Go Naked In The World

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  “Honest?” Nick asked seriously.

  “Honest, Injun,” Larry said. Nick couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or not.

  “Your wife’s not over twenty,” Nick said.

  “I’ve got a new one since I seen you. That other one died with child. This one is sixteen. All French and Spanish. Pretty,” he smiled. He looked at Gus’s thumb all bandaged and grinned.

  “You selling any tackle down there now?” Nick asked.

  “I fix him up with a nice salt water spin outfit. He needs it, bad,” he winked.

  “Will you teach him how to use it?” Nick asked.

  “I taught you,” Larry said.

  “Spend the morning with him,” Nick told Gus. “He will teach you. He will teach you more in one morning than you will learn in six months anywhere. Will you?”

  Gus looked at his thumb. “I give in,” he smiled.

  “He reminds me of someone,” Larry said. Then to Nick: “You buy an island? I got a good island I’ll sell you cheap.”

  “Where?”

  “Not far from Pelican Key. You remember Pelican. Where the educated man lives in the shack.”

  “Yes. What is it called—this key of yours?”

  “Dismal Key,” he smiled. “It is over half a mile long and growing. And has a fine beach. You can have it for four hundred.”

  “That’s a good name for a Key for him,” Old Gus said. “That would be something to own one of these keys.”

  ‘“We’ll look at it,” Nick said.

  “When?” Larry asked.

  “Tomorrow Gus can learn to spin. I am going to fish. Day after tomorrow. On the in-tide, day after tomorrow would be fine. I’m going to fish the out-tide.”

  “Fine. It will be a perfect key for you.”

  “How much did you pay for it?”

  “I won it in a poker game,” he said.

  They were all about finished with their beer. “I buy a beer,” Larry said. “It’s the custom to buy soldiers beer, I hear.” He grinned. He hollered over above the music of the piano player, over the voices arguing about a hand of cards, to Molly to bring them a beer.

  “Tell her to bring one for herself on me,” Nick said.

  “She’s not drinking.”

  “She always drinks, I thought.”

  “No,” Larry said seriously, “she is measuring tomorrow so she is not drinking.”

  “Measuring?” Nick asked.

  “Yes. It takes much out of her,” Larry said.

  “What do you mean—measuring?”

  “There is a baby with short growth. Molly is one of the few left that can fix that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course,” Larry said. “Well, this baby will not grow. So Molly takes a piece of string and measures the baby from head to foot. Then she measures the foot seven times folding the string back and forth the length of the foot. Whatever the string is short is how short the baby is.”

  “Short of what?” Nick asked now very curious. Gus was watching Larry attentively.

  “Short of what it should be. In other words, you fold the string seven times the length of the foot, then if the end of the string ends up in the middle of the foot that is how short the baby is. The shortness of the string is in proportion to the shortness of the baby. Then the string is wrapped around something like a door hinge. Where it will wear out. As it wears out the baby grows. But it takes much out of Molly. She prays very hard when she measures the baby, which she will do at sunrise tomorrow, and as the string wears out and the baby grows it takes much from Molly. She is one of the two women left on the island who can fix short growth. She may not take a drink for months. But the baby will grow.”

  “Always?”

  “Always,” Larry said very seriously.

  “Can I see this?”

  “If Molly will let you. I think she will. You are a religious man.”

  “Not in the strict sense,” Nick said.

  “I know,” Larry said.

  “You,” he said to Gus, “I know she will let you come. You have the look of a saint anyhow.”

  “Saints don’t drink beer,” Old Gus said.

  “I’ll go ask Molly,” Larry said. He got up.

  “I believe, then I don’t believe,” Nick said. “It must be faith. But how can a baby have faith?”

  “The baby doesn’t have to have it,” Old Gus said. “I believe it can work.”

  “I saw strange things in Burma,” Nick said. “And India. And they worked. I don’t know why I should doubt they could happen in America.”

  “The baby does not need faith, I don’t think,” Old Gus said. “Maybe it is the woman who transcribes it. Like you have seen a crazy person. Complete insane. With fear of all. With no brain function. Yet that person will allow a certain kind of person to approach him and will not be afraid. It is something like that. Like dogs and cats that have been fear stricken young and are afraid of certain kinds of persons and of others have no fear. The person must transcribe that.”

  “Maybe,” Nick said. “I never thought of it that way. But maybe, too, it is in the glands of the person. They say dogs can tell your fear by the secretion of your glands.” “And in India they say in some scriptures that the liver is the seat of the soul. And in some scriptures that the glands are the seat of the soul. So the person, nevertheless, must transcribe it. Even if it is in the glands.”

  “So you think babies have an extra sense? Like dogs?”

  “Can you say they don’t?” Old Gus said.

  “No. In fact I would be more inclined to think they do,” Nick said.

  Larry came back and said it was all right—Molly said they could watch the measuring.

  The next morning Old Gus and Nick were up at four-thirty and at five-thirty in a field near the water next to Molly’s beer joint. There were about twenty old islanders there. Molly stood alone near the water. A young girl: thin, pale, Madonna-faced, with long straight bleached-from-the-sun-hair hanging to her roundless buttocks, came forward holding a baby. Molly began to pray as the girl and the child came forward. The measuring took place exactly as the sun came up over the horizon and Molly prayed in a murmuring voice, piously. Nick and Old Gus noticed that many of the others prayed, too. It did not take long. Molly walked away, round and fat and waddling, with her head bowed. No one moved until she had gone inside her beer joint. The girl and the child standing by the edge of the water with the big red sun behind them made a strange sight. The mosquitos were very thick and the baby was crying. When Molly was inside, then everyone walked away.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  AS THE crowd dispersed Nick said to Gus:

  “I’ll see you in a while. I’m going to walk down by the gulf beach.” Gus nodded and walked away. Nick came back about an hour later. Gus was in the lounge of the Inn studying the shell collections. There was the smell of bacon cooking, and biscuits baking, and the aroma of good strong coffee sifting out from the kitchen. Nick ate three eggs scrambled with roe, six slices of bacon, lost count of the biscuits. Gus ate moderately. It was seven in the morning and hot already.

  Nick was drinking his coffee and said to Gus: “I will take you in the boat to Larry’s. You can spend the morning learning to spin with him. Fish with him in the afternoon. I will pay for his time.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll fish alone. You will learn more one afternoon’s fishing with him than you will learn six months with me.”

  He ran Gus out Marco along the beach then through Caxambas to Larry’s camp and left him at the dock and backed right off and was gone, Gus could see, heading out toward the Pass. Gus stood on the dock following the boat as it became smaller and smaller and went out Caxambas toward the sea and then turned south where the surf was breaking. Gus turned and Larry was standing next to him.

  “He’s going down into the lower islands,” Larry said to Gus. “He’s got one hell of a memory. But if he isn’t back by five, or back to Marco by five, we’ll go l
ook for him.”

  “It is easy to get lost there?” Old Gus asked.

  “People who have lived in these islands all their lives get lost. When he was here before he went down there three or four times with me. Then he began to go alone. I thought sure he would get lost. But he never did. He fishes better than many of these island people,” Larry said with an obvious respect.

  “Really?” Old Gus said.

  “Yes. These are stubborn people here,” Larry said. “These people catch a fish one way, one year, and that is the only way they fish the rest of their lives.”

  “But you are not like them,” Old Gus said.

  “I test baits for three of the biggest fishing companies in America,” he said. “I am the best. If they do not hit one thing I try another. They like one thing one day, one another day. Like we do. I’m no stubborn fool,” he said looking out across the water.

  Old Gus studied Larry with warm, kind eyes, and obvious respect. Yet there was humor in Old Gus’s eyes, humor caused by the sincere boastfulness of Larry’s fishing pride.

  “Come,” Larry said, “and I will show you your new fishing outfit. And teach you to use it,” he said. “I will try and teach you anyhow. At least I will save you a thumb.”

  “Holy, but that snooker is a fish.”

  “Snook,” Larry said. “Have you eaten it?”

  “Not as yet,” Old Gus said. “We tried for a small one to eat. But failed.”

  “When we practice I will get us a small one. And fillet it in fingers. My wife will cook it for us. I will not fail.”

  “What will he do down in the lower islands?”

  “Fish. And maybe swim. And maybe visit one of the colonies down there. He knows one of the colonies down there.”

  “I didn’t know there were many towns down there.”

  “Not towns. Near there are two families. Or settlements. They fight over the fishing water. They have killed five in the last few years in fights.”

  “What of the law?” Old Gus asked.

  Larry smiled. “The law does not come here. The law knows better than to come here.” He was laughing to himself. It was obvious that he thought it was extremely funny Old Gus asking him about the law.

  Nick with motors wide open, heading south, staying for some reason right where the surf was breaking so that the boat dipped and pounded and the sea spray flew, and inland the strange mangrove islands all silent and eerie, and the great tree trunks protruding from the water where islands had been washed away, and coral formations protruding where islands were forming, and out there was the Gulf and somewhere across the way was Mexico, and somewhere out in the middle of that gulf, he thought, is where the great tuna gather each year before they make their way around the southern part of Florida through the Gulf stream, towards the Bahamas, then upward toward Block Island and Nova Scotia, feeling the warm sun to his face, the wind and salt spray to his face, was suddenly extremely happy that he was alone without Gus, without the city, with the boat pounding hard and dipping and not caring really what he would do for a while, now only go south in this fine surf and maybe go upon a beach, maybe fish, only now to go and to forget, because now he was all alive and somehow content with himself, and strong he felt in his contentment.

  He saw a beach far up ahead. He did not remember the beach. He was four miles down from the Pass and he saw the two keys that were shaped like the claws of a stone crab and remembered that the pass between these two keys was the one you took to Pelican Key. But from this point he did not remember being able to see such a fine beach far up ahead. He decided to make the run to that beach, then maybe work his way back and then go over and visit with the hermit upon Pelican Key. He had visited there once before. The hermit had many books. He waded in the waters at low tide and collected star fish. He dried the star fish and put them in piles in sizes and sold them to a merchant in Miami who sold them in tourist shops. He read mostly in French. He also trapped and skinned racoons and made racoon hats and sold them to a man from Tennessee. I think it was Tennessee, Nick thought.

  He made the run to the beach and beached the boat. On the beach he took off his sneakers and pants and put on his swimming suit. He began to walk up the beach. Half a mile up the beach he spotted an old shipwreck about a quarter mile out. The tide was low and the bow of the boat protruded from the water. He waded out a way, then began to swim. As he neared the wreck he dove down and saw in the distance, in the clear of the water, several barracuda near the wreck. They were long, four or five feet, and were flat out-not-moving-near the wreck, and Nick surfaced and went back. He did not like barracuda. He had been bitten on the elbow by one in a boat, and he had thought it was deliberate, and still had the scar. What is it about me, he asked himself swimming back, that I collect scars the way I do? The first time I played tennis I got a scar which I still have. And the first time I rode a horse I got a scar which is very much visible. And when I was small I got a scar playing on monkey bars, which is still visible. What is that with me?

  On the beach he saw a turtle. It was a great green turtle at least two hundred pounds and was digging a nest with her flappers in which to lay her eggs. The turtle would be easy to take, he knew. All he would have to do would be to flip it over on its back and the weight of its body would press on its organs, especially its lungs, and it would suffocate. He was fond of turtle meat. And that turtle would bring some price. But it was against the law this time of year, he knew. Besides, the people of Marco would not like it one bit, bringing back a female turtle this time of year.

  I wonder if there is anything of value upon the wreck. He was only a few feet from the turtle, but the turtle was digging her nest and paid no attention to him. If she was not about to lay her eggs she would run frightened to the water, he knew. There have been some real big finds among the wrecks along these keys. Wouldn’t that be something, to strike it rich with real pirate treasure? Then I would go live in the Bahamas and have my own boat. That’s what I’d do and the hell with Old Pete and everyone.

  He walked away from the turtle, still looking out at the wreck, then looked up. There was a squall coming like hell up ahead. Christ, how quick they came up here. He turned round and began to run easily toward the boat. He pulled the boat up farther on the beach and took his poncho and went across the beach about fifty yards to where there was a row of palm trees, the fronds all dried and rasping now in the suddenly fresh cool wind that preceded the squall. He built a lean-to. The wind felt very cool. The gulls and cranes and vultures were flying away from where the storm would hit.

  Under the lean-to he suddenly thought:

  I would like to have Nora here now. Naked under this lean-to. Naked on this beach. I would like to love her in the sun on the beach. And on the edge of the water. And in the rain of this squall. It will be a cool rain. I can tell from the feel of this wind. After the hot with rain on her body she would be something. She would like it here. I can tell. I wonder if she is mad because I did not call. I should have called her last night. I promised. Christ, how many men get a woman like that? Watch, I’ll bugger that too. I should have called. I should go right back now after this rain and call. I can tell her there was a storm last night and I couldn’t call unless I went up to Naples and there was no assurance that the lines weren’t down in Naples, too. I could tell her that. It would sound reasonable. And not too much of a lie. After all, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t go whoring in any of those rich-bitch places in Naples. Or make any pass at any of those cracker girls at Molly’s. Cracker girls! He half-grinned to himself. Of course not. Those Marco boys would have laid you flat. Besides, you would never be able to come back.

  The squall hit, leaves flying, palm fronds rasping, breaking loose and flying away with the wind, the sea turning white-capped as if angered by the sudden turmoil, the rain cool fresh, wind blowing, howling through the groves and palm trees, the sudden darkness and far out in the gulf the lightness and the green of the water where the sun still shone, but now all alone
with the rain smashing on the poncho and hitting him on the face. Cool rain. God, how I would love to have that woman right now. In this wind. And darkness. And sudden coolness. And the smooth tanned skin wetness-from-the-rain. And the soft wet feel of her mouth. And that thing that was in her, whatever it was, that made her the way she was. Was it pagan? Was she Tennyson’s “savage woman,” rearer of dusky races?

  “Come rain,” he hollered suddenly. “Come you cool, wet rain. Come down you bastard and reminder and separater of me and that woman.”

  The rain continued to come down hard in huge tropical drops. A school of porpoise rolled in the white-capped sea not far out near the wreck. He moved back a little, so that his back was touching the poncho of the lean-to and lit a cigarette. He smoked the cigarette, realizing that this would last for a while. He lay down, his head on his hands, staring out at the rain and the sea. He closed his eyes. Finally, he slept.

  When he awoke the squall was over, the sun shining down. He was sweating, the sand clung to his body, and it was so hot now after the rain that it reminded him of a steam-room. He went out to the water and bathed the sand from his body and got into his boat and ran the boat out past where the surf was breaking, where the water was calm. He put on a small spoon plug, the ten pound test line, and cut the motors way down and trolled out the plug, moving slowly north.

  He caught many jacks, trolled through the islands and picked up several small snook, mackerel, spotted weakfish, a pompano, several reds. He stopped by Pelican Key but the hermit was not there. He found another fine beach and spent over two hours choosing shells which he would take back for Yvonne. He did not know whether or not she would appreciate the shells but knew that she would be happy that he had thought of her. After he had shelled he decided to fish in the surf with a dude for snook. He fished for over an hour and tied into a great tarpon which took all his ten pound monofiliment in one run. He did not have any more with him.

  The sun, all gold red, was far down across the gulf and he sat down on the beach and locked his hands around his legs. He could feel the new late afternoon wind coming from out across the water and hear it knifing through the mangroves behind him and the quiet lapping of the water that was like a song no one would ever be able to write.