“What happened between you two?”
“Oh, now you want to know?” She fished a cig from her purse and offered me one. I shrugged and took it. My 5K time was now dogshit.
She lit up and released smoke into the air above our heads. She frowned. “Same thing that always happens. We broke up. He moved on. Serial monogamist. Went directly into a long-term relationship with another woman. They were together for years after that.”
“So you kept up with him?”
She shook her head. “Something like six years in, she lost her mind. Wandered naked into a convenience store and ended up in an insane asylum. Then, when she got out, she went back to him. Few months later, 911 got a call from a woman said she’d stabbed her boyfriend to death in his sleep.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And this was your boy?”
She nodded. Deep drag on the cigarette before she continued. I lingered there in the span between my last words and her next ones.
“In other words, I’m not trying to change you, Rolson,” she said. “I went through that in my twenties, and I’m done with it. Being the watershed for a person’s emotional maturity is not something I can quite stomach these days.”
“I’m an ever-evolving beast. Like the first fish out of the sea. You can’t tell what I’m up to at any given moment.”
“Bullshit. You’re like a catfish thrust into a different part of the pond. You might be up to something new, but whatever it is, it’s probably no good.”
“I ain’t never felt for anybody the way I do you, Rolson. Started off as some kind of game — way it always does, I suppose — but then something changed. It’s not just the way I feel. It’s the way you touching me feels. There’s something else in you, and I think the both of us know it. Selfishly, I want to see how I fit into it. Maybe that’s what drove me the full fucking way to Jacksonville. But I couldn’t leave it all to chance.”
She half-hiccuped and palmed the corner of her eye. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction of crying in front of you.”
I pulled her into my arms and held her there.
We ended up taking our meals to go.
Back at the hotel, we slept together but didn’t sleep together. We curled up in bed, her staring at the ceiling in complete silence and me running one hand through her hair. It was a bizarre feeling, but a good one.
Not that I was exhausted of desire, but whenever I collapsed into the bed that night, it wasn’t sex that crowded my mind. I suppose it was an intense loneliness which needed to be filled, and having Allison curl in beside me helped to begin healing a part of me I thought had begun to wither up and die.
Part III
The Dunes of Ponte Vedra
1
The next day, Allison drove along Highway 10 to Neptune Beach and then south to Ponte Vedra, where we parked and walked the boardwalk, hand in hand. The western horizon was a peach-colored smear in the sky, and I found myself drawn into the bittersweet feelings it gave me. When the street lamps clicked on, the city became alight with a quaintness I had managed to ignore in my darkest moods.
It felt strange. Allison was not a wilting flower, but even she’d be horrified to see what had taken up residence in the dark corners of my memory.
I couldn’t pretend it away, let the world be rose-tinted for the sake of my own happiness. But I had to let the valve loose ever so slightly, or else I was going to blow.
We meandered along the shores in a cold snap of a crosswind, threatening to upend the hem of her dress and my recently-borrowed Havana fedora. I carried my shoes in the crook of my half-destroyed hand, while I clasped hers with the other.
Beyond the sand fences, a thin smattering of morning glory and sea oats covered the dunes, like a brushfire of plants blowing off the water. Red-roofed hotels featured the likes of latecomers on vacation, leaning over the railings of their beach dwellings in long-sleeved shirts, shorts, and topsiders. Most of them were rugged-looking, salt-and-peppery, with thick necks and thick arms and the windblown look of old runners and iron workers. They peered at us from behind sunglasses and waved as we passed, and we did the same, in kind.
Still, they looked like ghosts lingering along balconies, and when I looked up again, several of them had disappeared. I couldn’t be sure if they had retired to the warmth of their hotel rooms, but either way, I got a strange feeling in my gut.
She drove us to a place called the Maple Street Biscuit Company, where we got grits and coffee and divided up a chicken biscuit draped in cheese.
We ate in silence for much of the meal.
Then, she said, “My father used to rent a place in Fernandina, up near Amelia Island.”
“I know where it is.”
“That was when I was real little kid, when my folks were still together. Back then, nobody’s folks got divorced, you know?”
“Our parents were the first generation to get them regularly,” I said. “Mine didn’t quite make it to the legal action, but they were well on the road.”
Allison took that in, measuring my face as I spoke but not pressing the issue.
“My dad was a hitter and a spitter, and he took my little sister with him when he fled. Mom was strung out on pills and vodka. Last I heard, he moved to coastal Texas, but then again, that could have been a rumor.”
“You never tried to look him up?”
“Long story,” she said. “He fell in with some border jumpers planing coke and weed into the country. Had an uncle tell me, as bad as my mother was, he was even worse.”
“And your sister?”
“Stuck with him, I guess. Never heard from her. Never tried to look me up, and part of me thinks maybe it’s for the best, judging by what I heard.”
“Your mother—”
“Bounced in and out of rehab. Stint or two in jail. Drinking and driving. Possession, though that was pills. Nothing serious. Self-medicating. She told me she never got over her father’s midnight visits to her bedroom.”
“Sounds like those childhood vacations weren’t so fun, after all.”
“I had a good go with the folks. I remember running along the edge of the tide, digging giant holes with a red bucket-and-shovel combo. Sitting under a giant umbrella. Sleeping in the crook of my daddy’s arm. It wasn’t until he started beating the ever-loving shit out of my mother that the smiley face turned frowny.”
“What caused that?”
“What ever causes it? Jealousy, money, drugs. He was insecure, I guess, looking back on it. My mom was pretty. She was a waitress, got hit on a lot.”
“You want to skip out on the beach walk?”
She ventured into the water and shrieked at the cold but held out for me, motioning me to join her, even as she shivered helplessly.
“That’s not as convincing as you imagined it would be,” I said, but I rolled up my pants legs and found my way into the water.
Afterward, we kicked our way down the coast. The water was ten or fifteen degrees too cold to be pleasant.
We found an ice joint and ate dreamsicle shavings by the window.
“I can’t tell if this is an endurance test, or some proof that you know what irony means,” I said.
She spooned an orange mound into her mouth. “I don’t think you have the right constitution for the work,” she said. “I thought you were some kind of tough guy. That’s originally what made me want to jump your bones.”
“I’ve got stories,” I said.
“Try me.”
I pecked at the sloshing ice with my plastic spoon. “Deuce, his cousin, and I found three bodies strangled in a shack in the swamp.”
“Oh, God.”
“Probably illegals, likely victims of human trafficking. Owners must have been found out and let the air out of those poor people’s tires. We searched the place but good and found nothing. Tipped off the cops. No big story yet. Doubt the place has even been roped off.”
“That’s…upsetting.”
“That’s not the half of it. People are turni
ng up dead. Deuce’s family is in trouble, and Deuce himself, he’s — I don’t know. He’s — the generator’s on, but it’s not putting out any wattage. This is supposed to be his investigation — it’s his brother who died — but he’s busy fighting some kind of personal battle, so I’m taking over for him.”
“What do you think’s the matter?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I wouldn’t have asked, otherwise. Don’t treat me like a delicate flower. I’ve given you loads of reasons to trust and confide in me.”
I groaned, shoveled some shaved ice into my maw. “Okay, I think he might be possessed.”
Blank stare from Allison. Not entirely unwarranted or undeserved, but it made it no easier to look at.
“I told you: you don’t want to know.”
“I — I just don’t know how to respond. What do I say?”
I contemplated it, said, “‘Rolson, you’re a crazy sumbitch, and you should call me when you’ve got the spiders out of your brain.’”
“Well, I don’t disagree with that,” she responded, “but I don’t know I can let you go just yet. There’s something left between us, and I want to see where it goes.”
“Every time that happens, somebody ends up regretting it.”
“Well, let me decide when enough’s enough, and I’ll give you the same courtesy.”
“You’ve got a way of cutting through the Gordian Knot of bullshit. I like that. Don’t see any faults just yet.”
“They’re there, believe me,” she replied. “You’re a good man at heart, Rolson McKane. I wish we hadn’t met at such a volatile goddamned time in our lives.”
The sky glowed a bright pink across the sky, like a smattering of errant makeup. A breeze kicked up and knocked at a nearby patio umbrella. I managed to catch my drink before it tilted over.
“Now that we’re here,” she said, “I have to say, this place doesn’t fill me with the tingly-bottom the way it did when I was younger.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I don’t like it here. Too many bad memories of the beach for me to stomach.”
“Why did we come?”
She considered it. “Don’t know. Thought perhaps seeing this place in a new light would give me a happier perspective on it.”
“Age doesn’t seem to change much, does it?” I asked.
She shook her head, stared beyond our perch on the patio at the sand and water just beyond. A couple in matching white Oxford shirts held hands as they passed near the boardwalk. His hair was noticeably salt-and-pepper gray, while she couldn’t have been older than twenty-five or so. They looked happy.
It was one of those late Fall evenings when the smell of the air is just so, and the feeling that winter is on its way gives you a start of panic about how many years you have left.
It was that, this idea of mortality, which was on my mind when she turned back to face me. “I’m older in every way, except up here.”
She tapped her temple. “Up top, I still feel like a little girl. You look up to the adults in your life and think maybe — just maybe — they’ve got everything all figured out. You wish for that, hope for it, and then you get older and realize nobody has any idea what the fuck they’re doing. It’s all guesswork.”
“Any particular reason you feel this way?”
Her eyes welled with tears. “I’m older than my parents were when they had me, and I know they meant well in raising me. But they didn’t have any clue what a child needs, and so listening to them fight and scream did something to me…I don’t know. Seeing the things I witnessed, it just changed me. That’s all. It changed me.”
This was just as the sun drew southward toward the horizon, where the sky met with the water in that specific and ancient way. Water spread out to either side of us, and for some reason it struck me as oddly confining to be here in the presence of all this space. So much sand and water and sky, it gave me an acute feeling of claustrophobia.
I said, “Life sometimes means poring over the scars on your body and deciding how to interpret them. Right now, I bet it’s hard for you, but the things that happened when you were young make you as much who you are as the outcomes of your most prized decisions.”
Her smile was bittersweet, the kind of expression somebody gets when they know they should feel one way but inherently feel another.
It was natural to allow that thought to linger, and when I took her hand she curled her fingers around the remnants of mine.
After a time, she got up, gathered her purse, and slid her shades over her eyes. “Come on,” she said, “I think I’ve had enough of this beach for now. Show me a Jacksonville Saturday night.”
2
In the evening, as the sun settled into its final resting point, we fled back to Jacksonville to avoid the coming rain.
Out in a drizzle, I held my — well, Deuce’s — coat over her head as we scurried to a nearby restaurant. I was getting ready for a smooth transition to whatever happens after a day of cavorting around an unfamiliar city.
But she wasn’t having it. The way she slipped between raindrops and through crowds was positively alluring. Something in me jolted loud and bright for her. Her presence was a fork in the light socket, a neon sign at the end of a lone, dark road.
I slid behind a wooden table in a plush leather booth and made room for my date. We sat under dim lights and sipped on sodas with lime. Didn’t matter; for once, I wasn’t driven to drink. If it weren’t embarrassing to say so, I’d have admitted I was intoxicated by something else.
“So, this is Jacksonville,” she said.
“For the most part.”
She regarded the ceiling, the spare bulbs dotting each column. “Long as I lived in Savannah, I never made it to Jacksonville proper. I mean” — she toyed with her cloth napkin — “I’ve driven through, or been driven through, on the way to Ponte Vedra. But I’ve never gone.”
I sat up, looked directly at her.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said.
“That so?”
“It is.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“I’m not normally this excited.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Life is on the mend,” I replied. “It’ll be better later, I promise.”
“No promises you can’t keep.”
“If not for broken promises, I’d have no promises at all.”
She chewed a few ice chips, swallowed them. “You’re a real bummer sometimes, you know that?”
It was my turn to twist the cloth napkin. “Reckon so,” I said. “I have a real problem taking instead of giving. I’m working on that.”
“How so?”
“By taking a whole lot less.”
“But not giving more.”
“Not much to go around,” I replied, slouching in the seat and looking around.
The mood shifted, and I found myself glancing in the direction of a bartender pouring a Red Bull and vodka, the kind of concoction which had eluded me in my years of drinking.
Perhaps Allison noticed this, or else she sensed the dipping energy, because she grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out through a side exit.
“Tonight, we own our urges, not the other way around.”
She was human electricity, filled with interminable energy. Explained why she took uppers as her own dragon-chasing. And whenever she touched me, I felt it.
A few well-chosen streets pulled us like a current through the city into the famous Jacksonville Landing. It was crowded, and a band was halfway through an inspired cover of “Statesboro Blues” when we arrived. People half my age bounced to the rhythm, even if the lyrics were lost on them. Arm in arm, we ventured to where the people became invisible except as a single mass of flesh.
It felt good and normal to be elbow-to-elbow with people, a grand majority of whom did not want me dead. The static form of panic and unease I normally experienced in crowds was on hold, and Allison’s touch kept me even-keeled.
“You all right?” she asked me, and I nodded, but I didn’t quite make eye contact.
I heard the first few bars of a song I knew but didn’t really know, and I experienced a sudden and perceptible adjustment in my temperament. My face grew flush, like the rush following a shot of good bourbon, and my whole body relaxed, from my shoulders to the bottoms of my feet.
If she asked me later, I couldn’t have explained to Allison what had taken me over. I guess the only real answer was, You can’t be grim all the time.
A youthful giddiness infected me — or at least a phantom version of it — and I ended up dragging Allison to the middle of the dance floor and kicking my feet to southern rock covers of old blues songs.
Two steps in and two steps out. A quick twirl and a dip, too. That sent Allison to smiling, and she came alive, too.
She had moves of her own. Newer dances, dances I had no context for, and even though I couldn’t get them myself, I was entertained by her display.
At some point, I thought I noticed someone staring at me. The crowd pulsed and separated, and the figure I thought I had seen was visible no longer.
Didn’t matter, I thought.
I went back to dancing. The set list went on. “Take it Easy” and “Glory Days” and, of course, some Skynyrd. It was your basic cover band fare, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t going to succumb to that feeling tonight. The feeling which had driven me into the Boogie House. The feeling which had lured me from a nightclub in search of an old, dead bluesman. It was always that urge which got me into the most trouble, and I was determined to fight it this time.
We surveyed out a spot dead center of the band and congregated there, among the drunk young kids and the middle-aged couples, nodding along to the music. There was a lot of movement. People sliding in and out of their spots to refill their overpriced beers. Shimmying over to smokers. Chugging beers and ordering more.
It was not just another Saturday night in November. It was football season, and people were excited. There was a raucous murmur among the people in the crowd, and it was hard not to get caught up in it. This was as glitzy and glamorous as it got in North Florida. I caught sight of the lights on the sign, spelling out THE JACKSONVILLE LANDING, and the commotion down by the fountain spraying water in a northward arc.
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