Randy White - Everglades

The second reason I bailed out early was more subtle, more personal. I found out that my tolerance for paranormal, lunatic-fringe society is far lower than I expected. Tomlinson is an exception, and will always be an exception.

By virtue of his intellect and purity of intent, I find him an interesting character, an entertaining conversationalist, a dependable travel partner. As a friend, he is as loyal and as thoughtful as they come. Even at his weirdest-and that crosses almost all boundaries-he is, at least, out of the ordinary, and always good-hearted. That wasn’t true of the two women and three men he invited to join him in his quest to find the Swamp Ape. Four of the five were academics: college professors in a variety of fields. The fifth had her own cable television show: Connections with Karlita.

The alliteration was as impossible to forget as the tune of some inane song.

When the academics weren’t talking about applying for government grants or tenure, or discussing convention free bies, they were listening to Karlita ramble on and on about what roles they’d each played together in their past lives.

They seemed offended that I chose not to join them in meditation, or to sit, holding hands in a circle, sending out psychic messages to what they called the “Great Alien Being.”

“Doc isn’t much of a joiner,” Tomlinson explained to them one evening. “You know how the right side of the brain controls all nonlinear, intuitive and artistic thought? Doc doesn’t seem to have one. A right side to his brain, I mean. Which means he’s not exactly what you’d call aura-driven. The man’s no social butterfly.”

Possibly true, though it didn’t seem to mitigate their uneasiness with my behavior.

Not that it mattered to me. There are lots of interesting animals in the ’Glades, land, water and reptilian. I was content to wander off on my own, jotting careful descriptions in my field book, and drawing diagrams when necessary.

There was a canoe available. I used it to paddle sawgrass tributaries deep into the swamp, sometimes as far as the mangrove fringe that marks where Florida’s jungle meets the sea.

My nights in camp, though, were not as enjoyable. Their little group would sit around the fire, passing a joint or a pipe, and my consistent refusal was awkward for us all-a situation I’ve experienced too many times, and so try hard to avoid.

Because the stars in the ’Glades are remarkably bright, and because it’s what I preferred to do, I’d return to the canoe carrying a bottle of rum and ice in a little cooler, then paddle far enough away to ensure silence.

I would drift alone, staring upward at the old way points familiar since childhood: Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor with its Polaris handle, Orion, Jupiter and others, all ice-bright, solitary and set apart in the chill of deep space. After that, it was a race between the rum and the depression.

My feelings of guilt and failure are sometimes so power-charged that there seems to be a chemical source, as if some valve in my brain has ruptured, and is leaking acid.

Certain memories flashed so vividly, with such impact, that, floating in the canoe, isolated and insulated by wilderness, I’d groan aloud until the images passed.

The alcohol helped, even though I knew the folly of it.

Being in the ’Glades seemed to help as well.

Tomlinson’s correct. There’s no need to say Florida’s Everglades, because there is no other. Just as California cannot lay claim to the Pacific, the Everglades is beyond the claim of one state.

The Everglades region has its own feel, its own good odor. The odor is created by a fusion of freshwater flowing slowly over limestone, the wheat-stubble odor of sawgrass, the lichen scent of Spanish moss, tannin, wild citrus, and of tropic sun heating cypress shadow.

To fight the depression, I was also doing something else: I was using my brain, exercising the cells, learning something. I was making an effort to use all the senses so to patch together a neophyte’s understanding of a complicated ecological system.

My last night in the ’Glades, Karlita insisted on joining me on my evening paddle. Despite Tomlinson’s claims, I am not an antisocial person. I didn’t know her well enough to have a reason to say no, so I said yes.

Physically, she is an attractive woman by the standards of most: long legged, lean, with a glossy, healthy cowling of Irish-black hair, and the kind of face that looks good on a television screen, or when reproduced on the covers of magazines.

When it comes to the human female face, researchers have identified the five most important components that define our standards of beauty. The male brain, apparently, has been encoded to react both physically and emotionally.

Features include sexual maturity balanced with neonate, or childlike, qualities. Also important are facial expression, the shape of a woman’s mouth and lips, plus a measurable ratio between cheek and chin that is similar to the proportional difference in bust size and waist that keys sexual arousal in most men.

Karlita had all of the above. But I found her decidedly unattractive. I appreciate woman as people, so I tend to evaluate them by the same criteria I use to select male friends.

As we paddled into the darkness, she began a nonstop monologue (“I think it’s so valuable to invite oneness with nature…”).

It was the kind of introspective discourse that is the hall-mark of the self-obsessed. It forbids any attempt at conversation. Her insistence on telling me about my “former incarnations” was a subtle device. It was a way of establishing authority. Her passionate commitment to “spiritual open-mindedness” was a cloaked condemnation of anyone who thought differently than she.

What irritated me most, though, was that she claimed to be an expert canoeist, yet was a sloppy paddler.

I can tolerate pompous assholes in short doses. Fakes and pretenders are a different story.

Even so, I was on my best behavior. Tomlinson’s my friend. To confront her would have been to embarrass him.

When we got back to camp, though, I took him aside. I told him I’d had enough. I’d be leaving the next day. “That woman’s a phony, old buddy. Your instincts used to be better. I’m surprised you didn’t see through her act.”

He laughed, and said that he’d invited her along less because of her paranormal powers than for her paranormal body.

I said, “You’re trying to get the famous TV psychic in the sack? Just when I think it’s impossible for you to shock me, you find a way.”

“I know, I know, I’m terrible. But I comfort myself by believing that shallowness is a key part of being a complicated male. At least, that’s what I tell myself. There are times when my testicles are nothing more than ventriloquists suspended from one big dummy. Absolutely unconscionable. But it does seem to add a little spice to life.”

He added, “I take no pride in admitting that, with the exception of my Zen students, I’ve never been with a healthy, adult woman in my life when I didn’t secretly calculate the chances of getting her in the sack.” He shrugged, disgusted. “As long as she wasn’t damaged, wasn’t vulnerable, it never mattered. Not to me-and usually not to them.”

I had to ask. “Do you think Karlita would stop talking long enough to make love?”

“ No. Play-by-play, the whole time. That’s my guess. It’d be kind’a entertaining. Like playing baseball with earphones on, listening to someone describe how you’re doing.”

I thought that was the end of my days in the Everglades.

I was wrong.

When you shower in the rain, getting dry is not a pressing consideration. The storm cell had spread itself over Sanibel, diffusing intensity, so the downpour had slowed to a steady drizzle and was finally stopping. Big soft drops, the air much cooler now in the tropical moonlight.