Duma Key(45)

Wireman, still howling, went crawling after his runaway table, locomoting on knees and elbows. He made a grab for the base and it skittered away as if sensing his approach. Wireman plowed face-first into the sand and came up laughing and sneezing. I rolled over on my back and gasped for breath, on the verge of passing out but still laughing.

That was how I met Wireman.

iii

Twenty minutes later the table had been placed in a rough approximation of its original position. That was all very well, but neither of us could look at the umbrella without breaking into fits of the giggles. One of its pie-wedges was torn, and it now rose crookedly from the table, giving it the look of a drunken man trying to pretend he's sober. Wireman had moved the remaining chair down to the end of the wooden walk, and had taken it at my insistence. I was sitting on the walk itself, which, although backless, would make getting up an easier (not to mention more dignified) proposition. Wireman had offered to replace the spilled pitcher of iced tea with a fresh one. I refused this, but agreed to split the miraculously unspilled glass with him.

"Now we're water-brothers," he said when it was gone.

"Is that some Indian ritual?" I asked.

"Nope, from Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. Bless his memory."

It occurred to me that I'd never seen him reading as he sat in his striped chair, but I didn't mention it. Lots of people don't read on the beach; the glare gives them headaches. I sympathized with people who got headaches.

He began to laugh again. He covered his mouth with both hands - like a child - but the laughter burst through. "No more. Jesus, no more. I feel like I sprung every muscle in my stomach."

"Me too," I said.

For a moment we said nothing more. The breeze off the Gulf was cool and fresh that day, with a rueful salt tang. The rip in the umbrella flapped. The dark spot on the sand where the iced tea pitcher had spilled was already almost dry.

He snickered. "Did you see the table trying to escape? The f**king table?"

I also snickered. My hip hurt and my stomach-muscles ached, but I felt pretty good for a man who had almost laughed himself unconscious. "'Alabama Getaway,'" I said.

He nodded, still wiping sand from his face. "Grateful Dead. Nineteen seventy-nine. Or thereabouts." He giggled, the giggle broadened into a chuckle, and the chuckle became another bellow of full-throated laughter. He held his belly and groaned. "I can't, I have to stop, but... Bride of the Godfather! Jesus! " And he was off again.

"Don't you ever tell her I said that," I said.

He quit laughing, but not smiling. "I ain't that indiscreet, muchacho. But... it was the hat, right? That big straw hat she wears. Like Marlon Brando in the garden, playing with the little kid."

It had actually been as much the sneakers, but I nodded and we laughed some more.

"If we crack up when I introduce you," he said (cracking up again, probably at the idea of cracking up; it goes that way when the fit is on you), "we're gonna say it's because I broke my chair, right?"

"Right," I said. "What did you mean when you said she sort of is?"

"You really don't know?"

"No clue."

He pointed at Big Pink, which was looking very small in the distance. Looking like a long walk back. "Who do you think owns your place, amigo? I mean, I'm sure you pay a real estate agent, or Vacation Homes Be Us, but where do you think the balance of your check finally ends up?"

"I'm going to guess in Miss Eastlake's bank account."

"Correct. Miss Elizabeth Eastlake. Given the lady's age - eighty-five - I guess you could call her Ole Miss." He began laughing again, shook his head, and said: "I have to stop. But in fairness to myself, it's been a long time since I had anything to belly-laugh about."

"Same here."

He looked at me - armless, all patchy-haired on one side - and nodded. Then for a little while we just looked out at the Gulf. I know that people come to Florida when they're old and sick because it's warm pretty much year-round, but I think the Gulf of Mexico has something else going for it. Just looking into that mild flat sunlit calm is healing. It's a big word, isn't it? Gulf, I mean. Big enough to drop a lot of things into and watch them disappear.

After awhile Wireman said, "And who do you think owns the houses between your place and this one?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the white walls and orange tile. "Which, by the way, is listed on the county plat-maps as Heron's Roost and I call El Palacio de Asesinos."

"Would that also be Miss Eastlake?"

"You're two for two," he said.

"Why do you call it Palace of Assassins?"

"Well, it's 'Outlaw Hideout' when I think in English," Wireman said with an apologetic smile. "Because it looks like the place where the head bad guy in a Sam Peckinpah Western would hang his hat. Anyway, you've got six rather nice homes between Heron's Roost and Salmon Point-"

"Which I call Big Pink," I said. "When I think in English."

He nodded. " El Rosado Grande. Good name. I like it. You'll be there... how long?"

"I have the place for a year, but I honestly don't know. I'm not afraid of hot weather - I guess they call it the mean season - but there's hurricanes to consider."