Blackwater Sound. James Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ since those days Miami and its suburbs had quadrupled in size and were trying to quadruple again and the people up there were stacked butt-to-jowls twenty stories into the air without room to turn or bend over to tie their shoes, and now that the sugar growers had intimidated or paid off all their foes and were once again happily scattering phosphorus and mercury and a long list of other unpronounceable toxins across their vast acreage, the end result, a hundred miles downstream, was that the pristine Florida Bay was now teetering on collapse.

      A never-ending flood of solvents and cleaning fluids and petroleum products and every other form of exotic contamination had been oozing out the rectum of the state, a spew of caustic wastewater and runoff and overflow and toilet flush, leaching into the bay, poisoning the shrimp with its acid, overheating the water with its super-mambo genetically indestructible fertilizer spillage, causing great blooms of algae that stole the oxygen right from the water, leaving the fish to writhe and float to the surface. Decades of abuse. An endless tonnage of disregard. All of which would’ve killed the bay long ago if it weren’t for the steady string of hurricanes bringing in their million million gallons of diluting fresh water. Nature’s irony, using one disaster to neutralize another.

      Because of several busy hurricane seasons in a row, the bay water was not as salty or as acidic. You could see the bottom again. Patches of eelgrass were growing. Clusters of shrimp snapped by. But there was no cause for celebration. The rebirth was only temporary. The ever-sprawling masses up the road would win eventually. They’d kill the Keys. One day soon, one of those weekend visitors would snap off the last finger of coral, snatch up the final living conch. And no matter what anyone tried to do, you could absolutely count on the fact that those toxins would continue to pump into the Everglades and filter into the bay until it was all as bleached out as the whitened bones of a desert coyote ten years lying in the sun.

      This was death-throes time. Time to bring your ear close to the lips of the dying creature and hear its final rasping words. Thorn couldn’t help being gloomy about it. The only way not to be gloomy was not to know it was happening or not to give a rat’s ass. He’d tried the rat’s-ass approach, tried it and tried it.

      So he and Casey had come out on a shakedown cruise and the new hull hadn’t leaked. Thorn was pleased with the hull, and a little amazed. But he was deeply disheartened by what he saw beneath the glittery surface. Last night, after two rum drinks and a long dose of starlight, he’d proposed that the two of them take another trip. Cross the Gulf Stream, go over to the islands, poke around. He’d heard about a place near Andros, the blue holes, the wall. Go diving in the deep stuff. Fish on flats where the bonefish had never seen human shadows. Maybe search out some fresh place to set up shop. A new home where the tourist Huns had not yet arrived.

      Casey said nothing, and Thorn dropped the subject.

      Now in the fading daylight, Thorn started in on Andros again. And those other little islands where wild goats and rats and iguanas were the only residents. He’d been down there as a kid with the folks who’d raised him, Doctor Bill Truman and his wife, Kate. They’d crossed the Gulf Stream on the Heart Pounder. It’d been his first experience with deep-sea fishing, sailfish, marlin, and yellowfin tuna. Thorn was only ten, but he remembered it clearly. Great fishing, wild landscape.

      ‘Leave the Keys?’ Casey said. ‘All this?’

      She levered herself up to a sitting position. Naked and oiled and squinting at him through the harsh sun. He looked out at the water where his fish was taking a breather, hiding behind a rock, probably hoping this was all just a terrible dream.

      ‘I’m ready for something new,’ Thorn said. ‘I’ve got an itch.’

      He cranked the reel, brought the fish a foot closer to the boat. Then another foot.

      ‘I think this is the end, Thorn.’

      ‘The end?’

      ‘Of you and me. Our romance.’

      He gave her an uncertain smile.

      ‘Because I want to go to the islands?’

      ‘No,’ Casey said. ‘It’s been coming for a while. It arrived just now.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘The end. The end of our affair.’

      He cranked the fish closer. It seemed to have given up. Just a dull weight now.

      Casey said, ‘We’re different. I thought it would work out, you being how you are and me being who I am. But it hasn’t.’

      ‘It’s working for me.’

      ‘You like me because I’m shallow, Thorn.’

      ‘You’re not shallow.’

      ‘Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s who I am. How I was raised. I don’t have a complicated view of the world. I don’t have dark places. Brood over stuff, get all tangled up in my thoughts. You like me because I’m easy. A lick and a dash and you’re on your way.’

      Thorn looked out at the bright water. His eyes hurt and his shoulders were tired from hauling in the damn fish on such light tackle. Casey was right. There was no reason to be sporting when all you were doing was catching your supper. Just put ten-pound test on the reel and haul them in as efficiently as possible and be done with it.

      ‘Are you listening to me, Thorn?’

      ‘Oh, yes. I’m listening.’

      ‘You’ve just been using me to relax. I knew that. My girlfriends told me from the beginning. All the women you’ve been with, what they were like. I’m not like any of them. But I thought I’d give it a try. And sure, it was fun most of the time. The sex was fine. But we’re not the same. We’re just not. It’s pretty simple when you get down to it. We have fun, but we don’t exalt each other.’

      ‘Exalt each other?’

      ‘Maybe it’s not the right word. I don’t know. But you know what I mean. We don’t push each other up the incline. We’re just hovering in the status quo.’

      Thorn cranked the sea trout up to the side of the boat. He climbed down from the platform and used the scoop net to bring the fish aboard. It lay inert on the deck, all its fight gone. Thorn squatted down. He withdrew the barbless hook from its lip and eased the sea trout back over the side and washed it back and forth through the water till it was revived. When he let it go, the fish hesitated a moment, sinking several inches through the water, then with a couple of flutters of its tail it was gone.

      Thorn looked out toward the small mangrove island, at the bright water stretching beyond it, the vast silvery plain that ran for miles up toward the mainland.

      ‘You sure, Casey? I like you a whole lot. I’m very happy with you.’

      ‘Happy isn’t good enough, Thorn. Sorry.’

      ‘It’s not?’

      ‘Happy is pretty low on the joy scale.’

      She reached over and picked up her yellow blouse and slipped it on and buttoned it. She looked at him for a moment, then looked out at the water again.

      ‘Tell me the right words. I’ll say them.’

      She smiled at СКАЧАТЬ