Thomas McGuane - Panama

Catherine said, “Thomas Jefferson picked out the site of Monticello at the age of ten.”

“The Borgia Popes had a phone in every room,” I replied.

“At the bottom of the sea, the fish have no eyes,” she said.

“Did you get that from that low-rent marine biologist?”

“Everybody knows it.”

“You got it from him, that seagoing wage ape.”

“Watch the words, Chet, the words.”

Cats fell from the tree in mortal combat. We stepped aside and they pinwheeled past. The pilings throbbed to hidden currents. I looked at the sad water and remembered when I wanted, because of the Saturday matinee, to run away as a cabin boy and find Charles Laughton’s blubbery Old Salt Wisdom to guide my future to a sun endlessly falling into a shining sea, the old whale road where flying fish spangled the surface a square mile at a time and where, basically, seldom was heard a discouraging word. Instead … well, you know how it turned out. Substitute cyanide for sea; and curtains of remorse for all the flying fish in heaven.

* * *

I noticed that many people I saw were surrounded by invisible objects. Many of the visitors from New York had invisible typewriters right in front of their noses upon which they typed every word they spoke. Boozy hicks played an invisible accordion as they talked. Hip characters stirred an invisible cup of coffee with their noses as they spoke. Senior citizens walked down the street, dog-paddling in turbulent, invisible whirlpools.

When the sun came up, we were behind the A&B Lobster House. I was splashing water out of the bilge of my little sailboat with half a Clorox bottle. Catherine was hanging over the bow dangling a string in the water. She said the ripples made the reflection look like she was holding electricity.

“That time in the Russian Tea Room, what were you on?” I asked.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

I uncleated the centerboard and dropped it. It knocked under the hull. I looked around at the well-built little sloop, proof that I was not an utter damned fool; as a matter of fact, the only one in a shipbuilding family who could still build a boat.

I stuck the tiller into the rudder and freed the lines that attached us to the decayed dock amid bright Cuban crawfish boats piled with traps and styrofoam markers. We began to drift away from the dock. Then suddenly I reached for the lines and tied us up again.

“I don’t want to go sailing,” I said.

“Why?”

“I feel like sinking it.”

“We’ve been walking around all night. You’re too tired.”

“Breakfast,” I said.

“My nerves are raw,” she said. “We’ll have to go someplace where the service is fast or I’ll jump out of my skin.”

Two dogs I knew, Smith and Progress, stared at us from the breakwater. Shrimp boats were starting to roll in from the night with their trawling booms swaying to the same rhythm as they passed each other in the channel going to different basins. A panhandler appeared from behind the warehouse and dismissed us. I was beginning to sense that the night had written a check that daylight couldn’t cash.

We ate our grits and eggs faster than you could say Jack Robinson. The radios were starting out of the upper windows with the rising sun and shattering our nerves. Crazed bicyclists raced up Passover Street with morning milk. Someone blessed himself behind louvers. Catherine and I embraced wearily to a Coast Guard weather report. I had the odd thought that I couldn’t fake a laugh for all the tea in China.

A Navy Phantom decelerated overhead in an afterburner smudge and the entire shore of the island seemed to close around my neck. In a moment, I had trouble getting my breath. Catherine said, “What in God’s name is the matter?” My hands went to my throat and I began to sink. “Straighten up,” she said, and swatted me on the rear. My eyes cleared and the perimeter of Key West fell away once more. Nylon Pinder materialized and said, “Want to try the breathalizer?” There was weird light on the yellow line.

“Get out of here,” Catherine told him. “I mean now.”

The last time I went to Catherine’s house, I was welcomed. We got into bed and tangled up in each other and slept in the sunshine in achy peace. I dreamt of the Easter bunny. He gave me a sugar egg you could look into and see God’s own front yard. That seemed a long time ago. But I’m still walking around.

“Want to go to the library and deface Sandburg’s life of Lincoln?” I inquired.

“No.”

“It is characterized by Hoosier traits,” I said.

“Sandburg’s or Lincoln’s?”

“A little of both.”

“Let’s visit Roxy and see how she is getting along.”

“Do you want to, do you think?” In our condition, this seemed dangerous.

Right on Angela, where all the bottles are set in dripping cement, Catherine spotted a young man in a shiny suit. She spun. “Can’t you leave us alone.” He stopped, bobbing slightly on his web shoes, then ran off. I had the sense that they were coming in on us.

“He’s got his nerve.”

“I don’t understand that at all,” I said.

“There’s a time for everything. I’m not a peeping Tom.”

“I think you are.”

Roxy greeted Catherine, then cut her eyes up at me and said hello. We walked out in back and sat beneath the divided fruit trees. I don’t know whether Roxy could see us trembling or not.

She said, “I’m pleased you’ve come over. I’m getting a lot of infuriating phone calls about Peavey. I know Peavey wants that land. What does that matter to me? The Old Island Restoration Committee says it will become a Holiday Inn. So what? Have you ever had their clam plate? I find it very edible. Besides, whatever his motives, Peavey is attentive to me. Tonight we’re going to Deep Throat. Day after day, he amuses me with his mindless money-grubbing and comic lack of ethics. Why should I worry about his getting my land?”

“Is he a Hoosier?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“An out-of-towner?”

“I couldn’t say. The trouble is, there are only about six on the plate, it’s not enough.”

“Six what?”

“Clams.”

“On the Holiday Inn clam platter?” I asked.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Catherine went over to have a word with the young man at the fence. When she came back, Roxy asked her who it was. Catherine explained that it was a private detective. Roxy said she thought we were already divorced.

“He’s helping Chet keep track of his actions.”

Roxy said, “It’s a little late for that.”

A jogger stopped to catch his breath and went on.

“There’s only one thing to concern yourself with as applies to me,” Roxy said deliberately. “After years of enthusiasm, I am almost devoid of interest. I’m sick of everything. The only response I can elicit from the family is greedy irritation. Finally, it’s the only response I want.”

Outside, Catherine said, “I’m so damned tired and your aunt’s personal philosophy is the tiredest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You can see how she got that way though. Besides, we asked for it.”

“You’re not like that and you’ve got more reason to be.”

“Well, she keeps rolling. She keeps focused on the next thing. Collapsing into the present would kill her. I think she’s hilarious.”

“Do you get chills when you’re exhausted?”

“Yes, and I drop things and my knees ache.”

“Why don’t you give up?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you give up. If I were you I’d give up.” Her cheeks were mottled from exhaustion. “You have nowhere to go but down.”

“And you?”

“At the last minute, I’m going to drag myself tooth and nail to the bus station.”