Geezer Paradise (15 page)

             
"Oscar," Willey called . . . nothing.  Willey called again, louder.  And then we heard it, "Ew, ew, ew, ew, ee, ee, ee, ee."  We looked up.  Oscar was up in the treetops, swinging from branch to branch.  He was in his ancestral surroundings and loving it.  Come down here you little ape," Willey yelled.  "Ee, ee, ee, ee, came back. 

             
"Well, he'll come down when he's hungry, "I said.  We sat on the steps of the chickee and worked out a plan.  We would paddle back through the swamp to the Wrangler, deflate the raft and store it behind the back seat.  Then we'd drive back to the strip mall and park there across the street from the bicycle path.  We would call Eduardo and set up a way to get the film to him.

             
Then we would leave the Wrangler in the mall parking lot until dark, then drive it down the bicycle path to the chickee, and hide it in the dense undergrowth.  In the meantime we sat on the chickee's steps and waved at the people going by.  At three in the afternoon the heat became oppressive.  The traffic on the trail slowed down then--just a few rail thin joggers with death wishes trotting by.  We had to wait an hour for Oscar to come down from the trees.  We grabbed him, gave him his banana and orange juice, and put him into the raft.  I thought about the alligators and shoved my gun into my pocket.  Then I sprayed myself with bug spray.  Willey said he didn't need any.  We got into the raft and shoved off to get the Wrangler. 

             
As we came around a turn in the waterway Willey pointed out a small, wooden shack on the shore.  It wasn't much bigger than an outhouse. 

             
"That's new," Willey said.  I guessed there wasn't too much development going on around there.  We made a few more turns around the waterway and came to a wide spot with a sandbar in the middle.  There were two large alligators sunning themselves on the sandbar.  A small flock of snowy egrets were standing on the opposite shore, keeping a wary eye on the big lizards.  We hugged the shore as we passed.  The swamp was an interesting place.  I knew it looked just the same as it had a hundred years ago, except for the floating beer cans. 

             
The Wrangler was right where we left it.  We deflated the raft and stored it behind the rear seat.  Then we got into the Wrangler and headed for the highway.  Willey plugged his cell phone into the cigarette lighter to charge it. 

              When we got back to the strip mall across from the bike trail, we parked in the lot.  Willey called Eduardo and told him we had the film.  Eduardo gave Willey his address at work and told him to overnight the film to him.  He said we should relax until we heard from him.  We didn't tell him we were hiding in a swamp, or that Flaherty's goons were gunning for us.  If we did we'd have to tell him how badly the photo shoot had gone, and how I'd messed up and hit the flash by mistake.  We didn't want him to think we were amateurs, which of course, we were. 

             
Willey called Frank's and told them he had to go out of town for an emergency, and he didn't know when he's be back.  He apologized for not being able to give them a notice.  After that he called Mary Dixon to find out how things were going at the park. 

             
"Where the hell have you two been?" she asked. 

             
"You don't want to know," Willey said, as if we were hiding out with 007.  We assured Mary that we were alright and promised to keep in touch.  Willey asked Mary to call us if anything happened at the park.  She said she would.  We left Oscar in the Wrangler with the windows half way up so the little devil couldn't escape, and went into a UPS store to buy a padded envelope. Then we overnighted the film to Eduardo.  We did a little food shopping and picked up some beer.  Then we drove around the area, checking it out.  It was a sleepy little Florida town.  The downtown was a short street of two story buildings, and the rest was residential.  We stopped at a barbeque place and stuffed ourselves.  Even Oscar was licking his chops.  After dark we drove down the trail back to the chickee.  We put the few groceries we had bought away.  Which means we put them on the floor with the rest of the stuff.  We had pretty much cleaned the crackers off the floor, pretty much.  Neither Willey or I was very good at housekeeping.  I ran the Wrangler into some high bushes behind the chickee to hide it.

             
We sat on our lawn chairs inside the chickee and drank beer.  Willey went on about what it was like to grow up in Florida in the nineteen-fifties. It sounded like a paradise, but then, the past always seems better than the present, mostly because we had lived through it and had come out on the other side alive.  Oscar was behaving himself, sipping his beer, but he couldn't figure out why we didn't have a toilet.  We finally just took his shorts off and put him outside.  After a while he got the meaning of, "roughing it."  Around ten-thirty that night we all got tired and climbed into our sleeping bags.  The beer put me right to sleep.

****

             
The Night Stalker crouched in the shadows of the Polski's trailer.  He was carryin' a bag full'a' snakes.  There was a night light lit in the kitchen.  That meant the Polski was still living there.  The Molotov cocktail didn't work.  But McGee's old Wrangler was nowheres in sight.  He must'a gave up an skedalled outt'a there.  But that Polski was still hangin' in.  The Night Stalker crept from one winder ta the next till he found one that wuz open.  He set the pillercase full'a snakes down an pulled out a jackknife.  Then he stood up an slashed the winder screen.  Now all he hadd'a do was dump the snakes inside the house.  It weren't easy ketchin' all them snakes.  Fer all the Night Stalker knew, some'a them snakes might be poisonous.  He carefully dumped the snakes inside the house an sank back inta the shadows. He took out his red crayon an' wrote on the side a the trailer,
The Night Stalker
.  If this didn't work, he'd try the dead chicken.  That would do it.

****

             
In the wee hours of the morning, when all the creepy, crawly, swamp critters were asleep, we were awakened by a loud thud that shook the floor of the chickee.  We all woke up with a start. 

             
"What the hell was that?" Willey yelled.

             
I said, "I don't know what it is, but it's laying right beside me."  Then the thing started to snore.  We got up and took out our penlights.  It was an unconscious man about thirty, with shaggy hair and shabby clothes.  He smelled of whisky. 

             
"It's a homeless person," I said.  "What are we going to do with him?"

             
"I don't know about you, but I'm going back to sleep," Willey said, and he crawled back into his sleeping bag. 

             
"What if he's dangerous?" 

             
"Search him.  If he doesn't have a weapon let him sleep it off."  I searched him . . . nothing.  Oscar was already asleep.  I moved my sleeping bag away from the intruder and tried to get back to sleep.  I tossed and turned until somewhere around 3:am, then I fell back to sleep.  When I woke up again it was nine thirty.  The stranger was still asleep.  We fed Oscar and put him outside to play in the trees, while Willey and I headed for the diner.  After we got our coffee and ordered our breakfast, I asked Willey, "What are we going to do with the bum?"

             
"Damned if I know.  We'll just have to wait until he wakes up and go from there.  Maybe he'll just move on." 

             
After breakfast we walked back to the chickee and looked down at the man on the floor.

             
"Judging by the way he hit the floor last night I'd say he'd been drinking heavily," I said.  "He'll probably sleep all day if we don't wake him up."  We crouched down and I shook the man.  He didn't wake up.  I shook him harder . . . nothing. 

             
"Damn," Willey said.  "We'll have to put a bomb under him to wake him up."  We couldn't wait all day.  Oscar had come back by then.  I said ,"Willey, take Oscar outside."

             
"Why do you want him outside?"

             
"Because animals have much more sensitive ears than we do."  Willey gave me a look, but took Oscar outside anyway.  When they were far enough away I took a long look at the bike trail to make sure nobody was around.  Then I took out my gun and shot a hole in the floor.  The sleeping man sat bolt upright.  "What the hell was that?" he yelled.  His bloodshot eyes were wide open.

             
"Sorry," I said, "but we had to wake you up."  I put the gun back into my pocket.  Willey came rushing through the door.  "I thought you shot him," he said.  Willey moved closer to the man, staring at him.  The man's face broke into a big, goofy, grin. 

             
"Hey, Uncle Willey.  "How the hell are ya?"  I was witnessing a Cracker family reunion. 

             
Willey said, "Barney, this is my sister Edna's boy, Jasper." 

             
I shook Jasper's hand.  "Glad to meet you, Jasper."

             
"How's your mom doing," Willey asked. 

             
"She's good," Jasper said.  "But she worries about me.  Seems like I'm always getting into trouble."

             
"I swear," Willey said.  "If brains were dynamite you wouldn't have enough to blow your nose."  Jasper thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. 

             
"So, are you guys camping out?" Jasper asked.

             
Willey said, "We're hiding out from some bad guys that are looking for us."

             
"Why are they looking for you?"

             
"Well, that's a long story.  Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime."  I didn't think Willey should have told Jasper that, but it was too late--the cat was out of the bag. 

             
"Cool," Jasper said.  "I'm hiding out, too.  My ex-wife has a private detective looking for me."

             
"Does she miss you that much?" Willey asked.

             
"She misses the alimony payments."

             
"Do you have kids?"

             
"Naw," Jasper said.  "We don't have any kids."

             
"Then how can she make you pay alimony?" 

             
"Aw, she told the judge she quit her job at the laundromat so she could stay home and be a housewife.  That's a laugh, she couldn't even boil water."

             
Jasper spotted Oscar.  "Hey, is that aunt Opal's monkey? Hi, Oscar.  How the hell are ya?"  Oscar smiled and wrapped his arms around Jasper's leg.  Jasper picked him up and hugged him.  They were kindred spirits.  "What's Oscar doing here," jasper asked. 

             
"Opal told us he was a guard monkey," Willey said. 

             
Jasper started laughing.  "The only thing he ever guarded was his beer.  Isn't that right big guy," Jasper said, as he bounced Oscar in his arms.  "Hey, Uncle Willey," Jasper said as he put Oscar down.  "You think you could spot me ten bucks so I could get some breakfast over at the diner?"  Willey gave him a ten dollar bill.  "Thanks, Uncle Willey.  I'll be back in a little bit," he said, and went off up the trail. 

             
I looked at Willey, "What do you want to do now?"

             
"Let's take a walk down the trail and look around."  I took Oscar's hand and we went out the door.  As we stepped out of the chickee, we looked up the trail.  Jasper came running around the bend.  A man in a suit was running right behind him, holding out a manila envelope.  "Take this," the man yelled.  Jasper wanted no part of it.  They disappeared around a bend. 

             
"Looks like Jasper has his hands full," Willey said.  "I guess we can't go down the trail now."

             
I said, "We've got a couple of fishing rods and a tackle box in the back of the Wrangler.  Feel like fishing?"

             
"Sure, let's grab Oscar and go."  We put Oscar and the fishing tackle in the front of the raft, sat ourselves in the back, and started to paddle.  I looked around for alligators and felt my pocket to be sure I had my gun.  I remembered to bring along the bug spray.  We found a likely place to fish and beached the raft.  We used rubber worms, hoping to hook some largemouth bass, casting out and reeling in, giving the line a little tug every once in a while to make the rubber bait look alive. 

             
Every once in awhile I'd look around to make sure there were no alligators creeping up on us.  I sat there in the shade and took in the surroundings.  I never knew a swamp could be so pleasant.  A couple of snowy egrets were poking around on the opposite bank.  Birds sang in the trees and, damn . . . there was a pair of gator eyes just above the surface of the water, staring at us.  I nudged Willey and pointed.