He cackled. “So of course for the next three days I sat and worried about it. Every morning I woke up looking to see a picket line around the house with Martin Luther Coon himself at the head of it. You wouldn’t believe the thoughts went through my mind, and of course I never heard anymore about it, or saw that particular son of a bitch again, and doubtless never will. But that’s your dictionary, and it’s been in back of this counter ever since, and it’s marked sixty cents and cost me thirty-six, and it is yours free like the Coke the nigra wouldn’t take, because if I didn’t get thirty-six dollars worth of excitement out of it I don’t know what.”
And out back, when he showed me the boat, he said. “I hate to tell you this but I’d hate worse to go without. About two weeks ago I took a liberty. I went out to your island.” He turned his face away. “I thought it over and thought it over, and the wife said either you were dead and couldn’t be helped or alive and wouldn’t welcome company, but all I could think of is what if you were sick? So I took the boat around just for a look and saw your boat on the beach, and I thought, well, he isn’t gone anywhere, and then I saw all this weed and such on the beach, and called to you and couldn’t raise you, and that’s when I worried.
“I went ashore and just checked to see if you were about. 1 went close enough to the shack to see inside, but I swear 1 never set foot in the door or touched nothing. Then I thought, well, he must of drowned, and came back.”
I didn’t say anything. He turned to look at me. “It was a liberty, and it won’t happen again.”
“Oh, now. You were doing me a kindness.”
“I hope you’ll think so.” He snapped quickly out of the mood. “Well, now, you keep that dinghy long as you like, hear? And next time you come I’ll have that dozen aigs—”
The beach was a mess. I started to pick things up but there was too much debris and too many things to do first.
I got out of my clothes. They had been comfortable all along, but as soon as I set foot on my island they felt as though they were strangling me. Eventually I would decide whether any of them was worth keeping.
I carried the metal satchel half the length of the island. I dug a hole alongside a sick-looking palm tree and buried the box under three feet of sand.
I went to my other burying place and dug up the aluminum-foil packet. I opened it, and to the bills inside it I added my money belt and the large bills from my wallet. I kept the smaller bills and change handy for trips to Mushroom Key, and I carried my Do Nothing list back to the shack. I read it aloud and tacked it in place on the inside of the door. Then I read it through a second time, and only then did I go back to cover up my money belt and smooth the sand over it.
I ran one lap around the island. Ritual, perhaps; the animal staking out his territory. My wind was bad but it wouldn’t take long to improve it. I caught my breath, and then I ran out into the sea and swam around. I stayed in the water for quite a while. Then I came out and sprawled face down in the sand with the hot sun on my back.
Vacations are fun, but they’re right. The best part is getting home again.