Duma Key(204)

ii

"Edgar, this is crazy," Jack said. It was the third time he'd said it, and he was beginning to sound desperate. "Totally nuts." He turned to Wireman. "You tell him!"

"Un poco loco," Wireman agreed, but I knew the difference between poco and muy even if Jack didn't.

We were standing in the courtyard, between Jack's sedan and Elizabeth's old Mercedes. The moon had risen higher; so had the wind. The surf was pounding the shore, and a mile away, the shells under Big Pink would be discussing all sorts of strange things: muy asustador. "But I think I could talk all night and still not change his mind."

"Because you know I'm right," I said.

" Tu perd n, amigo, you might be right," he said. "I'll tell you one thing: Wireman intends to get down on his fat and aging knees and pray you are."

Jack looked at the flashlight in my hand. "At least don't take that, " he said. "Excuse my French, boss, but you're f**king crazy to take that!"

"I know what I'm doing," I said, hoping to God it was true. "And stay here, both of you. Don't try to follow me." I raised the flashlight and pointed it at Wireman. "You're on your honor."

"All right, Edgar. My honor's a tattered thing, but I swear on it. One practical question: are you sure two Tylenol will be enough to get you down the beach to your house on your feet, or are you going to wind up doing the Crawly-Gator?"

"I'll get there upright."

"And you'll call when you do."

"I'll call."

He opened his arms then, and I stepped into them. He kissed me on both cheeks. "I love you, Edgar," he said. "You're a hell of a man. Sano como una manzana. "

"What does that one mean?"

He shrugged. "Stay healthy. I think."

Jack offered his hand the left one, the boy was a learner and then decided a hug was in order, after all. In my ear he whispered, "Give me the flashlight, boss."

In his I whispered back: "Can't. Sorry."

I started along the path to the back of the house, the one that would take me to the boardwalk. At the end of that boardwalk, a thousand or so years ago, I'd met the big man I was now leaving behind. He had been sitting under a striped umbrella. He had offered me iced green tea, very cooling. And he had said, So the limping stranger arriveth at last.

And now he goeth, I thought.

I turned back. They were watching me.

"Muchacho!" Wireman called.

I thought he was going to ask me to come back so we could think about this a little more, talk it over a little more. But I had underestimated him.

"Vaya con Dios, mi hombre."

I gave him a final wave and walked around the corner of the house.

iii

So then I took my last Great Beach Walk, as limping and painful as my first ones along that shell-littered shore. Only those had been by the rosy light of early morning, when the world was at its most still, the only things moving the mild lap of the waves and the brown clouds of peeps that fled before me. This was different. Tonight the wind roared and the waves raged, not alighting on the shore but committing suicide on it. The rollers farther out were painted chrome, and several times I thought I saw the Perse from the corner of my eye, but each time I turned to look, there was nothing. Tonight there was nothing on my part of the Gulf but moonlight.

I lurched along, flashlight gripped in my hand, thinking of the day I had walked here with Ilse. She had asked me if this was the most beautiful place on earth and I had assured her that no, there were at least three others that were more beautiful... but I couldn't remember what I'd told her those others were, only that they were hard to spell. What I remembered most clearly was her saying I deserved a beautiful place, and time to rest. Time to heal.

Tears started to come then, and I let them. I had the flashlight in the hand I could have used to wipe them away, so I just let them come.

iv

I heard Big Pink before I actually saw it. The shells under the house had never been so loud. I walked a little farther, then stopped. It was just ahead of me now, a black shape where the stars were blotted out. Another forty or fifty slow, limping paces, and moonlight began to fill in the details. All the lights were out, even the ones I almost always left on in the kitchen and Florida room. That could have been a power outage caused by the wind, but I didn't think that was it.

I realized the shells were talking in a voice I recognized. I should have; it was my own. Had I always known that? I suppose I had. On some level, unless we're mad, I think most of us know the various voices of our own imaginations.

And of our memories, of course. They have voices, too. Ask anyone who has ever lost a limb or a child or a long-cherished dream. Ask anyone who blames himself for a bad decision, usually made in a raw instant (an instant that is most commonly red ). Our memories have voices, too. Often sad ones that clamor like raised arms in the dark.

I walked on, leaving tracks behind me that featured one dragging foot. The blacked-out hulk of Big Pink grew closer. It wasn't ruined like Heron's Roost, but tonight it was haunted. Tonight there was a ghost waiting. Or maybe something a little more solid.

The wind gusted and I looked left, into its pushing force. The ship was out there now, all right, lightless and silent, its sails so many flapping rags in the wind, waiting.