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Show Blue Run/7 No one sees us, the seven of us grunting with this five-hundred-pound turtle. We make a dune just before sunset. The Mexicans hug and kiss each other, make crosses over their chests then turn and walk up the beach. They pack their gear and walk away from my life forever. Something huge has cut the line on my eleven-footer, a blue, shark maybe, whatever- the line's cut clean. I imagine what's left of the rig being dragged across the bottom where riptides roll A heron's made off with a few blues from my cooler, but there's cold beer and the night coming, with fish cleaning and tacos, Cap's sea stories and his merry wife Meg Renee and my daughter Lara are poolside. We'll spend this night between river and ocean; within earshot, the waters will break and break. The phone call comes after midnight The whir of Cap's lawn sprinklers outside in the dark. Between the ocean and river-that Florida taste in the air when every living thing grows violently. By morning, newly deformed hedges will assault you alongside the oleanders. All that happens while we sleep in bedrooms with their ceiling fans that sometimes creak rhythmically or issue slight cries. Renee shakes me. O.W , my stepfather, is on the phone. Lights are on through the doorway and out into the house. A cold receiver is pressed into my jaw. The digital clock says twelve something. An instant passes when it's still possible to walk away, to hang up, walk up the street and jump in the ocean, let the tide do what it will. "Joey?" |