Florida Straits

by SKLA

  "Quick," said Joey. "Inna rowboat."

  Without quite knowing how he got there, Gino Delgatto found himself over the side, his hands clinging to the sundering timbers, his feet groping for the dry boards of the dinghy. A moment later, Joey followed. He took the oars just as the Osprey was going down. The bow went first. Like a dying animal, it seemed to give its head one final shake of defiance or supplication, then slid silently into the deep water at the far side of the coral canyon. Somewhat anti-climactically, the stern had yet to follow. Thinly attached by the few boards still intact, it had to be pulled down like a ham actor reluctant to leave the stage, and gave off an unseemly sucking sound as it finally submerged.

  Joey needed to row only a couple hundred yards to escape the ferocious turbulence of the reef, and the instant he'd done so, the water was again so placid, the night air so still and coddling that it would have been easy to imagine that the wreck of the Osprey was only a quick nightmare, a hellish vision from a brief and otherwise pleasant nap.

  Except the boat was gone. The motor was gone. The emeralds were gone.

  Joey rowed in silence past the buoy blinking red.

  Gino looked back in disbelief toward the empty place where his fortune had been. Moonlight twinkled on the ripples, and that was it. He pulled in a deep breath that added weight to the unhappy suspicion that he had cracked some ribs. Then he grabbed his hair and pulled. "Ah fuck, Joey," he said. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

  Joey put his back into his rowing. He hadn't wanted to thank Gino for his offer of a measly ten grand, and he didn't want to apologize now. He shrugged as well as he could shrug while handling the oars. "Gino, hey," he said. "I'm new at this. I tried."

  — 36 —

  "You tried. You tried? You tried? Joey, you fucking little halfass loser pissant twerp, tree million dollars onna table, and you tried? That kinda money, Joey, ya don't try. A boy tries, Joey. A man does."

  Gino Delgatto sat in the stern of the rowboat and screamed. Salt water squished through his nylon socks and out through the seams of his soft, ruined loafers. His silk jacket was full of slime and splinters. He was bleeding freely from his sliced-open finger and didn't notice until after he'd run that hand through his hair.

  "I shoulda known you'd fuck it up," he went on. "Ha!" He slapped himself on the forehead. "Where was my fucking brain? What was going on in my fucking head that I would leave anything up to you? I must be crazy. How long I known you always fuck things up? Always. Shit, don't I know that's why you come down here inna first place? You couldn't cut it in New York, Joey, so here you are in this pissant little nothing place."

  Gino enjoyed screaming. He had a voice that razzed like a trombone as it got louder, and it could fill a room, a house; sometimes it seemed like it could shout down everything for a city block. But it couldn't fill the ocean at four A.M., and this was a little frustrating. Also, to really crank up the volume, he had to squeeze from the gut, and this made his ribs burn as if touched with lit cigarettes. Well, tough, thought Gino. Let it hurt. His emeralds were at the bottom of the ocean and, goddammit, somebody, everybody, was going to pay.

  "Yeah," he resumed, agreeing with himself. "You come down here because up there ya gotta do things right, and you never did. Ya couldn't even handle a bagga money without fucking it up somehow. Rough a guy up? Forget about it. You got no nerve, Joey. No balls. And everybody knows it, don't kid yourself. Pop, your so-called buddies—they all know you're worthless." He slapped himself in the head again. "Me, I know it. So why the fuck did I listen to you? Did I figure, O.K., I'm on your turf, maybe you're less of a fuckup here? Did I figure, hey, give the kid a chance, maybe by some miracle he ain't such a total loser anymore?"

  Rowing is a very serene activity, private, repetitive, with constant evidence of slow but uncomplicated progress. So Joey rowed. He'd never done it before, and he didn't do it well, but he did it. He'd kicked off his wet sneakers, rolled up his wet pants legs, and was almost comfortable. He answered his brother softly. "Gino, come on, you listened to me 'cause you were desperate. You were drunk as a skunk, scared shitless, and you didn't know what to do next."

  To Gino, this version of events already sounded wildly false, and if he didn't yet have a more satisfactory tale to tell himself, he'd construct one on the fly. "That's where you're wrong, kid," he razzed, wagging a bleeding finger in Joey's face. "Very wrong. I woulda come up with a plan. I was already workin' on it. And it wouldn'ta been so fucking half-ass like yours. Mine woulda worked. I got impatient. That was my mistake." He slapped his head. "I got impatient, and yeah, I let my confidence get shook, that much I admit. So I depend on a little shitass nobody like you to pull me through. So O.K., I deserve what I got. Nothin'."

  Joey rowed. Emerald-green flashes of phosphorescence streamed out from the blades of his oars, and the whole world seemed to exhale with relief at the pause in Gino's tantrum. The stars appeared to be receding with the prospect of the end of night. When Gino spoke again, he was not yelling but seemed to be thinking aloud.

  "Nothin'. No money. No stones. All I got for my trouble is this big fucking problem with Charlie Ponte."

  "Yup," said Joey, "ya still got that."

  Gino said nothing. He shifted on the cracked stern seat of the rowboat and watched blood congeal on his finger. Somehow the zest went out of his rage when he remembered he was scheduled to be rubbed out.

  "So what ya gonna do about it?" Joey resumed.

  Again Gino made no answer, and Joey, between strokes of the oars, could not resist adding, "I mean, you said you had a plan and all."

  "I do have a plan," Gino said by reflex. In the old days Joey might have believed him.

  "Want my advice?"

  Gino snorted. "Yeah, Joey, like I want a root canal."

  "Just lay low for a while. Not long. A week, tops. Don't get antsy. 'Cause I got a feeling that things can still work out."

  Gino considered this a moment, then his temper kicked in again. "Yeah? Like as good as they been workin' out so far?" His blood pressure rose so that his cut finger spat out its half-formed scab. His side throbbed like a drum. "Joey, man, I cannot fucking believe you are still giving me advice and I'm sittin' heah like almost half taking you seriously. After what you did to me, you dumb twat." He gestured off in the general direction of land. "Joey, the fucking stones were in my hand. In my hand! Why couldn't you just leave well enough alone? I coulda been halfway to New York by now. But no, you gotta get fancy. You gotta play the smart guy. And I listen." He smacked himself in the head. "Joey, do me a favor, don't fucking talk to me no more."

  Joey shrugged and rowed. For a long time the only sound was the soft splash of the oars, a noise that was companionable and oddly domestic, like a cat lapping milk in the kitchen. Off in the east, in a colorless and utterly undramatic way, the sky was just barely beginning to lighten. Low stars were doused and two different shades of black were sandwiched at the horizon.

  "Gino, man," Joey said at last, "I got, like, a suggestion I wanna make."

  He paused, waiting to see if Gino would shut him up. He didn't. It was one thing to sulk, but with two guys in an eight-foot rowboat, silences could turn truly psychotic.

  "So listen," Joey went on. "I realize maybe this isn't the best time to bring this up, I know you're a little upset and all. But Gino, I been thinkin'. I been thinkin' it would be a good thing if like you and me could just forgive each other."

  Gino Delgatto looked at his half brother as if he'd never seen him before, as if he'd just that minute dropped from the sky and landed in the rowboat. "Fuck you talking about?"

  Joey breathed deeply but kept rowing. "Gino, I just lost you a fortune. You were gonna be a big man, set for life, and I fucked it up for you. I could say I'm sorry, but you know what? I'm not sorry. I'm glad."

  Gino stared at Joey. He had a thought to lunge forward and strangle him but was held back by stupefaction and the fear of falling overboard and drowning.

  "All my life you been makin' me feel b
ad, Gino. It's like either you use me or ignore me. When I was a little kid, you didn't protect me, you lemme get beat up. When I dropped outta school—"

  "Joey, what is this bullshit? We're gonna sit here inna middle of the fucking ocean and drag out grudges from a million years ago?"

  "Not from a million years ago," said Joey. "From now. 'Cause it's never changed, Gino. You don't take me serious. I leave New York. Does it ever dawn on you to wonder how I'm doin', what I'm doin'? No. When you get involved in somethin' down heah, then you're innerested 'cause then you can use me. You can take it for granted that I'll drop everything to help you out. You see what I'm sayin', Gino? You don't treat me right, but you don't lemme get away either."

  "You wanna get away, get away," said Gino. "Who's stoppin' ya?"

  "Who am I chauffeurin' around inna fucking rowboat? But O.K., say I really do break away. Gino, my mother's dead. Your mother's a little old lady. Pop, you look at 'im close, he don't look great. He can still keep his tie straight and his shoulders back, but he's an old man. What happens when they're all dead, Gino? Are we still brothers then? Why, what for? Are we even gonna talk?"

  "Sure we are, kid. Sure."

  "I'm not so sure," said Joey. "Why should we? I'm not gonna run errands for you. I'm not gonna make you any money. That's over. And I know you, Gino. A guy doesn't do exactly what you want, right away he's disloyal, he's ungrateful, he's an enemy. So that's how you're gonna thinka me. And that's just gonna get me more pissed at you for all the time you held me down."

  Gino slapped his knees so hard the rowboat bucked, and gave a grunt that mingled with a bitter laugh. "Joey, this is fucking rich. You drop tree million dollars a mine inna fucking water, now you try to make it sound like I'm inna fucking wrong and that's why it happened?"

  "Gino, this is the whole point. I'm not talking right and I'm not talking wrong. I'm saying that what goes on between the two of us, the way we're always busting each other's balls, it's like a, whaddyacallit, a vicious cycle, circle, whatever, and the only way it's gonna stop is if we both stop. That's why I'm saying, hey, let it go, we gotta forgive each other."

  Gino hesitated, maybe even wavered. Then he remembered the feel of the emeralds in his hand. They were solid, cool, he knew their price, he had a vivid idea of what they could have done for him. "Nah, Joey, save it. Ya sound like a goddamn priest. I'm pissed about the fucking stones. You wanna be pissed too, that's your business."

  Joey looked down at the water. There was enough light now to blot out the phosphorescence streaming from the oars. He noticed suddenly that he'd raised blisters on both palms. "O.K.," he said, "I tried."

  "And there you go again," razzed Gino, revving up for one more spasm of exasperation, "with that I tried bullshit. Joey, you're givin' me advice, lemme give you advice. No one gives a fuck you tried. Do something right, and do it to the end. Cut this bullshit with I tried. It just makes you look like a horse's ass."

  —

  Joey rowed in silence through the Sand Key Channel. By the first light of morning, the derelict marina was even more forlorn than it had been at night. Lizards darted in and out of the windows of the abandoned trailer. Pieces of forgotten boats lay stranded on the shore like dead animals. Joey Goldman and Gino Delgatto, their backs stiff and their feet wrinkled with wetness, climbed out of the twelve-dollar dinghy and left it to rot with the others. Then they stepped into Zack Davidson's skiff and motored off.

  Beyond the dimness of the cove, the sun was already glaring across the water, going from orange to yellow and from warm to searing hot. It was not yet six-thirty.

  Bert the Shirt was waiting at the bridge, standing against the early traffic of fishermen and truckers. A stickler for grooming, he was already shaved, his cheeks pink from freshly slapped-on bay rum, his white hair with its tinge of bronze still damp from the shower. He was wearing a sea-green pullover of knitted silk, and he had Don Giovanni in the crook of his arm. The chihuahua, rousted out of its velvet dog bed before the accustomed time, looked grouchy; its huge black eyes refused to open all the way, its whiskers hung down in a sour arc. Vicki didn't look too chipper either. She'd dozed but hadn't slept, yanked back from the brink by visions of snakes and spiders and by the infernal buzzing of mosquitoes in her ears. Her thin blond hair was matted on one side and electrified on the other; her neck and forehead were dotted with bug bites as closely arrayed as chicken pox.

  The goodbyes were brief, almost nonexistent. Nobody thanked anybody. Nobody apologized. Joey held the skiff against a bridge stanchion while Gino, his ribs on fire, slime on his clothes, dried blood matted in his hair, clambered up and out.

  "Jesus, Gino," Vicki said to him, "they gonna let you onna plane like that?"

  "Shut up, Vicki."

  They climbed into Bert's car and slammed the doors behind them. Joey had almost forgotten there could be so dry a sound as a car door clicking shut.

  He pushed off and headed for home. He suddenly realized he was exhausted. His hands were swollen, his eyes were crusty, and he'd forgotten to bring along his sunglasses. But all in all, he felt O.K. He'd gotten his brother out alive and thought he had a reasonable chance of keeping him that way. He didn't have the emeralds but he knew where the emeralds were. He figured he had enough of Gino's thousand left to buy Zack a new little outboard. He'd said some things he'd been meaning to say, and if he didn't get the answers he'd hoped for, at least he got the answers he'd expected. Pretty soon now, he'd get to sleep. His conscience was clear.

  Part IV

  — 37 —

  He slept till four, and woke up feeling the dryness and dislocation that are the price of daytime sleep. His eyes itched, his arms hurt, he smelled his own sweat on the pillow. Gradually he remembered where he was: not just in Key West but in a Key West that was free of Gino. A pleasant place, an easy place, a place he had chosen for himself. He rolled over, stretched, and slowly started noticing things he'd been too nervous to notice for the past few put-upon weeks: the smell of the air that was sometimes dusty, sometimes flowery, depending on how humid it was and where the wind was coming from; the way the curtain fluttered over the louvered window, like the skirt of a woman walking. His eyes half open, he groped on the nightstand for his sunglasses.

  He pulled on a bathing suit, threw a towel around his neck, and went outside. No one was around, and Joey jumped feet first into the pool. Waves rolled from his body, collided with the sides, and started back again, converging at a dozen angles like the roiled water over a coral reef. He threw himself backward and tried to float. For a few seconds the water held him; then, as if overburdened by the added weight of his doubt, it sagged and let him sink. One of these days, he told himself, he'd learn to swim. To live in Florida and not know how was crazy.

  He toweled off and settled into a lounge chair under a palm tree. He was looking up absently through the interlaced fronds when Sandra came through the wooden gate of the compound. She was wearing a straight white skirt with a zipper on the side, white shoes with low heels, and a short-sleeved pink blouse whose shoulders stuck out an inch or two beyond her own. She walked with quick, compact steps around the hot tub and sat down next to Joey on the lounge— sat with her usual precision so that she was as close as she could be without putting her skirt against his wet bathing suit. "You're back," she said.

  "Sure I'm back. You worried?"

  "A little, yeah," she said. "It's been a long time since we spent a night apart, Joey. Besides, I'm always worried when you're with Gino." She reached out and touched Joey's hair, brushing it back from his forehead. Her fingertips felt good against his scalp, and he surprised himself by clutching her wrist and kissing it.

  "Well, Gino's gone," he said. "He's back in New York by now."

  Sandra said nothing, and Joey was grateful for her restraint. If she'd come out with too much relief, he would have had to take Gino's side somehow because he was family. That's just how it was. But she kept still and looked down at the blue shimmer of the pool.

&
nbsp; "Yup," Joey resumed, "he's history. So, Sandra, now I can start making good on some a the promises I been making."

  "Promises?" said Sandra. "You, Joey? You've been making promises?"

  "Yeah, ya know, like having friends and all, doing stuff. I'm ready."

  "Just like that?" said Sandra. "Ready for what, exactly?"

  "I don't know. Ya know, like life. Hey, what day is it?"

  "It's Thursday, Joey."

  "Right. Well, like, on Saturday. Zack and Claire, let's have 'em over to dinner. And Bert."

  Sandra started to smile but could not help letting a quick flinch tighten the comers of her mouth. Joey, just then discovering the comfort of small affections, put a cool hand on her knee.

  "Sandra, hey, I know what you're thinking: Bert isn't gonna fit in, it's gonna be, like, awkward. But ya know what I think, Sandra? I think the more ya try to keep one part of your life over heah, and another part over theah, the more it doesn't work. I've tried it, believe me. You're embarrassed, ya try to keep things separate, they just get more bollixed up together. Ya can't go around feeling like ya all the time gotta apologize for where ya came from, who ya came from. Ya gotta, like, trust that people are gonna adjust, adopt, adapt, whatever. Ya know, like lighten up and get along."

  —

  Midway through dinner, Joey started yawning, and afterward, when he and Sandra made love, it had some of the floating bafflement and tender discontinuity of sex in dreams. He did not feel her slip out of bed to straighten up the kitchen.