"That's hard to believe, being the fine specimen of gay manhood that I am."
"I know, but it's true. I also know we get sideways with one another, tomorrow, next day, everything's gonna be okay. You'll be there if I need you."
"You know, Hap, you've never sent me a valentine."
"Fuck you."
There was really very little to do with the rest of the day, and I was tired from the night before, so I went to the bedroom and got the remaining two blankets and lay down on the bed, but the odor of dog piss was too overwhelming. I flipped the mattress and there was the smell of Chanel No. 5.
Florida.
My head filled with her. Soft and dark and smart and sexy. I almost coveted the dog pee side. I lay there with the blankets over me, a thin pillow beneath my head, looked at the ceiling, picked out water spots, and listened to Leonard hum Country's Greatest Hits. He did that sometimes when he couldn't sleep, hummed tunes. Maybe that's why Raul left him. That and no respect for Gilligan's Island.
Eventually the water spots darkened into one large shadow as the gloomy afternoon became early evening. Leonard's humming became spaced, starting to drift off.
My eyes began to fill with tears then, and I can't honestly say if the tears were for Florida or for me. I had lost her and I wanted her back, and I knew that wasn't going to happen, no matter what. I knew I should think of her and what might have happened to her, harness some new game plan for finding her, but I lay there instead and felt sorry for myself, and was angry, because some part of me was enjoying the sorrow, and maybe, just maybe, there was a bad part of me that barked and howled and said, "See what happens you leave me, baby? You die."
Oh, God, Florida.
Don't be dead.
And then somewhere between all that and the sweet and overwhelming smell of Chanel No. 5, and Leonard slow-humming "Walkin’ the Floor Over You," I dropped off.
The rain and wind beat and lashed the trailer and I could feel Florida beside me, and she was sweet with the scent of Chanel No. 5, and I reached to hold her, but couldn't. She was as insubstantial as the shadows, and then I opened my eyes from the dream, and there she stood at the end of the bed, looking down at me. It was dark in there, but somehow I could see. I could see she was naked. She stood like some kind of harpy, her legs bent, her body leaning forward, her fine breasts swaying down, the nipples taut with the cold. Her hair glistened red with East Texas clay, and her lithe body was slick with it. Chunks of clay clung to her pubic thatch like dirt dauber nests.
Then I realized not all the red was clay. Her head had a split in it, and some of the red that ran from her mound and down the inside of her thigh wasn't slick clay at all.
I tried to get up but couldn't. She leaned farther forward and reached for me. I didn't like the way her eyes looked. They looked cold and lifeless, like those of a fish in an ice chest.
She opened her mouth, and clay fell out. She said, "Hap, you got to help me."
"I will, Florida. I will. God, we thought you were dead."
She laughed and clay sprayed from her mouth as if from a nozzle.
Then I came awake, sat bolt upright, and there was Leonard
sitting on the edge of the sagging bed. He reached out and touched my shoulder.
"It's okay, man," he said. "It's all right. Get your shit together."
I sat up in bed and pushed my back to the wall. "Damn," I said. "I thought I saw Florida."
"I know. You called her name about a half-dozen times. Woke me up. You all right, buddy?"
"Yeah. What time is it?"
"I don't know. Not too late."
"God almighty, I swear, that was as real a dream as I've ever had . . . Leonard, she's dead, man. She was all covered in clay, like she'd been buried."
"She's dead because you saw her dead in a dream? That don't mean nothing."
"She's dead because she is. Way dreams work is they put together what you know. She's somewhere dead and buried, and you know it."
"You don't know nothing."
"Yeah. Well tell me, what do you think?"
"All right. I think she's dead. I don't think she drove up here and just dropped off the face of the earth. No one has seen her in a while. Last stop was here. Not like there's lots of places to stay in Grovetown, so I don't think she's around. It don't look good, Hap."
"Yeah."
"Thing is, this is all just how I feel. It isn't worth anything."
"So what now?"
"We came up here to find her, and we will. Dead or alive. First thing to do though, is tomorrow morning, call Hanson or Charlie. See they've heard anything from her. She may be back in LaBorde, and if so, Hanson probably hasn't even told her we're looking for her. He's too busy making up with her, layin' pipe."
"No, Leonard. He wouldn't do that. She's like a daughter to him. Remember."
"Yeah, right. I forgot."
"Damn, isn't this one hell of a special Christmas?"
"Yeah. Merry Christmas. Listen here, Hap. I ain't been sleeping all that good. Cold in there and the sweet aroma of dog whiz is about to make me puke, then you yelling and all, but it's also because I been thinking."
"Careful now. Don't hurt yourself."
"Much as I hate it, we call and Hanson hasn't heard anything, I think we got to go back to the Chief. Officially report Florida missing, set him on the case."
"What would he care?"
"Guy like that, he may already know what happened to her. It's not that I think he'll find her, but he may do something gives us a lead to where she is. Or gives us an idea what happened to her. We want to push him a little. Make him nervous."
"You think he's behind all this? Maybe head of the Knights of the Swollen Left Nut, or whatever they are?"
"I don't know. I'm clutching at farts, but we got to clutch at something. And speaking of that, I'm gonna go clutch at my blankets, and I'm coming back in here, and you and me are gonna share this bed."
"Oh God, Leonard, has my manly physique finally caused your hormones to bust the blood vessels to your brain?"
"No, but I'm cold, and I figure we can share our blankets and some body heat."
"You make me so hot when you talk like that."
"Hap, you tell any of my friends I shared a bed with a heterosexual, even if it was just to keep warm, I'll kill you. Thing like that got around, it could ruin my reputation. By the way, you wearing perfume?"
"Florida," I said. "It's in the mattress."
"Oh."
He came back with his blankets and we shared the mattress. Just before he closed his eyes, he said, "Wake me when Santa comes."
It was warmer that way, Leonard and I sharing. I slept better, deeper. But near morning I awoke from yet another dream.
This time Florida and I had been naked, sitting in lawn chairs, and we were on a little raft made of crude-cut logs, sailing down a dark river on a moonlit night. The moon was high in the sky and bright. When Florida turned to look at me her eyes were full of the moon. Two white orbs slick as wet bone inside dark tunnels. She said, "Come on and love me, Huck, honey."
Then we were beneath the water, cold and wet and alone. She had her arms around my neck, and she was heavy, and she was dragging me down, down, down to the bottom of the great black river, and no matter how hard I fought, she wouldn't let go.
I got up, dressed, had a soda pop and a couple slices of lunch meat, and waited for daybreak.
Chapter 13
By morning the rain had slowed, and when Leonard woke we drove into town for coffee and a real breakfast. We had plans to call Hanson.
Grovetown was starting to stir. Christmas holidays were gone, and stores were open. The cafe was hopping. Tim's filling station had two cars in the drive. One driver, a fat lady wearing a bright field of flowers on a dress constructed of enough material to parachute a Land Rover from a speeding jet, was putting gas in her car, the rain beating down on her blue-haired head with a vengeance.