Lone headlights appeared in the blackness five miles away.
They were high-beams, illuminating the sea mist through
the slashed mangroves and crushed coral down the long,
straight causeway toward Miami. The rumble of rubber on
tar grew louder and the headlights became brighter until
they blinded. The Buick blew by at ninety and kept going,
red taillights fading down U.S. 1 toward Key West.
It was quiet and dark again. An island in the middle of
the Florida Keys. No streetlights, no light at all. The
low pink building on the south side of the street was
unremarkable concrete except for the hastily stuccoed
bullet holes and the eight-foot cement conch shell on the
shoulder of the road, chipped and peeling, holding up a
sign: "Rooms $29.95 and up."
No cars in front of the motel; the night manager nodding
in the office. The beach was sandy, some broken plastic
kiddie toys, an unsafe pier and a scuttled dinghy. The air
was still by the road, but around back a steady breeze
came off the ocean. Coconut palms rustled and waves rolled
in quietly from the Gulf Stream. Parked behind the motel,
by the only room with a light on, was a black Mercedes
limousine.
Voices and an electrical hum came from the room, number
seven. Inside, personal effects covered one of the beds --
toiletries, carefully rolled socks, newspaper clippings,
sunscreen, postcards,snacks, ammunition-meticulously
arranged in rows and columns. The hum was from the Magic
Fingers bed jiggler that had been hot-wired to run
continuously. The voices came from the TV that had been
unbolted from its wall mount and now sat on a chair facing
into the bathroom, tuned to Sportscenter.
In the flickering blue-gray TV light, a figure sat in the
bathtub behind an open Miami Herald. Two sets of fingers
held the sides of the paper -- a front-page splash about a
drug shoot-out in Key West and a missing five million in
cash --and smoke rose from behind the paper. An old
electric fan sat on the closed toilet lid, blowing into
the tub. Something about the Miami Dolphins came on ESPN.
The man in the tub folded the paper and put it on the
toilet tank. He grabbed the remote control sitting in the
soap dish on the shower wall. The slot in the top of the
soap dish held a .38 revolver by the snub nose. "Nobody
messes with Johnny Rocco," said the man in the tub, and he
pressed the volume button.
The bather was tan, tall and lean with violating ice-blue
eyes, and his hair was military-short with flecks of gray.
He was in his late thirties and wore a new Tampa Bay
Buccaneers baseball cap. In his mouth was a huge cigar,
and he took it out with one hand and picked up an Egg
McMuffin with the other. He checked his watch. Top of the
hour. He clicked the remote control with the McMuffin hand
and surfed over to CNN for two minutes, to make sure
nothing had broken out in the world that would demand his
response, and then over to A&E and the biography of Burt
Reynolds for background noise while he read the Herald
editorials. He put the McMuffin down on the rim of the tub
and picked up the cup of orange juice. On TV, Burt made a
long football run for Florida State in a vintage film of a
forgotten Auburn game. The tub's edge also held jelly
doughnuts, breakfast fajitas and a scrambled egg/sausage
breakfast in a preformed plastic tray. On the toilet lid,
next to the fan, was a hardcover book from 1939, the WPA
guide to Florida. Inside the cover, the man had written
his name. Serge A. Storms.
Like now, Serge was usually naked when he was in a motel,
but it wasn't sexual. Serge thought clothes were
inefficient and uncomfortable; they restricted his
movements, and his skin wanted to breathe. Nudity also cut
down on changing time, since he was constantly in and out
of the shower, subjecting himself to rapid temperature
changes, alternating hot and cold water rushes that
reminded him he was alive and cleaned out the pores to
keep that skin breathing, feeling new.
Serge hesitated a second in the tub, mid-bite in the
McMuffin. He couldn't think of what to do next, not even
something as simple as chewing. Too many ideas raged at
once in his head, and his brain gridlocked. He was
paralyzed. Then the congestion slowly unclogged and he
resumed chewing. When he realized he could move his arms
again, he reached on top of the toilet tank for a
prescription bottle. He shook it, but it made no sound,
and he tossed the empty in the waste can beside the sink,
a bank shot off the ceramic seashell tiles. Hell with it,
he thought, I'll go natural. If it gets too strange, I'll
run to a drug hole and score some Elavil that crackheads
use to come down after four days on the ledge. Serge had
started feeling the effects of not keeping up with his
psychiatric medication.
And he liked it.
He got out of the tub and opened the back door of the
motel room and walked out under a coconut palm. The breeze
dried the sweat cold on his skin. He looked up into the
nexus of palm fronds and coconuts set against the Big
Dipper and a sky of brilliant stars over the water, away
from the light pollution of the mainland. Serge
said: "There's a big blow a-comin'."
Serge went back inside and slept all day in the motel tub,
and his skin shriveled. Two hours before sunset, there was
a loud beeping sound in room seven. Serge awoke in alarm
and splashed around as if he'd discovered a cottonmouth in
the water. He jumped from the tub and into his pants
without toweling off. The beeping sound came from a metal
box on the dresser, an antitheft car-tracking device.
Serge threw on a shirt and packed a travel bag in seconds.
He didn't close the door as he ran out with shirt open and
shoes in his hands. He threw the bag and shoes in the
front of the limo and sped away from the motel...
© 2003-2026