The Last American Martyr

by Tom Winton; Rolffimages

  Chapter 7

  Exactly one week after Elaina’s passing, the RV’s permanent license plates arrived. I thought about that sleazy salesman, Kincaid, but seriously doubted he had anything to do with what had taken place. I contemplated every possible scenario and decided the odds of him being involved, particularly so soon, were miniscule. Had I known for sure that he was involved, I would have gone right back to Jersey and ended him—no matter what the consequences.

  After bolting on the plates in a pouring rain, I unhooked the camper, put the Glock in my glove compartment, cranked up the engine and pulled out of that campground. I’d lost a few pounds and still looked like hell, but it was time to move on—or at least try to. I hadn’t discarded any of Elaina’s belongings. I left her toothbrush alongside mine in the holder, her new potholders where she’d hung them and her makeup in its tray on her nightstand. On my own nightstand I left her burgundy cap. Every night before going to sleep I would kiss it, and to this very day, I still do.

  Before heading out of Asheville, I had to make one stop in town. As much as I dreaded it, there is no force in this world or beyond that could have stopped me. I had to go to a crematory to pick up Elaina’s remains. With all the sorrow, unhappiness, and fear for the future already weighing on every frayed nerve in my body, I didn’t know if I could handle it. All I can tell you here is that I did pick up the brass urn with its four-pound contents. I did it as quickly as I could. As I paid and signed the necessary papers, I somehow managed to fight back the flood of dark, devastating emotions swelling inside me. But as soon as the business transaction was completed and I picked up that urn, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I rushed for that door like a man on the verge of vomiting.

  Stepping out of that building into the rain certainly didn’t help. Clutching Elaina to my chest as if she’d just returned from the dead, running through puddles beneath that doomsday sky, all my pent up pain and misery imploded at once. I did not retch. Along with tears, I spewed those vile feelings all over the asphalt parking lot. Once inside the camper, with my head and convulsing shoulders dripping wet, I continued to purge the hurt. I didn’t get rid of it all, of course. It should only be that easy. None of us are capable of ever completely shaking such an immense sense of loss. I cannot (here or anywhere else) expound any further on how I felt that day. What I’ve already described in these last two paragraphs is about as close to reliving that day as I ever want to get. I am sorry.

  It was raining even harder when I pulled onto I-26-south. Due to a fast approaching cold front a posse of low, gray, burgeoning clouds had rushed in and packed tight in the sky. The wind blew with all the force of a gale, and the way the drab rain pelted my windshield was nothing short of an assault. The oversized wipers slapped back and forth so hard it was as if they were in a panic and wanted to break free. The gunmetal sky was so low, or Asheville so high, that those clouds seemed to buff the RV’s roof as I drove. Visibility was so bad; some vehicles had pulled onto the highway’s shoulder. But I was finally rolling, and I did not want to stop.

  About two hours later, I pulled off the interstate in Columbia, South Carolina. I needed coffee more than I did gas but figured I’d do the two birds with one stone thing. After pumping just shy of half a tank, I tugged my brown cap real low on my forehead and hustled through the rain into the truck stop. By now my beard and mustache were almost fully-grown.

  Once inside, I headed straight for the men’s room. But I didn’t quite make it. After making my way past the cashier and through the store section I continued down a long hallway. About halfway down, I passed the entrance to a truckers lounge and just happened to glance inside. Two steps later I stopped dead in my tracks. I backpedalled to the open doorway and took a second look inside. About fifteen truckers, slouched in blue plastic seats, were watching a wall-mounted television. And on the screen of that TV was a picture of Elaina. I only caught the tail-end of what the newscaster said.

  ”…when we return after these messages from our sponsors.”

  Standing out in the hallway, off to one side of the door, I pulled the bill of my cap lower yet. I raised the collar of my damp jacket and wished I’d had on my sunglasses. The succession of useless commercials seemed to last about fifteen minutes, though only two or three had ticked away. One promised a more exciting and sexier life if you bought their toothpaste. Another guaranteed their product would get rid of your acid reflux—even though there was a “highly unlikely chance” you could have about a dozen more serious side-effects. By the time all the nonsense ended, two more truckers had entered the room, one had left, and I had dropped my head all three times, pretending to look at my watch.

  Finally the newsman with the high forehead and glasses returned, so did the picture of Elaina.

  “As you first heard here last week, Elaina Soles, the wife of recent Nobel Prize recipient Thomas Soles, died in a suspected hunting accident while walking with her husband along a nature trail in Western North Carolina. This sad event took place mere days after she and Mr. Soles returned home from Stockholm to a horrific, bloody scene and a very disturbing death threat in their Queens, New York apartment.

  There is now growing suspicion that these two events may be linked. Despite the findings of North Carolina authorities, many people around the country believe that both crimes may have been committed by what they call “corporate vigilantes.” Many who’ve read Thomas Soles bestselling book, Enough is Enough, believe that since it vilifies Corporate America, some CEO’s, and this country’s elite, may be taking revenge. While it is true that a second major bookselling chain has taken Soles’s controversial book off its shelves this week, at this point, there is no evidence of foul play.

  But that’s not holding back the rising tide of suspicion and discontent that stretches from New York to California. Seeing so many people taking to the streets is reminiscent of the tumultuous 1960’s and 70’s. On Friday, here in Manhattan, an estimated 15,000 protesters carrying signs and chanting, “enough is enough” showed up in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Yesterday, Chicago’s Grant Park had a similar demonstration, and there are still others planned later this week for Boston, Detroit, Denver and L.A.

  As always, we will keep you posted on any forthcoming developments in this story.”

  I just stood there, stupefied. I had no idea how people were reacting to our tragedy. Since returning from Sweden, I hadn’t listened to, watched, or read any news at all. What I had just seen and heard stunned me. It gave me the chills. Throngs of goose-bumps tightened the flesh on both my arms. But at the same time, I also felt a warm, benevolent glow inside. Though I’m an interminable doubting Thomas, always having difficulty accepting the life after death thing, I had this uncanny feeling in that truck-stop hallway that Elaina had been standing there also. It was as if she’d been right there alongside me watching that news report.

  I continued toward Florida as if the Winnebago was on auto-pilot. Sure, I braked, steered, and accelerated, but all that was instinctual. There were a host of more pressing thoughts tracking through my head, like countless boxcars on a runaway train. For the most part, they were of Elaina, but a few times that malicious snake—suicide, slithered through the dark recesses of my brain. How to do it? Where to do it? Should I do it? But there was an upside. While driving through the Carolinas and Georgia, that grievous temptation was popping up less and less often than it had during those six days in Asheville. I’m sure part of the reason was that I kept telling myself Elaina, if she could, would have booted me a good one—right in the ass—for entertaining such thoughts.

  While motoring alongside endless stands of lofty green pines on I-95, there were times I wished Elaina had left me. If she had, just like she’d threatened on the way home from Stockholm, she’d still be alive. I still would have been on the run alone, as I was now. But each time that heartbreaking reality jabbed at me, I parried it away. I knew well and good that Elaina never would have left me. She loved me as much as I did her. She staye
d with me because I was as big a part of her as she herself was. All she’d have wanted at this point is for me to go on living my life. That and to “be careful,” as she said when she was dying in my arms.

  Chapter 8

  For the next three weeks, I bounced all over Florida. Rarely did I stay anywhere for more than one night. The only time I spoke to anyone was when it was absolutely necessary. Whether checking in or out at campgrounds, state parks, stores or gas stations, I was as brief as possible. I felt like a serial-killer on the run, like the scornful target of a nation-wide manhunt. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye unless I had my sunglasses on. And don’t forget, I was deep into one of the darkest states of mourning imaginable. I had to live with the senseless death, possibly murder, of someone who had been everything to me. People often wonder, do I love him or her—I just don’t know for sure. For the sake of anybody in such a quandary, there is only one question you need to ask yourself—would I, unflinchingly, give my life to save theirs? Amen. That’s it. I know what my answer would’ve been had I had the opportunity to save Elaina.

  By the time I rolled into Key West, I was desperate for some human interaction. Beginning to think I’d rather risk being murdered than go on the way I had been, I hailed a cab minutes after checking into a campground. When I climbed into the back of the taxi (a gaudy pink one, by the way), the driver pointed to a small placard mounted on the dashboard. Considering my predicament I thought its message was quite ironic.

  So sorry, I cannot hear or speak.

  Please write down your destination.

  Thank you. Francis Drake—Bahamas

  The old black man then handed me a pen and paper. I did as the sign said, passed the directions over the front seat, then leaned back and tried to relax.

  It was an early December late afternoon, sunny with temperatures in the low eighties. The sidewalks along Duval Street’s bars, shops, and restaurants were as cluttered as Madison Avenue’s during rush-hour. Tourists with bouncing belly-bags and flowery tropical shirts bustled along like a herd of disoriented Guernsey’s. Mixed with them was your typical Key West cast—hucksters, hard-lucksters, dream chasers, law breakers, gays, pirates, fisherman, and sixties throwbacks.

  By the time Francis Drake slowed down to let me out in front of Sloppy Joe’s Bar, I was seriously questioning my decision to go there. I knew there’d be a lot of people around and figured I could handle it. But thinking about a place and being there are two different things. Since arriving in Florida I’d been camping in obscure parks; in places like Lake City, Cedar Key, Homosassa, and Belle Glade. Obviously the “Southernmost City” wasn’t the best place for me to come out of hiding, but I was there, and I sure could use a cold beer.

  I got out of the cab and quickly reintroduced my cap’s bill to the top of my sunglasses. Head down, finger-combing the gray hair that now hid part of my ears, I zigged and zagged through the onslaught of humanity in front of Sloppy Joe’s, then turned down the Greene Street side of the building. The place was jam-packed. Loud music from the open-air bar blared out onto the streets, drowning out all the raucous conversations inside. I kicked heels down the sidewalk, gladly leaving Duval Street’s carnival-like atmosphere behind. I was a block away before the lyrics of Buffett’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” faded into background music. At that point my other senses kicked back in, and I was able to smell the creamy, fruity scent of all the front-yard gardenias and jasmine.

  It felt so good stretching my legs after the long drive down from Jupiter that I didn’t mind delaying that first cold beer. I made a left onto Whitehead Street and walked part of the way to Ernest Hemingway’s house. Strolling alongside tight rows of the very same Conch houses that “Papa” himself had passed eighty years earlier was a nostalgic trip down history lane. This was the same route the twentieth-century’s most influential author stumbled along so many times after his legendary drinking bouts. As I made my way up the narrow sidewalk, past the tiny front yards with all their palm trees and flowery tropical flora, it seemed ludicrous that I had been awarded the same prize for excellence as the man who single-handily revolutionized American literature. The way I saw it, I had about as much relevance in the literary world as a comma did in one of his novels.

  A few blocks before Hem’s house, I came upon a corner bar called Casablanca West. It, too, was of the open-air variety; and despite a smattering of towering bamboo shoots around the outside, I could plainly see all the customers inside. The place looked like an oasis to me, but still, I stepped tentatively under its thatched roof. With only a few empty stools here and there, I opted for one of two at the far right of the crowded M-shaped bar.

  There was a cypress-planked wall behind me, and I liked it that way. Bob Seger’s “Beautiful Loser” played on the Wurlitzer, as a row of beam-mounted ceiling fans rotated ever so lazily. When a frazzled blonde barmaid, wearing a tank top and too many tattoos, approached me, I sprung for a Corona light.

  Alternating hits from a cigarette with sips of cold beer, I surveyed the chattering crowd for a few minutes. A hand-painted wooden sign behind the bar said, “NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO PROBLEM!” I blended in fine with my denim shorts and tee shirt, yet still felt uncomfortably conspicuous.

  Turning my attention outside the bar, I saw a strange character chaining a bicycle to one of the bamboo shoots. Warm as it was, the slight man was actually dressed in a green army field jacket, black jeans, and high black boots. Though the stringy, oily hair brushing his shoulders was still black, he had the face of a man in his late seventies. I thought for sure he must be homeless.

  Oh shit, I thought, that would be just my luck. Watch this guy come right over here and try to hustle me for drinks.

  Sure as hell, he came inside, stood there a moment, gave the crowd a quick assessment then focused on me. From behind my dark glasses, I watched him out of the corner of my eye.

  Ohhh Shit, here he comes!

  Of course, he marched right over to the vacant stool beside me. As I drained what was left in my bottle, I could feel his stare on the side of my face. I wanted to ask him what the hell his problem was but just ignored him and kept my eyes on the barmaid. When she finally came to take his order, she leaned over the bar and presented this guy with her cheek.

  He kissed it softly and said “Hello Crystal! How is my favorite girl today?”

  Then, after a quick exchange of pleasantries, he said, “Give me a scotch and soda,” then pointing at my empty bottle, “And give this gentleman another Corona.”

  I turned and looked at him and he said, “That is, if I may have the honor of having a drink with you.”

  I almost flipped backwards in my stool, not only because of the drink offer but also because of this scruffy old man’s voice. It was absolutely eloquent. He had a Mediterranean accent that added an unusual richness to his words. The way he so meticulously spaced them with his authoritative voice immediately put me to mind of Old World royalty.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, “I’ll have another. Thank you very much.”

  He smiled, and his craggy face lit up. Then he extended his hand and said, “I am Arturo Giovanni, and I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “My name is Frank, Frank Delaney,” I lied, as we shook hands and Crystal plunked down the drinks.

  “May I call you Frank, Mister Delaney?”

  “Sure, that would be fine.”

  He saluted me with his drink, I did the same, and we both took a swallow. Then he dug into one of the pouch-like pockets of his field jacket, as if searching for what he’d say next. When he extracted a new pack of imported cigarettes, he rapped it on the bar a few times and said, “How long have you been in town…Frank?”

  “Just a few hours. I’m only staying a day or two, then I’ll probably knock around the middle Keys for a while.”

  “Have you been to Key West before?”

  I nodded my head, saying, “Yes, I’ve been here three times before…with, with my wife.”

  He nodded
meditatively, as if evaluating what I’d just said then lit up a cigarette. He took a long, deep draw. Then, as he exhaled a slow steady stream of smoke toward the overhead fan, his eyes looked as if they were straining. When he turned back to me his face tightened up. A wave of deep concern washed over it, and the wrinkles on his forehead deepened. He took a slow cautious glance to both sides then said in a low voice, “I am so very sorry to hear about your wife, Mister Soles.”

  Excuse the expression, but I almost shit green. It was now my turn to look back and forth, but I did it quickly. Then, in a forceful whisper, I said, “Who the hell are you, Buddy? What are you talking about? You don’t know me. I told you, my name is Delaney.”

  “I am an artist, Mister Soles. My work is known all over the world. I spend part of my time here in Key West and part in Milan, where I have a second home. In my profession, I deal with many different shapes. As a blind man compensates by attuning his remaining senses, I have developed over the years an uncanny eye for shapes. When I first saw you from the sidewalk I knew who you are by your facial features. But don’t be overly concerned. With your mustache and beard, the glasses, and the hat, not many others would ever recognize you.”

  Looking deep into his dark eyes, I said, “I think maybe I should leave.”

  I reached for my cigarettes, and he gently laid his hand on my shoulder.

  “I am so sorry. I did not mean to upset you. You are looking at one of your biggest admirers. I have read your book. I agree wholeheartedly with all of your convictions.”

  I then turned my eyes to the wooden bar. I let out a long breath then slowly rotated the ashtray in front of me. Continuing to fiddle with it I said, “You obviously know I’ve been on the run.”

  “Your dreadful misfortune has been all over the news—worldwide. Have you not been watching it?”