Thus the popularity of this angry T-shirt.
“What the fuck is that?” said Camphill, pointing.
Jeth looked down, looked up, and said, “Yeah, what about it?”
Camphill made a blowing nose with his lips-was this guy really so stupid? “You’re kidding. You really don’t know why I’m here? SAM-the Save All Manatees group-flew me in for the conference on Captiva. They’ve got about a half million members, and I’m their national spokesman, which is why, Gilligan, you either need to strip that T-shirt off right now or get the hell out of this bar.”
7
If Matt, the owner, hadn’t intervened, it would have started right there. Jeth was ready to go at him, and as for myself, this guy, Camphill, his behavior really was noxious, and I was drunk enough to bypass the obvious, rational options-as most drunks will-and had decided to see just how far he was willing to push it. It’s a truism: Almost all bullying behavior is symptomatic of bedrock cowardice, and there was plenty of evidence now that Camphill was a bully.
But then Matt was there. After twenty-some years in the business, dealing with drunks and pissed-off tourists, he knew just how to handle the situation. First he went to work on Camphill with adulation-“You’re really the Gunnar Camphill? My God, I love the work you do”-as he positioned himself between Camphill and us. Then he fed him some man-to-man stuff, first giving us a meaningful look- Stay calm, he’s an asshole, but let me deal with it. “Don’t worry about Jeth. Our locals, they tend to be… different. Just goofing around-the manatee roast? It’s kind of a local joke. We’re all very pro-environment on the islands.” Matt was steering him away, toward the bar. Then he added a bribe, saying, “I just got in a half dozen jars of Russian Malossol caviar. Gray beluga. My own personal stock. Would you and your friends mind trying a couple of ounces, giving me your opinion?”
That quick, Matt had Camphill’s full attention. “Malossol? How did you know I’m a connoisseur of caviar?” Close enough to the bar now for his friends to hear, he added, “When I was studying aikido in Japan, I fell in love with the stuff. My master, Ueshiba Morihei, he got me hooked on the gray beluga. Had it shipped in once a week from Vladivostok, just across the Sea of Japan. Unpasteurized, the finest. There’s an art to serving it, of course.”
Truth is, Matt has an amazing memory for trivia. He probably saw the bit about the caviar in some magazine and filed it away.
Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tomlinson stand up, use his fingers to comb his hair back. He gave Amelia a reassuring wink before he walked toward Matt. Tomlinson had been uncharacteristically silent during the confrontation, and now I watched him place his hand on Matt’s shoulder-this was a friendly intrusion-then stand there in his flower-print sarong and black Hawaiian shirt, smiling mildly. Looking at Camphill, he spoke briefly in what, after several slow seconds, I finally realized was fast Japanese. Friendly tone. Very animated. He might have been welcoming him or extending an apology.
Pointed-face grinned toward Tomlinson, saying, “Ginger! Finally, here she is. I knew Ginger would make an appearance!” For the first time, Camphill seemed momentarily at a loss. But he recovered quickly, also looking at Tomlinson. He placed his palms together and gave a slight oriental bow, saying, “My friend, I think it’s very rude to converse in a language that others in the room don’t understand. We’ll chat in Japanese another time,” then turned away from Tomlinson, using Matt to emphasize the new focus of his attention.
End of conversation.
Back at our table, Tomlinson took a heavy swallow of his drink, then another before he nodded at me, and said softly, “The actor, he has a very young spirit. Very young and immature-the number of incarnations he’s made into this world I’m talking about. In his mind, no one on earth actually exists but him. Every other sentient being is simply a bit of fleshy furniture or decoration. That’s the way they are during that stage.”
Tomlinson then added, “Plus, he’s a liar. He never studied with Ueshiba Morihei. My friend, the great master, Ueshiba, doesn’t speak English, and the actor doesn’t understand a word of Japanese. Even his gassho, the way he placed his palms together, was a poor imitation.”
A little too loud, Jeth said, “The guy’s an egotistical pahpa-prick.”
Amelia added, “Little boy in a man’s body. I see them all the time in court.”
Camphill and his two friends, pointed-face and tennis player, all raised their heads a little, hearing their words, feeling them, then all emphasized the depth of their reactions by trying hard not to react. Matt had effectively insulated them with a forced truce, but it wouldn’t last beyond the last glass of vodka.
There was little doubt in my mind, then, that Camphill would have to do something to save face, to reinforce his big-screen persona. His friends were going to take this story back to Hollywood, and he couldn’t allow that.
We should have left then.
Half an hour later, when we did walk out the door, we were all a little drunker.
Over there drinking vodka shooters and eating caviar, so were Camphill and his pals.
Timber’s Restaurant and Sanibel Grill are built high on wooden stilts over a parking area that opens onto Tarpon Bay Road, near a sanctuary of lakes and trees, not far from the beach, and only a quarter-mile or so from my house and lab, which is on the bay side of the island.
I was the last of our group to leave. I stepped out onto the wooden deck and had only taken three or four steps when I felt the double doors behind me burst open. I glanced over my shoulder, and there was Gunnar Camphill in his khakis and black Polo shirt, biceps showing, walking fast, his two shorter friends following along behind like ducklets.
Camphill’s friends’ faces were flushed and mottled, a mixture of excitement and expectation. There was going to be a show, a little slice of real-life adventure theater, and they were the great star’s sidekicks, their man the good-guy hero who won every fight.
Camphill was calling as he walked, “Gilligan? Oh… Gilligan-n-n-n-n,” giving it a loud, humorous read.
JoAnn, Rhonda, and Claudia were already in the parking lot. Jeth and Tomlinson were halfway down the steps, and Amelia was just a few paces ahead of me. I turned when I saw Camphill, then moved sideways to intercept him when he tried to brush past me.
I said, “Hold it… hey! You’re not going anywhere.” I had my hands up, palms up-stop right there-and was backing away just a little to demonstrate that I didn’t want to initiate contact.
Behind Camphill, pointed-face, his voice strangely husky, said, “Kick his ass, Gunnar. The Professor with his thick glasses made you look like a fool in there in front of all his redneck friends.”
Camphill stopped and leaned, his face a few inches from my nose, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he said, “Your little friend needs to take off that T-shirt and throw it away. It’s offensive to me and anyone else who gives a damn about this earth and the creatures who live here. So he takes it off right now, tosses it in that Dumpster, and he walks away, no problem.”
Behind me, I heard Jeth yell, “You want to threaten me, mah-ma-mister? Then come down here and do it to my face!”
Camphill called back, “That’s what I’m trying to do, Gilligan. So tell your bookish friend here to move his ass, get out of the way, so we can discuss this man-to-Gilligan.” The humorous inflection again, telling his friends to enjoy it-it wasn’t going to last long.
He’d been looking over my shoulder. Now he looked into my face as he added, “Okay, Professor. This is your final warning. Get out of my way. Or… or here, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” He thought for a moment, making a show of the process, smiling because he had so many options. He glanced back at his friends as if in some wordless conferral, before he said, “Okay, what I’m going to do is, I’m going to put the heel of my right foot dead square on the right side of your temple. No… your jaw; I’ll go easy on you. Kick you on the temple, I could kill you. It’s going to happen so fast, you may hear it coming, but you won’t see it.