Tim Dorsey: Hammerhead Ranch Motel

The bather was tan, tall and lean with violating ice-blue eyes, and his hair was military-short with flecks of gray. He was in his late thirties and wore a new Tampa Bay Buccaneers baseball cap. In his mouth was a huge cigar, and he took it out with one hand and picked up an Egg McMuffin with the other. He checked his watch. Top of the hour. He clicked the remote control with the McMuffin hand and surfed over to CNN for two minutes, to make sure nothing had broken out in the world that would demand his response, and then over to A &E and the biography of Burt Reynolds for background noise while he read the Herald editorials. He put the McMuffin down on the rim of the tub and picked up the cup of orange juice. On TV, Burt made a long football run for Florida State in a vintage film of a forgotten Auburn game. The tub’s edge also held jelly doughnuts, breakfast fajitas and a scrambled egg/sausage breakfast in a preformed plastic tray. On the toilet lid, next to the fan, was a hardcover book from 1939, the WPA guide to Florida. Inside the cover, the man had written his name. Serge A. Storms.

Like now, Serge was usually naked when he was in a motel, but it wasn’t sexual. Serge thought clothes were inefficient and uncomfortable; they restricted his movements, and his skin wanted to breathe. Nudity also cut down on changing time, since he was constantly in and out of the shower, subjecting himself to rapid temperature changes, alternating hot and cold water rushes that reminded him he was alive and cleaned out the pores to keep that skin breathing, feeling new.

Serge hesitated a second in the tub, mid-bite in the McMuffin. He couldn’t think of what to do next, not even something as simple as chewing. Too many ideas raged at once in his head, and his brain gridlocked. He was paralyzed. Then the congestion slowly unclogged and he resumed chewing. When he realized he could move his arms again, he reached on top of the toilet tank for a prescription bottle. He shook it, but it made no sound, and he tossed the empty in the waste can beside the sink, a bank shot off the ceramic seashell tiles. Hell with it, he thought, I’ll go natural. If it gets too strange, I’ll run to a drug hole and score some Elavil that crackheads use to come down after four days on the ledge. Serge had started feeling the effects of not keeping up with his psychiatric medication.

And he liked it.

He got out of the tub and opened the back door of the motel room and walked out under a coconut palm. The breeze dried the sweat cold on his skin. He looked up into the nexus of palm fronds and coconuts set against the Big Dipper and a sky of brilliant stars over the water, away from the light pollution of the mainland. Serge said: “There’s a big blow a-comin’.”

Serge went back inside and slept all day in the motel tub, and his skin shriveled. Two hours before sunset, there was a loud beeping sound in room seven. Serge awoke in alarm and splashed around as if he’d discovered a cottonmouth in the water. He jumped from the tub and into his pants without toweling off. The beeping sound came from a metal box on the dresser, an antitheft car-tracking device. Serge threw on a shirt and packed a travel bag in seconds. He didn’t close the door as he ran out with shirt open and shoes in his hands. He threw the bag and shoes in the front of the limo and sped away from the motel.

S erge caught up to the white Chrysler on the Long Key Viaduct and closed quickly as they passed Duck Key. They hit the next island. At mile post 66, they passed the historic marker for the Long Key Fishing Club, whose president was Zane Grey.

Serge became jittery and started to sweat. He looked over his shoulder and wiped his brow.

“Damn!” He smacked the steering wheel with both palms. He did a fishtailing U-turn on U.S. 1 and raced back to the roadside marker. He jumped out of the limo with his camera and took three quick snapshots, then hopped back in the driver’s seat.

He caught sight of the Chrysler again coming off the Channel Five Bridge into the Matecumbes. At mile 73, he saw the resort hotel coming up on the right. Serge stepped on the gas and summoned the will to resist, locking his eyes on the Chrysler. He began to vibrate. His face reddened from backbuild of blood pressure. He finally shrieked and took a hard turn, skidding into the parking lot at the gas pumps. He wound his way through the resort grounds to the waterfront and the Safari Lounge. He burst inside the bar with the camera. The bartender and patrons stopped and looked. Serge took quick pictures of the walls displaying old photos and mounted heads of exotic game the bar’s owner had gotten on hunting trips to Africa with Ernest Hemingway. Then he ran out.

Back on the road, he was about to leave Islamorada and still hadn’t reacquired the Chrysler. At mile 83, Serge saw the stone Whale Harbor Tower. He banged his forehead on the steering wheel three times, then grabbed the camera.

F lorida was on fire and Johnny Vegas didn’t care.

He was in room four of the Rod and Gun Lodge in Everglades City, trying to score with a lithe spokesmodel for fattening beer products he’d picked up at an MTV promotional show-your-ass-athon in Miami Beach. The Florida Marlins had just won the World Series, whose rich celebratory tradition often peaks with fans mistaking police cruisers for piñatas. When the spokesmodel began nibbling Johnny’s ear on Ocean Drive, he didn’t want to take any chances. The specter of mob misbehavior inspired Johnny to shove her in his Porsche and immediately put a hundred miles between them and Miami. They headed west into the glades on the Tamiami Trail. Johnny stopped at a megaplectic convenience store frequented by airboat operators and survivalists with inscrutable politics. He purchased cheese, bread, crackers, a four-dollar bottle of champagne, plastic cups, Vaseline, duct tape and ribbed Day-Glo rubbers, and he winked with conspiracy at the cashier. Back on the road, Johnny cranked up Sheryl Crow.

“…I think a change…would do you good…”

He sped past Miccosukee Indian chickee huts on the two-lane shoulderless highway, flawlessly filling the plastic cups with champagne to demonstrate the sports car’s fine European suspension; the model squeezed Johnny’s crotch, stress-testing his sleek Italian slacks. They pulled in at the rustic mosquito lodge on the western edge of the Everglades, surrounded by miles of nothing but peace. The buzz of crickets relaxed Johnny as he stuck the key in the knob of their room.

It had been a dry, brittle autumn, and a rash of lightning strikes sparked forest fires in sixty-six of sixty-seven counties. The winds drove the blazes across highway breaks. Civic events were canceled and motels evacuated from Tallahassee to Homestead. A fire line advanced on the mosquito lodge.

Gigi the spokesmodel returned from the hotel bathroom naked, but her eyes watered hard.

“What’s that smoke?” she asked between coughs.

“Nothing,” said Johnny. “Just a pig roast or a citronella tiki torch, to keep bugs away.” He leaned her back on the bed and tried to stroke her breast with a gentle, feathery touch, but she kept bouncing around from full-body hacking. More smoke came through the window seals and under the door. Johnny started coughing, too, and he grabbed a handkerchief and put it over his mouth and nose as he prepared to penetrate.

Gigi stopped him. “I can’t breathe!”

Johnny pulled her off the bed and pinned her on the varnished wood floor that had historic character.

“I saw a public safety message once where Dick Van Dyke said to get down below the smoke line,” said Johnny.

“To survive,” said Gigi, “not to make love!”

The was a sharp knock on the door. “Emergency management! Anyone in there?”

“Yes! Help!” said Gigi.