The Man Who Ivented Florida (16 page)

The Old man was holding the shotgun now. Bambridge could see it as he squinted up at the bright Florida sky. "Get yo' big butt up the ladder, then."

Just
like old times ... That's what Tucker Gatrell was thinking. Sitting on the porch with Joseph Egret, the wooden chairs kicked back and their feet propped on the porch railing, swatting mosquitoes and spitting chewing tobacco.

Could be forty years ago . .. could be ten years ... hell, could all be a dream. . . . That's what he was thinking.

Mango Bay spread out before them, and the tin roofs of the abandoned fish shacks caught the morning sun like mirrors and flung the light obliquely, in dusty yellow rays, back onto the little curve of fishing village. In the strange light, coconut palms leaning in feathered strands were isolated along the road, set apart from the mud beach upon which they grew. They seemed fragile and singular, gold and gray, as if shaped by a hurricane wind, then marooned in stillness. Small portions of Mango caught the light and were elevated from the mundane because of it: wedges of cypress planking, a lone piling, the bow of a sunken mullet skiff, the rust streaks beneath the COKE sign hanging outside the deserted store, Homer's Gas and Sundries.

There was a sweetness in the air, too. Tuck sniffed, sitting on the porch. The cloying perfume of jasmine mixed with the sulphur and protein odor of the bay. He lowered the paper in his hand—there was a whole box of papers and folders beside his chair—and inhaled deeply. "Smells good, don't it?"

Joseph nodded his agreement. "That's bacon frying. Maybe down at the organ lady's house, Miz Taylor's."

Tuck turned his nose upward expertly. "No-o-o-o, don't think so."

"Next place down, then. Sally Carmel's?"

Tuck said lazily, "More likely. Wouldn't hurt for us to walk down and check up on her. That Sally, she's the independent sort, but I can tell she misses having a man around. Always something to lift or move for a woman living alone. I worry about that girl."

"Yeah," Joseph said, "and she might be cooking hotcakes, too."

The two men were quiet for a time, languid in the fresh morning heat. Then Tucker said, "I tried to fix Duke up with her, had it all arranged just right. But he messed it up. Peeked at her through a telescope when she didn't have no clothes on. She's mad. Oh, she's real mad."

Joseph said, "A telescope, huh? I'd a never thunk of that."

"Yeah, Duke's smart, no denying it. He got the Gatrell brain"— Tucker glanced at Joseph out of the corner of his eye to see how that was accepted—"but he never got my gift for dealin' with people. You know how people just naturally love me."

Joseph turned and spat.

"But Duke, he's always been kinda a cold fish. Say, you remember why he moved out on me?"

Joseph hesitated for a moment. Did Tuck mean the real reason Marion had moved out? Or did he mean one of the excuses Tuck had given? After a moment, Joseph said, "Sure, I remember. Marion had to do all the work around the place while you sat around drinkin' beer. I don't blame him."

"Naw, that's all wrong. Well, it wasn't just that. You don't know the reason?"

Joseph knew. He waited, wondering whether Tuck would talk about it.

But Tucker said, "I come home one day after being off someplace. Okeechobee?" Tuck was trying to remember. "Naw, it was forty-mile bend, down on the Trail, 'cause that was the year the gators came up the creeks thick. Anyway ..." He scratched his head. "What was I talkin' about? Oh—I come home one day and the whole kitchen table was covered with bugs. All kinda bugs laid out on this cottony sort of material. Hell, palmetto bugs big as my fist, so I throw'd the whole mess out—"

It wasn't the real reason, but Joseph was nodding his head, playing along. "That's right, you threw out his bug collection."

"Packed his bag, stormed out, and moved up to the islands off Fort Myers. Him just sixteen years old, rented his own place, made his own money, and still found time to play ball. Only seen him about a dozen times since. He was off with the government, doing some kind of work. Going to college. I'm going to have a hell of a time getting him back down here."

Joseph said, "Sometimes a place has bad memories. After living two months with my first wife, I never wanted to see Miami again."

Out on the water, a little bay shrimper headed out Wilson Cut. Its outriggers were folded like the wings of some bony pterodactyl and smoke spurted from the exhaust stack, out of synch with the delayed
pop-poppa-pop
that reached them across the water.

"That's little Jim Bob James growed up," Tuck observed. "No smarter than his daddy, trying to shrimp during the day. Oh, I tried to tell 'im."

Joseph sat and listened, hoping Tuck wouldn't get started on how he had discovered that shrimp came out at night, because that would lead him into the first stone-crab trap they had built— well, actually Joseph had figured out the trap and about the shrimp, too, but Tuck always took credit—and that would lead to all the things Tuck'd done first, before anybody else in Florida caught on, which would lead to his long, sad wondering why they'd ended up so poor when everyone else had gotten rich. Joseph didn't care anything about money—he never had—but he hated to see Tuck depressed, because that caused him to talk even more than usual. Joseph had his mind on that bacon frying down at Sally Carmel's place.

Instead, Tucker said, "You know old man James was mad at me till the day he died just 'cause Duke tossed that cherry bomb into their privy."

Joseph said, "It was you that threw it, not Marion. Did Mrs. James ever recover?"

"Oh, hell yes. She was always a little deaf, anyway. Course, they blamed it all on Duke, that and some kinda constipation they said required hypnotics or hydraulics or some damn thing. How was I supposed to know she was in there? Most folks have a sign, but not them Jameses. I never did like that woman, anyway. Too dull."

"Not so dull in some ways as you might think," Joseph defended mildly.

Tucker sat up, interested. "You mean you and Mrs. James . . . you two?"

Joseph shrugged. "Lavinia was a lonely woman. She'd leave the porch light on for me sometimes when old man James was out in the boat. Said he smelled of fish."

Tucker shook his head in amazement. "If I had any respect for womanhood at all, I'd left you right where you was, dying in that rest home."

"Women like me," Joseph said simply.

"Hey now, Joe"—Tucker leaned toward him—"tell me true about something. Would you've ever tried to thimble my wife?"

"You never had no wife."

"I know that. I'm just asking, would you of messed with her? If I'd gotten married."

"But you never did. You never did get married. Almost did— that Cuban girl, the one with the little blue sea horse on her hand, a tattoo—"

"Jesus H. Christ, Joe! I'm just askin' a simple question. Would you've thimbled my wife? Gawldamn dense Indian—"

Joseph considered the question for a time. He rolled his chew from side to side and slapped at a mosquito. "I guess so—if she had nice skin."

Tucker's face described contempt. "I'll be go to hell. And after all I've done for you."

"I like nice skin," Joseph said. "You want me to lie?"

"That woulda been the polite thing to do! Friends is supposed to do things for each other." Tucker simmered for a moment before he sighed and added, "Know what's sad? I couldn't be trusted with your wife, neither. Not if she was in a loving mood." Tuck caught the sharp look Joseph gave him, so he added hastily, "Which she never was. Either of them."

Joseph said, "That the truth?"

"God honest, my right hand on the Book."

"Hum-m-m-m. Your timing musta been off then, 'cause the second one run off with that bird-watcher from Long Island. Skinny man that wore things around his neck. 'Noculars? Or maybe he had somethin' you didn't."

Tucker started to react to the implications of that, then decided to drop it. He ruffled the paper he was holding, then picked up the box of papers and put it in his lap.

The shrimp boat was out of sight now, behind the scattering of mangrove islands that was the first green gate to the maze of the Ten Thousand Islands southward.

"You know something," Tucker said, his voice sounding tired, "we're both just a couple of low-life sons a bitches."

Joseph nodded his agreement. There was a big bluebottle fly buzzing around, and he was waiting to get a shot in with his load of tobacco juice.

Tucker said, "Pitiful, that's what we are. Makes me want to get down on my knees and pray for forgiveness, all the bad things we done." He looked over briefly at the bigger man. "Least you're an Indian. You got an excuse."

Joseph was listening but not giving it his full attention. He had his eye on the fly, watching it like a cat.

Tucker said, "Me, I got no excuses. I lived a bad life and I admit it." He raised his voice, looking up. "Hear me God? I admit I ain't been worth a deuce all my life. Coulda done good. Instead, I done bad." His voice became reflective. "Course . . . some might say it was a little stupid to send me down here with a trigger finger and a tallywhacker if You didn't expect me to use 'em." He paused and looked toward the sky again. "But I ain't the kind to second-guess, Lord!"

The fly was buzzing, soaring, descending, its circles getting smaller and smaller. Joseph waited.

"It's the damn truth. I been a sinner my whole life. I've lied, cheated, messed with married women, drank liquor, and, God forgive me, even killed a man, shot him dead—"

The fly landed on the railing, and Joseph spat, a real zinger, which hit the fly—but also Tuck's foot.

Tucker lifted his boot, studying the slime with disgust. "Jesus Christ, Joe, I been bad, but that don't give you the right to spit on me!"

"Wasn't spittin' at you. There was a fly."

"Well, you hit my good boot! Gad—"

Joseph pointed at the struggling fly. "That look like I missed? Besides, you never shot no man."

"Did, too. Shot lots of Japanese. What ya think us marines was doing over there in Hawaii?"

"That was the war. It don't count. I meant you never shot no one else."

"Hell I didn't—That one-eyed fish buyer down in Campeche."

"You didn't shoot him; you shot at him. I was there. You missed. You never could shoot."

"That's right, I shot at him. Out there on the docks that night, it was cold as hell, and he jumped in the water. He got pneumonia and I heard he got complications and died only about a year later.

Same thing as me holding the gun to his head." Tuck folded his hands and looked out over the water. "That good-for-nothing beaner haunts me to this day."

Joseph stood and stretched.

"Hey," Tucker said, "where you going?"

"That bacon smells done. I was gonna go down to that girl's, see about breakfast."

"Sit yourself down. I'm talking about something here."

"If I always waited till you stopped talking, I'd starve."

"I'm talking about what to do with this here discovery of mine—the vitamin water. I'm saying we got a chance to do something good for a change. I got a plan."

Joseph said, "You always got a plan. But ain't none of 'em ever worked."

"And do you know why that is, Joe? Have you put any thought at all into why it is that all the things I discovered, all the smart ideas I had, that they all just kinda floated away from us and made somebody else rich?"

Joseph thought for a moment. "'Cause you're a fuckup?"

"No!" Tuck made a face, genuinely offended. "No, the only difference is advertising. The whole kit-n-caboodle right there. I never advertised my ideas—I just gave 'em away. And you want to know why?"

Joseph didn't want to know, but he didn't say it. Tuck was going to tell him, anyway.

"The reason I give the ideas away was 'cause I never took 'em seriously enough. Never realized how important they was at the time. When I had Dick Pope out fishing, I said, 'You like to tow people on boards behind boats, just fence the place in, charge admission. Like a circus that doesn't move. Maybe even a restaurant.' He says, 'Cap'n, I like that—a circus that doesn't move. Call it Beautiful Cypress Gardens' Ski Show.' Joe, that's just what I told him." Tuck snapped his fingers. "Next time I turn around, he's making thousands on Cypress Gardens and he's showing what's his name, Mr. Disney, around, saying he should do the same. My idea, Joe. Same with the shrimp and the stone crabs. And when I told Mr. Collier to build a boat around his dredge, it just didn't seem important at the time. Hell—" Tuck's face had softened, his smile a little dreamy—"you know how it was. Florida was so big and wild, there didn't seem no need to grab hold of any particular piece of it. There was plenty for everybody. But now they got her carved down into just a little bitty thing. 'Bout got the juice all sucked out of her. That's why I come up with this plan. Thought Florida would last forever, but she didn't. Been thinking the same thing 'bout my life, tell you the truth. Water or no water, we ain't getting any younger."

Which cut right into Joseph's thoughts: thinking about his grandfather, Chekika's Son, holding the door of the Cadillac open.

You telling me to go ahead and die, Grandpa!

Nope. Tellin' you to get in the damn car. You already dead.

Joseph hesitated . . . sighed . . . said, "Okay, okay, I'll listen to your plan. But couldn't you tell it over breakfast?"

Tomlinson
was telling Ford, "The old dude's been spending some time at the library . . . the courthouse, too. You look at this stuff?" He was sitting in Ford's lab, on the steel stool near the stainless-steel dissecting table, while Ford hunched over the dissecting scope. Tomlinson had the contents of the envelope Tuck had given them spread out on the table.

Ford said, "If he was at the library, it was the first time. More likely, he had someone else do it for him."

On the transparent base plate of the microscope, Ford had mounted a cross section of a piece of loggerhead sponge he had taken from one of his sea mobiles. Ford could see the spongin fibers of the sponge's osculum magnified by the scope—its excur-rent water opening—as well as the opening vascular wall of the spongocel, where food and oxygen were filtered from the constant flow of seawater. And there was a curling flagellum, the hairlike structure that pulled the water in. Most striking, though, was the cross-thatched symmetry of the animal's silicate skeleton. The skeleton was an intricate pattern of fluted ramps on a curving honeycombed infrastructure. Enlarged a thousand times, what Ford saw might have been an extraordinarily modernistic painting. Enlarged a billion times, a single filament might have been a stairway designed by Dali.