by Tim Dorsey
Poverty prevented a lot of things, but not bullying.
They reached the next field and the mad hunt was on again. This time Chris actually came up with two rabbits, one in each hand, grinning ear to ear, until getting slammed to the ground again. The critters went in older boys’ sacks. Chris just jumped up and took off after another cottontail.
The pickup truck arrived at the last field of the day. This time the haul was so bountiful that the kids pushed the time envelope beyond good judgment. Most were coughing on smoke, feeling the heat of nearby burning stalks, eyes watering as they dove for one more bunny.
Moments later, they burst out of the cane field, initially stunned silent by their own success, then celebrating. As the joy died down and the stinging in their eyes cleared, an odd sensation arrived. Something seemed off. Just a vague gut feeling.
“Is someone not here?”
“Where’s Chris?”
“Shit!”
Three of the older boys dashed back into different rows on the edge of the cane field that was rapidly reaching full burn. After only ten yards in, one of the boys found a much younger, skinny kid with a big grin and a bigger jackrabbit.
“Gimme that thing!”
The grin left town. “No! It’s mine! I caught him!”
The older boy seized the rabbit by the scruff of the neck, and used his other hand to shove the smaller child down into the dirt and smoke. The child clawed in the soil and fought for breath.
“Now get the fuck up and follow me,” said the larger youth. “And don’t tell anyone about the jackrabbit or I’ll kick your fucking ass! I know where you live!”
The rest of the gang was waiting in the harmless black square, watching nervously as flames grew higher and nearer.
Finally someone pointed. “They’re coming out!”
The older boy raised his trophy in triumph.
“Look!”
“James caught a jackrabbit!”
“He’s going to play college ball for sure!”
On the ride back to Pahokee, the bed of the pickup was much louder than usual. Laughter and tall tales. Everyone had rabbits in their sack. Except one.
Chris just sulked with chin down, the way most of these trips ended.
The others wondered why Chris even bothered to come along. After all, she was a girl.
Chapter 3
The Florida Keys
Piles of hurricane debris continued to appear down the sides of the road as if snowplows had been at work. Branches, dresser drawers, broken mirrors, toilets, tires, ceiling fans, cans of food, ripped shirts, rolls of carpet, a deflated basketball and a cuckoo clock.
A Plymouth Satellite raced east.
“Stop the car!” yelled Coleman. “Stop the car!”
Serge screeched the brakes and skidded off the side of the highway.
“Jesus! What is it?”
“Wait here.” Coleman jumped out and waddled fifty yards before reaching into the trash. He returned and climbed back in the passenger seat.
Serge pulled back onto the highway. “What have you got there?”
“Check it out!” Coleman thrust his arm an inch from Serge’s eyes.
Serge swatted it away. “I’m driving over here.”
Coleman cradled his find and brushed off dirt. “It’s a squeeze bottle for Florida honey. I remember these from when I was a kid. See? It’s a cute smiling alligator from one of those roadside places.”
“The old citrus stands,” said Serge. “The kind that sold tourists boxes of navel oranges that got crushed by baggage handlers and leaked on the luggage belts, leaving sticky slicks that contaminated other people’s suitcases in our state’s way of saying, ‘Please visit!’”
Coleman twisted off the top and stuck an eyeball in the hole. “I’d been watching the road for something like this.”
“You’re kidding.” Serge looked quickly toward the passenger side. “You were seriously looking for a cool vintage souvenir?”
“Oh, sure. It’s just what I wanted.”
Serge turned back toward the road and shook his head with a smile. “Well, I’ll be. There’s hope for you yet . . .”
A half hour later, the gold Satellite sat on the side of the road near mile marker 82 in Islamorada.
Serge glared across the front seat.
“What?” said Coleman.
Serge shook his head again, but with different import. “Hope with you is a fool’s errand.”
Coleman shrugged and stuck the alligator’s head in his mouth, taking a hit from his new honey-bottle bong. He exhaled and pointed. “What’s that on the edge of the street? The thing with orange lightbulbs?”
“Temporary highway sign to alert motorists,” said Serge. “Don’t bother me right now.”
“I know it’s a road sign,” said Coleman. “But they usually say something like ‘Detour Ahead.’ Why does that one say ‘Screw Worm Inspection Station Mile 106’?”
Serge was trying to concentrate on a file folder in his lap. “Because they inspect for screw worms. Probably not now because of the storm. But they’ll be back up and running soon.”
“I don’t even know what a screw worm is,” said Coleman. “And why would they need to inspect?”
“It doesn’t concern you. Leave me alone.” Serge intently flipped through the file.
“I just wanted to know. You’re not the only curious one.” Then Coleman lapsed into his stoner pastime of playing with the sound of words. “Screw worm . . . screw worm . . . screwwwwwwwww worm . . . screw wormmmmmmmm . . . screw wormy-worm . . .”
Serge slowly raised his reddening face and stared out the windshield.
“. . . Screwy-screw worm . . . Worm screwy worm . . .”
“Fuck it!” Serge emitted a deep sigh and closed the file. He grabbed a thermos of coffee and chugged. “Okay, most flies—like houseflies—lay eggs in dead stuff. But there’s this nasty other fly from Central American called Cochliomyia hominivorax. It needs living flesh and deposits eggs in open animal wounds. To up the gross-out factor, the larvae burrow into the meat as they feed, using a screw-like anchor that is so strong it can penetrate bone. It gets pretty ugly and is often fatal. You don’t want to see the photos.”
“Maybe,” said Coleman. “But what’s that got to do with the Keys? Why do we need that sign here if it’s in Central America?”
“The United States eradicated screw worm flies in the early 1980s, but somehow they got back in and caused the current outbreak that is confined for now to the Florida Keys. That’s why they need the signs. Any tourists who bring pets with them on vacation must have them inspected before returning to the mainland.”
“They’re eating poodles and stuff?”
“Not yet, but the outbreak has already caused much sadness down here.” Serge pointed back over his shoulder. “You know those cute little miniature Key deer back on Big Pine that are found nowhere else in the world?”
A pot exhale. “Know ’em and love ’em.”
“They seem all sweet and everything, but they’re still wild creatures, and during mating season all bets are off. The males have these tiny antlers and they start butting heads for primacy. To watch these little suckers go at it, it’s actually kind of funny.”
“Kind of like babies fighting.”
Serge paused. “When do babies ever fight?”
Coleman puffed and shrugged. “They can’t all be nice.”
“Whatever. So all this head crashing leaves the tops of the deer’s scalps with bunches of antler gashes. That’s when the screw worm flies move in, and they work fast! In as little as eight hours, the fleshly laid eggs can hatch and bore down almost an inch. Necrosis follows with equal alacrity, and if immediate care isn’t sought, it’s game over.”
“Cool.”
“But here’s the freakiest part: Although the host animal is already hopelessly doomed, they’re still alive and semi-functioning. That’s what happened recently on Big Pine Key. Nobody knew there was an outbrea
k until they started seeing these zombie-like deer staggering around with parts of their heads gone. They had to euthanize around fifty of the poor fellas. It was the big news down here all season.”
“Now I’m sad.”
“Maybe this will cheer you up.” Serge pulled a photo of a headstone from a manila folder.
Coleman blew another cloud out the window and leaned over. “Whatcha got there?”
“I’ve begun collecting tombstone rubbings.” Fingers flipped through pages. “And the Keys are the best place to start! Whenever launching a new hobby, always pick a starting point that provides immediate success and encourages an obsessive-compulsive lifestyle of more and more hobbies until you retreat from all human contact, subsist on delivered pizza, and remain behind the closed curtains of a house crammed to the eyeballs with comic books, Civil War figures, postage stamp albums, ships in bottles, Coca-Cola signs, prison contraband, display cases of dead moths from across North America, jars of dirt from all fifty states, the world’s largest ball of Scotch Tape, and a life-size model made entirely from matchsticks of the Lee Harvey Oswald shooting in the Dallas police basement.”
“Never thought of it that way.” Puff, puff, puff.
Serge nodded hard as he held up pages. “Take a gander. These are from the Key West Cemetery. The first one is obvious, from the verdigris bronze statue of a sailor overlooking twenty-seven graves of those killed in the 1898 explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor . . .” He raised another page. “From there, a severe mood swing to the tombstone of B. P. Robert: ‘I told you I was sick,’ and Alan Dale Willcox: ‘If you’re reading this, you desperately need a hobby.’” Serge turned and chuckled. “I fooled him . . . You getting this?”
Coleman exhaled smoke and nodded. “Ball of Scotch Tape.”
“The Key West Cemetery is my visual favorite, with aboveground crypts like New Orleans, fantastic statues of angels in various moods and severe tropical landscaping.”
“All I know is you woke me up extra early.”
“For my Maximum Key West Cemetery Morning Routine: Arise just before dawn and shuffle over to the tiny Five Brothers Cuban grocery on the corner of Southard Street, order pressed cheese toast and café con leche, stick coins in a metal box for a copy of the Key West Citizen, then stroll into the cemetery and stretch out on a slab with a great sunrise breakfast while reading an article about a homeless man with no pants arrested for knocking tourists off mopeds with coconuts.”
“It doesn’t get any better,” said Coleman.
“But here’s a fun fact to put the perfect coda on that first tour stop. About twenty-five thousand people live in Key West, but there are roughly seventy-five thousand in that cemetery.” Serge raised a knowing eyebrow. “Makes you think.”
Coleman pointed at the rubbings in Serge’s lap. “What’s that one?”
“From a cat grave on the grounds of the Hemingway House.” He held up another. “And this is from where one of Hemingway’s roosters is buried behind Blue Heaven restaurant in the island’s Bahama Village section. And finally Mitzi the Dolphin, bringing us up-to-date.”
“Was I there?”
“Yes, but pot gives you the short-term memory of a fungus.” Serge stowed the file and pulled out fresh pages and wax.
Coleman followed his pal as they left the car behind. “Ever think about what you’d like on your own tombstone?”
Serge tapped his chin. “Maybe something like: ‘This is bullshit.’”
“I can dig it.” Coleman took another hit. “You know what I’d like?”
“You’ve stumped me.”
“‘Dave’s not here.’” Giggles.
Serge slowly began nodding. “I like it. On a couple of levels. First, for its simple philosophical truth. Second, as an Easter egg for Cheech and Chong fans who lose their way going into a cemetery.”
Serge entered a small, open park and snapped a few photos, then approached a monument and went to work with his wax.
“Wow,” said Coleman. “That’s the biggest tombstone I’ve ever seen!”
“Roughly the same shape, but not a tombstone.” Rub, rub, rub. “It’s the monument to those who lost their lives in the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. The cremated remains of nearly two hundred people are interred just under your feet.”
“It looks kind of cool.”
“Because it is.” Rub, rub, rub. “A giant slab of coral with a bas-relief sculpture of blowing palms. Due to the era, the design is art deco. But it’s so subtly placed and presented that most visitors just drive right by without noticing the massive history treasure . . . I don’t think I’m going to have enough paper.”
Coleman stared down and idly scraped the ground with the toe of a sneaker. “Whew, two hundred.”
“Get ready,” said Serge. “I have a feeling our next stop is going to be insane.”
Eight Years Earlier
Boys yelled from all directions.
“I got one!”
“I got one over here, too!”
Chris raced between rows, crashing through cane stalks. She had a bead on another jackrabbit. She began coughing in the thickening smoke, but there was never a thought of giving up. Her technique was to chase rabbits toward the fire and confuse them.
More slamming through the cane, scraping her arms up but good. Then she left her feet and stretched out in the air for her pounce.
“Got you!”
She was happily carrying the rabbit out of the field when something collided with her hard from the side, knocking her to the ground. A boy much older and bigger reached down. “Give me that fucking rabbit.”
Chris was immediately back on her feet. “He’s mine! Give him back!”
But she was just shoved again in the dirt.
This time Chris didn’t get right back up. She felt she was about to cry, and she couldn’t let that happen. She strained for composure, and dug her fists, clawing, into the rich soil. Then:
“What’s this?”
Her left hand felt something strange. She pulled it from the soil and opened her palm. It was a coin. She rubbed the dirt off on her shirt and looked again. A gold coin. She read the date.
1907.
From collecting Lincoln pennies, Chris knew about other coins, too. And she still couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a Saint-Gaudens twenty-dollar piece, one of the crown jewels of the numismatic world. She knew its value from her guidebooks and always figured she could only dream of having one. This was way better than a rabbit. She found a foot-long marking stake with an orange ribbon and drove it into the ground.
Chris was still studying her find as she came out of the stalks, so distracted she bumped into another of the big boys.
“What do you have in your hand?”
She clenched her fist shut and stuck it behind her back. “Nothing.”
“Give it here!”
“No!”
He twisted her arm and pried her fingers open. “Thanks!” Then the final shove to the ground of the day.
Chris went home in a fuming funk and sat outside on a milk crate.
Bells jingled as a door opened in Pahokee.
The pawnshop owner set a jeweler’s glass down and looked up. Pawnshops are universally the eyes of the community, and their eclectic brand of commerce tracks the town’s secrets: who’s gambling, on drugs, getting divorced, quitting the trombone.
Right now, these eyes gazed toward the person entering his shop and told him: This isn’t positive. It was one of the junior high kids, nothing to buy, nothing to sell. But they were damn fast, and forget trying to catch them once they stole something and made it out the door.
“Stop right there, young man.” The owner looked and sounded like James Earl Jones. But his name was Webber. “What’s your business here?”
The boy reached in his pocket and held up a yellow circle between his thumb and index finger. “I found a coin.”
This was different. A thousand-candlepower smile lit up the shop. “Come on over her
e, son! Let’s see what you’ve got there.”
But the pawnshop owner already knew. Such coins had been dribbling in over the years about one every six months. Always from kids he initially sized up as trouble. They claimed they found them in the cane fields while hunting rabbits, but who knew? Maybe someone’s collection was getting poached. The fewer questions the better.
“I found it in a cane field,” said an unusually tall fourteen-year-old named Ricky.
“You look like a football player.” Webber examined the coin and poked the boy in the shoulder, buttering him up. “I’ll bet you’re going to win the Muck Bowl for us!”
Ricky bloomed with pride. “I still have a year to go, but Coach says I’m a natural tailback.”
“I’m sure you are.” Webber set the coin down on a cloth. “Did you take a look at this? Did you read what it says on the back?”
Eager nodding. “Twenty dollars! But it’s old, and it’s gold!”
“Except you realize that they don’t use these coins anymore. They took them out of circulation.”
“What does that mean?” asked the youth.
“It means I don’t want to give you any bad news. What do you think is a fair price for this coin?”
Ricky pointed. “The back says twenty dollars.”
Webber opened his register and pulled out bills to mollify negotiations. “How about fifteen? That’s more than I should.”
It had the desired effect as the boy stared at the cash and thought: Shit, yeah. I just snatched it off that sissy girl anyway.
“Deal.”
Thus continued a daisy chain of underhandedness.
They shook hands.
The boy pocketed bills as he headed for the door.
“And bring me any others you find,” Webber called out. “I’m good for fifteen dollars each, even though I’m probably losing money. But I can’t help it; I’m just a nice guy.”
Bells jingled again as the door closed.
Webber had just made his whole month. If melted for just the weight in gold, the coin was worth more than a grand. And a 1907 in this condition could fetch double.