Gumbo Limbo (30 page)

BOOK: Gumbo Limbo

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I recalled one Sunday morning in 1977 when I’d ventured down Caroline with my camera. A derelict had staggered from behind the marine supply company. Dried blood stuck his hair to his cheek and forehead. His tongue worked a section of gum where a tooth had broken. Convinced that I’d done him damage, he came at me with a broken beer bottle. I’d lifted my bicycle in defense. His first slash popped a tire. I ripped a wood stake from a picket fence, went to thrash back, but it ended there. Two ocean-going brethren intervened, confiscated his weapon, walked him back toward the docks.

Historical perspective is too often a study of contrast. A generation later, at that moment, the only action on Caroline
centered a block and a half east of where I stood. Every sports utility vehicle in south Florida was competing for the eleven metered parking slots on the north side of the street. Every ocean angler south of Jacksonville and not on the ocean waited in an outside line for a table at Pepe’s. Hair o’ the dog way higher on the priority list than breakfast omelets. Still, for some reason, Caroline Street felt ominous for its lack of visible threat.

Change is certain in the Island City.

From the direction of Pepe’s Café, I felt concussions of sub-aural bass. Then audible, rhythmic low tones preceded a black Chevy S-10 pickup truck lowered to within four inches of the pavement. No top end, no high notes that I could hear. Perhaps they didn’t exist. Opaque doper tinting, a black camper top. The vehicle rolled on bowl-sized, maybe twelve-inch chrome wheels, tires the thickness of licorice twists. Hearse-like and ominous, the truck radiated evil.

Thumpa-thump-boom. So much for a quiet Sunday morning.

A tourist foursome near B.O.’s Fish Wagon, blue-coiffed seniors in pastel Bermudas, favored the sidewalk edge farthest from the curb. The elderly men squared their shoulders. The women shifted their hands to protect belly packs, to shield credit cards and cash, a move doomed should the car stop, a door open, a muzzle or blade wiggle in the yellow sunlight. The cockroach grooved past the seniors. The threat lifted, the weight of the ocean had spared a bubble of innocence. Then it slowed to approach me, to pass more deliberately. A row of three-inch-high decals across the pickup truck’s rear glass, alternating Confederate flags and Copenhagen snuff logos. In the window’s lower left corner a NASCAR competitor’s stylized number. A chain-motif license tag frame, also chromed. I thought, is that gaping hole under the bumper a tailpipe or a sewer pipe?

The truck stopped. An increase in stereo volume as the passenger side door opened. Two pasty-skinned specimens exited. Ratty tank-top muscle shirts and identical brush mustaches. One tall, thin, oval sunglasses, a Nike beret. One short with a spiraling barbed-wire arm tattoo, his face stupid, frosted with malice. Gold jewelry equal in value to a Third World annual income. I caught a whiff of fresh-burned hashish.

These children were not promoting a fair fight. They had been to punk school, where experts remove conscience and install weaponry. They had grown up ripping chains from tourists’ necks on Duval, had expanded their talents clouting BMWs and Acuras up on South Beach. In some other locale, they’d be kneecappers on the docks, or brass-knuck mob flunkies. The only style twist they knew was to slide gold chains before they yanked, to slash neck skin, to leave a wire-thin reminder of that visit to south Florida.

If this social call was aimed at get-rich-quick, the pukes had targeted the right bike—my eight-hundred-dollar Cannondale—but the wrong camera. My Olympus was almost twenty years old. They probably weren’t thinking too far into the future. The bicycle would upgrade the truck’s stereo. The OM-4 would barely buy an afternoon’s buzz.

I learned years ago, aboard sailboats, that stringing cameras around my neck caused their straps to tangle with the lanyards that kept my sunglasses from going overboard. I got in the habit of double-looping camera straps around my right wrist. It cured tangling and kept my gear from going into the drink when a sudden roll forced the use of grabrails. I was about to experience the benefits of wrist looping when the snatch-andgrab boys are about.

The short one moved first; the tall one hung back. Some kind of tag team strategy. Two sharks chasing a minnow. They’d stupidly given me a fighting chance, if I didn’t lose track of the malevolent tall boy in the background.

“You want this?” I said to Shorty. “Take it away.” I held the camera body upright, the lens pointed at him. My thumb brushed the shutter button. On impulse I pressed it. Probably an over-exposed, out-of-focus close-up of his shoulder. Or one of his drug-dead eyes.

Shorty stepped forward. Watery snot glistened on his upper lip. He stuck out one hand, held the other snug to his leg. A four-inch pigsticker pointed downward, threw glints of sunlight. The kid stank like a bucket of onions and cheap aftershave. His eyes didn’t look crazed—just emotionless—but I felt sure that his long-term prep had included hurriedly-crafted pipes, chemicals and fumes, clipped straws, and stolen needles.

Where was tourist traffic when you needed it? No pedestrians in and out of the Caroline Street Market? No Conch Train rolling by? Had some out-of-sight witness already dialed 911? I pictured the sidewalk seniors locked snug in their LeSabre, making tracks for North Palm Beach. I smelled bacon on the breeze, from Pepe’s and Harpoon Harry’s.

Shorty’s open hand came closer; his other hand twitched. I heard clicks from ten feet away: the tall one setting the blade of a plastic-handled carpet cutter. I was alone. I hadn’t lived my life in constant gang-banger readiness. I hadn’t gone to dress rehearsal. I would either eat street and shed blood, or pull an out-of-character survival move. A few days earlier I’d read a newspaper article about martial arts schools teaching courses on fighting dirty. None of it involved graceful, dancelike moves. Most of the techniques would have gotten you kicked off the playground, or banished from the team. I tried to recall the text of the article. Difficult, on short notice.

I baited the hook, stuck out my arm and the camera. The knife moved upward an inch. Hell. This wasn’t a rip-off. I was a target. Handing over meat was not going to appease the tiger. As soon as the shitbird thought I was in range, the sharp metal would swipe at my arm. He’d grab the hand beneath the camera,
pull me in for a deep back puncture, a lung or a kidney.

A peaceful Sunday morning in Paradise.

To break his concentration, I dropped the camera, formed a fist with my hand. I swung my forearm in a circle, like stirring a pot. Shorty focused on the moving fist, brought his knife to waist level, pointed it at my belly button. He didn’t notice the rotating momentum in the Olympus until it swung up like a shot, banged his head just forward of his ear. My followthrough put me in perfect position: I kicked him in the nuts. A hard, solid connection between his slightly-spread legs. An audible smack.

The tall one was almost on me. I needed Shorty completely out of the game. I side-stepped the carpet cutter and let go a scoop kick. It buckled Shorty’s knee. I switched feet and kicked again. The second jab caught his leg broadside. This time I felt and heard his knee go. He toppled, grabbed his partner for support, robbed him of his balance. I swung the camera like a bolo. The tall one’s head bounced backward. He grimaced, tried to stand upright, then spit teeth and blood.

The screech was not from the injured men. The low-slung pickup burned rubber in reverse, coming at me, the open passenger-side door flapping like a black wing. The truck skidded to a stop. The driver jumped out, identical attire except for his backward ballcap. He pointed a strange gun. The way he moved tweaked my memory; I knew his name and family reputation. Neither out of synch with the confrontation.

Drawn to the tires’ noise, silent onlookers began to gather. The driver understood the need for retreat. He tore off his tank top, draped it over the truck license tag—too late, but not in his mind—and somehow managed to shove his wounded comrades into the truck. As a parting gesture he turned toward me, aimed the pistol at my chest, and fired. I felt the hit, the rush of liquid, a coldness, and stumbled backward. I looked down.

He’d splattered me with a paint-pellet gun. It hurt like hell. I smelled like cheap salad dressing. I was monkey-puke green from neckline to ankles.

The truck sped away, as did most of the witnesses. Don Kincaid, from the charter sailboat
Stars and Stripes,
offered a towel from his motorscooter’s basket. A fellow photographer, he worried more about my Olympus than my clothing. The camera looked fine. Don told me the truck’s license number.

Another bystander, whom I recognized—a regular customer at the Sunbeam Market—offered to call 911 on her cell phone. I shook my head, then noticed the true miracle. In the excitement and action, no one had stolen my bicycle.

Kincaid said he had to go. I assured him I was okay. I just needed to catch my breath. I leaned against my bike and looked up the street. The Caroline Street dust had settled. The Blazers and Expeditions and Cherokees had quit fighting for space. The brunch line at Pepe’s was down to the last three, each customer patiently reading a newspaper. The other off-duty sportsmen were inside at tables, burping coffee, chewing celery sticks from their full-dress Bloody Marys. The sun shone bright pale yellow. The sky glowed pure blue. The restored Red Doors Inn gleamed with fresh white and vermilion paint.

Someone could argue that the island was improving with age.

I rode the Cannondale homeward thinking that, a few hours earlier, my morning had begun on a humorous note. After waking with Teresa Barga in her Shipyard condo, we’d shared wonderful, slow-motion lovemaking, Cuban coffee, yellow-label Entenmann’s pastries, and the
Miami Herald.
I knew that she wanted her home to herself, to catch up on paperwork and to prepare several police department press releases. Her job load, as the KWPD press liaison officer, varied with the crime rate. In her eighth month on the job, she was learning that cases tended to stack high during tourist season.
She’d shrugged off a suggestion that we spend the day in a kayak. I wasn’t happy having to compete with the city for her time on a Sunday. The upside was my admiration for her focus and work ethic, rare traits in Key West.

Teresa and I had met five months earlier at City Hall. She had been new in town, new to her job. We’d both been without partners for months. We were attracted by curiosity and mutual needs for stability and fun. We’d been constant companions since then. Our connection had survived on humor, compatibility, and common interests: being on the water and, during bad weather, reading good books.

Teresa had walked me to her door, patted my rear end, kissed my cheek. She’d said, “Take care, lover. It’s a jungle out there.”

I’d boasted, “Show me the vine. I’m a swinger.”

She’d laughed. I’m a laugh a minute.

GUMBO LIMBO

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

eISBN 9781429972468

First eBook Edition : May 2011

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-23848

St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / September 1999
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2000

BOOK: Gumbo Limbo

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