'Karen Malloy's dead!'
'I know that! So how the fuck can you be engaged to her?'
'I'm not! Christ Almighty, Dan, what're you on?'
'I'm not on anything!'
'Patricia told me you were seeing a psychiatrist, but I didn't think you were a fucking mental!'
'I'm not a — Jesus . . .'
I slapped the wheel in frustration. I took a deep breath. I tried to concentrate on the road. Someone was singing on the radio about taking their love to town. 'On the plane,' I said as calmly as possible, 'you said your fiancée was Karen Malloy.'
'I did not.'
'You did.'
'Why would I say that?'
'I don't know why you would say that. But you did. I swear to God.'
'Karen Malloy?'
'Karen Malloy.'
'But Karen Malloy's dead.'
'Yes, I think we've established that.'
'Then why would I say she was my fiancée?'
'I really don't know. Because you're barking.'
'Because you're barking.'
We both stared angrily at the road. I wanted to stop the car, pull him out and hit him with a spanner. I wanted to . . .
. . . and then I heard it. A low chuckle. He kept his eyes on the road, and his face straight, but the chuckle was coming from way down in his stomach, like he'd swallowed a frog and it was reading a joke-book. The dull angry stare began to morph into a moist shine, the chuckle grew louder and a crease began to creep across his brow. Slowly his head turned towards me.
'Gotcha,' he said.
I glared at him.
'Got-cha,' he half-sang.
'You bastard.'
He laughed and slapped the dashboard. 'I fucking got you! I burned you up!'
'You fucker.'
'The thought that I got to her, that I had sex with her, that she chose me over you.'
'You wanker.'
'And even though you knew she was dead, the remotest possibility that she might not be, that she had somehow survived having her legs cut off and then being cremated, for Christ's sake, the tiniest microscopic thought that she'd somehow pulled through in order to have sex with me, it's really been burning you up, hasn't it?'
'No,' I said.
'Liar!'
'Fuck off!'
'Liar liar pants on fire!'
'Grow up, Davie.'
'I had her — you didn't, I had her — you didn't!'
'Fuck you, arsehole.' I shook my head. I chewed my lip.
'Gotcha.'
He had fucking got me. The bastard. I'd get him. I'd get him back, with bells on. I fucking would.
'Dan?'
'What?' 'A word of advice.'
'Fuck off.'
'Okay.'
Another mile.
'What then?'
'I think we missed our turn.'
We'd managed to make our way onto the 75, but it was a blessing in disguise really because we were able to follow its loop back round to the 275 and cross onto Long Key and St Pete's Beach via the Sunshine Skyway, a huge finger of a toll-bridge which straddled Tampa Bay and gave us epic views of the sea and ships and beaches beyond. It served to settle us both down, for it was our first real glimpse of majestic America.
'Fan-tastic,' Davie whispered.
'Brilliant,' I added.
'Epic,' he said.
'Just like a movie.'
To mark the occasion Davie produced a large bag of crunchy M&Ms and shook it at me. I hesitated for a moment. My name is Dan Starkey, and I am a chocoholic. He opened the bag, I put my hand out and he poured. I squeezed about fifty of them into my mouth at once. He set the bag on the dash. We crunched for a while, then washed them down with warm Diet Pepsi. Life doesn't get much better. But still, I had to know.
'Did you . . . you know? Ever?'
'With Karen Malloy?' I nodded. 'Of course not. She wouldn't touch me with a barge-pole. Or you, for that matter.' 'I saw her the day she died.'
'Did you?'
'More or less saw it happen. That's why I'm so touchy about it.'
'Oh. Christ. Sorry. Didn't know. I was only raking.'
'Yeah. Well. Forget about it.'
'She was gorgeous though.'
'She was. Even more gorgeous all grown-up.'
'I know. She got better. She was going out with some bank manager, lucky bastard.'
'Dead right there. Lucky bastard. So who was she then?'
'Who was who?'
'Your fiancée.'
Davie shrugged.' Not a patch on Karen Malloy, that's for sure.'
'So why'd she run off?'
'Who said she ran off?'
'Your mum, for one.'
'Yeah, well.' He turned a little in his seat and his eyes flitted out over the water.
'You don't want to talk about it?'
He nodded. Which was confusing.
'You do want to talk about it, or you don't?'
'Don't,' he said quietly. 'Not now.'
'Fair enough.'
He was a pain in the neck, but I had to feel a bit sorry for him. I'd been through the mill a few times, but at least I'd found true love at a relatively early age. I'd lost it, found it, lost it over the years, but it had always been there, if not exactly within my grasp then certainly not much beyond it. But as far as I could determine, it had always eluded Davie. Now as he sat staring out over the water, a faraway look in his eyes, I knew that he had been hurt, hurt badly. Here was a man who'd been given his first taste of reciprocal love at the age of forty; who'd been brave enough to grab it with both hands, and then been burned for his trouble. He deserved a few moments of quiet contemplation.
'So, was she any good in bed?' I asked. 'Was she a ride?'
There were four or five different resort communities on Long Key, but Davie was quite specific about our destination: the Hotel del Mar on St Pete's Beach. We came off the 275 and crossed the Pinellas Bayway toll-bridge then turned right onto the town's main drag. Initial impressions were good, although ultimately deceptive. The first hotel we came to off the bridge was a huge Spanish-themed castle which flourished under the nickname of 'The Pink Palace'. It was actually called the Don CeSar, and it dominated the skyline. We weren't even within spitting distance of it, yet we could smell the money. Cars were queuing up to avail themselves of its valet parking, international flags, fluttered in the sea breeze, and our car groaned with embarrassment.
'You sure know how to treat a guy,' I said.
'Yeah, dream on,' said Davie and directed me on down the strip. It appeared that the Don CeSar was the only building of significance or distinction in the whole area. It went: hotel, hotel, burger joint, hotel, ice-cream parlour, hotel, McDonald's, hotel, hotel for about three miles, leading all the way to Downtown, which wasn't much more than a jumble of antique shops, Chinese buffets and drugstores.
'Well,' I said, 'this looks like fun.'
We managed to miss the Hotel del Mar on our first pass, but found it quickly enough on our second. It was the flashing neon sign and FREE — DULT MOVIES that attracted our attention. It was more of a motel than a hotel. We parked the car and looked around the facilities before we went to check in. Correction: we looked around the facility. The facility was the pool and it either hadn't been cleaned in weeks, or they'd suffered an extremely localised dirt storm that morning. Davie shook his head. 'Looked better in the brochure,' he said.
We pushed through swing doors into reception. At least the air conditioning was working. We could tell that by the frost on the moustache of the Cuban behind the counter. He might not have been Cuban at all, but he looked a bit like Castro and was smoking a cigar, so it seemed kind of appropriate. We Irish are quick to give people nicknames, so he was the Cuban, Davie was Big Davie and I was the fucking loser saddled with the heartbreak kid for three weeks, although as that was a bit of a mouthful I was prepared to answer to Dan.
The Cuban slowly removed the cigar from his mouth.
'Kincaid,' Davie said, 'checkin
g in.'
'And before you say anything,' I added, 'we don't want the honeymoon suite.'
The Cuban looked from me to Davie. 'We don't have no honeymoon suite.'
'Fine,' I said.
'But I booked a honeymoon suite.'
I glanced at Davie.
'We don't have a honeymoon suite, Mr Kincaid. All our rooms are exactly the same, sir. They all cost the same.'
'But . . .'
'Davie,' I said. 'Just sign us in, will you?'
'Hold on Dan, that's not the point. I booked a honeymoon suite. What would have happened if I hadn't been cruelly dumped at the altar, and I'd arrived here with my blushing bride expecting three weeks of luxury in the honeymoon suite, only to find there isn't one? What way would that have been to start our marriage?'
I put my hands on the counter and smiled at the Cuban. 'Don't worry about him,' I said. 'He's a head the ball. I'm sure the room will be fine.'
He looked at Davie. 'I'll need a swipe of your credit card.'
'It's paid for already.'
'Nevertheless, I need a swipe of your credit card. For incidentals.'
'What sort of incidentals?'
'Phone calls. Room service.'
'Davie, will you just give him the fucking card?'
Davie reluctantly removed the card from his wallet and handed it over. 'I did request a honeymoon suite,' he said as the Cuban swiped his card. 'Honestly.'
The Cuban nodded. 'Happens all the time. Travel agents are such wankers.'
I smiled appreciatively. 'Where does someone like you get to learn a word like wanker?' 'From British tourists,' he said. 'Looking for the honeymoon suite.'
He put the cigar back in his mouth and handed us our keys.
9
People with freckles don't get a tan. They just look a bit dirty for a few weeks.
Of course in order to get to the dirty look they have first to pass through the burned phase, in which a pasty-skinned Irishman sits out in the sun for about twenty minutes without any kind of protection at all. He then spends the next three days rolling around in agony, sun-burned, sun-stroked and generally swearing never to venture out in daylight again.
On the second day at the Hotel del Mar I wouldn't leave the room because of the intense pain in every part of my body.
Patricia was screaming down the phone, 'What sort of an idiot are you?!'
'I got drunk and fell asleep.'
'Jesus! I suppose Davie's just as bad?'
'No, actually he's . . .'
Davie was fine. He stood and laughed at my pathetic cries for help. 'Did your mother never learn you about sun creams?' he asked.
'My mother never got west of Portrush, there was no need to.'
'Dan, there were hot days when we were kids. I remember.'
'Days? Day. And then we got sent out to get a bit of colour. Only fruits bothered with sun creams.'
He rolled his eyes as he rubbed Factor 30 on his face. 'Well, if you don't want to go to the beach, come on out for a drive then.'
'You don't seem to understand. I cannot bear anything to touch my skin. And I cannot go out driving naked.'
'So you're going to spend the rest of your holiday in here?'
'No. I will venture out when my skin settles down. It'll probably come off all together, like a snake. Until then, it's me and the remote control.'
Davie shook his head, then lifted the keys. 'Please yourself, Dan. And don't be watching any of those — dult movies.' He winked at me. 'See you later.'
Of course I never had any intention of watching any of the — dult movies, but now that he'd mentioned it, and I was stuck in my room being miserable, and the only part of my body that wasn't sunburned was my groin, the idea began to grow on me. I thought of Patricia and the Quiet Room and how a man was entitled to his private pleasures, and wondered how much they would charge for a 'free' dirty movie and whether it would show up on Davie's credit-card receipt as 'In-Room Movie' or 'Rampant Lesbian Fuckers — $15'. But before I could make my mind up there was a knock on the door and a woman shouted that she wanted to clean the room. I shouted for her to come back later, or in a couple of weeks, but she kept banging and when I did open up, gingerly holding a towel around my midriff, her mouth dropped open; she looked like she'd just stumbled on the set of The X-Files. She said mamma-mia or something equally exotic and forced her way in for a proper look. She said mamma-mia again and said I should see a doctor.
'It's okay,' I said, 'it's only sunburn.'
'Mamma-mia!' she said again, then strode out into the corridor and summoned the rest of the cleaning staff.
Four of them, four big black women, stood around my skinny mostly naked frame going oooh and aaaah. I was in too much pain to tell them where to go.
'What you need,' one said, 'is Aloe Vera. It will help your skin. And Tylenol.'
I nodded helplessly. My head was pounding. 'I can't,' I said. 'I can't leave the room.'
I carefully lowered myself back down onto the bed, and lay face down. They could clean the room around me, I didn't care. I was dying. They talked amongst themselves for a while, but I wasn't really listening. I drifted away into a fitful sleep; when I woke they were gone, so I drifted off again; when I woke again they were back.
'Has it been twenty-four hours?' I asked drowsily.
"Bout twenty minutes, mister. We had a vote — you didn't hear us?' I shook my head. 'We said to ourselves, if we had a dog in as much pain as you are, we'd put that dog down.'
I nodded.
'So like I say. We had a vote.'
I said, 'Okay, put me down.'
'We had a vote and we agreed we had to do something to help you — so Beatrice got the Aloe Vera, Martha got the Tylenol and I got my hands; together we're gonna give you the best damn medicated massage you ever had.'
I couldn't move, but I managed to say, 'No, please, don't touch my skin.'
She reached forward and ripped the towel away from my groin.
'Ain't no time for modesty here, son,' one of the other ladies said. 'Ain't nothing we haven't seen before.'
'That sun so strong, it burn your balls off right through your costume, you understand? You gotta protect to survive.'
'I understand. But please don't touch my SKKKKII-IINNNNN!'
I guess you have to be cruel to be kind.
And boy, they were cruel.
'Florida ain't no place for no chalk-white boy, that's for sure,' the biggest woman, Martha, said.
There were four of them, big black smiley women anointing my burned flesh with soothing lotions.
It has been the major discovery of my life that if you look pathetic enough for long enough, somebody will inevitably come along who will take pity on you and help you out. I still felt miserable, but I had absolute faith in their ability to make me feel better because, quite simply, I couldn't possibly feel any worse.
'Only one thing,' Martha said, as she pulled a second massive bottle of Aloe Vera out of an Eckerds bag. 'We doin' this out of sympathy for your situation. You spring a hard-on and we'll snap it off and feed it to the rats. You understand?'
I cleared my throat, and nodded.' Perfectly,' I said.
My recovery was little short of miraculous. My skin literally drank the lotions, it didn't crack or fracture, merely hurled up a huge wall of protective freckles. The cleaning ladies returned for three days in a row to reapply their medication and we became really good friends. I even offered them a tip which didn't involve sleeping in the subway, but they turned it down. They were Christian ladies doing their best to help a poor suffering individual. On day five of our transatlantic adventure I wandered back onto the beach, bronzed and Adonis-like, to look for Davie. I had on shorts, sandals and a Dunnes T-shirt. I wore my shades and an air of nonchalance.
A bleached-blond beach bum (which is like a work-out at the alliteration Olympics) grinned over at me as I passed.' You should sit in the shade, you look like you're about to melt.'
I smiled at him and m
ade like he was funny, whereas the correct response should have been, 'Why don't you mind your own fucking business, arse-wipe?'
I asked him if he'd seen my mate Davie.
He said, 'No, what's he look like? Is he as red as you?'
I reexamined myself. I'd looked tanned in the dark of my room, but now in the boiling light of day I had to acknowledge that I probably didn't look quite as much like a sex god as I had imagined. Still, there were so many beautiful bodies about that perhaps the local ladies would fancy a bit of freckle for a change.
The bleached-blond beach bum worked out of a wooden hut halfway down the sand. He was offering parasailing rides, dolphin watch cruises, sun creams and the best drugs on the beach. Of course he didn't quite advertise this last service, and I was quite offended that he didn't think to offer me any, but from my position in the shade, sitting by the Del Mar's pool and watching the steady troop of teenagers to and from his beach hut, I knew he was selling something more than the American way of life. It had to do with the nervous way the kids approached him, and the delight on their faces as they left; with the way he behaved when the Sheriff's Land Cruiser eased past four or five times a day, kind of over-the-top and smiley, high-fiving in an exaggerated manner as if for the benefit of the cops; and it also had to do with the fact that nobody ever seemed to go para-sailing or dolphin watching.
Davie came and sat beside me by the pool. I nodded at the hut.' He's selling dope.'
'Yeah, I know. It's great stuff.'
'I thought you were a police officer.'
'Was.'
I nodded. 'So where have you been these three days, while I've been dying? Besides smoking dope.'
'Oh, out and about. And I looked in on you. I brought you KFC. The last time I checked, you were being molested by four fat black women.'
'They weren't molesting me. They were anointing me with unctions.' 'Well, they looked like they were giving you a wank.'
'Please. There are children present.'
And there were. The pool and poolside were packed with kids and their parents. They were mostly Americans. There were a few British as well, like me, burning in the sun.
'But you're feeling better?' Davie asked.
'Yeah. Getting there.'
'Good. We can go out for dinner tonight then?'
Driving Big Davie (Dan Starkey) Page 7
