by Winton, Tom
The driver of Julie’s cab, a Greek immigrant from Astoria Queens, whose name she never learned, was dead by the time the ambulances reached the scene. Julie was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital where a team of three plastic surgeons performed micro-surgery in an attempt to re-attach her fingers. Her middle and index fingers were salvaged and the nerves regenerated in due time, but her pinky and ring finger were so badly mashed there was no possible way of saving them. Eloi Hernandez did a short stint on Riker’s Island; the Greek was buried out in Queens by his family; and Julie’s potential international fame never materialized. On top of all that, when Mark Richardson found out Julie had lost two fingers, he decided that just maybe he wasn’t ready for marriage after all. After knotting the loose ends of her life together the best Julie could, she returned to Ft. Lauderdale with lost dreams and a broken heart.
I was panting heavily as I jogged past the side of Pa Bell’s store and headed north on U.S. 1. Moving at a good clip by now, the palmettos and Florida Holly alongside the early-morning-quiet two-lane highway blurred green in my periphery. I pushed hard, lengthening my strides – punishing myself. Nagging thoughts about what happened ten minutes earlier whirred in and out of my head so quickly that I could only hold onto a few. But they were enough. I went back and forth, condoning and lambasting myself for the way I’d just acted around Julie. I was so sorry she’d seen that dumb stare on my face after noticing her handicap, but I couldn’t help it. And sure, Julie was beautiful, kind, smart and more, but she was handicapped too. Over and over, as if trading punches, the two sides of my conscious mind parried each other.
Hell man, what’s wrong with you! Can’t you see she’s a very special woman? Yeah, maybe so, but I could never get over the hand thing. It would be always be there, like an eternal dark asterisk, always taking away from the rest of her. Maybe so, but look at the rest of her. Look at what a kind human being she is. I know, I know, but I could never accept the fingers thing. I’m better off not getting in any deeper with her. You think so, huh! Think about ... .
On and on I went like that until I finally slowed from a jog to an easy trot. As I cooled down the best I could with the morning sun hot on my perspiring back, I finally decided the last thing I needed was to get into some kind of stressful relationship.
“That’s it,” I said aloud, by now slowing to a walk on the marl road back toward the trailer park, “I don’t want to think about it anymore. Even if she did have all her fingers, I’m not ready to get mixed up with another woman so soon. Hell, I’m not even over my broken marriage yet ... probably never will be.”
Before reaching the trailers I came upon another road that cut into the pines on the left. Even narrower than the one I was on, I’d seen it before and suspected it led to Pa Bell’s place. I needed to talk to him, and rather than walk to the beach then wade the shallows around the mangroves again I turned up that road. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody, but I had to talk to the old man. After checking the rents for apartments in the papers at Sloppy Joe’s the day before, I’d finally admitted to myself that, without a job, I couldn’t possibly afford a place in Key West yet. As much as I did not want to be next door to Julie anymore, I had no choice. With not a whole lot of money behind me, the deal Pa Bell was giving me was just too sweet to walk away from.
Just before I reached Pa’s house, the slash pines gave way to tall gumbo limbo trees and stately banyans with trunks wide across as a man is tall. High above, a dense ceiling of motionless leaves hid the birds whose calls and songs filled this forest. It was as if I were in a wide, verdant, majestic tunnel. As if I had stepped into a place that was half jungle and half rain forest. When most people think of heaven they envision a place with fluffy white clouds and an endless blue sky, but this green Eden was the closest to the Promised Land I could ever imagine. Everywhere I looked there were bushes, shrubs, clusters of flowers, long vines hanging from tree limbs. Yes, the place was absolutely breathtaking. And as I walked on I couldn’t help but feel I was previewing that eternal, peaceful sanctuary that’s promised us by so many religions.
By the time I made my way to Pa Bell’s front lawn the towering canopy had thinned some, but I was still shrouded in shade. A well-worn footpath cut across the grass to the front of the house and after I stepped onto it I just stood there for a moment. From where I was standing the first time I’d seen Pa’s place, I hadn’t seen through the dense bush the two massive Poinciana trees now standing before me. Like towering twin sentinels, their long limbs intertwined above the path, forming yet another tunnel. But this one was different. A person would have to travel this world far and wide to witness a sight more magnificent than a Royal Poinciana in full bloom. And here I was, looking up at two. With the expansive boughs of these trees bursting with vibrant, flaming-red flowers above me, I knew I was looking up at some of Mother Nature’s finest work. I walked beneath them with my head tilted way back, still marveling with every step. But at the same time, a feeling other than wonderment came over me. I became somewhat leery. I didn’t know what to expect. Not knowing Pa Bell very well I felt like I was crossing a border into his private world. And I was.
After slowly climbing the wide wooden steps to the veranda, gently I rapped the door with the brass door knocker – a miniature ship’s bell with the family name “Bell” inscribed in it.
Nobody answered. I knocked again, still no answer.
I walked around the side of the house, skirted an old brick cistern then saw the old man. He was standing on a narrow wooden dock, facing Florida Bay, leaning over the railing at the end of it with his back to me. Not wanting to startle him, I announced my presence by walking heavily on the faded gray planking. As I approached he turned around.
“Hello, Mister Bell.”
Calmly as can be, as if he’d already known I was on his property, he said, “Mornin’.” Then he looked into a white plastic bucket sitting next to him on the dock, reached in, grabbed a handful of small dead fish and flipped them over the railing. I came up alongside him and we both looked down into the clear water. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
All at once an entire school of ten to fifteen-pound snook rushed for the baitfish. As they struck the slowly sinking cigar minnows, sunlight reflected in bright flashes off their silvery sides. One of the small fish floated on the surface but it wasn’t long before a large snook crashed it. Its huge mouth agape, water flew everywhere and it produced a loud, distinct popping sound.
Pa then repeated the process, and with my eyes still glued to the water I said, “Wow, this is something else. They’re all nice size fish.”
“See that one over there, the one laying in the eel grass?” Pa asked, pointing a sausage-like finger toward the far edge of the school, “Been feeding him for years. Call him ‘Old Moe’.”
“How do you know it’s the same fish?”
“That’s easy,” Pa answered, squinting into the sunlight, “see that there scar at the base of his tail ... where his black lateral line ends?”
“Ohhh yeah,” I said, studying the fish like an ichthyologist.
“Well ... when Buster found ’im he was still runnin’ gill nets, right out there at the front of this channel. Anyway, this one time he pulled up the net and Old Moe was stuck in it, by his tail. Where that scar is he had a diver’s spear plum through his body. It got tangled in the mesh.”
Pa lit up a Lucky Strike then and I thought about having my first smoke of the day. But I didn’t. I wanted to hold off until I had my morning coffee.
Exhaling as he spoke Pa said, “Buster put ’im in the live well and brought him here to the dock. We sawed the spear in half, pulled it out, and let ’im go.”
“And he’s still here.”
“Yep! He’s still hangin’ ’round the dock. Snook favor stayin’ around structures you know.”
It was easy to see that this man loved to talk about the sea and the life it sustains. That became even more obvious as he went on with his story.
“One evenin’ at dusk I was cullin’ the dead mullet out of the live well aboard the ‘Island Belle’ – that’s our old Chris-Craft cabin cruiser ... Buster’s out in it right now. Anyway, after I flipped the first mullet over the side I heard a pop. I looked down there and saw ‘Old Moe’ layin’ there, motionless; eyeballin’ me. I threw him another one and this time saw him grab it. Been feedin’ him and his brood ever since.”
With my eyebrows now arched much the way Pa’s were permanently, I said, “I’d say that’s really getting in touch with nature.”
“Nowadays it’s a lot easier than connectin’ with most people.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking out at Wreckers Channel now, “people are so busy running around in a frenzy today most of them don’t have time for each other anymore.”
“That’s part of the beauty of this here key. There ain’t many of us and nobody’s ever in a rush. We have plenty of time to be neighborly. Been that way since my great-grand-daddy came here to Wrecker’s Key in the 1830’s. He was the first white man to settle here.”
“Interesting! So your family’s been here ever since?”
“Yup, only difference, ’cept for a little increase in boat traffic, is all those tourists rushin’ by out on U.S. 1. Let me tell ya, there’s some real characters pass through here. Hell, just last weekend we had some first-class bozos from Miami stop at the store. They were all liquored-up and wanted ta fill the boat they were trailerin’ with gas. One of them put the nozzle into a rod-holder instead of the fuel fill and poured eighty dollars worth of regular onto the floor of the boat!
“Haaa! Some kind of characters they must have been!”
As we shared a good laugh, a brown pelican landed next to Pa on the dock. He called him “Max” then hand fed him a fish and stroked his white head a couple of times. The bird was perfectly fine with this show of affection, but when I leaned to take a look at him he took one cumbersome step back.
“Mister Bell,” I said then, in a more serious tone, “the reason why I came over here was to ask you if there’s any possibility I could rent Mr. Doyle’s Airstream for a little longer. I mean ... unless he’s coming back soon?”
Pa pursed his lips in thought and said, “Son, I wish he was comin’ back. He was a good friend and was here a long time, but I’m afraid it’d take one of them miracles to bring him back from where he is now.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Thinking of his lost friend now, Pa suddenly lost his kind, even-tempered demeanor. In just a flash the sadness in his old eyes turned to anger.
“Godamned developers down in the Saddlebunch Keys killed him, just like they kill everything else – for the quick money. Ole Doyle was waitin’ to pull out onto U.S. 1, out front of my store, when a flatbed flies by. This guy’s haulin’ three big sable palms to some new condo down on Saddlebunch, and he loses one, wasn’t tied down snug. It landed smack on top of the hood of Doyle’s old pickup ... rolled with such force that it smashed into the windshield and crushed him. He was killed instantly.” Shaking his head in disgust now, his eyelids beginning to tremble, Pa said, “Them useless Chamber of Commerce types ... politicians, developers, investors, all of ’em. They’re more venomous than a pissed-off cottonmouth, when it comes to money. No matter how much they got, it ain’t never enough. They got no respect for nothin’ or nobody!”
Seeing him this enraged made me a little nervous. It was obvious his resentment towards the developers and their cronies had been festering for a long, long time.
“Anyway,” Pa continued, trying to compose himself now, “the firemen cut the cab open and the EMTs carted Doyle off to the morgue down in Key West. To them developers, he wasn’t nothin’ more than a road kill. Just some old nobody, with no family anywhere to sue ’em.”
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Bell.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before he finally asked, “You want to rent it month to month ... the trailer?”
“Sure. That would be fine.”
“Hunert-and-fifty a month, plus electric and water.”
“Sounds fair to me,” I said, knowing better than to offer to pay up front.
“No fishing from the dock.”
“Mister. Bell, I love to fish, but I’m a sportsman. I think you and I share a common respect for wildlife.”
Looking directly into my eyes, Pa nodded slowly then. Knowing now that deal was done, I waited just a moment before saying, “I’ve got to get going now. I want to pick up some groceries over at the store.”
“Sure. Okay. Tell Sissy I said to give you twenty percent off like I do all the others in the park.” Then his wise eyes narrowed as if they were being pinched together and he said in a slightly deeper tone, “Be nice to Julie, now. She’s one hell of a gal. It was plain to see last night that she’s takin’ a liking to you. I ain’t never seen her act that interested in any man.”
Just what I didn’t need to hear. I did not need any additional pressure right then, but I knew Pa hadn’t intended to tax my emotions. After all, he couldn’t have known I went into Julie’s trailer with her the night before. Or could he? Did he? Something in those alert, knowing eyes of his made me wonder.
Chapter 7
Most of us have a secret closet where we store all kinds of different masks. Depending on the people we encounter or the situations we find ourselves in, we can change our disguises in an instant. For that reason it can sometimes be harder to read people than to decipher ancient literature. But that wasn’t the way it was with Sissy when I went to Pa’s store to buy groceries that morning.
From the moment I stepped onto that worn, wooden floor, I knew something was up with her. She acted differently to the first time I was in there. Immediately, I could tell she was giving me the silent treatment. She must have somehow figured out what happened between me and her close friend, either that or Julie told her. No matter what, I did not like it. Just minutes earlier Pa had made me feel uncomfortable enough telling me to treat Julie right, now here was Sissy copping an attitude. With nobody else in the store as I perused the shelves, I tried twice to start a lighthearted conversation. I still got nothing. That was it. I didn’t say another word. Not even when I went to pay Sissy. I was so angry that I didn’t even mention the discount Pa told me to ask for.
After lugging a twelve-pack of beer and four bags of groceries to the trailer – kicking dust up in front of me most of the way, I decided I had to get all the clutter out of my head. I needed to go fishing. So after taking a quick shower in the phone-booth-size stall, loading my tackle box, bait bucket, and two rods into the van, I headed up to Big Pine Key to get some bait.
It was a good decision. In no time at all my negative thoughts simply vanished. How could they not? As I motored north there was a magnificent expanse of ocean on either side of me. On the right, way, way out in the Atlantic, I could see the dark blue waters of the Gulfstream. In closer, the shoals were a beautiful shade of turquoise and, closer yet, the water became a soothing mint green, mottled with dark patches where the shallow was coated with eel grass. Shimmering beneath an endless blue sky, this was a vision that could never be duplicated on any picture postcard.
As soon as I came off the bridge over Pine Channel onto Big Pine Key, I saw for the first time a diminutive Key deer. Driving through here last Friday, on my way south, I had seen numerous caution signs along the road advising to watch for the endangered deer, but I hadn’t see any. Now, coming out of the sun-blanched palmettos alongside the road, there was a fully grown doe, maybe 30 inches high, and her tiny fawn. With no cars close behind me I slowed considerably, admiring the beauty of the docile animals. When I went by them they popped their heads up from the grass they were foraging and studied me with their shiny black Bambi eyes.
About a mile later I came upon a small block building with a huge red and white sign on its roof that screamed “BAIT”. After swinging into the small parking area I pulled alongside a Chevy blazer with a “Save the reef�
� sticker on its rear bumper; killed the ignition and walked to the front door. Right in front of my nose there was a “Help Wanted” sign taped to the glass. “Hmmm,” I muttered to myself as I leaned on the door and stepped inside.
The damp air in the store was laden with the smell of sea water from a shrimp tank and a touch of fresh mullet – one of the world’s most exciting fragrances to a salty angler. Two men were talking in the rear of the well-stocked shop, almost surely about fishing. One was a tall, husky, bearded guy with a green “Penn” cap atop his blocky head, the other, about half his size, was rail-thin and sported the kind of dangerously dark suntan you can only get from too many hours on the water. The little guy sitting behind a glass display counter crammed full of reels was wearing khaki shorts and a khaki shirt – the unofficial uniform of Florida Keys charter boat captains. As I got closer I could read the “Cap Forest” embroidered over his breast pocket. Both men were gulping coffee from foam cups and smoking cigarettes. Neither looked my way so I figured they either hadn’t noticed me or simply didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t help feeling like a no-count intruder as I walked around picking up some sinkers, hooks swivels and a bait bucket. It was only when I set my selections on top of the glass display case that they seemed to notice me.
“Lo,” Cap Forest finally looked up and said. His deep-set eyes resembled road maps with all the red lines in them going north, east, south, and west.
“How’re you doing?” I came back. “I need two dozen shrimp also.”
“Help yourself to some coffee,” Cap said, nodding at the Mr. Coffee machine on the end of the on counter.
“I think I will. Let me have three or four fresh mullet too, if you have them.”