by Tim Dorsey
“Baby, if we’re getting defrauded by a big company and a lot of money’s involved, then we complain. But this is Florida. We can’t allow ourselves to be provoked into fights with every idiot we meet on the street. You have no idea what baggage they’re bringing to the table.”
“So we have no pride?”
“Pride’s irrelevant,” said Jim. “We have a family. Never entangle your life with a stranger when the only thing to gain is the last word.”
“If I’m insulted, I have a right to the last word!”
“Forget insults. At this very moment there’s at least five hundred people in our city who, if they could get away with it, would slit our throats for the possessions in our house.”
Jim was wrong. There were 762.
“You’re paranoid,” said Martha. “You need therapy.”
“I know you’re upset.”
“I’m completely serious.”
“About what?”
“Therapy.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“There’s this new support group I heard about.”
“What kind?”
She told him.
“I don’t need to go to that.”
Martha folded her arms tighter.
“Okay,” said Jim. “Make you a deal. I’ll go, but only if you do, too.”
“What? With you?”
“No, to your own group…” He told her what kind.
“I don’t need to go there.”
“It’s only fair,” said Jim. “You’re the one who’s always harping on that.”
Martha gritted her teeth. “Okay, it’s a deal.”
TWELVE
PORT OF TAMPA
A ship’s horn made a deep, deafening blast.
Balloons, streamers, people cheering and uncorking champagne.
Rachael was on the third deck of the cruise terminal’s parking garage, hiding in the Comet’s backseat with third-day psychosis. She raised her sweat-drenched, wild-eyed face to peek out the window. The horn sounded again, and Rachael curled up in quaking fear on the floorboards. She loved partying!
Down on the docks, a mass of people waved at the about-to-depart ship.
“Safe journey!” shouted Serge. “Take lots of pictures!”
Coleman drank from a “Pepsi” can. “Who are you yelling at?”
“Everybody,” said Serge, cupping his hands around his mouth again. “Pay attention to the lifeboat instructions! Did you know sharks can actually leap six feet out of the water?…”
“You know people on the ship?”
“Nope…. Ever seen a body recovered at sea?…Pleasant trip!”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“I love to come to the port and pretend I know someone on a ship,” said Serge. “Another of life’s overlooked little pleasures—plus a free pass to go ape-shit in public…. Bon voyage, Joe, you crazy bastard!…”
“Look at all those people up there,” said Coleman.
“…Willy, you forgot your heart medication! Willy? Oh, my God, he’s turning blue!… Wonder what’s going on in their lives? It always perks me up to speculate….” He began pointing. “…That woman’s cheating with the dude who cleans her air ducts, that guy spends all his time upset about Mexicans, that man’s in perfect health but will suddenly projectile-cough impressive clots of blood during the big client dinner, that couple will lose everything answering an e-mail from Nigeria by the widow of the foreign minister trying to transfer twenty million dollars out of the country…. Mary! Don’t give anyone herpes this time!…”
Coleman giggled. “You just fucked the cruise for everyone named Mary.”
“See the fun you can have?” Serge beamed proudly and thumped his chest. “I’m a seafarin’ man! Ain’t this ship a beauty?”
Coleman stared almost straight up at the majestic bow with aqua-and-orange trim. Staterooms, towering green-glass atrium, obsessive people already running laps around the smokestack on the exercise track, many more celebrating on balconies.
“SS Serendipity,” said Serge. “Flagship of Caribbean Crown Line registered in Liberia. Three thousand passengers. A hundred-gross tonnage of enabler for people with eating, drinking and gambling disorders.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve taken a cruise, right?”
Coleman shook his head.
“You’re kidding. I thought of all people.”
“I haven’t been on one, okay?”
“Familiar with Las Vegas?”
“Of course.”
“Add a rudder and subtract government. The whole country’s into excess, even when fighting excess, and cruises are the nation’s bad habits on steroids. All the things you’re not supposed to do on land you’re supposed to do on a cruise because it’s one of America’s official responsibility-free zones, like Mardi Gras, New Year’s Eve or Courtney Love. Twenty-four-hour free buffets all over the place, raunchy stage shows, countless bars that won’t cut you off as long as you can knee-walk into a casino and blow the mortgage—”
“Whoa! When can we go?”
“Easy, Gilligan. We’re broke again, remember?” Serge looked up at the Titillation Deck, where four elderly women waved over the railing and blew noisemakers.
Eunice clutched a party horn in her teeth. “Who are we waving at?”
“Everybody,” said Edna. “Woo-hoo!…”
“Do we know anybody down there?”
“Not a soul,” said Edith. “This is one of life’s free little pleasures…. Susan, Chuck, see you next week!…”
“Let’s pick out some people,” said Ethel.
“Why?”
“For fun. See if we can confuse them. Like how we get a big kick waving at people we don’t know in Morrison’s cafeteria, and they halfheartedly wave back in social awkwardness.”
“What about those two guys?”
“Wave!” said Edna.
“Serge,” said Coleman. “Are those old ladies waving at us?”
“I think you’re right. But they must have us confused with someone else. Let’s wave back.”
“What for?”
“Confuse them. It’s lots of fun…. Happy Trails!…”
The celebratory waving of the old women became unsure. Edith lowered her hand. “Do we know those guys?”
“I don’t think so.”
“They seem to know us.”
“Now I feel awkward.”
“Maybe it’s a double-reverse sting,” said Edna.
“What’s that?”
“What we were doing to them except vice versa,” said Edith.
“They’re fucking with us?” said Eunice.
“The sons of bitches!”
“Serge,” said Coleman. “Those old ladies are shooting birds at us. Except the one on the end who’s doing the Italian thing under her chin.”
“This is bullshit,” said Serge. “Just because they’re old they think they can act any way they want…. Fuck you!…”
A balcony one floor below the Titillation Deck: “Check out those guys on the dock.”
“Which ones?”
“The two jumping around shooting birds with both hands.”
“Are they shooting them at us?”
“I think they are!…You motherfuckers!…”
Down on the dock, people pointed: “Look at those guys on the fourth deck!”
“They’re flipping us off, the cocksuckers…. Eat me!…”
Someone landside grabbed a bottle by the neck. He winged it at the ship; glass shattered against the hull and rained into the water. Rotten food flew back from the Tranquillity Deck. More gestures and profanity. People on the pier rummaged trash cans for ammo. Ship’s passengers flung debris that splatted on the dock.
“Ow.” Coleman grabbed a bloody spot above his left eyebrow. “What the fuck was that?”
“The country coming apart.” Trash exploded around them as Serge headed for the exit. “Let’s go greet planes at the airport.�
�
TEN P.M., THE DAVENPORTS’ MASTER BEDROOM
Jim and Martha lay side-by-side in unflattering pajamas.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Jim. “What’s wrong with our sex life?”
“Just quantity and quality.”
“I thought everything was fine.”
“Don’t take it personally.”
“How can I not take that personally?”
“Jim, it’s normal. Most people married this long fall in a rut. I was talking to my girlfriends about us at lunch.”
“You discussed our sex life?”
“You wouldn’t believe the feedback about you. Remember Susan?”
“I’m not sure I want to hear.”
“They have these manuals. Susan said she recalls meeting you at a dinner, so she insisted on letting me borrow this book with pictures: all these positions and accessories I never would have dreamed, like this string of metal balls that you pull really slow—”
“Martha, why can’t we just keep going the way we are?”
“We can. I’m just talking about a little variety.”
“What kind of variety?”
“Role-playing. Susan told me this one game where she and Phil wear each other’s clothes.”
Jim covered his eyes. “I play tennis with Phil.”
“We should discuss our fantasies.”
“I don’t have any fantasies.”
“Everybody has fantasies.”
“Do you?”
“Of course,” said Martha.
“I had no idea.”
“Because we never talk about it.”
“You know I love you,” said Jim. “If it’ll make you happy…”
“You too. Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”
“This is just such a surprise. I’ll have to think about it. Do you know what you want?”
Martha nodded. “Several things.”
“Name one.”
“I want you to be a bad man.”
“What? You want me to act like a jerk?”
“Not a jerk, a desperado. You know how certain women are always fatally attracted to the wrong guys? I married you because you’re so nice. But it would be a change of pace—just fantasy, you understand.”
“How am I supposed to be a bad man?”
“I can’t tell you. The surprise is part of the excitement. Tomorrow night?”
THIRTEEN
TAMPA
A tastefully restored 1923 bungalow sat a couple blocks south of Azeele Avenue. Daisy yellow. Sprawling porch with hip roof and restored supports. To either side were long lines of similarly rehabbed homes in a historic section of Tampa that was bouncing back after police got the memo to chase winos north of Kennedy Boulevard. But the area remained a buffer zone, still too sketchy for family life, and the homes had been converted into a variety of light-impact professional offices with top-shelf alarm systems. Signs in brass and carved wood for accountants, law firms, M.D.s.
The sign in front of the 1923 home indicated psychiatry. Through the front window, a man and a woman could be seen sitting across from each other in a pair of antique English chairs.
“Love your new digs!” said Serge. “Didn’t want to mention anything, but that last place was a shit hole.”
“Serge, maybe you can change the subject with other people—”
“Did you see where that thirteen-foot Burmese python escaped into the Everglades? Swallowed an alligator!…”
“Serge, you disappeared for a year,” said the psychiatrist. “Then you just show up on my doorstep and expect everything to be peachy?”
“…Ruptured his stomach.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
The doctor sighed and looked down at an old patient folder. “We were last talking about faulty rage control.”
“You can click your little pen open and check that off the list!”
The pen remained unclicked.
“What’s the matter?” asked Serge, head hanging straight back, admiring crown molding.
“Your knuckles are all skinned up.”
“They are?” He held out both hands and turned them over. “Oh that. No, it wasn’t rage; it was sex.”
“What possible kind of sex?—”
“Rachael. She fucks like a hurricane! I’m more of a typhoon, sometimes a dust devil, but every once in a while a quick-forming Midwestern squall with hail, but not golf-ball size; you know those cute little popcorn pieces that hop around your lawn?…”
“Serge…”
“…We were humping our brains out just this morning, and right before I came, I started flashing on Andrew Jackson, the Sanibel Lighthouse, Warm Mineral Springs, my View-Master collection. Okay, that last one was because I was actually looking at View-Masters at the time….”
“Serge!”
“What?”
“How do you explain the bump on your forehead? Are you still head-butting people?”
Serge felt the top of his head. “Oh, that was sex, too. She caught me looking at View-Masters.”
The doctor maintained poise and jotted in her file. “Despite the protracted absence, I’m glad you came back. Indicates at least a minimal desire to address your problems.”
“Problems? I don’t have any problems.”
She put her pen down. “Then what are we doing sitting here?”
“You’re a great conversationalist. Coleman’s got a good heart, but you can only use words from books that come with crayons, and the rest of the guys in my circle don’t even know what a newspaper is.”
“So if you’re not here to explore the truth about yourself, what were you expecting to talk about?”
“The Miami Vice movie. I loved it, with an asterisk for lack of character background. Did you know it was based on episode fifteen of the first season, ‘Smuggler’s Blues,’ originally aired February 1, 1985, with Glen Frey? What did you think of the casting?”
“Serge…”
“Or if you’re more of an art-house type, we can critique Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise. I even tracked down the Surfcaster Motel in Melbourne. The staff was polite for the first few hours I interrogated them, but in the end I got the feeling they weren’t art house….”
“Serge—”
He reached in his pocket. “…Got excellent photos of the room where the main characters holed up before Eddie wigged and hopped a direct flight to Budapest. Right, I know what you’re thinking: Budapest. The Melbourne airport. But you have to suspend disbelief if you ever want to enjoy another movie or watch the president for more than fifteen seconds without running into the street demanding a new constitutional convention.”
“Serge, I didn’t go to school all those years to discuss Florida movies.”
“Then you got gypped.”
“Serge!”
“Okay, okay. Here’s what’s bothering me. You want the truth? I don’t have a legacy.”
“Legacy?”
“Well, I have one, but it’s the wrong kind. Think of all the great creative legacies from history. Either a defining moment, like the photo of Mount Suribachi, or a fertile period, from Beggars’ Banquet to Exile on Main Street. I need to leave a universally respected mark in this world or what’s the point?”
“What brought this on?”
“I Googled myself. People have no idea how words can hurt.”
The doctor sat up rigid, for authority. “I can’t treat you anymore if your heart isn’t into it, which I’m beginning to seriously doubt. I want you to prove me wrong.”
“How?”
She wrote on a piece of paper and gave it to Serge.
“What’s this?”
“The support group I want you to attend.”
“But I don’t do good in groups. I’m a lone wolf. You know the song ‘Desperado’? I hate that song because it’s for dorks who keep getting dumped and say, ‘I’m just not meant for one woman.’ Correct: You’re meant for zero.”
; “Serge. This is an ultimatum. Go to the group.”
“But these people are messed up.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to be firm.” The doctor stood. “You need to attend at least one meeting before I’ll agree to see you again.”
“Okay.” Serge slipped the note into his wallet. “But I’m telling you it’s a mistake.”
GULF OF MEXICO
The water was pleasant and calm. The SS Serendipity reached the midpoint of its return leg from Cozumel.
The G-Unit made its way to the aft promenade and grabbed four hot, moist cafeteria trays just out of the washer. They slid them along aluminum rails. The front tray stopped.
“What’s the matter?” asked Edna.
“Where’s my lasagna?” said Edith.
“What lasagna?”
“The one I like.”
The trays began moving again. And stopped again. “Where’s my salad dressing?”
“And the crumbled hard-boiled eggs?”
“What happened to the tapioca?”
All around them, scores of other retirees with empty trays, wandered the cafeteria at random angles in a fog of confusion.
The casual observer would have blamed senility.
It wasn’t.
A ten-year, double-blind study from the Mayo Clinic concluded that even in late stages of dementia, the last to go is the lobe of the brain in charge of cafeteria layout.
The G-Unit was on its first cruise, but the others were veterans. “Where’s the creamed corn?” “My veal?”
In the beginning, cruise executives were delighted by the growing trend of repeat bookings among retirees. Past experience had shown them to be among the most coveted customers: suckers for “senior discounts” who spent ten times the savings on slots and early-dinner-seating cocktails.
The industry aggressively catered to this clientele by hiring suave, relatively young ballroom dancers to offset the widows-to-widowers ratio. There were extra chocolates on the pillows, and the turn-down crew was schooled in the ancient Oriental art of towel folding. Each evening, guests would be greeted upon returning to their cabins by Godiva and cute terry cloth swans or ponies or kitty cats in the middle of their beds.
Then, new numbers started coming in. There had to be some kind of mistake. The latest groups were barely spending at all. That’s when the main offices noticed something even more alarming from Florida ports: Waves of retirees were booking so many consecutive cruises that they were actually living on the ships. Quite inventively, too. They chipped in for tiny communal apartments near the port, where they kept keepsakes. Some had relatives deliver prescriptions and exchange laundry during turnarounds in port; others hailed taxis for biweekly errand runs. And if there were any medical problems at sea, it fell to the ships’ doctors: free health care!