After ten years in Key West I had become enough of a connoisseur to discern the differences between a garden-variety perfect day and a Platonic ideal; that day was one of the latter. The blue of the sky looked like about six coats, hand rubbed. Sunlight danced on the surface of the pool like Tinkerbell’s gym class. A gentle breeze carried scents of Key lime, coral dust, sunblock, sulfur, seashore, and the competing but compatible lunch smells of several culinary schools, chiefly Cuban, Creole, and Islands cooking from Bahama Village to the south of us. Somewhere nearby, children and a small dog hooted with joy and did something that made rhythmic crunching gravel sounds like castanets. In the fifty-yard walk to the bar, I was smiled at, nodded at, or waved to by just about everyone present. They all seemed to accept my answering grimace as a smile.
Tom Hauptman was at the stick, selling as much cola and lemonade as beer, and he’d just started making somebody a Cuban sandwich; the gloriously layered fragrances of ham, roast pork, cheese, pickle, and press-toasted bread were already beginning to circulate. I left Zoey at her usual stool and joined Tom behind the bar. But instead of pitching in with the sandwiches, I squatted down, opened a cabinet, and took out a grey cylinder the approximate size of a can of baseballs, if there is such a thing. Some seated at the bar fell silent as they recognized it, and sat up straighter. A very kind person named Colin MacDonald once fetched it back from Ireland for me. Its simple greyscale label reads, in part:
The World’s Oldest Whiskey Distillery
BUSHMILLS
DISTILLERY RESERVE
SINGLE IRISH
MALT WHISKEY
This Premium Irish Whiskey is exclusive
to Visitors at the Old Bushmills
Distillery originally granted its
Licence to distil in 1608.
Aged 12 Years
THIS BOTTLE WAS SPECIALLY
LABELED FOR
Jake Stonebender
AT THE DISTILLERY
I cracked the lid, eased out the amber bottle, and set it reverently on the bar. Its front label mirrored the one on the can; the one on the back said:
Bushmills Distillery Reserve
is a Single Malt Whiskey
aged in oak casks for 12-14 years.
We have selected this whiskey for its
exceptional quality and
smoothness.
This fine whiskey has a soft, sherried
nose giving way to a full-bodied,
malty taste with overtones
of almond and marzipan.
The bottle was within an inch or two of being full. I went to the dishwasher, took out a full rack of shot glasses, and began setting them up on the bar top next to the Bushmills Distillery Reserve, in rows. Silence broke out along the bar, and slowly metastasized to the nearby tables, the pool and lounge chairs, and the croquet pitch someone had set up just beyond the fireplace. Those who were free to do so started drifting toward the bar; the rest began arranging things so as to be able to do the same, if they could. It was way too early in the day to be drinking whiskey, especially that whiskey, but they all knew I knew that.
I counted heads, skipping those I knew would not drink whiskey for one reason and another, and set out that many shot glasses. When I was done filling them all, the bottle had only two or three shots left in it. I poured assorted soft drinks for the nondrinkers.
“Fill your hands,” I said, and soon the bar top was empty except for the bottle. I picked it up and took it with me to the chalk line before the fireplace. People made way for me, then waited for me to make my toast.
Whoever had closed up for me the night before had not only shoveled out the ashes, but had taken the trouble to set up the next evening’s fire for me: a pyramid of wood on a base of kindling and crumpled newsprint. I thought about lighting it, or having it lit; either seemed too much trouble, too theatrical. A fire in the morning in Key West is ridiculous, like a cold shower outdoors in Nunavut. I’d been trying to think of the right words since the night before. It seemed time to give up, and just say whatever the hell came into my head. Only nothing came into my head.
I turned and looked around at my friends. They could all see I was in pain. Not telling them what it was was impolite, keeping them in suspense. I lifted the bottle, as one lifts a glass to propose a toast, and everybody lifted theirs. “Empty your glasses,” I said, and upended the bottle and drank until nothing came out.
Nobody argued or questioned or mentioned the early hour; as one they drank with me.
I tossed the bottle a few inches in the air, changed my grip on it to its neck, and flung it into the fireplace, so hard that it managed to destroy the fire setup before exploding against the back wall.
“I planned for that bottle to last a lifetime,” I said, and then shook my head. “I just didn’t know whose.”
I could see faces begin to change, and understood that keeping them all in the dark any longer now would be unforgivable—and still, forcing out the few simple words was harder than fingertip push-ups.
“Doc’s dying. Maybe one week, maybe four. Not eight. Brain tumor.”
Five seconds of pindrop silence crawled by, and then something happened for which I can find no other adjective than that most overused of words, awesome. Maybe you were in a crowd when you heard about 9/11, or about the Nameless One backshooting Johnny Lennon, and you know what I mean; if you don’t, I hope you never find out. When two or three dozen adults all suddenly burst loudly into tears at once, it goes beyond sad or tragic or even terrible; it’s all three of those, certainly, but most of all it’s just…awesome.
Groans, sobs, wails, wordless outcries of all kinds. Loudest was Long-Drink McGonnigle, who fell to his knees, bellowing like a speared bull. Lex made a gargling sound, cut the water in a running dive, and disappeared. Every couple there turned to each other and embraced, their empty glasses still in hand. So did many singles; multiperson hugs formed simultaneously in several locations. Some people just sat down as if their strings had been cut, on the ground if necessary. Fast Eddie’s head was on his keyboard, his hands clasped on the back of his head. Noah González turned on his heel and walked away as if rejecting the whole business, then stopped and came back—then left again, then came back—I remember thinking it must be hard for him to keep pivoting that way with only the one leg. Tommy Janssen dropped his empty glass, beat his temples with the heels of his hands three times, then held his skull in them as if to keep it from bursting. I found myself in a group embrace with Double Bill, Josie Bauer, Arethusa, either Suzy or Susie Maser, and my wife. A group embrace with everybody sobbing in a different rhythm is really weird, but there was some comfort in it just the same.
An empty glass burst in the fireplace. I didn’t see who started it. Suzy Maser was second. Then Omar. A few seconds later, three more glasses arrived together, then a scattering, and finally the barrage began in earnest. The hug I was in broke up in order to participate. That fireplace is designed specifically to retain broken glass under just such conditions, but shards sprayed from it now, and so did brick chips.
Finally it dwindled away as we all ran out of ammo—except for Long-Drink. When his glass was gone, he threw his hat after it…and then his sunglasses, and then his cigarettes, and then his beeper, and then his watch…he was reaching behind him for his wallet when Omar and Tommy put hands on each his shoulders and made him stop. Gently but firmly they got him to his feet and led him away like James Brown, to the cottage he shares with Tommy. I was vaguely glad it lies to the north of my own, between mine and Eddie’s, so they didn’t have to pass Doc and Mei-Ling’s place to get there. Maureen hurried ahead of them and got the door, then followed them in.
Eventually people started talking, of course. But you know, even in my grief I noticed then that not once did one person ask me a single stupid question. Nobody said, “Are they sure?” or, “Can’t they do something?” or, “Why don’t they operate?” or, “How’s Mei-Ling taking it?” or any of the useless things people
always say in such situations, because they feel they have to say something and there is nothing sensible. I was asked only one question, and it was a pretty good one; I only wished I had a happy answer. Fast Eddie called out, “Yo Jake. Mike don’t answer?”
People stopped talking to hear my reply. I found that I could not trust my voice, even with a single syllable, so I just shook my head. And that made everyone slump a bit more, but nobody felt a need to follow up with, “Not even his machine?” or, “Did you let it ring ten times?” or, “Are you sure you got the number right?” or any other intelligence-insulting question. Okay, we can’t order up a miracle, it was worth a try, let’s move on, was the general attitude. Do you see why I’ve devoted my life to hanging out with those people? Within the next couple of minutes, we had sorted ourselves out, quite automatically, without direction or conscious decision. Each one of us needed help, to one degree or another—some more, some less. Each one of us had some kind of help to give—some more, some less. We’d known each other a long time, and been mutually telepathic more than once. So we triaged ourselves, without needing to think much about it. We mixed and matched and remixed and improvised until those in need got some and those with surplus gave some, and everyone found at least some measure of solace. With the help of alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, coffee, chocolate, and food—but most of all with the help of each other—we got through that morning together.
All of us except the Professor and Erin, who spent most of it way over on the other side of town, with nobody but Tony Donuts Junior for company.
7
TELLING THE TALE
No conditions are permanent;
No conditions are reliable;
Nothing is self.
—the Buddha
Of Antonio Donnazzio Junior his own mother had once said, “You know how some people don’t know shit? Little Tony don’t suspect shit.” (To which his maternal grandfather had replied, “Fuckin-A. Little prick makes his old man look like that Lord Stevie Hawkins. Whaddya mean, who? You know who I mean. Rain Man in a wheelchair.”) There had never been the slightest danger of Tony Junior suddenly needing a tuxedo because he’d been invited to Stockholm, and no one had ever, at least not with sincerity, asked his advice on anything.
Nevertheless, he’d had an entire night to integrate in his mind both brand-new information—I know somebody who can get younger—with some of the oldest information his brain retained—the world is owned by five very very old men.
Everything he had been doing for the past few weeks, ever since he’d arrived in Key West, had the single purpose of impressing one or more of those very very old men. For although he was not bright enough to have figured it out for himself, he had finally terrorized someone knowledgeable into explaining to him that this was what it would take for him to become a made guy—that no mere capo or even don would or even could make that decision. Pressed, hard, his informant had explained that it wasn’t, at least not entirely, because Tony wasn’t Sicilian, and it wasn’t, at least not entirely, because he was, let’s face it, a potential discipline problem, and it wasn’t even that most people found him a little intimidating on a one-to-one basis, or even a one-to-six-heavily-armed basis. What it mostly was, really, was that he was the son of Tony Donuts Senior, who in his own gaudy passage through life had made few even temporary allies and no friends, and not for nothin’, but it didn’t help he even had the same friggin’ name fachrissake. This was monstrously, manifestly unfair, of course, but there was nothing Tony Junior could do about it except strangle his informant, which was small satisfaction.
Mulling it over for months, he’d seen that the Five Old Men could not be either frightened or reasoned with. They would have to be bribed. But they were used to being bribed by the best, with the most, so it was going to take a pretty big piece of money.
That was what had led to his southward migration. The only plan he’d come up with himself for raising serious money was to double the tax he imposed on each of his personal stable of extortion victims. It was not a great plan. His standard rates had not been merciful, even by protection racket standards; doubled, they became a burden so crushing that a few of the goats actually dared to balk. During one such renegotiation Tony found himself distracted, and digressed to ask the other party where in the hell he’d ever found such a stupid T-shirt. The shop owner had acquired the memorably obscene garment in question on Duval Street during a recent vacation in Key West, had noticed the obvious signs of Russian mob incursion there, and was well aware of Tony’s only frustrated ambition; in desperate hope of shortening his hospital stay, he invented the whole scam on the spot and gave it to Tony. Go down there, roll up the Commies, give their balls and their loot to the old men, and they’ll give you a button. It took two or three repetitions, each faster and more concise than the last, for Tony to grasp the nub of the scheme, but when he did, he liked it so much that he generously put its inventor out of his misery at once.
On arrival in Key West, he quickly learned that Einstein had screwed him. The Russians were well dug in, in numbers that even he had to respect, and their principal racket appeared to be money laundering, about which Tony understood slightly less than nothing. They’d be hard to take, and once taken would constitute a prize he wasn’t even sure how to pick up, much less present to the old men.
So he had stalled. First he would lock up the rest of Key West, which anyone could see was a boat race for a man of his talents, and then from that power base he would take on the Russians. So far, the strategy was not working a hell of a lot better than it had for Napoleon or Hitler.
It was just as much aggravation and legwork to lock up Key West as any other city, but once you had it, there was far less than usual to steal. Tony slowly learned that Key West was where all the losers in North America ended up, sooner or later. A few days after he had that epiphany, it occurred to him that Key West was where he had ended up, and from that time on he tended to be even more impatient and irritable than his nature would have dictated. Not good.
And then along came his lucky break, the unexpected answer to all his problems. Not just a miracle, but the miracle: the only thing that the Five Old Men wanted more than money. In the possession of a girl. Who got littler and more defenseless—and more infuriatingly insolent—every time he saw her.
Tony’s impatience escalated to a state not far short of frenzy.
So when he went to Duval Street to get his Jeep back the next morning, he was in no mood to waste any time on the transaction. He had a broad to hunt. And was aware that almost every other male on Duval Street was also hunting a broad, which was bound to obscure his view, and also that there were thousands of broads around, maybe half of them blonde, at least this week.
Fortunately for the peace of the commonweal, the staff of the emergency room at the hospital on Stock Island, and himself, the elderly tourist from Wisconsin was punctual. When Tony got out of the cab, which departed without waiting for payment, there the geezer was, and there parked beside him was Tony’s Jeep.
Tony walked around the vehicle with a critical eye. From the front bumper to the new rear one, it was visibly in far better condition than it had been yesterday. He grunted in satisfaction. Even the interior looked good: the floors had been swept, the ashtray had been emptied, and a crack in the driver’s seat upholstery that had been starting to annoy him was repaired. He turned, leaned back against the vehicle, and said, “Ahright,” holding out his hand for the keys.
“Had to pay double to have it ready this fast,” the geezer said, greatly relieved by Tony’s approval. In a wild spasm of optimism he passed over the receipt along with the keys. “Come to thirteen hundred.”
“You got fucked,” Tony told him. He climbed into the Jeep, started it up, and drove away without looking, confident that the stream of traffic would let him in.
His plan was to drive a few blocks further, park, and go up to the observation deck of the Holiday Inn LaConcha. It is one of the tallest structures in
Key West (the tallest with an elevator), and centrally located. The only way to get a better view of the entire island at once is to rent a helicopter, and helicopters are noisy and don’t serve booze. But before he’d driven even half a block, Tony’s attention was distracted by something irritatingly not-right about the brake pedal.
He stopped to examine the problem. (Fortunately the driver behind him today was more alert than the geezer had been yesterday, and stopped so far short of rear-ending Tony that even when his own car got rear-ended and punted forward a foot, he was still okay.) The problem turned out to be just what it had seemed to be: a piece of paper, ridiculously taped to the brake. With difficulty he bent and picked it up. (Another collision occurred, several vehicles back; croquet effect pushed the first car in line to within a few inches of Tony’s brand-new rear bumper, and the driver began having an anxiety attack.)
It was a photocopy of a delicate hand with Tony’s own inimitable signature on it, and its middle finger was extended.
Tony had just two seconds ago inspected the interior of the Jeep, and there had been no paper taped to its brake pedal then. Therefore, the little miracle broad was no more than a couple of hundred yards behind him, laughing at him.
He climbed out of the Jeep just before it was jolted forward a foot by the car immediately behind it, amid a blaring of horns that fell silent when he appeared. Automatically he started to tell the other driver to have the Jeep back here, fixed, by tomorrow, but the man seemed to have fainted. Tony had no time to screw around; he gave the responsibility and keys to the second driver in line—an elderly nun from Fresno—and forgot the Jeep’s existence for now.
He could see the geezer from where he stood, sitting now in the front seat of his own car, being berated by his geezette. He had begun to drive away from there, but then the traffic had halted, stopping him halfway out of his parking space. Apparently he was farsighted; before Tony had taken more than a few steps in that direction the old bird saw him, paled, spun the wheel hard left, and stomped on the gas. His car slammed into a gap between two of the vehicles blocking it, and burst through them; the impact helped it complete its U-turn on the narrow street, and then it was dwindling into the distance, bound directly for Wisconsin. The hectoring geezette seemed to be pinned in place by her personal safety device, now: an airbag supporting a gasbag.
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