I’ve been your biggest fan ever since hearing you at a Tampa campaign rally in 2000. Maybe you remember me: I was the guy in back chanting “Hal-li-bur-ton! Hal-li-bur-ton!” until the Secret Service made me run. (Sorry, didn’t realize that was a secret.) The administration’s just drawn to a close, and history will judge harshly, but don’t think for a second that it applies to you. True Americans in the fly-over states appreciate your brilliance. I’ll bet you’ll even get a stamp! They’ve got antique sewing machines and “Lady and the Tramp,” so it’s only right. The post office could even hold a vote, like fat Elvis or thin Elvis (Cheney classic, or ski mask).
Now that’s a legacy! Of course, nothing like “Go fuck yourself.”
You crack me up! Serge A. Storms
Mahoney finished the letter and stuck the dossier back in his briefcase. Then he pulled a coffee-table book from under his seat.
The agent took a tentative sip of still-too-hot coffee and opened the book in his lap, refreshing himself on the history of the Highwaymen.
FORT PIERCE
The Javelin cruised down U.S. 1 and reached the city at first light.
“Here we are!” said Serge. “Birthplace of Florida’s Highwaymen. The air is electric! I must roll the window down!” “Sunrise!” said Coleman. “That calls for a beer!” “You already have one going.”
“It’s not the sunrise beer.” Coleman popped a second Schlitz for his other hand and plowed into the new day with his signature two-fisted zeal to beat back agenda.
“Coleman, I’m trying to teach you a little culture.”
“I’m listening. They were some kind of painters, right?”
“Not just any painters. Florida’s seminal landscape artists of the fifties and sixties, a loose collection of twenty-six African Americans who used their talent to escape the period’s low-pay citrus fields.”
Coleman finished the first can. “Why were they called the Highwaymen?”
“Not known as such in their day, but the spot-on name was bestowed in 1994 by art lover Jim Finch. They cranked out pieces at a prodigious rate, selling them door-to-door or roadside out of trunks, hence the name. Fame was elusive, and their efforts were originally dismissed as so-called motel art, referring to the typically cheesy stuff hanging in such rooms.”
“Like dogs playing poker?”
“Except the Highwaymen were ahead of the postcard curve in appreciating the state’s natural beauty. You’ve no doubt seen their work without even realizing it: seaside vistas with coconut palms, royal poinciana and glowing, turquoise waves rolling ashore, moonlit rivers, graceful herons, stalking egrets, stunning marshes, sunsets in a bold, reddish light that made the sky look like it was on fire.”
“I like clowns and superfat ladies on the beach.”
“The Highwaymen couldn’t afford canvas, so they painted on cheap epson board, which required extraaggressive brushstrokes that defined their genre. It’s what strikes you at the Backus Gallery that you can’t pick up from a book: distinctive wood grain under the paint. Without texture, what’s the point of life? From now on you are only to refer to me as ‘Epson Board’ Storms, like a southpaw from Pascagoula who pitched for the Dodgers in ‘38 but was killed midseason in a freak beekeeping mishap, or maybe third-base coach Mush-Head McGee, who delighted fans with uncontrollable facial tics, or the aptly named adult-film star Gooseneck Johnson …” Serge stopped and slapped himself on both cheeks. “Sorry, had to reboot. Go back to calling me Serge.”
“Serge, what’s an Epson board?”
“Who knows? I press a lot of people I meet for answers, but they all say the same thing: ‘Please, don’t hurt me.’”
“What’s that building by the water?”
“The Backus Gallery I just mentioned, dedicated to this white dude who nurtured a robust, artistic hang-out scene at his house, regardless of race: packs of jazz musicians, other painters and unpopular thinkers, always welcome because of Backus’s Left Bank leanings. Not the Seine, the Kissimmee.”
“We’re going to a gallery?”
“No, been there a hundred times.” Serge flipped through the coffee-table book in his lap. “Galleries are great, but they’re like churches: offsite worship. For the true spiritual experience, you must follow the brightest star to the manger.”
“Manger?”
“An old juke joint called Eddie’s Place.”
AT THAT VERY MOMENT …
Two tire wholesalers entered a motel lounge called Mulligans. The rest of the day, the bar served drinks. But just before sunrise, the staff laid out free continental breakfast.
Toasters popped. Coffee poured. Plastic cups went under orange juice spigots. The salesmen slid styrene trays along the bar, loading up on croissants. Nobody touched the giant, see-through bins dispensing Special K and Froot Loops.
A TV was on in the corner. “… Authorities have yet to identify the charred remains tied beneath a burning vehicle in the Ocala National Forest. However, officials have traced the source of the blaze to the dashboard and an ordinary disposable lighter…” The picture changed to a fire inspector interviewed on the scene. “… Most Floridians understand the danger of leaving children or pets in cars with the windows rolled up, where midday temperatures can reach a hundred and fifty degrees or more. But few give a second thought to cheap, throwaway lighters, which are butane under pressure and can easily explode at those temperatures, spraying flammable liquid all over the interior…” He looked back as firefighters continued hosing down the car’s smoldering shell. “… Whoever did this knew his physics. Simple but effective …”
The broadcast switched back to the anchorwoman. “In other news, police were called to the Convention Center earlier today when fighting broke out between rival unity conferences …”
Another tray slid down the bar.
“Steve!” said one of the tire guys. “How’d it go last night?”
“Regular tiger.” He placed a jelly doughnut on his tray. “Barely got a wink.”
“Details!”
“Well, first she …”
A looming shadow fell over Steve like a rolling thunderhead. He turned around. “Oh no.”
Five massive bodyguards. “Someone would like a word with you.”
“Sure, right after breakfast.”
A giant hand grabbed the doughnut and squished it into a tiny ball, jelly squirting between his fingers. “Now.”
“Uh, guys, be right back,” said Steve, dragged away by large hands under his armpits.
They shoved him into the men’s room and up against a wall. One braced the door against accidental interruption.
Someone was washing his hands at the sink. He dried them on a blower without rush, then calmly walked over to Steve.
“Good morning.”
“Eel, I was going to call you! I swear!”
“Now I’m here.”
“That thirteenth-floor business-could happen to anyone.”
“Of course it could.”