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.