Tim Dorsey Collection #1

by Dorsey, Tim

  “How was I to know?”

  Serge turned around and put his arm over the back of the driver’s seat and stared at the women, City and Country, college-age babes from Alabama. “You say you never got high in your life until last week? Not a single time until Lenny turned you on back at Hammerhead Ranch?”

  The women nodded, one hitting a roach clip, the other holding her smoke.

  “At least try to be a little more discreet. We’re in a convertible.” Serge turned back around and hit the steering wheel again. “C’mon!”

  “Must be a wreck,” said Lenny.

  “It would have to be a ruptured tanker of liquid phosgene to take this long. Otherwise, they’d already be sweeping up glass.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s I-4. Take your pick,” said Serge. “I’ve seen sinkholes, armed assaults, forest fires that flushed wildlife into traffic. And then there was the cow.”

  “The cow?”

  “There was this one cow. She liked to stand alone all day up to her tits in the middle of this little lake off the side of the road.”

  “That was a driving problem?”

  “Everyone slowed down and watched. They thought she was in trouble. Hundreds called the highway patrol, wanting them to send a rescue helicopter with a canvas sling harness and a winch.”

  “Did they?”

  “No. There was nothing wrong. But the calls kept pouring in and tied up all the emergency lines. So the highway department put up a sign, one of those big mobile things on wheels, a bunch of flashing orange light bulbs that spell out stuff like RIGHT LANE CLOSED AHEAD. Except this one said, THE COW IS OK. True story.”

  “What happened?”

  “Made everything worse. Everyone slowing down to watch.”

  Lenny nodded, then pointed ahead at the stationary lines of cars. “Might as well turn the engine off and save gas.”

  “And put The Club on.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Lenny. “How come you always put your Club on backward, with the lock facing the dash?”

  “Fuckin’ kids—they stick machine screws in the lock and yank the mechanism out with dent-pullers. But they don’t have the necessary clearance if I reverse the bar. The things you have to do to survive in this state.”

  A BMW blew by in the breakdown lane and kept going, passing the entire line of cars and disappearing over a hill.

  “That’s the fourth guy who’s done that since we’ve been here,” said Lenny.

  “It’s just not right,” said Serge.

  “We could do that, too, but we don’t,” said Lenny.

  “Because rules are important,” said Serge. “Otherwise, everything starts breaking down.”

  The backseat: “Um, do you think we could have, you know, another…”

  Lenny passed a doobie back.

  “If we’re going to be here much longer, I’ll have to occupy my mind,” said Serge. He turned off the Cadillac and walked to the rear of the car.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lenny.

  “Getting my toys.” He opened the trunk, removed a gym bag and got back in the driver’s seat. “I bought you a present.” Serge pulled something out of the bag. He could have easily handed it across the seat to Lenny, but he threw it, the way guys have to.

  Lenny dropped it on the floorboard.

  “Nice catch.”

  Lenny picked up the red-and-white canister. “Cruex? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “No, you dingleberry, unscrew the bottom.”

  Lenny struggled to figure out the can, twisting with everything he had. “You know what a dingleberry actually is?”

  “I’ve heard the rumors,” said Serge. He reached over. “Here, let me.”

  Serge grabbed the can and twisted off the bottom, revealing a secret compartment.

  “Cool,” said Lenny. “A stash safe.”

  “I bought it at Spy vs. Spy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A new chain that sells a bunch of espionage and counterespionage stuff, but it’s really a toy store for guys—useless gadgets men can’t resist. Night-vision scopes, walkie-talkie pens, voice-activated bomb-disposal robot/beer caddy…”

  Lenny stuffed a baggie of pot up the bottom of the can. “Why’d you have to pick Cruex?”

  “Had a friend who went to college in Boston. His roommate was from Colombia, and during spring break, the roommate says, ‘Hey, why don’t you come visit back home with me?’ My friend says sure. It’s a legitimate visit—no drugs or anything—and he’s coming back through Miami, and Customs goes ape. What’s an Anglo kid doing on vacation in Bogotá? They rip his luggage apart, make him take a laxative and shit on a clear toilet in front of all these people…”

  “They actually have clear toilets?”

  “The government does. But they seem to be the only ones who want them. I think that speaks volumes. Anyway, get this—they grabbed my friend’s can of shaving cream and sprayed some out and tested it.”

  “That’s spooky,” said Lenny.

  “Drugs are spooky,” said Serge. “But jail is spookier. That’s why I got you that can. Use it and stay free, my friend. Shaving cream is one thing, but nobody wants to mess with a guy’s Cruex. DEA, Customs—they don’t get paid enough.”

  Serge removed another canister from his bag and began shaking it. A metal ball rattled inside.

  “Spray paint?” asked Lenny.

  “Spy spray paint.” Serge got out of the car and walked back to the rear bumper. He bent down and sprayed the license plate.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lenny.

  “The paint’s clear, reflective,” said Serge, rattling the can again. “Standard technique for operatives attending state dinners in case any spies try to photograph license plates in the parking lot of the embassy while you’re upstairs stealing files. The clear coating reflects any flash photography, and all the spy will see when he gets his pictures back from the drugstore will be a bright, all-white license plate, completely blank.”

  Lenny rubbed his chin. “Is this a problem you anticipate us having?”

  Serge climbed back in the car and pointed up the road toward Orlando. “It also works on those new cameras the state installed to catch people running tollbooths. I’m tired of paying these motherfuckers every time I want to go see a shuttle launch.”

  Serge pulled something else from the gym bag. A few little poles covered with spikes.

  “What are those?”

  “Stop sticks,” said Serge. “Police use them at roadblocks to puncture the tires of fleeing suspects.”

  “Why do you need them?”

  “To throw out the window in case the police are chasing me,” said Serge. “Two can play this game.”

  Serge casually tossed the sticks over Lenny’s head, out the right side of the car, and began rooting around again in his bag. “Let’s see—what else do I have in here?…”

  Pow, pow, pow, pow.

  A new set of Michelins blew out on a Corvette racing by in the breakdown lane, and it cascaded down the embankment.

  “…Here we are.” Serge removed a heavy egg-shaped object wrapped in orange silk. “My ace in the hole.” He carefully folded back the silk to reveal a scored olive-green metal hulk—an antique hand grenade.

  “Is it live?”

  Serge nodded.

  “Also get that at Spy versus Spy?”

  Serge shook his head. “eBay.”

  A chorus from the backseat: “We’re hungry.”

  “Again?” said Serge.

  “Why don’t you drive to a restaurant or something?” asked Country.

  “Good idea,” said City. “Drive us to a restaurant.”

  Serge turned around and pointed at the empty boxes in their laps. “You just ate. You both got the jumbo taco salad.”

  They looked down at their shirts and hands covered with grease, shredded cheese and strands of lettuce. Country looked up. “We’re still hungry.”
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  “I’m feeling like barbecue,” said City.

  Serge gestured around them at the sea of parked cars boxing them in, then searched for any hint of understanding in their bloodshot eyes. “Fuck it! Never mind!” He turned back around and sat silent a minute. He smacked the inside of the door. “What can be taking so long?”

  “It’s funny how when you’re high, time seems to slow down,” City told Country.

  “Absolutely,” said Country. “It just creeps. Everything takes forever. The least little thing becomes an eternity…Tick, tock, tick, tock…”

  Serge slowly turned his head toward the passenger seat and glared.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Lenny. “It was your idea to bring them.”

  “…Tick, tock, tick, tock…”

  “I thought it would be fun,” said Serge. “Get the women’s perspective for a change instead of the same old barbarian stuff I’m used to. But it’s gone horribly awry, and now I’m being held prisoner in a Cheech and Chong marathon.”

  “I’m soooo hungry,” said City.

  “Does this car have music?” asked Country. “Let’s play some music.”

  “Yeah, crank up the tunes,” said City.

  Lenny reached for the radio.

  “Only classic album rock,” said Serge. “It’s all I can handle right now.”

  The car began to throb with bass.

  “What about contemporary urban?” asked Lenny.

  Serge shook his head. “I respect the rapper, but I need to be in the proper mood to appreciate social and economic polemics about who can play a turntable better.”

  Lenny twisted the dial to another station. The Beatles came on, “All You Need Is Love.”

  Serge nodded his approval. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to relax with the soothing music.

  “You know, they’re absolutely right,” said Country. “All you do need is love. It’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard in my life…”

  “They get straight to the heart of the matter,” said City. “You’ve got love, what else do you need?…”

  “Think about it, one small word, just four little letters, yet they make all the difference…”

  Serge turned around and faced them again.

  “What?” said City.

  6

  A weather-beaten seventeen-foot flats skiff motored slowly through the first light of day in the upper Florida Keys. It was a falling tide, and orange and pink and green Styrofoam balls dotted the water. Flocks of spoonbills glided low over the shallows, timing the tide to the minute, heading for feeding grounds as they had for thousands of years. Tiny, low mangrove islands punctuated the horizon, which disappeared toward Cape Sable and the Everglades.

  An old man stood in the back of the skiff, his hand on the outboard throttle, a “Sanibel Biological Supply” fishing cap on his head. Yellow rubber waders with suspenders. The man had risen at precisely four-thirty, as he did every morning, and stepped onto the porch of his stilt house, eye level with the coconuts in the trees, barely visible in the blackness. Unseen water lapped the rock revetment; palms rustled. He grabbed the balcony railing and concentrated on being thankful. Then he went downstairs and turned on the Weather Channel. There was a rim of light on the horizon when he headed down the dock with a mug of Sanka and an insulated sack of tuna sandwiches. He mixed gasoline and oil in the two-stroke fifty-to-one ratio and jerked a bucket of frozen mullet from a dockside freezer. He pulled the cover off the outboard, wiping spots with a rag, spraying points with silicone, replacing the cover. The davits clicked as he cranked the skiff down into the water. Soon he was planing up across the bay, snaking between the islands, until he was in the thick of the floating Styrofoam. The man throttled down.

  He idled the boat and reached for one of the balls with a long-handled gaff, grabbing it and pulling up the crab trap tied underneath with rope. He pushed the outboard throttle stick to the side, turning the propeller starboard and putting the skiff in a perpetual clockwise circle as he shook blue crabs out of the trap and into a seventy-gallon cooler. Then he reached in a gray bucket for a dead fish and rammed it into the empty trap’s wire-mesh bait hole and threw it all back over the side, the Styrofoam ball bobbing in the wake a few times as the trap settled back to the bottom. The man motored up for the next float and repeated the process, again and again, float after float—the whole time drinking coffee, eating sandwiches, juggling gaff, bait, traps, throttle. Back-country ballet. But he only stopped at the green floats; the orange and pink belonged to the other guys, and you didn’t mess with them unless you wanted to get shot. Back-country justice. The man tossed his last trap in the water and headed home. He knew he was getting close when he saw the toilet seats.

  On the north side on Plantation Key, the approach from the bay was extra shallow and rocky, and a channel had been cut long ago. The pass was known as Toilet Seat Cut or Little Stinker. It was originally designated with regular nautical markers, but the locals had since hung toilet seats on all of them. They were painted in vibrant colors, with names and dates and little drawings of people and pets. The old man looked off to the side. Spoonbills chiseled at tide-exposed oysters; tarpon fins slit the surface. An ibis stood frozen in an inch of water among the mangrove roots, then snapped its neck forward, spearing a fish with its beak. A pink toilet seat went by.

  The sun finally rose as the old man cranked the skiff back up the davits and flushed fresh water through the lower unit with rabbit ears. He hoisted the cooler of crabs into the back of a pickup and headed for market.

  The man had come into a modest amount of money in the sixties and bought a house and several commercially zoned parcels in the Florida Keys. Now their worth was in ransom range. The rental checks from the gas stations and seashell shops were steady, and the man no longer had need for the crab money. That wasn’t work; it was religion.

  He loved the stilt house. Two stories, tin roof, screened-in wraparound balcony. Inside, you couldn’t see the walls for all the built-in bookshelves. You knew he was a book guy by the way the shelves were filled, not just packed rows of vertical spines, but more books crammed in on top. It might have been a space problem except the man only collected one other thing: beer signs. The shark Bud Lite sign, the palm tree Corona, the flamingo drinking Miller. At night, the neon came on, and so did the strands of white Christmas lights tracing the porch’s eaves. People driving by on US 1 often mistook it for a tavern and pulled over. “Hello? Anyone here?”—climbing the stairs and knocking on the screen door—“Is the bar open?”

  The old man would trudge across the porch and reach for the handle. “It is now.”

  That’s how he started his third collection. He collected friends, many of whom he met when they were on vacation and initially thought his place was a pub. They returned year after year. He kept a refrigerator on the porch, stocked with beer. There was a basket of colored markers on top, and he told his visitors to “sign the guest book,” and the refrigerator was now covered with names and hometowns from across the USA and parts of Europe.

  He was a big hit with the neighbors, too, something of a local celebrity. But that had taken a little more time. The man may have been old, but he wasn’t weak or withered. In fact, he was scary. A burly, tight fist of a man, he kept fit swimming in the bay and pulling crab traps. His face was hard and leathery, and the shaved skull made him look like Mr. Clean. The neighbors were afraid of him at first; they aggressively avoided his property and gave him wide berth in town. There was talk he used to be a professional wrestler or a Green Beret or a bagman for the mob. But then they saw all the people dropping in from the highway, laughing on the porch late into the starry night. The bravest neighbor tiptoed up to the porch during one of the happy hours and knocked timidly.

  “Frank! Come on in!” said the old man. Expansive smile and expansive, muscular arm that went around the neighbor’s shoulders and jerked him off the steps into the party.

  “You know my name?”
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  “Sure, Frank. You’re my neighbor. I was wondering when you were going to drop by. Beginning to think you were afraid of me or something…. Hey, everybody! This is Frank!”

  “Hi, Frank!”

  “Frank, you want a beer? There’s the fridge. Help yourself. And write something if you want…”

  Another knock at the door.

  “Gotta get that. Make yourself at home…”

  The old man became an institution. So did his parties, which sometimes lasted days, people sleeping or passing out all over the house, prompting the man to install a bunch of hammocks. Half the time strangers were cooking breakfast in his kitchen when he got back from crabbing.

  “I grabbed some of your eggs. Hope you don’t mind,” said a young woman in a long University of Miami T-shirt and nothing else, stirring a frying pan. “Want some?”

  “Sorry, can’t stay. But have at it.”

  During his gatherings, the man was content to sit on a stool in the corner of the porch, smiling, not saying anything, letting others have the spotlight. It only grew the legend. When a shrimpy guy is humble and quiet, well, that’s just pitiful, but when it’s a genuine tough guy, people can’t resist building the story. The neighbors took to him like a lovable circus bear. That he was. Except when someone was being bullied; then he became a grizzly.

  The old man liked the Caribbean Club at Mile Marker 104, where signs still made a big deal about a snippet of Key Largo putatively being filmed there. The usual crowd had gathered around the man’s stool one Friday night when they heard a woman’s protests from the pool tables.

  “Ow! You’re hurting me!”

  A tall young man in a workout jersey had her by the arm. “We’re leaving.”

  “Let me go!”

  Nobody intervened as he dragged her out the door.

  “Excuse me,” said the old man, setting down his draft and getting off his stool. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Sixty seconds later, the woman ran back into the bar, followed by the old man, who casually returned to his stool and picked up his beer. “Where were we?…” Then they heard the ambulance siren.