Yesterday's News

Cuddy. I believe you have a car for me?”
    “One minute... yes, here we are. Picking up today, returning tomorrow?”
    “Yes.”
    She leaned over the counter. “Is that all your luggage?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, I just had a Mustang convertible turned in two days early. Couple found they couldn’t manage all their stuff in it too well. But, if you’d like, I could give it to you so long as you cross your heart you’ll have it back to me by ten a.m. on Tuesday.”
    “I promise. Thank you.”
    “No trouble. Hope you enjoy it.”
    We did the paperwork, and she handed me the keys. “The lot’s just behind us, and that there’s your plate number.”
    I walked through the sliding doors and into the convection oven that is Florida in June.
    Sweating through my shirt, I found the car, top up. The trunk was so shallow, the carryon barely fit flat. I got into the car, starting the engine and the air conditioner. Then I realized technology had passed me by.
    I couldn’t figure out how to put the top down.
    Ten minutes later, I waved at a broad-shouldered woman in a Hertz maintenance uniform. She came over and patiently showed me the controls, including the, I thought, unfairly hidden latches at the windshield.
    After brief legs on access roads and interstates, I settled onto 301, the highway southwest toward Gainesville . After the army, I’d used my last cash payday to buy a Renault Caravelle, a small, sporty car with both rag- and hardtops. Now I turned up the Mustang’s radio, enjoyed the breeze raking my hair, and generally felt young and carefree.
    The scenery, on the other hand, was a bit peculiar. Every other car dealer had an old Ford or Chevy impaled on a pole thirty feet high. Farm stands were selling watermelon, Vidalia onions, and boiled peanuts. There were a lot of gas stations-cum-convenience stores, the attendants wearing straw cowboy hats. Oddest of all were the pastures I passed. Brimful of dry, yellow grass, each had a complement of gaunt cows or steers, with legions of foot-tall white birds striding on the cattle’s backs.
    In Gainesville , elderly white women walked with pink parasols, and elderly black women walked with black umbrellas, all raised against the afternoon glare. My Holiday Inn lay catty-corner from the beginning of the University of Florida campus. I asked the desk clerk what the little white birds were called. She said she was from New Jersey and didn’t know. She did, however, recommend a dip in their Olympic-sized pool and the menu at Cedar River Seafood and Oyster Bar, just down the road. I went up to my room and changed into my trunks.
    The pool area was airy and perfectly kept, the water as crystal clear and clean as the Caribbean . I swam two leisurely laps before my leg hurt, then spent a dozy hour or so lying on a chaise with a Cherry Coke and the setting sun for company.
    The clerk proved stronger on food than nature. The grouper stuffed with blue crab at Cedar River was terrific, the place packed with fit, retired couples and large, young families, all seeming to enjoy immensely being in each other’s collective company.
    I had a screwdriver in the lounge of another hotel with a piano player so assured and mellow I stayed for two more sets and three more drinks. At 10:10 p . m . , the bartender announced last call, telling me that the city required all liquor off the table by 11:00 p . m . on Sunday nights. On the way back to the Inn , bugs the size of dragonflies started smashing into my windshield, playing their own lose-lose game of Galaxians. I slowed down, which seemed to give them a fighting chance of being swept up and over the glass.
    In my room, I caught most of Ishtar on the cable hookup and agreed that fifty-one million doesn’t go as far as it used to. I fell asleep in tune with the world and about as well prepared for the next day as the lamb is for the slaughter.

    Lyle Cabbiness was managing editor of the Gainesville Messenger. Fifty-ish and overweight, his blotchy complexion seemed unsuited for year-round sun. He was, however, happy to speak with a private investigator from Boston . I was ushered into a first-floor office with a view of the highway and an interior wall devoted to plaques and framed photos.
    “Don’t get many of y’all down in these parts.”
    “People from Boston ?”
    “Right, right. They say once a body spends time by the ocean, they can’t endure being away from it. Most of them go down to West Palm or Lauderdale, Miami