Lost Memory of Skin (41 page)

A forty-foot open tour boat with a canvas canopy extending its length has been let back into the water and tied to stanchions. A teenage white boy near the bow of the boat wearing the same inmate’s uniform as the young black men pointedly grunts from the effort of lifting an overturned ticket booth back into a standing position ready for business. At the edge of the dock a peeling gasoline pump and beside it another for diesel wait for takers. A tipped hand-painted sign,
PAY
INSIDE
!
CASH
ONLY
!
points toward a low flat-roofed cinder block building where a lizard-skinned man in a baseball cap, sleeveless undershirt and cutoffs and a tanned white-haired woman in denim overalls and tie-dyed T-shirt pry sheets of plywood off the plate glass store windows. Signs on the glass advertise groceries, fishing gear, beer, bait, and sundries, an ATM, and a United States post office, Panzacola branch.

Behind the store and adjacent to the parking lot is the ranger station, a low stucco Bahama-style building with a covered porch on three sides and open floor-to-ceiling wood-latticed windows. There’s a small office for the rangers in back and in the front an information center with a pamphlet stand and public restrooms, a beverage-dispensing machine and not much else. There are no visitors to the park this morning. Only the Professor, the Kid, Annie on a rope leash, and Einstein in his cage.

A heavyset red-faced ranger in his late thirties with a pale blond buzz cut and rumpled uniform, his short-sleeved shirt already wet with sweat, sits at his desk in the office and talks into the radio to fellow rangers located deep in the swamp checking on storm damage to the lookout towers and catwalks. The ranger glances up and notices the Professor and the Kid.
Park’s closed today, folks. On account of the hurricane. No visitors. Not till tomorrow at least.

I was gonna rent a houseboat.

The ranger says he’ll need a permit. He speaks in short crisp sentences. No permits issued till tomorrow. Still have to clear some trails out there.

Without meaning to the Kid imitates the ranger’s way of speaking. He says he’s ex-military. Back from Afghanistan. Needs to clear his head.

The ranger crinkles his brow and thinks a minute. Ex-military, eh? He asks the Kid if he knows how to handle a canoe.

The Kid lies and says sure. He’s never been in a canoe in his life but figures it can’t be all that hard to stick a paddle in the water and push. Or maybe you pull.

The ranger says that the guy who runs the rentals is short of workers today. All he’s got is a small crew from the county jail that the guard won’t let him send into the swamp.
Willing to work a few hours for no pay?

Maybe. Why?

Go talk to Cat Turnbull. Guy who runs the store. Help him get his houseboats in from the swamp this morning, maybe he’ll rent you one today. If he does, I’ll give you a permit to go into the park. In spite of its being officially closed till tomorrow.
Seeing as how you already came all the way out here. You both going in?
He tosses a skeptical glance at the Professor as if trying and failing to imagine the man paddling a canoe. Hard to imagine him even sitting in one.

No. Just me.

How long you want it for?

Not sure yet. Have to see how it goes. A few days anyhow. Maybe more.

Okay. Costs fifty-something bucks a day. Plus tax. Cat’ll want a deposit. You got a credit card?

No. I got cash though.

The Professor grunts.

Okay, go see Cat. Tell him what I said about volunteering. Take it from there.

The Kid snaps him a military salute, turns on his heels and marches out to the parking lot. The Professor, leading Annie and holding Einstein’s cage, trails along behind.

At the store, where Cat Turnbull and his wife are still removing plywood sheets from the windows, the Kid makes his deal for the houseboat. The leather-skinned old man is surprised and pleased to hear the Kid’s offer to help bring the boats in from the swamp where they rode out the storm. And he’s very glad to have what looks like a cash-paying rental in hand, especially at this time of year, four months before the start of tourist season. From March to December the only business that comes through the door of his store is brought by fishermen from Calusa who drive in with their own fishing gear and boats with the gas tanks already topped off and park in the lot and launch their boats straight into the Bay; and bird-watchers who want only to walk the marshes on the footpaths and catwalks and bring their own binoculars and sandwiches, cold drinks, and coolers with them. From June to early October, hurricane season which is where we are now, even the local fishermen and bird-watchers stay away. This kid is the first cash customer he’s seen in nearly two weeks. And now he’s offering to paddle into the swamp where they parked the houseboats and bring them in. Good deal.

How long you gonna need the houseboat for?

Not sure. I’m thinking maybe five days, maybe more. I’m sort of recovering from the war. Afghanistan. I’m just out of the military. Need to get my head together. Post trauma whatever.

Semper fi, sonny. Retired Marine. What branch?

Army. First Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York.

Well, damn! Welcome back, soldier. America thanks you for all your sacrifices. And we’re real glad you’re back home alive in one piece. The old Panzacola’s a good place for a man to get his head together. Especially after what you been through. Nothing out there but gators and slithery snakes and pretty birds. And they won’t bother you none. You can do a little fishing. Catch your own supper. No fucking rag-heads blowing themselves up and cutting off people’s heads on TV. It’s real peaceful.

That’s good.

I’ll give you a military discount. You gonna need supplies? Food, water, gas, and so on?

Yeah. Five days’ worth anyhow. And some dog food and birdseed if you got it.

We’ll fix you up good, son.
He tells the Kid to leave his bags and animals here at the store and take one of the canoes that the colored guys are bringing out.
There’s three houseboats tied to the mangroves about a hundred yards upriver. You won’t get lost. The river’s blazed. You’ll have to make three trips. Just tie the canoe to the boat when you bring it in and paddle it back for the next one. Shouldn’t take you more’n an hour a trip. You know how to drive a houseboat, sonny?

Sure.

There ain’t much to it anyhow. Pontoon boats, little pissy twenty-five-horse outboards, no wheel or tiller to worry about. They only draw about ten inches. Moron could drive it. Lots of ’em have. Water’s pretty deep out there now on account of the storm and you might run into some drowned trees coming in, so don’t try no water-skiing, sonny. Heh-heh.

Cat’s wife has been looking the Kid up and down in a kindly, warm open-faced way as if she recognizes the young man from someplace pleasant and can’t remember where it was. The Kid catches her gaze and feels the warmth of it and grows uncomfortable. It’s a familiar enough gaze to him, one that he usually gets from women. Especially older women. They seem automatically to trust him. He doesn’t trigger their usual alarms against strange young males nor does he in any way invite their erotic attention or desire, subliminal or otherwise. He doesn’t even make them feel maternal. It’s as if he’s outside all sexual potential, is without an erotic marker of any kind, has no sexual past or future. Somehow in his presence middle-aged and older women seem released from all their usual forms of sexual anxiety and feel instead a physical warmth toward him, unrestrained and unedited. It’s almost as if he’s a very old woman himself.

But whenever the Kid perceives this warmth flowing in his direction—which due to his deflective nature isn’t all that often—he grows itchy and uncomfortable. A little fearful. It makes his stomach churn, and his breathing speeds up and goes shallow. He’s afraid that if he doesn’t turn away from that onrush of female warmth he might literally start to cry.

So he ignores Cat’s wife, refuses even to look at her. Instead he walks a few yards away from the couple and turns his attention to the Professor.

Well, Haystack, I guess this is good-bye.

Yes. I doubt we’ll meet again. I’ll leave your backpack and duffel up at the ranger station.

Okay. Thanks. Well, it’s been . . . interesting knowing you.
The Kid doesn’t understand why he suddenly feels so sorry and sad for the Professor. He can’t remember when he last felt both sorry and sad for someone—even the Rabbit whom he felt sorry for when the cops busted his leg and sad about when he drowned but never both at the same time. Most people seem to him not quite real, as if they’re on a reality TV show and are only pretending to be themselves like the guy who’s supposed to be the park ranger and the old guy who calls himself Cat Turnbull and his wife who the Kid doesn’t want to look at. It’s like they’re on a reality show called
Swamp People.
They’re not actors like you see in soaps and movies or even porn because they’re playing themselves instead of people invented by a writer to say words written in a script and do what a director tells them to do, smiling or crying or taking off their clothes and screwing each other or just talking to each other on their cell phones. The ranger and the old guy named Cat and his wife and pretty much everyone else the Kid meets aren’t actors, he knows that—they’re just not real in the same way that he himself is.

But the Professor is different. He’s starting to feel real to the Kid the same way the Kid feels to himself and he’s puzzled by the feeling. He’s never much liked the Professor or enjoyed his company the way he enjoyed Rabbit’s for instance or even Paco’s because of his goofy concentration on something as useless as pumping iron that turned him into a cartoon character. On the other hand he didn’t particularly dislike the Professor either, not the way he disliked the Shyster and certain other deviants under the Causeway or O. J. Simpson for instance whom he never actually knew personally but definitely did not want to know personally anyhow, not just because he was a stone-cold wife killer but because he was an arrogant asshole. On the likability scale until this moment the Professor has fallen somewhere between the Rabbit and O. J. Simpson. Which for the Kid is about where most people fall. Even his mother. That’s how he prefers it. It’s how he’s always preferred it.

You know all that shit you told me in the interview? About how you’re gonna get whacked and everything from becoming “expendable and therefore dangerous”? Only it’s supposed to look like it’s a suicide?

Yes.

That’s not true, is it? You just made it up so your wife will feel better if you kill yourself.

Kid, it’s all true. You don’t believe me?

Why do you want to kill yourself, Professor? If your wife and kids come back, except for being so fat you got a lot to live for. Even if they don’t come back and she wants a divorce, you still got a lot to live for. Nice house, big prestigious job at a college, all those books and pictures and nice stuff you live with. You can travel wherever you want, live wherever you want, get credit cards and bank loans, take friends out to fancy restaurants for dinners. If you lost some of that weight you could even probably get a fairly good-looking girlfriend if you wanted one. Christ, look at me, I’m the one who should be talking about suicide, not you. I can’t even vote in this state. Why do you want to kill yourself ?

I don’t. And I won’t. Someone else will do the job. Only he’ll be masquerading as me. As it were.

That means he won’t really be you? People will just think he’s you?

Correct. Except for you and Gloria.

It doesn’t add up, Professor. You must be really bored with life. Like you’re too frigging smart for reality and other people so you make up this complicated spy story about how you’re not really gonna kill yourself, some secret government agent’s gonna do it, and then you go and kill yourself anyhow but you get to feel superior about it. ’Course, that doesn’t make much sense either. Once you’re dead you don’t get to feel superior to anybody. You don’t feel anything. Unless you’re a Christian who believes in God and heaven and all. But you’re a professor, so you don’t believe in any of that, do you?

No.

Me neither. Maybe you’re too tricky for your own good, Professor. You ever think of that?

I’m touched by your concern, Kid. Seriously.

Yeah, well, I guess the truth is I’m gonna miss talking with you. I kind of wish what’s gonna happen wouldn’t . . . you know, happen. Maybe it won’t. I actually hope it doesn’t. No shit. But if it doesn’t, do I get to keep the money anyhow? You know, in case you don’t end up dead. Otherwise I’ll be back to squatting under the old Causeway with the rats again.

The Professor smiles and says,
The money’s yours, Kid. No matter what happens.
He extends his hand and the Kid shakes it firmly.
Listen to the news on that radio I gave you
,
Kid. And check the newspapers whenever you can.

The Kid nods, and the Professor hands him Annie’s leash. He turns away and the Kid watches him waddle slowly up the long slope toward the parking lot and his van. He watches him the whole way. That’s the last time the Kid will see the man: a huge hairy figure sweating inside the ten yards of brown cloth it takes to cover him with a suit, a man submerged in a body as large as a manatee’s, graceless, slow moving, arms and thighs rubbing themselves raw, spine and knee and ankle joints stressed nearly to the breaking point by the weight they must support, enlarged heart thumping rapidly from the effort of shoving blood and oxygen through all that flesh, overheated lungs gasping from the work of getting that enormous bulk up the incline to the parking lot, liver, kidneys, glands, digestive tract, all his organs overworked for half a century to the point of exhaustion and collapse—a man with two bodies, one dancing inside his brain, a hologram made of electrons and neurons going off like a field of fireflies on a midsummer night, the other a moist quarter-ton packet of solid flesh wrapped in pale human skin.