Deal stood at the bridge railing, staring down at the roiling green current. It was late afternoon, the light almost gone. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still leaden, more like Maine’s than Florida’s. A yellow police line ribbon was stretched across the gaping hole where The Hog had ripped through nearly twenty-four hours before.
The cops, the boats, the generators were all long gone. They were sorry. All very sorry. Deal counted the orange pylons set up to shield other motorists from the shattered rail. Five little cones. Nothing much to distinguish the site from another metro construction project, now.
Cal stood nearby, watching warily, as if he thought Deal might be ready to jump.
“It’ll be a month before they get around to fixing this railing,” Deal said, not looking at him.
Cal rolled a toothpick he was chewing into the corner of his mouth. “What’s on your mind, Johnny?”
Deal shook his head. He’d been thinking about the baby. Not really a baby, of course. No bigger than a fingerling or a seahorse. Just one more organism returning to the sea, now. He would not think about it. He could not allow it. He willed his mind to trace the patterns in the swirling water below.
He had stopped in this same spot, stared down from the same railing on sunny days, coming back from a jog, or killing time on a lazy Sunday. Stare down and you might think you were looking at gentle waters swirling past the pilings. Fish from one of the abutments beneath the span, and if nothing’s doing, you’re getting bored and hot, you might even find yourself thinking about swimming across, trying your luck on the other side.
It would, however, be a serious mistake. The water was seventy feet deep in spots, the current impossible to imagine, unless you found yourself in it.
Deal had, once. Not here at Mule Pass, but at Boca Chica Cut, well to the north, where the tide sliced through the outer beaches to join the Intracoastal Waterway, near Jupiter.
It had been that brutal July afternoon Cal had referred to earlier. Deal and Flivey Penfield had been working on their tans atop a dune in front of Flivey’s parents’ beach house, drinking the Hamm’s they’d bought with a phony ID at the Elbo Room, waiting for happy hour to begin at Dirty Dick’s. They’d let anybody in at Dirty Dick’s.
Deal stared across the channel that separated the islands into North and South Banquette. You could see the blue-and-white striped awnings of Dick’s, which fronted on the marina tucked away on South Banquette, a quarter mile away.
“Let’s swim across,” Deal said.
Flivey propped himself up on his elbows, moved his sun visor off his face and squinted eastward at the ocean where a few die-hard surfers fooled around in the slack tide waves. “England or Africa?” he asked.
“Across the channel to Dick’s,” Deal said.
Flivey fell back to the sand and covered his eyes again. “You’re fucking crazy. We might make the Azores,” he said. “We could never make it to Dick’s.”
“I don’t see why not,” Deal said.
“The current,” Flivey said, arranging himself deeper into the sand. “This isn’t Stiltsville.”
He was referring to the place where they’d spent the previous week, framing up a house, part of a bizarre development rising up on pilings from the shallows of Biscayne Bay, five miles out from shore. It was like working on an oil rig. Bored silly, Deal had suggested swimming home one evening. Flivey paced him in their Boston Whaler for two miles before it got dark and Deal finally climbed in the boat.
Deal punched open the last of the warm beers and pulled off the thong that held the church key around his neck. He tossed it onto Flivey’s stomach, who swatted the hot metal away into the sand.
“Asshole,” Flivey muttered.
During the school year, Flivey and he roomed together at Florida State. Summers, they carried hod, framed walls, mixed mud on Deal’s father’s building sites. Flivey’s father was an attorney, a genteel Southerner who’d come down to the big city to make his way. Long before the elder Penfield had become one of the city’s movers and shakers, he and Deal’s father had hooked up in a land deal, and they’d become fast friends, joined together at the hip by Jack Daniel’s, as Deal’s mother put it. Holidays since he could remember, the two families would converge at the Penfields’ up the coast or at the Deals’ down south in the Keys. This time, he and Flivey had come up a bit early, getting a head start on the Fourth of July weekend.
“Swim’d be good for that leg,” Deal said, staring at the purple zippers that boxed Flivey’s kneecap. Flivey had started the last three games at flanker their sophomore year, then finished his career when a Florida lineman put him down with a late hit along the sidelines. Deal, who rode the bench as a fourth string linebacker, despite the baseball coach’s objections, had heard the knee burst from ten yards away. Deal had run to take one look at Flivey’s twisted leg, then caught up with the lineman, who was trotting off toward midfield. Deal tore the Florida player’s helmet off and hit him in the face with it, which started a riot. Someone hit Deal, then someone else—someone very, very big—rode him to the ground. Deal put his right arm out to break the fall. And heard the same terrible sounds as when Flivey’s knee had blown.
He and Flivey got adjoining beds in the university hospital, shared the same orthopedist, heard the same bad news together. At least they’d had plenty of time to study, after that.
“You got no hair,” Deal said, tracing the scars that laced his shoulder.
Flivey settled deeper in the sand. “I have brains,” he said.
Deal nodded. Sometimes he envied Flivey. Nothing showy, nothing to prove. But give him twenty minutes at Dirty Dick’s, just sitting on a stool looking around, he’d have half a dozen girls eager to buy him drinks.
Deal turned back and stared across the channel. It was a six-mile drive to Dick’s. Three out to the highway, most likely a wait at the drawbridge across the channel, three more back down to Dick’s. All of it in holiday traffic.
He gunned the rest of the beer, heard it singing in his ears. He was rocking on his heels, then was up, across the blazing ribbon of sand, clambering over the boulders that lined the channel from erosion.
There was an old black man sitting just above the water line, a spinning rod propped in the rocks at his feet. The rod tip bowed and danced but the old man seemed unconcerned. When Deal passed him, he glanced up, stared a moment, then turned away, as if nothing a white person might do could surprise him.
Deal stood watching a Chris-Craft cutting along the middle of the channel, headed out to sea. It was planing off the water, kissing the waves with whumps that he could hear clearly above the racket of the engine and the crashing of the ocean on the jetties that ran out with the channel a half mile or so from land.
Deal had a momentary image of his head popping out of a wave just as the boat was slamming down, but it didn’t bother him. Anything was possible, but the odds were against it. There wasn’t another boat in sight.
“Hey, man!” Deal turned and shaded his eyes. Flivey stood above him, at the top of the jumbled boulders. His angular frame was a dark shadow against a nearly white sky. “Seriously. You can’t do this.”
Deal grinned, waved, dove backward off his rock. As he hit the water, he saw Flivey turn and run back toward the beach.
A dozen strokes or so from the bank, Deal felt the current piling into him from his right, but it was nothing he hadn’t expected. He was a strong swimmer, had more than once ridden a rip tide for the hell of it, go out a half a mile or more, paddle back in and start again. And the injury that had ended his baseball career was only strengthened by his swimming. But now, when he turned to glance over his shoulder at the shore, he felt a nudge of surprise. The shape of the old black man had already receded fifty yards up the channel from where he’d pushed off.
Good sense should have told Deal to turn around then, but he had started something. He locked himself into five minutes of stubborn crawl before he checked again.
His shoulders had begun to ache and a fire was building in his lungs. He raised his head and tossed the wet hair out of his eyes as a huge swell lifted him. He had time to catch a heart-stopping glimpse: he was nearly halfway across the channel, but he’d already been swept out even with the end of the jetty, and the shore had become a distant ribbon. Then, the wave shifted and the bottom fell out of his ride.
He tumbled beneath the surface, swallowing water, his lungs ready to burst, his mind on fire: the current was incredible, far stronger than anything he’d ever encountered. He was already a half mile out from shore and it seemed he was picking up steam. Something slimy had wrapped itself around his legs—just seaweed, he told himself—but he kicked frantically, as if it were arms pulling him down toward the dark.
He stroked hard against the turbulent water and felt himself steady, then begin to move up. The light appeared above him in a vague nimbus, then as a shimmering mirror, and then, his head broke the surface and he could finally breathe.
He struggled up the crest of a swell, gasping, and spun around toward the shore, his heart seizing momentarily as he saw how far he had come. The skeleton of the unfinished condo tower on North Banquette was a tiny Tinkertoy on the horizon, swallowed by a wall of green as quickly as it had come into view. Deal had just enough time to catch a second breath before the water fell on him and hurled him down. As he went under, he would have sworn he heard his name.
He was ready for the plunge this time, and rode down with the water’s force until it finally relented and he could scissor back toward the surface with easy, measured strokes. He could ride this current, he told himself, until it faltered, and it would, even if it was a mile, or two, and so long as he did not wear himself trying to fight it, he could make his way back in.
He came up easy this time, pushing through a tangle of seaweed and lobster floats, wondering if he could feel a slackening in the swells. Then he heard it clearly, someone calling “Deal!” and his heart went heavy.
He struggled up the side of a swell and kicked hard to lift himself out of the water. Sure enough, there was Flivey, a hundred feet back, pounding the water like the awkward swimmer he was, his good buddy come to save him. Deal envisioned the long swim back, carrying Flivey all the way.
He caught his breath, then scissored up again, waving. “I’m all right, Flivey,” he called. Flivey stopped swimming and began to tread water like a man jumping on hot stones.
“Over here,” Deal called. He stole a glance toward shore. The light was already going, the dunes a faint sliver of white.
Flivey saw him finally and his face lit up. “You stupid bastard,” he called.
“Just ride with it,” Deal shouted. “We’ll be fine.” Flivey waved and started to paddle his way. A swell rose between them and Deal shook his head. He was tired, but if Flivey could just keep himself afloat, they could make it. He pushed himself over the swell, already rehearsing the words that would reassure his friend, then caught his breath.
Flivey was gone. Deal spun about, searching the water.
Maybe he’d misjudged the angle. But he made an entire circle, then a second, before he was sure. He sucked in air and dove, driving himself down deep until he couldn’t see, until his lungs were ready to burst. He kicked wildly to the surface, gasped, dove again.
On his third pass, he thought he felt something, but it turned out to be a chunk of carpeting, gelled to the consistency of flesh by algae and the endless surge of the tide. He cast the thing loose in disgust, and popped up from the surface, screaming “Flivey! Flivey…” Then a swell dropped on him and he caught sight of a four-by-four ringed with a crust of barnacles plunging toward his skull.
When he came to, he was sliding along a trough in calm seas, his arm clamped over the four-by-four in a death grip. The sky was dark now, the lights he saw on the distant shore could have been any lights, anywhere. “Flivey!” he called, and felt the pain throbbing in his face.
He raised his hand gingerly to his broken cheek. His nose was a ragged flap of flesh.
“Flivey!” he called again, knowing he was alone.
Once more. “Flivey!” He closed his eyes. There would never be an answer.
***
When he opened his eyes again, Cal was at his side, pulling him from the railing. “Got to get you home, Johnny.”
Deal glanced across the water at the building where he and Janice lived. Had lived. “Home?” he repeated. It seemed an impossible concept. He stared down once more at the water, then gave in and let Cal guide him toward the car.
Deal found himself in his condo, wandering through the rooms, a drink in his hand. A day later? Two days? Five? He wasn’t really sure.
The television in the living room was playing, a promo for a talk show: a tearful woman holding a photograph she said was of her son. MIA in Southeast Asia for twenty years, but someone had come up with this photo last week, the picture so fuzzy it could have been anybody with a beard and hair, maybe there was a UFO in there, too.
Deal found the remote, clicked off the set. Chin up, pal. Anything’s possible. Sure. Just like Flivey. They never found him, either. He took a swallow from his glass.
Sure, Deal
. Flivey’s voice.
Any minute now, Janice and I will both come floating in with fishies in our hair, we’ll go to Dirty Dick’s and celebrate
.
Deal finished his drink, noticed he had some mail in his hand. A circular with pizza coupons. A postcard that said he’d won a free hour’s session with a doctor of chiropractic. An envelope with his name in pencil, a child’s awkward scrawl, no return address. He found himself opening that one.
There was a card inside, a glossy picture of Surf Motors on the outside, “Congratulations on your new purchase,” printed on the inside. Someone had crossed through the printing and penciled a brief message at the bottom: “I heard what happened. I’m sorry.—Homer.” Good old Homer, Deal nodded, Homer guarding the door, watching his father toss the bones.
There had been other notes of sympathy. A few calls from the old crew in the Shores. A turkey someone had sent over from a deli, still on the counter, growing a greenish fur.
Deal hadn’t returned any of the calls. In fact, he didn’t remember speaking to anyone, except for Cal, who’d handled the few details. Amazing how simple life became when you had no family and no real friends.
From Cal he had learned there was a nominal waiting period when people disappeared. Seven years before you could settle an estate. But in this case, there were special circumstances. And there was no estate. Deal could probably get a declaration, hold a funeral service, if he wanted. “How about a wake?” Deal had said, waving a bottle at Cal. “Why don’t we have an Irish wake. Or one of those fucking New Orleans jazz funerals, up and down Biscayne.” On and on until even Cal had gotten tired of his act and had gone out, mumbling to himself.
Well, too fucking bad, Deal thought. He propped Homer’s card on the dinette counter and looked around the place with the interest of a distant friend come to visit:
A kitchen with avocado appliances and a balcony overlooking the Intracoastal, ten floors down; a dining nook with a glass-and-wicker table, wicker chairs; the living room opening onto the same balcony.
If you sat on the couch, you missed the view of the water. All you got was a shot of the condo fifty yards away, a guy out on his balcony in his undershorts, right now, watering a bougainvillea vine. That was okay, Deal thought. Life goes on. The guy straightened, scratched his balls, and went back inside.
Deal stood up. There was a painting over the couch. A bright watercolor of a village high in the Andes. He and Janice had picked it out together at the Grove art fair one year after he’d finished a series of luxury duplexes on the water. The artist was Peruvian, a likable guy who spent six months in South America painting, six months doing the art fairs in the United States. He painted places “only you cannot drive to.” He hiked far up into the mountains, used the local stream water to mix his paints. “
Muy autentico
,” he had said, sweeping his arm over his work. Authentic enough for Deal and Janice, anyway.
They carted the painting home, invented a Peruvian dish to cook, got drunk on Chilean wine. Janice in a T-shirt, leaning over the couch, her back to him, marking a spot for the painting to hang. Deal coming up behind her, reaching under the shirt, marking a better spot. Janice backing into him. It had taken hours to hang the painting.
Deal rolled off the couch, his chest on fire. They’d spent a year or two after that planning a trip to Peru. Something they’d never got around to doing.
He went into the bedroom. Stopped. All the drawers were out of Janice’s dresser. A series of boxes, some full, a couple still trailing arms and legs of clothing. He’d dumped the clothes, sealed most of the boxes, but had to stop when he pushed down on a mound of blouses and her scent rushed up over him like a cold ghost.
That sent him to the kitchen for a drink. Which was now nearly gone. He gunned the rest, put the glass in the windowsill, walked out and down the hall, glanced in the other bedroom, which had been his office until recently. He’d started packing it up the day Janice came home from the doctor.
“I’m pregnant, Deal.”
Smiling, but still worried. She’d been reading the books, how the odds tip once you pass thirty-five. Standing there in a cotton print dress, a tropical swirl of fronds and blossoms, her tan bringing out the freckles, her hair bleached from the sun. She could have been twenty-five.
Deal out of his mind happy, of course.
“Good grief, Deal. It’s too early to tell if it’s a boy or a girl.”
“Everything’s fine. We’re both fine.” Her laugh. One of the great let-it-all-go laughs. He found champagne. “Yes, you can do that. You won’t hurt the baby. Oh, yes. Do that. And that…”
Deal stood in the doorway of the second bedroom, staring at the carpet where they’d ended up. Twinges of pain at his elbows, his knees.
He shook his head to clear the memory. Stared at all the things still there in the room, waiting. Three gallons of frost green latex, one of sunburst yellow, for the trim, still stacked in the corner. Two prints leaning against the wall, one a Leroy Neiman of a tennis player, an overhead in a shower of paint, the other a reproduction of Degas’s tiny dancer. “Hey,” Deal said, the day he brought it all home, “we’re going androgynous. I don’t even
want
to know the sex.”
Deal turned from the room, his gut aching. How in God’s name did people
handle
these things? He moved off down the hallway toward the kitchen. He’d
had
to move them into a condo, hadn’t he. If they were still in the house, he would just set a match to it, walk away. Maybe he’d just walk away anyhow. Yes, he thought, he could always do that. In the kitchen, he found the gin.