Lee Harper Oswald

25.3

Osceola reluctantly agreed to drive Rupert from Myakka back to the Royal Courtyard Econo-Regency Chalet, but after they got into his teal 1988 Mazda Tracer and Rupert belted himself in, Osceola looked at him and said: “Got some Cristy, man, you wanna horn this shit?”

And with that, Osceola pulled a pipe from his front pocket along with a piece of balled up aluminum foil.

For a split second, Rupert didn’t think his usual first thought whenever he was exposed to a pipe, but it was only a second—progress!—and then he descended into a choking, red-faced spasm, twisting under the seatbelt, trying to get air. The interior of the Tracer turned pistachio, cream, and plaid—the worst was the plaid—the air smelled of Bacardi and cheese fondu. Every nerve in Rupert’s body screamed at him to run, to escape, but at the very least, for fuck’s sake, breathe.

“Oh yeah, Bill told me you could bust some moves,” Osceola said and lit up. Dogs barked nearby.

Rupert made a stalwart effort to turn his body to the right and look out the window. In a minute, his throat opened enough to pull in some air, and he reached forward and rolled down the window.

“Man, you’re gonna put up a flag,” Osceola said.

“Fuck you,” Rupert wheezed and watched the Spanish moss’s languid waving in the hot, late-afternoon breeze.

“Freeze! Hands Up!” A voice yelled behind a stand of Fiddlewood and Osceola froze, squeezing his eyes shut as if he believed that if he couldn’t see the cops, they couldn’t see him. He waited for the danger to pass. As Rupert looked out the window, half-gasping for air, half-dazed, two black labs ran by and his gaze settled on a pair of lashless eyes peering through the Fiddlewood, glaring intensely, but looking exhausted. Bucket. He’d followed them all the way from Spanish Point.

One foot was planted on the ground beneath the Fiddlewood, but the other was about four feet in the air, a little to the left, and upside down. Rupert instinctively knew exactly what was going on—Bakabass yogic telepathic molestation. Bucket was trying to get into his head. Simply assuming this almost made it real. This jolted Rupert’s system and he pulled in a massive dose of oxygen through his constricted throat. At that moment, the Tracer sped backward spraying gravel into the Fiddlewood stand, breaking Bucket’s trance and causing him to fall backwards and out of sight. Rupert had managed to squirm his shoulder out from under the belt strap during his trauma-induced seizure and now thunked his forehead against the dashboard.

Freeze! and Hands Up! came out of nowhere as Osceola did the fastest six-point turn Rupert had ever witnessed or experienced, then they were zipping through the labyrinth of park roadway, eventually getting on Route 41 heading north. Despite Osceola’s obvious drug use and accompanying paranoia, Rupert was surprised that this white boy would be alarmed at the prospect of possible interaction with law enforcement—especially in Florida—but then, he did identify as “Indian.”

What felt like an hour later, they were heading toward the motel, and Osceola had calmed down enough to tell Rupert the story of the ostrich.

“Everyone local knows about it,” he said, his seat leaned so far back he was almost lying down and Rupert doubted he could see over the steering wheel.

“Oh?”

“Word is that it escaped from a tourist petting zoo over a decade ago, and since then it’s become like a . . . ”

Osceola struggled for the right word. His high caused him to pitch his gaze from one side to the other as if watching an invisible tennis match, always seeing something in his peripheral. This disconcerted Rupert as Osceola was driving.

“A legend?”

“Yeah, like a legend.”

“Kind of like the . . . what is it?” Rupert said. “The Florida Skunk Ape.” And then: “Sixty-five, dude.” His spracked companion kept losing speed the further they went, overcompensating and hoping not to be pulled over for speeding, so when Osceola got down too slow, Rupert reminded him of the speed limit.

Osceola looked at Rupert and huffed a half-laugh. “Skunk Ape? Nah, man, that’s stupid.”

* * *

It was dark by the time Rupert got back to his room, exhausted. Between the heat, the dehydration, having to deal with both Efunibi and Osceola, then the unexpected panic attack accompanied by Bucket and his dogs, Rupert could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

The freezing AC of the Royal Courtyard Econo-Regency Chalet didn’t even affect him.

“Fuck yourself,” he said to Angel without looking at her as he walked past and into the darkened hallway. Once he got inside, he saw the flashing message light on the phone and ignored it. He stood wavering in front of an until-now ignored full-length mirror on the wall and stared at himself in the imminent gloaming. He looked like shit. He felt like shit – pretty sure between Efunibi’s clubbing and cracking his head on Osceola’s dash, he was concussed. He wasn’t going to listen to that message because it was Pyrdewy and not Leenda, because what the hell would someone like Leenda want with someone like the monstrosity looking back at him?

He moved from the mirror, pulled his cross-body bag over his head, and dropped it on the floor. He then glowered at the innocuous-looking aloe plant on the table and said: “Way to go, genius.”

The Plant with No Name—a surprise to no one—said nothing.

Rupert spent the next hour drinking a gallon of water in small increments until he felt almost normal, and vowed never to eat at the FFG again, despite being ravenous.

Then he fell asleep, still fully dressed in his sweat-stiff shirt and shorts.

There was a dream, he thought. It felt like he had dreamed, but whatever it was had disappeared when he woke, immediately forgotten.

Rupert looked at his watch. It had only been twenty minutes, but he felt like he’d experienced a deep and profound, hours-long sleep. Whatever the dream had been, it must not have been anything like that other one—the one he didn’t like so much to think about. Except for the ending. Generally speaking, despite his enthusiasm for the concept of entropy, Rupert liked happy endings.

He got up and turned on a few lights. Looked around. He looked for something, but wasn’t sure what it was. He felt very awake, very clear headed. This was odd.

Rupert stripped and took a shower. He ran the water cool and it felt good to slough off all the chaos and filth from the day, which already seemed like yesterday. Or last week. As the soapsuds ran down the drain and disappeared, Rupert felt reborn. It was the most lucid he’d felt in, well, ever.

He toweled off, put on a clean pair of shorts, but didn’t bother with a shirt. He wasn’t going anywhere. Then he went straight to his cross-body bag, gathered his laptop, tablets, folders, and other things he typically carried with him, and he pushed the Plant with No Name, who still said nothing, to the side and set up a workstation. He wasn’t sure what he would be working on, but there was an idea in his head. It had yet to reveal itself to him, not even a vague idea of its subject. But it was complete; he knew that. It contained every step required and steps for each step. It was so detailed; there would be no way to screw it up.

Rupert sat before his open laptop, a blank document staring back at him, cursor blinking like the message button on the phone, which he’d forgotten about. A tablet full of blank pages to his right. His favorite, most reliable pen. And his clear but still-empty brain. The plant waited. Rupert ignored it. He felt no pressure. And then . . . .

There began an all-night attack of pure genius and insanity. Rupert typed, each word perfect, each letter expertly tapped without a single mistake—every movement in the design, every step. Everything bulleted and numbered, lettered, graphed, and charted. Every few pages he would slide the laptop aside and pick up the pen, sketching feverishly every angle and placement, listing each element, every ingredient. It got so that it wasn’t like he thought at all, as if he were a man possessed. As if he’d tapped into the part of his brain that dealt not with the physical, but linked his psyche to the nameless Universe, through it and into the bright soul-light of his Will and Intellect, which fired electric impulses back through his body and generated a wheel of unquenchable desire in his heart.

His heart . . .

* * *

 “Whoa-ho, dude, sounds like you were all lit up on Casper . . . ” Shit Pail interrupts again. Her ass seems to have sunk deeper into the bucket and Rupert hopes she’ll notice before she hits the bottom.

“What?” Rupert feels like he should have this drug lingo down pat by now, but it really is like learning a whole new language.

“Scrabble . . . ”

Rupert shakes his head.

“Rocky II.”

He just looks at her, helpless.

“Pony . . . Kryptonite . . . Hubba . . . Grit . . . Fries . . . Egg . . . Dip . . . Croak . . . Twinkie . . . ”

Rupert continues to shake his head.

“ . . . Squaretime Bob . . . Quill . . . Onion . . . Nuggets . . . Kokomo . . . Jelly Beans . . . How-Do-You-Like-Me-Now? . . . Golfball . . . Eastside Player . . . Double Yoke . . . Crunch n’ Munch . . . Cookies . . . Beamers . . . Yimyom . . . ”

“I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Crack! Cocaine! Crack cocaine.”

“I had never done a single illicit drug . . . ”

“Well, I hope we get out of here soon so we can call the fuckin’ Queen and tell her.”

“You are awfully tetchy,” Rupert said after a long pause.

Shit Pail kicks her feet, then stops, defeated, and sighs. “Just . . . continue.”

* * *

As Rupert’s fingers typed away and his Id dictated the blueprint of his aspirations, he drew back into a quiet corner of his mind.

This is perfect. Yes. The lab. The location. Everything. And when it’s finished, and when it’s ready, and when it’s up and running, and it’s out on the street, and people are throwing themselves off buildings for it, she’ll come and she’ll see how amazing it is. We’ll never have to go back to the museum, or Pyrdewy, and everything will be amazing. And she’ll love me like I love her.

He wondered where he could get a dozen frozen baby alligators, and then he wondered if Leenda would marry him.

Of course she would—he’d be a wildly successful, sexy entrepreneur. He would be the head of RupeLee Industries.

He would need a live alligator if she would marry him, which she would, and he would tie the ring onto the end if its tail and they’d ride it into the swamps of Myakka, and he’d tell her all about how the world was formed, his world, and how many days it took him to create it, and that he would never rest, could never rest.

Rupert would be the self-assured, brilliant, benevolent King, and Leenda—lovely Leenda—would be his intellectual, beautiful electric Queen, and if there was a bone in her body that didn’t feel perfect in her own mind, he would break it, pull it out, and let it grow again—it would be pure gold, like the rest of her. They would rule over a wilderness populated by enlightened citizens who sincerely didn’t give a fuck about anything.

Florida Men.

And it will be perfect.

Suddenly, Rupert stood straight up, almost toppling the table, spilling some of the plant’s water, and he shouted: “I never received my goddamn tax return!”

He proceeded to dial 911.

*

The next morning, Rupert awoke still shirtless, disheveled—somehow he’d even lost his shorts, which he hoped were at least still in the same room as him. He felt hung over, which he dismissed as the unfortunate side effect of yesterday’s physically and mentally taxing excursion to and from Myakka, and he got up, popped a couple of aspirin, and made a pot of coffee.

On the table sat his laptop, screen blank in sleep mode, and a tablet full of impeccable super meth lab schematics and comprehensive lists of various items. The last page that had anything on it was full of doodles—the largest of which was Leenda naked, riding an alligator with a big diamond ring tied to the end of its tail. Her mouth was a perfect O. Then, the next few pages were ripped out.

He set the tablet down and looked at the Plant with No Name, who, again, provided no answers.

“You suck,” he said to it.

He wandered around the room, still looking for clues as to last night’s potential debacle (and his shorts). On the nightstand sat evidence of a foiled attempt at sexual gratification—a partially disassembled alarm clock, wires inexpertly stripped too far. He experienced his usual red-flush burst of shame any time he was faced with his own kink, but it was quickly replaced with relief. Whatever had happened last night—however out of his gourd he’d been—he hadn’t been so far gone as to electrocute himself into the Sarasota morgue, in flagrante delicto.

He now noticed that he’d been lying, sleeping, on the torn-out pages of the tablet. He also noticed the phone receiver was out of its cradle and stuffed into a pillowcase with the pillow.

Rupert sat on the bed, replaced the receiver, and picked up the sheets of paper, which were wrinkled, the ink of the writing smeared here and there. It was somewhat illegible, but he was able to make out something about his tax returns, something about the possibility of getting arrested and what looked to be the phone number of the closest bail bond service. Something about the IRS and a phone number with too many digits. He thought of Bill and how he’d become the weekly amusement of the local 911 dispatch. There were also clearly fake, lewd names: Officer Jack Mehoff, Dispatcher Anita Blackman, Sergeant Barry McCaulkiner. The list went on, and some were scribbled out and rewritten, as if he’d spelled them wrong and had been coached to get it right. Presumably fake badge numbers accompanied each name.

Rupert wondered how long this had gone on. Horrified, he turned to the Plant with No Name, which sat innocent on the table.

“Did I call 911?”

The plant said nothing.

Rupert got up and tossed the crumpled police notes near the trashcan, then took several measured, traumatized steps to the window before which the table sat. He looked out over the parking lot, toward the Florida Fried Gator. It was already sweltering, the heat shimmering above the pavement. Rupert stood there, shirtless, shortless, sweaty and emotional—something had happened. He had changed. Something in him was broken.

Or not.

He tilted his head askance to the sound of his own inner voice.

Perhaps . . . he’d been healed.

The Plant with No Name let out a satisfied sigh that Rupert didn’t register.

Across the lot, behind the FFG, Jesus stood looking at Rupert through the window, waving. Rupert slowly raised his hand and gave a weak wave in return. Jesus held up Rupert’s shorts and gave him a what the fuck? look.

Rupert was suddenly struck with the full realization that he had called 911 about his tax return. He was one of them now—a Florida Man. There was no going back.

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The usual political clusterfuckery we’ve come to expect here in the 21^st century. Southern Baptist minister Charles Van Zant served as State Representative for Florida’s 21^st District for four years and then the 19^th District for six. In reference to the American Institute for Reasearch—an organization the state paid $220 million to design a standardized test—Van Zant is quoted as saying: “They will promote double-mindedness in state education and attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can.” To be honest, I do expect this flavor of far-right Christian conservative to express their lunatic concern about tests turning kids gay, but I don’t think anyone’s expressed concern about the level of gayness prior to this. Unsurprisingly—what with their moral compasses with machine precision—he, his wife, and his son (Charlies Van Zant, Jr, former Clay County School Superintendent—have been embroiled in various ethical investigations. If only they’d had standardized tests growing up that turned them into decent, principled citizens.

Elias, Dave. “FL State Rep: School Tests Designed To Turn Students Gay.” NBC2. Waterman Broadcasting of Florida, LLC. May 20, 2014.

Read Florida Man: Battle of the Five Meth Labs: A Love Story here.

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25.2

Rupert woke up with a headache and a dry mouth next to a dead alligator with tubes and plastic bottlenecks sticking out of its back. His sight was still a bit blurry from the blow, but he heard chanting nearby, and soon, he saw the man he’d been following. Efunibi was performing some sort of ritual over the gator lab carcass.

Please don’t fuck it, Rupert thought, unwanted dream images floating fuzzy somewhere in the muddle of his mind.

He tried to stand, using a tall palm for support. He didn’t feel in any condition to run away. Efunibi finished his prayer and, without looking at Rupert, adjusted the tubing, loosened and tightened bottle caps, then finally acknowledged Rupert’s presence and gestured gently for him to sit down. Rupert didn’t feel like he had much choice. With the headache compounded by the dehydration, he plopped back down to the ground.

Efunibi slid a plastic gallon jug full of water over to Rupert, who drank from it like Geddy Lee drank the Milk of Paradise. This, however, was not Xanadu. At least, he hoped not, or his image of Rush was completely blown.

After a moment of reflection on the timeless lyrics of a young Neil Peart—presumably an aftereffect to getting cracked in the head, but, let’s face it, probably not—Rupert wiped his mouth and looked at his host.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Efunibi put a finger to his own lips and his other hand cupped his ear, as if to say, Listen, can you hear that?

Rupert listened. He heard nothing. Nothing new, at least.

He shook his head no, but Efunibi nodded yes and smiled as if Rupert had heard whatever is was, then he closed his eyes and inhaled deep and loud through his nostrils.

This guy’s a crackpot. Thanks, plant.

The gator lab wasn’t exactly the most pleasant smell in the immediate vicinity. Finally, Efunibi opened his eyes and looked at Rupert in that forceful, yet comical way cartoon hypnotists look at you when they say, “You are now under my command.”

Rupert wiped his forehead and took another drink of water.

Finally, the guy spoke.

“I am Efunibi.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Efunibi was unfazed.

“What the hell happened?” Rupert continued. “How did I get here, and where the hell am I?”

Efunibi ignored Rupert and launched into a mystical sermon.

“You here to learn of Great Gift from Nature, Methamphetamine.”

“There is nothing natural about meth,” Rupert said, still replenishing his fluids and a little bothered that Efunibi spoke like Tonto, the 1930s radio sidekick to the Lone Ranger. This was a significant step down from Osceola and his dream catcher tattoo.

Efunibi frowned and looked at Rupert.

“Holy Nagai Nagayoshi isolate ephedrine compound in crystallized form from ancient Asian medicine plant, evergreen ma huang.” He pronounced ma huang with an exaggerated Japanese accent, which Rupert couldn’t tell if it was offensive or actually attempted cultural sensitivity, apart from what was already flagrant racism. This man was deeply triggering.

Rupert said nothing. Efunibi’s smile returned.

“When we enter nature, into Body of Holy Nagai Nagayoshi, who permeate All, something miraculous happen. We given heap big gift, we humble to accept.”

Rupert only thought of getting his system in order so that he could start walking out of wherever he was and getting away from this guy. What was he thinking, following him because of an idiot plant-gas-induced dream?

“Spirit of Holy Nagai Nagayoshi,” Efunibi continued, “live in body of animal.”

“Not plants?” Rupert interrupted. It threw Efunibi off a little.

“No, not so much plant. Plant something else.”

“Oh.”

“Each creature must be honored in traditional way,” Efunibi went on.

Somehow, Rupert didn’t think the traditional Japanese way of honoring a late-19^th-early 20thth-century chemist was to build small meth labs into every animal that kicked it.

“Not like atrocity at marina, poor Holy manatee. Manatee heap Holy in Nagai Nagayoshi tradition.”

“Is that right?’ Rupert asked.

“That right, Kemo Sabe.”

Rupert closed his eyes and pretended he didn’t hear that. Rupert suffered from such a complete overdose of outrage, he didn’t think he could take much more, and this was impressive, considering he’d been in Florida for some time now. Not only was he shaking off the still-nauseating memory of the Bucket-exploded manatee lab, not only was he haunted by necro-bestiality dream fragments, not only was this guy calling him Kemo Sabe and talking like Tonto, but Rupert saw, now that he was up close, that Efunibi, like Osceola, was without a shred of doubt a white guy. A very tanned and leathery white man.

Rupert stared hard at Efunibi, whose real name he suspected was something like Paul, or Steve. Rupert bet he was a Steve. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, but stopped, trying to keep the angry shitstorm in his brain from spilling out onto the ground, next to the dead gator.

At FFG, they’d be deep-fryin’ this fucker, he thought, then squinted his eyes to keep the stray thoughts from wriggling their way into his cortex. How many gater sandwiches have I eaten since I got here? The dead gator stench assaulted him.

“So,” he said to get the ball rolling. “You seem to have meth labs all over the—”

“Honored Ones,” Efunibi corrected.

“Honored Ones . . . all over the city, or the county. That’s a lot of meth. Where do you sell it? How?”

Efunibi laughed longer than warranted.

“No sell, Kemo Sabe.”

He’s going to keep doing that. “Well then, what do you do with it?”

“Efunibi feed back into system, into soil, plant grow, animal eat. Circle of Life.”

Should have seen “Circle of Life” coming. Rupert didn’t want to keep talking about this, but moreover, he didn’t want to sit in an uncomfortable silence with this person. Though, he doubted Efunibi could abide by silence, since he had a somewhat captive audience. Where the hell am I?

Efunibi went on.

“Great Blue Herring—”

“Heron.”

“—eat Holy swamp grass, have heap big Holy experience. Die. Become Honored One.”

He was poisoning and killing the wildlife with meth. Fuck me.

Then, Efunibi’s offensive and remarkably screwed up discourse stopped on a dime. He looked around apprehensively and Rupert felt unsafe.

Rupert couldn’t hydrate as rapidly as needed, no matter how much he drank. He zoned out from the heat and fluid loss. Perhaps also from the stupidity overload, but then he believed he heard a buzzing sound. Then again.

Efunibi pulled out his cell phone from an inside jacket pocket to answer. The buzzing stopped.

“Hello . . . ?”

Rupert heard Joe’s small voice say “sorry,” and hang up.

Efunibi, confused, also hung up and looked at Rupert as he returned his cell from whence it came. “Wrong number.”

Rupert concluded he had hallucinated it. Maybe everything. He hoped he wasn’t in another plant-fart-induced dream state.

Efunibi had his hand cupped to his ear again. This time, Rupert thought maybe he did hear something. Something moving, maybe coming their way.

“Necropoachers,” Efunibi said, inscrutable and annoying at once.

“What?” Rupert perked up a little. “What the fuck is that?”

“Heap big wildlife in Myakka State Park,” Efunibi explained.

At least Rupert now knew where he was, narrowed down to almost sixty square miles of environmental and wildlife preservation. He also realized he was about twenty-five miles from Spanish Point.

“Fuck.”

Assuming it was this crazy Caucasian turd that knocked him out and dragged him here, that’s a little much. Rupert weighed 235 pounds. This guy was absolutely hopped up on something. As if he should wonder.

Efunibi responded to Rupert’s poignant expletive and continued.

“Yes. Necropoacher think they have true way to worship Honored One. Necropoacher wander land, search for fallen animal, defile—how you say, fuck—divine holy creature before Efunibi can honor in true way.”

Rupert was speechless.

“When Efunibi not honor fallen one, Efunibi spend day hunting Necropoacher.”

“Hunting?” He didn’t even want to know what that meant, but couldn’t help himself. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

Efunibi picked up a wooden cudgel—a piece of tree root—but then put it down again, looking to have regretted exposing Rupert to his propensity for knocking people over the head.

Rupert glared at Efunibi.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “You thought I was going to fuck this alligator, didn’t you . . . ?”

Efunibi looked away and changed the subject.

The barking of dogs again—Rupert wondered if they were still somewhere near Spanish Point, or were these different dogs? And why didn’t Efunibi hear that? Perhaps because the dogs were still living, what with his preoccupation with carcasses.

“So, Kemo Sabe,” he said predictably. “You want be Big Chief. You want modern Nagai Nagayoshi Honor tradition, heap big.”

“How do you know about that?”

Efunibi smiled, which began to irritate Rupert.

“Plant tell Efunibi,” he said.

The Plant with No Name. That bastard.

“Yeah, so, I was supposed to come here and meet you. What great words of wisdom do you have to tell me about all that?” Rupert wanted to get out of here, sit in some air conditioning, and drink Superades for the rest of the day.

“Beneath love mound,” Efunibi said.

“What?” Rupert said, exasperated. His thoughts went to Leenda and his face grew redder, hotter. He couldn’t tell if he felt affronted by Efunibi referring to her mound, or if he was embarrassed that anyone knew how he felt about her or his aborted wet dream.

“Cave,” Efunibi went on.

“Look, pal . . . ” Rupert had had about enough of the euphemisms.

Even Efunibi was getting flustered at Rupert’s lack of understanding. He sighed.

“Cave. Beneath mound. Spanish Point.”

Rupert finally got it—it was obvious—and nodded. Efunibi stood.

“Come. Walk.”

Rupert rose shaky and unsteady on his feet. His head pounded for a moment before subsiding a little. He carried the water jug, the little that was left in it, and was glad to at least get away from the rotting, meth-producing, unfucked, Holy dead alligator.

As they meandered around the immediate area, Efunibi, in his exasperating manner of speaking, explained that D.E.A.T.H. program caverns extended all the way to Spanish Point, and that he knew of an alternative entrance there, though it was small and Rupert was “heap big.” Once the D.E.A.T.H. program workers cleared the chamber of water, which would be soon, Efunibi proposed a plan to close off the main entrance and then Rupert could begin to construct the greatest super lab the world, or at least Florida, had ever seen.

Rupert’s entire attitude changed, despite the fact that he was talking to and concocting a scheme with an absolute nutter—perhaps the most far-gone he’d come across thus far. His desire to hit it big here amongst the Florida People overrode his reason, or what remained of it.

“Power!” Efunibi said. “Heap big aphrodisiac.”

“That right, Tonto.” Rupert rubbed his hands together.

“Who Tonto? Also, meant to say, nice purse.”

Before Rupert could react, there was Osceola.

Without having noticed, they had meandered onto a well-maintained hiking trail, and Osceola looked embarrassed to be caught with a field guide and applying sunscreen.

“Osceola,” Rupert almost shouted, suddenly remembering he’d been trying to get away from this guy for—he had no idea how much time had passed.

“Rupie,” Osceola said, self-conscious and slipping the guide and sunblock into what looked to Rupert to actually be a man purse. “What are you doing out here? Didn’t think this was your bag.”

“It’s not. Mine’s a cross-body bag . . . ” Rupert began.

“Who this?” asked Efunibi.

“What?” Osceola looked to the other white, red man.

“Efunibi think he see you before.”

“Rupie, what the fuck?”

“Osceola, how do I—?” Rupert started.

“Yes. This Osceola heap big familiar.”

“Whoa, dude,” Osceola said, then to Rupert. “Is he for real? Is he Injun talkin’ me?”

“Yes, he is, both.” Rupert answered. “Now, if I take this trail—”

“Hey, asshole,” Osceola said to Efunibi. “You have any idea how fucking offensive that is to me and my People . . . ?”

Rupert stopped. He realized he was about to watch two white guys argue over what was and was not offensive to Native Americans while both claimed to be Native American, and that thought overrode other, more important things, like hydration and avoiding heat stroke. He half-expected Elizabeth Warren to come out and settle this once and for all.

“Actually, Efu,” Rupert said, “it is pretty offensive. Not that I know, not being Native American and all.”

“Efu?” Osceola sounded both amused and infuriated.

Efunibi sensed that this wouldn’t end well, so he put his hands out and shhhhh’d everyone. He cupped his ear.

Rupert rolled his eyes.

Just as the mystery dogs started barking up a storm, a mammoth ostrich crashed out from the surrounding foliage and onto the trail, its long legs stepping high and its neck gesticulating, moving like a snake’s body. Rupert thought he saw a furrowed brow, but he didn’t know if ostriches had that capability. He also didn’t realize they got this big.

It made straight for Efunibi.

For the next minute and a half, an awkward and hilarious struggle ensued. Rupert and Osceola, realizing they were not the targets and feeling safe by comparison, could do nothing but watch. Perhaps they could have helped, but it was a rather large, threatening bird. Finally, the marauding creature took a few steps back, inflated its neck, and then let out a low, but loud booming sound that perplexed everyone, and then it turned and was gone as unexpectedly as it had come.

Osceola looked as if he’d just had a Bigfoot encounter. Efunibi was shaken, but angry. Rupert recalled an Attenborough program from which he’d learned that male ostriches made that sound for mating purposes, and then he eyed Efunibi with suspicion.

When Efunibi caught his breath and put one of his feathers back into place, he shook a clenched fist, livid, and shouted: “Devil bird!” Then he turned, ran from the trail in the opposite direction of his assailant, and leapt out of sight into the thick of the jungle.

Rupert and Osceola watched him do this, saying nothing, and as Efunibi’s not-nearly-so nimble escaping sounds became fainter, Osceola turned to Rupert and said: “Man, that guy’s a fuckin’ dick.”

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25.1

Rupert watched Jesus’s Lincoln pull out of the Osprey School’s Visitor Center parking lot—waving as if his parents just dropped him off at camp for the summer—then he turned to the building and headed inside. The day felt like a heavy nuclear conversion and the asphalt pushed the heat up from underneath as the relentless sun beat down.

Why does anyone live in this godforsaken place? he thought as he pulled the door open and felt the anticipated cool blast of AC.

Spanish Point is a historical and environmental conglomerate of 19^th– and early 20^th-century features, including: an orange-packing house; a pioneer boatyard and cemetery; a footbridge; a house and cottage; a chapel; and a Late Archaic shell midden, which obviously predated the modern settlers. It was left to itself for almost eight centuries, until the Webb family, who named it after a Spanish trader who’d given them the tip on the land, moved down from New York in 1867 to build a homestead and start a business. Sugar cane, citrus, and a plethora of other vegetables—and, apparently, a winter resort—kept them alive, and other settlers bought parcels of the land to live on. A wealthy socialite purchased the Webb homestead in 1910, and thousands of acres surrounding it, for the purpose of commerce.

Rupert skipped through some of the pamphlet that he’d found sitting on the unmanned clerk’s counter situated across from the entrance. He noted that it was possible to make a living here outside the meth industry.

Leenda’s mound, though small, had been constructed over several generations by the prehistoric Native Americans who were also responsible for the midden. It was said to contain sharks’ teeth, pottery shards, some human bones, and other assorted things you might find in an antediluvian funerary mound.

He wanted to see Leenda’s mound, which he felt was a terrible way to put it, even to himself, but the mound didn’t have an official name like everything else at Spanish Point.

Rupert walked a short way down a cool, echo-prone corridor and turned left into the gift shop.

“Good morning,” the man behind the counter said, not too cheerful, but not rude—just the way Rupert liked his strangers.

“Good morning,” Rupert said. He felt strange in this normal environment—an average tourist attraction for normal people who enjoyed history and gardens. The still freshly departed pangs of social unease bristled beneath his skin. “I have a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“There’s a federally-funded work rehabilitation program somewhere nearby. Would you happen to know what direction it’s in, or how close it is?”

The man looked at Rupert, first as if he hadn’t heard what he said, and then like he’d just been told about Crack Planet.

“No, sir, I don’t think any such thing goes on near here. A lot of preservation land around here.”

“I see,” Rupert said, unsurprised. “Well, then. What’s the price of admission?” He smiled. The man smiled back.

The grounds map was simple enough, and he walked down a short gravel road to a much smaller, also gravel, parking area, past a water garden, and down a jungle-like path. Tropical flowers bloomed, insects buzzed, lizards scampered, and still the sun beat down. As he walked, he shielded his forehead from it with the map. Sunglasses—still—would have been helpful. And water.

Past the Pioneer Cemetery, sat “Mary’s” Chapel, named, Rupert had read, after a young woman who had died at the Webb’s winter retreat.

“What a shitty retreat,” he said to himself. Some dogs barked in the distance.

Here the paths were plainly demarcated, but surrounded with thick, high wall of myriad vegetal species, none of which Rupert could identify. He thought of the Plant with No Name and wondered if they knew each other. He chuckled, and then wondered why he hadn’t named the Plant with No Name. He then supposed if the plant had a name, or wanted a name, it would have said or it would have asked.

Why am I thinking about this?

It was beautiful here. He thought Leenda would love it when she arrived and saw it for herself, but then, he didn’t know anything. He didn’t know her. This was inescapable and produced an uncomfortable, foolish feeling in him, so he shook it off and looked at the map, then doubled back and took a narrow off-shoot trail that, according to the map, would lead him straight to the mound.

As Rupert emerged from the dense greenery and saw the mound a little way ahead—it was so much smaller than he’d imagined, but the same size as in his dream—he looked past it and off into the grass, near where two gravel walking paths intersected. Standing under an enormous tree bearing strange, alien pods, the likes of which he’d never seen, was Efunibi. Efunibi. The guy from the dream.

The guy from the dream? It was the guy from Florida Fried Gator. The guy who, Rupert suspected, cooked meth inside the carcasses of . . . and then too much of the dream flooded Rupert’s brain and he started to feel sick. He bent over and braced his hands against his knees, wishing one more time that he wouldn’t have to vomit. But he breathed deep for a moment and he felt better. Rupert straightened and then put his hand up.

“Hey!” he yelled to the guy, who stood looking at him.

Efunibi turned and ran.

“Oh, come on . . . ” Rupert started in pursuit.

He chased Efunibi down tall plant-lined paths, past something called the Guptill House, where a few animal-shaped couples’ paddle boats floated near the shore and a out-of-place-looking speedboat was docked a few yards off. Rupert followed Efunibi across Cock’s Footbridge—named for Daniel Cock, the man who’d built it in the late 1890s—which took them out to the mangrove-fringed peninsula at the northern end, where Cock’s boarding house, Fiddler’s Lodge, used to sit.

Every time he turned a corner, Rupert caught the tan fringe of Efunibi’s jacket, or the heel of his tacky cowboy boot, but was able to keep up enough to stay on his trail, despite the heat. After a while, they skirted the edge of the small cape and circled back around, bypassing the footbridge landbound on the other side of Webb’s Cove, past the cemetery and chapel, and eventually into the parking lot of the visitor center.

Neither ran at this point, just speed walking and covered in sweat.

Dogs barked again, though perhaps closer. Rupert barely registered this and only did because he thought he’d heard a voice, despite that he, Efunibi, and the visitor center employee seemed to be the only human beings for miles, assuming Efunibi was, indeed, human.

They moved past the visitor center—Rupert dodged a large luxury sedan driven by a tiny Jewish lady with amazing hair—and across the Tamiami Trail for a quick, but harrowing game of Frogger. Soon, they stalked across a carpet of wiregrass, past shrubs and Saw Palmetto, where the land presented an occasional stately oak strewn with Spanish moss or a tall, dark pine.

The terrain was changing.

About two miles and three gallons of sweat later, a somewhat delirious Rupert now wondered what a staggerbush even looked like, remembering some of the species weirdly whispered by the Plant with No Name in its eerie Walken-Busey voice. When he looked up, he found he’d lost sight of Efunibi.

The combination of loading up on salty FFG take away prior to arriving and the consequential premature dehydration prompted what Rupert rightly presumed was a case of entropy within a biological system—the biological system, in this case, being himself. He was starting to shut down.

He stopped, panting, dying for some water, bent over, hands on knees, a little lightheaded and wobbly, and then, a blow to the back of his head turned the sun’s light out.

 

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24

Rupert pushes his way through a mass of thick-stemmed, dinosaur-vegetation, vines and mega-leaves thrashing and slapping at his face, but he moves swiftly. He has to keep up. Ahead of him—leading him, he thinks—a form moves stealthily through the jungle foliage. All around him, the dark-night avian sounds shriek and whistle, calling to one another. He thinks they’re talking about him. Grass blades slice his fawn flesh, lighter, almost white in this darkness. But he has to keep up.

He moves faster, closing the distance between himself and his guide, and he sees a flash of fringe, the flutter of a feather, a swathe of grey hair, silver in the pale moonlight filtering through the palms above—Efunibi. Efunibi. And then he’s gone.

Rupert stands breathless in a clearing, the scent of long-past brush fires lingering, combining with the stinking decay of animal meat and meth. The birds have flown and it is silent, deafeningly so. Rupert covers his ears to it. Soon, behind him, muted by his hands, comes a grunting and moaning, of someone being eaten and of one eating. Or the sound of lifeless pleasure, a communion with a thing that has ceased. Rupert instinctively denotes the latter, and removes his hands—the sound is obscenely loud, accompanied by a soft, moist pushing and pulling. He turns to see an orgy of repulsion—several small, naked men, their ashen flesh glowing against the charred ground, thrusting themselves into any opening they can find in the animal carcasses strewn around the space of a circle, a depraved sacred rite embracing myriad species. Rupert’s diaphragm heaves a spastic push upward but he doesn’t vomit, nor can he look away.

The sounds of this sickening display grow louder, more intense, closer to all the little deaths threatening to explode over and into this stratum of putrefying dead flesh. Finally, a man in the center begins to whimper, weak at first, though building, coming closer, closer, louder, he is keening now, and then he bursts into flames. They all catch like blazing dominoes, their quarry cooking beneath them, finally free from their filthy assault. The stench of roast flesh and fresh coitus assaults Rupert’s senses, then he sees from his peripheral his guide, standing at the edge of the clearing. Efunibi turns and walks back into the jungle. Rupert runs.

Again, he catches up, almost able to reach out and grab the fringe of Efunibi’s jacket. The flora is not as dense now, more like an overgrown path. Rupert feels safer being on a course that had at least once been tread forward and back from wherever it is he is being lead. He didn’t want to be the first. The vegetation thins a little more with each step, and with that, he can see further into the edges of the path. Suddenly, huge misshapen marionettes, dangling from vines and flailing grotesquely, swinging their foam-flesh limbs at Rupert. He can make out their faces—Fulva, and Bill, and Osceola, and Tommy, and Bucket, and Joe, and Merideth, and even Derek Peterson, though his face is indistinct—all snarling and flapping their arms and legs. Those who make contact create no impact. Rupert feels nothing, and all he hears is a cackle from Efunibi, who has once again disappeared.

Rupert now stands in the middle of a colossal cavern, its bottom flat and damp, its ceiling a roiling, living thing, at the center of which sucks a quivering, puckering anus. Rupert covers his head intuitively, though nothing falls, but there is a sudden and blinding fluorescent blue-white light, and after the flash, the hovering asshole remains, but the cavern is now bright and furnished with numerous items—shining steel countertops, blenders, pails and buckets, gas cans and funnels, glassware and tubing. Immense storage containers line the entire diameter of the area, bubbling and stinking, manned by masked, HazMatted henchmen. Rupert realizes these men work for him. But the anus above still sucks, and sucks, and soon, he feels his feet lift from the ground, and he his heading straight up, squeezing into the now-gaping, living hole. It closes around him, compresses his form, changes him somehow, and in no time, births him above ground, out of the heart of a grass-covered burial mound.

He is clean. He is on his hands and knees, and he looks down into Leenda’s eyes. He moves between her legs, losing himself in an instant, almost crushing her, and she moans, but keeps a steady gaze. It pierces him and runs electric through his brain, zapping rhythmically into his heart. He closes his eyes and he comes closer, and closer, green flashing behind his lids with each thrust, each step nearer to rapture. The green light means go, it says go, and he lets go . . . .

* * *

When Rupert woke up, it was dark. His usual frustrating failure to finish what began as a wet dream came as a blessing this time. He didn’t think these sheets were ever changed.

The green message light on the phone next to the bed blinked on and off, illuminating the entire room. His head was empty, but of what? He had no way to comprehend, but the final image of Leenda stayed, sound and lasting in his mind.

Surely it was her.

He picked up the receiver to retrieve the message, impatiently enduring the motel’s preamble, and then:

“Hey, Mount Macaca.” Pyrdewy.

Motherfucker.

“My people tell me a large, moo-lah-toh guy came sniffing around the D.E.A.T.H. program today. Said it was the first time they’d ever seen you. Not good, my friend. The Spliphsonian has a policy against hiring liars, even to mop shit.”

Rupert sighed, still groggy.

“You’re in a lot of trouble, guy. You’ve got one last chance. You’d better get your ass back down there tomorrow, bring your Methhead posse, if indeed they exist, and do what I told you to do. We need scholarly research. And we need you to play along, get it? Gotta go along to get along and you need to get along if you still wanna keep doing what you’re doing, capisce? And, hey . . . better keep an eye on Marge. Sounded like she took a shine to you.”

The call ended with abruptly-cut laughter. Rupert rubbed his eyes.

“No,” he said out loud to himself. “Nope. Fuck this. I’m not doing this. Fuck him.” And with that, he turned over, pulled a pillow over his head, and sank back to sleep, meditating and synchronizing his deep breathing with that final dream image of Leenda, on the grassy mound.

In the dark, the Plant with No Name smiled.

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