“TV?” asked Coleman.
“Leave it off. I have other plans.” Serge carefully arranged a configuration of needed materials on the nightstand: antiquarian novel, portable stereo, Styrofoam to-go dinner box. He took a deep breath in anticipation. Then he kicked off his shoes and lay on top of a bedspread in his stocking feet. “Here . . . we . . . go! . . .”
“What are you doing?”
“A lost art: constructing the perfect moment!” Serge bunched the pillow up under his head. “It requires the precisely engineered intersection of sensory, mental and emotional input: First, the motel room is in the ideal location: From the comfort of my bed, I have a fantastic view just outside the window of the Hoover Dike in the setting sun. Next”—he pressed a button on the portable stereo, and a growling voice came to life—“‘Little Black Train’ by Blind Joe Taggart, just the kind of blues song they would have been playing in the 1920s juke joints surrounding the lake’s bustling packing houses . . .” He opened the Styrofoam box on his stomach “. . . And this is my soul-food takeout from that shack in Pahokee of smothered pork chops, pigeon peas and collards. Standard dinner fare in those old days . . .” Serge finally grabbed the book off the nightstand. “And last but not least, a collectible early copy of Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece recounting the 1928 storm that struck right out there! . . .”
Serge became quiet. He turned up the tiny stereo, stuck a fork in a pork chop, opened the book and stared out the window. “. . . I’m starting to feel it. I’m getting tingly . . . Here it comes! . . . Here it comes! . . . It’s almost here! . . . It’s here!” Serge’s eyelids fluttered uncontrollably as his pupils rolled up in his head like he was possessed. Then, a few seconds later, it was over. “Coleman, did you see it? The Moment! . . . It was just here . . . See? There it goes . . .” He closed the book and swallowed a bite of pork. “. . . Whew! Exhausting! . . . If everyone could experience motels like this, prostitution as we know it would end.”
“They would have to get other jobs,” said Coleman.
“Then one day you order a pizza and open the door: ‘Hey, didn’t you used to be a hooker?’ ‘Shut up.’”
Serge paused curiously and considered the closed book next to him. He opened it again and read down a page. “Wait . . . just . . . a minute!”
“What is it?”
He ran for the desk and opened another, thicker green book. “I need my bible.”
“The Bible Bible?”
“No, the Florida bible. WPA Guide published in 1939, two years after Zora penned Their Eyes Were Watching God and around the time when she was crossing the state with Stetson Kennedy. The government commissioned the Depression-era guide series to put writers to work, and all these incredible people of letters contributed with flourishes never seen before in a travel guide. But nobody got a byline, and all the writing is uncredited . . .” Serge found the page he was looking for and thrust a fist in the air. “I knew it! I knew it!” He grabbed Coleman’s arms and danced in a circle. “I rock tonight!”
“What did you find?”
Serge plopped down at the desk again, holding up one of the books. “I knew I recognized it from somewhere! Hurston’s novel described the Seminoles evacuating ahead of the storm because of how the sawgrass bloomed.” He set the book down and picked up another. “And in the guide, virtually the same description. I just discovered an anonymous Zora passage! Prostitution is history!”
“Woo-hoo.”
Serge stopped and held the open books side by side, one in each hand. He looked out the window at the sunlit dike, then down at the books, up at the dike, books, dike, books, dike. His eyelids began fluttering again and his pupils rolled back up. Then it passed. “Whoa! . . . Two in a row!”
“Remember that time you had—”
“I know,” said Serge. “But this is better than orgasms, give or take . . . There’s nothing else in life to compare . . . unless I can figure a way . . .” He let his thought trail off.
“Figure a way what?”
“I don’t want to jinx it.” Serge reached in one of their shopping bags and pulled out a copy of the morning’s Okeechobee News.
Coleman popped another can of malt liquor. “I think I’m going to use all the extra space in this room to run around again.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi . . . Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa . . . Oops, that’s enough.”
“Why’d you stop so soon?” asked Serge.
“The key is to stop just before you spit up in your mouth.”
“I think you’ve just nailed what to put on your tombstone.”
Coleman strolled over to a spacious desk. “What’s that? What are you doing now?”
“Trying to read the newspaper,” said Serge. “I’m required to buy a local newspaper whenever I arrive somewhere, to get in rhythm with the residents. And these small-town papers are the best! No bullshit about celebrity Twitter feuds or a cabinet member spending ten grand on a wastebasket. Check out this front page . . .” He held it up to his pal. “. . . Big photo at the top, ‘Veterans Honored,’ and another photo of a teen holding up two fish that won a tournament. Over in a box on the side where the weather forecast would normally be: ‘Lake level 15.51 feet.’ And last but not least, a front-page story you would only find in a paper like this: ‘Ball of Light Reported over Lake Okeechobee,’ complete with a photo someone took with a cell phone.”
Coleman leaned closer. “It’s just a black square with a fuzzy circle in the middle. Looks like a streetlight.”
“Good a guess as any.” Serge grabbed something else. “I get the feeling a lot of people around the lake are often staring up at the sky: ‘Sweet Jesus! The aliens are landing again!’ ‘You’re looking at a streetlight like last time, Uncle Biff. Why don’t you hand me that beer.’ . . . And here’s the free town flyer with announcements for lawn-mower races, taco night at the American Legion, and a dunk tank for charity.” Serge flipped through the paper until he came to a full-page ad. He leaped up. “Coleman!”
“What?”
“There’s a rodeo tonight!”
“What’s that mean?”
Serge tossed a duffel bag on the bed. “It means we have to get our uniforms ready . . .”
Chapter 25
September 17, 1928
The twangs of a guitar floated down the dirt street in pre-dawn hours. A gusting wind picked up pieces of cardboard and newspaper. Men in grimy pants and overalls sat on the porch steps of one of the many juke joints in Belle Glade and Pahokee that stayed open around the clock: small cabins with patrons stumbling in and out, some sleeping in the grass by the back door. Cats and dogs foraged for scraps.
The front of this particular saloon was a random patchwork of corrugated sheet metal. There were signs for Nehi and Royal Crown Cola and Atlantic Ale. Inside the cramped room, loud conversation and thick smoke from filterless cigarettes. A poker game became heated. Under a window stood a wooden pinball machine with a racehorse theme. At the front of the bar, a sweaty, rotund gent sat on a stool that looked like it might collapse from physics. He was the only one wearing a suit, but the jacket had long since been removed, and perspiration pasted the white dress shirt to his chest. A kerosene lantern illuminated other beads of sweat generously cascading down his cheeks. He hunched over his Gibson Archtop guitar, strumming a three-chord Chicago progression and howling the lyrics to “Rope Stretchin’” by Blind Blake. They don’t call it the blues for nothing.