I started my drive back with the intention of going into Miami to salvage the remaining day, but a growling stomach pulled me into a seaside bar-restaurant on Marathon Key, ordering a beer, a flounder sandwich overhanging the platter, and a side of fries. I ate on a deck, dining to ship’s horns and gulls as I arranged my experience at Jeremy’s house into three distinct stacks of thoughts.
The first concerned Jeremy’s relationship with Ava. The surprise would take time to assimilate. Given Jeremy’s strange attraction to Ava so many years ago, it should not have been a total surprise that he had needed to see her again. And given Ava’s dysfunctional, addicted history, that she had needed to see him.
The second pile of thoughts related to Jeremy’s move and reshaping of his identity and history, especially his tying it to mine. I was deeply troubled by his attraction to a community of prominence, with thousands of eyes wandering the streets on a daily basis. I would not have been so worried if I knew my brother planned to live a hermit’s life, locked within his walls, but he seemed to be planning to venture into crowds, to live a normal life.
It could never happen. I had to convince him of that – for his sake and now Ava’s – but that lay in the future.
The final pile was his analysis of Donnie Ocampo, the stack of most pressing concern, and where my thoughts focused. That Donnie was not sane – my brother and I were in harmony there – but Jeremy’s conclusion that the Brothers Ocampo shared communication made no sense to me.
But as I ordered a second beer, I considered the times I’d gone to Jeremy for advice. They were few in number, and his analysis often made little sense at the moment offered, but in the end had been preternaturally accurate. So I sat and focused on feelings sparked by Gary, replaying the time I’d spent with him in my head, recalling moments when something had seemed a shade askew.
I had been surprised at Gary’s initial position that Donnie wasn’t really harming the victims, as if abduction and rape were lightweight crimes, and it wasn’t until Harold Brighton’s legs had been demolished that the horror of Donnie’s actions seemed to register in Gary’s mind.
“It’s not supposed to be like this,” Gary had wailed after I told him about Brighton. “He’s hurting people. Donnie’s actually hurting them!”
What wasn’t supposed to be like this? What was It?
Then there was Gary’s request for a meeting with the victims, the one I’d quashed, Gary then asking if he could meet with Derek Scott, since he had eluded Donnie and been only lightly wounded. What had Gary put as his reason to meet the victims?
“I’m responsible for their pain and troubles.”
He wasn’t, Donnie was, and it seemed strange to put first-person-singular before the victims’ pain. I’d felt some of his words and perceptions were discordant myself, but the world itself veers from pitch, and I’d allowed latitude, perhaps because I felt sorry for Gary Ocampo.
I checked my watch: two hours had passed. I’d head home tonight and confront Gary Ocampo first thing in the morning. It was time to throw hardball questions and see how he responded.