It didn’t matter that Gloria’s voice came from speakers down the hall. She felt part of a party in her own room. With every twist and turn she felt the stress and burdening worries twirling away. She spun, leaped and spun again, then hopped over the coffeepot. Dancing gave her positive energy. It released the negative. With no one to see her, she could let her emotions control her movements. If it had a name, it would be called the “emotional-stress-relief dance.”
After burning at least four thousand calories, she stopped. She couldn’t help but miss Rebecca, who loved this song, and Grandma, who also danced behind closed doors. Grandma couldn’t contain herself when Elvis came on.
With no one to talk to and no way to sleep with cockroaches on the prowl, she took out her purple, powder-scented journal, which was hidden under her underwear, still in a suitcase.
Dear Grandma,
If I’m going to be an island, I’d better get used to solitude of thought. Instead, I’m feeling stranded and lonely. I feel caught between two worlds—one that was comfortable and one that is new. When I close my eyes, I’m back in my old Michigan bedroom, looking out the window. I see Kid and Bay Pacer trotting through the yard below. When I open my eyes, I hope that once Mom and Dad find a home to buy, they will get the horses here to Florida. Again with my eyes closed, my mind tricks me into thinking I’m back in the twin bed next to your petite body. I open my eyes and regret that I never recorded your stories. I close my eyes again and smell Mom’s homemade chicken noodle soup. I open them and realize I’ve hardly seen my mom this summer. So I close them again, and I’m suddenly on my old bike. I’m pedaling back from the beach with Ann in our bathing suits. We’re in a hurry because we have to get to work at the ice-cream shop. We’re hoping Dad doesn’t notice the sand on our toes. I open my eyes and tell myself I will someday get out west to visit Ann. I close my eyes once more.
“Now, now, now! Pull yourself together,” I can hear you scolding me.
“Okay, Grandma,” I actually say out loud. “I need to live in the present, not the past.
P.S. Say hello to Grandpa for me. I know he no longer has his back pain. I know he now glides through time and space with ease as if possessing the enormous, powerful wings of the brown pelican.
She closed her letter and her eyes, and could see the bridge that linked the present with the past. She stood on the side, with tulips opening in the sun and Lake Michigan glistening in the background. She longed to sit close enough to smell their sweet perfume and to admire their satin costumes. Instead, she forced herself onto the wooden bridge and crossed back into the present. As she walked, she could hear a voice from history. “Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
She agreed now with John Donne—no man is an island complete in itself—so she walked down the hall toward Denver’s laid-back voice as it repeatedly and pathetically sang the same lyrics, “Life is so hard, life is so hard.” She noticed the cook’s door was closed and assumed he was sleeping. He kept completely to himself. The bartender’s room was empty. He was probably still at work. Vicki poked her head into Denver’s room, and when she saw the walls painted in royal blue ocean waves and posters of every imaginable boat hanging above the painted waves, and the ceiling painted in white, billowing clouds, she couldn’t resist. She had to ask if she could join this man who lived in a room as bright as an ocean on a sunny day, this man who sang such depressing lyrics, he surely didn’t belong in an uplifting room, a room that also faced the water, like hers.
“You can come in, but only if ya sip this Silver King Sipper,” said Denver, handing her a cream-colored drink with the liquor sunk to the bottom. “Come on now, don’t be shy. I’ve got four more of those there piña coladas with Frangelico mixed into them.”
“I know, I know. The island special. Thank you very much.”
“Okay, babe. Take a sip. It’s time to dance.” He tossed his cigarette onto the floor, stomped on it, examined it closely, and stomped on it again. Then he grabbed her hand.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “If you want to be friends with me, call me Vicki, not babe, okay?” She had no desire to dance with a man who was half her weight and bordered on being drunk.
“Sorry, chick. Listen. I’m so laid-back right now that I’m about to slip into a coma. I gotta dance!”
She knew how to say “no,” how to scream, how to run out and how to just plain not do anything she didn’t want to do. She knew all that, and she knew some fantastic moves from the movie The Matrix, to go with it all. She knew Denver belonged to another puzzle, and didn’t match any of the pieces of her own puzzle, but something inside her suddenly craved new design to her puzzle. She felt curious about why someone could hang out on a little island, work in a kitchen, and sit alone in his room, drinking and playing pathetic songs on his guitar. Her curiosity drew her into a kind of ballroom-type dance with him as he invented new steps to Bad Company music playing on the classic rock station on the stereo. Next, came Tesla, then Damn Yankees. Except for the spins and dips, during which Denver almost collapsed, Vicki didn’t mind. They danced a long time. He sang to all the songs, and his angelic-sounding voice surprised her. She complimented him on it, but he didn’t hear. Instead, he psychologically sank deeper within himself, dancing with his partner all the while. He inspired her to study psychiatry instead of psychology, so she could find him someday and write him a scrip for an antidepressant. Then again, maybe he needed good counseling.
He spun her in the proximity of the stereo, then, still dancing, he reached over and cranked up the volume.
“Shut up in there,” a voice called from down the hall. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Denver. “He likes to breeze through life with the perfect amount of sleep, the healthiest kinds of food, the best wardrobe for any weather. He gets annoyed at anyone who keeps him up five minutes past bedtime or offers him a sip of something unhealthy.”
“Well, he’s great during the lunch crowds. He handles more tables than any of us can,” replied Vicki. “He doesn’t tire like the rest of us.”
“Of course not. He follows the same course that the wind is blowing. He’s a sailboat,” said Denver. “He gets stressed over anyone who gets in his way.”
“Did you say he was a sailboat?”
“Yep. This staff house is a harbor full of vessels. There’s a lifeboat in the room next to you. She’s a strong boat, designed for rescuing shipwrecked persons or persons abandoning ship. Man does she have buoyancy and stability about her, a self-bailing capability. That chick could move forward in the stormiest of waters. Yeah, she could capsize and turn herself upright again.”
Vicki smiled, aware that she was carrying on a deep conversation with a man who classified people as vessels. She blamed her psychology background for making her want to understand the vessel, the personality type she was still dancing with.
“And the day cook,” continued Denver. “He’s a houseboat, designed for use in sheltered waters. What you see is what you get with him. Damn, he’s a shallow-draft vessel.”
Vicki recovered from another of his lethargic spins and replied, “We certainly live and work with interesting people.”
“Oh, wait a minute. Oh, good song. I like this here song! After midnight, we gonna let it all hang down,” sang Denver in perfect harmony with Eric Clapton. “I like this song, but I gotta turn it off now. Yeah, I gotta do it again, one more time today, tonight, this morning, whatever zone we’re in.”
Denver led Vicki over to the orange armchair and nodded at her to sit down. Then he picked up a maroon-colored guitar, leaned his back against the wall, and stroked chords as he slid down to his butt on the sandy floor.
“Life is so hard, life is so hard.” As he shut his eyes, it was as if his spirit took over, singing its song through Denver’s lips.
“I had it all, lost it all, it came, it went, it’s gone. Oh, hell, oh damn, oh hellish damn, life is so hard, life is so hard, l
ife is so bad, life is so bad. I had it all, then lost it all, it came, it went, and it’s gone. Oh, life is so hard, life is so hard, life is so bad, yes, life is so bad.”
Vicki nursed her drinks and listened to his songs until around three-thirty in the morning. She preferred this to anxiety attacks in bed, but couldn’t help but wonder why this pathetic individual sang such words over and over again. Perhaps she might bring him up as a case study back at school. She walked over to his tiny round window and glanced out at the same view she got from her own window: a frightening chunk of the mammoth Gulf of Mexico.
“You own a tiny lit-up portion of it too, of the Gulf of Mexico. We all do. We all own a part of it,” she declared. “That little section, or at least the view, belongs to you. What are you going to do with it? What am I going to do with mine?” she asked.
“I see. You’re one of those philosopher types when ya drink. Me? I get grumpy, so go philosophize in your own room. Party’s over in my room. I’ll pound on your door in the morning. There’ll be no oversleeping here.”
Denver took a final swig of Jim Beam from his plastic cup, and then tossed it into the closet.
“Denver, where’d you get a singing voice like that? It’s too good to be human.”
He walked over to the window and stared out. “I ain’t got a clue. I always sing. I love to sing.”
“Why is life so hard for you?”
“Damn, you like your questions, don’t ya?”
“Your song is sad.”
“Well, ya know, like I was saying, we’re all vessels. And gosh, there are so darn many sorts of vessels. You gotta figure out what sort of vessel you are in life, and I’m guessing you haven’t the slightest idea yet what you are. Why, me, I’m just a makeshift raft that keeps falling apart all the time. I’m in need of major repair.”
“What makes you a makeshift raft?”
“The kind of vessel you are is a personal thing, ya know. I mean, it’s who ya are in life. I don’t try to be a yacht or anything. I mean, I guess a makeshift raft could turn into a yacht with lots of effort and all, but ya know what? I’m a happy raft. I just need to keep myself together next time around.”
“Hmmm. Classifying people as vessels. It’s a brilliant concept, Denver. But you’re right. I have no idea what sort of vessel I am.”
He stared her directly in the eyes and pointed at her as if threatening her. “Don’t cruise any further until you know what sort of vessel you are. I can’t give ya any better advice than that, girlie.”
“Tell me why your song is so sad.”
“Why can’t I be sad? What, don’t worry-be happy? Listen, if something happens in life, and you feel sad, I’m not gonna tell ya to rent a funny movie. You know why? That movie’s gonna end and you’re gonna feel sad again. No, let yourself feel down. It’s okay to feel down. I’m sick of this world not letting people feel down. The theme of our world is be happy, but I think we all need to have days, weeks and sometimes months of feeling sad. I think it’s part of life, that’s what I think. We’re gonna go through dark water, and sometimes we can’t make it out in one day, it’s too big.”
“Have you been in dark water long?”
“Hey, it’s bedtime. That means lights out, music off, band getting grouchy.”
Denver made his way over to the lamp, first bumping into the wall, then turned out the light. In the dark, he knocked over a couple things and probably hurt himself in the process, but Vicki knew he’d pull himself together again in time for work in the morning.
“Thanks, Denver. That was the best drink I’ve ever had.”
CHAPTER TEN
FLORIDA’S SKY MODELED SEVERAL fashions. Some nights it looked starched and smooth, except for delicate rhinestones sprinkled across the heavens. Other nights it looked organized, with white clouds ironed into sheets of navy blue fabric. Then there were the sweet, light blue nights dotted in puffs of low-hanging clouds, and angry black-and-blue nights when darts of lightning ripped through wrinkled folds. On angry nights, inky colors stained the sky. The sky dressed as it liked, not minding the events or occasions below. It dressed as its Maker told it to, not caring to please anyone.
Several nights were spent sitting in the old lantern room on the top of the lighthouse, and the view from the top gave her the same thrill as taking the elevator to the top of the John Hancock Building in Chicago. Only instead of an overhead view of manmade skyscrapers, she got to see God’s skyscrapers. The towering palm trees formed a city of their own, but looking down at the tops of their heads sure beat looking down at rooftops.
She liked the breeze that made its way into the lantern room and understood why no one ever replaced the broken-out windows. She liked where she sat, her nest of privacy, and didn’t feel like sharing it with Howard, a different breed of bird. The sky spread itself sweetly in baby blues tonight, the colors of a nursery, and she liked sitting under the friendly sky. She stared at the light blue canopy overhead just as someone shook a pillowcase and a star fell out. She wanted to ask Howard if he saw it too, but Howard didn’t talk much. No one on the island knew much about the fifty-something man, just that he worked in the kitchen making real key-lime pie—the kind that is yellow, not green—and doing prep work and existing in his own happy-go-lucky world.
His hair grew like a spiral staircase around his head and down his neck, branching outward as it reached his shoulder, and in the dark of night resembled a bonsai in desperate need of pruning and wiring. He wore the same straw hat all the time, and his scruffy auburn beard grew like vines up his face. His conversations with the staff were limited because he spoke his own quirky language. Now, he sat in the lighthouse tower, way past dark, yet he sat with a paintbrush in hand, making strokes on a canvas.
“I wonder if we’ll see another shooting star,” Vicki finally said to break the silence, her voice like a coin dropping during a performance and rolling down the aisles. “But then again, you’re busy painting, so you probably didn’t see the last star.” After another minute of silence, she added, “Yet you’re painting on a dark night without a light, so I’m confused.”
“Hey, Dude, would be kind of cool, Dude, cool to see another.” He tossed a twig over the side of the lighthouse tower and watched it drop. Then he made quick strokes on his canvas.
She wanted to bring out a normal side to Howard and a simple question might do just that. “So, Howard, tell me, where are you from?”
“Whoa, Dude, I’m from the Creator.” Dude was his word of the day. Some days it was “yo, man,” and other days, “whopper,” Vicki had observed.
“I’m from the same one who created that there ladybug sitting on your shirt,” he continued. “I noticed it in the dark. I can almost see its red shellback and how it’s painted with little black dots—perfectly round. I couldn’t draw a perfect circle if I tried.”
He dabbed his finger in paint and dotted his canvas.
She picked the little creature off her shirt and tossed it over the side of the rail, wondering if he had escaped some cult. “So you, I, and the bug come from the same creator, Howard.”
“That, that, that, that’s right!” he said in a Tony the Tiger voice.
She wanted to tell him he was crazy, but not knowing the chemical status of his brain, she didn’t want to trigger some violent reaction. “Interesting,” she said.
Howard rubbed paint on his lips, kissed the canvas in front of him, and then wiped his lips on his tropical-flowered button-up shirt. “Who do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. An artist gone mad?” She laughed.
“No, but hey, Dude, let me tell you something about art,” he said. “We’re all artists. Yeah, that’s right. Every living person has the ability. Listen to me now. We wake every morning with a clean, white canvas before us. As the day progresses, we paint that canvas with the words we use, the gestures we make and the thoughts we think. And Dude, by the end of the day, our canvas might look horribly disturbing, or it might be a masterpiece. It�
��s all up to us, you see,” he continued. “We paint our own pictures. Now, who do you think I am?”
She didn’t want to answer. She wanted to think about her canvas. What color has it been for the past several months? What color is it on a daily basis? She couldn’t wait until morning to start with a fresh canvas, to paint something beautiful.
“Oh, come on now, don’t get serious on me. Who am I?” he asked again.
“I don’t know, Howard. Ah, a criminal on America’s Most Wanted?”
“Ho, ho, ho, no, no, no,” he laughed. “Try, try again.”
“Okay, my second guess. Uh, someone in the witness protection plan?”
“You are far off. I consider myself an antique. Old, ordinary, forgotten, and worth a fortune. But in the world according to Denver, I’m a caravel.”
“A caravel? What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a sailing ship, typical of Portugal and Spain. When I’m peeling potatoes, as I do almost three hours a day, I’m the Santa Maria. Sometimes when I paint, I’m the Niña, and right now, as I’m here talking with you, I’m the Pinta. Just depends on my mood and what I’m doing. I mean, how can we go through life as just one vessel? We’re constantly changing.”
“Oh, so you’re the three ships that Columbus took to America. Okay, and to think, the others on the island, they all told me you only talk jabberwocky. How dare they?” She laughed. “You’re a deep individual.”
“It’s not funny,” he said. “I didn’t come out here to get to know people or for them to get to know me.”
“So why are you here and why are you talking to me?” asked Vicki.
He paused for a moment. “I’m here for therapy, and you’re attempting to have an intelligent conversation, and I respect that.”
“Therapy?”
“Yes. I’m dying.”
“Oh.” There was a moment of silence. “I had no idea.”
Howard laughed. He laughed uncontrollably. He laughed until he cried. Eventually he wiped his eyes and smeared his canvas. “Oh please! We’re all dying, you see. Yes, your mother, your father, your siblings if you have any, your friends, every one of us on this island, on this planet; we’re all dying. Some people are already dead, and others have never lived at all. We were born to die, and every single day of life means one less day of our life.”
Sanibel Scribbles Page 13
