Jim Harrison - The Ancient Minstrel

It was time to make the long drive back to Key West. First they each had a small rum and Coca-Cola, a drink she’d never cared for but that day it tasted fine and she semi-dozed on the way back.

That evening they ended up having a room service dinner on the patio of Jerry’s suite. Catherine’s new friend François joined them and didn’t object that they stayed in as she was tired from the sun and heat. They had several drinks including a bottle of good champagne, and she fell asleep in an easy chair after dinner. Jerry and François helped her into her bedroom. She later remembered that Jerry left and François helped her out of her clothes until she was nude, saying, “A wonderful body,” and then leaving.

She woke after midnight angry with herself. How was she going to get pregnant if she slept through a splendid love opportunity? She wasn’t used to a daylong boat ride in the hot sun. In the morning she called François to apologize and they arranged to meet at the marina when she got back in. François said that he was a friend of the guide and would have him bring them in before five. He would meet her at the marina while she was still awake, he teased, and they could have dinner at his place.

The next day they fished out near Boca Grande Key from which she could see the Marquesas. It looked so lovely in the distance that she wanted to go there but Mark said the channel was too rough today and they would have miles of the choppy water “beating the living shit out of us.” Jerry caught a few small tarpon on the edge of the channel, lovely silver acrobatic fish, and then he hooked one that was large. This fish weighed at least a hundred pounds and it jumped half a dozen times with its gill plates rattling, dragging the line in a wide circle with Jerry shouting and his reel screeching. He fought the fish for a half hour and he was soaked with sweat. It traveled south a mile or so out toward the Gulf Stream when Mark suddenly cut the leader when it was close to the boat. He pointed at a very large hammerhead shark coming toward them, drawn into a meal by the struggling tarpon. The tarpon surged off with the hammerhead giving close chase but the tarpon was well ahead in shallow water and the hammerhead turned around. Jerry and Mark were wound up with the fish and chatted about a past experience when they hadn’t cut off a tarpon soon enough and a bull shark had made a “bloody mess.” All of Catherine’s limited fishing experience had been about catching supper. This was something else entirely — the men called it “pure sport” but she wasn’t sure. To be pure why not leave the fish alone and just look at it rather than make it fight for its life? she thought, then chided herself for casting judgment. If people wanted to box, let them box and live with their concussions.

François was waiting at the marina and she walked off with him without comment. He had talked with Mark but Jerry kept interrupting with one of his incessant dirty jokes which embarrassed her, not because it was dirty but because he was imbecilic.

She had a good evening and night with François. His rental had a small pool and she immediately shed her clothes and took a dip. François quickly followed with a primitive hard-on. He tried to put his mouth on her underwater but it was awkward. They made love at the shallow end of the pool which was also awkward but more than passable. They made love again on the sofa while waiting for a chicken to roast — butter, garlic, fresh tarragon. She found out that François lived in Palm Beach with a rich wife only two blocks away from Jerry on Sea Breeze Avenue. She said nothing, certainly not that it was the silliest place she had ever seen on earth. All of those rich people jammed together in one place. Why not a farm or ranch?

After dinner and too much fine wine they made love once more desultorily in bed. She fell asleep by ten, utterly fatigued and a little sore all over by the sweet battering. She awoke close after dawn and there were high winds and a tremendous thunderstorm coming in from Cuba, a scant ninety miles to the south of Key West. François drove her to the hotel so she could make a polite appearance for Jerry. He was wandering around in his usual expensive robe talking on the phone. He winked at her and hung up the phone.

“You look rode hard and put away wet,” he laughed.

“Some morons say that every day in Montana.” Even saying “Montana” made her homesick. What in God’s name was she doing in this so-called tropical paradise? She was sick of all things Floridian and wanted to be home feeding her chickens. It was also time to buy a dog not that she was confident she was settled in her life. The only thing that could justify this absurd trip was if she was pregnant. If so there was no way she’d ever tell François. She didn’t want a husband or a steady lover, just her farm and chickens, cattle and pigs, a horse or two. She certainly no longer wanted a mother, or father for that matter.

She went into her room to dress and heard Jerry back on the phone and then there was silence. Her door was open a crack and she saw the shadow of Jerry obviously peeking through the crack to see her dress. She poured it on and mooned the door, thinking, what a pathetic fool. She felt a vacuum in her soul where the love of men should have been but the only two she could think of with true fondness were her grandfathers. Had everything gone wrong in the world or was it her? Was it something odd in her strange upbringing that made men uniformly suspect? François was fine but she didn’t actually know him very well and there might be something rotten in his heart. She remembered with grief an episode several weeks before when she told the school’s young handsome soccer coach to stop by and pick up some eggs. She had thought of seducing him but told him if she was way out back she’d leave two dozen in the mailbox. But she was in the kitchen watching out the window while he wandered around the barnyard and quizzically Sally, a fat hen, was following him. Sally had this irritating practice of pecking at the back of your leg in hopes it would bring food. It was only slightly painful like a quick pinch. Suddenly the soccer coach turned and kicked Sally far in the air. She lay prostrate on her back. Catherine was out of the kitchen in a second, screaming as she came out the back door. The man turned in alarm.

“Why are you kicking my chicken? I think she’s dead.” She stopped next to Sally and turned her over. The chicken’s eyes were sightless. “You killed her you miserable fucker.”

“It’s just a chicken. I’ll pay you for it,” he said lamely.

She stood, holding Sally by the feet and slapping the man’s face with the chicken. “Get out of here! Now! Go away!” She was sobbing.

He slumped off carrying his presumed innocence like a boy. She was still wild with heart-thumping anger and was glad she wasn’t holding a pistol or she would have shot him.

Now in the Key West hotel her stomach soured with homesickness. The weather was clearing and they drove to the airport before noon to catch Jerry’s plane home. They met Mark for a quick lunch. She was famished and ate both a grouper sandwich and an order of fresh shrimp while staring east at the ocean.

Back in Palm Beach her mother was happy they were home a day early because there was an “important” ball that evening. Jerry gasped and Catherine only wanted a nap, mostly because she had had a huge Bloody Mary for lunch while Jerry drank two martinis. First she called home and Clyde told her there had been a big snow although it was late April. She was irked because she was missing the fresh snow on the Crazy Mountains east of the farm. She imagined the creamy white mountains in the moonlight.

Who am I and what am I doing? She wasn’t used to asking herself such questions. The memory of a depression during her freshman year of college horrified her. The problem, or so she thought, was that New York City had no “outdoors,” no snowcapped Crazy Mountains or endless plains. She needed to see a bear that was not in a zoo, or a moose eating water weeds. She escaped this depression by interminable walking, at least four hours a day. She would walk the length of Central Park and back and in every botanical garden in the New York City area. She’d walk along the Hudson and also the East River. When her depression lifted in a couple of months she had lost fifteen pounds she didn’t need to lose. Her short and plump Jewish roommate taught her the pleasures of herring and she couldn’t get enough. Because she intended to live in Montana she would have to learn how to make her own. The girl also took her downtown to Katz’s which immediately became her favorite restaurant in the city.