“I see one of the signs now.”
“But Bartram is just the aperitif. The main course is still coming up.” Serge snapped photos out the window. Click, click, click. “Man, I love this highway. The flora is so much different from the southern part of the state, much denser.” Click, click, click. “Do you realize what’s happening again? We’re in danger of too much linear thought. We must rage against the machine!”
“I thought soccer was our exit ramp.”
“True, true,” said Serge. “But now the whole country is into tangents, whether they realize it or not, so we amp up our game!”
“The nation is into tangents?” Coleman’s construction-paper robot was starting to fall apart from saliva. He reapplied the wacky eyes and took another double-clutch hit. “How so?”
“Comment threads!” Serge handed Coleman his smartphone. “I’ve already dialed one up for you. Go to any news site that invites reader comments at the end of stories and start reading. Doesn’t matter what the story is about: a new high-altitude diet from the Andes, debt restructuring for the mathematically deranged, royal wedding gaffes in pictures through the years, why Selena Gomez is mum about one sexy topic. The article I just gave you is about a seven-state egg recall for salmonella.”
“What am I looking at?”
“Just scroll down. It’s like the threads for all the other stories. This one starts with comments about food safety and the FDA and communicating with school cafeterias. But inevitably . . . wait, wait . . . Here it comes! . . . Here it comes! . . .”
Coleman squinted at the tiny screen. “‘Food is regulated more than assault rifles! . . . During a robbery do you want to be holding an egg or a gun? . . . It’s all the orange president’s fault! . . . Lock her up! . . . Snowflakes! . . . Republic-tards!’ . . .” Coleman handed the phone back. “I had no idea it was that bad. How did this happen?”
“Technology outpaced our evolution,” said Serge. “All of humanity falls along a spectrum of love to hate, and the people bunched up on the shitty end are now defined by too much spare time and keyboards. It happened once before when some pricks got hold of a Gutenberg press—‘Bullshit on the Renaissance’—until calmer heads prevailed.”
Thud, thud, thud.
Coleman spun around in pot paranoia. “What the hell was that?”
“Relax,” said Serge. “Just the guy in the trunk.”
“I remember now,” said Coleman. “Clyde, who’s mean to birdies.”
“No, you idiot. We got rid of Clyde back on the beach in Fort Lauderdale,” said Serge. “This is the new guy.”
“Sorry,” said Coleman. “There’s so much traffic through your trunk that it’s hard for me to keep the players straight.”
“Me too,” said Serge, pointing up at names written on a row of Post-it notes stuck to the sun visor.
The Plymouth dramatically slowed down as Serge scanned the side of the road.
“What are you doing?” asked Coleman.
“We just passed Cricket Hollow, so it’s coming up.”
“What is?”
Serge eased off the right side of the road and pointed at an easily missed piece of crooked, weathered wood with carved lettering: Beluthahatchee.
Coleman sucked his robot. “I still don’t know where we are.”
“Beluthahatchee is the name of the historic four-acre compound of preeminent Florida folklorist Stetson Kennedy. It’s from the Miccosukee tongue, meaning Dark Water. I love it when I find these compounds, like Graceland without amphetamines and sequins.”
Serge turned down a dirt road covered with brown leaves. “Stetson is one of my all-time heroes, traveling the state writing books and recording oral histories. He studied writing under Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, worked on the Federal Writers Project with Zora Neale Hurston, and Woody Guthrie often slept on his couch. Coincidence? You make the call!”
“I say nope.”
“Our tour is like the Kevin Bacon game of Florida with lots of dot-connecting that will become more evident as our odyssey continues.”
Coleman stared out his window, catching glimpses of water between the trees. “Is there a cemetery around here or something?”
“It’s like Mitzi the Dolphin, just a single resting place.” Serge slowed as the narrow road curved through an untamed southern jungle. “After Stetson passed away in 2011, they scattered his ashes on the pond next to us, and Woody’s son Arlo gave a concert.”
Serge finally parked behind the old cedar barn of a home perched on piers over the edge of the water. “I love how Stetson let most of the compound continue to grow wild. But what I love more is that back in the 1950s, he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. He wasn’t working with law enforcement or anything, just thought it up and did it all by himself on spec.”
“What balls,” said Coleman.
“Then he passed what he’d learned over to the authorities and journalists. It was a difficult time in America, and Woody Guthrie was roaming the countryside with an acoustic guitar that had a sticker on it: ‘This machine kills fascists.’ Woody became quite controversial, and when he needed breaks, he began spending a lot of time at Stetson’s to retreat from it all. He was even staying here the night a fire started in the woods and threatened the house, but they put it out. Then they found a note on the front gate from the Klan threatening Kennedy. Mind you, this was after a previous incident when Stetson came home to discover the interior destroyed and all his writings thrown in the water. Anyway, Guthrie was crashing on the couch at Beluthahatchee so much that this is where he finished his memoir, Seeds of Man, and composed more than eighty songs, including ‘Beluthahatchee Bill,’ about Stetson. That resulted in this place being named not once, but twice, as a national literary landmark, for both Woody and Stetson. That’s beyond exciting. Think of it, two times!”
“I remember when you got all excited after having two orgasms in a row and put that number two NASCAR racing sign on your driver’s door.”
“It’s close, but I think this is bigger.” Serge stared wistfully out across the water. “I’m on an urgent quest for the high-water marks of letters in this fine state.”
“How come?”
“It’s necessary,” said Serge. “The state’s literary laurels are a needed counterbalance to our recent cultural reputation.”
“Which is?”
“Florida Man.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Coleman. “That maniac who’s raising hell all over the place.”
“Coleman, it’s not just one dude. It’s a whole army.”
“Really? I thought he was just ambitious.”
Serge shook his head. “The entire nation is into the embarrassing craze of Googling ‘Florida Man’ and seeing what pops up. Last year there was a spike in guys pooping in unpopular locations and contexts. This year they’re getting naked.”
“Naked?”
Serge pulled out his smartphone again, pressing buttons to enter search terms. “Check out these headlines: ‘Naked Florida Man Eats Noodles and Plays Bongos at St. Petersburg Restaurant,’ ‘Naked Florida Man Rides Bicycle through Interstate 95 Traffic,’ ‘Naked Florida Man Chases Customers around Chick-Fil-A Parking Lot,’ ‘Naked Florida Man Continues Gardening Despite Pleas from Neighbors.’”