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Out here on the sand, the waiting is tearing me up. The more I worry about the boat, the more I start to think about Carole and Mike: how much I miss them. The thought makes me hurt, a sad, sick sort of pain.
My only escape from this lonely prison is to go back in my mind and try and see where it all went wrong. Drift back to the edge of disaster and see where I slipped off. I can see now where our life began to change, how I let certain things push me in the wrong direction.
We were doing okay there in the beginning. Had a decent apartment and a semi-normal life and Florida seemed okay. I was staying clean and had a job as a tennis instructor at a resort and spa in Clearwater that was paying the bills. The three of us seemed reasonably happy.
Then I had one bad break. A real bad break...
Slipped on a leaf playing in a money doubles match, broke my leg and couldn’t work anymore. Had no health insurance or financial safety net. But there were plenty of pain pills around.
Carole got a job as a copywriter at a Clearwater talk-radio station and our lives began to change once again. But the more things change the more they stay the same, they say, and I got back on the drugs and alcohol spiral. Only now I had a willing an enthusiastic partner.
We were like two moths attracted to the same flame.
But drugs and alcohol plus squabbling, lead to infidelity and risky behavior. Soon I was strung out and desperate for something to call my own.
And then one night, Barry Simpson, my old college pal, called from Orlando. “An old friend of yours is in town, Keith,” he said to me.
“Someone I know is in Orlando—right now?”
“Yep, from back in Zenith City.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Dan Bagley.”
“You’re shitting me....”
“Nope, it’s true. He called me the other day from Daytona Beach, said he was going to be in town in a few days. He’s got some other dude with him.”
Regret fills me as I recall my trip to Orlando. If I had stayed at home with my family instead of taking the drive, there might be someone else on this beach instead of me. And I might still have a chance at a normal life.
Bagley and Schmidt seemed so confident and free; I was taken in. I let Bagley lead me down wrong the path, much like the first time we met. That was back when we were kids and he talked me into sneaking out of Sunday school to smoke Lucky Strikes in the alley behind the church.
Sometimes you’re a little slow to learn, I guess.
It’s approaching nightfall now, and still no sign of the boat. Worry has turned to abject fear, overcome only by the need to ease the boredom. I turn the portable radio on as the grapefruit sun gets sliced up by the edge of the world.
Hendrix is playing “Manic Depression.” and things are indeed, a frustrating mess.
And to think that beaches were one of the reasons why I came to Florida....