Whale Season (3 page)

Jesus is radiant. He takes the cake from Leon's hand. Places it in the pile again, gently. Pats it. “Okay, then,” he says, back to business. “Turn over your card.”

Leon hesitates, not so much because he knows the game's not fair—he's already decided that hell can't be much hotter than South Florida in August—but because the guy is right. Crazy, but right. Leon suddenly understands that he's bet his entire sorry pathetic life on this one hand. Well, maybe not his entire life—just his business, his trailer, and his new boots. With a turn of the card, he could be homeless. He could be a man in a sheet with no place to go on his birthday. Could be this guy, he thinks and would like to laugh, but he's never been fond of irony.

And so, for a moment, the two men sit quietly in the ice blue sheen of the fluorescent light. They've been at this nearly all night. Outside, morning begins to push its way through the darkness like a swimmer toward the surface. The corners of the sky are warming. A cat sitting on the chain-link fence squawks like a hungry blue jay but there aren't any birds around yet, just bats with their blindness flying effortlessly and silently back to shelter. Leon puts his hand on top of the final card. He's sweating so badly the card will soon be damp. Even on Christmas he knows he can't get this lucky, especially playing against Jesus. And cheating to boot.

He closes his eyes for a moment. Turns the card over. Can't look.

“Don't be afraid,” the man says. “Jesus loves you.”

Squeamish, Leon opens his eyes. “Jesus must love me a whole damn lot,” he says. The card is, indeed, the nine of hearts. Leon has five hearts beating as one. Five hearts beating for Ole Daddy Leon. At that moment, everything seems to move in slow motion—Leon's brain, his own heart. His mouth is open, gasping. Jesus reaches across the table and makes of the sign of the cross on his forehead, then on his lips. It is a gesture Leon remembers the priests of Ash Wednesday doing long ago. The touch seems to release him.

Then the adrenaline hits.

“I won,” Leon screams, then sputters. Tears run down his cheeks. “Thank you Jesus, thank you.” He presses his face against the window, looks outside at the American Dream, the tin can beauty of it.

“I can't believe it's mine,” he says. His nose is running. “Never had anything this nice before. Women, yes. Plenty of nice women, real good-looking women I had no right fooling with, but I never had anything this nice that doesn't argue with you. You know what I mean? I mean, man. I may just have to buy a new suit just to test drive this thing. Silk tie, maybe. Pink shirt.”

Leon wipes his runny nose on his sleeve. “Man, it's so beautiful.”

The showroom window fogs from the heat of his breath. He whoops with joy.

“Look at this! Even when you can hardly see it, it's still like the most beautiful thing you'll ever not see!”

Then he turns around. There's no one there. The cards on the desk are laid out in four piles, each pile the same suit. It looks as if he's been playing solitaire, not poker. Everything that Jesus bet is gone. Leon's stomach turns sour. He looks back out at the Dream. It's still there and real enough. The keys are in his hand. The title looks right.

What's the scam? he thinks. Then remembers the moment when he first met Jesus, when he leaned out of the RV's window and placed a hand on Leon's heart.

“She still thinks of you often,” he said and now, at this moment, those words make Leon feel so alone, more alone than he's ever felt before.

“Dang, Dagmar,” he says. “Even Jesus knows we should still be together. And what does he know about ex-wives?”

The words echo in the empty room.

Chapter 3

B
efore Ricardo Garcia became Jesus, he'd kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. Just bits of information that caught his eye, things he thought he should know.

For example, in Miami, they've cloned Jesus. Raelian leader Claude Vorilhon (aka Rael) was told by an extraterrestrial that he'd encountered on top of a volcano to do so. The extraterrestrial did not leave his name.

In Tampa, they plan to worship Jesus buck naked. When complete, Natura, the first Christianity-themed nudist colony in the country, will be a 240-acre resort area that will have five hundred homes, a hotel, a water-slide park, and a nondenominational Christian church.

In New Smyrna Beach, there's a Jesus Lunch Club at Mom's Diner. If you say your prayers before you eat, you get a 10 percent discount.

Dr. Garcia's scrapbook was filled with things like that, little bits of the world he thought might come in handy some day. Of course, those were the days when he was still a doctor, still answered to “Ricardo Garcia,” still identified himself as a second-generation Cuban, although he was vague about his parents.

Back then he had a family practice clinic in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa. Coffee-skinned and polite, he was a favorite with all his patients. Gracious in an Old World way. Quiet, which most found reassuring. His practice thrived, though some thought it was odd that he never married. He was, after all, quite a catch.

“Too busy,” he told everyone. Besides his practice, he volunteered at the AIDS Hospice two nights a week and would sit with the “rough trade” boys and hold their cold blue-edged hands.

“Do you know Jesus?” he would ask them.

Everyone said that Ricardo Garcia was a good doctor, kindhearted—some said too kindhearted—and thoughtful. Despite his busy schedule, he'd often stop by the homes of his elderly patients, just to check up on them. Ease their pain with a little morphine and a Bible quote. He was known as a religious man, a gold cross Catholic. His only vice was gambling. He seemed to have a sixth sense about cards and could sometimes tell what they were without turning them over. He could never explain how he did this. It was a gift was all he could say.

All in all, Ricardo Garcia thought himself a lucky man—the voices only visited him at night.

But, as is the way with such things, there were eventually, sadly, bodies. That was a problem. So many bodies—each laid out in their Sunday best, their arms crossed, or hands folded in prayer with their eyes sewn shut. Some were eased out of this world with morphine and Bible quotes. Some proved more difficult.

Still, in the end, they were finally at peace. But Dr. Ricardo Garcia wasn't.

And then the forgetting began.

Chapter 4

2
A.M.
The Pink is closed and Carlotta, drunk and teary, is off to find Leon. It isn't a good idea. Trot knows it. Tags along.

“Serve and protect,” he explains. “It's my job. Strictly professional.” But as they walk together under the rusty moon, Trot finds himself leaning toward her, the warmth of her skin. Carlotta doesn't notice. She's too busy rambling though a list of possible excuses for Leon.

“Heart attack? Amnesia?”

Trot can smell her hair, the green grass perfume of it. “Insanity, maybe. Stupidity. Idiocy–”

“Alligator?”

In Whale Harbor on winter days gators crawl out of the cold swamp and lie across Main Street like speed bumps. Sun themselves.

“Not likely,” Trot says. “Gators just chew on you. They eat cats mostly. Limp birds. Stray dogs.”

Mayhem is a subject of particular interest for the sheriff. As he speaks, he picks up speed. “Could've been a panther. That's possible. They'll eat you to the bone. Or a vulture—vultures will pick you apart bit by bit. Shred you like taco meat.”

Carlotta's stomach swoops and swirls like a circus daredevil.

“Python,” Trot offers, sounds hopeful. “They just squeeze the life out of you, then suck you up like spaghetti.”

“There are
pythons
in Florida?”

It is more of a cry than a question.

“Yep. They're not indigenous, though,” Trot says, as if this makes a difference. “People just buy 'em, get tired of 'em, and let 'em go. Problem is that they live a real long time. Most people don't know that. So we got generations of them out here.”

Carlotta's breath turns shallow. Hands clammy. Heartbeat rapid. Trot continues on.

“I once caught a twenty-two-footer making a snack of a Yorkie, some tourist's dog. One gulp. It was really cool. You could see the bulge of this tiny dog in its belly and hear this little tiny yipping sound—”

It is then that Carlotta squeaks. She wants to scream, but a squeak is all she can manage.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “Just like that.”

She's listening, he thinks. And the mantra begins: I am interesting. I have an interesting job. I am an interesting man.

Trot's mother recently sent him a set of affirmation tapes she received as a bonus during Pledge Week from the PBS station in Miami. She wanted
The Three Tenors,
but unfortunately called at the wrong time.

I am deserving of love.

It is at this moment that Carlotta doubles over.

While it wasn't exactly the reaction Trot was hoping for, he couldn't really say he was surprised.

“You okay?” he asks gently.

Carlotta nods, but isn't okay at all. Schnapps and cream are rising up in her belly like white-water rapids. She starts to gag.

“It's okay,” he says and carefully gathers her hair in his hand. It is so soft that it surprises him. He holds it away from her face. Steps back a bit.

“Let her fly, gal,” he says softly.

And she does.

When the moment passes Trot takes off his jacket, Sheriff Department issue, and hands it to her. “Wipe your mouth on this,” he says. “Everybody does. Department pays for dry cleaning.”

Everybody does? Her stomach does a backflip.

“You better now?”

“Not really.”

“Hang on. I'll be right back. There's Coca-Cola in the squad,” he says and runs down Main Street, back to his car.

Reluctantly, Carlotta wipes her mouth on the nylon shell of his jacket. It smells of gasoline and Brut. She watches Trot running full stride down the street, not jogging. He runs like an athlete. His shoes are polished to a new-car sheen. They glint in the streetlights. Carlotta's never had anyone run for her before. It feels like a heroic and beautiful act, even though he's only going a block.

When Trot arrives at his car, he looks back at Carlotta. She seems so far away. His hand rises up in a wave. Then down again, quickly, as if unsure. But when she waves back, he smiles. Then feels guilty.

Strictly professional, he reminds himself. But runs back even faster.

And of course, as he runs, the warm can of carbonated soda shakes in his hand. Shakes hard.

Carlotta is still smiling when he reaches her. He can feel himself blush, the heat spread over his chest. It makes the tops of his ears turn red. “I always carry a six-pack of cola in the car,” he says. “It's warm, but it really settles the stomach.”

“You get a lot of people throwing up around here?”

“If you were driving a '72 Mustang without a muffler, you'd be my usual Friday night.”

He hands her the can. “Take a swig,” he says. “Then spit it out. You'll feel better.”

Carlotta tries to open it, but it's difficult. Her nails are long and manicured. Trot watches her struggle for a moment, then takes the can and pops the top for her.

Cola-Cola sprays over them, hissing like a geyser.

“Damn it. Sorry.”

Cola drips off his eyebrows and onto his badge. Drips down her face, and down the front of her red sequined dress. Trot tries to brush it off her cheek with the paw of his hand. She looks a little shocked. He shudders. Winces.

Just kill me now, God, he thinks. Get it over with.

But then Carlotta does something unexpected—she laughs. Not at Trot, but at the pleasure of the moment. She laughs at how sweet it is to have someone run for you, to wipe your face, to take care of you, just because. How kind. How amazing.

Her laughter is like wind chimes, uncomplicated in its beauty.

And so Trot laughs, too. At that moment, watching Carlotta standing on the edge of the contents of her stomach, a sense of joy rushes over him. For the first time in a long time, he feels like a happy man. She isn't angry. She understands. He can see that in her face.

“You make me want cotton candy,” he says and isn't sure what he means, or if it is the right thing to say, but he feels it, so he says it. Figures she'll somehow understand.

And she does. And stops laughing. She is Leon's girl, after all.

What an idiot I am, Trot thinks.

Carlotta takes the can from his hand. Sips. Spits it out. “Sorry about the jacket,” she says quietly and hands it back to him. Takes another sip of the warm soda.

The two walk the rest of the street in silence. But every now and then their bodies knock against each other like bumper cars, give off sparks.

When they finally end up at Lucky's RV Round-Up, the showroom lights are on. They press their faces against the dirty glass of the office window. There, in the fluorescent hum, Leon is sitting across from what seems to be a woman. The long brown hair. The narrow shoulders.

“That SOB,” Carlotta says, angry.

That predictable SOB, Trot thinks. Leon's got a new girl. God bless him.

But as soon as Trot thinks this he feels ashamed, feels sorry for Carlotta. She's a nice girl. Probably been through a lot. Deserves better. So he drives her home, even though “home” is Leon's trailer. Trot tries not to think about that too much. The trailer is a 1963 “Sovereign of the Road” Airstream, complete with Sky Dome and extended cab. It shines like a baked potato under the streetlight. Makes Trot's stomach growl.

“Well,” she says.

“Well.”

“Good night,” she says. “Sorry about—”

“No problem. It's my job. Protect and serve, remember?”

“Right.”

“Right.”

There is nothing else for them to say. And so, in the damp swamp air of Christmas morning with the rusty moon peeling above, Trot and Carlotta stand for a moment, silent. Disheveled. Exhausted. They search each other's faces and see a bit of themselves—the sorrow, the bandaged hearts. So Carlotta leans into Trot. He closes his eyes. She gently kisses his cheek. Takes his breath away.

I am love's catcher's mitt, he thinks sadly.

The touch of her lips burns.