Atomic Lobster (6 page)

ALTERNATE U.S. HIGHWAY
19

A
’73 Mercury Comet sped north from St. Petersburg, up through Clearwater and Dunedin, respective ethnic strongholds of Scientologists and Scotsmen. The January 1947 issue of
National Geographic
lay open to page 132 in Serge’s lap.

“Six minutes,” said Coleman. “Five minutes, fifty-five seconds…Five minutes, fifty…”

Serge gritted his teeth, blue knuckles on the steering wheel.

“…Five minutes, thirty-five seconds…Five minutes…”

Serge screamed and attacked the sun visor. “You’re driving me insane!”

Rachael crumpled an empty cigarette pack. “What’s the stupid counting about?”

“He does this every time,” said Serge, unbending the visor. “Seven
A.M
….”

“…When they start selling alcohol again,” said Coleman. “Four minutes, thirty-five seconds…Four minutes, thirty seconds…Start looking for a convenience store…. Four minutes…”

Later in the countdown: Coleman stood with a beer suitcase in a Grab ’N Dash. There were two lines at the registers. One that moved, and a much longer, stationary one that stared at a wall clock and chanted. “…One minute, fifteen…One minute, ten…”

Serge paced the sidewalk. “Come onnnnnnn!” He waved a
National Geographic
at the store window. “This only happens once a year!” Rachael tore the cellophane off a fresh, untaxed pack of Marlboro Lights meant for export that had been sold on the black market by a Honduran gang working the port.

Coleman finally climbed back into the car, and he and Rachael ripped open the twelve-pack like wild dingos. Serge threw the Comet in gear and floored it up Alternate 19. Eagles on the radio.

“…The Greeks don’t want no freaks…”

It was a short, ten-block drag race. Serge skidded into the first available parking slot, jumped out and popped the trunk. He grabbed something from a duffel bag and slammed the hood. “We have to hurry!”

Coleman and Rachael remained glued in the backseat, cracking more beers.

“No! No! No!” yelled Serge, snatching for cans that they pulled out of range. “You’re going to make me late for my special day!”

“It’s cool,” said Coleman. “We can take ’em with us.” He reached under his seat for a pair of small, flexible magnetic sheets.

“What are those?” asked Serge.

“Watch.” Coleman wrapped one of the rectangular magnets around his beer. It had a Coca-Cola design. “This way you can drink on the street.” He handed the other to Rachael.

She curled a Pepsi magnet around her own can. “Where’d you get these?”

“They sell them wherever there’s a college nearby.” Coleman reached under the seat again and held up a plastic funnel attached to a long, clear tube. “Same place I got my beer bong.”

Serge pounded fists on the roof. “Can we go now?”

They headed up the sidewalk: ancient buildings, ancient boats, ancient storefronts with bolts of cloth, ancient family bakeries that let the aroma of fresh Mediterranean bread do their advertising. The cool morning street reverberated with the tin echo of low-fidelity radios all tuned to the same lyrical foreign language. Fourth-generation locals had arrived first, for morning coffee from the homeland, and now tourists, who filled the sponge docks, sponge museum,
sponge souvenir stands, getting their pictures taken with the statue of a sponger in an antique brass diving helmet.

“Serge,” said Coleman. “What’s the deal with all the sponges?”

“Shhhh!” snapped Serge. “Keep your voice down. You always culturally embarrass me.”

“How?”

“Like on Calle Ocho when you asked the lunch-counter lady what a Cuban sandwich was.”

“Didn’t want to eat strange shit.”

“You’re in Tarpon Springs, sponge capital of America. Or was, until they started making artificial ones in factories.”

Rachael finished her beer and tossed the can in the street.

Serge screamed.

“I’m on it!” said Coleman. He trotted off the curb. A station wagon hit the brakes and honked. Coleman peeled the Pepsi wrapper from the can and stuck it in his pocket. Then he threw the can back in the street.

Serge yelled again. He dashed over and grabbed it. “What’s wrong with you guys? Littering is like taking a big dump on the community.” He looked around. “Where’s a designated garbage receptacle?”

“Up there,” said Coleman. “End of the block.”

A thunder of footsteps went by, high school boys wearing the same white shorts and shirts, all clearly athletic except the last one, a scrawny youth a foot shorter than the rest, panting hard.
“Hey guys! Wait up!”

The group stopped.
“Nikolai wants us to wait up.”

Nikolai reached the gang. They shoved him in the bushes and took off. The boy crawled out.
“Wait up!”

Serge approached the garbage can. “Hate bullies…”

A deep voice from behind. “Hold it right there, fella!”

Serge turned around. A police officer marched toward him. “You’re under arrest for open container.”

“What?” Serge looked at the can in his hand, then stared daggers at Coleman and Rachael. “You!—Why!—I’m gonna!—” He clenched his eyes shut, the slide show of a grim future flickering in
side his skull: handcuffs, photos, fingerprints, fifty positive hits in a computer network’s unsolved-crime database, and, finally, death row. Of all the jams he’d squeezed out of just for this! He had to think of something fast. He opened his eyes….

ALACHUA COUNTY

Inland Florida is like another state, especially toward the north end of the peninsula. More Dixie than South Beach. Horse ranches, church steeples.

The prominent feature is population. Not much. But on this January morning, the country roads were unusually busy, all in one direction, toward Gainesville. The nature of the traffic was another departure: newer vehicles, expensive, sporty. With Christmas break over, nearly fifty thousand students were returning to the University of Florida.

State Road 24 ran particularly slow, a tiny, two-lane highway, the end of the only southbound route down from Jacksonville. Just inside the county line, a large farmhouse appeared atop a hill. Hanging plants and a cedar swing on the front porch. A birdhouse made from hollowed-out gourds. No farm activity. Because this type of outskirts residence was increasingly favored by tenured professors who needed sanity.

Sunlight streamed through the kitchen, where a coffeepot perked beneath a window overlooking a feeding station and an arriving hummingbird. A fresh cup was poured. A man tested the temperature with a tiny sip. He took careful steps across the varnished floor slick with blood. Red hand streaks ran down cabinet doors and the refrigerator, more splatter by the sink, which held a carving knife, tip snapped off. The man casually walked around a woman’s body and into the living room, searching for anything else of value. An open suitcase on the dining room table was almost full. He strolled past the fireplace and went through the pockets of a man’s body slumped in another spreading pool. He finished enjoying his coffee.

A noise outside.

A black Camaro drove up the dirt road to the house. Gators
license plate and fraternity bumper sticker. A young man in a polo shirt bounded up the steps. He was about to knock when the door opened. His expression changed.

“Who are you?”

“Handyman.”

The youth peeked around the husky frame. “Where are my parents?”

“Not here.”

“Car’s in the driveway.”

“Maybe someone gave them a ride.”

Their eyes remained locked for the longest time. The man in the doorway smiled. The youth slid a foot backward. “I-I-I think I’ll drop by again later.”

“Why don’t you wait? They said they’d just be a few minutes.”

“No, I’m really in a hurry.” The young man took another step back and pointed at his Camaro. “Have to be somewhere.” He took off running.

TARPON SPRINGS

S
erge pleaded desperately with the cop. “…Honest, I found this beer can in the street. The garbage bin’s right there. I was just tidying up civilization.”

“Sure you were, buddy”—reaching for the cuffs.

“Wait. Officer, I know how this looks. A guy’s carrying a decapitated head down the sidewalk, he’s probably not a mortician. But I’m always on trash patrol. Ask around. Littering’s a crime, too, right? So I’m like police auxiliary, and we take care of each other. The Blue Wall of Silence”—wink—“smell my breath…” Serge blew a hot gust in the officer’s face.

The officer fanned it away, but he had to admit: no alcohol.

“Officer!” Coleman stepped forward. “This man’s innocent. I can prove it!”

“Wonderful,” said Serge. “My lawyer’s here.”

“It was my can,” continued Coleman. “I mean, I drank it legally, but then forgot and littered. Luckily my friend Serge was there. He hates litterbugs. You should have seen what he did to this one guy. He’ll never litter with his right hand again—”

“Stay where you are!” ordered the officer. He sniffed the air. Even at a range of three paces, Coleman smelled like a brewery. The cop turned to Serge. “Let me see that can.”

Serge gave it to him. The officer turned it over. Nothing came out. Street discretion time. Drunk guy with no beer can; sober guy with empty one. The whole situation was highly weird and utterly routine. “Okay, I actually believe you.” He returned the cuffs to their leather holster and snapped it shut.

“You’re kidding,” said Coleman. “You’re just going to let him go? Because cops can be real pricks.”

The officer handed the can back to Serge. “Throw it away first chance you get. And you might want to take care of your friend. He’s dangerously close to disorderly conduct…. Have a nice day.”

The trio resumed walking. A small boy crawled from shrubbery.
“Guys! Wait up!”

Serge’s face reddened. “Can’t tell you how much I hate bullies! People think you just grow up and forget about it. But you don’t. See what’s already happening to that kid?”

“No.”

“The syndrome of seeking approval from your tormentors, who only continue sapping self-esteem in a vicious circle that leads to a colorful menu of emotional disturbance in later years. Luckily I caught mine in time. Probably never guessed I was picked on.”

“You were?”

“Well, once. Nobody could prove anything, and the bully was too freaked to rat me out, but after they cut him down from the radio tower even the guidance counselors avoided me.” Serge looked up the sidewalk. “I wish I was
that
kid’s guidance counselor.”

“What would you say?”

“Find a radio tower.”

They took a few more steps. Serge stopped. “Where are they going?”

“Who?”

“Those kids turned up that street. They’re heading the wrong way. They’ll miss the big event.” Serge ran to the end of the block and looked around the corner. “Shoot! Of course!
We’re
going the
wrong way! I just naturally assumed it was Dodecanese Bayou at the sponge boats, but it’s the other by the war memorial.”

GAINESVILLE

A black Camaro raced down a dirt driveway and joined traffic on Route 24. From the road, it was difficult to make out the third body on the farmhouse steps.

Tex McGraw worked his way across campus and passed the stadium. He reached Interstate 75 and sped south. On the other side of the highway, a late-model Cadillac Escalade headed north.

“I think this is our exit,” said Martha.

Jim hit the blinker and began getting over, but a Mustang saw the flashing taillight and sped up to close the gap. Jim jerked the wheel back to avoid a collision. “Where’d that guy come from?”

“He did it on purpose!” said Martha. “What’s with people who accelerate as soon as they see your turn signal?”

“Martha, please stop giving people the finger in traffic.”

“He made us miss our exit!”

“There’s another in two miles. We’ll double back.” Jim broke into a smile. “Can’t believe Melvin’s already halfway through his freshman year. Seems like only three seconds ago he was in Little League.”

Martha looked out her window at higher learning. Traffic snarls, flirting between cars, low-speed fender benders, and thousands of empty vehicles left at crazy angles across lawns, curbs and sidewalks like they’d just held the Rapture. “I don’t know why he wanted to ride with his friends instead of us.”

“It’s natural.”

“But he doesn’t mind using our car to lug all his stuff.”

Jim took the next exit. Slow going across town. Massive, chaotic foot-traffic in all directions, a designer-brand refugee movement of students pack-muling stereo systems, plasma TVs, computers, golf clubs, wet bars, no books.

“This really brings back memories.”

“I don’t remember all the kegs.”

“Martha, we were exactly the same when we went to school…. Here’s his apartment building.”

“There he is!”

Jim turned into a crowded parking lot. “Where?”

“Waving to us from the balcony.”

DOWN ON THE BAYOU

T
he church could withstand any hurricane.

Built from huge quarried slabs, it stood proudly as it had for over a century at the corner of Tarpon and Pinellas avenues. The architecture was exotic even for Florida.

For the last hour, a throbbing crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. The front doors finally opened. Cheers went up. A bearded man appeared in an immaculate robe and tall bejeweled hat. He waved with dignity during his short walk to a waiting car, which drove him another brief distance.

A second, larger crowd at Spring Bayou erupted when the vehicle’s doors opened. The adulation grew louder as they followed the bishop down to the gently curving seawall. A small fleet of wooden dinghies was already anchored in the water, each containing several boys in white swim trunks, sixteen to eighteen years of age.

On the opposite side of the bayou, Serge tapped page 132 of
National Geographic
. “The kids in the boats. Looks exactly the same sixty-one years later. These people are all about tradition. Like St. Nicholas Church we passed earlier. One of the state’s greatest landmarks that nobody even knows exists. The Mediterranean dome and spire were patterned after Aya Sophia in Istanbul….”

“Can we go now?” asked Coleman.

“But we haven’t seen it yet.”

“Seen what?”

“It’s January sixth. I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. The ultimate Greek tradition.”

“But you’re not Greek.”

“But I love Greek Orthodox,” said Serge. “I’m down with any faith that’s into bitchin’ pastry.”

“Wait a minute,” said Coleman. “These aren’t the people who drink ouzo….”

“The same.”

“Those cats rock!”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Can we stay?”

“Sure.”

“Catch me up on what’s happening,” said Coleman.

“Okay, billions of years ago primitive nuclei began forming on the ocean floor and evolved into one of the earliest multicellular organisms in the phylum Porifera….”

“You have to go back that far?”

“I don’t do half-ass history.”

“When’s the ouzo part?”

“Not for billions of years. These creatures developed tiny pores called
ostia
, which filtered nutrients from the water, becoming the first sponges….”

The religious ceremony on the other side of the bayou continued. Time passed. “…Ten thousand years ago, migratory peoples began settling along the Aegean coast….” Serge woke Coleman with a nudge. “…Frescoes appeared in Crete depicting the sponge’s role in hygiene….”

Rachael’s half-conscious head peeked over the sill of the Comet’s back window and tried focusing on Serge and Coleman at the edge of the water.

“…Next, the Bronze Age…”

She reached for another Valium but passed out again first.

The bishop bestowed blessings. The crowd brimmed with building anticipation.

“…Non-Greeks triggered the Key West sponging boom of the
nineteenth century. But sponges aren’t known for their fleetness and greedy divers soon wiped out their own harvest. Meanwhile, savvy Athenians overtook them by expertly managing the warm Gulf waters of Tarpon Springs….” Serge poked Coleman again. “…Where they remain to this day. The high school team is the Fighting Spongers.”

“Must have dozed. Did I miss anything?”

“Just the terrible spicule fungus of 1938.” Serge grabbed the tote bag at his feet. “Looks like they’re starting.”

The crowd’s roar increased as the bishop approached the water’s edge, his vestments sparkling in the winter sun. Children waved small American and Greek flags. Suddenly, the bishop raised a white cross over his head, and the mob went berserk. He rotated in a semicircle, displaying the religious treasure for all to see. The cheering seemed like it would go on forever. Then, abruptly, quiet. Nobody had to tell them. The moment was here. The bishop pulled the cross back over his shoulder. The youths in the boats crouched like swimmers on starting platforms of a hundred-meter freestyle.

One final pause for drama…and the cross was flung.

All eyes followed the brilliant white icon, soaring higher and higher before reaching its apex, flashing briefly in the light and arcing over into the water. The boys leaped from their boats; the bayou erupted in a splashing froth to the deafening encouragement from shore.

The 102nd Epiphany dive for the cross was under way.

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Melvin ran down the stairs and hugged his parents.

They unloaded the back of the Escalade, carrying boxes past open doors of other rooms furnished with stolen milk crates and cinder-block shelves. The Davenports made the top of the stairs. Blaring music and snatches of conversation.

“…Then you scrape the inside of the banana peel and smoke it.”

“That’s a myth.”

At the end of the balcony, three students were steadying a fourth, whose head hung over the rail.
“You’ll feel much better if you just throw up the toxin and ease into a mellow trip.”

Melvin stopped in front of the last unit and shifted the cardboard box he was holding for a better grip. “Here we are.”

Martha pointed behind her. “What’s that about?”

“Just my roommate.” Melvin pushed the ajar door open with his foot.

Two more trips and the SUV was empty. They sat around and had a nice visit until Martha grew concerned.

“What is it?” asked Jim.

“He doesn’t have enough cleaning products.”

“You brought two full boxes.”

“We have to go to the store.”

“All right.” They headed downstairs.

Coleman stood in chest-deep water under a boat lift. He peeked out from behind the concealment of an oyster-encrusted pier, straining to see what was happening on the other side of the bayou. Some kind of confusion around the dinghies. Kids diving over and over. The crowd on the seawall exchanged puzzled glances.

Coleman ventured from behind the pylon for a closer look. “What the hell’s taking so long?”

Behind him, a loud splash as something broke the surface.

Coleman turned and grabbed his chest. “Jesus, don’t
do
that!”

Serge pulled the emergency air canister from his mouth. “Hurry up. We don’t have much time.”

Coleman raised the disposable, underwater camera attached to his arm with a rubber wrist strap. He aimed it at his pal.

Serge grinned and held a white cross next to his face.

Click.

Coleman lowered the camera. “Can we go now?”

“Professionals never just take one picture. What if my eyes were closed? Then we’ll have to come back next year.”

Coleman advanced the film with his thumb. Click.

“Again!”

Click.

“One with me kissing the cross.”

Click.

Dozens of baffled teens dog-paddled in the background. Now and then, one would take another deep breath, dive back down and come up empty.

Click.

“A profile shot. Which is my good side? Screw it. Shoot both.”

Click. Click.

“Underwater action sequence.”

They submerged. Click, click, click…

Coleman came up breathing hard. “I’m out of film.
Now
can we go?”

“Absolutely not. I have to return this thing.”

“You got to be shittin’ me. We spent all this time getting that, and you’re just going to give it back?”

“Coleman, I
have
to give it back.” Serge rinsed spit from the air canister’s mouthpiece. “This is a sacred religious event. It would be grossly disrespectful to interfere.”

“But I want to party. I only agreed to all this because I thought the ouzo part was coming up.”

“It is. Just a little longer.”

“So I’m going to be stuck here waiting again?”

“No. Here’s what I want you to do….”

Coleman listened until Serge finished. He furrowed his brow. “That’ll never work.”

“Just do it!”

Serge stuck the mini-tank back in his mouth and disappeared beneath the water.