Not so at the marina. We buy the shrimp right off the boat from the bay shrimpers. Shrimp that haven’t been soaked in chemical brine, so none of the delicate iodine flavor has been leached away.
Combined with that is the fact that Joyce, who cooks in the seafood market, uses a very simple recipe I brought back from Panama, compliments of some of my Zonie friends. Fill an empty wine bottle with virgin olive oil and a dozen or more chili peppers. Cork and allow it to age for at least a few weeks. In a large bowl, pour the chili oil over fresh shrimp, squeeze in the juice of two fresh limes. Not lemons, limes. Salt heavily. Add garlic, black pepper, and, if you can find it, some Everglades Seasoning from La-Belle for a nice Cuban touch. Allow the shrimp to marinate for a day. Cook them on a very hot grill. The oil creates a lot of flame and sears them nicely black. It only takes a minute or two on each side. Overcook the shrimp and they’re ruined-dry and tough to peel. Get them off just as they turn pink and you’ve got one of the world’s great culinary experiences.
Which is why I’d heaped my plate high with shrimp. I sat there eating the shrimp, washing them down with iced beer, talking to the guides. Talking with the guides is a favorite pastime because they spend so much time on the water that any anomaly, any unusual experience, is immediately noted. Most light tackle guides are keen observers and have an even keener sense of humor-a necessity in their very tough business.
I sat there with Dalbert Weeks and Javier Castillo from Two Parrot Bight Marina, plus Nels Esterline, and big Felix Blane from Dinkin’s Bay. They wanted to know about the attempted kidnapping on Guava Key, and I reduced the incident to three or four vague sentences, then spent the next half hour or so listening to their stories. Trolling offshore in twenty feet of water for king mackerel, Dalbert’s party had jumped what he swore was a sail-fish-extremely rare that close to Sanibel or that far from the Gulf Stream. But as Felix noted, “That’s the great thing about saltwater, man. There are no gates out there and fish can swim anywhere they want. You know Sword Point up by the mouth of the river? Supposedly, way, way back, some guy landed a swordfish there and that’s practically fresh water come the rainy season.”
Tracking the same king mackerel run, Javier had found the flotsom of what he thought was a refugee boat. As a Cuban who’d fled his homeland during the Mariel boatlift, he’d examined the debris more carefully than most. “Inner tubes tied together, that’s what I first see. Three in all, one of them got no air. That tell me something ’cause inner tubes, that’s the way we used to fish off Havana. Paddle them out”-he made a twirling motion with his hands-“use nothing but hand lines right there at the edge of the Stream.”
He’d also found a five-gallon plastic can with AGUA spray-painted on the side. The can was empty. “Those people dead,” he said sadly. “Died of thirst, maybe went crazy drinking saltwater. Who knows. Over so many years, how many people you think that maricon Castro has killed in all?”
I noticed Ransom walking toward me, signaling me to come over, as I listened to Nels ask if anyone else had noticed that orange-colored cloud right at sunrise. He told us it was floating over the Gulf of Mexico all by itself, and was shaped perfectly like the head of a man.
“It looked like Mark Twain,” he said, “with the long hair and mustache. Or maybe Albert Einstein. Wouldn’t it be weird if it was one of their birthdays yesterday?”
Ransom was smiling, seemed real happy with herself. She was thumping her hands, playing an invisible drum, her hips swaying. I noted that she was wearing the golden ring once again, lion’s head in black, as she said, “My brother! I like this marina where you live. People, they so nice to me. Ev’body come right up and talk real friendly jus’ like back on Cat Island. An’ they love you, man. They tellin’ me, ‘Your brother, he a good man. He do this for me, or he do daht for me. Your brother, he hold this whole community together.’ ” She hugged her arm around my waist. “That make me so proud. You know what I think I’m gonna do?”
What she was thinking about doing was moving to Sanibel. As I listened to her tell me about it, I noticed a commotion going on over near the rental canoes. It was Tomlinson and several people standing around watching. Tomlinson seemed to be playing tag with Mark Bryant’s dog. He’d tiptoe up to the dog, lunge to grab his collar, and the dog would sprint away. The dog seemed to be moving faster than I’d ever seen an old dog move. He was amazingly agile for an animal his age. It had to be some kind of game, yet Tomlinson appeared to be getting frustrated.
I watched him continue to stalk the dog as Ransom said, “You know what I’d planned to do. I planned to go back to my island, buy me some property, build me a big house with a satellite dish so I don’t have to go to the hotel bar no more to see my shows on the television. Maybe buy me that red car, too, and some air-conditionin’ for the hot days. But after just one night here, seeing how friendly the peoples are, I got me another idea.”
I smiled as the dog began to sprint in crazy circles, really having fun, as Tomlinson tried to anticipate the dog’s trajectory, strangely not seeming to be having much fun at all.
Ransom said, “So the idea I got into my mind, I was talking to some of the women about it. That nice girl, Joyce, who does the cooking and JoAnn, too-man, that woman got a sweet feeling for you! What those ladies think I ought to do is don’t buy a house at all, but maybe buy me a little boat instead. See, that way I can live right here on Sanibel. You get sick or hurt or need somethin’ done at your house, then I’m right here to help you. And if I get homesick for the islands? I’ll just drive my lil’ boat back to the Bahamas and work my way real slow down the chain ’til I get to Cat Island.”
I heard Rhonda call, “Hey, why is Tomlinson chasing Mark’s dog?” as Ransom added, “I already got me a little less than seventeen thousand dollars. That plus the three thousand Daddy Gatrell left me, that’ll give me nearly twenty thousand. Now don’t go tellin’ me that ain’t a lot of money.”
I’d warned her before, and now I warned her again about Tucker’s absurd jokes.
I watched her grin fade into a puzzled scowl. “Why you keep saying that, man? What else I got to do but show you those gold coins? Our daddy, he never told you he hid away money?”
Actually, Tucker had told me that he’d hidden away money. Often. He was always bragging about all the money he’d made; how much he’d pissed away on failed business schemes, whiskey, and women; how much he had buried if he could just get to it. Tucker had been a tropical junkie. He’d loved the islands; he jumped at any excuse to hop a banana boat or a freighter and head south. The only thing I never doubted about him was that he’d wasted a lot of money. He spent much of his life working cattle in Central America and Cuba, and commercial-fishing the Bahamas. The man I knew never had a cent.
I told her, “Remember what I said about exaggerating? That’s what he might have been doing. He exaggerates to make himself look more important than he really is. Than he really was, I mean.”
The woman’s tone became severe. “Don’t you talk that way about Daddy. Way you speak, you didn’t even like the man.”
Truth was, she was right; I didn’t like Tucker Gatrell. I had my reasons, too. Good reasons.
“Did you read the letter I left out for you? The one he wrote just to you?”
I told her I hadn’t, and instantly regretted it when I saw the unhappy look on her face. I’d known her for only a couple of days, so why did I already hate the idea of disappointing her or hurting her? It wasn’t rational, but there it was. I liked her as a person. She had an endearing honesty about her; seemed genuinely good-hearted, but it was more than that. “I’m going to read it,” I added quickly, “tonight.”
She was shaking her head. “Man, why you want to wait? You go read that letter right now, then come back and listen to us play some more.” She looked at my empty plate. “What’s the holdup? You done stuffin’ your face.”