American Tropic (18 page)

The mourners weave beneath the gray-shadowed canopy of tall palm trees. They pass between rows of tombstones and granite mausoleums littered with sun-faded plastic flowers. They finally stop before a freshly dug open grave. At the grave’s head is a new white marble statue of a winged angel. The beatific angel extends in its hand above the grave a marble lily.

A somber priest, dressed in purple vestments, steps forward. His voice rises above the sound of sobbing from the mourners gathered around the grave. “Heavenly Father, we do not question Thee in Thy infinite wisdom. You have taken such a young soul to be at Your side in heaven, to seat her with the angels surrounding You. We only ask, dear Lord, that You take pity on those left behind after such an innocent has taken flight from this temporal world. Guide the family and all her loved ones through
this storm of anguish. Give us each the faith and courage to survive what seems an unjust and overbearing sorrow.”

Carmen cries out in a wail of pain; her body slumps; she is held up by Joan and Zoe.

Luz and Noah lower the casket on velvet ropes to the grave’s bottom. Only muffled sobbing is heard as the casket descends and settles onto the hard earth.

Carmen, her face wet with tears, her knees shaking, steps next to Luz and hands her a box. Luz opens the box and pulls out a pair of red high-heel shoes. She steps to the edge of the grave and lets the shoes slip from her fingers and drop down. She looks at the shoes glittering next to the white-enameled casket. “Here are your magic shoes, my darling Nina. When you get to the end of the Yellow Brick Road, tell Oz what I told you. Tell him that your family adores you.” From Luz’s eyes, tears spiral downward into the open grave, onto the red shoes.

A
line of slump-shouldered mourners, their heads bowed, files out between the iron cemetery gates. In a far, hidden corner of the cemetery, only Hogfish is left. He stands astride his rusty bicycle with its line of barbed J-hooks strung between the handlebars. He watches the entrance gates to make certain no one is coming back. He jams the earbuds of his iPhone into his ears and jumps up onto his bicycle’s cracked leather seat. He pedals furiously, swerving the bike on a snaking path
among the gravestones. He hits the brakes and skids to a stop in front of Nina’s grave. The grave is filled in with dirt, its top covered with bouquets of flowers tied by colorful satin ribbons. The fragrance of the flowers is a heady perfume mix in the shifting breeze.

Hogfish gazes across the grave to the winged stone angel extending a marble lily. The angel’s smoothly chiseled face is serene.

Hogfish jabs his finger at the angel. His shouting voice echoes across the cemetery. “Smell the air! When El Finito comes, the air is filled with the stink of dead turtles! Feel his filthy weather creeping up your back. Oppressive weather! Weather that’s hot and calculating! Wants to explode in your face! To annihilate you!”

Hogfish turns away from the angel. He grips the bicycle’s metal handlebars in a white-knuckle hold. He shakes the handlebars, rattling loudly the line of dangling J-hooks. His chest heaves, he struggles for breath, he sucks in air deeply. He looks back in anguish at the angel, tears streaming from his eyes. “Don’t let Finito steal Nina out of her grave! Finito’s almost here!”

T
he circular steps inside the Key West Lighthouse spiral up in a steep rise of eighty-six feet above Noah. He climbs the steps in the hot, confined air and stops at the uppermost landing to catch his breath. He steps through a narrow passageway leading outside onto
an iron catwalk suspended around the top of the lighthouse. He follows the catwalk beneath a massive glass light beacon above. He stops. Before him is Luz.

Luz stands with her hands gripping the top railing of the catwalk. She stares out over the view of the island city’s tightly packed tin-roofed houses melding into the blue of the surrounding ocean. She is startled by Noah’s words coming from behind her.

“Joan told me I might find you here. She said this is where you come when you want to be alone.”

Luz remains silent, not releasing her tight grip on the railing, her breathing labored.

Noah takes a step back. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I understand. I can leave you alone if you want.”

Luz keeps her sight on the sweeping vista. “My father used to bring me up here when I was a little girl. He told me that when this was first lit, in the 1840s, doves flying here over the ocean from Cuba mistook the brilliant light for the sun. The doves flew straight into the beacon.” Luz turns slowly to Noah, her eyes filled with suffering. “That species of dove that crashed to their deaths against this beacon is now extinct. Those doves will never be on this earth again. Gone forever, like my Nina.”

Noah looks at Luz, seeking a way out of the sadness. “You still have two doves to live for. Carmen and Joan are waiting for you. You are needed at home.”

Luz turns away. Her gaze goes back to the vista of the island and the blue horizon beyond.

L
areck lies in bed, listless, near death. His watery eyes stare up at the ceiling. He rasps for breath with an open mouth. A white sheet covers his body up to the neck. A scorpion scuttles along the white sheet, its front pincer claws clicking.

In the wicker chair next to the bed, Hogfish rocks his body back and forth to music blasting through his iPhone’s earbuds.

The scorpion slithers up the bedsheet onto Lareck’s neck. The creature creeps up the side of Lareck’s cheek toward his open mouth. He struggles to speak as he looks pleadingly at Hogfish, his words barely audible. “Scor … pions. Scorpions or … rats. Got to choose. Make your … choice.”

Hogfish bobs his head to the music, watching the scorpion progress up Lareck’s cheek. He reaches out his hand and clamps it tight over Lareck’s mouth. Lareck’s eyes widen in fear, his breath cut.

The scorpion crawls onto the back of Hogfish’s hand covering Lareck’s mouth. Hogfish raises his hand close to his face and stares into the scorpion’s amber eyes. The scorpion stares back; its front scissored pincers widen to attack; its arched stinger-tail vibrates to sting. Hogfish flicks his hand, knocking the scorpion to the floor. He jumps up and stomps the heel of his shoe down, crushing the scorpion’s body and squishing out a snot-colored slime of innards.

Hogfish shouts at the terrified Lareck. “The air will stink of dead scorpions and rats when El Finito turns the world upside down! Fish will be thrown up into the sky!
Pelicans will rain down. Iguanas will explode! Finito is coming to end it all!”

L
uxury cars are parked in front of a sprawling red-roofed Mediterranean-style villa. Behind the villa, bright overhead lights shine down on a tennis court where two pit bulls ferociously tear into each other’s flesh. Circled around the dogs, betting men shout for blood. Prominent among the men, in his tight Italian silk suit and shiny alligator shoes, is Hard Puppy. At his side are two meth-tweaked party girls, one white and one black, both wearing skintight dresses and stiletto high heels. The party girls shriek as one of the pit bulls rips the throat out of the other in a spray of blood.

Hard pumps his fist triumphantly in the air, then slaps the asses of the party girls. The men around Hard groan with disappointment as he boasts with flashing platinum teeth.

“My bitch won big bucks! She be like a hyena! My bitch can tear the asshole out of a fleein’ zebra!”

B
eneath a full moon, Hard Puppy’s black SUV speeds on the Seven Mile Bridge. The bridge spans sixty-five feet above the ocean in a concrete blade crossing over the deep channel between the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Strait, linking the Upper Keys to the lower islands. Silhouetted in the moon’s glow alongside the bridge is the forlorn remnant of the old Overseas Railroad, blown away to its stubby concrete trestles during the 1935 hurricane that dumped four hundred men to their deaths in the shark-infested waters. Hard glances over at the old bridge and gives an appreciative whistle through his platinum teeth. High on meth and pumped on adrenaline, he steers the SUV ahead with jerky aggressiveness while singing along to the radio’s bass-beat thump of angry rap music booming from surround-sound speakers.

On the front seat, next to Hard, the white party girl sits with her skinny ass rooted into the lap of the black girl. They both lean in next to Hard. Behind them, in the back cargo cab, the winning pit bull paces in an iron-barred cage. The dog’s stout body is ripped and bleeding from its recent fight.

Hard shouts to the party girls above the rap music. “To men I give shit! To ladies I give favors!” He grabs the plump silicone breast of the white girl through her dress. She launches into shrill giggling. The caged pit bull in the back pricks up its ears to the sound and growls with deep-throated menace. Hard punches the SUV’s accelerator pedal to the floor, speeding the SUV to the end of the bridge and onto a narrow road with mangrove swamps pressed up against it on both sides. The rap music blasts,
the pit bull growls. Hard turns down the volume on the radio. “This be bad music I be playin’. But I got badder. I can sing Civil War times bad ass.”