Part 17 (2/2)
She toweled her hair half-dry, flung it back, and said, ”I'm starving starving, darling. I really am. After I eat, I'm going to chop my hair short.”
”What?”
”It's too much of a d.a.m.ned nuisance on a boat ride. You could probably cut it better, huh? How about when we get to the place you said? Will you?”
”Reluctantly.”
”Why reluctantly? Oh, could it help you turn on, if it's long?”
”I think long hair is becoming to the shape of your face.”
She frowned. ”I mean chop it off to only about here, not like when it was all shaved-”
”All shaved off? Why?”
”It was sort of like an initiation.”
”Sounds like a very unusual club.”
”I'll tell you all about it sometime, honey.”
”We've got nothing else to do right now. Why not tell me?”
”Right now I've got to fix something to eat. You want to eat now too. Samwiches?”
After we ate, I said, ”Okay. The story of the shaved head.”
”I don't feel like telling it now.”
”But I feel like listening to it now.”
She stared at me. ”Are you going to be like that? I don't like like to be pushed around, Travis. I've had enough of it all my life. If you muscle me, I can't feel loving toward you. You understand what I'm saying?” to be pushed around, Travis. I've had enough of it all my life. If you muscle me, I can't feel loving toward you. You understand what I'm saying?”
”I don't think I could ever adjust to a reward and punishment system of lovemaking.”
”I have news for you. You're going to have to.”
”Really?”
”When I'm happy, I'm the best thing that ever happened to you, and when you make me unhappy, I'm just no good at all. Sorry, but that's the way I am.”
”I wasn't trying to muscle you.”
”I accept your apology.”
”I just wanted to know if you were in a home or a prison when they shaved your head.”
”Oh, you are such a smart b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You just cut off the supply, friend.”
”Prison then?”
”No, G.o.dd.a.m.n you to h.e.l.l! It was a school for girls.”
That was the forlorn tipoff. The ones which are attended voluntarily are called girls' schools. I asked no questions. I could feel the radiations of her anger. At last she sighed. ”They caught me and a boyfriend with the whole trunk of the car full of radios he'd taken out of parked cars. We'd both been in trouble before. I was fourteen, and he was twenty. I was in a foster home, and those people didn't give a s.h.i.+t about anything except the sixty-two fifty a month they got for letting me sleep there. At the school we were in cottages. Twenty girls in a cottage. A matron was supposed to run the cottage, but ours was a wino, so two butch girls ran it. I wouldn't let them into my bed at night, so one of them stole a gold locket from one of the black girls and hid it on the underside of my bed with tape. They found it in a shakedown looking for some missing table forks, and so then they all jumped me and shaved my head. It took a lot of doing. I tore them up pretty good. Afterwards I used to jump the ones who did it, one at a time. They locked me up alone a few times, but I kept going until I got every last one. I guess I'll keep my hair long the way it is. It isn't all that much trouble.”
”When did you get out?”
”This isn't the confession hour. Some day I'll tell you all that stuff. When I feel like it. Right now I'm going downstairs. You just drive the boat, huh?”
Her voice was weary rather than angry. It seemed quite pleasant being alone. I put the sun tarp back up. I took a beer out of the cooler. A ray leapt high and came down, slapping his wings hard against the water to stun enough minnows for an afternoon snack. Over to my right, in the shallows near a mangrove island, a mullet made three leaps. Mullet come out gracefully enough, then land flat out, on belly or side. They are vegetarians. They graze the undersea meadows where parasites fasten to their skins, and so the mullet leap and knock them loose and go back to grazing. Flying fish leap to glide away from the teeth of the predator fish. Dolphins leap for the pleasure of it. Sailfish leap to shake free of the steel hook.
So why, after the five quiet years in the depths, did my bikinied creature leap free? To knock away the parasites, to stun something she wanted to feed on. To escape the predator or the hook. Or for the pleasure of it.
I shuffled all the square pieces and put the puzzle together again. The trouble with square pieces is that there is no way to know if any are missing or how many are missing. Or how many pieces do not belong in the puzzle at all.
I checked the next marker number against my Waterway chart and found we were making better time than I had estimated. We would be there in time for me to monitor the Miami Marine Operator frequency for Meyer's call.
Chapter Seventeen.
There are long expanses of tidewater flats north of the main channel through the eastern part of Florida Bay. Once long ago, when it had been imperative to find a safe place to stash The Busted Flush The Busted Flush, a friend, now dead, had gone ahead in the dinghy, using a boat hook to take the soundings, while I followed at dead slow, taking bearings on other islands, marking down the coordinates. There were several false turns, but at last he found a way around an island about a hundred feet long, forty feet wide, shaped like a lima bean, where by great fortune there was good water close in to the muddy sh.o.r.e. Then he and Meyer and I worked like madmen, hacking mangrove branches and wateroak branches, trying to cover the bulk of the Flush Flush. We were not more than half done when we heard the little red airplane coming and had to dive for cover. They should have seen it from the air, but they missed it.
I got out the chart to refresh my memory of the old channel. I had hiked it in. It looked like a lumpy, runover snake. I had enough tide to make it, and the slant of the sunlight helped me read the water ahead. Even so I nudged the mud several times where the turns were sharp, where I had to back and fill, like a tractor trailer truck threading a Mexican alley.
I laid the Flush Flush close in, close enough to spit into the mangroves, killed the engines, and threw over a bow hook and a stern hook, planning to go over the side and walk them into better position and make them firm, but something changed my mind quickly. Three somethings. A sky-darkening cloud of ravenous mosquitoes, sand flies and stinging gnats. As I bounded down the ladderway, Mary Alice came out onto the stern deck, knuckling a sleepy eye. Then suddenly she began dancing, hollering, flailing her arms and slapping herself heartily. We both tried to get through the doorway at once. We got in, and I slammed it and went looking for any open, unscreened port. They were coming into the galley. I slid that screening across and got out the bug spray and gave them a taste of civilization. close in, close enough to spit into the mangroves, killed the engines, and threw over a bow hook and a stern hook, planning to go over the side and walk them into better position and make them firm, but something changed my mind quickly. Three somethings. A sky-darkening cloud of ravenous mosquitoes, sand flies and stinging gnats. As I bounded down the ladderway, Mary Alice came out onto the stern deck, knuckling a sleepy eye. Then suddenly she began dancing, hollering, flailing her arms and slapping herself heartily. We both tried to get through the doorway at once. We got in, and I slammed it and went looking for any open, unscreened port. They were coming into the galley. I slid that screening across and got out the bug spray and gave them a taste of civilization.
”This is your G.o.dd.a.m.n paradise?” Mary Alice yawped. ” is your G.o.dd.a.m.n paradise?” Mary Alice yawped. ”This is where we are supposed to wait for good weather?” She looked down and whacked herself on the thigh. ”You are some kind of dummy, you know that?” is where we are supposed to wait for good weather?” She looked down and whacked herself on the thigh. ”You are some kind of dummy, you know that?”
There were little ones coming through the screening. I told her to shut up and close all the ports while I started the air-conditioning. Soon, after we had killed off the last of the invaders and the moving air began to feel cool, it began to seem better to her. I told her we were lucky there were no dive bombers, a kind of fly half as big as a mouse that folds its wings on high and comes arrowing down to take an actual piece of flesh out of your body, leaving a hole and a trickle of blood. He takes it away with him and sits in a tree and eats it like an apple. She wanted to believe I was kidding. I was, but only by about ten percent.
I explained to her that the wind had died, and when it came up again, it would be out of the north, and we could go out on deck without being dragged away and eaten. But for now I was going to a.s.sume the anchors did not need moving and the Muequita Muequita did not need attention. I was not going out there. No. did not need attention. I was not going out there. No.
Her disposition began to show considerable improvement, and suddenly it was time to gear up and listen for Meyer. She followed me into the pilot house, asking too many questions.
”Okay,” she said, ”so what good does it do if you know that somebody has come around looking for you?”
”Or you. Wouldn't you want to know who?”
”Knowing why is all I need to know. Anyway, what makes you think you can trust that hairy son of a b.i.t.c.h?”
”I don't think about it. I just trust him.”
”If you've got somebody under the hammer, you can trust him. Otherwise, forget it.”
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