Sea Creatures

by Susanna Daniel

  The Zodiac had a two-seater captain’s bench where I leaned and Frankie sat with his legs dangling. I pushed forward on the throttle as a Jet Ski raced by—too fast for the canal, I thought—and the Zodiac rocked on its waves. I signed to Frankie: Hold on.

  The Coral Gables waterway was dredged in 1925. Back then, gondoliers ferried residents out to the bay down the eight miles of snaking green canal. Now the homes that lined the banks were Mediterranean in style, the nearby streets named for places in Spain—Seville, Andalusia, Granada—and lined with banyans that fractured the sunlight into spires. Some canal-front homes, like Lidia’s, were modest, outdated ranches with large backyards and terra-cotta tiles and sunken great rooms, called Florida rooms, their stucco exteriors painted hibiscus colors. But many of the old homes had been razed and replaced or swallowed by additions. The newer homes were similar in style but strangers in soul, some pretty and some grotesque. Along the canal, each lot was belted by a pier and a boathouse or a slip. Many bulwarks, Lidia’s included, were crumbling, and they were all marbled in green algae and pocked with butterscotch snails as big as Ping-Pong balls. Between many of the homes, swampy mangroves or sea grape trees rose like haphazard fences, sending dark roots into the water to claw for space. There were boats at most of the piers, and several of these were gleaming yachts with broad white hulls and no obvious signs of use. They blocked the sky as we passed beneath them. I drove slowly. We were passed twice, once by a lone man in a cabin cruiser and once by a little Mako so crowded with teenagers that it rode frighteningly low in the water.

  The course of a life will shift—really shift—many times over the years. But rarely will there be a shift that you can feel gathering in the distance like a storm, rarely will you notice the pressure drop before the skies open. That morning, as Frankie and I had plodded from errand to errand, led around by the hermit’s list like animals on leashes, I’d known on some level that this was one of those times. I would like to believe that I wouldn’t again make the mistake of walking in blindly. Then again, blindly is the only way I would have walked in.

  In the clear light of afternoon, the canal was transformed. The bay opened not like an unfurling serpent but like a feat of engineering, cleanly and without fuss. I followed the channel markers and kept our speed low, but the water was a little rough and without some momentum we rose too high and fell too hard. I sped up, and the bow bucked and planed and the ride smoothed out. The jostling waves were mild compared to those of the open ocean, beyond the continental shelf, and after several minutes, Frankie loosened his grip on the bench and I started to enjoy the sunshine and breeze and blue expanse of the water. The bay was sparsely dotted by boats in every direction. Behind us, my hometown gathered itself neatly on the shoreline, as if seeing us off. To the south wound the muddy green shoreline, and to the north rose the silver spires of downtown. A milky span of bridge linked the mainland to Key Biscayne.

  The success of piloting midway across the bay buoyed me. I no longer felt unwise. I felt brave, as if I were the kind of mother who does not think, when her child has a nosebleed, of the potentially fatal ailments the nosebleed might augur. I felt like the mother who hands her child a tissue and tells him to wash his hands. At some point, I looked over my shoulder, and what I saw tripped my heartbeat: the yawing mouth of the canal had been sealed by distance.

  It was ten minutes before Stiltsville—fourteen homes built on pilings in the middle of the bay—took shape along the horizon. From that distance, the houses resembled toy blocks on pins. Two channels ran through Stiltsville, and shallower grooves laced the northeastern quadrant of Biscayne Bay. From above, in aerial photos I’ve seen, these grooves look exactly as if a giant raked its fingers across the seabed. I knew from Lidia that the hermit’s house was in the far channel, shingled in weathered gray cedar, with an exterior staircase that jutted out over the water before angling back to the dock, like a crooked elbow.

  It was Monday, and most of Stiltsville’s weekend residents were back on dry land. The place was empty of boats. From a distance, it had seemed as if the houses bundled together, but in actuality each stood alone on its own piece of narrow shoal, shouting distance from the closest neighbor. When you build a house beyond the edge of a continent, you’re not looking to make friends. We passed a light blue house with an L-shaped dock, all the windows shuttered and a gate across the staircase. Next was a lemon-colored house with a wraparound porch, and, on the opposite shoal, a light pink house with plastic owls rooted to every dock piling.

  The hermit’s house was next. Lidia had mentioned that it would be the only one with the windows and gate open but no boat at the dock—still, the sight was jarring. Each house was a kind of island, yes, but especially the one inhabited by a person with no means of getting off. The Mansard roof was flat and thickly shingled, giving the house a top-heavy, vaguely French appearance. I approached slowly, the Zodiac’s engine stuttering, intending to give the hermit some warning. Like the others, his house was raised above the water by cement pilings, so I could see underneath it to the open water beyond.

  We reached the dock, which snaked back and forth toward the house like a line at an amusement park. There was a brief, alarming moment when I forgot how to cut the engine, but then I turned the key and that was that. I signed to Frankie to stay put, then stepped onto the dock with the spring line and secured it to a cleat. He watched me, then slipped off the captain’s bench and stepped over to the gunwale. His arms came up and I lifted him onto the dock. When I turned—I suppose I knew this would be the case—there was a man standing on the upstairs porch wearing a faded gray T-shirt and jeans with the cuffs rolled up. He stood with both palms on the porch railing, one bare foot perched on top of the other, as if there was all the time in the world for greeting, and for the moment he was content to stare down at us, these two strangers trespassing on his island.

  4

  THE FIRST THING I SAID to the hermit was: “You’re very precise.” I handed over his list, items crossed out, exceptions noted.

  He was slim with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, only two or three inches taller than I was. His large gray eyes folded at the corners and he was due for a shave. He didn’t meet my eyes.

  “I used to try to be easygoing,” he said, rubbing his chin with his thumb. “It didn’t work out.”

  I told him my name and introduced Frankie, laying a hand on Frankie’s head, which Frankie shook off. The man told us his name—Charlie Hicks—then stepped into the Zodiac and started hefting boxes onto the dock. The muscles in his forearms tightened as he lifted. I signed to Frankie—Stay there—and stepped down to help, and within a few minutes the Zodiac’s deck was bare.

  Charlie pulled a small plastic bag of lures from the pile and held it out to Frankie. “Can you carry this for me, please?” he said quietly.

  Frankie nodded solemnly and clutched the lures to his chest, then followed Charlie toward the staircase. I grabbed a couple of bags and hurried to catch up. Frankie took the stairs deliberately, and Charlie glanced back every few steps to check on him. We emerged onto a broad wraparound porch rimmed by a white wooden railing. Each segment of the railing was comprised of four horizontal two-by-fours that angled slightly toward the water, like oversize blinds. The bottommost rung was about three feet from the porch floor, which left plenty of room, I thought, for a toddler to fall through. In one corner was a metal toolbox, a hammer and jar of nails beside it. I kept careful watch over Frankie, wondering again if this was such a great idea.

  We dropped the bags on the linoleum floor of the kitchen and went back downstairs. Again, Charlie handed Frankie something of his own to carry. Frankie took great care. I fretted that we were seconds away from some drama that would end the whole enterprise. Frankie might drop something into the water or tumble down the stairs or off the dock. It looked to me like the water beneath the house and surrounding the dock was only four or five feet deep, which was somewhat reassuring. We made several trips, Charlie leading a
nd Frankie close behind, eager to be handed his next assignment. Each trip, I took in a little of the house’s interior: sagging sectional sofa in faded gray corduroy, plywood coffee table covered in books and magazines, Formica breakfast bar rimmed by four cracked red vinyl stools, faded oval braided rug in the living room, wood-paneled walls painted a chalky off-white. Above the kitchen window hung a wooden clock in the shape of a knobby ship’s wheel, the hands frozen in place. On the walls of the living room were half a dozen framed paintings, all Florida landscapes of a similar, realistic style. In one, the long neck of a wind-blown palm tree curved over a pale beach. In another, a stately bright poinciana shaded a dirt road. In a third, an anhinga took flight through dense wetlands beneath dark clouds ringed by silvery sunlight. Off the main room of the house was a brief hallway and three closed doors.

  When we were done, Frankie scrambled onto the sofa and looked through a large window at the open ocean. I noticed a canvas bag on the seat beside him, overstuffed with mounds of yarn pierced by a pair of knitting needles.

  “Frankie, come back,” I said.

  “He’s fine there,” said Charlie.

  There were two large coolers stacked beneath a window in the kitchen. Charlie started filling them with the ice I’d brought.

  “Did you build this house?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “My uncle.” He washed his hands at the sink. “Did you have time for lunch?” he said without looking up. For a moment I thought he might not have been talking to me. “Is the boy hungry?”

  Frankie spun around and waved both arms—this was how he signaled me—and signed: Banana.

  We hadn’t eaten. “I brought snacks,” I said to Frankie, signing as I spoke.

  “It’s late,” said Charlie. “We’ll have a meal.” He looked up quickly, then away again. He was so wary of making eye contact that I watched him unheeded. He had the compact, stocky-legged body of a wrestler or swimmer, and his face was square in shape and sun-worn, deeply lined across the forehead and around the mouth and eyes. His straight hair was brown with a lot of white at the temples, parted messily. His lips were thin and pale, his mouth set in concentration. I would have guessed he was older than he was, older than my father.

  “We don’t want to put you out,” I said. “Tell me what I can do.”

  “Sit down.” He pointed at a low wooden armchair with leather cushions. “That’s the comfortable one.”

  I brought a bottle of water, now warm, to Frankie. Boat, Frankie signed, pointing through the window at a distant ship, smokestacks branching into the sky.

  “Cruise ship,” I said. I didn’t know the sign.

  Charlie opened and closed the refrigerator, putting away groceries, but no light went on inside.

  “Is there electricity?” I said.

  “Generators,” he said, motioning downstairs, where I’d noticed a small room in one corner beneath the house, across from the stairway.

  “Water?” I said.

  “There’s a rainwater tank,” he said. “The commode flushes, the sink works. But drink only bottled water, please.”

  He filled a glass from a gallon jug of water and placed it on the coffee table in front of me. Then he brought down a tray from a cabinet and started pulling items from the coolers, chopping and arranging them in white bowls: strawberries, squares of pineapple, green olives, hunks of French bread, two kinds of cheese, carrots.

  When he was done, he moved a stool from the breakfast bar to the sink, then said Frankie’s name to get his attention. “Come wash your hands,” he said.

  Frankie complied, cupping the wedge of soap Charlie handed him, then taking a long time to dry his hands on a faded green dish towel. He raised both arms toward Charlie before climbing down from the stool, and before I could step forward to help, Charlie had lifted Frankie under the arms and set him on his feet. Frankie made his way back to the sofa. Charlie turned on a radio that sat on the ledge above the sink, and from it came a scratchy thread of classical music. The tray he’d prepared reminded me of a kaleidoscope, all the colors distinct but nestled tightly. He sat on the sofa and handed me a plate.

  “Eat,” he said, offering the bread. His eyes landed briefly on mine. To Frankie, he said, “You, too.”

  “This is lovely,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Frankie bounced down onto his rump and ambled to the table, eyes wide. Charlie chewed slowly, glancing at Frankie, who ignored his plate and went from bowl to bowl, choosing each bite. After eating his first chunk of pineapple—it wasn’t a fruit I tended to buy—he emitted the softest sigh of pleasure. This gave me a little thrill, but I kept my cool. He pointed to the bowl of pineapple and signed, What name?

  “Pineapple,” I said. “We’ll look it up when we get home.”

  And the fish, he signed.

  “And the jellyfish,” I said.

  Charlie watched us but didn’t say anything.

  I said to Charlie, “Henry wanted to make sure you’re okay with one of the reds he used.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.

  Maybe it was the heat, but I felt no urge to stoke conversation. The air was still. In the distance came the buzz of a boat engine, but then it passed. Gulls squawked. After a while, all that was left on the tray were the stubby green heads of the strawberries and a small mound of wrinkled olive pits. I offered to clean up. Charlie shrugged by way of agreement. As I worked, Frankie dropped to the linoleum and army-crawled to the open doorway, where sunlight spread across the floor. He placed his hands in the patch of light, keeping his fingers inside its boundaries, then rearranged them and did it again. This was the kind of thing that could occupy him for long stretches. Charlie watched him.

  I said, “I was told it was no problem if he came along.”

  “It’s fine,” said Charlie, wiping his face. To Frankie, he said, “You’re what—four?”

  Frankie held up two fingers, then corrected himself by adding one more.

  “I see,” said Charlie. He brought his hands—they were thick-fingered, nails neatly trimmed—to his knees and rubbed the worn denim. “I gather you don’t like a lot of talky talk.”

  Frankie nodded, then shook his head.

  “I don’t much care for it, either,” said Charlie.

  I dried the last of the bowls and put them away, then returned to the living room, where Frankie now crouched over a laminated fishing map of Biscayne Bay. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. In awkward situations, I called on my manners; this was my mother in me. “You were nice to feed us,” I said.

  Charlie stood and crossed his arms against his chest. “I hate this beginning part,” he said. “Every time, all uphill.”

  “You’ve had a lot of assistants?”

  “A handful. The last fellow was with me almost a year. You won’t last that long.”

  I couldn’t read his tone. “Probably not.”

  He went to the corner and brought back an empty white cooler. “Keep this. Every time, bring me ice. As much as you can handle.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  “And take away the trash. I try to keep it to a minimum, but there’s always some.”

  I went to the kitchen and pulled the bag from the trash can. He took it from me, saying, “You’ll need a library card if you don’t have one already. And you’ll need to get my mail from the post office once a week, I don’t care what day. There’s a Friday list—you have it already? Did you talk to Riggs?”

  “Not yet.”

  He went through a hallway door and came out again, closing the door behind him. He handed me a piece of paper, another photocopied list. “I have a project. We’ll start Friday, if you can spare a few hours. If you want to get paid, I’d call Riggs right away.”

  I scanned the list. “You eat a lot of fruit.”

  “I was in the navy,” he said. “There’s a history of scurvy.”

  I assumed this was a joke, but he gave no indication.
I had questions—I would have liked to know how often I’d be coming, what exactly I’d be doing, and how much I’d be paid—but the way he avoided my eyes discouraged me from asking. I signed to Frankie: Let’s go.

  Charlie followed us downstairs and lifted Frankie into the boat, then dropped the garbage bag into the well. I stuck out my hand and Charlie shook it. “Friday?” I said.

  “Before noon, please.”

  I turned to get into the boat, but he put a hand on my elbow. He spoke in a low, rough voice. “One more thing. The boy’s vest—it’s too big. He’ll need one that fits. Don’t bring him back otherwise.” He put up his hands to indicate the obvious: we were in the middle of open water. The current carried on beneath our feet. The porch and the stairs were nominally railed, the dock not at all. One could step off and be swallowed. In addition to a new vest, he would need more swim lessons.

  “Got it,” I said.

  Charlie handled the boat lines, then stood on the dock with his hands in his pockets while I started the engine. At the mouth of the channel, I looked back, and he was out of sight. The water was smooth and the sun high. In the distance, the Miami skyline was a low cluster of sun-washed buildings, insubstantial as watercolors. As we neared, the shoreline parted, revealing our path. I throttled down and peered into the dark hollows of the mangrove roots, searching for an ibis or heron or turtle to show Frankie. A footprint-shaped swirl rose in the water off the port side.

  Look, I signed to Frankie, pointing with my index and middle fingers from my eyes toward the water.

  He jumped down from the bench and I put the boat into neutral. Together we watched the manatee’s dome break the surface. Its molded-clay face appeared for a long moment, then it sloughed past, tail waving in slow motion.