In the past, I’d made a few suggestions to Jim about how he and his wife might import a few new products into their tiny store, improve their prospects, but Jim had no heart for this talk. His knees were hurting and mostly he just wanted to sit under his bougainvillea tree beside the store.
“You look good at the road, you can tell a lot,” he said. “Just watchin way people movin past.”
The salon door of the Ebb Tide was open, and we could hear the wind coming off the island and whistling through our outriggers. If the southerly wind held for a few days, we’d have a comfortable following sea all the way back to Bimini to drop off Jim before heading to Florida.
“Maybe things would be better for you if you had a bike,” I offered. “You could get around more easily.”
“A couple months ago I was thinkin bout a bike,” Jim said.
“You mean to buy one?”
“Yeah, but then the idea went away from me.”
“Why, Jim?”
“The weather good, I just enjoy sittin on the crate, watchin.”
Then I heard a woman’s voice carried on the wind.
We both went outside and climbed to the bridge of the old boat. We looked to the shore and couldn’t see a soul, but I heard her, a voice I knew so well that gathered the tragedy and beauty into each phrase. Flo was singing “God Bless the Child.”
“You hear her, Jim?”
Acknowledgments
Bobby Little, you were the inspiration for Deep Water Blues. Thank you so much for helping me imagine this uncanny story.
I could not have written this without Bonnie and Josh. Josh first urged me to write the saga of Rum Cay fifteen years ago. I started and stopped a half dozen times but wasn’t able to break into the mayhem and blood lust of the story. Josh listened patiently to my plaints and then said, just write the novel, Dad. Josh has been a lighthouse in my writing life, no, in my life.
Bonnie has been an inspiring and tireless collaborator in everything I’ve ever written. She’s passed on her breakthrough ideas and fixed my sentences. She knows my drafts better than I do myself. I probably never would have completed a single book were it not for her urging, her revisions, her saintly patience, her ideas, and her love.
John Mitchell traveled with me on the Ebb Tide and brought the narrative to life with his wonderful drawings. He read drafts of the novel and made important suggestions.
Doron Katzman and James Rolle were key members of my amazing crew of oldies. What great guys they are! What amazing times we shared!
Thank you, Rasta, for allowing me to use your incomparable voice.
Thank you, Paul Slavin and Jon Fine, for giving me thoughtful advice and bringing Deep Water Blues into the publishing world.
Thank you, Fauzia Burke, Jeff Umbro, and Joseph Hannon.
Antonia Meltzoff, you are one of the best readers I have ever known.
My dear departed Paul Pines. You were so terribly ill but summoned the energy to weigh in brilliantly on the ending of my little book. So much love to you, dear friend.
Thank you, Alex Twersky, for urging me to write a screenplay—a lot of what I learned from writing a movie went into this little novel.
Jay Bergen, your guidance and counsel was hugely important and I cannot thank you enough.
Thank you, Gabriel Byrne. You are such a deep soul. Your kind words about my little book mean a lot.
Aiden Slavin, it is always such a pleasure to wander with you through the pleasures of books and life. Our discussions of this manuscript were so useful and moving to me.
Chris Clemans, thank you for your smart advice. John Clemans, thanks for your enthusiastic reading, old buddy.
Jack, you were my model for young Bobby coming to Rum Cay for the first time. Our Sunday talks have been so inspiring.
Fred Waitzkin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1943. When he was a teenager he wavered between wanting to spend his life as a fisherman, Afro Cuban drummer, or novelist. He went to Kenyon College and did graduate study at New York University. His work has appeared in Esquire, New York magazine, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Outside, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, the Huffington Post, and the Daily Beast, among other publications. His memoir, Searching for Bobby Fischer, was made into a major motion picture released in 1993. His other books are Mortal Games, The Last Marlin, and The Dream Merchant. Recently, he has completed an original screenplay, The Rave. Waitzkin lives in Manhattan with his wife, Bonnie, and has two children, Josh and Katya, and two grandsons, Jack and Charlie. He spends as much time as possible on the bridge of his old boat, the Ebb Tide, trolling baits off distant islands with his family.
John Mitchell, born 1971 in Southern Illinois, is an American artist. As a draftsman, printmaker, and painter, Mitchell works from direct observation of people, places, and things. He was educated at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University. Mitchell lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction based in some respects on actual events. Most names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales except in limited circumstances is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Fred Waitzkin
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5773-8
Published in 2019 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
FRED WAITZKIN
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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