ABOUT FACING THE FURIES It’s hurricane season, and for one Keys community, the weather isn’t the only thing in turmoil. “It’s starting already. There’s something fierce out there stirring everybody up. This wind is going to blow the earth into the sea.” At 86 years old, Opal, Bahamian matriarch and purported seer, tries to guide her family through the coming storms: JoBe, the nephew to whose drug activities she casts a blind eye; T.C., her teenage granddaughter who’s experiencing her sexual awakening, and Pearl, her niece whose marriage is its own tempest. The Thompson family isn’t fairing much better. For Jessica, strung out and determined to make peace with her past, returning to Key West is, perhaps, the worst decision she’d ever make, but it is the only thing she can do. Her husband, Mark, mailman, dreamer, now single father, struggles to maintain a sense of family for his teenage daughter Mia. Coming to grips with the loneliness and responsibility of a single parenthood, he finds his life turned upside by Jessica’s return. And for octogenarians Bud and Caroline Johnson, they’re just trying to weather one more summer of life’s storms.
BOOK ONE Bonnie A tropical wave emerged from western Africa on May 22. On satellite images, this system was not particularly impressive after crossing the coast because it had only a small area of associated deep convection. As the wave progressed rapidly westward across the tropical Atlantic, the cloud pattern became better organized, with cyclonic turning more evident in the low clouds. Fairly steady strengthening continued while the storm moved quickly into the central Caribbean Sea, then turned northwestward. The eye of the hurricane crossed the south coast of western Cuba on May 27and emerged from the north coast of Cuba, about twenty-two nautical miles east of Havana. Turning northward, it gained strength over the Florida Straits and the Category 2 hurricane passed over the Lower Keys with maximum winds near 110 knots.
“The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.� The Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes 1:6.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 26
Pushing the mail cart over the cracked and broken pavement of Elizabeth Street, Mark peered at the forty seven deliveries that lie ahead. His mind wandered, random thoughts as varied as the letters in his satchel, some paused and then disappeared, while others remained steadfast. Mia, his fifteenyear-old daughter, was growing up too fast. She was a good kid, but for Mark, being a dad—and a surrogate mom—was a challenge. He shrugged and pushed the cart a little faster, grabbed a bundle of mail and looped the rubber band away from the stack and onto his wrist. A disconnect notice from Keys Electric sat on the top of his next delivery. For eighteen years, he delivered bad news impartially, but ever since his wife Jessica turned their family of three into two, he winced at the letters and bills he recognized as unwanted, unexpected, and hardhearted. A glint of sunlight reflecting off a tin roof scorched his eyes, and he put his hand to his forehead for shade. For a moment, he couldn’t see; sunspots of yellow with fiery orange lines devouring his sight. A pounding in his head followed, along with a dryness in his mouth. He kept walking, determined to finish his route. As his vision returned, he thought of the blind artist who died recently. For more than fifty years, Sunshine had painted scenes of Old Key West on discarded planks and reclaimed driftwood. Mark remembered the big, dark-skinned man, sitting at the corner of Whitehead and South, near the Southernmost Point, with paint pots and a cardboard palette at his feet. His
head had been as shiny as a bowling ball, and his face was study of contrasts: puffy, black cheeks like little pillows rising to accommodate a bright-toothed smile. His eyes—all sclera— were an incandescent white with irises receded into the dreams of a seeing man. He’d stop with brush in hand and turn his face up to the sun. Mark didn’t know which beamed brighter: the man or the star. Mark still had the painting that Sunshine had given him years ago of a coconut palm bending submissively to the wind, the top of the tree doubled over like a hook. “That’s God’s cane,” Sunshine had said. “Like hurr-icane,” he had laughed, a booming bass, his voice as rich as his life, full and hardy. The painting now leaned against the mirror above Mark’s dresser, claiming some of the abandoned territory left behind after Jessica had run off. Sunshine’s paintings had become quite popular, and collectors have been snapping them up since his death. It was another example of how the island’s treasures were ignored until they disappeared. Neighborhoods, once the classic saltboxes of the wreckers and shrimp boaters, were now pink and yellow reconstructions, shining in the glimmer of trust money from up North. Perfect gardens, patios, Southern Living magazine spreads of houses that lie fallow nine months of the year. Mark was well aware of the snowbirds’ domination of the island. Their mail was forwarded in bundles from addresses in the wealthiest suburbs of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Their windows shuttered from April until December, the boarded up houses cast blind eyes to the neighborhood’s problems until the owners migrated south to attend Opening Night at the symphony or the Old Town Preservation Christmas Party. Full-time residents watched with weary eyes as the town
changed from a sleepy fishing village to a live-and-let-and-live getaway at the end of the road. Until it finally evolved into a reproduction of the many sanitized seaside towns whose history is polished away by development—towns and villages with names like Seaside Heights, Heron by the Sea, Dolphin Bay, and Eagles Crest—long after the namesakes had flown to other, more reliable homes. Mark knew the evolution of Key West better than most people. He carried Medicare statements to elderly residents whose homes were hidden behind the multi-million dollar mansions that had swept up every available space on the island. Stepping from the heat of the late spring day into the coolness of a canopied path, traversing a three-story, reclaimed Victorian house, he went past the pool with its brass dolphin gushing filtered water from its mouth to the dilapidated shack beyond. Situated on the back lot, leaning to the left, looking like a good gust of wind would topple it without a problem, was what was probably a storage shed fifty years ago. Now, it was home to Mr. and Mrs. Edger Johnson, a pair of wobbly octogenarians who barely had the strength to greet him at the door. There was a time, Mark knew, they had lived in the main residence. But like so many locals, the pressure to cave to the money and power from the North—and all directions, truly—made it impossible to avoid giving up the homes their families has lived in for generations. The Johnsons were lucky, if you called living in a rundown, wood-rotting shack fortunate. They were lucky enough to have stayed on the island. Most of the long timers had moved to Ocala or the Panhandle or the Carolinas, where they could still afford a decent home and a bit of land. Mrs. Johnson peered out the door, her neck craning toward him. “Do you want some iced tea?” she asked as she stepped
outside. “Honeybee, you sit down,” she ordered the yellow lab, who was squirming around their legs and underneath her walker. “No, thank you, Mrs. Johnson,” he said. He had gotten used to the smell of old age that permeated the house. There was little air flow except for a box fan and a window air-conditioner in what he assumed was the bedroom. The ramshackle house with its cracks in the walls and uneven floors no longer held his attention when he came by to check on the couple, but he worried when he saw Honeybee loping around Mrs. Johnson’s stick legs. He was sure if she were to fall and break a hip, it would be the end of her. And the end of Mr. Johnson—Bud—too. “Where’s Bud?” he asked. Mrs. Johnson let the screen door close “He ain’t breathin’ so well, I’m afraid. It’s the heat.” Mark handed her the slim stack of mail: a flyer for air purification systems, a newsletter from the Eastern Star, a solicitation for a credit card—UP TO $100,000 NOW—and a water bill. “Well, you call 911 if he starts to have trouble.” She tucked the mail under her arm and petted Honeybee, who was sniffing at Mark’s shoes. “I know. I know. For fiftytwo years, I’ve kept an eye on him. Trouble is it’s too darn hot for May. Gets thing stirred up, don’t you know.” Mark nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s stirring up something out there,” he said, gesturing beyond the perfect, white house, past the half-baked tourists on the newly constructed beach, and out to the ocean somewhere in the swirl of wind entering the Caribbean. “Gonna storm?” she asked, scratching one of Honeybee’s ears.
“Might,” he said, before heading down the path to the street. “It’s too soon. Too hot for May!” she called to his back. Nothing happens when it’s supposed to, Mark thought as he continued down the street. The wind picked up and took a flyer from his hand. Chuckling, he chased it; his daily encounter with the Johnsons always lightened his mood. He found their dedication, their love despite all odds, old-fashioned but damned charming. A flock of ibis descended from their chorus line on an overhead power line to a nearby lawn and began picking for insects in a frenzy of feeding as if they sensed impending danger, despite a cloudless sky. Mark hurried to finish his route before Mia returned home from soccer practice. Each day nearing five o’clock, he felt the pressure to finish up and get home before Mia, anxious to be there when she returned. Despite Jessica’s destruction of their home life, Mark and Mia were doing okay, but he feared the idea of more disasters. There were so many uncontrollable forces in the world that keeping a simple family together seemed a Herculean task. He was amazed at how complicated life was for fifteenyear-olds: the demands of social interaction, competition in school and sports, pressure to perform on state-mandated tests, and a growing self-awareness and budding sexuality. He knew he could not be there all the time, but Mia had had one parent desert her; that was enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel DiStasio's fiction has appeared in The MacGuffin, Gertrude Press, The Louisville Review, The Minnetonka Review, and Reed and other literary journals. He is full-time instructor of English and Literature and a former editor for General Media. He has worked a s freelance writer for numerous magazines and newspapers. He was born in Syracuse, NY, lived in Kentucky, Key West and now currently resides in Fort Lauderdale.