Excerpt from
TREASURE COAST
by
Tom Kakonis
LIKE MOST
MEN CLOSING IN ON THE BENCHMARK
forty, Jim
Merriman made far more promises—to others
mainly, a
dwindling few yet to himself—than he knew, heart of
hearts, he
ever intended to keep. It was a habit by now so deeply
entrenched,
so much a part of him, that he wore it like a second
skin:
Generate an earnest pledge today; effortlessly shuck
it off
tomorrow. Mostly it was harmless, this habitual shortfall
between
oath and execution, deed and good intention. A commonplace
human
failing, to his thinking, small and forgivable.
A way of
getting by in this sorry world.
But the vow
exacted from him by a dying sister—that now
was giving
him serious pause. Better make that acute discomfort.
(If he were
going to be honest with himself, for a switch,
figuring—trying
to figure—how to squirrel out of this one. Very
unsettling.)
From across
the continent, he’d been summoned to her bed
of pain,
where eventually, floating up out of a narcotized fog, she
found the
strength to peel back crusted eyelids, fix him with a
fluttery
gaze, and in a voice fainter than a whisper, feebler than a
gasp,
murmur, “Jim? That you?”
“None
other,” he affirmed, putting some of that fraudulent
deathwatch
heartiness into it.
“You came.”
“Said I
would.”
“Been here
long?”
“Not long,” he lied. In fact he’d been sitting
there for the better
part of the
afternoon, studying her sleep, marveling at the
relentless
progress of this formidable malady, its curious manifestations.
Her face,
in sleep, was sunken, sallow with a greenish
tint, the
color of mold-infested cheese. The sockets of the eyes,
hollow and
dark, looked to be rimmed with a dusting of soot.
A limp
hand, its flesh withered and veined as a dry leaf, seemed
to sprout
from a forearm grotesquely swollen to Popeye proportions
and out of
which coiled an IV vine that leaked some colorless,
powerless
anodyne into her blood. Now that hand moved in
an effort
at a sweeping gesture. “No, here, I mean.
Florida.”
“I got in
this morning. Leon picked me up at the airport.”
“Leon?”
“Yes.”
“Where is
he?”
“Your
place. I told him to go back and crash. He looked
pretty
wasted.”
“It’s been
hard for him,” she said.
“He’ll be
OK.”
“You think
so?”
“Sure.”
“I wonder.”
“How about
you?” he asked. “They treating you right here?”
“They do
what they can.”
“Well, you
need anything, you just let me know,” he said,
more
confidently than he felt—as if he had a direct hotline to the
nerve
center of the AMA and could make the quacks jump at his
barked
command. Hotline to nowhere was what he had.
She nodded
dismally, said nothing.
To put
something into the oppressive silence, he launched
a wandering
monologue, picking his topics cautiously, from the
security of
the distant past mostly, skirting that phantom third
presence in
the room, Lord Death, with his constrictive time horizons.
“Remember
that time…” he’d begin a tale, lifted from their
shared
heartland childhood, and through the malleable prism of
inventive
memory, he’d mutate some perfectly ordinary incident
into an
adventure antic. Outrageously the tales grew in the telling,
spinning
the sunny Leave It to Beaver mythology of a tight,
joyous,
loving family life. Pure fabrication of course. All of it. The
sorry truth
was that, apart from the accident of birth, they’d never
had much in
common, never been particularly close. Nevertheless
he wore on,
mouth running tirelessly, until at last the grab bag
of
hilarious anecdotes was depleted, the memory-lane tour
exhausted,
and again a desolate silence settled over the room.
Thee somber
interval lengthened. After a while she filled it.
“Jim?”
“Yeah?”
Eyes
tearing over, she said, not as a question, “There’s not
much time
left, is there.”
“Oh, I
don’t know about that. Nurse out there says you’re
holding
your own.”
“Will you
do something for me?” she asked, ignoring the blatant
falsehood.
“Whatever I
can.”
“It’s Leon.
He’s all alone now. So helpless. Like a child. Will
you watch
out for him?”
“Sure, I’ll
give the kid a hand” is what he told her. Another in
that legion
of empty pledges. Slippery, purposely vague. The kind
of thing
you search for to say. Should have been enough.
Except she
couldn’t leave it alone. “Promise?”
“Hey, you
can count on me,” he said lightly, conscious of the
sickly
smile tacked on his face.
“Need to
hear you say it, Jim.”
“Uh, what’s
that?” he asked, stalling, averting his eyes from
that
pleading, miseried gaze, unblinking now, insistent.
“You
promise.”
So,
cornered, he heard his voice utter that one too, the “p”
word,
figuring, Why not? What’s the damage? Whatever it took
to help her
exit gracefully, or as graceful as anyone riddled by
outlaw
cells, wildly multiplying even as they spoke, could ever
exit. It
was only words. Nothing lost, no one really hurt.
His first
mistake. First of many.
Ten minutes
later he stood outside the entrance to the Palm
Beach
Gardens Medical Center, idly puffing a cigarette. A nurse,
briskly
efficient, professionally cheery, her smile as starched as
her
uniform, had appeared only a moment after the vow-taking
ceremony
(nice timing, those mercy angels) and shooed him out
of the
room, chirping something about “Time for meds” and
whatever
other ghoulish things they did to keep the croakee
wheezing
and earn their pay. OK by him. Welcome break from
the white
world of the hospital and its clash of pungent perfumes,
its soiled
bedsheets, lemony cleansing solutions, acrid antiseptics,
hothouse
flowers, rank festering flesh.
The
slanting rays of the sun, still fierce on an immense slate
of bleached
sky, steamed the hospital lawn, glued the parking-lot
tar. The
dank air resonated with the atonal hum of insect energy.
Symphony
of famished worms, he thought ruefully, gathering
for
the
feast waiting just on the other side of this door.
A sudden
mournful ache, hollow and unfocused, overtook
him. But
whom did he really mourn? An expiring sister in there,
seldom
seen, scarcely known, barely recognizable anymore, soon to
be floating
out of herself? No, it was himself he sorrowed for, himself,
a couple of
weeks short of a milestone birthday, half a lifetime
squandered,
pissed away, and dying just as surely as she, only daily,
increment
by increment, puff by puff . Conducting his own requiem
in advance,
dirge supplied courtesy of an invisible swarm of bugs.
What
they’re doing, these crusading nicotine zealots, by banishing
us
from their haloed presence, he further reflected, dourly
now, is
creating a breed of solitary, morbid philosophers. Seekers of
occult
mystery in wisps of smoke.
His
cigarette had grown a tail of ash. He ground it under a
heel,
defiantly lit another. And just as he put a flame to it, a most
handsome
woman clad in a satiny blouse and designer jeans came
through the
door, paused, the shed a pack of Capris from a Gucci
bag slung
over her shoulder, and shook one loose. The flame in
his hand
still flickered, and so in that wordless bond that links
a renegade
fraternity, he offered it to her. She favored him with
a small
smile and ever so lightly touched his hand in a steadying
gesture.
Fetching gesture, fetching smile. Up close this way,
he could
see she wasn’t young but not yet old either, a ripened
thirtyish
somewhere; by his best estimate, forty tops. Around a
plume of
smoke, she said, “Another second-class citizen?”
“Afraid
so.”
“They’re
turning us into a bunch of sneaks.”
“Or worse
yet, wimps. Where’s Bogie when we need him?”
“Who?” she
asked.
“Humphrey
Bogart. Remember him? Tough as nails, and he
always had
a weed stuck in his face.”
“How about
Bette Davis? Nobody crossed her.”
“There you
are.”
One thing
you had to give your habit—it was an instant icebreaker.
Something
to be said for that, particularly when your
commiserator
comes equipped with a dizzying cascade of platinum
curls; good
bone geometry; skin lacquered to a high sheen;
a generous
crimson-glossed mouth; eyes a cool blue but with a
glint of
worldly mischief in them; and pliant, slightly plumpish
curves
under a fashion-statement outfit. Like this one did. All
of which he
assimilated in a sly sidelong glance, as he no longer
pondered
his own mortality but rather the enduring quality of
lust, how
it occasionally nods but never really sleeps.
“You
visiting somebody?” she asked him, turning the talk
elsewhere,
extending it. Promising signal.
“A sister,”
Jim said.
“Is it
serious?”
“It’s
cancer.”
“Bad?”
“Terminal variety.”
“That’s a
shame.”
He
shrugged. “Yeah, well, cancer always wins.”
She took a
long, meditative pull on her Capri. the third finger
of the
cigarette-bearing hand, he noticed, was bedecked with
a gaudy
rock the size of a boulder. Generally—though not absolutely,
in his
experience—a bad signal. In a stagy, breathy voice,
she said,
“I’m real sorry.”
“No need to
be,” he said with mock solemnity. “Doctors
determined
it wasn’t your fault.”
For a
sliver of an instant, she looked perplexed. Then, as she
got it, her
smile widened, displaying an abundance of teeth, dazzling
as neon and
much too perfect to be anything but orthodontist
enhanced.
Jim gave her back his player smile, oblique,
distant,
hint of evasiveness in it. Dueling grins.
Hers
departed first, displaced by an earnest expression. “Is
she
centered?”
“Centered?”
“Centered,”
she repeated, as though the echo explained itself.
“Afraid I
don’t follow,” he said, baffled by the corkscrew twist
in the
conversation and wondering if maybe this time the joke
wasn’t on
him.
“Like, in
tune with her spiritual center.”
Evidently
no joke. “Well,” he said, “we’ve never been what
you’d call
God-fearing people. She taught math, some community
college
down here. Numbers are—were—her
religion.”
“Got
nothing to do with religion,” she declared, a little impatiently.
“No? What
then?”
“Energy.
Strictly energy. See, I read this book by this Indian
guy—from
India, I mean, not your American kind—where he
shows how
we’re all a part of this one big spirit. Only he calls
it energy.
Cosmic energy. And it’s, like, steady. Never changes,
never dies.
What we call ‘dying’ is just trading energies.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“And what
you got to do,” she plowed on, voice elevating
urgently,
“when your body’s ready to pass, is zero in on it, your
place in
this energy field. That’s what centering is. Sort of like
finding
your way home.”
“Interesting
theory,” Jim allowed, thinking they all have to
come with
some wart, physical or otherwise. Even the best of
them, like
this dumpling of sex here, with the loopy-energy hair
up her
sweet apple ass. Too bad. Terrible waste.
“Changed my
life, I can tell you.”
“Bet it did
at that.”
“What I do
now,” she said, “is try and help people get in
touch with
it. Their energy center. That’s why I’m here. My best
girlfriend’s
mother—she’s about to pass too.”
Sounded to
him like some spiritual fart cutting, with her
being the
therapeutic Gas-X. But what he said was, “Sounds sort
of like
volunteer work.”
“Guess you
could call it that. See, growing up, I wanted to be
a nurse.
Never did make it, so this is the next best thing.”
“You? A
nurse?”
“I always
wanted to help people.”
Yeah,
right. “I see,” he said cautiously, radar
suddenly alert
for a scam
coming on.
“So you
think she’s centered yet?”
“Who’s that?”
“Who we’re
talking about here…your sis.”
“You got
me.”
“If you
want, I could speak to her.”
Finally the
pitch. Everybody peddling something. Pretty
prosperous
clip too, by the looks of that stone weighting her
finger.
Unless, of course, it was fake. “Appreciate the offer,” Jim
said, “but
I don’t think she’d be very receptive.” Figured that’d
be the end
of it. Any good fleecer knows when it’s time to
book.
Figured
wrong. “OK,” she said breezily and, in yet another
of those
bootleg turns, added, “You’re not from around here, are
you?”
“How could
you tell?”
“Wild
guess.”
“You
guessed right.”
“Whereabouts
then?”
“Nevada.”
“Vegas?”
“Reno.”
“Reno,
Vegas—they’re like Florida,” she said. “Nobody’s
from
there.”
“Right
again.”
“So?
Originally where?”
“South
Dakota.”
“No
kidding!” she exclaimed. “Me too. I’m from Bismark.”
“That’s in
North Dakota.”
“Same
thing.”
“I expect
maybe it is. There’s not all that many of us, either
province.”
“Hey, don’t
I know? That’s why we got to stick together. What
I always
say is, ‘When you’re from Dakota, you got to be good.’ ”
Jim
regarded her narrowly. A corner of her wide mouth was
lifted once
again in a suggestion of a smile, artful, provocative,
faintly
amused. The naughty mischief he’d seen earlier, thought
he’d seen,
all but given up on during the energy drone, shimmered
behind her
eyes. “By that,” he said, choosing his words
carefully
(for if four decades had taught him any lesson at all, it
was that a
man never knew when he was going to get lucky), “do
you mean ‘nice
good’? Or oh, say, ‘skillful good,’ ‘accomplished’?”
Before she
could reply, a sleek silver Porsche swung into the
lot and
lurched to an idling stop twenty or so yards from where
they stood.
A head—male, jowly, squinty eyed, round, and hairless
as a billiard
ball—poked out of the driver’s-side window like
a wary
turtle emerging from its shell. She gave it a high-handed
wave, a big
theatrical welcoming grin, calling, “Hi, honey. Be
right with
you.” To Jim she stage-whispered, “Thee big doolie
arrives.”
“Doolie?”
“The worse
half.”
“Oh.”
She lowered
the waving hand, abruptly thrust it at him.
“Been real
nice talking to you.”
Jim took
the offered hand. Grip was surprisingly firm; the
shake
snappy, businesslike. “Same here,” he said.
“My name’s
Billie. Billie Swett.”
“Swett?”
“You got
it. Like in the perspiration, only with an ‘e’ and two
‘t’s. Cute,
huh?”
“Well,
everybody’s got to be named something.”
“And you
are?”
“Jim
Merriman.”
“Merriman,”
she repeated, the tantalizing shimmer not quite
gone out of
her eyes. “You don’t look so merry to me.”
“Inside I’m
laughing.”
“Listen,
you change your mind—about your sister, I mean—
I’ll be at
the hospital here. Next couple days anyway. Ask around.
They know
me in there.”
“I’ll be
watching.”
The
Porsche’s horn bleated. The turtle head squawked,
“C’mon,
honey. We’re runnin’ late.”
“I’m
coming, hon,” she called back sweetly, but under her
breath, softly,
though not so soft as to be inaudible, she muttered,
“Asshole.”
Across lawn
and lot, she sauntered, loose easy stride, studied
sway in the
shapely hips. Into the Porsche she climbed, pecked
the turtle
on the cheek, checked her reflection in the rearview,
patted and
primped the cotton candy ringlets. And with that the
two honeys
were gone, sped away, leaving Jim to speculate now
on the quirky nature of luck, which, he
suspected, like gold, was where you found it.
Excerpted from the book
TREASURE COAST by Tom Kakonis. Copyright © 2014 by Tom Kakonis.
Reprinted with permission of Brash Books. All
rights reserved