Captiva df-4

by Randy Wayne White

  A gusty sound of laughter burst from her lips—an emotional release. She said, "No one would ever say that you have kind eyes. But you're kind. I used to watch you around the marina, and you seemed ... so remote. Like you're there, but you're really someplace else. When I first saw you? That's what I'm talking about. You actually seemed kind of scary."

  "I scare myself," I put in helpfully. Didn't add: Beware the big dumb shit.

  "But then I saw the way you treated that poor man. From the explosion? And the way you are with the others around the marina. Mostly, though, I know you're kind because you let me do all the observations today, and I know—don't tell me otherwise, either—I know you really wanted to do it."

  "Baloney," I said. "I took advantage of you. I lazed around on the beach and did other childish things while you worked. Which is why I'm paying the tab." The food was coming. I was more grateful for the opportunity to change the subject than the chance to eat.

  We ate in silence for a time. Good raw conch salad, good sandwich. When we did talk, I was careful to keep the topic within safe borders. Fish, biology, running. She spoke of trying to lose weight—I could hear the frustration in her voice. These are modern times. All men and women are required to fight hard to maintain the preferred Prime-Time American uniform: thin. But it's harder on the women because they must not only be thin, they must be fashion model-gaunt. Television commercials, like certain poisons, have to have a cumulative effect. So Janet was one of the ones who battled daily in an attempt to match the images they saw in the mirror with the images pressed upon them by the television screen.

  As she picked at her Caesar salad, she said things like, "If I just had more willpower . . . exercise till I drop, and things still don't seem to change much . . . have you heard of that new powder diet?"

  I said things such as "Genetic coding . . . the effective storage system of wandering Nordic tribes . . . think in terms of fitness, not fat."

  When we were finished, I walked her outside toward my old Chevy pickup truck. I'd had the engine overhauled recently, the brake pads and brake lines replaced, then had the truck painted a very handsome—I

  believed—shade of navy gray. I liked the pearlike shape of the cab, and the fact that its six-cylinder engine was so simple that even I could work on it. The color seemed to match the functionality of the truck.

  That was what I was explaining to her—why I maintained an old truck rather than buy a new one—when, as I reached for the passenger's-side door handle, Janet suddenly took me by the elbow and said, "Let's walk." She used her chin to motion toward the beach across the road.

  So we walked. It was a good night for it: blustery January sea wind pushing surf onto the beach, making a surging, waterfall roar. Black night with a new moon drifting down the western sky; winter stars gauging the velocity of scudding clouds. Tropical Mexico and the jungles of Yucatan were somewhere out there, beyond the far range of horizon. But here, on Sanibel, a Canadian wind culled sand from the beach and stung us.

  We were walking south, away from Blind Pass. Probably walked five minutes or so before she pulled my arm tight to her—an attempt to conceal herself, I sensed, rather than a gesture of affection—and she said in a steady, controlled voice, "I want to tell you about what happened. It would be good for me to talk about it, they . . . That's what I've been told. But it's not easy, and I want you to understand that I'm getting better. I don't want you to think I'm the kind who goes around whining about poor me me me. But there are things—I know this now—there are things that you can't keep bottled up inside."

  I said, "Then you probably need to talk about it."

  She sighed. I could feel her body shudder involuntarily. "Okay, what happened was, the reason I left Ohio was ... I had what you would call a nervous breakdown. Those words—nervous breakdown—you hear them all the time, so they don't seem like much. You know, so-and-so had a nervous breakdown? But when you go through it . . . it's not so simple. I was convinced that I really had gone . . . gone completely insane. Only I hadn't. The doctors, it took them a long time to convince me. I spent nearly a year under their care, and it was several months before I finally began to believe that I wasn't really crazy, I was just reacting to . . . what I'd been through. I was suffering severe depression and what they called anxiety attacks. These things, the attacks, would seem to just descend on me—in the classroom, at the store, anyplace. Like poison gas almost, and it was the most terrifying experience. . . ."

  She paused, trying to wrestle her emotions into control. I said, "You don't have to go on with this. You became ill. Human beings are susceptible to illness—there are emotional viruses just as there are physical viruses. So now you're in Florida recuperating, and things are going better—"

  She tapped my arm, hushing me. "That's not it," she said. "I'm avoiding it again. I started to tell you what happened, and that's what I'm going to do." She cleared her throat. . . made a brave attempt to continue, then completely broke down. I patted her, I made little clucking noises. She told me what she could in little spurts. Over the next hour and several miles of beach, the whole story came out. She kept saying, "I know worse things have happened to people."

  Sadly, it was true. But not much worse.

  As early as grade school, Janet had known that she was not, and would never be, drop-dead attractive. But she grew up with enough good people, and enough self-esteem, that it didn't matter much. At one point she said, "You've seen those women—women who are smart and talented but, because of the way they look, they end up with men no one else would have? I wasn't going to let that happen to me."

  She didn't. She dated occasionally, but not much. What she did was wait . . . and wait . . . and wait until just the right man came along. Four years ago, he finally did. His name was Roger Mueller. Roger worked for some state agency, and he was assigned to the northwest section of Ohio. Roger was good at his work. He also played bluegrass music—even made his own instruments—and had personal interests that were far-ranging. He liked to read. He liked to laugh. True, he was no screen idol. What he was was an average-looking but very kind and decent man. Janet fell madly in love with Roger; he fell madly in love with her.

  "From the moment we met, it was like we were meant to be together," she told me. "Roger felt the same way. All those years, he'd been waiting for just the right person to come along too. Then, to finally find each other . . ."

  They married. They bought a small farmhouse north of town, which they completely remodeled. Did all the work themselves after dinner, on weekends. Because they both wanted to start a family, part of the remodeling included a nursery just off the master bedroom. The first year it didn't happen, but the second year it did. Janet was pregnant. "Up to that point, I'd had a good life," she said. "Pretty well-adjusted and happy. Then to find Roger and get pregnant, too. . . . I'd never imagined that kind of happiness."

  And that's when the big hammer fell.

  Roger was driving home late after work one snowy night. On the same road, coming from the opposite direction, was a woman who had no license because of her long history of alcohol abuse.

  All that Janet could remember from that night, and the week that followed, was a highway patrolman coming to the door . . . then a nurse crying with her, at her bedside, because of the miscarriage.

  Janet tried to resume her teaching duties, but couldn't function in the classroom. She took sick leave, but couldn't function at home. Finally, she ended up in a hospital, then a mental health facility.

  "Learning how to deal with the panic attacks," she said, "was the thing that finally convinced me I wasn't completely crazy. When I'd feel one coming I'd keep reminding myself what the doctors told me: The attacks were unpleasant as hell, but they were harmless. All that fear was being manufactured by my own brain. I didn't have to control it. All I had to do was learn to wait it out, and it would leave. That's when the attacks began to go away, and I began to get better."

  We were walking north now, quartering i
nto wind. Janet had cried herself dry. Her voice was weary, but solid; it had an even timbre that I liked. The woman was a survivor. She would be okay.

  "I came to Florida because they suggested I have a complete change of scenery," she said. "They said I was well enough for it. I'd had enough solid weeks in a row. Buying the houseboat ... I don't know—living on a boat was something I'd wanted to do since I was a girl. I had the money from the insurance, so . . ." She shrugged. "It still isn't easy. I feel myself getting scared sometimes, all the old fears coming back. But I've learned to ignore it, and it doesn't last. I'm glad I ended up in Dinkin's Bay. The people there are . . . such a funny little group." She chuckled. "I think the other night— at Perbcot?—was the first time I'd really laughed in a long, long time. But the best thing . . . the best I've felt since it all happened, was taking notes on your tarpon today. It was all so . . . focused, watching those tarpon ... so analytical that I didn't have time to feel any emotion. You know? Those tarpon, the way they behave. Every movement is so strong and sure. Perfectly alive, no regrets, no fears. Right there in the tank, living and so damn . . . pure.

  We had been walking side by side. Now she laced her arm through mine. "What happened to Roger and our . . . our family . . . was a terrible, senseless, tragic thing. I know that, yet there's nothing in the world I can do to change it. But Roger was no quitter, and neither am I."

  I said, "I think you're going to be fine, Janet."

  "Maybe. No, I will be okay. I don't let myself think about the future. I take it one day at a time. I wake up in the morning and try to think good thoughts. Do the same when I go to bed at night. I miss him. I miss them both. It will be a long, long time before I'll be able to get involved with anyone else emotionally or physically." She looked up at me and added quickly, "That's not bitterness, Doc. It's what I know is best for me. I'm going to live a constructive life. As soon as I can, I'll go back to work. I miss my kids. For now, though"—she put a fist to her mouth and stifled a yawn—"what I need now is a lot of time. And probably the same thing you need after listening to all my blubbering—some sleep."

  We walked on in silence. For some reason, I started thinking of this looney old uncle of mine, Tucker Gatrell, who lives down in the Everglades. Tuck had an old gator-poaching and drinking partner by the name of Joseph Egret. It was Joseph who once told me that life was scary enough to make a sled dog shiver. How an Everglades Indian knew anything about sled dogs is impossible to say. But Joseph was right. I couldn't relate to Janet's account of psychological problems—Tomlinson often claims that emotion is the only quality I lack as a human being. However, I could relate to her sense of loss, and I was impressed by her determination. The good ones do not always die young; neither do they ever, ever quit. They keep finding ways to create and construct, struggling all the while to endure, because we are, above all else, a species of builders—though it seems that more and more aberrant destroyers live among us.

  Janet was one of the good ones. The good ones always find a way.

  When we got to the truck, I leaned down and kissed her on the top of the head. Told her, "Just don't be late for work in the morning."

  Chapter 12

  It was a little after eight p.m. when Hannah Smith arrived to get Tomlinson's gear. I was in the lab, futzing around with a box of old slide plates that I had collected over the years. Some people keep scrapbooks; I acquire slides. One of my favorites is of a newly hatched tarpon that is still in the eellike leptocephalus stage. Beneath the lowest power of my Wolfe stereomicro-scope, the tarpon resembled a thread of translucent ribbon that was attached to a set of dragon jaws spiked with needlelike teeth.

  If tarpon continued to grow in that form, if they did not metamorphose into an entirely different animal, no human being would have the courage to go near the water.

  I had the goose-necked lamp on, clamped to the stainless steel lab table. In the next room, I had a new selection of Gregorian chants on the stereo. As I tinkered with the slides, I also |J deliberated over my decision to provide Ron Jackson with whatever information I could gather. I had agreed to help him, of course. I am not the Rotarian type; one who attends meetings, then volunteers for good causes. Nor am I a political animal. My previous work left me cold on politics. But I do believe that if you live in a community, you are obligated to contribute what you can. Jackson's offer was an opportunity to play a small part. Maybe I could help, maybe I couldn't, but I would try.

  I had already spoken with Felix and Jeth about their armed patrols. They were tired of doing it anyway, they said, and agreed that it was a bad idea. They said they would try to talk some sense into Nels, and the other guides around the island.

  Other than that, I had provided Jackson with the first names of the two troublemakers I knew about: Julie and J.D., whereabouts unknown. Gave him the name of a Sulphur Wells man that I remembered Hannah mentioning in association with boat thefts: Kemper Waits. Also told him about the sportfishermen in the big-wheeled truck who, presumably, had tried to vandalize my aquarium.

  It wasn't much; I told him I would try to do more. In return, Jackson had promised to ask the Sanibel police to keep a close eye on my place.

  So I was sitting there mulling over different methods I could use to gather information. Legal methods, I had to keep reminding myself. I was so involved with the novelty of that, plus my slides, that I had almost . . . almost. . . forgotten that Hannah was coming. Which is when I heard the outboard whine of an approaching boat. Heard the boat slow to idle, then felt my house jolt slightly as the boat swung up against the pilings of the dock. Heard a twangy, alto woman's voice call: "You coming out, Ford? Or you want me to come in and get you?"

  I turned on the big deck spotlight, pushed my way out the screen door . . . and there was Hannah. She was wearing yellow Farmer John-style rain pants and a damp green T-shirt. The pants bib was cinched up with suspenders. Her black hair was frazzled by the wind, and she had used a red ribbon to tie it back into a ponytail. She stood toward the bow of her little boat, one arm thrown lazily over the PVC tube she used to steer it, and was grinning up at me: wind-burnished skin, dark eyes, white teeth, creases of dimples running from cheek to chin.

  "Tell you the truth," she called up, "I liked the way you were dressed better last time." Referring to my outdoor shower.

  "Are you always so dirty-minded, Hannah? Or just with me?"

  "Not always," she answered wryly. "And not just with you." She was tying her skiff to the pilings; using a very simple quick-release knot that very few boaters seemed to know anymore. Stood there for a moment, hands on hips, before saying, "I've already had a pretty good night. You want to see?"

  I clumped down the steps and swung onto her boat. She kept things neat. There was a wooden push-pole stowed along the plywood-thin gunwale, a bailing can, and a couple of bottles of outboard motor oil wedged into the stringers so they wouldn't bounce around while she was running. An orange gas can was placed out of the way, just behind the tunnel of engine well. Pretty new engine: ninety-horsepower Yamaha. Toward the stern was a big fiberglassed icebox. Astern of the box was a bundle of nylon gill net. The net's brown foam plastic floats were buried among the folds of translucent nylon, like Christmas ornaments.

  "I caught a pretty good mess," she told me as she hefted up the lid off the icebox. "About eighty head of blacks, and maybe a dozen silvers."

  I looked into the box to see a slag heap of cobalt-silver fish, most of them close to a foot and a half long. The black mullet—known around the world as the striped mullet—is a strange-looking creature. It has a blunt, bullet-shaped head and big saucer eyes. It is as aesthetically pleasing as an old Nash Rambler automobile. Because a mullet feeds mostly on detritus and other vegetable matter, it has a gizzardlike stomach that pre-grinds food before passing it into a freakishly long digestive tract.

  Earlier in the century, a Florida court once ruled that the mullet, because it had a "gizzard," was actually a bird—thus freeing a commercial fisherman who
was charged with fishing out of season. The incident is but one measure of what a strange fish the mullet is.

  As I peered into the box, Hannah said, "I did a strike off Cape Haze and did okay. You know that point just before you go into Turtle Bay?"

  That was a little north of my normal cruising area, but I was familiar with it.

  "I took most of them there. Then I struck this little sandbank I know near White Rock and got the rest. I'd have more, but I know Tommy needs his things, so I run down here to see you." Big smile. "Didn't want to get here so late I had to haul you out of bed. That wouldn't be polite."

  Tommy? It took me a moment to translate: Tomlinson.

  I told her, "We don't want to keep Tommy waiting. I've got his stuff sacked, ready to go."

  "You going to invite me in?"

  I hesitated, then said, "Sure."

  She closed the ice locker and followed me up the stairs to the house. Oohed and aahed at my fish tank. Asked me questions about the telescope—"That planet with the rings around it. Can you see those?"— then focused her attention on the bookshelves. Because I have the volumes arranged alphabetically, by author, she had to get down on hands and knees to search. I knew what she was looking for—one of Tomlinson's books. But instead of helping, I stood there and watched. It was hard not to watch: big woman in slick yellow pants, haunches poked up into the air, the pendulum swing of loose breasts against damp T-shirt. She seemed to fill the room; filled it with her size, and with a musky odor of girl-sweat, fish, strong soap, and salt water. Felt the urge to change the music on the tape player—get rid of that damn Gregorian chant stuff—and offer her some of that finely aged wine in my refrigerator. i

  "Here's one!" She had one of Tomlinson's books. Was opening it as she stood. "Even got his picture in the back. Isn't he a cutey?" Now she was leafing to the front. "Whew, this one's a little heavy, though, huh? I've only come across four or five words that I understand."