Starting to drift into
sleep in spite of the anger and panicTuning in
to the mild respiration of the Gulf
I can do this, I thoughtLike when
you remembered what B-and-C stood for
82
I thought of the kid saying They condemned a
couple beach houses at the north end of Casey Key
and there was something thereMy stump was
itching like a mad bastardBut pretend that's
some other guy's stump in some other universe,
meantime chase that thing, that rag, that bone,
that connection -
- drifting away -
Although if a big storm like Charley ever hits
this part of the coast dead-on -
And bingo
Charley was a hurricane, and when hurricanes
struck, I peeked at The Weather Channel, like the
rest of America, and their hurricane guy wasShe seemed to weigh at least
twenty pounds in my soupy, half-asleep http://www.enluxury.com/categorys_40_Yachtmaster_1.html" target="_blank state"The
hurricane guy is Jim Cantore," I said"My helpout
guy is Jack Cantori I
flopped her back down and closed my eyesI might
have heard that faint sigh from the Gulf for
another ten or fifteen seconds
I slept until sundownIt was the deepest, most
satisfying sleep I'd had in eight months
83
v
I had done no more than nibble on the plane, and
consequently woke up ravenousI did a dozen heelslides
instead of the usual twenty-five to loosen
my hip, made a quick trip to the bathroom, then
lurched toward the kitchenI was leaning on my
crutch, but not as heavily as I might have
expected, given the length of my napMy plan was
to make myself a sandwich, maybe twoI hoped for
sliced bologna, but reckoned any lunchmeat I found
in the fridge would be okayI'd call Ilse after I
ate and tell her http://www.enluxury.com/scategory_30_Cartier-Watches.html" target="_blank I'd arrived safelyIlse could be
depended upon to e-mail everyone else with an
interest in the welfare of Edgar FreemantleThen
I could take tonight's dose of pain medication and
explore the rest of my new environmentThe whole
second floor awaited
What my plan hadn't taken into account was how the
westward view had changed
The sun was gone, but there was still a brilliant
orange band above the flat line of the GulfIt
was broken in only one place, by the silhouette of
some large shipIts shape was as simple as a
84
first-grader's drawingA cable stretched taut
from the bow to what I assumed was the radio tower,
creating a triangle of lightAs that light skied
upward, orange faded to a breathless Maxfield
Parrish blue-green that I had never seen before
with my own eyesand yet I had a sense of http://www.enluxury.com" target="_blank d?ja
vu, as if maybe I had seen it, in my dreamsMaybe
we all see skies like that in our dreams, and our
waking minds can never quite translate them into
colors that have names
Above, in the deepening black, the first stars
I was no longer hungry, and no longer wanted to
call IlseAll I wanted to do was draw what I was
looking atI knew I couldn't get all of it, but I
didn't care - that was the beauty partI didn't
give Shit One
My new employee (for a moment I blanked on his
name again, then I thought Weather Channel, then I
thought Jack: case fuckin closed) had put my
knapsack of art supplies in the second bedroomI
flailed my way out to the Florida room with it,
carrying it awkwardly and trying to use my crutch
at the same timeA mildly curious breeze lifted
my hairThe idea that such a http://www.enluxury.com/scategory_30_Cartier-Watches.html" target="_blank breeze and snow in
85
StPaul might exist at the same time, in the same
world, seemed absurd to me - science fiction
I set the sack down on the long, rough wooden
table, thought about snapping on a light, and
decided against itI would draw until I couldn't
see to draw, and then call it a nightI sat in my
awkward fashion, unzipped the bag, pulled out my
padARTISAN, it said on the frontGiven the
level of my current skills, that was a jokeI
grubbed deeper and brought out my box of colored
pencils
I drew and colored quickly, hardly looking at what
I was doingI shaded up from an arbitrary
horizon-line, stroking my Venus Yellow from side
to side with wild abandon, sometimes going over
the ship (it would be the first tanker in the
world to come down with yellow jaundice, I
reckoned) and not http://www.enluxury.com" target="_blank cari