The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales (7 page)

I bent down to test if the mike was on. The lionfish appeared out of nowhere, its beady black eyes and splotchy spikes right up against my face. I swatted at it, lost my balance, and fell forward onto the kit. Cymbals crashed and the toms toppled as I tried to stand. Morty burst through the doors.  

“What the hell,” corporate rock boy said. 

“Get the cameras off,” Morty yelled to the laughing cameramen. 

I picked myself up and headed for the door.  

“Casey, wait,” Morty said. But I kept walking. Screw it. I was going to the Caribbean. 

**** 

Mercifully I didn’t see the fish on the plane but Kendra assured me they were there. We checked into the Blue Heaven resort in the middle of the night. Kendra sat down in one of the lobby’s rattan chairs while I went to the front and deposited her ring in the hotel safe with the manager. When we returned he escorted us to our low-rise suite on the beach.  

After a few hours of sleep, we ordered breakfast and watched the ocean from our patio while we waited. Endless shades of blue stretched to the clear sky. A young couple held hands and leisurely picked shells at the rolling surf while a team from the hotel spread out a bright red chute for parasailing. Soon, the staff arrived with a lush spread of exotic fruit, caviar, fresh breads and juices. 

Kendra held a crumb up. “Not long now,” she said. 

I couldn’t see the fish well in the light like her, but I could feel them watching. 

Kendra slid out of her chair and kissed my forehead. “I’m going to make the boat arrangements.”  

While she was gone, I picked at the pineapple and thought of Nicholas. My assistant would be feeding him, but cats were creatures of habit; he’d miss me and his ghostly playthings. Morty however, was just a creature; he was going to kill me. 

A half hour later, we were riding the wind away from the hotel dock in a catamaran. I sat on the net in the front and Kendra sat under the sail, covered in big sunglasses and a batik wrap. She flipped through a book on fish from the hotel gift shop.  

I breathed deeply, taking in the salt spray on the wind. Breakfast had been exceptional and Kendra looked like a dream. I was sorry that back home I had forgotten how to truly live. 

The driver, an old weathered guy with kinky gray hair and a quiet authority about him, stopped the boat over a shallow spot. I could see the sandy bottom and the coral heads below. 

“No,” Kendra said. “Not here.” 

“Ma’am. This is the best place,” he said. “My personal spot. No one snorkels here.” 

“It’s not right. Over there…” she said, and seemed to arbitrarily point out to the water. 

“Dangerous out in the open,” he said. “Currents are bad today.” 

“I don’t care,” she said. 

The driver made a face and tacked the boat a hundred yards away. I thought I could make out the long spikes and black eyes of the lionfish among the rigging. 

“What the hell does he know?” she whispered angrily.  

I felt that things were about to get out of control like so many times before. New Years nineteen eighty popped to mind. Morty had scored us front row seats to the Zen Squires show at the Fillmore, and Kendra had insisted they were better than my back stage access. She danced away, her usual wild self, much to the delight of a rowdy bunch of bikers who wouldn’t leave her alone.  

“Got a boyfriend,” Kendra said.  

“So why ain’t he dancing with you?”  

“Fuck off! He’s Casey James.” 

The current had taken me and I was up in that biker’s whiskey-stinking, bearded face. The rest was pure chaos. We came out of it bruised and battered, but okay. I felt that same nervous electricity now, except the lionfish hovering over me made me think things weren’t going to end so well this time. 

Before I could say anything, Kendra was at the edge of the boat unpeeling her wrap, revealing a bright orange bikini. She rolled off the side with a sploosh. 

“It’s so warm,” she said. “Come on.” 

I grabbed our masks and snorkels and followed her in. 

The coral teemed with fish. Kendra was right, again. This spot was just like my dream.  

“Hold your breath and dive with me,” she said. 

Pressure built in my ears as we descended the fifteen feet to the coral head. I could faintly make out our fish among their flesh-and-blood counterparts. 

After a few seconds we went to the surface for air then dove again. 

The butterfly, the clown, and the little green one were picking at the coral when we returned. I could barely see them. They were fading away and I had to go up for air. 

We surfaced farther from the boat. The current had either taken us, or the boat. 

“Come back,” the driver called but Kendra didn’t listen. Her feet disappeared beneath the waves. I held my breath and followed. 

Looking down I could see I was already being pulled away from the coral head. I spun and saw Kendra kicking—struggling for the bottom. The water darkened, as if the sun were blocked out. I kicked harder, hoping to catch up, but I lost sight of her in the increasingly turbulent water. 

In the sandy murk the specter of the little green fish appeared at my mask for an instant, then was gone. Out of breath, I broke for the surface. Clouds had moved in obscuring the sun. The tropical rain I’d heard so much about poured down. I bobbed at the surface. It would have been almost pleasant if I didn’t feel myself being pulled farther out into the ocean. 

I looked around and saw the catamaran a hundred yards away. The driver was fishing Kendra out of the water. Good, I thought. She was safe. I waved and yelled, then remembered the catamaran had no engine and would have to tack out to reach me. 

I put the snorkel in my mouth and tread water. I could keep it up for a while. I stuck my face in the water. The lionfish was right there. I felt a strange kinship to it. Its simple life had been interrupted, all control and certainty taken away. 

The current pulled me faster. The catamaran grew smaller by the second. The waves, the rain, the racing of my heart all beat their chaotic rhythms. There was nothing to latch onto. My leg exploded into a burst of pain and I jarred to a halt. I had been snagged on a wall of coral. The current dragged me along it and that same burning spread to my back. I scrambled for a hold hoping the coral wouldn’t snap. The ocean wanted to take me, but I held tight. Someone from the hotel would come. I searched the rain for a steady beat, kept my head above water and waited. Floating in the water I saw the patterns of my life—the currents that moved me. A cycle of bliss and chaos. It had always been this way with Kendra and it always would.  

**** 

Later that night, after the hotel had fished me out, Kendra and I sat in our big tub full of warm, foamy water and soothing aromatic oils. The flicker from dozens of candles reflected off of the beige and white ceramic tiled walls. 

“When you didn’t listen and went under like that I felt like it was New Years nineteen eighty all over again.” 

“Things turned out okay then, I remember.” 

“Today could have been a lot worse,” I said. 

Except for the welts from the fire coral that saved me, things were fine.  

“You made it down, right?” I said. “The fish are home?” 

“Almost all of them,” she said, and pointed to a small cluster between the candles and a conch on the floor. “I knew it from the second dive. But I saw a shell I just had to have.” 

It was no use to tell her she could have gotten us killed. I couldn’t handle a dose of her circular logic right now. 

“A souvenir?” I asked. She knew as well as I the reef was a protected zone. 

“Today was intense,” she said. “A milestone. It merited it.”  

“The shell belongs to the sea,” I spat, trying to remember something Jack had said to me once while in a haze. “At one time the calcium was part of the earth. So that shell belongs to the sea—to the world. How’s that for a cosmic thought?” 

“Calm down,” she said, unphased by my tirade. “I was reading up today.” She pointed at the fish on the floor. “They’re called gobies. I’m pretty sure they’re from the Red Sea, but could be India or the South Pacific. We’re going to have to travel the world together finding out.” 

Her foot found my leg somewhere beneath the foam.  

“I could think of worse ways to spend my time,” I said, but I didn’t want to touch her. I was thinking of treading water while being carried out to the sea.  

“Good. Tomorrow I’ll get the tickets to Israel,” she said, obviously missing what I meant.  

“Israel?” 

“The Red Sea’s in Israel. I hear Eliat has the best reefs. Good hash and backgammon, too.” 

“Isn’t it dangerous?” 

She sat up, creating a wave that spilled over the side, dousing the nearest candles. 

“Here we go again. Joe the monkey wrench. We’re almost there. Don’t ruin this.” 

The smell of smoke filled my nose. With the candles out, her face was in shadow. The big lionfish floated between us. I smacked it but only hit the wall. 

“I’m not ruining anything. You always have your head in the clouds and ignore what’s on the ground.” 

She stood up and stormed out of the tub, the water pouring off her extinguishing the remaining candles with a sizzle.  

I dried off, turned the wastebasket upside down, gathered the two conch shells, and drummed. 

I started with the cool fade out from
Mystic Tryst
. The part that was cut too soon on the record. The little gobies scattered, and reformed their school on the ceiling. Soon I had recaptured the rhythm from my dream, the beat of the circling fish dividing and reforming their circling schools. It was so locked in I shouted, and shouted again in time. I chanted and pounded on the pail and shells till my hands were raw. 

Then I slid into the tub and sat in the tepid water counting fish. 

When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I quietly crept back into the room. Kendra was passed out, draped over the bed peacefully. 

I laid down on the couch. It was long into the morning before I slept. 

**** 

I woke up and Kendra was gone. Just like when we split the first time, gone in the night without so much as a note. 

Just as I sat up, the door clicked. Kendra walked in holding a big covered tray. 

“Done with my workout, sleepyhead,” she said without looking at me. “I saved us a spot at the pool and I’m going to have a shower. I brought you breakfast.” 

She placed the tray on the table, put an envelope on the bed, and disappeared into the bathroom. 

When I heard the water running, I went over to the bed and checked the envelope. Plane tickets. To Israel. 

I pulled my suitcase from the closet and threw my stuff in it. I stomped around and decided to just leave it. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my passport, phone and wallet. 

I opened the bathroom door and thought I was going to yell at the top of my lungs. She was in the shower. The water streamed down on her silhouette behind the smoked glass. We’d never be happy together. Or at least she’d never be. I was happy in my looping patterns. Circles of misery moving closer to and farther away from happiness with every encounter with Morty, with every affair, with every unfinished then completed beat, track, and project. She’d feed into me, like the endless tide, and I’d be satisfied in a way she’d never be. She was beautiful, mysterious, complex as the boulders at the beach, as the reef. I was drawn to her as she was drawn to me, like earth to water as she would say. But ultimately, I’d wear her down, slowly but surely batter her to sand. She didn’t belong with me.  

I took one last, long look at the water cascading on her slender form and closed the door. The last fish would find their way. Just as she would. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I was going home. This was where our paths branched, for certain. 

In the cab on the way to the airport, I called my assistant. Morty had called. 

“I’m coming home,” I said. 

He asked me about the weather but I was watching the propellers of a seaplane in the channel along the road sputter to life.  

“If Morty bothers you again, tell him to screw himself. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”  

Morty being pissed at me suited me just fine. I was going to be real busy for the next few months with the album.  

I looked around for the lionfish. That feeling I was being watched was gone. It’d probably be back again. I had a lot to do yet before I joined Jack in rock star heaven and was sure I’d mess up plenty.  

The plane leapt from the waves into the sky. Soon it would be me up in the air and I’d be out of here. I could already feel myself rising. 

ACROSS THE DARIEN GAP 

“Where Central and South America comes together lies a 54 mile stretch of rainforest, the only missing link in the Pan-American Highway—the 16,000 miles of continuous road stretching from Alaska to South America.” 

—from Butler’s
Guide to the Darien 

Distorted reggae chords blare into the jungle from a tiny Marshall amp in the corner of Johnnie’s Video Bar. I watch a blond-bearded, dreadlocked American chuck chords on a beat up, blue, Fender knock-off guitar. His buddy, crammed in the corner behind him with his drum set, hammers out a sparse but steady beat.  

Alexa shuffles on the dance floor with the seven others we’re traveling with. Her long black hair is coated in sweat and Costa Rican grime. She smiles and for a moment I can believe she is carefree, despite all our running and fear. 

She keeps her distance from a short Indian man who is spinning in circles with his arms extended and eyes closed. A big, almost toothless grin spreads on his wrinkled old face. He’s definitely had a few shots of guaro too many. 

I picked up the seven others between here and San Antonio to bring us to nine. Makes us easier to mask. Harder to scrye. Now we look like just a bunch of nobodies heading to the gap, leisurely. Not in a beeline. Nothing that will call attention to our pursuers.