Tropical Depression

by Laurence Shames

  Flaco now steered gingerly toward that notch in the shore, already trimming up his engine. Fifty feet from land he turned the motor off and lifted it. The little boat coasted slowly toward the island then gently ran aground with a scratch and a squeak. "Ees island of Indians many long time before," announced the boatman.

  A cloud of mosquitoes came promptly forth to suck blood from the visitors.

  Murray waved them from his face, took cautious breaths of overripe air that smelled like anchovies and sulfur, and revised his expectations subtly downward. Okay, so there were no freshets, no cascades, no mangoes. But, the Bra King told himself, Miami must have looked like this to early visitors, men of destiny who beheld the flat and soupy land and saw not a pestilential bog but a paradise needing just a little spiffing up, a coat of paint, some bug spray. Besides, this was a historic moment, a homecoming, a reclaiming. Murray remembered that he had brought along a disposable camera to record the occasion.

  "Wait a second, wait," he said to Tommy, as Tommy was preparing to jump overboard and drag the skiff closer in to land. "Lemme get this picture."

  Mosquitoes strafed him as he fished the cardboard camera from his shirt pocket. He fixed Tommy in the viewfinder, and he saw things he'd never seen before in the Indian's face. Emotion locked his jaw, his Adam's apple shuttled up and down in his thick and fibrous neck. He looked toward his tribal island, and his eyes pulsed with a wry but stalwart pride that wrestled with and triumphed over the worldly knowledge of how small, how meager was the thing that he was proud of.

  Murray took the picture. Tommy deftly slid from the gunwale into ankle-deep water.

  All of a sudden the Indian looked extremely short. He had disappeared up to the middle of his thighs.

  The Bra King, horrified, watched his friend subside, become a lopped-off torso in the sunshine. "Oh my God, my God," he said. "He stepped in quicksand, it's all my fault."

  Tommy was immobile as a fly in pancake batter, but not especially concerned. "It's not quicksand. It's Florida. It's muck. Gimme a hand, somebody."

  Estelle Grau reached across. She offered a wrist and Tommy held on and kicked free, wiggling like a worm in close-packed dirt. Soaked but undaunted, he found a firmer footing and dragged the skiff along the sand and baby mangroves.

  The others stepped ashore, though shore was merely relative. Hot water, instep deep, was trapped among the maze of roots and vines; the upward slope of the land was so slight as to be imperceptible. Flaco, armed with a machete, moved to the front of the group and began to hack a path through the unbroken foliage.

  The visitors advanced slowly; mosquitoes and wakita malti had ample time to find them. Murray bent to rub his shin; his hand came away black with scrambled bugs and red with his own bright blood. Frogs croaked out a steely alarm. Something slunk by and gave a soggy rustling to the rotting leaves; there was a muted splash nearby as a bashful gator took refuge in a hidden hole.

  By tiny increments the land grew higher, drier, mangroves became chest-high, head-high, and at last provided a canopy of shade. Murray was squashing a mosquito in his ear when once again the world abruptly brightened; he looked up from his welted feet to see that the bushwhacked path had given onto a clearing. Silver sunshine and perfect silence rained down on the open place. In the middle of it were two flat-topped pyramids made of seashells. The pyramids were about twenty feet long on each side; they ended in mesas maybe twelve feet square.

  There was something eerie and arresting about the place, something chastening and ghostly, and for a moment no one spoke. Flaco let his machete hang at his side. Murray allowed the bugs to feast on him while he tried to puzzle out the meaning of Tommy's doleful and unflinching gaze. The Indian was staring at the blunt-topped monuments with what seemed a diffuse but nagging grief, the futile kinship a traveler feels when coming upon a graveyard full of strangers, or of ancestors who might as well be strangers.

  The woman down from Washington broke the spell. "These are perfect middens," she announced. "Absolutely classic. The shape, the siting. Calusa-style, not Seminole."

  For all her bulk and all the heaviness of her scoutmaster's boots, she suddenly seemed weightless. She floated toward the pyramids, produced a GPS receiver that pinpointed their latitude and longitude. From another pocket came a tape to measure the middens' exact dimensions. Notes were made, photographs taken, shell samples withdrawn for testing.

  Tommy Tarpon crossed his arms and strolled the perimeter of the clearing like a king perusing his domain. Flaco absently hacked at things. Estelle Grau took compass readings, fiddled with her clipboard. Murray did an unavailing little dance to keep the insects guessing, stamping his feet and waving his arms. Finally he crushed a cluster of mosquitoes near his jugular, and said, "I hate to be a party pooper, but two more minutes, I need a transfusion."

  "Almost done," said the woman down from Washington.

  She analyzed; Tommy gazed. Then the Bra King led the way back to the skiff, skirting puddles that might have held gators, tromping through leaves that might have hidden snakes, breathing heavily, splashing muck, and smacking himself all over as he ran.

  14

  "So it wasn't what you expected?" Tommy said.

  They were sitting on the tilted deck of his houseboat, thrown back in their plastic chairs like astronauts, drinking beer. Murray was caked in a pink lotion, he looked like he'd been dipped in Pepto-Bismol. The lotion was supposed to stop the itching but did not. "Well," he said. "Let's just say it doesn't look like a resort."

  "No, it doesn't," Tommy said. He peered off toward the next marina, where the masts and rigging of the wealthy gleamed vermilion in the sinking sun.

  "Those wha'd-she-call-'em, middens—what are they about?"

  The Indian drank beer. "No one knows, exactly. Maybe religious. Maybe just trash heaps. Either way, a way of making high land, ya know, for storms."

  Murray considered, tried to think of anything but his ravaged skin, exerted every ounce of discipline to keep himself from scratching. "You spend a lot of time out there?"

  The question surprised Tommy, he looked at Murray sideways. "I'd never been there in my life until today."

  Murray was confused. "I figured, when you were growing up—"

  "I grew up in the Everglades," said Tommy. "On a reservation with the Seminoles. Course, my mother made sure I understood we weren't Seminoles. So I was, like, an outsider, twice. She told me about Kilicumba; we never went. I didn't even know which island it was. Flaco did."

  The Bra King gave in and scratched his arm. He knew he shouldn't but for the moment it was heaven. He was going to ask Tommy why he'd never visited the island, but then he didn't need to ask, he knew.

  "Ya know," he said instead, "I'm always hearing stories about Jewish guys who don't feel Jewish, or don't want to, don't want the burden of it. All of a sudden they go to Israel, they're dragged to Israel by their wife or something, and they have these, I dunno, these revelations. The tour guide takes 'em to the Wailing Wall, they figure big deal, next thing they're standing there sobbing. They're on a street in Haifa, bored stiff, they suddenly start singing Jewish songs, they get a yen for borscht. They come back home, join a schul, start sending pledges to the UJA. Go know."

  "What's borscht?" asked the Indian.

  "Cold beet soup."

  "Sounds disgusting."

  "Ya put sour cream in it," Murray said. "It gets pink, like this shit I got all over me."

  "Y'ever been to Israel, Murray?"

  "Me?" the Bra King said. "It's the last place inna world I'd go."

  "That's how I felt about Kilicumba," Tommy offered.

  "Besides," Murray said, "I'm inna shmatta business and I'm a neurotic hypochondriac—how much more Jewish I gotta feel?"

  "What's a shmatta?" asked the Indian.

  "Shmatta. Ya know, a rag. A garment."

  They drank beer, and watched old wooden schooners ferry tourists out into the ocean for sunset.

  "But what I was thinking,"
Murray said, "I was thinking about the power of a place... I was thinking, this afternoon, I was watching you, trying to imagine what you felt out there. I couldn't do it. So I figured, say it wasn't an Indian place, say it was a Jewish place—what would I feel? The truth—I have no idea. What Jewish would I think about? Hebrew school? Charlton Heston playing Moses? Then I thought, wait a second—if you're supposed to feel something, and all you can do is think about what it is you're supposed to feel—that's not right, something got, like, too thinned out along the way, left too far behind. Ya see what I'm saying?"

  Tommy looked at his friend, the wild hair, the pinwheel eyes. "Murray, you still taking pills?"

  "Of course I'm taking pills. I'm a Jew, I'm taking pills. Come to think of it, why am I feeling so Jewish today? Ya know what it is? I saw you out there being an Indian, it made me feel more like a Jew. Is that screwy?"

  "You see me being an Indian every day," said Tommy.

  "Ya mean the ponytail, the vest? Due respect, Tommy, that's just bullshitting around." He pointed across the harbor, toward the backcountry. "Out there you were an Indian. I saw the pride. I saw the loss. But what I was saying, I'm saying I watched you out there, I thought about this thinning out, and suddenly I had the name for our casino."

  He leaned far forward now and scratched his legs ecstatically. Dried pink lotion flaked beneath his fingernails, blistered skin began to ooze.

  "I don't think there's ever gonna be a casino," said the Indian.

  "Don't get negative on me, bubbala."

  "Bubbala"

  "Bubbala. Like Jewish kemosabe. But look, what's the problem? LaRue's leaving us alone, this Estelle person's handling everything, ya don't even need a lawyer—"

  "There's just so many steps. All the approvals, the complications."

  "So we take one step at a time. Don'tcha wanna know the name at least?"

  Tommy finished his beer and popped another. A chicken squawked in the weeds. "No," he said.

  Murray fought off feeling miffed. "Why don't ya wanna know the name?"

  "I'm, like, superstitious, okay? If there's ever a casino, you'll say the name, I'll tell you if I like it."

  "He doesn't want to know the name," Murray said to the sky. He leaned back in his tilted chair, feeling like an astronaut

  "And this bubbala thing," said Tommy. "I don't know about this. Who ever heard of an Indian called bubbala"

  *****

  That night, Murray took a long and itch-relieving soak in his master-bath Jacuzzi, then, from bed, he called his wife.

  He wanted the atmosphere to be just right. He fluffed up all his pillows, made sure he had an unobstructed line of sight through his open curtains, past his balcony, to the yellow moonlight gleaming on the Florida Straits. He put a glass of milk and a little stack of cookies on the nightstand. Then he dialed.

  "Franny? Murray," he said, when she picked up. '"Zit too late to call?"

  "In hours," she said, "or years?"

  He relished her tartness, burrowed deeper into his pillows. "What reflexes!" he said. "Bustin' my chops before y'even say hello. How are you?"

  "Hold on," she said. "I've got Streetcar on the video, lemme turn it off."

  Murray blissfully ate half a cookie. When his wife came back to the phone, he said, "Marlon Brando? Marlon Brando you'll turn off for me?"

  "Him I can always turn on again. How's your depression?"

  "Much better," said the Bra King. "It's been days since I've been publicly catatonic. Only problem, I'm getting low on pills."

  "Maybe you could stop the pills by now."

  "What're you, crazy?"

  "Zinc is good for mood things," Franny said.

  "Zinc is good for making garbage cans not rust," said Murray. "Medicine, they don't put it on garbage cans. Medicine, the doctor calls a fancy drugstore, you pick it up, there's a price tag says a hundred dollars stapled to the bag."

  "I thought you might be more open-minded than you used to be, Murray. You told me you were changing."

  Too late, the Bra King realized he'd been losing points. He frowned at his half-eaten cookie, squirmed against his pillows. "I am changing," he insisted. "Just not about zinc."

  "What about, then?" asked his wife.

  Murray thought and sighed, looked out the window at the moonstruck water. "I haven't checked the stock tables for three, four weeks. How's that?"

  "I'd call it less than a breakthrough."

  "Ooh," the Bra King said. "I got one: I bought a bicycle, I hardly use the car anymore."

  "Really?" Franny said, and he could tell she was impressed. "You must look pretty funny on a bicycle."

  "I guess I do. I haven't really thought about it."

  "Haven't thought about it? Murray, that's progress."

  Now he was happy, he rewarded himself with the rest of his cookie. "Yeah," he said, "I guess it is."

  There was a silence, it went on long enough for Murray to fear that he was losing his momentum. He groped for more evidence to lay before his ex, more proof that he was not the same old cranky selfish lout he knew she took him for.

  "But wait," he said, "I haven't told ya the best one. I have a friend down here, guess who he is?"

  "How should I know who he is?"

  "He's an Indian. Great guy. Bitter. He's got a claim against the government, I'm helping him pursue it."

  "Helping someone, Murray? You?"

  "Hey," he said, "what's right is right. With all the shitty things that have been done to these people?"

  For a moment Franny said nothing. Suspicion edged into her voice. "Murray, I was married to you for twenty-one years, the most political thing I ever saw you do was buy stamps. All of a sudden you're an activist'"

  "I'm not an activist," the Bra King modestly replied. "It's a personal thing, one individual."

  Franny paused again, put a skeptical finger on her lower lip. "There's a business angle in this, isn't there?"

  Murray's voice was a low wail of offended virtue. "Franny! The guy wants this little island where his ancestors lived. It's got whaddyacallit, mittens on it."

  "Middens," said his wife.

  "See, I knew you were interested in this stuff. This is why I'm telling you. Tommy, this guy's name is. You'll like 'im, you'll meet 'im when you come down here."

  "Who said I'm coming down there?"

  "Franny," Murray coaxed. "Wouldn't it be nice to see each other?"

  "Not especially."

  "Come on, you'll bring me zinc, magnesium, I'll suck the iron out of a steak knife."

  "I'm going back to Marlon Brando now."

  "Marlon Brando? When you could talk to me?"

  "Sweet dreams, Murray, and don't get cookie crumbs in the bed."

  "How d'ya know I'm eating cookies?"

  The phone clicked softly in his ear, it was almost like a kiss good night. He drank some milk, happily he looked out at the ocean. He was making progress with his wife; he had no doubt that he was making progress.

  15

  A couple of mornings later, Estelle Grau, dressed not for field work but the office, appeared at Barney LaRue's Eaton Street headquarters.

  She sat in a straight-backed chair across the desk from the senator, pulled her khaki skirt down snug across her ample knees, settled her clipboard against the mesa of her thighs. "Your constituent," she announced robustly, "seems to have a legitimate claim."

  LaRue smiled like he'd just been paid a personal compliment. Estelle couldn't help noticing how uncannily the smile matched the many others that grinned back from the pictures on the walls, the overflow of pictures that would not fit on the walls of the study in his penthouse.

  "The Matalatchee do seem to be an offshoot of the Calusa," she went on, "perhaps a variant in name of a former Gulf Coast tribe called Apalachee. The main branch of the Calusa was pretty well wiped out by 1800—mostly from diseases brought by the Spanish. But a few sub-clans hung on, mostly living in the Everglades. That lasted until the Second Seminole War of 1835. Th
e clans didn't want to fight alongside the Seminoles, who historically were enemies. They couldn't flee north against the white army. So they trickled south into the Keys. There were probably never more than a few hundred individuals."

  LaRue feigned interest. He'd had a lot of practice feigning interest and did it very well. He cocked his head at the attentive angle of the Victrola dog. He disciplined his perfidious eyes to stay wide open. Now and then he nodded.

  "Reservation records at Pine Hammock show quite clearly that Tommy Tarpon's family were not Seminoles," the woman down from Washington went on. "Shells taken from the middens on the island the applicant calls Kilicumba have been out of the water at least a hundred years, probably a hundred-fifty. It's very persuasive, all in all. So I'll be recommending to the Secretary that he recognize the tribe and cede the land to them. To him."

  Barney LaRue was still feigning interest in the fate of Florida's Indians, his smile alternating with pouts of fellow feeling. But his mind had started wandering, he was getting a number of steps ahead of himself.

  "What if he dies?" he blurted.

  "Excuse me?"

  The senator seemed as surprised by his question as was his listener. For just an instant he was nonplussed. He cleared his throat, strove to sound like he was being neither more nor less than thorough. "I mean, if the tribe consists of just one person ..."

  "One person who's very much alive," Estelle Grau said. "So let's take one thing at a time. What I need to know from you, senator, is how much opposition to expect from the state."

  LaRue unfurled his smile, light glinted off his mah- jongg tile teeth. He was once again composed and confident. "Expect none."

  The woman from Washington shifted largely in her seat, rearranged her skirt with a touching jumbo daintiness. "None?" she said. "Senator, in all my experience with these things—"

  Handsome, almost avuncular in a leering sort of way, Barney LaRue leaned across his desk. "Ms. Grau," he said, "I have been a Florida legislator for twenty-seven years. I know how to get things done in Tallahassee. You do your part in Washington. I assure you that in a case like this, where there are grave historic wrongs to be corrected, issues of justice at the forefront, the state of Florida will not stand selfishly in the way."