I made a grunting sound of derision. “At least I thought I would. So maybe there were some clues I could’ve picked up on. He knew a lot about the people, the customs. Maybe more than he should’ve. Another was that he talked about the Maya like a university scholar. So it could be that one of the organizations he belonged to was a thing called Fight-4-Right, and he’d been in Masagua before. Fight-4-Right is an underground radical group that raises money for violent political causes, and works closely with the village populations of Third World countries.”
Ransom said, “The Stork Man, our Tomlinson, he be workin’ for some group that preach violence? My brother, he be like the least violent human soul I ever met. The only weapon he ever use is that big dick a his, and that a happy-makin’ thing. You know that.”
I said, “It was a different time. People, politics, philosophies, and Tomlinson got caught up in the dynamics of his generation. Me?”-I shrugged-“I’ve never cared about politics. Never will, and I’ve never felt a part of any generation. So I never understood the behaviors.”
I’d been pacing as I talked. I stopped now, looked at my watch, and said, “So, see why I had to give you the background? It wouldn’t’ve made sense without it. The point is, Tomlinson may have met Pilar before I met her, or around the same time-only I wasn’t aware of it. Because of their past political associations, there may be reasons for both of them to still keep secrets from me. At least, think they should.”
I began pacing again as I added bitterly, “Which means maybe neither of them were the friends I thought they were.”
Ransom said, “That ugly Stork Man, he may be a crazy ganja-smokin’ fool, brother, but he always your friend. You know that, too. I think that always safe to say. He almost like your brother.” Her tone of gentle rebuke said I was wrong to doubt him so quickly.
Still angry, I replied, “I’m not accusing him. I’m just saying it’s possible, that’s all. If he and Pilar were here, I’d be tempted to stick my nose in their faces and ask just what the hell the truth is. But I wouldn’t. I can’t. There’re too many-”
I caught myself. I’d almost said that there were too many security issues involved to confront them. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even hint that I’d uncovered the information until I was absolutely certain of the identity of Tinman.
So I finished lamely, but still bitter, “I can’t ask them because they’re holed up in some hotel room in Miami. They won’t even answer my calls.”
Shaking her head for some reason, Ransom was suddenly up, getting something from the galley-a piece of paper. “That where you’re wrong. I meant to tell you. I come inside the house before you got here, and found this note on the door. It from the Stork Man.”
Tomlinson’s penmanship reminds me of the eloquent ink craft that I associate with previous centuries-beautifully formed and slanted loops and swirls. Spencerianscript, he calls it, and credits his writing hand to a former life in which, he says, he worked as a shipping clerk, eighteenth-century London, on the Thames River.
The note read: Doctor, my Doctor, We took a shuttle back to the island about an hour after you dropped us at the hotel. Pilar started worrying we might get an important e-mail, and said we should check it. Guess you must have stopped somewhere or got hung up. Bring some beers and come on out to No Mas if it’s not after 11, man. My corporeal ass is dragging, so will hopefully be drunk, stoned, or asleep very soon. Abrazos, mi hermano!
As I looked up from the note, Ransom asked, “I already read it. What’s that last part mean?”
I said, “It’s an affectionate way of saying goodbye. Spanish. ‘I give you a hug, my brother.’ ”
Ransom told me, “Jes’ like I said, your brother. What kinda person gonna say that and not be your friend? And you talking about them like they was shacked up together in some hotel.”
“I don’t feel real apologetic right now. Maybe it has to do with finding out I’m maybe not the real father of my son.”
Ransom began, “Let me ask you somethin’, Marion Ford”-using her serious voice, the one she employs when making a point or assuming a platform of wisdom-“did you feel like the boy’s father before you read them letters? Course you did. Then tell me, how can a few words change a man’s feelin’s for his child? Where’s it say you got to have the same blood to be a father? Hell, man, I ain’t your real sister. But, ’cause of the feelings I got, I am your real sister. See what I’m sayin’?”
I was tempted to share the irony with her. It was only in recent hours that I’d had my first insights into the power of blood kinship-the first to which I had ever attached any emotion, anyway-and now those feelings were already being challenged.
I shook my head wearily, made a flapping motion with my hands, and began to undress. “You’re right. He’s my son. No matter who the real father is, he’s still my son.”
“Yeah, that a healthy way to think of it. Now, get them clothes off. You so bone weary, you get you some sleep now. I stay and rub your back maybe. Say-why you not wearing the gris-gris bag I give you? That good luck, man!”
I had my shirt off, so she could see that I wasn’t wearing the little leather sack of herbs and who-knows-what-else around my neck. I never did.
I let my fishing shorts drop to the floor, stepped out of them, turned, and walked to the west window, then stopped, looking out, as she said, “Something else you need to make you feel better, I can get some goofer dust. Put a little on you, then pray over it every day for nine days. I got some nice lotion, too-turpentine and rose petals mostly-that make the heart pains go ’way.”
I said, “Do you have any magic dust that’ll make Dewey come back? Or at least call.”
I’d told her about that, too.
“Oh yeah, man. The bring-me-lover-home spell, that an easy one. When the moon full? We do it then, and that girl, Dewey, she soon back in your arms.”
I was standing in my underwear, looking out over the mangroves, the marina lights off to my right, a wedge of moon showing over the trees. The moon would soon be setting over the Gulf; setting almost exactly at the same time the sun was rising over the bay. Decided that, as long as I was up, I might as well stay up to see it.
I told my sister, “I’m too tired to sleep. I think I’ll jog down Tarpon Bay Road to the beach, do a short run and swim.”
I could picture myself swimming toward the moon on a lane of silver light, the island widening behind me. What a temptation, to just keep swimming toward the moon.
I wondered if Dewey was awake, thinking about me, thinking about us.
Yeah, the mood I was in, that would be better than trying to sleep.
TWENTY
I saw Tomlinson briefly late that afternoon at the marina. He’d puttered ashore in his little dinghy so he could drive to Bailey’s General Store and buy supplies. The encounter was as uncomfortable as it was unexpected.
Unexpected because he makes shopping runs less frequently these days. Too much risk of being recognized. He has a garden variety of phobias, and the newest is the fear of being mobbed by foreign-speaking strangers.
It’s happened because of his growing cult status as a Zen teacher. His adoring groupies come to the marina to seek him out, and the attention makes him edgy. Until Mack, who owns and manages the marina, put a stop to it, they’d hang around the docks, hoping for a glimpse of their beloved prophet.
That’s the way they think of him, too. It has to do with a religious treatise that he wrote years ago when he was still a university student, One Fathom Above Sea Level. A fathom is six feet, so the title refers to the universe as viewed through one man’s eyes-Tomlinson’s.
The paper was published in Germany, enjoyed a brief European vogue, and then vanished. But a while back, it was rediscovered. It was translated into Japanese, then Chinese, and began to circulate around the world on the Internet. The Internet’s great triumph is that it is successfully joining us as one race, even while inviting dependencies that amplify our vulnerability, and that may well destroy us as a modern society.