The Man Who Ivented Florida df-3

by Randy Wayne White

"So the planes won't see us."

  "I see that, but I don't get-"

  "I'm just saying if he's crazy, at least he's smart crazy. Too smart to kill us."

  "That's what he's going to do! You know it is! Him and that gun!" Bambridge blubbering again.

  Charles Herbott said, "Maybe… I don't know. He keeps saying he's going to let us go. And if he does, I'll tell you this, I ever get my hands on that old asshole-" Making a twisting motion with his hands. Herbott, the environmental consultant, was a little man with tight weight-lifter muscles, the kind made in a gym, doing reps in front of a mirror.

  "But see, if he's rational, rational in his own way"-Chuck Fleet was thinking and talking-"then maybe all this really does make sense to him. Our boats break down-"

  "They didn't just break down. I knock the prop off my engine, you tear the foot off yours, and him right there to help saying no use to call on the radio, the hand-held VHFs wouldn't reach-"

  "See? He was right about that. I tried. We're out of range down here. The radio wouldn't reach."

  "But that he'd tow us back to the shack, make sure we got help. He was lying about that, just tricking us."

  Bambridge broke in. "There's the difference. He wanted you two. Me, my engine stopped, then I dropped my radio over and I had to paddle and paddle. He should let me go!"

  Charles Herbott said, "Bambridge, I hear that story one more time, I'm going to kill you myself."

  Chuck Fleet said, "If you two would just listen. Understand what I'm getting at? Us broken down-run aground, he sees it- then he really did have a right to salvage our boats. The instant we got out, anyway. In his own mind, he had a right, I'm saying. Not that any normal person would do that. But he's old, old Florida, understand? From the days of the salvage industry: old maritime law said it was legal to take an abandoned boat, and the owners had to pay a percentage of the manifest. That was the law. Hell, it might still be the law, for all I know. That's what he means when he says we got to work off our debt."

  "But my boat hit something that shouldn't a been there. He laid a trap-"

  "Maybe he did. Like the old-time wreckers. They'd move the channel lights, run boats onto the reef. Same thing."

  Charles Herbott stood and put his hands against the shell wall of the pit. His first day there, Fleet had told him, don't try to climb out, he'd already tried. The shell was so loose, the walls could come down on top of them. But Herbott had tried anyway, and, sure enough, it was like trying to climb through a landslide. The idea of being covered with shell and suffocating-

  Fleet said, "He's rational. That's what I'm saying. In his own way. I think he's going to make us work off our debt and let us go."

  "He's a killer, and we all know it!" Bambridge again. "He pointed his gun at my head!"

  "No, he's never done that, never pointed his gun at any of us. Never come right out and threatened to shoot any of us, when you think back."

  "He's sure as hell implied it!"

  "Think what you want, I'm just trying to look at it from another point of view."

  Herbott said, "So he doesn't think he's doing anything illegal."

  "That's what I'm saying."

  "And he has no reason to kill us? Doesn't matter. If he ever gives me the chance, I'm going to shoot the old scumbag myself, or beat him to death with my bare hands." That was Charles Her-bott's favorite topic, how he was going to take the old man apart.

  Chuck Fleet said, "The point is, he thinks things out. That's why he works us in the afternoons, when the storms blow through. No planes."

  The two Chucks talked about that, passing time. They'd talked about everything, mostly how to get away. But when they weren't in the pit, they were working those thick cane patches planted in among the gumbo-limbo trees, or turning the cane press by hand like mules. And the old man stood within shooting range with his double-barreled 12-gauge, but never close enough for them to jump him.

  "I've got to get out of here or I'll go insane!"

  The two Chucks ignored him,- they always did. William Bambridge put his face in his hands, waiting for more tears, but he was all cried out. He could feel the blisters on his palms, spongy against his cheeks. The mosquitoes were all over him; he could feel their needle touch on his legs, could hear them whining in his ears, could feel their wings feathering the hair on his arms. The old man had said the pit was the only place they could sleep and still be out of the bugs, plus he'd built a thatched roof over it to keep out the rain. "Skeeters and sand flies," he called them. But the bugs were nearly as bad below as they were above. Worse, the maddening things were more attracted to him than to the other two men-of that Bambridge was certain. He'd read that somewhere, that mosquitoes preferred certain body chemistries to others. Where had he read that?

  Thinking about it reminded him of his nice library in his nice little house back home-the library with all the books on chess and literature, a whole small section on the culinary arts, even a few books on fishing, including a dozen copies left of his own, To an Unknown Tarpon, With Love. Bambridge had spent a vacation week at Rio Colorado Tarpon Lodge in Costa Rica-never did land one of the damn fish-then spent two years writing the book because he had a federal grant, and if he didn't work on it for twenty-four months, he wouldn't get his quarterly checks, and what else was he going to write about? His dull life in Ohio? Then, wonder of wonders, the book won the UPLA-University Professor's Literary Award-which, in turn, had prompted The New York Times to invite him to contribute the occasional fishing column. And that had prompted several of the television news magazines to use him as an on-camera fishing expert. Which was probably why People magazine had referred to him as the "Dean of the American Outdoors" in the two-paragraph story about his book selling to the movies. Which had prompted the national television syndicate to contact him about doing the fishing show.

  The show had done pretty well, too; got picked up by quite a few markets, and the numbers were pretty good. The sponsors came through with money and a lot of product, so he'd requested the sabbatical from teaching. Not that it would have mattered had the college refused. He had tenure-he could do what he damn well pleased. So he took the fall quarter off to take the show on the road, get the hell away from those tiresome shows on walleye techniques on Lake Erie. Brought it down here to Florida to check the place out, thinking maybe it was about time he moved from teaching into a full-time television career…

  Only to stumble into this nightmare. Held captive in a hole with two strangers-one of them, Herbott, a violent bully-defecating in a bucket, surviving on nothing but water and some kind of greasy fish. Even the two Chucks didn't know what it was. Being worked to the point of nausea and beyond, waiting to die or go mad.

  This is hell, this is hell, this is hell… Sitting there repeating it in his mind like a mantra.

  It couldn't be happening, yet it was.

  Bambridge stirred and swiped the mosquitoes off his arm, then smacked at his legs. Then he began to slap at his whole body in a growing frenzy, not unlike a drunk slapping snakes in the grips of delirium.

  "Get them off me! It's not fair; it's not fair--"

  "Knock it off, Bambridge. You're kicking me!"

  "Hey-shut up, you two. He's coming, the old man."

  "He's nuts! You kick me again, I'll beat the living shit out of you, Bambridge. I mean it!"

  "Quiet!"

  William Bambridge stilled himself abruptly; sat there trembling, knowing only that this horror couldn't go on. He had to end it, somehow, someway. He couldn't abide another day working in the heat, living with the insects. He sat looking toward the opening of the pit, like looking out of a well, and saw the silhouette of the old man appear, bent at the hips, peering down. The old man's raspy nasal twang: "You boys got so much juice, I'll put you to work early," which Bambridge heard as, "Yew baws gah so-o-o moch jews, ah'll putchew tah whark airr-ly."

  Bambridge got to his feet, dusting the shells off his wet butt, watching the silhouette stoop over something-the long wo
oden ladder he lowered each day.

  "Sir? Sir? I have to tell you something." Bambridge had his hands cupped around his mouth, trying to sound pleasant but authoritative. "I'm ill-sick. Very sick. I can't work today. I simply can't."

  The old man was futzing with the ladder, talking to himself.

  "Sir? Sir? Captain!" Which was what one of the Chucks called him-Fleet-like a chain-gang worker in a movie about the Deep South. "I'm trying to discuss something with you here, get something settled-"

  The ladder began to slide down into the pit. The old man said, "Onliest thing you got to settle is the man's day's work you owe me."

  "I can't! Don't you hear me?" And the tears came again. "I'm sick, I tell you. I can't work in the fields today. If you try to make me, I'll… I'll run away. I mean it!"

  The old man's voice: "You do, you'll never make it off this island. I mean that." "You'll shoot me? That's what you mean, isn't it!"

  "I mean a fat 'un like you ain't got the gumption to make it. Now quit your talkin'."

  "Then why don't you shoot me? I wish you would! Shoot me now, for God's sake." Bambridge had his back to the shell wall, and he slowly rode it to the ground, collapsing in sobs. He didn't look up when he heard one of the Chucks, Fleet, say, "Captain, he's telling the truth. He's either sick or he's lost his mind. Either way, we wish you'd get him out of here."

  "Me, too, old man. Do us all a favor." Herbott's surly voice.

  The old man said, "You boys jes take it into your minds you don't want to work; you think that's the way things is."

  "No sir, Captain. We'll do our work, all we owe you. It's him we're talking about."

  There was a long silence, the old man muttering. Then: "You there!" The old man was talking to him; Bambridge could sense the focus of his attention. "Climb up outta that there hole, Fat'un."

  "I'm not going to the fields." Bambridge said it flatly. The exhaustion had been replaced by a rock-bottom resolve. He didn't care anymore what the old bastard did, what the two Chucks thought. "Nothing matters," he said. "Go ahead. Shoot."

  "Didn't say nothing about no fields. You owe me work-"

  "I already said I'll pay you! Pay you anything you want if you get me back-"

  "One of them there checks, no thanks. I had my money in a bank oncest and lost it."

  "Then cash, for Christ's sake!"

  "But you don't got it on you." The old man made a whoofing noise, cynical. "I tow you back now, I'll never see you or yer boats again."

  "You will, too! We've told you a hundred times, we don't have the cash on us-"

  The old man said, "Then you owe me work, and you'll by God do it. You can't do man's work, maybe you can do woman's work. Can you cook?"

  "I'm not work-" Bambridge stopped, realizing what he was being asked. He looked up at the silhouette. "Yes… yes, I can cook. I like to… I'm a very good cook."

  "Can you sweep and scrub and wash?"

  "Inside your home, you mean?" Bambridge had never been inside it, a bamboo thatched hut beneath trees, but at least it had walls to keep the bugs out. "I can do that, yes. Scrub, cook, anything. And stay there, out of the bugs?"

  The Old man was holding the shotgun now. Bambridge could see it as he squinted up at the bright Florida sky. "Get yo' big butt up the ladder, then."

  Just like old times… That's what Tucker Gatrell was thinking. Sitting on the porch with Joseph Egret, the wooden chairs kicked back and their feet propped on the porch railing, swatting mosquitoes and spitting chewing tobacco.

  Could be forty years ago… could be ten years… hell, could all be a dream… That's what he was thinking.

  Mango Bay spread out before them, and the tin roofs of the abandoned fish shacks caught the morning sun like mirrors and flung the light obliquely, in dusty yellow rays, back onto the little curve of fishing village. In the strange light, coconut palms leaning in feathered strands were isolated along the road, set apart from the mud beach upon which they grew. They seemed fragile and singular, gold and gray, as if shaped by a hurricane wind, then marooned in stillness. Small portions of Mango caught the light and were elevated from the mundane because of it: wedges of cypress planking, a lone piling, the bow of a sunken mullet skiff, the rust streaks beneath the COKE sign hanging outside the deserted store, Homer's Gas and Sundries.

  There was a sweetness in the air, too. Tuck sniffed, sitting on the porch. The cloying perfume of jasmine mixed with the sulphur and protein odor of the bay. He lowered the paper in his hand-there was a whole box of papers and folders beside his chair-and inhaled deeply. "Smells good, don't it?"

  Joseph nodded his agreement. "That's bacon frying. Maybe down at the organ lady's house, Miz Taylor's."

  Tuck turned his nose upward expertly. "No-o-o-o, don't think so."

  "Next place down, then. Sally Carmel's?"

  Tuck said lazily, "More likely. Wouldn't hurt for us to walk down and check up on her. That Sally, she's the independent sort, but I can tell she misses having a man around. Always something to lift or move for a woman living alone. I worry about that girl."

  "Yeah," Joseph said, "and she might be cooking hotcakes, too."

  The two men were quiet for a time, languid in the fresh morning heat. Then Tucker said, "I tried to fix Duke up with her, had it all arranged just right. But he messed it up. Peeked at her through a telescope when she didn't have no clothes on. She's mad. Oh, she's real mad."

  Joseph said, "A telescope, huh? I'd a never thunk of that."

  "Yeah, Duke's smart, no denying it. He got the Gatrell brain"- Tucker glanced at Joseph out of the corner of his eye to see how that was accepted-"but he never got my gift for dealin' with people. You know how people just naturally love me."

  Joseph turned and spat.

  "But Duke, he's always been kinda a cold fish. Say, you remember why he moved out on me?"

  Joseph hesitated for a moment. Did Tuck mean the real reason Marion had moved out? Or did he mean one of the excuses Tuck had given? After a moment, Joseph said, "Sure, I remember. Marion had to do all the work around the place while you sat around drinkin' beer. I don't blame him."

  "Naw, that's all wrong. Well, it wasn't just that. You don't know the reason?"

  Joseph knew. He waited, wondering whether Tuck would talk about it.

  But Tucker said, "I come home one day after being off someplace. Okeechobee?" Tuck was trying to remember. "Naw, it was forty-mile bend, down on the Trail, 'cause that was the year the gators came up the creeks thick. Anyway…" He scratched his head. "What was I talkin' about? Oh-I come home one day and the whole kitchen table was covered with bugs. All kinda bugs laid out on this cottony sort of material. Hell, palmetto bugs big as my fist, so I throw'd the whole mess out-"

  It wasn't the real reason, but Joseph was nodding his head, playing along. "That's right, you threw out his bug collection."

  "Packed his bag, stormed out, and moved up to the islands off Fort Myers. Him just sixteen years old, rented his own place, made his own money, and still found time to play ball. Only seen him about a dozen times since. He was off with the government, doing some kind of work. Going to college. I'm going to have a hell of a time getting him back down here."

  Joseph said, "Sometimes a place has bad memories. After living two months with my first wife, I never wanted to see Miami again."

  Out on the water, a little bay shrimper headed out Wilson Cut. Its outriggers were folded like the wings of some bony pterodactyl and smoke spurted from the exhaust stack, out of synch with the delayed pop-poppa-pop that reached them across the water.

  "That's little Jim Bob James growed up," Tuck observed. "No smarter than his daddy, trying to shrimp during the day. Oh, I tried to tell 'im."

  Joseph sat and listened, hoping Tuck wouldn't get started on how he had discovered that shrimp came out at night, because that would lead him into the first stone-crab trap they had built- well, actually Joseph had figured out the trap and about the shrimp, too, but Tuck always took credit-and that would lead
to all the things Tuck'd done first, before anybody else in Florida caught on, which would lead to his long, sad wondering why they'd ended up so poor when everyone else had gotten rich. Joseph didn't care anything about money-he never had-but he hated to see Tuck depressed, because that caused him to talk even more than usual. Joseph had his mind on that bacon frying down at Sally Carmel's place.

  Instead, Tucker said, "You know old man James was mad at me till the day he died just 'cause Duke tossed that cherry bomb into their privy."

  Joseph said, "It was you that threw it, not Marion. Did Mrs. James ever recover?"

  "Oh, hell yes. She was always a little deaf, anyway. Course, they blamed it all on Duke, that and some kinda constipation they said required hypnotics or hydraulics or some damn thing. How was I supposed to know she was in there? Most folks have a sign, but not them Jameses. I never did like that woman, anyway. Too dull."

  "Not so dull in some ways as you might think," Joseph defended mildly.

  Tucker sat up, interested. "You mean you and Mrs. James… you two?"

  Joseph shrugged. "Lavinia was a lonely woman. She'd leave the porch light on for me sometimes when old man James was out in the boat. Said he smelled of fish."

  Tucker shook his head in amazement. "If I had any respect for womanhood at all, I'd left you right where you was, dying in that rest home."

  "Women like me," Joseph said simply.

  "Hey now, Joe"-Tucker leaned toward him-"tell me true about something. Would you've ever tried to thimble my wife?"

  "You never had no wife."

  "I know that. I'm just asking, would you of messed with her? If I'd gotten married."

  "But you never did. You never did get married. Almost did- that Cuban girl, the one with the little blue sea horse on her hand, a tattoo-"

  "Jesus H. Christ, Joe! I'm just askin' a simple question. Would you've thimbled my wife? Gawldamn dense Indian-"

  Joseph considered the question for a time. He rolled his chew from side to side and slapped at a mosquito. "I guess so-if she had nice skin."

  Tucker's face described contempt. "I'll be go to hell. And after all I've done for you."