Florida Man Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Tom Cooper

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9780593133316

  Ebook ISBN 9780593133323

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Lee Ofman for permission to reprint “Miami Dolphins No. 1” by Lee Ofman, copyright © 1972 by Lee Ofman. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Zak Tebbal

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Characters

  Tropical Storm: A Falling Meteorite of a Man (1963)

  Category One: Grotto (1980)

  The Sinkhole

  The Florida Man Mystery House

  The Skull

  The Pervy Mermaid

  Henry Yahchilane

  Midnight Jaunt

  Grotto

  Grotto Closed

  Back from Rennes

  Riling the Beehive

  I Found a Head

  Spring Break

  Cool Papa Lemon

  Poinciana

  In the Clink

  Nganga Palo Moyombe

  Like a Grape

  Sprung

  Microfiche

  Eddie

  Melee

  Chocolate Buddha

  Digging a Hole

  Big Gorilla Fireworks

  Kaboom

  A Surprise Package

  The Mental Census

  The Sea Cave Arcade

  Down in the Hole

  Lasso the Pope

  Give Me Your Belt Buckle

  Category Two: Age of the Refugee (1981–1984)

  Rum Jungle

  Night of a Thousand Casks

  The Golden Bridge

  Stay in One Place

  o-x-nxw-w-ver-var-legua 1/10 o-x-swxw-ver-var-hasta x

  Shit on a Shoeheel

  Boston Bluto

  Complaint Box

  1983

  An Unexpected Reunion

  Fort Lauderdale

  Somewhere in the Everglades

  Fish Heads

  Santeria

  Pick Your Battles

  Doggy Doctor

  Big Cypress

  Independence Day

  Mr. Clownfish

  Love It or Leave It, Herman

  Black Hair Falling

  Boris Karloff

  Another Havana

  Slaughter on Goosefuck Avenue

  Category Three: Catface (1985–1986)

  Holiday Road

  Excursions

  Inferno

  Big Cat Gas

  Wigging

  The Big Bad Python Rodeo

  Melon Head

  Operation Tarantula (Improbable Palaces)

  Mr. Video

  Der Kommissar

  Dread Envelopes

  The Plane, the Plane (What Would an Assassin Do?)

  Phone Call from Hades

  Speed Trap

  Wicked Pissah Category Six Three-Pronged Shocker!

  A Flock of Flamingos

  The Bucket Brigade

  Room Service

  Were It a Different Season

  A Blast from the Past

  The Cat and the Mouse and the Lighthouse

  Category Four: Wild Black Yonder (1986–1999)

  Mild to Medium

  Other Breaking News

  Wall of Voodoo (Catface Redux)

  Visiting Hours

  Calusa Causeway

  1988

  Cracker Lazarus

  Purple Marlin Hotel

  Grouper Sandwich

  Black Rubber Bag

  1989

  A Very Henry Yahchilane Christmas (Chateauneuf-Du-Pape)

  A New Year

  Kraken

  Mr. Why

  His Tours Changed

  Butterfly

  Thirty

  Mariposa, Surfer Rosa

  Hurricane Andrew

  This Is It, Eddie

  Deep Sea Fishing

  Meet Me at the Beach House

  Walk It Off

  A Very Henry Yahchilane Thanksgiving

  Zest

  Ebenezer McFornication

  Her Name Was Gabby

  Whomp

  Sugar Cubes

  Category Five: Aphra aka Landfall Imminent (2008–2019)

  Strange Weather

  Aphra

  SOS (the Phone, the Phone)

  Get Out Now

  The Serpentarium

  The Terrarium

  Butterbean

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Works Consulted

  Other Titles

  About the Author

  Solastalgia: a longing for the world as it should be, for nature when there’s no nature left.

  —Robert Macfarlane, from The Lost Words

  We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.

  —President John F. Kennedy

  We are the ageless, we are teenagers

  We are the focused out of the hopeless

  We are the last chance, we are the last dance

  —Public Image Ltd., “One Drop”

  Levels rising on the island / Shows no sign of soon subsiding.

  —David Berman, as Purple Mountains, “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan”

  There is no time.

  —Lou Reed, “There Is No Time”

  Suspect every man. Ask no questions. Settle your own quarrels. Never steal from an Islander. Stick by him, even if you do not know him. Shoot quick, when your secret is in danger. Cover your kill.

  —Old Conch saying

  Miami has the Dolphins

  The Greatest Football Team

  We take the ball from goal to goal

  Like no one’s ever seen

  We’re in the air, we’re on the ground

  We’re always in control

  And when you say Miami

  You’re talking Super Bowl

  ’Cause we’re the…

  Miami Dolphins,

  Miami Dolphins,

  Miami Dolphins Number One.

  Yes we’re the…

  Miami Dolphins,

  Miami Dolphins,

  Miami Dolphins Number One

  —Lee Ofman, “Miami Dolphins Fight Song,” 1972

  Characte
rs

  MAIN PLAYERS

  REED CROWE, proprietor of the Florida Man Mystery House and Emerald Island Inn

  HENRY YAHCHILANE, ex-military, semi-retired, jack-of-all-trades

  HEIDI KARAVAS, painter and art curator, ex-wife of Reed Crowe

  WAYNE WADE (aka Cool Papa Lemon, aka Mr. Video), factotum, Reed Crowe’s childhood friend

  HECTOR MORALES (aka Catface), Mariel Boatlift survivor, assassin

  EDDIE MALDONADO (aka the Coca-Cola Kid), ersatz boatswain, student

  OTHER PLAYERS

  ANDREW FREDERICK KRUMPP, proprietor of Red, White and Blue Liquor

  BARRY BOONE, pyrotechnics expert, Big Gorilla Fireworks

  CHARLEY ALEXOUPOBULOS, hardware store owner

  CHILL NORTON, owner of The Pervy Mermaid

  FONG, attraction owner

  GABBY VU, physician

  JERRY VOGEL, yachtsman, playboy

  LEON CAESAR ARANGO, Cuban refugee

  LILY CROWE (aka Otter), Heidi Karavas and Reed Crowe’s daughter

  MARIPOSA ARANGO, Cuban refugee

  MARLON ARANGO, Cuban refugee

  MOE REYNOLDS, ornithologist, Myrtle’s girlfriend

  MYRTLE BREEDLOVE, mailperson

  NATASHA YAHCHILANE, Henry Yahchilane’s daughter, financier

  NATE STERNBERG, deputy officer

  NINA ARANGO, Cuban refugee

  PETROWSKI, deputy officer

  SEYMOUR YAHCHILANE, Henry Yahchilane’s son, professor of art therapy

  SHELLY CROWE, ex–Weeki Wachee mermaid, Reed Crowe’s mother

  ZIGGY SCHAFFER, sheriff of Emerald City

  TROPICAL STORM

  A Falling Meteorite of a Man

  (1963)

  THE BOY CAME INSIDE THE GIRL.

  Reed Crowe rolled off Heidi Karavas with a final shudder and moan and lay next to her in the gunwale of the rocking aluminum skiff. Some wee morning hour, the August air sticky with heat. The planetarium of the Florida sky, a thousand score of stars strong, glimmered down. The vast Everglades was stretched in every direction around them, miles upon miles of black swamp and saw grass hammocks and mangrove thickets. And to the west on the distant shore, like votives arrayed along an altar, shined the lights of Emerald City, town of Crowe’s birth, the beach houses and shanties and houseboats with windows aglow.

  The boy and girl were still catching their breath when Crowe said, “Puerto Rico.”

  Heidi asked Crowe if he pulled out in time. He told her he did. The girl asked again. Crowe reassured her. And he was almost certain. Ninety-five percent certain. Still convincing himself, he said, “You hear me? Puerto Rico. How ’bout Puerto Rico?”

  “You’re drunk,” Heidi said. She stood, hand on the gunwale, sweaty skin separating from the cold metal bottom of the boat with a tape-peeling sound. She picked up her mint-green panties. Slipped a thick shining thigh through a leghole, slipped the other leg through.

  To the boy she was a vision. Her fulsome Greek figure, her wide hips. Her dark curly hair, sun-kissed from a summer almost past. Her blouse embroidered with little yellow and red flowers, the cotton startlingly white against her olive skin.

  Crowe loved her.

  She was seventeen, he on the cusp of eighteen.

  In 1960 they’d met during Hurricane Donna, in Emerald City’s hurricane shelter, a repurposed gymnasium. She was from south of Tarpon Springs, visiting her grandparents, a girl from a Greek sponging family, and right away Crowe knew he had to see her again. As soon as possible. And before Donna had scythed across the state, he asked her on a date.

  Flaming Star with Elvis Presley.

  Three years later here they were, Heidi asking what the hell was in Puerto Rico. She settled next to him, pillowed her sweaty cheek against his chest.

  They smelled like each other. Briny animal teenage lust.

  Crowe popped a match and lit a cigarette. In the brief flare of light his green eyes were smirking. “Pamphlet in the mail the other day. A sign. Selling nice little houses on the beach out there, for cheap. Little huts.”

  “You wanna live in a hut now,” Heidi said.

  “Nice huts. Place you could live like a king. Dollar a day.”

  “You’d die in two weeks.”

  They often played this game after lovemaking, talking about where they’d run away. Fantasies, pipe dreams.

  He had no money. She had no money.

  He had no plans except far-fetched.

  In May, the destination was Rio de Janeiro. In June, Isla Margarita.

  Somewhere far, far away from their warring families.

  About this they agreed.

  Heidi’s clan, the Karavases, was leery of Crowe and his kin. Rightfully so. The history of the Crowes, among the first homesteaders in this outpost so far-flung in the jungly reaches of Florida, was long and sordid.

  To the Karavas family, devout Catholics that they were, Crowe was guilty by association,

  By blood, by birthright.

  Wherever they ended up, the place had to be close to the water.

  They both loved the water.

  And they both loved this place, Emerald Island. The only reason why they’d leave was their families.

  Now Heidi asked Crowe, “You know one lick of Spanish?” Knowing damn well he didn’t. Heidi, fluent in two languages, English and Greek. Three, counting the conversational Spanish she picked up from all the radio stations down south in Miami. When the weather was right and when the signal was strong, you could pick up the signals this far up along the Gulf Coast.

  “Way you learn’s living in the country,” Crowe said, with as much authority as he could muster.

  “I like how your voice sounds when I put my ear like this. The rumble.”

  Night creatures—insects and frogs and alligators—babbled around them.

  A mosquito lit on Heidi’s knee and she slapped it. She dipped her hand in the water, swished it, flicked off the drops. She wiped her fingers dry in Crowe’s hair.

  “Hey, goddamn it,” he said. Kidding, leaning away. He smacked one of her fat brown ass cheeks. God, did he love her tan lines. Her ass.

  She bit softly into his neck.

  Crowe settled back and he went on. “Forcing yourself. Like throwing little kids in the water. Teaching them how to swim.”

  “You been throwing kids into pools?”

  “Hola. Bueno. Coma estas.” Crowe drew the last drag of his cigarette, put it out in an empty can of Hamm’s beer. Little hiss.

  “Nasty cigarette,” Heidi said sleepily.

  “I’ll dive for sponges. Scrape barnacles off yachts. Empty slop buckets. Lots of possibilities.”

  Heidi cocked her head, held up a finger.

  “Juggling,” Crowe said.

  “Shush,” Heidi said. “You hear that?”

  Crowe hushed.

  They listened.

  Now they both could hear it. The put-put-put of a small engine, a mile-high mechanical cough.

  The put-put-put grew closer, louder.

  And now they could see it, a small two-prop plane coming toward them, quickly shedding altitude. They could see the flashing beacon on the tail. The jerking navigation lights on the tips of the wings.

  Then flames engulfed the fuselage. Metal shrieked and ripped.

  A rudder broke free as the craft fell farther yet, closer yet.

  A fulminating dragon in its death spiral.

  Crowe saw something shear loose from the plane. Another part of the craft, he thought at first. But no, the flaming part was moving, screaming.

  A man was dropping from the sky headfirst. Like a daredevil. His arms were pinwheeling, his legs scissoring, his body flailing like he was fending off a frenzy o
f hornets.

  And then about a hundred yards away the falling man walloped the water, landing in the fringe of weeds circling a mangrove islet.

  Still the plane spiraled, now so low and close Crowe could feel the heat on his face, the sting of fumes in his eyes.

  Without thinking and without warning Crowe hooked his arm around Heidi’s waist and he tossed them overboard. All he heard was her little crying yelp before they went under clinging to each other.

  Then the water jolted massively as if meteor-struck.

  A roar of sound. An underwater supernova of light.

  Crowe and Heidi flailed against the undertow.

  They surfaced, gagging and retching against smoke. The wreckage of the plane flamed around them. Gobs of fiberglass and plastic so hot the little fires sputtered green and purple and blue.

  Several yards away their capsized boat bounced on the big black waves. They frog-paddled back to it. Crowe flipped the boat over and pulled himself in. He took Heidi’s hands and hoisted her out of the water and they sat gasping for breath.

  “I wanna go home,” said Heidi Karavas. Her voice was pleading, her eyes pure devastation. Like Crowe she was shivering and soaked.

  Crowe told Heidi, “We gotta go over there.” He didn’t like how his voice sounded. Scared, boyish.

  “No, no, no.” She was sobbing. She gripped Crowe’s arm, her fingers digging. “Just let the police.”

  “People,” Crowe told her. “Never find this place again.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Don’t be crazy.”

  “Oh man. People. They’re people, look. No, don’t. Don’t look at them.”

  “Are they dead?”

  Crowe didn’t answer.

  Heidi asked Crowe again.

  “Yeah, yeah, they are.”

  It took him several minutes to oar the distance to the wreckage and he did it alone. Heidi would not look. Could not look. She had her knees drawn up and her arms circled around her legs, her head hung down.

  When they drew closer he saw the bodies in the water. Three men, charred and smoking. Dead.

  “What’s that smell?” Heidi cried.

  Crowe didn’t answer.

  The nearest man lay belly-up in a stand of cattails, half his face scalded off so his jawbone showed through. Two other men bobbed in the water near the plane, the flesh of the bodies still aflame, their limbs skewed in angles anatomically impossible. Rag dolls twisted amok.