By early evening he had arrived at the shrimp docks in Key West with a full belly and heavy heart. In his bookish casing of the hometown of Rabun’s son he had noted the substantial shrimp fleet that used Key West as home port. He would abandon the BMW and sign on as a burly deckhand for the fabled shrimping grounds off Guatemala. He did not particularly favor this lowest of crustaceans as table fare but there was an image of warm seas, Caribbean ports laden with rum and octoroons, tattoos, and so on. He walked out on the windy dock and smelled the deep, terrible smell of the ill-kept boats. Fear had exhausted him and the fierce wind in the riggings brought back memories of near fatal seasickness on the Great Lakes.

Chapter 39

Those people of northern climes should be forewarned that the tropics are not the best place to undergo a depression; much is made of that old bugaboo of stress these days, and what might cause greater stress than the fact that you and your loved ones will be hacked in pieces by long knives, intended to beat a peaceful pathway through the jungle? The machete, heraldic weapon of the current dope war that rages through Florida; a war, unseen by tourists, of muffled weapons, gurgles, slamming car doors, the putt of silencers, of vast sums of money being laundered in the presidential chambers of banks while your grandma withdraws her Christmas savings out front. Yes, Warlock was only gradually mindful of his birthday two days hence, and the oncoming folly of Christmas. Death and the Christmas season, the creeping sun-blasted rot of the tropics, the forced gaiety of Key West; had Warlock been the least bit suicidal the ensuing week would have finished him. It was a time of testing that he would remember with clenched fists even on his deathbed.

After that first evening at the shrimp docks, when the foul smell of deliquescing crustaceans signaled a change in plans, liquor led him into a manic rage, and more liquor led him into a greater manic rage. He took grandiose accommodations at the Pier House, forgetting in a liquor haze that he should be becoming less visible. He had a grandiose French meal, forgetting in a liquor haze that his tummy was already full. He went to a club with a view of the harbor, having secured the name of this hot spot from a waitress, and had a grandiose number of drinks, and some grandiose lines of cocaine with the waitress when she showed up to trim her grandiose pigeon. She went to his quarters with him, then left with the toot he had purchased while he was kneeling, elbows on the toilet bowl, and ridding himself of the rainbow colors of the evening. The plus factor in his behavior is that it could not immediately be construed as suicidal, except by a psychiatrist.