by Tim Dorsey
“How do you know that?” asked Martha.
“Tells everyone. Used to be a big deal in Jersey. Guess he misses the attention. Same with his friend in that house on the other side, Franky Four-Fingers.”
“Jesus,” said Jim. “We’ve got a neighbor whose finger was cut off by the mob?”
“No,” said Gladys. “Happened last week. Lawnmower. All the protected witnesses who hang out at Island Pizza are still giving him grief. The giant Victorian spread is the Wagners. Launched a coupon-swap site on the Internet and sold it for a mint back before anyone knew it was stupid. And the Yorks, funeral home that switches prices on the caskets because who’s going to argue once Aunt Gerty’s in the box; the Babbits, hardware store chain, nothing fishy; Doctor Gamboru, who fled a genocide and has liposuctioned half the island; Bill and Fred, who are gay and have the best parties; the Flemings, who obviously aren’t gay because of that atrocious largemouth-bass mailbox. Then we come to all the silk flags hanging from porches. Guess the idea just caught on at that end of the street like trophy wives at the other. Indian arrowhead flag is the Moultries, big Florida State alumni; the golf-ball flag, retired commodities broker Gaylord Wainscotting, absolutely obsessed with the game; the Birminghams and their millionth-degree Masons flag like anyone gives a damn; restoration-award flag is the Sikorskys, architecture firm; the flying-stork-and-bundle-of-joy flag almost never comes down at the O’Malleys, who have eight or nine now; the butterfly flag…the Gronquists just like butterflies; the Longshank-Scones, who overdo their accents and work into every conversation that they’re Welsh royalty, but most of the neighborhood doesn’t even know where Wales is, so they hang an extra-large flag of their family crest with that Gaelic lion on its hindlegs, wearing a crown and juggling chess pieces or some bullshit….” Gladys finished turning all the way around, pointing at the house she was in front of. “…Now you.” She pressed a button on her wrist and began jogging away. “Welcome to Lobster Lane!”
THAT AFTERNOON
The new support group had better accommodations: the bingo room of a Catholic church in south Tampa that also doubled as the local voting precinct.
This time Serge was early. Quite early in fact. He and Coleman sat alone in a room full of empty Samsonite chairs. Best seats in the house, front row, middle.
Others began trickling in, grabbing their usual spots in the back row. Those arriving later took the penultimate row and so forth, until the latest arrivals timidly shuffled toward the front.
The moderator arrived and opened a briefcase at the podium. He had a gray ponytail and a faded NO NUKES T-shirt. He noticed the newest members in the front row and gave them a welcoming smile. Serge smiled back, flashing him a wildly enthusiastic thumbs-up.
The moderator was perfect for the job, possessing equal part cheer, empathy and naive optimism. He had three graduate degrees in liberal arts from some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, which meant he drove an embarrassing car. As is often the case with such groups, the moderator was also a recovering member. He tapped the microphone. “Good evening. Hope everyone had a great week…. You might not have noticed, but we have some new friends with us tonight…. Sir, would you mind standing and introducing yourself?”
Serge popped out of his chair and twirled to face the room. Over his head, the group’s name was written in the tiniest of unsure letters on the blackboard: NON-CONFRONTATIONALISTS ANONYMOUS.
“Howdy! I’m Serge!”
“Hello, Serge.”
“Is that a breath of fresh air or what?” said Serge. “Can’t tell you how nice a little hello is after that other group. ‘Douche bag,’ ‘fuck face’…”
“Serge…”
He turned around. “What?”
The moderator smiled. “Pleasure to have you with us. Would you like to introduce your friend?”
“You mean Coleman?”
A man in the back row became woozy and crashed into the chair in front of him.
“Jim Davenport?” said Serge. “Is that you, Jim?…It is!” He ran to the rear of the room and pulled his old buddy up for a big hug.
“Serge,” the moderator called after him. “We’re not supposed to use last names in here. Confidentiality…”
“It’s okay,” said Serge. “Me and Davenport go way back—I mean Jim, whose last name is something other than Davenport. We were neighbors ten years ago on Triggerfish Lane. He was like my big hero: law-abiding family man, pillar of the community, impulse control. Which meant society pissed all over him. Luckily I was there to offer protection. Then guess what happened! He ended up protecting me! Remember the big home invasion a decade ago during that Fourth of July party? The infamous McGraw Brothers? I was the one in the buffalo costume. Anyway, I didn’t know Jim had it in him. Never fired a weapon in his life. But he was a crack shot that day. Saved my life, so I owed him unending loyalty. Swore I’d never leave his side. Then I got a little distracted for ten years. But now I’m reunited with Jim, and this time I promise to be like glue!” Serge held Jim out by the shoulders. “How’ve you been, big guy? I need to come by your place after this and say hi to Martha—”
Jim’s legs buckled, but Serge caught him on the way down. “Everyone, back up! Give him some air!”
The moderator rushed over. “What happened? Should I call nine-one-one?”
“Just fainted.” Serge fanned Jim’s face. “Probably thrilled to see me after all these years.”
Jim finally came to. He found himself sitting in the middle of the front row, wedged between Serge and Coleman.
“Excellent! You’re awake!” Serge said loudly. “Was worried you were going to miss all the good stuff. This moderator knows his job! Quite unorthodox, because it looks like he used to be a weirdo in college…”
“Excuse me?” the moderator said meekly.
“…We’re about to leave on a field trip!” Serge told Jim. “Didn’t know the group took field trips or I’d have fixed a snack. Remember those little cheese and crackers in separate compartments with a plastic spreader? Mom always packed those when my kindergarten class was visiting a planetarium or the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse. Always ended up with more cheese…”
“Excuse me?”
“…Jim, guess where we’re going? You’ll never guess. That means you’re supposed to guess. Okay, I’ll just tell you. The zoo! Our moderator is going to lead us in this crazy experiment with the animals. That’s the unorthodox part I mentioned. So what if they laugh at him—”
“Excuse me!”
Serge looked up. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
“No, I was rudely talking when you were,” said Serge. “Yell away. I might kick the crap out of you, but that’s just involuntary reflex. Doesn’t mean I’m right.”
Silence.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Serge. “Proceed.”
“Thank you.” The moderator addressed the rest of the room. “Now if you’ll all follow me to the parking lot…”
Minutes later, a white church van drove north on MacDill Avenue.
“This is just like my field trips in kindergarten!” said Serge. “We should all sing! Everybody, after me: ‘If you’re happy and you know it…’”
The van passed through the entrance of Lowry Park Zoo, passengers clapping and stomping their feet. They got a group discount at the ticket booth, and the moderator assembled them inside the turnstiles.
“Okay, I’ll go over the exercise one more time. We’re heading to the cages with the big cats. What I want you to do is wait until one of the lions or tigers looks your way. Then I want you to stand your ground and stare back. Under no circumstance do you break eye contact.”
“Serge,” whispered Coleman. “This guy did too much acid.”
One of the members raised his hand. “I’m scared.”
“Me too,” said another. “What if we make them mad?”
“They’re in cages,” said the moderator. “And they aren
’t going to get mad. They won’t even know what’s going on. That’s the whole point: a perfectly safe and controlled assertiveness exercise.”
“Come on, guys!” said Serge, extending an arm outward, palm down. “Form a circle and put all our hands together like a championship football team! No fuckin’ animal comes in our house and stares us down!”
“Excuse me?” said the moderator.
“What?” asked Serge, standing alone with the only outstretched arm.
“Please.”
He lowered his arm. “Okay, we’ll do the circle thing later. Plus I have a few of my own field-trip ideas. Nothing builds confidence like live ammo.”
The moderator led the jelly-kneed group through the park and lined them along the rail in a viewing area. “Now don’t look away…”
One hour later:
The van arrived back at the church. Members jumped out and ran for their cars.
“Serge,” said the moderator. “Could I have a word?”
“What’s up?”
“I don’t want to sound critical….”
“You mean getting kicked out of the zoo? Go ahead and be critical. They completely overreacted.”
“Serge, I said to just stare.”
“No, you didn’t say ‘just stare.’ You said ‘stare.’ I added the other stuff for extra credit.”
“All those end-zone dances?”
“Don’t forget loud roaring and pawing the air like I had sharp claws.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Needed to establish myself as the alpha male.”
“You got in a shoving match with the zoo’s staff.”
Serge grinned and slapped the moderator’s shoulder. “Alpha male.”
The moderator looked at his shoes. “We’ve never been thrown out of anything.”
“Congratulations. Huge progress.”
“Progress?”
“‘Thank you’ would be sufficient.”
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.”
“Hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you sure you have the right support group?”
Serge nodded and fished a scrap of paper from his pocket. “See? That’s the note from my psychiatrist.”
INSOMNIA
Serge couldn’t sleep again. Same as every night. He grabbed his leather journal and pen:
Captain Florida’s Log, Star Date 4830.395. My legacy grows. Another excellent day of dirt collecting! Started at the University of Tampa because it’s housed in the landmark nineteenth-century Tampa Bay Hotel. Before hitting it big with The Doors, Jim Morrison lived around here with his grandparents and filled notebooks with lyrical observations. The song “Soul Kitchen” refers to the hotel’s Moorish architecture, “Your fingers weave quick minarets.” But here’s the thing I learned about dirt collecting: You can’t just stand in front of a historic building and go six feet down with a posthole digger. Guards make you run with your dirt sack. Then I’m driving over the bay on the Courtney Campbell Bridge, and you know how crazy they drive in Florida? Some idiot almost made me have a giant wreck! Coleman said maybe I should spend more time steering than writing in my notebook, but I said, It’s okay, Jim did this all the time. Then we cruised to 314 North Osceola Avenue in Clearwater, where the Lizard King’s old house had been torn down for a condo. Practically in tears as I dug my hole and ran away again. The Pinellas Park Library was around the corner, so I dropped in to go through old phone books for the address where Jack Kerouac spent his final years, and one of the directories spelled his name KEROWAC. What a footnote find! Now I’m happy again, standing in Kerouac’s front yard, minding my own business, working on my tenth hole, when this nosy neighbor yells, What are you doing with that shovel? I say, Taking a core sample. Then I hit some kind of water line and he became completely unreasonable. Next stop: the venerable Beaux Arts Coffee House, where both Jack and Jim used to read poetry. We pull up to 7711 Sixtieth Street. You guessed it: Torn down. It got pretty emotional as I read a verse I’d composed for the moment. Simply called “Jim”:
St. Pete poetry
Miami penis arrest
Dead in Paris tub
Coleman asked why it was so short. I said it was haiku. He said, What’s that? I said, Japanese poetry, seventeen syllables. Small country, so space is at a premium. Then I bent down and scooped soil into a Baggie by hand because a shovel might attract attention from the next-door police canine academy, but an officer came over anyway and asked what the hell I was doing. I said, Reading poetry, collecting dirt. And you? Then Rachael and Coleman started wailing on each other in the car again, and I had to excuse myself. Almost forgot, Rachael was with us the whole time, constantly fouling the mood. She’s fast becoming the most obnoxious and morally reprehensible person I’ve ever met. Don’t know how much longer we can continue having sex. But who am I to argue with God’s plan? He wanted alpha males to populate the planet by impregnating multiple partners, so he gave females the gift of irrationality, able to morph the least little thing that happens anywhere in the world into being your fault, especially if it’s your fault. Watch any nature show. The top lion is perfectly happy with a lioness, but then he inexplicably moves on. Why? She was trying to change him…. Getting sleepy now, but excitement over tomorrow is keeping me up. It’s going to be the crowning moment of my Jim Morrison scavenger hunt. That’s right, the Clearwater Library. Bet they’ll be thrilled to see me again!
EIGHTEEN
MOVING DAY
The big truck all but blocked traffic in front of the Davenports’ soon-to-be-former home. Ramps out the side and back. Large mats to protect furniture. Hand trucks for all occasions.
Since it was only a crosstown move, the Davenports hired three men by the hour. To save additional cost, Jim and Martha had spent the previous week carefully packing and sealing everything, then piling the boxes in efficient stacks in the middle of each room. They segregated the most fragile belongings, which would be transported in their SUV.
The movers possessed immense physiques in both respects, the contradictory breed that simultaneously looks incredibly strong and terribly out of shape. Spine-snapping forearms and medicine-ball beer guts. Two of them carried an antique dresser toward the front door.
“Nice day,” said Jim.
“If we didn’t have to fuckin’ work.” The dresser cracked into the doorframe.
Not a lot of buddy talk after that. Jim picked up splinters and walked out to the driveway. Martha loaded a box of china in the back of the Escalade. “Jim, come here.”
“What is it?”
“That guy over there by the truck. What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s not doing anything.”
“I’m sure he’s doing something,” said Jim. “He’s holding a clipboard.”
Martha set the carton of dishes behind the backseat. “He’s not doing shit. I’ve been watching for a half hour.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go make him work.”
“What?”
“We’re paying for three guys to lift. We’re getting two.”
“Honey—”
“If you won’t go, I will.”
“No, stay here. I’ll be right back.”
The man standing next to the truck made a checkmark. He felt a presence. He looked up. “Can I help you?”
Jim smiled cordially. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing?”
The man looked back at his clipboard. “Working.”
“What’s the clipboard for?”
“Have to inventory box contents in case you make a claim.”
Jim leaned and read the clipboard upside down. “All the contents spaces on the form are blank. You’re just writing ‘box, box, box.’”
“You sealed all the boxes before we got here.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I can’t take inventory.” He made another checkmark.
“Will we still be ab
le to file a claim if the contents spaces are blank?”
“No.”
“Can you help the other guys carry stuff?”
“No.”
Jim walked back to the SUV. Martha loaded a bubble-wrapped vase. She looked back at the moving truck. “He’s still not working.”
“He’s taking inventory.”
“But the boxes are sealed.”
“That’s why he can’t take inventory.”
“Jim, what’s wrong with you? Why are you letting them screw us?”
“Because they’re really, really big.”
“Jim! Make him work!” She stacked another box in the back of the SUV. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to carry stuff all day and pay him to stand around doing nothing.”
“Martha, those are prison tattoos.”
“So?”
“They’re handling everything we own. If I make them mad, they could do something to get back at us.”
“They’re not allowed to!”
“I don’t think permission is part of it.”
“Jim!”
Two movers wheeled a dolly to the curb. The third wrote on a clipboard. He looked up.
Jim smiled. “Me again. Listen, I was just talking with my wife, and there’s really nothing of value, so we’ll take our chances with the claim thing.” Another smile.
The mover looked down and wrote “box.”
“Please don’t think I’m trying to tell you your moving job,” said Jim. “But we’d prefer you did some moving.”
The man angrily flipped a page on his clipboard. “You’ll have to sign this waiver.”
“That’s all? You didn’t say that last time.”
The mover answered by lifting a box off the dolly and heaving it deep into the belly of the truck with an echoing crash.
CLEARWATER
The public library filled with street people taking shelter from another routine afternoon rain shower.
A pair of men approached the reference desk.
