Mid-Life Friends and Illusions
by
Jeffrey M. Freeman
Mid-life Friends and Illusions
Copyright © 2015 by Jeffrey M. Freeman
ISBN: 978-0-9856581-3-7 ebook
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Mid-life Friends and Illusions
Chapter One.
Early afternoon, October 28th.
The row of blue beach chairs and blue-and-white umbrellas looked like baby blue whales perfectly aligned segmenting the hodgepodge of sun worshipers soaking up the cancerous rays. They were sparsely occupied. It was between seasons. In another six to eight weeks the “snowbirds” would migrate south in large numbers. During the summer and throughout most of the fall, “snowbirds” was not an unaffectionate term. By Valentines Day there would be no love loss; locals wishing them gone in spite of the temporary abundant wealth they bestowed on the economy. Their presence clogged the roads, the restaurants, and the shops. Just about everything took twice as long while they were here.
On three sides of the whales, the less well-off, older couples, and a few families spread their brightly colored blankets and towels. Still others lay pitifully directly on the brown sand. They all smelled of coconut tanning lotion.
It hit him suddenly. The only odor in the air was the tanning oil. There was no ocean smell. One of the thrills of going to the ocean was smelling it before you saw it. The seashore was the only major topographical difference between New Hampshire and Vermont and about the only reason for a Vermonter to travel to the Granite State. He took a deep breath through his nose. Nothing, except coconut oil. The Gulf was different. No sea smell, no crashing waves, dull by comparison.
His eyes drifted back to the beach chairs. No interlopers were allowed to penetrate the elite long blue line. Occasionally, a stray stud swaggered between the umbrellas to his evolutionary environment, the salt water. He only did it once. The hard stare of the beach boy, who wasn’t a boy at all but well into his late twenties, was all it took to dissuade a second disruption of the elevated status of umbrella chairs. Empty or occupied, it didn’t matter. This area was sacrosanct, reserved for the special people, people who paid five dollars an hour to believe they were special.
Samuel was special. People told him that all the time. He told it to himself. There were days when he nearly believed it. But now, lying here in Hawaiian print swim trunks, his beardless face only a shade darker than his milky white arms, legs, and torso, he didn’t feel special. He needed one of his suits and perfectly considered ties to do that. Here he felt exactly like what he was, out of his element.
His hand stroked his cheek. He would like to grow a beard or perhaps a mustache. It would probably come in like his hair—brown and full with wisps of gray. Perhaps not. He noticed lots of blond, black, and red hairs mixed with the brown going down the drain when he shaved. In any event, it wasn’t a real possibility. People simply didn’t trust politicians with facial hair. His constituents liked his quick and easy smile atop his six-foot, slender frame. He looked down at his legs that seemed skinny in the bathing suit. His voters wouldn’t like this look either. He looked best in a business suit with a blue shirt to match his eyes. Jeans and a blue work shirt also worked well for him, imparting an image of rugged manhood. It was a constructed image because hard physical labor was not in his nature. From childhood, he, and everyone close to him, knew he was not going to carry on the family farm.
He hated waiting. Today he had no choice. He tried to placate himself. For the first time in weeks he let his mind simply drift. His father’s cautions floated away with the undulating water. He fantasized that this was the life he wanted, sort of. Instead of lying on sun-baked sand in sloshing down water, he pictured himself on the patio of a Mexican café sipping red wine in the afternoon in the shade of a faded Dos Equis umbrella. Only it wouldn’t be in Mexico. Too many Hispanics. It could be in Arizona or New Mexico. Tucson maybe, or Las Cruces. Somewhere the Hispanics spoke English and the bathrooms were clean. Or maybe Paris. No, that wouldn’t be good. The French were snobbish if you didn’t speak their language perfectly, and he didn’t, and their bathrooms were notorious, so he had heard. No, it would be the States. Canada was okay but too cold in winter.
He smiled. He had made a joke. Winter in Canada. His last name was Winters.
He half-snorted, half-chuckled to himself. Life would be dull without his fantasy life. He let his eyes and mind wander.
A college kid, football player by the looks, no, that couldn’t be right. It was October. Football players wouldn’t be on the beach, not in the middle of the week. Basketball perhaps, or baseball. God, not soccer. Whatever, he was mounding sand around what Samuel could only guess was a beautiful co-ed. Her face was pretty much hidden behind dark orbital sunglasses and a floppy white hat. Her body, on the other hand, was nicely traced though exaggerated by muddy sand mixture. The kid pretended not to be doing anything surreptitiously as he packed it between her legs and atop her breasts. The bulge in his trunks betrayed him. She pretended not to notice. Samuel was sure she would tuck the indiscretion away for some later moment, using it to win a point in an argument that she couldn’t win playing fair. Women didn’t play fair. But then, who did?
A gentle rolling wave. His eyes darted to it instantly. Eleven years in Washington had taught him several things. Situational awareness was one.
A couple dozen yards from shore, a young woman, at least she appeared young, floated face down on a transparent raft. Perhaps she thought she would be able to see any sharks swimming underneath her. Although, that far from shore, what could you do if you saw them? Swim? Paddle? Stand and wade? No, just lie there and hope the movement of another food source caught its attention first. It was the law of the fishes, of the herd. Sacrifice the one for the good of many. Try not to stand out. Try not to be the slowest swimmer, the weakest wildebeest.
Samuel raised his sunglasses above his eyebrows for a better look. There was something, he thought, familiar about her. He still couldn’t see her face clearly. He put the glasses down again. The woman wasn’t wearing a top to her bikini, that or it was undone. Beautiful medium length dark hair tied in a ponytail. He concluded he was wrong; he didn’t know any young women who fit the description. Still interested, he followed the curve of her back to her bottom. She had the buns for a thong. But it was all in his mind he finally admitted to himself. Her top was securely fastened and her bottom was covered by a lot more than a thong. He sighed. Another fantasy down the tubes.
He sat upright, looked around. No one seemed to be looking for him. He hated waiting, killing time. He thought about leaving. He thought again. He dropped back against the plastic webbing. He tried to nap. At least that would be something.
“Senator Winters?”
Samuel’s eyes popped open behind the dark glasses. He didn’t recognize the man but he recognized the posture. It was the same one exhibited by congressional aides when they were trying to hurry their bosses to an important meeting on time or a vote on the floor; urgency with a tinge of subservience.
The man stood at the foot of Samuel’s chair, the sun at his back, mostly obscuring the view of the Gulf. Hispanic, Samuel thought, though he
had not detected even a hint of an accent in the brief introduction. Suddenly movement beyond the man caught Samuel’s eye. He stood quickly.
Thirty yards out past the girl floating on the raft, a fin. It moved lazily, parallel to shore, dark grey and slightly curved. He followed the movement, made easier by sunlight breaking on the water like crystal shattering silently in its tiny wake.
Well past the girl, the fin turned back in her direction but closer now. She saw it. Her head was turned, straining to look past her feet.
Ten yards out and ten yards north of the girl the fin suddenly accelerated. It whipped sharply, left, right, circled, disappeared.
Sun-worshipers were on their feet. Hands shading their eyes, searching the calm water, trying to guess where the fin would re-appear. Teenagers stopped their splashing play to watch. A fat old man waist deep turned from staring at the young women on the beach in bikinis to look.
There it was, not two yards from the float, moving frantically, reversing direction, then gone again.
A woman on the beach pointed at it. A fin was slicing the water directly toward the girl on the float but somehow now twenty yards out.
Shrill whistles up and down the beach. Then he saw the difference. This fin was larger, darker, more angular and moving with purpose. “Shark! Shark!” The warning shouts came from the lifeguards, echoed by bathers with ever-increasing insistency. Water splashed as mothers rushed in, dragging their children by an arm toward safety. Teens, boys and girls, strode hard towards shore, trying to break the grasp of the water holding them back. Warning words dissolved into frantic shouts. Self-preservation instincts took over. Older boys reached hands towards female companions but they weren’t waiting heroically to fend off the beast. While fair maidens looked left and right to locate the fin, the soon-to-be men hoofed it to the dry sand.
The grey fin surfaced momentarily, on a line with the girl on the float but farther to the west. The dark fin turned after it, perilously close to the float. So close, Samuel thought, that she could reach out and touch it if she dared.
Then he saw it, just for an instant. A massive shape, nearly as long as the float, black under the water, its lines distorted by the sun flicking off the surface. Then it was gone. Not a fin, grey or black, not a trace.
Still the occasional shrill whistle, directed chiefly at the fat man, pale now, still standing in the same spot as though his feet were encased in cement.
Samuel watched the girl check every direction before easing off the float. She was shorter than he had thought. Her breasts sending small eddies around her as she walked. She looked like Aphrodite rising from the sea, one hand on the float along side her, following like a faithful sea creature. She appeared strangely calm.
“Senator,” the Hispanic man said flatly, waiting.
Samuel picked up his shirt and towel, slipped his feet into the leather sandals, pulled his sunglasses over his eyes. “Did you see that?”
“Yes,” the Hispanic man replied. “A dolphin chasing away a shark. It happens.”
“Really? No kidding? My clothes are in a locker.” Samuel took a couple of steps before asking, “Have we met? Your face is somehow familiar?”
“No, Senator.”
Samuel continued walking. Now I’ve done it. Insulted the man by implying that all Hispanics look alike. This is not turning out to be one of my better days. But what the hell. He can’t possibly be a voter. Well, maybe, a long shot. He knew his demographics. Less than two percent of his constituents were Hispanic, just slightly more than African Americans or Asians.
Samuel emerged from the locker room. He took a deep breath. He felt better, more secure dressed in his suit, even without a tie and with his jacket over his arm.
He smiled at the girl from the float as she walked into the locker room. She was beautiful. While her bikini was definitely not a thong, it revealed a great deal. She frowned as she listened on her cell phone. Large, very dark sunglasses hid her eyes. Her face was turned from him. She seemed not to notice him at all. Another fantasy shot down.
The jock from the beach passed them as well, in the same direction. He supposed the girl with him was the one he had been patting down in the sand. Samuel hadn’t been able to get a good look at her until now, covered as she had been. She was tall, lean, nicely tanned. Samuel supposed it was natural for Florida co-eds to be well tanned year round.
His cell phone buzzed from his jacket side pocket.
“Yes?...I told you. Not a problem. I’ll be back in plenty of time.”
He replaced the cell phone.
The Hispanic man held open the rear door of a dark sedan. He held out a hand for Samuel’s jacket. Samuel declined.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“Carlos, Senator.”
The sedan drove slowly away from the beach parking lot.
“Where are you from, Carlos?”
“Miami, Senator.”
“You speak perfect English.” Shit, Samuel thought. Did it again.
In the rearview mirror, a sneer started to form on Carlos’ upper lip but he quickly turned it into a smile. “You should buckle-up, Senator. Traffic will be heavy this time of day.”
Samuel couldn’t see Carolos’ eyes in the rearview mirror. He wanted to but sunglasses obscured them. He could tell a lot from a person’s eyes. Many people in Washington knew it. Many of them practiced eye-movement deception. Even so, if you looked long enough, the eyes always betrayed the thoughts behind them. Hiding them meant only one thing. You knew the practice and you were hiding something of great value.
The right rear seat belt clicked. Samuel rubbed his hand over the seatback. He smiled. The power position. No one of importance rode directly behind the driver. It wasn’t for the convenience of conversing verbally or non-verbally with the driver. It was simply custom. Power on the right, subordinate to the left.
Odd. The seatback was not leather. It was some high-tech synthetic. He felt the seat cushion. Identical. Walter and his significant people always drove Mercedes. You might start off in the company with the smallest C-Class but as you rose in prominence you would eventually graduate to an E-Class. Only Walter was permitted to own a CL. To his mind, the sport models were only for playboys, Europeans, and vulgar nouveau riche. Samuel had noticed that the sedan wasn’t a Mercedes when he got in. Damn cars all look alike these days he said to himself. He realized now that he was in a BMW.
“Is it far?” Samuel asked.
“A couple hours plus. You were on the wrong side of the peninsula.”
“Really? I was told it was close to Tampa. Not Palm Harbor then?
“No. I am afraid you were misled.”
“Then, where?”
“The beach at Palm Coast.”
“Close.”
“It could have been worse. You could have been at Palm Bay or Palm Beach. It’s a Florida thing. Lots of places with similar names.”
“A design to fool tourists, no doubt.”
“I wouldn’t know, Senator.”
Samuel settled back, content to concentrate on the passing landscape. Once they escaped Tampa the landscape was all the same. Heavy traffic, four lanes of concrete separated by a grassy median, scraggily oak trees, and palmettos on the sides.
He leaned forward to check the speedometer. 80. Carlos was smoothly weaving in and out of lanes, avoiding getting stuck behind large trucks.
In spite of his desire to observe the traffic flow, it wasn’t long before Samuel drifted into a light sleep. Sleeping in a moving conveyance was a habit ingrained from childhood.
The BMW nosed-dived to a stop as a large delivery truck abruptly changed lanes in front of them. Samuel lurched forward, glad now that the driver had suggested the seatbelt. He checked all around. They were tightly surrounded on all sides in the midst of four lanes of traffic. Lots of buses, taxis, towncars, and black SUVs.
“Where are we?” Samuel asked.
“Orlando,” Carolos replied matter-of-factly.
�
�Is it always like this?
“Pretty much. You should come back in month with the snowbirds. It’ll be worse then.”
“No way around?”
“No.”
“No wonder they want high-speed light rail.”
“Your first time here, Senator?”
“Yes. I’ve studied the maps and reports but never actually visited.”
Traffic crawled. Still, some impatient drivers managed to squeeze lane changes. No turn signals. Only the occasional squeal of brakes. No honking horns. It was as though the drivers had all trained for Daytona. Don’t let the other drivers know your next move. Just do it and pray they let you. Only the uninitiated or drunks caused accidents. Samuel couldn’t imagine it could get any worse.
The BMW whipped into a left lane, cutting off a large bus. Samuel slid right, the shoulder belt restraining him. He regained his posture. Another bus pulled along side. He noticed the logo—“Sterns Transport.” It triggered a memory. One of Walter Bensen’s major stocks.
He cautiously found the seat belt holder with his left hand. He pressed the release button. It didn’t budge. He shifted a little left. He tried again. Same result. He grasped the belt with his right hand allowing it some slack. He held the buckle upright with his left. He pushed down with his thumb. Nothing.
He felt the sunglasses staring at him in the mirror.
“Relax, Senator. It’s another hour, hour and a quarter, depending.”
“Any particular reason the seatbelt won’t release?”
For a moment, silence, except for the low hum of road noise. Then, “It must be stuck or something, Senator. I’ll fix it when we get there. You should keep it buckled anyway. Some of these drivers are insane.”
Samuel glanced out the window at a taxicab so close in the next lane that he could almost reach out and touch it; again, a Steers vehicle. “Sterns Transport pretty big in Orlando, is it?” he asked.
“I suppose,” Carlos answered.
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