B0092XNA2Q EBOK (31 page)

September came and went but the book never showed. That’s not to say it didn’t exist. Rather, it just never appeared. Reporters exhausted every detail. Every lead. My P.O. box filled, overflowed, and I never checked it again. No matter how many times I changed my phone number, they always got it. I stopped answering.

A tabloid published a rumor that I’d met a girl. Married. But she’d left me after only a year. Speculation grew. Someone whispered, “Tragedy.” I had no idea what they were talking about.

A couple years prior, when my books had sold beyond my wildest imagination, my editor gave me a gift—a Mercedes. Fastest one they made. Shiny black. An S65 AMG. More than six hundred horsepower. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price was over $210,000. A little flashy for me, so I didn’t drive it much, but it was fast, so I backed it out of storage.

I left Jacksonville at noon. The manuscript beneath a bottle of Bombay Blue and a liter of tonic, wrapped and tied up in a trash bag because that’s where it was headed.

I called my editor and said, “Thank you… r-really.” I called my accountant and told him to record the phone call, where to put the money, and what to do with the remainder of my library. I called my agent and said, “G-good-bye and th-thank you.” Soon as I hung up, my phone rang. A South Florida
news affiliate had tracked me down. I took the call. With little introduction, the reporter asked: “We understand the parent company of your publishing house has sued you in order to force the release of your next book.”

“Th-that’s true.”

“Have you finished it?”

“Yes.” The less words the better.

“Where is it?”

I glanced in the passenger seat where book six,
Pirate Pete and The Misfits: The Last Sunset
, sat wrapped in the plastic bag. “H-here.”

“What are your future plans for it?”

When I answered honestly, the nature of the interview changed. My response caught everyone off guard. The local story abruptly became national and they patched me through to the anchor during a live broadcast.

“You have the manuscript? Why final? Where are you right now?” I swigged from the bottle and answered her last question by telling her not where I was, but where I would be. Then I tossed my cell phone out the window where it shattered on the asphalt at eighty miles an hour. I sped up, unbuckled to make sure that nothing would prevent my head from impacting the glass, and opened the sun roof so that there’d be plenty of oxygen to fuel the fire I was about to light.

My blood was already on fire. Three-quarters gin, one-quarter me.

I’d picked the time and the place—now, and Card Sound—for two reasons: First, by a fluke of luck some years back, I’d had the best day of tarpon fishing there that I’d ever had. I figured that’d be a good place to end things. Second, I wanted finality. The Card Sound Bridge spanned the waters I’d fished and provided an adequate launch. As a bonus, pedestrians were not allowed and it was very tall. Sixty-five feet above the water. More than enough.

I switched lanes and wondered if anyone would show. Would anyone care.

They did.

Cars had stopped. A long line of taillights. Traffic was backed up. A crowd had gathered. Video cameras shone in streetlights. One news van had arrived and telescoped its receiver. The reporter stood in front of the camera, framed against the backdrop of the crowd, bridge, and toll plaza. I was glad. Witnesses meant no doubt. I lit the end of the rag dangling from the gas can on the backseat, then laid on the horn and flashed my lights. The cameras swung. The crowd waved. A few waved my books. I eyed the bridge, pushed the accelerator through the floorboard, crashed through the toll plaza gate.

Then I drove the car up, and off, the Card Sound Bridge.

Eyewitnesses—of which there were many—said the crash was horrific. Reports described my car crashing through the railing, spewing glass, concrete, and twisted pieces of a light pole. The high-performance engine red-lined, sending the vehicle arcing out into the darkness. It rolled a quarter turn and dove vertical to the surface. Some said the car hung briefly in the air, almost pausing, while others swore they heard me, locked inside and screaming—burning alive. Because darkness shrouded the water’s surface, the impact was sudden and loud but not as loud as the silence that followed.

Eyes wide, the crowd held their breath as the fast-moving water below the bridge enveloped the car and dragged it, and me, to the bottom of the channel, leaving nothing but bubbles. Over a hundred stunned people simultaneously dialed 911, several shined flashlights and searched the water’s surface, while a few others jumped in only to need rescue moments later. Emergency personnel boats were summoned and divers
were dispatched but the channel current was too much. They shook their heads and stared east. “Probably washed out to sea.” Much like my life. Grief counselors arrived and consoled those affected by what they saw. Two days later, beachcombers found my torn shirt along with my pants and one shoe. A half mile downriver, the car was discovered in eighty feet of water and hauled to the surface. Articles were removed. A gym bag containing half a bottle of gin, an empty bottle of tonic, Costa Del Mar sunglasses, a spinning rod and reel, a fillet knife, sunscreen, a five-gallon gas can, and several laminated maps. DNA tests confirmed it was my car.

While some of the country was immune to my death, much was not. A memorial service was held a week later. Crowds of mourners, gawkers, and the just plain curious filled the beach east of the bridge, stood in the rain holding tear-stained books, pressing ever closer to an impromptu and growing shrine. The national media were in full attendance. A local priest officiated. He regretted that he had not met me and said something about “beauty for ashes.” If there was beauty, it escaped those standing on the beach.

In the months that followed, news agencies milked the story for everything it was worth. Documentaries, hour-long features, two- and three-part investigative pieces. Conspiracy theories abounded. An unauthorized biography, “years in the making,” hit the shelf three months after the crash. My backlist titles climbed the best-seller lists once again. A concrete marker was erected on the beach, giving permanence to the shrine. A local vendor, claiming to be an eyewitness, sold T-shirts, cups, mouse pads, coolies, and paperback copies of my books. “Signed” first editions that I don’t ever remember signing popped up for sale from collectors. A local university endowed a writing scholarship for the verbally challenged. Another endowed a chair in the writing program. On the first anniversary of my death, the movie of the story of my life was
released in theaters across the country. One of my favorite actors played me. Did a good job, too. Fans stood in line. At the end of the day, I became far more famous in death than I’d ever been in life. In the five years that followed, journalists, commentators, bloggers, prognosticators, and anyone with a voice and the energy to broadcast it exhausted every detail of my gifted, tragic, and short-lived life, leaving no stone unturned.

But… they never found the book.

I woke on the beach. Naked. Cold. Sea foam clouding my face. A fiddler crab nibbling at my nose. I knew a couple of things: I did not know how I got there but to get anywhere else was going to require help. I knew I was alive not because of the blinding sunlight, smell of salt, or sound of seagulls but because of the searing pain in my chest and throat.

I lifted my head, looked around. Beach left curving out of sight. Beach right curving out of sight. White sand. Lots of trees. Noisy birds. No people. My thoughts were thick, garbled, and slow in coming. Must be something of an island. Oddly, when I closed my eyes I found the same condition.

I did not want to be alive and wasn’t quite sure how I’d managed it. Evidently, I swam a distance farther than people thought to look. I heard footsteps. Crunching sand. Then he appeared. Dressed in white. Robes flowing. He stooped down, shading my face. My eyes took a second to focus. He said, “There are a lot of people looking for you.”

I nodded.

He paused, stared down the beach, then back at me. “Do you want to be found?”

It was a simple question. It was the answer that was complex. “… No.”

He nodded. Another pause. “For how long?”

There used to be a British rock band named Queen. Maybe there still is. Anyway, I think I remember them singing a song called, “Who Wants to Live Forever?” I think it was part of the sound track to a movie,
Flash Gordon
, about a guy who died. Woke up in another world. I heard the song in my head and knew it was not me. For the first time my eyes focused on his face and I was quite certain I’d never seen eyes that blue. I whispered, “F-forever.”

He stood up. “Well, come on then. If you stay here you really will die.”

I stood up, then fell down. Stood again, and fell a second time. Stood a third time and he caught me. I leaned on him. He said, “You can’t very well go walking around like this.” He lifted his outer robe over his head. Beneath it, he wore black slacks, black shoes, black shirt, white collar. He slipped the robe over my head and shoulders, helped me feed my arms through. It draped about me.

One foot in front of the other.

We walked through the woods to the other side of the island, where he’d beached his boat in a protected cove. A twenty-four-foot Pathfinder with a Yamaha 250. Turns out, he was a priest with a fishing addiction. I fell into the bow. My head was spinning. I wasn’t sure if it was the gin, or the crash, or both. I scratched the back of my head, where I discovered that most of the hair was missing. Singed short. I tenderly touched the skin on the back of my head and shoulders. It was tender. I remember seeing flames wrap around me but nothing after that.

I said, “H-how long ago did I…?”

He lifted the power pole, cranked the engine, and spoke without looking at me. “Three days ago.”

It was not the gin. Dehydration maybe. “D-do you h-have any water?”

He handed me a bottle. It was cold. Condensation dripped down the side. I drank it. Then another. And another. Focus became easier.

He put the engine in gear and began idling out of the shallow water. He turned to me. “What shall we call you?”

I hadn’t thought about this. I hadn’t thought about any of this. The thought of not dying had never occurred to me. My mind was reeling with the question, What do I do now? I didn’t want to be called anything because I didn’t want anyone to call me. I shrugged, shook my head.

He nodded, pursed his lips, considered this. A moment passed. “How about ‘Sunday’?”

“What?”

“Sunday.”

“You mean l-like the d-day of the week?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

The world was still fuzzy and not much was making sense, but this made no sense at all. “Why… S-Sunday?”

“It’s my favorite day of the week.”

That made even less sense. I guess my blank stare convinced him of this. “What…?

“It marks the beginning. A fresh start.”

I suppose there was some method to his madness. The word “Sunday” rattled around the inside of me. I looked at him. He’d slipped on some sunglasses. I stood, squinting. He flipped up the seat behind him, grabbed a second pair, and handed them to me. “Here, this’ll help with the glare.” They did. Muting the pounding in my head. He pushed the stick
forward and quickly shot us up on plane. The wind tugged against the sheet I was wearing. I turned to him. None of this made sense. “Wh-what do I call you?”

“Steady.”

I shook my head and grabbed the stainless-steel bar that framed the center console. “No, I’m n-not feeling very s-steady.”

He smiled. “No, that’s my name.”

“ ‘Steady’ is your n-name?”

He nodded.

I stared across the water. The world had changed since I’d left it. Little made sense. I shut my mouth, moved to the front of the boat, closed my eyes, and let the breeze press against me. I thought about the kids. The hospital. Jody. Rod. Monica. The orphanage. My bunk. Life as I once knew it.

A lot changed that day. Everything changed.

Well, almost.

With no spouse and no children, Steady had one hobby. One addiction outside of the church. Fly-fishing. He was a tarpon fanatic. And I thought I knew a lot about fishing. Years back, he’d bought a small island and fixed up the cabin on it. It was his retreat. His quiet place on stilts. His waterfront view of the world. He took me there. “This island has an odd history. Folks used to make moonshine here during the Depression. Then, others used it to store dope when they were running it up from Cuba. Then, still others moved cocaine through here from South America.” He waved his hand across the mangroves and mosquitoes. “Make yourself at home.”

I didn’t know much about its history but people who do those things don’t do them in places that are easy to find. They pick places that are tough to get to. That don’t appear on maps. This place was one of those.

My life changed. No phone. No address. No expectation. I changed the way I slept, ate, drank, and how I spoke. Folks once told me that I couldn’t overcome my stutter; well… they hadn’t lived my life and didn’t drive off a bridge at a hundred and forty miles per hour. If my thoughts don’t stutter, why should my mouth? At least, that was my thinking. The only thing that did not change was the way I thought. I could not change who I was before I opened my eyes. I studied the water’s surface. Read fish movement. And told stories. The thing that told me I wasn’t dead was a broken heart. I could still feel that. I retreated into the Glades, the Ten Thousand Islands, the waters of the gulf in and around Florida, and I’ve been there ever since.

Once I recovered, I started remembering in bits and pieces. I remember feeling the car break through the concrete, vault over the side of the bridge, dive, and rotate slightly. I remember the shatter of glass, the heat on my neck from the flames, the engine whining, and then the impact, the airbag slamming against my face and the water pouring in. Swallowing me. I remember watching the manuscript in the plastic bag, the much-awaited book, lift off the seat as the water rushed in. I could have grabbed it but I didn’t. I just let it go. I didn’t want to be a writer anymore and I didn’t want anything to do with that or any other book. For so long I had believed in the divine power of words. But there was nothing divine in Jody’s death or what her death did to the hospital.