Gumbo Limbo

by Tom Corcoran

  “How does he pat you on the ass, with a paddle?”

  She angled her eye at me. “It’s not quite that bad.”

  A silver Infiniti drove past and honked. Traci recognized it. She waved. The windshield reflected blue sky. I couldn’t see through the tinted glass.

  Traci’s father, Mercer Holloway, had been our representative in Congress for three decades. He’d brought in the military when the Keys’ economy most needed help, mothballed the Navy base once tourism regained its strength. With the economy at rock bottom, he had methodically acquired real estate in the Lower Keys. When growth and inflation arrived, his foresight became evident. His white elephants became prime property. He had sent his daughters, Traci and Suzanne, to law school. Divorced before he left Washington, he’d retired to Key West to manage his holdings. His son Richard had died four years ago at age twenty-six. Tequila and speedballs, and a widely acknowledged death wish. In the old days I’d felt comfortable with Suzanne, ill at ease around Traci. These days, the opposite was true. I’d never felt comfortable around David Hodges.

  “You keeping busy?” she said.

  “Paying the bills. I did a magazine piece up in Alabama, a photo essay on the last year-around waterborne mail route in the country. Beautiful river in Magnolia Springs. I did eight days in the Exumas, shooting fashion for some Boston department store. Skinny, snotty models, but fresh fish three meals a day.”

  “Did you stay at the Grand Hotel?”

  Way out of my price range. “My friend, Sam Wheeler, the fishing …”

  “I know Sam.”

  “He’s had a camp for years on Weeks Bay, where the Magnolia flows into Mobile Bay. I stayed in his cabin.”

  “Weren’t you doing crime scene work?”

  “Part-time. Not much since last summer. I did a couple minor things for Sheriff Liska in December. The city hasn’t called since Liska took office at the county. I don’t think anyone at City Hall remembers me. How about you?”

  “The last six weeks, I’ve been slamming deals. Thank goodness, because I ruined October. I sold a condo to three twenty-four-year-old boys. Twenty percent down on a $220,000 party pad. They turned it into a crank factory with an ocean view, making the modern equivalent of bathtub gin. They used the tub to mix methamphetamine. And, stink? The ammonia chemicals could have blown the whole complex out to Sand Key.”

  “They part of the justice system now?”

  “I don’t know about justice. They’re neck-deep in the legal system. We managed to annul the sale. Of course, my commission flew out the window. I’d already spent the money.”

  We stared at the new version of Caroline Street, the threestory shopping arcade about to fill the last “vacant” lot between William and Duval. I didn’t begrudge Traci Hodges’s livelihood, the real estate business. But real estate and cooperative, sometimes crooked, city officials had redefined the island since the Nixon years, the buying, selling, and expansions, the teardowns and the new developments.

  “So,” she said, “why are you taking pictures?”

  “My unending documentation. The island. The changes.”

  Traci looked through the chain-link. “By changes, you mean progress?”

  “Some people don’t use that word.”

  “When’s your expose hit the papers?”

  “The people who’d care already left town.”

  “Why shoot the pictures?”

  “Habit. I’ve got boxes full, packed away in closets. I keep them for me. It helps me put everything in perspective, the twenty-odd years I’ve lived here. Someday, off in the future, maybe I’ll do a slide show at the San Carlos. A one-night excuse for old-timers to drink wine and laugh.”

  Traci rolled backward, poised to skate away. “Or else cry. Put me on your invitation list, okay?”

  Ninety seconds later Traci came back around the block, down Peacon Lane past swing chairs on porches, railings and cacti, stubby driveways and trash cans. Turning toward Simonton, she grinned and shook her head: “You bastard. You upset that poor girl’s exercise regimen. Now she’s over to the Laundromat on Eaton, leaning into the wall, intent as all hell, gabbing on her cell phone. Probably her therapist.”

  Traci Hodges’s departing wave suggested some great secret between us. If one existed, it fell within the realm of ten or twelve years’ flirting, a great promise of attraction, and a handful of innocent hello or good-bye kisses at parties or in restaurants.

  I earned my living recording scenes and people that clients asked me to put on film. I didn’t always enjoy my work. I always enjoyed photography. Away from assignments it had been my habit to wander the island’s back alleys, secondary streets, the waterfront, to take photos that didn’t promise income. The color of daylight inspired me most often, primarily early morning and late afternoon. I’d never known ahead of time what might become a significant shot. Often the best were surprises, details seen while setting up unrelated photos, or luck, by timing, trying a different angle or focal length. Over the years I’d often felt like the kiss of death. I’d photograph a building one day, a funky Conch relic, an old sign or something that probably had looked the same for fifty years. Then I’d come back a month later to find it “renovated,” or gone. I knew to blame the nature of change in Key West, not my camera. I knew also that I didn’t like it.

  I went back to shooting the progress and impact of the new arcade. The site between the old Carlos Market and a multiunit rental property had been a parking lot. It had provided access to a wood shop, a sculptor’s studio, and another small business. With the start of construction, each outfit had been offered square footage in the new “complex,” complete with an advertising package, common signage, prorated insurance and utility bills, and upscale rent. Each had drawn the shutters and packed it up.

  I repositioned myself two or three times, trying to minimize the maze of overhead wires. There are no buried electrical cables on the island. In some locations the water table’s a foot below the pavement.

  I let my mind wander as I shot. This version of Caroline Street inspired memories of the seventies, like “Curly and Lil—Tonite!” in Magic Marker on the front wall of the Mascot Bar. I’d wandered into the Mascot one night, in 1976. Forty or fifty representatives of the shrimping profession were packed into the tiny bar. Curly had little hair, a constant smile. He played a beautiful double-neck hollow-body sunburst guitar. With a voice as tough and lovely and big league as Dolly or Reba or Loretta, Lil had belted, “Has anybody here seen Sweet Thing?” Curly’s solos rang of Les Paul, with a touch of Scotty, Moore. I’d left the Mascot in a hurry after a grizzled, staggering fisherman in rolled-down rubber work boots pointed out my huarache sandals to two or three compadres. They hadn’t approved. Time to go.

  There’d been two other tough saloons: The Big Fleet, an unofhcial petty officers’ club, and the Red Doors Inn, with its all-day smells of stale beer and the previous night’s cigarette smoke. Winos in piss-stained trousers slept on wood benches in front of the shuttered Fisherman’s Café. At the east end of the street, people lived in cars and vans buried under mounds of fish nets and nautical gear. There’d been Friday night bloodbaths, shrimpers in pointless frenzy, cops on the offense, pot smoke in the air. A different world.

  I recalled one Sunday morning in 1977 when I’d ventured down Caroline with my camera. A derelict had staggered from behind the marine supply company. Dried blood stuck his hair to his cheek and forehead. His tongue worked a section of gum where a tooth had broken. Convinced that I’d done him damage, he came at me with a broken beer bottle. I’d lifted my bicycle in defense. His first slash popped a tire. I ripped a wood stake from a picket fence, went to thrash back, but it ended there. Two ocean-going brethren intervened, confiscated his weapon, walked him back toward the docks.

  Historical perspective is too often a study of contrast. A generation later, at that moment, the only action on Caroline centered a block and a half east of where I stood. Every sports utility vehicle in south
Florida was competing for the eleven metered parking slots on the north side of the street. Every ocean angler south of Jacksonville and not on the ocean waited in an outside line for a table at Pepe’s. Hair o’ the dog way higher on the priority list than breakfast omelets. Still, for some reason, Caroline Street felt ominous for its lack of visible threat.

  Change is certain in the Island City.

  From the direction of Pepe’s Café, I felt concussions of sub-aural bass. Then audible, rhythmic low tones preceded a black Chevy S-10 pickup truck lowered to within four inches of the pavement. No top end, no high notes that I could hear. Perhaps they didn’t exist. Opaque doper tinting, a black camper top. The vehicle rolled on bowl-sized, maybe twelve-inch chrome wheels, tires the thickness of licorice twists. Hearse-like and ominous, the truck radiated evil.

  Thumpa-thump-boom. So much for a quiet Sunday morning.

  A tourist foursome near B.O.’s Fish Wagon, blue-coiffed seniors in pastel Bermudas, favored the sidewalk edge farthest from the curb. The elderly men squared their shoulders. The women shifted their hands to protect belly packs, to shield credit cards and cash, a move doomed should the car stop, a door open, a muzzle or blade wiggle in the yellow sunlight. The cockroach grooved past the seniors. The threat lifted, the weight of the ocean had spared a bubble of innocence. Then it slowed to approach me, to pass more deliberately. A row of three-inch-high decals across the pickup truck’s rear glass, alternating Confederate flags and Copenhagen snuff logos. In the window’s lower left corner a NASCAR competitor’s stylized number. A chain-motif license tag frame, also chromed. I thought, is that gaping hole under the bumper a tailpipe or a sewer pipe?

  The truck stopped. An increase in stereo volume as the passenger side door opened. Two pasty-skinned specimens exited. Ratty tank-top muscle shirts and identical brush mustaches. One tall, thin, oval sunglasses, a Nike beret. One short with a spiraling barbed-wire arm tattoo, his face stupid, frosted with malice. Gold jewelry equal in value to a Third World annual income. I caught a whiff of fresh-burned hashish.

  These children were not promoting a fair fight. They had been to punk school, where experts remove conscience and install weaponry. They had grown up ripping chains from tourists’ necks on Duval, had expanded their talents clouting BMWs and Acuras up on South Beach. In some other locale, they’d be kneecappers on the docks, or brass-knuck mob flunkies. The only style twist they knew was to slide gold chains before they yanked, to slash neck skin, to leave a wire-thin reminder of that visit to south Florida.

  If this social call was aimed at get-rich-quick, the pukes had targeted the right bike—my eight-hundred-dollar Cannondale—but the wrong camera. My Olympus was almost twenty years old. They probably weren’t thinking too far into the future. The bicycle would upgrade the truck’s stereo. The OM-4 would barely buy an afternoon’s buzz.

  I learned years ago, aboard sailboats, that stringing cameras around my neck caused their straps to tangle with the lanyards that kept my sunglasses from going overboard. I got in the habit of double-looping camera straps around my right wrist. It cured tangling and kept my gear from going into the drink when a sudden roll forced the use of grabrails. I was about to experience the benefits of wrist looping when the snatch-andgrab boys are about.

  The short one moved first; the tall one hung back. Some kind of tag team strategy. Two sharks chasing a minnow. They’d stupidly given me a fighting chance, if I didn’t lose track of the malevolent tall boy in the background.

  “You want this?” I said to Shorty. “Take it away.” I held the camera body upright, the lens pointed at him. My thumb brushed the shutter button. On impulse I pressed it. Probably an over-exposed, out-of-focus close-up of his shoulder. Or one of his drug-dead eyes.

  Shorty stepped forward. Watery snot glistened on his upper lip. He stuck out one hand, held the other snug to his leg. A four-inch pigsticker pointed downward, threw glints of sunlight. The kid stank like a bucket of onions and cheap aftershave. His eyes didn’t look crazed—just emotionless—but I felt sure that his long-term prep had included hurriedly-crafted pipes, chemicals and fumes, clipped straws, and stolen needles.

  Where was tourist traffic when you needed it? No pedestrians in and out of the Caroline Street Market? No Conch Train rolling by? Had some out-of-sight witness already dialed 911? I pictured the sidewalk seniors locked snug in their LeSabre, making tracks for North Palm Beach. I smelled bacon on the breeze, from Pepe’s and Harpoon Harry’s.

  Shorty’s open hand came closer; his other hand twitched. I heard clicks from ten feet away: the tall one setting the blade of a plastic-handled carpet cutter. I was alone. I hadn’t lived my life in constant gang-banger readiness. I hadn’t gone to dress rehearsal. I would either eat street and shed blood, or pull an out-of-character survival move. A few days earlier I’d read a newspaper article about martial arts schools teaching courses on fighting dirty. None of it involved graceful, dancelike moves. Most of the techniques would have gotten you kicked off the playground, or banished from the team. I tried to recall the text of the article. Difficult, on short notice.

  I baited the hook, stuck out my arm and the camera. The knife moved upward an inch. Hell. This wasn’t a rip-off. I was a target. Handing over meat was not going to appease the tiger. As soon as the shitbird thought I was in range, the sharp metal would swipe at my arm. He’d grab the hand beneath the camera, pull me in for a deep back puncture, a lung or a kidney.

  A peaceful Sunday morning in Paradise.

  To break his concentration, I dropped the camera, formed a fist with my hand. I swung my forearm in a circle, like stirring a pot. Shorty focused on the moving fist, brought his knife to waist level, pointed it at my belly button. He didn’t notice the rotating momentum in the Olympus until it swung up like a shot, banged his head just forward of his ear. My followthrough put me in perfect position: I kicked him in the nuts. A hard, solid connection between his slightly-spread legs. An audible smack.

  The tall one was almost on me. I needed Shorty completely out of the game. I side-stepped the carpet cutter and let go a scoop kick. It buckled Shorty’s knee. I switched feet and kicked again. The second jab caught his leg broadside. This time I felt and heard his knee go. He toppled, grabbed his partner for support, robbed him of his balance. I swung the camera like a bolo. The tall one’s head bounced backward. He grimaced, tried to stand upright, then spit teeth and blood.

  The screech was not from the injured men. The low-slung pickup burned rubber in reverse, coming at me, the open passenger-side door flapping like a black wing. The truck skidded to a stop. The driver jumped out, identical attire except for his backward ballcap. He pointed a strange gun. The way he moved tweaked my memory; I knew his name and family reputation. Neither out of synch with the confrontation.

  Drawn to the tires’ noise, silent onlookers began to gather. The driver understood the need for retreat. He tore off his tank top, draped it over the truck license tag—too late, but not in his mind—and somehow managed to shove his wounded comrades into the truck. As a parting gesture he turned toward me, aimed the pistol at my chest, and fired. I felt the hit, the rush of liquid, a coldness, and stumbled backward. I looked down.

  He’d splattered me with a paint-pellet gun. It hurt like hell. I smelled like cheap salad dressing. I was monkey-puke green from neckline to ankles.

  The truck sped away, as did most of the witnesses. Don Kincaid, from the charter sailboat Stars and Stripes, offered a towel from his motorscooter’s basket. A fellow photographer, he worried more about my Olympus than my clothing. The camera looked fine. Don told me the truck’s license number.

  Another bystander, whom I recognized—a regular customer at the Sunbeam Market—offered to call 911 on her cell phone. I shook my head, then noticed the true miracle. In the excitement and action, no one had stolen my bicycle.

  Kincaid said he had to go. I assured him I was okay. I just needed to catch my breath. I leaned against my bike and looked up the street. The Caroline St
reet dust had settled. The Blazers and Expeditions and Cherokees had quit fighting for space. The brunch line at Pepe’s was down to the last three, each customer patiently reading a newspaper. The other off-duty sportsmen were inside at tables, burping coffee, chewing celery sticks from their full-dress Bloody Marys. The sun shone bright pale yellow. The sky glowed pure blue. The restored Red Doors Inn gleamed with fresh white and vermilion paint.

  Someone could argue that the island was improving with age.

  I rode the Cannondale homeward thinking that, a few hours earlier, my morning had begun on a humorous note. After waking with Teresa Barga in her Shipyard condo, we’d shared wonderful, slow-motion lovemaking, Cuban coffee, yellow-label Entenmann’s pastries, and the Miami Herald. I knew that she wanted her home to herself, to catch up on paperwork and to prepare several police department press releases. Her job load, as the KWPD press liaison officer, varied with the crime rate. In her eighth month on the job, she was learning that cases tended to stack high during tourist season. She’d shrugged off a suggestion that we spend the day in a kayak. I wasn’t happy having to compete with the city for her time on a Sunday. The upside was my admiration for her focus and work ethic, rare traits in Key West.

  Teresa and I had met five months earlier at City Hall. She had been new in town, new to her job. We’d both been without partners for months. We were attracted by curiosity and mutual needs for stability and fun. We’d been constant companions since then. Our connection had survived on humor, compatibility, and common interests: being on the water and, during bad weather, reading good books.

  Teresa had walked me to her door, patted my rear end, kissed my cheek. She’d said, “Take care, lover. It’s a jungle out there.”

  I’d boasted, “Show me the vine. I’m a swinger.”

  She’d laughed. I’m a laugh a minute.