COPYRIGHT 1976 BY DARWIN PORTER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First edition published in the U.S. 1976
Reprinted 1977, 1978, 1980.
First International Edition published in the U.S. 1997
Reprinted February, 1998
Library of Congress Card Catalogue No. 97-065249
ISBN No. 1-877978-95-7
Publication made possible in part by a grant from the
Florida Literary Foundation
Cover design by Scott Sosebee
Cover photography by Russell Maynor
Chapter One
An occasional car whizzed past. No one stopped.
Numie Chase walked alone into the night.
Mosquitoes after his blood were raising welts on his skin. No use to slap them any more. They were an army against the one of him.
How he wished he had his denim shirt back. At least that would offer some protection. But it'd been stolen the night before in that sleazy motel on the mainland. Stolen along with his thirty dollars. The hardest thirty dollars he'd ever earned at that. From a minister, no less. A man of God who'd wanted Numie to be the Devil and punish him for all his sins.
Not Numie's scene at all. But at this stage, he'd long ago forgotten what his scene was. Even if he'd ever had one.
He existed for other people. Merely a tool to satisfy them temporarily. Yet he knew he'd never really satisfied anyone in any deep and meaningful way.
Just for the moment—that was it.
For a price, anyone could have a chance to swing on him.
But the market was fading, just like the cars along this deserted stretch of road that ran by a mangrove swamp.
Trudging the highway, he found his steps quickening.
Faster and faster.If only there were a light, a neon sign, a street lamp, the headlight from an oncoming car.
Something.
Anything.
But there was nothing except the sound of frogs croaking from their secret hideaways in the swamp. The harsh symphony from the frogs was growing louder and louder the farther he walked. They knew he was there, and they were mocking him, threatening him, daring him to plunge deeper into their unfriendly terrain.
He didn't know why people wanted to live so far from the mainland anyway. So far into such inhospitable territory. Maybe the whole desolate stretch should be left to the frogs, lizards, and snakes.
He was on an island. At least he could feel the murky presence of water on both sides of him. The land was narrowing like an isthmus.
He'd lost count of the islands he'd already crossed earlier in the evening. Walking mostly, though he'd managed to hitch a ride for the first lap of the journey.
The coral islands were like a necklace dangling from the mainland, each pearl strung together by a bridge. He was going to the end of that string. To Tortuga, the point where the United States came to an abrupt halt.
From Tortuga, he'd been told, there were no more bridges. Just the open sea and the islands beyond.
In the distance, a headlight. Getting closer and closer.
The lights were on him now. Numie stood proud and tall, hoping to pass inspection.
"Please stop,"hewhispered.
The car was slowing down. Maybe he'd get a ride after all.
It came to a stop. The figure of a man loomed behind the wheel, but the lights were too bright for Numie to make out his face.
The driver kept his window shut, as he peered out into the night at Numie.
Numie stood bewildered. Finally, he smiled. "What do you want?" The driver called through the raised window.
"A ride, mister. Please."
"You're not a killer, are you?"
"No, I'm harmless."
Slowly the driver lowered the window. But just a crack. He was quite old, maybe in his seventies. Not only old, but tired and beat up. Two teeth in front were missing. 'What's in the bag?"
"Just a few possessions."
"Lay them on the front fender," the old man commanded. "If I'm going to give you a ride, I want to make sure you're not carrying around concealed weapons."
"Okay," Numie said. Into his tattered duffel bag, he dug for his possessions. An address book filled mainly with street numbers and telephones of long-forgotten people. A pair of swimming trunks he'd found on the beach one day. Two avocados and three oranges he'd picked up when passing through farm country on the mainland. A frayed travel magazine with some beautiful color pictures of Tortuga. Finally, a leather belt with a big silver buckle he'd been trying to make for himself.
"You don't have much," the old man yelled. "What about knives? Turn your pockets inside out"
"Just a pocketknife," Numie said, emptying his pockets for inspection. He put the knife on the fender.
"I reckon you can get in," the old man called. Stuffing his possessions back into his duffel bag, Numie made his way around to the side of the battered Buick. The door was locked.
The old man waited for a long time before opening it. Finally, he leaned over and raised the lock. "Get in."
Numie got in, staying as close to the window as he could.
Even from this point, he could smell the breath of the old man. He was a wino. His clothes were as old and as tired as he was. Nervously clutching the wheel, his hands were dry and withered. The car had another peculiar odor: unfixed cats.
"Who are you boy?" The old man asked.
"Name's Numie. Thanks for giving me a ride. If someone hadn't come along soon, the mosquitoes would have me dry by now."
"I hope I don't live to regret picking you up. I'm Hadley L. Crabtree. Just last month the sheriff's boys dug up five bodies on the keys. Arrested the crazy killer. Seems this guy went around picking up boy hitchhikers. He'd drive them to a deserted spot on No Name Key where he'd tie them up. This sickie got his rocks off by cutting off the peckers of these kids."
"Thank god he didn't come along and pick me up tonight," Numie said. "I need mine."
"What are you up to heading for Tortuga this time of night?"
"I couldn't find anything on the mainland. Thought I'd try my luck."
"There's no work in Tortuga," said Crabtree. "No jobs. Nothing. Any jobs down there, the kids of the local families grab them up. Most of the people there, except for some rich queers who come down in winter, are on welfare. I grew up on the island, and I should know there's no money there. Hell, it was 1947 before anybody could afford house paint."
"That's bad. I sure was hoping to find something"
Suddenly, Crabtree slammed on the brakes. "My advice to you is to get out of this car right now. Park your ass on the other side of the road until you can hitch a ride back to the mainland."
"I can't do that. I've got to give it a try"
Crabtree started the car again. "Mark my words, boy, you'll regret the day you ever set foot in Tortuga. Besides, people there are none too friendly."
"You gave me a ride"
"I'm different. The only liberal in town. Once ran for political office just to challenge the machine. Got almost no votes, but I wanted to shake them up a bit. I was clobbered. They raised my real-estate taxes and practically drummed me out of town. Got no local business after that."
"What do you do?"
"I'm a lawyer, the only friend you beatniks have in town."
"I'm not a beatnik."
"You look like one. Come to think of it, though, you're a little old to be a real beatnik."
"Thanks."
"Some of my cases deal with possession of reefers. You young drifters down there are always going up in a cloud of smoke. Somebody's got to defend you when they throw you in jail. Actually you don't have a chance. The town is on a big campaign right now to get rid of vagrants. And after a
ll those boy killings up on the keys, they're also after the rich queers. That's the only people who ever come to Tortuga. Decent tourists avoid the place"
"This magazine I've got has some real nice pictures of it."
"Propaganda. Of course, there's no place in America like Tortuga. Most people there have been cut off from the mainland for years. They've become inbred, very suspicious of strangers. We were just left to ourselves until the last few years when you young people started to invade. You heard we had good weather or something. No one wants you, except me. And I make my living off you. Some of those beatniks look like they don't have any money, but then the sheriff confiscates travelers checks and credit cards when he hauls them off to jail. Credit cards-imagine that. Only rich folks have those things. I've never had a traveler's check in my whole life, but they give them out to beatniks. Shows what's happening to this country."
"You make Tortuga sound like a real hell hole."
"It is"
"Why have you stayed so long?"
"I was born there, and that's reason enough for most natives. Bad as Tortuga is, you don't seem to fit into no other place if you're born on the island. We even talk different, sort of funny sounding to you mainlanders."
"Is there a place to stay?"
"Just one hotel and it's not much. Every now and then one of those mainlanders comes down and tries to build a tourist court, but the locals make it rough on him. They don't want a lot of dumb tourists running around town. But the natives are the dumb ones. Tourists would bring in some money. But the islanders just aren't forward looking. I told you, I'm the only progressive voice, and I'm seventy-six years old. When I'm dead and gone, I don't know what you young people are going to do when you get in a mess."
"If I ever do, I'll call you. Okay?"
"Don't call me unless you've got some bucks. I'm not a charity lawyer." The rest of the ride was in silence. It was calm and strangely quiet in the early morning hours.
After crossing a rickety wooden bridge into Tortuga, Numie was all eyes. Crabtree remained silent except for his heavy breathing. Tortuga was like something out of the past, its mystical beauty exotic and unearthly.
Shrimp boats and barges lined the pier, and the masts of anchored sailboats bobbed in the water. One houseboat proclaimed its name, REEFER MADNESS, in bold red letters.
The streets were rough and bumpy, occasionally broken by the octopus-like roots of massive banyan trees from the East Indies. Art nouveau lamps dimly lit the sidewalks. Jungle shrubbery—wild and untamed—and sago palms filled the yards of the old seagull gray houses. The buildings were mostly clapboard, drizzly in need of paint and haphazardly held together behind sagging Victorian verandas.
A convent with a dormered mansard roof and a central tower of stone added a note of stability. Otherwise the effect was lushly decadent. From around the world, sea captains had brought back Spanish laurel from southern Europe, the breadfruit tree from Polynesia, and the tamarind with its podlike fruit from India. Cacti flaunting its snow-white blossoms rubbed up against some of the buildings. One gave off the intoxicating smell of the night-blooming Cereus.
No lights came from any of the houses, except one lone cottage down a dark alleyway shaded by gaunt and gnarled lenten trees.
Here Numie was ... at the end of the line ... America's last frontier. "Pretty dead tonight."
"We're coming in from the east," Crabtree said. "That's the respectable part. Wait till you see the west side of town. It never shuts down. I'm going to let you off here. You'll have to walk the rest of the way. I don't have much gas."
"Thanks for the ride," Numie said, getting out. "It saved my life."
"That's my profession." The Buick pulled out.
Behind Numie was the Tortuga bus station, gaudily Victorian as an outsized wedding cake. The years of decay showed, though. The once-white paint was scaling, and young boys had tossed rocks through the stained-glass windows. The ornamental gingerbread work around the top was rotting away, and steep-roofed towers looked out onto the deserted street.
Slowly Numie headed down the street. To the town's one hotel. To a new life.
The afternoon sun stole between the splinters of the bamboo shades. The air was heavy, humid.
Numie was drowning in his own sweat. The limp, musty sheets were tangled around his nude body.
Where was he? What new and god awful town this time? He reached for a lopsided wicker chair and ran his hands along its moldy frame. Then he grabbed hold of it, clutching—using it as a support to get back on his feet.
Climbing out of bed, he sat down on the chair. He had to get it all together, to face that street.
Another street, another town. But this one would be different from all the rest.
Bougainvillea in runaway colors of fuchsia, burnt orange, and pink was creeping through the windows of the ramshackle Dry Marquesas Hotel. The wildly growing vine was like a threat by nature that it could crawl in, overpower, and conquer on a moment's notice.
The deathlike air was still, broken only by the heavy sound of Numie's booted feet on the creaky steps.
The lobby was a hodgepodge. The potted plants had long ago toppled from thirst. Like the old gingerbread hotel itself.
It wasn't always this way, he'd heard. Once the lobby was filled with rich, bearded wreckers, the laughter of women who powdered their faces chalkwhite, and the swift movement of black boys who stuffed their adolescent bodies into white pants and put on cerise-colored shirts. Like those anachronistic pirates, Numie had come to scavenge.
Into the lobby men's room for one final appraisal of his body. Arching his broad shoulders, he made his six feet, two inches all the taller. That body, lanky and well shaped—the body that had brought him so much praise. It was still intact. What was he worried about? The face—angular, masculine. A few lines were appearing under his eyes. So what? That meant too many nights in too many bars. Those lines would fade in the afternoon sun of Tortuga. Smooth and bronze once more.
Leaving the toilet, he walked in a rapid, nervous stride through the lobby. His body wasn't moving harmoniously. Something inside seemed to be at work to spoil his appearance. He needed a real smoke in the worse way. But he had nothing, and only three bucks in his pocket and ten dollars in reserve in his shoe to buy anything. He wouldn't be able to pay his hotel bill unless he earned some money real quick.
The side entrance of the hotel led to a street shaded by mimosa.
A barefoot black boy was sitting in the doorway, whittling on a stick. He wore a pair of bleached-out blue jeans with a big hole in the left leg, through which a knobby knee protruded.
"Where's the nearest bar?" Numie asked.
The boy studied Numie's face for a long time. Then he put the stick in his mouth and munched on it. "White boy, did anybody ever tell you got violet eyes? They're violet just like the flower. My mama's got a pair of pillow cases the color of those eyes. I bet panthers got violet eyes, too. You ever see a panther?"
"Not since I flushed mine down the toilet. So you won't tell?" me.
The boy scooted a few feet away on the dusty step.
Narrowly missing a splinter. "I don't know about bars. The whole damn town's a bar. I'll be your guide. You're one of those drifters that keep coming down to bother the people here, ain't you?"
"I've done my share of drifting, but I don't plan to bother anybody. Unless they ask for it."
"Then why do you wear that blond hair so long?"
"That's my business."
"One thing we got to agree on before I take you around," the boy said. "If I see some of my kin, I gotta run and hide till they pass me by."
"Are you ashamed to be seen with me?"
"I don't want nobody on this here island to think that I, Castor Q. Combes, showed any white-haired boy with violet eyes anything. Those eyes are gonna cause trouble for a heap of people in their time."
"They already have."
"Pay in advance, white boy. One dollar."
"Now th
at's a philosophy I understand, Castor Q. I've always insisted that my clients pay in advance, too."
"What kind of business you in?"
"I sell illusions, Castor baby."
"What's this baby crap?"
"I call everybody baby."
Castor was reaching for Numie's arm, pulling him along. He led the way down the narrow street. Once Castor pocketed his dollar, he lost his ability to talk.
Deep into the town Numie was descending.
"This is the pinko section," Castor muttered, before spitting into a hibiscus bush.
"What's that supposed to mean? They Communist or something?"
"Pink gold, man, pink gold. How stupid you are! This gold is shrimp—delicious, pink jumbo shrimp."
The water along the rundown port was murky, as if only dead things washed up on its shore. Fish and shrimp floated on the surface—streaked with black from the oil of the boats.
Barechested shrimpers—sweaty and unshaven—were lying around, guzzling beer.
"See those men?" Castor asked.
A group of men, mostly black, lay against the side of a dilapidated warehouse—their backs against the brick wall.
"There's gonna be trouble when the other shrimpers come home," Castor said. "Those guys are out of work, and they're gonna fight with the guys who were hired."
"Do you predict trouble all the time?"
"Seen a lot in my day."
"How old is your day? You must be all of twelve."
Castor didn't answer, licking his mouth instead. He turned down a street that looked more like an alley.
Rows of honky-tonks, advertising a paper cup of beer at fifteen cents, lined both sides of the street. The buildings seemed pieced together with crates and cardboard. Some of the box-type dwellings resembled abandoned freight cars. Naked, half-starved children played under the houses, supported by pilings. Space was too scarce for anyone to have a yard—so some semblance of front porches were attached to the hovels. Sad-faced women sat on them, sunning themselves like dogs. They fanned their faces with palm fronds and gossiped. Their eyes were strange and hollow, their stringy hair falling where it may. Dresses hung like rags from their bodies. The women twisted their necks to get a glimpse of Numie.
Butterflies in Heat Page 1
