Explanations
It's been two or three months since I last updated The Ballad of Gracious Living, and I feel really bad about it. I really do want to see this thing brought to a close, but right now, I've been working my tail off trying to making sure the Real World doesn't leave me behind.
I'm also working out the details on a personal piece, which started out pretty simply and is turning into more and more of a needlessly complicated mess.
It was hot. That wasn't unusual for the Keys, but tourists weren't always prepared for just how hot Florida could get. Bathers were shocked when they heard it was too hot to swim- the sun, beating down on the shallow beaches and enclosed pools, turned every body of water within five miles of the island into a hotbed of lethal bacteria. Instead of the beaches, the bars along Duval filled up with sunburnt tourists, peeling off their tops and pressing cold bottles against their faces. The pier- which was usually packed with performers busking for change- was abandoned.
The Hog's Breath, like all the bars on the strip, was crowded. There was no quiet place to drink today, except alone in a hotel room, and drinking all by oneself was too depressing for one man to handle.
Most people in the Hog's Breath were either with friends or hoping to meet friends. There was only one man- crushed into the corner by two Angels fans who were wrestling for control of the tv with a pack of Swedish college kids- that no one was approaching.
The locals knew him by sight. He'd been in Key West for two months, since he showed up barefoot at the airport with nothing but a sack in each hand, and a phoney-looking ID card that said his name was Thomas Charles.
It was off-season, which meant he got a discount on an extended stay room in one of the old houses. Those houses were built by wealthy Wreckers to house mistresses, or start their kids off right. Each one was a doll-sized mansion. The rooms were huge and airy inside the tiny, pastel-colored house, with a porch built for the Caribbean's sudden thunderstorms. The Phoney moved right onto Duval street, and after that, there was no getting rid of him.
He didn't act very suspicious once he'd settled in. He spent most of his weeks travelling from bar to bar, pretending he wasn't eavesdropping on the town gossip. Sometimes he rented a tiny boat and went fishing, alone, with a radio and a few six-packs. He took long walks around the island, and ate at the Ihop near the airport.
He was boring, but still strange. Obviously he was some wealthy guy on an extended vacation- maybe he was in for an early retirement. He dressed nicely, always making sure to tuck in his shirt and slap on a hat whenever he was in town- but he looked like a crackhead.
Once upon a time, he might have been handsome. He still had bright eyes and a full head of black hair, but his teeth were either rotten through or capped with gold. His skin was pulled back tight against his skull, cracked and wrinkled like old leather where there was no bone to hold it up. The cords in his neck looked like ropes of beef jerky. Anyone who got close enough saw that someone, a long time ago, had burned the back of his hand with a white letter S.
If he was a drug dealer or a supplier, it was clear after two months that he wasn't going to bring any excitement with him to the Keys. That much was obvious, after two months of nothing, but he gave the tourists something fun to gossip about.
He listened to them talk, and pretended to be much more drunk than he really was.
Two months in, and no one had been brave enough to pry too deeply into his personal life. There were brazen Conch citizens who were happy to come up and demand to know his business on the island, his name, his place of origin, and how he was liking their little island paradise. He would tell all of them he was on a long vacation, gave them his phoney name, claim to be from Jamaica, and say the Cayo Hueso was as beautiful as it had ever been.
After hearing that, they decided he was full of shit. For starters, he was clearly not Jamaican.
On the hottest day of the year, in the Hog's Breath Saloon, a dressed-down businessman walked straight up to the town's latest crackhead and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Haven't we met before?”
The Phoney looked blearly up at the businessman, and frowned. To jog his memory, the man pushed his sunglasses into his hair. The Phoney's face panned into flat shock.
“Holy hell,” He said. “You are the last person I expected to see here,”
“Likewise,” The businessman said. “What are you doing here?”
The Phoney lifted his glass. “Drinking,”
“On the Islands, I meant,”
“I don't know,” He said. He looked around the bar. “Trying to get away from the other side of the world, I guess,”
“It's funny,” The businessman said. “You turning up here after all these years,”
“It's funnier to see you here,” The crackhead said, giving him a small, ruined smile. “Times would be you wouldn't set foot on a single island except to burn something down,”
“True enough,” The businessman said.
“Look,” One of the Angels fans said blearily. “D'you two want to sit together?”
“Do we?” The businessman asked.
“Sure, take a load off,” The crackhead said. So the Angels moved to a table to continue abusing the Swedish soccer fans, and the businessman sat with the crackhead at the bar. He ordered a drink, and after a few silent moments, the crackhead said; “It's Errol, isn't it?”
Errol chuckled dryily. “Yes, it is. I'd hoped I made more of an impression on you, Mr. James Murray,”
The crackhead made a face. “I haven't gone by that name in years. I wasn't going by it when you knew me,”
“I didn't know you,”
“Fine. I wasn't calling myself James Murray when you knew of me,”
“I'm not going to call you 'James Garrote',”
“You don't have to,” The crackhead said. Errol's eyes narrowed.
“Then what do you expect me to call you?”
“Dunno,”
“Now you're just being difficult,”
“No, I'm not,”
“And childish. Is this your way of asking me to leave?” Errol asked. James seemed genuinely upset.
“No, it's not,” He said. “I'm sorry. Honest,”
He signaled for the barkeep- who'd been trying to eavesdrop over the sound of the Angels' fans- to refill their drinks. The crackhead paid for both.
“Call me whatever you want,” He explained. “I'm not going by aliases, anymore,”
“So instead of aliases, you choose to go by nothing at all,” Errol said, piecing the logic together like a jigsaw puzzle.
“Until I find a name I like,” The crackhead said.
“Why can't you just go by your name?” Errol asked. “Around friendlies, at least,”
“Alright. What's my name?” The crackhead asked.
“James Murray,”
“How is that my name? Nobody's ever called me that,”
“Your parents?”
“Not them,”
“Fine. What did your parents call you?”
“Jibacoa,” The crackhead said.
“They did? Really?” Errol asked, kneading his forehead. “Both of them?”
“Yes, really,” The crackhead said briskly. “Everyone except my British relations called me that,”
“And the King's government,”
“Them, too.”
“Fine,” Errol said. “Then I'll call you James,”
James barked out a laugh. “You would,”
“I'll feel incredibly stupid calling you after a cay in Cuba,”
“I heard he was a two-headed god,” James said. “Who spirited off his daughter when the Spanish tried to chat her up,”
Now Errol laughed- dry, and without humor. “And you prefer that over James?”
“Call me whatever you like,” James said.
“What do most people call you?” Errol demanded. James turned to Errol and showed him all of his broken, capped teeth.
“Do you know Anne Brien and Saito Takeda?”
“I know Saito,” Errol said, picturing Takeda the last time he'd seen him- his beard and shirt showing the only signs that he'd been crawling through forests for nearly a year.
“You know Anne, too- remember Anthony?”
“Anthony Brien became Anne Brien?” Errol asked. “How did that happen?”
“She's always been an Anne. I found out in the eighties that our Anthony had her tits lopped off before she met either one of us,” James said. “But I digress- the two of them got together and settled on calling me the Smiler,”
“Oh, god,” Errol groaned. “That's worse than Jibacoa. Do they call you that because of the trophies you take?”
“They do indeed,”
“You don't,” Errol was horrified. “James- you go around the world with memorable tattoos- you've still got a manslaughter brand, for fuck's sake- and you keep to the same MO you've had since I caught you?”
“Can't teach an old dog a new trick,” The Smiler mumbled into his glass. “Anyways, no-one's caught the New Englandman, yet, and there must be condos wrapped all around his little hill,”
“The New Englandman is no one you should be imitating,” Errol snapped.
“Thank you, Mother, it's nice to know you care so much,” James said.
“You need to be careful,” Errol said. “If anyone found out-”
“If anyone found out, why should you care?” James whined. “If I got caught and put in a tube for scientists to watch until the end of time, would it make your world come crumbling down?”
“It might,” Errol said. “Because I don't trust you. I have no idea what you would tell those hypothetical scientists, I don't know what deals you would try to cut, and I don't know what information you have about who,”
James blinked blindly at Errol. “I took an oath. Do you really think I'm that much of scum?”
“You are, right now, carrying around what looks like thirty people's eyeteeth,” James said. “In broad daylight, no less. I expect nothing but the worst from you,”
The Smiler rolled his rosary through his fingers. Every single bead was made out of white ivory- some of them had been worn smooth and shiny through the years, but some were still white, jagged, and unnervingly familiar to any prying eye. Hanging from the far end was an Agadez cross and three bullets. Errol touched one .33 millimeter.
“Jesus fucking Christ, James,” He said. “This is suicidal behaviour, this is,”
“Suicidal behaviour would be to walk to the Maritime museum and ask for a private viewing of the Savage Garrote pamphlet,” James grumbled.
“Then I hope I haven't given you any stupid ideas,” Errol sneered back.
“So I'm a bit sloppy,” The Smiler said. “What's it matter?”
“I thought I made it clear that it's not just your own life you're fucking up,” Errol said. “You're putting all of us at risk,”
“Look,” Smiler said. “I don't do well vanishing into a crowd. I never have. It's how you fucking caught me,”
“Did you ever think to learn?” Errol asked. “It's a learned skill, one which you need if you want to keep hopping around the world, being a bastard to everyone in your way,”
James fought back a smile. He signaled for another refill, then buried his face in the crook of an arm.
“Alright,” James said. “Since you're such an expert at sneaking around, you teach me to do it,”
“Fine,” Errol said. The Smiler picked his head up.
“Really?”
“I've got nothing better to do,” Errol said, which was true. He'd tired a psuedonym less than a week ago, and now found himself in that gray area in between lives, where he would wander aimlessly for a few years before stumbling over something new. “Let's just hope you haven't already damned yourself- news travels faster than the speed of light, these days,”
“A hurricane happens in Louisiana, and there's video evidence of it in the same hour,” The Smiler agreed. “It's fucking insane,”
They sat in silence for a while longer. It was getting late. Tourists were filtering out of the bar and heading further along the docks, looking for a barbeque place to have dinner and keep drinking. The Smiler ordered a few beers for the two of them.
“When did this place open up?” Errol asked. James tapped a custom-stamped beer stein. It dated the pub's establishment at 1976. Errol frowned.
“Really? I could have sworn- wasn't there another Hogshead, built right on the beach, back in the day?”
“There was a Hogshead, but this is the Hog's Breath,” The Smiler explained. He smiled. “Did you ever haunt that old lushery?”
“Of course not. I worked to shut it down,” Errol sniffed. “It was a sty,”
“It was unused kindling,” James agreed. “One big mound of driftwood and tar, hollowed out to make a pub. We used to sit on the beach with out glasses and fire off into the sunset,”
“I never understood why anyone would build shops on the driest ring of islands in the Caribbean,”
“Good for business,” James said, with a shrug. “Cheap land no-one was using, regular clientele who were always good for payment-”
“-regular clients who couldn't drink anywhere else, lest the law land on their heads,” Errol said.
“Well,” The Smiler said. “There was always out East,”
“Oh, is that where you vanished off to for all those years?”
“Hell yes,” James agreed. “Talk about cowboys and indians, out there. For a hundred years, the whole western coast of China was one big boiling pot of trouble, just waiting for you to hop in,”
“Sounds like it had your name all over it,” Errol said. The Smiler beamed.
“You're right. Maybe my next name should be 'Wokou',”
“You're pushing it, Murray,”
I'm also working out the details on a personal piece, which started out pretty simply and is turning into more and more of a needlessly complicated mess.
It was hot. That wasn't unusual for the Keys, but tourists weren't always prepared for just how hot Florida could get. Bathers were shocked when they heard it was too hot to swim- the sun, beating down on the shallow beaches and enclosed pools, turned every body of water within five miles of the island into a hotbed of lethal bacteria. Instead of the beaches, the bars along Duval filled up with sunburnt tourists, peeling off their tops and pressing cold bottles against their faces. The pier- which was usually packed with performers busking for change- was abandoned.
The Hog's Breath, like all the bars on the strip, was crowded. There was no quiet place to drink today, except alone in a hotel room, and drinking all by oneself was too depressing for one man to handle.
Most people in the Hog's Breath were either with friends or hoping to meet friends. There was only one man- crushed into the corner by two Angels fans who were wrestling for control of the tv with a pack of Swedish college kids- that no one was approaching.
The locals knew him by sight. He'd been in Key West for two months, since he showed up barefoot at the airport with nothing but a sack in each hand, and a phoney-looking ID card that said his name was Thomas Charles.
It was off-season, which meant he got a discount on an extended stay room in one of the old houses. Those houses were built by wealthy Wreckers to house mistresses, or start their kids off right. Each one was a doll-sized mansion. The rooms were huge and airy inside the tiny, pastel-colored house, with a porch built for the Caribbean's sudden thunderstorms. The Phoney moved right onto Duval street, and after that, there was no getting rid of him.
He didn't act very suspicious once he'd settled in. He spent most of his weeks travelling from bar to bar, pretending he wasn't eavesdropping on the town gossip. Sometimes he rented a tiny boat and went fishing, alone, with a radio and a few six-packs. He took long walks around the island, and ate at the Ihop near the airport.
He was boring, but still strange. Obviously he was some wealthy guy on an extended vacation- maybe he was in for an early retirement. He dressed nicely, always making sure to tuck in his shirt and slap on a hat whenever he was in town- but he looked like a crackhead.
Once upon a time, he might have been handsome. He still had bright eyes and a full head of black hair, but his teeth were either rotten through or capped with gold. His skin was pulled back tight against his skull, cracked and wrinkled like old leather where there was no bone to hold it up. The cords in his neck looked like ropes of beef jerky. Anyone who got close enough saw that someone, a long time ago, had burned the back of his hand with a white letter S.
If he was a drug dealer or a supplier, it was clear after two months that he wasn't going to bring any excitement with him to the Keys. That much was obvious, after two months of nothing, but he gave the tourists something fun to gossip about.
He listened to them talk, and pretended to be much more drunk than he really was.
Two months in, and no one had been brave enough to pry too deeply into his personal life. There were brazen Conch citizens who were happy to come up and demand to know his business on the island, his name, his place of origin, and how he was liking their little island paradise. He would tell all of them he was on a long vacation, gave them his phoney name, claim to be from Jamaica, and say the Cayo Hueso was as beautiful as it had ever been.
After hearing that, they decided he was full of shit. For starters, he was clearly not Jamaican.
On the hottest day of the year, in the Hog's Breath Saloon, a dressed-down businessman walked straight up to the town's latest crackhead and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Haven't we met before?”
The Phoney looked blearly up at the businessman, and frowned. To jog his memory, the man pushed his sunglasses into his hair. The Phoney's face panned into flat shock.
“Holy hell,” He said. “You are the last person I expected to see here,”
“Likewise,” The businessman said. “What are you doing here?”
The Phoney lifted his glass. “Drinking,”
“On the Islands, I meant,”
“I don't know,” He said. He looked around the bar. “Trying to get away from the other side of the world, I guess,”
“It's funny,” The businessman said. “You turning up here after all these years,”
“It's funnier to see you here,” The crackhead said, giving him a small, ruined smile. “Times would be you wouldn't set foot on a single island except to burn something down,”
“True enough,” The businessman said.
“Look,” One of the Angels fans said blearily. “D'you two want to sit together?”
“Do we?” The businessman asked.
“Sure, take a load off,” The crackhead said. So the Angels moved to a table to continue abusing the Swedish soccer fans, and the businessman sat with the crackhead at the bar. He ordered a drink, and after a few silent moments, the crackhead said; “It's Errol, isn't it?”
Errol chuckled dryily. “Yes, it is. I'd hoped I made more of an impression on you, Mr. James Murray,”
The crackhead made a face. “I haven't gone by that name in years. I wasn't going by it when you knew me,”
“I didn't know you,”
“Fine. I wasn't calling myself James Murray when you knew of me,”
“I'm not going to call you 'James Garrote',”
“You don't have to,” The crackhead said. Errol's eyes narrowed.
“Then what do you expect me to call you?”
“Dunno,”
“Now you're just being difficult,”
“No, I'm not,”
“And childish. Is this your way of asking me to leave?” Errol asked. James seemed genuinely upset.
“No, it's not,” He said. “I'm sorry. Honest,”
He signaled for the barkeep- who'd been trying to eavesdrop over the sound of the Angels' fans- to refill their drinks. The crackhead paid for both.
“Call me whatever you want,” He explained. “I'm not going by aliases, anymore,”
“So instead of aliases, you choose to go by nothing at all,” Errol said, piecing the logic together like a jigsaw puzzle.
“Until I find a name I like,” The crackhead said.
“Why can't you just go by your name?” Errol asked. “Around friendlies, at least,”
“Alright. What's my name?” The crackhead asked.
“James Murray,”
“How is that my name? Nobody's ever called me that,”
“Your parents?”
“Not them,”
“Fine. What did your parents call you?”
“Jibacoa,” The crackhead said.
“They did? Really?” Errol asked, kneading his forehead. “Both of them?”
“Yes, really,” The crackhead said briskly. “Everyone except my British relations called me that,”
“And the King's government,”
“Them, too.”
“Fine,” Errol said. “Then I'll call you James,”
James barked out a laugh. “You would,”
“I'll feel incredibly stupid calling you after a cay in Cuba,”
“I heard he was a two-headed god,” James said. “Who spirited off his daughter when the Spanish tried to chat her up,”
Now Errol laughed- dry, and without humor. “And you prefer that over James?”
“Call me whatever you like,” James said.
“What do most people call you?” Errol demanded. James turned to Errol and showed him all of his broken, capped teeth.
“Do you know Anne Brien and Saito Takeda?”
“I know Saito,” Errol said, picturing Takeda the last time he'd seen him- his beard and shirt showing the only signs that he'd been crawling through forests for nearly a year.
“You know Anne, too- remember Anthony?”
“Anthony Brien became Anne Brien?” Errol asked. “How did that happen?”
“She's always been an Anne. I found out in the eighties that our Anthony had her tits lopped off before she met either one of us,” James said. “But I digress- the two of them got together and settled on calling me the Smiler,”
“Oh, god,” Errol groaned. “That's worse than Jibacoa. Do they call you that because of the trophies you take?”
“They do indeed,”
“You don't,” Errol was horrified. “James- you go around the world with memorable tattoos- you've still got a manslaughter brand, for fuck's sake- and you keep to the same MO you've had since I caught you?”
“Can't teach an old dog a new trick,” The Smiler mumbled into his glass. “Anyways, no-one's caught the New Englandman, yet, and there must be condos wrapped all around his little hill,”
“The New Englandman is no one you should be imitating,” Errol snapped.
“Thank you, Mother, it's nice to know you care so much,” James said.
“You need to be careful,” Errol said. “If anyone found out-”
“If anyone found out, why should you care?” James whined. “If I got caught and put in a tube for scientists to watch until the end of time, would it make your world come crumbling down?”
“It might,” Errol said. “Because I don't trust you. I have no idea what you would tell those hypothetical scientists, I don't know what deals you would try to cut, and I don't know what information you have about who,”
James blinked blindly at Errol. “I took an oath. Do you really think I'm that much of scum?”
“You are, right now, carrying around what looks like thirty people's eyeteeth,” James said. “In broad daylight, no less. I expect nothing but the worst from you,”
The Smiler rolled his rosary through his fingers. Every single bead was made out of white ivory- some of them had been worn smooth and shiny through the years, but some were still white, jagged, and unnervingly familiar to any prying eye. Hanging from the far end was an Agadez cross and three bullets. Errol touched one .33 millimeter.
“Jesus fucking Christ, James,” He said. “This is suicidal behaviour, this is,”
“Suicidal behaviour would be to walk to the Maritime museum and ask for a private viewing of the Savage Garrote pamphlet,” James grumbled.
“Then I hope I haven't given you any stupid ideas,” Errol sneered back.
“So I'm a bit sloppy,” The Smiler said. “What's it matter?”
“I thought I made it clear that it's not just your own life you're fucking up,” Errol said. “You're putting all of us at risk,”
“Look,” Smiler said. “I don't do well vanishing into a crowd. I never have. It's how you fucking caught me,”
“Did you ever think to learn?” Errol asked. “It's a learned skill, one which you need if you want to keep hopping around the world, being a bastard to everyone in your way,”
James fought back a smile. He signaled for another refill, then buried his face in the crook of an arm.
“Alright,” James said. “Since you're such an expert at sneaking around, you teach me to do it,”
“Fine,” Errol said. The Smiler picked his head up.
“Really?”
“I've got nothing better to do,” Errol said, which was true. He'd tired a psuedonym less than a week ago, and now found himself in that gray area in between lives, where he would wander aimlessly for a few years before stumbling over something new. “Let's just hope you haven't already damned yourself- news travels faster than the speed of light, these days,”
“A hurricane happens in Louisiana, and there's video evidence of it in the same hour,” The Smiler agreed. “It's fucking insane,”
They sat in silence for a while longer. It was getting late. Tourists were filtering out of the bar and heading further along the docks, looking for a barbeque place to have dinner and keep drinking. The Smiler ordered a few beers for the two of them.
“When did this place open up?” Errol asked. James tapped a custom-stamped beer stein. It dated the pub's establishment at 1976. Errol frowned.
“Really? I could have sworn- wasn't there another Hogshead, built right on the beach, back in the day?”
“There was a Hogshead, but this is the Hog's Breath,” The Smiler explained. He smiled. “Did you ever haunt that old lushery?”
“Of course not. I worked to shut it down,” Errol sniffed. “It was a sty,”
“It was unused kindling,” James agreed. “One big mound of driftwood and tar, hollowed out to make a pub. We used to sit on the beach with out glasses and fire off into the sunset,”
“I never understood why anyone would build shops on the driest ring of islands in the Caribbean,”
“Good for business,” James said, with a shrug. “Cheap land no-one was using, regular clientele who were always good for payment-”
“-regular clients who couldn't drink anywhere else, lest the law land on their heads,” Errol said.
“Well,” The Smiler said. “There was always out East,”
“Oh, is that where you vanished off to for all those years?”
“Hell yes,” James agreed. “Talk about cowboys and indians, out there. For a hundred years, the whole western coast of China was one big boiling pot of trouble, just waiting for you to hop in,”
“Sounds like it had your name all over it,” Errol said. The Smiler beamed.
“You're right. Maybe my next name should be 'Wokou',”
“You're pushing it, Murray,”