Cutthroat Lane

Cutthroat Road

    Willa Sue says, "I want to find Sandy Downs."

    Riley nods yes, closes his laptop, and they walk to the Highlander.

    Willa Sue gets behind the wheel and off they head down US 1.

    They pass through Little Torch Key and cross the bridge onto Ramrod Key.

    They cross the bridge to Summerland Key.

    They cross the bridge Cudjoe Key.

    They pass a paved road on the right, and Riley gets a sharp crick in the left side of his neck.

    Willa Sue keeps driving down US 1. 

    The crick gets sharper, and Riley tells Willa Sue about it.

    She keeps driving down US 1, and the crick gets worse.

    Riley says, "Please stop and turn around, Wife, before I open the door and jump out head first and put me out of my misery."

    Willa Sue slows the Highlander, and after two oncoming cars pass going the other way, she does a u-turn and they head back up US 1. When they reach the paved side road, now on their left, Riley says, "The crick is almost gone." 

    As they continue up US 1, Riley says, "Shit, it's coming back. Turn around again, pretty please."

    Willa Sue slows, no oncoming traffic this time, she does a u-turn and heads back down US 1. As they reach the paved side road to the right, Riley says, "Slow down, the crick is easing."

    Willa Sue slows to about 15 miles per hour. They reach the side road, "Cutthroat Drive." 

    Riley says, "The crick's gone, turn here."

    Willa Sue turns right. She drives slowly on Cutthroat Drive, past Redfish Lane on the right. Past Bluegill Lane on the right. 

    Riley says, "The crick's coming back, turn around and go down Bluegill Lane."

    The crick eases. 

    About 200 yards down Bluegill Lane, they see a pale blue octagon house on stilts on the right. Willa Sue turns the Highlander into the driveway, parks, and turns off the ignition.

    They get out and walk to the stairs going up the left side of the house. The place smells like fish. Two teenage boys indeed are cleaning a fish. A BIG fish. At least 7 feet long. Shaped like a torpedo. On a boat ramp leading down into a canal in front of the house. A large skiff with a huge Mercury outboard and outriggers is moored at the bottom of the ramp.

    The boys look up, see Riley and Willa Sue, smile, in unison say, "Hi." 

    Riley and Willa Sue smile and say, "Hi. We're looking for Sandy Downs, do you know her?"

    The boys look at each other, back at Riley and Willa Sue.

    The older boy says, "Are you the law?"

    Riley says "Do we look like the law?"

    They are wearing bluejeans and polo shirts.

    The younger boy says, "You could be in disguise."

    Riley looks closer at the torpedo they have gutted and now are chopping off its head with lots of big sharp teeth in its mouth,

    "Wahoo?"

    "Yeah," the younger boy says. "If you know that, then I guess you ain't the law."

    "We could be F.B.I. agents in disguise," Willa Sue says."

    "In that case, we never heard of Sandy Downs," the older boy says, smiles.

    Riley says, "Well, if you ever chance to meet Sandy, please tell her Riley Strange and Willa Sue Jenkins dropped by after we saw her comment about us on the Coconut Telegraph, and about her living in an octagon stilt house on Cudjoe Key."

    The boys look at each other, then back at Willa Sue and Riley.

    The older boy yells really loud, "Hey Mom, there are some people out here to see you!!!"

    Riley and Willa Sue hear a door open upstairs and a tanned, shapely, bleach-blond woman shorter than Willa Sue steps out onto the upstairs deck, walks to the rail, looks down, says, "Oh my God! I was just reading your comments on the Coconut Telegraph. Please come up."

    Riley and Willa Sue climb the stairs. Sandy hugs them together, says, "Lets go inside to the living room."

    The internal layout is similar to the Pleaadean's octagon home, but this home clearly is on the public electric and water grid.

    Sandy says, "I'm so very glad you looked me up."

    Willa Sue explains how that happened.

    Sandy looks out the window, then looks up, and then looks at Willa Sue and says, "A voice told me in my sleep last night that I was going to have unexpected guests."

    Riley says, "We had no clue how to find you, yet here we are."

    "Yes, here we are," Sandy says.

    "And we are already decided to head home tomorrow," Willa Sue says.

    Sandy nods, says, "I figured as much from your comments al the Coconut Telegraph. You nailed it. Mosquito Control beat Mother Nature's first line of defense, and now we can't go into the water safely with a nick or a scratch. I never connected those dots. Fucking scary."

    "It's now wise to mess with Mother Nature," Willa Sue says.

    Sandy nods, says, "Are you going to run for president, Riley?"

    "I hope not, but it don't appear I'm in charge of much of anything any more. I don't mind people talking me up, writing my name on ballots, but actually running and having a campaign just doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. To be honest, think it's really wrong for people to run themselves for public office. The people who should be in public office, should not want the job. They should have it thrust upon them, and they do it because they feel called to do it."

    "In a perfect world," Sandy says.

    "Well, that's my dream world," Riley digs in.

    Sandy says, "Stick to your guns. Otherwise, you might get hornswoggle into something you wish you didn't."

    "Something like a black hole?"

    "Yeah, and don't forget tar babies and quicksand swamps."

    Wondering what spaceship Sandy came out of, Willa Sue asks Sandy, "What do you do besides raise teenage boys who catch huge wahoo?"

    "I'm a consultant."

    "What kind of consultant?"

    "You have something you want help with, ask me and I consult."

    "You have any training for that?"

    "No, one day I woke up and I was hearing voices talking about all sorts of things, and it fucking freaked me out. I kept it to myself for a long time, but it kept happening, and I kept hearing things about other people, and some of them I knew, and some of them I didn't know. I sometimes told the people I knew what I was hearing, and their eyes got big and round, or their eyes got narrow and mean. I learned to be careful about what I said I was hearing. But word started spreading and now I have a steady business that keeps the bills paid."

    "People call you?"

    "That, and they email me."

    "They pay by check they mail you?"

    "That, and PayPal."

    "Or, they come here and we talk and they pay cash, which tends to be tax free, or sometimes they pay by check."

    "Nice line of work that just flopped on you from out of nowhere."

    "Yep. Praise God. And Jesus, And Mary. And Mary Magdalene."

    "You a church girl?"

    "I was, but after I got my new line of work, church people didn't seem to like me as much."

    "Ain't that the truff, Girl!" Willa Sue laughs.

    Riley says, "We might want you to consult us from time to time."

    Sandy says, "Not going to happen. You two already have your consultants. But if I hear anything that might concern or interest you, I'll let you know. Your email address, Riley, is at the bottom of your blog posts. Give me your phone number, if you wish."

    Riley tells Sandy his phone number and she picks up a ballpoint pen off the table in front of them and writes it on the front page of a Keynoter.

    Sandy asks, "When are you headed back home?"

    Willa Sue says, "Maybe today. We still have time to check out of The Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp."

    Riley asks Sandy, "If I ask what you did for work before you became a consultant, will you say, 'If I tell you that, then I will have to kill you'?"

    Sandy smiles wanly.

    Willa Sue says, "Can't take him nowhere. Give me your email address, in case we need to get in touch with you, or someone we meet wants to contact you. Riley's been posting daily travel updates at strangerhanfiction.com, and you are next on his agenda.

    Sandy asks, "How many page views is your blog getting a day?"

    Riley says, "Yesterday, it was 2.8 million."

    Sandy says, "I hope they are all registered to vote."

    Willa Sue says, "We figure half of them live outside America."

    Sandy smiles, says, "Send the foreigners visas. And, why don't you two start a church, ask for donations. PayPal will be pleased to assist."

    Riley says, "Then we'd have to hire an accountant to deal with just that, and then the IRS and the FBI and maybe even the CIA, and loonies on the right and the left would stalk and harass us, and then we'd have to kill you for talking us into it."

    Sandy grins.

Mosquito Control v. MRSA

Mosquito Control v. MRSA  

   

    The next morning, Riley and Willa Sue head to The Cracked Egg.

    "Hi," Rhonda greets them as they come in the side door.

    "Hi back at ya," Willa Sue says. 

    Riley orders grilled grouper, fried eggs and whole wheat toast, and Willa Sue orders the spinach omelet and grilled potatoes. And water, with lemon slices. 

    Rhonda turns in the order, comes right back, asks, "How'd it go with Wilfred and Angus?"

    Riley says, "Nice people, we love their home."

    "And?" 

    "They don't seem to be contributing anything to help the Florida Keys, which we learned from them, and from Dale and Emily, are kinda in shit creek and getting deeper. 

    "You met Dale and Emily?"

    "Yep, right after seeing you last. At the fish camp marina. They kinda woke us up, and they woke us up the rest of the way over dinner last night at their trailer on Little Torch."

    "Woke you up how?"

    "Like, the ocean here is full of MRSA flesh eating bacteria nobody seems to want tourists to know about."

    Rhonda nods.

    Willa Sue says, "Why would we want to live by the ocean and not be able to swim in it?

    Rhonda nods.

    Riley says, "The Longshores told us about Mosquito Control getting rid of most of the mosquitoes that cause diseases, and that made the Florida Keys a lot more hospital for people to live here."

    "And a lot more attractive for tourists," Rhonda added.

    Willa Sue says, "They said you splashed us on bigpinekey.com's Coconut Telegraph."

    "I wrote that you two are staying at the fish camp and are thinking about moving here."

    "And?"

    "And that I like you, but you seem a little weird, talking about angels and your dreams."

    "And?"

    "And that I sent you to visit the Longshores."

    "And?"

    "That's about it."

    Willa Sue asks, "Do people on the Coconut Telegraph talk about flesh-eating bacteria?"

    "I never saw that talked about there."

    "Maybe you should talk about MRSA there, since this is your home and we're just passing through."

    Rhoda shrugs, says, "MRSA is not my problem. I don't go swimming here."

    Riley says, "I looked up MRSA online. It's a staph bacteria that became resistant to antibiotics. The pictures of people with  MRSA skin infections were horrible. Tourists fill up the Big Pine Motel across the parking lot, and they eat in this restaurant, and they give you tips, and they go swimming, or snorkeling, or diving, and they go home, and maybe they take MRSA home with them, and when it breaks out on their skin, they and their doctors trying to save their lives don't know where or how they caught it. It don't sit well with Willa Sue and Me that the Florida Keys harbor a terrible water-borne plague that can kill people, and tourists aren't told about it."

    Rhonda shrugs again, says, "No tourists, the Florida Keys economy dries up and a lot of people living here have to leave."

    Willa Sue says, "Maybe Mother Nature would like that. Maybe she sent MRSA after Mosquito Control defeated her first line of defense?"

    Rhonda shrugs.

    Riley pulls out his wallet, extracts a $10 bill, puts it on the counter top, says, "Thanks for helping us figure out this version of paradise isn't right for us."

    Rhonda smiles, says, "It's been my pleasure."

    Willa Sue smiles wanly.

    Riley asks, "Is there a public library nearby?"

    "Yes, in the Winn-Dixie Shopping Center.

    "Thanks."

    The library isn't open yet, but its internet Wi-Fi is working.

    Sitting on the concrete steps in in front of the library, Riley opens his laptop and goes online to the Coconut Telegraph and sees Rhonda's splash at the top.

Wonder Woman: Hey all you does and bucks out there. Guess what? Oprah and Larry King's buddies, Riley Strange and Willa Sue Jenkins, ate at The Cracked Egg today, and little ole' me waited on them and they are good tippers :-). They said they are staying at the Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp, and they told me their dreams about them being told to come to paradise and do everything they can to save it from humans. I told them to go meet the Pleiadeans on No Name Key, hoping they all can team up and call down a spaceship, or a band of angels, to get rid of hurricanes, so the Florida Keys really will be Paradise.

    Below Rhonda's post is:

Sandy Downs: Some people don't seem to think straight. Riley and Willa sue are probably the most important people in America, right now, and you want them to get rid of hurricanes, which Mother Nature makes? Are you f-ing serious?!@! I live in an octagon stilt house on Cudjoe Key. We get tidal surges during hurricanes that flood out the downstairs enclosure, but we get through hurricanes. Perhaps the idiots in the county government who approve new home permits should require octagon on stilts design?

   

    Riley reads all of that to Willa Sue, who grabs his Apple laptop and types a reply under Rhonda's comment.

How do you do, this is Willa Sue.

 

Thank you, Sandy!:-) But, we kinda think President Bush, for better or for worse, is the most important person in America.

Riley and I found the Pleiadeans to be nice people, wrapped up in their own little world instead of in the somewhat bigger picture, which is the reef is nearly dead, Mosquito Control killed most of Mother Nature's first line of defense, so she sent MRSA flesh-eating bacteria, which infected all of the Florida Keys waters, and nobody tells the tourists about MRSA, and did anybody in the Florida Keys ever hear about KARMA, and that SHE'S A REAL BITCH?! 

Riley and I drove down to the Florida Keys from near Jacksonville, thinking we might live here, but why would we want to hang out where Mother Nature sucks hind tit and MRSA rules the ocean and the locals don't tell the tourists about it? Like I said, we don't want that KARMA. We suggest you all join Stop The Bulldozers and help it hire a real lawyer, if such lives in your so-called paradise, to file suit in Federal Court, in Key West, Riley says, asking the Court to (1) stop Mosquito Control from killing Mother Nature's prime defense, mosquitoes, and (2) requiring the county government to warn tourists of their MRSA peril, if they go in the ocean.

 

Very truly yours,

Willa Sue- I'll let Riley speak for himself, if he wishes. 

    Riley takes back his laptop and types this comment:

This is Riley, folks. 

Sandy Downs posted a KICK-ASS poem at our blog, strangerthanfiction.com, which we hope she also posted at the Coconut Telegraph, but if she didn't, we hope she will. Every American could learn a great deal from that poem.

Meanwhile, Willa Sue is from the backwoods between Port St. Joe and Apalachicola. She was raised hunting alligators, wild boars and diamondback rattlesnakes with her brothers. She can break 2-inch boards with her bare hands, elbows, knees, feet and head. You really don't want to mess with her. Nor do I.

 

We drove a long way to see what you call Paradise is about. We met some people we really like, who seem to know what's important, and what isn't. We hope you are such people, or if you aren't, you become such people. The Florida Keys themselves are far more important than the people living here. So, show the Keys some respect, instead of acting like God told you to live here and ruin it.

 

If you get rid of Mosquito Control, that will stop development in its tracks, home prices and rents will plunge, and it will cost you a lot less to live here. Others of you will move away and avoid catching mosquito diseases and MRSA, and in that way respect and help yourselves, and respect and help Mother Nature restore what the invasive species, humans, screwed up in paradise. 

If you aren't up for that, at least warn tourists about MRSA in the ocean here. How would you like to be a tourist and not be told about MRSA in the ocean, and you go into the ocean and catch MRSA, and you go home and MRSA lesions break out on your skin, and you and your doctor are fighting to save your life?

Meanwhile, consider Mother Nature throws up her hands and simply starts hammering paradise with several big hurricanes every year, until the invasive species figures it out, or FEMA goes bankrupt. Some people want me to run for president. I think they must not like me very much, to wish that shit job on me. But if I was president, I think I would not allow FEMA to rescue people who bought and built homes in hurricane zones, because they knew FEMA would bail them out.

Vaya con Dios.

Snapper Throats

Snapper Throats

    That night, Dale and Emily serve up a feast in their trailer on Little Torch Key. 

    Fresh-caught, Greek-style whole mutton snapper, pilaf brown rice, braised carrots with thyme, parsley, arugula and young mustard green salad with vinaigrette dressing. The arugula and mustards came out of the garden on the east side of the trailer. 

    "The throat meat is considered a delicacy, and Key Deer really don't like arugula and mustards," Emily chuckles.

    She continues.

    "When we rented this place, there was an old rotten stump in the yard, and some nice rich dirt about 3 inches thick. Below that is limestone bedrock, and below that is salt water, so we had to use raised beds to grow vegetables. Except, I cut up a sweet potato I bought at the Winn-Dixie in the Big Pine shopping center, and stuck the sweet potato pieces in the dead stump's dirt and watered it in good. About a month later, we had a huge patch of sweet potato vines and leaves. The leaves are really nutritious, good in salads. We left one day and came back and all left was stems. Not one leaf. That's when we knew there was a key deer on this island. Soon after, I went out on the front porch and saw an 8-point buck. One look at me, and he took off. Wild as could be. Later, we saw the doe. Even later, we saw two fawns and the doe down the dirt road out front. The fawns were kicking up their hind legs and playing, until the doe saw us, and adios! A year later, they didn't pay us no never mind, when they saw us. We figured someone was feeding them and giving them fresh water to drink."

    Dale says, "That crossed-eyed Siamese-looking cat on the sofa giving you two the eye, Miss Kitty, is our rat control. The woods here are full of wild rats, which look like large fat mice. When we moved into this trailer, the rats did not move out. We had to keep the bedroom door shut at night, to keep the rats from getting up on our bed with us. Emily drove down to the animal shelter on Stock Island, just above Key West, and told them our problem, and they pointed out that there cat and said she was brought to the shelter by someone in one of the neighborhoods, because nobody was taking care of her. The good samaritan said all the cat liked to do was hunt. So, when Emily brought Miss Kitty home and turned her loose in the trailer. She went on the warpath right away, and the rats have not been in the trailer since."

    Emily laughs, says, "The animal shelter asked me to take a male cat they had, too, named, Ranger. All he liked to do was be held and rubbed. And, he liked to range. He would leave and come back a day or two later. When he came back, Miss Kitty gave him hell. He hid in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, and he hid under the bathtub. She would not let him have any peace. One day, he roamed off and didn't come back. About two weeks later, we noticed Miss Kitty was losing hair and weight, and she wasn't pooping. We took her in a cat carrier, yowling all the way,  to a vet in Marathon, who couldn't find anything wrong with her. The vet wanted to do an X-ray, and we declined. Driving home, when we reached the peak of the hump on Seven Mile Bridge, Dale turned and looked in the back seat at Miss Kitty yowling, and said, 'You dumb shit, you ran off your boyfriend and now you are mourning.' We got home, let her out of the cat carrier, and she climbed that shrub out front and went up on the roof of this trailer, and viewed her domain. Her hair stopped falling out, she started pooping and gaining wait. That's when I realize Dale is a cat whisperer."

    Rile and Willa Sue burst out laughing.

    Dale says, "We have an acre here. Half of it is grown up, wild. We have some pretty large trees for the Florida Keys. Several sapodilla trees, which produce delicious fruit later in the year. Papaya grows well in our raised beds, and that's our dessert tonight. I took to calling this place, 'Walden', and that's what it is for us."

    Willa Sue says, "I can see why. You say you rent it?"

    "We did, then we bought it," Dale says. "This subdivision was condemned by the Florida Environmental Protection Agency, because it is mostly wetlands. No new houses can be built here, but we can get a permit to remove the trailer and build a house on our land. Probably, the subdivision never should have been approved. Maybe someday we will be able to build an octagon house here, like what Agnes and Wilfred have. But then, maybe we will not stay here much longer," Emily says.

    "Why's that?" Riley asks.

    "The county commission, developers and their lawyers think development is nearer to God than anything else. We think Mother Nature is nearer to God than anything else. We see what is coming down here. We've been looking at the Florida Panhandle, where you're from Willa Sue. We like what we see there. it's so far from a major airport, so remote, that perhaps Mother Nature can hold out longer there, than here."

    Riley says, "I would think hurricanes would deter development in the Florida Keys."

    Dale says, "Developers don't worry about what hurricanes do to people. They cut subdivisions and build homes and condominiums and sell them and laugh all the way to the bank. If a hurricane comes and wrecks their development before they complete and sell it, they send the bill to their insurance carrier and FEMA. There would be a lot less development here, if there were no FEMA. Without FEMA, working people like us could not afford to live in the Keys, because we could not fix our home back up after a hurricane floods it out and blows off the roof. Working people don't have trust funds like Wilfred and Agnes have to build a hurricane-proof home. Developers don't build hurricane-proof homes. How do you think this trailer would fare in a hurricane? Lots of working people in the Keys live in trailers. Mostly, rental trailers. Trailer parks. It's the only thing they can afford."

    Willa Sue asks, "What's the old wooden bridge about?"

    Dale says, "For many years, the bridge between Big Pine and No Name Key was made out of wood. Then, somebody started a fire on it and most of it burned down. For years, you could see burnt parts of the bridge and burned pilings sticking up out of the water. We heard it was really good fishing there. Grouper, mangrove snapper, snook and small bait fish all loved hanging out around that old bridge. They built the new bridge later, and that's when people built homes on No Name Key. Some people who live there complain about it being off the grid, no electricity, sewer or running water. We wonder why they bought there, if they were going to complain about it? Agnes and Wilfred love living on No Name Key. They want it to stay like it is, forever. Don't blame them."

    Riley asks, "Do you folks belong to Stop The Bulldozers?" 

    Emily says, "No. All they do is talk. What they need to do is hire a really good, tough, mean lawyer and tie the county commission and the develop;ers up in court until hell freezes over. A lawyer like you, Riley."

    Riley says, "Unfortunately, I am not licensed to practice law in Florida, and to become licensed, I would have to take the Florida Bar exam, and before I do that, I would have to pass a background check by the Florida Bar, and, well, maybe they would let me take the bar exam, for which I would have to study six months to stand chance of passing it. And, to be honest, after talking with Wilfred and Agnes and with you and Dale today, I don't feel called to take on that crusade. I really like you two, and wish I had known you years ago. I also think the Florida Panhandle is where I prefer to hang out and fish."

    During the drive back to Old Wooden Bridge Fish Camp, Willa Sue asks Riley, "Why do you think Michael sent us down here, if we weren't supposed to live here? Why all the wild foreplay, and it ends like this?"

    Riley shrugs, says, "Beats me, Wife."

    In Willa Sue’s sleep that night, Michael takes Willa Sue up in the air above the Florida Keys, and then above America, and says, "You and Riley needed a vacation, and you needed to see that what many people call 'paradise' is a proxy for what is happening in America. And beyond America. Riley doesn't want to run for president, so we showed him something you two could do instead, if that's what you wanted. There may be nothing he wants to do, other than be with you and fish and travel about. But, will that satisfy Riley? Will it satisfy you? You two have been given much, and much may be asked of you."

    Mary Lou comes to Riley in his sleep, and says,"Okay, lover boy, are you going to fish or cut bait?” 

Riley wakes up, wonders, What in the hell is that about?