Author: bas2218

-There are cities south of the equator and west of Africa and east of the South Pacific with long histories of immigration and grand cultures of dance and corrupt presidents and with white apartment blocks that are not too tall but not in disrepair and square green parks with many trees and pink and blue graffiti and places to eat near the water where things slow down in the afternoon.

-Winter taps one of these cities for a week and people’s gloves and heavy jackets stay on for three weeks long after the heat has returned to burn the crowded morning buses that are hot because the buses are for the slow and the poor and the trains under the ground are quick and cool and for the men and women in suits who work in the district of these cities where there is all the architecture and glass.

-They met in one of these cities.

-He was not from one of these cities and she was not from one of these cities but like him she was there for work.

-He stared at the color of her hair but it was not uncommon in this city and she made everyone laugh in the mornings when they asked how her weekend had been.

-He did not think more of her until he visited her office again and saw her laughing with the same man again and until his next visit he thought about her white shirt and he wondered if the man from her office had seen her wear it before.

-Some of these cities have little bars behind flower shops that open only long after the flower shops close and have painted sea gods on the wall and serve strong drinks with absinthe from tall menus made of heavy paper and have bartenders with bad beards but good enough English to explain the ingredients and serve other drinks named for important years from history and revolutionary leaders who would in their day never pay more than two pesos for drinks with clear foam and sprigs of thyme.

-The first time they had drinks in one of these cities they sat at one of these bars with two friends in between and ordered different drinks.

-Some of these cities are filled with runners because jogging is new there and neon running jackets and devices that measure their distance and steps and pace and sweat are new there and look like something they have never seen in the old parks and the boulevards bursting with tiny round cars and the runners find space after dusk in the lull after late dinners of milanesa and pasta and coffee and tea in bowls made of gourds in the hours before the streets would be populated again and the lights would come back on in the cafes across from the parks.

-He was from a city that was not like this one and he had thought about going back once but then remembered his old job and how much he liked the coffee and toast for breakfast in the café below his apartment and so he thought he would go back when he grew tired of breakfast here.

-He tried to run on nights when work did not go late.

-He once spent half a day at her office but left early and asked her if she would like to run but she said she was not a runner so he ran hard on the stone streets when they were empty and dark and he thought of her wondered if she enjoyed the nights here as much as he did or if she noticed how the stone streets sounded beneath people running.

-It was hard to think in one of these cities during the day in the light but it was easy to think in one of these cities during the night when the air was just warm enough that you did not have to think about the cold or remember to bring a coat in case it got cold because the nights never got colder as they went on they only got darker and quieter.

-It was hard for him to think about her during the day because there were never five minutes when he did not have to make sure he was not walking the wrong way towards the wrong bus stop and asking for the wrong directions in the wrong language so he wondered if she would laugh when he asked for directions and he hoped she would not mind if they were walking together and they turned a block too early.

-The days in one of these cities were long in the spring and there was lots of time to be spent outside and people were often drinking wine at tables very close to the street and reading on benches and university students always seemed to be out of class and sitting and talking all over the city and there were lots of people letting their dogs who were always small run freely in front of them and there was often the smell of meat smoking on a grill about but it never felt too heavy because the days were light and never too hot.

-He tried to stop thinking of her during the nights because he had no reason to but he did not do well at stopping once he had started.

-There was a work outing to a ranch for both of their offices and so they sat together on the long bus with wide windows meant for day trips.

-It was a tourist ranch because there was no longer enough money in selling beef and chicken and pork and eggs and lamb.

-There was a tour of the ranch and a meal of the meats it had once sold into the city, chorizos and flanks and ribs.

-There were cuts of pork that immigrants had brought when they came into the city and that he had never seen or tasted.

-There was blood sausage that he tried to hold in his mouth and savor and swallow but he could not finish and she had waved it away and smiled when she watched him eat it and struggle and frown.

-He thought about her most in the dark at the end of the day when the news on the television was read too fast and he didn’t know where to find food after midnight and it did not help him that the nights in one of these cities were so dark and he did not like to wear his glasses because they were not in the style of that city and the streetlights and even the blinking of televisions in apartments above the street that struck out into the dark through old thin curtains on the windows did not brighten things enough to stop the long nights that fed the weekends of the city and made them long and dense.

-The ranch was not far from one of those cities but it was past a town built of brick with brown dust in the roads and a dry cement canal that looked too old even for the old town so that it felt like the ranch was very far from the city and that it had been a long day away when it had only been a few hours because the day at the ranch could not last beyond the regular work hours of the offices of the city and even for the foreign workers and their guests so as he looked out the window the bus ride looked long, hours and hours, but they returned to the city before it was enough for all of the café lights to be on.

-Days later they had dinner at a steakhouse in one of these cities.

-He didn’t often eat steak but he lied and told her that after the ranch he wanted to eat it more often and try all the best places in the city.

-People said the city was famous for its steakhouses and for pairing wine with steak.

-They ordered red wine that was dry and steak that was wider than the plate.

-The wine tasted good with the steak and they did not order dessert because they wanted to walk.

-Some of these cities do not have many bridges because they are port cities that do not have rivers and the water is not in the lives of the people who live there but only in the lives of those who live near the port that opens into the Atlantic and the shipping industry is dying and there are only bridges over canals and the canal is too small for ships so it is not in the life of even the port workers so there is a low bridge that is only used for walking and decoration and it is tall and stark and plain white and the buildings nearby are new and expensive but are nice to look at while walking.

-They walked across the bridge and stopped halfway to look up at its white spire.

-They looked at the black wires that help up the bridge but were meant to be hidden by the sky so that only the white of the bridge could be seen.

-They asked a tourist carrying an umbrella for a photo and they did not recognize the language of the tourist but they thanked him and said it was a good photo.

-He could not help but think of her in the days after because he liked to think about her standing next to a sheep and riding a horse at the ranch.

-The sheep was white and dirty because it had been lying in the dying grass of the ranch all day.

-It was used to visitors and liked to be petted on its head and her hair fell onto the sheep as she petted it and her hair was shiny and now noticed it again in the photo on the bridge and stared and stared and wondered why it had not struck him in this way when he first saw her and he remembered how she held a glass of clear white wine and dirtied her shoes in the dirt by the sheep so he thought about the sheep and her the next day and then in the next days about her and the horses and he had ridden before and she had ridden before and they had been ahead of the group and looked back and were further ahead than they expected.

-The next time they met in one of those bars they did not sit at the bar on either side of two friends.

-They sat close on stools and their knees bumped and bumped and rested against one another.

-They talked with the bartender and tasted each other’s drinks and ordered more and left together after a what was a long time at a bar but not so long that the bartender stopped asking them if they needed another drink.

-For some days after that he did not have work and he walked often and rode the bus on routes he had not tried and looked out the sometimes clean but usually dirty windows at people sitting close together at restaurants at all times of the day and he thought about the pale color of her jeans.

-The clubs in some of these cities open at two after late dinners and after the runners have come inside and after naps of an hour or two and after two cups of coffee and maybe a cigarette.

-They went to a club in one of those cities.

-It was expensive but he had nothing else to spend money on.

-He had not been out with her like this so he folded too much money into his pocket and hoped they would stay out late.

-They were there too early and the club was not as loud as he hoped and they sat out back where there were big metal heaters and hard plastic chairs that didn’t feel like they were meant for sitting.

-They talked for a while but the drinks were not strong and she did not like how roughly the bartenders worked and that they would not make her a good drink and she did not like that he had taken her to one of these clubs.

-They left through the front door past a line that was not long but that was moving slowly and into the street that was not crowded because it was too early for the cabs to line up there.

-She grabbed and pulled him through the street and away from the club and towards her apartment but it was a long walk and it would have been easier to take a cab so they sat on a bench for a while with her hand on his shoulder and her other hand on his hip and his head on her shoulder and then they stood up and continued to walk and there were fewer and fewer streetlights and nothing was open and it took her several tries to unlock her door.

-Some of these cities have long fashions of dance that everyone likes to talk about in heavy ways but that not everyone likes to practice except for the old people who do not want to see the old ways die and some of these dances start with one step forward and one step back two steps forward and two steps back and the man should always take the first step unless his partner steps quickly in that case he must follow and twist and turn as she does and spin her when she asks and keep his hand on her back firmly so that she does not step without his knowing it and he does not step without her feeling it.

-She awoke before him and was clear-eyed and aware and her skin was clean.

-He awoke after her with a face that was too warm and he could feel how he had not showered though she had already showered and left and returned.

-She said she was not hungry for breakfast because she had already had a coffee but that he should try one of the cafes in the neighborhood.

-He asked why she had not woken him and she said it was already late when she left and she thought he would be gone when she returned.

-He had not left but he had laid in her bed because he was not sure how long she would be gone and her bed was larger than his and he turned onto his side and onto his back again and it was a cool morning so he remembered in his first weeks in one of these cities when he had nowhere to go so he visited the waterfalls outside the city and the bus ride was bumpy until his legs began to hurt but someone had said the waterfalls were the eighth largest or widest or fastest in the world and so he looked right into the mist though it moved fast and around and past his head and stung his eyes and wet his hair and the falls grew louder and louder.

-He had been asleep when she left and so he had not noticed what she wore in the morning.

-Outside the parks were empty and everything was empty because in mornings after the clubs were open there was not much movement in one of these cities until later when the light was less fresh and this early the buses would hardly be running and one should be quiet to let others sleep for another night to come.

-He had imagined that she wore a white shirt and he wondered if he could show her the falls and he imagined the water and rock would grow taller and wider and closer and closer to one of these cities and he imagined that the mist would spray her hair and white shirt and the falls would rumble and roar behind her until she smiled and waved him closer and the falls would shrink and grow quiet.

-She was back now and standing over the bed and not smiling and he looked at her for some moments in her yellow dress that was not the white shirt he had imagined and asked again if she wanted breakfast and she said again she was not hungry but there was a good café on the corner that he should try so he said that they could wait and have dinner there but she said she had eaten there many times already.

-Her neighborhood was far from his and it was one he had not been to often and all of the shops were small with reserved blue awnings that cast shadows over the windows and he could not see inside or guess what food the restaurants served and so he walked a few more blocks.

-He saw a man and a woman drinking coffee at a table on the street and their cups were large and steaming so he ordered a coffee there and sat near them.

-The man and the woman spoke loudly and laughed often and so he drank the coffee quick and was glad to be back to walking.

-The streets were wide and quiet and only Spanish was spoken in the neighborhood and it was Spanish with too many new words for him to understand so he would never live there when all of the neighbors and all of the waiters at restaurants and bartenders and workers in the corner store would speak too quickly with new words and ask him many rapid questions and so he would not like this neighborhood even with its wide streets and large apartments and few cars.

-He walked home and did not stop at the last café on the corner although it smelled good from the street.

-Some of these cities were Spanish but not for long enough to still eat Spanish food and now they eat pizza and pasta and have a cathedral with no Spanish art and there is only one building left from when the Spanish were there but it is next door to a big white church that looks Spanish but it is not even though it is whiter than all of the white apartment buildings in the city and when the Sun is high it looks like it is always being hardened by the heat but it is cool inside and it is a good place to meet because it is cool inside and is so white that one cannot walk past it and mistake it for another building.

-They met there to walk the Sunday tourist market which is famous because it is so long and on a narrow street that makes it look even longer and because the market is named after the saint who is supposed to save all the sailors drifting out to sea in the waters outside the city.

-He asked if she had been to the falls.

-She said she had been twice already and so he asked when.

-She had been to the falls once in her first weeks and then soon after that because a man she had met wanted to take her and she had lied and told him she had never been because he danced so well and she felt like their chests were always in line and their feet moved well so they had gone to the falls but she did not want to ever go back because the mist and the water were so cold and harsh and that man had since moved away.

-He did not buy anything at the market because he had been to the market before and many of the stalls sold the same things meant for tourists and he watched a tall woman in a baseball hat buy the same white llama ornament woven from string that he had bought on his first trip to the market after a while there was nothing new to see or buy.

-There was coffee sold from carts at the end of the market and they bought two cups.

-She did not finish hers and she said she had to go and that they would talk again but only when he had to come to her office for work.

-His apartment was always smoky because he had a balcony and there were balconies above and below where people smoked early in the morning and late at night.

–Everyone in this city smoked and he often left the door to his balcony open because the glass was dirtied from the smoke and he wanted to see the park across from the balcony.

-He always liked to have the door open when the park was full and runners and outdoor lunches between two people sitting towels of all colors and sipping tea.

-In the days after the market he woke up and coughed because there was a wind moving smoke into the bedroom.

-He shut the door to the balcony and locked it so that he would remember not to open it again.

-Later he moved to another one of those cities but it was a different city and he ate coffee and toast for breakfast there always.

It was always hard for him to be pleasantly drunk once the stories began and when the porch was crowded with the cousins and uncles and fathers in those nights after long family dinners in one of the restaurants in town at the bottom of the mountain where they served bloody quail and squash from the hills but everybody ordered the pork chop and biscuits because he had to be careful not to laugh too loud or to slur a word or ask the wrong question that he didn’t know the answer to.

     Say, boys, your grandmother sure can talk I mean damn I don’t think she stopped asking questions all night, and then she started answering her own questions and then she forgot the questions she already asked me and started all over again, I mean wow dinner took three hours, and all I could think about was why didn’t I sit at the other end of the table, I’d rather talk to my wife than answer all those question three times I guess that’s the price when Grandma is buying dinner.

It was always getting harder and harder for him to be pleasantly drunk on this porch when there were many open beers and a few cigars ashed on the wooden railing and he looked at an uncle rocking back and forth and resting his feet on the big dog that stayed at the house and he saw the cowboy boots and old bleached jeans and leather belt and tucked in denim shirt and brown trucker hat from the barbecue place and growing line of empty red Budweisers and watched him laugh and envied him and wondered how that could be his uncle by blood.

     I remember, I must have been no older than six, say, Jimmy you remember this? we used to walk down the train tracks to get across town, and there were some bridges but you had to walk across because that was the fastest way home, and sometimes the trains would come and there were little crannies on the sides and you would have to run to the cranny before the train and only two people could walk at a time cause three couldn’t fit and there were some close calls, but good thing I’m so damn fast I always made it and that’s why I’m still sitting here.

The danger of getting too pleasantly drunk was that the stories would always turn a way they weren’t supposed to and he remembered the first time he told one that went too far and he was halfway through it and his cousin started laughing and the uncles started frowning but he had to finish the story once he had started it but he didn’t say much else for the rest of that night and now he could tell things were headed in that direction because the night had sunk in and the sky was black and there was no more warmth from the day hanging around and everyone had a jacket on and cigars were beings smoked more quickly for the warm smoke and when it got this late there was never any telling who would start things heading in a way they probably shouldn’t.

     I tell ya, you’re not fast any more, Steve, too many steaks these past few years, you would be dead on those trains tracks so fast, but I guess that’s why nobody goes back to that town since nobody wants to get damn near killed by a train everyday, but I bet ya I could outrun those trains, I remember in college when I was still playing football I used to make a killing racing fools out back of the bar, they would get drunk and tell me there was no way I played football and I’d bet them a twenty I could outrun them and damn near every time I took that twenty and it bought me a few more rounds until those boys got tired of being hustled and one too many started eyeing me from the door and it was time to cut my losses and leave a nice tip and get out of there but I’d be back for a few more races the next weekend and they’d all line up and try again and I’d just keep taking their money.

The uncles were starting to one-up each other and second cigars were lit and the younger cousins were sent back to refrigerator in the garage for more red Budweisers and it was getting colder and some of the aunts were sticking their heads out the back door to ask when everybody was coming inside because it was getting cold and there would be a long day tomorrow but the uncles waved them off and the aunts said they were heading to bed and blew kisses goodnight and the youngest cousins were back with more cans and some of the other cousins were wanting to tell stories.

     None of y’all were ever as fast as I was, and y’all are all sixty now and can’t touch me in a race, let me tell you you’ve never seen somebody as fast as I was last year you should’ve seen how fast as I was running this one night I was at this party and we had been drinking all night and we were at this guy’s house and I knocked his glass out of his hand, and all his friends were there and this dude was four inches taller than me and thirty pounds bigger and I ran out the front door so fast you’ve never seen anything like it, and I thought he was about to beat my ass the next day at school but he forgot all about it but everybody saw me book it out of there, trust me, I’m the fastest one in this family by a mile.

The stories were silent for a moment and an aunt opened a door and one of the cousins stumbled onto the porch and this one was one of the little young cousins with a head of hair that was still patchy and growing in and he walked unevenly always but especially now on this new surface and he grabbed onto the leg of a second or was it a first no probably a second cousin who swung him out towards the railing and over the edge of the porch and the little cousin smiled and shrieked and swung out his arms and knocked over a bottle and an ash tray with half a cigar and an uncle grumbled and the tray and the bottle clinked in the air as they fell the long way to the grass below but the grass was soft and they did not break and the little cousin looked all the way down to the grass below and was happy to be put down and to be safely in the lap of one of the uncles back away from the railing and the grass all that way below and he looked around at all of the uncles and sons and fathers and cousins with his eyes that were always wide because he was young as they started to speak again.

     Shit, y’all don’t know a damn thing about fast, boys, you aunt never seen anybody running away like they were about to get killed, and I’m not talking about shot and killed, I know some of y’all been in the army, that’s not the type of killed I’m talking about, I’m talking about the type of killed when you got you’re hand on somebody’s wife’s ass at the corner of the bar where you thought it was dark and you thought she was still married but she told you different and you knew better but hell she was drinking the same thing as you and how often does that happen and it seemed dark enough in that goddam corner until her husband comes through the door and shit oh she’s sure as hell still married and you know the husband and I swear to God I out ran three cars and a dog down that street I was moving like a tick bit my ass with all his teeth, I’ll tell ‘ya, none of y’all ever ran that fast, not even on the football field boys.

The stories stopped for a moment and now the uncles that were past pleasantly drunk began to grumble and reach for more beer and the crickets started up for the first time that night and the little cousin looked around and around and began to cry as the crickets got louder and louder because he wasn’t up this late too often and the crickets were a new sound to his ears and his eyes got wider and wider before he started crying again and one of the uncles told another cousin to take him inside and that was the only word for a few minutes until another one of the uncles finished his beer and stood up and said to no one in particular but really to the last storyteller uncle that these stories weren’t worth nothing until they started being worth something to the rest of the family and that before he’d married in these uncles never knew him and didn’t want to hear about anything before that so he might want to stop telling them out here or at least wait until all the cousins were inside his and he flicked some cigar ash in the direction he was speaking and all the uncles and fathers stood up and the cousins sat further back in their chairs and all the beers clanged down hard on the tables but one of the aunts opened the door looking for a cousin and every body sat down deep in their chairs and told the cousin to go inside with his mother and some of the chairs started to rock and creak again on the wooden porch and one of the chairs creaked deeply as one of the cousins who hadn’t been hustled inside yet stood up and set down his cigarette next to his water.

     Y’all don’t know anything, all y’all talking about going fast, y’all don’t know, y’all don’t know fast until you know slow, and not this kind of slow, sitting around on a porch in the mountains drinking and talking and taking three hours at dinner and cracking jokes about your wives, that ain’t this is still fast, soaking it all up for a few days and going back to work before you’ve slowed down, I know more about fast and slow than all of you put together, slow is when you’re just a couple states over from here and five states over from where your parents think you are and you’ve taken so many pills you forgot your own phone number and the names of your friends and you’re sitting on the curb outside your house in boxers and one white sock with a broken foot and a broken ankle and no skin on the foot without a sock, and there’s nobody to call and you just sit there and cars go by real slow but don’t stop and people just turn their heads at you and every minute is slow until the pills wear off and things start to hurt again and you remember to crawl back inside and find someone to put you back in bed and you stay there for three days and the days are slower than they are here and nobody talks until they take you to the hospital.

That cousin’s father looked down and took a long pull on his cigar and looked around at all the other uncles until one of them stood up too fast and knocked the ash tray from the arm of his chair and this time it shattered on the porch but not before the uncle was up with his hand around the throat of the cousin who still had an ankle that wasn’t quite straight and he pushed the cousin to the railing of the deck and yelled that he knew better than to tell that story out here and that everyone knew enough about it already from whispers around their own kitchen counters and hushed voices on the phone that it didn’t need retelling especially in front of his cousins but even more especially in front of his father who had already seen his son with a broken foot and ankle and eyes rolled back in his head and his voice got louder until the only baby cousin left on the porch coughed and burped and let out one of those little shrieks all the uncles had heard enough to know meant a bigger shriek and bigger crying was coming and so an aunt was called to bring the last little cousin inside and now it was just the big cousins and all the uncles and fathers and all the men looked around and could see there was no one upping anymore and the stories where at that point where everything was on the table or nothing was on the table and it was time to put out the tobacco and clean up the beers but it wasn’t dark enough for that so somebody would have to tell one more until it was time to go inside and by morning forget all of the stories from the night before.

The weathermen in Polk County measure their careers in hurricanes. After they’ve covered two hundred, there’s a commercial on the eight o’clock news. They’re far enough inland that they don’t get the worst of the winds. Everyone in Polk County remembers the name of their first hurricane. Jeanne. Rita. Gordon. Earl. Debbie. No one in Polk County remembers the lost time somebody lost a roof or a mailbox or a dog to the winds and the rain. The weathermen put another tally and another tally on their career. Agnes. Dora. Ike. Opal.

—

His jaw would have made for a handsome face if it weren’t for all of the teeth stuck inside it, jammed on top of one another. Ray Ray’s was a face that would have looked stronger on a taller man. But he was too short for his head and often looked sickly and far too angular. If a hurricane would ever come, it might lift him up by his flat, straight hair and drop him in the Gulf. He would have liked to be lifted up by the hair in a real hurricane.

—

All Polk County had for him were stories. Stories about hurricanes and other things. There were no marks from the storms. New Orleans had its flood lines and Miami had its palms split in half and thrashed away. Even Zephyrhills had a few broken houses.

—

Ray Ray had thought about New Orleans when he was younger and imagined riding the flood waters into the city and kicking through windows and peeling roofs apart at their weak nails. He would sit atop the waters until they dried out and he would run to the river to find more. But now he thought about sitting and waiting for the water to come and turning to lie face down as the lakes and the canals overflowed.

—

Polk County had nothing but stories and weathermen who had covered three hundred hurricanes without having ever boarded a window or flooded a car or tasted the wet wind that stuck between their teeth and pressed their tongues back. They had never known a hurricane and Ray Ray would never know a hurricane. All he would know were emptied out stories, bleached by light rains and smoothed of their flair and guile by the breezes of retelling. Every day he thought about the same stories. The stories held his father and his father’s father and uncles and aunts and aunts-by-friendship in place. No one would listen to their stories anywhere else.

—

His father liked to tell a story about Jai Alai. His father’s father had always gambled on the matches until they outlawed it in Florida. It was still legal in Miami, but it wasn’t worth the five had seen a player break his nose. They could throw the ball one hundred and twenty miles per hour. His father liked to say that the crowed had cheered. They cheered until the player walked off the court. Then they began to boo. He was costing them money. He had been the favorite and it was a Saturday. Saturday was a big betting day. The crowed loved the blood until he quit. His father always laughed at the end of the story. That’s Polk County, he would say. We love violence.

—

Ray Ray wasn’t sure if they loved violence. They never had any violent hurricanes. They didn’t do too many violent things. Polk County hosted two battle reenactments each summer. There was no more high school football in those months. The first commemorated a Civil War skirmish that the county had stolen from southern Georgia. It was unclear who knew that and who didn’t. Ray Ray had only found out in the third summer after he was old enough to watch. He had asked an old man where in Polk the battle had really taken place. He had looked like someone who only had stories, but there had been no one else to talk to. The old man had asked him what he knew about history.

“I know some history,” said Ray Ray.

“What do you know about this battle?” asked the old man.

“It was the only one in Florida.”

“The old man looked towards the field and laughed.

“There weren’t no battles in Florida, son.”

“Except for this one.”

“Not even this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Too many trees.”

“Too many trees?”

“There are too many trees here.”

“Too many trees for what?”

“For this battle. For all the horses.”

“I don’t see any horses.”

—

Ray Ray tried to imagine a hundred horses standing next to one another. It seemed that they would populate the trees and tear them down if they all ran at once. Ray Ray’s father had owned a horse named Trigger. Ray Ray thought about a picture that he had seen of his father’s horse. It was grey with white spots on its sides and still young when his father’s father sold it. His father had ridden it to school each day. Ray Ray thought his father rode it in middle school. He could not remember if it was middle school or high school. His father had not named Trigger. Ray Ray’s father’s father had bought it for cheap and it already had the name. Ray Ray’s father had taught him to ride but he had been young. He wondered why they stopped riding. His father told him Ray Ray had ridden to fast and fallen off once. Maybe they had stopped riding after that, but Ray Ray thought he would like to have a horse and ride too fast. He would not ride it to school.

—

“They haven’t ridden in yet.”

“Where are they?”

“The soldiers are hiding them.”

“Where are the hiding them?”

The old man turned his head.

“In the trees.”

“How many horses are there.”

“Fifteen on both sides.”

“That doesn’t seem like many horses.”

“It’s a lot for these trees.”

“They should have fifty.”

The old man laughed.

“Is that too many?”

“Too many to run through these trees.”

Ray Ray looked at the tress. There had been no battle here. The stories about the battle were stories about a story. No one had died in Polk County. The battle from the Seminole Wars had at least been real. It had been more of a slaughter than a battle. Ten merchants had attacked a Seminole camp. The Seminoles had been hunting a mile from their village. The merchants thought that was too far from their village. Ray Ray saw it for the first time when he was nine. He had not known they would not be using real guns. The reenactment lasted an hour. The Seminoles did a lot of shouting and then a lot of screaming. Ray Ray knew two of the men playing the merchants. One ran the hardware store and one owned the diner. Ray Ray had wished the Seminoles had real guns.

—

The weathermen had said it would be a Category 4. They called it George. That was the day he decided to leave. If it would be his last day, he would go to the beach. There is only one beach in Polk County. He wasn’t much for beaches, anyway. The worst that could happen at a beach was sunburn. There were no manta rays in Polk County, and no sharks on the West coast of Florida. They preferred the cooler waters of Cocoa Beach and the Atlantic. The waves there were propelled by higher tides and bleaker winds. The beach in Polk County was stone grey and flat, the sand packed hard with wet air and disuse. There were not footprints for the quiet waves to smooth over. He thought about death and about what death would look like on a beach. It would look uninteresting here, low and deflated. It would look better on a white beach, deep but short and cut by the brief dunes furrowed by the high point of the tide. Death would be strange and new there. Here it would be unremarkable. He wondered if anyone would notice death on this beach. He wondered if anyone had ever noticed death in Polk County. He sat at the back of the beach, on the sand furthest from the water. Four minutes after he had closed his eyes the rain came. He knew if had been four minutes because he did not want to sleep and he had counted the seconds between the tapping of thunder from out in front of him. The last Category 4 to hit Jacksonville had pulled the columns away from the front of the county courthouse and almost flooded the Old City in St. Augustine. The thunder that day would not have awoken Ray if he had dozed off. The rain was only enough to make him leave the beach because it was a cool day. It had barely wet his hair and he could still dry himself with his towel.

—

Ray Ray’s father had told him about choosing the name Ray Ray.

“Did I ever tell you how we named you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did I every introduce you to Ray McCloud?”

“No, sir.”

“He passed away last year.”

“Was he your friend?”

“Nope, he painted the house back when we first ought it.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Nineteen years ago. Right when I married you mother.”

“Why would you introduce me to him?”

“You’re named after him.”

“But he wasn’t your friend.”

“I didn’t know anyone else in this county named Ray.”

“So why didn’t you just name me Ray?”

“Do you like your name?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t know anyone else named Ray Ray.”

“That’s why I didn’t just name you Ray.”

Ray wondered if death would look different on the beach because he was named Ray twice. He wondered if Polk County would know if its only Ray Ray died. He wondered if the sand would look a little whiter and if death wouldn’t look so normal on the beach for Ray Ray.

—

Ray Ray’s only job at been at a fruit stand. There were fruit stands with huge billboard with oranges with eyes and smiles. Ray Ray had not worked at one of those fruit stands. It had a wooden sign that say “Strawberries.” It was one of three stands near a tall piece of stone said “Welcome to Polk County.” Ray Ray had always wondered why Polk County welcomed visitors with a tall tombstone. It was tall enough to shade the first two fruit stands. The third worker to arrive each morning would be in the sun all day. The sun in Polk County was hot and the tombstone shade was cool. His boss drove by in his truck once a day. He owned seven stands. He never left the truck, just waved when he saw that someone was working. He would have found someone new after he drove past an empty stand a few times. It wouldn’t have been the first time he found a new worker without warning. But Ray Ray had time to tell his boss he wouldn’t be back. So he walked to the fruit stand and waited for the truck to drive by with a wave. This time he waved back and ran to the road. The truck slowed down and stopped.

“Ray Ray, I gotta make my rounds.”

“I know, Boss. But it’s my last day.”

“Alright, Ray Ray. I gotta find a new guy.”

“Sorry, Boss. You’ll find someone.”

“I know, Ray Ray. I always do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You find a new job? Too good for my stand now?”

“No, sir, boss, I’m headed out of here.”

“Out of where?”

“Out of here, boss.”

“Where to?”

“South, maybe.”

“Why South?”

“I want to try fishing, boss.”

“Alright, Ray Ray, good luck.”

The truck clicked into gear and pulled back onto the road.

—

Ray Ray hitchhiked South. He was in Cape Coral in twelve hours. There were fishing boats docked in the harbor. Ray Ray had heard a few boat stories in Polk County.

There were more boats here so he thought they would have had more boat stories. He had found his job at the fruit stand by asking the owner if he could work there. So he walked until he saw a building with a huge shrimp painted on its side. The building was concrete painted pink and the shrimp was white outlined in bright blue. He was glad the concrete was not sandy grey. He walked inside asked if he needed to fill out an application. The man behind the counter barely looked up.

“You ever been on a boat, son?”

“Yes, sir, twice, I think.”

“Just twice.”

“I think it was twice. It might have been three times.”

“Three times is good enough. You from Florida.”

“I’m from Polk County.”

“Oh, Polk County. Y’all are all warm and safe up there. No wind and no floods.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what everybody tells me.”

“So why are you down here?”

“Everybody keeps telling me the same stories. I work at a fruit stand.”

“Ain’t no action at a fruit stand, son.”

—

Ray Ray thought about the stand and how he had sat behind it looking at the road. The two stand nearby each had two workers and Ray Ray listened to their conversations. They often talked about the fruit business and business of growing fruit. Ray Ray thought about the trees that grew oranges and grapefruit and tried not to think about the short, round bushes that grew strawberries in the dirty soil. He wondered if the oranges were burned by the sun and why grapefruits had lighter skin that did not burn. He wondered how he would burn as he dangled at the end of a branch. He would be too heavy and weigh the branch down, pulling the tree always to one side. He hoped the tree would lean towards the Sun so he would burn more quickly. He would be the color of a grapefruit and then turn orange and burn past that orange to red until there was no more skin and the sweet juice was burned from inside of him and all that was left was flaky flesh. And he would fall from the tree.

—

“That’s true, sir.”

“I see, I see. So how about I tell you about fishing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what can happen to you on a fishing boat?”

“You can make some money.”

“Oh, yes you can. What else can happen.”

“That’s all I know.”

“A fishing boat can kill you.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“If you fall off a tall enough fishing boat you’ll die when you hit the water.”

“Won’t you float?”

“You’d float if all your bones didn’t break when you hit the water. You can get killed by the anchor too.”

“Is that it?”

“You might get caught in the net and lose an arm. And we get caught in the storms on long trips.”

“Which storms?

“The big ones. You’ve probably never seen one in Polk County.”

“No, sir.”

Ray Ray wondered what a hurricane would be like on a boat. The waves would be big enough for surfers, he thought. He knew surfers could die under waves. He wondered if the boats could die under the waves too. He wanted to ask. He wondered if he might make the man angry. Ray Ray needed the job. He wanted anger later, out on the waves, not here. He didn’t ask.