Tropical Depression

by Laurence Shames

  "Murray," she said. She said it like his name was some unserious but bothersome disease, like common diarrhea.

  "I'm in Florida, Franny. I'm in Key West."

  His wife made no reply. She was standing in her garden, a cordless phone cradled on her shoulder. She'd been working on a watercolor of spiky philodendrons. Now she watched the paint dry in the sun. It was only a so-so picture; Franny knew that and didn't mind. She was an amateur and liked it that way. She'd moved to Florida, in fact, to be an amateur, to wear gauzy cotton smocks and Tahitian-looking head-wraps and flowing colorful dresses with sandals. She ate health food, attended openings and charity events, wrote letters to congressmen, gave money to liberal and environmental causes. She dated sometimes and had taken the occasional suitor to her bed. But she was more or less content alone, painting watercolors, going to stretch class, meeting with her book club to discuss long novels.

  "Franny, listen," Murray resumed, "a lot is going on with me, I thought you oughta know. I've quit the business. I've left Taffy."

  "What took you so long?"

  The Bra King nestled backwards on the sofa, buoyed by pillows and his wife's throaty sarcasm. "I lost some time to a bad depression."

  "Murray, you indulge your moods too much. Like everything else."

  "Indulgence?" said the Bra King. "This is no indulgence, Franny. I'm on Prozac."

  If the statement was made for shock value, it failed entirely.

  "Half the people I know are on Prozac," Franny said. "It's like the perfect Gulf Coast breakfast: Prozac and prunes."

  Murray chortled softly. "Ah," he said. "Same old Franny."

  This nettled his ex. "No," she said, "not the same old Franny. Franny has changed. Which, if you think about it, Murray, is really kind of funny. I never looked for change. Maybe I should have, but I never felt the need. You're the one with the big talk about change, with your midlife crisis, your dopey shiksa. But what did you change, Murray? The person you slept with. That's it. Same work. Same friends. Same attitude. My life, you turn upside down. Your own life, you really didn't have the nerve to change at all."

  "So I'm a little slow," said Murray. "I'm changing now."

  There was something in the way he said it that surprised his former wife. She paused, then sat down in a garden chair and tried with half-success to coax her voice to a less combative tone. "Well good for you," she said.

  Murray kicked his shoes off, lay back with his wife's voice as though with her imperfect and marvelously familiar flesh. "Franny," he said. "You hate me, Franny?"

  "I don't think about it very often. Not anymore."

  "I do," Murray said. "I think about it all the time. I think about how screwing up our marriage is the dumbest thing I ever did. Dumb. Brainless. Wimpy. Idiotic . . ."

  His wife seemed content to let him continue.

  ". . . Weak-willed. Childish. Mediocre . . . Franny, I'm mopping the floor with my tongue. What more do you want?"

  "For you to get splinters," she said.

  "Splinters," he repeated, and gave his heavy head a shake. "Ya know, what happened with us, Franny, I swear to God not a day goes by I don't kick myself innee ass about it."

  His wife didn't answer for a moment, and when she did, her tone was not accusing, wasn't biting, was simply neutral around a core of disappointment. "That's just another of your self-indulgences," she said. "What good does it do?"

  Murray thought that over. He exhaled loudly and his high spirits along with half his hopes seemed to fly away on the breath. "No good, I guess. No good at all . . . But Franny, I'm in Florida now, it's practically like we're neighbors. I thought it would be nice if we could see each other sometime."

  "The prospect doesn't excite me," said his wife.

  'Talk, at least'" coaxed Murray. "Like now? I apologize, you tell me off—"

  His wife gave just the slightest laugh and the Bra King's morale went through the roof.

  "I tell you you're wonderful," he rattled on, "you tell me I'm the lowest of the low ... Can I call you, Franny?"

  In her garden full of antheria and orchids, the ex-wife bit her lip, hesitated. "Free country," she said at last. "You have the number."

  Murray closed his eyes as if to lock the perfect moment in. "You'll talk to me?" he said. "I'll call. I'll talk to you, you'll talk to me, we'll talk. Like human beings talking. Great, Franny. We'll talk again, the way we used to talk. Goo'bye."

  He hung up, stood, threw himself backwards, spread-eagled, on the sofa. Bliss! His wife wanted him to call. Okay, she hadn't said so in as many words, but close enough; she wasn't having her number changed, she wasn't seeking an injunction.

  Encouraged out of all proportion, he went out onto his balcony, let some of his excess glee seep out in the open air. He looked down at the pool, gave everyone who swam or sunbathed there his silent benediction. He looked around the courtyard, across to the beach, blessed every stone and lounge chair of the state of Florida, the place his wife lived, where he lived now, a patient and forgiving state where lives could be rethought, revised, perhaps even repaired.

  7

  By six-thirty his euphoria had drained him, left him wrung out, slaphappy.

  He crossed the dusky courtyard, the air druggy with lingering lotions and exhausted flowers crinkling up like figs. The unruffled pool reflected a velvet sky tinged yellow in the west; darkening palms were giving up their last reserves of depth and color before becoming black cutouts for the night.

  He entered the gazebo, saw Bert cradling his twitching chihuahua against the lucky shirt he wore for poker. The shirt had black spades and clubs, red hearts and diamonds, splashed on a backdrop of shimmering pearl-gray rayon; the two breast pockets were a pair of aces. "Ah, Murray," the old man said. "Say hello to Doc and Irv."

  He gestured toward a tall thin man shaking corn chips into a plastic bowl, and a natty little fellow, pencil mustache, making obsessive stacks of nickels and dimes on the felt-covered table in front of him. Murray nodded, nervous as the first day of school.

  "And this," the Shirt went on, "is our most famous neighbor, Senator Barney LaRue."

  "State senator," LaRue said modestly. He was pouring a bottle of rum into a big pitcher that held some ice and a splash or two of lime juice, and Murray couldn't help studying him a moment. It's odd, after all, to meet someone about whom you know nothing except that someone else you've met can't stand him. LaRue reminded Murray of a catalog model, blankly handsome, sample size, the guy who sports the Crushable Fedora on page sixteen and the Three-Season Jacket on the back cover. "Gentlemen," the politician said, "who would like a daiquiri?"

  They all took plastic tumblers of the cocktail, sipped them, sat down to play. Seven-card stud, quarter and a half, three raise limit. Murray played conservatively at first. This had nothing to do with winning or losing, but with the quietly desperate wish to be invited back. On the fourth hand, he took the pot with jacks and threes. It was like a rookie's first base hit, it initiated him into the game and left him breathless.

  He sought to calm himself with a much bigger gulp of his rum than was good for him. He'd never been much of a drinker, even less so since he'd been on Prozac. Now the alcohol squirted through his stripped-bare circuitry, called forth sparks like salt on a wire. The light in the gazebo deepened the darkness beyond, blotted out context, he suddenly felt like he was playing poker in a spaceship. Silent thought became indistinct from audible speech. Coins looked bizarre, arbitrary, silly, like foreign money when you get the first sleepy handful at the airport.

  "Your turn to bet," Bert said gently.

  "Hm?" said Murray. "Check."

  "Bet's fifty cents," said Irv.

  The Bra King tossed two quarters.

  He drank, noticed vaguely that Barney LaRue had three hearts on the table and was betting very strong. A fourth heart fell, and everyone went out. Murray went out too, just to go along, but as he tossed in his cards he was watching the senator's neck, the taut place where the throat meets
the jawbone, and the jaw curves up to join the temple. He saw a subtle tinge of pink blossom through the tan and gleam just slightly at the junction with the trim silver sideburn. "He was bluffing," Murray blurted, as the senator raked in the change. "Look the way he gets a little pink there, right by his ear. That's how ya know he's bluffing."

  Barney LaRue glared at him, and Murray dimly understood he'd made an enemy. He hadn't meant to, but he dimly decided he didn't care, he didn't like LaRue anyway, he couldn't put his finger on exactly why. Was it because he bluffed, or looked like a catalog model, or was it because there were times in life when you just plain didn't like somebody, and that was that'

  Doc gathered cards, shuffled.

  Bert, in an oblique apology, said, "Murray's been through a hell of a lot the last few days. Just decided to retire from his business."

  "Yeah?" said Doc. He dealt. "What kind of business?"

  "Lingerie," said Murray.

  "Quarter," said Irv. "Me, I was in furniture. Low- end stuff. We called it borax. I had a saying: It may look like shit to you, but it's my bread and butter."

  "Was Doc's bread and butter too," said Bert. "Call."

  Doc didn't laugh, he put on a look of professional gravity. "Proctology," he said, "is a recognized medical specialty."

  "But what kinda person picks it'" Murray thought aloud. "Call."

  "Call your quarter and raise a quarter," said LaRue.

  "God bless America," said Bert.

  "Nice to hear a patriotic outburst," drawled the politician.

  "Amazing country," Bert went on. "So many ways t'end up wit' a wonderful life, a condominium in Florida. One guy looks up asses for a livin', puts together a million bucks in mutual funds. 'Nother guy sells furniture ya wouldn't take the plastic off, he's got a Mercedes and a TV set the size a Cleveland. Me, I got, let's say, a checkered past, and I'm comfortable. Not only that, I'm playin' poker wit' a senator wit' a penthouse, and Murray heah, he's innee exact same penthouse from sellin' girdles."

  "Bras," corrected Murray. "I'm out."

  "It's not your turn," said Doc.

  "Democracy," Bert intoned.

  "Another fifty cents," said Irv. "Bras? Just bras?"

  Murray sipped his daiquiri. The sips went down much easier now, the drink wasn't as strong as he'd thought. "Just bras," he proudly said. "We were the first to specialize that much. It was my wife's idea."

  "I'll just call," said Senator LaRue.

  "Straight," gloated Irv. "Made it on the last card." He swept in the pot.

  Murray rambled on above the clatter of coins. "It was the early seventies. Women were burning their bras, remember? Waving 'em around their heads like rebel flags. The industry was in a tumult. I was just a salesman at the time, never even finished college. My wife was still taking classes at Fashion Institute—"

  Irv shuffled the cards. "Same game. Same winner."

  Murray swigged his cocktail and kept talking. "The owner of the company was an alte cocker, gloomy. He thought it was all over, the brassiere was going the way of the muu-muu, the poodle skirt. My wife, Franny her name was, still is, said, 'Murray, buy the bra division. Make a lowball offer, you'll get it on the cheap.'"

  "Queen is high," said Irv.

  "A quarter on the queen," said Bert the Shirt. "So ya bought the company?"

  "Not right away," said Murray. "Any more daiquiris inna pitcher? I waffled. I was scared. I'd have to borrow, maybe I'd lose everything. I said to Franny, 'What makes you so sure the bra is ever coming back?'"

  Barney LaRue looked at his hole cards. "And a quarter," he said. He leaned over and grudgingly freshened Murray's drink.

  "She says to me," the newcomer went on, '"lemme put it this way, Murray: You wanna go through life with your little pecker hanging down and flopping all day long? You wanna spend each day vaguely feeling that people are looking at you sideways, checking out the size of it, the shape? No. Politics is politics,' she says, 'but comfort and modesty will win out. The bra is coming back.' So I borrow half a million bucks and buy the bra division. These cocktails are delicious. How ya make these cocktails?"

  "I'm raising," the ex-proctologist announced.

  Irv frowned down at his cards and turned them over.

  "An' sure enough the bra came back," said Bert.

  "With a vengeance," Murray said. "The eighties. What a moment! Dress for success. The executive look. It called for a whole new line. Tits are a science. Lotta people don't realize this. Woman executive goes into a meeting with the board of directors, she can't go in looking like she's gonna take somebody's eye out with her tits. They need a softer look. Not too soft. Too soft, they don't look successful, they look, like, pessimistic. The idea is not to make her flat-chested but not to make her boobies an agenda item either. Jesus Christ, did we move product in the eighties! Whose turn is it to bet?"

  "Yours," Irv said dryly.

  "I'm in," said Murray. Tossed a quarter.

  "Bet's seventy-five cents," said Irv.

  Murray glanced at his hole cards. They blurred a little but he could tell they didn't match. "I'm out."

  "Guy gambles in bras," Doc muttered. "Cards, he wants a sure thing."

  "Don't gamble in bras no more," said Bert. "Retired, like I said. Fifty cents ta me. I call."

  "Retirement's not so easy," put in Irv, and for an instant Murray wasn't sure if someone had spoken or if his own new fears were murmuring to him. "Don't kid yourself it's easy," the natty fellow said.

  "One false move I get depressed," said Murray.

  "Plenty a guys," said Bert, "I seen 'em like fall into whaddyacallit, I guess ya'd have to say despair. Yeah, despair. Lose the edge. Get old overnight. But hey, this is gettin' fuckin' morbid."

  Barney LaRue said, "There's one more raise, I b'lieve?" He waited to see the reaction, then said, "Well, I'll just call."

  Irv dealt.

  Bert paired up his queen. He stroked his dozing dog for luck, rubbed his pockets with the aces on them. "Queens say half a buck. Hey Bahney, the casino bill—"

  "Dead in the water," said the senator.

  Doc said, "The controversy."

  "You got it," drawled LaRue. "My colleagues up in Tallahassee, they like controversy about as much as dead tourists piled up on Cuban rafts. I'll take a high diamond, Mr. Irv."

  Irv turned over a four of clubs. He said, "So I guess that leaves us bingo with the Indians."

  "They'll open up casinos soon, " the politician said. "But Indians, that's federal. State can't do a thing about it."

  "An' why should it'" put in Bert the Shirt. "Poor fuckin' Indians. First time they find a way ta make some money, the state starts cryin' the blues about it. Where's the justice? Half a dollar onna queens."

  "Fold," the politician said. "Tain't about justice, Bert. It's about revenues. Thank God there's just the Seminoles and Miccosukkees."

  "Who got a right—" Bert started.

  "Forget right," said LaRue. "How d'you make up what's lost on untaxed gaming? You wanna see a state income tax go in?"

  Doc and Irv blanched deathly white beneath their winter tans.

  "While the Indians per capita get richer than Kuwaitis," the proctologist groused. "Call your half and raise a quarter."

  "And in your face wit' another half," said Bert. "The Indians deserve to make a livin'."

  Irv said, "Plus you have, you know, the element that comes in when there's casinos."

  "Shut up about the element," said Bert the Shirt, "we're playin' poker heah. It's fifty cents. If I was you, Doc, I'd go out."

  The doctor threw in half a buck.

  Murray drained his second daiquiri, tongued the last drop of froth from the lip of his plastic glass. He wasn't thinking about poker anymore. He was sitting in the spaceship of a gazebo, staring at the green felt table that seemed now to lean and lurch a little, and he was wondering about this retirement thing, the abruptness of it. Despair? Old overnight? Hey, he was still a doer, a restless spirit, a hyper guy with ants i
n his pants. For him, there were still accomplishments ahead, projects, deals; just don't ask him what they were.

  Irv dealt. A third queen fell to Bert the Shirt.

  "Shoulda gone out when I tol' ya, Doc," said the former mafioso.

  The other man threw in his cards.

  8

  The next morning Murray did not have a hangover, exactly, but things felt stale and grainy inside his head. The brain juices that had been flowing freely the past two days seemed to have sludged up, he imagined smeared rainbows on the backs of his eyes as in a puddle of oil. If he'd had aspirin he would have taken some. But he didn't, so he popped an extra Prozac.

  After that the day passed pleasantly enough, though he was out of sync with it, felt like he was on a moving walkway while the rest of the world was not. At ten-thirty it seemed it should have been noon; at three o'clock he was faced with a dense wad of time before sunset. As ever, he needed an activity. He thought about fishing, imagined the ancient thrill of seeing a fish pulled from the water.

  He remembered the elegant uncoiling of Tommy Tarpon as he cast for bait. He got in the scratched- up Lexus where his gear was stowed, and headed for Big Bubba's to buy a net.

  It was a little early for fishing when he arrived at White Street Pier; the regulars had yet to arrive. Still, Murray was careful not to occupy the spot belonging to the Indian. He stopped maybe twenty-five feet shy of it and leaned his pole against the railing.

  Then he unwrapped his net. It was white and crisp as a virgin's underpants, its obvious newness embarrassed him. He was eager to get it in the water, get some slime and seaweed on it.

  He put the retrieving cord in his teeth, the way the Indian had done. He spread the mesh across his fists like pizza dough. He tried to curl up like a discus thrower but looked more like a tormented bonsai tree. He took a breath then attempted to uncoil smoothly; the motion was more like a man ridding himself of poisoned food. The net didn't spin, didn't flatten. It hit the water like a sack of trash about three feet from the pier and scared away the fish for many yards around.