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.
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