*****
Days passed; weeks passed.
In Washington, Estelle Grau rode herd on the bureaucratic beast that would process Tommy Tarpon's application. In Tallahassee, Barney LaRue sweet-talked, bluffed, and horse-traded with his colleagues. In Coconut Grove, Charlie Ponte waited to be handed the Indian who would lead him into the promised land of casino gambling.
The clipped month of February phased over into March, and in Key West the weather grew more reliably perfect. The breeze blew gentle but rock-steady from the east, as though pushed along by some slow colossal fan; the mercury hit eighty-two and stuck there, like all the thermometers had suddenly broken. Spring Break began, and Smathers Beach was paved in first-rate bodies from third-rate schools. Sometimes, when old man Bert the Shirt walked his stiff-legged dog along the promenade, Murray tagged along, and the two of them would appraise the youthful flesh—the buoyant chests, the thong bikinis—with the wistful calm of gallery-goers who'd been priced out of the market.
In the lengthening sunsets, Murray fished with Tommy, excess wattage crackling from their nervous brains, coursing through their fishing lines, vanishing like half-seen phosphorescence in the water. They had reached a point in their friendship that allowed for times—not many—when even the Bra King felt he didn't have to talk.
Then, one morning in the middle of the month, Tommy was asleep in his hammock when he heard somebody call his name.
The voice was smooth yet faintly needling, mellow yet commanding as it filtered through the houseboat's soggy planks. "Tommy!" it said. "Tommy Tarpon! Come out here, friend, and hear the news!"
Tommy was badly rested and slightly hung over. His eyes itched and his scalp felt like a garment that had shrunk up in the dryer. He waited for one more shout, to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Then he climbed out of the hammock, blinked against the slanting light from the glassless portholes. He labored up against the slope of the floor, and climbed the companionway ladder in his underwear.
Standing on the dock was Barney LaRue. He was wearing a blue pinwale suit and a beautiful red tie. His teeth gleamed and his upswept silver eyebrows shone bright as tinsel in the early sun. "Congratulations, Tommy," he said. "You've been recognized."
Tommy wasn't quite awake. "Recognized?"
"You're a tribe, man. A sovereign nation. You've got your island."
The Indian stood there, tired and numb, in his underwear on the top step of the ladder. It was great news, soiled somewhat by the bearer of the tidings, and Tommy was confused. Now that he'd got what he wanted, now that it appeared, for once, that the system wasn't going to screw him, he didn't know what to say and he didn't know what to feel. Pelicans flew low across the water, trees swayed on the islands across the harbor. He was sovereign, and nothing looked different from the way it looked the day before.
"Get yourself ready," the senator ordered. "We're having a press conference."
"Press conference?" said Tommy. "I don't want a goddam press conference."
LaRue spoke as if coaxing a sulky child. "Of course you want a press conference. Come on now, they'll be here in fifteen minutes."
"Here?" Tommy squinted out at the rock-strewn scrub of Toxic Triangle, the ruined boats, the chickens, and the lizards.
"Rags to riches," the senator intoned. "The American dream."
"I want Murray here," said the Indian.
"Murray?" said LaRue. He said it like the name just faintly rang a bell. "What's Murray got to do with it?"
"He's my friend. He started this whole thing."
LaRue looked down at his watch. "There isn't, time to get Murray. Now Tommy, please get ready, unless you plan to make your television debut in your BVDs. And do something about your hair. Make it look more Indian."
Dazed, Tommy Tarpon descended once more into his spookhouse of a cabin. Light slanted in, fish made tiny splashes in the sunken stern. He approached the table with two long legs and two short legs, threw water on his face from a chipped white basin. He regarded himself in the mirror that hung at an inexplicable angle from a peg. Vaguely, he wondered how it was that, back when he was one more bum, nobody ever woke him up and told him what to do, and now that he was sovereign, he was immediately being swept into things he didn't like by people he couldn't stand. He thought of resisting, but lacked the clarity of mind to do so; it was all too new, the granting of his application was too bafflingly at odds with the bleak logic of his pessimism. He picked up his comb, parted his blue-black hair precisely down the middle. He tugged it taut in back, tied it with a leather cord into a small ponytail. He pulled on blue jeans and the chamois vest with fringes.
By the time he appeared topsides, a small delegation of the media was assembling. A truck topped with a satellite dish had parked at the foot of the Toxic Triangle pier. Vans painted with radio call letters were scattered here and there. Young men with bandannas tied around their heads were hefting cameras, TV correspondents were having their noses powdered against the morning glare. A reporter from the Herald read the paper and ate a bagel. A representative of Key West's own daily, the Sentinel, came clattering up on a rusted blue bike.
Tommy looked at the gathering press and got the beginnings of a stomachache. He walked discreetly to the far end of the dock and peed in the ocean.
Producers milled, framed angles with their hands. Microphone booms swung overhead like cranes. Finally a woman with a pencil behind her ear positioned Tommy and the senator in front of the half- sunk houseboat.
As cameras rolled and pencils scratched at notebooks, Barney LaRue announced the recognition of the Matalatchee nation, then delivered a brief homily on the American traditions of fair play, of honoring agreements, of seeing justice done. He introduced Tommy Tarpon, "the last survivor, a tribe of one, a man who had nothing but his pride, his dignity, and his unshakable faith that America would in fact do right by him."
It is a rare thing to see an Indian blush, but Tommy's face was now as red and blank as a slab of fresh-caught tuna. His hands clenched and unclenched, he was sweating inside his chamois vest. Dead airtime accumulated and he uttered not a word.
"I guess we're ready for questions," said LaRue.
"Senator," said a correspondent for a local cable station, "if I understand correctly, tribal recognition is a federal matter. How can you be sure the state won't challenge the decision, as it has in other instances?"
The politician smiled benignly, stroked his red silk tie. "This is where high ideals and practical politics meet. Later this morning, a bill will reach the governor's desk. It deals with water rights for citrus growers, and the governor will certainly sign it. As a rider on that bill, there's a provision saying that the state will not contest any federal grants dealing with ten acres or less of offshore land."
"What's offshore land got to do with citrus?" somebody asked.
The senator gave a sly shrug and everybody but Tommy understood that it was time to laugh.
"What's the procedure from here?" asked one of the radio reporters. "Will there be a formal treaty?"
"Of course," LaRue said gravely. "There'll be a signing at the courthouse, Thursday afternoon." Less gravely, he said, "Cocktails after."
"Question for Mr. Tarpon," said the woman from the Herald. "Will you live on the island? Lease it out? Are you planning, perhaps, to bring gambling to the Keys?"
Tommy shifted from foot to foot, sweat squished in his sandals. "I live here," he said. He pointed to the half-sunk boat and there was defiance in the gesture. "As far as gambling goes—"
"No plans have been made in that direction," LaRue interrupted. "Any other questions?"
The reporter from the Sentinel sidled a foot or two away from the group. He was a gangly fellow with frizzy brown hair, resolutely casual in khaki shorts. He held a ninety-nine-cent spiral notebook and a chewed-on plastic pen. "Senator," he said, "your positions on minority issues are well-known. In 1990, you voted against more funding for inner-city schools and day care. In 1992, you introduced a bill s
eeking to curtail Seminole rights to sell tax-free cigarettes. Why are you suddenly this man's champion?"
LaRue shot his questioner a look like a gob of spit, but by the time he spoke the wallpaper smile had returned. "This is hardly the place to discuss my past voting record, though I assure you I had solid reasons for every position I took. Suffice it to say this man's case is different."
"That's what I'm asking," pressed the Sentinel reporter. "What's different about it?"
The senator squinted at the journalist, but the journalist's gaze had now been captured by the eyes of Tommy Tarpon. The two skeptical men shared a glance, traded something wordless, like ants do when they touch antennas. Overhead, gulls wheeled and cackled, from the weeds came the idiot complaining of a chicken.
Barney LaRue cleared his throat, cranked his smile one notch wider. "Thank you all for being here," he said.
16
The reporters dispersed, LaRue slipped away.
Tommy jumped onto his bicycle, unburdened lately with its cart of shells, and rode as fast as he could ride. Trees blurred, cats dodged from his path as he headed through Old Town and around the cemetery toward the Paradiso condo.
It happened that Murray was having a crisis of his own that morning. He'd turned his Prozac bottle over, and the last two capsules landed in his palm. This should not have surprised him, but it did; like a drunk who can't believe his glass is so soon empty, he suspected some subterfuge or a glitch in the laws of nature. He put the vial to his eye, shook the air inside it. He ate the green and cream-colored capsules and started pacing.
Now he dove onto the sofa with the nautical stripe and called Max Lowenstein.
"Murray," the shrink scolded, "you don't think I keep records? You shouldn't be out for another month. You been upping the dosage, Murray?"
"Well, I, uh, sometimes—"
"Murray, let me ask you something. If a cardiologist prescribed a pill for your heart—"
"I see what you're saying. But come on, I know how I feel."
"That," said the psychiatrist, "Is open to debate. But okay, how do you feel?"
"Great, Max, I feel terrific."
"Then why more pills?"
"I dunno. Security blanket. I'm a nut, Max. Who knows that better than you?"
The intercom buzzed, Murray jumped at the unaccustomed sound. He excused himself to answer it, pushed the button, asked who was there. When he heard it was Tommy, he rang him in, left the apartment door open, went back to the phone.
In his absence, Lowenstein's qualms had deepened. "I'm really not so comfortable," he said, "prescribing for a patient I've had so little recent contact with."
"I understand, Max," said Murray, his cajoling tone edging over into pleading. "But really—"
"What have you been doing with yourself?"
"Fishing. I went fishing like we talked about."
"Good."
"It was good, Max. The electric thing, it was a really good idea."
"Don't flatter me to get your pills. Go on."
"Well, I went fishing and I met an Indian and we're friends and we're going into the casino business."
"Oy."
"What's with this oy bullshit again? I tell you all good things, you tell me oy."
Just then Tommy knocked softly on the open door, stepped into the apartment Murray didn't really see his friend's flushed skin and clenched expression; he just pointed to the phone in case the Indian didn't notice it was glued against his ear.
"The casino business with a bunch of Indians," Max Lowenstein was saying. "I'm sorry, but to me, this sounds bizarre, grandiose, maybe clinically manic."
"It's a new challenge," said the Bra King, his pleading now thinning out to desperation. "Besides, it isn't a bunch of Indians, it's one Indian. He's a tribe. The last of a tribe. Here, he just came in. Say hello."
"I don't want to say hello."
But Murray had decided this would be a good idea; if Max heard what a sane calm person Tommy was, he'd come across with the prescription. "Wait, I'm putting him on."
"Murray," said the shrink, "this is totally inappropri—"
The Bra King didn't hear him, he was thrusting the receiver in Tommy's face. "This is my shrink. Tell him everything's okay."
Lowenstein's voice squawked faintly, told Murray to get back on the line. A telephone voice a foot away always sounds like it belongs to a midget.
The baffled Indian took the instrument, said softly, "This is Tommy."
"Tommy, hello. Please put Murray—"
"I just want you to know that Murray and I are partners and everything's fine. He calls me bubbala."
Murray was pacing. Tommy handed him the phone, he took it on the fly, like a runner in a relay race. "There Max, ya see?"
Max didn't see. "Murray, allow me to lapse into the vernacular. This whole thing sounds crazy."
Murray stopped short on the carpet, yearning for his pills. He thought of a new approach. This was not conniving. But people learn what works, which words and actions will be approved by whom; and sometimes, in people of goodwill, this learning deepens, becomes not just a stance but a new conviction, and through it, a person has been changed. Murray remembered what had worked with Franny.
"Max," he said, in a voice full of affronted virtue. "I wanna help this guy. This makes me crazy? He's got one chance to really beat the odds. I've gotta keep my pecker up to help him."
Lowenstein was quiet for another moment, then he muttered, "Altruism as a side effect. Live and learn."
"Did I say altruism? I said this guy's my friend."
"Okay, Murray, okay," said the psychiatrist. "I'm not sure I should be doing this, but I'll FedEx down a new prescription. Don't take more than I tell you to take."
Murray punched the air triumphantly, winked at Tommy. He gave Max the address. And he didn't promise about the dosage.
*****
Serene now, imagining the reassuring slide of capsules down his gullet, the Bra King sat down on the sofa, said to Tommy, "And how are you?"
The Indian took his turn at pacing. "Fucking pissed," he said. "Fucking humiliated."
The Bra King was surprised, focused finally on Tommy's tortured countenance. "And you waited all this time to tell me?"
"Fucking hypocrite comes to my boat—"
"What hypocrite?"
"LaRue," said Tommy, like it was perfectly obvious. "Scumbag wakes me up, says dress up like an Indian. Me, I'm too confused, groggy, I don't have the balls to tell 'im stick it up your ass, like a fucking circus dog I do it."
"I don't get it," Murray said.
Tommy trenched the carpet, veins stood out in his neck and a steely gleam came through the russet of his forehead. "Tells me there's a press conference. Stands me up in front of cameras, a buncha jerkoff journalists—"
"Why?"
"Why?! Murray, because I'm recognized. And this fucking douchebag—"
The Bra King was off the sofa now, he was not aware of rising. "Recognized!"
"—this fucking hypocrite smiling like an ass with teeth—"
Like a linebacker, Murray put himself in Tommy's path, grabbed him by his taut broad shoulders. "Recognized!" he said again. "Tommy, that's great. You won, man. You're a tribe, you got your island."
"I shoulda told him—"
The Bra King shook him. "Forget that bullshit, Tommy. You won. You're sovereign. That's the last time they can fuck with you."
It finally seemed to get through to Tommy. The tension went out of his arms, Murray felt his shoulders drop. He took a deep breath, looked down at his feet. He traced a dreamy little circle around the living room, through stripes of sunshine and stripes of shade, then he sat crosslegged on the carpet. His face was tilted downward, he lifted nothing but his eyes to glance briefly through a thicket of brows at Murray. He looked away, bit his lower lip, began to cry. Big tears collected at the corners of his downturned eyes, they swelled and then burst suddenly, staining his cheeks like the beginnings of rain on brick. For a
moment there was no sound, just this tearing that was silent as a seeping sponge, then he gave a short whimper followed by an extravagant, razzing sniffle, which was followed in turn by a choked and giddy laugh whose catharsis started with the sinuses.
"Fuckin' A right," he said when he could talk. "We won, Murray! I never in a million years thought those fuckers would give it to me, I never believed it for a second ... And LaRue, this horse's ass, he's up there talking about my unshakable faith. Douchebag!... Jesus, I'm exhausted, Murray. I am just wrung out."
He blew his nose then sat there limp, his wet eyes puffy and ecstatic.
Murray said, "What say we have a bottle of champagne?"
*****
They went downtown, drank bubbly in the hot sun on empty stomachs. When the first bottle was gone it was getting on toward other people's lunchtimes. Trays of food went by and made them hungry. They ordered some, with another bottle to wash it down. By this time the day was seeming improbably long, and Murray, wobbly on his shiny bicycle, went back to the penthouse for a nap.
He fumbled around the empty apartment, wandered aimlessly from room to room as he shed his clothes. Finally he drew the bedroom curtains against the bright and blaming daylight, and he tumbled into bed.
He didn't remember reaching for the phone, suddenly the receiver was in his hand. He dialed his wife in Sarasota.
"Franny," he said. "Great news, Franny."
Smells of alcohol and fried food bounced off the mouthpiece and back into his face. Apparently his ex could smell them too.
"It's two o'clock, Murray. You becoming a lush down there or what?"
"Little celebration," the Bra King slurred. "Tommy got recognized. The Matalatchee are a tribe."
"That's nice, Murray. Murray, listen, I have the women from the book club here. It's not a good—"
"I thought you'd be more interested," Murray whined. "Activist and all that."
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