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.