Randy White - Everglades

I said, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I went to church with her, Mac. Me, the big wop who stopped going to confession when I started having shit to confess. Sitting there in a sport coat in this little white church with a bunch of jigs and crackers and beaners, but they were all nice as hell, everybody singing and clapping. It was fun, Doc. I enjoyed it.”

DeAntoni’s voice had a schoolboy quality. He sounded like an adolescent with a crush, but his tone changed abruptly when he said, “But that’s not why I called. I’m calling ’cause I need someone I trust. Someone who knows how to take care of himself, and bust a head or two if things get tough. I need a favor.”

He then told me that he suspected that one or more men were following Sally. He didn’t know who, or why. But he wanted to set a trap for whoever it was, and the trap required a third party to do a careful, long-distance surveillance.

As he explained the circumstances, asking for my help, I felt a sickening tension building in my stomach. Lately, when I have attempted to help friends, the results have been tragic. If I’m involved, the people I’m trying to help are almost always the ones who end up getting hurt.

I said, “Whoever it is breaking into Sally’s house, that’s who you think’s following her?”

“Bingo. I need someone to watch me while I’m watching her. From a distance, understand? That’s the only way to nail them. Something else, Ford: Whoever’s doing it, he’s a pro. And he’s very, very damn good. ”

“What about asking your cop pal in Hialeah?”

“He left on a cruise two days ago. You’re the only other guy I’d trust. Hey, I’ll tell you the truth. Most guys, they’re either too stuffy or too Mister Macho, which is to say they’re a pain in the ass. But you, I wouldn’t mind hanging out with some. Tell you what, come to Coconut Grove, help your old pal Sally, and we’ll have some yucks, you and me.”

I told DeAntoni that I’d like that-and meant it-but that I’d have to check my work schedule to see if I could take the time off.

It was a lie.

Same thing when I told him I’d call him later that night.

Sailors have an old word for it-Jonah. I was bad luck, a Jonah, when it came to helping friends. I wasn’t going to risk contaminating Sally.

DeAntoni finished, saying, “Hell, what we could start doing is find a gym with wrestling mats. Maybe shoot for takedowns, get in a little bit of shape. Roll around a little; get rid of our bellies. We’re both carrying a few extra pounds.”

I told him that sounded like a good thing to do, too. We chatted for a while longer before I hung up the phone.

It was the last time I would ever hear Frank DeAntoni’s voice.

As I headed back to the docks, I noticed that Tomlinson was standing by the Red Pelican Gift Shop, encircled by a dozen or so people-tourists, judging by the number of cameras they carried. When he saw me, his wave was more of a signal- Wait for me -and he then began to walk in my direction.

The people with whom he’d been talking watched for a moment, then, as a group, began to follow him.

Glancing over his shoulder, Tomlinson walked faster.

The little gaggle of people walked faster.

Then Tomlinson began to jog.

They began to jog-a mixed group, mostly younger men and women with gaunt, European-looking faces, plus a couple of Asians.

Now Tomlinson was running, his long hair swinging behind him like a flag, barefooted in tank top and baggy surfer shorts. As he ran, he called to me, “Doc! Are you headed out on your skiff?”

I stood for a moment, engrossed by the bizarre scene, then called back, “I’m leaving right now.”

“If you got room, I’m going with you!”

“Plenty of room. Come aboard.”

I stepped into my skiff, started the engine and popped the lines.

Quick-release knots-I love them.

A second later, Tomlinson swung down onto the deck beside me, breathing heavily. On the dock behind him, his pursuers stopped abruptly, cameras up and snapping photos, as a Japanese-looking girl, her accent heavy, said, “Why do you refuse us, to be our Roshi? We have come so far, and searched so long. It was you who wrote the divine Surangama of this new century. Our destinies, our desire for kensho, we are now all mingled!”

Tomlinson groaned. “My dear, you are wrong. So wrong. All of you.” His voice sounded pained and apologetic, and he was holding up both palms- Please stop. “I’m not worthy to teach you or anyone else. Not anymore. I’m… I’m a terrible person. I abuse drugs. I’m a fornicator- nothing’s beneath me. My God, I tried to strangle a man a few days ago! Basically, I’m an absurd wanderer. I… I was sent to this planet to conduct inhuman experiments on the human liver.”

Tomlinson put his hand on my shoulder, and pointed to me, adding, “Ask this man. He knows me. I’m the island drunk-and that’s saying something on these islands.”

I was nodding. “Oh, he’s a drunk, all right.”

“In the entire history of the Sanibel Police Department, I’m the only person to have ever been stopped for DUI while on a skateboard. And the police chief is a distant relative.”

True.

“I’m no longer fit to teach!”

We were idling away, nearly out of earshot. Touching my hand to the throttle, I said to them, “This man’s scum. Worthless trash that I wouldn’t trust with my daughter. Do yourselves a favor. Leave him alone.”

Tomlinson said, “That’s right, I am scum-” but then stopped. Looking surprised and offended, he turned to me and said, “Hey. That’s pouring it on a little heavy, isn’t it, man?”

Smiling, I said, “Why are those kids following you?”

He sighed and sat in one of the three seats bolted into the stern platform. “Remember that paper I mentioned? The one I sent to Mr. McRae to help him deal with his wife’s condition?”

I pretended as if I had to think about it. “Yeah. That’s the one you were supposed to send to me, too. But didn’t.”

“I wrote it when I was in college. I’d drunk a case of Bud weiser, eaten two blotters of acid and a candy-looking substance that might have been mescaline. I’m not sure. Or it was an M amp;M. Whatever the hell it was, I sat down and wrote this paper for a class I was taking on world religions. The whole thing in one frenzied sitting. ‘Twenty Ways to Duct-Tape Your Life.’ That was the original title. Then I changed it to ‘One Fathom Above Sea Level.’”

I said, “So?”

He sounded sad and concerned, saying, “So someone’s been circulating it on the Internet. People all over the world have been reading the thing. It’s been translated, for Christ’s sake, like, into twenty-some languages. People who read it get the entirely wrong idea about the kind of person I am. There are some-an increasing number-who come looking for me, thinking I’m… well, that I’m some kind of prophet. Tomlinsonism. That’s what some are calling it. My own religion. Like Taoism.”

“That’s scary,” I said.

Tomlinson was standing now, rummaging through the ice locker. “You got any beer in here?”

A few minutes later, a Bud Light in his hand, he said, “You’re telling me.”

I followed the markers across Dinkin’s Bay to Woodring Point, cutting behind the fishhouse ruins. Pelicans and egrets flushed off the spoil islands, their wings laboring in the heat and heavy air, gaining slow altitude as their shadows panicked baitfish in the shallows.

I ran straight across the flats, but at reduced speed, concentrating on the mangrove fringe to my left, then on the horizon of water that opened before me.

My skiff’s big 225-horsepower Mercury made a pleasant Harley-Davidson rumble as we sped along, but it was still quiet enough to converse in a normal tone.