Chapter 6: Wish I Had a Pencil-thin Mustache

"Wish I had a pencil-thin mustache,
The Boston Blackie kind."

Chapter 6

"Luther?  Luther?  Is that you?" asked Billy Ray of the chauffeur holding the sign with his name on it.

"None other, Mister William," answered the slightly elderly black man, flashing him a thousand-watt smile.  "Heard you were in town today, so I thought I'd dust off the Roller, put on these ol' duds and greet you in style.  You got any checked bags?"

"Look Luther, you were more dad to me than daddy was, so if you're going to try to carry my bag..."

"No suh!  I was going to dress you down for checking yo baggage.  Didn't I tell you to never, never do that?  You want some airline monkey throwin' it around, breakin' all the booze you packed, then send it out to Cuba just fo' giggles an' grins?  Now get yo lazy white ass outta here an' into the Roller."

Along the way out of the concourse, Luther and Billy Ray caught up, Luther filling him in on Luther's son and Billy Ray's brother-from-another-mother, Carl, and his growing law practice.  "Duh boy got into import-export contract law, and he's got too much work for him to handle.  He's got 5 secretaries, 3 associates, 10 paralegals and 6 translators, and he's still got enough left to buy hisself all the toys."

"And Mrs. Calvin?  How's her diabetes?"

"Keepin' it under control.  She done lost about 75 pounds since you saw her last.  She looks like one of those ladies what used to be models in they youth.  Now, what's this I hear about you selling the ol'Manse?  That won't sit well with everybody, no suh!"

"What am I going to do with it, Luther?  Live there?  I'm a 'Westie now.  That spooky old place holds few good memories, and I left it as soon as I can.  Never looked back.  You need to move on yourself.  I don't know why you and yours never left in the first place."

"well, you know, when my Grandpappy got the manumission, he took a walk to the county seat, walked to Hilton Head, walked back and said, "I guess I done seed what's out there. and if it's all the same to you, Mr. Calhoun, I'd purely love it if you could see yo' way to keep me an' the family around."

"And a good thing my great-Grandpappy said yes," countered Billy Ray, "because it was Lucius who got him to diversify, adding peanuts, sugar, corn and hogs.  That got us through the Depression, when cotton tanked.  Then your father convinced my Grandpappy to invest in chemicals and build the plant on the upcountry acreage, near the rail line.  That got us through the 50's.  And now you came up with the idea to put in the golf club and resort by the river.  And what did my daddy do for you?  Paid you to do it all, while he researched John C."

"Truth be told, Mr. William, your daddy was real good to me and the family.  We never paid a dime for our groceries ever; he got Carl that scholarship to law school; paid me the going rate plus bonuses, and always had us up to the big house fo' Christmas and Sesesh-Day.  He done treated us like family, and that's unusual for a gentleman of his breeding."

"Guess I'm just jealous, that's all," said Billy Ray, as Luther applied some good-natured noogies to Billy Ray's head.  They arrived at the beast of a Rolls Royce, Billy Ray threw his carry-on in the trunk and grabbed the shotgun seat.  Strip malls gave way to tract housing, which gave way to cotton fields, the bolls just beginning to burst.  A quick left at the golf club sign onto a one-lane blacktop, a small rise up the hill, and Journey's End, the home seat of generations of Calhouns, presented itself in all of her white painted, open porches and formal gardens.  

"There she is," said Luther, pride filling his voice.

"Yeah, there she is alright," said Billy Ray with a sigh.  He was not looking forward to any of this.  Although all the furniture and rugs had been sold to an antiques dealer in Charleston, there was  a box of personal papers and a box of personal effects that Luther and Milly, Luther's wife, had pulled together.

And then there was the matter of the key.

"Hey Luther, did my dad ever show you this?" Billy Ray asked, holding up the key.

"Hmm, not that I recall.  There are a few old fashioned doors that it might open, but besides that I don't know anything about it.  Where'd you get it?"

"Long story, long story.  Also, you might keep an eye peeled for any strangers that might also be interested in this key."

"Strangers, huh," snorted Luther, "we'll give 'em a proper Carolina welcome, the kind that we gave the Yankees out on Fort Wagner."

"Yeah, I think cannons might be a bit much, but all the same.  I think there's some secret stuff that daddy had that these strangers might want.  One already talked his way into my place, stole daddy's estate papers right in front of me, skedaddled and threw them out the window of the getaway car."

"Hmm, that do sound strange," said Luther thoughtfully.

All speculation was interrupted by their arrival and Milly "Mammy" Calvin's crushing embrace --whatever she had lost on her hips, waist and thighs, she kept on her formidable bosom --and with tears, kisses, more bone-crushing hugs, Billy Ray found himself in his father's old room, the only room that still had a bed in it, looking at a photograph of his father from the 50's: dark eyes, dark hair, pencil-thin mustache, looking for all the world like a matinee idol from a bygone era.  

"Well daddy, here I am.  I'm gonna sell your house, paw through your stuff, and drop most of it off at St. Vincent de Paul, just because you never did like Catholics.

The photograph just looked back at him.  Was that an ironic gleam in one eye?

Chapter 5: “Good times and riches and son-of-a-bitches, I’ve seen more than I can recall.”

“Good times and riches and son-of-a-bitches,

I’ve seen more than I can recall.”

Chapter 5

It isn’t often that Billy Ray went off-key –sport fishing expeditions not counting.  He had been putting it off for a while, ever since the old man had died, as a matter of fact, but all the mystery about the dude in the Hawaiian shirt prompted this trip to the mainland.  Jimmy would have called it just some “Changes in Latitude,” but he would have meant going south to the Caribbean or the Spanish Main.  For Billy Ray, this change in latitude involved a pain-in-the-ass drive to Miami, followed by a even painer-in-the-ass flight to Colombia, South Carolina, the spiritual capital of the Confederate States of America, followed by a pretty nice drive out to The Grove, family seat of the Calhoun dynasty.

Billy Ray was doing all of this in order to sell the old manse to a distant cousin of his, some pencil-neck who had made a fortune in Atlanta by starting up the home improvement giant, The Home Depot.  The only thing Billy Ray hated more than going to one of those soulless warehouses was being forced to do it because this asshole had put the nearest decent hardware store on Key Largo out of business.  But hey, he wanted to buy and Billy Ray sure-as-hell wanted no part of plantation life, so off to the mainland he went.

Before going, Billy Ray did something unthinkable: he locked the door to his bar-partment.  Usually, he’d have just left it open with a sign on the bar asking anyone who stopped by to replace any bottles they had emptied, but this time he thought better of it.  Might as well piss-off anyone trying to break in.  Hell, somebody might even notice and tell the island Constable, Ronny, to go over and apprehend the villain. 

The next thing he did was to go over to the post office-lunch counter-fishing supply store and stop his mail delivery.  It rains a fair bit on Key West, and with the door locked, Billy Ray didn’t want his very important ads and bills soaked and blowing all over what passed for his front yard.

“Hey Jimmbo,” Billy Ray called to the postmaster-short-order-cook as he entered the store, “what’s the good word?”

“The good word is women’s legs: help spread the word, friend,” answered Jimbo, chuckling at his own joke.  “Say, I’m powerful-sorry about your dad passing.  If there’s anything I can do, just name it.”

“Well, there’s something you can’t do: deliver my mail for a week or so.  I’m going off-key to wrap-up some stuff with Dad’s estate, a.k.a. dumping the ol’ manse on some distant cousin who wants to live like a Southron Genleman, so I’d appreciate if you’d just hold my mail here until I get back.  Say, it that conch-fritters I smell?  Damn Jimbo, but you make the best there ever was.”

“Yessir, I’ll suspend delivery until your return, Mr. Calhoun.  And take a cup of those ol’ fritters for the road.  You want a soda too?  That’ll have to be paid for,” Jimbo said with a wink, “but Red Stripe beer is on the house.  I figure a sixer will hold you ‘till Miami.”

Billy Ray’s protests were useless, of course, and he thanked Jimbo for the fritters (which really are the best he had ever tasted) and the beer.  “Oh, one more thing: this came for you today from some lawyer.  You gotta sign for it,” said Jimbo, tearing the signature card off the bubble-wrap-inside mailer.  “Looks like it’s from a lawyer, or somebody with a lot of middle names.  Here ya go.”

“Thanks awfully for all this, Jimbo.  I’ll see you when I’m back on-key.  Don’t work too hard,” he added with a laugh.  Jimbo was probably the only guy that did work hard on the whole key.

“Happy exhaust fumes, amigo,” said Jimbo, waving Billy Ray out the door.  Now, I wonder what the hell that lawyer fellow sent me now, he thought, shifting the mailed and trying to feel the slightly heavy object inside.  I wonder why he didn’t bring it with him when he came by, Billy Ray thought as he opened the car, put the fritters in the cup holder and the beer on the passenger side floor, and opened the mailer.

Inside was a large brass key, tarnished with age.  A note from the lawyer explained that the key was sent via CSA mail because Billy Ray’s dad didn’t trust the lawyer to deliver it.  “What the hell, Billy Ray wondered aloud, “I guess the old guy’s paranoia finally got the better of him.”  There was a note in his father’s spidery handwriting on a 3x5 card, saying “This opens the chest buried behind the House of Shame.  Please forgive your ancestors.  Please forgive me for never telling you while I lived.  I doubt you would have cared, nor understood.  Your loving father.”

Way to go, Dad, thought Billy Ray.  The old cuss just had to get in one last shot below the belt –and this from beyond the grave!  If I ever run into your ghost, I’m gonna pee on it.  For now, it’s Miami or Bust!

Billy Ray tuned the car radio to CREB 106.5 in Miami, and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s tribute to their Sweet Home in Alabama came on.  Even with decent music and conch fritters, this did not promise to be a fun trip.

The first part was as pretty as it was uneventful.  The Florida Keys were all connected by causeways and bridges, something the CSA government did in the 1920's during the Great Southern Depression as a way to give out of work men something to do and a little pay besides.  The Key Highway touched on 21 keys end-to-end, with terrific views all around.  In winter, the parts that went through small towns could get a little crowded with tourist trash traffic, but the ride never got old to Billy Ray.  Dolphin pods swam by, pelicans vied with cormorants for fish, and everywhere you drove was flooded with that bright, Caribbean teal-tinted light that reflected off the water.  

Miami was a different story.  After making landfall from Key Largo, and after the utilitarian boxiness that was Homestead and it's large military airbase, Miami sent its tentacles out from its diseased, sky-scraped center, an urban blight upon the land, just as ugly as any US or Canadian city.  Even though Miami Beach had its mansions and South Beach had its arts area, Billy Ray just could not abide the city at all.  Why would someone choose to live here?  Hell, even Cleetus, the town drunk and weed-dealer, who also had the honor of being Key West's only homeless person, had a better quality of life than anybody in this urban swamp.

Gritting his teeth, Billy Ray followed the signs for Dade County Airport, left his car at the 7-story car garage, and got in line at the Southeast Airlines ticket counter.  After purchasing his round-trip ticket, he ambled along the concourse towards the departure gate, noting the changes made since his last flight, six years ago: none.  Herded onto the plane like cattle in a chute, Billy Ray found himself squeezed between a Yankee businessman and a fat, old black mammy, who promptly fell asleep after take-off and dropped her head on Billy Ray's shoulder.  Which was better than Mr. Yank-my-doodle, who kept trying to get him to invest in some crap called nano-technology.  "If ya can't see the machines, then how do you know what they're doing?" Billy Ray asked.  Luckily, the flight wasn't long enough for the full answer, so Billy Ray climbed over mammy and deplaned into the more genteel environs of Columbia Landing field.

What Billy Ray wasn't expecting was the chauffeur holding a sign up with his name on it.

Chapter 4: "I don't know where I'm a'gonna go when the volcano blow."

Chapter 4

"I don't know where I'm a'gonna go when the volcano blow."

Billy Ray got about as far as the motel parking lot before the dude in the Hawaiian shirt he was chasing dove into the back seat of a car that had slowed down for him, gunned the engine and took off down the street.  It halted about 500 yards away, the guy lowered the back window, tossed the envelope out onto the street, and then took off out of sight.

Cursing and sweating, Billy Ray trotted up to where the envelope lay on the street, reached down and picked it up.  What the hell?  Opening the envelope and scanning the contents, Billy Ray didn't think that anything was missing, but that just made even less sense.  Why would someone lie his way into his house, steal a bunch of papers and then throw them away minutes later?  Clearly, this situation called for more points of view.  Billy Ray headed for his favorite home-away-from-home, White Man's Paradise Bar and Grille, James "Jimmy" Buffett, proprietor.

"Hey Billy Ray," Jules the bouncer greeted him, Jules' friendly creole-French accent sounding odd coming from such a huge man.

"Well hey, Jules!  I haven't seen you in a while.  Where you been at?"

"Concert tour security for Jimmy's last trip.  Went all over the country --even up to the U.S. and Canada.  Those crazy Canadian girls, mon dieu!" answered Jules, laughing and shaking his head from side to side.

"Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that tour.  Didn't it turn into a benefit for Montserrat?"

"Ah, oui. Those poor people.  Where you gonna go when the volcano blow, eh?"

"You should write that down, my friend --the boss could make a hit song out of it."  Both men laughed at the little joke.  "Speaking of el jefe Jimmy, where might he be?"

"At the bar, trying out a new bar-femme with the brain trust.  Go on back, he'd like to see you."

Jimmy's "Brain Trust" turned out to be him, his daughter, Julie, the bartender who was 'retiring' to get married, and Carlos, the Dominican busboy who had worked at White Man's Paradise ever since he swam ashore, after his escape raft from Baby-Doc's Dominican Republic broke up at the south end of the Key.  All of them were tasting the round of boat-drinks that the new prospective bartender, Sandee, had just made.

"This is a great banana-boat daiquiri," Jimmy said.  "Kinda makes me wanna sing, 'Day-o, Day-ay-ay-o! Daylight come and we wanna go home!"  Everybody laughed, and a couple of "Day-o's" floated up to the palm-thatched ceiling.  

"Wow, this Long Island Ice Tea Ferry is so fucking potent!" Savannah Jane fake-slurred.  "You're gonna go broke if this drink catches on, Dad.  Maybe you should charge a premium for this one," she laughed.  
Carlos looked a bit misty-eyed when he said, "Aye Julia, this Coconut Cuban Breeze reminds me of my favorite bar in Mariel, Cuba, the same place mi padre met senor Hemingway in the 1920's."

"Well," Julie said, "I think mine sucked!"  Cries of 'What?' and 'Aw Julie!' erupted from the Brain Trust.  "Okay, okay, the drink was good.  But she didn't flirt with ANY of us, not even you, Jimmy.  Babe, if you don't dish-out a little wink-with-the-drink, you're gonna starve.  And just LOOK at her!  No cleavage, no form-fitting T-shirt, just a stupid polo with for-fuck's-sake CHINO SHORTS??? You think this is some Richmond hotel bar, uh, Sandee?"

"All right, all right!" said Jimmy above the commotion Julie's rant provoked, "So she gets some fashion-tips from Julie, and she shadows you for a couple of nights so she gets the flirt-thing going on.  I mean, what Julie, you think anybody can replace you right out of the gate?"  Nods all around from the Brain Trust, and the boss made it official with a hearty, "Welcome aboard, Sandee!  Hope ya like serving rum to pretend pirates!"

It was then that Savannah Jane noticed Billy Ray standing there, smiling at the whole audition process.  "Hey Billy Ray," she called, "haven't seen you in a while.  Why're you buying a drink here when you've got the best free bar in the world?"

"Hey Savannah," Billy Ray called back.  "No drinks for me today.  Was just wondering if I could catch a word with your dad for a minute."

"For you, Billy Ray, you can have two," Jimmy laughed.  "You want to talk frente-a-frente, or can the Brain Trust stick around?"

"You know, I'd like them to stay if that's ok," Billy Ray said.  He then told them of everything that had happened, starting with his father's death and ending with the chase of the Hawaiian-shirted man.  There was a long pause, then Carlos spoke.

"In my country, Baby Doc's secret police would do things like this.  They were not so subtle, but they would break down doors, search papers, search houses, workshops, all looking for information.  What information do you have, Senor Ray?"

"Nothing.  The only thing they stole was the mailer-envelope, and they threw that out without taking anything."

"Hmm," said Julie, "is there something else they could be looking for?  I mean, do you have a lot of money or something else somebody could want?"

"I got a nice bottle of St. Kitts rum back at the bar-partment," said Billy Ray, "but other than that, its just my little monthly payment from Daddy's trust, and that just about keeps me afloat out here."

"Well Billy Ray," said Jimmy, "we'll keep an eye on you and a bunch of ears to the wind.  I'll put something out on the coconut telegraph too, and see what comes back.  Don't worry- we'll figure this thing out for you.  Hey, you sure you don't want a boat-drink?  Let's have a contest: Julie vs. Sandee!  What do you say, Brain Trust?"

"Dad, it's way too early for boat drinks!" Savannah Jane chided, but Julie was already pouring.

"I think I'll pass," Billy Ray laughed.  He said his goodbyes and ambled out the door, giving Jules a good-natured wave on the way out.  So, no closer to the answer, Billy Ray made his way home.  What, just what, was going on?  Who was the mysterious stranger in the Hawaiian shirt? And what did his dead father have to do with any of this?