Randy White: The Man Who Ivented Florida

Ford said, "I know."

"You want it off?"

"That's right."

"Because you were working in the lab and didn't want to be bothered, huh?"

Ford, who tried to make a living from his small biological supply business, said, "I was doing a procedure. Making up starfish embryology plates. The whole business has to be timed just right, and there are eighteen stages. From the germinal vesicle right through fertilization. Zygote, blastula, gastrula, the entire chain of development. I couldn't be interrupted."

"You started yesterday?"

"Nope. Got the order two days ago and I collected yesterday. I took Crunch amp;. Des with me. He's a pretty nice cat."

Tomlinson was still staring at the phone. "But you're done now."

"For the day, yeah." Ford looked up from the radio. "Why? You want to use the phone."

"No-"

"Then you're expecting a call. You told someone to call you here." Being logical.

Tomlinson said, "Nope. I heard Jeth was trying to get in touch. I went into the marina this morning to get ice and Mack told me. He said Jeth tried to call you all day yesterday, only couldn't get through. It was busy-your phone. And you hadn't been into the marina for a couple of days."

Mack was manager of Dinkin's Bay Marina, which was just through the mangroves, three hundred yards down the shoreline. Jeth was Jeth Nicholes, the marina fishing guide who had taken off to travel to Palo Alto, California, but had ended up in Sao Paulo, South America, due to a miscommunication with an airline clerk who'd had no experience with Jeth's bad stutter.

The cat was Jeth's, and Ford was keeping him while he was away.

Tomlinson said, "So your phone was off the hook yesterday," showing Ford that he could be logical, too.

Ford said, "Maybe it was."

"Even though you weren't working in the lab."

"Guess so."

Tomlinson was smiling, tugging at the brim of his fishing cap, trying to draw the guy out and enjoying it. "You don't want to talk to Jeth?"

"Of course I want to talk to Jeth. It's not that."

"Ah. Some women hounding you. I've toured that course, amigo."

"Good Lord, no." Ford was growing impatient. But then he said, "Well, there're a few who call, but they don't exactly hound me. In fact, I wish a couple of them would."

Tomlinson said, "Then what? You want to be a hermit, just take the phone out. I can relate to it, man. Solitude. Nothing like it. Be a perfect way to go-if you knew how to brew beer and had a female hermit living down the road. Nice young one with blond hair, maybe. That would be a good spiritual way to live. Seriously."

Ford was kneeling before the radio, touching the fine-tune dial as carefully as the tumbler of a safe, trying to lock in Radio Romania. He had a brief mental flash of the red-haired woman out on her sailboat. Beyond the window was the orange windscape of clouds at sunset. It was swim time, and the woman would be out there on the stern of her boat. Probably taking her clothes off right now, standing with the moist air of the bay on her.

Ford made a point of ignoring the telescope as his head swung toward Tomlinson. He said, "I've got the phone off because this old guy I know, lives down the coast, he's been calling me a lot, and I got tired of it."

"Oh. So it's not Jeth."

"No, it's not Jeth. It's this old guy."

"Why don't you want to talk to him?"

"The old guy? Because he's crazy, that's why. Or probably just senile." Correcting himself because he preferred precise language. "He's about seventy-one, seventy-two. Senile dementia. Or alcohol poisoning. Both, maybe, the way he drinks."

"So why's he bothering you?"

Thinking, When Tomlinson hasn't had food, the beer affects him and he asks too many questions. Ford said, "Because I used to know him. I mean, I do know him." Which wasn't enough for Tomlinson; Ford could read it in his expression, so he added, "He's my uncle." And knew instantly that was a mistake.

Tomlinson said, "You mean you're not taking calls from your own uncle?" Packing a lot of disapproval into his tone.

Pious old hipster… As if he didn't have the ethics of a goat. Standing, suddenly eager to get supper going, Ford said, "That's right, I'm not taking his calls," already surveying things in the little kitchen: propane stove, countertop, sink with spigot that piped in rainwater from the wooden cistern outside, braced at roof level. Nice grouper fillet soaking in lime juice for him; green tomato slices with sweet Florida onion he'd fry for Tomlinson if Tomlinson would just let the damn issue drop.

But Tomlinson wouldn't. "That's not the uncle who raised you, is it? The old guy who played Triple-A baseball with Preacher Roe? Way back?"

"He didn't raise me. I lived with him for three years. Well, two-it just seemed like three."

"Then it is him. On that little ranch. You told me about it. Mango? The name of the town where you lived."

"Mango isn't a town,- it's not even much of a… well, it's an old fish camp about thirty miles south, where the coast turns in, just above the Ten Thousand Islands. It used to be a little cattle port, too, back when they shipped cattle to Cuba. And I think I've talked about this all I want."

"This old guy raises you, your uncle, and this is the way you repay the kindness." Tomlinson was shaking his head, genuinely disappointed. "I don't want to get heavy about this, Doc, but, kar-mically speaking, you're pissing all over your own aura. Black mood ring stuff, man. The vibes"-Tomlinson put his nose in the air, as if sniffing for rain-"the vibes here are definitely out of whack."

Ford was cracking eggs into a bowl, then he poured in Italian dressing and added six dashes of Louisiana Bull hot sauce. "Look, Tomlinson, I don't pry into your private affairs, and I'd appreciate the same consideration." Talking as he used the whisk, blending the batter as carefully as he would his lab chemicals.

"Hey, don't get chilly on me, man. Don't put the shields up. You're not under attack here." His mind drifting back into 'Star Trek' mode, but looking at Ford earnestly, his palms held out in supplication. "Who's your buddy? Come on, give us a smile."

Ford said, "Geeze!" but smiled a little, anyway.

"So you don't mind if I put the phone back on, just in case? For Jeth, I mean."

"No, go ahead. I don't care what you do."

Tomlinson stood, replaced the phone, and, while he was at it, crouched in front of the little ship's refrigerator and reappeared with another bottle of beer. "I shouldn't be telling Jeth's story, but Mack says he's become some kind of hero down there in Central America."

Ford looked up from the bowl. "Jeth's in South America. Brazil. I've been getting cards from him."

"Yeah, but a month ago he started working his way back to Florida, and he got to this little island republic off Honduras a couple days before they had a hell of an earthquake. Somehow, Jeth saved the life of the president's mother. Or his aunt, maybe. Now the president wants to reward him by making him a citizen and ambassador to someplace. France, I think."

"He's joking. Or Mack's joking. That can't be-"

"Mack was dead serious. Said Jeth was, too. Jeth wants your advice. Mack was pretty sure it was an ambassadorship."

Ford said, "With his stutter, Jeth probably said they were giving him an Ambassador fishing reel and… France? He probably said a new pair of pants. That's just crazy."

"This guy, the president, his mother was having tea on the presidential yacht when the earthquake hit. Or maybe his aunt. Some important woman, and the tidal surge swept her overboard. Everybody in the whole town is panicking, and Jeth looks out and thinks he sees a dog drowning. You know Jeth and animals. He swims out, but instead of a dog, he finds a drowning woman. He told Mack she looked like a Pomeranian. Now he's a hero."