Whale Season Read online

  There’s a club near Orlando that does Shakespeare in the nude because the town has an ordinance that says that nudity is legal in legitimate theater. “To be or not to be,” never had so many layers of meaning before.

  But that’s the way it is in Florida. It’s paradise. The visitors want fun. That’s what they pay for. They’re gonna have fun if it kills them. Or you. Or both.

  So it’s 6 A.M. on Christmas morning and The Dream Café is open for business, but it doesn’t seem that there’s much fun to be had. A handful of truck drivers sit at the edge of the stage. They’re not regulars, but Dagmar’s seen them once or twice before. They’re having breakfast, on the house. Biscuits and gravy. No fancy name for it. Plenty of black coffee served Cuban style, sweet and thick—just like Uncle Joe would have done.

  Free breakfast on Christmas is a tradition at The Dream Café that goes back to the Black and Tan days.

  “Merry Christmas,” Dagmar says as she serves each man personally. Some say “Merry Christmas” back. Some just nod. Some don’t say anything, just seem embarrassed. That’s understandable. In her white apron, with her apricot hair pulled high on top of her head, Dagmar looks a lot like someone’s mother. And behind her, onstage, there’s a nearly naked woman writhing.

  It is a little unsettling.

  But Dagmar doesn’t notice. She’s just trying to get this over with, serve some damn Christmas cheer, and get out as quickly as she can. Uncle Joe made her promise that she would keep up the tradition and she hates it with a passion. “These guys should be home with their wives and kids on Christmas,” she told him.

  “That’s not for us to judge,” he said. “They put food on our table. To return the favor one day a year is the least we can do. To give back is a gift unto itself.”

  And even though she wanted to tell him that giving food away to moochers who spend their money paying women to get naked and say nasty things to them is perhaps not as blessed an act as Mother Teresa washing the feet of lepers in Africa, she just nodded. Said nothing. And so now she’s stuck. It was, after all, a promise. A deal’s a deal.

  So she tries to concentrate on what Jimmy Ray always tells her. “Look at everyone as Buddha would,” he says. “Look with an open heart. Find the goodness within them.”

  Jimmy Ray is a Buddhist. It’s a recent turn of events. The day after he had open-heart surgery he announced it. Just like that. Baptist now Buddhist. Claimed that while he was under anesthetic, he had a vision. Phil Jackson, then coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, and a Buddhist himself, appeared to Jimmy Ray and imparted two revelations that he still holds dear.

  The first: “Heaven is a place within your heart.”

  The second: “Michael Jordan is shorter than you think.”

  Then Jackson drove off on his Harley-Davidson.

  The vision had a profound effect on Jimmy Ray. Now, he tries his best to convert others to the Noble Eightfold Path, the teachings of Siddhartha, The Enlightened One.

  “You must approach these men with the Right Understanding, honey,” he told Dagmar. “See who they really are without imposing your preconceived notions.

  “In other words,” he said, “it’s all good.”

  So, when Dagmar serves each man his breakfast, she looks into his eyes and tries to see who’s really inside there. She looks for the spark of a divine spirit and prays that there won’t be a repeat of last Christmas, when some drunk grabbed a dancer’s breast and Dagmar suddenly began to rail on him with a plastic Santa. Then she pushed him into the eight tiny reindeer and they all fell like bowling pins onto the Christmas tree sending glass bulbs skidding across the floor. The bubble lights popped and snapped. The power flickered. Icicles were everywhere. The man began to cry.

  The dancers refer to it as “The Christmas Day Massacre.”

  Luckily, this year, Santa is still standing and her shift is almost over.

  “Merry Christmas,” she says to the last man at the table. The man, burly, with a head shaved clean as an egg, takes the food hesitantly.

  “I don’t believe in Christmas, Mrs. I’m sorry.” His voice is coarse.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dagmar says. “Enjoy. There’s more if you need it.”

  She turns to walk away, but he catches her arm. His eyes are steady and cold. “Don’t seem right, Mrs. You giving me something in the spirit of something I don’t even believe in. And I don’t have anything to give you.”

  The man makes Dagmar uneasy. He is large and broad like a wrestler, a diamond stud in his nose. Despite the cool morning, fifty-one degrees and overcast, he’s wearing a leather vest, no shirt. Across his neck is tattooed the word Grace.

  “That’s okay,” she says. Her arm is going numb. Dagmar searches his eyes for the divine spirit within him, but finds it’s a little tough to get a bead on it without feeling in her fingers.

  The man pulls her closer. “Well, if you won’t take money, let me give you something else.”

  The words make her twitch.

  She wonders if she starts meditating, om-mani-padme-hum, maybe she can find a way out of this situation that would be The Noble Path and would enlighten her and all around her. And, most important, that would help her avoid wildly beating this overgrown monkey with that plastic Santa that seems to be standing, once again, too close at hand.

  The others at the table stop talking and watch Dagmar and the man. The rock and roll blares on. ZZ Top is singing the titty girl standard, “She’s got legs. She knows how to use them.”

  Dagmar really hates that song. Onstage, Bernie is dancing. She’s older than the rest but enthusiastic and cheerful. Has a solid following with couples. The green tassels of her pasties spin like propellers, but no one seems to notice. The man pulls Dagmar even closer. She feels his stale breath against her arm. Up close, he looks older than she first thought—somewhere in his fifties. Steroid strong.

  “Give me my arm,” she says, the stern mother. “Or I’ll kick your ass from here to Tallahassee.”

  It isn’t Buddha’s way, but it works. The man lets her go.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I just get insistent sometimes.”

  “That’s okay.” She straightens her apron. Adjusts the tower of her hair.

  He clears his throat, “You see, people sing for their supper. That’s what I meant.”

  Dagmar isn’t quite sure she heard him right. “You want to sing?”

  “Not exactly,” he says. “It’s not a song. It’s a prayer I learned in Vietnam during the war. We took some priests captive at a shrine—”

  He trails off for a moment and the dark look on his face fills in the details. Gives Dagmar a chill.

  “Anyway,” he says, “they sing this at sunrise. It’s just about sunrise, isn’t it?”

  Dagmar nods. The ZZ Top song is blessedly over. Bernie stands at the edge of the stage, adjusting her G-string. The man clears his throat, closes his eyes. His voice is hopeful. Fragile. Eerie.

  “Chuùng con caàu xin nhôø Chuùa Kitoâ, Thieân Chuùa vaø Ñaáng Cöùu Chuoäc chuùng con.”

  The words are as fragile as old bones. When he finishes, he bows his head as a sign of respect.

  “That’s beautiful,” Dagmar says. “What does it mean?”

  “Whatever you need it to.”

  A few of the men nod in agreement. One of them says, “That’s why we call him the Preacher. He’s always talking deep shit.”

  “That’s nice,” Bernie says and touches him gently on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

  Preacher blushes. His fellow drivers look surprised.

  “Hey, I got something I can trade for food,” another man says. “Something that will make you laugh ’til you weep.”

  Out of his greasy blue jean jacket he pulls a picture of his wife and their new baby. The drooling child is stuffed into a Christmas stocking. He looks a lot like a beefsteak tomato. His red face is cocked to one side. A tiny green bow is glued to his head. He is cross-eyed.

  Dagmar does, indeed, laugh.r />
  “Ugly, isn’t he?” the father says proudly. “Takes after his old man.”

  “How old?”

  “Six weeks too early. Finally gets out of the hospital today. I got to eat and run. Damn. Working on Christmas is a damn bitch.”

  And that’s when it hit her. They’re working, Dagmar thinks. They’d rather be home with their families. She suddenly feels her Buddha heart open to him, and Preacher, and all the rest. She suddenly feels a fleeting moment of happiness to be on The Noble Path—with the plastic Santa and his tiny reindeers all still standing.

  “It’s all good,” she says with a Pep Squad lilt.

  The men look at her oddly. Apparently not Buddhists, she thinks.

  “Baby’s okay now?” Dagmar asks. “I know they can do a lot for preemies these days.”

  The father shrugs. “He’s doing. That’s what we say. Doing one day at a time.”

  Onstage, Bernie is tired. Her hair, which is dyed an unnatural shade of red, now sticks up straight in several places. Makes her look like the flame of a match. It’s been a long night. Her elf suit and elfin cap are scattered at her feet, the remnants of a holiday tribute. Her green pasties, no longer in motion, wilt.

  “Anybody want to talk dirty? I can be a bad, bad girl,” she says.

  The men shake their heads.

  “Know any Christmas carols?” Preacher asks. “I feel I can use some more singing.”

  In her ten years as a dancer, Bernie can safely say she’s never has a request for Christmas carols before. She looks at Dagmar for guidance.

  “Up to you,” Dagmar says.

  Bernie grins. “Well, shoot. I’m a good Catholic girl,” she says. “I know more Christmas carols than the pope, but I don’t want to sing alone.”

  “I don’t sing good, but I’ll sing,” says the driver with the photo of his baby. “Gots to practice for the kid.”

  “Sure,” another says. “We’ll all sing.”

  “Okay, then,” Bernie says. She walks to the middle of the stage, a stage on which earlier she did things with cola bottles that made them nonrefundable in several states. She suddenly looks shy and gangly, awkward as a girl.

  “Go ahead,” Dagmar says. “Just pick a song and we’ll all join in.”

  The truck drivers put their forks down. Some clap. Some take a sip of coffee. Preacher clears his throat. Bernie adjusts her thong again and smooths the tassels of her wilted pasties. When she finally finds her courage and begins to sing, her voice is pure and sweet. The type of voice one associates with angels.

  “Oh come all ye faithful. Joyful and triumphant.”

  The men, one by one, join in. Their voices shake a bit. Some go flat. Dagmar looks at their faces, softened by the moment, and can, indeed, see their Buddha hearts. Unpolished, yet luminescent.

  She would like to sing along, but finds she can’t. She’s crying. She’s not sure why.

  That’s okay, she tells herself. She has to go to Jimmy Ray’s. He’ll be waiting. Can’t be late.

  She grabs the elf’s cap from the stage and puts it on. Nods good-bye, but nobody notices. Bernie and the men just keep on singing. Each is naked in his way. Each wounded. Each blessed. Their awkward voices are raised together in song honoring a boy who wasn’t born too early like the truck driver’s baby, but died too soon.

  Dagmar knows a lot about babies that die too soon. Too much, she thinks, and pushes away the memory of Cal, her own son. This is her first Christmas without him.

  When she gets into her car, the old Mercedes convertible her uncle Joe left to her, she puts the top down. The cold air feels good against her face, wakes her up a bit. But she can’t stop crying. Her caffeine heart speeds.

  When she finally turns onto the dirt road that used to be paved, used to have a sign that welcomed visitors to Whale Harbor, she is going too fast. Nearly loses her elfin cap. Gravel chews her tires. Christmas presents tumble like dice. Up ahead, she can see the trademarked Bob the Round-Up Cowboy and his lasso aimlessly spinning in the air—coming up short, coming up short again—and, surprisingly, what appears to be Jesus walking in the center of the road toward her.

  At first she thinks it’s a hallucination. But as she drives past, he waves a bony hand. It catches her attention and the eerie delicate prayer of Preacher’s song came back to her.

  Buddha heart, she thinks. Never know where you find one.

  She slams on the brakes. The car fishtails. She idles for a moment.

  Dagmar has never picked up a hitchhiker before. She looks at the man in the rearview mirror. He is slight of build, and too thin. Doesn’t seem armed, just lost. Maybe he’s on the way to a church pageant, she thinks. Backs up slowly. Have a little faith, she tells herself but her heart beats even faster.

  “Need a ride?”

  The man leans into the car. Looks at her closely. His sheet billows in the cold morning air. For some odd reason he smells like devil’s food cake.

  “You must be Dagmar,” he says and smiles.

  “Happy Birthday,” she says, without thinking.

  Chapter 6

  Leon stands in his stocking feet, eel-skin boots in hand, and stares for a moment at the American Dream. The keys make his hand itch. It’s Christmas morning, just past six. Leon wants to call Carlotta but figures she’s turned her cell phone off, so he doesn’t bother. Figures he’ll deal with it later.

  The chrome of the Dream shimmers in the sunrise. Leon shimmers, too.

  Carlotta, however, is not currently inclined to shimmer. She is hungover and seasick in Leon’s custom waterbed. In her dreams, she is screaming at him with hurricane force. The words hit at 100, 110 miles per hour, roar around Leon, ripping off his shirt, making his hair stand on end. He’s wet and cringing. Toasters, TVs, Castro Convertible sofa beds fly through the air at him, nearly missing, but she just keeps on screaming. In the corner of her dream a meteorologist with Super Doppler Radar is tracking her in a live shot. The world spins around the weatherman in his perfect trench coat, his TV tan, and bleach bright teeth. His hair doesn’t move. Carlotta likes that.

  “That’s the kind of man I want,” she thinks, still sleeping. Rolls over.

  •••

  Leon is in trouble and he knows it. Can sense it. Knows he should go home and see Carlotta. Leave right now, and, on the way, stop at the 7-Eleven and buy a gallon of Rocky Road just to help smooth things over. And a fashion magazine. Maybe some piña colada air fresheners. A silk rose. Mars bars—bags of them. At this point, he knows it’s going to take a lot of stuff to make Carlotta happy again, more than just the usual beef jerky and unsalted pumpkin seeds. Besides standing her up last night, Leon has also forgotten to buy a Christmas gift. Once the Rocky Road is gone, Carlotta is sure to notice. He knows that. Even the American Dream can’t change that fact.

  But, instead of climbing into his mandarin orange 1975 El Dorado—a ragtop complete with matching citrus-toned leather and whitewall tires, a “Pimp Daddy Caddy” that could be a collector’s item if it wasn’t nearly rusted through—Leon walks over to the Dream. He walks in his stocking feet, boots in hand, carefully, gently, slowly over the broken clamshell driveway, over the frozen burrs that cross-hatch the weeds. Doesn’t even want to take the time to put his shoes on. Just wants to look inside. He’s never owned anything this beautiful before. Just one look before he goes. That’s all he wants. One look can’t hurt anything.

  “You sure are nice,” he says under his breath. “You sure are pretty.”

  One quick look. Then over to the 7-Eleven. Then home.

  In the distance, there’s the sound of eighteen-wheelers on U.S. 41, roaring like the ocean. You can also hear the faint bark of a dog, the dog that always seems to bark in the slow hours of morning. And, if you listen closely, you can also hear the grinding whine of Dagmar’s Mercedes as she downshifts from 90 mph to stop to ask Jesus if he wants a ride.

  But Leon doesn’t hear any of it. He unlocks the driver’s door and feels his future unroll in front o
f him like a red carpet on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. He takes his wraparound sunglasses from his shirt pocket and puts them on, just because. The door handle is cool to the touch. Inside the American Dream there are real leather chairs, instead of bucket seats. Leon brushes off the bottom of his pants and sits down softly. Wishes he’d had a bath.

  He closes the door slowly. It moves so easily in his hand, he can hardly believe it. Doesn’t snap and crack on its hinges like the door in his mandarin orange El Dorado. It just shuts calmly with a whoosh, then a loud click. Startled, Leon jumps then looks around to see if anyone saw. A jackrabbit runs across the parking lot. Leon takes a deep breath. Automatic locks. Man, that’s nice, he thinks. Opens the door again quickly, just to be sure he isn’t locked in. Then shuts it. Doesn’t want to let any of the new car smell escape.

  As the sun rises higher in the sky, Leon leans over and takes a huge whiff of the passenger’s seat. His sunglasses slip off his nose onto the sweet cream leather. It doesn’t matter. The moment is perfect. A feeling of well-being settles over him.

  He is unaware that, right now, at home, in his own RV, Carlotta had fallen out of the waterbed and is now as awake as a rabid dog—and as industrious. His only suit is being heaved across the gravel yard of the motor court and is tumbling toward the swamp. His beer can collection now rocks back and forth in the gentle morning breeze, wrinkled like so many accordions. Clyde, the six-foot stuffed brown bear Leon won the week before from the taxidermist in Florida City, looks on in stuffed horror. But at this moment, Leon thinks of nothing but the new leather air of the American Dream. Tears fill his eyes.

  Gently, he turns the key in the ignition, the engine kicks to life. Then hums. Leon wipes the tears from his face with his sleeve. The air is electric with dings and buzzers. The dashboard looks like a cockpit. LED lights flicker, turn his face blue. Leon wants to take the Dream for a spin, but it’s not like anything he’s ever driven before. There are no rearview mirrors; just two video cameras connected to a twenty-inch flat-screen TV that’s built into the dashboard between the driver and passenger’s chairs. He touches the screen. There’s a spark. Static electricity.