Cabbage wiped water from his eyes and looked up. “Shouldn’t it already be getting light out?”
“We just lost track of time,” said Mozelle, falling down in the wind and struggling to rise.
“I’ll stay here and watch this,” said Johnson. “You guys go get the truck—”
There was a sharp cracking sound. Louder than a rifle.
“What the hell was that?”
Then another loud report. More and more followed in quick succession.
“It sounds like trees snapping, but that can’t be—”
“Shut up!”
They all stared silent at the woods a quarter mile north of the home. More savage cracking until it was a constant chorus. They strained with their eyes but couldn’t make out anything. The noise became a roar of ground-level thunder.
Finally, the last rows of trees on the edge of the woods gave way and splintered and were gone. They looked up in the darkness.
“What the hell is that?” said Cabbage.
Whatever it was, it was traveling fast, at least sixty miles an hour.
When they finally figured out what they were looking at, it was too much for their brains to process. A couple hundred yards away, they watched the plantation home explode and disappear.
Seconds later, it was right in front of them. Nothing to do but freeze and conjure one last thought: That fucking lake.
In surrender, they simply stared straight up into the black, twenty-foot-high tidal wave.
Part Two
Chapter 26
Rodeo Night
Serge drove north with a high-end tape recorder in his lap and a microphone in his hand.
Captain Florida’s Log, Star Date 376.693
The city of Okeechobee rests on the northern tip of the lake by the same name. You just have to love a town that runs off the cliff with its identity, and you never need to be reminded you’re in cattle country: the Brahman Theater, Brahman Restaurant & Lounge, Okeechobee High School (Home of the Brahmans), Cowboy’s Barbecue, the Cowtown Café, the Cattlemen’s Association rodeo arena. The economic center of downtown is the bustling Eli’s Western Wear. You can be driving down Main Street on a Tuesday morning and suddenly realize you desperately need a two-thousand-dollar saddle, lassos, spurs, rhinestone belt, and five-foot-long decorative steer horns to hang over the TV. You’re in luck! Eli’s has amassed a staggering supply. Then there are the cows themselves. Cattle dot the fields all over Central Florida, but nothing like here, where they vastly outnumber the humans, in herds not seen since buffalo covered the prairies in Dances with Wolves. Billboards everywhere along the pastures: Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner, next to grazing livestock unaware of the advertisements for their impending execution.
Speaking of downtown, Main Street is actually called Park Street and there are two of them laid out parallel through the center of the city. Between the pair runs a wide, shaded green space like a series of football fields, starting with a military display of a Vietnam-era Huey helicopter, M60 Patton tank and a couple pieces of heavy ground artillery. From there, the public park has nowhere to go but mellow, with quiet benches, picnic tables, thatched-roof huts and vintage-style lampposts. But wait! There’s more! Get ready to seriously crap yourselves! I’ve kind of been hung up on murals lately, and I’d completely forgotten my favorite part of Okeechobee! It’s Mural City, USA! Remember the batshit town-identity thing? And just when you thought the insanity had reached critical mass. That’s right: They found more mass! Most antique communities have lots of old brick buildings with empty brick sides, and the residents think nothing of it. Not the fine people here! Sometime back, they went on the mural version of a crack binge, and now you can’t throw a cow pie in this place without it sticking to public art. There’s a mural celebrating the arrival of the railroad in 1915 with scenes of ice delivery and catfish; another touts an important cattle drive with happy people waiting at the end; there’s a car dealership that opened in 1933, and a pioneer hardware store. The side of the Big O drive-through liquor barn has marsh birds flying over the lake, and a country restaurant sports a mural within a mural: a painting of one of those old postcards, Welcome to Okeechobee, with each of the giant letters in the city’s name a separate homage. And you know how a lot of main streets have abandoned buildings that are simply boarded up with plywood, and jerks spray-paint gang symbols and Fuck the System and giant penises? I think we can all agree that’s not going anywhere special. But at the historic and defunct 1923 tan-brick Okeechobee bank, instead of plywood, the town painted all the windows to look like a bunch of customers in period clothing are still inside conducting business! And finally the cherry on the sundae: There’s even a mural depicting the history of local phone service (“First Operator, Byrd Sizemore”). I thought something like that would only reach an audience of one. Me. But these are my people! I must stop dictating this now and interact with them . . .
The convenience store had cedar slats. It was sparsely stocked and otherwise empty except for a retired couple at the counter. A wagon wheel leaned against the front of the building, intended to drum up business, but now there were doubts.
Serge and Coleman walked up behind the old people.
The couple was taking an extra-long time with the clerk. An involved conversation, and it wasn’t about a transaction.
“Serge, are you going to do anything crazy like the other times?”
“No.”
“But when people take forever in convenience stores, you always flip out.”
“This is different. I want to listen to small-town talk.” Serge blew across the top of a Styrofoam cup. “I already have my coffee, so I can drink it while waiting. Legally they can’t touch me as long as I pay.”
The old woman clutched a purse in front of her with both hands. “When does Charlie come on?”
“He doesn’t work here anymore,” said the clerk. “Actually, I’m his son.”
“You’re Billy?” asked the old man. “You’ve really grown. I remember when you were this high.”
“Billy’s my older brother.”
“Then that makes you Donny,” said the woman. “You’ve really grown.”
“Where does your dad work now?” asked the old man.
“Retired,” said the clerk. “Just smokes cigars on the porch with the dogs.”
“We’ve always thought the world of Charlie. Your whole family,” said the woman. “Can you give him our best?”
“Absolutely.”
The couple thanked him and left, and Serge stepped up.
The clerk smiled cordially. “How’s your day been going?”
“Magically!” Serge set a cup on the counter. “I already love your family, and we haven’t even met!”
The clerk looked down. “It’s an empty cup.”
“I know the rules.” Serge slapped down a couple of dollars. “Technically, I’m still in my lane, so there’s no need for trouble.”
“No, I mean, don’t you want coffee in it?”