Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

The Kid is rationalizing, he knows. He is going to miss Iggy. But the iguana was getting harder and harder to feed and care for properly especially down under the Causeway and he knows that Iggy will be better off living a more natural life with his own kind than chained to a cinder block down where there isn’t much sunlight and there are no other snakes or lizards for company. Just rats and homeless sex offenders. And no trees to climb.

The sun has broken the horizon and the rumpled silver gray clouds overhead are pushed halfway back by the emerging blue sky. The Bay on either side glistens in the clean new light. Palm trees clatter in the offshore breeze. Traffic has started to build as commuters from the mainland head for work on the islands and the residents of the islands start the daily drive from their homes to their jobs on the mainland. The Kid still has a couple hours to kill before he has to show up for work at the Mirador. The eastbound cars flash past him and to get safely out of their way he steps over the guardrail onto the grass and walks there.

Things could be worse, he thinks. He escaped. And no one’s chasing him. He could be locked in a paddy wagon like Larry Somerset probably is: on his way to court and hauled back to jail for breaking parole by resisting arrest or refusing to disperse or whatever phony charge they come up with. He could be injured or worse like the Rabbit and a couple others he saw getting clubbed by the cops. But he’s not, he’s a free man. More or less. And it’s morning in Calusa.

IT TAKES THE KID OVER AN HOUR TO WALK from the Causeway over to the Barriers and south onto Clifton Road and then the half-mile residential curl alongside the Bayshore Golf Club. From the sidewalk at Clifton and West Twenty-third he watches with a willed curiosity the retirees out for their first eighteen holes. His legs are still wobbly weak and his lungs burn from the long run to safety and ten years of smoking cigarettes, a habit he caught back when he was twelve and hoped that dangling a ciggie from his lips might make him seem older because people kept mistaking him for nine or ten due to his being short and skinny and big-eared. He was eager to be noticed back then but not for that.

Now he’s eager not to be noticed for anything.

He tries distracting himself with the sight of elderly pink people in pastel shorts and shirts whacking with sticks at little white balls, the kind of people he’s never known personally or even spoken to except to say, May I clear, sir? at the restaurant, people whose thoughts he cannot imagine, whose past, present, and future lives are incomprehensible to him. As if they were members of a different species. He wants to understand what it must feel like to be them. To wake in the morning and shower and shave and read the Wall Street Journal or whatever at breakfast — freshly squeezed orange juice and bacon and eggs cooked just the way you like them by a Jamaican lady who is employed by you — and then you take your bag of golf clubs from the trunk of your S-Class Benz and walk from your walled-in rancho de luxe across Clifton Road to the Bayshore Golf Club where you meet two or three fellow retirees from New York or Philadelphia and stroll out to the first tee chatting knowledgeably about yesterday’s Dow Jones average and the gross national product.

Whatever they are.

Who are those fucking people? the Kid wonders and beneath his wondering hopes that the question will keep him from thinking about what he just went through back at the encampment beneath the Causeway. He can keep the shock of the police and press raid pretty well out of his mind almost as if it never happened but it’s harder for him to ignore the fact that now he’s scared of being picked up by the cops and charged with resisting arrest or unlawful flight or any of the other dozen charges they could easily stick on him if they wanted to because no one will believe that he’s innocent of anything. Even of just being alive. He’s guilty of that too. Being alive. Besides that he’s lost his squat, his safe haven, his home. And he’s worried about Otis the Rabbit and Iggy and feels sorry and a little ashamed that he abandoned Larry Somerset in spite of finding the guy creepy. Guilty and ashamed. Like he did something immoral by running for his life.

HE’S SITTING ALONE AT A CAFÉ TABLE outside a small bookstore on the fifteen-block-long section of Rampart Road that’s given over to pedestrians — a chic sprawl of sidewalk cafés, restaurants, bars, brasseries, and upscale shops for people who want to be seen by each other alongside souvenir stores for short-term sunburnt tourists and sunglass and sneaker stores for young people who like to think of themselves as raging against the machine. A fine mingling spot for people-watching if you’re into that but the Kid is here because it’s still early in the day and there aren’t many customers and no one wants his table so he’s free to idle away a few hours over a cup of coffee and not get nudged off it by the waiter. It’s a bookstore café with a newsstand and a sprinkling of people are sitting nearby reading newspapers just as he is although he’s not reading his newspaper exactly. He’s cashed one of Larry Somerset’s hundred-dollar bills at the bank on the corner of Clifton and Rampart and has bought a city map at the newsstand and a cup of coffee and an apricot muffin at the café. He’s opened the paper to the real estate section and is working his way down the listings for studio apartment rentals.

Parc Bay Plaza Apartments

2341 North Bayshore Drive

$750–$1378. Live up to ONE MONTH FREE in selected apartments when move-in by the end of September. Prices listed reflect the one month free. Enjoy breathtaking views of Calusa Bay and downtown Calusa. Our lovely studio and 1- and 2-bedroom apartments for rent are beautifully appointed with spacious living areas. Many of our homes have large patios and balconies. Our controlled access community includes a swimming pool and a 24-hour fitness center. Catch a flick in our big screen surround sound movie room or play pool, table tennis and air hockey in our game room. Call today to schedule a personal tour: 866-510-1424.

A tall very thin guy in his forties with long lemon yellow hair carrying a purple velvet clutch purse and wearing nothing but a gold lamé Speedo, flip-flops, and an all-body leathery tan swings past and catches the Kid’s eye. He’s anorectic thin with a lace mesh of wrinkles for a face and is weighed down with gold rings dangling from his ears, nostrils, nipples, and navel. He flashes a toothy smile and waves at the Kid, flips his hair and cruises in a half-circle up to the Kid’s table and stops.

Hello, Kid. A little early to be working the street, isn’t it?

The Kid gives him a cold stare and looks down at his map. It’s a very detailed map of the entire city with the Calusa Isles segment scaled at five hundred yards to the inch.

Oh, I forgot, you’re holding down a regular job now. Like a real quote family man unquote.

Fuck off, Molly.

Molly spins in a feigned huff and walks away. The Kid retrieves his cell phone from his backpack and punches in a number.

Parc Bay Realty. How may I help you?

He says he’s calling about a furnished studio with kitchenette and bath. Always he asks first for the price and then the square footage. It’s the drill — the same old Q’s, the same old A’s. Regarding price he’s looking strictly at the low end. Location is irrelevant as long as it’s within biking distance of his job but he knows it’s reassuring to the rental agent so he politely inquires into the related questions of neighborhood safety and building security. While the woman at the other end goes on about how it’s perfectly safe even after dark and the building has excellent twenty-four-hour security he dots the street address on the map with his ballpoint and draws a circle with a diameter of two inches — one thousand yards, three thousand feet — around it.