by N. M. Kelby
Gives him strength. Hope.
Jesus hums along as he takes the top bed sheet off the king-sized Posture-Perfect and wraps it around his bony waist. He washes his face in the tiny marble sink with the small pink shell soaps that Mrs. Levi had bought to match the towels. Then tidies up the machete.
“Mistake,” the voices in his head whisper. “You’re making a big mistake.”
But he ignores them. How often does one get to see a miracle?
When he’s finished he says, “Presentable?” There are still traces of blood deep in the creases of his face.
“Somewhat,” Jimmy Ray says and looks away. How’d you get so wrong? he thinks and looks back out the window. The night is so dark it feels as if he’ll be swallowed up by it. The anger of the storm is the only light. The ghost house sits in the middle of this fury, its silvered timber dulled.
“Doesn’t look like anybody’s at home,” Jimmy Ray says.
“That’s all right. We’ll just take a quick look around.”
When Jesus passes through the tiny kitchen he blows out the pilot light of the oven. Turns up the gas. The smell is suddenly overwhelming. “This will take awhile, anyway,” he says.
Jimmy Ray is clearly alarmed. “You figuring on killing me in this thing?”
Jesus smiles, proud. “It’s the Hallmark card of death, don’t you think? Killed by the American Dream—how perfect a death is that for a Buddhist?”
Jimmy Ray shakes his head, sadly. “I don’t know, son. Exploding like that sort of fit Leon, but it seems a little too flashy for me.”
“Oh, I’m not blowing you up. That would be gaudy. Carbon monoxide is so much more thoughtful. The silent killer.”
“Makes you ralph, I’ve heard.”
Jesus is clearly disappointed in his friend. “You’re going to be fussy, aren’t you? You promised me you weren’t fussy. And now, here you are, being fussy.” He picks up a flashlight from on top of the tiny refrigerator. “Salvation is never easy,” he says to himself and the two men run out into the cresting storm, Jesus swinging the machete over his head like a majorette at halftime; Jimmy Ray two steps behind.
It’ll be okay, Jimmy Ray tells himself. The rain chills his skin. Uncle Joe’s snub-nosed Colt Classic .38 bulges in his pant pocket. I can handle this. As he runs, he sings in his rumble of a voice, “Wade in the water. Wade in the water, children. Wade in the water. God’s a-going to trouble the water.”
Luckily, help is on the way. More or less. The Pimp Daddy Caddy tires are nearly bald, so the mandarin orange car is weaving through the quickly flooding town like a wayward ocean liner. But at least it’s moving and going in the right direction. Since there’s only one paved road in Whale Harbor, Leon knows that there’s really only one place to go with a $250,000 land yacht that is nearly out of fuel.
It’s a no-brainer even for me, he thinks. But he doesn’t want to think much more beyond that. Thinking always seems to get him into trouble. He knows that if he thinks too much, he’ll soon convince himself that he should be afraid, and then he’ll chicken out. So he just thinks about baseball. He has to, because he has no idea what they’re going to do when they find Jesus and Jimmy Ray. He has no plan, no weapon, and borrowed courage.
I’m in my element when I’m in over my head, he reassures himself. Then wonders if the Marlins will ever make the World Series.
When they finally arrive at the end of the road, the Dream is dark. He parks a little way down from it. “They’re probably in the house,” he says. Then turns the dome light on again quickly. Just one more look, he thinks. For courage.
Dagmar turns to him and finally speaks. “Thanks,” she says, and he hears Cal’s voice.
“Anytime.”
Inside the house, Jesus and Jimmy Ray are sitting at the kitchen table waiting for the rain to stop. Jesus takes the flashlight and turns it on. Balances it on the table. The light points toward the ceiling, and fills the room with a burnished glow, as if the moment is already a memory.
“Maybe we could just talk,” Jesus says. “To pass the time. Wait for the rain to let up.” He’s going to miss Jimmy Ray; he knows that now. Miss him a lot.
This is the mistake, the voices inside Jesus’ head say. No talking. Never talk.
“I’m not ready for salvation,” Jimmy Ray says.
THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TALK, the voices scream. Jesus understands now. Talking always leads to confusion. “Sorry,” he says under his breath.
“You okay?” Jimmy Ray says.
Jesus nods.
“I hope you understand what I’m saying,” Jimmy Ray says. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture—”
Jesus raises his hand to silence him. “Maybe we should stop talking.”
Salvation is a gift, Jesus wants to say, and not accepting a gift is rude. But he doesn’t say this. Even thinking about rudeness makes him angry. He doesn’t want to be angry with Jimmy Ray. He wants to be gentle. “We can just sit here quietly. That’s okay.”
“I’m not trying to upset you,” Jimmy Ray says. “I just think you should know that I’ve thought about it and I’m not ready to go. Not yet. What I’m ready to do is to go back to New Orleans and take me a job at Preservation Hall; I know some of the boys there. And then I plan to find me a fine-looking widow with a solid pension who knows how to cook and still has most of her own teeth.
“You see I still got some living yet. You made me see that.”
“But the American Dream,” Jesus sighs, wistful. “Such a mythic death.”
“Son, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the beauty of it and celebrate its metaphoric qualities. It’s genius.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
Jimmy Ray shakes his head. “No, sir. I am touched that you honor me with such a death.”
“But—”
“Well—”
“Then you’re going to have to kill me,” Jesus says, “because I have planned your salvation, and am counting on your salvation, and I will have your salvation.
“The only way you’re going to go on living is over my dead body.
“Do you think you can do that? Kill me?”
Jesus places the machete on the table between them, within arm’s reach of them both. The kitchen provides uneasy shelter. The wind outside is off-key and raging. The surf crashes up against the small house like a drunk. Saltwater flows though the worn walls. Rain sheets through the glassless windows. The two men cannot look into each other’s eyes, but have no choice.
Neither is sure what they see.
“Forgiveness,” Jimmy Ray says. “I can forgive you and you can forgive me. And we can both walk away. You know, Buddha says there can be no true healing without forgiveness of ourselves and of others.”
Jesus nods and thinks about it for a moment. Then he says, “But if you’re planning on getting out of here alive, I’d grab the machete, if I were you. The Colt has no bullets.”
Jimmy Ray isn’t sure that he heard that right. “What do you mean? What Colt?”
“I know you have it. Go on, take a look at it,” Jesus says. “I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a liar. Go ahead.”
Jimmy Ray slowly takes the gun from his pants pocket. Checks it. Empty.
“I took them out,” Jesus says. “When you slipped away that night after your set at The Café, it was easy to figure out where you were. When you were asleep, I removed the bullets.”
“How’d you know I wouldn’t check the gun again?”
“Buddhist. Bad enough you have the gun.”
“I see.”
Jimmy Ray puts the gun back into his pocket. Who am I fooling? he thinks. I am too old for this. Living has slipped through my hands.
Jesus can feel the shift in him, the weakness. Jimmy Ray’s skin seems suddenly like an overcoat worn slack. The old man eyes are back, weak and watery. Jesus plays his hand again. “You know you won’t kill me. And it’s not because of some moral compass you have. It
’s because you don’t want to. You know I’m right. It is time for you to go.
“This world, Jimmy Ray, is no place for a noble spirit like you. There’s just too much sorrow.”
Jimmy Ray goes quiet. He counts his dead as one would sheep. After a time he says, “Sorrow’s the one thing we can be sure of in this world. That’s why we got to make joy.” But when he says this, he doesn’t sound convinced. It’s clear he’s struggling. He wants to believe, but isn’t sure if he really does.
Jesus feels the bluff, and goes “all-in.” “But you know what they say,” he says, seductive. “Bowlers bowl—you can’t change the nature of the world, Jimmy Ray. Sorrow grows in your bones.”
Time suddenly feels slowed. Jesus reaches across and hands Jimmy Ray the machete. Pushes the table over. The two men sit knee to knee.
“So kill me, or let me kill you,” Jesus whispers. The voices in his head go silent.
Jimmy Ray looks at the long sharp blade, and then at Jesus. “I’m not going to kill you, son.”
“But you brought that gun.”
“To talk sense into you.”
“Still, you brought the gun. And the Luger before that. Not exactly Buddhist.”
The words settle in. Itch. Jimmy Ray shrugs.
Jesus smiles. “Doesn’t mean you’re not a good man. You brought the gun because we both know that sometimes a life just isn’t worth living anymore.
“Takes a real friend to give the gift of salvation. And you want that gift, now. I know you do. I can feel it.”
Jimmy Ray’s knees shake slightly with the weight of the knife.
“I could take you back to the Dream,” Jesus says, “and let you lie on the satin sheets and you could live again that life you always sing about—all smoke and whiskey and big-lipped women reckless as Saturday night—not widows with their clacking teeth, but young women with smooth fine fur who will roll you between their legs until you are speechless and they will be all yours forever as you fall into that white hot moment of death and slip from this world to the next.
“I can do that for you because we’re friends.”
Outside, the rain grows soft. The waves, slack. The storm is lifting. The world is suddenly too quiet.
“It would be a death fitting your great spirit,” Jesus says. “A death that will be remembered. A death that should not go to waste.”
The words pain the old man, because he feels the truth in them. “I’m sorry,” he says and reaches across and pats Jesus’ shoulder. “But I can’t let you do that, son.”
“Then kill me,” Jesus says.
At this moment, timing is everything. And Leon knows it. But that’s about all he knows. All he wants to know. “Don’t think!” he shouts and crashes through the kitchen door.
Of course, the best part about not thinking is that you have no way to judge the rightness of your actions. No censoring that informs you as to whether an idea is harebrained, or absurd, or too dangerous—or just plain stupid.
It is for this reason why heroes fall into two categories—the fearless and the morons.
So when Leon crashes through the kitchen door, a blur of color in his borrowed crime scene yellow and hemoglobin clothes, screaming “Don’t think! Don’t think! Don’t think!” as he tackles Jesus from behind sending the chair and the man careening into Jimmy Ray and knocking the machete out of his lap and onto the floor so that Jesus could swoop it up and say, “I’ll miss you. You were a good friend,” and then run out the door of the ghost house into the cold sweat of the night—Dagmar pretty much decides that Leon is one of the few men on earth who actually fits into both categories.
Leon is, indeed, the bravest and most stupid man she has ever met.
“You okay?” she asks Jimmy Ray, holds him close. He nods, shaky.
Leon helps him up. “I guess I saved you,” he says, shocked. “I’ve never saved anybody before.”
“I guess you did,” Jimmy says sadly.
And at that moment, $250,000 of American engineering and buyable luxury explodes.
The American Dream killed Jesus. Of course, he lit the match.
Chapter 37
The story Harlan Oakley wrote for the National Examiner was not titled “The Next Refrigerator Perry Asks Jesus for a Leg Up,” as Sam thought it would be. Instead, “Killer on Rampage” was splashed across page one.
Sam the Gator Boy was remembered fondly as a large angry child filled with promise who was never quite lucky enough. Harlan wept as he wrote it. The Examiner ran it straight. No Photoshopped pictures of Jesus being abducted by aliens, just an all-American shot of Sam in his University of Florida football uniform, full of hope and dreams.
Because of the story people came to Whale Harbor once more. Not just the media with their live shots and TV tans, but visitors. Everyone wanted to travel the murderer’s trail. They wanted to see where Sam’s body washed ashore.
Some even thought they saw whales.
The town slowly began to come back to life. The Pink was suddenly crowded at lunch. Bender dyed his hair a tarnished spoon platinum. He finally settled on Weimaraner as his inner dog and now thanks customers with an aristocratic silver bark. Mrs. Sitwell opened a Kettle Korn stand.
As the story of Sam spread, those who called themselves “Believers” came to pray for his soul. A group of Evangelicals even set up a tent and a gospel mission outside The Dream CafŽ. Now, daily, they give the dancers comfortable shoes with Bible quotes written in them and ask them to repent. The minister has tied himself to a cross that he planted under the sign that reads, “Naughty but Nice!” He’s wearing a rainbow-colored umbrella hat to ward off the sun. His hands are bound to the wood with Velcro, as are his feet. “Just in case he has to tinkle,” his wife tells the press. It’s a great photo opportunity, but not so great for business.
So when Leon drives up in his mandarin orange Pimp Daddy Caddy, the place is nearly deserted. Dagmar is sitting on a folding chair watching potential customers make U-turns out of the driveway. Leon hasn’t seen her for nearly a month, ever since he saved Jimmy Ray. So much has changed since then.
Leon has moved into Grammy Lettie’s, mostly for crowd control, at least that’s what he says. But at night he sits in the dark kitchen and remembers the days when he was a boy, when Whale Harbor was a real town, and Miss Pearl was his best girl.
Howdy.
He thinks about the idea of opening Pettit’s again. He still has that shrink-wrapped bag of the Levis’ money—nobody ever asked after it. So he has the capital. But he wants to spend it right. The money feels like a second chance. He doesn’t want to blow it.
If he reopens Pettit’s, he knows it can’t be the way it used to be. Got to be something classy. Got to be something that lets the wild cats play on the beach, and lets the peacocks screech, and the fat manatees, with their stuffed toy smiles, play tag in the bright green water. But Leon has no idea how all these things can happen at a first-rate tourist attraction. And he has no one to ask. Carlotta has moved on.
So much has changed, he thinks, except for Dagmar. As he parks the Pimp Daddy Caddy he can see that she is still every inch the Egyptian queen. It took him a month to get his courage up to stop by to see her. His hands shake. He stuffs them in his pockets.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
He watches along with her for a while as if the line of deserting customers is some sort of a parade.
“Pretty soon,” he says. “Things will get back to normal.”
“I hope not,” she says. “I’ve decided to franchise, and then go public. Use the publicity, and the national exposure, as a marketing push.
“As Jimmy Ray says, ‘It’s all good.’”
“You miss him?”
Dagmar shrugs. “New Orleans isn’t that far away.”
Leon sits in the chair next to her. “So what do you know about running a first-rate tourist attraction?”
She looks at him, honey-eyed, and laughs. “More than you do.”
>
“I guess that’s the story of our lives.”
He reaches his hand out to her, and she takes it.
“I guess it is,” she says.
Chapter 38
Trot and Carlotta are in his boat trolling the shoreline. Not fishing, just watching the sun set. Trot’s still sore, taped up tight, but happy. The horizon, which he’s seen so many times on his own, is turning that particular shade of pink that only can be found in this part of the world. As the fading light spreads, it washes over them. Turns their skin blush.
“Flamingos,” she says. “The belly of conch shells. Hibiscus.”
“Pepto-Bismol?”
“I can see that.”
Trot can’t help but grin. The waves lap up against the boat, gently rock it back and forth.
“Now what?” she says and leans into him slightly. With her hair piled onto her head and the delicate lace of her scar, she is more beautiful than any one woman has a right to be. So Trot tells her the story of Hurricane Donna. It’s the most romantic thing he can think of.
“My grandpa Buck was mayor at the time. He was well into his seventies, lean as driftwood. Grammy Jules, his twin.
“The thing was, nobody thought Donna would be that bad,” he says. Trot’s never told this story to any woman before—not even Dagmar. Unfortunately, the best part of it he doesn’t know. It’s long dead.
As Hurricane Donna approached there was something about the low sky, bruise green and churning, that made Buck and Jules feel uneasy. But the roads were washed away. They couldn’t leave.
“Don’t matter now,” Jules whispered. Her voice was smoky like it was when they first met, and they were still a mystery to each other.
As Donna neared, the two made love in their own bed with slowness that comes not from age, but deep pleasure. And knowing.
And when they were through, Buck and Jules moved into a large pantry near the center of the house. A safe place. At the first word of the storm, Jules had taken all her orchids from under the orange trees and placed them there. In the dark room, surrounded by dozens of orchids and their gentle sweet perfume, Old Buck and Jules fell in and out of an uneasy sleep. Kissed every now and then, just because.