Randy White - Everglades

There’s the scene in classic Western films where the saloon goes silent when strangers enter. This room didn’t go silent, but it quieted except for the country jukebox. The impression was the same: We were outsiders, and outsiders were neither expected nor welcomed.

At the bar were wobbly, wooden stools. We took the last three at the end. To the woman behind the counter, Tomlinson said, “Maybe you’ll know. I just got shot with a taser gun; some serious voltage. What kind’a beverage would you recommend as a good chaser? Beer’s not going to do it, and wine just doesn’t seem appropriate.”

She was a tall, wide-bodied woman who wore a blouse outside her skirt to mask her shape. An Indian-looking woman. Most of the people in the bar, in fact, looked Native American. Men, mostly; ’Glades Indians dressed like cowboys in jeans, Western shirts and boots. Working guys, cattlemen and truck drivers, probably, on their lunch break.

To Tomlinson, the woman said, “You drunk? I’m not understanding what you mean.”

DeAntoni said, “Just give Mr. Looney a beer,” as Tomlinson told her, “The security guards at Sawgrass nailed me with a taser. One of those electric stun guns? Which was actually kind of interesting, but something about it-maybe the electrical current-left a weird metallic taste in my mouth. Probably had to do with the chemical transformation of ions. So I need the right drink to get rid of the taste.”

The woman’s expression said, Is this a joke? but she told him, “Across the street at the Grab Bag, they sell mouthwash. Maybe try that.”

“Mouthwash, hum… I’ve tried that under different circumstances, but-I don’t want to be indelicate here-mouthwash tends to give my urine an unnatural odor. A little too minty fresh. I’m a traditionalist. Can’t help it. So, what I think I’ll have is”-he held up an index finger to signal his decision-“I think I’ll have a double vodka martini. Stoli, if you have it. And pop in a couple of jalapeno olives. No… bleu cheese olives. That should counteract it. Make me right as rain.”

The woman’s expression said: What the hell are you talking about?

As Tomlinson talked, I’d heard chairs scooching on the floor behind us, and now someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see three men. One wore a sweat-shaped cowboy hat, a straw roper. The other two had their black hair slicked back. Men of size. Wide-shouldered, wrangler-hipped.

One of them, the man wearing the straw Stetson, said, “Maybe somebody forgot to tell you at Sawgrass, but we don’t appreciate you staff people coming in this bar. Isn’t that right, Jenny?”

The man didn’t sound like a bully; just the opposite. Seemed as if he were uneasy having to confront us, even a little shy about it. Kept tugging at the brim of his hat, which was frayed by a couple of years of sweat and sun.

The big woman said, “That sure is right. Your goons have busted enough people’s heads in here. We don’t want no more fighting, no more trouble. So management up the road said we stay away from your place, you keep out of ours. That’s the deal we made.”

DeAntoni said, “What? You think we work for those pin-heads at Sawgrass. No way. Jeez, Mac, give us some credit.”

The man doing the talking turned toward the window, looking outside. “Then why’re you driving one of their golf carts? It says SAWGRASS SECURITY on the side. Those’re the people we’ve had all the problems with. The ones who dress in black; carry clubs and stun guns, and they don’t hold back usin’ them. Which is why the people who live here don’t want you around no more.”

Tomlinson stood and opened his purple Hawaiian shirt. There were two tiny black burn marks on his chest. “Man, you don’t have to tell us about stun guns. Wasn’t twenty minutes ago they shot me. There I was flopping around in the dirt like a tuna on the gymnasium floor. They’re quick on the draw, those Sawgrass guys.” He waited, people staring at his bony chest. “Hey-think if we went back, they’d shoot me again?”

The man doing the talking seemed to relax a little. He took off his cowboy hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Why’d they shoot you?”

“Trespassing. That’s what they said. Only we weren’t-not after we made it to the bar, anyway.”

“How’d you get the golf cart?”

DeAntoni told him, “We borrowed it. But we don’t plan to take it back, so help yourself. If it ends up in a canal, I’m not gonna shed any tears. Enjoy.”

The man looked at his two friends, then the woman bartender, then the waitress-a lean, attractive woman with braided hair and a Plains Indian nose. He’d begun to smile. “Guess we ought to show ’em, huh?”

He and the man to his right unbuttoned their shirts, then pointed to similar twin scars on their chest, spaced as if they’d been struck by the fangs of the same large snake. “It was one of the damnedest feelings I’ve ever had. Your muscles start twitching and there’s nothing you can do. I felt sick for about a week after that.”

As Tomlinson said, “Really? You mean you didn’t like it?” the waitress, who’d moved closer to the window said, “James. James, they’re here. The Sawgrass people. Call the sheriff, Jenny. Call nine-one-one right now or they’re gonna do it to us again.”

I was off my stool, trying to get a look through the door, when the man doing the talking, James, said, “I guess they must’a come looking for their golf cart.”

He meant the white Chevy van outside, doors open, a half-dozen men climbing out, all dressed in black, SECURITY printed in big gold letters on their T-shirts, carrying saps and stun guns. No firearms in the holsters, though-probably paying scrupulous attention to the law because they were anticipating trouble.

Pith helmet hadn’t made the trip. But black hat, the tall, lean one, was among them, although he was markedly smaller than the guards in this new bunch. They could have been a group of linebackers from a small-college football team. Clean-cut-looking bunch, hair squared off at the back, a couple of jock-looking women among them.

Hanging up the phone, Jenny said to the room, “Just like always. The sheriff’s dispatcher said it’d take ’em forty minutes, maybe an hour, to get a deputy here from Homestead.”

Walking toward the door, his friends beside him, James said, “We already talked about this, what we’re gonna do. We’re not going to let them come through this door, no matter what. It’s gotta stop. It’s gonna stop now. ”

DeAntoni continued to impress me. The local men, seven or eight of them, had moved outside, forming a human barrier between the white van and the entrance to Gator Bill’s. There were James and his friends, a couple more Indians and two or three sun-darkened Anglos, Western hats angled back on their heads.

They looked like working cowboys awaiting a rodeo. It would’ve been easy enough for us to stay behind them, let these two bands of locals battle out their problems.

But not DeAntoni. He edged his way through the group, me trailing along, until we were both at the front, standing on gravel in the April heat, facing the security people from Sawgrass. They were standing in a loose V-formation-a tactical grouping that suggested they’d had some training.

Black hat pointed, saying, “There they are, the ones that stole the cart. Those two, plus the hippie in the back. The short, stocky dude, he’s the one who slapped Corey around.” Black hat was now pointing at DeAntoni and me, but not getting too close.

One of them asked, “The one with the shaved head?”

“Yeah, Mr. Clean. The one who looks like the fake wrestlers on TV. He got lucky with Corey. I think he hurt him pretty bad.”

Expressions on the faces of the guards reminded me of cops who’d just heard the call “Officer down!” Pissed off, united.