Coleman shook his buddy vigorously. “Wake up! Wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”
Serge flopped a last few times, then blinked his eyes. “Coleman?”
“It’s cool, man. Just a bad dream.”
Serge looked around. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” said Coleman. “I crawled under this old house.”
“Are you still crawling under houses?”
“No, this time it was because I heard your voice and you were in trouble.” Coleman rolled over to rest on his back. “All those other houses . . . I don’t really know what that was about.”
Serge rolled over on his own back next to Coleman, then snapped his fingers. “I remember now. That horrible national family spat back at the convention began giving me the shakes, and I needed to retreat to a holy place.” He pointed up at the underside of the floorboards a few inches from his nose. “Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings bought this joint in 1928 and wrote The Yearling. But mainly she was one of those rare pioneers who preached the joy of undisturbed Florida. Today, undisturbed Florida means a place has only one titty bar.”
“And the chicks try less because where are you gonna go?”
“It’s a tragedy on so many levels.” Serge ran a finger along one of the floor beams. “At least I’m at Marjorie’s place. A Pulitzer was won right above our faces. Always feel better coming here.”
“Why didn’t you go inside?” asked Coleman. “The screen door was open.”
“I decided to sleep under the house instead because I didn’t want to trespass.”
“I wouldn’t really call that sleeping,” said Coleman. “You were yelling loud.”
“What was I saying?”
“Felicia.”
Serge closed his eyes hard.
“Sorry,” said Coleman. “Thought you’d gotten over her.”
“You never get over something like that. You just try to keep it in a box on an out-of-the-way shelf in your brain. But then you open the closet to look for an old sousaphone—”
“I’m getting hungry.”
“Thanks for listening.”
Coleman poked his stomach. “But it’s making the noises.”
Serge turned his head sideways. “The sun’s starting to come up, which is the signal to get out from under houses.” He began crawling. “We’ll grab breakfast at the Yearling.”
“The book?”
“Just come on . . .”
The Firebird took the western bend on Alachua County Road 325, past a dark body of water, and approached a brief bridge. The sun’s rise was known but not felt: A dewy fog hovered over the marsh grass, keeping the morning gray.
“That bridge sure is tiny,” said Coleman.
“It’s the bridge of my life.” Serge pulled over on a dirt road and threw his arms out in opposite directions. “We’re on a thin strip of land between two lakes, Lochloosa and Orange, and that bridge crossed the creek that connects them, Cross Creek, namesake of Rawlings’s classic memoir and the Oscar-nominated movie starring Mary Steenburgen as the author.”
Serge got out of the Firebird and walked toward a small wooden structure. “This is my favorite place on earth, for now. You can actually rent these little shotgun shacks right on the edge of the creek and hear the water going by. Isn’t it great? Can you feel the Rawlings magic?”
Coleman rubbed his tummy. “Can we get some food now?”
“No! We must go sit in the shack and dig it!” He produced a key from his pocket.
“You rented one of these?”
“Of course.” Serge stuck the key in the knob. “I first thought of lodging under Rawlings’s house, but you can’t open a suitcase.”
“What about this Yearling place you said we could eat at?”
Serge turned around in the doorway. “See that old rustic building over there?”
“Yeah. Looks closed.”
“One of the finest restaurants in Florida way out in the sticks with handed-down family-recipe cracker cuisine. There’s something on the menu called cooter. Any place that serves cooter rocks my world.”
“Great! Let’s eat!”
“Doesn’t open till lunch.”
“Serge!”
Serge went inside the shotgun shack. “Gives us time to groove on the cottage. Now get in here and groove!”
It was a cozy little place with everything in one room: two classic beds with wooden posts, old table and chairs, antique cabinets that would now command top dollar as “shabby chic.”
Serge sat on one of the beds and swayed with enthusiasm. “This is so perfect. Can you hear that famous water?”
Coleman moped on the other bed. “My belly.”
“Maybe if you tried swaying. Just follow my example. I’m in such a happy place that I don’t think I can possibly ever leave.” Serge swayed some more. Then suddenly bolted upright. “I got to get out of here.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Coleman.
Serge ran out the door and began pacing on the dirt road. “Dammit! I came out to experience harmony and raise my empathy quotient, but then I had to go and have that nightmare. Now I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“Serge, it hasn’t been that long yet since it happened. You need more time.”
“It will always be an open wound until I find out who killed her. I didn’t mention this before, but my quest to become a political version of a private detective and reunite our people isn’t entirely altruistic.”
“It’s not?”
“I’ll tell you more over lunch.”
“But that’s still a few hours. What will we do until then? . . .”
Time passed.
“Serge, what are you doing up in that tree?”
“Seeking the birds’ perspective. Birds get stunning overhead views of both lakes, but obviously don’t appreciate it like me because they’re easily distracted by a mouse. Oooo, a mouse.” He shimmied down . . .
More time passed.
“Serge, what are you doing in the creek wearing only your underwear?”
“Baptizing myself.” Serge dunked his head in the water, then threw a fist in the air. “Shula!”
Coleman turned around. “I think the restaurant just opened.”
“Excellent.” Serge climbed out of the creek and headed for the Yearling. “I could go for some vittles.”
“What about clothes?”
“Oh, right. That was almost another episode of having to talk fast on my feet.”
Moments later . . .
“Whoa,” said Coleman. “Look at this old place.”
“Couldn’t you tell that from the outside?”
“But that was like funky, broken-down old. This is . . .”
“People drive right by and never have any idea all this is inside.” Serge ran a hand along a railing. “Dark varnished wood like a hunting lodge, giant library of antiquarian books, stretched-out alligator hide on the wall above the vintage Coca-Cola machine, old hotel mail slots, more country antiques in the dining room, the bare-bones stage where legendary Willie Green served up Delta blues on slide guitar and harmonica . . .”
Coleman grabbed Serge’s arm. “The sign over that door: ‘The Cooter Shell Lounge.’ Can we go in?”
“Absolutely,” said Serge. “Then I can show you all the ancient southern college football pennants, probably from 1952 when this place opened.”
They grabbed stools. Double whiskey and a bottle of water arrived.
“We’d like some food,” Serge told the bartender.
“I’ll get you some menus.”
“No need.” Serge waved a hand over his head. “Already know what we want. Cooter. For both of us.”
“How would you like that cooked?”
“I don’t even know what it is,” said Serge. “Just tell the cook that I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cooter. You may go.”
Coleman looked around in the dim light at more rows of books and a movie poster. “Man, they’ve got stuff by that Rawlings chick all over the place.”
“Because they know their history.” Serge drained his water. “And few realize how Marjorie was wired into so many Florida icons like the Kevin Bacon game. They just think she was this bucolic scribe. But you know how the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in St. Augustine is in an old castle?”