Swamp Story: a Novel, page 3
“Yeah,” he said to himself. “I still need money.”
Chapter 3
Ken Bortle looked out through the yellowed glass front door of Bortle Brothers Bait & Beer. A car was slowing down, turning off Route 41, also known as the Tamiami Trail, into the parking lot, which at one time had been asphalt but was now almost entirely dirt.
“Customer,” said Ken.
Ken’s brother, Brad, seated behind the counter, looked up from his iPhone, said, “Nope,” and went back to playing Candy Crush, which was what he did for most of the working day.
“Well they’re stopping,” said Ken.
“Yeah, to use the toilet,” said Brad.
“How do you know that?”
“That’s a Tesla Model S. It costs seventy-five thousand minimum. Whoever bought that car isn’t stopping here to shop.” Brad gestured vaguely toward the wares on display in Bortle Brothers Bait & Beer. There were three bait tanks, one containing several dozen live and four dead floating pilchards, and two tanks containing only dark, dirty water dotted with floating scum; a wheezing beer cooler containing four and one-third six-packs of Bud Light; a cardboard display card that once had held an assortment of plastic bait worms but now was empty except for the words YUM DINGER; some dusty plastic alligators with FLORIDA printed on their backs and MADE IN CHINA printed in smaller letters on their bellies; and a stack of decades-old black T-shirts, all sized either extra small or XXXL, imprinted with BORTLE BROTHERS IN THE OF THE EVERYGLADES (these were also made in China, where apparently nobody had noticed the “Y”).
Ken watched as the Tesla stopped out front. A prosperous-looking family of four—mom, dad, daughter, son—emerged. The mom was eyeing the store unhappily, saying something to the dad, who shrugged. The son was reading the ancient weathered storefront sign, which said:
BAIT
BEER
LIVE GATOR SHOW
AIRBOAT RIDES
Dad pushed open the front door and stepped inside, followed by Mom and the kids. Mom wrinkled her nose at the smell, which was mostly a combination of mold and dead pilchards.
“Hi,” said Dad.
Ken nodded. Brad looked up from Candy Crush.
“I was wondering if we could use your restroom,” said Dad.
“Bingo,” said Brad, looking back down.
“Yeah,” sighed Ken, pointing. “Back there on the right.”
Mom and the girl edged through the store, careful not to get near the bait tanks.
An awkward silence descended. Dad looked around for something he could pretend to be interested in. He settled on the YUM DINGER card, which he examined as though it were the Mona Lisa. The boy wandered over to the bait tanks and briefly watched the pilchards swim around, then said to Ken, “Where’s the alligators?”
“The what?” said Ken.
“Alligators. The sign outside says there’s a live gator show.”
“He died,” said Ken.
“Who did?”
“The gator,” said Ken. “Also the guy who did the show.”
“Oh,” said the boy.
There actually had been a live gator show, back in the mid sixties, when Bortle Brothers Bait & Beer had been founded by Ken’s and Brad’s father, the late Webster Bortle Jr., and his brother Canaan. They charged tourists fifty cents a head to watch Webster go into a pen out back and manhandle an eight-foot alligator named Rex for ten minutes. As was traditional in Florida gator shows, Webster would pretend that he was in grave danger of being injured or killed, but in fact Rex was well-fed and wanted nothing more than to resume lying inert in the muck.
Webster would heave Rex around for a while, then pry open the gator’s jaws and exclaim, “Look at those teeth, folks! This big boy’ll take your arm off in a second. One time I got careless with him and look what happened.” Then he’d hold up his left hand, showing that the top joint of his forefinger was missing. The tourists would gasp.
In fact Webster had lost part of his finger one night when he was hammered (as he was every night) and he bet Canaan, who was equally drunk, five dollars that he could catch a ride aboard a moving truck. They staggered outside to Route 41, which at that time was the only route across the swamp between Miami and Naples, to settle the bet. Webster stood by the side of the road, letting a few trucks go past—most were doing sixty or better—before setting his sights on a somewhat slower-moving Southeastern Freight Lines tractor-trailer. He started running as it drew close and managed to get his left hand into the trailer undercarriage as the big rig roared past, but as he tried to get a better grip, he lost his footing and fell, the massive rear tires missing him by inches as the truck thundered past and disappeared into the steamy Everglades night.
Webster was still rolling on the roadside when Canaan caught up with him, demanding his money. It took Webster a minute or so to fully grasp that he’d lost part of a key digit. Both brothers found this hilarious. They considered driving to Miami for treatment but decided that it could wait until morning, being merely a small part of a finger. Canaan—after collecting his five bucks—bound his brother’s wound with toilet paper and duct tape, and they resumed drinking.
The forefinger became the highlight of Webster’s gator-wrestling act and remained so until 1987, when both Webster and Rex died just a few weeks apart, Rex from natural causes and Webster from cirrhosis of the liver. That was the end of gator wrestling at Bortle Brothers, but nobody had gotten around to editing the sign that the Tesla-family boy had noticed.
“What about the airboat rides?” the boy asked Ken.
“We don’t do those anymore,” said Ken.
“Why not?” asked the boy, a persistent lad.
The true reason was that in the late eighties Canaan, even more drunk than usual, had taken a group of tourists out for an airboat ride and hit a stump at forty miles per hour, stopping the boat cold and launching two elderly Belgians a good twenty-five feet into the swamp. There were multiple injuries. Since the accident occurred in the Big Cypress National Preserve, federal authorities got involved. Canaan wound up spending six months in prison, and the airboat was confiscated.
“Environmental impact,” said Ken.
“Oh,” said the boy.
The Tesla-family mom and her daughter emerged from the bathroom, noses still wrinkled from the stench, which was due to the fact that the toilet had not been cleaned since the Reagan administration.
“This place is gross,” said the daughter, in a plainly audible whisper.
“Drew, let’s go,” Mom said to Dad.
“Right,” said Dad. “Let me just get…”—he paused, looking around for something to buy, a mercy purchase in exchange for the bathroom stop—“one of these.” He picked up a souvenir plastic Florida alligator from China and brought it over to Brad at the cash register.
“How much do I owe you?” he said.
Brad looked up from Candy Crush.
“Two hundred and fifty-seven dollars,” he said.
Dad smiled uncomfortably and said, “Seriously, how much?”
Brad, not smiling, said, “Like I told you, two hundred fifty-seven dollars. It’s imported.”
“Very funny,” said Dad. He dropped the alligator onto the counter, and the Tesla family exited the store. On his way out Dad paused in the doorway, turned back to Ken and Brad, and said, “I know you think you’re funny. But I’m a business consultant, and I can tell you this: Your attitude is the reason this is a shithole and your business is a joke.”
“Thanks,” said Brad. “How much do we owe you for that?”
Dad shook his head and left.
The brothers watched the Tesla whir away.
Ken said, “Why’d you do that?”
“Because he’s an asshole.”
“An asshole who was about to give us money.”
“Four dollars.”
“Which is four more dollars than we got now.” Ken paused, then said, “He’s right, you know.”
“About what?”
“Our attitude.”
Brad snorted. “So if I smiled and sold him a plastic alligator, which he obviously didn’t want, we’d be a booming business? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying we’re not even trying. We just sit here. Like we expect people to stop, when there’s no reason for them to stop.”
“So what’re we supposed to do? Buy more stock? With what? Nobody’ll give us credit. The beer truck doesn’t even stop anymore. Pablo won’t sell us any more bait. FP&L is about to shut off the electric. The only income we have is you selling the shit you get from Pinky, and aside from being sketchy, that’s nowhere near enough. How’re we gonna attitude our way out of that?”
“We need a new business model.”
Brad snorted again. “Business model? You get that from Shark Tank?”
“Number one, you could learn something from that show. Number two, I’m serious. We need something besides bait and beer, which we don’t really have anyways. We need like a… a hook.”
“A hook.”
“Yeah, a hook. Like those guys in Ochopee.”
“The skunk ape guys? The ‘Skunk Ape Research Headquarters’?” Brad made air quotes. “That’s bullshit.”
“It’s bullshit but it works. They’ve been on TV, newspaper stories. People love that supernatural shit. They get tourists, Brad. People see that big skunk ape statue outside their store, they stop. They’re selling mugs, T-shirts, all kinds of skunk ape souvenirs in there. They’re selling that shit on the Internet. They got a brand, Brad. We need to do that.”
“You want us to sell skunk ape souvenirs?”
“No, no, that’s their brand. We need our own thing. Something new. Make people want to stop.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno yet. I got some ideas. I’m gonna come up with something.”
“Sure you will,” said Brad, going back to Candy Crush.
Ken looked out the door. Another car whizzed past on Route 41, bound for somewhere else.
“I will,” he said. “You’ll see.”
Chapter 4
“Where you going, Jess?”
Slater stood in the cabin doorway, shirtless as always, gripping the top of the doorframe, posed—to Slater, posing was as natural as breathing—to display his sculpted arms and bulging biceps, fully aware of how studly he looked.
“For a walk,” said Jess. She had Willa in a baby carrier slung in front of her, a backpack behind her holding diapers, wipes, a water bottle, a towel and a book. She was wearing running shorts, a T-shirt, a red Miami Heat ball cap and filthy sneakers. She was holding a machete.
“Already?” said Slater, who’d just awakened.
“I’ve been up with Willa for three hours.”
“Huh.” Slater scratched his left armpit, studying Jesse. He called back into the cabin, “Kark, get out here. Bring the camera.”
Kark appeared in the doorway, yawning, holding the camera. “What?”
“Get some footage of Jess,” said Slater. “With the machete. Glades Woman.”
“Slater,” said Jesse, “I don’t want to be on camera. I look like crap.” Jesse hadn’t shaved her legs or armpits in weeks. She hadn’t washed her hair for four days. The cabin had a shower of sorts—a plastic water bag hung from an eave—but it was totally exposed, and Jesse was reluctant to use it; she didn’t trust Kark, a lurker, not to watch—or worse, video her.
“You look hot, babe,” said Slater. “Glades Woman! Doesn’t she look hot, Kark?”
“She does,” said Kark, his small red eyes taking in Jesse’s body.
“Bye,” Jesse said, starting around the cabin.
“Get this shot,” Slater said to Kark. “Glades Woman setting off into the swamp.”
Kark, eye to the viewfinder, waddled after Jesse.
“Make sure you get the machete!” said Slater. “Jess, turn around and show him the machete!”
Jesse turned around, showed Kark the finger, then turned back.
“We can edit that out,” said Kark.
Jesse went around the side of the cabin and picked up the path, which wound through the swamp about fifty yards to the overgrown two-track dirt road where Slater kept the truck, a faded, battered old F-150 pickup.
Jesse sometimes thought about taking the truck. She knew where Slater kept the key. In her thoughts she’d drive into Miami; find a phone; call her parents in Greenwich, Connecticut; tell them they were right, she was a fool, please send her some money, let her come home to them with her baby. Every time she walked past the truck she thought about this. Every time she felt she was a little closer to actually doing it.
She stopped at the truck, looked inside, pictured herself at the wheel. Then she pictured her parents, seeing them again, them seeing their granddaughter for the first time, their joy…
But then, inevitably, their disapproval, their judgment, their I-told-you-sos. She knew her parents, and their friends. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves, and the worst part of it would be knowing that they were right. They’d given her a good education, supported her, set her up with a generous trust. She had squandered it all. Or, more accurately, she’d decided—despite her parents’ vehement objections—to trust Slater, and he had squandered it, all of it. When she’d gotten desperate, she’d begged her parents for more money, and they’d reluctantly given her some; Slater had squandered that, too. Slater had a black belt in squandering.
Jesse couldn’t face her parents again, not like this. As much as she hated where she was now, she hated the idea of slinking home even more.
“Nope,” she said, turning away from the truck. She looked down at Willa, who was looking up at her. “Baby girl, we gotta come up with something else.”
She walked along the dirt track, no destination in mind, happy for the time away from Slater and Kark. She’d been taking more and more walks lately, wandering farther and farther, venturing off on old trails and footpaths that sometimes rose only inches above water, and sometimes were barely there at all. She carried the machete just in case but, aside from the occasional gator basking in the distance, hadn’t encountered any worrisome critters.
She had come across a few dilapidated shacks, their roofs collapsed, their rotting walls overwhelmed by vegetation. Each time, she wondered who had lived in the isolated hovel. The Everglades, two million acres of wild wetland, had forever been a sanctuary, a hideout for hermits, moonshiners, drug runners, eccentrics, paramilitary wackos, lunatics, cultists, criminals and weirdos of every kind seeking refuge from society, or the law, or both. It was a perfect place to hide, this vast swamp. Or to hide things.
On this day Jesse’s wanderings brought her to a weather-beaten dark-gray house she hadn’t seen before. She almost missed it; it sat a dozen yards off the path, in the shadows, partly hidden by some cypress trees. Its windows were gone and its front door agape, but it was a bit bigger, a bit less overgrown and in slightly better shape than the other hovels she’d seen, as if it had been occupied more recently. She paused and thought about looking inside. But the dark doorway creeped her out.
Slater had told her a story he’d heard from some locals—who swore it was true—about a loner living out here somewhere, a few years back, who kept wolves as pets. The story went that the man would drive into Miami, pick up homeless people and prostitutes, bring them back to his house, and nobody would ever see them again. The locals claimed that at night they’d often heard the wolves howling. They said nobody went near the loner’s place after dark.
Jesse, hearing Slater relate the story, had figured it was probably fiction, glades dwellers having some fun with a city boy. But she thought about it as she looked at the doorway, and she suddenly wanted to get away from there.
She hurried past the house and continued on the winding path a hundred yards or so. Willa, who did not complain without reason, started fussing a bit, her way of saying she was hungry. Jesse stopped in a small clearing, spread the towel on the ground and sat down cross-legged. She set down the machete, took Willa in her arms and lifted her T-shirt, helping her baby find her breast. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, enjoying the sun on her face, the peace of the moment. Minutes passed. She could feel herself almost dozing off.
Something made her open her eyes. She blinked, adjusting to the light.
A man was watching her.
He was standing ten feet away, in the shadows at the edge of the clearing. He was stocky, round faced, with close-cropped black hair and a goatee. His eyes were hidden behind wraparound sunglasses. He wore camo pants and a tank top.
Jesse yanked her shirt down, upsetting Willa, who began to cry. Jesse scrambled to her feet.
The man had not moved.
“Who are you?” Jesse asked. “What are you doing?”
The man said nothing for a few seconds, then, “Just standing here.”
“Were you watching me?”
The man smirked but said nothing.
“You’re rude,” said Jesse. “You’re a rude person, sneaking up on me.”
“I got a right to be here,” said the man. “Don’t I, bro?”
“Yep,” said another male voice, from behind Jesse. She spun and saw a second man on the other side of the clearing. He was bigger than the other one and had a full-face beard, but otherwise they looked much alike. The full-bearded one wore camo head to toe, including a camo ball cap. He wore a belt with a pistol in a holster. He held a pole with a Frisbee-sized disc at the end—a metal detector, Jesse figured.
“Well, you shouldn’t sneak up on people,” said Jesse, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. Willa was still crying. “It’s OK, baby,” Jesse said. “We’re leaving.” Feeling the men’s eyes on her, she put Willa back into the carrier, stuffed the towel into the backpack and picked up the machete. As she straightened up she saw that the full-bearded man had moved, and was now standing in the path where she had entered the clearing. The goateed man had also moved, stepping into the clearing, closer to her. Neither man had said anything.
“I’m not alone, you know,” said Jesse. “My husband is with me.” It sounded pathetic to her even as she said it.
