Butterflies in Heat (2 page)

"This magazine I've got has some real nice pictures of it."

"Propaganda. Of course, there's no place in America like Tortuga. Most people there have been cut off from the mainland for years. They've become inbred, very suspicious of strangers. We were just left to ourselves until the last few years when you young people started to invade. You heard we had good weather or something. No one wants you, except me. And I make my living off you. Some of those beatniks look like they don't have any money, but then the sheriff confiscates travelers checks and credit cards when he hauls them off to jail. Credit cards-imagine that. Only rich folks have those things. I've never had a traveler's check in my whole life, but they give them out to beatniks. Shows what's happening to this country."

"You make Tortuga sound like a real hell hole."

"It is"

"Why have you stayed so long?"

"I was born there, and that's reason enough for most natives. Bad as Tortuga is, you don't seem to fit into no other place if you're born on the island. We even talk different, sort of funny sounding to you mainlanders."

"Is there a place to stay?"

"Just one hotel and it's not much. Every now and then one of those mainlanders comes down and tries to build a tourist court, but the locals make it rough on him. They don't want a lot of dumb tourists running around town. But the natives are the dumb ones. Tourists would bring in some money. But the islanders just aren't forward looking. I told you, I'm the only progressive voice, and I'm seventy-six years old. When I'm dead and gone, I don't know what you young people are going to do when you get in a mess."

"If I ever do, I'll call you. Okay?"

"Don't call me unless you've got some bucks. I'm not a charity lawyer." The rest of the ride was in silence. It was calm and strangely quiet in the early morning hours.

After crossing a rickety wooden bridge into Tortuga, Numie was all eyes. Crabtree remained silent except for his heavy breathing. Tortuga was like something out of the past, its mystical beauty exotic and unearthly.

Shrimp boats and barges lined the pier, and the masts of anchored sailboats bobbed in the water. One houseboat proclaimed its name, REEFER MADNESS, in bold red letters.

The streets were rough and bumpy, occasionally broken by the octopus-like roots of massive banyan trees from the East Indies. Art nouveau lamps dimly lit the sidewalks. Jungle shrubbery—wild and untamed—and sago palms filled the yards of the old seagull gray houses. The buildings were mostly clapboard, drizzly in need of paint and haphazardly held together behind sagging Victorian verandas.

A convent with a dormered mansard roof and a central tower of stone added a note of stability. Otherwise the effect was lushly decadent. From around the world, sea captains had brought back Spanish laurel from southern Europe, the breadfruit tree from Polynesia, and the tamarind with its podlike fruit from India. Cacti flaunting its snow-white blossoms rubbed up against some of the buildings. One gave off the intoxicating smell of the night-blooming Cereus.

No lights came from any of the houses, except one lone cottage down a dark alleyway shaded by gaunt and gnarled lenten trees.

Here Numie was ... at the end of the line ... America's last frontier. "Pretty dead tonight."

"We're coming in from the east," Crabtree said. "That's the respectable part. Wait till you see the west side of town. It never shuts down. I'm going to let you off here. You'll have to walk the rest of the way. I don't have much gas."

"Thanks for the ride," Numie said, getting out. "It saved my life."

"That's my profession." The Buick pulled out.

Behind Numie was the Tortuga bus station, gaudily Victorian as an outsized wedding cake. The years of decay showed, though. The once-white paint was scaling, and young boys had tossed rocks through the stained-glass windows. The ornamental gingerbread work around the top was rotting away, and steep-roofed towers looked out onto the deserted street.

Slowly Numie headed down the street. To the town's one hotel. To a new life.

The afternoon sun stole between the splinters of the bamboo shades. The air was heavy, humid.

Numie was drowning in his own sweat. The limp, musty sheets were tangled around his nude body.

Where was he? What new and god awful town this time? He reached for a lopsided wicker chair and ran his hands along its moldy frame. Then he grabbed hold of it, clutching—using it as a support to get back on his feet.

Climbing out of bed, he sat down on the chair. He had to get it all together, to face that street.

Another street, another town. But this one would be different from all the rest.

Bougainvillea in runaway colors of fuchsia, burnt orange, and pink was creeping through the windows of the ramshackle Dry Marquesas Hotel. The wildly growing vine was like a threat by nature that it could crawl in, overpower, and conquer on a moment's notice.

The deathlike air was still, broken only by the heavy sound of Numie's booted feet on the creaky steps.

The lobby was a hodgepodge. The potted plants had long ago toppled from thirst. Like the old gingerbread hotel itself.

It wasn't always this way, he'd heard. Once the lobby was filled with rich, bearded wreckers, the laughter of women who powdered their faces chalkwhite, and the swift movement of black boys who stuffed their adolescent bodies into white pants and put on cerise-colored shirts. Like those anachronistic pirates, Numie had come to scavenge.

Into the lobby men's room for one final appraisal of his body. Arching his broad shoulders, he made his six feet, two inches all the taller. That body, lanky and well shaped—the body that had brought him so much praise. It was still intact. What was he worried about? The face—angular, masculine. A few lines were appearing under his eyes. So what? That meant too many nights in too many bars. Those lines would fade in the afternoon sun of Tortuga. Smooth and bronze once more.

Leaving the toilet, he walked in a rapid, nervous stride through the lobby. His body wasn't moving harmoniously. Something inside seemed to be at work to spoil his appearance. He needed a real smoke in the worse way. But he had nothing, and only three bucks in his pocket and ten dollars in reserve in his shoe to buy anything. He wouldn't be able to pay his hotel bill unless he earned some money real quick.

The side entrance of the hotel led to a street shaded by mimosa.

A barefoot black boy was sitting in the doorway, whittling on a stick. He wore a pair of bleached-out blue jeans with a big hole in the left leg, through which a knobby knee protruded.

"Where's the nearest bar?" Numie asked.

The boy studied Numie's face for a long time. Then he put the stick in his mouth and munched on it. "White boy, did anybody ever tell you got violet eyes? They're violet just like the flower. My mama's got a pair of pillow cases the color of those eyes. I bet panthers got violet eyes, too. You ever see a panther?"

"Not since I flushed mine down the toilet. So you won't tell?" me.

The boy scooted a few feet away on the dusty step.

Narrowly missing a splinter. "I don't know about bars. The whole damn town's a bar. I'll be your guide. You're one of those drifters that keep coming down to bother the people here, ain't you?"

"I've done my share of drifting, but I don't plan to bother anybody. Unless they ask for it."

"Then why do you wear that blond hair so long?"

"That's my business."

"One thing we got to agree on before I take you around," the boy said. "If I see some of my kin, I gotta run and hide till they pass me by."

"Are you ashamed to be seen with me?"

"I don't want nobody on this here island to think that I, Castor Q. Combes, showed any white-haired boy with violet eyes anything. Those eyes are gonna cause trouble for a heap of people in their time."

"They already have."

"Pay in advance, white boy. One dollar."

"Now that's a philosophy I understand, Castor Q. I've always insisted that my clients pay in advance, too."

"What kind of business you in?"

"I sell illusions, Castor baby."

"What's this baby crap?"

"I call everybody baby."

Castor was reaching for Numie's arm, pulling him along. He led the way down the narrow street. Once Castor pocketed his dollar, he lost his ability to talk.

Deep into the town Numie was descending.

"This is the pinko section," Castor muttered, before spitting into a hibiscus bush.

"What's that supposed to mean? They Communist or something?"

"Pink gold, man, pink gold. How stupid you are! This gold is shrimp—delicious, pink jumbo shrimp."

The water along the rundown port was murky, as if only dead things washed up on its shore. Fish and shrimp floated on the surface—streaked with black from the oil of the boats.

Barechested shrimpers—sweaty and unshaven—were lying around, guzzling beer.

"See those men?" Castor asked.

A group of men, mostly black, lay against the side of a dilapidated warehouse—their backs against the brick wall.

"There's gonna be trouble when the other shrimpers come home," Castor said. "Those guys are out of work, and they're gonna fight with the guys who were hired."

"Do you predict trouble all the time?"

"Seen a lot in my day."

"How old is your day? You must be all of twelve."

Castor didn't answer, licking his mouth instead. He turned down a street that looked more like an alley.

Rows of honky-tonks, advertising a paper cup of beer at fifteen cents, lined both sides of the street. The buildings seemed pieced together with crates and cardboard. Some of the box-type dwellings resembled abandoned freight cars. Naked, half-starved children played under the houses, supported by pilings. Space was too scarce for anyone to have a yard—so some semblance of front porches were attached to the hovels. Sad-faced women sat on them, sunning themselves like dogs. They fanned their faces with palm fronds and gossiped. Their eyes were strange and hollow, their stringy hair falling where
it
may. Dresses hung like rags from their bodies. The women twisted their necks to get a glimpse of Numie.

The children—defiant of an outsider treading on their only playground—quit their games and stood back. A pathway was cleared for Numie. The haunting eyes of these little people posed some undefined threat.

"Castor," he called out frantically. The sun was turning each object it hit into giant diamonds, their reflecting glares blinding him.

"What's the matter, white boy?"

"All of a sudden I hate this place. Forget the tour."

"Wait a minute. I got strict rules. Guys who don't finish the tour gotta pay me an extra dollar."

"No way," Numie said. His pathway cleared, he darted up the street.

"Violet eyes," Castor screamed after him, chasing him up the alley. "Money, money, money."

"Rise and shine," came a gruff voice.

A stick was poking Numie in the ribs.

"Get your ass out of that bed, punk," said another voice, growing nearer.

Quickly Numie opened his sleepy eyes into the blinding glare of flashlight. Someone was turning on the light in his hotel room.