Duma Key: A Novel Page 20

  “Either of them girls?” I asked, thinking about Elizabeth’s prejudice concerning daughters and Duma.

  “Nope, both the kind of boys who ought to have GOT IT MADE BUT DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST US stamped on their foreheads. The people coming into the other four houses are all new. I can hope that none of them will be the rock-and-roll-all-night, party-every-day type, but what are the odds?”

  “Not good, but you can at least hope they left their Slipknot CDs home.”

  “Who’s Slipknot? What’s Slipknot?”

  “Wireman, you don’t want to know. Especially not while you’re busy working yourself into a state.”

  “I’m not. Wireman is just explaining February on Duma Key, muchacho. I’m going to be fielding everything from emergency queries about what to do if one of the Baumgarten boys gets stung by a jellyfish to where Rita Mean Dog can get a fan for her grandmother, who they’ll probably stash in the back bedroom again for a week or so. You think Miss Eastlake’s getting on? I’ve seen Mexican mummies hauled through the streets of Guadalajara on the Day of the Dead who looked better than Gramma Mean Dog. She’s got two basic lines of conversation. There’s the inquisitive line—‘Did you bring me a cookie?’—and the declarative—‘Get me a towel, Rita, I think that last fart had a lump in it.’ ”

  I burst out laughing.

  Wireman scraped a sneaker through the shells, creating a smile with his foot. Beyond us, our shadows lay on Duma Key Road, which was paved and smooth and even. Here, at least. Farther south was a different story. “The answer to the fan problem, should you care, is Dan’s Fan City. Is that a great name, or what? And I’ll tell you something: I actually like solving these problems. Defusing little crises. I make folks a hell of a lot happier here on Duma Key than I ever did in court.”

  But you haven’t lost the knack for leading people away from the things you don’t want to discuss, I thought. “Wireman, it would only take half an hour to get a physician to look into your eyes and tap your skull—”

  “You’re wrong, muchacho,” he said patiently. “At this time of year it takes a minimum of two hours to get looked at in a roadside Doc-in-the-Box for a lousy strep throat. When you add on an hour of travel time—more now, because it’s Snowbird Season and none of them know where they’re going—you’re talking about three daylight hours I just can’t give up. Not with appointments to see the air conditioning guy at 17 … the meter-reader at 27 … the cable guy right here, if he ever shows up.” He pointed to the next house down the road, which happened to be 39. “Youngsters from Toledo are taking that one until March fifteenth, and they’re paying an extra seven hundred bucks for something called Wi-Fi, which I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Wave of the future, that’s what it is. I’ve got it. Jack took care of it. Wave of the father-raping, mother-stabbing future.”

  “Good one. Arlo Guthrie, 1967.”

  “Movie was 1969, I think,” I said.

  “Whenever it was, viva the wave of the mother-raping, froggy-stabbing future. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest … plus come on, Edgar. You know it’s going to be more than a quick tap and peek with the old doctor-flashlight. That’s just where it starts.”

  “But if you need it—”

  “For the time being I’m good to go.”

  “Sure. That’s why I’m the one reading her poems every afternoon.”

  “A little literary culture won’t hurt you, you fucking cannibal.”

  “I know it won’t, and you know that’s not what I’m talking about.” I thought—and not for the first time—that Wireman was one of the very few men I ever met in my adult life who could consistently tell me no without making me angry. He was a genius of no. Sometimes I thought it was him; sometimes I thought the accident had changed something in me; sometimes I thought it was both.

  “I can read, you know,” Wireman said. “In short bursts. Enough to get by. Medicine bottle labels, phone numbers, things like that. And I will get looked at, so relax that Type-A compulsion of yours to set the whole world straight. Christ, you must have driven your wife crazy.” He glanced at me sideways and said, “Oops. Did Wireman step on a corn there?”

  “Ready to talk about that little round scar on the side of your head yet? Muchacho?”

  He grinned. “Touché, touché. All apologies.”

  “Kurt Cobain,” I said. “1993. Or thereabouts.”

  He blinked. “Really? I would have said ’95, but rock music has largely left me behind. Wireman got old, sad but true. As for the seizure thing … sorry, Edgar, I just don’t believe it.”

  He did, though. I could see it in his eyes. But before I could say anything else, he climbed down from the sawhorse and pointed north. “Look! White van! I think the Forces of Cable TV have arrived!”

  ii

  I believed Wireman when he said he had no idea what Elizabeth Eastlake had been talking about on the answering machine tape after I played it for him. He continued to think that her concern for my daughter had something to do with her own long-deceased sisters. He professed to be completely puzzled about why she didn’t want me to stockpile my pictures on the island. About that, he said, he didn’t have a clue.

  Joe and Rita Mean Dog moved in; the relentless barking of their menagerie commenced. The Baumgartens also moved in, and I often began to pass their boys playing Frisbee on the beach. They were just as Wireman had said: sturdy, handsome, and polite, one maybe eleven and the other maybe thirteen, with builds that would soon make them gigglebait among the junior high cheerleader set, if not already. They were always willing to share their Frisbee with me for a throw or two as I limped past, and the older—Jeff—usually called something encouraging like “Yo, Mr. Freemantle, nice chuck!”

  A couple with a sports car moved into the house just south of Big Pink, and the distressing strains of Toby Keith began to waft to me around the cocktail hour. On the whole, I might have preferred Slipknot. The quartet of young people from Toledo had a golf cart they raced up and down the beach when they weren’t playing volleyball or off on fishing expeditions.

  Wireman was more than busy; he was a dervish. Luckily, he had help. One day Jack lent him a hand unclogging the Mean Dog lawn-sprinklers. A day or two later, I helped him push the Toledo visitors’ golf cart out of a dune in which it had gotten stuck—those responsible had left it to go get a sixpack, and the tide was threatening to take it. My hip and leg were still mending, but there was nothing wrong with my remaining arm.

  Bad hip and leg or not, I took Great Beach Walks. Some days—mostly when the fog came in during the late afternoon, first obliterating the Gulf with cold amnesia and then taking the houses, as well—I took pain pills from my diminishing stock. Most days I didn’t. Wireman was rarely parked in his beach chair drinking green tea that February, but Elizabeth Eastlake was always in her parlor, she almost always knew who I was, and she usually had a book of poetry near to hand. It wasn’t always Keillor’s Good Poems, but that was the one she liked the best. I liked it, too. Merwin and Sexton and Frost, oh-my.

  I did plenty of reading myself that February and March. I read more than I had in years—novels, short stories, three long nonfiction books about how we had stumbled into the Iraq mess (the short answer appeared to have W for a middle initial and a dick for a Vice President). But mostly what I did was paint. Every afternoon and evening I painted until I could barely lift my strengthening arm. Beachscapes, seascapes, still lifes, and sunsets, sunsets, sunsets.

  But that fuse continued to smolder. The heat had been turned down but not off. The matter of Candy Brown wasn’t the next thing, only the next obvious thing. And that didn’t come until Valentine’s Day. A hideous irony when you think of it.

  Hideous.

  iii

  ifsogirl88 to EFree19

  10:19 AM

  February 3

  Dear Daddy, It was great to hear you got a “thumbs up” on your paintings! Hooray! And if they
DO offer you a show, I’ll catch the next plane and be there in my “little black dress” (I have one, believe it or not). Got to stay put for now and study my butt off because—here is a secret—I’m hoping to surprise Carson when Spring Break rolls around in April. The Hummingbirds will be in Tennessee and Arkansas then (he sez the tour is off to a great start). I’m thinking that if I do okay on my mid-terms, I could catch up with the tour in either Memphis or Little Rock. What do you think?

  Ilse

  My misgivings about the Baptist Hummingbird hadn’t faded, and what I thought was she was asking for trouble. But if she was making a mistake about him, it might be better for her to find out sooner rather than later. So—hoping to God I wasn’t making a mistake—I emailed back and told her that sounded like an interesting idea, assuming she was okay on her course-work. (I couldn’t bring myself to go balls-out and tell my beloved younger daughter that spending a week in the company of her boyfriend, even assuming said boyfriend was chaperoned by hardshell Baptists, was a good idea.) I also suggested it might be bad policy to share her plan with her mother. This brought a prompt response.

  ifsogirl88 to EFree19

  12:02 PM

  February 3

  Daddy Dearest: Do you think I’ve lost my freakin’ MIND???

  Illy

  No, I didn’t think that … but if she caught her tenor doing the horizontal bop with one of the altos when she got to Little Rock, she was going to be one very unhappy If-So-Girl. I had no doubt that everything would then come out to her mother, engagement and all, and Pam would find a lot to say on the subject of my own sanity. I had already asked myself some questions on that score, and mostly decided to give myself a pass. When it comes to your kids, you find yourself making some weird calls from time to time and just hoping they turn out all right—calls and kids. Parenting is the greatest of hum-a-few-bars-and-I’ll-fake-it skills.

  Then there was Sandy Smith, the Realtor. On my answering machine, Elizabeth had said I must be one of those who believed in art for art’s sake, or Duma Key would not have called me. What I wanted from Sandy was confirmation that the only thing calling me had been a glossy brochure, one that had probably been shown to potential renters with deep pockets all over the United States. Maybe all over the world.

  The response I got wasn’t what I had hoped for, but I’d be lying if I said I was completely surprised. That was my bad-memory year, after all. And then there’s the desire to believe things happened a certain way; when it comes to the past we all stack the deck.

  SmithRealty9505 to EFree19

  2:17 PM

  February 8

  Dear Edgar: I am so glad you’re enjoying the place. In answer to your question, the Salmon Point property wasn’t the only brochure I sent you but one of nine detailing lease opportunities in Florida and Jamaica. As I recall, Salmon Point was the only one you expressed interest in. In fact, I remember you saying, “Don’t dicker the deal, just do it.” Hope this helps.

  Sandy

  I read this message through twice, then murmured, “Just do the deal and let the deal do you, muchacha.”

  I couldn’t remember the other brochures even now, but I remembered the one for Salmon Point. The folder it came in had been a bright pink. A big pink, you might say, and the words that caught my eye hadn’t been Salmon Point but those below it, embossed in gold: YOUR SECRET GULFSIDE RETREAT. So maybe it had called me.

  Maybe it had, after all.

  iv

  KamenDoc to EFree19

  1:46 PM

  February 10

  Edgar: Long time no hear, as the deaf Indian said to the prodigal son (please forgive me; bad jokes are the only jokes I know). How goes the art? Concerning the MRI, I suggest you call the Center for Neurological Studies at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. The number is 941-555-5554.

  Kamen

  EFree19 to KamenDoc

  2:19 PM

  February 10

  Kamen: Thanks for the referral. Center for Neurological Studies sounds pretty damned serious! But I will make the appointment very soon.

  Edgar

  KamenDoc to EFree19

  4:55 PM

  February 10

  Soon should be soon enough. As long as you’re not having seizures.

  Kamen

  He had punctuated “as long as you’re not having seizures” with one of those handy e-mail emoticons, this one a round laughing face with a mouthful of teeth. Having seen Wireman doing a pogo in the shadowy back seat of the rented van with his eyes pointing in different directions, I didn’t feel like laughing myself. But I knew that, short of chains and a tractor hitch, I wouldn’t be getting Wireman examined much before March fifteenth, unless he pitched a grand mal bitch. And of course, Wireman wasn’t Xander Kamen’s problem. I wasn’t either, strictly speaking, and I was touched that he was still bothering. On impulse I clicked the REPLY button and typed:

  EFree19 to KamenDoc

  5:05 PM

  February 10

  Kamen: No seizures. I’m fine. Painting up a storm. I took some of my stuff to a Sarasota gallery, and one of the guys who owns the place had a look at it. I think he might offer me a show. If he does, and if I agree, would you come? It would be good to see a familiar face from the land of ice & snow.

  Edgar

  I was going to shut down the machine after that and make myself a sandwich, but the incoming-mail chime rang before I could.

  KamenDoc to EFree19

  5:09 PM

  February 10

  Name the date and I’m there.

  I was smiling as I shut the computer down. And misting up a little, too.

  v

  A day later, I went to Nokomis with Wireman to pick up a new sink-trap for the folks at 17 (sports car; shitty country music) and some plastic fencing at the hardware store for the Mean Dogs. Wireman didn’t need my help, and he certainly didn’t need me limping around behind him in the Nokomis TruValue, but it was a crappy, rainy day, and I wanted to get off the island. We had lunch at Ophelia’s and argued about rock and roll, which made it a cheerful outing. When I got back, the message light on my answering machine was blinking. It was Pam. “Call me,” she said, and hung up.

  I did, but first—this feels like a confession, and a cowardly one, at that—I went online, surfed to that day’s Minneapolis StarTribune, and clicked on OBITUARIES. I scrolled through the names quickly and made sure Thomas Riley wasn’t one of them, knowing it proved nothing; he might have offed himself too late to make the morning line.

  Sometimes she muted the phone and napped in the afternoon, in which case I’d get the answering machine and a little reprieve. Not this afternoon. It was Pam herself, soft but not warm: “Hello.”

  “It’s me, Pam. Returning your call.”

  “I suppose you were out sunning,” she said. “It’s snowing here. Snowing and as cold as a well-digger’s belt-buckle.”

  I relaxed a little. Tom wasn’t dead. If Tom had been dead, we wouldn’t be settling in for a little impromptu bitcharee.

  “Actually, it’s cold and rainy where I am,” I said.

  “Good. I hope you catch bronchitis. Tom Riley stormed out of here this morning after calling me a meddlesome cunt and throwing a vase on the floor. I suppose I should be glad he didn’t throw it at me.” Pam started to cry. She honked, then surprised me by laughing. It was bitter, but also surprisingly good-humored. “When do you suppose your strange ability to induce my tears runs out?”

  “Tell me what happened, Panda.”

  “And no more of that. Call me that again and I’m hanging up. Then you can buzz Tom and ask him what happened. Probably that’s what I ought to make you do, anyway. It would serve you right.”

  I put my hand to my head and began to massage my temples: thumb in the left hollow, first two fingers in the right. It’s sort of amazing that one hand can encompass so many dreams and so much pain. Not to mention the potential to hatch so much plain and fancy fuckery.

  “Tell me, Pam. Pl
ease. I’ll listen and not get angry.”

  “Getting past that, are you? Give me a second.” There was a clunk as the phone went down, probably on the kitchen counter. For a moment I heard the distant babble of the TV and then it was gone. When she came back she said, “All right, now I can hear myself think.” There was another mighty honk as she blew her nose once more. When she started talking again, she was composed, with no hint of tears in her voice.

  “I asked Myra to call me when he got back home—Myra Devorkian, who lives across the street from him. I told her I was worried about his state of mind. No reason to keep that much to myself, was there?”

  “No.”

  “And bango! Myra said she’d been worried, too—she and Ben both. Said he was drinking too much, for one thing, and sometimes going in to his office with a ten o’clock shadow. Although she said he looked spiffy enough when he went off on his trip. Amazing how much neighbors see, even when they’re not really close friends. Ben and Myra didn’t know about … us, of course, but they knew damn well that Tom had been depressed.”

  You think they didn’t know, I didn’t say.

  “Anyway, long story short, I invited him over. There was a look in his eyes when he came in … this look … as if he thought maybe I intended to … you know …”

  “Pick up where you left off,” I said.

  “Am I telling this or are you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Well, you’re right. Of course you’re right. I wanted to ask him into the kitchen for coffee, but we never got any farther than the hall. He wanted to kiss me.” She said this with a kind of defiant pride. “I let him … once … but when it became obvious that he wanted more, I pushed him back and said I had something to say. He said he knew it was bad from the way I looked, but nothing could hurt the way I hurt him when I said we couldn’t see each other any more. That’s men for you—and they say we’re the ones who know how to lay on the guilt.

  “I said that just because we couldn’t go on seeing each other romantically didn’t mean I didn’t still care about him. Then I said several people had told me he was acting strange—not like himself—and I put that together with him not taking his antidepressant pills and began to worry. I said I thought he was planning to kill himself.”