t you rush into the house and find her new boyfriend with his pants down!” Tears began to fall from Mike’s eyes as the demon continued, “C’mon, cry baby, be a man; go settle this shit right now!”

  Mike sat there looking at Erin, as lost as he had ever been in his life, and she refused to look at him. He turned the engine over, put the jeep in reverse, and backed out the same way he had come in.

  XXIII

  U.S. 1 is a divided highway, with a one hundred-foot patch of grass and gravel separating north and southbound traffic. Mike was forced to turn right coming out of the parking lot, traveling south but headed nowhere. Deep breaths he told himself. But while he had not known what was going to happen, he had been mentally prepared for anything, and was able to control his physiological reactions as a result.

  He didn’t make a U-turn at the first divide in the highway but continued south, pulling into the parking lot of a liquor store five minutes later. As he walked to the store’s front door, his mind was humming like an overworked transformer, and yet it was almost like he was not thinking at all. He pulled hard on the door and was surprised when it did not spring open. He stepped back and noticed it was dark inside. He looked around, still not comprehending, then he looked inside again. It finally dawned on him that it was still mid-morning. He looked at the sign with the hours of operation and realized the establishment would not be opening for another hour. As he walked back to his car, he got the feeling that he was missing something. He stopped and checked his watch, looked back at the store, then got in his car and headed south again. Surely, he thought, there had to be someplace nearby that catered to the needs of local drunks.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled into another empty parking lot, this time on the other side of the highway. He walked to the front door again, put his hand to his forehead to read the opening hour, and was once more disappointed. He stood on the step of the building for a moment, considering whether he should just wait in the car or continue the hunt. He decided on the latter and, as he reflexively crossed the median returning to his southward trajectory, he noticed the vehicle pulling out of a nearby store and also turning southward. He noticed it on a level that was below consciousness, below true perception, and although, later on, he would not know exactly where he had seen the car, he would know that he had seen it before.

  Ten more minutes south, Mike pulled into Little Willie’s Bar & Grill, which was opening for lunch. He sat at the bar and ordered a double of Jameson Whiskey and a Budweiser. The bartender looked at him twice but said nothing. Mike was not in a hurry and sipped the whiskey, enjoying the feel as it slid down his throat. He took in the rest of the bar as he took his first gulp of the beer. It was a dump and he was the only customer. Nice to be home, he thought.

  On his third round, a drunk who had stumbled in from the morning daylight a few minutes prior was sitting next to Mike and asking for a few spare dollars. The bartender watched out of the corner of his eye as Mike slid the guy a twenty and told him to enjoy. A few rounds later, Mike wandered back to the bathroom and was in full stream when the bum came in. For a drunk, he was pretty fast; the filet knife was inside of Mike’s shirt and pressing against his back before he could stop pissing.

  “You want to keep your guts on the inside, just stay still and don’t make any sudden moves,” the guy said as he lifted the wallet out of Mike’s back pocket.

  It was too much to take, but Mike couldn’t summon up the energy to do anything about it. Maybe it was fate that he should bleed to death on the dark, piss-soaked floor of this shithole. Just do it,” he thought to himself, still holding his pecker in his right hand. Do it, and let’s be done.

  The door of the bathroom creaked as it opened and, whoever it was, they were apparently quicker than the drunk. As Mike stood there wit
h his dick in his hand, he heard a quick swishing sound followed by a solid thud, and then the drunk staggered and crumbled onto the floor. Not a word said, Mike tucked himself back into his pants and turned to see Rusty standing there with a small leather blackjack in his right hand. Mike looked down at the drunk lying still on the floor and back up at Rusty, who was slipping the blackjack into the back of his pants. Rusty bent over and pulled the wallet out of the drunk’s hand and tossed it to Mike.

  “Some cop you are. I hope you’re better when you’re sober. Let’s go,” Rusty said as he turned and headed out of the bathroom. Mike followed, still not having said a single word. Rusty nodded at the bartender on the way out. “He’ll be okay, but someone needs to clean him off the floor; owe you one.”

  Mike continued to follow as Rusty exited the building through a side door Mike had not noticed. Rusty said something in Spanish to a woman in the parking lot. Mike tried to pierce the haze caused by the opposing forces of whiskey and bright sunlight; it was the mother of the burnt kid, she was wearing a dishwasher’s apron. “Give me your keys,” Rusty said quietly and, when Mike complied, he tossed them to the woman and spoke some more in Spanish.

  “Pretty good timing back there in the bathroom,“Mike said as they pulled onto U.S. 1 and headed to Rusty’s house. Rusty nodded his head slightly but said nothing.

  They pulled under the tree in the front yard and walked into the house. “Have a seat,” Rusty said, motioning toward the kitchen table. He pulled a plastic container out of the refrigerator and put half of the contents into a bowl. He put the bowl in the microwave and set the timer for a minute, then turned around and looked at Mike without saying anything. The silence was as bright and overbearing as sunrise reflecting off a flat Florida bay.

  He put the bowl in front of Mike along with a glass of water and some hot sauce. “Chicken with rice and beans. It’s delicious just as it is, but sometimes you need the Tabasco when you’ve lost your taste. There’s a bunk in there,” Rusty said, pointing to the first door in the hall leading out of the kitchen. “Sleep it off after you finish. I’ve got to go, but Maria will have someone drop your car off, probably before you wake up.”

  He continued to look at Mike. But his eyes reflected no judgment, betrayed no plans for lectures about lessons learned and moving forward. His eyes … green and brown? Or maybe aged into gray like the whiskers on his face? They just observed, perhaps with empathy, yet always with a clarity that came only with age. They saw neither the past nor the future, only the present.

  “She said she didn’t want to see me again.”

  “You can’t control other people,” Rusty said quietly. “Hell, most of us can’t even control our own selves.”

  “You look like your lookin’ for advice, so this is what I’ll tell ya: Ain’t no good gonna come from you hanging around here. Get back home, get to work, stay busy, get into a routine, and start praying for help. Be good and be patient, and sometimes—not always, but sometimes—things have a way of working themselves out. That’s all I got.”

  Rusty headed for the front door. “What about my boat?” Mike shouted.

  “Last thing you need in this type of storm is that boat and the history that goes with her. I’ll see to her. If you want, I’ll bring her up to you after a while.” The door closed, and the truck engine started and faded away. Mike slowly processed half the bowl of food with a few slugs of water, walked down the hall, kicked off his shoes, and passed out on the bunk.

  XXIV

  Mike woke up at 3:00 pm. The house was quiet except for the branches of an old banyan tree brushing against the roof. He put on his shoes and walked to the front porch. His jeep was under the tree, and he found the keys under the seat. He cranked the engine and sat back in the driver’s seat, considering whether to head north or south.

  He put the jeep in gear and headed toward the marina. He wasn’t going to leave the boat behind. He would do it quietly and quickly, unnoticed if possible, and would explain only if he had to. No matter what had happened, surely Erin couldn’t object. She would see what he was doing, and there would be no need for explanation; she knew how much the boat meant to him. She would be happy to see him take it away.

  The jeep seemed to drive itself, knowing the way and loyally proceeding ahead with both dread and resolved determination. As he rounded the curve just before the marina, Mike saw the car pulling out of the parking lot and immediately slowed down. The black Lincoln Navigator was so common in suburbs of South Florida, it would almost serve as traffic camouflage. But down in the Keys, it stood out, and immediately caught Mike’s eye.

  “Gut instinct” is perhaps one of the most amorphous terms in the English language. Survivors used it when describing a premonition or perception that facilitated their survival. The wounded often used it to explain something they ignored prior to being injured. Cops used it when they suspected something but didn’t have proof to substantiate their claims. Spiritual leaders described it when they talked about faith. Mike had never heard anyone deny the existence of the experience but, then again, the lost and the dead never got to throw in their two cents on the issue.

  He did not turn into the marina but, instead, began following the vehicle based on what could only be described as gut instinct. He did not recognize the car, but somehow it seemed familiar. In the seconds it took him to drive past the marina parking lot, he had already come to regret his decision. It made no sense, and he chided himself as Rusty’s words echoed in the back of his mind.

  What if it was her new boyfriend, in his brand-new shiny pimpmobile; what was Mike going to do about it? Probably a fucking lawyer, he thought. But what would it help to know what he looked like, what he did, or where he lived? Erin couldn’t have been any clearer and if there was any hope left, it wasn’t to be found in following this car leaving her parking lot. I should’ve just gotten the boat… I’d probably have it in the back of the jeep by now… He wondered if Erin was in the car.

  There were three cars between them as they drove southward in the left lane of the four-lane divided highway. The big black behemoth was easy to spot in traffic dominated by smaller cars, mostly of a lighter color to deflect the Florida sun. He let the gap increase until there were five or six cars between them. There was only a narrow strip of land on either side of the highway, populated with high-priced waterfront property of one kind or the other, and the Navigator would have been hard to lose even for an untrained surveillant. If Erin was in the car, it was unlikely she’d ever see the jeep that far back in the mirror.

  Leaving Key Largo, they drove past Tavernier and then through Plantation Key. As they moved through Islamorada, Mike wondered if they might be heading over the long bridges to the airport at Marathon; maybe the guy had his own airplane. Or maybe they were headed all the way to Key West.

  With every passing mile, Mike’s gut instinct slowly gave way to an appreciation of how stupid and desperate his actions were. Just as he resolved to turn the jeep around, he saw the Navigator move into the left lane and the left turn signal come on. Mike drove past the car as it turned into the Holiday Isle Resort and Marina. He memorized the car’s tag number as he passed in the right lane and crossed over Whale Harbor channel before he pulled into the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “What now, Sam Spade?” the demons in his head cackled. “You are such a pussy. You follow them for forty minutes and then, when you get the opportunity to confront them, you just drive by wide-eyed, like the lost little boy that you are.”

  “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more pitiful…” the big one said. “Do something … anything … run away if you have to, but it’s embarrassing to see you keep coming back to be bitch-slapped like a eunuch. Here’s an idea sissy, why don’t you just drive the jeep off the bridge. No one will know the truth, and we can finally move on to someone more worthy.”

  Mike picked up his cellphone and hit the speed dial number four.

  “Hillsborough Sheriff,” the female v
oice answered.

  “Ruthie?” Mike asked.

  “Hey, Mike, what’s up?”

  “Can you run a tag for me? Didn’t make a firm copy, but I think it’s DVQ 399, might be DVO 399.”

  “Yep, stand by. First one is a 2010 Lexus RX registered to Richard Walker of Coral Gables, and the second is a 2014 Navigator registered to Prestige Auto Rental in Davie.”

  “Nope, one last try, maybe DVQ 899?” Mike asked.

  “That one is a 2002 Toyota Corolla registered to Tamara DeMathis,” the dispatcher responded.

  “Ah, screw it, I’ll go double-check. It’s nothing urgent. Thanks, and have a good weekend girl.”

  It was a precaution he had learned from his first field training officer after entering on duty with Hillsborough PD. If you didn’t have a strong justification for why you were tracing the tag number, always build in some wiggle room in case someone asked somewhere down the road. The lack of clarity in the number would leave plenty of room for doubt and lack of memory should it turn out to be important later on. Chances were Ruthie had never entered the inquiry into the logs, but they’d still be there in the computer if anyone ever went that far.

  The Lincoln Navigator he had been following was rented from a company about an hour north of Miami. “Holy shit, stop the presses!” The voices in his head laughed. “Detective Kelly has identified the vehicle as a rental. The mystery is solved, and the sleuth has won! I’m sure now that someone else won’t be parting his girlfriend’s legs this very evening; unless, of course, he is parting those tan legs at this very moment as Detective Kelly sits in his car, flaccid as a baby.”

  He had known it was stupid three seconds after he started following the car. Rusty was right, no good was to come of his hanging around. The thought of Rusty somehow strengthened him. He took a deep breath, and, without his knowledge or permission, his right hand made the sign of a cross over his body. He headed north on U.S. 1 and kept his eyes straight ahead as he passed the Holiday Isle Resort and Marina. He would get his boat and go home, leaving the past to the past.