Randy White: Ten thousand isles

There's something sinister about the sound of a big man trying to sneak through mangroves. On the foggiest night of the year, standing alone on the porch outside my lab, I heard the crack of a branch, then silence. Heard the rustle of leaves. Then I strained to hear through a longer silence that implied observation and careful breathing.

The platform that supports my house and laboratory is built on stilts over the water, thirty yards from land, Dinkin's Bay, Sanibel Island, Florida. The only way on or off is by a rickety boardwalk. Someone was working his way toward that boardwalk, getting closer.

I waited, head tilted, and heard branches move once again. The sound of a snapping twig is an ancient alert. It fires all the limbic alarms that enable direct communication between the ears and eager feet. An unknown primate was out there in the gloom.

I touched a button on my watch and saw that it was 2:07 a.m., 2 October. Very, very late for a friend to come a'calling. Very, very late for me.

I was awake because I couldn't sleep, and I was outside because I was restless-neither particularly unusual. What was unusual was the weather. An abrupt and windless cold front had drifted in that night. It brought a sea change. Fog descended as if the island had slipped its anchor and drifted into a mountain cloud. Fall and spring are the seasons. If you have the misfortune to be on the water when the silver shroud arrives, your best bet is to flee the channel, drop the hook and wait it out.

Sitting in a rocker on the porch, looking out into the mist, however, is very pleasant. That's what I chose to do. I'd lain in bed, listening to silence and dripping water until I couldn't stand it anymore, then pulled on a pair of shorts and went out the screen door into the haze.

Amazing. I stood at one end of my deck and couldn't see the railing at the other end. I swung down to the lower platform to check my fish tank, and could just barely see the edge of a tin roof through the swirling mist.

My house was gone.

Dinkin's Bay Marina is just down the shoreline. The lights of the marina created a surreal van Gogh sky: swirling stars and corridors of light on a white canvas.

I found a rocker on the porch and sat there listening. Fog is condensed water vapor and conducts sound far more efficiently than air, so it seemed as if the old wives' tale was true: Blind people have a heightened sense of hearing.

I was certainly blind in that fog. From the direction of the marina, I could hear the click of every auto-switch, the whir of every pump, the groan of straining dock lines and the steady gurgle of bait tanks.

Then I heard it, a sound that didn't belong, a sound that didn't fit. It was the careful closing of a car door. It is a distinctive latching of metal on metal made when a door, half closed, is pressed with the hip.

A moment later, I heard the same sound again.

I sat a little straighter, trying to peer through the fog. It was blinding, dizzying. The sound came from the direction of the mangroves where the shell road, separated by the ma-rina's gate, becomes Tarpon Bay Road. I could only occasionally see the mangrove fringe. Black limbs reached toward me, then vanished in a smudge of white.

It's not unusual for insomniac tourists to turn onto the marina's dead-end road to see what there is to see, but there's a pattern. I've heard it too often not to know. They stop at the gate where business hours are posted. They read the sign. Then they back up and leave.

The shell road also attracts lovers. But people who stop for a roadside encounter don't get out of the car unless it's to urinate, and there is a pattern to that, too. Doors open, there's a short pause, doors close.

I sat waiting to hear the doors again.

Waited two minutes; five minutes. Nothing.

Then I heard that distinctive sound in the mangroves. Heard the snap of a limb; rustle of leaves. Then: silence.

Thus I knew that two or more people had exited a car, and at least one of those people was trying to find the path to the boardwalk that leads to my house.

I stood. Listened for another moment. Then, very quietly, I began to move.

I get the occasional late night visitor. It was bar-closing time on a nasty, foggy night. Stumbling toward me was probably one of any number of my drunken friends with a couple of friendly drunks in tow. I could hear them explaining to me, Doc, it was just too damn foggy to run the boat home, so I caught a ride to your place. I'll sleep on your porch, you don't mind.

It's happened before.

I stepped into the house, left the lights off. In any emergency situation, a man wants two things covered: his testicles and his toes. I was already wearing shorts, so I slipped into my running shoes, then fumbled around in my dresser drawer until I found my old 9mm Sig Sauer pistol wrapped in oilcloth, always loaded, always ready.

I shucked a cartridge into the chamber… then I stopped, remembering a recent letter I'd received from a lover, the tall and articulate Dr. Kathleen Rhodes.

Correction, former lover.

Among other things, her letter had described me as a man whose heart and head weren't connected, that I was capable of violence without emotion. I'd been fretting over the damn thing since I'd received it. While it's true I'm not overly emotional, I still have feelings, and her words had struck a nerve. Was I really so heartless, so insular? Now I had to admit it-she was right. That's precisely how I was behaving. I'd automatically assumed I was being targeted for attack. Those were probably friends of mine out there! And here I was already arming myself with deadly force.

I see my life as divided into two distinct rooms. One of those rooms is forever locked, as it must be. Inside are too many jun-gled nights; too many nights spent moving quiedy in darkness. The second room is brighter, simpler; my life as it is now. I am the owner and sole employee of Sanibel Biological Supply, purveyor of marine specimens to labs around the country. It is a straightforward, constructive life that I tend carefully and rein-spect often. The reason is simple. Once the door to the darker room has been opened, the creature therein is forever alive.

I was sweating despite the cool air. Sweat dripped down my forehead. I took off my glasses. I didn't need them. They'd be a liability in the fog.

I hesitated, undecided. Then I put the Sig away.

Still… some atavistic sense refused to allow me to go lumbering down the dock with my big hand of friendship extended. Boat theft is a thriving business. Thieves carry cable cutters and crowbars, ready-made clubs. Only a fool would walk into something like that.

And if they were friends? Well, the only reason a friend would sneak around at 2 a.m. is to play a practical joke.

Friend or foe, I decided to turn the tables.

Let the joke be on them.

I stood in the shadows of the deck, peering into the fog. Mangroves disappeared and reappeared before me and to my left. The van Gogh lights of the marina were to the right. Even in fog, if I crept along the walkway to shore, the lights would isolate me in silhouette.

The best option was to swim along the shoreline, then come up behind them. Surprise, surprise! Guess who!

Some part of me was glad that it was my only choice. I like black water. I like swimming at night where creatures of purer instinct cruise. There must be a compelling reason to swim, though, or else it is cheapened. It becomes a puerile device, like bungee-jumping or the craps tables at Vegas.