Chapter 8
I was in and out of the air-conditioning, refusing to give up.
I reasoned that once I did, he for sure wouldn’t come.
I had to will it. Midafternoon I spotted his small Karmann Ghia with its bug eyes and chrome bumper that seemed to smile.
Jumping down from the wall, I met him in the driveway as my brothers raced out of the house.
“Daddy! What are we going to do today?” I asked, overjoyed.
“I get the front seat!” John cried out.
“No, you don’t! I get it!” Jim pushed him into a hibiscus bush.
Dad was behind the wheel, the car in neutral, the engine thrumming, the top down. I climbed in the back behind him and began stroking his hair.
“How would you Boo Boo Bears like to play a new game?” He smiled but his demeanor was disconcerting.
“Yes!”
“What game?” I wanted to know.
“Kidnap.” Another smile as he wiped sweat off his jaw, driving away.
“How do you play that?” Jim wanted to know.
“You’ll see,” he said as I watched palm trees and telephone poles flying by.
I remember going to Royal Castle for food and bathrooms. Then we stopped at a gas station, and as we were leaving, he used a pay phone. I overheard what he said.
“Hello, Pat… Never mind that… Of course, they’re with me…”
He was quiet for a moment, listening to whatever Mom was saying. When he spoke again, he sounded mean.
“You’ll never see them again. In fact, no one will ever find them… Getting hysterical won’t change a thing,” Dad said, hanging up.
As we drove off, I asked why he’d talked that way to Mom, but he said not to worry about it. He got quiet, giving us no further details about what his game kidnap was about. What did kidnap mean? I hoped it wasn’t about taking a nap because I hated them.
I was getting increasingly uneasy as we drove for what seemed a long time, the scenery unfamiliar, Dad preoccupied and trancelike.
I sensed something was very wrong as he shifted into a lower gear, bumping onto a dirt road, tiny rocks popping beneath the tires.
Tall palms towered from either side, the stirring broad fronds draped with beards of Spanish moss.
I sucked on a Life Saver that John had given me from the roll Dad bought at the gas station.
John said I could have any tropical fruit flavor I wanted except orange, lemon, tangerine, cherry, or lime.
That left pineapple, and I didn’t think it fair.
I wondered where we were going as I noticed NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to trees.
The air was humid and salty, and I could tell we were nearing the Biscayne Bay.
Maybe we were going to play kidnap on the beach.
Dad was simply taking us on an adventure for fun and everything would be fine.
The bumpy road curved and I caught glimpses of white sand, and the low sunlight twinkling on waves.
We stopped at a driftwood gated fence with PRIVATE PROPERTY and more NO TRESPASSING signs. On the other side, a sandy path led to a deserted shore where I knew we shouldn’t be. A dinghy I didn’t recognize seesawed in the swells, and I asked whose it was and why we were here.
“It belongs to a friend we’re going to visit,” Dad said.
He parked in front of the fence.
“What friend?” I wanted to know.
“You’ll see.”
“Where are we?” I fired off questions.
“How would you like to take a boat ride to an island?” He slid the key out of the ignition.
“Yeah!” Jim yanked up the door handle, hopping out into the thick hot air, the buzzing of insects an unsettled static.
John stepped from the car in cowboy boots, black leather with pointed toes and red diamonds up the sides. They swallowed his legs midcalf, the heels sinking into the sand.
“Here, Johnny, let’s get rid of those,” Dad said. “You won’t need them.”
He sat John down on the ground, pulling off the boots, tossing them into the backseat. Dad began collecting dead palm fronds and covered the car with them. I assumed this was part of a game we were playing as he explained we were escaping to an island that wasn’t really an island.
If Mom came looking for us, he was making sure she didn’t see his Karmann Ghia.
If she did, she’d murder us, he said. He was making sure we were safe.
But he was the one acting dangerously. Lifting us over the fence, he told us to stay put.
We waited on the shore as he waded into the surf.
The waves were up to his chest as he reached the dinghy that didn’t belong to us.
He grabbed the anchor rope and drew it in.
Clutching the rusty iron shank in both hands, he hoisted it into the boat.
The heavy metal clanked hollowly against wood.
The rope over his shoulder, he took big slow steps through the water, pulling the boat behind him.
Piled inside were old lifejackets and a sun-weathered wooden paddle.
“Everybody in!”
He steadied the rocking boat against his thighs, lifting us inside.
Sitting at the stern, he draped an arm over one knee, his other hand holding the tiller.
The dinghy skimmed across the water as we followed the shoreline.
I sat on the floor near Dad, an oversized faded orange lifejacket strapped around me.
I wondered why we hadn’t brought fishing poles, tackle, or bait.
He had no food or drinks. Who was Dad’s friend, and what would we do when we got there?
My brothers sat in the bow, laughing while the rushing wind sent white straps whipping against their lifejackets, their hair blown straight back. They didn’t seem unnerved like me.
Ahead the shore receded, the wide band of white sand narrowing and becoming thicker with grasses, mangroves, and shrubs. I now know that Dad took us to Stiltsville, where homes were built in the water on barges or stilts at the edge of the Biscayne Bay.
Dad steered inland, easing on the throttle, slowing down. I smelled the salty, pungent odor of rotting plants, kelp rocking on the surf and washing onto the coarse, weed-infested beach. Veering the boat sharply, Dad entered a cove that I suspect was Hurricane Harbor.
“Look!” John yelled, twisting around, staring wide-eyed at Dad.
On top of a barnacle-encrusted metal barge was a one-story white house with awnings over the windows.
A Boston Whaler tied to a piling rocked in our wake.
Draped over the side of the barge were old fishnets with yellow-and-white float-bobbers on them.
I noticed multiple red gas cans, a rain barrel, and what I now know was a portable generator.
Dad cut the motor and we drifted to a wooden ladder. He looped a rope around a piling, pulling it tight. Then the front screen door swung open, and a man walked out. I knew instantly he wasn’t expecting us. Tall and tan, he was dressed in white shorts and a yellow shirt.
I had no idea who he was. But he reminded me of Sailor Jack in a storybook I’d read. His name was Perry Nichols, my father’s former law partner. I would learn later that Perry owned the house with another lawyer and a U.S. congressman.
“Sam! What brings you here?” Perry put his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun.
“You three sit tight for a minute.” Dad climbed the ladder, the house some ten feet off the water.
He and Perry shook hands, moving farther away so we couldn’t hear what they talked about. But I caught enough to understand that Dad was acting strange. He said he was going to write a book that would change the world, and I remember his affect as blunted, his hands rigid by his sides.
Perry must have recognized that something was wrong. Moments later my brothers and I were on the barge and led inside the house, the open windows covered by screens. I could feel the barge swaying beneath the grass-mat-covered floor. By now the sun was low, the blue sky dusky.
We walked through a sitting room of wicker chairs, settees, and oil lamps glowing on bamboo tables, ceiling fans stirring the warm air.
Perry took us into the kitchen and opened the lid of a big red ice chest. I noticed a small gas stove with a pan on top of a burner, and a freshwater tap fed by a tank.
There were paper plates and plastic silverware. On a table was a ship-to-shore radio like ones I’d noticed on big boats at the marina.
“There are plenty of Cokes, and I have cookies too.” Perry smiled and winked at my brothers and me. “How about a beer?” he offered Dad.
Perry Nichols rummaged in a drawer for a can opener, punching two tiny triangles into the beer can.
Dad drank several gulps, setting the can on a table.
I asked Perry if he lived on the barge, and he explained it was his getaway when he wanted quiet while he worked.
It was his special place that few people knew about.
“I have something you’d like to see,” he told my brothers as if I might not be interested.
“What?” Jim’s eyes got big.
“Come on.” He passed through a doorway, and we followed.
I remember several tiny bedrooms, and a bathroom with a sink and marine toilet. He took us into his den, dominated by a large desk amid animal skins and heads. I moved closer to Dad, unnerved by dead things staring.
“These are animals I shot in Africa,” Perry said proudly.
I looked up at a set of crossed spears. They had sharp black flint tips lashed by leather thongs to wooden staffs, red and yellow feathers dangling.
“Did you kill the animals with gigs?” I pointed at the spears, hoping Perry would be surprised that I knew what gigs were.
He leaned his head back and laughed, his eyes lighting up as if the sun was inside them. For an instant, I felt happy.
“What’s this?” Jim was studying a big gray trash basket that seemed covered in shark skin.
“That’s an elephant’s foot,” Perry said, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it, fascinated and repelled.