Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  The original structure was still intact, built as a hardware store before 1850. During the Civil War, the building was transformed into a whorehouse. You could still tell, too. Upstairs, comfortable seats had been built into the hallway walls as a waiting or entertaining area. The hotel had a lot of business in those days, people said. Grandma Happy said the story was that Union soldiers had taken over Lighthouse Island, which you could see from our apartment. Several hundred soldiers occupied the place, guarding captured Indians to turn them into soldiers for the Union army.

  The bride coming today from Tampa wealth had no idea about all this, of course. She was busy freaking out in the warmth of the hotel. “Ohmygod, where’s the other flower girl, Mother?” she said as I headed up the steps to the parlor. I walked past her and on to the bridesmaids’ room.

  “Hair stylist,” I announced. “Who’s first?” I spent two hours putting hot comb curls into straight hair, struggling to make ponytails out of short hair, tying ribbons into curls. No one even complained. When I was done, I left quietly so as not to have to redo any hair. I missed the wedding altogether. Laura walked three blocks from her office and grabbed me to head back down to the dock street. We’d hang with Madonna at the Hook Wreck, since the work day had come to a close. The bars usually sat dark and empty in late afternoon, only to pick up again in the evening.

  “Why would anybody get married on a Friday?” Madonna grumbled when we walked in. We found her washing the last of the glasses from the night before and restocking shelves. She wanted to go to the reception but couldn’t get a substitute bartender. We stood on the other side of the bar, elbows on the table, brushing our hands together to get warm. The sun had appeared, and the slant light glimmered coppery on the Gulf.

  “Did you see how drunk Mary was already at the funeral?” I said. “Her head was nodding. I shouldn’t—I’ve been there myself, but—”

  “So much for detox,” Laura said, settling onto a barstool.

  “Why don’t y’all have a Heineken, on that note,” Madonna said cheerily. She plopped down two bottles before us.

  “Well, maybe you can get one of the old timers to come around behind the bar to work. That way, you can sneak off to the reception later,” I offered Madonna. She opened herself a beer, illegal up in cities, but down on the islands, people looked the other way.

  “Yeah,” Madonna said. “I hear they’ve got decent music for a change. Some reggae band.” She took a swig. “I saw on TV that oil from the spill killed more than eight thousand birds. Lemme see if I can remember some of them—pelicans, terns, gulls, plovers, oystercatchers . . .” she said in her twang, counting on her fingers, holding up her hand to show a full hand. “Wonder what it’s killing underwater that we can’t see.”

  “I just read a university press release that at some point all that sunk oil won’t get eaten by the microbes,” Laura said. “That this will cause already low oxygen in the water to go lower. Bottom of the food chain has no oxygen.”

  “Not good,” I said. We all took a sip of beer and stared out at the Gulf. The surface, now gray as a chalkboard, always made me think of skin, waves of tree bark, this living and huge organism. We all sat glum.

  “Oh, boy, I say let’s forget the spill today. Get ready for the limbo,” Madonna said, dancing around behind the bar. She took a swig of beer. “Come on, you two—a toast to the limbo.” We toasted and murmured about how dance cures a lot of earthly ills.

  “You know, all those graves we walked by this morning?” Laura said, turning to me.

  “Yeah?” Which ones, I wondered. The clumps of old family plots, the fresher graves, the tiny tombstones that marked the African-American community?

  “The new ones, in the past decade, the people who all died of cancer?” Laura said. I nodded.

  Laura went on. “One thing in common. They all owned property out on the county road. A lot in that Magnolia Gardens area. I looked it up, compared county records to the newspaper obits. I’m just trying to see what’s going on, if it’s coincidence, or if it’s human made.”

  “Hey, nothing like making Rue’s day, Laura,” Madonna said. “It’s not like her dad and grandmother aren’t just up the river from there.”

  “But what could it be?” I said, watching the gray Gulf churn as the sun floated behind clouds. It seemed cleaner up there than down at St. Annes where all the motor oil and trash and human waste swirled.

  “Maybe a coincidence,” Laura shrugged. I wasn’t reassured.

  “For now, I’m just saying today has to get better,” I said. We all three clinked our bottles and cheered to that and to the limbo again.

  CHAPTER 8

  GOLD RIBBONS TRAILED over the blue carpeted floor of the Cove’s conference center room. Pumpkin satin dresses swished to reggae. We all were jumping along in a line dance. The party mood and Mac’s turning the thermostat to a higher temp was warming us. It half convinced us that snow weather wasn’t headed our way, and that we hadn’t just attended a funeral. Locals turned out after the ritual wedding party dances and speeches and cake cutting were done. The dark had descended, but the party was ardent with the desire to forget trouble and to dance.

  When Laura had moved to the islands, she’d wondered what the word “locals” meant. I’d shrugged and said, “I guess anybody who’s endured the place for longer than the rest of us can remember.”

  The word locals meant more. Locals fought to keep this way of life alive, or fought to stay alive in this place. They’d watched as wealthier folks had come with big boats and pushed the real estate market to the levels unreachable to locals and their children.

  Due to the difficult nature of the fishing industry, it was understandable that the locals had a word for folks who’d moved in—outsiders. But locals were slowly learning how to get what they needed from the wealth of the outsiders.

  The locals gave the outsiders something, too. A way of being. Locals knew how to party, how to relax urban rules. High school boys danced with old ladies, people actually stomped and danced loose-hipped on the floor. The outsiders appreciated this live-and-let-live on the island. This meant the two groups generally intermingled with no thought of consequence. Live for today.

  The bride and groom had sneaked off to change their clothes to escape for their honeymoon. The wedding guests had changed clothes and knew they’d be staying at the Cove Condos for the night. They had more champagne, punch, and food. I watched locals sneak in cheap bottles of vodka under jackets and spike the punch. Then I noticed the nearly full moon, crisp and white, rising in the velour black sky.

  Fletch, the grieving widower, arrived in his funeral clothes, bolo and all, and danced with some of the wedding party. Cooter would stop in once in a while, strut around like Barney Fife, and then disappear to swagger on Main Street. The weather had cleared. The opaque Gulf reflected the moon in silver ribbons. Beyond, on Spangle Island, only a shadow of craggy trees—pines, water oaks, palms—shapes that exposed the island.

  Dad had come to town for the festivities. He loped up and put his arm on my shoulder, nodded out towards the glistening Gulf, the night birds diving and rising again. The haunted island beyond. “This is why we moved here,” he said. He was always apologizing for raising me in a Cracker island town by touting its uncultivated beauty. He couldn’t help that my mother had died, leaving him at the helm to raise me. I’m sure he’d felt like the last sailor aboard ship to do the job of captain.

  “I’m so glad to be back,” I said. I’d moved a lot—to Gainesville for one degree, to North Carolina for a master’s, scholarships to Ireland, England, and Spain. Then to Jacksonville with the kids after I married. My husband Walter, when he was around, began to ridicule me as soon as Tay was born. It started with my family. My father, a Cracker bureaucrat; Grandma Happy, a crackpot. Then it was me. Flaky, eccentric, selfish, a gypsy. I was trying to forget. But I got the message—my choices about having kids were peripheral to his life. He had no interest in being a dad.

&nb
sp; When I was pregnant with Daisy, I had a recurring nightmare that I was trapped in a burning house. I couldn’t move my arms or legs to get the kids or budge to get myself out. Two months after Daisy was born, Walter had wanted me to get back to work. He started calling Tay, who was six at the time, a loser. My father had just had a heart attack and a double bypass. I left with the kids. In the middle of the night, so he couldn’t bully me into staying. I had come right home. Dad had welcomed me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Now, I wrapped my arm around my tall father’s waist. We were about the same height now, but I always thought of him as taller. “I love it here,” I said to him. “I’m glad my kids are growing up in St. Annes.”

  He smiled, read my thoughts and took a sip of Diet Coke. “I don’t think we’re gonna see oil. I have a feeling other things are sneaking into the water anyway. But we’ll just keep rolling, like always.” He squeezed my shoulder. I wondered what he meant, but I let it go for now in the momentary bliss.

  It hadn’t been easy. The child support payments had slowed to a halt, and they didn’t cover squat anyway. Then a second mortgage on the Panther Pit property. I moved to town to start the business. Local friends supported me, but they didn’t have much. Fishermen usually don’t. Neither do most small businesses. But I kept finding ways to keep afloat, like weddings, conventions, specials during tourist season. My nightmare now was the possibility that I’d lose my business ten years after losing the idea that a husband would contribute to the raising of his kids.

  “Fletch doesn’t look like he’s just buried his wife, does he?” Dad said. Fletch held Mary close as a slow song played. She tilted her head back and laughed.

  “This town is full of drama,” I said. “Always has been.”

  “That’s why I like the pit,” Dad said, glancing at his watch. “Almost nine, my bedtime. Your grandma wanted me to remind you to take your tonic.”

  “Oh, lord, yes, the tonic,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Tell her I drank it, okay?” He gave me a quick wink and headed out the door.

  The bride and groom fled from the downpour of sunflower seeds that the crowd threw, and the reception settled into a late party. The band cranked up, and the locals hit the punch. Most remaining wedding guests danced in a big knot of jumping around.

  I scanned the room. Tiffany shook hands with Randy. Soon, they had their heads together in deep conversation. Mac Duncan was sidling up to Tiffany, too. They started talking furiously, and Randy began to use his hands to explain something. Suddenly someone was tugging on my arm. Taylor and Daisy had shown up. I’d paid Tay to babysit his sister on a Friday night. A real sacrifice for Taylor. So I had agreed that they could walk down Main Street to the reception. I’d take Daisy after the reception was over, so Tay could do his teen thing at eleven.

  “Come on,” Daisy said, pulling my arm, wanting to dance. I put down my drink and danced. Gumby and Tinkerbell. People made room for my daughter. She didn’t know how good she was, but she took up the space naturally, spinning and swooping and tapping. Thank you, Trina, for the lessons, I thought. My eyes suddenly felt too full. I blinked back the teary pressure behind them.

  Tay noticed and pulled me out of the center. “Mom, you okay?” he said. I nodded.

  “It just hit me,” I said. “How much Trina did for you. That’s all.” I shrugged and stared at the floor.

  He put his arm around me and sighed. “Don’t cry here, okay?” I nodded. No scenes from Mom. A cardinal rule of teens.

  “I don’t like dramas, anyway,” I said. At least not those I was in. “Go on and take the night off. I’m fine.” He asked if I was sure. He thought he needed to assume the masculine role in our household. He looked world weary, and impatient. “Go on,” I insisted. “I’m fine. Have fun.” He skulked off, then thought better of it, tickling his sister in the sides as he left. The wedding party finally departed. But the locals stayed. Mac had asked the band to play on.

  Up walked Mac.

  “You look like you just stepped off the plantation,” I said.

  He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, unruffled. Weird, he had always treated me as if I was a sister, a daughter, and a lover, all at the same time.

  “Where’s that haircut you promised me?” he said.

  “You want it now?” I said. He nodded. He was one of those vain clients who had to get his hair cut every two-and-a-half weeks.

  “Now’s as good a time as ever,” he said. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks to cut it right now.” The locals were dancing, stumbling around. I had cut hair in many situations. One night at a late martini party on Live Oak Key for a bunch of bankers, I cut hair. The brother of the bank president had always worn long hair, and we convinced him to cut it all off. He did. The next day, he freaked out. But he never grew his hair long again. Once, I’d shaved the head of a friend who was losing her hair during chemo right there in the hospital. People sometimes gathered around when I cut hair in those situations. I looked at Mac, shrugged, said, “Let me finish this drink,” and then nodded. I owed him for this gig.

  I walked to the opposite side of the room and grabbed my bag. A sauced Mary was bending Randy’s ear. I checked my watch. Already ten, and Daisy was dancing with her school friends in a circle. “It’s just so sad,” Mary was saying. “I can’t imagine why she’d have done something like that.” She was wandering that path towards more sodden.

  “Hi, LaRue,” Randy said, so I stopped. He’d changed out of his funeral shirt and wore cargoes and guayabera shirt. He wore everything well, being lanky and broad-shouldered.

  Mary went on. “I heard you talking to Cooter about Afghanistan,” she said to Randy. “Don’t ever talk to him about that stuff,” she said. “He gets so mad. He blames it on Clinton.”

  “What?” Randy said, exhaling in exasperated disbelief.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Oh, you know,” she said, shifting unsteadily. “Bush.” She stared at nothing in front of her. “He doesn’t like Bush either.”

  “Which one?” I asked. “Former governor of Florida or his bro the former prez?”

  “Both. Governor. He says even Bush let the lefties put all these rules on us about the wetlands and regulations out the wazoo. Can’t anybody do business anymore. And now we have that, that . . . black for a president. That Muslim.” Her face had turned blotchy red, shouting the way people drinking do when they don’t know how loud they’ve become. “Cooter says people have been building houses out there by the St. Annes River since time began. Then here comes the government, telling us what to do. And saying they won’t pay us but ten percent of what we’d have made after this oil spill. Some say they did it on purpose.” Randy sighed, looked at the ceiling, nodded at me, and then walked off.

  “I wanted to thank you,” I said, calling after him. He stopped, turned, his jaw clenched. I didn’t get this guy anymore. “You’ve been so good to Tay. This is a hard time for him.”

  “He’s a great kid,” Randy smiled, glancing at me, and then back at Mary. “I enjoy his company.” End of conversation, unless I said something. I turned away from Mary and took a few steps toward Randy.

  “I’m about to cut Mac Duncan’s hair, but I was wondering. You walked away fast from that conversation.”

  “I don’t have to listen to all that about the wetlands, our fragile situation here, contaminants that are going into the water, especially now. Redneck conspiracy theories.” He shook his head. He took a sip of his drink.

  “Well, besides Mary, how’re you doing?” I said.

  “What do you care?” he said. Whoa. Hostility city, I thought. That was exactly what he’d said to me the night I told him I was moving to Gainesville to attend college. He’d had another year of high school. I’d told him I needed to get out of St. Annes and see the world, use the small minority scholarship I’d been offered. I had told him then I still loved him. “No you don’t. I’ll be stuck here, and you’ll be off partying, finding another boyfriend. Wha
t do you care?” he’d said as we swung in the kiddy swings looking at the blinking stars above the tiny county beach next to the Cove. Just beyond this hotel.

  That night, I’d wondered if he was bitter about his holy roller father. His dad couldn’t accept a son who didn’t have Pentecostal beliefs. His father would never understand Randy’s passion for the natural world, his need for science.

  But this wasn’t my problem now. I had two kids, two mortgages, and times were damn hard. He had money, a home, nobody who needed him. “What do I care?” I said. “Good question.” I pointed a finger at him, and stomped off to get my stylist bag. After a minute, I saw that he was bewildered at my behavior. I felt a little smug, and then bored with myself over it, so I wandered over to Mary, who stood by the piano. Alone, she stared at the wall across the room.

  “These are the best rolls and coffee I’ve ever tasted,” I lied. “Come on.” She followed me to the coffee table. Mac stood across the room sitting in a chair, waiting. He caught my eye, raised an eyebrow and beckoned, pointing to the chair. I nodded, waved, then poured Mary and myself a cup of coffee from the urn, and asked her if she took cream and sugar. Neither. I handed her a roll, which might soak up some alcohol. She watched with slow eyes. I took a bite of roll and a sip of coffee. “Really good.” I glanced over at Mac. I gave him the hang-on-a-second sign.

  Mary took a bite of roll. “Ummmm, delicious. You know, I haven’t eaten all day.”

  “Well, here’s to us,” I said, clinking my mug gently against hers. She took a swig as I did. I remember my college roommate doing this for me one night when I was hog-faced drunk, as she called it. We’d been playing pool in a Gainesville bar called Hogsbreath. I remembered following her every movement, and being glad I’d eaten the biscuits later.

  Now, I poured Mac a cup of coffee from the urn and set it on the table. I put my bag on my shoulder and walked over to Mac.