Randy White: The Mangrove Coast

He said, “You serious? Goddamn, you are serious.”

“It’s a small thing to ask,” I said.

“But, hell, I thought up that nickname my own self.”

I told him, “I think we’ve discussed that a couple of times, too.”

Said it nicely.

Why had I spent so much of my life trying to be nice to the man?

Tucker Gatrell: line up a thousand men and he’s the one you’d vote most likely to die in a trailer fire or while replacing the shocks on some beat-up half-ton Ford.

He was more than a decade older than my late mother. He looked seventy when I was fifteen. By the time I was thirty, he still looked seventy and he still wore skinny-legged Levi’s and pearl-buttoned shirts. Cowboy clothes, because he owned a mud-and-mangrove ranch in a backwater called Mango; little tiny fishing village south of Marco Island where he kept a horse and a few cows.

Journalists loved the guy; saw him as an Authentic Everglades Voice. That he claimed to have guided a lengthy list of rich and famous sportsmen added fabric. More than one writer said Tuck resembled an older Robert Mitchum, but that had more to do with his attitude than his looks. He had the Jack Daniel’s swagger, the polar blue eyes, the shoulders and scrawny hips, but he lacked the style. Not that any journalist ever nailed down the man’s deficits.

No. They saw in him whatever they wanted to see. That was an indicator of Tucker’s one true gift: He had the qualities of a mirror. That he lacked depth was part of the deal. Not that anyone, except for me, of course, was critical enough to notice.

There were reasons I didn’t like or trust Tuck. Several very good reasons, indeed.

So now he’d called, I’d answered, and I’d have to listen to him… but that didn’t mean I had to stand there wasting time when there were fish waiting to be dissected in my lab.

I said to him, “Did you telephone just to see if I got your messages? Or is there actually a reason?”

“So the boys at the marina told you I’ve been callin’.”

“They stick my messages on the board just like everyone else’s. But you never said what you wanted.”

He seemed momentarily miffed. “God dang! I got to have a reason to call my own nephew?”

“At midnight? Yeah, you need a reason. It doesn’t have to be a great reason, but a reason. I was trying to sleep.”

Another lie. The man brought out the very worst in me. Which he seemed to realize… and it delighted him.

“That right? You don’t sound the least bit sleepy. ‘Fact, you sound chipper as can be.”

His way of demonstrating that he had good instincts for what was true, what wasn’t. Infuriating.

I said, “I was getting ready to go to bed. That’s what I meant. I’ve been working in the lab.”

“Ah.”

“I’ve got a lot of things going on right now. Some of us have obligations.”

Jesus-he had a knack for making me sound like a pious little geek.

Tuck replied, “You were always the busiest kid I ever seen. Lotsa people get shit stacked on ’em, but you’d always grab a shovel and dig your way towards the bottom of the pile. Couldn’t tell if it was ’cause you got a bad sense of direction or just loved being alone.

“A man who can’t find time to have a little fun, I always kinda wondered about.”

Before I could reply to the implications of that, he asked, “Still studying them baby tarpon?”

This was another part of his ritual, talking about tarpon.

Knowing what was coming, I listened to him say, “Still putting them under microscopes and stuff just to figure out where they spawn? I coulda solved that one for you years ago, saved all you busy biologists the trouble. You want me to tell you where tarpon spawn?”

He was going to tell me anyway, so I said, “I’m all ears.”

He said, “The tarpon, they come shallow to spawn, which is why you find so many baby tarpon up the creeks in the Ten Thousand Islands. All you got to do is go out and look with your own eyes. I know places way up in the sawgrass the water’s so fresh they’s gar and bass and bullfrogs. But there’re plenty of them baby tarpon, too. Why else? ’Cause the males and big cows migrate shallow to spawn, just loaded with milt and roe.”

He was right about finding immature tarpon in fresh water, but he was wrong about everything else.

Typical Gatrell.

More than once, I’d patiently explained the facts to him: despite the folklore, research indicated that tarpon spawned in deep water… but I wasn’t going to waste my time going through it again.

I said, “Yeah, tarpon. I’m still working on tarpon.”

Another lie.

Truth was, for the last couple of months, I’d been helping doctors Roy Crabtree and Lewis Bullock of the Florida Marine Research Institute on a study they were doing on the age, growth and reproduction of black grouper in Florida waters.

I found the subject fascinating.

Tucker Gatrell would not.

So I did not tell him that, for the last many weeks, I’d spent my time in the lab preparing thin sections of otolith-ear bone-taken from grouper I’d caught, then counting annuli, or growth rings, using my powerful Wolfe compound microscope.

One ring equaled a year’s growth, just as with many trees.

And I did not tell him that I’d spent the last several days offshore with two Useppa Island friends and part-time treasure salvers, Harry and Jane Robb, aboard their forty-two-foot Shay, catching more grouper to bring back and dissect for a broader sample. Which is why I had only recently received his phone messages… not that I would have called him anyway.

Why bother? In Tucker Gatrell’s vision of existence, all fellow life-forms were treated as props and sundries to better stage his own little forays against boredom and normalcy. He had no interest in what I was doing. More to the point, he had no interest in a process that could be weighed and measured and proven to be true.

We were, in short, exact opposites. And, unlike some opposites, we repelled rather than attracted.

Which is why I pressed the lie, continuing, “Yeah, the tarpon studies have been moving pretty well. And now that you explained to me where it is tarpon go to spawn, I should be able to wrap up the whole business in another day or two. After that, I’ll take a couple of weeks off. Kick back and relax.”

There. Show him I could have as much fun as the next guy…

Which I thought was cynical and witty and rejoining until Tucker said, “Only a day or two? Perfect.”

Jesus, he believed me.

I said, “Yeah, two days at the most, I should have the whole tarpon puzzle solved…” But then I caught myself and said, “Perfect? Why’s that perfect?”

“Because that’s what I was hoping for.”

The way he said that, I felt a little chill; as if I’d stepped on a false floor of bamboo-a punji pit-and could feel the bottom falling away.

I listened to him say, “Reason is, I got a favor to ask and I felt bad about it. You being usually too busy and all.”

I hated the feeling that gave me, of being so stupid. The old bastard seemed to have the ability to anticipate my thoughts, my moves, and neatly manipulate my reactions, just as he had once manipulated herds of his damn wormy cattle.

I said, “Favor?”

He said, “Yeah. Now that I know you got the time, it shouldn’t be a problem.” Then he added quickly, “It’s not for me, understand. It’s for a woman. Pretty little woman, by the sound of her voice.”

Thinking, Is he drunk or insane? I said, “By the sound of her voice? You call me at midnight to ask me to do a favor for a woman you’ve never even met?”

“Oh, I met her. I met her on the phone when she called huntin’ you. It’s just that I never seen her. You ain’t, either. Or so she says.”