“Heard about the owner. You related?”
“His sister.”
“My condolences.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Only saw him a couple times,” said the neighbor. He caught Anna looking down at his slippers. “You reach a certain age, you just don’t give a damn anymore. I don’t know why.”
Anna smiled.
“You gonna be selling the place or coming back?”
She put her hands on her hips and looked around in the twilight. A miniature deer hoofed across the street. “Don’t know yet.”
The animal began gnawing on one of the flowers that surrounded the anchorless space.
“Go on, now,” said the old man. “Git!”
“No,” said Anna. “Let him eat.”
The man pointed back at his own property, where all the plants were circled with chicken mesh. “You have to use the wire.”
Gus climbed in the passenger seat. Anna went to the driver’s side.
“You’re lucky if you already got property in the Keys,” the man told Anna across the Trans Am’s roof. “Too expensive to buy in anymore. I could sell my house and get a giant place in Lakeland. I got brochures.”
Anna climbed in the car. The old man came around to her window. “Let me know if you decide to sell. I know people. Actually, I get a kickback, but we can split it.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” She buckled her seatbelt. “Thanks again with the anchor.”
The old man looked up at the sky and scratched his whiskers. “There’s a big storm coming.”
Anna started the car. “There is?”
“No. That’s something this old guy tells Linda Hamilton before she drives away at the end of
The Trans Am backed out of the driveway, the rear end riding low from a three-hundred-pound solid-gold anchor painted with marine primer and verdigris stain.
A SMALL TOWN, but, as they say, a great place to live. It’s up on the east coast. Jensen Beach to the north, Hobe Sound to the south. Beautiful beaches, arts, health care, the rest of the state’s problems another world away. The best part is the neighbors. Always saying hello in the supermarket, the bank, the library. Particularly the library.
Today, the library’s parking lot was mostly empty, but that was because of the hour. Didn’t open for another thirty minutes. Just a few cars in the employees’ section. Red Nissan, black Mazda and the vehicle of the library’s most recent hire, a brown Plymouth Duster.
The staff was gathered inside for an announcement.
“May I have your attention,” said the library director. “I’d like you to meet Pam, the newest addition to our staff.”
Pam’s makeup was rosy, her hair down. She grinned wide, crinkled her shoulders and gave a spunky little wave. The director urged everyone to drop by their new co-worker’s desk and get acquainted.
Shortly after noon, a couple of young professionals came in on lunch break to return books.
“Hey, who’s that new girl over in fiction?” said the first guy.
“Don’t recognize her,” said the second.
“What do you think?”
“Too conservative.”
“Those are the ones you have to worry about.” He started walking in the woman’s direction. “I’m going to ask her out.”
A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA left the Florida Keys and headed west through the Everglades.
Windows down, bright sunlight.
Serge had weighed their investment options and advised Coleman to skip out on the rent. He grabbed a radio knob and turned Moby up loud.
The swamp air was sticky and thick, the horizon low across the sawgrass.
“What’d you say?” asked Serge.
Coleman cracked a Schlitz. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes you did. About swamp air and the horizon.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“You’re stoned.” Serge faced the road again. A snowy egret swooped low over the Tamiami Trail.
“There,” said Serge. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“You mentioned an egret.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“Well if you didn’t—” Serge turned around and saw a grinning man sitting in the middle of the backseat. “…Who the fuck are you?”
Narrator.
“Narrator?”
Ex-narrator, actually.
“What are you doing here?”
Kept telling them I wanted a little screen time but they just strung me along. Now that I’ve been fired, what can they do? I’m taking matters into my own hands.
“More power to ya,” said Serge.
“Want a beer?” asked Coleman.
Sure. The narrator accepted the can and popped it open. He tapped Serge on the shoulder. So, you don’t mind if I continue?
“Knock yourself out.”
Thanks. Serge accelerated and whipped around a slow-moving tractor. Coleman chugged the rest of his beer and grabbed another. The Buick continued across the Tamiami, past the cadaver farm, where a civil servant stood at the open trunk of an Impala, glanced around, then erased a number on his clipboard.
A Note on the Type
The text of this book was set in a face called Kartonia Linotype, a style first developed by a guild of radical underground printers in seventeenth-century Luxemburg, whose audacious use of kerning almost ended the monarchy and… A NOTE ON THE TYPE IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED. PLEASE COME BACK LATER.
