Island Life Sentence

by Carrie Jo Howe

  The money wired.

  The realtors took their envelopes.

  The title company took their envelope.

  Peg and Clark Savage took the keys to their island home.

  “The sellers said the cleaners should be here. I’ll take Nipper on a run before the storm hits.” Clark tied his Nikes and put his baseball cap on backward.

  “It might be nice if you could–” Peg heard the door slam. “Whatever… or perhaps not.”

  Peg wandered around the corner of the front hallway toward the stairs. She jumped with a start when a small, round black woman stood in front of her – out of nowhere. She wore a vibrant colored headscarf and beads on her wrists and ankles. Her feet were flat and bare.

  “Oh. Hi. Sorry. You scared me. I’m Peg… new owner. Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand.

  The woman held out a wrinkled hand and seized Peg’s. Placing her other weather-worn hand over the handshake, the woman firmly pressed the hand sandwich to her large, sagging breasts. “I am Jacinta.” Her lips drained of color as she gummed a broad grin.

  Thinking that it might be a custom, Peg held her hand to Jacinta’s bosoms for what seemed to be a very long time. She returned the smile. “Yes, well, good. Okay. I’m… well… we’re just here… I mean my husband and my dog… they’re… uh… coming soon… and the movers.”

  Jacinta released Peg’s hand and opened the front door of the house. She stood on the wooden porch and stared at the ceiling painted a brilliant azure. She motioned for Peg to follow. Waving her short arms theatrically in a rainbow shape, she pointed upward with a bony finger. “Dis good dis blue. Keep dis. Haints can’t get to you. Dey don’t like water. Haints can’t cross water. Blue keep dem away.” She closed her eyes, as if in prayer.

  Peg broke the silence. “Um, excuse me. What’s a haint? I’m from Chicago. It snows a lot up there and I don’t think we have haints… probably too cold… it can get foggy too…”

  “Ghos. Evil spirits,” Jacinta groaned, breaking her trance. “This old house. Many die who came here. Many want to come back. Blue keep dem away.” She flapped her arms like a bird and then padded back into the house.

  Peg stood motionless, staring at the porch ceiling. Her mouth dropped open when she noticed sections where the paint had worn off. A large gust of wind blew the ever-present island coral dust in a whirlpool along the edge of the decking. She felt a chill. “Um, excuse me again, like, um, how many died, do you think? Why do they want to come back?” Hair standing on end, Peg searched the house, but Jacinta was gone. Out of the side window, a three-wheeled motor scooter hauling a wagon of cleaning supplies zoomed by.

  Peg was by herself in the house.

  She hoped.

  Moving In

  The wind slammed the door backward against the wall as Clark and Nipper entered the house. What was once a sunny day, suddenly turned dark. Peg startled and clutched her chest.

  “What’s the matter? You look like you saw a ghost.” Clark fingered the doorknob indent that was a permanent fixture on the wall.

  “A haint.” Peg rushed over to close the door. “The cleaning lady creeped me out. She told me they have ghosts here. Lots of them – undead called haints.”

  Clark rolled his eyes.

  “Did you know that, right this very minute, hundreds, maybe thousands of undead who have been in this house are clammering to get back in? I bet ‘haint alert’ was not included in the home inspection. Apparently the blue porch ceiling is all that protects us from our souls being sucked out, doomed to roam forever in limbo.”

  “So, we are protected then. Then there h’aint no problem. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck.” Clark snapped his fingers while skipping backward in a Three Stooges move.

  Oh, how she hated it when he looked so cute.

  Peg willed herself back to her worries. “No. Actually there are chunks of blue paint missing from the front porch. I mean, how many undead can fit through? Personally, I would prefer zero.”

  Not helping her cause any, a crash of thunder shook the house. The black skies relieved themselves of their heavy load. The noise was deafening against the metal roof.

  “Oh my God,” she yelled. “Look at the water. I’ve never seen anything like it… like it’s being poured out of a… Oh, I think I see a moving truck out there.” She yanked at the door, but the bloated wood refused to budge. “I just shut this door. And now I can’t open it.” She pulled again using all of her strength.

  Clark came to her rescue. The door succumbed reticently – first the top half, then the bottom half – making a boing sound as it released its sticky grip. “This is the rainy season. Storms don’t last long, only brief shower bursts.”

  Peg strained to see through the waterfall.

  A small yellow moving truck bearing the name High End Moving parked in front of the house. All of their belongings had been packed in a big yellow moving truck in Illinois. Peg didn’t recognize the driver either.

  “Hi. You must have the wrong house. This is not our truck,” she screamed from the door, trying not to get wet.

  “Yes, ma’am, it is. We hadta unload the big truck into two smaller trucks ’cause the streets is too small. We’ll go back and git the other truck later.”

  “What?” The roof raindrop noise was getting louder.

  “Some stuff got a lil wet when we took it outta the semi,” the large man said as he approached the door. “I’m Big Jim by the way. They call me BJ.” He most definitely was BIG Jim – a full 6-foot-5 both tall and wide. His head was the size of a prize pumpkin with a row of large straight teeth showing under a gargantuan Yosemite Sam mustache. A limp, wet cigarette hung out of his mouth over a skull and crossbones tattoo that extended from the bottom of his chin to his large Adam’s apple. When he spoke, the crossbones rubbed together like sticks igniting a fire.

  Two co-workers, shirtless and soaked, emerged from the cab of the truck. Peg was sure that the one with the gold tooth had bullet-hole scars on his chest – just above his pierced nipples. The other one was bearded with dreadlocks and a tattoo across his chest that said, If you can read this the bitch fell off. Both had serious butt-crack exposure.

  “O-kaay.” Peg grabbed Clark’s arm and spoke in low tones. “Well, Bee Jaay, who looks like Blackbeard, is here with two other guys from America’s Most Wanted to unload half of our soggy belongings. God knows where the other half is. Probably being bootlegged on the black market. Where are the clean-cut men with logo tee shirts that loaded our stuff in Illinois?”

  Peg peeked out of the door through diminishing raindrops to see Nipper up on his hind legs, hugging Big Jim. The man returned the nuzzle, cooing baby talk in the dog’s ear.

  So much for the guard dog.

  Clark grabbed an umbrella and walked into the drizzle to shake the driver’s gigantic hand. Peg wondered if she had packed hand sanitizer in her travel bag.

  The assorted furniture and piles of water-stained boxes made their way out of the first truck, and, just when the house refused to take on any more, the second truck showed up. Peg wedged her way around the melee, trying not to run into any of the movers, who reeked of smoldering Roquefort.

  When the men lounged on the front porch to smoke, she felt sure that if there were such things as haints, they would look exactly like this group of beings. Their loud voices carried into the hallway, telling of their plan for a big night out on the town in Key West. Peg imagined these pirates walking around her small Midwestern town. The shop owners on Main Street would likely call the authorities to report these suspicious characters who were most certainly not going to buy a scented candle or paisley overnight bag.

  I could use a scented candle right now.

  The pungent marijuana smell from her college years wafted through the crack in the front door. She wrinkled her nose as Clark entered the house.

  “What the…?” She pushed Clark into the bathroom and shut the door.

  In hushed tones Peg said, “Did you see those reprobates on ou
r front stoop? What will the neighbors think? What are we going to do about it?”

  Two tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke trickled out of Clark’s nostrils.

  “Really? You’re kidding. What’s next? Heroin on the back patio?” Peg coughed and waved away the stinky air. “It’s against the law, by the way.”

  She opened the bathroom door and face-planted directly into Big Jim’s animated skull and crossbones Adam’s apple. His unibrow raised in amused curiosity when he witnessed Peg then Clark exit the room.

  “No. It’s not what you think. We were looking at something… together… in here.” She pointed to the toilet, shook her head, pointed at the shower then, rethinking that movement, motioned to the sink faucet.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re done. Y’all have a good evening.” BJ sniggered as he left.

  Peg could hear the group’s raucous laughter as they climbed into the truck.

  “I wonder what he thinks we were doing in there?”

  Clark grabbed his wife by the waist. “Gettin’ a bad reputation already.” He winked. “But a bad reputation is a good reputation in Key West.”

  “Perfect. We’ll be the topic of all the trash talk tonight.”

  “Hey, we’ll be popular. People will be lined up for a reefer and a bathroom quickie.”

  Seeing he was enjoying this topic, Peg ignored the comment, not wanting to further the conversation.

  “Why don’t we go out and have a night on the town? Celebrate.” Clark’s eyes were bloodshot.

  Peg surveyed the mountains of boxes. “I don’t even know where the sheets are to make the bed. I’d like to find the towels too.” Before Clark could object she added, “You go ahead. It’s not like you’ll be that much help right now in your current condition. Nipper and I will stay here.”

  Clark kissed her nose. “I’ll be back soon.” He grabbed his phone off of a pile of boxes and left.

  Nipper found a corner to lie down. “Let’s get started.” She sat on the floor next to him. Rubbing her temples, she sighed.

  Where am I going to put all of this?

  Trudy was right – shoulda let that lady have the Christmas towel.

  Morning in Paradise

  “These past couple of weeks have been kinda like a dream to me.” Peg ruffled Clark’s hair on the way to the cupboard for a coffee cup. “It’s all so new – like a beautiful strange planet. Maybe not quite as hot as Mars, but close.”

  Clark typed at his computer, “Uh huh.”

  Peg poured herself a cup of coffee. “The sunset was amazing last night. I didn’t realize it’s the clouds that make it spectacular.”

  “Mmmm. Right.”

  “And the fish taco at the pier? Absolutely delicious, best I’ve ever tasted – so fresh and flaky. I’d go back there every night.” She blew on the steam rising from her cup.

  Clark looked up from the screen, “I have to go to Cuba.”

  “Cuba? Why?” Peg choked on her sip of coffee.

  “A company has asked me to consult for a start-up. Things are opening up with the US.”

  “Cuba?”

  “I know. It’s an amazing opportunity.”

  Peg made a face.

  Clark was undeterred. “We discussed that I’d be doing some consulting.”

  “I didn’t think you’d have to start working so soon. And, I thought your work would be from the house, not from Cuba.” The caffeine and humidity produced tiny water beads on her upper lip.

  “This company needs my help setting up their communications. We Americans take cell phones and the Internet for granted, but Cubans have very limited accessibility. Gonna be groundbreaking work – helping millions of underprivileged people. This is a chance for me to do something on a global level. I need to go there to assess the resources already in place.”

  “Tough to argue when you use words like Americans and underprivileged and global.” Peg wrinkled her brow. “It seems so soon for you to leave, when we just got here.” She plopped her elbows on the counter and cupped her cheeks in her hands. “You don’t even speak Spanish. Are you the right person to set up communications when you can’t communicate?”

  “I’ve been working with a translator. She’s been instrumental in organizing the work.” Clark avoided Peg’s eyes. He stood up and talked over his shoulder as he walked into the bedroom. “Listen, it’s only 90 miles away – closer than the nearest Target.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Peg shouted, not realizing he had come back into the room.

  Clark grimaced at her yelling. “No more than a week or so – be back before you know it.” He patted her on the back. “Hey, where’s my swimsuit?”

  Peg wished she could be happier about his selfless charity.

  “Hello? Swimsuit?” Clark interrupted her thoughts.

  “Oh… uh… swimsuit? I think it’s in the closet with the towels and hacksaw. No not that one, that’s the coat and dog food closet.”

  “Ah, that makes perfect sense.” Clark nodded his head in an exaggerated up and down motion.

  Peg jumped back as a bright green gecko slithered down the inside of the closet door. “Yick, I’ll never get used to those things… creepy and crawly.” She pranced in a circle, waving her hands.

  “They’re three inches long. What’re they going to do to you?”

  Nipper took notice and began a slow army crawl toward the creature, counting on the element of surprise.

  “Heart attack… they give me the willies.”

  “Hey, we don’t need these coats anymore. You’d have extra space if you got rid of them.” Clark tossed the heavy outerwear onto the floor on top of the already growing pile of former closet occupants as he continued his search.

  “It is possible that I’ll go to back to Chicago sometime, you know.” Peg swallowed the tiny lump in her throat.

  “Ah ha. Here it is.” He tugged out a bright floral suit from under a pile of towels. The towel tower tumbled off the shelf. “Right, of course, but not in the winter. How could you leave this?” Clark pointed to the blue sky and green palm fronds showing through the picture window.

  “It is beautiful,” she admitted, then glanced down at the floor. She squatted to pick up the pen that had fallen out of a coat pocket. Holding it up, she inspected the side. “The company logo… I remember when I had these made.” She gathered the towels to stack them back where they belonged.

  “I leave on Friday at eleven in the morning. Direct from Key West, 35-minute flight.”

  “Friday? Like… this Friday? Two days from now Friday?” Peg ceased folding straight-edge creases in a towel on the floor.

  “Peg, it’s not a big deal. I’ll be gone a week.”

  “I thought you’d be working from home for any consulting once we moved here.”

  “They want to know the on-site feasibility of the project. Needs to be decided as soon as possible.”

  Peg brightened. “Why don’t I come too? I am the financial expert. I could make sure the project stays on budget.”

  “No budget yet. No real company. It’s just a consult.”

  Peg lowered her eyelids.

  He leaned down and lifted her chin. “Nipper will keep you company and I’ll be back in a week.”

  Hearing his name, the dog looked over at them, allowing the trapped lizard a welcome escape.

  Lucky lizard.

  Peg watched as Clark stripped naked in the middle of the kitchen and put on his swimsuit.

  How can men do that? They don’t even care who sees them? Wow, he does have a great butt.

  “Here, take the new beach towel. It’s bigger.” She tossed it across the floor in Clark’s direction.

  Clark’s eyes met Peg’s. He sucked in his stomach while patting the middle-aged layers. “I’m working on getting rid of this. Wanna go for a swim in the ocean with me?” He grabbed his goggles out of the beach bag.

  “Okay,” she said, forcing her brain to stop calculating how many hours until 11am on Friday. “I’ll get the l
eash and bring Nipper too.”

  “How great is this that we can walk to the ocean for a swim?” Clark exuded happiness.

  “So great,” Peg replied with fabricated eagerness. “Come on, Nipper, let’s go.”

  “Aren’t you going to wear your suit?” Clark slathered on the sunscreen. “It’s the beach.”

  “Right, I guess so.”

  The leashed dog followed Peg around the room as she located her new suit hanging next to the yard rake in the vacuum-cleaner closet. Nipper nudged his nose into the door to enter the bathroom with her. “Sorry, Nip. Not enough room for both of us in here.” Peg shut the door. The dog plopped down with a loud thud.

  Not wanting even the mirror to see her naked, she moved away from its judging eye. She shimmied the triple-ruched, ultra-slimming suit up her thighs with exaggerated hip swirls, but the stubborn one-piece bunched at her waist and refused to go any higher.

  What is happening? This fit when I tried it on in the store.

  Her sticky skin fought the spandex. She attempted to find the top part of the suit.

  Is this suit made of double-sided tape? Is it on backward?

  Seeing what looked like a strap, she hunkered down and yanked it up over her right arm. One breast encased in a swimsuit knot and the other dangling homeless, Peg forced herself upright, only to produce the most perfect and fantastic of wedgies. Sweat trickled…

  “What are you doing in there?” Clark called out from the back door. “I’m ready to go.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll meet you there.” Peg tried not to sound out of breath.

  “You bring the dog so I can start to swim.”

  “Fine. Just go.” The bathroom walls closed in on her as she realized she had pulled the left strap over the right arm. No matter how hard she heaved, yanked or contorted, the spider web of a bathing suit held fast.

  I think I’m going to have to cut this thing off. No you are NOT. That is a one-hundred-dollar Nordstrom bathing suit. You are NOT going to cut it off.

  The dog barked in concern when he heard the scuffle coming from inside the bathroom.