Sip Lake

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Sip Lake

Joe Basara

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Copyright © 2021 Joseph Basara
All Rights Reserved

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My Dana

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 May

Summer River flows south, through Big Mushy Slew into Cypress Lake.
“Sip Lake is what the locals call it. It’s great fishing, and I’ve got a boat,
so why not move up here?”
“If you want me to sell real estate, forget it.”
“Okay, Red. I know the head nurse at the hospital here. I sold her a house
last year. You want me to talk to her about hiring you? You were a hospital
corpsman in the navy, right?”
“Putting butts on bed pans is more my speed.”
So, I moved to Cypress City, stayed with Harry and Christine a couple of
weeks, then moved into a cottage owned by Christine’s parents.
And this was my first night on the job. Only an hour into the shift and, so
far, it was pretty slow. No patient had requested a bedpan yet.
“The kitchen crew always leaves us a midnight lunch,” nurse Minnie Many
Eyes said. “You can go eat now, if you want.”
In the kitchen, I made myself a sloppy-joe sandwich and a glass of iced tea,
then proceeded into the dining room and sat down. Not a soul in there, but on
the wall before me was an unfinished painting of the Florida tropics. It was a
wilderness scene, though not much had been colored in.
Since there was no one to talk to, while eating I studied the painting.
Cypress trees stretched from one end of the wall to the other, above a body
of water. Sitting atop one of the cypresses, a snow-white egret was spreading
its wings, as if about to fly up through the ceiling. Behind the cypresses were
palmetto trees, where a panther sat, ready to spring upon a white-tailed deer
already leaping away in flight. There was an alligator down at the water’s
edge, floating, still as death, and below the gator a bass descended, leaving
behind a rising trail of bubbles.
Drowsy, I imagined the bubbling bass to be dreaming up the entire scene.
“Hello,” someone said, making me flinch.
It was a dark-haired young woman. She disappeared into the kitchen, but
maybe it was because the Florida tropics were in my mind, but suddenly I was
sitting in my desk, in first grade, holding a copy of My Florida Coloring Book.
Turning its pages, I saw the Florida State Seal, with its picture of an Indian
maiden standing in a watery wilderness, tossing flowers from her basket. On
another page, Ponce de Leon, discoverer of Florida, was setting out in search
of the Fountain of Youth. On another, the Barefoot Mailman was trudging
down the beach, with his canvas haversack on his back. On yet another, Henry
Flagler’s train was rolling south, on its way to Key West. And finally, there
was the lazy, Suwannee River, with the words to Stephen Foster’s song: “Way
down upon the Suwannee River…far, far away.”
“Is it seven yet? I’m ready to clock out and get out of here.”
She was setting her tray down on the table across from me.
“You’ve got a while to go before you can do that,” I said, recovering my
composure.
“I know it,” she sighed, while eyeing the nametag on my shirt. “Owen
Cloud, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, while looking at hers. “And you’re Tina Gardenia.”
“That’s me,” she said. “Are you an orderly?”

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 “My first night on the job.”
“Good, because Ted Deland is worthless. He looks like the Pillsbury
Doughboy. You know, like in the TV commercial? Only this guy’s always in
a grumpy mood. Ask him to help you and he’ll come back with some lame
excuse why he can’t, like, Oh, my back hurts!”
Hello? Halo? No, it was even more, an aureole glow surrounding her entire
being. It was like she was throwing flowers at me, while her words were
echoing in my mind. I looked past her to that bubbling bass on the wall,
mirroring bubbling me eating a sloppy joe sandwich.
“And so, Charlie Brown,” she said, pointing her finger at me, “if I ever
come to ask you for help, don’t be like him, okay?”
“Good grief, no,” I responded, quickly coming to my Peanuts’ senses.
“Charlie Brown is always more than happy to help.”
“Okay,” she laughed, and then sat down.
“Have you lived here all your life?” I asked.
“Me and my family came down here from Rome, in New York, when I was
little. Did you know that Alex Haley, the guy who wrote Roots, lives in Rome?
And that they began digging the Erie Canal there?”
“So…do all roads lead there?”
“To Rome?” she said, not getting my attempt at humor. “No, I don’t think
so.”
She flicked her Bic lighter, lit up a Salem cigarette.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Sleepy,” I said, realizing she’d caught me staring at her.
“That’s the night shift for you,” she said, apparently unfazed.
Turning her head sideways, she blew out a plume of smoke, and I noticed
the sparkling diamond in her pierced ear though, for all I knew, maybe it was
only fake.
“Marianne and I drive to PBJC three mornings a week for nursing classes.
So the night shift works for me. She’ll be graduating at the end of this summer.
But me, I’m just starting. After our classes are over, we usually get back into

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town around mid-afternoon. I can get a few hours of sack time before I have
to come here.”
“PBJC? That’s Pelican Beach, right?”
“Pelican Beach Junior College, that’s it. My dad’s been after me to do
something more with my life than just partying. I’ve been out of high school
for two years. My sister got her RN last year. She works here on the day shift,
and she seems to like it okay. I figured, why not give it a try?”
“I just graduated this spring,” I said.
“Where’d you go?”
“Atlantic Sands University.”
“ASU, huh? What’s your mascot? It’s some kind of bird, right?”
“That’s right. We’re the Burrowing Owls.”
“Do you guys have any sports teams?”
“No, we’re too busy burrowing for wisdom. You know, digging deep.”
“Yeah, right,” she responded with a derisive laugh. “What made you move
up here?”
“Have you seen any Cane Realty signs around town?”
“Might have. I don’t remember.”
“Harry Cane and I have been friends since grade school. He got me an
interview with Miss Fern.”
“Wait a minute. Does he have blond hair? Yeah, he’s been over to our
house a few times. I mean, I don’t really know him, but I’ve seen him. He’s
sold some of my father’s houses. They’ve gone fishing at the lake a few times
too.”
“Do you think that’s Cypress Lake there?”
Seeing me nod my head past her, she half-glanced back.
“Oh, I have no idea. I guess it could be. Moses Soils did it last year, but I
think it was just something he made up. He did it while his mother was in the
hospital. His landscapes sell like crazy. He’s got a studio on Grove Avenue.”
“I wonder why he never finished it?”
“Who knows? Maybe when his mom got discharged he never thought of

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coming back. Or, maybe she died. I don’t remember. Where you working
tonight, the south wing?’
“Yeah, but so far there hasn’t been much to do.”
“That’s why I asked to work the north. We get patients coming out of ICU.
They’re more critical, so at least it’s busier.”
Two young women then came into the room.
“What did they leave us for lunch?” one of them asked.
“Sloppy joes,” Tina said, as they passed by on their way into the kitchen.
In a few minutes the two returned with sandwiches and sat down at our
table. I anticipated Tina introducing me, but she never did. I learned their
names by reading their nametags: Cindy Kelp, Vera Peach.
“Did you tell Tina about Peas-on-Earth?” Cindy asked Vera.
“No, I didn’t. Yeah, Phil took me. We saw them last week at the Leaky
Teepee in West Palm. They were fantastic.”
“Cool,” Tina said, though she didn’t seem all that interested. “I see you got
a new hairdo. Where’d you have it done?”
“Where else?” Vera said. “Cypress Coiffures. I hate it. Shelly Curley
usually does my hair, but she was off, so I had this new girl, and I’m so
disappointed. I was hoping to look like Farrah Fawcett, but ended up more
like a blond Kate Jackson.”
“Wouldn’t you love to be Farrah for just a day?” Cindy said. “What a
glamorous life she must lead.”
How about Queen for a Day? I thought, reminded of a 50s TV show Mom
used to watch, in which needy women told their tales of woe and an “applause
meter” indicated who the studio audience thought most worthy. Host Jack
Bailey crowned the winner and showered her with prizes. Those women were
not seeking glamour though, but only more basic items, like groceries and wash
detergent.
I soon grew tired of listening to the three of them squawking like seagulls.
They were oblivious to me, oblivious as I stood up, put my tray away and
walked out of the room.

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 Something strange had happened to me in there, though, as if someone had
turned up the volume on the Buzz of Being. In the hallway, I passed a patient’s
room and heard it raining, pouring, but realized it was only some old man
snoring.
In the nurses’ station, Minnie Many Eyes was leaning back in a chair, idly
flipping the pages of a People magazine.
“Did I go over my allotted lunch break? Sorry if I’m late getting back here.”
She glanced up at me, sleepy-eyed, and shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re dead tonight.”
“You want me to do something?”
“Just answer any call lights, make the rounds. I guess you could take Mr.
Rivers’ temp at two. His fever’s been down since this afternoon, but his doctor
never changed the order. If you want something to read, there’s a stack of
magazines in the linen room.”
“Okay, but would you mind me asking you a question? Where’d you get
that name, Many Eyes, anyway?”
“Oh,” she said, smiling. “I’m Seminole, and my father was a shaman who
lived in both this world and the spiritual world. When he voiced an opinion, it
was with the knowledge that there is always more than one way of looking at
things. It became his name, and our family name.”
Sitting in the linen room, it occurred to me that the girl I’d met in the dining
room would be passing this way on her way back to the north wing. I didn’t
want her to see me sitting here like that worthless Doughboy, but what could I
do? On the cabinet, next to me was a copy of the Cypress City News. I grabbed
it and set it on my lap. When she showed up, I would open it and begin reading.
That way, she might at least see me as an informed citizen.
Shortly, I heard girls a-giggling and assumed they were coming this way.
Throwing up Fort Newspaper, I pretended to read while they passed by.
It seemed Tina had returned to her cheerleading days. “We’d be pumping
our pom-poms,” she yelled, punching her fists in the air. “Go Panthers! Go!
Go! Go!”

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 “Yeah,” Vera Peach said. “You guys had so much more fun than we did in
the band.”
“Too bad our football teams always stunk,” Cindy Kelp said, causing all
three to break into laughter.
“Shh!” Minnie hissed, standing up behind the glass wall of the nurses’
station, reminding them that there were patients here who were trying to sleep.
I set the newspaper back down on my lap, disgusted. I didn’t see anything
special about her.
I took a few turns walking up and down the hallway, just to break the
monotony; then, at two a.m. went to the nurses’ station. “Should I take that
guy’s vital signs now?”
“Rush Rivers?” Minnie said. “Yeah, but only his temp.”
Entering Mr. Rivers’ room, I found the old man sitting up in bed, leaning
over his bed rail, sipping water through a straw in a cup which rested on his
portable table.
“Mr. Rivers, what are you doing?”
Rivers looked irritated. “Peeing,” he replied.
I realized he must be holding his urinal under the sheet. The expression on
his face indicated he resented having his privacy invaded.
“Sorry,” I said, turning to leave the room.
“Hold on,” Rivers said, hooking the urinal onto the bedrail. “I’m done now,
so you might as well go ahead and empty it.”
“Yes, sir, and I’ll also need to take your temperature.”
“Temperature? What for? My fever’s gone. Dr. Busby’s sending me home
this morning.”
“Yeah, but I guess he never changed the order.”
“Glory be to god,” Rivers growled. “Do you need an order for common
sense? A man can’t get any peace in this place.”
I was grateful he let me insert a thermometer under his tongue.
“Yeah, your temp’s just fine, Shush.”
“The name is Rush,” Rivers corrected me. “And, glory be, will I be glad to

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get out of this place.”
“Mr. Rivers didn’t appreciate me coming into his room,” I told Minnie, “and
his temp was ninety-eight six.”
“We probably didn’t need to bother him,” she conceded.
“Emerson said that we must allow the water of life to pass through us.”
“So, should I put that in my nursing notes?”
“No, and he didn’t really say that. It’s just something I made up because
Mr. Rivers was sipping water and peeing at the same time. I wonder if that’s
what Sip Lake means, sip-pee lake?”
“No, Sip is just short for Cyp and drop the rest. Somebody told me that but
I don’t know. Are you an odd ball?”
“Probably … but I’m also very tired.”
Making the rounds, walking up and down the hallway, got me through the
night.
“Is it seven yet?” I mimicked the pom-pom girl that morning, while walking
out to my rusting, ’71 Vega in the shell-rock parking lot. I bent down to check
the puddle under the radiator. Not enough had leaked out to have to add any
coolant.
I knew Tina would be off tonight. After clocking out, I’d checked the
schedule on the bulletin board to find out, but why? Do all roads lead to her?
Hell no, halo, and to hell with her aureole. I’d broken up with my first rose,
Peggy Pompano, while at Atlantic Sands, and didn’t want to get involved with
a second one anytime soon.
Besides, would a girl like Miss Gardenia really fall for a guy with kinky red
hair and a pug nose?
Oh, to look like Steve McQueen, even for a day. Oh, to be able to change
the name on my nametag and become what that nametag tagged.
Turning south onto Brahman Street, I turned on the radio and listened to the
morning news. Here it was 1977, and I’d been waiting for the dawning of the
Age of Aquarius for almost ten years now, but no word of it yet. Only that
President Carter was having trouble getting his energy conservation plan

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through Congress; that Seattle Slew had a good shot at winning horse racing’s
Triple Crown; and that the weather would be more of the same--clear then
cloudy, sunny then rainy.
I stopped for a red light at the intersection of Brahman and Grove. Cars and
trucks were whizzing by, everybody in a rush to get to work, to beat the clock.
In Flagler Park, though, an older woman was out on a morning stroll, taking
her time. To me, it looked like she was walking with one hand closed, as if
she were holding onto something, like an invisible companion’s hand?
High in the sky, a jet’s white contrail was fading into the blue. In The
Yearling, Jody Baxter was running away with his white-tailed deer, Flag,
disappearing into the wilderness, his childhood fading away.
The guy in the truck behind me, though, had no time for such foolishness
as this. He was tapping his horn, reminding me that the light had turned green.
“Okay, okay!” I growled, stepping on the gas.
Accelerating through the intersection, I passed Suwannee Auto Repair on
the corner and entered the Grace Elementary school zone with its lights
flashing. I caught sight of the lady traffic guard giving me a dirty look, but by
then it was too late. In my rearview mirror, I saw a police car pulling onto the
road, its lights flashing.
“I clocked you doing twenty-nine in a fifteen mile-per-hour zone,” Officer
Orlando said, whose nametag I eyed while listening. “Normally you’d be
okay. The speed limit here is thirty-five, but during the times when the children
are coming to or leaving school it goes down to fifteen.”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t notice until it was too late.”
The man was tall, slim, and would have made a good Zorro if he’d been
wearing a mask instead of sunglasses.
“You increase your speed, you decrease your reaction time,” he said. “I’m
going to write you out a twenty-five-dollar ticket…. I don’t know about you,
but I’d hate to have it on my conscience that my carelessness had sent a kid to
the hospital, or worse.”
Waiting until I’d passed south of the city limits, where Brahman Street

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became simply Highway 43, I muttered, “Of course I wouldn’t want to hit a
kid.” It was an indignity to have to stand there, listening to Orlando’s lecture.
It also irked me to have to look into the man’s face, with two distorted images
of my ugly puss looking back at me from the oval mirrors of his sunglasses.
Emotionally rattled, at the Bi Fork Split I veered right instead of left. It was
only after I’d passed High Park, then crossed Low Bridge over the Summer
River, that I realized my mistake. As Robert Frost had advised, I did want to
take the road less-traveled through life; but County Road 1 would take me
down the west side of the lake, and I needed to be on the more-traveled 43,
which followed down the east side.
Arriving at Taylor Island, I pulled off at the ZT Stop to gas up the car. When
I went inside to pay, I found the nice kid, Berry Cooter, behind the cash
register. Two weeks ago, he’d given me a free pack of Hostess Ho Ho’s (gone
out of date), just to welcome me to Taylor Island.
“I see you got on a white uniform,” Barry said this morning, while handing
over my change. “Where do you work?”
“I’m an orderly at the hospital.”
Barry looked over at another man, who was stocking shelves. “Should I
ask him?”
“Of course,” the man growled, almost in a cross tone. “Do it.”
“Well, I worked at a nursing home last summer. Do you know Genie
Lamprey? She worked there too, and now she’s working at the hospital as an
aide. I was wondering if they might hire me. I’d have to quit here, of course.
I already asked Mr. Ponce, over there. He said it was okay with him. But I
still wanted to be sure, that’s why I just asked him again.”
“Go fill out an application,” I suggested. “The girl you mentioned, I don’t
know her. But last night was my first on the job, so I haven’t met many of the
staff.”
“Maybe you can have my job,” I muttered while driving away, not relishing
returning to sleepy Cypress General tonight.
I did like living in Taylor Island though, a subdivision with a road bordering

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every front yard and a canal every back. All roads led to Canal Drive and
Highway 43, all canals to Taylor Channel and Cypress Lake.
One of my neighbors, Tom Finn, told me that by definition it could be an
island, since along with the grid of canals there was also one that ran
completely around the subdivision, thus surrounding it with water.
Beach Lane was a dead-end road, and the one-room cottage I was renting
was at the very end. It was a nice little place, and also an escape from living
with the Canes, and their marital wars.
I felt sorry for their daughter, Sugar. For her, there was no escape. Maybe
that’s why she liked to play checkers, the orderly rules of the game being her
way of counteracting the chaos of her family life: “You can be red because
your name is Red,” she would always say, which was her way of claiming the
black checkers for herself.
But she didn’t like the rule obligating you to jump your opponents’ checker
whenever the opportunity arrived.
“That’s part of the strategy, Shug. You’ve got to lose something to gain
something.”
We played it her way, but after running into checker gridlock one too many
times, with neither able to make any more moves, she finally relented, and I
always let her win anyway.
Approaching the cottage, I imagined three gig-gulls circling above.
“Shush!” I hissed, again mispronouncing Mr. Rivers’ first name, but at least
getting the birds to fly away.
I mean, I know Martin Buber wants us to treat everyone like a You, a fellow
human being, and not an It, only an object for our own use, but sometimes it’s
hard.
Christine’s parents, the Dunes, seemed pretty mellow landlords so far:
“Respect the property, pay your rent, and mow the lawn,” Don Dune told me.
“If you do that, it’ll be smooth sailing.”
Rolling onto the lawn now, I parked between the orange tree and cottage.
From the tree, Don had promised me a glorious harvest of fruit, come winter:

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“Talk about sweet and juicy? You just wait.”
Exiting the car, I strolled over to the canal and stood on the seawall. Below,
a couple of minnows were darting about, as if doing some kind of dance, and
I was reminded of the comic antics of Pete and Repeat, two dolphins I’d once
seen at the Miami Sea Aquarium. First Pete would do a trick, such as leaping
through a hoop, then Repeat would do the same, only in his own eccentric way,
such as leaping through the hoop upside down.
Life and its parody. Like that palm-palm on the opposite side of the canal-
-one growing above the sea wall, and its upside-down reflection, shimmering
in the water below.
Better to be parodied, though, then to have to go through what the geese
around here sometimes did. Most of the time they lived the good life, cruising
up and down the canals, gobbling down free handouts. But occasionally they
themselves were gobbled--pulled underwater, squawking and flapping their
wings, locked in the jaws of a hungry gator.
I kicked off my dewy shoes after stepping inside the door. On the desk,
nearby, was a spiral notebook, my journal. I hadn’t written anything in it yet,
but planned to begin tonight, before returning to work at the hospital. One day,
probably after many revisions, I hoped it would become a great work of
literature.
“The Kissimmee River flows south, into Lake Okeechobee,” I whispered,
thinking that might be a good beginning, setting the scene. But no,
remembering Officer Joe Friday of TV show, Dragnet, I figured I needed to
change the names to protect the innocent, like me. In other words, I needed a
pen name, like Sloppy Joe? Bubbles Bass?
I wasn’t sure but, eyeing my bed (folded out from a couch), it looked mighty
inviting. I lay down there, staring upward, and dreamed I was a white egret
flying up through the ceiling.
When I awoke, I was sweating hot. I should have taken off my uniform,
and had forgotten to turn on the floor fan, aimed toward the bed. I got up,
stuffed the uniform into my navy sea bag, that now served as a laundry bag,

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and switched on the fan.
Hearing a motor’s roar, I peeked through a window curtain and saw my
neighbor, Jack Mackerel, testing an outboard motor in a large steel drum filled
with water. Mac had his captain’s hat on. When one of his repaired outboards
or lawn mowers fired up on the first pull of the cord, he would always pop tall
and salute smartly.
“My wife, Millie, says it looks dumb,” Mac told me, “and she’s probably
right. I was an enlisted man in World War II, wearing one of those white,
Dixie-cup hats. Now, I play like I’m an officer. When I salute, I see myself
honoring my lost ship-mates who never got to see middle age.”
I smiled, remembering his words while pouring a glass of cold water from
the pitcher I kept in the refrigerator.
That evening, following a pretty good afternoon nap, I made himself a
Chicken-of-the-Sea tuna fish sandwich. The mermaid on the can reminded me
of Tina who, like it or not, seemed to have become my wish-fish: “If wishes
were fishes, you’d have a whole school of them,” Mom once told me, tired of
my pestering her to buy me more comic books.
After showering and dressing for work, Joe Bass (seemed a pretty good pen
name) sat down and wrote his first bubbling entry in his journal. But when I
was done, I had to admit that it was pretty sloppy writing, and pretty dull stuff.
On my car radio, while driving to the hospital, I listened to Abba’s hit song,
“Dancing Queen,” and sang along with the words, “see that girl, watch that
scene, digging the dancing queen….”
Yeah, digging but knowing I wouldn’t be seeing Tina tonight, I entered the
hospital dining room. It appeared to be the place to hang-out until it was time
to clock-in. In there, I felt like an alien among strangers. Looking around for
a familiar face, I spotted Minnie Many Eyes sitting at a table with another
woman, and so sat down across from them. Minnie introduced me to her friend,
Marianne Miramar, a woman with short black hair and a face full of freckles.
“How do you like Cypress General?” Marianne inquired.
“It’s okay, but I don’t like the night shift.”

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 “You and me both. I’ve got two kids and go to school three mornings a
week. When I get my RN in September though, I’m going to ask Miss Fern if
she’ll put me on days.”
Marianne? Didn’t Tina mention that name last night? Didn’t she tell me
she’d been going to school with a Marianne?
“Owen, do you have a wife? Kids?” Minnie asked me.
“No,” I said, “and I’m not looking for any.”
“Getting married right out of high school was my big mistake,” Marianne
said. “That’s when I found out I didn’t know my husband at all.”
“Merlin was a moody guy,” Minnie said. “But you couldn’t tell her that.
Love is blind, as they say. Isn’t that right, Marianne?”
“That’s right, little sister. He was just insanely jealous. He wanted my
whole life to revolve around him. I’ll never regret the two kids we had, but it
was painful.”
I listened, but was more interested in the wall painting behind her. Tonight,
it seemed merely an unfinished painting, not that special at all; last night it had
been magic, initiated by a girl’s hello.
“Then, did you guys get divorced?” I asked, feigning interest.
“No, he was a truck driver, and one night he went through a guard rail in
the Smoky Mountains, crashed and died. We’d had a bad argument before he
took off on that trip. I told him I wanted a divorce. He was such a fragile guy,
and I’ve wondered if it was really an accident. I felt guilty, and had to ask god
to forgive me. But I never want to go through that again. I don’t want to ever
get involved with a man again. From now on, I just want to be a good mother
to my kids.”
“You might think differently in time,” Minnie suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Marianne said.
Minnie looked at me and smiled. “Where’d you get that beautiful, curly red
hair?”
“Kinky, you mean? Let’s just say it’s a gift from my parents. All my friends
called me Red when I was growing up.”

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 Minnie giggled, while Marianne studied my nametag.
“And your last name’s Cloud?” she said, her expression serious. “My
grandpa passed away last year, but he always claimed he was related to Red
Cloud, the great Lakota chief.”
“Wish I could say the same, but my family’s Irish on both sides.”
A middle-aged woman then entered the dining room. “Damn, them love
bugs was swarming today!” she said. “I’m sure glad they don’t come out at
night, but this morning they were splattering up my windshield something
awful.”
“What are you doing here, Belle?” someone asked her.
“Jane called me and said you guys was short. I told her I wasn’t working
no doubles, but then it hit me I was off tomorrow, so I told her I’d come in.”
“Belle,” Minnie called out, waving for her to come sit down, which she did.
Her face was a mass of lines and creases. Her hair, pulled tightly back into
a bun, was jet black, a color which I guessed had been dyed black.
“Them bugs was pretty bad, huh?” Minnie asked.
“I’ll say they was,” Belle said, now sitting next to me. “Driving in here
from Chigger Town this morning, Highway 17 was thick with them. I had to
take my car to the car wash before going to Calypso Drugs to pick up my
prescription.”
“Owen, this is Belle Glade,” Marianne said.
“You new in town?” Belle asked me.
“I’ve been here less than a month.”
“Let me warn you then, because you look pretty young. Don’t think you
can get away with speeding in this town. The cops will pull you over just like
that. My grandson got ticketed just the other day, and it set him back twenty-
five bucks. The cops know how much you young guys like to step on the gas.”
I nodded my head, frowning.
“It sure ain’t like the old days around here,” she went on. “I can remember
when daddy used to race through the center of town, back when all we had was
dirt roads. Not that he was a fast driver. He only did it so me and Bess would

15
get to work on time. That’s when we was working at the tomato ketchup plant,
and old man Croaker, if we was as much as a minute late, would blow his top.
Bless daddy’s heart. He didn’t want us to get into trouble with that old booger.
It wasn’t his fault me and my sister hated getting out of bed in the morning.”
While Belle was speaking, I studied Marianne’s nametag--Miramar. What
did that word mean? Mirror of the sea? Probably not, but in my journal, I
wanted to mirror my life’s experience in different ways for, after all, there are
many ways of looking at things.
“Hey, tomato face,” Belle said, tapping me on the shoulder. “Wake up. It’s
time to clock in.”
Looking up, I saw everyone was on their feet, exiting the dining room.
After listening to the change-of-shift report, Minnie introduced me to
another nurse, Flora Cracker, who would also be on duty that night.
“Looks pretty quiet,” Flora remarked, echoing what Minnie said last night.
“Not much to do. If somebody hits their call button, answer it.”
I sat down in the linen room and suddenly realized how tired I was. I thought
I’d gotten enough sleep today, though it was broken sleep. Would I be able to
adjust to this routine? On the morning shift the staff was busy, taking vitals,
handing out food trays, giving bed baths and such. I found myself wanting to
nod off when Flora came into the room.
“Would you go see what Shelby Reef wants?”
I looked over at her and stood up.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear the buzzer go off.”
“Sometimes you can’t hear it in here.”
I walked down the hallway to Shelby Reef’s room, and could hear some
cussing coming from inside.
“Mr. Reef,” I said, after walking in. “You need some help?”
“Yeah,” Reef barked. “Somebody rolled my table away. I can’t get to my
water pitcher.”
I went to the table and rolled it up to the man’s bed.
“That better?”

16
 “Yeah.”
“Can I pour you a cup?”
“No, I can do that myself. You can go now. That’s all I need.”
I was about to leave, but the wildness I saw in the man’s eyes alarmed me.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Now Reef was glaring at me.
“If my doctor can’t help me, what makes you think you can?”
“Sorry, sir…. Just asking.”
“I’m sick and tired of you people. All you care about is money.”
“No,” I responded, feeling a little irritated.
“Money, money, money. You people make me sick.”
“Well, I make two-fifty an hour, so I don’t think I’m all that rich.”
Expecting Reef to tear into me again, I was surprised to see the man’s glare
turn into a look of surprise: “That’s how much you make?” he said.
Walking back to the nurses’ station, I shook my head. Last night, Rush
Rivers had been crotchety, but this guy was a maniac.
“How’s he doing?” Flora asked me.
“I don’t know. He was pretty upset. He only wanted me to push his portable
table closer to his bed, so he could get to his water…. What’s he in here for,
anyway?”
“You mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you hear the change-of-shift report?”
“I did, but I don’t remember what was said about him.”
“You know, you should never care for patients without knowing what
they’re in here for. Shelby Reef has colon cancer, and Dr. Loxahatchee says
it’s terminal. The man just retired last year. He and his wife moved down here
because they love to fish. And now this happens. We’re sending him home in
the morning, but he’ll probably be in and out of here a few more times before
his time comes.”
Sitting back down in the linen room, I felt humbled. Shelby’s anger had
only been the opposite side of his fear. Could it be his doctor was wrong?
I asked the other night orderly, Ted “Doughboy” Deland, after meeting him

17
in the dining room during midnight lunch: “Rex Loxahatchee?” he said. “We
call him Dr. Rex-Lax, though not to his face. But, no, I don’t think so. The
man knows his colons, and if he says the guy’s terminal then I’d say he’s a
goner.”
Walking out to my car that morning, I still had Shelby Reef on my mind.
All Shelby wanted was to retire to Florida and fish, then death got in the way.
Must I feel guilty about living, about wanting to catch my Florida wish-fish?
No, but why did I feel so inferior to that man? Staring death in the face, he
was dwelling in a deeper place than the young orderly living in the shallows of
life.
“What’s your name again?” someone walking behind me asked.
“Owen,” I said, looking back to see Belle Glade.
“I sure hope you didn’t take offense to me calling you tomato face last night,
because I didn’t mean nothing by it. I was just having fun with you, honey.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think my face is as red as my hair, but
no offense. You call me tomato face, I’ll call you tomato lady, since you
worked in that ketchup plant.”
Belle’s face broke into a crinkled grin. “That’s just fine by me,” she said.
I imagined Tina’s crinkled face, years from now. It was a point often
overlooked by young men like me, living in the shallows.
Returning to the cottage, I brought my spinning rod to the canal and cast
out to try for some real fish. Right now, Dad and Uncle Fred might be sitting
in Uncle Fred’s boat on Chesapeake Bay, pulling in striped bass.
Since Dad retired from carpentry, he and Mom had become snowbirds,
summering in Maryland and wintering in West Flamingo Beach. Mom did
most of the driving because Dad’s vision was growing worse. He needed a
cataract operation, but kept putting it off.
The old couple living in the trailer across the canal were probably snowbirds
too. The morning after I’d moved here, I saw them drive away in their Rambler
station wagon, and hadn’t seen them since.
The concrete sea wall and palm tree over there reminded me of a monument

18
memorializing the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, that I’d seen at Islamorada.
We’d stopped there before crossing the Overseas Highway to Key West, where
Dad had a construction job lined up. Many of those killed in that hurricane
were construction workers, some being World War I vets who never got a
chance to spend their retirement years fishing.
It was relaxing, making a few casts into the water, but I didn’t get so much
as a bite. Going inside, I stripped down to my Fruit-of-the-Looms, plopped
down on my fold-out bed, and then the phone began to ring.
“Hi, Red. I didn’t wake you, did I?” Christine asked, and then yelled,
“Sugar! Your teeth look like the yellow-brick road! Go brush them right now.
We’ve got to leave!”
“What, are you off to see the Wizard, or something?”
“No, she’s got a dentist’s appointment. How do you like the little place so
far?”
“I like it a lot.”
“Have you had a chance to mow the lawn yet?”
“No, but your parents gave me the key to their backyard shed, so I can get
the mower whenever I’m ready--probably this weekend.”
“Are you off this weekend?”
“On Friday and Saturday nights.”
“Good, because Harry told me to call you and ask you over for dinner Friday
night. I’m not cooking. I’m going to pick up Buffalo wings at Kicking Fried
Chicken. You ever had them?”
“That’s chicken wings, right?”
“Yeah, the spicy kind. They come with French fries and coleslaw. You’d
best be warned though, because Harry plans to try talking you into going to
work for him. That’s what he told me. You know him; he don’t give up easy.”
After we were done talking, I switched on the floor fan and lay down. Like
the surf, the sheet covering me was wavering in the fan-blown air. When I
opened my eyes, it was noon. I downed a bowl of Cheerios and made my daily
entry in my journal.

19
 That night, at the hospital employee entrance, I looked up the hall and saw
Tina just as she was inserting her card into time-clock. By the time I got there,
she was gone.
Come midnight, I was sitting in the nurses’ station, listening to Minnie
lecture on the Seminole Soul: “There is a spirit in every one of us, and we
believe that this spirit is more powerful than blood. Because we Seminoles are
made up of many tribes and races, such as the Spaniards who were once in
Florida, and Africans who sought to escape slavery.”
“How about Filipinos?” Mia Manila inquired, listening with rapt attention.
“No, I don’t think so, Mia-ma, but you had Spaniards in the Philippines too,
right? So, maybe in a round-about way…”
“It’s true!” Mia responded, her eyes widening.
“The important thing though, is that all these people joined us by choice.
We accepted them into our tribe, and they eventually became one with us in
spirit.”
“It’s in the spirit, and not the genes?”
“That’s what we believe, but we also believe this spirit is in everything
around us--in the land and water, sky, plants and animals.”
“Even the alligator who bites your hand?”
The two women broke into a fit of giggling. I figured it must be an inside
joke.
“Yes, Mia, because he’s got to eat too,” Minnie agreed, turning to look at
me. “Owen, yesterday afternoon we had a man come into the ER who was
bitten by an alligator. His truck overheated while he was driving up Highway
43, near Manmade Canal. He was filling a plastic milk jug with canal water
when a gator got him.”
“He thought the gator was a log,” Mia said.
“That’s right, but when the gator’s jaw clamped down, it also got the jug,
wrapping it around his hand. He was able to slip his hand out and escape. Dr.
Camellia said he wasn’t hurt but simply scared to death.”
“Oh,” I said, while feeling someone tapping on my shoulder.

20
 I glanced up to see Tina standing behind me.
“Would you help me with a patient?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, while thinking, Good grief!
Walking beside her up the hall, I noticed that the top of her head barely
reached my shoulder. I was aware of her black hair, pinned back in a ponytail,
bobbing up and down. I also found I really had to step out to keep up with her
Seattle Slew-like pace.
“Usually I can sit in the nurses’ station and do a little studying,” she said,
“but tonight Vera’s off, Cindy’s in ICU, and it’s only me and Lorraine on the
floor. Plus, we’ve been busy as hell. I just hope my teacher doesn’t give us a
pop quiz tomorrow.”
Arriving at the north wing, she came to a halt outside a patient’s room.
“You’re about to meet Cora Limes,” she said, looking up into my face.
“She’s a very nice old lady who insists on having the head of her bed raised up
high. All night we keep pulling her up and she keeps sliding down. Loraine’s
helped me the last couple of times, but now she’s busy with an admission. I
mean, I don’t mind helping her, but when we get busy like this--err!”
I grinned at her growl, then followed her into the room.
“Cora,” Tina said. “This is Owen, and he’s going to help me pull you up,
okay?”
“How’s my output doing?” the old woman inquired, looking up from her
crossword book.
Tina took a peek under the bed. “Looks like you’re doing great. Your
catheter bag’s almost a third full already.”
“Good,” the woman responded, looking back down at her crossword book.
“And now, to make interesting or attractive by adding more details, true or
untrue. It begins with an E, and is nine letters long. Any ideas?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tina sighed, obviously impatient. “Can’t you look in
the back of the book?”
Miss Limes stared up at her, horrified. “That, dear, is against my
principles.”

21
 “Is it … embellish?” I suggested.
“Embellish? That sounds plausible.” Miss Limes spelled out the letters
while counting the blank spaces. “You know, I think that’s it.”
Standing on either side of her bed, we waited until she’d written the word
down. Then we each took hold of an arm and slid her up.
“There you go, sweetheart,” Tina said.
This being done, there was no reason for me to stay. But I lingered, looking
at Tina, who was staring up at the woman’s IV bag, hanging from a pole.
This girl, there really was nothing all that special about her, was there?
“Is that perfume I smell, Cora?” Tina asked, reaching up to take hold of the
IV bag, taking a closer look. “You sure smell mighty sexy.”
“Oh,” Cora responded with a laugh. “That’s my Charlie. My sister bought
it for me yesterday.”
Tina reminded me of a ballerina, arching her back, reaching upward with
her hand.
“I think this thing’s dripping too fast,” she murmured. “I’d better go tell
Loraine.”
Walking back to the south wing, I recalled words from a song by Left Bank:
“I fell in love with a pretty ballerina, just close your eyes and she’ll be there.”
Minnie and Mia were no longer in the nurses’ station, so I sat down in the
linen room.
“If a body meet a body coming through the rye,” I whispered, quoting
Robert Burns. “If a body kiss a body, need a body cry?” But though I could
imagine meeting Tina in the rye, I couldn’t imagine her wanting to kiss me.
What if I were wearing Aqua Velva aftershave? I wondered, recalling the
TV commercial with baseball player, Pete Rose, in which a woman asks, “Hey,
Pete Rose! What’s that aftershave you’re wearing?”
“It’s Aqua Velva,” Pete replies, “because a man wants to feel like a man,
and there’s something about an Aqua Velva man!”
If I were to meet Tina in the rye, my aftershave would have to be so potent
that her nose would overrule her eye, because when a man’s nose looks like a

22
second pair of eyes, you don’t attract kisses from many girls, and that’s no lie.
Later that night, I did what I was famous for. I put a man on the bedpan,
and when this job was done I went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. There,
I met a middle-aged man in a suit and tie:
“Do I know you?” the man asked.
“No, sir. I’m Owen Cloud.”
“Cloud?” the man said, while pouring himself a cup. “Does this mean you
are always cloudy?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed, grinning only because he was grinning.
“I’m Dr. Ah--Hia Li Ah,” the man said, shaking my hand. “You might
think my name is Chinese, but this is not so. It’s American. I adopted the
name when I moved from Taiwan to Hialeah, Florida. Because, you see, I’ve
always believed that humor is one of the best facilitators of good health. For
example, what do you think happens when I place a tongue depressor into a
patient’s mouth and ask him to say my last name?”
“Last name?” I said, puzzled…. “Oh, I get it. You ask him to say ah?”
“Exactly!” Ah said. “And almost every time I then have to remove the
depressor from his mouth to give him time to laugh. They think they’re
laughing at my last name, you see, but they’re really laughing at a name I made
up to make them laugh. And, I assure you, this does them as much good as
any medicine I may afterwards prescribe.”
I smiled, and nodded my head.
“Because if you are happy, and living a fulfilling life, you are most likely
healthy as well. If you were a patient of mine, for example, I would ask you,
‘Do you have a loving wife? Do you have children? Do you enjoy your
work?’”
“Uh--are you speaking hypothetically, or--?”
“No, please answer me. Don’t worry. I won’t send you a bill.”
“Okay,” I laughed, hesitating. “Uh, I don’t know. I like this kind of work,
I guess, but I don’t have any wife or kids. And, to be honest with you, I think
I might be too ugly for any girl to want me.”

23
 Suddenly the expression on the physician’s face darkened.
“You should never say that, because you are not ugly. You are only
homely.”
I had to smile while walking out to the shell-rock parking lot after clocking
out that morning.
“Only homely,” I muttered.
Just before reaching the Vega, I noticed a red Mustang bearing down on
me. I had to quicken my step to get out of the way. I was going to yell
something, but noticed Tina Ballerina behind the wheel. Oblivious to my
presence, she was in a hurry, maybe to get to class.
I also happened to notice a facsimile Florida license plate on her front
bumper, with the words, “Arrive Stoned.” It was a parody of the “Arrive
Alive” tags which were a common sight on the state’s highways, but did it
mean that she really did get stoned? Or did she have it there only for a joke?
Zorro might have lectured her on speed and reaction time, but would have
never given her a ticket.
Looked like I needed to add some coolant to my radiator because, like old
Cora Limes, my car had produced some good output.
At the ZT Stop, I bought a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, thinking
relaxation. Then, thinking exercise, I stopped in front of someone’s yard,
seeing a bicycle for sale.
“I’ve got Moe B. Dick Movers coming tomorrow,” the owner of the house
said. “My wife passed away last year, and it just don’t make no sense for me
to stay here. I’m moving back up to Ohio to live with my daughter. You can
see I’ve got a lot of other stuff for sale here too, if you’re interested. My
daughter only wants the furniture, but everything else has got to go, as they
say.”
“The tires on the bike are flat, huh?”
“Yeah, but I’ve got a hand pump in the carport. For fifteen, I’ll let you have
the bike and pump both. You take the bike home, pump up the tires, and if
they go flat on you, I’ll give you your money back and you keep the bike.

24
How’s that for a deal?”
Rolling the bike into the storage hall in the cottage, I pumped up the tires.
While doing this, I noticed a small bell on the handlebar. I pulled its lever and-
-cha-ching--its sound reminded me of something he’d read in the I Ching, the
Book of Changes, that life was what we think it is, but that it is also always
one thing more.
“Time can stop right now,” I said, sitting down with a cold Pabst. I was
repeating words Dad often spoke while doing the same, after a day of working
in the hot sun. Working nights, I figured that eight a. m. for me was the same
as five for him.
And maybe my beer relaxed me, because I slept till mid-afternoon, when I
was awakened by thunder and lightning. My window curtains were swaying
in the wind, raindrops were pelting the roof.
I went around closing windows. The last window I closed was in the storage
hall, where I looked out to see the small palm across the canal buffeted by the
gusty air. Its fronds, like a woman’s hair, were blowing all about.
The curve of the palm’s trunk became the arch of her back. She was
performing pirouettes, whirling around like the Dancing Queen, young and
sweet, only a few years older than seventeen. She was dancing to the music of
the wind, a wind singing loud, like bells, chimes, a polyphony of choral
rhymes.
I turned around to take a look at my bike. Pinching the tires, I found them
firm. If they were leaking air, it was only a very slow leak.
In less than twenty minutes, the rain let up. I wanted to take the bike out for
a spin, but also needed to do a little grocery shopping. I drove to the Speckled
Perch Plaza, with the Vega’s wheels swishing over wet pavement glistening in
the sun.
I passed Lakeland Church, where students were being let out of a red-brick
school building. The parking lot between the school and church was filled with
cars, trucks, and vans--parents, come to pick up their kids.
Arriving at the Speckled Perch Plaza parking lot, I grabbed a loose shopping

25
cart and began pushing it toward the Hibiscus Super Market. The air was heavy
with evaporation, the sun warm on my shoulders, as I splashed through puddles
in my flip-flops.
What am I going to buy? I wondered, because I’d never done much in the
way of grocery shopping. I picked up some fruit, canned goods, TV dinners,
and cereal. Remembering that Ovaltine was supposed to be nutritious stuff, I
grabbed a jar. In the bread aisle, I took a loaf of Wonder Bread, recalling the
Howdy Doody Show, in which Buffalo Bob told me that it built strong bodies,
twelve ways.
“You must be a light eater,” someone behind me said.
Glancing back, I saw a chunky, freckle-face, young woman staring at me.
It was the woman who’d been sitting with Minnie in the dining room the other
night. What was her name? Mary Land? Mirror Mar?
“Can you cook?” she asked.
“I can boil water.”
“Well, that’s a start,” she said, smiling. “You’re Owen, right? I’m Minnie’s
friend, Marianne. You didn’t look like you recognized me.”
“I guess you can cook,” I said, nodding my head toward her overflowing
cart.
“I have to,” she said. “I’ve got my daddy, two kids, and a brother to feed.
I’ve been cooking since I was twelve, working at my family’s truck stop.”
“Oh?” I said, hoping not to get into a long conversation with her.
“You said you haven’t been in town long. Where do you come from?”
“West Flamingo Beach.… I’m renting a place in Taylor Island.”
“On what street?”
“Beach Lane.”
“Then we’re practically neighbors. We live just two streets down, on
Ocean.”
I didn’t respond to what she said. My impression from meeting her the
other night was that she liked to talk too much, and I wasn’t interested in
hearing any more of her life story.

26
 “If you ever want a home-cooked meal, come on over.”
“Ya’ll come, you mean?” I said, mimicking her southern tone.
“Yes, I do…. I guess you must be a Yankee, right?”
“Yeah--I was born in Maryland, but I’ve been in Florida since I was six.”
“Are you driving down to West Flamingo this weekend?”
“No, there’s no one home. My parents are in Maryland for the summer.”
“You do know that Sunday is Mother’s Day, right?”
“No, I sure didn’t, but I’m glad you reminded me.”
“That’s something you should never forget. And, by the way, don’t think
I’m getting any ideas. I meant what I said the other night about not wanting to
get involved with a man. Call it southern hospitality or whatever you want.
All I was doing was inviting you over to eat with us, and that’s it.”
“I believe you,” I said, sorry I’d been impolite.
“You could come for dinner this Sunday, except that I’m not cooking. My
family’s taking me out to dinner for Mother’s Day.”
“No, that’s okay. It was nice seeing you,” I said, starting away.
“If you want, you could go to church with us, and then to dinner. You like
steak? We’re going to the Sirloin Sizzler.”
“Oh, no.” She seemed as relentless as the surf. “That’s okay.”
“Or--you could just meet us at the Sizzler. Church gets out at noon, so we’ll
be there right after that. It’s on Brahman, next to the Reel-to-Reel Cinema.”
“Do they allow Catholics in your church?”
“At Lakeland? Of, course.”
“Lakeland?” I said. “Does your church have a school?”
“Yeah. It’s where my kids go. Anyway, why not think about it and let me
know tonight? I’ll be working in ICU. And like I said, you can just meet us
at the Sizzler. Don’t get it in your head that I’m pushing you to go to our
church.”
“You read my mind,” I said, smiling, as two kids, a blond-haired boy and
brown-haired girl, ran up to her cart.
“Mom,” the boy said. “Can I have this paddleball?”

27
 “Mommy,” the girl said. “Can I have this coloring book?”
Marianne looked at me and smiled. “Sammy and Annie,” she said.
In the greeting card aisle, I picked out a Mother’s Day card and, since
Mother’s Day was only a couple of days away, drove to the post office, bought
stamps, made out the card, and dropped it into the Out-of-Town slot.
I took a closer look at Lakeland Church while on my way back to Taylor
Island. The parking lot was almost empty now. Behind the parking lot was a
playground, and behind the playground a thicket of pines, through which I
could see slivers of Cypress Lake’s blue water.
I winced, feeling a pang of shame over my sarcasm about the church and
Marianne Miramar, who was probably a nice enough person. In my intensity,
I drove past the Taylor Island entrance and had to find a place to turn around,
which turned out to be the parking lot of Kitty’s Catfish & Hushpuppies
Restaurant.
I paused to smell the aroma, and read the sign on the door: “For Cats, Pups
and Slaw, You Can’t Beat Kitty Paw.” Plumes of smoke were rising from the
chimney. My mouth began to water, but I had groceries to put away, and a nap
to take before I had to return to the hospital.
Yeah, maybe she did like to talk, I thought later, while sitting down to a
plate of pork and beans, but I’d sure rather be listening to her than to the guy
on the radio now, blabbering about all the great deals at Art King’s Camelot
Chevrolet: “Summer’s still a month away, folks, but Art King wants to get the
summer started early. Don’t miss our sizzling summer savings. Pick out the
vehicle you want, then sit down at our round table and let one of our sales
people work out a deal for you that’s downright chivalrous.”
On the other hand, would I want to pick up Tina in a car that leaked coolant,
and was without air-conditioning?
Tina said she was going to school with a Marianne. Marianne mentioned
going to school too, though not with Tina. Seemed likely that Tina’s Marianne
was Miramar, though I needed to ask to be sure. Because if they were friends,
maybe Marianne could help bring us together?

28
 If so, then that would be a start!
If Marianne lived only two streets away, why not get to know her better?
Why not go with her to church and dinner?
Tina and Marianne, I saw them that night, sitting together at a table. I’d
just entered the dining room, was going to sit down with them, but suddenly
everyone was getting up to clock in. Marianne smiled and said “hi” to me;
Tina was oblivious to my presence.
“Don’t you know you almost ran me over this morning?” I whispered later,
sitting in the linen room, imagining I was saying this to her, knowing I’d never
have the guts to do so.
Later that night, I assisted Vic Blow, an Inhalation Therapist, while he
administered a breathing treatment to a patient. After we were finished and
outside the patient’s room, Vic began to blow off steam.
“If there’s one thing I hate about this job, it’s being called in at two in the
morning for absolutely no good reason. Mrs. Wheezer had a coughing spell?
So, what? She’s almost eighty years old, and she’s been smoking since she
was fifteen. Of course, she’s going to have a coughing fit now and then. She
didn’t need a breathing treatment. Flora Cracker doesn’t know her ass from a
hole in the ground.”
“Flora was pretty worried,” I said, not knowing who was right or wrong.
“She called the doctor.”
“Flora Cracker,” Blow muttered as we walked toward the nurses’ station.
“I’d like to crack her.”
Flora was sitting in the nurses’ station now, writing in a patient’s chart.
“Is Mrs. Wheezer doing better?” she inquired.
“Oh, yes, ma’am. She’s doing very good,” Blow said, his demeanor
suddenly turned sunny-side up. “She should sleep through the rest of the night
just fine.”
Sitting down in the linen room, I shook my head. Blow seemed like a puffer
fish in reverse, expanding into ferociousness only to shrink into meekness as
soon as the object of his wrath appeared.

29
 “Good grief,” I whispered, because didn’t he mirror how I was with Tina?
I pulled a magazine from the stack on the bottom shelf of the linen closet.
It was the April issue of Tide, containing articles about societal trends coming
in and going out. One of them -- “Free Love in the 70’s” --claimed that, thanks
to affluence and the Sexual Revolution, men and women were changing
conjugal partners at an ever-accelerating rate. But most of the women who
were interviewed expressed a desire for relationships that were longer lasting.
Women today, though, were under intense pressure to give in to the prevailing
fashion. The practice of having multiple sexual partners, at one time immoral,
was now seen as an indication that society was at last freeing itself from
Victorian inhibitions.
I sympathized with the woman’s point of view, though it irked me that the
only accelerating I’d ever done had cost me twenty-five bucks.
Making the rounds later, I came upon Jackson Ville, whose blood pressure
I’d taken earlier in the shift. Right now, Ville looked like Christian, in John
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, lost in the Slew of Despond. He was sitting in
a chair, just inside the door of his room, and was leaning forward, chin in hand,
staring hard toward the bed he should have been sleeping in.
“Mr. Ville,” I whispered. “How come you’re looking at your bed instead
of lying in it?”
Ville looked up at me in exasperation.
“Just fifteen minutes ago, I was sleeping right there,” he said. “I got up to
use the lavatory and when I came back, there’s this man sleeping in my bed. It
just doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh,” I said, realizing what had happened. “You’re in the wrong room.
These rooms share a common toilet. You went in one door and came out the
other.”
“Are you on the level?”
“Come on,” I said, motioning for him to follow me.
“Thank god,” Ville sighed, once back in his own bed. “I was afraid these
medications were doing a number on me. Thanks a lot, buddy. And now could

30
you do me another favor? Order me a good stiff drink?”
“Sorry, but if I could I’d have one with you.”
Ville laughed, then brought his hand up to cover his mouth while glancing
over to his roommate, fast asleep and snoring.
“I guess I didn’t wake him,” Ville whispered. “He can sure cut the zebras,
huh? Say, young man, I appreciate your help, and I’ve got a question for you.
Who cuts your hair?”
“Around here? No one. I’m new in town.”
“Then I’ll tell you what. Come see me at Coupe de Ville, and I’ll do your
hair up right. That’s a promise.”
When I met Marianne in the parking lot after work, I asked her, “What do
you think he meant by that? I know my hair’s a mess--”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing wrong with your hair.
That was just Jack’s way of showing his gratitude. He and his brother Jay have
been cutting Daddy’s hair for years, ever since we moved up here from
Hallendale. Daddy met them when he joined the local Shrine club. Those boys
love their liquor, but they’re good people.”
“Maybe I’ll have to stop in there sometime then.”
“Why not? And now you need to let me know: Are you going to meet us
at the Sizzler or not?”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll go to church with you too.”
“Great, but if you are then I’d better warn you, Pastor Sandy doesn’t give
sermons the old-fashioned way. His sermons are more like … plays, I guess.
Anyone can take part, as long as they memorize their lines. He believes in
group participation.”
“But in the end, it all comes down to Jesus-is-my-savior, right?”
“Yeah, it does, but to me that’s a wonderful thing.”
“Am I out of line, saying that?”
“Say what you want. My faith is simple, but it’s strong…. Anyway,
Deacon Spires told me Pastor Sandy’s supposed to be talking about mothers,
marriage, and the Song of Solomon, this Sunday. I guess he’s going to tie it in

31
with Mother’s Day.”
“Great,” I said, seeing a red Mustang approaching.
Tina tapped her horn and waved to Marianne while cruising past.
“Do you go to school with her?” I asked, as Marianne was waving back.
“Tina? Yeah. We’re not in the same classes, but we drive to Pelican Beach
together. We’ve become pretty good friends…. Poor Tina. She was going to
marry Pokey Baird. He was one of our paramedics. But then they got into a
big argument over her engagement ring. Seems silly to me, but he got so upset
that he quit his job and moved back to … Satellite Beach, I think it was. I
guess Tina’s a little spoiled, and a little wild. Her family’s pretty well off. But
she’s a hard worker, and she’ll make a good nurse if she keeps up her
schooling.”
So, I thought, while driving away, Tina was who I thought she was but she
was also spoiled, had suffered a broken heart, was a hard worker, and possessed
potential.
Would she have seen me in the parking lot this morning if Marianne had
not also been there? If I’d waved, would she have waved back? Or, more, did
she even see me this morning with Marianne being there? She talked quite a
bit when I first met her, but maybe that was because we were the only ones in
the dining room. She talked quite a bit when I helped her with Cora Limes,
but maybe that was only because she needed my help.
Later, turning up Beach Lane, I couldn’t even get little, white-haired, Portia
Geezer to wave back at me. Strolling along with the aid of a cane, she only
squinted at me through her spectacles while gritting her false teeth.
“I feel so sorry for Portia,” Millie Mackerel, Jack’s wife, told me last week.
“She lives alone, and doesn’t have any family around here. She did have a cat
once, but it got run over by a car. Still, she’s a pretty spunky old girl.”
Eyeing Portia in my rearview mirror, it dawned on me that maybe she would
have waved if she’d had time. Because by the time her senses told her I’d
waved, it was too late for her to raise her hand to do the same. By that time, I
was too far down the road.

32
 It was just as Alvin Toffler indicated in his book, Future Shock: The stream
of modern life is accelerating, and as life speeds up, reaction times shorten.
“Just as Officer Orlando indicated,” I grumbled.
And our appreciation of life too, huh, Dad? That’s why you wanted life to
stop, while sipping a cold beer after a hard day of work in the sun.
For me, time wasn’t stopping, but it was Friday and I would be off for the
next two nights, with two social events scheduled: Tonight, I would drive to
Hire Heights Homes to dine on Buffalo wings with the Canes, and on Sunday
it would be sizzling steak with Marianne and her clan.
That evening, pulling onto the Cane’s driveway, I was greeted by Bonita,
their Doberman Pincher, who was baying ferociously while jumping up and
down behind their chain-link fence. It was a welcome that assured me she’d
gladly tear me to shreds if she could only get at me.
“Bonita, shush!” Christine cried, while stepping out the door into the
carport. “Hi, Red. Come on in. We’re all ready to eat.”
The excitement of arriving was followed by an uncomfortable quiet. Sitting
around the kitchen table, eating wings, fries, and slaw, I found that not much
had changed since I’d been living with them. I became, in fact, the mean
between two extremes. Not the golden one, but simply a means by which any
communication took place, since Harry and Chris would talk to me but not to
each other.
“Is Little House on the Prairie on tonight?” their daughter Sugar asked, as
we were finishing our meal.
“Not tonight,” her mother said. “And anyway, your father and Red are
going to watch the baseball game, so you might as well go in your room and
play.”
“Braves are going on the warpath tonight, Red,” Harry said, standing up
from the table. “Or at least it would be a nice change if they did. Did you
know I can get all their games on Channel 17 now, thanks to cable? Wish I
could get my U of Wisconsin Badgers down here. Still, cable’s only six-fifty
a month.”

33
 “I’ll stick to my rabbit ears,” I said, as we retired to the living room. “I only
get a couple of channels but I don’t watch that much TV anyway.”
“Yeah, I know how it must be on an orderlies’ pay,” Harry said, switching
on the television, “always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, always in the red,
right?”
“When I could be making big bucks selling real estate, huh?” I responded,
sitting down on the couch. “Sorry, but I’ve been warned you might be twisting
my arm again.”
“Warned?” Harry said, plopping down in his recliner. “And who warned
you, I wonder?”
Harry was obviously referring to Christine. I immediately wished I hadn’t
mentioned I’d been warned.
Jumping up from his recliner, Harry went into the kitchen where Christine
was cleaning up after dinner. I heard no exchange of words in there, and soon
Harry returned with two cans of Old Milwaukee beer.
His family had moved down here from Cheese Shire, Wisconsin, and Harry
was as loyal to his father’s favorite beer as I was to Dad’s Blue Ribbon.
“So how are your beloved Baltimore Orioles doing, anyway?” Harry asked,
handing me a can.
“Good.”
“Oh, Red,” Christine called from the kitchen. “My parents are going to
Burdines and Publix in Pelican Beach tomorrow. They might not be home if
you go over there to get the lawnmower.”
“Okay,” I replied, while looking at Harry and pointing to the TV screen: It
was raining at the ball park. A tarpaulin covered the baseball diamond.
“You’ve got a key to their shed, right?” she asked.
“Yes, and I’ll probably cut it tomorrow.”
“Chris,” Harry said, gazing at the TV screen. “What’s the big deal about
him mowing the lawn?”
“It’s not a big deal,” she replied. “I just wanted to let him know they
wouldn’t be home.”

34
 “Oh, shit,” Harry grunted.
“What did you say?” Christine asked.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he said. “The game is rained out.”
From their backyard, their dog was baying again.
“Hey, Chris,” Harry said. “What’s Bonita riled up about?”
“She sees Sonny walking over here. Looks like he’s coming to visit.”
Harry glanced at me. “You didn’t meet him when you were staying with
us, did you? No, he and his wife were on vacation then. Well, just to let you
know, he’s not a bad neighbor. But he is a jokester, and he never shuts up.”
Sonny, a young man with long hair and a John Deere cap on his head,
walked in with a wide grin on his face.
“Betcha my last name’s harder than yours,” he said to me, as soon as Harry
introduced us. “What you want to bet?”
“It’s not a bet, Red,” Harry said. “It’s a joke. Just humor him.”
“Okay, but my name’s not that hard. It’s Cloud.”
“It don’t matter what your name is, buddy, because my name’s Harder. So,
it’s always going to be harder, right?”
Harder laughed, I smiled, and Harry sighed, saying, “He pulled the same
lame joke on me when I first met him.”
Sitting down on the opposite side of the couch, Sonny turned his attention
to Harry: “Hey, remember that CB radio I told you I installed in my pick up?
Man, have I been having a blast with that thing. And you know what I found
out? It’s a far out way of meeting hot chicks, and I can tell you that with a big
ten-four!”
“And Karen?” Harry said. “Does your wife know you’re talking to hot
chicks?”
“Oh, come off it, man. I don’t talk to chicks when she’s in the truck with
me.”
“Glad to hear it…. What’s your handle?”
“Sonny Gun!” Harder said, pointing two forefinger pistols at Harry.
As Sonny began telling Harry about his citizen-band adventures, I became

35
aware of Sugar standing on the opposite side of the coffee table. She was
holding her checkerboard and a box of checkers.
“You want to play?” she asked.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that game?”
“Do you want the red ones or the black?” she asked, taking my answer for
a yes.
“Haven’t we been through this routine before?”
“You can be red because your name is Red,” she said, repeating her familiar
refrain.
“Someday I’m going to change my name to Black,” I declared, as Sugar
opened the board and set it on the table.
I then became aware that Christine had entered the room. She was standing
in silence, looking at Harry.
“Did you remember to call that contractor about getting our driveway
paved?” she asked, interrupting Sonny’s CB spiel.
Looking at her, Harry appeared caught off guard.
“That deer-in-the-headlights look,” Sonny said. “It’s never a good sign.”
“No, I sure didn’t,” Harry admitted, flashing Sonny an angry glare. “I guess
I just had too much going on today, but I’ll give that guy a call first thing in
the morning.”
“How many times have I asked you about that?” she responded.
“Hey, I know a guy who’ll pave your driveway, cheap,” Sonny said, as
Chris was walking away up the hall. She disappeared into their bedroom and
slammed the door shut.
“Sonny, why don’t you go on home,” Harry said, looking down at the
carpet. “I’m not in any mood--”
“Just trying to be helpful, good buddy,” Sonny said, standing up. “But I’m
cool.” He was on his way to the front door. “Guess I’ll catch you guys later.”
In place of the rained-out ballgame, Channel 17 was now showing a
movie—The Red Badge of Courage.
Harry stared at the TV screen in silence.

36
 Sugar was suddenly in a surly mood. I let her win the game but wasn’t up
for a second. After trading good nights with Harry, I backed out of their
unpaved driveway to the sound of Bonita’s baying.
The next morning, as I was pushing the Dune’s Lawn Boy mower around
the yard, I recalled Sugar demanding, “crown me!” every time she’d
maneuvered one of her checkers across the board.
“How come you don’t say, king me?” I’d asked her once.
“Because kings are boys,” she replied, with anger in her voice that seemed
to mimic her parents’ anger.
Under cover of the lawnmower’s roar, I called out, “Breaker, breaker! CB
Sonny, here. Be advised. You got Smoky on your tail, good buddy. And
that’s a big ten-four!”
I punctuated these last words by removing my hand from the mover’s
handle, doing a fist pump, and as soon as I’d done so saw that my neighbor
Tom Finn had seen me. He was now backing out of his driveway in his Chevy
Impala. Grinning, he did a fist pump himself. Embarrassed, caught in the act
of being myself, I waved back at him.
Last week Tom told me he’d been feeling guilty about things he’d done in
his youth. When he was a boy, his father made him paint the fence outside
their house. He hated the job, but found he could get the neighbor kids to do
it for him if he pretended like he was having fun.
I asked him if he’d ever read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, in which Tom
Sawyer did the same thing.
“That’s what I keep telling him,” his wife said, who was nearby raking up
grass clippings in their yard. “As he gets older, he sometimes feels guilty for
things he read or saw on TV, and he thinks he did it.”
“I did do it,” Tom insisted. “I did read that book too, and maybe that put
the idea in my head, but if my old man were alive today he’d vouch for me. I
did do it.”
Oscar Wilde claimed that life followed art. Was this true of me too? How
many original ideas had I ever had besides none? Mark Twain claimed that in

37
his own writing he told the truth, mainly, but admitted he sometimes stretched
it too. Sad to say, Joe Bass was probably no more than a stretcher of other
people’s ideas.
While returning the mower and gas can into the Dune’s backyard shed, I
noticed an abandoned honeycomb under the outside edge of the roof.
Were the bees coming home, or gone forever?
After shutting the shed door, I noticed a man standing on the other side of
the canal, staring at me. His stare was distrustful, as if asking, “What business
do you have in the Dune’s backyard?”
Resenting this, I was tempted to crouch low, glance left and right, then run
back to the car, just to make myself look as guilty as possible. But if I did this,
the guy might call Smoky on me, and I didn’t need that. So instead I smiled,
waved to the man, and walked slowly back to the car.
I was getting tired of seeing that speeding ticket on the passenger’s seat, so
when I got back to my little place I wrote out a check, put it in an envelope,
slid it into the mailbox, and lifted up the red flag.
Standing in the shower, through the window I saw the mail truck drive away
with the paid fine, imagining it was the Barefoot Mailman walking away to
deliver my debt to Cypress City.
The next morning I drove slowly up Ocean Lane, looking for Marianne’s
house. She’d told me to look for her blue Dodge Charger parked in front of a
white, double-wide mobile home, with “Homestead” printed on the mailbox.
When I saw these, I parked in their yard and walked to their door. Near the
door, a plastic, pink flamingo stood on one leg, which reminded me of West
Flamingo Beach and my own home.
“Hi, I’m Joey,” Marianne’s brother greeted me at the door. “Have a seat in
the living room. Keep old Pups company. We’re still scrambling around
getting ready.”
Unlike Bonita, old Pups--cream-colored, with brown spots--appeared
oblivious to the fact I’d entered the room. The dog was fast asleep on the
carpet.

38
 I stepped past the dog and sat down in a cushioned chair.
The room was filled with a lot of clutter, mostly books and toys. On the
floor near my feet was a paddleball, the one Marianne’s son had asked for at
the grocery store. I picked it up, tossed the ball in the air and gave it a whack.
The ball flew away but the rubber band brought it back, popping me on the
nose. I took this as a warning. Maybe the boy wouldn’t appreciate me playing
with his toy. I set it back down on the carpet.
“Come on, let’s get into the car, kids,” Marianne said, walking into the
room. “Sorry, Owen, we might be a little late this morning, but not too late I
hope. We can all ride in my car. You can sit up front with Joey. As you can
see, my house is a mess. I’m not a housekeeper, but I can cook.”
“But not today,” I said, standing up.
“No. Today is my day.”
On the passenger’s seat of her car lay a notebook. Joey grabbed it and
handed it back to Marianne, but I had seen the name on it, written in ink--Tina
Gardenia.
“Looks like your friend forgot her notebook,” Joey said.
“I wish I’d remembered to give it to her at the hospital,” Marianne said. “I
guess she won’t be getting her assignment done this weekend…. Owen, I’m
sorry you won’t meet Daddy today, but he’s down at the truck stop, breaking
in a new guy he hired.”
“I guess Marianne’s told you about our preacher, Sandy Piper, right?” Joey
said while driving us to the church. “Marianne likes him, but I think he’s a
weird-o.”
“What did you think of my cute little speckled pup?” Marianne asked.
“Your dog? Yeah, I saw him, but he never took any notice of me.”
“That’s because he sleeps a lot these days,” she said. “Pups is getting up
there in dog years, but he’s still my baby.”
At the church, Marianne introduced me to a number of people, including
Deacon Jules Spires, who invited me to “come-on-back” to Lakeland Church
anytime.

39
 Entering the sanctuary, little Annie began to sing along with the choir,
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee….”
I thought of Sugar Cane, who would have loved to live in the sanctuary of
the family she saw each week in Little House on the Prairie.
When Pastor Sandy Piper stepped to the pulpit, he wished all the mothers a
happy Mother’s Day. “Because if any one deserves a special day, you do,
especially these days, with so many of you raising your children with little or
no help from dear old dad. What’s going on with men and women these days?”
He then looked down at someone sitting in the first row. “I wonder what you-
know-who might say about this?”
For a few moments, there was no response.
“Ruth,” he finally said. “Would you kindly read your husband’s line?”
Joey nudged me on the arm. “Frank Frisky fell asleep,” he whispered, with
a big grin on his face.
“What would Jesus say about this?” Mrs. Frisky asked, reading from a sheet
of paper. She recited this line in a raised voice, speaking into her husband’s
ear.
“Oh, oh--sorry,” her husband huffed, waking up, while a woman at the back
of the room answered, “Cleave to your wife.”
The pastor smiled, nodding his head. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “Jesus
did say that, but it seems these days more and more people are too busy to
remember that lesson, because I see divorces on the rise, children being an
inconvenience. Is the passionate love of youth all there is?”
“No!” a man sitting on my right yelled.
“No, of course it’s not,” the pastor agreed. “But don’t get me wrong, the
Song of Solomon is a beautiful book, celebrating the springtime of love, but
love is so much more than corporeal passions. It may begin with that, but it
can also be friendship, and may grow beyond friendship into generosity of
heart…. Like last week when we were visiting at the Cypress City Nursing
Home. The folks there put on a little skit, part of which illustrates this
beautifully. Dale Hart and Helen Hind were there with me, and are now going

40
to recite a few lines of what we heard…. Helen? Dale?”
An old man and woman came up to the front of the church.
“Now speak up, you two,” the pastor said. “I don’t want Frank Frisky
falling asleep again and getting into trouble with his wife.”
After the laughter in the room subsided, Hart raised a walking cane high in
the air. “I need my cane.” he said.
“To walk!” Hind yelled, finishing his line.
“I need my hearing aid--”
“To hear!”
“I need my glasses--”
“To see!”
“And I need my dentures--”
“To chew!”
“But my heart, it needs no help at all to--”
“Love you!” she cried.
Amid the laughter and applause which followed, I pictured old Portia
Geezer strolling up Beach Lane, with the help of her cane.
The smirk on Joey’s face indicated he thought Hart and Hind’s performance
so much corny baloney. Marianne’s face though, was beaming. And up on
the pulpit, before continuing with his sermon, the pastor was wiping a tear from
his eye.

41
 June

Cypress Lake was glittering like a diamond ring.

I had to admit, if only to myself, that Harry was smart to be wearing his
Braves ballcap and sunglasses.
“I’ve got pierced eyes,” I complained.
“What?”
“They’re hurting.”
“I told you I had Christine’s shades, if you wanted them.”
Harry rummaged in the compartment next to the Mercury outboard, then
handed me her sunglasses. “Here, see things from a woman’s perspective.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, putting them on. “How long have we been drifting?”
“Maybe ten-fifteen minutes. Why?”
“What do the other fishermen know that we don’t? I hardly see another
boat on the water.”
“If you’ve had enough, just say so and we’ll head back to the marina.
You’re the one who worked all night.”

42
 “No, not yet. I’m still hoping for that first big strike.”
“Okay then. Keep your eyes on your bobber.”
I obeyed, but soon let my gaze drift from bobber to bank, to a thicket of
pines. What were those slivers of white? Lakeland Church? Yes. Above the
trees, I saw the spire of its steeple.
“Baloney and mayo?” Harry asked, holding up a cellophane-wrapped
sandwich. “I made them myself, since Christine wouldn’t.”
“Sure,” I said, and he handed it over.
“Seven Up?”
“Is it seven-up yet?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” I said, taking the can, “I’m tired, but I got a question for you.
If this is a lake, why are we drifting?”
“Because,” Harry said, “the Summer River flows through Big Mushy Slew,
into the lake. The lake feeds swamps, and streams further south, and so on,
and so on, into the Everglades. By the way, did you see that the Slew did it?”
“Slew?”
“Seattle Slew. The underdog horse won the Triple Crown, and by the way,
your bobber just went underwater.”
Putting down sandwich and can, I grabbed the rod with both hands.
“I’ve got something alright,” I said, my rod suddenly bending like a palm
in a storm. Reeling in slow and steady, when I got the fish close to the boat it
began to zigzag, desperate to escape.
“Another speckled perch,” Harry said. “Only two in two hours. But maybe
we’ve hit a good spot. I’m going to lower the anchor.”
I lifted the flip-flopping perch out of the water. The hook was stuck deep
in its gullet. I had to push down on the hook to free it, and while doing so felt
a sharp pain in my chest. Surprised, I stared straight into the fish’s eyes, though
really only one eye since I was looking at the fish from the side.
“Admiring your catch?” Harry inquired.
“Just … checking its peripheral vision,” I said, trying to make light of it.

43
 The slippery fish almost squirted out of my hand, but Harry grabbed it and
dropped it into the clear plastic bag which also held his own fish.
“Looks like mine is bigger,” he declared, holding up the two for
comparison, while flashing one of his big, Cheese-Shire cat grins.
I didn’t respond to Harry’s sexual innuendo, but remembered Sonny telling
me that his last name was Harder. “How’s your neighbor, CB Sonny, doing?”
“Sonny Gun?” Harry said, placing the plastic bag into his cooler. “Karen
wrote him a Dear John letter a couple of weeks ago and left him. Sonny’s got
another broad living with him now…. He’s lucky. Life’s a lot simpler without
kids.”
I put a fresh shiner on my hook and cast out again.
“Tell me something,” Harry said. “Who’s the blond woman working in the
hospital lobby? She looks to be in her thirties. I saw her when I went in there
to talk to Jane Fern about getting you a job.”
“Sandy Waverly? She’s the morning receptionist.”
“Well, as bad as Chris and I are doing, that woman just might be the light
at the end of my tunnel, as old Henry Kissinger once said.”
“But what if it’s the light of an oncoming train, as Robert Lowell once
said?”
“God damned English major,” Harry grunted.
I wished I could be as bold as my business major friend, but the best I could
do was imagine bold ploys. Like maybe forcing a coincidence--spotting Tina’s
Mustang parked in town, pulling to a halt next to it, waiting until she came out
to her car, and then saying, Hello….
“Your love has lifted me higher,” Harry sang in a squeaky falsetto voice,
“then I’ve ever been lifted before. So, keep it up, quench my desire—”
“Rita Coolidge?”
“Yeah, she’s one hot Indian chick.”
I nodded, imagining her throwing gardenias at me from the Florida State
Seal.
Unfortunately, a month had passed, and except for what Marianne told me,

44
I knew Tina little better now than I did the night I met her.
“You’ve probably already guessed this, Cloud,” Harry said, pulling a bag
of Oreo cookies from a brown grocery sack. “But I’m just about ready to dump
Christine for good. Call it the seven-year-itch if you want, but I’ve had about
enough of her hen-pecking.”
“I’ve kind of wondered,” I said, seeing Baltimore Oriole manager Earl
Weaver arguing with an umpire, pecking at the ump’s forehead with the bill of
his cap.
“Oreo?”
“No,” I said, chewing up the remains of my baloney and mayo. “Did you
ever get your driveway paved?”
“Yeah, and you know what? The bane-of-my-life wife won’t even let me
park my Lincoln there. She let Sugar turn it into her private roller-skating rink,
which she calls her ice-skating rink. She wants to win a gold medal at the
Olympics, like Dorothy Hamill. But yeah, crafty Chris got her paved
driveway…. All I can say is thank god for Sophie Moon.”
“The new girl you hired?”
“Yeah. Part time. She doesn’t know much about real estate, and she’s sure
no Sandy Waverly, but she does help me take my mind off my pain-in-the-ass
wife.”
“Chris is both a bane and a pain?”
“Yeah,” Harry responded, not impressed with my teasing rhyme. “What
about this Mary what’s-her-name? Are you guys getting serious?”
“Marianne Miramar, and no, we’re not. We’re friends, platonic friends I
guess you could call us. I only live a couple of streets down from her, so I go
over there, play with the kids, and I’ve gotten to know her family. They’re
good people.”
Keeping my eyes on my red-and-white bobber, I recalled yesterday biking
over to her house and finding her father Sam at home alone, sitting in his chair,
watching a movie on TV—The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
“It’s just me and old Pups,” he said. “The kids were anxious to spend their

45
allowances, so Marianne took them to Isaac’s Toy Shop. I wish she could get
them to keep their toys picked up. Go pour yourself a glass of iced tea and sit
down, unless you want something stronger.” He grinned nodding his head
toward a bottle of Four Roses whiskey on the end table.
“No, sir. I’m fine,” I said, sitting down on their couch.
“I’m not a big drinker,” Sam said. “I can’t use my cane at work because
those truckers need to be serviced and on their way. The alcohol helps ease
the pain, and I guess I can hold my liquor because nobody’s ever told me they
thought I was drunk.”
Old Pups was asleep on the carpet, oblivious to the world.
“That Danny Kaye’s a good old boy,” Sam said. “He makes me laugh.”
I nodded my head, though I was more impressed with Kaye’s co-star, the
beautiful Virginia Mayo.
After a few minutes, Sam picked up a framed photo from the end table and
showed it to me.
“You know who that is?”
It was a scrawny, bald, toothless baby, and yet with the biggest grin on its
face.
“Is it … Marianne?”
“Yep, we took that picture shortly after we brought her home from the
hospital. She was born premature, and for a while there we wondered if she
was going to make it. She spent about two months inside an incubator. They
had to feed her with an eye dropper. But I guess that little gal wanted to live,
because she made it through okay.”
After the movie ended, I excused myself and stood up to leave.
“Come over anytime, boy,” Sam said. “We’re getting to see you as part of
our family, and Marianne really likes you.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said then and now.
“What?” Harry said.
“Nothing,” I said, not wanting to reveal my secret life.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Harry said.

46
 “So soon?”
“What say we give the slew a try? It’ll be nice and dark under the cypresses,
and maybe we can land a bass or two. You game?”
“Harry Cane the hurry-cane. Yeah, if you want to.”
Harry fired up the Mercury. As we sped across the lake, I sat in the bow,
staring past Harry to the boat’s wake--sharply defined at first, but then growing
wider and vaguer.
Like memory, passing into undulating oblivion….
I recalled my conversation with Shelby Reef this morning:
“Almost time to go home, huh?” the old man said, after I had taken his vital
signs.
“Yes, sir. One more hour…. And you’re going home today too, right?”
“Yeah, they’re sending me home again,” he sighed, staring up into my face
from his bed. “You look like you’ve been working hard. Your forehead’s
moist.”
“I’m not complaining. I’ve been pretty busy for a change.”
“Have that can of orange juice on my table, son.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of, course I’m sure. I got ice in my pitcher. Fill one of those paper cups
with ice and pour the juice in. It’ll be nice and cold that way.”
“I am thirsty,” I admitted, “but from the can is fine.”
“What do you do when you get home from work?” Shelby inquired, as I
was downing the juice, “go straight to bed?”
“Yeah, pretty much. But not today. This morning I’m going fishing at
Cypress Lake in my friend’s boat.”
“Good,” the old man said. “That’s what me and my wife moved down here
for--the fishing and the warm weather.” His lips then tightened. “You know,
Owen, what I’ve got--it’s a terrible thing.”
Yes sir, I thought, this time only mentally repeating what I’d said after he’d
spoken, while gazing upon wake blending into lake.
Shelby had adopted me as a special friend. Whenever he needed something

47
he always asked, “Where’s Owen?” He would call for me even when I wasn’t
on duty. It was an honor I didn’t deserve, because what could I do for this man
but make small talk?
Cutting the motor, Harry let the boat drift into the shade of the cypresses.
Their long branches, feathery leaves, and fluted trunks made the experience of
entering the slew like entering a sacred sanctuary.
“I can hardly see,” I said.
“Try taking off your sunglasses,” Harry suggested.
Removing them, I saw palmetto trees growing deep inside the slew. Moses
Soils’ dining-room scene? Maybe, but it didn’t look quite the same. Probably
Tina was right, it was just something he’d dreamed up.
“Time to break out the old rubber worm,” Harry said, reaching into his
tackle box. “Did you know that the roots of these trees reach as far as the
branches do? Great habitat for bass.”
“I’ll just stick with shiners,” I said, casting out.
“Hey, you must see the O’Dell brothers now and then, don’t you? Digger
and Daffy? Their funeral home is just across the street from the hospital, which
I’d say is a pretty convenient location.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen them yet. Why?”
Harry chuckled. “Last year I had this guy die on me the same day I put his
house on the market. I didn’t know he died until I drove to his place to plant
one of my signs in his yard. Daffy and Digger were already there; they’re the
ones who told me. So, I told them, ‘You guys move the bodies, I’ll move the
houses. Deal?”
I didn’t laugh, but smiled and shook my head.
“Sure you don’t want one?” Harry asked, lifting up his bag of Oreos.
“Aureole,” I said, thinking of that glow that seemed to surround Tina when
I first met her.
“That’s what they’re called,” he said, thinking I was only referring to the
cookie.
He tossed me one, we fished for a while, but with no luck.

48
 “Have you ever been to the Inner Space?” he asked. “It’s a barn converted
into a bar and dance hall. It’s not far from your place. How about we stop there
for a brew before I drop you off?”
“Inner Space?”
“Dwight Dwarf runs it now. He bought the place from some hippie who
originally named it that, and he never bothered to change it.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “You want to leave already?”
“We’re not going to catch anything today.”
Staring deeply into the slew, Harry raised his hand up high. “Happy trails,
Del. We’re out of here.”
“Happy trails? As in Dale Evans and Roy Rogers?”
“No, it’s Del--Delbert Ray Ford. You never heard of the old hermit who
lives in the slew? He’s a Korean War vet who decided city life was too much
to take. I read an article in the local paper about him awhile back. He claims
to know everything that goes on in the Big Mushy, so I figured I should at least
bid him farewell.”
“You mean he could be watching us now?”
“Could be.”
I peered into the slew but saw no one.
“Hey, unless you want them, I’m going to give our fish to the old lady next
door. You met Marlin Monroe, right? Chris hates fish, but Marlin will
appreciate them. I bet she was one hot chick in her day. I kid around with her
a lot. I asked her if she wrote the Monroe Doctrine, because if she sees
anything fishy going on in our neighborhood, she’ll call the cops. She and
Bonita are our guardians.”
Docking at Mare’s Marina, together we carried the cooler away, but stopped
upon arriving at Angler’s Bait Shop where we came upon a short, dumpy little
man with a hat full of hooks and lures.
“Well, Mr. Gino,” Harry said. “You playing hooky today?”
Grinning, the stubble-faced man set his bait bucket down. “When you got
a son old enough to help supervise things, you can do that now and then. You

49
just coming back in?”
“Yup. Not much going on out there. Red and I only got one spec apiece.”
“Hell, I can do better than that on a bad day. You use live bait?”
“Shiners.”
“That’s what I got too. Maybe I’ll break out one of my Mirro-lures.”
Harry nodded to me to set the cooler down, which we did. I stood in silence
as they talked fishing and business. Just a lot of baloney and mayo as far as I
was concerned, until Harry introduced me to Gino Gardenia, owner of the
Gardenia Construction Company.
“You don’t happen to be a carpenter, do you?” Gardenia asked me as we
shook hands.
“No, sir. None of my dad’s skills rubbed off on me.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he said, while scratching the stubble on his chin,
“because I’m always looking for good carpenters.”
Driving away from the marina, I sat in astonished silence. I recalled Tina
telling me her father knew Harry, but couldn’t believe she got half her genes
from that little stubble-faced stump of a man.
“You know Mr. Gardenia pretty well?” I asked, as Harry pulled into the
Inner Space parking lot, just across the road from Kitty Paw’s Catfish and
Hushpuppies.
“We’re business buddies, and fishing buddies too.”
“His daughter works at the hospital. She told me her dad was a builder.”
“Laura? Yeah, I’ve met her.”
“It’s her sister that works on my shift.”
“The younger one? She’s at the hospital too? What’s her name?”
“Tina.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen her when I’ve been over to Gino’s place. And you should
see his place. It’s a mansion. Royal Palm Estates is the highest-class
neighborhood in town…. Yeah, Laura’s the married one, but Tina’s the hot
one. Boy, would I like to ring her bell.”
“Is she hotter than Sophie Moon?”

50
 “Oh, yeah, man. She’s Waverly class…. Sophie? She’ll do until I find
something better. Too many fish in the sea, Cloudy. Too many fish in the
sea.”
Sitting down at the bar, Harry introduced me to Dwight Dwarf, a little
bartender who might have been called Sneezy Dwarf, because he had a bad
case of the sniffles.
“We have dances here every Saturday night,” Dwarf informed me, as he set
two drafts down before us. “We have bands, mostly country, rockabilly, that
kind of thing. And everybody has a romping-stomping good time.”
I noticed a small array of photographs on the wall behind him. One was a
framed newspaper clipping with the headline: “August Gusty Dies.”
“Who’s that guy?” I asked.
“You never heard of Dr. Augie?” Dwarf said. “You must be new in town,
because everybody loved Dr. Augie. He used to put in some long hours taking
care of his patients. He’d stop in here a couple of times a week for a Seagram’s
Seven on the rocks before heading home.”
He then pointed to another photo. “See that old lady, standing next to the
previous owner? That’s Mary Minnow, the dancer and movie star. Famous in
her time, but no longer with us. Her daughter lives here in town.”
“Is that catfish place over there a good place to eat?” I asked, as Dwarf was
blowing his nose into a handkerchief.
“Sorry, but lately I’ve had a bad case of the sniffles and snorts. You mean
Kitty’s place? You bet it is. Mel Tillis ate there once, on his way to Pahokee.
And if you like key lime pie, buddy, you’d better leave room for dessert,
because you’ll think you’d died and gone to heaven…. But say, you guys ever
watch Yee Haw?”
“As in Yee Haw Junction?” Harry inquired.
“Shit, no. That’s not what I meant. Hee-Haw, that’s what I meant to say. It
comes on TV on Saturday nights.”
“I’ve seen it before,” Harry said, appearing a little impatient.
“You know that big old fat guy, Junior Samples?” Dwarf said, beginning to

51
laugh. “In last Saturday night’s show, he claimed he’d caught the biggest
Southern Pike in the whole state of Georgia. But when someone reminded him
there’s no such fish as a Southern Pike, Junior said he knew there was because
he caught one but couldn’t invite anyone to come verify it because he done
cooked and ate him.” Dwarf then broke into a fit of guffawing which soon
turned into coughing. “That guy--he cracks me up. But, excuse me, boys. I
got to go outside and spit.”
I was grinning as Dwarf left the room, but I noticed that the expression on
Harry’s face was extremely pensive.
“Do you remember Camille Garfish?” Harry asked. “She was the girl I was
dating before I started up with Christine. That girl was like the month of
March, except ass backwards. I’d pick her up for a date, she’d be gentle as a
lamb. But before the night ended she’d be roaring like a lion, bellyaching about
everything. Just a moody little bitch.”
Why bring this up? I wondered, but then sensed that Harry’s situation with
Chris was bothering him more deeply than he let on.
When Harry dropped me off at the cottage, he noticed my silver Chevette
parked under the orange tree.
“Your new car. How do you like it?”
“So far, so good. It makes a funny rattling noise, but that’s it. I’m going to
take it to West Flamingo Beach on Saturday to check up on my parents’ house,
so I’ll be able to see how it runs on a longer trip.”
Once inside, I took a quick shower and went to bed.
“You sure did get some sun on you today, mister,” Marianne said that night.
“Harry and I were fishing at the lake.”
She pulled a plastic bottle of cream from a cabinet and squirted some in my
hand. “Rub that over your face and arms.”
“You had to work the 3-to-11 shift today?” I asked.
“Miss Fern asked me to come in. She called just as I got home from school.
I missed my nap. Daddy had the kids with him at the truck stop, so I never got
to see them. And now I’m about whipped.”

52
 As she was speaking, Mia Manila approached us: “Mrs. Stone would like
to borrow Owen for a little while,” Mia said. “She needs someone to wheel a
patient from the ER to the north wing.”
I followed Mia to the ER, rubbing the cream over my face and arms.
Rosetta Stone, a short, white-haired RN, was in the ER office. I started to
walk in there, but found her engaged in a heart-to-heart talk with a young
nurses’ aide, so I stepped back outside to wait.
“Wendy, you’ve got to be calm when you talk to people,” I heard Rosetta
say.
“But they wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Maybe so, but try to see things from their eyes. People can get upset when
a member of their family is hurt. Plus, these people are migrant workers from
Jamaica. Everything here is strange to them, which makes it even worse.
That’s why it’s important to stay calm, and explain to them what we’re doing
to help their loved one. You have to get them on your side.”
I guessed I might have been staring at those people right then--a man and
woman standing just outside the waiting room. And they had their eyes on me,
the nearest white uniform in sight, as if I might be able to provide them with
the answers they were looking for.
Embarrassed, I averted my gaze.
Wendy came out of the office and started toward the family, no doubt to try
communicating with them a second time.
“Owen, would you do me a favor?” Mrs. Stone said, following Wendy
outside. “Would you take Mr. Salerno up to ICU? He came here complaining
of a heart attack, but it seems all he had was a bad case of heartburn. He’s not
actually going into the unit, but Dr. Seagull wants to put him on a monitor for
one night, just as a precaution. I’m sure he’ll be discharged in the morning.
Have you heard of Salerno’s Italian Restaurant, down on south Brahman?”
“I think I might have seen it.”
“Well, Tony’s the owner, and they’ve been in business for years.”
Following Mrs. Stone into the patient treatment area, we passed a severely

53
burned young man, lying on a stretcher, who I assumed belonged to the worried
folks in the waiting room.
As far as Tony Salerno was concerned though, the only severe thing about
him was the expression on his face. He was sitting in a wheelchair, with his
wife standing nearby.
“You ate something that didn’t agree with you, sir?” I inquired, while
pushing him out of the ER.
“Oh, we had dinner at this restaurant after attending the wrestling matches
in Tampa,” Mrs. Salerno said, walking beside the wheelchair. “While we were
driving back here he started complaining of chest pains.”
“I told you we should have waited until we got home to eat,” Mr. Salerno
growled. “From now on, I eat only my own cooking. I don’t trust the way
people prepare food these days.”
“Maybe so, sweetheart. Still, I don’t think it helps that you get so worked
up at the wrestling matches like you do. I don’t think it’s good for you.”
“The referee wasn’t listening!” Salerno said. “Big Splash was pulling
Dusty Rhodes’ trunks! Everybody could see it. Everybody was yelling this.
But every time the ref looked to see, Splash took his hand away.”
“He just can’t see it as simply entertainment,” Mrs. Salerno lamented. “He
takes it all so seriously.”
“I’ve never liked cheaters,” Salerno said. “And I’ve got a good mind to
write a letter to Gordon Solie to let him know what I think.”
“Tony also watches Championship Wrestling on TV every week,” she
explained. “Gordon Solie is the announcer.”
“My dad and I have watched him for years,” I said.
“This has nothing to do with wrestling,” Salerno insisted. “It was the food
in that restaurant. Never again, I tell you.”
“I had the same thing on the menu you did, dear, and it didn’t bother me.”
Jetty Breakers, an intensive care nurse, came outside to greet us just as we
were arriving at the ICU door.
“Tony,” she said, with an exaggerated look of surprise on her face. “What

54
happened to you?”
“I guess nothing,” he muttered.
“Aren’t you lucky?” Mrs. Salerno said. “You’ve got Jetty here to take care
of you tonight.”
“I’ve got your bed all made up for you,” Jetty said. “You’re not going into
the unit, but we’re going to put you on a monitor, just to be sure.”
“And another thing,” Mr. Salerno said, looking up at me. “All these new
restaurants in town? They’re expensive, and yet I hear people are complaining
that they go home hungry. That’s something you’ll never hear about my
restaurant. No one ever goes home hungry.”
I recalled a scene from Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, in which the
two canine lovers were sharing a bowl of spaghetti in an Italian restaurant.
When they happened to suck in on the same string of spaghetti, their lips
inevitably met.
Leaving the Salernos with Jetty Breakers, I caught a glimpse of Tina down
the north-wing hall. Like Tinker Bell, she was there and gone, exiting a linen
room with a towel draped over her arm, disappearing into a patient’s room, her
black ponytail bobbing up and down like a bobber in the water.
At seven a. m., I got into my Chevette and there was Miss Gardenia driving
away in her red Mustang. She shouldn’t go that fast in the parking lot, but it
seemed she would do whatever she wanted to do.
Oh, to be like Sue Pecos, every morning happily strolling around Flagler
Park. Minnie told me that Sue and Billy Pecos had moved here from Texas,
many years ago. Billy had been a ranch hand and a singer in a western band.
After his death, she moved into a retirement home, Shuffleboard Manor, not
far from the park.
“Have you ever noticed the odd way she holds her hand?” I asked Minnie.
“Almost like she’s maybe holding his hand?”
Minnie said she’d never noticed this, so maybe it was only my imagination,
clouding my perception. Because I wanted to believe that, even divided by
death, Billy might still be there, walking beside her.

55
 Returning to the cottage, I decided I wanted to take my bike out for a spin,
but then I groaned, because the phone was ringing.
“Hey, I’ve got a question for you,” Harry said. “Sophie has a girlfriend who
would like to go out with you sometime. I was thinking maybe we could all
go out on a double date. Do you think you’d be interested?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Her name’s Tammy Papaya, and if you’re looking for hot, she’s not. She’s
as skinny as Popeye’s girlfriend, Olive Oyl. But Sophie says she likes to read
a lot, so she just might your type. What do you think?”
After hanging up, I wondered: Did she really say that she’d like to go out
with me? Or was this only Harry employing his powers of salesmanship,
putting words in her mouth?
But, hey, it’s only a double date we’re talking about here.
Hello, Olive. Do you like my type?
You do? Good. I like your type too.
Starting out on my bike, I waved to Captain Mac, who was walking toward
his shop with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“I know Taylor Island is an island because it’s surrounded by canals,” I
mentioned to him last week, “but where does the Taylor part come from?”
“You mean you haven’t heard of Zachery Taylor?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Did you know that Zach and his men camped out here one night while on
their way to fight Chief Osceola at the Battle of Okeechobee? Osceola
whipped Taylor’s butt, of course, but still it made Taylor a hero and helped get
him elected President. This is historical ground you’re standing on, or at least
that’s what Swampy Sales would have us believe. He’s the guy who built this
subdivision. He knew that folks go nuts over anything historical, so he built a
marker and put signs on the highway advertising it. He figured if he could get
folks to stop to see the marker, they might decide to stay and buy.”
“Where’s the marker?”
“Under a mango tree, between the ZT Stop and the highway. It’s

56
surrounded by weeds now, almost forgotten. Swampy quit keeping the area
trimmed once his lots were sold.”
Remembering this conversation now, I decided to bike over there.
The marker was a three-foot tall cement post with a bronze plaque on top,
visible above the weeds. Dismounting, I walked over and read the inscription:
Zachery Taylor and his troops are thought to have camped here, near Cypress
Lake, while on their way to the Battle of Okeechobee in the year 1837.
The mango tree, with its green, ovoid fruit, reminded me of the one Dad
planted at home. Its fruit was delicious, but when Mom started breaking out
in rashes, Dad cut it down and replaced it with an avocado tree.
Pedaling back to the cottage, I thought of that marker as a mean between
extremes—Zack and Red. Because Zack had been defeated by Osceola,
whereas Red had been defeated by Roseola, a rash that supposedly only
afflicted infants, but in this case a green odd ball, rash enough to fall for a
pretty rose.
Tom Finn was trimming his hedge with electric clippers. As I was slowing
to a halt, Tom lifted his Silver Springs cap off his head and wiped his brow
with his forearm.
“Foo,” he said, “I’m sweating already. I wanted to get this chore done, but
it don’t look like I’ll be out here for long. Looks like a storm coming up,
behind you there. You like riding that bike? We’ll all be doing that pretty soon.
Are you keeping up with the price of gas?”
“I know it keeps going up.”
“You bet your sweet booty it’s going up. And it ain’t them Arabs that’s
behind it either. It’s them goddamned big oil companies putting the squeeze
on us. They’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.”
“What do you think of the president’s conservation plan?”
“Listen, son. Whenever a politician says you need to sacrifice more, a little
red flag should go up in your head. Because the whole is always more than the
sum of its parts. In Washington, a lot of palms are being greased by Big Oil.
No oil in the ground? Don’t you believe it. What they’re doing is manipulating

57
supply and demand. They know that the less they pump, the more working
stiffs like you and me will have to pay. I’m telling you, boy, it’s a sin what
they’re getting away with.”
Finn’s words left me feeling a little depressed, but when I turned on the TV,
Don Ho was singing “tiny bubbles, in the wine, make me happy, make me feel
fine.” And, mysteriously, Ho brought me ho-ho-hope for the future.
After a good day’s sleep, before going to work, Joe Bass wrote down a few
bubbling lines into his journal, also feeling fine.
Entering the dining room that night, though, there was Tina Gardenia
holding court at a table filled with staff members, so I sat down at a nearby
table to listen.
“At the beach, Judy started talking to these two dudes from Rhode Island,”
she said, “and of course they invited us to meet them at some club later on.
Well, I didn’t want any part of that. I mean, yeah, Pokey and I had just broken
up and I was free, but uh-uh! We’d just ditched those other two losers and I
was in no mood for any more socializing with a couple of new ones. So just
as Judy was turning her head to ask if I thought it was cool that we meet these
guys later, I was up off that blanket and trotting my little ass off to take a dive
in the surf. And Judy got the hint. She came up with some excuse about why
we couldn’t meet them later.”
“I wish I’d been with you,” Mia Manila said. “I’d like to meet a man from
Rhode Island, or any island, if he was nice.”
I didn’t see Tina again until morning, when she and Vera Peach passed
through the south wing on their way to clock out. Didn’t Gertrude Stein say
that all life is repeating, and that repeating eventually leads to understanding?
It sure seemed that Tina passing me by without recognizing my existence had
been repeating itself for some time, so should I finally come to understand that
she didn’t give a hello for me?
I was about to head for the time clock myself, when Sandy Waverly walked
up to me:
“Owen, I just got a call from Miss Fern, and she’s wondering if you’d be

58
willing to work a double today. We’ve got an orderly and an aide not coming
in this morning. She says if you could just work until noon, that would be a
big help.”
“Yeah, I’ll stay awhile,” I said.
“Good,” she said.
She started back toward the lobby, but then stopped to speak to one of the
morning-shift nurses’ aides, a petite red-head name-tagged “Genie Lamprey.”
“Hello, there,” Genie said, walking up to me. “I hear you’re going to be
working with us today.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know the routine.”
“That’s what I’m getting ready to tell you. First thing we do is TPR’s--
temps, pulses, respirations, plus blood pressures. Come on, we’ll start down
that end of the hall and work our way up. When we’re done, we’ll let the
patients wash up for breakfast. When the food cart arrives, we pass out the
breakfast trays and help those who can’t feed themselves. Usually most
everyone can take care of themselves on our wing, so that’s no big deal. After
breakfast, we give bed-baths to anybody who’s not ambulatory, and we change
the sheets on the beds. A lot more work than you’re used to, huh?”
“That’s for sure,” I agreed, gazing toward the nurses’ station where Laura
Sanford standing. I’d seen Tina’s sister before, during change-of-shifts, and
had always been intrigued by her. She was taller than Tina, wasn’t as
attractive, but still looked pretty nice for someone whose father was Gino
Gardenia.
“Thanks for staying to help us,” Laura told me later, while following me
into a patient’s room.
“Sure,” I replied, setting a breakfast tray down on a portable table.
“What is this?” the male patient said, lifting the cover from a bowl. “Cream
of . . . mush?”
“The card on your tray says you’re on a soft diet, sir. Sorry.”
“If I’d known this was all I was getting, I wouldn’t have bothered to put my
choppers in this morning.”

59
 “Mr. Swisher,” Laura said, reaching past me and setting a small paper cup
on his tray. “Here are your morning meds, sir. Take them before you eat.”
“What’s in that thing?” Swisher inquired, nodding his head toward a small,
plastic container on his tray.
“That’s your gelatin desert,” Laura told him.
“Dessert?” Swisher said. “Packaged wind, is more like it.”
Laura glanced up at me and grinned in response to the man’s remark.
Later that morning she came into another room where me and Genie were
changing bed sheets. “How are you guys doing in here?” she asked.
“All the beds are done,” Genie said.
“Then would you two mind going to the north wing and taking Clifford
Sages to X ray? Genie, you know Mr. Sages, right?”
“Sure, I do. Come on, Owen, let’s go.”
“I’m starting to feel tired, but the morning sure is flying by,” I remarked,
glancing at my watch as we walked up the hall.
“Beats sitting on your butt all night, huh?” Genie said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, smiling at her bluntness.
While Genie was talking to a nurse at the north-wing nurses’ station, I
noticed Clifford Sages’ plastic Addressograph card on the counter. On the card
was the man’s age--101.
Upon entering Sages’ room, I thought he looked it too. He was thin and
frail. His eyes were shut tight, and set deep in their sockets. Two nurses helped
us transfer him onto a gurney, using a draw sheet. Sages gave no sign that he
knew what was happening to him.
“He may not let on, but old Cliff knows what’s going on,” Genie assured
me as we pushed him down the hall. “Don’t you, sweetheart?”
Two X-ray technicians, Peter Palatka and Nikki Kissimmee, were waiting
for us when we arrived in radiology.
“Hi, there, Mr. Sages,” blond-haired Nikki said, chomping on chewing
gum. “Lower the rail on the gurney, guys.”
We did so, and rolled the gurney up to the table. Just as we were about to

60
transfer him, Sages opened his eyes. “You want me over there?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, but we’ll--”
Suddenly Sages was up on all fours and clambering over onto the exam
table. While doing this, he cut one of his boney knees on the table’s edge.
Pulling an alcohol packet out of the pocket of her tech jacket, Nikki cleaned
the cut and covered it with a plastic bandage.
“Mr. Sages, you took us by surprise!” she said, laughing.
Leaving Peter alone with the patient, we retreated into the next room, where
the radiologist, Dr. Columbus, was sitting before a lighted screen, studying a
rib cage.
“Good morning,” he said, turning around in his chair to face us. He then
looked up at Nikki. “And so, young lady, how was your date last night.”
“Oh, it was alright,” she replied, chomping on her gum.
“What was wrong with this guy?” the doctor asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “We had a good time.”
“What did you guys do?”
“What are you, Dr. C? My father?” She looked at Genie and me, shaking
her head. “He always wants to know all the details of my dates…. For your
information, sir, we drove to Pelican Beach, had dinner at the Sea Dollar Deli,
and then he took me to the Disco Doubloon. It was fun.”
“You mean one place took dollars but the other only doubloons? Never
mind. Did you shake your booty?”
“You just like to tease me, don’t you? Yeah, I did. At least I tried to. I’m
not much of a dancer.”
“Okay, but now let me ask you this: If you ever meet a guy you really like,
will you marry him or will you just live together?”
“Dr. C. You know my parents. Do you think they’d let me just live with
some guy?”
“Isn’t that what kids are doing today? And as many boyfriends as you go
through, don’t tell me that at least one hasn’t suggested it.”
“Now let me think….” She looked up at the ceiling, which suggested she

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wasn’t going to answer this question.
“I wish I’d never got married,” Genie said. “At least not to Kevin Gables.
But when he promised me a house of our own, that’s all it took. Because when
I was growing up we always lived in travel trailers, so any kind of house to me
sounded like a palace. What a stupid reason to get married, huh?”
“You and Nat Thorne went together all through high school,” Nikki said.
“Everybody was surprised when you married Kevin.”
“Yeah, and the house Kevin promised me turned out to be a mobile home
in Taylor Island. Not a trailer, but also not the kind of house I had in mind.
But it was his drinking that did us in. And the man just couldn’t hold a job, so
I ended up covering the mortgage payments and everything else. When we
divorced, I got the house and custody of Timmy. That’s all I wanted.”
Leaning back in his chair, Dr. Columbus smiled. “I remember when my
wife and I got married,” he said. “This was back in Cuba, before Castro. After
we’d made our vows, the priest leaned forward and whispered, ‘Now you two
can do whatever you want!’ Hearing this, my wife and I broke out laughing.
After all the stiff formalities, it was a wonderful thing to say.”
“Here’s my patient,” Nikki said, peeking into a second X ray room, where
a woman was being wheel-chaired in. Before going in there, she pulled a stick
of Juicy Fruit gum out of her pocket and tossed it on the radiologist’s desk.
“Chew on that, Dr. C, instead of my personal life.”
“Why, thank you, Nicole,” he said, grinning.
“You grew up in Cuba?” Genie asked him. “I bet it gets hot down there.”
“I did, and we didn’t have any air conditioning either.”
“I couldn’t live without my air conditioning,” Genie said.
“I like the natural air best,” I remarked.
“When I was a kid,” the doctor said, “we used to play outside all day. I
mean, yeah, it was hot, but it was no big deal. That’s just the way it was.
People here though, they’re just too spoiled.”
“You guys can take Cliff back now,” Peter Palatka said, stepping into the
room.

62
 “Cliff?” Genie asked. “You sound like you know him”
“Yeah,” Peter said, smiling. “He’ll always be Cliff to me. I’ve known him
since I was a little guy.”
“I’ve heard he’s an old Florida cracker from way back,” Genie said. “Is
that true?”
“You bet he is. He was friends with my grandpa, and I’ve heard him tell
some tales. He’s been through hurricanes before hurricanes had names. When
you listened to him though, you had to be patient, because he talked the same
way he walked, which was real slow.”
Born around 1875, I calculated, as we rolled him toward the north wing.
After we’d transferred Sages back into his bed, I ventured a question: “Mr.
Sages, do you remember the Barefoot Mailman?”
“If you expect an answer from him, you might be in for a long wait,” Genie
said. “Come on. We’d better get back to our wing.”
“Okay,” I agreed, though I didn’t want to leave. Because if I waited long
enough, maybe Sages would have uttered an answer. And what good would
his answer be with no ears present to hear?
“Mind if I go on break first?” Genie asked.
“Go ahead,” I said, as Laura Sanford was motioning me to come to the
nurses’ station.
“Owen, would you do me a favor?” she asked. “Leo Sargasso’s been
discharged. His brother’s coming to take him home. But right now, he wants
to take a stroll up and down the hall. He uses a walker, but needs an escort.
He’ll also need to be wheel-chaired outdoors when his ride comes.”
When I stepped into Leo Sargasso’s room, he was already up and on the
move, using his aluminum walker; only he wasn’t headed toward the hall but
to the toilet.
“Mr. Sargasso, would you like to go for a walk?”
“Yah,” Sargasso said, glancing back. “But first I’ve got to go to the latrine,
okay?”
“Leo the Lion,” I whispered, smiling to bestow such a mighty name on a

63
man who looked as frail as Portia Geezer.
Yet though he was frail, he certainly wasn’t shy:
“How old are you?” he asked a patient in the hallway.
“Sixty-nine,” the man said.
“I’m eighty-four,” Leo told him.
“How old are you?” he asked another man.
“Seventy-six,” the man said.
“I’m eighty-four,” Leo said.
“How come you’re asking everyone their ages?” I inquired.
“Just to find out who has seniority around here,” Leo said, as a woman was
approaching. “How old are you?” he asked her.
“None of your business,” she said.
“I’m eighty-four,” he said.
When Leo’s brother arrived, I went to get a wheelchair. Returning, I found
the brother standing outside the lavatory door, his arms folded.
“He’s in the john,” the brother said. “I don’t know what it is, but whenever
I have to take him on a car trip he usually has to go more than once.”
“Okay, George,” Leo said from inside. “I’m done.”
George opened the door and helped Leo back into the room. “We’re going
to the wheelchair now, because I’m taking you home.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Leo said. “But I’ve got to go again … the other way this
time.”
“You’ve got to do number two? Okay. Let’s get you turned around.”
I was beginning to feel the weight of my fatigue, and sat down in the
wheelchair.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the brother said, “but it’s always the same
thing. First, he has to go number one, then he has to go number two, and I
guarantee he’ll have to do number one again as soon as I get his trousers up
and fly zipped.”
“That’s okay,” I said, yawning.
“But what can I say? He’s my brother and I love him. He was a doughboy

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in the First World War. Got gassed and everything. I would have gone with
him, but the army wouldn’t take me because I was too young. And, speaking
of gas, I hate to say this but I guess I’d better warn you. When I open that door,
you’re going to smell an awful odor, some of the worst you’ve ever whiffed.”
When Leo came out, I stood up.
“It’s coming your way,” George warned me, but I’d smelled worse. And
then George looked at me with wide eyes, surprised to find out Leo didn’t have
to go number one again after all.
After wheeling Leo out to his brother’s car, it was too late to go on break.
The food cart had arrived on the floor, so I helped Genie hand out lunch trays.
While I was doing this, Miss Fern came up to me, thanked me for staying, and
told me I could go home now if I wished.
“Are there any day-shift positions available, Miss Fern?”
“You’d like to come onto days? No, not right now. But people are coming
and going all the time, so I’ll keep you in mind.”
I was tired, but also hungry, so after clocking out I went into the kitchen
and bought a bowl of tomato soup. I’d never seen the dining room so crowded,
but found a seat across from Belle Glade.
“Did you switch to days?” she asked.
“No, I just worked a little extra this morning.”
“Here,” she said, picking up a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce. “I just had
that soup too, and believe you me, it needs a little spicing up.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not for me, thanks.”
“Your face is red,” she said, and I expected her to make some “tomato-face”
reference, but she didn’t.
“I went fishing the other day, but speaking of red, I’ve got a question for
you. Remember you were telling me you worked in that ketchup plant? What
kind of ketchup did you make, anyway?”
“What brands, you mean? We made whatever they told us to make.
Sometimes we’d do a mess of Heinz, sometimes Hunts, sometimes other kinds.
It was all the same ketchup, just different labels. That’s what I started out

65
doing, labeling bottles. Then I became a tomato peeler. After a while I got to
be the fastest peeler in the plant.”
“And that man you told me about, your boss. Is he still around?”
“Old man Croaker? Oh, no. He’s been pushing up daisies in Turpentine
Cemetery for near twenty years now. He was a scary old booger though--mean
as a snake.”
A man in a suit and tie set a mug of coffee on the table, and sat down beside
her.
“Hey, doc,” Belle greeted him. “How’re you doing today?”
“I’m a little tired, Belle,” the man said, showing a soft smile. “You know
Pahokee Joe, don’t you? He got so confused about his medications I couldn’t
help him over the phone, so I drove down to his place to help him sort things
out. It was pretty late by the time I got back home. Say, I hope you don’t mind
me squeezing in next to you like this? I feel lucky to have found a seat.”
“Squeeze in all you want, honey. Have you met Owen? Owen, this is Dr.
T. Ali Hassee. We just call him Dr. Tally.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Dr. Tally said, smiling and reaching across the table
to shake my hand.
“Why aren’t you eating?” Belle asked Tally.
“Oh, Belle, that is something I rarely do, eat during the day.”
“You mean you only eat at night?”
“That’s right. I have my breakfast in the morning, and dinner with my
family at night. It’s something I started out of respect for my father. We
Moslems observe Ramadan every year, which is a month in which we must
fast during the day. In Pakistan, my father used to keep up this practice all year
around. He thought it helped him to remain humble before God. Do you think
this is crazy?”
“No. If that’s your thing, do it.”
“Of course, right now I’m drinking coffee. So, as you can see, I am far from
perfect.”
Dr. Tally’s tone of voice seemed almost apologetic, as if he were afraid of

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being misunderstood, maybe because he was an indigene of elsewhere, trying
to get along in an alien land.
After lunch, I squinted as I passed outdoors. The sun was piercingly bright,
reflected off the white shell rock.
Two young women were getting out of a blue Pinto Runabout, and one of
them was Nikki Kissimmee. They must have gone out for lunch someplace.
“Hi,” Nikki said, smiling as she passed me. “That old guy sure surprised
us, didn’t he, hopping from the gurney onto the table?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He sure did.”
While cruising down Highway 43, I mused that this Nikki girl seemed as
noon bright as Tina seemed midnight dark. And yet, my applause meter might
crown either one Queen for a Day, or maybe even for a lifetime.
At Lakeland Church, a line of students was passing out of the school
building on their way to the playground. They were out for recess, and among
them was Sammy Miramar, a boy who most often played alone since there
were no other boys his age living in a neighborhood filled with retired folks.
Alone, out on the street, he would throw a ball high in the air and catch it in
his glove when it came down.
Recalling Annie singing “Rock of Ages,” that morning I attended church
with the Homesteads, I sang, “Mr. Sages, Cliff to me. Oh, what stories hide in
thee.”
I gassed up the Chevette at the ZT Stop, went inside and found Barry Cooter
standing at the cash register, reading a paperback novel—Looking for Mr.
Goodbar, by Judith Rosner: “It’s about this girl who takes all these men to
bed,” he explained, “but one of them ends up killing her.”
“Sounds wonderful,” I said.
“Say, are they still hiring at the hospital?”
“Why don’t you apply, and find out?”
He looked at me a second before speaking. “Maybe I should.”
Arriving at the cottage, I recalled Pastor Sandy’s final words on that
morning I’d attended that church service: “Faith is like sandpipers on the shore,

67
gliding back and forth with the rising and receding surf, between doubt and
certainty.”
Faith in God? Faith you might get hired? Faith I might land a girl?
“Oh, Mom,” I whispered, entering a cottage that was hotter than hot sauce.
“Sometimes I wish my wish-fish were still comic books.”
“If you’ve got an air conditioner, use it,” Marianne had scolded me. “When
you need to sleep during the day, why be miserable?”
Taking her advice, I switched on the air and shut all the windows.
Hearing the air conditioner’s hum, I passed into sleep and found myself
sitting cross-legged inside a teepee, listening to an old Indian man tell a story
from his youth: “She was a beautiful princess, a woman who all the braves of
our tribe wooed. Unfortunately, I was crippled, poor, and could not lavish
upon her the gifts they could. But one day I limped into the woods and picked
a small bouquet of flowers. Accepting my humble gift, she smelled their
fragrance, smiled, and to the surprise of everyone chose me to be her husband.”
Waking up, I realized this dream had been a recreation of something I’d
seen on a TV western, years ago. Life following art? Maybe so. Find someone
who values you within, not without? No doubt, but at that moment I only
wanted to fall back to sleep….
I was lying on my back, felt myself being pressed down into the cool, black
humus of the earth, the rich muck of central Florida’s farmland, over which
Jamaican migrants labored, harvesting winter vegetables or sugar cane.
I wondered why this humus, no, my sheets, was so cool, and then I
remembered I’d turned on the humming air conditioner. But it was also dark.
What time was it? Would I be late for work?
I reached over and switched on the lamp. No, it was only seven-thirty.
I switched on the TV and lay back down in bed, not really wanting to get
ready for work. And there she was, Nikki Kissimmee, in the movie, The Best
Years of Our Lives. Of course, it was really Virginia Mayo playing Dana
Andrews’ not-so-good wife, a girl who would never have appreciated a gift of
humble flowers. But was Nikki like this? What did I know about her, besides

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nothing?
Car headlights were illuminating my window curtains. I jumped out of bed,
switched off the TV and peeked outside. It was Harry’s wife, Christine, and
Sugar was with her too. What were they doing here? All I had on were my
Fruit-of-the-Looms, so I quickly slipped into a pair of cutoff jeans.
“Sugar and I were visiting my parents, so I thought I’d stop by and say
hello,” Chris said as they walked in. “Were you asleep? Did I wake you up?”
“I was just starting to get ready for work,” I said, sitting down in my dining
table chair and pointing for her to take a seat at my desk. “Hi, Shug. How are
you?”
“I got to go pee,” the girl said, dispensing with preliminaries.
I pointed toward the bathroom, but she was already headed that way.
“I won’t stay long,” Chris said, looking serious. “Can I just ask you a
question? Have you seen anything of Harry lately?”
“You know we went fishing—”
“I know you guys have been friends for a long time, but I’m sick of him
running around on me. I’ve always known about it, even accepted it when we
were younger. But we’re both twenty-seven now, and he’s got a daughter
who’s eventually going to start asking questions. How long do you think he’s
going to keep this up?”
“I … don’t know.”
“He was supposed to be showing a house in Taylor Island tonight. At least
that’s what he told me. I came over here, picked up my mother, and we drove
around looking for him. He’s got a lot of signs up in the neighborhood, but we
never saw him, so he was probably lying.”
“Your mom went with you?”
“I asked her to. My parents have never liked him. Now I guess I’m finally
wising up.”
“Harry told me you guys were having problems.”
“You lived with us for two weeks. You saw how we are. I was just hoping
you might know more than what he’s been telling me. Mom and Dad

69
suggested I stop in and ask you.”
I shrugged my shoulders, figuring it was best to say nothing.
“Come on, Shug. We need to get going!”
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” the girl sang, instead of responding to her
mother’s demand, “who’s the fairest of them all!”
“You are!” I answered, smiling.
Chris stood up, then snapped her finger.
“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Have you been hearing about this Spook Hill
guy? The guy who’s been signing up local men for construction work in
Seoul?”
“Where?”
“Seoul, in Korea. I guess there’s big money to be made over there. A lot
of men are signing up, and Mom was wondering if you might be one of them.
She’s afraid she might lose you as a tenant.”
“Why would I do that? I can barely hammer a nail.”
Coming out of the bathroom, Sugar stopped, leaned forward, raised one leg
behind her and spread her arms out wide.
“Who am I?” she asked me.
“A ballerina?”
“No!” she said. “Dorothy Hamill!”
“The ice skater? Oh, yeah.”
“Shug’s going to the Olympics one day,” Chris said. “She’s been practicing
her spins on the ice--her Hamill Camels. Only she’s on roller skates. She even
took some chalk and drew the five Olympic rings on our driveway. That’s her
skating rink.”
“Yeah,” I said, remembering Harry mentioning this.
“You remember our neighbor, Sonny Harder? His wife left him. What a
jerk he is. He signed up to go to Korea too.” She was eyeing my sea bag,
stuffed with laundry. “You know, Red, you’re more than welcome to use my
washer and dryer any time you want.”
“Thanks,” I said, standing up. “I’m off to the Sudsy Rush tomorrow

70
morning, right after work.”
“At Sunny-Side Up Shopping Center? I hate laundromats, especially the
ones around here. They’re so dirty, and some of the people you see in there….
Anyway, you’re welcome to come over any time, even if you don’t need to
wash. Harry seems to want to spend as little time at home as possible. You
and I are friends too, right?”
“Of course,” I agreed. “The day after tomorrow, I’m driving to West
Flamingo to check up on my parents’ property,” I added, wanting to make
myself unavailable for as long as possible. And I could have also added that
Marianne had invited me over to her house for dinner on Sunday, but I didn’t
want Chris to be drilling me with questions about her, who she was, and so on.
I was relieved when they were gone.
Me, show up at Hire Heights Homes with a sea-bag full of laundry, without
letting Harry know I was coming? Yeah, they might have an open marriage,
but no way, José!
“Owen,” Minnie said, after I’d clocked in that night. “One of our
paramedics is giving a refresher course on CPR in the north wing tonight, and
you’re in the first class. Miss Fern doesn’t want anyone to miss it, so you
might as well head up there now.”
The classroom was an unoccupied patient’s room. Tina and Cindy were
sitting on one of the beds, and on the other lay a dummy, lying face up--a
facsimile of a young adult male. No doubt we’d be using the dummy to
practice our life-saving techniques—heart massages and mouth-to-mouth
respirations.
I walked between the beds and stood next to Tina.
“Who’s giving the class?” Cindy asked her.
“I think it’s Cray Fisher,” Tina said.
“I sure wish we could practice on Cray instead of on that thing,” Cindy said,
nodding toward the dummy.
The two broke into a fit of giggling.
Grumpy doughboy, Ted Deland, then walked in with a frown on his face.

71
 “Move over,” he told Cindy, and plopped down on the bed.
“Nice tan,” I said, looking down into Tina’s face.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said, glancing up. “I couldn’t sleep worth a damn
today, so I hung out by our pool most of the afternoon.” She then looked up
into my face again. “You look like you got too much sun,” she said. “You’re
peeling.”
“What a big waste of time,” Ted grumbled, just before Cray Fisher walked
in. “I already know all this shit.”
“Okay, people,” Cray said. “I’m here to give you a quick course on cardio-
pulmonary resuscitation. This young man down here is Manny Kin. And no,
don’t think of him as a dummy. Think of him as your kin. Because if he were
your kin, how bad would you want to save his life? Think about it.”
I felt jealous of Cray’s good looks, but agreed with what he said. It
reminded me of what William Faulkner advised authors to do--write from the
heart, not from the glands. But still, during the class the nearness of Miss
Gardenia’s body awakened dizzy visions of peninsulas and aqua vulvas.
Her body was a mystery I would have loved to have known, but I certainly
didn’t want her seeing mine. After clocking out in the morning, I went into the
men’s room, changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then waited until I was
pretty sure all the night crew had cleared out of the hospital. Only then did I
walk out to the car, open the rear hatch, and stuff my uniform into my sea bag.
“What hairy legs!” someone cried out, while driving past.
I caught sight of Cindy Kelp’s silly grin in her rearview mirror, and
imagined that what she’d seen this morning would be ringing in Tina’s ear
tonight: “Guess what I saw this morning!”
Just another irritating grain of sand embedded in the oyster shell of my soul,
I thought, while driving to the Sunny Side Up Shopping Center. But, who
knows, if I kept secreting layer upon layer of allaying balm over these gritty
little grains, maybe one day they would turn into soft, lustrous, poetic pearls?
Or, at least turn the prosaic words in my daily journal into more poetic ones,
after layer upon layer of revisions.

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 At the Sudsy Rush, I started two loads of laundry going in front-loading
washers and sat down. I gazed at my wash going around and around, began to
feel drowsy, so stood up and walked outside to the breezeway. I bought a can
of Orange Crush from a vending machine outside Calypso Drugs.
While doing so, I saw a middle-aged man in white shirt and tie come out of
the drug store, holding a foam cup of coffee. The deacon from Marianne’s
church? Jules Spires? Yes. I watched him walk to Spires Fine Jewelry, where
he unlocked the door and let himself in.
“What a phony baloney,” I muttered, though Marianne had told me that
Spires was a man of deep faith. “Spires? Selling people overpriced jewelry,
that’s about all he aspires to.”
Sitting back down in the Sudsy Rush, I again observed my sudsy duds
swirling in the windows of the washers, mirrored by the curling wave on the
box of my Cheer Detergent. Suddenly, a wave of shame came over me. What
did I know about this man? Didn’t Augustine say that there is a depth so deep
in each of us that most don’t even know it exists? So, who was I to judge?
“We’re going to do it this year,” said a young man walking by carrying a
basket of laundry. “We’ve got Reggie Jackson, baby.”
“Huh?” I responded, awakened from my reverie. “Guess you must be a
Yankee fan.”
“Right on, baby.”
Why did this guy decide to say this to me? I wondered, but then realized I
was wearing my Baltimore Orioles t-shirt.
Yeah, I thought to reply, but we’ve got Earl Weaver, baby. And when
you’re an Oriole fan, you see a glowing aureole around that man.
“I guess you must be a Yankee, right?” I remembered Marianne saying.
Yeah, same word, different contexts.
The washers--Whirlpools--were now kicking into their spin cycles.
“Hey, Owen Cloud, is this your Cypress Lake News?”
A little woman with curlers in her hair was looking down at me.
“No, ma’am,” I responded, realizing she was talking about the newspaper

73
on the clothes-folding table beside me, “but I’ll clear it out of your way.”
Reaching across the table, I slid the paper toward me, down onto my lap.
I’d pinned my nametag on my O’s shirt when I’d changed out of my uniform,
and this was why she knew my name.
Grunting, the little woman lifted her clothes basket onto the table.
“Guess I’d better tell you my name since I know yours. It’s Mary Ann
Minnow. I got two loads here, and two more still in the drier.”
“You must wash for a lot of people.”
“No, only four. I just don’t wash as often since our washer broke down and
we don’t have the money to fix it. Lately it’s been the sufferings of Job for us.
My husband lost his job as a bug exterminator. He’s got cirrhosis, but still
drinks like a fish and lies like a rug about it. I wish he’d admit he’s an alcoholic
and seek help. But what the hell? He’s my husband till death do us part.”
“Are you related to a lady who was a famous dancer?”
“No, sweetheart,” she said, as she began folding, “but I had a mother-in-
law who used to tell everyone that. It used to irk me no end, but she said she
needed it for her self-esteem.”
“I saw a photo at Inner Space Hall. That was her?”
“Yeah, she told the owner and he immediately asked to take her picture.
She told white lies like that. Never hurt anybody. She just needed people to
see her as a big shot, which she wasn’t. When she died, the only thing she left
us was her funeral bill that we’re still paying on.”
“Must be hard.”
“My son services water softeners, keeping them filled with salt, but last
month he hurt his back and now he’s on workman’s comp. His wife Linda
works at a Roses’ Flower Shop, over there next to Spires Jewelry, but that
doesn’t pay much. And me, I clean houses…. Of course, my granddaughter,
we spoil her rotten. We’re always shelling out money on her, on things she
wants but doesn’t need. Isn’t that what life’s all about though? Somehow, we
get by. We pool our resources, cut a few corners. As long as I’ve got my four
loved ones with me, that’s all I care about.”

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 My four roses, I thought, thinking of Sam Homestead’s whiskey--Sam
working in pain for the benefit of his family.
After transferring my laundry into dryers, I sat down to take a look at the
Cypress City News. The front page was full of the usual stuff--commerce and
growth; but then, as radio newsman Paul Harvey liked to say, Page Two:
“Moses Soils Paints Nature.”
After reading the headline, I devoured the article, learning that Soils’ father,
the grandson of a slave, moved his family from Eatonville to Cypress City back
in the nineteen-twenties. Soils grew up loving god and nature. He especially
loved the cypress tree, which he thought sacred. In this regard, much as he
appreciated Alex Haley’s Roots, the television series that had aired earlier this
year, to him roots were only a part of reality. Roots represented our past, the
trunk our present, and the branches pointed to our future in eternity.
And then, again as Paul Harvey said, the Rest of the Story:
Soils, dipping his brush into his oils, saw himself dipping his brush into the
pigments of nature. He saw his landscapes as painted prayers, and exercises
in humility, reminding him of how humble his works were in comparison with
those of the creator. Humble or not though, his paintings were selling so fast
that he was having a hard time keeping enough on hand for display in his
studio.
Exhilarated, I stood up, letting the newspaper drop to the floor. What Soils
was doing with his palate’s oils, wasn’t I trying to do with my pen’s oil?
Glory be, I thought. Beyond the banes and pains of life I saw my sparkling
destiny. Enchanting chimes, echoing choral rhymes, filled my ears. I felt
certain that my life was unfolding as it should. My joy was so great that it
wanted to overflow into the real world. Looking around, the only practical
thing I could think to do was ask Mary Ann Minnow if I could help her fold
clothes.
“Sure, honey,” she said, as if it were no big deal. “Have at it.”
When we were finished, I carried her basket out to her car, setting it in the
trunk. Then we went back in and folded her second load. After I’d set the

75
second basket in her trunk, she offered me a dollar tip.
“Oh, no, ma’am. I was just working off energy.”
She smiled, and patted me on the arm. “God bless you, sweetheart.”
Why couldn’t all life’s moments be this blissful? I wondered, while walking
back into the Sudsy Rush. Why couldn’t time stop right now?
But no, it just had to keep rushing on. In the driers, my laundry was a-whirl,
but would my poetic pearls ever win me a girl?
Here I was in my twenties, supposedly the best years of my life, but was I
really any happier now than I was, say, at Camp Lejeune, where I had to go on
those long, force marches, camp out in the bush, slap mosquitoes, and chow
down on C rations?
“Yeah, I am,” I had to admit, picking the newspaper off the floor and sitting
down.
Wouldn’t it be cool if the Cypress City News hired me as a reporter? Maybe
they’d hire me part time, even if just to deliver papers? Then I might work my
way up, eventually becoming Sip Lake’s next Biscayne Spray, the Flamingo
Post columnist I’d admired so much since I was a kid.
Take the “May Police Report,” for example. What talent did it take to write
that? Just a long list of names and crimes. Like … “Owen Cloud, ticketed for
speeding in a school zone.” Yeah, right. Just a list of names and crimes, but
what? I imagined the whole town talking about this Owen Cloud guy—the
guy who’d put the lives of innocent children in danger.
I tossed the paper into a nearby trash bin, sat back down, then went back
and removed the paper again to see the date. The paper was almost a week
old, and yet no one I knew had as yet mentioned that they saw my name in the
paper. No one at the hospital had asked me how I could have done such a
thing; no one had given me any dirty looks.
Surely, there would be no Watergate Committee investigating any
obstructions of justice on my part. Yes, I had my secret life, but I had told the
truth and paid my fine.
I thought about this again the next day, while cruising down the Bee Line

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Highway to West Flamingo Beach. I mean, how many Sip Lakers even
scanned the monthly Police Report? My name was just one in a long list. Who
would even notice? And who would care anyway? People had their own
problems. I wasn’t the center of their universe, only of my own.
In fact, I thought, maybe what I should do was write a letter to “Our Readers
Opine,” thanking Officer Orlando for pulling me over and advising me to slow
down. Because wasn’t this what I thought society needed to do anyway?
“Slow down and appreciate life,” I said, as I stepped on the gas to pass
another slow-moving car on the Bee Line.
It irked me, though, that every time I accelerated, the car made that odd
rattling noise. I didn’t recall it doing this when I took it on a test drive.
I’d run into the young guy who’d sold me the car while walking toward the
Camelot Chevrolet showroom, with the words, “Sizzling Summer Savings,”
painted on the window:
“Can I help you?” the guy asked, as he was exiting the showroom.
“I’m going in to take a look at the new Chevettes.”
“I’ve got one for you right over there,” he said, pointing toward a car parked
near the used-car office. “It was a rental car. It’s got about ten thousand miles
on it, and I can let you have it for a lot cheaper than anything you’ll find in the
showroom. How about a test drive?”
Sitting in the salesman’s cubicle after my test drive (What, no roundtable?),
I waited while the young man went to the sales office to work out the financial
details. On the wall, I noticed two plaques: Mike Menhaden, Salesman of the
Year, 1975; Mike Menhaden, Salesman of the Year, 1976.
So, I mused, this year Sir Mike must be going for the Triple Crown.
When Menhaden returned though, he had a look of defeat on his face. He
could only offer me one hundred dollars for my trade-in, which wouldn’t be
enough to work out a deal.
“But what if I also put five hundred down?”
Upon hearing this, the salesman’s frown turned upside down.
Maybe it was because Menhaden had been blabbering away during the drive

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that I never noticed the rattling noise. He went on and on, telling me what a
chivalrously good deal it was, what a great value, and so on.
“As long as it gets me where I’m going,” I muttered, as I was arriving in
Historic Engine Town. There, I stopped at Miccosukee General Store for an
RC Cola and a bag of Wise Potato Chips.
Engine Town had been named in anticipation of Flagler’s railroad passing
through, but when Flagler decided to run his north-south line further east, along
the coast, Engine Town became known as “The Town That Didn’t Get the
Railroad,” and thus became historic.
About a mile south of town, I found myself behind a slow-moving truck,
overloaded with brush. I wanted to pass but, thanks to the brush, I couldn’t see
too much up ahead. I decided to pass anyway, but had to quickly return to
where I was to avoid colliding with an oncoming car. I also saw that the reason
the truck had been poking along was because it was in a long line of slow-
moving vehicles.
“Not very wise, little burrowing owl,” I said, aware of the bag of Wise
Potato Chips on my lap.
It chagrinned me that the people in the oncoming car were an older couple,
like my parents. I saw the look of panic in their faces. The realization that I
might have caused their deaths sent me into cardiac flutter, filled me with white
regret.
So much for wanting to slow life down.
The road widened to four lanes once I’d passed into Flamingo Beach
County. And soon I was passing the enormous Pratt & Milady Hair Craft Plant,
where millions of dollars in research was being done in pursuit of the perfect
coiffure. Would they eventually come up with something to tame my hideous
hair? I doubted it.
Once I’d reached Canal Boulevard though, my near collision and hideous
hair were forgotten. Now I was almost home.
Every place is a memory place for someone, and this was mine.
Madam Rose’s sign--with its big, red hand—still welcomed folks to come

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in and have their palms read and fortunes told. When I was ten, I invested my
50 cents allowance there, where the mysterious lady told me that my aura
looked good and “let’s see your hand. Oh, your love-line indicates you will
find happiness in love.” Of course, I could’ve cared less about this then. What
a waste of money! And now, I guessed only time would tell.
“You just wait,” I mimicked Don Dune’s words, though he’d only been
talking about sweet, juicy fruit from the orange tree.
Turning onto dusty Never Drive, I passed the Pines Bar. Dad still liked to
walk up there for a cool one now and then.
Occasionally, the county sent a Caterpillar grader here to scrape away the
potholes, but it was never long before the holes returned. Today, the road was
as it usually was, a sandy washboard where you’d be better off never driving,
unless you didn’t mind having your car’s nuts and bolts shaken loose.
The car left behind a familiar cloudy contrail, rising to meet the clouds. And
there it was, my families’ little house in the pines—a small, white, one-story,
concrete-block home with aluminum window awnings.
Parking in the carport, I got out and looked around. As far as I could tell,
everything looked okay. The lawn had been mowed, and there were no signs
of a break-in or vandalism.
All the jalousie windows were shut tight. Inside the house, it was hot and
stuffy. In the backyard, my parents’ grey cat, Twilight, was lounging in the
shade of the avocado tree. His food and water bowls had recently been filled,
so the neighbor boy was doing his job.
Twilight recognized me, but wasn’t making any fuss about it. At my
approach, he rolled over on his back, and purred while suffering to have his
belly rubbed.
Returning into the back porch, or “Florida room,” I picked up the conch
shell my family had brought back from Key West, years ago. Bringing the
shell close to my ear, I listened to the ocean’s alluring shush, reminding me of
that Labor Day hurricane which had killed so many in the Keys.
Don Herbert, television’s “Mr. Wizard,” once explained “that the sound of

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the ocean you hear is really only the everyday sounds around you which,
bouncing around inside the shell, become amplified into a single sound.”
But Don, everyday reality, bouncing around inside my imagination, can’t
this also amplify my grasp of this reality?
Standing on more mundane reality, the faded, yellow living room rug, I saw
myself sitting on the couch as Mom called out vocabulary words to me. And
there was Dad, walking in through the front door, carrying his black metal
lunch box, his khaki uniform showing traces of white--powdered salt from
evaporated sweat.
My imagined conversations with them were drowned out by the very real
roar of a jet airplane passing overhead, descending to land at Flamingo
International Airport.
Tonight, I would phone my parents and let them know I’d visited the house
and that everything was okay.
No reason to stay here any longer, but I couldn’t help but take a peek into
my bedroom, the sanctuary of my growing-up years. I went inside, sat down
on the edge of the bed, and gazed down at the terrazzo floor--small white stones
embedded in grey concrete and ground smooth.
Looking out the window, I remembered going to bed, frozen in fear, after
having watched King Kong on TV. Like Fay Wray, I saw Kong peering in at
me through the window. I went and shut the blinds. The next morning I
opened the blinds slightly, just to see if Kong might still be out there, but
thankfully he was not.
I went over to my book shelves and pulled out JoJo’s Joke Book. Flipping
through its pages, reading some of the jokes, it occurred to me that I might use
a few of them if I ever tried to transform my journal into a novel. Like, maybe
this one:
Bet you my name’s harder than yours.
Bet it’s not. My name’s Stone. What’s yours?
My name’s Harder.
“Because,” I said, returning the book to the shelf, “though my life may be

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no divine comedy, I don’t want it being a tragedy either. So why not sprinkle
in a few corny jokes?”
Stepping outside, I realized my ankles were itching. Looking down, I saw
them covered with fleas. I kicked off my sandals and doused my legs and feet
with the garden hose.
Twilight had no doubt brought them in. The cat hadn’t been inside the
house for a month, so the fleas had been multiplying, probably in the living-
room rug, with nothing to feed on until I showed up.
At the Boulevard Mini Store I bought a bottle of Yoo Hoo and brought it
outside to drink. This used to be my school bus stop. The asphalt parking lot
was shell-rock when Randy Raines’ dog was killed.
No one knew why the dog suddenly took off toward the highway, but he
was hit by a passing car and thrown back onto the parking lot.
“Puggy!” Randy cried, running toward the dog.
The car slowed down, the driver glanced back, then accelerated away.
Randy threw himself upon the dog. He lay there hugging him, sobbing.
The other kids formed a circle around the two, but no one knew what to do
or say. They just stood and looked on in silence.
One of the older boys though, Bobby Royal, pushed his way inside the
circle. He kneeled down over Randy and placed his hand on the younger boy’s
back.
“Randy,” he said, after a short while, “I think you need to take your dog
home.”
“Here comes the bus,” someone called out.
“Oh, Puggy,” Randy sobbed, his body shaking.
The other kids began to walk away, to where the school bus would pull to
a halt.
“Randy,” Bobby said. “To hell with school. You need to take your dog
home…. Come on. I’ll stay and help you carry him.”
Finishing my Yoo Hoo, I again saw the school bus slowing to a halt, with
its red flag--Stop--flipping outward.

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 I felt ashamed. I wished I’d been like Bobby Royal, instead of one of those
who just stood around in the circle, watching. Because Bobby knew what
needed to be done. He’d helped the boy carry his dog home.
Passing the Boulevard Drive-in, I remembered when me and a
neighborhood kid asked his father if we could walk to the drive-in that night to
see a scary movie.
“They have seats there?”
“Yeah, dad,” my buddy said. “They have benches. Other kids go on their
own.”
“What’s the name of this scary movie?”
“Found in the backseat nude.”
“Boys, I don’t think that’s a scary movie.”
From Canal Boulevard, I turned north onto Haversack Road, and soon
passed Gator Junior High, where I now experienced a pang of guilt,
remembering when I’d copied a wrong answer from a classmate’s test paper.
It was a test in which we’d had to identify the parts of the human ear.
“If you don’t know an answer,” Mr. Apopka said, while returning our
graded tests the next day, “please don’t copy from someone else’s paper.
Because a couple of you wrote down ‘Earie Canal’ instead of ‘semicircular
canals.’ There is no such thing as an Earie Canal, though if you drop the ‘a,’
there is one in New York State.”
Stopping for a red light at Flamingo Lakes Boulevard, I felt embarrassed,
as if this past incident had just happened. And all I could think to do was yell,
like Helen Hind had in Marianne’s church, that the ear is “to hear!”
I then broke into a song I’d been taught in elementary school: “From Albany
to Buff-a-low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge, cause we’re coming to a
town. And you’ll always know your neighbor, always know your pal, if you’ve
ever navigated on the Erie Canal.”
The little girl sitting in the car next to me was looking at me with curiosity,
and I was glad when the light turned green and I could accelerate out of there,
though being careful I wasn’t entering a school zone.

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 I recalled Mr. Pop explaining that the semicircular canals were like
gyroscopes, helping us to keep our balance. But if Emerson’s “Compensation”
essay was right, in this life every semicircular smile had to be balanced by a
semicircular frown--up and down, up and down.
Like last night: I’d been in relaxed spirits, heating up my La Choy chou
mein, sipping a Blue Ribbon, glad to be off for the weekend. But then—
breaker, breaker--Harry had to give me a rattling ring: “You still game to go
out on our double-date?”
“Yeah, but this Olive girl. Do you really think she’s my type?”
“No, not if you call her Olive. Because her name’s Tammy--Tammy
Papaya.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know that,” I said, though I had forgotten. “And what about
you? What kind of excuse are you going to make to Chris?”
“None at all, because I’m not living with Chris anymore. I’m living with
Sophia now. I’ll stay with her until I get a place of my own.” Harry then
exhaled a sigh. “At night, all cats is grey, Red. Women are all the same in the
sack.”
Back on the Bee Line, I passed through a wide prairie of ponds and pines.
I’d once viewed this territory from aloft, while flying home on leave from
Camp Lejuene. Looking down from that height right now, Tina Gardenia
would appear as no larger than a flea. Or, if I were a flea on her arm, standing
in a prairie of pores and hairs, her face would appear as no more than a wide,
rosy sky.
Two hours later I was back in southern Cypress County, on Highway 43,
which here ran parallel to Manmade Canal. It was somewhere around here
where that guy had been bitten by a gator, or would have if not saved by a
plastic jug.
In one of the Moo-Cow Dairy pastures, a herd of cows were slowly making
their way toward a pond--Brahmans seeking to sip at life’s sweet source?
Passing Homestead’s Truck Stop, I saw Sam walking toward a truck that
had just pulled in. He was walking with his elbows bent, swinging his fists up

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and down, in obvious discomfort. Marianne told me he needed a hip
replacement, but kept putting it off. He wasn’t seeking to sip from life’s sweet
source, but only to support his family.
That evening, after speaking to my parents on the phone, I received a phone
call from Marianne: “How was your trip home?” she asked. “Did your car run
okay?”
“Yeah, pretty good. It was a little strange though, without the old folks at
home.”
“Old Folks? Is that what you call your parents?”
“No--I don’t, but I guess Stephen Foster’s ‘Suwannee River’ slipped into
my mind.”
“Way down upon the Suwannee River, huh?”
“That’s right--far, far away.”
“Whatever you say, little brother. Just remember, you’re invited to dinner
tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there.”
“I’ll be fixing ham, sweet-taters, black-eyed peas, and corn bread. Daddy
doesn’t have to work tomorrow, thank you Jesus, so he’ll be here with us.
You’ll also get to meet Joey’s new girlfriend, Angela. And I hope my friend
Tina will be there too. She’s not sure she’ll be able to make it, but she says
she’ll try.”
After hanging up the phone, I gazed at my loaf of Wonder Bread on the
kitchen counter and whispered, “wonder dread.” Was Marianne playing
matchmaker? I felt myself being reeled in, and wanted desperately to make
some kind of zigzagging escape. I pictured us both sitting on the Homestead’s
couch, like two speckled perch thrown into the same clear plastic bag. What
would I say to her?
Like President Carter’s “Conservation Plan,” I needed to come up with
some kind of Conversation Plan through the congress of my mind. I could
bring up issues, like, “What do you think of gas prices?” Or, “I met your dad
while fishing, and he seems like a nice guy.” Or, “Did you happen to see Burt

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Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit? Don’t you think it might be his greatest
role?”
Not that I thought anything I said would really do me any good. Because
what could King Kong, with nostrils flaring, have ever said to win Fay Wray’s
heart? And what could Kinky Kong, with nostrils like black-eyed peas, say to
win Miss Gardenia’s?
I felt guilty, having thought of Marianne as a sort-of Miramar-lure, as
someone I only befriended hoping she might help me catch my wish-fish.
In bed that night, I dreamed a grey panther leaped through the window and
sprang upon me. She sank her teeth—grr!—and claws into my flesh. I was
entangled in a wrestling match, though it never occurred to me in the slightest
to file a complaint with Gordon Solie.
The next morning, though, I sang a song that my Uncle Fred used to sing
when I was a kid: “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover, that I overlooked
before….” Because I wondered if I might be overlooking a good friend for
some phantom rose.
Pedaling up Ocean Lane, I was on the lookout for a red Mustang parked in
the Homestead’s yard, but saw none. I set my bike up on its kickstand, next to
the plastic pink flamingo. The flamingo had come to symbolize the
Homestead’s place, which had become a sort-of second home, mirroring my
first in West Flamingo Beach.
Joey came around the house carrying a string-trimmer, his bare legs covered
with specs of grass: “Tell Marianne I’m almost done out here, will you? She’ll
have a hissy-fit if I’m not ready in time for dinner.”
“Okay,” I replied, before entering a house that sounded more like a
classroom:
“What letter follows G?” I heard a little girl’s voice ask. “Does anyone
know…? H? That’s right, and can anyone give me a word that starts with H?”
Stopping at Annie’s bedroom door, I saw her standing near a blackboard,
holding a piece of chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other.
“Stacy? Yes, that’s right. The word, ‘how,’ begins with H, as in ‘How now

85
brown cow.’” Her face then grew stern. “Mathew, Chuck. No talking! Pay
attention, please.”
“You have to get after your students sometimes?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, remaining in character, “especially those two in back.”
“Hey,” someone behind me said. It was Marianne, who smiled and gave
me a hug. “Go sit with Daddy awhile. Dinner’s almost ready.”
“Joey said he’d be right in.”
“He’d better be,” she said.
Sam was watching TV, his cane leaning against his chair.
“Have you ever seen this movie?” Sam asked his daughter as she passed
through the room. “It’s called Marty.”
“It’s got Ernest Borgnine in it, right?”
“Yeah, and I’ve been feeling sorry for that old boy,” Sam said, nodding to
me as I sat down on the couch. “His mama wants him to get married in the
worst way. She’s got this gal she wants him to meet who she says is a real
tomato. And then there’s this other gal he likes, but who his buddies say is a
dog.”
“Hey, Mom,” Sammy said, rushing in from outdoors. “When do we eat?”
“How come you’re still in your church clothes?” she responded. “You go
change them, right now.”
“I’m in the shower,” Joey declared, looking in on them from the hallway.
“I think I hear someone pulling into the yard.”
“Hurry up,” Marianne said, “because we’re about ready to sit down.”
“Calm down, Freckled Belle,” Joey retorted, smiling and winking at me.
“I’ll be out in a jiff.”
Reviewing my Conversation Plan in my mind, I received a reprieve when
it wasn’t Tina who came in but Joey’s new girlfriend.
“Angie, would you do me a favor?” Marianne asked, after introducing me.
“Clear all those books and papers off the dining-room table. Set all that stuff
on the living-room sofa and I’ll hug your neck. Joey’s in the shower. He
should be out by the time we get the table set.”

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 When everyone was seated at the table, Marianne said grace.
“No broccoli for me, please.” Sammy said, when she was done.
“We’re not having broccoli today, sweetheart,” Marianne said.
“Now don’t be shy, Angelfish,” Joey said. “You dig right in.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Angela replied, giving him a cross look.
“Why not, sweetie?” Joey responded. “It’s cute.” Then he looked at
Marianne. “Say, sis, I thought you said one of your friends was coming for
dinner?”
“I did, but Tina called me this morning and said she couldn’t make it….
Daddy, are you sure you got enough ham on your plate?”
“I’m fine, babe. Thanks.”
“Sorry you missed the end of your movie. I’ve seen it before. It’s a good
one.”
“That’s alright,” he said. “Did Marty finally take up with that old gal he
liked?”
“He did, Daddy. It has a nice ending.” She then looked at me. “You sure
you got enough, Owen?”
“M-hmm,” I mumbled, my mouth full of ham.
“Don’t mind my sister, Owen,” Joey said. “She frets about everybody….
Daddy, remember last year, when she was having her tubes tied? We were all
in her room as she was lying in the bed, waiting to go into the OR, and she just
kept going on and on about what we needed to be doing while she was in the
hospital: Daddy, take your medicine. Joey, don’t forget the kids need help with
their homework. Don’t forget to feed Pups. She just went on and on until her
anesthesia finally kicked in.”
Marianne and Angela gave Joey looks of disgust.
“That’s a good thing,” Angela said. “She was taking care of ya’ll.”
“Here we’re eating,” Marianne huffed, “and you’re talking about when I
got my tubes tied.”
“Marianne’s just like her mother,” Sam remarked. “Anne Marie was that
way too. When she had that cancer, the sicker she got the more she thought

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about us.”
Joey nodded, then looked at me. “Hey, do you play cards?”
“No, not too much.”
“Because we like to play hearts after dinner on Sundays. It’s an easy game.
Just get rid of all your hearts unless you think you can collect them all. Because
you can win either way. But, whatever you do, don’t get stuck with the Queen
of Spades.”
“Sounds fun,” I said, noticing old speckled Pups asleep under Marianne’s
chair. “I guess he must be your dog, huh?”
“He is,” she said. “He knows I love him to death.”
After dinner and cards, Marianne came outside and we talked a few minutes
before I took off on my bike.
“I love you,” she said, as I was leaving but, then again, she said that to
everybody.
Recalling Christine’s shades, I wished I’d really had some magic glasses to
see reality from a woman’s point of view. I liked Marianne for a friend, but
that was all. I wished Tina was my friend, but felt both relieved and
disappointed that she’d never showed up.
Having to go back to work tonight, I took a shower and lay down for a nap.
I had trouble sleeping though, debated turning the air conditioner back on, but
didn’t feel all that warm. When twilight passed into darkness, I became aware
of the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine wafting in through the windows.
Finally, I got up, shut the windows, and switched on the air conditioner.
At last I drifted off, but awakened into a dream: I was lying in my bed at
Never Drive. It was dark, the awnings were shut against the windows, but in
the cracks, I could see light, so knew morning had arrived.
I got up, flipped on the light switch, but remained in darkness.
Mom and Dad were sitting in the living room. There was a lit candle on the
coffee table. It seemed calm outdoors.
“We must be in the eye,” Dad said, standing up from his chair. He went to
the boarded front door and opened it.

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 Peeking outside, we found our little home to be sitting in the middle of a
wide, shallow lake, with branches, palm fronds, and debris strewn everywhere.
And in the distance, a grey wall of cloud was rushing by, freight-train fast.

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 July

Red-and-white bobber hopes swirling upward in blue water? No, only red,
white and blue stripes swirling to a stop at the top of the barber pole.
“Come see me at the Coupe de Ville,” Jackson Ville told me. “I’ll do your
hair up right, and that’s a promise.”
Sitting in my car across the street, I waited for the rain to let up. I was about
to grab my umbrella when I winced, remembering last night. I’d run from the
car to the hospital entrance in a pouring rain, passing another car with someone
sitting inside. Arriving at the entrance I glanced back to see Dr. Tally holding
his umbrella over Rosetta Stone. He’d done what I should have done, escorted
her to the building, what Bobby Royal had done when he’d helped Randy carry
his dog home.
Right now, though, the rain had subsided. No need for the umbrella.
“Howdy dude,” the portly, white-bearded barber greeted me. “Jay Ville is
my name. Welcome to the Cadillac of barbershops. I’m almost done with
gramps here, but his grandsons are still waiting, so you got two more in front
of you. Sorry my brother’s out sick this morning, but I guess old Jack has a

90
touch of the flu--the whiskey flu, if you know what I mean.”
I sat down near two bubblegum-chewing boys, each with a Playboy
magazine open on their laps. There was a stack of Playboys on the table
between their seats, so I grabbed one too.
“Jay,” the man in the barber’s chair said. “Will we be seeing you in the
parade on the Fourth?”
“You bet you will,” the barber replied. “I’ll be sitting in that Shriner bus
with my fez on, waving to y’all.”
I remembered Marianne telling me her father would also be on that bus.
I then espied a plastic bottle, one of many lined up along the base of the
wall-length mirror. On the bottle were the initials, PM, which I guessed stood
for Pratt & Milady, and wondered if their hair research had at last come up
with an elixir that might turn my Harpo Marx frizz into something
manageable?
“Did you hear about Oscar?” gramps asked.
“Lossing?” Jay said. “Yeah, on the radio this morning. Not much left of
him, I guess, once that train hit him.”
I listened as the two spoke of their mutual acquaintance, Oscar Lossing,
who’d failed to stop at a railroad crossing.
“I sure feel sorry for his wife,” gramps said. “And his little boy’s so young.
He’ll never remember his daddy.”
Marianne had said something similar last week, when we were sitting on
her living room couch sipping iced tea. “The kids don’t remember their
daddy…. If he was still alive, I doubt we’d still be together. Merlin was just
too hard to live with….”
Out of nowhere, Sammy suddenly appeared. He grabbed hold of my arm
and cried, “You be my daddy! I want you to be my daddy!”
The boy ran away before Marianne could scold him for his outburst.
“Don’t let that upset you,” she said, looking at me, concern showing on her
face. “I’m sure he hears the other boys in school talking about their fathers,
and he probably feels left out. But he knows his daddy’s in heaven, and he’s

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got his grandpa Sam. You’re just a very nice man who’s become a friend of
ours.”
I said nothing, surprised over what the boy had said.
“And you sure don’t need a chunky chicken like me who has two kids,” she
went on. “You need to find someone who will give you your own kids.”
She invited me to go to the Fourth of July parade with them; but I didn’t
promise, because I had to work both the night before and after, and if I could
sleep, I’d rather sleep.
Since then, though, I thought maybe I would go. Because since that
conversation with Marianne, Miss Fern had told me that Monday, the Fourth,
would be my last on the night shift, and that on Thursday morning I would start
days. So maybe I would go just to celebrate being able to sleep at night like a
normal person.
In my Playboy, I found an article that looked interesting: “What do Women
Really Want?” And I began reading about The Hite Report, a book which
recorded what women were looking for, sexually, from a man.
After a couple of paragraphs though, I grew sleepy and the sentences
became mere stripes running down the page. I flipped to the pages containing
pictures of Miss April, who was very beautiful and I heard Three Dog Night
singing, “I’ve got pieces of April, I keep them in my memory bouquet. I’ve got
pieces of April, it’s a morning in May….”
“Hey, sleepyhead,” someone said. “You alright?”
I glanced up to find the bearded barber grinning down at me.
“Sorry,” I said, realizing I’d let the magazine drop to the floor. “I’m a little
tired. I work the night shift at the hospital.”
“I figured something like that, seeing your white uniform.”
I picked up the magazine and set it back on the table.
When Jay spun the barber chair around, his customer viewed himself in the
wall mirror and smiled: “Just how I like it. High and tight. Now which one of
you boys wants to be next?”
“Me, Grandpa,” the older of the two said, standing up from his chair.

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 Removing the apron which had been covering the old man, Jay shook the
hair onto the floor while grandpa and boy traded chairs.
“Must be some good reading in here,” grandpa said, picking up the
magazine the boy had been looking at. “I never seen these boys so quiet.”
“Look at that,” Jay said, gazing out the window after covering the boy with
the apron. “It’s done raining, and already the sun’s about burned the moisture
off the road. Looks like it’s going to be a real scorcher today.”
Drowsy again, I imagined myself evaporating into the mist.
Last night, in ICU, I’d finished changing the dressing of Ross Mangrove’s
Penrose Drain--a soft tube which carried away excess fluid from his wound.
“How are you, Mr. Mangrove?” I’d asked. “You feeling okay?”
Mangrove looked up at me as if the answer were obvious. “How do you
think you’d feel after a complete hysterectomy?” he said. “Don’t you know
they totally cleaned me out down there? I wouldn’t have gone along with it,
but that’s what Dr. Seagull said needed to be done, and he’s the doctor, not
me.”
Was this guy kidding or serious? I asked Dr. Seagull about this when I met
him in the dining room later that night:
“Well,” Seagull sighed, smiling, “being in a strange place, like a hospital,
can bring on instances of delirium, but his medications probably also had
something to do with it…. It reminds me of something I learned in the Talmud
when I was a boy: whenever we think we’re coming to see things as they are,
we’re really coming to see things as we are. For a short while at least, I guess
he saw himself as a woman. But who knows why?”
Sitting in the sand, letting the surf wash over me, I felt a powerful undertow
wanting to pull me out into the ocean….
“Keep slouching like that, doc, and you’ll be on the floor,” Jay said, waking
me to the realization the old man and boys had gone. “Hop in the chair.”
“Sorry,” I said, sitting up and then standing up.
“I appreciate you waiting, because I need all the business I can get at this
time of year. You know, with all the snowbirds gone north. You sure have a

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wiry head of hair, don’t you? You want it cut any special way?”
“Any improvement will be appreciated.”
“Improvement? If less hair’s an improvement, I can give you that. Did you
ever have any long, hippy hair? I’ve been noticing a lot of young folks are
going back to the shorter cuts.”
“I did, but my hair only gets even frizzier.”
“I see you got a mustache started. Not enough to trim though, so I’ll leave
it alone.”
“That bottle labelled PM. Is it any good?”
“PM? Oh, that’s Pate Mate. It’s supposed to give your hair more body,
whatever that means. I never found much use for it. They sent me a free
sample, hoping I’d buy more. It’s just sweet-smelling oil, as far as I can see.
You want me to squirt a little on your hair?”
“No, I guess not.”
“What do you do at the hospital, anyway?”
“I’m an orderly. I met your brother when he was a patient there.”
“Boy howdy, do I wish I could get old Jack to cut down on his drinking. I
was in the hospital myself last year, in Palmetto Beach. They put in a
pacemaker to get my old ticker to ticking the way it’s supposed to. So far, so
good.”
Listening, I tensed up. Over the phone last week, Mom told me that Dad’s
vision was growing worse, yet still he insisted on driving. I imagined myself
facing Dad now, and that I was scolding him: Dad, you’ve got to quit driving!
“Quit shaking your head!” the barber yelled. “Do you want me to cut your
ear off, like what’s his name? The guy who painted them sunflowers?”
“Van Gogh?”
“One good thing about all that kinky hair is that you can hardly see that
little bald spot starting. It’s right at your hair whorl, at the back of your scalp.
It would be a lot more noticeable if you didn’t have the frizzys.”
Just what I needed, another hole in the little vanity I had left.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Santa Claus?” I asked, shifting

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the subject onto him.
“Look?” Jay responded. “Son, I am Santa Claus. I play Santa every year
at the Shrine Club. My wife is Mrs. Santa, and Jack is my helper elf. And, oh,
do we have fun handing out presents to the kids. I just love seeing those eyes
light up.”
As Jay worked around my head using his buzzing electric trimmer, in my
drowsy state I imagined myself blending into the Buzz of Being.
“There she be,” Jay said, as he spun me around in the chair so that I could
look at myself in the mirror, “but if you think less hair’s an improvement, I can
shave it all off--make you look like Yul Brynner in The King and I.”
“No, thanks,” I said, not ready to be crowned King of Siam and…etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera.
While driving home, I asked aloud, “Where does the Buzz of Being stop?”
And then I replied, “Why, at the Buzz Stop, of course.”
JoJo’s Joke Book?
Maybe I’d just made it up, but Repeat’s wit, inside me, failed to make Pete
laugh.
At the cottage, I held my hand mirror up to the bathroom mirror. My
reflection’s reflection was just as Jay had told me: an eye was growing in the
whorl of my hair storm.
“Not ugly,” I whispered, “only homely.”
Entering the hospital dining room that night, Mia Manila looked up from
where she was sitting and said, “Owen, did you hear the news? A big
corporation just bought our hospital.”
“Yeah,” Minnie said. “As of today, we are part of Corporation Canaveral.
They’ve promised to build us a new hospital, all at their expense.”
“Blasting Off into the Future,” Mia declared, as I sat down at their table.
“That’s their motto.”
“The deal’s been in the works for months,” Ted Deland said, as if it were
no big news.
“The county commissioners voted to approve the sale this afternoon,”

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Minnie said.
“I wouldn’t trust any for-profit outfit as far as I can spit,” Ted muttered,
shaking his head.
“Did you see they’re going to name the new hospital after Doc Augie?”
someone said. “I was so glad to hear that. I can remember when he was the
only physician in the county, and unlike these bozos we got today, he made
house calls.”
“Where are they going to build the new hospital?” I inquired.
“Right over there,” Minnie said, pointing to the dining-room windows
where nothing could be seen now but darkness. “On that vacant land. And
once the new hospital is built, they’ll tear down this building and use it for
parking.”
“New building, but the same old people running it,” Ted grumbled, as Dr.
Ah came into the room. “I’m just glad I’m getting out of this sorry town.”
“Where’re you going?” someone asked.
“To Seoul, South Korea.”
“Someone told me about that,” I said.
“You ever work construction before?” Ted asked me. “They’re paying big
bucks to go over there.”
Listening, Dr. Ah shook his head and frowned. “This makes no sense to
me,” he said. “It makes no sense at all.”
“Don’t believe me, doc?” Ted replied. “Talk to Mr. Hill. He’s the guy
who’s been signing people up. If you want to go, he’ll probably sign you up
too.”
Ah’s face broke into a grin. “No, not me, young man. And I would advise
you to heed the words I once read in a fortune cookie.”
“Uh, oh,” Ted groaned. “Here comes some Chinese wisdom.”
“No, not Chinese. Fortune cookies are as American as spaghetti and
meatballs.”
“Okay, whatever. What did it say?”
“He who sits on the needle of success will rise very quickly.”

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 “Aw,” Ted responded, as others around him laughed. “Don’t give me that
crap.”
“Dr. Ah is only trying to warn you,” Mia said, her expression serious. “He
thinks there might be something fishy going on here.”
“That’s right, Theodore,” Minnie agreed. “What did they say in the Wizard
of Oz? There’s no place like home, Dorothy? You just might be better off
staying right here, emptying bed pans.”
Sitting in the linen room later, I found a two-day-old copy of the Cypress
City News and read an article about the death of Oscar Lossing. Leaving Cow
Plop Lounge, where he was a regular patron, at about midnight he came to the
railroad where it crosses Highway 43. Lights were flashing and bells ringing.
The engineer of the freight-train reported that the man’s car started across but
stopped right on the middle of the track.
“So he did stop, but he stopped on the track,” I whispered, wondering why.
“What?” someone said, causing me to glance up.
Nikki Kissimmee was standing in the doorway. Her eyes were full of sleep,
and her blond hair in disarray.
“Sorry, I was just reading about that Oscar Lossing guy.”
“Oh, yeah. He was a truck driver on a long haul, got too tired and killed a
woman and child on I-95. That was last year, but he never got over it. Could
you help me in X ray? I need to get Pops up on the table so I can get a picture
of his knee.”
“Pops?” I said, starting down the hall with her.
“Oh,” she said, grinning. “Pops Manatee’s an old friend of the family. He
works at Moo-Cow Ranch, south of town. A cow kicked him just below the
knee. We get a lot of cow kicks around here.”
“You look sleepy,” I said.
“When the ER called, I was in bed, zonked out. I would have fallen back
to sleep if Daddy hadn’t got me up.”
Together, we lifted the patient from a wheelchair onto the X-ray table.
“I been kicked many a time over the years,” Manatee said. “Usually the

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pain lets up after a while, but not this time. It was hurting when I went to bed,
but when I couldn’t sleep I finally told my wife I needed to get it checked out.”
“You should have come in right away,” Nikki said, while gently positioning
his leg. “Say, is Adam Seahorse still working at your ranch?”
“No,” he grunted in pain. “He’s over at Cream Acres Dairy now. He
claimed he was promised a raise, but never got it. That’s not how we operate
at Moo-Cow, but he decided to quit. The boy’s a little on the rebellious side,
but he’s a good worker. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
When she was done taking pictures, I helped her get Manatee back into the
wheelchair.
“Thanks, Owen,” she said. “You’re a good helper.”
She seemed more appreciative than Tina, more mature, and I wondered if
her radiological eye could see through my homely peel of skin, to some beauty
in my heart within?
I saw her again in the dining room. She’d just pulled a bottle of Royal
Crown Cola out of the vending machine.
“One for the road,” she said, “to keep me awake during my drive home. It’s
the toughest part of this job, being on call. I’d hate to work on your shift.”
“Yeah but, guess what? On Thursday I start days.”
Nodding her head, she gave me a knowing look: “You know, that makes
sense, “because both our day orderlies are quitting.”
“That’s what Miss Fern told me.”
“Cool,” she said, grabbing my forearm with her free hand. “I’ll be seeing
you on the day shift then.”
“Right. So, how long is your drive home?”
“About ten miles west on 17. I live in Chigger Town. It’s one of those
towns you can drive through without knowing you’re in a town. All you see
is a lot of pine trees.”
“Well,” I said, wanting to keep her near, but knowing I couldn’t. “Happy
trails.”
“Bye,” she said, on her way out the door.

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 Alone in the dining room, I gazed over toward Moses Soils’ tropical scene-
-incomplete, like me.
“Owen,” Minnie said, when I returned to the floor. “Would you go into
Chester Pusser’s room and get him to cough and deep breathe? He’s post-op,
and we don’t want him coming down with pneumonia.”
I found Pusser fast asleep, snoring, really cutting the zebras.
“Mr. Pusser. Sorry to wake you, but I need you to sit up, take a few deep
breaths and cough. We don’t want your chest cavity getting infected.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Pusser said, opening his eyes. “The nurse told me I needed
to be doing that, but I forgot. I’ve always been my worst enemy that way.
Yeah, I’ll do that, but when I’m done would you do me a favor? Would you
help me onto that portable potty?”
“Of course, I will.”
After Pusser had done his coughing and deep breathing, I helped him over
to the potty. While doing so, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back.
“I’ll step outside the door,” I said. “Tell me when you’re done.”
I waited in the hallway, both hands behind my back, massaging my lumbar
area until I heard Pusser say, “Bingo!”
“Mr. Pusser,” I called into the room. “Does that mean you’re done?”
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I forgot you were there…. Yeah, and I hate like hell
to ask you this, but I’ll need you to wipe me.”
I was reminded of how much Mom loved to play bingo at Holy Name
Church. It didn’t matter if she won or not. She enjoyed socializing with her
friends, and always returned home in bright spirits.
Before leaving the hospital that morning, I went into the men’s room and
sat on the toilet. My sore spine reminded me of my own mortality, and I
imagined old man Cloud, fifty years from now, embarrassed to have to ask the
orderly that he needed to be wiped.
While I was washing my hands at the sink, a young janitor, Felix Del Sol,
walked in and began studying himself in the mirror.
“Man, do you think I’m getting fat? They gave us these new blue uniforms.

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I asked for extra-large, but I think they make me look chubby. What do you
think?”
“Looks okay to me. Does it feel tight?”
“No, it feels okay, but looking in the mirror….”
“Well, right now I see a double Felix, you and your reflection, and both of
you look fine to me.”
“Double Felix, huh?” His face broke into a grin. “You mean, as in DNA?
Oh, well. Maybe it’s just me. But what’s wrong with you, man? I saw you
grimace.”
“Just pulled my back a little.”
Homeward bound, cruising slowly up Beach Lane, I waved and smiled at
Portia Geezer, out on her morning stroll. I found that my slowness gave her
plenty of time to respond; she waved back, and flashed me a gritty-toothed
grin.
“She can walk, hear, see, chew,” I sang, “and Portia, I love you!”
Captain Mac though, he was cussing up a storm, yanking on the cord of one
of his outboards which refused to turn over while another man, probably one
of his customers, looked on. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, Mac’s
grandkids, visiting from Merritt Island, were also witness to his frustration.
I took a couple of aspirins and went to bed, thinking of my spine. I dreamed
my spine was in the form of a double-helix which slowly came apart and
replicated itself. And what was this about? A sore Owen replicating himself
into a pain-free Joe, thanks to his allaying persona?
I woke up in the early afternoon. My back felt pretty good. It occurred to
me that the lawn was about due for its weekly mowing, so I dressed and drove
to the Dune’s place. No gas in the can, so I went to the ZT Stop, filled it, and
then back to the cottage.
I noticed the outboard Mac had been having trouble with was no longer in
the water-filled drum. Either he had finally got the thing running and his
customer taken it home, or he’d taken it back into his shop for more work.
Mac’s grandkids were playing catch. As I was filling the mower with gas,

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their softball bounded onto my side of the fence. I picked it up and tossed it
back.
“Thanks,” the girl said, catching it in her glove, which gave me time to read
the printing on her t-shirt: Merritt Island Bargers.
“Do you guys really barge in on people?” I joked.
“No,” she huffed, though with a smile. “That’s the name of my softball
team. Haven’t you heard of the Merritt Island Barge Canal? It’s famous.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, though not really sure if I had or not.
And a few minutes later, I didn’t care, having been thrown into a trance by
the Lawn Boy’s steady, vibrating roar. As I pushed the mower around the yard
in ever-smaller circles, rosy thoughts filled my mind and time disappeared.
And when I was finished, and shut off the motor, the silence which followed
shocked me like a clap of thunder.
“You okay?” someone asked.
It was Mac’s granddaughter again. She was sipping on a soda now, and I
guess had been watching me work.
“Yeah, glad to be done.” I lifted the mower into the back of the car. “Good
luck to your Badgers,” I said, getting in behind the wheel.
“Bargers!” she yelled, laughing.
“Sorry,” I said, remembering that was Harry’s Wisconsin team.
Returning the Lawn Boy into the Dune’s shed, I noted the abandoned
honeycomb under the roof’s edge, as I always had, and guessed the bees
weren’t coming home, or maybe they’d found a new home.
After closing the shed door, I turned around and found myself looking down
into the grim face of Don Dune:
“Have you seen Harry lately?” he asked, standing there like a Marine
sergeant, with his hands on his hips.
“No, sir,” I said, fearing I might be in for some lawn dramatics.
“Because I’ve been wanting to talk to him, and I know you guys are friends.
That’s why I’m asking you,” he barked, shoving a finger into my face. “If you
see him, tell him that I want to talk to him. Will you?”

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 “Yes, sir. I haven’t seen him since I’ve seen Christine, and that was a few
weeks ago, when she stopped by to ask what you’re asking me now.”
“I know that. Jan and I sent her over there. My daughter’s been naïve and
gullible, but finally she’s come to see the son-of-a-bitch for what he is.”
“I know how Harry is,” I said. “I don’t like it either.”
“And you’re his friend?”
“I’ve known him since we were kids, Don. People have their weaknesses.”
“I know, boy. I know. I’m not blaming you.”
“And Chris is also my friend.”
“I know, boy. I know,” Don said, nodding his head. “I appreciate your
concern for my daughter. To tell you the truth, I wish she’d married you
instead of that asshole. But if you do see him, tell him I’d like to have a little
talk with him, will you?”
I promised I would, but was surprised that Dune would have had me married
to Christine. This was certainly an honor I didn’t want. She was a good person
alright, but too much in love with material things, and of “getting ahead” in
life. Whereas I could care less if the driveway were paved, and had no use for
big, loving dogs who would like nothing better than to tear me to shreds.
It rained that evening. My shoes squished over the grass as I walked out to
the car, and the mosquitoes were out in force, biting me on the arms and
whining in my ears. I drove to the hospital, scratching my arms and feeling
glum.
“Owen, would you mind giving Delbert Ford a bed bath?” Dr. Lucy Goose
asked after I’d clocked in. “He’s the hermit who lives in the Big Mushy Slew.
He came in complaining of numbness in his fingers. Every time he comes in
here, it’s always the same thing. There’s never anything wrong with him. But
we examine him and put him to bed. He really could use a little soap and water
though.”
“Delbert Ray Ford?”
“You’ve heard of him? He’s a local legend--a little loony, but harmless.”
There was only one bed in his room, and the legend, dressed in camouflaged

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shirt, trousers, and with a face full of hair, lay on his back with his eyes closed.
“Mr. Ford? Delbert?”
“What do you need?” Ford said. “I’m trying to catch a few winks here.”
“Delbert, I’m supposed to give you a bed bath.”
Opening his eyes, the hermit looked over at me.
“Okay,” he groaned, “but first things first. Don’t call me Delbert. Call me
Del. And really, where I live I don’t need no bath. But if it’s got to be, then I
guess it’s got to be.”
He exhaled a deep breath, and sat up with a grunt.
“That lady doctor told me you might be showing up. I was hoping to get
out of this, but I guess not. Before I do anything though, first I got to go in
there,” he said, nodding his head toward the toilet. “By the way, you like
Jujubes?”
“Yeah--”
“Come on over here…. Give me your hand.”
Pulling a box out of his shirt pocket, he poured a few into my palm. “Chew
well, young man. Or, better, if you want them to last, suck on them. I used to
eat them at the movies when I was a kid, watching Flash Gordon do his thing.
I can’t wait till that Star Wars flick comes to town. That should be something.
Do you know how it begins?”
“No,” I said, throwing the candies into my mouth.
“It begins with a low, dramatic voice telling us that the story takes place a
long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…. Now, doesn’t that pique your
interest? I met a kid in the library who told me that. He saw the movie in St.
Pete…. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go into space. My wife used to tell me I
was a real space cadet.”
While Ford was in the toilet, I stood waiting, chewing my Jujubes. When
he came out of the toilet, he was pointing behind him.
“I see there’s a door on the other side of the john,” he said. “Does that go
into someone else’s room?”
“Yeah, the rooms share a single toilet.”

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 “What would happen if I walked in there, dropped my drawers, bent down,
and gave some woman the red eye?”
“You’d probably give her a heart attack…. But don’t get any ideas, because
it’s all men on this side of the hallway.”
Del’s huge grin melted away.
“Oh, no. I would never do that,” he said. “If there’s anything that Del Ray
respects, it’s privacy.” He went to the sink and pulled off his shirt. “And no,
I won’t need that,” he said, nodding to the hospital gown I was holding. “I’m
staying in what I’ve got on right now.”
“You’re okay washing yourself?”
“It’s only going to be a spit bath for me, son, and a quick one at that…. You
guys must have the air conditioning on full blast. It’s freezing in here.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m a fan of natural air, myself.”
“That’s what I get plenty of at Ray Ford Retreat,” he said, washing under
his arms. “That’s my name for the Big Mushy, where the air is fresh and free.
Here in town, I feel like I’m in prison--Raiford Pen, if you will…. Hey, you
ever hear of Joseph Campbell?”
“The guy who writes about mythology?”
“That’s him. Awhile back I checked out one his books from the library.
It’s called The Hero With a Thousand Faces. It told me that being a hero is
about the call of adventure, going through trials, achieving great boons, earning
supernatural powers, and then bestowing your gifts on others. It’s why I joined
the army, but sitting in a foxhole in Korea? Oh, man. We were waiting for a
wave of Chinese to come up the hill at us, and my fingers were so frost-bit I
was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger on my rifle. Luckily, they
ordered us out of there before I had to try but, every once in a while, I get
nightmares. The fear and the numbness come back, and … I guess I didn’t
turn out very heroic, huh?”
“Well, you seem honest about yourself, and that’s kind of heroic.”
“You must be cold too,” Ford said. “You got goose pimples.”
“Those are mosquito bites.”

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 “Oh, yeah? Yeah, women bites are like that too. They can give you an itch
that scratching won’t help.”
“Love bugs,” I said, shaking my head. “They can sure do a lot more than
splatter your windshield.”
Ford didn’t respond to this. He put his shirt back on, walked over to the
bed and lay down.
“Fresh air and freedom? That’s why you moved to the slew?”
“What do you think of this camouflage?” Ford said, stroking his hairy face.
“When I sit in my treehouse, I become one with my leafy surroundings.”
“I believe you.”
“To answer your question though, when I came home from the war there
were two things I couldn’t deal with any more--cold and stress. So, what
happens? Air conditioning and a faster pace of life. When I was growing up,
when it got hot, you just slowed down. For that reason, folks used to appreciate
life a lot more. But now, everybody’s in a big hurry. The Florida crackers I
grew up with have all turned into nervous, shivering Yankees.”
“Future shock?”
“However you want to put it.”
“You don’t mind living alone?”
“Oh, I like to think of myself as a monk living in a monastery. You know
who my hero is? Lonesome George Gobel, a man both humble yet noble. He’s
the guy who said that if it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be watching TV by
candle light. Isn’t that a great line?”
“Yeah,” I responded, wondering if he was being serious.
“Okay now, listen, because before heading back to my marshy boonies, old
Del is going to bestow a boon upon you: You ever been to a jai alai fronton?
No? Did you know that the little ball they play with ricochets off the wall at
one-hundred and eighty miles per hour? Yet those jai alai players catch it in
their little cesta-baskets and sling it right back again. And the harder they sling
it, the harder it comes back to them. How do they do it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my nose, recalling the sting of Sammy’s

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paddleball. “I know I couldn’t do it.”
But Ray’s answer was oblique: “Now, picture the St. Johns River. Its
source lies in the south, and from the south it descends, oh so slowly, north, to
its mouth. And at the mouth, what whispered message do its lips utter?”
“Uh--do you get my drift?”
“Well, do you?”
“I don’t know if I do.”
“Neither did my wife. That’s why she divorced me. Not that I blame her.
If I were married to a dip-wad like me, I’d have done the same. These days, I’d
never come into town except that every month I have to go to the post office
to pick up my disability check, since I’m certified coo-coo. I also have to go
to the grocery store, because I just love my Chef Boyardee. I’ve got beaucoup
cans of that stuff. I also check out books from the library, and I’ve got to return
them before they’re overdue….”
At that point, he drifted off into thought.
“Sounds just the place for you.”
“One thing I didn’t like about living there was having palmetto bugs
crawling over me when I’m asleep at night. But last month I bought me one
of them Roach Motels, by Black Flag. You know, the one where the roaches
check in, but don’t check out? Well, I set one of them inside my hut last month,
and since then I’ve been telling them bugs to kiss my grits, because I haven’t
been bothered by one since.”
Returning to the cottage that morning, I brought my spinning rod out to the
sea wall and made a few casts into the canal. Listening to Del Ray, life as a
hermit appealed to me, but did I really want that? I slept better with the air
conditioning on, I hoped growing a mustache might make me more attractive,
and wanting to be more attractive meant that one day I hoped to lure a wish-
fish and not live alone.
. “Happy Fourth,” someone behind me said.
Startled, I stepped back off the wall.
“Whoa, there, boy,” Tom Finn said, grabbing me by the shoulders to steady

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me. “Didn’t mean to scare you. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“When I was walking up behind you, you reminded me of me. You looked
like you had something heavy on your mind, which is how I am a lot of the
time these days. Only my thoughts are usually about things that happened
years ago.”
“Yeah?” I said, reeling in my line.
“There was this girl and, you know, son, I treated her like shit. That’s what
happens when you get to be old like me. Things that you did, stupid things,
mean things, start to bother you; things I haven’t thought about in years, and
yet now they’re coming back.”
Now? I thought, after listening to him for what seemed quite some time.
After how many years? How come he was so lucky? Stupid things I did were
haunting me all the time, right now, at the age of twenty-seven.
When I went back inside, I thought of what Tom said, and Del, and Don,
the Barger, the many ways of looking at life, and yet I would always be an
outsider to other bodies, stuck in this same body while meeting other bodies
coming through the rye.
“Happy Fourth,” I whispered, mimicking Tom while waking up after a nap.
And, yes, it was Independence Day. It wasn’t even noon yet. My last night on
nights would be tonight, so why not celebrate by going to the parade?
Anticipating parking being a problem, I parked across the street from the
Coupe de Ville, which was only a couple of blocks south of Flagler Park. The
shop was closed, the stripes on the barber pole still.
Joining a stream of people walking toward the park, I recalled Emerson’s
claim that self-reliance was keeping the independence of solitude while in the
midst of the crowd, though I wondered why this thought had crossed my mind.
I was certainly in the midst of a crowd today, and with them crossed over
Green Avenue to the park. People were everywhere, wandering around the
food, arts, and crafts stands set up under the moss-strewn oaks. Most folks
though, were gathered on both sides of Grove Avenue along the curbs,

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watching the Cypress City Citizen’s Band--the CB Sippers--playing “Yankee
Doodle Dandy” while marching along.
Glancing around on both sides of the street, I didn’t see Marianne and
family anywhere. Rather than join the crowd at the curb, I decided to stand
back a-ways, in the shade of one of the mossy oaks.
A line of Impala convertibles followed the Sippers, with Camelot Chevrolet
banners hanging from their sides. Smiling girls with tiaras on their heads sat
atop the backseats, waving to the crowd. The first car carried the dark-haired
Citrus Queen, from the north end of the county; the second, a fair-haired Cattle
& Dairy Queen, from the south; and the third, the Cypress Queen, sponsored
by Cypress Save Up Bank, who I didn’t think was as attractive as the first two.
Following these cars, in the passenger’s seat of a bright yellow Camaro,
was the owner of Camelot Chevrolet, Arthur King. Next to him, the driver was
none other than Sir Hide-a-Rattle himself, Mike Menhaden.
Standing in my shady solitude, I looked around at the people. It seemed
everyone had come here with somebody, that nobody was alone. Suddenly,
the independence of solitude didn’t seem so appealing.
I then saw Christine and Sugar walking past me. I was about to call out to
them, but hesitated; because any conversation with her would inevitably lead
to the subject of Harry, and I didn’t want that.
One of the motorcycle escorts cruising by was Zorro-in-Shades--Officer
Orlando.
“Slow it down, buddy,” I whispered, though the parade was proceeding
about as slow as a good parade should.
Folks in Victorian garb were waving from a truck transformed into a steam
locomotive, whose banner read, “Honoring Henry Flagler’s Railroad.” Too
bad his train never passed through Engine Town, much less this town..
Feeling a little hungry, I bought a slice of fry bread from a Seminole lady
who offered me a second slice at no charge. “Because you’re too skinny,” she
said. “You need to feed your body more food.”
“No thanks, ma’am. One’s plenty.” I wondered if she’d recognized a little

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indigene in this alien? After all, I was the Irish Red Cloud.
At a nearby table, another Seminole lady was selling hand-woven, palm-
frond leave baskets. I’d recently heard Minnie saying that her grandmother
used to make these, that her mother never learned, and that this past year she
bought her daughter a plastic Easter basket from Cypress Savers Mart.
Starting back toward my mossy oak, munching on my fry bread, I saw a
troop of boy scouts on the march, led by their scout master, holding up Old
Glory.
And there was Tina Gardenia. She was walking, hip-to-hip, alongside a
young man, each with an arm draped around the other. After passing me, she
glanced back (at me, or past me?), while at the same time brushing a few
strands of hair away from her eye.
I didn’t know if she saw me or not, but after this I only wanted to get out of
there. As I began walking off, I spotted the Shriner Bus arriving on the parade
route, but that didn’t stop me. Sam Homestead, and no-doubt Jay Ville too,
would be on that bus; which meant that Marianne and kids must be somewhere
around here, but I didn’t care.
What was that guy’s name? Pokey? Pokey Baird? Had he returned from
Satellite Beach to go back into orbit around her sun? Maybe their engagement-
ring differences had been resolved, their wedding plans were again all-
systems-go, and soon they would be blasting off into wild blue future shock.
I felt a pain in my chest, like a fish hook stuck in my gullet.
“Only heartburn,” I whispered, driving away. “No need to put me on the
monitor.”
Why was I letting this bother me?
If I lived to be as old as Clifford Sages, age 101, would I even remember
some floozy I met in a dining room some seventy-five years back? Probably
not. But right now, 101 was an Oreo cookie, and when two wafers pull in
opposite directions, the cream can only cling to one and, in this case, the cream
sure wasn’t clinging to me.
“Diamond girl,” Seals and Crofts were singing on my car radio, “sure does

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shine.”
The tiny gem in her pierced ear had pierced my eye, fake or not. She was a
Salem witch who, in blowing smoke up Joe Bass, had caused her rose to rise
before his eyes, very quickly.
Returning to the cottage, I went to bed. It was dark when I awoke..
I was thirsty and wanted a glass of cold water. In the kitchen, I switched on
the light and became aware of palmetto bugs scattered across walls, counter,
and cabinets. Before I could grab my fly swatter they’d scurried out of sight.
“Caught in the act of being themselves,” I said, pouring a glass while seeing
headlights illuminating my window curtains.
“Oh, no,” I groaned, hoping it wasn’t Christine.
Peeking outside, I saw Marianne’s Dodge Charger pulling up behind the
Chevette. When she and Annie came in, she handed me a foil covered dish.
“I brought you some barbecued chicken, okra, and potato salad,” she said,
as Annie sat down in my desk chair, preoccupied with a baby doll she was
cradling in her arms. “We looked for you at the parade today, but I guess you
decided not to come.”
“I was there, but I didn’t stay long,” I said, motioning for her to sit down at
the dining table. “I got tired and decided to come back to bed.”
“Sorry,” she said, sitting down. “I should have told you we always park in
front of Moses Soils’ studio. You know that little row of stores near the Chevy
place?”
“He lets you park there?”
“His daughter Ruth and I have been friends since high school.”
“You know Mr. Soils?”
“You live in this town long enough, you get to know pretty much
everybody.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I peeled back the foil, picked up a chicken
leg, and took a bite. “I did see my friend Christine and her daughter.”
“The people involved in that seven-year-itch thing you were telling me
about?”

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 “Yeah,” I mumbled, while chewing.
“Well, I know you’ve got to work tonight. I just thought I’d bring you some
dinner. The boys are at the fireworks, at the Cypress Drive-in. Annie doesn’t
like all the noise, so we stayed home. But wait a minute, you’re almost done
with nights, right?”
“After tonight I will be. I also saw your friend Tina there. Did she and that
paramedic guy get back together?”
“Pokey? No, not as far as I know. She’s been a rambling rose since
breaking up with him. Lately, she’s been hanging out with one of her old high-
school friends, Stew Foote. Probably not the best choice. All he likes to do is
party and smoke dope. Laura thinks Tina’s nuts. I’m disappointed in her
myself, since she quit going to PBJC.”
“Looking for Mr. Goodbar, maybe.”
“Uh--yeah,” she said, standing up. “Little brother, you sure have a weird
way on expressing yourself sometimes…. Come on, Annie Fanny. It’s time
to take your baby home. Give Owen a hug.”
When the two freckle-faces were gone, I ate half my dinner, put the rest in
the refrigerator, and took a shower.
So, I was wrong. It was Stew Foote, not Pokey Baird. So, what? It was all
the same to me. As far as I was concerned, they were merely a pair of
nametags, Pokey and Stew Foote--a pair of bad-news bears.
I saw the rambling rose at the time clock that night.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Alright,” she replied, frowning,
“Did you enjoy the parade?”
“It was alright,” she murmured, not giving any indication that she saw me
there or not.
At midnight, Doughboy Deland came into the linen room: “Hey, how about
giving me a hand? There’s a woman in the parking lot who needs to be rolled
into obstetrics. I guess she gave birth in her car.”
When we got out there, the newborn had already been carried into the

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building. We lifted the mother onto a gurney and transported her inside.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” the mother asked the OB nurse in the next room, who
was attending to the bawling baby.
“You’ve got a little girl,” the nurse replied.
The mother raised her fist high in the air and slammed it down on the
gurney.
“Ah--shit!” she yelled.
Walking out of OB, Ted looked at me and shook his head.
“Can you imagine being welcomed into the world like that? Your own
mother saying something like that? Hey, let’s stop in the dining room. I need
a cup of joe. I got a hangover- and-a-half.”
“Does that mean you had a fun Fourth?”
“I had a great Fourth. It’s the fifth that’s killing me.”
“Did you know this is my last night? I start days on Thursday.”
“Goody-goody for you,” he said, as we entered the kitchen, followed by Dr.
Ariel Seagull and Flora Cracker. “Next month I’m out of this hellhole. I’ll be
Seoul, Korea, bound.”
“Ted, are you going to pull a Moses on us?” Seagull said, grinning. “Make
like the Red Sea and split? Redd Foxx said that on Sanford and Son last week.”
“You bet I am,” Ted agreed with a laugh. “Because they sure don’t pay shit
in this place. Maybe they do to you, doc, but not to us peons.”
“What did they leave us for lunch tonight?” Flora asked. “I see hamburger
buns, so it’s probably sloppy joes.”
“No eats for me,” Ted groaned.
Thanks to Marianne’s generosity, I wasn’t hungry either. I sat down in the
dining room with Ted, my coffee clouded with a little cream, remembering my
first night here, with a sloppy joe, Tina, and that tropical scene.
Minnie and Jetty Breakers came in to eat too, but I was on the lookout for
Tina, who appeared sunny yesterday but stormy tonight.
Holding court tonight was Flora Cracker: “Expect a miracle,” she said,
when everyone was seated. “That’s what Oral Roberts says on TV on Sunday

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mornings, but I’ve always wondered if he really heals people or not.”
“I think he’s sincere in what he believes,” Minnie said.
“Know what he wants to do?” Flora said. “He said he had this vision of a
900 foot Jesus who told him to build a hospital. He’s going to call it the City
of Faith Medical Center, or something like that. He wants to cure people by
using both prayer and medicine.”
“Any of you hear of Nashville Katz?” Seagull asked, after Flora had been
talking about Roberts for some time. “They’re a Jewish hillbilly band, and
they’re playing in Pelican Beach this coming weekend, at the Mountain Dew
Club. I’ve seen them before. They’re really good.”
“Sorry, Dr. Seagull,” Flora said. “When I get tired, I just tend to rattle on
and on about whatever’s on my mind.”
“No, no. That’s alright,” Seagull said.
“Last week my husband and I saw Seven Mile Bridge perform at the
Teepee, in West Palm,” Jetty said. “They’re from the keys and, boy, do I love
that ‘Conch-Shell’ sound of theirs.”
Then Tina came in, sat down at a table by herself, and lit up a Salem.
“Not eating?” Jetty inquired.
“Nah,” Tina said.
Tina, I thought, while leaving the parking lot that morning, would you make
me some corn bread?
“Nah,” I grunted, mimicking her probable reply.
I wouldn’t be seeing much of her anymore, along with Sue Pecos, who was
walking around the park at her usual time. From now on, I would be heading
to, not from, work earlier each morning.
On the radio, Alan O-Day was singing “undercover angel, midnight fantasy.
I never had a dream that made sweet love to me….”
No more fantasies for me, I resolved, arriving at the cottage.
Reality, though, in the form of my ringing phone, greeted me as soon as I
stepped inside the cottage.
“Are you off Saturday night?” Harry asked me.

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 “I start days on Thursday, work Friday, then off the weekend.”
“Then how about we’ll pick you up on Saturday at four? The girls want to
go to Pelican Beach. They want to have dinner at some exotic restaurant, go
to a movie, dance, you name it. Get ready to meet Tammy Papaya. She seems
to be one of those liberated women types but, who knows, maybe you two will
hit it off.”
“I’ll be very polite and say, ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Oyl.”
“I wouldn’t advise that, Cloudy.”
“You think I’d really say that?”
After hanging up, I popped open a Pabst, switched on the TV, and sat down
to watch the local news. Up in Coochie County, a sinkhole was blocking traffic
on Highway 43…. Too bad one couldn’t be ordered up for Saturday, on 17;
then we might not be able to make it to Pelican Beach--might just have to call
the whole evening off.
But, right now I was just happy to be done with nights. Should I stay up
today so that I could start getting used to sleeping at night, or maybe just take
a short nap? I didn’t feel very tired right now, but I was hungry; and then I
remembered Cold Glory—the remainder of Marianne’s chicken dinner in the
refrigerator.
I carried my dinner and beer out to the back patio and sat in a lawn chair.
In Mac’s yard, the two grandkids were fishing off the seawall.
“I think I got one!” the girl cried.
“No, you don’t,” the boy said. “All you got is a snag.”
I frowned, wishing I hadn’t gotten snagged into going on this date.
While eating, I gazed at three geese cruising down the canal, and imagined
them as the three women from the TV show Charlie’s Angels floating past me-
-dark Kate Jackson, blond Farrah Faucett, and dark Jaclyn Smith. For me,
could this be dark Tina, blond Nikki, and dark … Tammy Papaya? I had no
idea if Tammy was dark, but I guessed she would look nothing like Jaclyn.
Wasn’t I blind enough as it was, without having to go on a blind date?
When we first arrived in Florida, our landlord, Mr. Frederico, told my

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parents that the papaya would be the sweetest, tenderest fruit we had ever
tasted.
Come Saturday night, sitting in the back of Harry’s Lincoln, my
conversation with Tammy Papaya never reached that level of sweet tenderness,
but it was pleasant enough.
But then, at the Flaming Go Restaurant, the tide turned, in the form of a
turning inside my stomach. The “exotic” dish I ate there--Catfish and Broccoli
Delight—left me feeling like a diver who had surfaced too quickly and was
now suffering symptoms of the bends. My belly began to feel like it wanted
to turn inside out, but I didn’t want to say anything because Tammy and Sophie
kept gushing about how great the cuisine was.
I didn’t want to disappoint them, but also didn’t want to upchuck in front of
them. My strategy for the rest of the night was to keep my belly as still as
possible, and the price I paid for this was that I became more subdued and less
sociable.
Sitting in Starfish Pizza at midnight, after an evening of dinner, movie, and
dance, I figured I had a good chance of making it home before I had to throw
up.
“We’re not ordering pizza are we?” I asked Harry, as we waited for the
women to return from the restroom.
“I only asked the waitress for sodas,” Harry said, looking a little irritated.
“Man, we’ve had a busy night, huh? If they come back from the little girls’
room saying they want to do anything other than go home, I’m going to shit,
which I’ve already done more than once tonight.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by the last remark, but was wondering if the
disco we’d just left—The Boogie Lagoon—was the same one Nikki had gone
to? But then I thought I remembered her telling Dr. Columbus that she’d gone
to Disco Balloon. or some other variation of that name.
“You’re not a dancer, huh?” Harry said, as the waitress appeared with our
drinks. “I don’t think I ever knew that.”
“Is that all you guys want?” the waitress asked, after setting four icy glasses

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on the table.
“Well,” Harry said, putting on his best Cheese-shire cat grin. “Come back
a little later and just maybe I’ll think of something else.”
The girl smiled and walked away.
I frowned, listening to the Sanford-Townsend Band’s hit song, “Smoke
from a Distant Fire,” on the restaurant’s sound system: “You left me here on
your way to paradise….” Because the lyrics made me sad, as I imagined this
might be Christine, singing to Harry.
“Sorry, Tam,” Harry said when the women returned. “I never knew Red
didn’t like to dance.”
“No big thing,” Tammy said. “I told him I didn’t like disco dancing all that
much anyway, but it was so loud in there he probably didn’t hear me.”
“I didn’t hear you,” I affirmed.
“I do like dancing though,” she said, looking at Harry, not me. “Have you
ever heard of contra dancing?”
“Don’t think so,” Harry said.
“It’s country dancing, folk dancing, kind of like square dancing,” Tammy
said, her face brightening. “A group of us meet a couple of times a month at
the Inner Space Hall, and we have so much fun. Sometimes we all dance
together, sometimes in pairs. You can sure get dizzy, going around in circles.
But you know what? If you stare into your partner’s eyes while you’re
spinning around, you keep your balance. It’s true. And there’s this wonderful
oneness you feel with everyone around you. It’s amazing.”
“Speaking of dancing,” Sophie said, “Tam and I agreed that The Turning
Point is the best movie we’ve seen in a long time.”
“Yeah,” Tammy agreed. “I loved it when Baryshnikov and the girl were
doing that sexy ballet in the studio, and then they switched to the scene where
they were making passionate love in bed. That was hot.”
Looking at her, Harry shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, the only
decent part of that movie was when Bancroft and MacLaine got into that cat
fight. Other than that, give me a Charles Bronson flick any day.”

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 “You sound like a male chauvinist,” Tammy said.
“Why? Because I like a good catfight? Hey, I’m a cat myself….” He
opened his mouth, wide. “Look, Ma, no hairballs!”
“Have you ever read The Hite Report?” Tammy asked him, ignoring his
attempt at humor.
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s about women, right?” asked Sophie.
“It’s about women’s sexuality,” Tammy said. “They interviewed women
to get their views on sex, and you men have no idea what we really like.”
“That includes a lot more than just sex,” Sophie added.
I remembered the Playboy article I’d seen at the barber shop. Wasn’t that
called The Hite Report? I was disappointed I didn’t read it, because I might
have had something intelligent to say about it now. Even though I was feeling
green around the gills, it still bothered me that I wasn’t being more outgoing.
“Look, I sell houses,” Harry said, “and give me a girl who’s a brick house.
Who sings that song?”
“Commodores,” I said, seeing in Harry no Sanford-Townsend mood
tonight.
“Harry,” Sophie huffed. “You’re awful.”
“Women no longer want to be feminine mystiques,” Tammy declared.
“Women want to be simply women, and the equal of men.”
“Men are way too visual,” Sophie added.
After we’d finished our drinks, Sophie suggested we go sit on the beach
awhile before heading back to Cypress City, since it was such a beautiful night.
Harry frowned, but said nothing.
Leaving the pizza place, we crossed the road and descended wooden stairs
to the sand. It felt odd, walking on the beach with my hushpuppies on at night,
instead of barefoot during the day.
“Miss Sophia Moon,” Harry said, motioning toward the full moon and its
reflection in the choppy sea. “How bright you shine tonight.”
“Pretty poetic for a real-estate man,” Sophie said.

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 We sat down, just beyond the reach of the surf.
“I need to tell you guys something though,” Harry announced. “If you ever
want me to go to that Flaming Go place again, forget it.”
“Why not?” Sophie asked, looking surprised.
“My Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Feast was delicious,”
Tammy said, “though I couldn’t eat it all.”
“I know how much you girls love that place,” Harry said, “but that stuff I
had, that Squid Nausea--”
“Squid No Sea,” Sophie corrected him. “It’s squid from the North Sea, I
think. But what was wrong with it? I had the same thing, and mine tasted
heavenly.”
“Well, it didn’t give me nausea, but it sure gave me a good case of the
squirts. I made three trips to the john when we were in the movie theatre.
Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah, I do remember you leaving us a few times. I guess I was just so
engrossed in the movie I didn’t think much about it.”
Harry was looking away, toward the lighted Palmetto Beach Pier. “Doesn’t
look like they’re pulling in much fish tonight.”
“You and I sure didn’t have much luck there either,” Sophie said.
“No,” Harry agreed, his face breaking into a grin. “But remember that
barracuda we were looking at? Hiding in the shade of one of those pilings?
He was absolutely still, watching schools of fish go by. Then, suddenly he
darted out and had one in his jaws. Why would he select one fish over another?
They all looked the same. But once he decided, he didn’t hesitate. It was cool
watching him.”
“Wouldn’t it be far out to go diving and find a treasure from one of those
sunken Spanish galleons?” Tam said. “You and I could give up our day jobs,
Sophie.”
“I could go for that,” Sophie agreed.
Listening, I was trying to remain calm and maintain a tranquil belly. I
imagined walking, hand-in-hand, along this beach with Nikki, with the surf

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washing over our ankles. I’d only worked two days on the a.m. shift so far,
but every time I saw her she smiled, asked me how I was doing, and appeared
pleased that I was on days.
Tonight though, I sensed Tammy’s displeasure with me. During the return
trip to Cypress City, she leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and I wondered
if she might have fallen asleep.
After a time, she surprised me with a question: “Do you like to read,
Owen?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Me too,” she said. “I’m a big fan of romance novels, especially those
published by the Sigh Press. I mean, they’re all pretty much the same. A
woman meets two men. One she likes, the other she doesn’t. The one she likes
turns out to be a bastard, and the other a Prince Charming. Same stories,
different twists. They used to call them pot boilers. But you always get a
happy ending, and I guess that’s what I’m still hoping for in my life.”
“It broke my heart when Freddie Prinze died,” Sophie remarked, from the
front seat. “He was my Prince Charming.”
“Who’s he?” Harry inquired.
“You’ve never seen Chico and the Man on TV?”
“Give me my Braves baseball, give me Badgers football if we could get
them on TV down here. Beyond that, I’m too busy moving real estate to spend
much time watching the boob tube.”
I was glad Tammy said something, because I’d been hoping she wasn’t
playing Sleeping Toad, hoping that me, Prince Charming, would kiss her on
the cheek and turn her into Snow White. We seemed like Lady and the Tramp
in reverse, sucking on different strands of spaghetti with our lips never destined
to meet.
“You don’t have to see me up to my place,” she told me as Harry stopped
at the Fountain Blue Apartments. “I had a nice time. See you guys later.”
Arriving in Taylor Island, Sophie asked to use my bathroom. Having
anticipated such a possibility, I was glad I’d straightened the place up a little

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and had folded the bed into a couch.
Plopping down at my desk, Harry picked up my journal and began idly
flipping pages. I wished to hell I’d put it away. He read a few passages, flipped
to another page, read a few more….
“Seems like nothing but a lot of slow and boring baloney to me,” he said,
finally setting it back down. “Who’s Joe?”
“Uh, Red between the lines?”
“Who do you think you are, a poor man’s James Joyce, or something? Can’t
you write anything that’s real? Say you like nature, write about nature. Why
don’t you send something to the newspaper? A letter to the editor or
something?”
Sophie came out of the bathroom a few minutes later. We said our goodbyes
and I was relieved to see Harry’s Lincoln disappear into the night.
Standing before the bathroom mirror, I studied my complexion--full,
collard green. I imagined I was about to enter a decompression chamber to
relieve myself of the bends, though I knew my bends were really food
poisoning. I kneeled down over the bathroom bowl, grunted a few times to get
the process started, felt my belly turning inside out, and finally let loose.
After gargling with mouthwash and brushing my teeth, I kicked off my
hushpuppies and lay down on the couch.
“No catfish and broccoli for me, please,” I sighed, closing my eyes.
Feeling better, I drifted off, while in my mind recalling Harry’s suggestion.
Why not write something real, about nature, progress, spirit, art? Why not mail
it to the Cypress City News, in hopes they might publish it in Our Readers
Opine?
“That might be a start,” I yawned, before falling asleep.
I started working on it the next morning, but at the end of the day was
dissatisfied with what I’d written. If the Barefoot Mailman read it, he’d never
deliver it, but … maybe after a few revisions?
Come Monday morning, I parked next to Tina’s Mustang. I noticed that the
“Arrive Stoned” tag was missing from her front bumper. I wondered why, and

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then wondered why I wondered why. Because I was done with her. Her
ballgame had been rained out, a tarpaulin covered her diamond, and never mind
the rain check.
Genie Lamprey was standing outside the nurses’ station, waiting for me:
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”
But it was Nikki, who always smiled whenever she saw me, and who, in the
words of Gertrude Stein, truly showed shine: “You still glad you’re on days?
You are? Cool!”
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the X ray queen.
“Here,” Genie said, pulling a breakfast tray out of the food cart. “Mr. Birdy
is blind, so he’ll need some assistance.”
“Who’s that?” Birdy called from his bed, as I entered the room.
“It’s Owen, Mr. Birdy, come with your breakfast.”
“Owen? Owen? What do you owe me?”
“Breakfast, maybe? Scrambled eggs, sausage, and hash browns?”
“In lieu of cash, I’ll accept that. You don’t mind me having fun with you,
do you? I have fun with everybody. And you can call me Perdy, if you like.
Perdido is my real first name, but all the girls think I’m perdy. Don’t you think
so?”
I set the tray down on the portable table and rolled it in front of him.
I tucked a napkin under his chin. “Are you ready to eat?”
“Scrambled eggs at what-o’clock?”
“O’clock? Oh--at noon, midnight…or twelve, I should say.”
“It’s all the same to me, son. But on second thought, maybe I’ll let you do
the honors. I can feed myself okay at home. Bridget Bardot has got things all
set up for me there. But here, I might need a little help.”
“Bridget Bardot?”
“That’s my pet name for Mabel. I’ve never run my fingers over Miss
Bardot’s body, but I have Mabel’s, and she’s the most beautiful thing in my
life…. I like to tell her she’s my low budget Bridget.”
“That guy, he’s a card,” the man in the other bed said, who had been

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watching the news on TV.
“Yeah,” Perdy responded. “I’m the joker, and I’m wild. My wife though,
she’s a maniac--comes from Kittery, Maine.”
Up on the wall, the TV screen revealed a more somber scene--lines of
refugees from Uganda, seeking to escape Idi Amin’s troops who were on the
rampage, torturing and murdering thousands of tribal peoples.
“What’s eating you?” Perdy asked me, in between bites.
“You think something is? Maybe just bad news on TV.”
“World gone to hell, huh? Hey, I think I hear my Mabel coming.”
I couldn’t hear any footsteps, but soon a little woman walked into the room.
“Sorry, Tickles,” she said. “I didn’t get here in time to feed you.”
“Yoo-hoo, Mabel, how about a Black Label?”
“I don’t think they allow beer in the hospital, dear, but nice try.”
Tickles? I thought, realizing that, in appearance, he did kind-of look like
Don Rickles.
“Perdido’s mother once told me that he was born laughing,” Mabel said.
“That’s why they started calling him Tickles, because he seemed so tickled to
have come into the world.”
“Hey, I may be missing one sense, but I’m not senseless,” Perdy said, as I
dabbed his lips with his napkin. “I married you, didn’t I? Say, Owen, how
about giving me a shave? Can you do that? Mabel, did you think to bring my
Old Spice cologne?”
“It’s in your bedside stand, dear--top drawer.”
“Because I need to smell manly,” Perdy said, “being the man’s man that I
am.”
“A big baby, is more like it,” Mabel said, pulling his cologne out of the
drawer and setting it on the portable table.
Just tickled to be alive, I thought, remembering the photo Sam had showed
me of a bald, toothless but grinning baby.
But I was tickled too, to be on days. Being busy, time accelerated. And I
could care less about Future Shock, being too happy to be so soon clocking

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out, and walking out into the bright sun’s glare over the shell rock parking lot.
And, of course there was Nikki. Driving away that afternoon, the asphalt
was radiating heat, creating the mirage of a shimmering lake. And rising up
from that mirage was the X-ray girl, smiling, asking, “How’re you doing? You
like days? Cool!”
Stopping at the ZT Stop for gas, I found Mr. Ponce behind the cash register.
“Barry told me he filled out an application at the hospital,” he said, as I set
a box of chocolate-covered peanuts—Goobers--on the counter to pay for, along
with my fuel.
“Hope he doesn’t mind nights. That’s where he’ll probably start.”
“He better not. He’s not a bad kid. He just needs to grow up a little.”
After a supper of canned corned-beef hash, I sipped on a cup of coffee and
munched my Goobers before settling down to work on my letter to Our
Readers Opine. Before setting pen to paper, though, the phone rang.
“You really didn’t like Tammy?” Harry asked.
“I never said I didn’t like her.”
“Would you date her again?”
“Would she date me?”
“Probably not. She thinks you’re a drip. That’s what Moon told me. If you
had any intentions of impressing her, I think you laid an egg.”
“I know I wasn’t as sociable as I should have been, but I wasn’t feeling so
hot either. That restaurant food made me sick. I threw up right after you guys
left here.”
“Why didn’t you say so? That would have explained your behavior.”
“I probably should have.”
“I did, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell everybody that the Flaming Go gave me the
goes? I’m just glad mine came out the ass end, not the oral…. From now on,
give me a nice Texas T-bone at the Sirloin Sizzler. No more of that exotic crap
for me. And as far as I’m concerned, Tammy was a sap anyway. If I were
you, I wouldn’t worry about her.”
“They loved that restaurant so much, I guess I didn’t want to say anything.”

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 “I don’t care for those women libber types. But, tell me something, what is
a male chauvinist, anyway?”
“Maybe like a man who thinks of his woman as a squaw?”
That night, I had a dream that recreated an experience I’d had as a boy. I
arrived at the beach excited, anticipating sand castles and surf, only to find that
we could not step out onto the sand. The beach had been invaded by
Portuguese men-of-war, ovoid blue balloons with long thin tails that stung if
you stepped on them.
It was silly, but I woke up feeling sorry for Tammy, who might have had
high hopes for a blind date that had only left her blue..
On the following morning, the Birdys sang me a song:
“Down by the old mill stream,” Perdy began.
“Where I first met you,” Mabel continued.
“It was then I knew…”
“That you loved me too?” Hesitating, Mabel looked down at her husband.
“Is that how it goes?”
“No, I think there’s a line about your eyes being blue, or something. But
since I never saw your eyes, who cares? Did I need eyes to love you?”
“Anyway, Owen, it was a big hit in our day,” Mabel said, laughing, “but it
might be a little slow and sentimental for a young guy like you.”
“It’s about love that lasts,” Perdy said. “And you might let that be a lesson
to you, young man. Don’t chase after whatever tickles your pickle. Find
yourself the girl with the golden heart, not some fickle puff on a fart.”
“Perdido!” Mabel scolded, popping him on the back of his head.
“I knew right away she was the girl for me, “he said, undaunted. “Only it
took me a little while to convince her, because I couldn’t blame her for not
wanting to be stuck with a blind man all her life.”
“That wasn’t it at all,” Mabel protested. “It was my parents who had some
reservations about that. My only concern was about your sincerity, since you
always seemed to pass everything off as a joke.”
“Bridge and Tick,” Perdy sighed. “I just knew we’d click.”

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 “You’ve got a sharp wit,” I said.
“Have you ever read The Miracle Worker, by William Gibson?” he asked.
“I’ve seen the movie.”
“Do you remember Annie Sullivan pumping water into Helen Keller’s open
palms? It’s when Helen finally made the connection between water and word.”
“You’re an avid reader?”
“My hands can read, young man,” he said, showing me his palms. “Thanks
to Monsieur Louis Braille. And now let me ask you this, Do you believe in
news bells?”
“Like when you think someone’s talking about you?”
“That’s right. Old wives have believed in them for years, so it’s got to be
true. When I hear them ring, I know my belle is thinking about me. Not that
I always know exactly what she’s thinking….”
“But I always have your best interests in mind, right?” Mabel said.
I pushed Perdy through the lobby, outside to the front entrance, where
Mabel was waiting in their car. I thought of Perdy again that afternoon when
I heard muse bells, heralding an artful thought, because on the bulletin board
near the time clock was a signup sheet for the annual hospital picnic at High
Park. Why not invite Nikki to go to the picnic with me?
Next morning, I found Nikki in the south wing hall:
“Hey, would you like to go with me to the picnic?”
“The hospital picnic?’ she responded, a thoughtful expression coming on
her face. “Yeah, I saw the sign-up sheet. Sure, I’ll go with you. Aren’t we
supposed to bring some kind of covered dish?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll have to find out what other people are bringing. Maybe I’ll make a
pasta salad or something.”
A week later, I drove to Camelot Chevrolet’s “Congenial Spot Service
Department,” hoping one of their mechanics would be able to diagnose and
silence the car’s annoying rattle. I didn’t want Nikki asking what that funny
noise was when I drove her to the picnic.

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 While sitting in the waiting room though, I wasn’t thinking about Pick Nik,
but about Elijah Needlefish, a drug addict whose death I’d witnessed the
previous morning.
“You never made it to Nam?” Needlefish asked me, a week earlier. “Well,
you were lucky, man. I was at Chu Lai, and that was one miserable place. I
worked in supply, so I never had to go out on patrol. I was never in a fire fight.
But still, you knew Charlie was lurking in the bush somewhere. The only good
thing about my tour of duty there was when Bob Hope came to entertain us at
Christmas, because you know who he brought with him? Raquel Welch. Woo-
hoo!”
Having survived Vietnam, Elijah’s dream was to become a professional
football player, though it seemed to be something he kept putting off: “This
year I’m going to do it, man. I’m going to show up at the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers training camp this summer and try out for linebacker. They didn’t
win a game last year, so they could use some help.”
It seemed an irrational dream though, since Elijah was almost thirty and,
though large in size, was in poor physical shape.
“Just you wait, man. You’ll be reading about me in the newspaper.”
After a few days in the hospital though, his condition grew worse. He
became confused, then deranged. Soon he had to be put in restraints, to protect
him and the staff from his violent outbursts. When he fell into a coma, there
was nothing left to do but take his vitals and keep him clean.
It saddened me to see our dialog pass into monolog:
“Eli, how’re you doing?” I asked, when I came into his room yesterday
morning.
His only response was staring up to the ceiling, his eyelids shut.
“Time to get you cleaned up, buddy.”
While wetting a facecloth at the sink, I heard his breathing become gurgling,
then rattling.
Alarmed, I called in one of the nurses, Eartha Pease.
He voided the contents of his bowels into his bed sheets; its stench filled

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the room. Soon he was gone.
“He was a junky,” Eartha said later. His liver was shot. No need to pine
for him.”
Pine? She saw him from the hard, land side, shooting blue slivers of death
into his life stream. But why not from the soft, lake side, shooting white slivers
of faith into his hope stream? Just you wait. Liver die? Everybody is a secret
body, coming through the rye.
And here I was, sitting in this Congenial Spot, still alive, just me waiting
for … what?
I picked up a magazine and read an article about Hubert Green who, at age
thirty, had won the U. S. Open golf tournament last month. It reminded me
that Owen Cloud, age twenty-seven, had so far accomplished nothing.
“What was causing the racket?” I asked the man at the service desk.
The man returned me a blank look. “Oh, they just had to tighten a few nuts
and bolts,” he said.
As if he had any idea. The scribbling on my receipt seemed to indicate
some adjustment had been made on the throttle cable, and that sounded
plausible.
“Are you looking to trade her in?” someone asked, as I walked out to the
car.
It was Sir Mike (Menhaden, that is).
“No, I just bought this car, from you in fact, last month.”
“Oh? Oh, yeah. I remember you. How do you like it so far?”
“Not bad.”
“You traded in a Pinto, right?”
“A Vega.”
Sir Mike nodded his head knowingly, as if he’d guessed right, then reached
up and patted the car’s roof. “These things are great on gas, aren’t they? Not
much on horsepower though. What did you bring it in for? An oil change?”
“No, it was making a funny noise…. Are you selling a lot of cars?”
Menhaden shrugged his shoulders. “Sometimes it never seems enough. My

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wife’s been pretty sick, and I’ve had some big medical expenses. But my
daughters, it amazes me how they’ve taken to caring for their mother. It’s like
they grew up just when I needed them to. You got any? Kids, that is?”
“Not me.”
“No? Well, you better not wait too long, or you might miss out.”
Listening, I saw Menhaden cast his eye--like a spinning rod--over toward a
potential customer walking toward the showroom.
“Nice seeing you, but I’ve got to get back to work. I’m going to steer that
guy over to the used car lot. I’ll give him a better deal than he’ll get in there.
Come see me when you’re ready to trade that thing in for a Corvette.”
“Yeah, sure thing,” I said, laughing.
Driving back to Taylor Island, I shook my head because, like waves rolling
into shore, it amazed me how—cha-ching--one more thing kept following one
more thing: Until today, I’d seen Menhaden as no more than a caricature, but
now I saw his character, a man humbly struggling to care for a sick wife and
family.
On the morning of the hospital picnic, I woke up feeling a little sad.
Yesterday, I’d read a card thumb-tacked to the bulletin board near the time
clock. It was from Shelby Reef’s wife, informing us that Shelby had passed
away while at a hospital in Pelican Beach. She thanked all the staff at Cypress
General for the care he’d received here.
Still, I couldn’t be in mourning this morning.
At the ZT Stop, I bought a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, and then it was on to
Chigger Town. Rolling up Tortoise Trail, the car left behind a Never Drive-
like white contrail--a cloud of anticipation rising to the sky.
“Homes and ranches in the pines,” I said, slowing down when I spotted
Nikki’s car.
I beeped my horn, as she’d told me to do. I then waited for what seemed a
long time. Finally, she appeared, stepping out the door, cradling a plastic bowl
in her arms. She was a mermaid in cutoff jeans, with a yellow bikini top visible
under an unbuttoned white shirt, and flip flops on her feet. Approaching my

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car over a carpet of pine needles, she looked up and smiled.
“Hi,” she said.
Opening the door, she slid into the passenger seat.
“Sorry I was slow getting out here, but I’m a little dopy this morning,” she
said as we rolled down dusty Tortoise Trail. “I didn’t get in till late last night.
You have any trouble finding the place?”
“It was pretty easy.”
“Good,” she responded with a yawn. “I notice you do the speed limit, like
me. When I first got my license, the people around here used to call me the
Hare of Tortoise Trail, but after a few speeding tickets, I learned.”
Turning onto 17, I started back toward Cypress City. She closed her eyes
and leaned back in the chair, which reminded me of Tammy sitting in the back
seat of Harry’s Lincoln.
“Ah, shit,” she said, opening them again. “I left my handbag in Run
Around.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what I call my Runabout. What do you call this thing?”
“It’s a Chevette.”
“You don’t have a pet name for it?”
“That’s something girls do, right?”
“Maybe. Say, do you smoke?”
“I don’t.”
“I left my Lucky Strikes in my handbag.”
“You want to go back and get it?”
“Nah, I can bum a few when we get to the park.”
“There’s a pack of chewing gum in my glove box.”
“Yeah? Cool,” she said. She opened the box and retrieved the gum. “My
favorite kind too--Juicy Fruit.”
“Can you swim at this park? I didn’t bring any trunks.”
“Yeah. They got a pool. You don’t need trunks. Just go in your shorts.
That’s where I’m headed as soon as we get there.”

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 “What do you have in your plastic bowl? Pasta salad?”
“No,” she sighed. “I’m so ashamed of myself. When I got in last night it
hit me that I’d forgotten to go to the supermarket. Luckily Momma had a little
lettuce and tomatoes in the refrigerator, so I threw a tossed salad together.
That’s what I was doing at two-thirty this morning…. Did you bring
anything?”
“Just a bag of charcoal and lighter fluid.”
Her shoulder then came in contact with mine, sending a shock of electricity
through me. She’d leaned my way to take a look at herself in the rearview
mirror. My ear was filled with the sound of gum chomping.
“My hair brush is in my handbag too,” she said, moving back to her side.
“I guess I’m going to be a nature girl today.”
“Your hair looked that way when you asked me to help you with that guy
who came in with the cow kick.”
“Yeah? Yeah, that was Pops Manatee. Did you know he’s writing a history
of the Moo-Cow Dairy?”
“Not that your hair looks bad,” I thought to add.
“Want to hear an interesting story?” she asked. “Years ago, there used to be
two dairies. One belonged to Calvin Moe, the other to Malcolm Coe, and those
two guys hated each other. The Moes and Coes were always feuding. But the
shit really hit the fan when one of Coe’s granddaughters got knocked up by
one of Moe’s grandsons. And this is where it gets interesting. Because the
two men had a meeting, and to the surprise of everyone, they agreed the two
kids should get married. So instead of war, it’s been peace ever since, like two
kingdoms coming together. The two old men became like brothers. They even
joined their families and farms together, and that’s how the Moo-Cow Dairy
came to be. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Yes,” I said, more amazed at how “easy like Sunday morning” she was, as
in the Commodores current hit song.
No Conversation Plan needed here!
“You seem like a real mellow person,” I said.

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 “I guess I am,” she agreed. “I’ve always made friends easy. Trouble is,
they’re always calling me on the phone, which gets my parents pissed off,
especially if they’re expecting a call. That’s why it’s about time I got my own
place. I heard they got apartments available at the Fountain Blue, and I’m
thinking about checking them out.”
Fountain Blue? Hearing this made me uncomfortable. I imagined myself
arriving at the Fountain Blue to pick her up her for a date, and who do I run
into but Tammy Papaya, walking out to her car.
Arriving at the center of town, I turned right onto Brahman and later veered
right at Bi Fork Split onto County Road One.
“Forty-three to one,” she sang, “and now begins the fun! My dad used to
say that whenever he drove us to the park…. You know, he’s got the most
beautiful white hair, but now he’s ruining it with that Grecian Formula stuff.
He wants his hair to be dark again, which I think is stupid but … what are you
going to do?”
This was only the second time I’d driven out this way. I remembered the
park entrance was just before Low Bridge, that crossed the Summer River.
“Low bridge, everybody down,” Nikki sang, and then asked, “what song is
that from?”
“Uh,” I hesitated, remembering the song but right now concentrating on
making the turn into the park.
The hospital had rented the only open-air pavilion available. Jane Fern and
Ariel Seagull already had its large concrete grill smoking.
“Leave your charcoal and fluid over there,” Jane said, pointing to a spot
near the grill. “Nikki, we’re keeping the covered dishes on that table.”
“I forgot to bring salad dressing,” Nikki said.
“I’m sure others will bring some. How do you like days so far, Owen?”
“It’s busy.”
“You’re not ready to go back on nights?”
“No, ma’am…. Is that new orderly set to start?”
“Barry Cooter? He starts on Monday. Thanks for telling him about the

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opening. I hope he works out.”
Nikki was ready to hit the water, so we headed for the pool. On the grass
between the pavilion and pool, Ted Deland and Cindy Kelp were tossing a
Frisbee.
“Theodore,” Nikki said. “It’s nice to see you smiling for a change.”
“That’s because I’m not working at the hellhole today,” Ted said.
Maybe it was because “hellhole” echoed “hello,” but I couldn’t help looking
around for Tina.
The pool, surrounded by a chain-link fence, was empty except for two boys
who were taking turns running off the diving board.
Nikki and I undressed at one of the wooden benches. I sat down and slowly
untied my sneakers. Nikki remained standing and quickly pulled off her shirt
and shorts.
“Water cold, boys?” she asked.
“It’s okay,” one of them said.
Spitting her gum into a trash can, Nikki started for the diving board, then
looked back and asked, “You coming?”
“I’ll follow you,” I said, taking my time removing my socks.
“Shit!” she hissed, pounding the air with her fist, reminding me of that angry
mother in OB who had pounded her fist on the gurney.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Cigarettes, hair brush, salad dressing, and what else did I forget?”
“What?”
“A towel,” she said. “Guess I’ll just have to shake off like a dog.”
That girl wasn’t any dog though; she was a real tomato. She walked to the
end of the diving board and stood over the water. When she threw up her arms
and jumped, her curvaceous body stretched into a truth beyond all stretching.
Feminine mystique? No mistake.
She slipped into the water with hardly a splash. Like a lure cast into the
lake, she sent circles expanding outward.
Not wanting her to see my chicken-breasted upper body, I ripped off my

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ASU t-shirt and started for the diving board. I saw that she was not going to
pop right up though, and watched her swim underwater. Her golden body
shimmered as she pulled with her arms and kicked with her legs. She glided,
rhythmically, through the translucence, sending tiny bubbles up to the surface.
I jumped off the board, feet first, just as she was surfacing. Before plunging
underwater I had just enough time to see her head pop up--eyes shut, mouth
open, water streaming down her hair and face.
“Feels good, huh?” she said when I came up.
“Yeah,” I agreed, wiping water from my eyes.
“They’re starting to roll in now,” she said, nodding toward the parking lot
where a line of cars were streaming in.
“You guys mind if I drop my stuff on your bench?” Vic Blow asked, while
pulling off his shirt. “I’m on call, but I’m hoping to get in a swim and eat a
little barbecue before my beeper goes off.”
“That’s what I told Peter,” Nikki said. “He could get to the hospital in
plenty of time if anyone needed an X ray, but he decided to just hang around
the house.”
“I just brought a change of clothes,” Vic said, walking to the board. “Now
you guys better watch out, because your favorite dolphin, Flipper, is about to
dive into the pool.” He then ran off the board, wrapping his arms around his
bent legs like a cannonball, and proceeded to create a splash that sent tidal
waves crashing into the sides of the pool.
“Geez, Vic, did you leave any water in the pool?” Nikki yelled, once he’d
surfaced.
“Ha-ha-ha,” Vic responded, now backstroking with gusto.
After wading over to Nikki, I saw she was looking up at someone.
“Well, where did you come from?” she asked.
A dark-haired woman in sunglasses was standing above us. It was Tina, in
a pink t-shirt and red gym shorts. On her shorts were printed the words,
“Cypress High Panthers.”
“You coming in the water?”

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 “Maybe later,” Tina said, puffing on a cigarette.
She was standing on her right foot, with her left resting on her right knee,
which reminded me of a pink flamingo.
“What you been up to?” Nikki asked.
“Oh, not too much. Just wasting away in Sip Lake.”
“Where’s Stew?”
“Uh--that I couldn’t tell you.”
Turning around, Tina went to our bench and sat down.
“Are you okay?” Nikki asked her.
Receiving no answer, Nikki glanced at me, then lifted herself out of the pool
and walked over to Tina.
“Hey, Flipper,” she called to Vic. “Are you into sharing towels?”
“Go ahead,” Vic said, now dog paddling. “Just leave it dry when you’re
done.”
“Yeah, sure,” Nikki said, picking up the towel.
People were now beginning to trickle into the pool. Among them were Dr.
Columbus’ two daughters, Pinta and Nina, plus Dr. Ah’s daughter, Beatrice,
who was a candy-striper volunteer at the hospital.
“Hey, girls,” Nikki greeted them, dabbing herself with the towel and sitting
down on the bench. “So, what happened?” she asked Tina. “Did you two get
into a fight?”
“Oh--did we,” Tina drawled.
After testing the water with their toes, the girls jumped in--one, two, three-
-while Tina and Nikki fell into muted conversation.
I debated joining them at the bench or staying put to let them have their
private talk.
Wading around, I imagined myself as Jack Bailey, who had just crowned
them both Queens for a Day. I then imagined myself as Jack Haley, the tin
man in The Wizard of Oz, who’d been crowned with only a funnel that I would
gladly have traded for either one of their hearts.
The surface of the pool was now filled with floating heads, while

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underneath it was a pooling of bodies and legs. Was I alone in knowing that
we were all really one?
I watched Nikki light up one of Tina’s Salems. She was sitting down next
to her, taking in the details of Tina’s tale of woe.
And Vic Blow? Mr. Flabby Flipper seemed unencumbered by any vanity.
If roly-poly Blow didn’t care, why should chicken-breasted me? And didn’t
I have just as much right to sit on that bench as those girls did?
I climbed out of the pool, went to the bench, grabbed my t-shirt and used it
to dry myself off. The girls seemed unaware of my presence. Lost in their
private conversation, they’d built a word-fort around themselves.
Gazing past them, through the chain-link fence, I saw Tina’s Mustang in
the parking lot, minus its Arrive Stoned tag.
But Nikki did know I was there; she poked me in the belly with her finger.
“Hey, I’m ready for a cold beer,” she said. “How about you?”
“Sure,” I replied, while putting on my now damp shirt.
The girls stood up as I sat down to put my socks and sneakers on. While
bent to my task, Nikki reached over me to grab her shirt. Glancing up, I found
my face in her belly and was it heaven yet? In a guilty panic I wondered if she
were aware of this. How would she respond? Like a lion or a lamb?
Still talking to Tina, she flashed me a grin, as if oblivious.
“What are you on, anyway?” she asked Tina, while putting on her shirt.
“I did a little weed after storming out of Stew’s apartment…. You don’t
smoke anymore?”
“No thank you, please. It only makes me sneeze,” Nikki said, quoting
Ringo Starr, while waving to Ted and Cindy who were now in the pool.
I was a tag-along, walking behind them. I saw the abandoned Frisbee in the
grass, and from my angle of sight it looked like an ellipse, mirroring me. I was
no more than an eccentric, homely, ovoid mango, but then my self-pity became
anger, turning me puffer-fish fierce: “What happened to your Arrive Stoned
tag?” I asked Tina.
Tina started to glance back at me, but only started, just as she’d only started

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to look back at Soils’ painting in the dining room that night in May.
“My asshole father made me take it off,” she said. “He said it embarrassed
him to have our neighbors see it whenever they drove past our house.” She
then managed a weak smile. “But I guess I did arrive here stoned.”
“Oh, those uppity Royal Palms people,” Nikki sighed, “always concerned
with the appearance of things…. Here comes your sister. Looks like she wants
you.”
“Oh, shit,” Tina said, as Laura approached them.
“Mom and Dad saw your car and were wondering where you were. Come
on. We’re getting ready to eat.”
“I didn’t know you’d invited them to come,” Tina said, with an expression
of alarm on her face. “Look, will you tell them I’m sick or something? I’m in
no mood for a scene.”
Suddenly she was walking away--head down, hair falling forward, like a
drooping palm.
Right then, I was glad I hadn’t been dealt that ace of spades.
“Has she been smoking?” Laura asked Nikki.
“Yeah, and she just broke up with Stew.”
Laura frowned, shook her head, and headed back toward the pavilion.
“Tina just needs to get her life back in order,” Nikki said, “but she’ll get
over it.”
Marianne was helping Fern and Seagull at the grill.
I wanted to walk over and say hi, but Nikki handed me a cold Busch beer
and said, “Come on.” So, I followed her to a picnic table where Dr. Columbus’
wife was sitting alone.
“I can see you’ve been in the pool,” Mrs. Columbus said, as we were sitting
down. “Did you see Pinta and Nina there?”
“Yeah, that’s where they are,” Nikki said. “Mrs. Columbus, this is Owen
Cloud. He works at the hospital too.”
“Sandra Maria’s my name,” she said, smiling at me. “When my future
husband learned this, he insisted Sandra become Santa, and of course later our

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girls’ names had to fall in line.”
“Where is Dr. C?” Nikki asked.
“He’s behind you, talking shop with a couple of his doctor friends.”
The pavilion overlooked a wide, grassy parkland that sloped down to the
river. The near side of the river was bordered by a wall of thick brush; the
opposite side was a wide watery prairie. Off to the left, the river met a wall of
tall cypresses, which I assumed must be the entrance into Big Mushy Slew.
Had Moses Soils once set up his easel down there? Was this where he’d
first painted the scene which he’d later copied on the dining-room wall?
“Is this pretty girl your date?” Dr. Columbus asked me, while sitting down
next to his wife.
“Yes,” I said.
“And did anyone introduce you to my wife?”
“Yes, sir. Nikki did.”
I looked at Nikki, but saw that she wasn’t paying any attention to us. She
was looking up at a young couple, now walking past our table.
“Adam,” she called out.
A tall young man, in cowboy hat and boots, glanced down at her.
“Howdy,” he said, while continuing on his way. He was accompanied by
Robin Wood, who was a lab technician at the hospital.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Annie Miramar.
“Mommy’s over there,” she declared, pointing toward the grill.
“Hi, Annie,” I said. “I’ll be over to see her later.”
Annie turned and walked away, not to her mother though, but toward a
picnic table where Minnie and her family were sitting, along with Sammy and
Angela Lantana.
“Okay, folks, let’s eat!” Jane Fern called out, and soon everybody was
lining up for barbecue, with Rosetta Stone and Marianne doing the serving. I
joined Nikki and the Columbus family in line, trying to decide if I wanted ribs
or chicken.
“Owen,” Rosetta said, smiling. “You’re on days now, huh? I do a day shift

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now and then, so maybe I’ll see you when I do.”
When I came to Marianne though, she didn’t look me in the eye, but only
asked, “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have some ribs, please,” I said, holding out my paper plate. “Joey and
Sam didn’t make it?”
“Joey’s helping Daddy at the truck stop,” she said, transferring a rack onto
my plate and looking toward the man behind me. “What’ll you have, sir?” she
asked him.
Was it my imagination? I wondered at the coolness of her tone.
Stepping over to the side-dish line, I found myself across from Mr. and Mrs.
Gardenia, who were in line on the other side of the table.
Looking at Mrs. Gardenia, I had to agree that it was the mother who had
given Tina her good looks. I remembered Harry introducing me to Mr.
Gardenia. He never looked up at me now, and probably wouldn’t recognize
me if he did.
“No barbecue, Gino?” somebody asked him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, my doctor’s got me on rabbit food,” he grumbled. “Need to lose a few
pounds. Say, Marty, who made the salad?”
“That’s Marianne’s,” his wife said, as I studied the lines and creases on her
face, which might be Tina’s face twenty years from now. “You know, Sam
Homestead’s daughter.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’m getting me a heaping helping of that.”
Marianne’s salad--generous, healthy, and full of good things--outshined the
salad next to it, Nikki’s, which consisted only of a few slices of tomato and
wilted lettuce.
Not wanting to hurt Nikki’s feelings, I put some of hers on my plate, though
I seemed to be the only one doing so.
Returning to the picnic table, Santa Maria introduced me to her daughters,
and to Beatrice. They were already seated and digging in.
“That’s Adam Seahorse,” Dr. Columbus said to his wife. “He’s one of
Nikki’s old flames, but I don’t think they see much of each other anymore.”

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 Hearing this, I looked over to see Nikki and the handsome cowboy engaged
in conversation. Robin Wood, sitting at a table nearby, was looking at them
too, with what might have been arrows shooting from her eyes.
“Joe,” the doctor said.
Was he looking at me, or past me to someone else?
I took a quick glance behind me, but saw no one.
“Is that your name?”
“No, sir,” I said. “It’s Owen.”
“Oh,” he said, not apologizing but turning his attention to Nikki who was
now sitting down next to me.
“How’s Adam?’ he asked her.
“Aw, he’s okay,” she said, while starting to eat.
Miffed, surprised he’d called me by my penname, I started eating too, but
felt tempted to borrow a line from JoJo’s Joke Book and ask who he thought
he was, the first bus to cross the ocean?
“Dad, these ribs are a mess to eat,” Nina said.
“You’re right, sweetheart. Why don’t you go and get us some more paper
towels?”
Once, while we were eating, I cast a discreet eye at Wood and Cowboy.
They were sitting together, eating but not talking.
Conversations were going on all around me, but I said nothing. I felt a little
unsettled by Marianne’s cool tone, and Nikki’s conversation with the
handsome fella.
When everyone was about finished eating, Ariel Seagull marched through
the pavilion holding up a ball. “Who’s up for volleyball?” he yelled.
“Can’t we let our food digest?” someone suggested.
“Come on,” Nikki said, standing up, pulling me by the arm.
A volleyball net was set up on the level ground near the riverbank, but
picnickers with full bellies proved to be reluctant athletes, and it took a while
for Seagull to collect enough players for two teams.
While we waited, I observed a white egret soaring above the cypresses

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where the river flowed in.
Nikki and I were on opposite teams, on opposite sides of the net, and during
the games I had the opportunity of appreciating the glory of her bikini bounce.
She was so, so there, that I almost needed shades to filter out her glittering
glare; and I knew she had no reciprocating appreciation for the skinny guy with
frizzy hair.
After playing two games under the blazing sun, nobody wanted a third. The
sweat dripping from our bodies reminded me of Jackson Pollack--Jack the
Dripper--dancing around a canvas on the floor, while dripping paint over it.
“We got slices of cold watermelon up here,” Jane Fern yelled, after walking
halfway down from the pavilion.
“I’m ready for some shade and a beer,” Nikki said, holding her belly. “That
was too soon after eating for me.”
“I’m ready to dive into that pool,” blond Sandy Waverly said, whose bikini-
clad body might be Nikki’s when she was pushing forty.
As everyone was making the trek up to the pavilion, I hesitated, wanting
confirmation that this was indeed where the river flowed into the slew.
“That is the Big Mushy Slew over there, right?” I asked someone nearby.
“That’s it,” Dr. Busby affirmed.
“Are you coming, ASU Owl?” Nikki said, glancing back at me.
“Yeah, I am,” I said, starting after her.
There seemed no doubt about it now. This had to be where Soils had first
captured his dining room scene in oils. And no, it wasn’t just something he’d
made up, as Tina had remarked. What he’d painted was something real.
I then thought of Del Ray Ford, who right now might be eyeing me from
somewhere in that shady slew. Since discovering palmetto bugs inside my
cottage, I just might follow his lead, and get one of those Roach Motels.
“Happy trails,” I whispered, envying his solitude but not his isolation.

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 August

Returning from the Sudsy Rush, I folded my clothes on the bed while thinking
of Marianne. I hadn’t seen her since the picnic. Her coolness had taken me by
surprise and this made me hesitant to visit the Homesteads. Since moving to
Sip Lake, though, they had become like a second family to me, and I did want
to know what, if anything, was bothering her.
I biked over there and found her sitting on her front doorstep, alone.
“Me and the kids are pretty heartsick right now,” she said, as I sat down
next to her. “Pups died this afternoon. We had a little funeral in the backyard.
They’re in their bedrooms, in tears--still saying their goodbyes, I guess.”
This news about Pups hushed my desire to ask her about the picnic.
“I’m glad you came over,” she said. “I was wondering if I was going to see
you again. I’m sorry for how I acted at High Park. I guess I showed by butt,
didn’t I? When I saw you and Nikki together, I was jealous. I had no right to
feel that way. I don’t know what came over me, but that’s what happened. I’m
sorry. Are we still friends?”
“Of, course.”

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 “It did surprise me to see you with Nikki. I guess I had it in my head that
you liked Tina. Don’t ask me why I thought that. Maybe it’s something you
told me.”
“I asked you about her boyfriend once. Remember when I came over for
Sunday dinner and Tina was also supposed to be here? I thought you were
maybe being a matchmaker.”
“That’s right,” she responded, nodding her head. “But that’s not why I
invited you two to dinner, to bring you together. She used to be over here all
the time when we were going to PBJC, but I haven’t seen too much of her since
she quit school.”
I was staring at the pink flamingo (Tina at the pool?), standing on one leg,
only a few feet away.
“But, hey,” she said, her face brightening. “Did you know I’m almost an
RN? Next month my class will have a pinning ceremony at the Hotel Belmont,
in Pelican Beach. Would you like to come?”
“Sure, I would.”
She looked at me with a thoughtful expression on her face.
“I need to be honest with you. When we became friends, that’s all I wanted
us to be.”
“I never thought of us as anything else.”
“I knew you didn’t, but I guess I changed. After what I went through with
Merlin, for me, life with another man was out, but sometime during our
friendship I started to think that I could have a second life. You did that for
me.”
“I guess I’m glad I did that, if I did.”
“And somewhere after that, I fell in love with you.”
I looked down at the grass, but didn’t know what to say.
“But that’s my thing, little brother, not yours. That’s no obligation to you.
If you want your own kids someday, I can’t give you that, though I could give
you mine. The only thing I can say is I hope we’ll always be friends, and that
being friends with you has made me want to find a life-long companion of my

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own. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I hope you do find someone.”
“But no one will love you like I do,” she said, as I was standing up.
Biking back to the cottage, I wondered why she threw in that last remark.
She really must have me overrated, I thought, but I was happy our friendship
was still intact. And it seemed a good thing she now felt ready to pursue a
lasting relationship.
I popped open a can of Blue Ribbon and was about to turn on the TV when
the phone rang.
“Mr. Cloud? This is Coral Gables of the Cypress City News. We’ve
received your letter and would like to print it in our next issue. Since it’s so
long, we’d like to print it as a guest editorial. It was nice to have something
submitted that wasn’t about commerce. I liked what you wrote about leaving
some of our natural surroundings blank, like an artist’s canvas, instead of
filling everything in with concrete and asphalt….”
After our conversation, I sat down, not thinking how my opining might
influence the minds of the general public, but how it might impress Nikki Kiss.
I imagined her walking up to me at work, saying “I read your essay in the paper
last night. It was so cool!”
I hadn’t seen her outside the hospital since the picnic, but since then I’d
lived with the vision of her swimming underwater, her body a mesh of fleshy
mirrors, with each mirror being a bell, ringing out her glory.
Off the weekend, flush with this good news, and with hopes of my own
future glory, I heated a TV dinner in the oven and enjoyed a few Pabst Blues
while listening to music and commercials on the radio.
One of the commercials came from my old friends at Camelot Chevrolet,
where some guy was urging me not to miss their “Big Fall Clearance Sale….
We’ve got to make room for the new seventy-eights coming in. So, we’re
offering chivalrous markdowns on every vehicle in our inventory. Looking for
a round-table deal? Come to Camelot!”
“In short, there’s simply not a more congenial spot,” I sang, “for happily

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ever-after-ing than here in … old Sip Lake!”
I stayed up late, went to bed relaxed, but was too soon awakened by the
phone’s rude ringing: “Owen, can you come in to work today? We’ve got two
aides who called in sick on the south wing.”
“Why the hell did they have to call me in this morning,” I grumbled,
mimicking Vic Blow, while taking a quick shower.
No time for breakfast. I downed a box of Sun Maid Raisins.
Walking out the door, my face became enmeshed in a mask--the fine
filaments of a spider’s web. In a panic, using both hands, I brushed the web
from my face and hair, fearing the angry spider’s bite. But when I looked up I
saw the spider crawling along the edge of the roof. All that was left of the web
were two long, loose strands of filament, hanging down. I was too big a catch
for such a little net.
Rolling up Highway 43, I hoped Nikki wasn’t too big a catch for my net. I
wished I’d asked her out again while driving her back to Chigger Town after
the picnic, but I just couldn’t think of anything. She was so easy to get along
with though, that she’d probably have agreed to go to the beach with me if I’d
only asked.
How, while in the grapes of youth, do two people form a bond lasting until
they mature into wrinkled raisois?
Arriving at the hospital, I rushed into the dining room for a quick cup of
joe.
“See my new title?” Polly Potts greeted me, pointing to her nametag. “I’ve
been chief cook-and-bottle-washer around here for close to twenty years, but
now, thanks to these Corporation Canaveral folks, I guess it’s official.”
“C-C-B-W,” I read the initials aloud, then looked at her quizzically. “It
doesn’t really mean that, does it?”
“No!” she shot back. “It means Chief Chef for Becoming Well.”
“Oh, well, I guess that sounds more official.”
Pressing her palms together above her head, she then turned herself into a
ballistic missile, shouting “blasting off into the future!” while shuffling off

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toward the kitchen.
After my blast-off, though, it turned into just another routine Saturday, less
busy than on weekdays. Or at least it was until Sally St. Cloud, the sarcastic
little aide I’d been working with, came up to me with a message: “Nancy Nurse
wants to see you,” she said. “She wants me in ICU, but I should be back here
when the lunch cart arrives.”
“Nancy? You mean, Laura?” I asked.
“Yeah, Nancy’s what I call her. She’s a know-it-all.”
I didn’t think Laura was that bad, but was glad my name was just plain
Cloud, if being a saint meant having a personality like Sally’s.
Laura did seem to be in complaint mode, though, when I arrived at the
nursing station. She was discussing her husband to a young record clerk, Silvia
Seabird: “Isn’t sloth one of the seven deadly sins? I call my husband Roth the
Sloth, because the longer we’ve been married, the lazier he gets. All he wants
to do is sit around the house, drink beer, and watch ball games on TV.”
“I sure hope Sal doesn’t get like that,” Silvia said, with a nervous giggle.
“We’ve only been married for a year, but so far we’ve been a pretty good
team.”
“I told Roth he needs to cut down on the beer. He’s getting a pot belly, but
you know what he told me? He said he switched to Miller Lite because it’s
less filling. That was his answer. Sometimes he makes my blood boil.”
She then looked up and saw me. “Don’t mind us, Owen,” she said, smiling.
“Just girl talk. Would you do me a favor? We’ve got a six-month old baby in
pediatrics who’s got a fever. We’re trying to bring it down with cold
compresses. Belle’s in there now, and she’s about ready for her morning break.
Would you mind going in and taking over for her? It’ll only be for fifteen-
twenty minutes.”
“Yeah,” I said, hesitant. “The only thing is, I’ve never worked with babies
before.”
“Belle will show you. You don’t mind a bawling baby, do you? I’d have
Sally do it, but I had to send her to ICU.”

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 I didn’t want to do this. Why didn’t she send Sally in there and me to ICU?
I didn’t know, but didn’t want her thinking me slothful. So, I reluctantly
headed for pediatrics, so reluctantly that I felt myself trudging through soft,
wet sand.
When I got there, I heard a shrill wail. I followed the sound into one of the
rooms, where I saw Belle standing before a crib. Behind her, on a portable
table, was a bowl of ice water. I watched her reach back, wet a wash cloth,
and then apply it to the baby’s body. The baby’s wails were being initiated by
the application of the freezing compress.
“Tomato Face, what are you doing here?” Belle asked, when I came up
beside her.
“Laura wants me to relieve you, so you can go on break.”
“You ever done this before?”
“No.”
“Jesus, I hate to hear her cry, but as soon as that cold cloth hits her body,
she lets out a holler. Are you sure you’ll be okay doing this? You don’t look
too enthusiastic.”
“I’m not enthusiastic, but at least it doesn’t look complicated.”
“No offense, honey. But I’m surprised they sent you in here. Didn’t you
once tell me you thought babies were delivered by storks?”
“Yeah, sure I did,” I said, seeing her grin deepen the crinkles around her
eyes.
She placed the washcloth in my hand.
“Roll her on her side and do her back too. I won’t be long. I need to go use
the ladies’ room more than anything.”
“See you, Tomato Lady,” I said, dipping the cloth in the icy water.
“Doe--Doe Clayborn,” I whispered, reading the 3x5 card taped on the bars
of the crib. Then I took a deep breath. “Okay, sweetheart. Here we go….”
“Doe, a deer, a female deer,” I sang, hearing Julie Andrews’ voice in The
Sound of Music. But singing did nothing to assuage the baby’s agony; she let
out an excruciating wail as soon as I laid the compress on her body.

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 “Oh, man,” I groaned.
As I continued the chore, I saw himself as Pol Pot, or Idi Amin, coldly
practicing the simplistic stimulus-response of torture--applying the compress,
hearing the wail, applying the compress, hearing the wail….
Inside the crib was a baby rattle. I picked it up and tried shaking it, but it
did no good. Can a panther distract, while at the same time sinking its teeth
into a helpless deer?
I tried to numb myself while repeating this process, as if to remove myself
from the torture I was inflicting. Then, once, after soaking the cloth in the
water, I turned around to find the baby down on the floor. She wasn’t crying
though, but was staring up at me in wide-eyed wonderment.
“Oh, god,” I groaned, and immediately lifted her back into the crib. I
covered her with a blanket, raised the side rail, and peered in at her through the
bars. I was surprised at how placid she appeared, on her back, looking up to
the ceiling.
Still, it was a daytime nightmare.
“You’ll have to make out an incident report,” Silvia Seabird said. She
ripped a form from a pad and handed it to me. I sat down in the linen room
and filled it out. When I was done, I handed it back to her.
“Laura’s down the hall,” she said. “I’ll give it to her when she comes back.”
I started to return to pediatrics, but then went to the dining room instead. I
poured myself a cup of orange juice and sat down across from Felix Del Sol.
“Owen, how’s it going?” he greeted me.
“Not too good. I was giving a baby cold compresses, when it fell out of the
crib onto the floor. I had to make out an incident report.”
“No, shit? Man, that’s bad.”
“I don’t think I should have been in there. I’ve never taken care of babies
before. Still, it was my fault. I should never have taken my eyes off her.”
“Who sent you in there?”
“Laura Sanford.”
“Mrs. Sanford? I don’t think she should have done that.”

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 “I had to keep dipping my cloth in a bowl of ice water, and the bowl was on
a table behind me. If the table was next to me, maybe I wouldn’t have taken
my eyes off the baby.”
“I don’t know about that, but this morning Mrs. Sanford jumped all over me
because she slipped on the floor when I was mopping. She didn’t fall down or
nothing--I had my yellow warning signs up--but she was in such a hurry that
she slid a little, like an ice skater. And, man, did she get mad. That lady, I
think she must be on the rag or something. I mean, I’m a janitor, and mopping
the floors is one of my jobs. I follow the same routine every day. No one’s
ever complained before.”
“Mmm,” I responded, seeing lights flashing on the yellow school-zone sign
before I got pulled over.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Felix went on, “but lately, that lady has had
more complaints than Jimmy Carter’s got peanuts.”
I returned to the nurses’ station, ready to be chewed out:
“I’m sorry about what happened, Owen,” Laura said. “I’ll give your
incident report to Doctor Begonia. Babies are fragile little things, and you have
to be very careful with them. I went in there to check on her and she looks just
fine, except for the fever. Belle’s back in there with her now.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m going home. I’m not feeling so hot.”
“You okay?”
“I’m … sorry.”
“Okay, then. I’ll tell Miss Fern you went home sick.”
Hurrying away, I passed Nikki, who no doubt had been called in to do an X
ray. She grinned at me and asked, “How’re you doing?”
“Alright,” I said, forcing a weak smile but not stopping to talk. I knew I
was brushing her off, but I only wanted to get out of there.
At the cottage, the long, web filaments were swaying in the warm air, like
strands of raven hair. I brushed them aside, like Tina did at Flagler Park. I
poured a glass of cold water, sat down at the table, and stared hypnotically at
the ruffled sheets on the bed, reminding me of white salty surf rolling onto

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shore.
How long did I sit like that? I wasn’t sure, but beads of condensation were
forming on the sides of the glass.
What would Doctor Begonia do after reading my incident report? Miss
Fern might fire me. Losing my job, Harry would no doubt invite me to work
for him, but no way. I’d just have to find another job, or break my lease and
go home.
I decided to bike over to the Homesteads. Turning down Ocean Lane, I saw
Marianne, Sammy, and Annie playing ball in the street. I sounded the bell—
cha-ching!--on my handlebar to get their attention, but they didn’t hear me.
“Oh, Momma!” Sammy shouted, dropping his bat in disgust after his
mother had thrown a pitch over his head.
“Sorry, son,” Marianne said, as the boy took off after the ball.
“Whew!” she hissed, placing her hands on her hips.
“There’s Owen,” Annie said, pointing at me as I came to a stop behind them.
Marianne turned around and smiled, her freckled face wet with perspiration.
“Annie, you’re the catcher,” Sammy cried. “You’re supposed to go after
the ball, not me.”
“No, I’m not,” Annie responded, and then she placed her hands on her hips
for my benefit. “Look at me,” she said. “I’m Wonder Woman!”
Marianne smiled at me. “She thinks she’s Lynda Carter, but I guess you
don’t watch that TV show, do you? How come you biked over here in your
uniform?”
“They called me into work this morning, and I need to talk to you about
something.”
“Okay,” she said, looking over at her son. “I’m sorry I’m not a good pitcher,
Sammy, but how about we go in and I’ll pour us some lemonade?”
After I told her my story, Marianne got on the phone to the hospital and was
told the baby was doing fine.
“If anyone gets into trouble about this it should be Laura,” she said, as we
sat at the dining room table with our drinks. “She shouldn’t have asked you to

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do that. You don’t have any experience with babies. If anything, she should
have gone in there and relieved Belle herself, if she didn’t have anyone else
qualified. Don’t worry about it, little brother.”
“The baby’s okay?”
“I’m sure she is. I mean, accidents can happen, but babies are extremely
pliable. It’s amazing how God made them. They’re hardy little creatures.
They can take a lot of trauma.”
Reassured, I was going to leave after finishing my lemonade, but then it
started to rain and Marianne invited me to stay for grilled-cheese sandwiches.
After lunch, the kids went into the family room to watch TV, and we remained
at the dining room table, watching the rain.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about yesterday,” she said. “At church,
I was introduced to a man who has two kids. His name is Ben Dade. He’s
been a single parent for the past five years, since his wife died. They live in
Miami, but his kids have been spending the summer here with their
grandparents. Ben’s been coming up for the weekends, and recently started
going to our church. He seems like a nice guy, but I was kind of surprised
when he called me last night and asked if I would like to go out with him next
weekend. I guess he’s in the same situation I am, ready to start looking for a
mate.”
When the rain let up, I pedaled back to the cottage, my tires swishing over
wet pavement, glistening in the sun. I felt relieved about Baby Doe, but
strangely a little jealous that this Ben Dade guy was going to take Marianne on
a date.
Later that afternoon, I found a letter from Mom in my mailbox. They were
still enjoying their stay at Aunt Clara and Uncle Fred’s. Dad and Uncle Fred
were catching a lot of striped bass in the bay. But they were also looking
forward to month’s end, when they would be returning home to West Flamingo
Beach.
That evening, on the radio the O’Jays were urging everyone in the world to
join hands and form a love train, but who would slow down enough for me to

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join that train? It seemed much more likely to be Run About Nikki than
Mustang Tina.
Did shaking that rattle help distract that baby? Did fixing that car rattle help
attract that girl? Would rattling on like this in my journal bring me any
reward?
The ringing phone sounded like rattling to me, forcing me to set my pen
down.
“Did you hear the news?” Christine asked. “Do you remember that Spook
Hill guy I was telling you about? You know, the guy who was recruiting men
to work heavy construction in Korea? Turns out he’s nothing but a con man.
The bus that was supposed to take the men to the airport never showed up.”
“I know a guy at the hospital who was supposed to go.”
“Thirty-five men were waiting in Flagler Park this morning, packed up,
ready to go, and no bus. Isn’t that hilarious? And Sonny Harder was one of
them. Each of them paid Hill two hundred bucks, supposedly to cover
expenses. But it was stupid, because none of those guys had passports. And
now Hill’s disappeared. Guys quit their jobs to go over there. What are they
going to do now? Sonny’s going to have to go to John Deere and beg for his
job back. I hope they don’t take him back. For a while there, that jerk was
coming over here, trying to put the make on me. I had to tell him to get lost.”
“I thought he had a girlfriend.”
“Oh, he’s had more than one. But once they learn what kind of guy he is,
they’re gone. So. how’re you doing? How do you like the day shift?”
“Better than nights.”
“Have you seen anything of Harry?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him.”
“He and I are done.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I heard my dad got on you for being his friend. But, Red, I want you to
know that I have no problem with that. You guys have known each other since
grade school, right?”

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 “Sure, we have.”
“But you and I--we’re friends too, right?”
“Of course,” I said, immediately wanting to parry what might be coming.
“How’s Sugar doing? Still practicing her Hamill Camels?”
“Not so much lately. I think the Olympics are starting to fade from her
dreams. You know how kids are. You ought to come over some time and see
her. It’s been a long time since you’ve been over here.”
“Yeah … but to be honest, I don’t know if it would be right--me coming
over there with you and Harry not together.”
“If you and I are friends, why not? Like I said, I don’t mind you guys being
friends, but we’re friends too…. I’ve never made many real friends in this
town. You’re one of the few I have.”
“What about the Monroe Doctrine? I wouldn’t want to violate that.”
“What?”
“Your next-door neighbor, the guardian of Hire Heights.”
“Old Marlin?”
“She never misses anything that goes on in your street, does she? She might
not approve of me coming over there.”
“Oh, Red,” Chris laughed. “She won’t care.”
“Okay,” I finally gave in. “I’ll stop by sometime….”
I felt like a fly stuck in Merriam-Spider’s Webster. Countless words were
available, but in my panic to avoid her bite, all I could come up with were those
which would allow me escape her web tonight:
“Okay,” I said again after hanging up. “I’ll stop by sometime.”
Disgusted, I went outside and made a few casts into the canal.
After one of my casts, I did an imaginary cast, mimicking a real one,
following my monofilament line down through the eyes of the pole, splashing
into the water, creating circles that seemed to expand forever.
“Life is too much for me,” I whispered.
If only I could become more like Socrates, who was the wisest of men
because he was so aware of his own ignorance. Only I was more like the comic

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Socrates in Aristophanes’ play, The Clouds who, inspired by a chorus of
clouds, had his head in the clouds.
Waking up Sunday morning, I glanced at my alarm clock and was relieved.
It was past seven. If the hospital had needed me again today, they would have
called me before now. Unless they did indeed fire me, but hopefully not.
Come blue Monday, I was cruising up 43, on my way there. I remembered
what Laura said about babies being fragile little things, and what Marianne said
about babies being hardy little things. They were probably both right. Their
words though, seemed to suggest different attitudes toward life.
It chagrinned me, remembering my ASU vow to fall for no more roses, and
yet here I was, thanks to Tina and now Nikki, shifting into third-rose gear.
In the wake of the Baby Doe Incident, I wondered how my fellow
employees might react. Would they grill me into melted cheese, asking me
how I could have been so negligent?
Of course, when I entered the dining room, no one cared. Everybody was
talking about the Korea Incident: “What a bunch of small-town saps,” someone
said. “I’m sure glad my husband didn’t sign up to go over there.”
“I guess they’re still searching for that Spook Hill guy.”
“Oh, they’ll never find him. That bird has flown. He’s long gone.”
“I wonder if that night orderly, Ted, will try to get his job back? You ever
work with him?”
“I hope Miss Fern don’t take him back. I never liked his attitude.”
“She might though, because that new hospital will be bigger than this one,
and they might need more help.”
“Yeah, but that won’t be for a while. Surely she can hire someone better
than him.”
I felt a little sorry for Doughboy, and for me. At that moment, it was
comforting to know that this building would soon crumble, and the memories
inside it would disappear into oblivion’s wide wake.
“I’ll need you to work in intensive care this morning,” Miss Fern told me
after I’d clocked in. “One of their aides is on vacation this week.”

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 “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, surprised she didn’t say anything about Doe
Clayborn.
In ICU, I reported to Sandra Dee, a nurse often referred to as “Gidget,”
though never to her face. I’d occasionally been tempted to ask her if, as in the
movie, A Summer Place, there really was a place where it was always safe and
warm through rain or storm. But she’d probably been asked questions like that
all her life, and was damned sick and tired of it.
“Would you give Mr. Ville a bed bath?” she asked me. “He’s over there,
on the respirator. He’s had a stroke and hasn’t been coherent since last night.
He has a urinary catheter. We’ll need to turn him regularly, and keep him dry.
We don’t know how long he’ll be here, but we don’t want him getting bed
sores.”
I walked over to the bed in shock. There he was, Jack, lying on his back,
eyes closed, with a vent tube in his throat..
“Hi, Mr. Ville,” I said, after standing there in silence for a moment. “My
name’s Owen. I met you last time you were in here. I’m going to give you a
bath this morning, okay?”
Like Elijah Needlefish, there was no dialog, and no way of knowing if Jack
heard what I’d said. “You promised to do my hair up right if I came to your
shop, and I did come, but you weren’t there that day. Your brother Jay cut my
hair. He did fine. It’s just that my hair is pretty impossible.”
Jack’s responses were purely respiratory--rhythmic shushes of air,
mechanically forced in and out.
In the ICU nurses’ station, I spotted a hand-written note left by Jack’s
family, requesting that no “exotic life-saving equipment” be used, and to please
just keep him as comfortable and free of pain as possible.
“In other words, don’t put him on the respirator,” Sandra said. “Dr. Seacrest
put him on it as soon as he came in here, and right now we’re keeping him on
it until they figure out the legalities.”
Later in the morning, Nikki pushed the portable X-ray machine into ICU.
She glanced at me and smiled. “Working in here today, huh? Kelly Ocala?

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Where is he?”
“Right over there,” Sandra answered, nodding to a man in a nearby bed.
I walked up to Nikki. “Hey,” I said in a low voice. “I want to apologize to
you about Saturday.”
“Apologize?” she said. “About what?”
“I rushed past you without hardly talking to you.”
Nikki frowned, as if trying to remember. “Did you?” she said, and shrugged
her shoulders. “It’s no big deal. We’re always in a hurry around here. I’m in
a rush myself. Pete’s off today, so I’ve got a double load of work to do.”
“I was taking care of a baby and it fell from the crib onto the floor.”
“What?” she responded, with a look of incredulity on her face. “You
dropped a baby?”
“Well, no--”
But now she had turned her attention toward her patient: “Mr. Ocala, I need
to take a picture of your chest, sir. We never got it when you were admitted
last night.”
“Oh?” Ocala said, his eyes widening. “Then just give me a minute to comb
my chest hairs, will you? If you’re going to take my picture, I want to look my
best.”
Nikki smiled. “If you insist, but I’m only going to take a picture of your
insides today.”
Grinning at his own joke, Ocala pointed toward me: “And after you take
my picture, I’m going to want Peter over there to put me on the pan.”
I didn’t humor the man with a smile. “Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ll do that as soon
as she gets done.”
In the dining room, I observed Nikki a few tables away--eating, talking,
nodding her head, gig-gulling. Such a cheerful soul, happy, confident in her
beauty.
And now, Mr. Harvey, what might be the rest of the story? Happily-ever-
after, maybe, if I become an Aqua Velva man?
“Mister, you must be one drifty dude,” someone sitting across from me said.

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 “Huh?” I responded, looking up to see a young woman staring at me.
It was Robin Wood, the lab tech who’d gone to the picnic with the young
cowboy—Adam Seahorse.
“Sorry, but yeah, I guess my mind was drifting off.”
“You ought to try eating your fish sticks and fries before they get cold,” she
said. “They’re not half bad.”
She stood up, picked up her tray, and walked off.
Her bluntness surprised me. I was surprised she’d said anything at all, since
I hardly knew her. But then, Nikki, I really only knew her as a stick figure. I
acknowledged her depth alright, which St. Augustine said existed in everyone.
It was just that I hadn’t spent enough time with her to see too much of it.
Returning to ICU, I almost collided with a man coming out of a patient’s
room.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The man grabbed my shoulders with both hands and looked deeply into my
eyes. “Can I talk to you a second?” he said, glancing down at my nametag.
“Please, Owen. My dad’s dying of lung cancer, and right now all he wants is
a cigarette. Would you come in here for a second?”
Inside the room lay a thin, hollow-cheeked old man with a plastic nasal
cannula in his nostrils.
“They’re giving him oxygen. That’s why he can’t light up a cigarette. He’s
been mostly unconscious since yesterday, but whenever he wakes up, that’s all
he asks for, a smoke. I’d gladly take him outside so he could have one, but I
can’t. Right now, he needs a smoke more than he does oxygen.”
“Yes, sir. But I don’t have the authority to let you do that. All I can do is
speak to the nurse, who can talk to your dad’s doctor. Your dad’s name is…?”
“Ross Rose. For many years, dad was an engineer at Pratt and Whitney
Aircraft and a very intelligent man, but he never could overcome his addiction
to cigarettes. What does that matter now? It pains me to see him like this.
He’s craving a smoke.”
As if to illustrate this point, the patient raised two quivering fingers to his

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lips, sucked in on an invisible cigarette, and blew out a plume of nonexistent
smoke.
“See?” the son said.
I spoke to a nurse, Molly Manalapan, at the nurses’ station: “His son asked
us about that earlier,” she said, “but Dr. McCatfish wants him on that oxygen.
Until he says otherwise…” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Thanks for trying,” Rose’s son said, when I relayed the news.
Sitting in the ICU nurses’ station, I gazed at the cardiac monitors, each
displaying a sinus rhythm of someone’s heart.
Life was a Suwanee song, and sooner or later all hearts straight line.
I changed Jackson’s position one more time at shift’s end, doing my little
part to prevent bed sores. It was sad to see the man lying there in forced
respiration, cutting artificial zebras.
“See you tomorrow, Jack,” I said, touching the barber’s arm.
I wanted him to look up at me and smile, ask me for a stiff drink, or
something, but that didn’t happen.
On my way home, I stopped off at the Pasta Ranger, where a sign out front
claimed their pizzas were so tasty that “eating too much is your lone danger.”
That evening I ate only a couple of slices of my pepperoni-and-cheese.
Before bed though, I couldn’t resist the temptation to eat the rest. And therein
I suffered my lone danger—a sad dream: I was offering slices of my memory-
pie for sale, but much to my dismay, not one wanted any, I couldn’t even give
them away.
Passing the Reel-to-Reel Cinema in the morning, though, my heart skipped
a sinus beat. Starting Friday night, The Turning Point would be playing there.
I’d told Nikki about this movie while driving her back to Chigger Town after
the picnic, and she’d said she might like to see it sometime.
“She won’t be in today,” Peter Palatka said. “She took a vacation day.
Since I took one yesterday, she told me she needed to get her revenge. But no,
I really have no idea why she wanted off. It’s tough when you only have two
techs covering for each other.”

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 “Miss Fern wants you in ICU again today,” Laura Sanford informed me,
and so I started off in that direction.
Halfway up the hall, I passed someone who had just stepped out of Ross
Rose’s room. This time it wasn’t Rose’s son though, but Pastor Sandy Piper.
“Good morning, pastor,” I said.
Piper stopped, looked me in the face.
“Good morning to you. Excuse me, but should I know who you are?”
“No, but I attended a Sunday service at your church once.”
“Is that so?” Piper said, with strain showing on his face, as if he were
bearing some heavy burden. “And what was I talking about that morning?”
“Mother’s Day, marriage, the Song of Solomon, Jesus….”
“Jesus? Are you kidding me?” Piper’s expression lightened a little. “Well,
you know I can’t leave him out, can I?”
“No, I guess not. Did he get his cigarette?”
“Cigarette….? Oh, yeah. His son told me he’d been wanting one. No, I
guess he never did. He passed into a coma last night…. When I came into his
room yesterday though, you know what he did? That bald, toothless old man
greeted me with the biggest grin you can imagine. He could barely whisper,
but he said he was so glad to see me. I was humbled. His eyes were so full of
love.”
Saying nothing, I nodded my head in response.
“But now, young man, to more mundane matters. I need to find the men’s
room.”
“The nearest one’s in the lobby,” I said, pointing in that direction. “Go
through that door on the left, just before you get to the nurses’ station.”
In ICU, I gave Jack a bed bath, changed his linens and, periodically, his
position. I also kept up my monologue, reminding him again that he’d
promised to do my hair up right if I came to the Coupe de Ville: “Just because
I missed you before, I’ll still be expecting you to cut my hair next time.”
At shift’s end, I don’t know why I said it. Maybe I had a wild hare up my
tortoise, but I looked over at Miss Dee and asked, “Hey, Sandra, is there really

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a summer place, where it may rain or storm, yet you’re always safe and warm?”
“What are you talking about?” she said, not looking angry but only puzzled.
“Oh, nothing. Just kidding.”
Maybe it was my discomforting awareness of what Ross and Jack were
going through that made me ask such a roseola rash question, so thank god for
the allaying balm of forgetting. She was so preoccupied with her work that it
no doubt slipped out of her mind as soon as I’d left the room. Or, at least I
hoped so.
On my way back to my summer place, I pulled into the ZT Stop and
wondered why. I couldn’t think of anything I needed, like gas, milk, or even
a Peter Paul Mounds.
I looked over at the mango tree, rising above the historical marker and
weeds. I saw it become an avocado tree, and was reminded of my honeycomb
home.
Oh, yeah, I thought, aware of the newspaper dispenser near the front
entrance. The Cypress City News came out today, and this week’s issue would
contain my guest editorial. I got out of the car, dropped two quarters into the
slot, and took a copy.
The headline on the front page made me frown: “Local Men Duped by Con
Man.” Because I knew what everybody in town would be talking about
tomorrow. It wouldn’t be about the essay two pages in, written by the next
Biscayne Spray.
Parking next to the orange tree, I sat in the car and read that Spook Hill had
been located at his home in Lake Wales. Hill claimed he’d been hired by two
other men to recruit workers for construction jobs in Korea. The money he’d
collected he’d turned over to them. He was to be paid only after the men he’d
recruited were on their way to Seoul.
I only read the article because I was afraid to open to the page containing
Our Readers Opine, but I did and there it was: “Don’t Neglect Nature For Sake
of Progress,” was the title they’d given my guest editorial. Taking material
progress for my theme, I’d argued for leaving as much of nature undeveloped

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as possible. I might have been inspired by Moses Soils’ unfinished painting in
the dining room, but not consciously.
I thought it was pretty good.
That night, I watched an old movie, The Bride of Frankenstein, in which
Frankenstein’s newly created woman rejects her groom as soon as she lays
eyes on him. Only I saw Frankenstein as Owen Stein, the monster with wild,
wiry hair and a second pair of eyes in his nose, extremely repellant to any
feminine rose.
I was hoping that Nikki’s radiological vision, though, saw through my
beastly exterior, to some beauty within.
Tomorrow, I would ask her about going to see The Turning Point. But why
not do better than that, call her up right now? Quickly, I flipped through the
K’s in the phone book and soon came to “Kissimmee.” It was the only
Kissimmee in the book and, yes, the address was on Tortoise Trail.
I was as-nervous as Willie Baxter in Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen, who
fell in love with that “real ringer-dinger,” Lola Pratt, who he referred to as
“Milady Pratt.” I was like a panther ready to spring upon a white-tailed deer.
Or, how about a puffer fish in reverse, because the more I hesitated, the more
cowardly I became.
“I’ll just wait until I see her in the morning,” I finally whispered.
“O, sole mio,” I sang on my way to work, not for opera’s sake, but only
because I anticipated the cats and kitties in the dining-room singing out Seoul
meows, instead of meowing about Owen Cloud’s inspiring opine on progress
and nature. And when I entered the dining room, I saw it to be indeed so. But,
so what? In June, who even knew my name was listed on the Police Report?
“So, maybe it’s even up,” I whispered, seeing Harry at the lake, handing me
a Seven Up.
Passing X ray on my way to the south wing, I looked for Nikki but didn’t
see her.
“Come on,” little Genie said, grabbing me by the arm. “You’re working
with us today, and we’ve got an incontinent patient to clean up before we take

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vital signs. Go get some clean sheets from the linen room, and meet me in
room eleven.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling a little miffed but not wanting to show it, “but first
a got a question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Genie, did someone rub your lamp the wrong way?”
“Aw, shut up,” she said, flashing a grin. “You’re worse than my ex.”
After we’d cleaned up the incontinent guy, together we worked our way up
the hall, taking vital signs.
In what had been Ross Roses’ room, two housekeeping ladies were hard at
work, cleaning.
“So--he’s gone?” I inquired.
“The man who was in this room?” one of them responded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Yeah,” she said, pointing her finger up to the sky. “I guess he passed
during the night.”
I saw an egret flying up through the ceiling, but Genie was also poking me
with her finger. “Come on, we’ve got two more rooms to do, and the breakfast
cart is already here.”
While we were handing out breakfast trays, I saw Nikki standing outside
the nurses’ station. She was talking to Sandy Waverly. I waited until Sandy
walked away, then approached her.
“Hi, how are you?” Nikki said.
“Fine--hey, do you remember that movie I was telling you about? The one
about the ballet dancers?”
“Yeah, I remember. What’s it called?”
“The Turning Point, and it’s going to be at the Reel-to-Reel, starting Friday
night. Would you like to go see it with me?”
“Yeah, I would,” she said, her expression becoming thoughtful. “I would,
but would sometime next week work for you? Because I’m going to have a lot
going on the rest of this week, and I’ll be on call all weekend…. How about

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the middle of next week?”
“It plays through Thursday,” I said. “I doubt it would be held over beyond
that.”
“Okay,” she said, while starting to walk away. “I’ll see you later.”
That afternoon, I saw a box of mini pecan log rolls—Stuckey’s Best—in
the nurses’ station; it came with a thank-you note from Mr. Rose’s family for
the care he had been given. Eartha Pease told me to help myself; but I
hesitated, feeling guilty, recalling the pleading expression on the son’s face.
But I took one anyway, because they were too hard to resist.
In the parking lot, Run Around and my Chevette were parked side-by-side,
like parallel streams that had bifurcated and gone their separate ways. The
Turning Point was a means by which I hoped to turn these streams back toward
each other, so that they came into confluence.
“Oh, no,” I said as I drove away, because I was going to pop into ICU to
see how Jackson was doing, but I never did.
That evening, I biked to the Homesteads, hoping Marianne had read and
been impressed with my guest editorial. But Sam told me she was in her
bedroom taking a nap, for she had to go in to work that night. So, I sat down
with him and the kids, who were watching The Bionic Woman on TV--a series
in which Lindsay Wagner played a woman who, after a skydiving accident,
undergoes an operation which gives her superhuman powers.
The two kids lay on the carpet, watching.
“Annie,” Sammy said. “You know she can’t really do all that stuff.”
“Yes, she can,” Annie insisted.
Hearing a vehicle coming to a halt outside, I recalled nervously anticipating
Tina coming into the house, but it was Joey and Angela. Angela had an
engagement ring on her finger. Joey told me that they’d recently moved into
an apartment: “We’re planning to get married in October, and of course we
want to buy a house. We’ll start looking as soon as we’ve saved enough for a
down payment.” Then he turned his attention to his father: “So, Pa, what’s this
guy like, Marianne’s friend?”

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 “Ben Dade? Oh, he seems alright. Yeah, he seems like a pretty good old
boy.”
When Joey asked Sam if he’d read about the local yokels being fooled by
that guy from Lake Wales, I excused myself and biked home.
Mom called me that night. She told me she’d forgotten to mention in her
letter that Dad wanted to spend a few nights in the Smoky Mountains, at Point
Overlook Resort. It was where they’d spent their honeymoon, back in 1949.
It seemed the place was still in business. They would visit there while on their
way back to West Flamingo.
“I’m looking over a four-leaf clover, that I overlooked before,” I sang
before bed, recalling Uncle Fred singing it when I was a kid, though it always
seemed a little hokey to me.
Arriving in the hospital parking lot next morning, it occurred to me I hadn’t
seen Tina’s Mustang in a while. Was she on vacation again? I glanced at the
work schedule and saw a line drawn through her name as well as the dates she
was supposed to work. Had she quit? Had she been fired?
Why did I care? Her red ribbon lips were only a past blue river to me, right?
Milady Kiss was my ringer-dinger now. Today though, I was only able to
catch glimpses of the Hare, now and then, here and there.
On Friday, after work, arriving at the cottage, I noticed a mound of sand
over by the sea wall. Walking over there, I saw red ants and black, in battle
gridlock. “You can be red because your name is Red,” I recalled Sugar telling
me, before we started playing checkers. “You have to give up something to
get something,” I recalled saying, telling her she needed to jump my checkers
when she got the chance.
That night the phone began ringing and I immediately thought, “Tortoise
Trail calling?” But no, it was Hire Heights: “Hi, Red,” Chris said. “I’m just
calling to let you know I won’t be home this weekend, just in case you were
thinking of coming over to visit. Sugar and I are going to DisneyWorld with
my parents. We probably won’t make it back here until sometime late Monday
morning, so I just wanted to let you know.”

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 After hanging up, I asked, “Can I bring my laundry?”
I wished to hell-O I hadn’t promised to go over there, but promises are to
keep, and I only hoped Nikki felt the same way about her promise to see The
Turning Point.
That night, we had a hard rain. The next morning, walking to my car, I saw
that the sand mound near the sea wall was gone, the checkers match over.
In this life, towering waves of fate are always threatening to crash down on our
frail, sandy hopes.
Hospital bound, I went over my itinerary: I had to work today and
tomorrow, then was off Monday and Tuesday. Chris said she’d be back home
on Monday, so maybe I’d visit Hire Heights that evening. This would leave
Tuesday through Thursday for Nikki, the last three nights The Turning Point
would be playing at the Reel-to-Reel.
At about mid-morning, the O’Dell brothers passed me in the hall, pushing
a sheet-covered body on a gurney. Jackson’s brother, Jay, walked behind them.
He glanced up as he passed, but didn’t seem to recognize me. Only a few
months ago, I’d found Jackson sitting in the wrong room, and now he had really
moved on to the next one.
At noon, standing in the lunch line, I was greeted by one of the smiling
servers, Daisy Dale: “I’ve got some good green pea soup today, Owen. Have
you ever had it here before? I’m the only one who makes it, because it’s my
specialty.”
“I don’t remember, but okay Soupy Sales, if it’s your specialty, let me have
some.”
“Soupy what?” she responded with a grin, handing me a bowl. “Be careful,
it’s hot.”
In the dining room, I sat and let my green soup cool. My vision, clouded
by rising green steam, reminded me of Charles Reich’s book, The Greening
of America, which foretold a new world, less materialistic, more spiritual, filled
with peace and love. But seven years had passed since the book had come out
and, really, what were the chances of that ever happening?

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 The next morning, after listening to the morning report, I talked with Barry
Cooter.
“How do you like working here so far?” I asked.
“Not bad,” he said. “But I’m a little pissed off. Two weeks ago, on my
very first night, I worked with this cute little black-haired chick. Next night, I
was ready to pounce--to ask her out, you know? But she didn’t show up for
work, and then I heard she quit. Never even got a chance to get her phone
number. What a bummer.”
How could this guy be such a lamb-like-about wanting to work here, and
yet a lion-like when it came to girls?
Later, while passing out breakfast trays, I saw Laura Sanford in the hall.
“Is your sister no longer working here? I noticed she’s been crossed off the
schedule.”
“No,” she huffed, frowning. “She quit without giving notice. She’s
shacked up with some guy in Hobe Sound. He’s supposedly a professional
fisherman but … let’s just say me and my parents are pretty upset with her
right now.”
Too bad, so sad, Barry.
I, at least, did have a breakfast date with a cute little white-haired chick this
morning. Sadie Shore was sitting in bed, reading The Pelican Beach Sunday
News, when I came in with her tray.
“Are you ready for breakfast, Miss Shore?” I asked, setting the tray down
on her portable table.
“Looks like they might have caught that Son of Sam guy, in New York,”
she said, lowering the paper and looking up at me through her reading glasses.
“And you know what? The guy they arrested was in Yonkers, on Pine Street.
That’s only a couple of streets from where I used to live. He claims he killed
six people, but he’s using the Flip Wilson excuse, saying that the devil made
him do it. I have a lot of friends up there, and I feel sorry for them having to
live in fear like that.”
She set her paper aside. I rolled the table in front of her.

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 “Thank you, dear. And could I ask a favor of you later? After I finish
breakfast, would you walk me up the hall? You won’t have to hold onto me.
I do very nicely walking with my wooden cane. But we have to obey the law,
and the nurse told me that if I want to go for a walk, I’d need an escort.”
After the routine morning chores were done, I returned to find her in a
hospital robe, standing before the mirror, putting on makeup.
“Just let me brush a little mascara onto my lashes, and I’ll be ready to go,”
she said with a smile.
When she’d made her face, she took hold of her cane and started for the
hallway.
“What’s your name?” she asked the first other patient she passed.
“Dick,” the man said.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Sadie Shore. How’re you getting by on social
security?”
“Just barely,” the man replied. He didn’t take this as a hint to stop and talk
though; he just kept on walking.
“What’s your name?” she asked the next person.
“Wilma.”
“Hi, I’m Sadie Shore. Do you have Medicare?”
“Uh-huh,” the woman said, stopping and looking at her.
“Are you satisfied with it?”
“Well, I’m glad to have it, but we also carry supplemental health insurance.”
“That’s great if you can afford it, but a lot of people can’t. I belong to the
Gray Panthers, and we’re in Washington fighting for your rights. Politicians
love to flip-flop on the issues, and if we don’t pin them down--find out who’s
for us and against us--no one will. You should never take any of your benefits
for granted, dear.”
“You’re right,” the lady agreed.
“Here,” Sadie said, reaching into her robe pocket, handing the lady a card.
“Just in case you think you might be interested in joining us, call that number.”
Returning to her room, she plopped down into a chair and let out a “Whew!

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A little exercise always does a body good, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it does,” I agreed.
“Say, young man. You look like the idealistic type. Do you believe in
protecting the environment?”
“Sure, I do.”
“Then maybe you’d be interested in joining Greenpeace. They’re trying to
save the earth, and rid the world of atomic weapons. You know, these things
can’t be accomplished by sitting on the old derriere and doing nothing. They
can only be done through action. Think about it, will you?”
Action. Yes, it was time to act, to give Nikki a call, to remind her about
The Turning Point. Action was a sharp point, not to be overlooked, that might
enable me to rise more quickly than I might otherwise do.
I rehearsed talking with her while on my way home, even after stopping at
the Speckled Perch Plaza. Two girls walking past my car saw my lips moving;
they looked at each other and grinned.
“Dam!” I winced, watching them walk away. Again, caught in the act of
being myself.
Inside the Hibiscus Supermarket, I headed for the frozen foods to pick up a
couple of TV dinners, but then saw someone familiar coming my way. It was
Shelby Reef’s wife. She was walking beside a young woman pushing a
shopping cart.
“Hi, Mrs. Reef,” I said, as they were passing me.
She glanced up and recognized me, maybe because I was in my white
uniform.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “Arlen, this is the young man who took such good care
your dad when he was at Cypress General. Your name’s Owen, right?”
“Yes, ma’am, and your husband’s someone I’ll always remember.”
“I guess he kind of adopted you, didn’t he?” she said. “Whenever he needed
something, he always asked for you, even when you weren’t on duty.”
“He didn’t seem to like me at first.”
“He didn’t like anyone, for a while there. But that was because he was

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afraid. But he was a wonderful man.”
“Yes,” I said. “And you? Have you been doing okay?”
“Oh, I’m alright. Arlen here wants me to move back up north and live with
them, but I like the warm weather down here, and I’ve decided to stay put.”
“Mom’s a stubborn one,” her daughter said.
“I’m starting to make some friends. I’ll be perfectly fine.”
After my conversation with them, I completely forgot what I’d come in here
to buy. Working at the hospital, one was apt to make friends with patients and
then see them pass from life. It was too profound for groceries, but in the cereal
aisle, I took a box of Grape Nuts that, on TV, Euel Gibbons claimed was
“natural food.” And that’s all I walked out of there with.
Driving home, I continued rehearsing my lines: “If you like, before the
movie I’ll take you to Kitty Paw’s Restaurant for catfish and hushpuppies. I
hear their key lime pie is heavenly.”
“Cool!” I exclaimed, imagining her enthusiastic response.
Cool, but not cool enough. After all my rehearsing, I decided against calling
her.
“What a drip,” I whispered, upon waking up in the morning, but at least I
was off today.
Before sitting down to write, on the radio I listened to a report about a
robbery at Shuffleboard Manor. One of the employees, a young orderly named
Angel Raton, had stolen money from several of the elderly residents, and was
now at large. “He really was an angel of a guy,” one of the residents said. “It’s
hard to believe he’d be capable of such a thing.”
Shuffleboard Manor, wasn’t that where what’s-her-name, Sue Pecos, lived?
Yes, but hard to believe? There were shysters like him everywhere, with angel
wings but rat tails. At least there was no mention of anyone having been
physically harmed.
Out on an afternoon bike ride, I passed two little kids sitting on a front
doorstep. They were inserting the rings of plastic sticks into bottles of soap,
then blowing bubbles into the air, reminding me of Moses Soils’ bubbling bass

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and me, imaging this entire tale.
Not wanting to burst Christine’s bubble, or have Nikki burst mine, I figured
I should really give both a call.
Chris was supposed to be home from DisneyWorld today, but I didn’t want
to visit her tonight. Nikki’s glory was repeating inside me day and night, so
when evening came, I took a deep breath and dialed her number, waiting
through five long rings….
“Yeah?”
“Is Nikki home?”
“No, she’s not here.”
“Is this her father?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice talking to you, sir. My name’s Owen Cloud. Do you know if she’ll
be home soon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you tell her that I called?”
“Yeah.”
I hung up the phone, and only then said, “Thank you, sir.”
All I knew of him was the sound of his voice, a low monotone that seemed
to indicate impatience, that he only wanted to get back to whatever he was
watching on TV. But then, what did he know of me? He didn’t know me from
Adam, Adam Seahorse that is, though he probably knew more of the handsome
cowboy than he did of me.
After taking another deep breath, I called Christine:
“Oh, hi, Red. Hold on a second. I’m trying to get Sugar to bed.” She then
yelled, “Girl, brush your teeth and get to bed, hear me?”
“Did you have fun at DisneyWorld?”
“Yeah, we did. We got back this afternoon….”
“I won’t keep you. I just called to ask if I could come see you tomorrow
night?”
“Of, course. Come around this time, and I’ll be putting her to bed. Then

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we’ll be able to visit.”
Next morning, the radio was filled with news that the King of Rock and
Roll had died, and song after Elvis song like, “Memories, pressed between the
pages of my mind….” was being played.
I drove to Hire Heights that evening, filled with unease.
Pulling to a halt in the Cane’s driveway, I imagined old Marlin Monroe
peeking out at me from a window. She had to know I was here, all the
neighbors had to know, because Bonita was going berserk, jumping up and
down, baying like a banshee in the backyard, behind the Cane’s chain-link
fence.
Stepping out of the car, I noticed five interlocking rings on the asphalt. The
chalk was faded though, reminding me of Sugar’s abandoned Olympic dream.
Christine came outside. She was barefoot, in shorts, and her blond hair had
been dyed a darker hue.
“Bonita!” she called out. “Hush up! It’s only Red.”
She went back to the fence and patted the dog on the head.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay, girl.”
“Go on inside, Red,” she said with a smile. “Bonita knocked over her water
bowl, so I’ll have to refill it. I’ll be right in.”
Entering through the kitchen, I looked around for Sugar but didn’t see her.
I sat down in my once familiar place on the living-room couch, glanced from
Harry’s unoccupied recliner to the TV, and remembered the night the baseball
game had been rained out.
“What can I get you?” she asked me when she came in. “Coffee, beer?”
“Beer’s good. Where’s Shug?”
“Oh, she’s in her bedroom. She hasn’t come out to see you yet? I told her
you were coming. I thought she’d be out here pestering you to play a game or
something, though she knows it’s her bedtime. Let me go check up on her.”
I was relieved. If Chris had sent the girl to the Dunes for the night, that
could have meant she wanted privacy for the adults; in other words, she might
have been preparing for something that I sure didn’t want.

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 She returned, dragging a reluctant prisoner behind her. It was obvious that
Sugar didn’t want to come out here. Standing before me, the girl kept her eyes
turned down to the carpet.
“Shug, what’s the matter with you?” Chris asked.
“Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” I asked, hoping to bring
out the old Shug.
“It’s mirror, mirror,” she corrected me, while still refusing to look up.
“What’s gotten in to you?” Chris said. “Say goodnight to Red.”
“Goodnight,” the girl murmured.
“I apologize for her behavior,” Chris said, as Sugar hurried away up the
hall.
“Is Old Milwaukee okay, for beer?”
“Sure.”
“Did you hear about Elvis dying?” she said, from the kitchen. “Wasn’t that
sad?”
“Yeah, it was.”
She handed me an Old Milwaukee, then sat down on the opposite end of the
couch.
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” she asked. “How are the Orioles doing?”
Obviously, she’d noticed I was wearing my O’s t-shirt. She’d only
mentioned this for something to say, since she had no interest in baseball.
“Still in the race,” I replied.
“You know what?” she said, brightening. “Sonny Harder’s no longer living
across the street. He had to let his house go because he couldn’t make his
mortgage payments. Can you believe that guy? He lost his wife and home.
And John Deere won’t take him back either, so who knows what he’s going to
do?”
I shook my head slowly, seeing Sugar standing in the hall.
“What do you want?” her mother asked.
“I brushed my teeth, but you never checked them.”
“Come on,” Chris said, waving her forward.

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 Sugar walked up, leaned forward, and gritted her teeth. I recalled old Portia
Geezer, gritting her teeth and squinting her eyes.
“They look okay. Now get to bed.”
Chris waited until Sugar was gone before she spoke: “I feel sorry for her,”
she sighed. “She misses her father. Too bad he’s such a jerk. Have you seen
anything of him lately?”
“No, not lately.… I notice you dyed your hair.”
“Yeah. You like it?” But she didn’t want to change the subject. “You’d
think he’d want to see his daughter once in a while, but I guess not. We’ve
talked on the phone, but that’s about it. Did you know he’s got a new
girlfriend?”
“I knew he had one.”
“Mom and I have been following him at night, just to see what he’s been
doing. And you know what we found out? He dumped that Sophie Moon slut.
Yeah, he moved out of her apartment. He’s got another girl selling his real
estate now. Her name’s Catty Grey, and they’re living together at Tropic Court
Apartments.”
I shook my head but said nothing.
She slid over to my side of the couch.
“That man is my husband, Red. Don’t you think I’ve got the right to know
what he’s up to?”
“Maybe,” I said, knowing their couch wouldn’t fold out into a bed like
mine, but was she working up to some kind of unfolding taking place in their
bedroom?
Sugar was again standing in the hall: “Mommy, can I have a drink of
water?”
Chris pointed toward the kitchen. “Go--and then get to bed.”
The child seemed a mean between two adult streams, streams she meant
never to meet and mingle. Was this her strategy, to keep us single? Because
Mommy and Red had no business sitting here, hip-to-hip. Imperfect though
their marriage was, Mommy’s kiss belonged on Daddy’s, not on this dip-

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wad’s, lips.
If Sugar, Bonita, and Marlin seemed to agree on anything, it was that I
should have never showed up here.
“Don’t you think I have a right to know what my husband is doing?” Chris
said again, after Sugar had gone back to her bedroom.
“Maybe so, but does it do any good?”
“When we go to court it might. I’m the one who’s been wronged here, not
him.”
“Do you like your new hair color?” I said, again hoping to change the course
of our conversation.
“Don’t laugh, but I’ll probably have to be interviewing for a job soon, and
I don’t want them thinking I’m a dumb blond. When we’re divorced, I’ll get
child support, but I’ll still have to work…. Say, that mustache of yours is cute.”
“Thanks,” I said, shocked that she had placed her hand on my thigh, that
her lips were so close to my ear.
“Red,” she whispered, “I want to ask a favor of you, and if you don’t want
to do it, it’ll be okay. Would you make love to me tonight? You probably
didn’t expect this, did you? But you’ve known me for a long time, and we’re
good friends. I wouldn’t ask this of just anyone.”
“You know you and Harry are both my friends. You shouldn’t be asking
me a question like that. I want you to work things out and get back together,
and you and I doing that would be the worst thing--”
“Red, it’s all over between us,” she insisted. “We’re all done. I’m ready to
start my life over fresh.”
“What would Harry think of us, of me, doing this?”
“You think I give a shit what he thinks? After what he’s done to me? Don’t
you think I deserve a little fun in my life too? Whatever the hell he’s doing, I
can do too. I wonder how he’ll like it, knowing I’m playing the same game as
him? Besides, Red, Harry and I agreed a long time ago that we have an open
marriage, that we don’t own each other. It’s just that he likes running around
a lot more than I do.”

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 I was in a panic, and miffed at myself for coming here. I could see the
humor in it too, though it was an aching humor, experienced by the fool coming
face-to-face with his foolishness.
All I wanted was to get out of there. Do real friends do what Calypso did
to Odysseus? Chris had lured me to her island alright. Crafty o-she-antics
like these were not the sign of friendship. I was only an instrument of her
revenge. She could care less if she destroyed my friendship with Harry.
And there was Sugar again, standing in the hallway.
“I’ve got to pee,” she declared.
“Go!” Chris yelled. “And if you get out of bed again, you’re getting it.”
“Sorry,” I said, quickly standing up.
“I was just looking for you to do me a favor, not to be the man in my life.”
“I don’t know how to help you,” I said, starting toward the kitchen.
“You’re not mad at me?”
“No, no….”
Escaping outdoors, I glanced back at Bonita. The dog was strangely quiet.
She was sitting there, eyeing me through the chain-link fence, perhaps
thinking, “Be gone, Cloud, and don’t come back.”
Driving away in the night, I wondered if Chris had laughed, recalling my
“deer in the headlights” look after she’d revealed the real reason she wanted
me to come there.
Does an alligator, still and silent as a log, suddenly dart forth to ask a favor
of a bass? What if Harry had arrived on the scene, and caught us, red-handed,
doing … nothing, really, but talking?
But, now, just the fact that I had been over there, that gave her all the
ammunition she needed. Next time she talked to Harry, all she needed to do
was let it drop that, “By the way, Red was over here the other night.” Because
though Harry may claim to be all about openness, even he might want to kick
my derriere if he heard that.
“From now on I drink only Pabst Blue Ribbons,” I grumbled, passing
Salerno’s Italian Restaurant. I didn’t know what Salerno’s vow had to do with

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me, except that I recalled how uncomfortable I’d felt when Chris handed me
one of Harry’s Old Milwaukees, which had probably been in the refrigerator
since when he’d lived here.
Arriving at the cottage, I exhaled a deep breath, wanting to blot out what
had just happened to me from my memory forever. From now on I would have
nothing but the greatest respect for Marlin Monroe and her Monroe Doctrine.
Thank god Christine’s wave had crashed, but as I sat there in silence, it
occurred to me that Nikki’s was rising up right behind it.
Tomorrow was Wednesday. The Turning Point would be playing at the
Reel-to-Reel for two more nights. It was still early enough in the evening to
give her a call.
All I had to do was dial seven numbers, wait, then listen as her phone rang
once, twice, three times…. No, no, I didn’t want to risk talking to dear old dad
again.
I’d just wait and see her tomorrow.
In the morning, little Genie put me through my paces, so I wasn’t able to
make it to radiology until she let me go on break after our routine chores were
done.
“Is Nikki in?” I asked Pete Palatka.
“Hell no, she’s not here,” Pete snapped. “She called me last night and asked
for the day off. She said it was important. I told her I hope so, because I’ve
got a lot of work scheduled today.”
“She’ll be back tomorrow?”
“She’d better be.”
At noon, sitting in the dining room, I felt anxious, surrounded by
conversations of which I was only vaguely aware. There was talk about Elvis,
about Angel Raton and wasn’t it awful what he’d done. I also heard someone
mention that Smokey and the Bandit was coming to the Reel-to-Reel on Friday
night, and that you’d better get there early if you wanted a good seat.
Later, on my way to clock out that afternoon, there she was. She was
standing in the door of the radiology office, talking to the secretary inside,

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Sonia Dew. I was so taken by surprise that I was going to just keep walking,
but she happened to look up and see me.
“Hey, Owen. Hold up,” she said, and then to the secretary, “Just a second,
Sonia. I’ll be right back.”
She approached me dressed in leisure garb--cutoff shorts and a Florida
Gator T-shirt. There seemed to be a glow, a radiance in her face.
“I’ve got something to show you,” she said. She brought her left hand up
close to my face and made a fist. “See?” She moved her fist from side-to-side,
so that I could better admire the glitter of her diamond ring.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Isn’t it cool?” she said, chomping away on gum.
“It is….”
“Peter was mad when I asked him for the day off,” she said, lowering her
hand, “but when I showed him this, he understood.”
“So … who are you marrying?”
“Ah,” she laughed. “Everyone’s been asking me that. His name’s Adam--
Adam Seahorse. He works at Cream Acres Dairy, south of town. He’s a
cowboy. We’ve been off and on for a couple of years, but deep down he’s
always been special to me. And we won’t have to go apartment hunting,
because they provide housing for the farm employees. Oh, I’m so excited!”
“That’s great. Congratulations.”
“Thanks!” she squealed, grabbing my arm.
She turned around and walked back to the office. Her blond hair, pulled
back into a pony tail, was bobbing up and down.
I continued to the time clock and punched out, then stepped outdoors,
squinting in the sun.
Cruising down 43, I was sweating hot and yet oblivious.
Feathery cypress branches may stretch out wide in the sunny sky above, but
snaking roots stretch out just as wide in the wet black muck below. After a
few minutes, arriving in Taylor Island, they came together in sarcasm:

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 “Cream Acres is the place for me,” I sang, mimicking the theme from the
TV show, Green Acres. “Farm living is the life for me!”
Later, in a mood more sober and subdued, in the shower I sang, “Down by
the old Gulf Stream, where I first met you,” recalling coming to Florida, going
to the beach for the first time, and having an ocean wave knock me over, with
Dad having to pull me out, coughing up salt water.
Who would pull me out of this wave? I wondered, stepping out of the
shower and grabbing a towel.
“Owen,” nurse Dania Desoto said the next morning. “Will you help me
while I try and restart Willa Wales’ IV? She’s so disoriented she won’t stay
still. If you could just hold her arm steady, that should be all I’ll need.”
Mrs. Wales was sitting up in bed, staring down at her belly.
“Shoo!” she shouted, at whatever it was she saw.
“Willa, what’re you doing?” Dania asked her.
“That fly. It keeps landing on me, and I can’t get the darned thing to go
away.”
“Well, I sure don’t see it, dear, but I’m going to have to start your IV again.
Owen is here to help me, okay?”
Willa looked up at me. A big smile came on her face. Reaching down with
both hands, she grabbed the bottom of her gown and pulled it up, revealing a
pair of sagging breasts.
“See?” she said.
Dania sighed, and yanked the gown back down. “Darling, he doesn’t need
to be seeing those.”
Yeah, that’s about it, I thought. I get stuck with the booby prize.
Nicky though, still flashed me a cheery smile whenever she saw me, and I
returned her one of my more subdued ones.
During lunch, I brought a tray into an elderly woman’s room, one Madeline
Swann. Seeing her sitting up in bed, writing in a notepad atop her portable
table, nosey me asked her what she was setting down on paper.
“Once, many years ago,” she said, “I dipped a cookie in my tea, put it in my

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mouth, and a memory long-forgotten surfaced to consciousness. Since then,
I’ve been determined to regain everything in my life I’ve lost to forgetfulness.
Lately, though, I have been having second thoughts. I’m wondering if
collecting too many memories, like cholesterol, only clog the arteries of life.”
She then placed her hand over her lips and giggled. “Should I ask my doctor
to put me on a memory thinner?”
Good point, I thought, though, for me, it seemed an aureole cookie had
dipped herself into me, hello, clogging my life-stream with My Florida
Coloring Book.
On the wall, near the time clock, someone had put up an artist’s sketch of
the new hospital. It was a long, low building, with wide windows and a
covered main entrance. In front of the building was a spacious parking area,
divided into separate lots by narrow, grassy islands, dotted with baby palms.
“Oh, this is to be the new hospital?” someone coming up behind me asked.
“Looks like it,” I replied, seeing that it was Dr. Ah.
“Very nice,” the doctor said. “Very nice.”
My weak smile met his enthusiastic one.
“It will be good for our patients,” he observed, and then stared inquiringly
into my face. “And how about you, young man? Are you turning frowns
upside down?”
“I--hope so, sir,” I said, recalling what Ah had once told me about humor
being the best medicine.
But to me, this was more than a sketch of the future hospital; it was a vision
of Florida’s fate—scattered cities and towns in an ocean of green become
scattered reserves of green in an ocean of concrete and asphalt.
On my way home, I stopped at the Cypress County Library. It was peaceful,
strolling up and down the aisles, looking at the books. I liked it better than
walking up and down the aisles of the grocery store.
From a magazine rack, I picked up an issue of Outer Space. I sat down and
read an article which assured me that one day our Sun and all the others, would
expand into red giants, then contract into white dwarfs. Eventually, as the

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universe continued to age, all white dwarfs would cool into black dwarfs. And
when that happened, goodbye universe.
In this context, so what if Nikki and Adam rode off into the Cream Acres
sunset? What was the big deal? Raise a glass, give them a toast, because we’ll
eventually all be toast anyway.
Passing Lakeland Church, I remembered a woman reciting the words,
“cleave to your wife.” But how do I cleave to anyone in a world where no
one’s cleft to me?
Behind the church, nothing but sharp blue slivers in the pines.
On the following morning, my car wouldn’t start. Tom Finn was good
enough to drive me to the hospital, and Genie Lamprey drive me home.
Captain Mac took a look under the hood: “Your only problem is loose battery
cables,” he said, and then he tightened them. “Now you got spark.”
And where there’s spark, there’s ignition, and happy trails to me.
A week later I loaded up books, clothes, spinning rod, the floor fan I hadn’t
used much since turning on the air conditioner, and headed for West Flamingo
Beach. Passing the post office, I saw myself as a male dropped into Nikki’s
out-of-town slot, though she had no idea she’d done this.
In historic Engine Town, I stopped at Miccosukee General Store for an RC
Cola and a Moon Pie.
“Say, do I know you?” the young man running the cash register asked.
“Where did you go to high school?”
“Flamingo Beach High.”
“Oh, so you’re a Flaming Greek, huh? I was a Fort Troy Trojan. We sure
used to beat the hell out of you guys in football every year, didn’t we?”
“Not every year,” I said.
“Anyway, my name’s Cliff. Drop in and see us next time you’re passing
through. We can always use your business.”
I walked out of the store, eating my pie, sipping my RC, and wondering if
this guy was on the level…. Cliff? Drop in? Oh, that was a good one, alright.
Another one from JoJo’s Joke Book?

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 “And, no, I didn’t drop a baby,” I muttered to the Hare.
Nearing home, I saw that The Bad News Bears was playing at the Boulevard
Drive-in. It was a movie about an awful Little League baseball team whose
prospects improve after their coach recruits a girl to be their pitcher. In the
end, the Bears fall short of becoming champions, but discover the joy of
playing the game. It was a lesson Fuzzy Wuzzy Bear needed to learn too,
because win, lose, or draw, at least I was still alive and could still play the
game.
I recalled what Marianne said to me a couple of days earlier: “I saw Nikki
in the emergency room last night, and she showed me her engagement ring.
And I thought of you, because I know you like her.”
“Yeah, but we’re just friends,” I’d said, not wanting to make a big deal of
it. “Are you still seeing Ben?”
“On weekends, but pretty soon he’ll be taking his kids back to Miami to
start school, so I’m not sure how often he’ll get up here. This Saturday we’re
taking the kids to the beach. It will be the first time his kids will meet mine,
so we’ll see how they get along. He seems like a nice guy, but we’re just
getting acquainted with each other. I guess only time will tell if anything
comes of it.”
Saturday? That was today. They just might be at the beach right now, with
the adults talking while walking along the shore, and the kids playing in the
sand and surf.
Passing Madam Rose and her big red hand, I recalled her telling me that my
aura looked good, and that my life line indicated I would find happiness in
love. I wondered if, in my journal, the life of Joe Bass aura might mirror the
life of Owen Cloud aura, or should I make up some kind of happier life-line
ending?
I turned down Never Drive, passed the Pines Bar, kicked up clouds of dust,
and there it was, my little house in the pines.
Before entering the house, I sprayed my legs with bug repellant. When I
passed over the living room rug, no fleas jumped on me. Was it the repellant,

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or had they abandoned the house, since there’d been no one to feed on since
June?
Twilight lay under the avocado tree. At my approach, the grey cat jumped
up, hissed, and ran away. Maybe it was the smell of the bug juice? Whatever
it was, better Twilight fleeing me than Bonita coming at me.
In the Florida room, I picked up the conch shell, put it to my lips, and
attempted to blow a few pearly notes. But all that came out was dry air.
Then I went to work, carrying the gear I’d brought back from Taylor Island
into my bedroom. While doing so, I felt a twinge of pain in my back, recalling
helping Chester Pusser onto the portable potty one night.
“Bingo!” I cried, while touching fingers to toes to stretch my back.
On my next trip, I would be moving back home for good. I hadn’t told
Mom I was doing this, and dreaded telling the Dunes I would be breaking my
lease.
“Owen Cloud, like that other orderly, Angel Raton, has just skipped town,”
I announced as I got back into the car. “Unlike Raton though, Cloud hasn’t
stolen anything, though he did have to fill out an incident report and was once
listed in the monthly Police Report.”
Returning to Cypress City, I decided I needed my vanity cut at the Coupe
de Ville. It was a mystery why I had any at all, the way I looked, but from now
on I didn’t want my physical appearance to concern me in the least. Didn’t
Popeye say, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am”? My sentiments exactly.
“You mean to tell me that a fine, good-looking fellow like you wants a butch
haircut and his mustache shaved off too?” Jay asked. “Well, you know what
they say, the customer is always right.”
“That’s what I want.”
“Have you been in here before? You look familiar.”
“You cut my hair last month.”
“You were in white, worked at the hospital, right?”
“That’s right, and I helped care for your brother in ICU.”
“Oh? Did you know he’s no longer with us?”

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 “Yes, sir. I did”
He then went to work with his buzzing bee, lopping off my golden locks.
“Jack and I helped raise a lot of money for our Shriner hospitals,” he said,
when his task was done. “They do a great job with crippled and burned kids….
Some of those kids though, they’re in pretty bad shape. I’ve visited a couple
of our hospitals and let me tell you, if you ever get to feeling sorry for yourself,
those kids can sure cure you of that.”
“You know Sam Homestead, right?”
“Sure, I do. He’s been a member of our temple for years.”
“His daughter and I are friends.”
“Marianne Homestead? Oh, yeah. I know her. She’s a sweetheart. But,
say, I don’t mean to pry, but what kind of cologne do you got on?”
“Charlie,” I quipped, smiling.
“Charlie? Ain’t that a woman’s perfume?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, as the barber began putting lather on my mustache. “I
was just joking. What I think you’re smelling is bug repellant.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. Because I was going to say, if it was cologne,
you’re sure not going to impress any girls with that, especially with the butch
haircut I just gave you.”
For a joke, I thought of asking him to splash a little PM on my head, just to
give my scalp a little more body (whatever that was), but I didn’t.
Heading back to the cottage, I wondered what kind of girl might be
interested in me without caring what I looked like?
Robin Wood? In personality, she seemed a bit brusque, though she was
right in telling me I shouldn’t let my fish sticks get cold. But if this was all I
knew about her, did one common sense remark equate to a heart of gold?
And Genie Lamprey, her sting was also sharp, but her heart? When my car
wouldn’t start, she drove me home. And she even lived in biking distance,
somewhere in Taylor Island. If I found out where, biked over there, I might
not even mind if she put me to work, like maybe mowing her lawn or
something.

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 But what was I doing here? Already planning out my strategy to try again,
building up Red’s Badge of Courage? Why is love so much like war? Was
Helen really worth it?
It occurred to me that if I ever did drop in on that Cliff guy again, I might
remind him that, in The Iliad at least, the Greeks did eventually beat the
Trojans, though it only left Odysseus with a long voyage home.
As an old man, if I did end up bald, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about
using Grecian Formula. And at death, if I were cremated, maybe I could
request my ashes be placed in an urn like the one in Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian
Urn,” upon which was pictured those two lovers whose lips would never meet.
What were thoughts such as these? Just a lot of future schlock.
I need to accept that iamb what iamb, and that for every unstressed syllable
of despondence, I still need to follow it with a stress of hope. Because hope is
life.
In the bathroom, I examined myself in the mirror.
How would people at work react when they saw me Monday morning?
Who cares? I’ll soon be out of here anyway, way before we all turn into
black dwarves..
The Barefoot Mailman, or at least the mail truck, came by and left
something in my box, so I went outside and noticed the red flag on the side of
the box, reminding me of Jody and his deer vanishing into the wilderness, gone.
“What the hell happened to you?” Tom Finn asked, coming outside to check
his mail too.
“I just got tired of hair,” I said, not wanting to elaborate. “How are you?”
“Oh,” he sighed. “You know me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, thinking
back on things I’ve done in my life.”
“Like when you got those guys to paint that fence for you?”
“Yeah, that,” he said, looking at me with a little surprise. “You always
seem to remember things I tell you, don’t you? Yeah, I used to like to
manipulate people, and, boy, could I sweet talk them girls, anything to get them
under the sheets.”

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 “Yeah, you’ve told me about that before.”
“But then I ran into a little Irish gal named Micky Mullet,” he went on, “and
it took the longest time to get her to go on a date. Soon I found out that she
could see right through me. She taught me what real love is. She always jokes
that I must have slipped her a Micky Finn, since she agreed to change her name
to Finn.”
“Tom!” his wife yelled from the house. “Dinner’s ready!”
“Uh-oh,” he said. “Time to make like tree.”
“Huh?”
“Make like a tree and leave. Get it?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, grinning.
Good one, JoJo, I thought, returning to the cottage.
On the following evening, I biked over to the Homesteads. After showing
some surprise over my near-bald pate, they treated me no differently than
before. Because they really had become my second family, and never cared
what I looked like.
Marianne told me they’d had a good time at the beach yesterday. Ben
seemed like a nice guy, and the kids got along just fine.
Walking into the hospital dining room on Monday morning, the folks there
were also surprised to see I’d been scalped. But after that, it was no big deal.
It was just another reminder that the world didn’t revolve around this bald
bubbling bass.
Next month, a line would be crossed through my name on the work
schedule. And how soon would it be before no one there remembered me at
all?
After listening to morning report, Barry Cooter walked up to me. “Can I
ask you a question? Just how do you get a little tail around here, anyway? All
the decent-looking chicks seem to be married.”
“Have you met Genie Lamprey? She’s single.”
“The little drill sergeant on your shift? Oh, no. I’ve worked with her before,
at the nursing home. And besides that, she’s got a kid. No, I don’t want any

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part of her…. But, say, who’s that?”
Ponce nodded toward a petite blond girl, standing near the nurses’ station.
“I don’t know.”
After Ponce had gone to clock out, Laura Sanford introduced me to Smyrna
Peach.
“She’s Vera’s little sister. She started this weekend, working with Genie.
But Genie’s off today, so would you work with her?”
Smyrna raised her hand to hush me up before I could say anything. “I
know,” she said. “First, we do TPR’s, then help them wash up for breakfast,
then hand out breakfast trays, right? And I already know how to take blood
pressures, give bed baths, and make beds.”
“Seems like you’ve pretty much got it down then,” I said. “We’ll start down
the far end of the hall and work our way back. By that time the breakfast cart
should be here.”
Smyrna seemed cool, efficient, and all business. She didn’t bother making
small talk with the patients. She said only what she needed to say to get the
job done. But when the handsome paramedic, Cray Fisher, passed us in the
hall, a transformation in her persona took place:
“Hi,” she said, while sliding a breakfast tray out of the cart.
“Hi,” Cray said, smiling politely.
“You busy today?”
“Busy enough,” he said, while continuing on his way.
“What’s his name?” she asked me.
“Cray Fisher.”
“He sure is a hunk.”
“Yeah,” I said, though thinking of Manny Kin, and what Cray had said
about treating patients like they were family.
She gave Pete Palatka the same enthusiastic greeting as he passed by,
pushing the portable X-ray machine. He also returned her a polite greeting and
kept right on going.
“He’s a married man,” I said, after Pete was gone.

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 “Never stopped me before,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
What was she, I wondered, Harry’s female double?
Driving home that afternoon, I knew one thing: If I were a hunk, I wouldn’t
want any part of her. She was silly and immature.
“Soar like seagulls,” I grumbled, “silly as gig-gulls.
At night, I kept up my journal, though with little enthusiasm. Like Mark
Twain, I was just telling a lot of stretchers; or like Madeline Swan, I was just
producing a lot of clogging cholesterol; and when they carried me out on a
stretcher, to what end?
My parents called me from Point Overlook, in the Smokies. They were
having a gloriously good time, but planned to roll into West Flamingo
sometime on Friday, just before the Labor Day weekend traffic got heavy.
And, good news, Mom had finally convinced Dad to get his cataract
operation done, after they’d returned home.
I finally told them I would be returning to Never Drive. I told them I was
thinking of returning to Atlantic Sands to get my master’s degree, but this was
just something I’d made up. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with
myself.
I’d also failed to warn them about my haircut, that next time they saw me
they might be tempted to call me “Butch.”
“Smyrna called in sick,” Genie informed me the next morning. “After only
three days on the job too. Just another spoiled brat from Royal Palm Estates.”
What Genie said about Smyrna didn’t interest me much, but during morning
report what Minnie said about one of our patients did: Charles Chingotchgook
was a man whose great ancestor was thought to have been the Chingotchgook
of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, Last of the Mohicans. After the French
and Indian War, this ancestor flew the Cooper and migrated south to join the
Seminole Tribe.
“Are you ready to eat, Mr. Chingotchgook?” I asked, entering the man’s
room with his breakfast tray.
Chingotchgook, who looked like he could have been the legendary Red

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Cloud, said nothing. He sat in bed with his head turned away, staring out the
window. I set the tray down on the portable table.
“I guess they got you on a low-sodium diet, huh?” I said, lifting up the
aluminum cover to find cream of mush.
“I don’t want it,” Chingotchgook said.
“No? What would you rather have?”
“Kicking Fried Chicken,” he said, still looking away.
“Well--uh--we’d need money for that,” I said, knowing that his doctor
wouldn’t approve anyway.
“I’ve got money,” Chingotchgook said, looking at me now, and then
nodding his head toward the closet. “In my trousers.”
“Oh, yeah? I don’t know. I’d sure like to, but I don’t think I can do that.”
Looking stern, Chingotchgook reached over to his bedside stand, picked up
a corncob pipe, and stuffed it into his mouth, which was all he could do since
his tobacco had been taken away.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Chingotchgook.”
Chingotchgook pulled the pipe out of his mouth. “Call me Chuck,” he said,
which reminded me of Delbert Ford wanting to be called Del.
“I’m sorry, Chuck. If I could, I’d buy one for both of us,” I told him,
thinking of Jackson Ville, the night he’d requested a good, stiff drink.
“That’s the trouble with you whites,” Chuck barked. “You claim to be
spiritual people, but you’re so afraid of dying. What are you so afraid of?”
I didn’t give Chuck’s words much thought, but as I was driving home that
afternoon, I became angry, remembering Ross Rose, who only wanted a
smoke.
At noon, the next day, I drove to Kicking Fried Chicken. I bought two
chicken box dinners. I wanted to surprise Chuck, but was worried, because all
morning he’d been threatening to walk out of the hospital, discharge or no
discharge. I was afraid he might be gone by the time I got back, but I was in
luck. Returning to the hospital parking lot, I saw him and an elderly woman
getting into a beat-up old GMC truck.

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 I hurried over to the truck. The woman behind the wheel was about to back
out, but Chuck saw me coming and told her to hold up. Seeing the boxes of
chicken, he opened the door, slid over, and let me inside.
“I told her to come get me,” he said, as the three of us shared the lunches.
“I told her I wanted to go home.”
“You play bingo?” the woman asked. “You should come to the reservation
and play sometime. You’ll have fun.”
“Yeah,” Chuck said. “And all the money goes to a good cause--us.”
On his face, I now witnessed a million-dollar grin.
After we were done eating, I got out of the truck. My two new friends
smiled and waved as they drove away. I went back into the hospital with a
warm heart.
I passed Nikki in the hall that afternoon, and as she always did, she smiled
and asked how I was doing. She remained her old cheery self, only now with
that diamond on her finger.
When the Friday before Labor Day weekend arrived, I was sitting on the
couch, waiting for my parents to call. They said they would as soon as they’d
arrived home.
On The Donnie and Marie Show, the two young entertainers were singing
about a love that never came to be, because “she lived on the morning side of
the mountain, and he lived on the twilight side of the hill.”
When my phone rang, I jumped up to answer it:
“Hi, Red,” Harry said, “How’s it going?”
“Alright,” I said, not having talked with him in a while, wondering if
Christine had opened her big mouth, and if he was now going to threaten to
kick my ass about our evening tryst at their house.
“Guess what?” he said. “Chris and I are thinking about getting back
together.”
“You are? I’m glad to hear it.”
“I drove over there and the two of us had it out, then last night I went over
to her parents’ place and had it out with Don and Jan. Boy was that man pissed.

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But I stood my ground too, told him I knew I hurt her, how sorry I was, and all
that.”
“Your seven-year-itch has been scratched?”
“More like I was itching to be with my little girl again.”
“Good. But, Harry, can we talk later? I’m waiting for a call from my
parents. They should be back from Maryland today. I’ll talk to you soon,
okay?”
“Sure, pal. But we need to go fishing again. It’s been awhile.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to do that.”
I was relieved, but a half hour later, the phone rang again: “Hello?”
“Good evening, sir. Is this Owen Cloud?”
When I said that it was, the man told me he was calling from the Flamingo
County Sheriff’s Department.

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 September

In the wake of my parents’ passing, life continued on as it always had, one

more day following one more repeating day. On Never Drive, cars and trucks
passing the house kicked up clouds of dust as they always had. Only, my little
home in the pines was now a lonely memory shrine.
Still, practical decisions had to be made. The house was paid for, was now
mine, and it was time for me to head back to Cypress City, finish up business,
and return here to begin my new life. I debated asking the neighbor boy to
keep feeding Twilight while I was gone, but then I thought to hell with it, put
the cat in the car with me, and headed up the Bee Line.
Arriving in Okeechobee, I turned north on 43 and that’s when it began to
rain, hard. I got a flat tire and got soaked changing it. When I got back to the
cottage, I took a hot shower and went to bed.
Twilight jumped up on the bed and went to sleep in the bend of my knees.
He had remained asleep during most of the trip up here, even while I was
outside changing the tire. Come morning though, he jumped down, went to

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the door, and mewed to go outside.
“Don’t get lost,” I warned, since for him this would be alien territory.
I cracked the door open. The cat slipped through like a stream of grey
smoke. He stopped at the bottom step, reached a paw down to the grass, shook
off the wet dew, then hunched down, deciding to sit and think about it a while.
After two weeks, the milk I’d left in the refrigerator had gone sour. None
for cat or coffee. I poured the milk down the sink and heated water for instant
black coffee. I breakfasted on a few handfuls of Grape Nuts from the box,
again reminded of Euell Gibbons and the benefits of “natural” food.
I needed to catch up on my daily journal, so I sat down with my notebook
to record “the rest of the story.”
Like a jet’s white contrail fading into the blue, my funeral memories were
fading in my mind, details like deer-tails, bounding away. These memories
weren’t something I wanted to dwell upon, only enough to complete my sad
summer tale.
Like those involving Marianne, who was the first person I called after
receiving that call from the Flamingo County Sherriff’s Office. During the
days that followed, she was the Fountain of You, of whom Martin Buber might
have been proud. No mean between extremes for her. She formed direct
human relations with everyone she met, always knowing how to assuage pain
and make things better. At Never Drive, she interacted with friends, family,
and neighbors, making sure everyone got to know each other. She, along with
Aunt Clara, did most of the cooking in Mom’s kitchen. She picked at people,
needled them, made them smile.
Her kids, Sammy and Annie, soon befriended cousin Sheila’s boy,
Clarence, and the Cane’s daughter, Sugar. These four little fountains of youth
found ways to laugh and have fun. They, being in the glorious mornings of
their lives, were mourning-proof.
The accident had nothing to do with Dad’s vision. Mom had been behind
the wheel when the tired truck driver swerved from his lane and smashed into
them.

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 I recalled Annie and Sugar singing along with Debbie Boone on the radio,
“You--light up my life. You give me hope, to carry on….”
“Come on,” Sammy protested, holding his ears. “Give us a break!”
“No,” Marianne objected. “They sound just fine.”
“Sorry, but I think I’m with Sammy,” Harry said, shaking his head.
On Saturday, Marianne drove with me to the airport to meet Aunt Clara,
Uncle Fred, and Clarence.
On Sunday, while doing laundry, I spotted my old Whiffle ball and bat
behind the water softener. That afternoon, me and Uncle Fred sat and talked
on the back patio, while watching a live ball game, though occasionally we had
to play umpire, arbitrating arguments, like “I tagged you out!’ and “No, you
didn’t!”
“You need to get back to church,” Uncle Fred advised me, as we watched
the kids play. “We have a lot of fun at the Knights of Columbus, and do a lot
of good work. Every Friday night, Owen my boy, we raise our beer mugs high,
kind of like swords, in celebration of our glorious quest. Only the quest we
celebrate is a peaceful one--to serve the Lord, support the church, and help
those in need.”
On Monday, I spent some time watching the “Jerry Lewis Labor Day
Telethon” on TV, which raised money in support of a cure for muscular
dystrophy. I watched a group of kids marching around the studio singing,
“Look at us, we’re walking. Look at us, we’re talking… We who never
walked or talked before….” Sitting in Dad’s chair, I broke down then, but I
was the only one in the room, and no one saw me.
A wake, a funeral, and by the middle of the week everyone was gone.
I was asked if I’d be okay alone, but I told everyone I wanted a little time
to myself. Not that I was completely by myself, since Twilight was there. The
cat at least wasn’t showing any animosity toward me, perhaps because I no
longer smelled of bug juice.
Twilight, the passing from day into night.
And the animosity Sugar had shown during my visit to Hire Heights seemed

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to have vanished too. “Red, do you got checkers here?” she even asked me
once, which thankfully I did not. So maybe it was the power of forgetting at
work, since her parents were back together again and all was right with her
world; or at least until their marital wars resumed, if they did.
During the Canes’ time at Never Drive, Harry never mentioned my
violation of the Monroe Doctrine, but the question still remained: Did he
know? Did Chris tell him? And if she did tell him, did she make it into more
than it really was?
Worried about Twilight, I stood up from my writing and gazed out the
window. The cat was now sitting on the sea wall, gazing down into the water.
Was he looking at some minnow dance going on down there? Better not dive
down for a snack, or a hungry gator might snack you..
On the opposite side of the canal, a Rambler station wagon was parked by
the trailer, the snowbirds had returned from the northlands.
Sitting down again, I plunged back into the recent past:
I smiled, remembering Sammy walking up to me with JoJo’s Joke Book in
his hands.
“The jokes in this book are pretty lame,” the boy declared. “Like this one
asks where baby corn comes from, and the answer is that the stalk brings it….
What’s that supposed to mean? And listen to this one: a guy walks into a bank
and asks to speak with the Loan Arranger. The bank teller says he’s not in
today. Okay, the guy responds, then let me speak to Tonto…. What’s that
supposed to mean? Who’s Tonto? This book is so lame!”
After the funeral, and all family and friends were gone, I had time to
contemplate living in my suddenly empty honeycomb. I wasn’t so sure I
wanted to move up to Maryland and maybe raise a glass as a Knight of
Columbus. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go back to ASU for my master’s
degree. One evening, I walked to the Pines Bar at the end of the street, got to
talking with a guy who offered me a job selling Amway products, but I wasn’t
so sure I wanted to do that either.
One afternoon I drove to Banyan Tree Park, where I gazed down at a bronze

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marker in the ground—Mona and John Cloud.
Nametags, just nametags.
I recalled Marianne’s last words to me before she and the kids started back
to Cypress City: “I hope you find that special person someday, but no one—”
She cut off saying whatever else she was going to say. “Let me know when
you’re coming back to Cypress City.”
I thought I knew what she was going to say. It was something she’d said
before, straight from the heart, but maybe she didn’t think it appropriate right
then. Whatever it might have been, like the rising and receding surf, the wet
sand soon turned dry again and I had to get on with my life.
It was sure wet last night, though, as I was driving beside Manmade Canal.
When my left-front tire blew out, the car suddenly wanted to swerve left;
forcing me to compensate by turning the steering wheel hard right. I pulled
onto the shoulder, stopped, shut off the motor and headlights.
“Oh, boy,” I groaned, sitting there in eerie darkness, enveloped in pelting
rain. I knew there wasn’t much room here. Thick, leafy brush was pressing
against the right side of the car, and the car was leaning right. It was impossible
to see the canal, but I knew it was down there.
I guessed I was only a mile or so south of Sam’s truck stop. Should I wait,
get out and walk there, or try changing the tire here?
Headlights came up behind me. A car swished past.
There was a lot of rain, but no lightning. If I jacked up this side of the car,
it would lean toward the canal that much more. And there wasn’t much space
between the car and highway. A vehicle coming from the south might clip me
while I was out there working.
No raincoat, no flashlight.
I finally decided to get it over with. I turned my lights back on to make
myself more visible to passing cars.
Opening the rear hatchback, I removed the spare tire, the jack, and was
already soaked. I set up the jack behind the front tire, inserted the tire iron,
and began pumping, remembering Annie Sullivan pumping water into Helen

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Keller’s hands, turning water into words.
Why did this cross my mind? I am what I am, I guessed, in disgust.
I didn’t know, but I could hear another vehicle approaching and I got scared.
I went to the front of the car and stood there until the car had passed,
then went back to work.
Raising the tire off the ground, I was holding my breath, praying the car
wouldn’t tip over or slide down through the brush and into the canal.
I remembered Minnie talking about the guy who’d been bitten by a gator
while filling a plastic jug with canal water. That must have been somewhere
around here. The fact that a milk jug, crushed in the gator’s jaws, formed a
protective sheath, enabling him to pull his hand free was no solace to me right
now.
Don’t think, just work.
I had the tire up, but still needed to remove the hubcap and lug nuts. This
was hard to do with the tire spinning around. I had to lower it a little until it
was again in contact with the ground. I pried off the hubcap, but had a tough
time twisting off the lug nuts, that were on too tight as far as I was concerned.
I had to stand up and press my foot down on the tire iron to force them off, all
the while praying they wouldn’t break off.
“Thank, god,” I said, once I’d removed the tire.
Aware of headlights again coming up behind me, I ignored them. If I got
hit, I got hit. All I wanted to do was get out of there, one way or another. The
car passed, and I could hear a second car coming from the north. The second
car slowed, stopped, and pulled to a halt on the opposite shoulder.
I kept to my task. Whoever it was, was no doubt eyeing me, but why? Was
it a Good Samaritan, an Angel Raton, or just someone, rubber-neck nosey?
Lifting the spare tire onto the hub, I lowered it enough to begin screwing on
the lug nuts.
Employing my speckled-perch peripheral vision, I observed a dark figure
stepping out of the other car, heard the door being shut, and couldn’t help but
glance back to take a better look. A man in a suit was approaching, holding an

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umbrella.
“You need help?”
Rain was no longer hitting my back.
“No, sir. I’m just about done here, thank you.”
The voice? I saw Dr. Tally sitting across from me in the dining room,
holding a mug of black coffee. Was it him?
I glanced up, couldn’t see the man’s face.
“Dr. Tally?”
“Oh, you know me?”
“What are you doing out here?”
“There is a patient of mine who lives down this way. He called me on the
phone and told me his wife is sick. He asked me to come see her. He lives at
the Moo-Cow Dairy, which is supposed to be around here somewhere.”
“It’s not far,” I said. “If you keep going south, you’ll see a row of houses
just off the road that leads into the dairy, and if he’s an employee he probably
lives in one of them.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what he told me. So, I am close. Thank you.”
“I’m Owen Cloud. I’m an orderly at the hospital. You probably can’t see
me in the dark.”
“No, I see you. My night vision is quite good, only I didn’t recognize you
with less hair.”
“Keep the umbrella on yourself,” I suggested. “I’m already soaked.”
But he continued to hold the umbrella over my head. He even kept it over
me while I was returning the deflated tire and jack into the hatch. He never
took it away until I was back inside the car, behind the wheel.
“See you at work,” Tally said, starting back to his own car.
After recording this in my journal, I shook my head. “And,” I said, “like
Augie Gusty, he even makes house calls.”
But now someone was knocking on my door. I stood up and peeked out the
window. It was Captain Mac and Millie.
“We saw your car,” Mac said, refusing my invitation to come in. “We just

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want to tell you how sorry we were to hear about your parents.”
“If there’s anything we can do, please let us know,” Millie said.
“Your landlord came over here yesterday and mowed your lawn,” Mac said.
“We hadn’t seen your car over here for a while, so I asked him if anything was
wrong, and he told me.”
“Thank you,” I said, only now noticing that the lawn had been cut, but not
seeing Twilight anywhere. “There is one thing you could do. I brought a grey
cat with me from home. His name’s Twilight. I let him out earlier this
morning. Would you mind keeping an eye out for him, because he doesn’t
know his way around this neighborhood.”
“We’ll be on the lookout,” Millie said.
“By the way, I always hated it when you were working nights and I had to
test my outboards in that drum, because I knew you were trying to sleep.”
I shook my head. “As soon as I started shutting my windows and using my
air-conditioning, I didn’t hear that much.”
“I appreciate you saying that, because when a customer comes to pick up
his motor I like to show him that he got what he paid for.”
“I understand that.”
“Before we go, though,” Mac said, “one more thing: Right now I’m
working on a Johnson outboard, and if I get it fixed today I’m going to set it
inside the drum and fire it up in honor of your parents. Your dad was a Seabee,
right?”
“He sure was.”
“Some people may think it’s funny, but when I salute I see myself saluting
the vets who never made it home. But today I’ll be saluting your mom and
dad. You don’t need to come out or anything. It’s just something I want to do.
And my first-mate, Millie, will be out there too.”
“So he likes to call me but, yes, I’ll be out there too.”
When they were gone, I smiled. Water churning inside a drum being an
elegy to John and Mona Cloud? Why not?
Right now, though, all I wanted was to blow this town and not look back.

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And it was nice of Don to mow my lawn, but this wasn’t going to prevent me
from letting him know that I would soon be bidding him farewell, and sorry
about having to break the lease.
In the early afternoon, I decided to take my bike out for a spin. First, though,
I had to pump up the tires, since they’d gone flat during the time I’d been in
West Flamingo.
Ride over and visit Marianne, maybe? Yeah, I probably should. But that
man I’d not yet met, Ben Dade, loomed large in my mind, though there wasn’t
any reason for this to be so.
“Owen,” I whispered, while pedaling along, “Ben asked me yesterday if I
might think about joining our two families together. He doesn’t want to rush
into it, but he just wants me to think about it.” I had no idea she would say
this, but I anticipated she might and so decided not to go over there.
After my ride, returning to Beach Lane, I spotted Twilight in Portia
Geezer’s front yard. Portia was out there too. Twilight was walking toward
her as she was setting a dish down on her doorstep. A saucer of milk? It sure
looked like it. Had Twilight found a new home? Portia, a new companion?
I was about to undress to take a shower when there was another knock on
my door. This time it was Tom Finn.
“Owen,” Tom said, while handing me a covered plastic bowl. “Son,
Mickey and I were so sorry to hear about your parents. I don’t know if you
like corned beef and cabbage, but Mickey--she’s an Irish gal, you know--she
made a batch in her crock pot and thought you might like some. And if there’s
anything we can do, please let us know, will you? Our door is always open to
you.”
“Thank you, Tom,” I responded. “It smells great.”
“And again, son, if there’s anything at all we can do…. Do you like pro-
football? Why don’t you come on over on Sundays and watch the games with
me? I guess I should warn you though, I’m a big Minnesota Vikings fan. You
know our quarterback, Fran Tarkington? Whenever they’re on TV, I’ll be
making a hell of a lot of noise, either cheering or cussing, depending on how

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the game goes…. But you’re sure welcome to come on over and join me.”
Since the bowl was still warm, I set it on the dining table and wasted no
time. It was a meal that not only filled my stomach but also warmed my heart,
because Tom and Mickey had been thinking of me, and Tom had even referred
to me as “son.”
While washing the plastic bowl and its cover in the sink, I heard a motor
starting up. I looked out the window and saw Mac saluting smartly, while
Millie was standing at attention nearby. The water-filled drum and motor were
partially obscured by the leaves of the orange tree, but I was still able to make
out the name on the side of the motor--Johnson.
I nodded my head, whispering “John’s son.” Because years ago, Mom had
said that I must really be John’s son since, unlike her and like Dad, the Florida
heat never seemed to phase me.
Getting into bed that night, switching off the light, I was blind, at least until
my eyes adjusted to the dim light passing through the window curtains from
the outdoor streetlight. And I thought of blind Perdy Birdy, and then the blind
hermit in Bride of Frankenstein who welcomed the monster into his cottage,
seeing no monster but only a friend.
Upon awakening, though, I saw only a flat tire that needed fixing.
Driving into town, I frowned, passing Grace Elementary where I’d been
awarded my speeding ticket. I then pulled into Suwanee Auto Repair, at the
corner of Brahman and Gove.
Exiting the car, I couldn’t help glancing over to the park, knowing it would
be too late to see Sue Pecos, out on her morning walk, but I saw her anyway.
She was holding the hand of a little boy—her grandson? They were standing
on the Green Avenue sidewalk, looking into the display window of Isaac’s Toy
Shop. I watched them go inside. She was probably going to buy him a toy,
something grandparents are apt to do.
Inside the repair place, I told the man at the service counter what I needed
done, handed him the keys and sat down.
“When Joey and Isaac were kids, “Sam once told me, “they used to spend

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a lot of time at the truck stop when his daddy worked for me. As he got older,
that kid never outgrew his love for toys. His daddy used to tell him he should
sell some, because the kid was a hoarder. One day I heard his daddy tell him
he’d better get rid of some, or no more were coming into the house. Finally,
the kid grew up and started his own business.”
Like me, hoarding too many memories on the pages of my journal? Life
was going to pass through me anyway. This was what Rush Rivers taught me,
my first night at the hospital; though he had no idea, being only irritated I’d
caught him sipping and peeing at the same time. Even Madeline Swann
seemed to have learned this lesson.
Who was that up at the service counter? It was Jules Spires, one of the
deacons at Marianne’s church, and the owner of Spires Fine Jewelry.
When Marianne told me that Joey and Angela had bought their engagement
ring there, I’d remarked: “To me, he seems like a guy more interested in
padding his wallet than in serving Jesus.”
“No, he’s not,” she’d objected. “He’s not that way at all. Yeah, that’s his
business, but he’s not by any means rich. He doesn’t own a fancy house. He’s
a good, godly man. And he’s generous too, always helping other folks out.”
“Okay, okay….”
“You know what he did recently? He talked a lot of our local business
owners into hiring back those guys who’d quit to go to Korea. He reminded
them that a lot of those men had families, and it wasn’t right not to give them
a break. He didn’t get everyone’s job back, but he sure tried to, and none of
that was for his own personal benefit.”
I watched the deacon pay his bill and walk outside. I saw him through the
window, getting into, not in a luxury vehicle, but in an old, VW Bug, rusty and
faded green.
But now a little girl was standing before me, staring at me.
“You look like Big Bird,” she said.
“Oh?” I said, wondering what she was talking about. “Boog Powell, you
mean? The guy who used to play for the Orioles?”

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 “Shelly, get over here and sit down,” a woman sitting nearby said. “Don’t
be a pest.”
“Did I hear her right?” I asked the woman.
“Big Bird? He’s a puppet, I guess really a Muppet, on a kids’ TV show.”
“Sesame Street,” the girl said.
“That’s right,” the woman acknowledged. “Big Bird’s a big, yellow canary,
with lots of feathers, and all the kids love him.”
“Well, as long as the kids love him,” I responded with a sheepish grin,
realizing I was wearing my yellow ASU t-shirt, with its picture of a cartoon
Burrowing Owl.
This has been a summer, I thought, of my feathers constantly being ruffled.
I was hungry, so after my tire was repaired, I decided to drive to Calypso
Drugs for breakfast.
Before making a right onto Grove Avenue, off to my left I saw a man
loading something into the back of a Ford Econoline van. The van was parked
in front of Moses Soils’ studio, and I guessed this man might be the artist
himself.
I couldn’t help myself. I pulled into the parking lot and stopped. I realized
I’d parked in front of Cypress Coiffures. One of the lady hair-dressers was
eyeing me through the window, probably wondering why the guy with the
George Gobel crew-cut had parked in front of her shop.
I walked over to the van just as the man was shutting its doors.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you Moses Soils?”
“Yes, sir,” the man answered, looking like a preacher in his dark suit and
tie. “That’s me. What can I do for you?”
I hesitated, angry at feeling so nervous. “I work at Cypress General
Hospital,” I said, “but I guess I should tell you my name. I’m Owen Cloud,
and I just want to tell you how much I admire the painting you did in our dining
room.”
Soils looked puzzled, but then he smiled. “Oh, that thing? Yeah, I got
permission to do it while my mother was in the hospital last year. I never did

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finish it though. She passed away while I was working on it, and I haven’t
been back there since. In fact, I almost completely forgot about it.”
“When we had our hospital picnic at High Park, I was wondering if that
place where the river flows into the slew was the scene you were painting in
the dining room.”
“That’s it,” Soils said, a big grin coming on his face. “You got it. That’s
the place.”
“I was excited when I saw it, that you’d painted a real place.”
“Real places are all I paint, and that particular place has always been special
to me. Those cypresses, with the water streaming into the darkness of the slew,
it always looked like the entrance into a holy place…. You surprise me though,
noticing that. You must have really taken to that painting.”
“Yes … but the wildlife, you must have added them, right?”
“Wildlife?”
“Yeah. You’ve got a panther, a deer, a gator….”
“Oh--well, yeah. I just added a few embellishments, to make the scene
more interesting. I’ve seen all those creatures many times, but not all at once.
I was painting that for the enjoyment of the hospital staff, and decided to put a
few actors up on the stage, just to add a little drama. So, should I take back
what I just told you? Because though the place was real, they weren’t. Call it
artistic license. But I really should get back there and finish it up.”
“I like it the way it is though. You left room for our imaginations to color
in the details. I feel like I’ve had an ongoing conversation with it--you know,
thinking about it. It’s been inspiring to me…. Did you know they’re going to
build a new hospital, and that they’re going to tear down the one we have
now?”
“And with that, you mean to say, my painting…? Young man, that doesn’t
bother me one bit. When my daddy was a young man, he worked in a
turpentine camp, and let me tell you that was hard, hard work. All them
buckets of sap never immortalized him, and all my paintings aren’t going to
immortalize me, but when I work in oils I feel I’m in Seventh Heaven.”

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 “I just added a few embellishments,” I repeated his words while driving
away, and remembered Cora Limes and her crossword. What a thrill and honor
to cross words with this man. I’d already placed a few actors on the stage of
my journal, and as far as wildlife was concerned, Tina Gardenia was pretty
wild for one.
At the Sunny-Side Up Shopping Center, I went into the café inside Calypso
Drugs and sat down at the counter. I sat there meditating on Soils’ words: All
worldly works would be washed away in the sudsy surf of time. In the face of
such a blue realization, how maintain any kind of cheer?
The middle-aged waitress handed me a menu. I asked her for a glass of
orange juice.
“All we got is concentrate right now. I only say that in case you’re from up
north, expecting fresh juice. The groves around here don’t start producing for
a few months.”
“Concentrate’s fine.”
I sipped my juice while looking at the menu for what must have been a
while.
“Hello,” the waitress said. “You know what you want?”
I quickly ordered two eggs, grits, ham, toast, and coffee, as if it had been
me waiting for her to get around to asking me that question.
“How do you want your eggs?”
“How about, sunny-side up?”
Hello? Tina never asked me what I might want, though she sure did turn
my summer into simmering mush; but I was so drowsy, anyone might have
done that, even Belle Glade.
Is it seven yet? I glanced at my watch and saw it was past ten.
As my ham and eggs were sizzling on the grill, I became aware that the
cook and waitress were very busy. All the booths behind me were occupied.
And on my waitress’ face I observed an occasional grimace of pain.
“Here you are, darlin’,” she said, setting my breakfast down in front of me.
“Can I get you anything else?”

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 “You look like you’re hurting.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s just my back. Had it for years. Just got to treat it
like an old friend.”
After breakfast, I walked outside to the breezeway, imagining myself
massaging her spine, reading her pain like Brail, taking her pain away. This
was silly, of course, but I could at least sympathize as I’d had back aches too.
On my left was the vending machine with its Orange Crush; off to my right
was Spires Fine Jewelry, where someone could buy a diamond for a crush that
might last a lifetime. And where was I? I was stuck in the middle, in the Slew
of Despond.
Should I drive to the hospital and tell Miss Fern I was quitting? I was in no
mood to do that right now.
I went into Sunny Side Up Supermarket and picked up a few groceries,
including fresh milk for Twilight.
Returning to Beach Lane, I saw the grey cat sitting on Portia Geezer’s
doorstep, cleaning himself.
Maybe he wouldn’t need my milk.
“You don’t have to be a star, baby, to be in my show….” Marilyn McCoo
and Billy Taylor were singing on the radio.
When the phone rang that afternoon, I let it ring.
I didn’t want to talk to Harry, who might want to invite me to go fishing. I
didn’t want to talk to the Dunes, who might want to express their condolences,
but also remind me my rent was overdue. And I wasn’t ready yet to talk to
Miss Fern, who might be calling to inquire about when I was returning to work.
Next morning, I heard that Brahman poet, Robert Lowell, had died.
Listening to the radio, I heard Lowell being referred to as a “confessional”
poet, who often revealed intimate, unflattering details about his life, without
bothering to create a persona, or mask, to hide behind.
So, hey, at least I had good old Joe Bass.
After thinking about it for a while, I biked to the Homesteads. I knocked,
but when no one came to the door, being accepted as a member of the family

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there, I let myself in. I heard a vacuum being shut off, and then Marianne came
out of her bedroom, gathering up the power cord.
“Hello, stranger, and where the hell have you been?” she said, dropping the
cord and coming over to me. After slapping me on the shoulder, she gave me
a hug. “I’ve been calling Never Drive, and I’ve called you here. You want
something to drink, a glass of iced tea? When did you get back to town?”
“Thursday night.”
“And you didn’t call to let me know?”
“Yeah, I should have…. Sorry about that.”
“You should be. Daddy is at the truck stop, and the kids spent the night
with Joey and Angela. Their apartment has a pool, so they’re in no hurry to
come home.”
After removing toys and children’s books from the living-room couch, we
sat down with glasses of tea.
“Thursday night?” she said. “That’s when we had that big storm, and you
were driving in that?”
“Yeah, and I got a flat tire too, next to Manmade Canal.”
“You had to change the tire in the rain?”
“I did, and you know who stopped to help me? Doctor Tally. He was on
his way to see a patient. He stopped and held an umbrella over me while I was
working.”
“I love Dr. Tally,” she said, smiling.
“Do you know where his office is? I need to go thank him.”
“Yes, but what about you? Are you moving back to West Flamingo?”
“That’s my plan … for now. To be honest, I really don’t know what to do.
I would have come over Friday or yesterday, but then I kept thinking of your
new friend, and I was hesitant.”
“Ben? Why should that stop you? He wasn’t up here this weekend anyway.
He took his kids to Miami to get them back in school, plus his work really
picks up in the fall, so I won’t be seeing that much of him for a while. You
know, I’m not losing you as a friend, little brother. Ben’s a nice guy, but I’m

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just beginning to look for someone to share my life with, and I don’t really
know who it will be.”
How about me, then? I thought, before asking, “How would you like it if
we went out on a date?”
“A date?”
I wondered why I said that, but a rising wave had crashed.
“If you’d like to go out with me, I’d sure like to go out with you.”
She was staring at me with widened eyes. “Well--yeah….”
“I mean, it’s been great being your brother, but now I’m hoping for a
promotion.”
“I want to be sure I’m getting what you’re saying. You want us to be more
than just friends?”
“Like--let’s see--maybe we could be … mates?”
She laughed. “Mates. That sounds good.”
“Good for a start?”
A look of incredulity came on her face. “A start? Are we really having this
conversation? Is this really what I think it might be?”
“I hope it ends being all it can be.”
“Boy, I worked last night and haven’t slept yet, but now I don’t know if I’ll
be able to sleep. You just sent me up into the clouds.”
“Cloud’s the name,” I said, feeling moved by a force beyond me.
“Sounds good to me, Red Cloud,” she said, smiling as brightly as that baby
photo near her father’s chair.
As if on cue, we stood up, came together, hugged, and kissed a kiss longer
than I’d anticipated.
“Wow,” she said, as we separated. “This was unexpected….”
She looked in a daze, as if unsure what to do next. “It’s about lunch time,”
she finally said. “Can I get you something to eat?”
“No,” I said, “I’ve got some things to do. I need to pay my rent, and call up
the hospital and tell them … I don’t know what.”
“Don’t forget,” she said, reaching up and rubbing my butch hair. “Next

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Saturday I’m having my pinning ceremony at the Belmont Hotel in Pelican
Beach, and you’re going to come with us, right?”
“I told you I’d come,” I said.
“Oh, and guess what? Daddy’s finally agreed to go ahead and get his hip
surgery done. He told me to go ahead and make him an appointment. Isn’t
that wonderful?”
“It is,” I agreed, thinking of my father, and his cataract operation that would
never be.
“And when do you want us to go out on this date?”
“How about tonight? Or will you be too tired?”
“No, we can do that. I’m going to try to take a little nap. Joey will bring
the kids home at around four. Daddy will be back from the truck stop at five
or so. I’ll have their supper ready at six, and then he can watch the kids. So,
any time after that will do.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven, then?”
“Seven’s good. Do you have any idea where we’re going? I do have to
work tonight, so I really don’t want to go too far.”
“How about Kitty Paw’s Catfish place? Have you been there before?”
“Only about a million times. Kitty and Momma were best friends. She’ll
be curious to see me show up with you. But her catfish and hushpuppies are
wonderful, and just wait till you taste her key lime pie.”
Standing at the door, Marianne smiled and waved as I rode off.
Key lime pie? Who’d told me that before?
Suddenly, my life had been thrown into reverse. Cha-ching! I rang the bell
on the bike’s handlebar. Should I call Miss Fern and ask her when I could
come back to work? Should I drive to the Dunes, pay my rent, but not tell them
I would be breaking my lease?
In my little house on Never Drive, Marianne had recently prepared meals
in the same kitchen where Mom had, while waiting for Dad to come home from
work. What would I do with that house?
Turning up Beach Lane, I saw Twilight sitting inside the window of Portia

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Geezer’s home, looking out at me.
Arriving at the cottage, I dismounted the bike and flinched, taking in a quick
breath of air. My blinders were off. The last petal of clover arose before my
eyes. How easily she might have gotten away.
As I set down the day’s events in my journal, I felt grateful that from the
loss of my old family I might now be joining a new one. I wasn’t happy with
my journal, though, and knew it needed a lot of work, and embellishing with
at least a little color.

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