Nuclear Jellyfish

AMELIA ISLAND

A two-tone Javelin sat in an empty motel parking lot at the northeastern corner of the state. Only one occupant.

Coleman reached over from the passenger side and hit the horn.

A second-floor door opened. Serge stepped onto the balcony buttoning his tropical shirt. A woman appeared from the room. Latin bombshell, jet-black hair, beauty mark, all hips. She grabbed Serge roughly by the collar and yanked him back for a final, deep kiss.

Serge trotted down the stairs with a zippered pouch and hopped in the driver’s seat. They cruised south across the island.

“Finally!” said Coleman.

“I’m here now.” Serge blew through a yellow light. “What’s the problem?”

“I’ve been bored for an hour while you were having all the fun.” “What? Back there?” Serge wiped lipstick off his mouth. “That wasn’t fun. That was business.” “What kind of business?” “Can’t tell you.” “Why not?”

“Part of my secret plan.” “What’s in the zippered pouch?” “Can’t tell you.” “I’m out of beer.”

Serge pulled into a convenience store. “Here’s your pharmacy.” Back at the just-departed motel room, a Latin bombshell opened a closet door and sat in front of a small table. She pulled the cover off a vintage 1941 Zenith Trans-Oceanic. Switches flipped. Tubes glowed inside the shortwave. The woman opened a notebook, pulled a heavy steel microphone toward that pair of full, fiery lips, and began in a melting voice: “Ninety-seven, twelve, one-thirty-two, sixty-eight…”

A couple miles up the road, Coleman ran out of the convenience store with a cardboard suitcase. “Beer, sweet beer!”

They pulled out again, two small flags flapping atop the front fenders, like it was the governor’s motorcade, except…

“Serge,” said Coleman. “I don’t recognize either of those flags.”

“Because I had to draw them myself. I love Amelia Island! Two centuries ago this was an international Dodge City.” Serge fit an odd-looking baseball cap on his head and pointed at the left side of the hood. “That green cross was the flag of the creatively named free republic of the Green Cross. Can you believe there once was an independent nation right here on this island?”

Coleman ripped open the twelve-pack. “That’s almost interesting.”

“One of the most bizarre underdog stories in state history,” said Serge. “This crazy Scottish soldier of fortune named MacGregor convinced fifty-five guys to attack Spain. It was the kind of thing frat boys concoct when only suds are left coming out of the kegs. Even stranger, it worked.”

“How’dthey do it?”

“MacGregor’s plan was to kick the Spanish out of Florida, and he started by attacking Fort San Carlos, which was at the end of this street we’re now passing. They didn’t even have a strategy, just an unheard-of direct charge at the fort without cover, which never would have worked except this gang-who-couldn’t-shoot-straight was getting eaten alive by insects. So they broke sprigs off local plants known to repel bugs and stuck them in their hats. The guys on the fort walls saw them advancing straight through the marsh and thought: Nobody’s this stupid. Something must be up. Then they mistook the hat sprigs for plumes that only officers wore, multiplied it out by the corresponding divisions of enlisted men, and believed they were being attacked by a force of thousands. Surrendered without a fight.”

Coleman pointed up at Serge’s head. “Is that why you taped all those twigs to your baseball cap?”

“My adversaries will think they’re facing overwhelming numbers.”

Coleman crumpled an empty beer can. “Some story.”

“Gets even weirder. Green Cross nation only lasted two months, until the Spanish stopped laughing and kicked them out. But then …” Serge pointed at the flag on the other side of the hood. “… Another bunch of loons led by an ex-Pennsylvania congressman and a French pirate overtook the island and briefly claimed it for Mexico. Amelia Island was a refuge where every crackpot with some lunatic notion was allowed to express himself with tiny armies, like a military version of talk radio.”

They continued south. Two hours passed. They reached a shore. A line of cars was backed up ten deep. Eventually, vehicles began moving at a crawl. Then stopped again.

Gulls and herons swooped over the Javelin’s roof in a brisk outgoing breeze. They began crossing the St. Johns River. The car’s engine was off.

“I’ve never taken a ferry before,” said Coleman.

“One of America’s most excellent but rapidly disappearing road-trip pleasures.” Serge turned the steering wheel left, then right. “I could have taken a faster route, but we’d miss the ecstasy.”

Coleman was on a train schedule. He cracked his 10:15 beer. “So why aren’t you in a better mood?”

“Because that jerk wouldn’t let me drive the barge. Usually when I ask for something fifty times, they cave.”

“Why are you turning the steering wheel if the car’s stopped?”

“Pretending to drive the ferry.” Serge sneered out the windshield at the barge tender. “And he thought he was dealing with a child.”

Coleman sipped his grog and glanced out the window. “Sure is pretty. Never been this far north in Florida before.”

“Few people have because we’re way off all the major highways.”

“What was that place where I regained consciousness this morning?”

“Fort Clinch State Park, just across St. Marys in Georgia.” Serge cut the wheel left with the current. “The leg of A1A we just traveled is one of Florida’s best-kept secrets, an uncrowded driving-tour orgy, starting with the Palace Saloon on Amelia Island, oldest bar in the state, established 1878, where I got excellent photos of the mural, tin ceiling and mahogany bar where the Rockefellers used to roll …”

“And you wouldn’t even let me get a drink. You just stuck your camera in the door for two minutes.”

“One and a half. Because time management is crucial.” Serge turned the wheel right. “Then continuing south along the magnificent shoreline bluffs of the Talbot islands and salt-marsh flats at Fort George …”

“… Where you spent an hour chasing butterflies and smelling plants.”

“That’s why time management is so important. You never know what emergency might arise.” The wheel rotated left again. “It’s essential to showcase crack motion-efficiency skills if I expect to land my new job.”

“What does a travel guide do?”

“Provide inside tips for visitors not familiar with the area, like leaving extra space at dark intersections so you don’t get boxed in by car-jackers and dismembered behind a time-share booth.”

“Who doesn’t know that?”

“Everyone who uses traditional travel websites,” said Serge. “Those big Internet companies worry that providing grids of tourist homicides, will only make people stay home, which is insane because the first rule of business is to keep your customers alive.”

“Fuckin’-A.”

“And they need my expertise now more than ever. Something’s gone horribly wrong in paradise. There used to be an agreement among criminals that we left the most vulnerable alone.”

“I think I signed that.”

“It’s useless paper now. Last Christmas they were jumping pregnant moms for gifts in mall parking lots, and one gang went on a rampage slashing inflatable snowmen in Clearwater.”

“That’s just wrong.”

“Which is why I’m as good as hired today.”

The barge docked on the south side of the river, and the gate came down.

“But it’s your eighth Internet Job Fair,” said Coleman. “Three fired you, and the rest turned you down, including two who physically threw you out on the sidewalk. How will this time be different?”

“I’ve learned a lot about structuring my pitch.” Serge drove off the ferry. “Never lead with the tourist murder rate.”

INTERSTATE 10

Truckers downshifted as they took the cloverleaf off 1-75 just north of Lake City. The air had a burnt stink from the month-long forest fire in the Okefenokee Swamp that jumped the state line.

Dawn revealed a thick layer of smoke, which dropped visibility to a quarter-mile and would soon prompt officials to close the highway and tie up traffic back to Tallahassee. But not yet.

The sun continued its rise directly over the lanes for Jacksonville, the haze making it look more like a dim Alaskan morning. A young man behind the wheel of a cobalt-blue Volkswagen Beetle began another in a series of utterly content days. Because he was on the road in Florida. People called him Howard, because it was on his birth certificate.

Howard’s love of travel was advertised by the space-maximizing configuration of his car’s interior, which resembled a professionally organized closet: interlocking matrix of clear plastic bins and tubs and filing containers from Office Depot filled the entire backseat and cantilevered over the front passenger’s; zippered, easy-reach pouches hung everywhere from hooks and Velcro straps. Contents obsessively segregated: toiletries, clothes (clean, dirty, dirtier), car maintenance, all-purpose repair tool, kitchen including complete mini pantry, coffeemaker, micro-microwave and world-class collection of condiment packets from convenience stores squirreled away in see-though flyfishing tackle boxes. On the passenger seat sat an executive mobile organizer of maps, pamphlets, guidebooks, notepads, pens, receipts and backup sunglasses. Between the seats wedged a first-aid kit, and mounted over the dash was a quick-release fire extinguisher.

But the most important cargo was under the hood of the Beetle’s trademark front-end trunk: Howard’s product line.

A fast-moving high-pressure system had lifted most of the smoke by the time the Beetle rolled into downtown Cocoa Beach. A cell phone rang. He grabbed it from a hanging pocket.

“Good morning, Howard Enterprises … Oh, hi Mom … I was going to call… I’m not just saying that… Mom, we talked yesterday … I already have a job … It is a real job … Mom, I have to go. I’m in the middle of something … Traffic … No, the other cars aren’t more important than you … You asked me if I had a girlfriend yesterday … I know you liked Cathy … Mom, she broke up with me … I did try calling … a number of times … because she said ‘never call me again’… What do you mean, ‘Maybe if I didn’t cry .so much’? It was a tough time … I know she was sweet … And beautiful … And I’ll never find anyone else like her … Mom, I’ve been trying for months to stop thinking about her … You’ll call her? Oh, please!- … You already did? … I know her answering machine says, ‘If this is Howard, I’m dead.’ … Mom, I really have to hang up … I’ve got a call on the other line … No, I seriously doubt that it’s Cathy … I really have to hang up … Right, I’ll call… And visit… I don’t know when … Love you! Bye!”

The Beetle turned up a commercial driveway and pulled around the side of a convention center. It parked next to a propped-open service entrance that was a nexus of unloading activity.

Howard made the regular rounds of the expos, and nobody knew what to make of it. From the Panhandle to points south, Howard presented his wares with incandescent pride. And left at the end of the day with everything he’d arrived with. His credit cards were maxed. The Beetle needed new oil.

It was a business-model problem that could have been diagnosed over the phone. Howard signed up for expos that had nothing to do with what he was selling, because there were no such markets for his wares. Didn’t stop Howard. He’d just find a cheap table at any event that had surplus vendor space. So what if all the customers were there for baseball cards, lapidary supplies or Star Wars figures? He was on the road. He was happy.

The Javelin pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a budget motel.

“Serge, why are we stopping here? I thought you needed to get to your job fair?”

“Need more travel research for my first report.” Serge got out of the car. “First rule of job interviews: always bring a work sample.” He headed for the lobby.

The whiskered motel manager had little to do since switching over from the bulletproof night checkin window and unlocking the front doors. He sat in the backroom, feet on the desk, reading a hot rod magazine with a centerfold. His free hand rustled through a bag of pork rinds. A sound from the front desk:

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!…

He popped a final rind in his mouth and furled the centerfold. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!…

The manager appeared from the backroom, wiping pork-rind dust on a T-shirt that appeared to have been tie-dyed in motor oil. “Can I help you?”

Ding! Ding! Ding!… Serge stopped and stilled the bell with his hand. He removed a clipboard from a canvas shoulder bag, clicked a pen and began writing. “Response time, twenty dings.”

“What’s the clipboard for?”

“Pay no attention to the clipboard or it’ll skew the experiment. I need to observe you in your natural habitat. Personal appearance: The Hills Have Eyes.”

“Are you from the home office ?”

“You wish.” Serge pulled a rolled-up coupon book from his back pocket. “I’d like a room.”

“Checkin isn’t ‘til two p.m.”

“I know. Wanted to get my reservation request in early enough so there’d be no misunderstanding.”

“What kind of misunderstanding?”

“That I arrived too late, and you didn’t have any more of the rooms I wanted.”

The manager opened a reservation book. “What kind of room Would you like?”

“The kind you won’t allow me to have with my coupon. Any of those left not to give me?”

“I… What’s the question?”

Serge ripped the coupon from the book and slapped it on the counter. “One of these rooms. How many do you not have left?”

The manager picked up the torn square of recycled paper. “Oh, the coupon. Yeah, we don’t have any of those rooms left.”

“Bingo,” said Serge. “I want one of the rooms you don’t have.”

“They’re all full.”

“Your parking lot’s nearly empty.”

“We have other rooms just like it that you can have for the regular price.” The manager turned a wary eye to Coleman, swaying and drinking his breakfast from a paper bag. “Want one of those?”

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! “Look at me,” said Serge. “Try to stay on message. How many of the discount rooms do you usually not have ?”

“Varies.”

“Is it ever a negative integer?” “What?”

“I’ll just put down zero.” Serge stuck the clipboard back in his shoulder bag. He pulled out a can of spray paint and rattled the metal ball. “Well, that just about does it.”

Coleman reached for the counter. Ding! Ding! Ding!

The manager turned. “Can I help you?”

Ding! Ding! Ding!…

Serge grabbed Coleman’s arm and grinned at the manager. “I’m his caregiver. He just likes to ring bells and play with cat toys.”

The pair left the office. The manager returned to the backroom and picked up a magazine.

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