Authors: Christine Lemmon
CHAPTER NINE
SHE SAT ON THE MATTRESS
in her sandy-floored room and let her mind wander dangerously. She had lived and worked on the island for ten days, and suddenly started feeling claustrophobic, like a plastic figurine in a glass dome with fake snow falling down about her. Did those figures ever want to break the glass and escape? Probably not, she decided. The dome housed their comfort zone. A nice world for plastic figurines, that is, until some clumsy child dropped it, shattering the glass. No, she was no figurine, just a minute, insignificant being living within the intestines of Old Mr. Two-Face on a small island in the large Gulf of Mexico. And, to make matters worse, she could think of no way to get off the island.
She peered out the tiny, round window and felt like an old, grumpy woman hiding behind her dark sunglasses. She could see nothing but darkness and a small stretch of the water, lit by the moon. It made her feel that much more sequestered, isolated, remote, stranded, a prisoner on Alcatraz, a shipwrecked sailor like Robinson Crusoe, a proper British schoolboy who might revert to savage brutality in a struggle for power and survival. No, this wasn’t like what it was in
Lord of the Flies
. She couldn’t call this an island of survival—just an island, like Great Britain, like Cuba, like Ireland, only smaller,
much
smaller. But, what if she got a chocolate craving and there were no grocery stores? Or worse, what if her heart pains returned and she had to get to a hospital? She declared that dilemma a thing of the past, unless, of course, she let it return. Then it
did
return,
proving mind over matter was a powerful thing, and she wanted more than anything to switch rooms with someone on the other side of the building.
Just the
thought
of heart pains gave her brain blaring signals that life-threatening danger lurked nearby. Her autonomic nervous system started pumping adrenaline and cortisol, the hormones that made her heart pound harder and her fingers itch. As her arms shook, she decided they were recovering from the tarpon battle a few nights ago. She felt pain in her heart and a nerve reacting in her leg. No, it couldn’t
possibly
be a nerve. Instead, it was something climbing over her leg! After springing up, she reached for the light. Two red cockroaches quickly scrambled into the mattress hole near her toes. They justified her decision not to fall asleep nor to turn off the light. She swore she would bring this sanitary issue to Ruth’s attention come morning, and she wouldn’t allow Ruth to tell her that some invisible wall would keep them out.
She watched another red bug sprint across the sandy tile floor before grabbing an old coffeepot that served no purpose—it was just an accepted part of the room—and trapped the creature. Watching it jump around under the glass pot disgusted her, so she threw a dirty towel over it. That still didn’t satisfy her. She remembered her own feelings of claustrophobia and let the thing go. She felt pity for it, because it was ugly. How could people
not
hate cockroaches? If only it looked like a butterfly she’d make the effort to free it outside. Instead, she wanted it dead, but hated the crunching sound that had come from the last one she murdered. She wished it were a spider. They are simple to kill – a
smush
, not a crunch.
The music from down the hall grew louder, so she put her ear against the door and listened for words. It grew louder again and sounded like Tom Petty giving a concert in the staff house.
“She’s a good girl, loves her mama, loves Jesus and America too,” Vicki sang along quietly. “She’s a good girl, crazy about Elvis, loves horses …”
She stood with her ear to the door, relating to the words. She didn’t move. But then, after the Tom Petty song, an old favorite came on, the Gloria Gaynor song that stirred her like a cup of coffee.
She looked at the cockroaches scrambling around the floor, having
fun, and she started to dance, alone in her room. She closed her eyes as she moved and sang, carefree. “I’ve spent oh so many nights just feeling sorry for myself …”
It didn’t matter that Gloria’s voice came from speakers down the hall. She felt part of a party in her own room. With every twist and turn she felt the stress and burdening worries twirling away. She spun, leaped and spun again, then hopped over the coffeepot. Dancing gave her positive energy. It released the negative. With no one to see her, she could let her emotions control her movements. If it had a name, it would be called the “emotional-stress-relief dance.”
After burning at least four thousand calories, she stopped. She couldn’t help but miss Rebecca, who loved this song, and Grandma, who also danced behind closed doors. Grandma couldn’t contain herself when Elvis came on.
With no one to talk to and no way to sleep with cockroaches on the prowl, she took out her purple, powder-scented journal, which was hidden under her underwear, still in a suitcase.
Dear Grandma
,
If I’m going to be an island, I’d better get used to solitude of thought. Instead, I’m feeling stranded and lonely. I feel caught between two worlds—one that was comfortable and one that is new. When I close my eyes, I’m back in my old Michigan bedroom, looking out the window. I see Kid and Bay Pacer trotting through the yard below. When I open my eyes, I hope that once Mom and Dad find a home to buy, they will get the horses here to Florida. Again with my eyes closed, my mind tricks me into thinking I’m back in the twin bed next to your petite body. I open my eyes and regret that I never recorded your stories. I close my eyes again and smell Mom’s homemade chicken noodle soup. I open them and realize I’ve hardly seen my mom this summer. So I close them again, and I’m suddenly on my old bike. I’m pedaling back from the beach with Ann in our bathing suits. We’re in a hurry because we have
to get to work at the ice-cream shop. We’re hoping Dad doesn’t notice the sand on our toes. I open my eyes and tell myself I will someday get out west to visit Ann. I close my eyes once more
.
“Now, now, now! Pull yourself together,” I can hear you scolding me
.
“Okay, Grandma,” I actually say out loud. “I need to live in the present, not the past
.
P.S. Say hello to Grandpa for me. I know he no longer has his back pain. I know he now glides through time and space with ease as if possessing the enormous, powerful wings of the brown pelican
.
She closed her letter and her eyes, and could see the bridge that linked the present with the past. She stood on the side, with tulips opening in the sun and Lake Michigan glistening in the background. She longed to sit close enough to smell their sweet perfume and to admire their satin costumes. Instead, she forced herself onto the wooden bridge and crossed back into the present. As she walked, she could hear a voice from history. “Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
She agreed now with John Donne—no man is an island complete in itself—so she walked down the hall toward Denver’s laid-back voice as it repeatedly and pathetically sang the same lyrics, “Life is so hard, life is so hard.” She noticed the cook’s door was closed and assumed he was sleeping. He kept completely to himself. The bartender’s room was empty. He was probably still at work. Vicki poked her head into Denver’s room, and when she saw the walls painted in royal blue ocean waves and posters of every imaginable boat hanging above the painted waves, and the ceiling painted in white, billowing clouds, she couldn’t resist. She had to ask if she could join this man who lived in a room as bright as an ocean on a sunny day, this man who sang such depressing lyrics, he surely didn’t belong in an uplifting room, a room that also faced the water, like hers.
“You can come in, but only if ya sip this Silver King Sipper,” said Denver,
handing her a cream-colored drink with the liquor sunk to the bottom. “Come on now, don’t be shy. I’ve got four more of those there piña coladas with Frangelico mixed into them.”
“I know, I know. The island special. Thank you very much.”
“Okay, babe. Take a sip. It’s time to dance.” He tossed his cigarette onto the floor, stomped on it, examined it closely, and stomped on it again. Then he grabbed her hand.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “If you want to be friends with me, call me Vicki, not babe, okay?” She had no desire to dance with a man who was half her weight and bordered on being drunk.
“Sorry, chick. Listen. I’m so laid-back right now that I’m about to slip into a coma. I
gotta
dance!”
She knew how to say “no,” how to scream, how to run out and how to just plain not do anything she didn’t want to do. She knew all that, and she knew some fantastic moves from the movie
The Matrix
, to go with it all. She knew Denver belonged to another puzzle, and didn’t match any of the pieces of her own puzzle, but something inside her suddenly craved new design to her puzzle. She felt curious about why someone could hang out on a little island, work in a kitchen, and sit alone in his room, drinking and playing pathetic songs on his guitar. Her curiosity drew her into a kind of ballroom-type dance with him as he invented new steps to Bad Company music playing on the classic rock station on the stereo. Next, came Tesla, then Damn Yankees. Except for the spins and dips, during which Denver almost collapsed, Vicki didn’t mind. They danced a long time. He sang to all the songs, and his angelic-sounding voice surprised her. She complimented him on it, but he didn’t hear. Instead, he psychologically sank deeper within himself, dancing with his partner all the while. He inspired her to study psychiatry instead of psychology, so she could find him someday and write him a scrip for an antidepressant. Then again, maybe he needed good counseling.
He spun her in the proximity of the stereo, then, still dancing, he reached over and cranked up the volume.
“Shut up in there,” a voice called from down the hall. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Denver. “He likes to breeze through life with the perfect amount of sleep, the healthiest kinds of food, the best wardrobe for any weather. He gets annoyed at anyone who keeps him up five minutes past bedtime or offers him a sip of something unhealthy.”
“Well, he’s great during the lunch crowds. He handles more tables than any of us can,” replied Vicki. “He doesn’t tire like the rest of us.”
“Of course not. He follows the same course that the wind is blowing. He’s a sailboat,” said Denver. “He gets stressed over anyone who gets in his way.”
“Did you say he was a sailboat?”
“Yep. This staff house is a harbor full of vessels. There’s a lifeboat in the room next to you. She’s a strong boat, designed for rescuing shipwrecked persons or persons abandoning ship. Man does she have buoyancy and stability about her, a self-bailing capability. That chick could move forward in the stormiest of waters. Yeah, she could capsize and turn herself upright again.”
Vicki smiled, aware that she was carrying on a deep conversation with a man who classified people as vessels. She blamed her psychology background for making her want to understand the vessel, the personality type she was still dancing with.
“And the day cook,” continued Denver. “He’s a houseboat, designed for use in sheltered waters. What you see is what you get with him. Damn, he’s a shallow-draft vessel.”
Vicki recovered from another of his lethargic spins and replied, “We certainly live and work with interesting people.”
“Oh, wait a minute. Oh, good song. I like this here song! After midnight, we gonna let it all hang down,” sang Denver in perfect harmony with Eric Clapton. “I like this song, but I gotta turn it off now. Yeah, I gotta do it again, one more time today, tonight, this morning, whatever zone we’re in.”
Denver led Vicki over to the orange armchair and nodded at her to sit down. Then he picked up a maroon-colored guitar, leaned his back against the wall, and stroked chords as he slid down to his butt on the sandy floor.
“Life is so hard, life is so hard.” As he shut his eyes, it was as if his spirit took over, singing its song through Denver’s lips.
“I had it all, lost it all, it came, it went, it’s gone. Oh, hell, oh damn, oh hellish damn, life is so hard, life is so hard, life is so bad, life is so bad. I had it all, then lost it all, it came, it went, and it’s gone. Oh, life is so hard, life is so hard, life is so bad, yes, life is so bad.”
Vicki nursed her drinks and listened to his songs until around three-thirty in the morning. She preferred this to anxiety attacks in bed, but couldn’t help but wonder why this pathetic individual sang such words over and over again. Perhaps she might bring him up as a case study back at school. She walked over to his tiny round window and glanced out at the same view she got from her own window: a frightening chunk of the mammoth Gulf of Mexico.
“You own a tiny lit-up portion of it too, of the Gulf of Mexico. We all do. We all own a part of it,” she declared. “That little section, or at least the view, belongs to you. What are you going to do with it? What am I going to do with mine?” she asked.
“I see. You’re one of those philosopher types when ya drink. Me? I get grumpy, so go philosophize in your own room. Party’s over in my room. I’ll pound on your door in the morning. There’ll be no oversleeping here.”
Denver took a final swig of Jim Beam from his plastic cup, and then tossed it into the closet.
“Denver, where’d you get a singing voice like that? It’s too good to be human.”
He walked over to the window and stared out. “I ain’t got a clue. I always sing. I love to sing.”
“Why is life so hard for you?”
“Damn, you like your questions, don’t ya?”
“Your song is sad.”
“Well, ya know, like I was saying, we’re all vessels. And gosh, there are so darn many sorts of vessels. You gotta figure out what sort of vessel you are in life, and I’m guessing you haven’t the slightest idea yet what you are. Why, me, I’m just a makeshift raft that keeps falling apart all the time. I’m in need of major repair.”