Continental Drift

“Leon, that’s his name, Leon Stokes, he admitted robbing a whole bunch of liquor stores, including yours, most of them in Florida and Georgia. They found some drugs in his car, and I guess they made some kinda deal with him on who sold him the stuff or something, because he’s in jail now. But only for a couple years for robbing the liquor store in North Carolina, because he had to witness at a couple other big drug trials up there and in New York. So you were right.”

“I was right?”

“Sure were, honey. Right as rain. It’s me who ought to be apologizing.”

“I was right? That doesn’t make sense. I was wrong.”

“Nope. You had the man, all right. Leon Stokes. I had no idea, you understand. I was just giving him a lift over to Auburndale, where he said he had some friends who were putting him up a while. If I’d have known, well …”

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Bob says. “I was wrong! It doesn’t matter that I was right about the guy; I was acting crazy. I didn’t know what I was doing, you know? I mean, Jesus, Marguerite, I could’ve shot the guy, and I didn’t even know it was the guy.”

“Yeah, and you would’ve done a lot of people a favor, probably, if you had shot him.”

“No, listen, you don’t understand. Listen, I really do need to talk with you. Can we get together, can we meet someplace? After you get off from work?”

There is a long silence, and finally Marguerite says in a quiet, steady voice, “I don’t think we should meet, Bob.”

“What? Why?”

“Bob, it’s over now between us. Right?”

“Well, yeah, sure.”

“There’s no sense firing it all up again. It was nice and … and interesting for a while, and we’re friends now and all. But we shouldn’t see each other anymore. Besides, I got a man now, and he wouldn’t like it….”

“Aw, Christ!” Bob bawls. “Jesus H. Christ! You got a man now. I suppose a black man.”

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact. But I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.” Her voice has gone cold.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Look, I’m just … I’m disappointed, that’s all. I’m sorry. I wanted to talk with you, see, about stuff. Eddie and all, I guess, and oh, Jesus, what the hell does it matter? I’m really sorry for everything. You … you’re fine, you’re wonderful. Don’t worry, I won’t come around or call you anymore or anything. Don’t worry, I understand. Well, look,” he says, changing gears, “I got to go now, I gotta arrange Eddie’s funeral and all, and his wife is flying down from Connecticut….”

“I’m real sorry about your brother, Bob.”

“Yeah, well, I guess he was a lot worse off than anybody thought. Look, I got to go. It’s been good talking to you.”

“I’m real sorry, Bob.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Goodbye,” she says, and quickly hangs up. He holds the dead receiver in his hand for several minutes, then places it slowly back in its cradle. The blood on his hands has dried to a dark brown map.

He stands, studies the wreckage that surrounds him, and walks slowly through the living room to the front door, opens it and walks outside, leaving the door wide open behind him. It’s still raining, a dense, straight, windless rain from a low, overhanging sky. Bob wants to keep going, but he doesn’t know where to go. He wants to get into his car and back it slowly down the driveway to the road, turn and head out of here, light out of Florida altogether. But to where? He can’t go back to New Hampshire, and there are no new places anymore, none that he can imagine, and if he heads south again, back to Miami and the Keys, it’ll be as if he’s gone in a circle. He turns and returns to Eddie’s house and slowly, methodically, starts cleaning up the mess his brother has left behind.

9

Bob is seated aft in the Angel Blue in one of the fighting chairs, swiveling it idly from side to side. Ave emerges from the galley carrying two king-sized cans of Schlitz. “Here you go,” he says, handing one of the cans to Bob.

It’s dark, the boat is tied up in her slip in the marina next to the Belinda Blue, and there’s a three-quarter moon in the eastern sky, scraps of silver cloud drifting across its face. A pair of pelicans perched on a piling near the bow of the Belinda Blue seem to watch the two men. The boats rock gently in the still water, and along the pier here and there a man and a woman or sometimes several men and several women sit aboard their boats and talk and drink. Behind them, at the end of the pier, the jukebox in the Clam Shack is playing a Kenny Rogers song about a gambler.

“Sorry I couldn’t see you yesterday or sooner today,” Ave says as he eases into the other fighting chair. He’s barefoot, wearing shorts and a zippered nylon jacket. His long reddish hair fluffs out from his head like an aureole, and the pale hairs on his tanned legs and the backs of his hands shine in the moonlight like straw. He puts his feet out and rests them on the gunwale and lights a cigarette, offering the pack to Bob.