Coconut Cowboy Page 6

  “They use dental floss like fishing lines to pass notes between cells.”

  “Possibly interesting the first time,” said Serge. “But it’s like a freakin’ bass tournament, and my brain’s hard drive has exceeded capacity on things to make a shank out of.”

  “Toothbrush, melted comb, mop handle, glued Bible pages,” said Coleman. “They also have an impressive number of uses for their turds.”

  “Plus I now know far more about prison romance than I’d ever want. It pisses me off.”

  “Because you’re prejudiced?”

  “No, envious,” said Serge. “If I live to be three hundred, I’ll never figure out my own relationships, but jailhouse love is so straightforward. A nice ­couple is out in the exercise yard, then one wrong look and they’re hosing blood off the barbells. No room for nuance. But in the real world, it’s prolonged periods of the silent treatment and slamming doors, and me with that dazed look on my face: ‘I still have no idea what I did wrong.’ ”

  Coleman stubbed out a roach. “Like your ex-­wife?”

  “Molly said the key to bringing us closer was honesty, but that was a lie. ‘Serge, which of my friends do you think is the most attractive?’ ”

  “I was there when she asked that,” said Coleman. “I told her you thought Jill was super hot, remember?”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” said Serge. “It’s not like in prison. You can’t call the guards, can’t lock yourself in your cell, and definitely can’t let her even find a shank. No, when you’re married, you need a diplomatic advance team to vet a menu of highly polished responses.”

  “So what was the right answer to her sexiest friend?”

  “ ‘It’s about to rain and I left my windows down!’ ”

  “What if it’s not going to rain?”

  “ ‘Don’t move! A spider!’ ” said Serge. “Making the effort to prepare multiple diversionary tactics shows you’re committed to the marriage.”

  The Comet turned south and approached the Florida state line.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  “Serge, you’re firing a gun out the window.”

  “It’s the state line.” He stuck the pistol back in the glove compartment. “Road trips are all about tradition.”

  Coleman punched holes in an empty beer can to make it a pipe. “When did you first get interested in road trips?”

  “I was three,” said Serge. “It was the weirdest thing, but for some reason I spent my entire preschool life in utter dread after becoming aware of a simple, existence-­consuming truth: ‘If all the adults suddenly disappear, I’m totally fucked.’ ”

  “Goes without saying,” said Coleman.

  “Years of sheer panic. Parents usually keep a close eye on their kids, but with me it was the opposite, staying glued to them in department stores in case they tried to ditch me. Meanwhile, I continued work on my exit strategy. If they ever did vanish, the only hope was to make a marathon road trip to the secret land where all the survivors had set up shop. First, I already had a tricycle, so I could check transpo off the list. Then before the next Christmas, I told my parents—­and I was extremely emphatic about this—­‘All I want is a Frosty Sno-­Cone Machine and a Matchbox Car collecting briefcase.’ And my folks said, ‘That’s it?’ And I said, ‘Believe me, it’ll be enough.’ And I kept grabbing them tight by the collar each time I reminded them. ‘You absolutely must get these items for me!’ And they’re like, ‘Okay, okay, Serge. Jeez! Why do you want this stuff so bad?’ Obviously I couldn’t tell them that it was in case they died or were part of a conspiracy, so I just said I had my reasons and it was personal.”

  “Did you get the stuff?”

  “It got hairy leading up to Christmas. Most kids are filled with the ecstasy of anticipation, but for me it was the jitters of self-­preservation. That morning I ran from my bedroom in a freak-­out until I saw those two gifts under the tree, and I exhaled in relief: ‘Now I can live.’ Before my parents were even up, I cut the cardboard dividers for the little cars out of the Matchbox briefcase—­‘Now I have luggage’—­and the snow-­cone machine meant I could provide my own sustenance. So I packed the Matchbox container with pajamas and underwear, then went in the kitchen to give Frosty a dry run, and my heart sank. ‘It’s just shaved ice; these little flavor packets won’t carry the day . . . All right, think, think! What’s abundant in Florida that you can always get your hands on to nurture the body? Coconuts!’ I ran outside before it was light, found one under a palm tree and tried bashing it open in the driveway, then grabbed it by the husk, repeatedly slamming it against the side of the house, but nothing worked. I wouldn’t be strong enough for years, so now it’s terror-­time again and I run back inside. Meanwhile, my parents woke up from all the thumping against the wall under their window. ‘What on earth is all that banging?’ And they walked in the living room to find me facedown on the carpet, kicking and crying, next to a cut-­up Matchbox suitcase with my clothes spilling out, and a coconut crammed in the ice hole of a destroyed Frosty machine. That’s how I got into road-­tripping.”

  “Yeah, but what happened to your survival plan?” asked Coleman. “You could have died.”

  “I kind of got distracted when I realized I’d also received some G.I. Joes that Christmas, and my parents came back in the living room later that morning: ‘What the hell is going on with the Nativity scene?’ I said King Herod had gotten wind of the Messiah and was killing all the firstborns, so I deployed my G.I. Joes to the manger and set up a perimeter with a sniper on the roof. Then I rearranged the other Nativity figures so the Three Wise Men were standing in line at a checkpoint. ‘Can I see some ID?’ ”

  “You think of everything.”

  “My folks still made me withdraw the troops.” Serge pointed out the windshield. “There it is.”

  “The Korner Kwik convenience store?”

  “No, the town of Century, located in the most extreme northwest tip of the Florida Panhandle.” Serge clicked pictures out the window. “It’s where Walkin’ Lawton Chiles began his one-­thousand-­and-­three-­mile foot-­trek down the state to Key West in his successful U.S. Senate campaign. And he did it while Easy Rider was still in first run at the theaters.”

  “That’s some heavy shit.”

  “It was a special time. I reached my sixth birthday, and opportunities were wide open, especially since I’d completed my survival plan through a regimen of strenuous exercise until I could breach coconut shells. My mom would come out: ‘Lunch is ready.’ But I’d just stay sitting in the driveway, drinking coconut milk through the hole I’d bashed. ‘Mom, you’ve done more than enough; I’m on my own now. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.’ Except they did just the reverse.”

  Coleman gazed out the window at the rusty tin roof on a hundred-­year-­old cracker house, then a roadside stand with boiled peanuts and a hand-­painted sign for free pet rabbits. “Could this town be any smaller?”

  “That’s the theme of our journey: Shun highways and modernism to discover the real Florida through its back roads, flea markets and finger-­lickin’ county fairs. Small towns are the heartbeat of this country, and if anyone knows what’s happened to the American Dream, it’ll be the genuine folks who still live there. So our route will take us on an odyssey through a bygone time, exactly like Lawton Chiles saw, except with meth labs.”

  “I see big buildings up there,” said Coleman.

  “That’s why we’re turning.”

  The Comet swung east above Pensacola, beginning a long run on a low-­slung bridge over the marshes and deltas of Escambia Bay. Serge gazed south across the water at the more massive, contemporary bridge for Interstate 10, running parallel a few miles south. A wry smile as he nodded to himself. “They never saw this coming.”

  A few minutes later, the Mercury approached the twin cities of Milton and Bagdad. Old church steeples a
nd unmowed cemeteries and onion rings at a drive-­in. They parked in front of a corrugated aluminum building with a gravel lot and a plywood sign: ED’Z DEAD SLEDZ.

  A bearded man emerged from the open garage door wearing an untucked blue shirt with oil stains. The beard was red. He would eat a pickled egg later that afternoon but didn’t know it yet.

  “You must be Ed,” said Serge.

  “Ed’s dead.” The man wiped greasy palms on crusty jeans. “Name’s Bear Claw.”

  “You’re named after a pastry?”

  “Hell no! The pegs.”

  “Pegs?”

  “Where you put your feet on the motorcycle,” said Bear Claw. “You do ride, don’t you?”

  “Oh, we ride all right,” said Serge. “We even ride in our sleep.”

  “And we sleep when we ride,” said Coleman.

  Chapter EIGHT

  WOBBLY

  The afternoon sun twinkled through the oaks on Main Street.

  As of that morning, each block had a banner draped high across the road that would remain for the next two weeks.

  FOUNDERS’ DAY CELEBRATION.

  Smaller banners with the same idea hung from each of the street’s antique lamp posts. A fireworks tent was pitched in the parking lot of the Primitive Baptist Church. Against the last post in front of Lead Belly’s barbecue stood a ladder. There was a man at the top and another at the bottom.

  “Get that damn thing straight,” shouted Vernon. “We got ­people coming.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Footsteps. Vernon turned. “Oh, Peter and Mary. Pleasant afternoon.”

  Peter gazed up at the long row of fluttering flags with the town’s official seal of a pioneer in a coonskin cap gallantly pointing at something just off the edge of the seal. “Looks like you got a big event planned here.”

  “Founders’ Day is the biggest!” said Vernon. “Means the world to this community.”

  “I respect that,” said Peter. “Fewer and fewer ­people seem to know how important it is to preserve heritage.”

  “Heritage?” said Vernon. “This is rivalry!”

  “Rivalry?”

  Vernon nodded extra hard. “Our section of Florida has a growing number of quaint old boutique towns fighting for visitors’ dollars. You got Deland, Deltona, Debary, Casselberry, Cassadaga, Lake Mary, Lake Helen, Mount Dora. Mount! Give me a break!”

  An unseen buzzing sound grew louder in the distance.

  Peter looked around like he was trying to follow a moth. “Where’s that coming from?”

  “Crash,” said Vernon.

  “An accident?”

  “No, Crash Boggs.” He pointed straight up.

  A small but nimble acrobatic plane appeared above the tree tops. Red, white and blue. If Evel Knievel had a plane, this would be it. The craft climbed skyward, glinting in the sun as it performed a series of barrel rolls.

  “Your Founders’ Day has an air show?”

  “Forced to. These other small towns aren’t fooling around.” He looked back up the ladder. “The goddamn thing still isn’t straight! Don’t make me come up there and kick your ass!” Then toward Peter and Mary again: “There’s a fiercely aggressive competition to prove who’s the most laid-­back.”

  “Any way we can help?” asked Peter.

  “Bring your checkbook inside and join us.”

  He opened the door to the rib joint, which was hosting some kind of low-­grade organizational party. Schoolchildren made decorations, a bluegrass band rehearsed, volunteers signed various sign-­up sheets: work the ticket booths, run the concession stands, judge prize pumpkins, and prevent mishaps at the pig races like last year. One table held rows of identical tote bags.

  Someone ripped a check from a checkbook, and Jabow stuck it in his pocket. “Hundred dollars makes you a platinum circle patron. Here’s your tote bag.”

  Vernon patted the man on the back. “Really appreciate it, Steve. Always nice when newcomers take an active interest in our community.”

  “Just want to do what I can.”

  “Then stop eating ribs with a knife and fork.”

  They both chuckled at the semi-­joke. Steve left, and the mayor stopped to sign for delivery of the rental dunk tank.

  The Puglieses stood respectfully.

  Vernon handed a pen back to a delivery guy in brown shorts and turned to the ­couple. “So can I talk you into becoming patrons?”

  “Uh, honey,” said Peter.

  “Sure.” Mary dug in her purse for the checkbook. “What’s the usual?”

  “Well, twenty-­five is silver level, fifty for gold, but I saw you had your eye on a tote bag.”

  “I think that’s a hundred,” said Peter.

  Mary handed Vernon the check and stared at the Founders’ Day button pinned to his shirt pocket: SLOW DOWN IN WOBBLY.

  “Here’s your bag,” said Vernon. “Two buttons are in there. Why don’t you have a seat? Iced tea?”

  “Sure.”

  Mary pulled a string of ten complimentary coupons from the bag.

  “Those are good for everything,” said Vern. “Kissing booth, fried elephant ears. I’ll get that tea.”

  Peter opened the official program with an event schedule that was subject to change. Ten a.m., pie-­eating contest; eleven, turkey calling; noon, line dancing; one o’clock, pig races, with an asterisk about stronger fences this year.

  “Here’s your tea.” Vernon set two dripping mason jars on the table.

  Peter looked up puzzled from a certain item in the program. “Two o’clock, cornholing?”

  “Kids throw bean bags through a hole in plywood, not the other.” He leaned to read Peter’s program upside down. “But it should just say cornhole. Shit, there’s an i-­n-­g at the end.” Vernon shouted over his shoulder. “Louise, get a Magic Marker. I need you to go through the rest of the tote bags . . .”

  Peter flipped to a page with the pictorial history of Wobbly, Florida, founded 1854 by Thaddeus “Wobbly” Horsepence (1802–1856), who became destitute trying to market unpopular uses for the area’s abundant persimmon trees. Black-­and-­white drawings illustrated a colorful town history. The great fire, the crop failure, cattle rustlers, Indian massacres, mining collapse, the night the levee broke.

  Peter looked up. “Did all this really happen?”

  “Not exactly,” said Vernon. “But we did have a crop failure, except it didn’t totally fail. Actually it was pretty good. But nobody checks. All the other towns are doing it.”

  Peter glanced at his program again. “Doesn’t say how the founder got his nickname.”

  Vernon touched the side of his head. “Some kind of bad-­balance sickness.”

  “He got his nickname for falling down a lot?”

  “Just once, broke his neck. Died. They found his barn full of persimmon molasses.”

  “They nicknamed him posthumously?”

  “Looking back, probably not the most sensitive thing for his kin.”

  Peter reached the last page of the program. “This says Wobbly was founded in 1854, but you didn’t incorporate until 2012?”

  “Folks around here don’t like to be rushed,” said Vernon. “But Senator Pratchett told us it was required if we wanted to annex the highway.”

  “That reminds me,” said Peter. “There’s something I wanted to ask you . . .”

  The mayor suddenly felt a silent presence behind him and spun. Elroy, Slow and Slower. “Jesus, will you not do that anymore?”

  “Sorry,” said Elroy. “We just wanted to let you know about the . . . errand.”

  “What errand?”

  “You know.” The youth tilted his head in the general direction of Jabow’s house.

  “No, I don’t know!” Vernon said with growing impatience. “Speak English. Where was this
errand?”

  Slow rubbed his fingers together, indicating cash. “The hiding place.”

  Elroy elbowed him. “Shut up!”

  Vernon shot a quick, forced grin at Peter and Mary. “Apologize, but I’m going to have to take this in private. Family, you understand.” He gathered the trio in the back of the room. “Don’t you ever bring that up in here! What’s wrong with you guys? The last two I know the answer, but I expect more from you, Elroy . . .” The mayor turned again to smile at the ­couple. “Just be a minute. We’re really talking about Founders’ Day.”

  The ­couple exchanged awkward glances.

  Vernon finally came back. “There, then, where were we? You wanted to ask something?”

  “My company called and said I had a job coming up in Wobbly. You requested me personally?”

  “That’s right,” said Vernon. “When we heard what you did for a living, it was a perfect fit. We always like to throw business to locals. It’s only neighborly.”

  “So what is this job?”

  He waved a hand in the air once again. “I don’t know all that fancy book-­learnin’ stuff. I got common sense. But I hear it’s real easy work, and the pay is more than great. Since it’s government money, we spend it like it’s someone else’s.”

  “It is someone else’s,” said Peter.

  “I told everyone you were sharp,” said Vernon. “Need to go check on those banners. They won’t get straight by themselves.”

  “I don’t know how to repay you,” said Peter.

  “You will.”

  The high-­pitched whine of a stunt plane passed over the restaurant’s roof.

  THE PANHANDLE

  Serge held up a finger for the mechanic to wait while he finished draining a jumbo travel mug of coffee.

  Bear Claw covertly rolled his eyes. “So what can I do you fellas for?”

  Serge decisively placed his hands on his hips and assessed the property. “I aim to buy some mean machines. Money up front. Where do we pay?”