Smiling In the Sunshine: Monday Morning Phil

Monday Morning Phil

Ruby Tuesday

     Phil Stine sat on the sprawling front porch of his old single-wide trailer in the swamp just east of town. It was just after sunrise, Phil's favorite time of day. The coffee was fragrant, the birds were singing their asses off and the rustling and happy grunting far off in the bush indicated that the two or three razorbacks he had been feeding had discovered the morning's breakfast mix of corn, molasses and leftovers. A quiet whining from the far corner of the porch told him that his yellow lab Tuesday had heard the rustlings also, but a glance from Phil let her know that he knew about it and she sighed and put her head back on her paws and went back to listening to the birdsong and thinking dog thoughts.

     “Those hogs are very happy with their breakfast, aren't they, Tuesday? Little do they know. But then, they are better off that way, aren't they? That corn would taste a lot less sweet if they knew why I leave it there. But I think they would still eat it, all the same.” Tuesday stood, stretched and walked across the porch to where her master sat at the picnic table with his laptop open in front of him. She looked at the computer screen for a moment, then up at Phil.

     “Yes, puppy, just polishing off Chapter Ten. I know I'm moving slow this morning, but it is, after all, Monday. And you know what we always say about Mondays.” She wagged her tail once to show that she did indeed understand, then stepped off the porch nonetheless and headed up the faint dirt trail towards the rustlings in the bush. She stopped at the big palmetto just on the edge of the clearing, turned and lay down again. This time she sighed loudly enough to make sure Phil would hear. “Ok, Ok, let me put this away, Jesus Christ, nothing worse than a pushy dog...” He closed the laptop and stuck it inside the screen door to the trailer. He reached down and grabbed a pair of dirty old running shoes and sat down to put them on. He already had on a pair of running shorts and a thrift shop t-shirt, about the only outfit anyone had ever seen him wear on his rare and exciting excursions onto Coronado Ave. As always, the act of lacing up his shoes had an electrifying effect. He was instantly more awake and now, ready to go, Monday be damned. He trotted over to the dog, who was on her feet, tail wagging rapidly, a big happy dog smile on her face.

     “Let's go!” Phil said, and he and Tuesday dashed off into the swamp.

Smiling In the Sunshine: The Little Lighthouse

The Little Lighthouse

Brandy, Coffee, Advice

     As I walked into the Little Lighthouse Restaurant I paused at the entry and listened to the double doors close behind me. They sighed quietly as the hydraulic closers pulled them shut, then clicked solidly closed. Good. I had hung those doors three years before when I remodeled the Lighthouse for the Markos family. They were a pair of seven foot, two and a quarter inch thick oak beauties I had been saving for just such an application. I still had a warehouse full of architectural treasures I had saved over the years from my old days of doing commercial restaurant installations throughout the South. Every saloon on Coronado Boulevard had some souvenir from those days; the mahogany bar top with gleaming oak elbow rail at the Crooked Angel, the hundred year old cherry back bar at the Mermaid Cafe. None of these local joints could actually afford such luxury items and I had put a lot of them in for the price of a bar tab. Will Work for Beer.

     

     Maria Markos was at her usual post by the front door. Dark, plump, a very young fifty, her brown eyes were always alive and twinkling and were something good to see on a hungover Monday morning.

     “Blix!” she cried. I get coffee there every morning and every morning Maria greets me as though she hadn't seen me in a year and I was the best thing to happen to her all day. She is Johnny Markos' wife. Johnny is the current Markos who owns the Lighthouse Restaurant. Ruby Beach is a very old Florida town. It was founded in 1750 by a Englishman who was dabbling in white slavery, importing Minorcans and Greeks and a sprinkling of Italians to East Central Florida to work his sugar and indigo plantations. This took place just after Spain relinquished the Florida territories to England following one war or another. The whole enterprise failed, ultimately, but the area retained a strong Greek population. Almost every restaurant in town had a Greek owner; at least all the good ones did, and most of those owners were named Markos.

     “Blix!”, Maria said. “I've saved you your table.”

     “Thank you, Maria,” I said. 'My' table is actually the one closest to the kitchen where Johnny sits and drinks glasses of ice water and watches his customers and keeps one eye on the kitchen and one eye on the cash register. It's only “my” table in the early morning while Johnny is out getting the fresh vegetables and goat cheese and other ingredients he gets from some small organic farms outside of town. I am reasonably certain that those farms are owned by people named Markos.

     “Connie will be with you in a minute,” she said. She turned as a foursome of senior citizens came through the door, tanned and brisk. “Good Morning!” Maria cried, going towards them like they were some very well loved and much missed relatives just returning from a long trip. “I have a table especially for you!” She would keep it up all day. I really liked Maria.

     Connie the waitress came over. Connie was the opposite of Maria. She was tall and thin and treated her customers like not-too-bright badly behaved children that were not hers, but had to be cared for and fed nonetheless. She had always been at the Lighthouse. Connie never aged. She had always looked thirty, probably always would. She gave me a very thorough once-over.

     “Still drinking too much, huh?” She had brown eyes too, that twinkled just like Maria's.

     “Yes, mother,” I said. The fit and tanned seniors were laughing it up a couple tables away, enjoying some golf or tennis joke from their morning exercise. They looked rich.

     “Pipe down over there or you won't get your mush this morning,” Connie said to the group. This brought another big laugh.

     “Sock it to me baby,” one of the old guys said. More laughter.

     “Look, miss, if you're busy maybe I could get my own coffee,” I said. Connie gave me a twinkling dour look.

     “Be quiet.” She went into the kitchen. I was still trying to think up a snappy answer when she was back with a plate of rye toast and a steaming mug of coffee topped with a dab of whipped cream. I gave her a look. “Of course I did,” she said. “It's Monday, isn't it?” She went towards the seniors with her coffee pot and order book. “Alright, wiseguys, what's it gonna be?”

     I put some of Johnny's home made tangerine jam on my toast and took a bite. Yeah, baby. I spooned the whipped cream out of the way and sipped the coffee, wondering if Johnny would miss the double shot of Metaxa Amphora brandy Connie had pilfered from the dusty bottle in his desk in the backroom. Probably. But then again, for all I knew he was keeping it there just for me, anyway. I took another bite of the toast and another sip of the coffee. Something had been nagging at me since I woke up and I couldn't get a grip on it. Something Cromwell had said about old pottery. Oh yeah, I was supposed to go with him to a warehouse somewhere to look at some abandoned crap in a storage unit. Good. I wasn't in the mood for work this morning, anyway. In fact, I was almost never in the mood for work these days, which probably explained why my construction business was down from a twenty-two employee operation with a front office and a million dollar plus workload at any given time to a little frame & trim crew of six guys and Rusty. “Oh well,” I thought, “I ain't dead yet.”

     I swallowed the rest of the liqueur laced coffee, threw a five on the table and got up to go.

Connie was coming out of the kitchen with a big breakfast tray for the happily aging millionaires two tables over. She gave me a wink.

     “ 'Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do.' That's Confucious,” she said.

     “Yes, mother, it is indeed confusing,” I said. I went through the old oak double doors into the sunshine. They closed quietly behind me, with a gentle sigh and a solid click. Molly's old jeep was sitting across the street in front of the Crooked Angel. It was my old jeep now, covered in rust and seagull crap and without a top. It had come with the shack. I walked over, got in and fired it up. The sun was high enough and hot enough to dry the morning dew off the torn seat. I put the Jeep in gear and headed south down the beach.

Smiling In the Sunshine; The Prayer of the Conquistador

Prayer of the Conquistador

     Once again offshore, wicked Ponce, now alone, is poised at the wheel of his trimaran, skirting the inner edge of the Gulf Stream and making a steady fourteen knots. The wind is from the east by southeast and on this reach the seventy foot trimaran is a gigantic prehistoric bird, flying, flying, using wind and wave and the inexorable pull of the Stream to make a fast and unerring course due North, to Mosquito Inlet. As always, Ponce stands like a statue at the wheel, immobile, wasting no motion; the years have taught him well and nothing is wasted, neither thought nor energy nor time. Especially time.

     Far to the West he can see the tops of the highest buildings, reflecting the morning sun as it climbs up from the sea. There are penthouses there, Ponce knows. Many penthouses, the unreachable castle towers of the criminally wealthy. Ponce knows these places, he is a one familiar with the robber barons and their consorts. These are the people whose feet never touch the ground, coming and going from towers in the sky, traveling by helicopter and private jet and giant luxury yachts. Ponce knows them well. And they know Ponce.

     As morning passes, the Old Conquistador sets the helm on autopilot. He waits, watching to be certain that the yacht is settled and steady. The Stream moves about on its way North, and will take him ever further offshore. But there is no hurry. Going below, he puts a stainless steel kettle on the stove and sets the digital controls to boil. Lightly tapping his fingers across the keypad of the locking titanium cupboard, the door sighs open, an faint cloud escaping like exhaled breath and he takes down a small aluminum canister. He shakes a precise amount of ground herbs into his palm, then drops them into an ancient ceramic mug bearing the image of Quetzacoatl embossed on its surface. He takes the hissing kettle and pours the water into the cup. The cabin is filled with the aroma of coffee, mint and other smells, cocoa, maybe; powerful, cutting, densely pungent but ultimately pleasant. Pleasantly haunting, perhaps.

     Going back on deck, Ponce glances at the compass, (a habit of a long lifetime) and then goes forward to the bow of the boat. The morning is no longer dawn, it is day now and the world is warming, heating the misty air around the boat. The El Condor Pasa is leaping across the sea, plunging, thrusting ever forward as Ponce, clad only in light cotton pants and the worn old rosary around his neck, settles into the lotus position on the bow pulpit. He sips from his steaming mug, scans the horizon for signs of other ships, then closes his eyes and begins his morning worship.

Smiling In the Sunshine: the Job

The Job

What Blix Does, More Or Less

     As I pulled up at the job behind the old bait shop I saw what I had come to see. The job was a new custom home, far too large and far too expensive for a little surf town like ours, but only one of dozens going in up and down the beach. The “old bait shop” next door was now some kind of New Age boutique coffee shop microbrewery bookstore with authentic barn wood siding that replaced the authentic (and original) wood bait shop siding we had pulled off last winter. There were ferns inside and very expensive fishing gear that none of the locals could afford (or want) and the new owners were from Vermont or some such. But they still sold bait. Probably designer bait.

     I climbed out of the jeep, listening to the satisfying whine and grind of singing saws and the steady ker-chunk! of banging nail guns. The boys were going good. I saw Rusty down in the dark shade of the inside of the house, stacking scraps of wood and sorting through boxes of nails. He saw me getting out of the Jeep.

     “Big Dog is here,” he shouted. “Everybody pretend you're working!”

     “You're the only one out here that has to pretend,” came a voice from up high. I looked up as a figure rose up over the ridge of the roof. Broc Branham. My foreman for almost fifteen years now. As my business had dwindled almost to the point of dying completely, it was Rusty and Broc who had stuck it out. How Broc managed to keep his home life intact during the breakup of mine was a kind of miracle. Rusty, an eternal bachelor, could care less if he worked or not. Surfing, fishing, work, it was all the same to Rusty. But if Rockin' Broc wasn't building something for me, he would be doing it for someone else. He never stopped working.

     “Born to Build”, we always said, clinking our shot glasses together. He was my favorite guy to drink whiskey with. He came down to the edge of the roof.

     “You need me, Boss?”

     “Nah, stay up there. How's it look?”

     “Looks like a roof.”

     “Can you finish today? You need me?” It was mostly a courtesy question.

     “Nah, we got it. We might have to work late.” I could hear groans coming from the part of the roof I couldn't see. The rest of the crew had stopped sawing and hammering while they listened to our conversation. I grinned up at Broc. I raised my voice enough so the others could hear.

     “Well, get it dried in and call it eight hours. There's beer in the truck.” The saws started up again and the nail guns were making twice the noise as before. Broc smiled back at me, shook his head and went back over the ridge. He was small and lightweight, all gristle and grit. Rusty came down the ladder from the elevated first floor and came over to me.

     “They'll skip lunch and have it dried in by one o'clock,” he said.

     “I know.”

     “There's only three beers left in the cooler. What the hell did you and Cromwell get into last night?”

     “We sailed in through the inlet and caught up with the last of the party animals at Disappearing Island. There were a couple girls from Ohio there who had never sailed on a beach cat before. We did our civic duty to uphold tourism and a good time was had by all.”

     “Any survivors?” Rusty asked.

     “Never,” I said. “Surviving is for the weak.” I pulled a twenty out of my pocket. “If they aren't done by one o'clock, knock 'em off anyway and get 'em some beer.”

     “Aye, Aye, Skipper. Never push a Monday too hard, I always say.”

     “Wise words, little buddy, wise words.” I patted him on the back and got into the jeep. As I pulled off I heard him yelling at the crew.

     “Faster dogs! Work faster slaves! His Majesty is displeased! Don't make me get out the whips!” I headed back north up the beach to Cromwell's studio. It was ten o'clock on a Monday morning.

Smiling In the Sunshine: Phil's Backyard

Phil's Backyard

Paleo Playground

     Old Phil Stine ran past the leavings from the morning hog feeding. His dog Tuesday, a yellow dog of indeterminate age and breeding, kept pace on his left flank. Running easily past the clearing, they cut left through a dense thicket of scrub pine and palmetto and broke clear into the vista that was Phil's backyard. While Phil's old family holdings were a mere one hundred or so acres, they were acres that backed up onto a vast wetlands of both public and private holdings, many square miles of untouched land except for the cattle that roamed throughout and the handful of men who rode the fence line and also the occasional hunters who illegally found their way onto the place.

     Approaching a mud bog that could have been inches deep or bottomless, Phil increased his speed, bounding forward and leaping onto an old swimming pool diving board that he had cemented firmly in place there, gaining no small amount of height and speed and throwing him physically clear of the bog, as Tuesday ran around and over with a small leap of her own. They were moving fast now, dodging and leaping and cutting through small openings that would have been invisible to someone who did not know how to see them. Blasting forth into yet another small clearing, there stood a magnificent old Florida live oak, its huge branches spreading out and commanding and sheltering the clearing with a kind of patriarchal presence. 

     

     Beneath the tree was an ancient Reo Speedwagon Fire Truck, abandoned there by Phil's grandfather many years before. Phil and his dog leaped into the rear of the truck, then onto the roof and from there he climbed into the lowest branch, a broad, sturdy limb that served as a night time highway for all manner of wild nocturnal creatures who were also aware of these wild domestic creatures; for Old Phil and Tuesday sometimes made this run at night, when an August full moon lighted the area in a misty benevolent glow that brought forth all the many creatures of the swamp, and yes, it also would at times bring forth Old Phil Stine.

     With Tuesday waiting on the roof of the antique truck below Phil scrambled into a wide spot in the tree two dozen feet off the ground. Stashed there were a handmade bow and some roughly hewn arrows, their points hand carved from flint, perhaps crafted by some New Age artisan who was fond of old things and old ways; but these were not. These weapons were hundreds of years old. Where they came from was anybody's guess, perhaps relics of the tribal Timacuan from so long ago, when all of this was a primordial place; but again, no. Old Phil Stine knew where they came from. Old Phil Stine knew how to use them. 

    

    Notching an arrow, he let fly with one rapid movement, and the shaft buried itself into a small, five inch circle that had been blazed into the side of a burned stump, a reminder of the vast fires that sometimes raged through the place. The dog Tuesday, leaping from the roof of the truck, dashed forward and struck a tense pose a yard from the target. These arrows did not always find their mark in a stump, you see, and yet Phil never missed. But had this stump instead been some animal, say, that had spent the winter eating free corn and molasses and table scraps, then the dog Tuesday would have been ready to delay the creature's escape with an iron clamp of her doggy jaws.

     Phil replaced the the bow in its hiding place. He loosened an old rope from a small branch, and swung easily down to the stump and his dog. Tuesday and master embraced joyously, then dashed off once again into brush and swamp that could be deadly to anything tame. There were other stone-age weapons hidden throughout their course, knives and spears and also herbs, strange concoctions that could ward off insects and heal small wounds. Old Phil Stine knew these things, he learned them from his grandfather, who learned them from his...this place, this old Florida place, remained primordial; it always was a place of power and danger and life. This now half-wild man and his dog were romping free and happy in an ancient place. Their dance of life was at one with the place, and the creatures of the wetlands glorified in their presence and felt ennobled by their passing.

     In this way Old Phil Stine and his animal Tuesday were gods, they were the stuff of myth and yet...oh, they were real. Very real and very ready. Trouble was coming.

Smiling In the Sunshine: A Crate of Crap

A Crate of Crap

Cromwell the Expert Buys Some Abandoned Pottery

     “We normally don't keep stuff this long after they don't pay the rent, but somehow this unit just fell through the cracks. We didn't know this crate was in here until we rented the space to a new customer.” The property manager jangled one of those big jangling key rings that always remind me of Captain Kangaroo. In fact, the manager had that Down East Yankee look vaguely reminiscent of Mr. Greenjeans. The day was warming up. As the manager bent over to unlock the door, I looked around me. This was one of the four or five new storage complexes that had popped up in Ruby Beach in the last few years.

     “What's your occupancy rate these days?” I asked.

     “Oh, we're almost always full. People just don't have the room for all their stuff anymore, it seems.” I wondered why people would keep so much crap that they couldn't have it in their homes. Did they come visit their stuff? And what was this “stuff”? The manager pulled open the overhead door. 

     

     “Well, there it is,” he said.

     It was a standard shipping crate, about three feet by three feet, with a built in pallet for transport by forklift. The top was pried open and some packing was spilled out. It was the excelsior type of packing, the kind of thing you don't see anymore in this age of plastic and styrofoam everything. Shoving his arms deep into the crate, he pulled out a small terracotta figure and handed it to Cromwell.

     “What is it?” I asked. It looked pretty crude and pretty old. Cromwell blew and brushed the dust and packing straw away. “That's Mexican, isn't it? I asked.

     “Yeah”, Cromwell said. He was staring pretty hard at the thing. I heard gears grinding somewhere far off.   

     “Just some cheap tourist crap somebody left behind.”

     “Well, what do we do with it?” the manager asked. “How much is it worth?”

     “I don't sell any of this stuff in my shop but you might find someone who wants it,” said Cromwell. I noticed a weird glint in his eye. I had seen it before. “I don't have any use for it myself.” 

      “Well, darn. OK, well, I tried.” The manager looked as though he was at a loss. “Problem is this is the only 10x12 unit I got left and that darn crate has got to go or I'm gonna lose a customer. Seems a shame to throw all this stuff in the dumpster. I was hoping you would want to take it off my hands. You were the only pottery shop in the yellow pages in Ruby Beach.”

     Cromwell looked at the guy like he was a panhandler outside a saloon. “Well, what do you want to do, pay me to haul it off?” He looked at me with a very theatrical 'Can you believe this guy?' look. I have found myself playing the straight man for Crom more than once. I looked at my watch, which I wasn't wearing.

     “Look, Crom, this trip to the museum was a blast but I've got to get back to work.” I started to walk back to Cromwell's big Dodge van. The outside bell for the storage place's office telephone started ringing. The manager was torn. The phone kept ringing. Cromwell cut loose with another dramatic turn, cupping his chin in his hand and gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling of the storage unit.

     “I guess I might be able to unload some of this junk at the flea market in Daytona next week”, he said. That was a pretty good one. He didn't even have any idea if there actually was a flea market in Daytona. If the pottery thing ever went flat on him, Cromwell had a promising future as a used car salesman. “I guess I could give you twenty bucks for the lot of it.”

     “Sold!” yelled the manager over his shoulder, already hustling back towards the office and the ringing phone. Cromwell watched him go, then called out: “I'll need a receipt!”

     He turned to me. That glint in his eye was a positive flame now. “Quickly, Blix! And for the love of Montezuma don't even scratch any of these little fuckers! He went to the back of the van and got a big two-wheeled dolly and pulled out the ramp built into the back. He could move pretty fast when there was a profit involved.

     “These are the real deal, aren't they?” I asked.

     “We gotta get this crate out of here pronto,” he said. “Lift up on the corner there and let me get the dolly under the edge.” We wheeled the crate up the ramps and into the van. It was heavy and this was starting to feel like a regular job. Cromwell was on fire. He threw the ramp back into the undercarriage. He hustled around to the driver's side, jumped in behind the wheel and off we went. He stopped at the office door. “Look,” he said, handing me a twenty dollar bill. “Get the receipt and make sure he puts the shop name on it and not mine. And make sure he dates and signs it.” I took the twenty and got out of the van.

     “Am I on the clock, Boss?” I asked.

     “Just hurry!” He wasn't in a joking mood. I went into the office to get a receipt from Mr. Greenjeans.

Smiling In the Sunshine: Secrets

Secrets

     “What's the situation with your warehouse out by the Airport?” Cromwell asked as we pulled away from the storage place.

     “Well, it's still there, if that's what you mean.”

     “No, I mean did Mona ever get her hooks into all that old saloon stuff or does she have a key or is her lawyer hanging around or anything?” He went past the turn to his pottery shop and continued north up Old Dixie Highway. Towards the airport and towards my old warehouse full of salvaged saloon fixtures, antique wall panels, old brass lamps, a British phone booth, stained glass windows, stacks of choice hardwood lumber and other oddities I had collected in my years working throughout the South. This was the first time Cromwell had ever expressed any interest whatsoever in the place.

     “No, Crom, no harpie's hooks or bushwacking barristers. And yes, you may stash this crate of whatever it is we just stole in my warehouse. I changed the lock a month ago and Mona never had any more interest in that stuff than you did, until now. But is it too much to ask what is happening? And if you will be buying lunch?”

     “Lunch is on me, alright, after we unload this crate.  I want to get a better look at what's inside and see if I can find a shipping manifest or anything else that might tell us if this stuff is what I think it is.” He blew through a yellow light and cut left across the railroad tracks over to the little warehouse district behind our small municipal airport. “Which one is yours?”

     “Right over there, next to the welding shop.” He pulled up in the front next to the big sliding door.

     “Wait a minute,” I said. “Look, if you pull over there to the side a little, see that block wall between my shop and the other building? It's not a wall, exactly. Let me push it open and you can back down in between the buildings where we can unload this thing with privacy.” I hopped out before he could ask any questions and jogged over to the “wall” between the two buildings, waited until he had the van positioned properly then reached over the top and hit the little button that you had to know about to push. That released the magnetic lock and the big block wall section swung inward, taking with it the planter and ornamental shrubs that were attached to it and gave it the appearance of being a solid, fixed wall. Cromwell backed the van into the ten foot space between the two buildings and I shut the gate.

     “You have a secret passage?” He said. “I'm impressed. But why?” I was busy unlocking the compact roll up door, and when I sat the big padlock on the shelf next to the opening I hit another little switch that Crom didn't see. It killed the security system.

     “Don't be too impressed,” I said, “It came with the place. All the same, let's keep it between you and me.   Now, let's get the contraband out of the truck, I'll rustle up some boxes and we can inspect the booty.” He opened the van and we pulled out the crate with the dolly. It came out a lot easier than it went in. I got a couple big oak planks and put them on a pair of sawhorses, creating a makeshift table. Cromwell got busy digging into the crate, brushing off the pieces and setting them on the table. They were terra cotta figures, oddly shaped.

     “They remind me of a chia pet,” I said.

     “Well, these will sprout some green, indeed, if they are what I think they are...but listen, Blix, I have some checking to do. It is imperative that not one word of this crate leaks out. OK?'

     “I never imagined I would ever hear you say 'imperative'', I said. “But sure. Don't worry about it. Who's the one with the secret passage, anyway? I'll let you out the gate. The secret gate.” I wasn't too happy about any of this. Whatever that crap was in the crate, I realized I had just added some convolution to my already convoluted life.