Randy White - The Man Who Ivented Florida

He held a black costume up, almost threw it into the heap, but then reconsidered. It was bigger than the rest, so he ripped off his gown and tried it on.

"Hum…" Looking down at himself: black costume with a black hood and white bars across the chest and a single white band down the front of each leg.

White stork costume maybel No-o-o…

Joseph thought for a moment. Nope, it was a skeleton costume. That's what he was wearing, a skeleton suit, only his boots and calves stuck way out of it, and so did his wrists. But that didn't matter. He liked the way it felt, nice and soft, plus black was a good color for him. Set off his eyes-a woman had told him that once.

Joseph put his hat on and turned to the door… then stopped, listening: footsteps coming down the hall, squeaking along on the linoleum. Quickly, Joseph flipped off the lights and stepped back against the wall just as the storage room doors were pulled open. One of the orderlies stood there, looking right at Joseph, it seemed, blinking into the darkness. The thick orderly with the chubby face and the tattoo on his wrist. The one who'd whacked him with surgical tubing that time, then tied him up. Joseph pulled his fists to his sides and was just about to leap on the man when the orderly turned on his heels and let the doors swing shut, calling out, "The Injun ain't in here, Hank!"

Joseph relaxed and waited. Amazing. How could the orderly have missed him? It was a good omen-Joseph knew that. A very good sign for a pursuer to look right at him but not see him.

Joseph crouched a little, listening. He could hear the rubber-shoe noises of the two orderlies going room to room. When he could no longer hear them, he peeked his head out and took a look. All clear, so he shuffled past the elevator to the stairs and clomped on down. The fire door at the first floor had no window, so he had to crack it open to look, and there sat the fat nurse and the two orderlies, backs to him, watching television. That quick, they'd given up the search. Maybe a dozen old people beyond the staff, sitting at tables playing cards. An old woman yelling, "Play me a spade, goddamn it! Either bid or get off the can!" Her thin voice rising over the noise of the television.

So how was he going to get past them? He thought about maybe pulling the upstairs fire alarm, sneaking out in the panic. But no, that'd bring the police, and he didn't want the cops after him. He was thinking about it, standing there in the stairwell, when, unexpectedly, the doorknob was pulled from his hand, the door was yanked wide open, and an old man tottered past him without saying a word.

Joseph didn't hesitate. He stood in plain view of the whole room, and there was no other option. He tipped his hat to the orderlies and the nurse, as if he was going for an evening stroll, then walked right out through the front doors.

The nurse and the orderlies never budged. Never said a word.

It was almost as if he were invisible.

As Joseph moved along the night streets, he began to assemble a plan in his head. It was about thirty miles to Mango, where Tuck lived-thirty miles of busy streets and fast traffic. And the orderlies might come looking for him, once their TV show was over. Which meant he couldn't stay out in the open; couldn't risk hitchhiking because, if they caught him, they might put him jail. A boat was the best way to go, run right down the coast and cut in through the Ten Thousand Islands. But he didn't have a boat. Didn't have a dime to call Tuck, either. Or maybe it cost more now. It'd been a long time since Joseph had used a pay phone.

I could steal a car…

That was an idea. Joseph was not a thief by nature, but if some one left their keys in their car, they deserved to be reminded that it was a dangerous world. But that would mean the police. And Joseph didn't like or trust the police. It was a natural distrust, one built up over long years of living just outside the law. As Tuck was fond of saying, "A cop and an undertaker got a lot in common. Neither one of them buggers wants to talk to a man when things is going smooth."

No, Joseph decided, he would not steal a car. But if he found some coins on the floor of an unlocked car, that was another story. Then he could call Tuck and get a ride. Until then, he'd have to walk. Find a way to head south and stay out of sight in case the orderlies came cruising for him.

Joseph hurried away from the rest home, keeping the three-story concrete hulk at his back. He walked past car lots and Burger Kings, then turned into the first residential section he came to. But damn, there was traffic here, too-Florida had become one big car lot. Then he saw a car coming that looked official-had lights on top-so he began to cut across back portions of lawn, ducking under clotheslines and skirting bright windows. For the first time, he began to relax. He traveled quietly, enjoying his new freedom and the scent of the October night. He hummed a little tune, too-a tune he remembered as an old Indian song, the birth song, perhaps, but that was actually the big band hit "Tangerine."

"Tangerine makes a lady da-dum. Tangerine da-dah-de-dum…"

As he walked, he was constantly testing himself, exploring joints and appendages for the various discomforts he had suffered. But there were none. Well, the pain wasn't as bad, anyway. That water… Tuck had been right about that vitamin water. Joseph had known the man for fifty years, and it was the first time Tuck had ever been right about anything.

For once, one of my grandfather's stories has come true…

Thinking that, believing it, produced an odd feeling in Joseph-a strange, floating sense of intoxication, as if he were outside his body, looking down from above. Made him dizzy-that's how strong the feeling was-and he stopped in the shadows of a ficus tree to gather himself.

This is just great. My body's gotten better, but my mind's turned soft. What the hell's going on here!

He stood in the shadows, hoping the feeling would pass.

People who did not know Joseph well considered him a simple man of few needs and fewer thoughts. In truth, he was as intelligent as he was sensitive, and, like most sensitive people, harbored an innate mistrust of his own intellect. Added to this burden was a lifetime of wrestling with his own Indian heritage. His grandfather-called Chekika's Son-had been the great-grandson of Chekika, the giant Indian who had been shot, then hung, accused of killing settlers in the Florida Keys. Chekika, his grandfather had told Joseph many times, was the last of west Florida's native race. In him flowed the blood of the warrior Calusa, a sea people who had built high shell mounds that could still be found on the islands; built them long before the straggler Seminole and Mic-cosukee had wandered onto the peninsula.

Growing up in the Everglades, Joseph's grandfather had told him the Calusa stories; shared the Calusa legends as if they were great truths: On the full moon of the autumnal equinox, owls could speak as humans do; that the souls of brave men soared like eagles, seeking revenge long after they had died; that there was a great plan, a great order to the earth, and that their people, the ancient ones, would one day regain the coast they had once ruled.

But, one by one, as he grew older, Joseph saw the legends collapse beneath the weight of his own worldliness. He realized, in time, his grandfather was just another Indian drunk destined to die in an Immokalee flophouse, an empty wine bottle at his side. He learned that most people, no matter what color, stopped fighting long before their last heartbeat. Finally, he came to understand that the land called Florida would be inherited by those who cared least about it: the concrete merchants and tourists and out-of-state rich people. His loss of faith had long been an emptiness in him, but Joseph was also well grounded in the vagaries of existence: Life was scary enough to make a sled dog shiver, and a man had to get along as best he could.