Moonlight/Magnolia

It's a Family Addiction
by Robert Baucom

Nolan Turner

First Boy
by Denise Brown
Third Place Winner, Fiction

“What are the chances that I’m going to be eaten by an alligator?”

The man behind the counter sighed. He had pit stains and yellow teeth.

“I know I know—But I’m nervous. I mean, we’re in the Everglades aren’t we?”

“The ‘glades are about two-hundred miles South o' here.”

“There’s still gators aren’t there?’

“’Course there’s gators.”

“So I could be eaten—“

“The chances are mighty slim, sir.”

“But there’s a chance?”

“There’s always a chance. But gators don’t like a whole heap o’ noise, and there be so many people driftin’ down this river blarin’ music and bein’ rowdy each and every day that no gator’ll come within a dozen miles.”

I felt better. “Thanks.”

“Now that’ll be thirty-two even for the two o' ya.” I handed him a credit card.

“Y'all of age?” We nodded. “I suggest buyin’ some beer if you don’t got any already. It’s 'bout a four hour trip from beginning to end, and it’s mighty hot outside.” His breath reeked of stale beer.

We bought two six packs and walked outside. The heat hit my body like a wrecking ball and the humidity was salty on my lips. I had no idea how people managed to live in this kind of heat. The kind of heat that makes a man want nothing more than to kill himself on the outside chance that he won't go to hell. We walked along and shielded our eyes from the glare of the white-hot asphalt as we crossed the parking lot towards her car. I put my hand around her waist and everything was ok.

Her name was Cassy. I think it was short for Cassandra but I never asked. Maybe it was Cassidy. I met her a few days earlier in Atlanta; she was in town for a Cat Power show and I had just come down from Baltimore. She lured me in with her tight body and talk of the “real South”, and next thing I knew I had been down through Savannah, on past St. Augustine and ended up in her apartment in Gainesville. She had green eyes and her wavy hair had been stripped of color so many times that I thought it would glow in the dark. Her Father used to beat her and her Mother died when she was three and her only sibling had Autism—or Palsy, I can’t remember which. She was a philosophy major at UF and would talk non-stop about de Beauvoir and Rousseau and Heidegger and I pretended to listen. She had a birthmark below her left breast shaped like Minnesota and I may have been in love with her.

We parked near a dock labeled “Devil's Mouth” and got our things together. I walked into a small shack with “Tubes/Rafts” spray-painting on the door and rented two single inner tubes from a guy in his late thirties with graying shoulder length blonde hair. Dinosaur Jr. played from a run down CD player in the corner and weed was in the air.

I headed back to the dock and saw Cassy talking to a group of shirtless guys in board shorts and trucker caps. I kept an eye on them as I set up our rafts along the edge of the dock, wondering what the hell she was doing talking to guys like that. She came back with two lit cigarettes and handed me one. I didn't know she smoked.

“Looks like it might rain,” I said.

She fanned herself with her free hand and looked at the sky. “It's fixin' to.”

“Does that mean it'll cool off?”

“Nah, you'll just be hot and wet.”

She dropped the cigarette and put it out with the tip of her flats. A confederate flag hung from a flagpole in the distance but there wasn't much wind.

Cassy grabbed her tube and threw it into the water. “Come on!” She yelled as she jumped in after it.

I stuck a foot tenderly into the water and jumped back. I thought I saw something in the distance. Small patches of weeds, rotting driftwood, an old boot floating down stream...everything started looking like an alligator. I never wanted to float down any rivers. I don't even like water. I just wanted to take this girl back to her place and fuck her for the rest of my life. I sure as hell didn't want to be eaten by an alligator. Cassy’s wet skin shined in the August heat.

“You comin' in or what?”

“Give me a minute,” I flicked my limp cigarette into the brush.

“Well I ain't got awll day.” The long drawl Cassy attached to her L's drove me crazy.

Her tight, exposed stomach and perky breasts urged me in, and before I could think twice about alligators I leapt onto my awaiting inner tube, almost overturning it in the process.

I had to paddle rapidly in order to catch up to Cassy, who had already drifted into the distance and was motioning for me to hurry up. When I reached her she untied a piece of rope that she had fastened to her arm and tied the plastic handles of our inner tubes together so we wouldn’t drift apart, then took the plastic bag of beer and wrapped it around the rope suspended between our bodies so the beer could drift along with us submerged in the water. It didn’t keep the beer cold so much as keep it from becoming hot. Either way after a while it didn't taste any good.

White clouds drifted across the sky and the heat danced above the waterline; the only sounds were those of cranes darting in and out of the water and the creaking of old wood. Through the trees along the river there was nothing to see except the occasional hollowed out house resting on planks or run-down Baptist church with white-washed paint peeling from the heat. Spanish moss hung lazily from oak trees like wet clothes drying on a line.

“I feel like I'm trapped in a Faulkner novel,” I said.

Cassy laughed, “It's enough to make you want to jump off a bridge.”

“The moss on the trees is great, though. We don't have stuff like that in California.”

“It's infested with bugs. Stuff is disgusting.”

A small white house was barely visible through the thick trees to our left.

“I love all the houses along the water,” I said.

Cassy motioned toward the house with her free hand. “Part of the South'n allure, I suppose.” Alllllure.

“Looks like the slightest breeze would rip them apart.”

“I reckon it would.”

The houses were exactly the way I had imagined them: cracked paint, splintered frame, windows blown out and doors rusted through, but still as natural to the landscape as the trees or the river. The smell of magnolias and a hint of far off orange trees came to me with a slight breeze blowing west. All of this was part of a fairy tale books had implanted in my mind years ago—a fairytale based around well mannered and well dressed men, mint juleps, long, slender cigarettes and all that other shit. That's why I was here in the South—well, that and to find a girl—this girl.

Loud music echoed across the water and I turned to see the guys Cassy had been talking to on the dock come into sight behind us floating along on a small continent of inflatable rafts.

“I thought only people in San Diego still listened to Sublime,” I said.

Cassy laughed and we paddled as quickly as we could to get out of earshot of the music and the drunken mob.

I finished my first bottle of beer and reached into the water for another. “Do we have somewhere to put these empties?”

“Just toss 'em in the river.”

I threw the empty beer bottle into the water and it drifted along with us until it filled up and sank to the bottom and joined the bottles from countless trips just like this one at the bottom of the river. I put my head in Cassy's lap, and the lazy flow of the water washed over me as I stared up at the clouds. The heat didn't seem as bad on the water. As we drifted along, large patches of weeds and tall grass grazed my legs and exposed lower back, sending chills down my spine. The larger patches would have been the perfect hiding place for an alligator but I wasn't worrying about that.

“This is nice,” I dragged my free hand across the surface of the water, “I could do this forever. Some decent music would be nice, though,” Cassy smiled as she stroked my hair.

“Lets veer off to the left over here, I have to show you something,” she said.

We pushed against the current to get our rafts over to the left bank of the river which forked off into a narrow inlet. We left our rafts where the water settled and swam along the pathway towards a large group of people wadding where the inlet opened up into a large pool of water. The muddy riverbed became increasingly shallow until it was knee deep, and we stood up and started walking. The mud gave way to sparkling white rocks checked with moss. Everyone seemed fixated on something at the far end of the pool. After slipping across the slick rocks the shallow riverbed opened up to stunning blue waters forty feet deep. Groups of children stood on the far edges of the rocks and took turns diving into the water.

“What’s down there?” I asked.

“Caves,” she said, pointing down into the water, “'Technically they're 'Springs',” she brushed away a stray leave than had stuck to her arm. “It's an aquifer...a water system that flows up from the ground. It creates underwater caves and tunnels.” Her drawl seemed to have vanished.

“And people go in them?

“All the time. They're all over Florida. They extend for miles under there. This sort of thing is much more dangerous than a gator, though,” she looked sideways at me and smiled, “people spend their entire lives diving in these caves and they never learn all their secrets. They can still get lost just as quick as you or I down there.” She took a deep breath and dove under the water. I watched her float down towards the bottom and dart back up.

“Go down with me,” she said.

I took a deep breath and plunged in, cutting through the water. Cassy followed close behind. As we came in on the mouth of the cave my head felt like it was stuck in a vice and I was nearly out of breath. We reached the entrance and I stared into the mouth, imagining miles of cavernous tunnels marked only by a ten foot long gash in the rock as dark as oil. I turned to see Cassy propel herself back up to the surface but I stayed down, almost mesmerized. I used my last ounce of strength as my lungs were about to explode to propel myself back up through the water and into the open.

“That was amazing,” I said, gasping for air.

Cassy brushed the water out of her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Let's go back. I want to see how far in we can get.”

“No chance.”

“We've already been to the entrance. What's a little bit further?”

She shook her head.

“Why the hell not?”

“We don't have oxygen tanks. We'd only have enough air to get to the point where we couldn't find our way back out.”

I“We don't have to go far...just a little bit past the mouth,” I said, playfully splashing water on her.

“It's not going to happen,” she said, “Ya know, there's probably gators down there.”

I looked back towards the water. “Seriously?”

She sighed. “No.”

I took a small breath and went under to see how far down the entrance was. It seemed further away this time. And I was nearly out of breath by the time we got down there. Maybe the caves weren't such a good idea. I came back up to the surface.

“Whatever,” Cassy said, slicking back her hair, “If you really want to go in we can. But we aren't going far. I'm not dying down there.”

I looked down into the water. “No...we don't have to. I don't want you to get hurt.”

Cassy swam away. “Chickenshit.”

Back on the river, dark clouds bunched up as the skyline took on a dark aluminum tint and I breathed heavy, wet air. The cranes that had been hanging around the riverbed flew away in unison. The sun was no longer visible but the heat was.

Another set of buildings appeared through the trees to my right. The white paint peeled off of them like wax dripping down a candle. These houses weren't charming. Weeds had grown up through the floorboards of one house and extended back out through the doorway and empty windowpanes. Most of the backside of a church had been torn off—leaving only the rubble not worth stealing—and the vacant windows sat like gaping mouths mourning the stained glass window that used to fill the space. We continued on past house after house, windows blown out by strong winds, doors boarded up. A small kid—six, maybe seven—had wondered into one of them and was picking through the rubble. The wind had stopped blowing and I couldn't smell the orange trees anymore. Maybe this was the real South.

Racquetball sized drops of rain dropped from the sky and hit with loud plunks on the river, and the surface of the water as it was pelted.

“We gotta get off the river for a while...follow me,” Cassy said, and we paddled over to a dock hidden along the riverbank, climbed out of our rafts and tied them up. We sat on the edge of the dock, with our feet resting in the shallow end of the water trying to cool off. A light canopy of trees extended out over the water and stopped most of the rain from hitting us. I reached into the water and took two fresh beers and handed one to Cassy. I broke the silence:

“Do you come out here a lot?”

“Been a few times,” she said, taking a long drink of her beer.

“How does this one rate? Compared to the others.”

“Could be better, I s'pose.” Her accent had lost some of it's charm.

“What's that supp—“

She exhaled, “I smell weed,” she said, “and alligator, I think.” She whipped her head back towards the trees.

“Alligator? They have a smell?”

“When you cook ‘em they do.” She got up from the dock and headed towards the trees. I scrambled up and followed her along a faded trail overgrown with brush. The muffled sound of music and the smell of burning flesh hit me. In a clearing sheltered by thick trees, we came upon two men in their late twenties; one holding a joint, the other a large can of beer. A Hibachi in between the two was uncovered and some kind of meat could be seen roasting, and a small CD player resting on an old tree stump was blasting rap. I tried to motion for Cassy to turn around and head back, but before I could she had already stepped towards them.

“Mind if we sit in with you guys ‘til the rain lets up?” Cassy asked.

The two men sized us up. The taller of the two exhaled a large puff of smoke and the shorter reached into a cooler and handed Cassy and I a can of Steel Reserve. The tall one was named Everett and the short one was Pete. Everett was wearing an Emmitt Smith jersey that had to have been fifteen years old and Pete looked like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy.

“Is that gator you’re cooking?” I asked Everett.

“Gator tail, yessir.”

“Is it good?”

“Bit salty.”

Everett speared two small pieces of meat and handed one to each of us. Alligator didn't taste anything like I imagined. It was good. But the idea of eating it on a regular basis didn't seem appealing.

“What’re you guys doin’ all the way out here?” Cassy asked while chomping on a piece of gator.

“Oh, you know—“ Everett started, “—just waitin’ for the South to rise again.”

Cassy laughed but I didn’t get the joke. We could still hear soft trickles of water running through the maze of branches above us. Everett and Pete had grown up in Gainesville—a rarity in a college town. They talked with Cassy about Gator football, the growth of the city and Gator basketball.

“You guys have anything besides this Steel Reserve? The stuff always makes me puke.” Everett looked like he was about to say something to me, but before he could Pete handed Cassy and I joints.

“This shit's comin' in all the way from India—or Thailand, I can't remember which. I know a guy,” Pete said with a beaming smile.

Halfway through Cassy's second joint and my third, I noticed Everett staring at Cassy, and by the way she played with her hair nervously, she noticed too. I started to say something but couldn't find the words.

“Somethin' wrong?” She finally asked.

Everett looked up from the Hibachi. “Oh…no, nothing Miss, I was just thinkin’ ‘bout how familiar you look is all. Like I seen you before.”

“I live in Gainesville, maybe you’ve seen me around. I go to UF.”

Everett squinted, “Nah that ain’t it. I know I’ve seen you before though…”

“Well I don’t know what to tell y—“

“Porn! That’s it. You’re in porno ain't you?”

Cassy looked horrified. “Fuck off!”

“Come on guys,” I said, puffing at my point, “lay off her.”

“No, seriously. That’s it. Pete, ain’t you seen this chick in porno before?”

Pete looked up from the Hibachi: “I don’t know, man, I don’t watch no white porno.”

Everett looked at his friend. “The fuck?”

Pete shrugged. “I seen enough white pussy to last me a lifetime, man. I only watch Puerto Rican and Indonesian porn.”

“Indonesian porn? What the fuck, man.”

“Hey man what I do at my computer’s my own fuckin’ business.”

“Whatever man, anyway--” Everett turned back towards Cassy, “I'm sorry Miss, didn't mean nothin' by it. Honest mistake.”

She shrugged it off and kept smoking. I was too high to care about defending her. The beams of light that had been shooting through the treetops dimmed as dusk came on. Everett lit a match and used it to ignite a small hurricane lantern hung from a branch behind him.

Pete sighed. “It's still so damned hot.” He looked at me, “You ain't from 'round here. ya?”

“No, Southern California.”

“Bet you ain't used to this heat. Bet yall're used to the heat packin' it in for the day 'long with the sun. Things're different out here,” he brushed his can of Steel Reserve across his forehead. “It's so damned hot.”

Pete removed his shirt, exposing a thick patch of chest hair that extended all the way to his waistline. Everett howled.

“Honestly Pete, put your shirt back on! They don't wanna see your goddamn Sasquatch chest,” he turned towards us, “sorry y'all. Pete here's got no manners, or common sense for that matter. ”

“Like you're the King of fuckin' England yourself there Everett.”

“Pete shut the fuck up,” Everett said, looking at Cassy and me. “'Bout as useful as tits on a boarhog.”

Cassy laughed but I had no idea what he meant.

I tried to get Cassy's attention so we could leave. I had soaked up about as much local color as I could stand. Everett broke in before I could get her attention.

“How're yall doin' on your joints?” He turned to Cassy, “Need another one mi—“ He cut himself short. “I'm surely sorry miss but I just can't seem to shake this notion that I seen you in a porno before!”

“You fuc—“

“I'm sorry i'm sorry. But you sure you ain't never been involved in any....uhhh, what's the word....adult entertainment?”

Cassy had turned red. For one reason or another I was enjoying this. I didn't want to protect her. I didn't want to be the Southern gentleman anymore. I wanted to see her squirm. Hell these two creeped me out too. But it turns out she didn't need my help. She exploded:

“Listen you two inbred motherfuckers. Just because you only have a quarter of a brain between you because your parents were at least distantly related, and in this guys case--” She pointed at Pete, “—at least one of them was a farm animal, doesn't mean you can go around harassing women.”

“Miss i—“

“No no, no talking. Maybe if you two didn't spend most of your life in some moonshine, grit and gunpowder induced haze, dreaming about fixing up your fucking Camero or whatever, you'd recognize that I'm not like you. I'm not going to do porno to help support the babies my brother impregnated me with or to pay off some debt my Daddy chalked at the track or sit around at a Waffle House on a Friday night betting my equally moronic friends just how many Belgian fucking waffles I can scarf down before I puke. Ok? So FUCK OFF.”

She stormed off, and I followed. She didn't draw out any of those L's. I apologized and left before either of them really knew what had happened.

We continued on down the river in silence. The rope tying our tubes together unraveled from water damage but we didn't bother to retie it. The humidity became thicker after the rain and all I could think about was the heat. Signs started to appear that signaled the end of the river as it reached its estuary and opened up for its big finish into the Gulf of Mexico. Cassy paddled over to the left side of the riverbank and the final dock. I followed her. She got out of her tube and brushed the excess water off of her body with her hands.

As we started walking back to Cassy's car, the smell of the river coming off of our bodies hit me—and it wasn't magnolias or orange trees—it was rotting wood and piss, and the heat only made it worse. The sun had passed down through the trees in the distance but the heat was still there, mixing the water from the river in with our sweat. I thought about alligators for the first time in a while. They didn't seem so bad anymore. I didn't matter to them. They were around before me and they'll be around after me. There's other things for a man to be afraid of.

“You know,” Cassy said as her car came into sight, “I read somewhere that scientists are saying all of Florida will be under water by like, the end of the twenty-first century. I guess our kids or grandkids won't have any rivers to float down.”

“I don't see what's so great about it anyway,” I said as we got into her car.

When we got back to her apartment, I went in to use the bathroom and then left. I haven't spoken to Cassy since. She wasn't what I was looking for. I guess I stopped caring so much about the South in general. Whatever Faulkner saw in the place didn't mean much to me and I'm not cut out for the heat or the rivers or the caves. We have caves in California, and you don't have to drown to see them. That doesn't mean I don't have a newfound fear of them, though. Plus, it'll all be underwater someday.

The Perils of Time Travel
by Ben Greenstein