Dinner was surreal, exotic and downright mysterious, in a dreamy submarine tableau. Pirate Jenny was reminded of the dinner scene aboard the Nautilus with Captain Nemo as host. She sampled seafood delicacies never before encountered. But in the end she decided to fill up on some delicious chowder.
Kit suggested Anchor steam beer to go with it. She smiled, "You know best."
He was an elegant man in his sixties. Sliding into old age and frailty. High cheekbones, aquiline nose. Hollows instead of jowls. White hair exploding from a lozenge-shaped face like a Crab Nebula.
Tonight he wore a black sport coat over a black tunic. Very priestly.
"Mister Pico--"
"Kit, please."
"I'm worried about Johnny Luck. He doesn't answer at home."
"No idea on his where-abouts?"
"Only that he was going crabbing at Dutchman's."
"That place is dangerous."
"Yes. But he is quite experienced."
"Try phoning The Jolly Roger. Maybe Cap knows something."
*
The pub was popular with non-whites. The talk was easy and the drinks were cheap. Establishing a tab, however, would depend upon how Cap liked the cut of your jib. Upstairs was a warren of bedrooms known as The Pirate's Hideaway. The owner was a buxom quadroon woman named Hannah Ramirez. She served a zesty continental breakfast with Jamaican mountain java by the pot.
Johnny Luck and his Cayman friend Cap had been diving mates until a mishap rendered the older man crippled from a case of the bends. Insurance compensation allowed Cap to open The Jolly Roger. The two friends loved to play domino. Pirate Jenny figured she might locate Johnny Luck without much further ado.
"Hello, Cap. This is Jen. Is my Rover there?"
"No, missy. Ain't seen 'im today."
"If he shows up can you call me?" She gave him Speedboat's cell number.
"Sure thing, missy."
"Luvya, mate. Bye."
*
In the meantime everyone had retired to Kit's den and library. They were admiring a framed lithograph of Thomas Hart Benton's poker scene from the broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire."
Kit was saying, "I found it wrapped in storage. Belonged to McEwan. The sad chap lost his wife to AIDS."
Pirate Jenny entered the room. "Oh my God! That's poor Mac's picture!"
"You knew him?"
"Of course I did. I flew his friends in from Key West."
Kit sighed. Gazing at the picture, he uttered, "McEwan and I were kindred spirits."
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
a night to remember
Misadventures were common at Dutchman's Jetty. After the curmudgeon died and his stout mansion was vacated by all, save a few Nazi ghosts (it could have been renovated into a splendid hotel; but no one wished to invest hard-earned money in what was now an eyesore surrounded by a wire fence), the jetty became an unofficial public pier. Its original purpose was to prevent beach erosion. Steadfastly it held the surf in check, causing waves to break violently against its embattled face. On its more peaceful side barnacles profited from tiny organisms seeking shelter from the deep. Stone crabs danced there like mambo kings and queens. At high tide the waves crashed across its craggy deck and could wash a person and fishing tackle into the sea. And there were rip-tides.
Behind the seawall the mansion kept baleful watch. Counting the dead, keeping score.
Massive stucco walls with thick wooden shutters covering magnificent stainglass windows and port-holes (good for signaling Unterzee Boots with flashing semaphor) had withstood many a hurricane. Coconuts would fly like cannonballs, smashing themselves into milky pulp. During the same storm that destroyed the lighthouse an entire tree was uprooted from the coconut grove on the south lawn. It slammed onto the roof, chipping away a clutch of Spanish tile. Island people sought refuge inside during big blows. They gathered in family huddles, setting up bedding and eating perishable foods, saving tinned fruit and meats for the hard days without electric power. At night as the storm clawed the sky the people sat in kerosine lanternlight. Wandering the darkened bowels of the house was verboten.
*
The storm howled with unabated fury, trying to pry a way inside. A warm salty draught caused the lantern to flicker. Mango watched the shadows leap high off the floor like calypso dancers and then sink low as if bending beneath a limbo bar.
"Momma, will the storm get us?"
"No, child. Chango is our friend."
Mango did not believe in Yoruban gods. It was nonsense for superstitious fools.
He reached this conclusion through no influence from his atheist father. Henri Bertrand had departed before Mango was born.
Like many bastards Mango spent childhood with a mythical father. His momma told stories of Henry Bertrand as if reading from a book of fairy tales.
*
Kids his age preferred not to play with him. He was a gimp, wandering moodily about on a club foot. A precocious chatterbox, he spoke mainly to himself. Telling himself stories he had made up.
Shadows beckoned that noisesome night like wraiths. And whispered like fabled sirens.
Temptation was strong. So he crept away from his mother and sisters and stole deep into the dead Dutchman's lair.
"Mango!" his mother shouted. "Mango, where are you? Come back!"
His sisters shivered with cold terror. They screamed, "Mango!"
They were certain he would wander into the maw of the black demon whose eyelids drooped to the floor. His body gobbled up, Mango's soul would walk the dim halls forever.
Behind the seawall the mansion kept baleful watch. Counting the dead, keeping score.
Massive stucco walls with thick wooden shutters covering magnificent stainglass windows and port-holes (good for signaling Unterzee Boots with flashing semaphor) had withstood many a hurricane. Coconuts would fly like cannonballs, smashing themselves into milky pulp. During the same storm that destroyed the lighthouse an entire tree was uprooted from the coconut grove on the south lawn. It slammed onto the roof, chipping away a clutch of Spanish tile. Island people sought refuge inside during big blows. They gathered in family huddles, setting up bedding and eating perishable foods, saving tinned fruit and meats for the hard days without electric power. At night as the storm clawed the sky the people sat in kerosine lanternlight. Wandering the darkened bowels of the house was verboten.
*
The storm howled with unabated fury, trying to pry a way inside. A warm salty draught caused the lantern to flicker. Mango watched the shadows leap high off the floor like calypso dancers and then sink low as if bending beneath a limbo bar.
"Momma, will the storm get us?"
"No, child. Chango is our friend."
Mango did not believe in Yoruban gods. It was nonsense for superstitious fools.
He reached this conclusion through no influence from his atheist father. Henri Bertrand had departed before Mango was born.
Like many bastards Mango spent childhood with a mythical father. His momma told stories of Henry Bertrand as if reading from a book of fairy tales.
*
Kids his age preferred not to play with him. He was a gimp, wandering moodily about on a club foot. A precocious chatterbox, he spoke mainly to himself. Telling himself stories he had made up.
Shadows beckoned that noisesome night like wraiths. And whispered like fabled sirens.
Temptation was strong. So he crept away from his mother and sisters and stole deep into the dead Dutchman's lair.
"Mango!" his mother shouted. "Mango, where are you? Come back!"
His sisters shivered with cold terror. They screamed, "Mango!"
They were certain he would wander into the maw of the black demon whose eyelids drooped to the floor. His body gobbled up, Mango's soul would walk the dim halls forever.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
johnny luck
The first time Pirate Jenny met Johnny Luck she was out on the mangrove flats in The Skipper's old Evinrude put-put skiff. And he was larking around in his dinky catamaran. Snorkle-diving. Combing the sea floor for odd beauty. This was a remote part of the island and so he enjoyed being naked. At the moment she passed by he was sipping a bottle of Red Stripe and reading a paperback novel about roustabout socialists by Nelson Algren.
"Yow!" He jumped up to retrieve his shorts.
She thought his genitals were the longest dangling male treasures she had ever seen. She laughed merrily and saluted him.
"Top o'the day."
"Ma'am--"
He wriggled into a pair of khaki jammers.
"How's your lighthouse coming along?"
"Excuse me?" His smile was pure sunshine.
"Sorry. We've never met, but I know who you are."
"And you are?"
"Friends call me Jen."
The attraction between them was immediate and enormous. She grinned and rubbed her perky sunburned nose. Her salt-stiffened hair rippled like flax in the breeze.
"You know about my restoration project. Cool."
"It is that, Johnny Luck."
*
The Cabo Verde lighthouse had been destroyed during a hurricane that plowed under several islands before slamming into the highlands of Cuba's Oriente Provence. The storm stalled and degenerated and then moodily swung up to harass the Florida Straits. By then the ancient lighthouse was carbonized rubble of timber and brick. One local pescadoro mourned it and said we would miss it as much as the Mediterranean world missed the wondrous lighthouse at Alexandria. His name was Johnny Luck. And, yes, he had received a European education.
Our man had no money to restore the lighthouse. He began searching for a grant from an international charity. He began asking for support from wealthy benefactors in the States. He was connected to well-intentioned people from Oxfam to Jimmy Carter's Habitat For Humanity. He had dated a Bangladeshi woman from UNESCO years ago in Paris. He rang her dire office in New Dehli and explained his situation. She wasn't able to arrange anything financially but she did offer some advice. He thanked her and asked her how she was getting along. She said her current lover was a civil servant who demanded cashews with his rice.
An island Quaker family visited him one day and said they would gladly donate labor.
The father was a rugged fifty-year-old and the mother was a stout woman able to heft large sacks of grain. The boy, a gangly teen, could hammer nails from any angle while maintaining one comfortable position. Thus he could go all day without tiring. They arrived early in chambray shirts and denim overalls, rolled up their sleeves, praised the Lord, and commenced work. Johnny Luck provided bread, cheese, ham and iced tea. Served with his uniquely endearing smile.
Johnny Luck found he did not need to buy most materials. He and his volunteers would scrounge around and root up fieldstone, seashell, even loose pavement. He could not acquire cement for free, but the Quaker man knew how to make lime. It made a splendid cheap substitute. A turtlediver came up with a mud kiln, and so they were able bake their bricks. Before long, he had kids scrambling around, filling carts with Nature's bounty.
*
"You know what it's beginning to resemble?"
"No. What?"
"Coit Tower."
A night wind gusted in from a troubled sea and sent the gentle island breezes aloft. Pirate Jenny lighted a citronella candle and a cone of sandlewood incense and hoped they would not be extinguished. Johnny Luck was serving one of his fish creations: amberjack sauteed in a large blackened pan with a blend of wine, herbs and spices. Food residue in the pan was part of the magic.
She hated fishbones. And was quite fussy about how a filet should be prepared. Oh how Doctor Suskind could filet anything from salmon and trout to red snapper, grouper and yellow tail. An orthopedic surgeon, he wielded a deft blade. Knife in one hand and a goddamned martini in the other.
"Did I ever tell you about Doctor Suskind?"
"Many, many times. Unsurpassed."
Without warning she began to sob. He drew her into a consoling hug. "There, there. Thinking of Ol' Doc Suskind, yeah, baby. Brought it all back. The Skipper and everything. I'm sorry, hush now."
"He had that heart-attack, out there fishing with--"
"It's The Skipper. I know. I know."
"They found him on a fucking bus bench!"
*
From her veranda they could view the cove. The water there was black as squid's ink. A footpath led down a hillside through pearly sand and whispering seagrapes to the pier. Wavelets slapped at the timbers and were beginning to show foam. In the far, far distance the powerful combers of the Caribbean rolled beneath a brilliant quarter moon.
He handed her a plate with sizzling lemony amberjack filet.
"No bones." His smile was infectious. Again.
"I trust you."
You should do as my mother, he had told her. Honor the feast day of Saint Blaze. Go to Mass and the priest will place crossed candles by your throat and bless you. After that there is no danger of choking on a fish bone.
But I'm not Catholic!
"We're in for a blow," she said, observing clouds scudding past the moon, whose sharp scythe resembled the prow of a Viking ship beset by a capricious storm.
He made no comment until he got the record player working.
"Listen to this," he said. "I found it at Ben Gunn's music shop. An old Judy Collins."
"Pirate Jenny!"
*
Beneath his deconstructing dreadlocks Johnny Luck's ebony face shown like a holiday lantern.
Tarbutton eyes danced with unending mirth. This joyous attitude earned him a cornucopia of small fortunes each bright day.
The fish melted in her mouth. Nary a bone.
So delighted was she, she blew him a kiss.
"Yow!" He jumped up to retrieve his shorts.
She thought his genitals were the longest dangling male treasures she had ever seen. She laughed merrily and saluted him.
"Top o'the day."
"Ma'am--"
He wriggled into a pair of khaki jammers.
"How's your lighthouse coming along?"
"Excuse me?" His smile was pure sunshine.
"Sorry. We've never met, but I know who you are."
"And you are?"
"Friends call me Jen."
The attraction between them was immediate and enormous. She grinned and rubbed her perky sunburned nose. Her salt-stiffened hair rippled like flax in the breeze.
"You know about my restoration project. Cool."
"It is that, Johnny Luck."
*
The Cabo Verde lighthouse had been destroyed during a hurricane that plowed under several islands before slamming into the highlands of Cuba's Oriente Provence. The storm stalled and degenerated and then moodily swung up to harass the Florida Straits. By then the ancient lighthouse was carbonized rubble of timber and brick. One local pescadoro mourned it and said we would miss it as much as the Mediterranean world missed the wondrous lighthouse at Alexandria. His name was Johnny Luck. And, yes, he had received a European education.
Our man had no money to restore the lighthouse. He began searching for a grant from an international charity. He began asking for support from wealthy benefactors in the States. He was connected to well-intentioned people from Oxfam to Jimmy Carter's Habitat For Humanity. He had dated a Bangladeshi woman from UNESCO years ago in Paris. He rang her dire office in New Dehli and explained his situation. She wasn't able to arrange anything financially but she did offer some advice. He thanked her and asked her how she was getting along. She said her current lover was a civil servant who demanded cashews with his rice.
An island Quaker family visited him one day and said they would gladly donate labor.
The father was a rugged fifty-year-old and the mother was a stout woman able to heft large sacks of grain. The boy, a gangly teen, could hammer nails from any angle while maintaining one comfortable position. Thus he could go all day without tiring. They arrived early in chambray shirts and denim overalls, rolled up their sleeves, praised the Lord, and commenced work. Johnny Luck provided bread, cheese, ham and iced tea. Served with his uniquely endearing smile.
Johnny Luck found he did not need to buy most materials. He and his volunteers would scrounge around and root up fieldstone, seashell, even loose pavement. He could not acquire cement for free, but the Quaker man knew how to make lime. It made a splendid cheap substitute. A turtlediver came up with a mud kiln, and so they were able bake their bricks. Before long, he had kids scrambling around, filling carts with Nature's bounty.
*
"You know what it's beginning to resemble?"
"No. What?"
"Coit Tower."
A night wind gusted in from a troubled sea and sent the gentle island breezes aloft. Pirate Jenny lighted a citronella candle and a cone of sandlewood incense and hoped they would not be extinguished. Johnny Luck was serving one of his fish creations: amberjack sauteed in a large blackened pan with a blend of wine, herbs and spices. Food residue in the pan was part of the magic.
She hated fishbones. And was quite fussy about how a filet should be prepared. Oh how Doctor Suskind could filet anything from salmon and trout to red snapper, grouper and yellow tail. An orthopedic surgeon, he wielded a deft blade. Knife in one hand and a goddamned martini in the other.
"Did I ever tell you about Doctor Suskind?"
"Many, many times. Unsurpassed."
Without warning she began to sob. He drew her into a consoling hug. "There, there. Thinking of Ol' Doc Suskind, yeah, baby. Brought it all back. The Skipper and everything. I'm sorry, hush now."
"He had that heart-attack, out there fishing with--"
"It's The Skipper. I know. I know."
"They found him on a fucking bus bench!"
*
From her veranda they could view the cove. The water there was black as squid's ink. A footpath led down a hillside through pearly sand and whispering seagrapes to the pier. Wavelets slapped at the timbers and were beginning to show foam. In the far, far distance the powerful combers of the Caribbean rolled beneath a brilliant quarter moon.
He handed her a plate with sizzling lemony amberjack filet.
"No bones." His smile was infectious. Again.
"I trust you."
You should do as my mother, he had told her. Honor the feast day of Saint Blaze. Go to Mass and the priest will place crossed candles by your throat and bless you. After that there is no danger of choking on a fish bone.
But I'm not Catholic!
"We're in for a blow," she said, observing clouds scudding past the moon, whose sharp scythe resembled the prow of a Viking ship beset by a capricious storm.
He made no comment until he got the record player working.
"Listen to this," he said. "I found it at Ben Gunn's music shop. An old Judy Collins."
"Pirate Jenny!"
*
Beneath his deconstructing dreadlocks Johnny Luck's ebony face shown like a holiday lantern.
Tarbutton eyes danced with unending mirth. This joyous attitude earned him a cornucopia of small fortunes each bright day.
The fish melted in her mouth. Nary a bone.
So delighted was she, she blew him a kiss.
Friday, December 17, 2010
luck's tor part five
The Cabo Verde lighthouse was cobbled together by the Spanish at land's end of a verdant arm that flexed into the sea, much like Cape Cod. When the British took control of Santa Barbara they renamed it Saint James. The cape retained its melodic Spanish name due to bureaucratic oversight. The lighthouse received a facelift, financed by none other than Captain Morgan himself, with booty looted from galleons bound for the Azores. It stood sentinal for two centuries. Then came the Catagory 4 hurricane known as Hecate.
*
Above the nomadic dunes terra firma began with seagrape shrubs and Australian pines. A piedmont of wild Bermuda grass rose from a bed of coarse sand to overlook the cove. There was a stairway hewn from coquina, pocked and filled with living green.Twelve symbolic steps flanked by croton climbed to the base of the lighthouse.The keeper's cottage lay nestled in a floral chaos of hibiscus, oleander, gardenia and orchid. Its ancient walls were of white stucco and its roof was of Spanish tile.
Pirate Jenny unlatched the heavy wooden door and shoved it open.
Furnishings could have been those of Robinson Crusoe.
A fishnet hammock with navy bedding had been slung high enough to be free of anything worrisome that might crawl in and bite.
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum," Speedboat teased.
"You said it, sister."
"Yow! What's that?"
"Mangrove spider."
"Outta here!"
Like schoolgirls they scampered out, squealing and giggling. They paused at the foot of the lighthouse and gazed upward at its head, three stories above and awash now in a vermilion sky.
Pirate Jenny gave her new pal an elbow poke. "That spider didn't scare you."
"Naw. Not many things do. Dying does a little."
Of course, Pirate Jenny thought. Cancer. The woman has battled breast cancer.
"Let's go inside," she said, brightening. "I want to show you something."
Gingerly they stepped across the threshold. This scene was far different from the one inside the cottage. It was someone's secret garden.
"Lo behold!" Pirate Jenny pointed toward the flooring. In the dim light they observed a circular maze. A labyrinth, handpainted handlaid tiles.
"It's beautiful," Speedboat whispered, making the Sign of the Cross.
"My man Johnny Luck copied it from a book. It's from a place he once visited. Chartres Cathedral."
"This is fascinating," Speedboat said reverently. She knelt and touched the gateway with her finger.
Stifling a smirk, Pirate Jenny said, "It's not holy ground, dear."
"Art is holy."
*
"Is your man the keeper?"
"Heavens no. He's the builder."
"Who is the keeper? Where is he?"
"One never sees him. I think he's a ghost."
Speedboat rolled her eyes like Mantan Moreland in "King of the Zombies" and replied, "Oooh, spooky."
"You know, my honeyboy doesn't attend any church. But he is very spiritual."
"I'm anxious to meet him."
"Well look, it's getting on toward nightfall. We gotta get going."
Outside they looked up and saw that the great lantern already was throwing light toward the sealanes, a beacon from what was called Luck's Tor.
*
The women stumbled through dunes so precarious they thought they were wading in gypsum. Legs gobbled up to shin and calf. They stopped and stood in total starshine. Ever so awesome, the Milky Way arched overhead.
"The Bridge of Souls," Speedboat proclaimed.
Pirate Jenny clicked on a torch from her fanny-pouch. Following the cone of light they entered the sea-oats and familiar territory.
She exclaimed: "Up there! Our cabana, but I don't see him."
"Didn't you say he went crabbing?"
"Yes, but he would have returned by now."
"Maybe he gave up on us and went home."
"I suppose."
"Well then. I invite you to dinner with Kit and Kat. You can call your honeyboy from there."
*
Above the nomadic dunes terra firma began with seagrape shrubs and Australian pines. A piedmont of wild Bermuda grass rose from a bed of coarse sand to overlook the cove. There was a stairway hewn from coquina, pocked and filled with living green.Twelve symbolic steps flanked by croton climbed to the base of the lighthouse.The keeper's cottage lay nestled in a floral chaos of hibiscus, oleander, gardenia and orchid. Its ancient walls were of white stucco and its roof was of Spanish tile.
Pirate Jenny unlatched the heavy wooden door and shoved it open.
Furnishings could have been those of Robinson Crusoe.
A fishnet hammock with navy bedding had been slung high enough to be free of anything worrisome that might crawl in and bite.
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum," Speedboat teased.
"You said it, sister."
"Yow! What's that?"
"Mangrove spider."
"Outta here!"
Like schoolgirls they scampered out, squealing and giggling. They paused at the foot of the lighthouse and gazed upward at its head, three stories above and awash now in a vermilion sky.
Pirate Jenny gave her new pal an elbow poke. "That spider didn't scare you."
"Naw. Not many things do. Dying does a little."
Of course, Pirate Jenny thought. Cancer. The woman has battled breast cancer.
"Let's go inside," she said, brightening. "I want to show you something."
Gingerly they stepped across the threshold. This scene was far different from the one inside the cottage. It was someone's secret garden.
"Lo behold!" Pirate Jenny pointed toward the flooring. In the dim light they observed a circular maze. A labyrinth, handpainted handlaid tiles.
"It's beautiful," Speedboat whispered, making the Sign of the Cross.
"My man Johnny Luck copied it from a book. It's from a place he once visited. Chartres Cathedral."
"This is fascinating," Speedboat said reverently. She knelt and touched the gateway with her finger.
Stifling a smirk, Pirate Jenny said, "It's not holy ground, dear."
"Art is holy."
*
"Is your man the keeper?"
"Heavens no. He's the builder."
"Who is the keeper? Where is he?"
"One never sees him. I think he's a ghost."
Speedboat rolled her eyes like Mantan Moreland in "King of the Zombies" and replied, "Oooh, spooky."
"You know, my honeyboy doesn't attend any church. But he is very spiritual."
"I'm anxious to meet him."
"Well look, it's getting on toward nightfall. We gotta get going."
Outside they looked up and saw that the great lantern already was throwing light toward the sealanes, a beacon from what was called Luck's Tor.
*
The women stumbled through dunes so precarious they thought they were wading in gypsum. Legs gobbled up to shin and calf. They stopped and stood in total starshine. Ever so awesome, the Milky Way arched overhead.
"The Bridge of Souls," Speedboat proclaimed.
Pirate Jenny clicked on a torch from her fanny-pouch. Following the cone of light they entered the sea-oats and familiar territory.
She exclaimed: "Up there! Our cabana, but I don't see him."
"Didn't you say he went crabbing?"
"Yes, but he would have returned by now."
"Maybe he gave up on us and went home."
"I suppose."
"Well then. I invite you to dinner with Kit and Kat. You can call your honeyboy from there."
Thursday, December 16, 2010
mango
Before he lit out for the Dutchman's Johnny Luck checked the list of things needed for his restoration project. The Cabo Verde lighthouse was nearly rebuilt. Needing only ornamentation. Arrayed beside his office desk (a folding cocktail table) were items salvaged by his ragtag army of scavengers. The office was a lean-to cabana with a frond roof. He picked up a Prince Albert tobacco tin. A gimpy Creole boy named Mango had presented it to him. The birdcage chest swelled with pride. "For you," Mango explained. Then he skittered away on his club foot.
That tin became a place to stash little treasures. Gems and crystals, gold and silver. Jewelry and whatnots lost. Gone from their owners. Retrieved and now residing in a tobacco tin. Johnny Luck fingered the recent haul. Nothing aesthetically grand. Problem was, the kids didn't know what to look for when it came to the frills. Basic construction material they understood.
He opened a bottle of Red Stripe and sat back.
A canvas director's chair served as throne. He surveyed his balmy realm. The beer was cold. He poured a stream of it onto his head like shampoo, drenching his dreadlocks.
Watching Pirate Jenny in the distance, he exclaimed: "Jah-hovah!"
That tin became a place to stash little treasures. Gems and crystals, gold and silver. Jewelry and whatnots lost. Gone from their owners. Retrieved and now residing in a tobacco tin. Johnny Luck fingered the recent haul. Nothing aesthetically grand. Problem was, the kids didn't know what to look for when it came to the frills. Basic construction material they understood.
He opened a bottle of Red Stripe and sat back.
A canvas director's chair served as throne. He surveyed his balmy realm. The beer was cold. He poured a stream of it onto his head like shampoo, drenching his dreadlocks.
Watching Pirate Jenny in the distance, he exclaimed: "Jah-hovah!"
luck's tor part four
"Who's that down there? On the strand."
Johnny Luck pointed toward a person in black. Lean, sinewy like a man, with sun-bronzed shoulders, and wearing a wetvest and swimming trunks. Sloshing through ankle-deep foam.
Pirate Jenny lifted her eyepatch and pretended to employ her missing eye.
"Dunno, Mister Luck."
"Man or woman?"
The stranger's hair was long and white as refined sugar. Flowing rapids-like from beneath a floppy straw sombrero.
"Can't tell anything," Pirate Jenny blustered. "Avast, mate! Hand me me spyglass!"
"Aye aye."
"Beachcomber evidently. I'm going to get aquainted."
"Suit yourself. I'm about to go crabbing. The Dutchman's."
"OK, love."
*
It was a woman with glittering gray eyes who looked up and waved.
"Hello, pirate lass."
"Howdy. Friends call me Jen."
"Stinkers call me Speedboat."
"Where're you staying?"
"Yon big house."
"Ah, the old McEwan place."
"McEwan has been gone a long time."
"Oh, I know. I knew his wife. Bernice."
"It's owned now by my friends Kit and Kat."
"Like the candy?"
"Yup."
Johnny Luck pointed toward a person in black. Lean, sinewy like a man, with sun-bronzed shoulders, and wearing a wetvest and swimming trunks. Sloshing through ankle-deep foam.
Pirate Jenny lifted her eyepatch and pretended to employ her missing eye.
"Dunno, Mister Luck."
"Man or woman?"
The stranger's hair was long and white as refined sugar. Flowing rapids-like from beneath a floppy straw sombrero.
"Can't tell anything," Pirate Jenny blustered. "Avast, mate! Hand me me spyglass!"
"Aye aye."
"Beachcomber evidently. I'm going to get aquainted."
"Suit yourself. I'm about to go crabbing. The Dutchman's."
"OK, love."
*
It was a woman with glittering gray eyes who looked up and waved.
"Hello, pirate lass."
"Howdy. Friends call me Jen."
"Stinkers call me Speedboat."
"Where're you staying?"
"Yon big house."
"Ah, the old McEwan place."
"McEwan has been gone a long time."
"Oh, I know. I knew his wife. Bernice."
"It's owned now by my friends Kit and Kat."
"Like the candy?"
"Yup."
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
final approach
The motel he had in mind had been razed years ago. A hoagie shop now squatted in the middle of his destination. Wearily he sat on a bus bench advertising Coppertone. The familiar logo of the dog pulling the swimsuit bottom from the little girl had been revised for the Go Go Nineties.
Rhys-Jones watched the sun go down. A crimson ball of cotton. Green spots in his eyes. He drank the rest of the whiskey and watched the city lights come on. Palm fronds rattled above him. Then he fell over and passed out, thinking he was dead.
He dreamed of deliverance.
Borne high above storm clouds on the wings of his daughter's seaplane, soaring over blue thunderheads, he heard the motors throb with soothing rhythms as their propellers changed pitch and the overall drone. It was better than a mother's heartbeat. He felt safe and secure upon this surreal bosom of sound.
"Wake up, Skipper."
"Where are we, dollbaby?"
"Port bow. Cabo Verde Light."
He saw what was left of the old lighthouse. Rusted tension rods rose from charred rubble. They resembled the grasping talons of a hideous iron specter imprisoned in brick and mortar. Surviving timbers were rotted and gone to ground. He sighed. No one had rebuilt the lighthouse during his long absence in Mexico.
"Bad dream?"
"No. Good dream."
"We're almost there."
Their eyes matched the color of the clouds they were descending through. Gray now. Suddenly the wiper blades were swabbing rain from the windscreen.
"I love you, dollbaby."
"I love you too, Daddy."
The Albatross began its final approach homeward, banking wide, and humming from the depths of its great heart.
*
The Metro cop found the bum asleep on the Coppertone bench. Shoeless, pockets turned out. Odd crap strewn from a trampled knapsack. The cop whacked one filthy foot with his stick. "C'mon. Get up, Bud. Can't crash here. You're not supposed to be part of the scenery."
Rhys-Jones was dead.
Rhys-Jones watched the sun go down. A crimson ball of cotton. Green spots in his eyes. He drank the rest of the whiskey and watched the city lights come on. Palm fronds rattled above him. Then he fell over and passed out, thinking he was dead.
He dreamed of deliverance.
Borne high above storm clouds on the wings of his daughter's seaplane, soaring over blue thunderheads, he heard the motors throb with soothing rhythms as their propellers changed pitch and the overall drone. It was better than a mother's heartbeat. He felt safe and secure upon this surreal bosom of sound.
"Wake up, Skipper."
"Where are we, dollbaby?"
"Port bow. Cabo Verde Light."
He saw what was left of the old lighthouse. Rusted tension rods rose from charred rubble. They resembled the grasping talons of a hideous iron specter imprisoned in brick and mortar. Surviving timbers were rotted and gone to ground. He sighed. No one had rebuilt the lighthouse during his long absence in Mexico.
"Bad dream?"
"No. Good dream."
"We're almost there."
Their eyes matched the color of the clouds they were descending through. Gray now. Suddenly the wiper blades were swabbing rain from the windscreen.
"I love you, dollbaby."
"I love you too, Daddy."
The Albatross began its final approach homeward, banking wide, and humming from the depths of its great heart.
*
The Metro cop found the bum asleep on the Coppertone bench. Shoeless, pockets turned out. Odd crap strewn from a trampled knapsack. The cop whacked one filthy foot with his stick. "C'mon. Get up, Bud. Can't crash here. You're not supposed to be part of the scenery."
Rhys-Jones was dead.
Monday, December 13, 2010
luck's tor part three
On his way to the cabstand Rhys-Jones visited a liquor store and bought a pint of Early Times. There was a security mirror and in it he saw himself and remembered how people long ago said he looked like Chet Baker. The jazz genius had been a gorgeous human being before falling away to junk. A babyfaced beatific hipster with a lonesome horn. The mirror showed that Rhys-Jones had aged as horribly as Mister Baker. He could have passed for the poor dope at the end of his rope.
The slick blond pompadour had wilted and thinned. He had cavernous cheek hollows and eyes with a thousand-yard stare. The tanned and leathery skin of his face was lined with so many creases that it resembled a map of all the roads he had travelled.
*
Rhys-Jones was a sartoral jamboree.
He wore hemp sandals bought in Sonora or Durango or Chihuahua or some damn place and a greasy tropical shirt with hula girls. A string of cowry shells rattled around his wattled throat. His jeans were frayed and threadbare. The most significant part of his wardrobe, however, was a sweat-stained yacht captain's cap with an anchor patch.
So when he rapped on the roof of the cab with a mercurochromed knuckle he was greeted with a stony glare. Quickly he drew forth his battered wallet and showed a fold of lettuce to prove he wasn't a hobo. The toad sitting there on a beaded backrest smirked and muttered something in Farsi.
Then in lilting Hammersmith or Brixton: "Where to, Skipper?"
Skipper? What does he mean by that?
Insults seem to fly from everywhere like darts.
He tugged down the visor of his cap and climbed in with his grungy knapsack. He read the name of the driver and rasped, "Step on it, Nasrudin."
*
The cab rocketed up Biscayne Boulevard, using all available lanes. Rhys-Jones watched as if he were centerstage in a madyak Third World movie. In the rearseat he tried to marshal his thoughts but could not. An absurd cacophony jangled his mind. He was too dazed to think. Blood pressure was near-stroke level. Stress and anxiety brought on by low self-esteem pumped his pistons harder and harder. He was an unexploded bomb. He became enraged easily and was constantly flipping out with unspeakable tantrums. Diabetes destroyed his keen vision and deviled his feet with the pins and needles. Defeated, all he could do was to sit in this wretched cab and inhale secondhand smoke from bidi cigarettes.
An unbridled itch prompted him to scratch his testicles.
Nasrudin crossed 79th Street and was caught by the next traffic light. He asked his passenger for an explicit update on the directions. He received no response. He glanced backward and swore in Farsi. The passenger appeared to be playing with himself.
"No masturbating! No masturbating!" He swerved the cab to the curb and parked. "Give me my money now and get out!"
Totally flummoxed, the passenger sat agape.
"Out! Out!"
Rhys-Jones tossed a couple of bills at the driver. "Keep the change, frog face."
The cab scooted back into traffic. The last thing he heard Nasrudin say was: "Uncivilized!"
The slick blond pompadour had wilted and thinned. He had cavernous cheek hollows and eyes with a thousand-yard stare. The tanned and leathery skin of his face was lined with so many creases that it resembled a map of all the roads he had travelled.
*
Rhys-Jones was a sartoral jamboree.
He wore hemp sandals bought in Sonora or Durango or Chihuahua or some damn place and a greasy tropical shirt with hula girls. A string of cowry shells rattled around his wattled throat. His jeans were frayed and threadbare. The most significant part of his wardrobe, however, was a sweat-stained yacht captain's cap with an anchor patch.
So when he rapped on the roof of the cab with a mercurochromed knuckle he was greeted with a stony glare. Quickly he drew forth his battered wallet and showed a fold of lettuce to prove he wasn't a hobo. The toad sitting there on a beaded backrest smirked and muttered something in Farsi.
Then in lilting Hammersmith or Brixton: "Where to, Skipper?"
Skipper? What does he mean by that?
Insults seem to fly from everywhere like darts.
He tugged down the visor of his cap and climbed in with his grungy knapsack. He read the name of the driver and rasped, "Step on it, Nasrudin."
*
The cab rocketed up Biscayne Boulevard, using all available lanes. Rhys-Jones watched as if he were centerstage in a madyak Third World movie. In the rearseat he tried to marshal his thoughts but could not. An absurd cacophony jangled his mind. He was too dazed to think. Blood pressure was near-stroke level. Stress and anxiety brought on by low self-esteem pumped his pistons harder and harder. He was an unexploded bomb. He became enraged easily and was constantly flipping out with unspeakable tantrums. Diabetes destroyed his keen vision and deviled his feet with the pins and needles. Defeated, all he could do was to sit in this wretched cab and inhale secondhand smoke from bidi cigarettes.
An unbridled itch prompted him to scratch his testicles.
Nasrudin crossed 79th Street and was caught by the next traffic light. He asked his passenger for an explicit update on the directions. He received no response. He glanced backward and swore in Farsi. The passenger appeared to be playing with himself.
"No masturbating! No masturbating!" He swerved the cab to the curb and parked. "Give me my money now and get out!"
Totally flummoxed, the passenger sat agape.
"Out! Out!"
Rhys-Jones tossed a couple of bills at the driver. "Keep the change, frog face."
The cab scooted back into traffic. The last thing he heard Nasrudin say was: "Uncivilized!"
Sunday, December 12, 2010
luck's tor part two
"What's up, Jen?"
"Just clouds."
"No. Not just clouds. You've been depressed for weeks. You miss The Skipper."
"That's the trouble. I don't."
"You did your best."
"Not really."
"You think you short-changed him. You're wrong. He short-changed himself."
"Yeah yeah."
*
Powys Rhys-Jones hung up the phone. The connection to Cayo Verde had broken down. He wanted to speak to his daughter, to hear her voice, possibly for the last time. He looked around, eyes rabid, at the mongrel horde loitering in the bus station. They all had filmy teeth and wore pistols. He suffered from lice and genital herpes contracted in prison. A Mexican calabozo not far from a patch of desert where Zapatistas had been buried up to their necks and trampled beneath the hooves of Federales. He stood alone humiliated in this hellpit. His bowels began to squirm and cramp. He wanted to take a dump but was afraid of public stalls. He had not endured rape and beatings in prison and hitched rides with machete-wielding fruit-pickers who took wayside shits, laughing and joking, while he would seclude himself behind a prickly pear, all the way to the Rio Bravo, and ridden the damned Grayhound through Texas, Louisianna, Alabama and Florida, just to end up on a Miami commode with a bullet in his brain.
His daughter had wired him enough dough for busfare and a few expenses. He could grab a cab now and and zip up Biscayne Boulevard to Little River and check into a cheap hole-in-the-wall motel he knew from the old days when he was Mister Slick, the man in the know, to all the maritime rednecks along 79th Street and the Causeway.
"Just clouds."
"No. Not just clouds. You've been depressed for weeks. You miss The Skipper."
"That's the trouble. I don't."
"You did your best."
"Not really."
"You think you short-changed him. You're wrong. He short-changed himself."
"Yeah yeah."
*
Powys Rhys-Jones hung up the phone. The connection to Cayo Verde had broken down. He wanted to speak to his daughter, to hear her voice, possibly for the last time. He looked around, eyes rabid, at the mongrel horde loitering in the bus station. They all had filmy teeth and wore pistols. He suffered from lice and genital herpes contracted in prison. A Mexican calabozo not far from a patch of desert where Zapatistas had been buried up to their necks and trampled beneath the hooves of Federales. He stood alone humiliated in this hellpit. His bowels began to squirm and cramp. He wanted to take a dump but was afraid of public stalls. He had not endured rape and beatings in prison and hitched rides with machete-wielding fruit-pickers who took wayside shits, laughing and joking, while he would seclude himself behind a prickly pear, all the way to the Rio Bravo, and ridden the damned Grayhound through Texas, Louisianna, Alabama and Florida, just to end up on a Miami commode with a bullet in his brain.
His daughter had wired him enough dough for busfare and a few expenses. He could grab a cab now and and zip up Biscayne Boulevard to Little River and check into a cheap hole-in-the-wall motel he knew from the old days when he was Mister Slick, the man in the know, to all the maritime rednecks along 79th Street and the Causeway.
luck's tor
In late afternoon when the tide was right stone crabs living in Dutchman's Jetty began to dance a merry marimba along the craggy deck. Waving arms, strutting hind legs. Mating season, Johnny Luck figured. Soon he would be creeping along the slippery razor-sharp barnicle-studded rockpile, being careful not to fall as he had when he was ten, most memorably gashing his knee and tearing off part of a toe.
The Dutchman was alive then and had laughed: "Ach so, mein schatzies love the taste of schvartzer meat. Be sure and leave some. Ha ha ha!"
Very funny.
Over the years Johnny Luck developed an artful legerdemain. He would wisk a swift hand to the rear of the crab and pluck it up by its unguarded bohunkis. Then he would carry barehanded the angry devil and plop him into a zinc bucket. Most people were held in abeyance by its claws.
He checked his Bulova. Four o'clock. Time to go crabbing.
*
Standing upon the crest of a high dune was the woman called Pirate Jenny. In silent solitude, thinking, brooding. An island breeze rich-scented with mangrove, fecundity and rot, ruffled her bobcut blond hair like so many down feathers. Tear salt in the corner of her eye.
Islanders had given her the name Pirate Jenny because she wore an eyepatch. The Skipper called her so because she flew his old seaplane and reminded him of the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates." She abided the nickname because she loved "The Three-penny Opera."
Along the horizon a train of pink clouds raced in a serene regatta. Shaped like conch shells, floating upon an azure sea beneath a cerulean sky.
Vacantly gazing afar, she thought of ways she could have arranged a successful return of her prodigal dad. Everyone called Powys Rhys-Jones The Skipper, whether they were praising him or cursing him. A schemer and a dreamer, dissipated through drink into a simple-minded fool no longer able to manage himself.
Once he had chartered a seaplane shuttle and a deepsea fishing boat.
Now he was just a rummy. Just like Albert in Hemingway's "To Have And Have Not."
Ironically he had once fancied himself as Harry Morgan, the obdurant existential hero of that book.
The Dutchman was alive then and had laughed: "Ach so, mein schatzies love the taste of schvartzer meat. Be sure and leave some. Ha ha ha!"
Very funny.
Over the years Johnny Luck developed an artful legerdemain. He would wisk a swift hand to the rear of the crab and pluck it up by its unguarded bohunkis. Then he would carry barehanded the angry devil and plop him into a zinc bucket. Most people were held in abeyance by its claws.
He checked his Bulova. Four o'clock. Time to go crabbing.
*
Standing upon the crest of a high dune was the woman called Pirate Jenny. In silent solitude, thinking, brooding. An island breeze rich-scented with mangrove, fecundity and rot, ruffled her bobcut blond hair like so many down feathers. Tear salt in the corner of her eye.
Islanders had given her the name Pirate Jenny because she wore an eyepatch. The Skipper called her so because she flew his old seaplane and reminded him of the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates." She abided the nickname because she loved "The Three-penny Opera."
Along the horizon a train of pink clouds raced in a serene regatta. Shaped like conch shells, floating upon an azure sea beneath a cerulean sky.
Vacantly gazing afar, she thought of ways she could have arranged a successful return of her prodigal dad. Everyone called Powys Rhys-Jones The Skipper, whether they were praising him or cursing him. A schemer and a dreamer, dissipated through drink into a simple-minded fool no longer able to manage himself.
Once he had chartered a seaplane shuttle and a deepsea fishing boat.
Now he was just a rummy. Just like Albert in Hemingway's "To Have And Have Not."
Ironically he had once fancied himself as Harry Morgan, the obdurant existential hero of that book.
Monday, December 6, 2010
cruising
Even in the chilly dim recesses of Jilly Rizzo's club on the 79th Street Causeway in North Bay Village, between the mainland and Miami Beach, people were following the Missle Crisis on TV. But over at the bar, with a swizzle stick in his mouth, George Raft was entertaining a rich man from the Eden Roc. The man had a trophy wife in tow. She was built like Anita Ekberg, poured into a white blouse with a starched turned-up collar. Her gold lame pedal-pushers were as tight-fitting as wiener casings. Raft flipped a silver dollar as he had done thirty years before in the movie "Scarface."
"S'waddya think of this Castro guy, Mistah Raft?"
"I think they ought send in the Marines and shoot his ass."
"You gonna see your money again? From the casino he took--"
"Not a chance. Say, Pal, it's been a real pleasure."
"OK, Mistah Raft. Hon, we gotta go."
*
At the same time a few miles west, Tomas and Kit were skulking up to the box office of the 79th Street Art Theatre, hoping no one who knew them would drive by and recognize them. Their objective: catch a nudie flick, maybe a "Mister Teas."
"We have enough money?" Tomas whined.
"We have enough money."
The box office woman wore rhinestone winged eyeglasses. She looked them over once, over twice, and popped her gum. "You boys eighteen?"
"Yeah, lady," Kit growled. "We're eighteen."
"Well, ya don't lookit." Evidently she got her kicks making sweaty lads squirm.
All the back rows seemed to be occupied by goblins.
On the screen was a host of gorgeous women playing nude volleyball. Tomas stood in the aisle, transfixed, as if he had stepped on a zillion volt wire, gawking until someone yelled: "Siddown, asshole!"
They groped in the darkness for two empty seats. There was one futive soul in that row. With his knees together he shifted his legs to one side. Like a teenage girl riding side-saddle, Kit thought.
As soon as they sat down the reel ended.
"What would your mom think if she saw us now?" Teresa Reyes was never far from Kit's mind.
"Unthinkable--"
Finally the feature movie came on. The title: "A Bout de Souffle."
Jesus Christ! What the Hell is This?
Evidently it was a French film, not a movie. Together they slumped in their seats with a collective groan.
"Something about a souffle," Kit rasped. "One of those foamy--"
"Breathless," Tomas corrected, having read the subtitle.
*
Halfway through it they walked out. On the screen Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg were finagling around like clowns under the bed sheet.
As they limped past the box office the woman popped her gum and cat-called, "Hey, Sunny Boys. Can'tcha stan' a li'l kultcha?"
Crossing the street to where they were parked behind the public library, Kit barked, "Goddammit! If I'd wanted to see some yakity-yak French import I'd have gone to the Mayfair!"
"Yeah," Tomas affirmed. An ache in his balls had left him breathless.
*
Kit drove his lime green '56 Ford V8 across the causeway and turned north on Collins. The windows were down and the seabreeze caught his leonine hair in a tempest.
Not far from the Sunny Isles fishing pier was Scotty's, a car-hop renown for pretty waitresses and excellent milkshakes. The hub of activity was a diner the size of a trolly car. Its Wurlitzer piped music to the action outside.
Kit nosed into the bay nearest the seawall. He could hear "The Peppermint Twist." And he remembered a party back in high school. They were doing the Twist when a chubby girl in a red sack dress blew out her knee. Nobody could stop her from screaming.
While they waited for their baskets of burgers and fries a candy-apple street-rod thundered into the lot.The driver made the customary ritual circuits, garnering all due notice, and then screetched to a halt alongside Kit and Tomas. He clicked off his engine and the silence was enormous.
"Well, well. If it isn't the Lone Ranger and Tonto--"
Behind the wheel of the chopped and chanelled '38 Buick sat a sun-bronzed hatchet-faced hoodlum. Slouched like James Dean. Tawny hair swept into a defiant duck-ass pompadour. A long Pall Mall dangling from petulant lips. He was a diminutive man, standing five foot seven and weighing one hundred and twenty. Slim as a bear's tooth. Tough as a hickory axe-handle. He exuded eerie menace, chilling off most people.
Kit heard he had been kicked out of the Corps on a Section Eight.
Acolytes of his inner sanctum attested he was of a rare breed of genius. Kit conceeded this thug was supremely gifted. Gifted as Professor Moriarty and Doctor Fu Manchu.
Viscerily Kit knew him to be of the same ilk as the psycho played by Richard Widmark, giggling gleefully, pushing the old lady in the wheelchair down the stairs.
Kit tilted his head in an aside to Tomas. "Meet my car-thief neighbor. He goes by the name Spastic."
"Eat shit, faggot," Spastic coughed. To Tomas he ascertained: "Name's Spivak!"
Kit continued, "Did hard time for grand theft auto."
"Pleased to meet," Tomas grinned sheepishly.
"You buck-o boys up for a little party tonight? My place."
"Sure," Kit replied. "Why not?"
Spastic clicked the touchy ignition and the big motor tumbled to life.
Posi-traction. Left rubber.
To all of those cursing him in the parking lot he shot a bird.
Kit smirked: "Hi Yo, Silver--"
Then he added, dead serious: "Be careful, Pard. That cat may seem OK at times, but he is always dangerous. I accepted his invitation only because I live in the same trailer park. Savvy?"
*
Anton Spivak lit a fresh joss stick. His Zen-like altar to Lenny Bruce sat with silent minimalist dignity.
It filled a niche between two bookcases fashioned from varnished walnut planks and cinder blocks spray-painted black matte. He fired up a reefer and passed it to Tomas, sitting cross-legged where he could inspect the books. Nietzsche, Trotsky, Gide.
"Go 'head," Spastic coaxed, drawing air figures with it. "Won't hurtcha."
Tomas took a wee drag and held it, just as Kit had done.
He looked across the chaotic little room and watched Kit leaning in a corner, talking to a tall, lithe woman with black bangs and kohl eyes. "That's Cleopatra," Spastic said. "She work's at Zorita's."
"S'waddya think of this Castro guy, Mistah Raft?"
"I think they ought send in the Marines and shoot his ass."
"You gonna see your money again? From the casino he took--"
"Not a chance. Say, Pal, it's been a real pleasure."
"OK, Mistah Raft. Hon, we gotta go."
*
At the same time a few miles west, Tomas and Kit were skulking up to the box office of the 79th Street Art Theatre, hoping no one who knew them would drive by and recognize them. Their objective: catch a nudie flick, maybe a "Mister Teas."
"We have enough money?" Tomas whined.
"We have enough money."
The box office woman wore rhinestone winged eyeglasses. She looked them over once, over twice, and popped her gum. "You boys eighteen?"
"Yeah, lady," Kit growled. "We're eighteen."
"Well, ya don't lookit." Evidently she got her kicks making sweaty lads squirm.
All the back rows seemed to be occupied by goblins.
On the screen was a host of gorgeous women playing nude volleyball. Tomas stood in the aisle, transfixed, as if he had stepped on a zillion volt wire, gawking until someone yelled: "Siddown, asshole!"
They groped in the darkness for two empty seats. There was one futive soul in that row. With his knees together he shifted his legs to one side. Like a teenage girl riding side-saddle, Kit thought.
As soon as they sat down the reel ended.
"What would your mom think if she saw us now?" Teresa Reyes was never far from Kit's mind.
"Unthinkable--"
Finally the feature movie came on. The title: "A Bout de Souffle."
Jesus Christ! What the Hell is This?
Evidently it was a French film, not a movie. Together they slumped in their seats with a collective groan.
"Something about a souffle," Kit rasped. "One of those foamy--"
"Breathless," Tomas corrected, having read the subtitle.
*
Halfway through it they walked out. On the screen Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg were finagling around like clowns under the bed sheet.
As they limped past the box office the woman popped her gum and cat-called, "Hey, Sunny Boys. Can'tcha stan' a li'l kultcha?"
Crossing the street to where they were parked behind the public library, Kit barked, "Goddammit! If I'd wanted to see some yakity-yak French import I'd have gone to the Mayfair!"
"Yeah," Tomas affirmed. An ache in his balls had left him breathless.
*
Kit drove his lime green '56 Ford V8 across the causeway and turned north on Collins. The windows were down and the seabreeze caught his leonine hair in a tempest.
Not far from the Sunny Isles fishing pier was Scotty's, a car-hop renown for pretty waitresses and excellent milkshakes. The hub of activity was a diner the size of a trolly car. Its Wurlitzer piped music to the action outside.
Kit nosed into the bay nearest the seawall. He could hear "The Peppermint Twist." And he remembered a party back in high school. They were doing the Twist when a chubby girl in a red sack dress blew out her knee. Nobody could stop her from screaming.
While they waited for their baskets of burgers and fries a candy-apple street-rod thundered into the lot.The driver made the customary ritual circuits, garnering all due notice, and then screetched to a halt alongside Kit and Tomas. He clicked off his engine and the silence was enormous.
"Well, well. If it isn't the Lone Ranger and Tonto--"
Behind the wheel of the chopped and chanelled '38 Buick sat a sun-bronzed hatchet-faced hoodlum. Slouched like James Dean. Tawny hair swept into a defiant duck-ass pompadour. A long Pall Mall dangling from petulant lips. He was a diminutive man, standing five foot seven and weighing one hundred and twenty. Slim as a bear's tooth. Tough as a hickory axe-handle. He exuded eerie menace, chilling off most people.
Kit heard he had been kicked out of the Corps on a Section Eight.
Acolytes of his inner sanctum attested he was of a rare breed of genius. Kit conceeded this thug was supremely gifted. Gifted as Professor Moriarty and Doctor Fu Manchu.
Viscerily Kit knew him to be of the same ilk as the psycho played by Richard Widmark, giggling gleefully, pushing the old lady in the wheelchair down the stairs.
Kit tilted his head in an aside to Tomas. "Meet my car-thief neighbor. He goes by the name Spastic."
"Eat shit, faggot," Spastic coughed. To Tomas he ascertained: "Name's Spivak!"
Kit continued, "Did hard time for grand theft auto."
"Pleased to meet," Tomas grinned sheepishly.
"You buck-o boys up for a little party tonight? My place."
"Sure," Kit replied. "Why not?"
Spastic clicked the touchy ignition and the big motor tumbled to life.
Posi-traction. Left rubber.
To all of those cursing him in the parking lot he shot a bird.
Kit smirked: "Hi Yo, Silver--"
Then he added, dead serious: "Be careful, Pard. That cat may seem OK at times, but he is always dangerous. I accepted his invitation only because I live in the same trailer park. Savvy?"
*
Anton Spivak lit a fresh joss stick. His Zen-like altar to Lenny Bruce sat with silent minimalist dignity.
It filled a niche between two bookcases fashioned from varnished walnut planks and cinder blocks spray-painted black matte. He fired up a reefer and passed it to Tomas, sitting cross-legged where he could inspect the books. Nietzsche, Trotsky, Gide.
"Go 'head," Spastic coaxed, drawing air figures with it. "Won't hurtcha."
Tomas took a wee drag and held it, just as Kit had done.
He looked across the chaotic little room and watched Kit leaning in a corner, talking to a tall, lithe woman with black bangs and kohl eyes. "That's Cleopatra," Spastic said. "She work's at Zorita's."
Sunday, December 5, 2010
aperitif
They found her seated in the back yard. Shaded by an ancient avocado tree and listening to a transistor radio. The station played Cugat and Desi Arnez oldies. She often said she wished the station could find something by Jose Melis. Today she wore a red polka dot shirt tied calypso-fashion in front. And a pair of rose-pink Bermuda shorts. The attire heightened the silkiness of her Caribbean skin. Her casual decolletage set the stage for the drama to come.
She was sipping a rum-and-coke with a twist of lemon. Tomas found it odd that she was observing happy hour.
They sat on the grass beside her lawn chair.
"Mami," Tomas said. "This is my new friend. Kit Pico. We share a philosophy class. Ethics, with Professor Egner. Kit can deliniate Kant and Spinoza in the clearest terms."
"Howdy, Ma'am." There was a mischievous crinkle at the corner of each eye.
Teresa perspired grievously. The mild autumn breeze came as a blessing. She raised her slim arms and clasped he back of her head, cradling her thoughts. Thoughts of her estranged husband somewhere in Cuba. Thoughts of the Russian missles and the American blockade. As her armpits cooled she arched her spine, releasing a megaton of tension. She felt the eyes of the young stranger play a strange magic.
"Would you care to stay for dinner, Mister Pico?"
"I'd love to. Please call me Kit."
*
Before preparing the meal Teresa refreshed herself with a sponge bath and a dusting of rose-scented talc. Then she selected a lapis-lazuli caftan with a hint of Byzantium. Without undergarments she felt outrageous!
Tomas and Kit were seated on the livingroom sofa and watching Huntley and Brinkley.
When she entered like Loretta Young at the opening of her TV show, Kit whispered to Tomas, "Wow--"
*
"May I offer you gentlemen a touch of wine?"
Tomas' eyes bugged out. "Que pasa, Mami?"
She exhaled cigarette smoke with a knowing smile. "Oh don't act so shocked. I know from Father Ambrose that you were caught sampling his altar wine."
"Si--"
Dinner was Portobello mushroom with penne pasta, garlic and grated parmesan. A meatless repast, devoured heartily.
Teresa's choice of red wine was a hit.
*
The house rule of turning off the TV during table meals was rescinded. They watched footage of Adlai Stevenson tell the Cuban envoy that he was prepared to wait until hell freezes over for an answer.
"So, Senor Kit. What is your take on Fidel Castro's Revolution?"
"Ma'am, it's a matter of faith. The true believer surrenders his or her individuality to a higher power, be it God or the Common Good. With religious fervor, I might add. Instead of the Second Coming of Christ, in this case the awaited event is the Coming of the Ideal State."
"How glib you are."
"Well, Ma'am, I know something of utopian thinking. My Granddaddy was an idealist, a progressive for his day. He celebrated May Day at the Llano del Rio Cooperative colony back in 1914."
"You are speaking of California."
"Yes. Granddaddy was mighty fond of Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Call him a Red if you want to. But never a Bolshevik. The cooperative was working to create a socialist paradise in the desert. Unfortunately it went the way of most of our homegrown utopias. Rot at the top."
She was sipping a rum-and-coke with a twist of lemon. Tomas found it odd that she was observing happy hour.
They sat on the grass beside her lawn chair.
"Mami," Tomas said. "This is my new friend. Kit Pico. We share a philosophy class. Ethics, with Professor Egner. Kit can deliniate Kant and Spinoza in the clearest terms."
"Howdy, Ma'am." There was a mischievous crinkle at the corner of each eye.
Teresa perspired grievously. The mild autumn breeze came as a blessing. She raised her slim arms and clasped he back of her head, cradling her thoughts. Thoughts of her estranged husband somewhere in Cuba. Thoughts of the Russian missles and the American blockade. As her armpits cooled she arched her spine, releasing a megaton of tension. She felt the eyes of the young stranger play a strange magic.
"Would you care to stay for dinner, Mister Pico?"
"I'd love to. Please call me Kit."
*
Before preparing the meal Teresa refreshed herself with a sponge bath and a dusting of rose-scented talc. Then she selected a lapis-lazuli caftan with a hint of Byzantium. Without undergarments she felt outrageous!
Tomas and Kit were seated on the livingroom sofa and watching Huntley and Brinkley.
When she entered like Loretta Young at the opening of her TV show, Kit whispered to Tomas, "Wow--"
*
"May I offer you gentlemen a touch of wine?"
Tomas' eyes bugged out. "Que pasa, Mami?"
She exhaled cigarette smoke with a knowing smile. "Oh don't act so shocked. I know from Father Ambrose that you were caught sampling his altar wine."
"Si--"
Dinner was Portobello mushroom with penne pasta, garlic and grated parmesan. A meatless repast, devoured heartily.
Teresa's choice of red wine was a hit.
*
The house rule of turning off the TV during table meals was rescinded. They watched footage of Adlai Stevenson tell the Cuban envoy that he was prepared to wait until hell freezes over for an answer.
"So, Senor Kit. What is your take on Fidel Castro's Revolution?"
"Ma'am, it's a matter of faith. The true believer surrenders his or her individuality to a higher power, be it God or the Common Good. With religious fervor, I might add. Instead of the Second Coming of Christ, in this case the awaited event is the Coming of the Ideal State."
"How glib you are."
"Well, Ma'am, I know something of utopian thinking. My Granddaddy was an idealist, a progressive for his day. He celebrated May Day at the Llano del Rio Cooperative colony back in 1914."
"You are speaking of California."
"Yes. Granddaddy was mighty fond of Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Call him a Red if you want to. But never a Bolshevik. The cooperative was working to create a socialist paradise in the desert. Unfortunately it went the way of most of our homegrown utopias. Rot at the top."
a zoo story
With the music of Maurice Jarre threading through his mind, Tomas toiled across the dunes, thinking he was Lawrence of Arabia. The dunes halted at 27th Avenue. Cars hissed along the four-lane asphalt speedway. It was a mad dash across it to Kay's Hut. Shakes and burgers made from scratch, tasting good as Brooklyn egg-cream and Texas sirloin. The juke box always seemed to be playing "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby and The Romantics.
Tomas closed the jalousie door behind him. He saw someone he knew. Sitting in a booth and nursing a cold cup of joe was Kit Pico.
Pico was a loner. Aloof, condescending, and droll to a fault.
Tomas did not like him and did not know anyone who did.
Yesterday in Ethics class that smart-ass actually asked Professor Egner what he thought of Bertrand Russell. Everybody knew that Egner had edited "Bertrand Russell's Best."
The professor had just paused for questions concerning his lecture at hand, on Spinoza.
What was Pico after? Brownie points?
Snidely Egner replied, "Lord Russell is a senile old man."
Hopes of hearing a new posit on Russell were dashed. Pico slumped back, agape. As if he had gotten his ears resoundingly boxed.
*
With the stealth of a frontier leatherstocking Tomas approached Pico. His shot across the bow: "Buffalo Bill's defunct."
Pico looked up from his reading. "What?"
"Cumming's poem."
A snarky grin snaked across Pico's lean face. "Cummings?"
"E. E lower-case Cummings, yes."
"Right."
Evidently Pico liked to make conversation difficult. Tomas felt obliged to explain: "I've always thought you looked like Buffalo Bill Cody. And after yesterday's Ethics class I figured you to be defunct."
Pico's grin was spontaneous. Bright as the Bikini Atoll. "Well, Pard. That's right kindly. Please sit."
Tomas slapped down his abhored Math book. Slid in opposite Pico. "You took quite a pasting."
"Yes I did." Ruefully shaking his head. Today Pico's leonine mane was a wind-tossed shock of bleached blond hair. His trailer park was a nest of surfer bums.
Tomas relaxed.
Pico went on: "And I deserved it too. I know what I looked like. But really, I only wanted to know old Egner felt about Russell and all that Ban The Bomb shit."
"I believe you."
"I appreciate that. Say, whaddya wanna hear? You get three songs for a quarter. My treat."
My treat. Something Indio had said.
Pico winced as the theme from "Mondo Cane" began to play.
*
A rickety rattle-trap Coast Cities Coaches bus carried Tomas across town, passing the Miami Jai-alai Fronton, the Hialeah Race Track and Loew's Drive-In Theatre. Took an hour to reach his destination. He did not mind. It was time well-spent. Reading assignments for Social Studies carrried the day.
He found Oscar Handlin's "The Uprooted" to be very dry stuff. Yet its merit was obvious, setting the theme for the course. The next book was Steinbeck's "The Grapes Of Wrath." It clubbed him with the force of a baseball bat swung by Ted Williams.
Meanwhile he had become obsessed with two females in the class.
One was a pushy windbag who told everybody she was from Israel. Claimed she had worked in a kibbutz where life was rugged and dangerous, but of all, purposeful. Said she believed America was a nation of pleasure-seekers too complacent about its role in the world. Tomas wondered what the hell she was doing at Miami-Dade Junior College. And not at Hebrew University. Asking her would get him pummeled into next week. He had seen her in the gym, wearing a breast-support and a head-band. She was a burly chock-a-block golem composed of blutwurst. Knocking the crap out of a punching bag. The campus boing champ, Cory Caravagio called her a bull-dyke behind her back. For a guy with lightning jabs he was such a gutless wonder.
The other female dominating his idle thoughts was a nattering cow who could not keep her hands away from her own curvaceous body while extolling unrequited love for Miami Hurricane football hero George Mira. Her fat bee-lips smooching the air. Tomas couldn't stand it. He ached to drag her from the classroom by her ponytail and shut her mouth with a big sloppy kiss. Her bounteous breasts rolled beneath the seascape of her bled madras blouse, unbuttoned enough to reveal a copious application of talcum powder. Half-moons of sweat darkened her armpits. Her odor intoxicated him. Each time she mooed about her dream lover Tomas mentally screamed: Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
*
The Zoo convened on the snack-bar patio. Science geeks and Philosophy nerds wore tweed jackets with elbow patches and Hush Puppy shoes. One of them flaunted a Hugh Hefner smoking pipe tamped with Swedish tobacco. Psychology and Literature majors wore Beatnik Black and white canvas shoes. New shoes were customarily initiated by a fellow Zooster, smudging them by stepping on the toes. They smoked Lucky Strikes and listened to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and believed in Nat Hentoff.
Tomas loved them all. He loved the way they shared newly learned knowledge. Like lonely servicemen in lonesome barracks swapping Mickey Spillanes, the Zoosters traded favorite books too. A Kafka for a Beckett, a Eugene O'Neal for an Edward Albee. It wasn't Harvard perhaps, but it was their voyage of discovery.
Tomas closed the jalousie door behind him. He saw someone he knew. Sitting in a booth and nursing a cold cup of joe was Kit Pico.
Pico was a loner. Aloof, condescending, and droll to a fault.
Tomas did not like him and did not know anyone who did.
Yesterday in Ethics class that smart-ass actually asked Professor Egner what he thought of Bertrand Russell. Everybody knew that Egner had edited "Bertrand Russell's Best."
The professor had just paused for questions concerning his lecture at hand, on Spinoza.
What was Pico after? Brownie points?
Snidely Egner replied, "Lord Russell is a senile old man."
Hopes of hearing a new posit on Russell were dashed. Pico slumped back, agape. As if he had gotten his ears resoundingly boxed.
*
With the stealth of a frontier leatherstocking Tomas approached Pico. His shot across the bow: "Buffalo Bill's defunct."
Pico looked up from his reading. "What?"
"Cumming's poem."
A snarky grin snaked across Pico's lean face. "Cummings?"
"E. E lower-case Cummings, yes."
"Right."
Evidently Pico liked to make conversation difficult. Tomas felt obliged to explain: "I've always thought you looked like Buffalo Bill Cody. And after yesterday's Ethics class I figured you to be defunct."
Pico's grin was spontaneous. Bright as the Bikini Atoll. "Well, Pard. That's right kindly. Please sit."
Tomas slapped down his abhored Math book. Slid in opposite Pico. "You took quite a pasting."
"Yes I did." Ruefully shaking his head. Today Pico's leonine mane was a wind-tossed shock of bleached blond hair. His trailer park was a nest of surfer bums.
Tomas relaxed.
Pico went on: "And I deserved it too. I know what I looked like. But really, I only wanted to know old Egner felt about Russell and all that Ban The Bomb shit."
"I believe you."
"I appreciate that. Say, whaddya wanna hear? You get three songs for a quarter. My treat."
My treat. Something Indio had said.
Pico winced as the theme from "Mondo Cane" began to play.
*
A rickety rattle-trap Coast Cities Coaches bus carried Tomas across town, passing the Miami Jai-alai Fronton, the Hialeah Race Track and Loew's Drive-In Theatre. Took an hour to reach his destination. He did not mind. It was time well-spent. Reading assignments for Social Studies carrried the day.
He found Oscar Handlin's "The Uprooted" to be very dry stuff. Yet its merit was obvious, setting the theme for the course. The next book was Steinbeck's "The Grapes Of Wrath." It clubbed him with the force of a baseball bat swung by Ted Williams.
Meanwhile he had become obsessed with two females in the class.
One was a pushy windbag who told everybody she was from Israel. Claimed she had worked in a kibbutz where life was rugged and dangerous, but of all, purposeful. Said she believed America was a nation of pleasure-seekers too complacent about its role in the world. Tomas wondered what the hell she was doing at Miami-Dade Junior College. And not at Hebrew University. Asking her would get him pummeled into next week. He had seen her in the gym, wearing a breast-support and a head-band. She was a burly chock-a-block golem composed of blutwurst. Knocking the crap out of a punching bag. The campus boing champ, Cory Caravagio called her a bull-dyke behind her back. For a guy with lightning jabs he was such a gutless wonder.
The other female dominating his idle thoughts was a nattering cow who could not keep her hands away from her own curvaceous body while extolling unrequited love for Miami Hurricane football hero George Mira. Her fat bee-lips smooching the air. Tomas couldn't stand it. He ached to drag her from the classroom by her ponytail and shut her mouth with a big sloppy kiss. Her bounteous breasts rolled beneath the seascape of her bled madras blouse, unbuttoned enough to reveal a copious application of talcum powder. Half-moons of sweat darkened her armpits. Her odor intoxicated him. Each time she mooed about her dream lover Tomas mentally screamed: Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
*
The Zoo convened on the snack-bar patio. Science geeks and Philosophy nerds wore tweed jackets with elbow patches and Hush Puppy shoes. One of them flaunted a Hugh Hefner smoking pipe tamped with Swedish tobacco. Psychology and Literature majors wore Beatnik Black and white canvas shoes. New shoes were customarily initiated by a fellow Zooster, smudging them by stepping on the toes. They smoked Lucky Strikes and listened to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and believed in Nat Hentoff.
Tomas loved them all. He loved the way they shared newly learned knowledge. Like lonely servicemen in lonesome barracks swapping Mickey Spillanes, the Zoosters traded favorite books too. A Kafka for a Beckett, a Eugene O'Neal for an Edward Albee. It wasn't Harvard perhaps, but it was their voyage of discovery.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
indio
Indio was nowhere to be found, and mouths at Roberto's espresso bar reminded Tomas of clams. Nobody knew anything. Nothing but cold shoulders. The men were giving him the treatment. So he decided to hang out somewhere else.
"Mami," he asked that night. "Would it be all right if I took the bus home from school?"
"I don't see why not. Other kids your age ride the bus."
Fine, he thought. The transfer point for the bus line was a cheerful little short-order place with dagwoods and hamburgers, a soda-fountain and a jukebox, and plenty of cute girls.
"Great. I'll start tomorrow."
No more encounters with Indio, the inscrutable man with fish-scale eyes.
*
Midway along Douglas Avenue in Coconut Grove stood a two-story ruin of a house. Two sable palms shaded the front porch and a breadfruit tree squatted like a hogshead in the back yard. The grass hadn't been mowed in years. A lead-base white paint pealed from wood siding weathered gray and curling up from rusted nails. The roof leaked into an attic befouled by pigeons, cats and rats. Yet more than a dozen men lived there, its original eight rooms having been subdivided into sloppy efficiency apartments. A man was free to have a woman. In fact, a man was free to have anything as long as he was wiley or ruthless enough to keep it. However, because of the brutality and the wanton carnality, no woman remained there longer than a month.
Indio remembered coming into the communal kitchen one night and finding a machetero's girlfriend sitting dead in a straight-back chair with her brains puckering from her forehead. He buried her under the breadfruit tree and then fixed himself a small pot of hot bitter chocolate sweetened with honey.
The machetero departed the next day for Belle Glade as planned, to work in the sugarcane south of Lake Okeechobee.
Nothing came of the death except for a richness of soil in the backyard.
*
Roberto felt he was doing a good job controlling his temper, but things were not adding up to his satisfaction. It became clear to him that the boleta bagman was a two-bit crook who could get him into a jam with the street-boss.
"Let go of me," whined the diminutive rascal known as Frito. Roberto realized he had clamped an overly hard viselike grip upon a twiggy arm. It was like looking into the face of a terrorized capuchin monkey. He released Frito with a snarl.
"Get the fuck out of here and don't come back!"
The bagman collided with Indio, who scowled. Then like a blue-indigo thunderhead rising from the Everglades, Indio rumbled: "Careful, hombre. You may hurt yourself."
Frito squeaked and fled down the street. He had just seen the great stone face of a wrathful Palenque wargod.
"Santana will deal with him sooner or later," Indio said and began unwrapping a grilled pork sandwich.
Roberto clicked the TV, where they saw newsmen commanding the airwaves. Every channel showed the same thing. "Ayee, mamba-mama. What's going on?"
Russian ships loaded with ballistic missles were steaming toward Cuba.
*
By the time Jesu dismissed its last students for the day a crowd had knotted into Roberto's espresso bar. He had posted a sign saying to the effect: STOP BUGGING ME TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL! He was shouting to a yellow-skinned nappy-haired man with a moustache divided like two black commas, in the style of Cantinflas. "Just shut up, Luiz and pay attention to what's on."
Indio was holding court, his back toward the rear wall. His eyes flickered with fresh interest as Carmen Diaz coyly entered. She seemed to be scanning for someone in particular. Then evidently disappointed, she sought a place to sit and park her books. A lone barstool had been nudged practically out to the sidewalk. She chose it. Indio focused his attention upon her. Folded knees jutted from her green plaid skirt. He saw that she was shaving her legs now. Her bosom held promise. Breasts the size of Valencia oranges swelled beneath her crisp white blouse. Her blushing cheeks and wide hysterical eyes betrayed fear of the unknown.
"Excuse me, my brave knights," he said, rising from his throne. "I have something new to attend to."
He entered her torrid zone with a calm face.
"Mami," he asked that night. "Would it be all right if I took the bus home from school?"
"I don't see why not. Other kids your age ride the bus."
Fine, he thought. The transfer point for the bus line was a cheerful little short-order place with dagwoods and hamburgers, a soda-fountain and a jukebox, and plenty of cute girls.
"Great. I'll start tomorrow."
No more encounters with Indio, the inscrutable man with fish-scale eyes.
*
Midway along Douglas Avenue in Coconut Grove stood a two-story ruin of a house. Two sable palms shaded the front porch and a breadfruit tree squatted like a hogshead in the back yard. The grass hadn't been mowed in years. A lead-base white paint pealed from wood siding weathered gray and curling up from rusted nails. The roof leaked into an attic befouled by pigeons, cats and rats. Yet more than a dozen men lived there, its original eight rooms having been subdivided into sloppy efficiency apartments. A man was free to have a woman. In fact, a man was free to have anything as long as he was wiley or ruthless enough to keep it. However, because of the brutality and the wanton carnality, no woman remained there longer than a month.
Indio remembered coming into the communal kitchen one night and finding a machetero's girlfriend sitting dead in a straight-back chair with her brains puckering from her forehead. He buried her under the breadfruit tree and then fixed himself a small pot of hot bitter chocolate sweetened with honey.
The machetero departed the next day for Belle Glade as planned, to work in the sugarcane south of Lake Okeechobee.
Nothing came of the death except for a richness of soil in the backyard.
*
Roberto felt he was doing a good job controlling his temper, but things were not adding up to his satisfaction. It became clear to him that the boleta bagman was a two-bit crook who could get him into a jam with the street-boss.
"Let go of me," whined the diminutive rascal known as Frito. Roberto realized he had clamped an overly hard viselike grip upon a twiggy arm. It was like looking into the face of a terrorized capuchin monkey. He released Frito with a snarl.
"Get the fuck out of here and don't come back!"
The bagman collided with Indio, who scowled. Then like a blue-indigo thunderhead rising from the Everglades, Indio rumbled: "Careful, hombre. You may hurt yourself."
Frito squeaked and fled down the street. He had just seen the great stone face of a wrathful Palenque wargod.
"Santana will deal with him sooner or later," Indio said and began unwrapping a grilled pork sandwich.
Roberto clicked the TV, where they saw newsmen commanding the airwaves. Every channel showed the same thing. "Ayee, mamba-mama. What's going on?"
Russian ships loaded with ballistic missles were steaming toward Cuba.
*
By the time Jesu dismissed its last students for the day a crowd had knotted into Roberto's espresso bar. He had posted a sign saying to the effect: STOP BUGGING ME TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL! He was shouting to a yellow-skinned nappy-haired man with a moustache divided like two black commas, in the style of Cantinflas. "Just shut up, Luiz and pay attention to what's on."
Indio was holding court, his back toward the rear wall. His eyes flickered with fresh interest as Carmen Diaz coyly entered. She seemed to be scanning for someone in particular. Then evidently disappointed, she sought a place to sit and park her books. A lone barstool had been nudged practically out to the sidewalk. She chose it. Indio focused his attention upon her. Folded knees jutted from her green plaid skirt. He saw that she was shaving her legs now. Her bosom held promise. Breasts the size of Valencia oranges swelled beneath her crisp white blouse. Her blushing cheeks and wide hysterical eyes betrayed fear of the unknown.
"Excuse me, my brave knights," he said, rising from his throne. "I have something new to attend to."
He entered her torrid zone with a calm face.
libertad miami part four
One day in April when the sky shimmered like a pebbled glass window pane, Tomas watched Roberto mount a trophy fish on the wall.
"What is that? A bonita?"
"Hey-Boy, don't you know a tarpon when you see one?"
Sitting near the television, a barfly barked a complaint. "Hey, you two cu~nos, shut the hell up. And turn up the sound."
Roberto replied in a friendly snarl, "Hey, deadbeat, go home and watch your own TV."
Another patron piped up. "Bay of Pigs!"
*
"Excuse me, my friend." A firm hand squeezed Tomas' shoulder. It was the man they called Indio.
Tomas almost coughed up his heart. "Yes, hombre?"
"Roberto tells me your name is Reyes."
"That is so."
"Then I would wish to speak to you in private." The formality did not escape Tomas. "Perhaps we can go to the delicatessen and sandwich shop they call Topp's. Do you know it?"
"Si. But--"
"But can you trust me? Let me say that I have news of your uncle who worked for the Jews in Havana."
*
The front door at Topp's opened upon a slice of New York kosher. With a meat case on the left and tables to the right the room marched like a shotgun blast deep into the street story of a tall office building on busy Flagler Street. Red checked tablecloths and neon beer signs and glossy wood paneling, zinging hubbub and laughter and jukebox music, all greeted eye and ear at once. Aromas of cheeses and meats made you want to sit down and swig a Heineken. Smack your lips.
The place was peopled with downtown types. Suits and work-service uniforms, hipsters in white teeshirts and bluejeans with their halter-top beach-bunnies. Indio led Tomas all the way to the rear. Looking side to side and over his shoulder.
Tomas had been here before with his Mami after they saw a Gregory Peck movie at the Olympia, a majestic theatre designed to suggest Shakespeare's Globe, complete with a sky on the ceiling. Across the street was Jann the Magic Man's toy and hobby shop. That evenng she had bought him a balsa kit of the Sopwith Camel. He was very skilled at assmebling this type of thing. Papi had shown him how to glue joints and pin down pressure points, always being patient, step by step, until the airframe was complete. Then the model was ready for its fabric, in this case: tissue paper. Several coats of dope shrank the fabric until it was taut as a drumskin.
"Hola, Tomas!" Indio broke through the reverie. "Do you wish something to eat?"
His voice sounded earnest. But his visage was stony as a cemetary. Something was up.
"No money--"
"As they say, it's my treat."
"OK."
The waitress smelled and looked like apple dumplings. She took their order for knockwurst and iced tea.
Growing nervous, Tomas absently toyed with a small jar of brown mustard.
"Now listen," Indio said. "Do not turn around. A man just seated himself in the front. He is wearing a hot sharkskin suit. He is my tail."
*
Lawn-mower boys passed by the postage stamp yard on their way to larger jobs. Teresa Reyes didn't mind. She thought they charged too much anyway. So Tomas handled the chore of mowing and edging the grass, trimming the hedge and raking around the giant ficus tree. She prided her back yard shrubs. A riot of colors. Bougainvilla and oleander climbed lattice archways leading to a flagstone patio. Tomas worked hard in the yard. Saturday mornings the wang of the edger blade biting the sidewalk woke her.
She was preparing brunch when he came in by the jalousie door.
"Hola, Mami."
She motioned for him to sit.
She handed him a plate of Merita toast, and he made a huge PB&J, slathering on plenty of Peter Pan (wondering again why Peter Pan was a slim pretty woman in a green skirt) and Palmaleto guava jelly.
"Are you finished with the yard?"
He nodded with a full face.
She gavehim three dollars. "Are you saving anything?"
He could not lie. "No. I love books and movies."
"The movies. All condemned by the Legion of Decency."
"Of course."
They smiled. It was their little joke. Ever since he and a neighbor boy named Carlos went to see "Solomon and Sheba" with the boy's parents. The two fourteen-year-olds contracted their first cases of blue-balls. Carlos, she was told, suffered such an erection that he hid in the bathroom.
Rising from the table,Tomas asked, "Is there anything else you want me to do?"
There was an awkward silence. "Yes. Please tell me what has been troubling you."
"Oh, Mami. I have been holding news that will upset you."
"My magnificant young man--"
He delicately squeezed her hand. "Uncle Zoot is dead."
"What is that? A bonita?"
"Hey-Boy, don't you know a tarpon when you see one?"
Sitting near the television, a barfly barked a complaint. "Hey, you two cu~nos, shut the hell up. And turn up the sound."
Roberto replied in a friendly snarl, "Hey, deadbeat, go home and watch your own TV."
Another patron piped up. "Bay of Pigs!"
*
"Excuse me, my friend." A firm hand squeezed Tomas' shoulder. It was the man they called Indio.
Tomas almost coughed up his heart. "Yes, hombre?"
"Roberto tells me your name is Reyes."
"That is so."
"Then I would wish to speak to you in private." The formality did not escape Tomas. "Perhaps we can go to the delicatessen and sandwich shop they call Topp's. Do you know it?"
"Si. But--"
"But can you trust me? Let me say that I have news of your uncle who worked for the Jews in Havana."
*
The front door at Topp's opened upon a slice of New York kosher. With a meat case on the left and tables to the right the room marched like a shotgun blast deep into the street story of a tall office building on busy Flagler Street. Red checked tablecloths and neon beer signs and glossy wood paneling, zinging hubbub and laughter and jukebox music, all greeted eye and ear at once. Aromas of cheeses and meats made you want to sit down and swig a Heineken. Smack your lips.
The place was peopled with downtown types. Suits and work-service uniforms, hipsters in white teeshirts and bluejeans with their halter-top beach-bunnies. Indio led Tomas all the way to the rear. Looking side to side and over his shoulder.
Tomas had been here before with his Mami after they saw a Gregory Peck movie at the Olympia, a majestic theatre designed to suggest Shakespeare's Globe, complete with a sky on the ceiling. Across the street was Jann the Magic Man's toy and hobby shop. That evenng she had bought him a balsa kit of the Sopwith Camel. He was very skilled at assmebling this type of thing. Papi had shown him how to glue joints and pin down pressure points, always being patient, step by step, until the airframe was complete. Then the model was ready for its fabric, in this case: tissue paper. Several coats of dope shrank the fabric until it was taut as a drumskin.
"Hola, Tomas!" Indio broke through the reverie. "Do you wish something to eat?"
His voice sounded earnest. But his visage was stony as a cemetary. Something was up.
"No money--"
"As they say, it's my treat."
"OK."
The waitress smelled and looked like apple dumplings. She took their order for knockwurst and iced tea.
Growing nervous, Tomas absently toyed with a small jar of brown mustard.
"Now listen," Indio said. "Do not turn around. A man just seated himself in the front. He is wearing a hot sharkskin suit. He is my tail."
*
Lawn-mower boys passed by the postage stamp yard on their way to larger jobs. Teresa Reyes didn't mind. She thought they charged too much anyway. So Tomas handled the chore of mowing and edging the grass, trimming the hedge and raking around the giant ficus tree. She prided her back yard shrubs. A riot of colors. Bougainvilla and oleander climbed lattice archways leading to a flagstone patio. Tomas worked hard in the yard. Saturday mornings the wang of the edger blade biting the sidewalk woke her.
She was preparing brunch when he came in by the jalousie door.
"Hola, Mami."
She motioned for him to sit.
She handed him a plate of Merita toast, and he made a huge PB&J, slathering on plenty of Peter Pan (wondering again why Peter Pan was a slim pretty woman in a green skirt) and Palmaleto guava jelly.
"Are you finished with the yard?"
He nodded with a full face.
She gavehim three dollars. "Are you saving anything?"
He could not lie. "No. I love books and movies."
"The movies. All condemned by the Legion of Decency."
"Of course."
They smiled. It was their little joke. Ever since he and a neighbor boy named Carlos went to see "Solomon and Sheba" with the boy's parents. The two fourteen-year-olds contracted their first cases of blue-balls. Carlos, she was told, suffered such an erection that he hid in the bathroom.
Rising from the table,Tomas asked, "Is there anything else you want me to do?"
There was an awkward silence. "Yes. Please tell me what has been troubling you."
"Oh, Mami. I have been holding news that will upset you."
"My magnificant young man--"
He delicately squeezed her hand. "Uncle Zoot is dead."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)