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 2: “Ya got fins to the left, fins to the right, And you’re the only bait in town!”

Chapter 2

“Ya got fins to the left, fins to the right,

 And you’re the only bait in town!”

The fuel dock at Key West municipal marina has the usual signs screaming at you to not smoke while tied-up and fueling, but it also had a unique bit of local color: a 22’ taxidermy mako shark hanging by its tail from a scaffold, midway between the pumps and the storage tank.  Over the years, Fred, the shark, had acquired quite a colorful coating of seagull guano and graffiti, sporting a tie-dye peace sign on his dorsal fin, lots of names of fishermen’s girlfriends, and a suggestion to “Smoke Panama Red” that some stoner spray painted on Fred’s port side.  ‘Westie fishermen being as superstitious as fishermen all over the world, it became mandatory to high-five Fred on the dorsal fin and low-five him on the snout in order to ensure a good catch.

Billy Ray sidled his buddy P.T.’s Pennyan sport fisher up to the dock, hopped off, secured his lines, and hooked up the fuel line.  “How much you want today, Billy Ray?” called Sketcher from up in the control shack.  Folks called him Sketcher because working the fuel dock was just a day job for him; Sketcher was a bona-fide artist, whose charcoal sketches of Key West hung in art galleries up in Naples, and whose occasional oil-on-canvasses adorned many a corporate boardroom both North and South.

“We’re going after blue marlin with Japs payin’ for the ride, so better fill her up,” Billy Ray called back.  “Oh, and P.T. neglected to give me any cash, so can we…”

“…can y’all pay me once your Japs have paid you?  I suppose so.  But y’all be sure y’all don’t sink or get grabbed by that Bermuda Triangle, or take off to South America without paying me ‘n Mr. Texaco fust,” said P.T. in a mock serious voice.

“Why Mr. Sketcher, I don’t believe what anybody else says –you are a real human being, bless your heart,” Billy Ray came back with.

“G’wan now, make sure that fuel line’s on tight.  If I want someone to kiss my ass, I can always ask yer daddy.”

“Funy you should mention that: Daddy died a couple of months back.”

“Oh Billy Ray, I am so sorry,” said Sketcher, seriously this time, “I had no idea.  Y’all were never all that close, right?  I seem to remember you chewin’ my ear off about somethin’ he had done…”

“Thanks, Sketcher.  No, we were not close.  And it wasn’t something he had done, so much as something he had said.  Right after Deirdre left with my boy, he had the gall to say I was better off rid of white trash like her, and called my boy a redneck-in-training.  Now granted, me ‘n her didn’t always see eye to eye, but Christ, I still had feelings for her, and to call your own grandson a redneck-in-training…  Well, we just never had anything more to say to each other after that.”

“I forget ‘cause you’re just a good-old-boy, but ain’t you from some kind of plantation-society people back in Carolina?”

“Yep, I allow that I’m the last living descendant of John C. Calhoun, founding father of the Confederate States of America.”

“Wow,” said Sketcher, “that’s pretty impressive.  I don’t remember much about history, but that name rings a bell.  So, what with your Daddy passing, you must be set somethin’ pretty now.  Gonna sell the shack?  Can I buy the bar if ya do?”

“No plans to do that, Sketcher.  Daddy left me a little bit, just enough to put me in some old folks home around Tallahassee once I get too old to wipe my own behind.  He also left me with his precious “family papers,” more crap about J.C. Calhoun, I’d allow.  I might get me a parrot and line the cage with them.”

“Hey ol’ boy, that’s your family there.  If you don’t want ‘em, betcha the library might.  There’s probably historical stuff in there an’ all.  Might even be able to sell some of it to a collector.  Some of my gallery buddies might know people…”

“Thanks anyway, Sketcher.  I just might give them to the library.  Lord knows, I ain’t interested.  So, we full yet?”

“I believe you are.  Don’t forget Fred on the way out, and bring back some marlin,” said Sketcher cheerily as Billy Ray waved over his shoulder.  He unhooked the fuel line, hung it up, paid his respects to Fred, untied and giving the dock a shove with his foot, climbed up to the bridge and started up the Pennyan’s diesel.  Slithering through the inner harbor, Billy Ray next sidled up to the bait dock where his friend, P.T. was waiting for him with two buckets of live bait fish at his side.

“You didn’t put on a full fuel load, did ya?” asked P.T. as he handed Billy Ray one of the buckets.

“Of course I did,” said Billy Ray, stowing the bait fish in the aft compartment.

“You think I got an A.T.M. card for the Richmond Treasury or somethin’?  Why’d you do that?  You know I can’t afford a full load?”

“Aw, quit yer belly-aching, P.T.  Japs’re paying for the gas this time out, and besides, no telling how far we’ll have to go for marlin this time of year.  Besides, Sketcher let me have it on credit, so long’s we pay him when we get back.”

“Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?  Let’s go git us some marlin, good buddy!”

“You forgetting something, boss?  We gotta go git us some Paying Jap customers before we git us some marlin.”

“You know, I knew there was a reason to include you on this outing my friend, more ‘n just because you got the best free bar I’ve ever smoked a Cuban cigar at.  Come on, I feel lucky.  By the way, did you…”

“Yeah, I high-fived Fred before I left.”

“But did you low-five him too?  Curtis once forgot to low-five him and his boat…”

“…run aground off Key Biscayne.  I know.  It wouldn’t be because Curtis was actually headed for Bimini and couldn’t read a chart even if it was printed in scratch ‘n sniff format, would it?”

“Maybe,” said P.T. thoughtfully, “but just don’t mess with Fred, ok?  That ol’ shark’s been there since the 50’s, so there’s something to be said for that.”

Billy Ray threaded his way through the harbor, putting into the boat slip that P.T. had rented for the winter sport fishing season.  While P.T. made fast the lines and schmoozed the Jap businessmen who had chartered them for the day, Billy Ray studied the charts and listened in on the chatter from the c.b. radio and the loran, trying to figure out where the fish might be today.  Once their guests were settled with a Red Stripe and some seaweed crackers, P.T. joined him on the bridge.  “Where you reckon we should head?”

“Sounds like the Annabelle is getting some action off of Dead Rebb Ledge, right close to #77 buoy.  As I remember, that’s got a nice up-well that the marlin like to hang-out in, especially with a rising tide.  Think we can make it in two hours?”

“Two hours ought to do it,” answered P.T.  “I’ll take the bridge and you show our guests how the rigging works.  And be nice.  Those Japs are all about politeness and respect.”

“It’d be the other way around if the Yankees had of whupped them in the war,” groused Billy Ray, who didn’t relish explaining how the long-lines and marlin-seat worked to somebody whose second language was English.  Still, Japs tipped pretty well when they caught a fish, so Billy Ray didn’t really mind them all that much.  And they only came in the winter, besides.

While P.T. gunned the Pennyan over the waves, Billy Ray explained and demonstrated to the five dapper, courteous subjects of the Divine Emperor Akahito how to hook a marlin and play him all the way back to the boat.  He figured they picked up on about 75% of what they said, but at least it passed the time while they motored out to their station.  They even offered him a Red Stripe and tried to teach him a Japanese drinking song, to much hilarity on both sides of the language barrier. 

It seemed like no time at all when P.T. throttled-back and called down to Billy Ray to get up into the flying bridge.  P.T. went down to the deck, baited up 10-15 hooks, set the four long-lines out on his wings, and buckled the first guest into the marlin chair.  “Annabelle 3 points off starboard,” Billy Ray sang out. 

As the two boats passed each other, Sam, the Annabelle’s owner, hailed them with “Sorry Phineas, we done grabbed all the marlin here.  Early bird gets the worm, good buddy.”

“That’s P.T. to you, you ol’ flounder!” P.T. shot back.  “An’ what I heard was that it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese!”  This produced general laughter from both boats as the Annabelle throttled-up and made way for Key West.

After trolling the ledge for about a half hour, Billy Ray spotted what he was looking for: “Sails 2 points off to port!”

“You sure they ain’t fins?” P.T. called back.

“No sir, they’re marlin sails.  Prepare to get hit!”

Chapter 1: “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, But I know it’s my own damn fault.”

Hi, and thank you for reading my new story, White Man's Paradise.  Don;t worry about the title --it's not racist, neo-Nazi hate speech.  It IS, however, a counter-factual piece of historical fiction, set in a world where the Union did not win the Civil War (it was a tie, negotiated by France and Britain).  Starting out on Key West, Florida, the story follows William Raymond Caldwell Calhoun (y'all call him Billy Ray --everybody does!) and his friend, Jimmy Buffett (yes, THAT Jimmy Buffett) as he learns some surprising things about his family history and, incidentally, some surprising things about a 150 year-old conspiracy that could end up with him sleeping with the fishes off of Dead Rebel Ledge.  Y'all have a good read, y'hear?

White Man’s Paradise

Chapter 1

“Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame,

 But I know it’s my own damn fault.”

     William Raymond Caldwell Calhoun squinted through bloodshot eyes at his 1970’s era clock radio, trying to correctly determine the shape and meaning of its analog display function.  Big hand on the 12, little hand on the 9.  Too damn early to get up on Key West, Florida; way too damn early to get up on Key West, Florida, after spending all night and a good part of the morning trading tequila shots and swapping spit with an entire college girl’s field-hockey team from St. Paul on spring break.  Tell a Yankee chick you’re Jimmy Buffet and a feller can just about do as he pleases.  Not that William Raymond (y’all can call me Billy Ray) could exactly remember whom he did what with for how long last night.  A more pressing concern was the 500 pound anvil-shaped headache that was threatening to crack his world in half at any moment.

     Eight oranges in the juicer, a raw egg, some honey and three aspirins later, Billy Ray regarded his domain through slightly scratched, very dark Ray Ban sunglasses: a 1-room shack (but a big room, he reminded himself) with 3 alcoves containing a double-sized platform waterbed, a pine clothes chest and wicker nightstand; a kitchenette and ½ size fridge filled with Durango beer, limes and margarita mix –there might be a couple of cans of something indestructible in the cupboard; a toilet, sink and mirror surrounded by a circle of hanging beads for privacy. 

     And then there was the bar. It occupied the entire center of the shack and was an honest-to-god bamboo Tiki bar from some defunct Chinese restaurant on the mainland.  Billy Ray had his friend, Jimmy, help him float it out to Key West on Jimmy’s boat, the Jolly Mon, just after Billy had bought the shack from the previous owner, a derelict castaway veteran of the Nicaraguan War.  He and Jimmy lovingly restored it, mounting a 100-gallon fish tank into the bottle rack dead center and cleaning the accumulated grime off of the bamboo until it gleamed like a freshly cut stand.  6 rattan covered bar stools were the shack’s only furniture besides the waterbed.  The bar also had a color t.v. attached to a satellite dish, an 8-speaker stereo, a c.b. radio mounted upside down on the ceiling next to the glass rack, a working dishwasher, blender, trash compactor, and a Hawaiian hula-dancer lamp with a shade made from local palm fronds.  Stolen street signs adorned the walls of the shack.  Screen covered picture windows provided ventilation and screened views of palm trees, ocean, his neighbor’s dumpster and a motel that had clearly seen better days.

     Legend has it that Jimmy wrote his huge hit-single, White Man’s Paradise, sitting at this very bar, a legend invented by Jimmy himself, because it was way more romantic than where he actually wrote it: an office cubicle in Nashville on his lunch-break from the commercial real estate firm he worked at right out of college.  However, it is true that more than a couple of his tunes were first tried out on Billy Ray and his select group of ‘Westies that would drop by with a bottle or two and a bag of burgers now and then.  Jimmy called them his “focus-group,” and would always stop in when he was between tours.

     Billy Ray shuffled around the bar and grabbed his beach towel from the back of the bar-stool where he had left it to dry.  He then walked out the front and only door, stripped naked, waved at the elderly hotel guest at across the yard who didn't think this was proper behavior for one’s own doorway, and stepped into the outdoor shower stall.  The water came from a rainwater collector mounted on the roof, with hot water coming from a solar-powered tank, also on the roof.  After a nice long shower, Billy Ray wrapped the towel around his middle so as to avoid repeated offense, stretched and wandered back inside his shack, wondering whatever possessed him to set an alarm for 9 in the a. of m., and hoping it wasn't something important he had forgotten.

     Now dressed in Key West local attire of sport fishing advertising tee-shirt, cargo shorts, old boat shoes with no socks and a Florida State baseball cap, Billy Ray made his way back to the bar, just about tripping over the reason for the 9 a.m. alarm before he actually saw it.  Or rather, saw him: a slightly pudgy man dressed in a tan suit, whose open briefcase was up on the bar.  The man was fishing around for something in there.  He stood up and greeted Billy Ray, who just now had remembered that his guest was his father’s estate attorney.  “Let’s get this over with,” Billy Ray sighed.

     “Thank you, Mr. Calhoun, and once again, I am so sorry for your loss.”

     “Not much of a loss, Mr…”

     “Howe, Mr. Calhoun.”

     “You can just call me Billy Ray, Mr. Howe.  Everyone does.  Except for my old man.  He never called me much at all, which was fine for both of us.”

     “Yes, well your father did leave you a small legacy: $75,000 worth in mature government bonds, as well as some family papers.  He was devoted to researching the life of your ancestor, John C. Calhoun.”

     “Yeah, old J.C.C. meant more to my father than I did,” replied Billy Ray.  “I guess that famous dead relatives are a whole lot less disappointing than living, breathing relatives who don’t –what was it he used to say? –who don’t realize their true potential, that was it.”

     “Every father loves his son, Mr. Calhoun,” said Attorney Howe.

     “Call me Billy Ray.  Mr. Calhoun died a couple of months back in Charlestown, South Carolina.  So, what do we have to do this morning, because I told a friend I’d help him out with a charter group of Jap businessmen who wanted to haul a blue marlin back to Tokyo with them.”

     “Just sign this account authorization, Mr. Calhoun.  This creates the bank account into which your inheritance will be deposited.  And sign here, saying that I explained that to you.  And sign over here on this paper, stating that you are next of kin to the deceased and that all taxes, debts and duties have been paid by the estate executor, who is me.  Sign here, which is a statement of my accounting, showing that the taxes, debts, etc., have been paid.  And finally, sign here.  This acknowledges your receipt of the decedent’s family papers, as stipulated by article IV, section 7, paragraph 19, clause 3 of your father’s will.  Oops, sign this line here, too.  This says I have presented you with this true copy of he will.  Do you have any questions I can answer?”

     “Nope, you’ve been very straightforward, Mr. Howe.  Thanks a lot.  You need directions out of here?” asked Billy Ray.

     “No thank you, Mr. Calhoun.  It is a small island with only one road off.”

     “That’s right, Mr. Howe.  You’re at the last stop sign in the continental Confederate States of America.  Go the wrong way and you’ll have a few sharks to keep you company on your swim to Cuba,” said Billy Ray with a wink.

     “I suppose you’re right, Mr. Calhoun.  And once again, I am so sorry about your loss.”

    

     “And once again, Mr. Howe, it ain’t that much of a loss.  That, and just call me Billy Ray –everyone does.”

     “Certainly Mr… certainly, Billy Ray,” said the attorney, shaking Billy Rays hand in parting.  He eased himself into some kind of expensive Kraut land-yacht that was backed into Billy Ray’s front yard (there was no driveway –Billy Ray thought having a driveway when he didn't own a car was just too flashy), turned left at the motel and right onto the causeway.

     Billy Ray watched him go, noting that the flags in front of the motel were twisting this way and that, as if the breeze couldn't make up its mind which direction to blow.  This could cause a problem later out on the water, as it was the beginning of tropical storm season.  There is nothing worse than a boatload of Jap landlubbers puking over the rail in the middle of a dirty squall, he thought to himself.  Better check the marine report at the bait dock before picking up the party. 

     After checking to make sure he had his rigging knife and wallet on him, Billy Ray grabbed a tube of zinc oxide from under the bar, leaving the legal papers on the bar for a later look.  As he walked up the street towards the municipal marina, the breeze finally decided to blow out of the southeast, making the motel flags (Jolly Roger, Florida and the Stars ‘n Bars, respectively) snap on their poles.  Maybe today would be ok for fishing.  Hell, a bad day of fishing beats a good day at work, thought Billy Ray with a half-smile.