The bum began standing. “I’d like to get off—”
Serge pushed down on his shoulder. “…The waitress comes by, and I’m looking under my plate. She asks if everything is okay. I say, ‘There’s no pickle.’ I turn the burger vertical, going through it like a wallet, and the waitress says it doesn’t come with a pickle. I stop and look up. ‘Yes, it does.’ She says there’s no mention in the menu. I say I know what the menu says; lyrics overrule. Then we started yelling. Actually it was just me. Suddenly, there goes the table. Guess who they blame? So now these four beefy guys in festive shirts are dragging me toward the front door, and I’m screaming at the other customers: ‘Call Jimmy! Somebody call Jimmy!’ I land on my back on the sidewalk, and the cheeseburger patty hits me in the chest and they throw the buns and everything at me, just an ugly scene…. I have to tell you, somewhere along the line, something has gone horribly wrong in Margaritaville….”
Vehicles flew by Serge’s window. Jeep Grand Cherokee, metallic green Trans Am, brown Plymouth Duster, over the Marvin D. Adams cut, Tavernier Creek, Snake Creek, the Whale Harbor bridge, into Islamorada, the scuba industry giving way to rows of offshore charter boats at marinas with stuffed marlin and sea bass and hammerheads hanging from trophy hooks facing the road. A ’71 Buick Riviera chugged past Paradise Pawn and a motel with a faux lighthouse, then another bus shelter and the pulled-over Greyhound that Coleman had been leapfrogging the last thirty miles. The views from the bridges began opening up, and Coleman grooved on the scenery. The Long Key Viaduct was particularly inspiring, especially on the Gulf Stream side, so Coleman hit his blinker and cut into the left lane for a closer look over the top of the parallel bridge span heading the other way. Yes, sir, this is living. He smiled and hit his joint.
Coleman began noticing a lot of pelicans on the other bridge span. Then a camping tent. And another. Several fishermen. More and more tents. More fishermen. Hold the phone, thought Coleman. That’s not a parallel bridge going the other way; it’s a span that’s been converted into a fishing pier. Hmm, interesting. So I guess that means I’m on a two-way bridge. Coleman looked forward and saw the oncoming Camaro stopped cold, fifty yards up.
The Greyhound driver slammed the brakes, pitching Serge and the bum into the seats in front of them with the sound of scraping guitar strings. “Hey!” yelled Serge. “What the hell’s going on up there?”
The driver threw the transmission back into low gear. “Some fool almost had a head-on.”
The bus entered Marathon, smack in the middle of the Keys. The airport went by on the right. Small terminal, big fuel tank, Piper Cubs, biplanes for novelty rides, rows of corporate aircraft, white limo waiting at the edge of the runway.
Key West didn’t allow jets for noise reasons. So if a big executive wanted to take the Lear, he landed in Marathon and rode a limo the last fifty miles, drinking the whole way. Like the man right now climbing down the stairs and crossing the tarmac in a tropical shirt and flip-flops. Gaskin Fussels from Muncie. The chauffeur ran around the car. “Mr. Fussels, let me get those bags….”
Fussels was short, chubby and bald. He also reeked of money, which meant he was sexy.
The limo left the airport and headed west on U.S. 1. It was stopped within a mile. Fussels ran inside Overseas Liquors and was back in a flash with his usual fifth of their most expensive rum. The driver wondered whether he might get a better tip if he stopped in advance and had the bottle waiting. He’d done that once for another client, but the tip was the same and he’d gotten stiffed on the booze. The rich never ceased to amaze the driver. He’d seen everything. Take Fussels, for instance. Big attorney from Indiana with a second home in the Keys. Four-day work week, then every Friday morning a private charter into Marathon for another lost weekend as Calypso Johnny. Every single week. How could he afford it? Is there that much money floating around? The driver decided there was a secret world he wasn’t being told about.
“No other way to live,” Fussels explained as he always did, tidying the wet bar. “It’s just service economy down here, so I couldn’t make near the money. But I couldn’t live anywhere else. Yes, sir, these flights are worth every penny. My competition shivers all weekend up north, then I come back to the courthouse Monday morning, tanned, recharged, the weight of the world off my shoulders, and I bash their brains out!”
The limo started across the Seven-Mile Bridge. What a day, not a cloud, the Gulf Stream chocked with color. Fussels settled into the middle of the backseat with his drink and stretched his legs. “Got a joke for ya….”
The driver looked up in the mirror. “What is it?”
“How does a blind person know when he’s finished wiping?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Fussels. How?”
“No, you see, that’s the joke.”
“Oh… ha, ha, ha, ha…” The driver would never understand the rich.
Fussels grabbed his bottle. “Moron.”
They didn’t talk for a while after that. Fussels diligently got plowed. They reached Ramrod Key.
“Pull over. I need to take a leak.”
The chauffeur looked up the road. “There’s a Chevron next block.”
“Fuck it. I wanna go here.”
The rich again. The limo eased onto the shoulder. Fussels got out, walked down a mild embankment and stumbled to his knees. “Whoa, good rum.” He stood and undid his zipper, not remotely concealed, children pointing from station wagons as they drove by. Mr. Fussels started feeling splashes on his bare ankles. “What the hell?” He angled his head to look around the stream. “Am I hitting something?”
There was movement in the brush. A nocturnal armadillo raised its head. What woke me up? And what’s this stuff hitting my shell? The animal desired to be somewhere else and began marching toward the road.
Fussels returned to the limo. The chauffeur looked back up U.S. 1, waiting for traffic to clear. Just a couple more vehicles. A Greyhound bus and a metallic green Trans Am. The driver of the Trans Am had her radio on low, Shania Twain. A single tear trickled out from beneath dark sunglasses concealing two black eyes. She put on a blinker and swung around the Greyhound bus, which was slowing to an unscheduled stop behind a limousine.
The bus’s door opened and Serge came flying out with his knapsack. He picked himself up from the dirt and turned around, spreading his arms in a gesture of innocence. “What?”
A guitar hit him in the chest. The bus drove off.
Serge noticed the limo and began running for it. “Hey! Do you think you could give me a—”
The limo sped off. Serge hoisted the knapsack over his shoulder and stuck out his thumb. “Here comes somebody. Looks promising. The car’s pretty beat up, so they have a history of poor judgment like picking up hitchhikers….”
The driver of the brown Plymouth Duster with Ohio plates was distracted by Serge, leaning way too far into traffic with exaggerated hitchhiking gestures. Never saw the armadillo.
Bang.
The Duster’s driver looked in the rearview and watched the unfortunate animal tumble down the highway, coming to rest on the centerline with four legs in the air.
4
THE INSIDE OF the ’71 Buick Riviera smelled like grease-smoke. Coleman had stopped at an independent convenience store with Citgo gas pumps out front and a glass case inside heated with red light bulbs. A Styrofoam box of yesterday’s food now sat in Coleman’s lap: chicken wings, chicken gizzards, potato logs, egg rolls, mozzarella sticks, crab cakes. He sipped a plastic soda cup of beer.