Seascape, the layout, reminded Maguire of a small tropical World’s Fair; round white buildings, striped awnings, and blue and yellow pennants among shrubs and royal palms.
There was Neptune’s Realm you could walk into and look through windows to watch the porpoise and sea creatures glide past, underwater. Topside they put on the Flying Dolphin Show.
There was Shark Lagoon, a pool full of brown nurse sharks and a few giant sea turtles.
There was the Porpoise Petting Pool, where you could touch Misty and Gippy’s hard-boiled-egg skin and feed them minnows, three-for-a-quarter.
At the Grandstand Arena Brad Allen put on the main event, the World-Famous Seascape Porpoise and Sea Lion Show: “where these super-smart mammals perform their aquatic acrobatics.”
Back in the Alligator Pit a Seminole Indian used to wrestle twelve-foot gators, but the Seminole quit and went to Disney World, and R.D. Hooker only tried it a couple of times; so the alligators and a crocodile were there if you wanted to look at them.
Yellow- and white-striped awnings covered the refreshment stand and gift shop. A fifty-cent Sky Ride in two-seater gondolas gave you a low aerial view of the grounds, the tanks and pools of blue water, the white cement walks and buildings among the imported palm trees: a clean, manicured world just off the S.E. 17th Street Causeway.
“If you don’t like it, why don’t you quit?” Lesley said, getting a little pouty.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, I said it wasn’t real,” Maguire said, Maguire driving Lesley’s yellow Honda, heading home to the Casa Loma. “It’s like a refuge. Nothing can happen to you there, you’re safe. But it’s got nothing to do with reality. It’s like you’re given security, but in exchange for it you have to give up yourself. You have to become somebody else.
Lesley said, “Jesus, what’s safe about getting down in the water, feeding those fucking sharks? I’ve done it every day this week, you know it? Robyn’s off probably giving Brad some head.”
Maguire said, “Come on, the sharks feed all night. You jiggle a piece of fish, it’s for the tourists. I’m not talking about that kind of being safe. I mean here, you live in a little world that’s got nothing to do with the real world. You’re sheltered-”
“I’m sheltered?”
“We are, working there. What’s a really big problem? Misty eats some popcorn, gets constipated. Pebbles is grouchy, won’t imitate the Beatles. Everybody’s going, ‘Christ, what’s the matter with Pebbles?’ Spend months, maybe a year training a dolphin to jump through a hoop, come up seventeen feet in the air and ring the school bell.”
Lesley said, “Yeah?” She still didn’t get it.
“They’re doing something that dolphins don’t normally do, right?”
Lesley thought a moment. “Yeah-but they jump. Out in the wild they jump all the time.”
“They shoot baskets? They bowl out there?”
“It’s to show how intelligent they are,” Lesley said, “how they can be trained.”
“Here’s the point,” Maguire said, wishing the Honda was air-conditioned, wishing the lady in front of him would turn, for Christ sake, if she was going to turn, turn. “They don’t normally, the dolphin, they don’t pretend they’re playing baseball out in the ocean or jump up and take a piece of fish out of somebody’s mouth, right?”
“If you don’t like it,” Lesley said, “what do you do it for?”
Jesus, Maguire thought. He said, “Just follow the point I want to make, okay? I’m not saying I don’t like it. I’m only saying it’s like playing make-believe. The dolphin wouldn’t be here, they wouldn’t be doing the tricks if we didn’t teach them. You see what I mean? They’d be out there doing something else, we’d be doing something else. But no, we made this up. The dolphins and us, we’re playing with ourselves. We’re going through the motions of something that doesn’t have anything to do with reality.”
“So?”
Oh, Christ. “So-if they’re not real dolphins doing all that kind of shit, what’re we? Reciting the canned humor, throwing them pieces of codfish-what’re we?”
“I was a waitress, a place on Las Olas,” Lesley said. “That was real, real shit. You like to ask me what I’d rather do?”
“I’d like to borrow your car this evening,” Maguire said. “What’re the chances?”
He poured himself a white rum with a splash of lemon concentrate, left the venetian blinds half closed and sat for awhile, the room looking old and worn-out in the dimness. Fifty bucks a week including black and white TV, it was still a bargain. He could hear the hi-fi going next-door, Lesley boogying around the apartment to the Bee-Gees, ignoring her aunt, who was a little deaf. A nice woman, Maguire would sit and talk to her sometimes, listen to episodes from her past life in Cincinnati, Ohio, until he’d tell her he had to go to bed, wake up early. Lesley never sat and listened even for a minute. Lesley would roll her eyes when she saw an episode coming and get out of there. Lesley had no feelings for others; but she sure had a nice firm healthy little body.
Maguire showered and had another rum and lemon while he put on his good clothes. Pale beige slacks, dark-blue sportshirt and a skimpy dacron sportcoat, faded light-blue, he’d got at Burdine’s for forty-five bucks. He loved the sportcoat because, for some reason, it made him think of Old Florida and made him feel like a native. (A Maguire dictum: wherever you are, fit in, look like you belong. In Colorado wear a sheepskin coat and lace-up boots.) He got the Detroit Free Press clipping out of the top drawer, from under his sweat socks, and slipped it into the inside coat pocket. He then went next door and asked Lesley’s aunt if he could use the phone; he’d be sure to get the charges and pay for it.
He said to Lesley, “You want to turn that down a little?”
Lesley said, “Who’re you calling, your hot date?”
“I don’t have a hot date.”
“I thought you were going out.”
“Turn the music down, okay?”
Maguire gave the operator the Detroit number and waited. He felt nervous. He wished Lesley would quit watching him.
“Aren’t you gonna clean up?”
“You want me to leave, say so.”
“I get back, I’ll take you out to dinner.”
In the phone, Andre Patterson’s wife said, “Hello?”
“Okay?” Maguire said to Lesley. “Go on, get cleaned up.” Then into the phone:
“Hi, this is Cal Maguire. How you doing?” He had to listen while Andre’s wife told him she was piss-poor, if he really wanted to know about it, having trouble getting her ADC checks, had her phone disconnected for a while. Maguire said yeah, he’d been trying to get hold of her, calling information. He said, “Listen, you know the deal at the club?… The country club, Andre and I and Grover. I asked you the man’s name? Remember?… No, I’ve got it. What I was wondering, you know, Andre said the man was paying them back for something? At the club, something happened there to the man. I wondered if Andre ever spoke to you about it… If he mentioned to you what it was happened out there. Like maybe the man’s wife was involved, you know, maybe she was insulted or something and that’s what got the man upset.” Christ, upset-willing to pay them forty-five hundred to go out there and hit the place. “Uh-huh, yeah, that’s right… But he never said anything about the man’s wife, huh?… No, I was just wondering. Hey, well listen, tell Andre I’m gonna write to him, okay?… Fine, I’ll be talking to you.” Shit.
“Very mysterious,” Lesley said, holding a beach towel wrapped around her. “Who’s Andre?”
“Friend of mine.”
“What’d somebody get upset about?”