St Augustine Transfer

                “Hey Dave!  You might want to come talk to these people.  They actually dressed up for this,”  the red headed stranger smiled at us as she yelled into the dilapidated barn. 
         We stood there for a few awkward moments with the older woman, whom apparently we’d managed to impress already with as little as my polo and Meredith’s skirt.  Two days in town, and already things were looking up.
         Soon enough, a real bear of a man, Dave, we assumed, came walking out into the sunlight squinting, his bulbous cheeks nearly pressing into is forehead.  Dave was a barrel-chested man with no neck and arms as thick as my thigh.  He was in a t-shirt, cargo shorts, and a backwards ballcap, sweat-drenched and breathing heavily. 
         “Dave Chatterton,”  he reached his massive paw out to shake my hand, but retracted it quickly, wiped it on his shorts, then returned it in offering once again, “you two really do look sharp.”
         Meredith and I looked at each other quickly, slightly amused, and very puzzled.
         “Thank you sir.  My name’s Joey, and this is Meredith.  We came about the ad for tour guides in the paper,” I said.
         Dave looked Meredith up and down. “You sure you want to drive a horse and carriage?”
         “No, no,”  Meredith looked nervous now. “I was hoping for something else.” she turned her head to the side and looked down at the mud beneath her feet. 
         “Walking ghost tours it is then.”  Dave smiled at Mere, and she looked up shyly and smiled. He looked at me. “Joe, carriages?” 
         “Oh yeah.  I’ve been wanting to do this since we first started talking about moving down here.” 
         It was true.  Meredith and I had stopped off for a couple of hours in St. Augustine after a whirlwind trip to Disney World.  We fell in love with it immediately.  The architecture, the ocean, the bay, the breezes, the pace of life…they all appealed to us.  It touched us somewhere deep.  From that point on, we focused our every effort on making the move south.  We watched the papers online religiously, looking for cheap apartments and decent jobs.  We’d moved just three days before our arrival here at the St. Augustine Transfer Company, but had been watching their ad in the paper for three weeks.  Giving horse and carriage tours of the oldest city in the country just seemed perfect to me.  And as Dave led us into the run-down old barn, I knew that it was.
         


         It was pouring.  Typical Florida afternoon.  I sat with four other carriage drivers at the entrance to the barn, chain-smoking cigarettes, waiting on some blue sky so we could get our shift started.  Every minute we weren’t on the bay front we were losing money.  No rides, no tips.  We managed, however, to keep ourselves entertained while we waited on the showers to pass.  It had been a rough month already.  Three times we had been flooded out and it was barely the middle of August.  Apparently the city planners of the fifteenth century had not considered drainage when they built those city streets.  Any more than a half inch of rain in an hour and we saw the roadways become impassable by carriage.  In water only two inches deep, our hard rubber tires would work their way off the steel and wooden wheels.  No one wanted to be caught on the route with a lost tire.  Changing a wagon wheel wasn’t nearly as easy as changing a car tire, and we only had one man that could do it.  Losing a tire meant calling Rosie out on the route. Rosie hated changing tires in the rain, and no one wanted to piss off Rosie.  So we smoked our cigarettes and waited.  None of us noticed the crazy old black man sneaking up behind us. 
         “What da hell you boys think you doin’?
         Every one of us threw our cigarettes out into the rain and snapped around guiltily.  It was Rosie, yelling at us through his missing teeth. 
         “You son’s a bitches gonna catch my goddamn barn on fire.  Where da hell ’m I gonna sleep den, huh?  Rosie gonna be at yo house, sleepin’ on yo couch den, dat’s where.”  Rosie lifted his head and cackled. 
         He really was crazy.  No one knew exactly how old he was, but he had been with the Coolie family since they took over the Transfer in the 50’s.  Rosie always looked the same.  Dirty khaki pants tucked into black rubber boots, no shirt, his beard long, gray and matted, always a piece of straw hidden in there somewhere.  Rosie was a legend at the Transfer.  One simply had to look at the dust covered pictures in the makeshift office to see Rosie’s story.  There he was in Old St. Augustine, top hat and tuxedo, sitting atop a limousine carriage pulled by a team of Clydesdale’s.  He was there on the front page of the paper, training horses in the 60’s.  Somewhere (judging by the clothes it was the 80’s) the photos started to dwindle.  It was as though Rosie had disappeared.  You could follow that line of pictures to the end of the office wall, continue in the same direction and your eyes fell upon a splintered wooden door inside the main barn.  It was Rosie’s room.  The Coolie’s had offered the old man room and board in exchange for his 24 hour care of the horses.  It wasn’t much more than a ten by ten room with plywood walls, but it was Rosie’s home, and we all respected it.  So naturally, we felt guilty when he berated us for smoking in the barn.
         “You boys gonna git dem hauses ready to pull, or ya’ll gonna sit round and jerk each otha off all afternoon?”
         “Come on Rosie, it’s pouring out there.”  I said.  “We’re not going anywhere today.  It’ll be six before we can get on the bay front.  Christ, we might as well not even go out at that point.”
         “Bullshit.  Rain’ll quit in twenty.”  Rosie turned away, mumbling unintelligibly as he left us. 
         We all looked at each other for a moment and then jumped out of our seats at the same time, each running for our horse’s stall.  We only had one grooming station and it took a good man twenty minutes to groom.  First one to hitch his horse was the first one to start making money, and if Rosie said we were going out today, we were going out.   


                                         *        *        *


         Remember this. Don’t ever forget it. I had to keep reminding myself. Had to keep telling myself that this was what I wanted.  I closed my eyes and was still, trying to feel the hot breath of the Florida afternoon on my face.  When I opened them, I stared up at the swaying palm trees, soaking in one of my favorite sights.  It was three in the afternoon, and I was standing in a doorway on St George Street.  My black and red herring bone corset was cutting into my ribcage, and the white peasant blouse underneath was matted, twisted and soaking wet.  Every so often, I would pick my black velvet skirt up to my knees and swish it around, trying to create a breeze underneath to cool off my aching, sweaty thighs.
         No one’s gonna buy anything from me, I thought. Sweaty, probably stinky, and two degrees away from heat stroke, I was attempting to sell passersby walking ghost tour tickets. No one seemed interested.  There were five of us up and down St. George Street, all doing the same thing.  By the time they got to me, the tourists had heard the sales pitch three times already, and were more than a little irritated. My best attempt was met by pseudo-apologetic smiles and head shakes, dirty looks, or people who suddenly found the other side of the street particularly enticing. 
         Damn it! Why can’t I ever appreciate anything? Why am I never happy? I had wanted this, to be here in the nation’s oldest city, surrounded by ocean and palms, since I’d first laid eyes on this beautiful little drinking village with a fishing problem. Now, when all of my dreams had become reality, the reality was too harsh, too much like real life.  I believed that the magic of this place would’ve enveloped me and transformed my life into the fairytale I craved.  I tried to take a deep exasperated breath, but the stays of my corset were so tight, that I was stopped short, and left dizzy and nauseous. 

         
         After an hour of watching the happy sunburned tourists go by, calling to them, trying to lure them in with the promise of a creepy educational good time on a ghost walk, I finally hooked some interested customers. 
         “How much?” The woman’s nasally high pitched voice barked at me.  It surprised me that voice had come out of that body.  She was enormous, with tightly permed dirty blonde hair, fat, sausage-like arms jutting out of a fuschia tank top, and tight, black jean shorts that rode up her inner thighs, displaying skin the color and texture of cold oatmeal.
         “Well, we have three different packages.  The walking ghost tour is an hour and a half leisurely walk down the darkened streets of St Augustine by lamplight, or if you’d prefer, we have carriage rides on the Bayfront that do both ghost and historical tours.  Or, if you’ll be in town for a while, I’d suggest doing both the walking and the carriage tours.  More bang for your buck.” More bang for your buck? Did I really just say that? Idiot! “The walking tour by itself is eight dollars a person.  Both carriage tours are twenty a person, and if you decide on our combo package, it would only be twenty two for both.” 
         “Twenty dollars a person! Are you out of your mind? That’s ridiculous!” The woman’s shrill voice was attracting glances from people strolling down St George, and grating on my nerves.
         “Well, ma’am, perhaps you’d rather do the walking tour, then. It’s only eight dollars a person. It’s really a lot of fun.  Your tour guide will be dressed up and in the character of one of the many ghosts that is said to haunt the city. It’s quite a treat,” I fought to keep my voice level.  “And there’s always the package deal.  You’d get a discount on both.  If you choose the combo, I’d suggest requesting Joey as your driver. He’s the best tour guide in the company!”          
         “How much is it to do both?” She asked, quieter this time.
         “Twenty-two a person.” I said.
         “Well, that’s not much of a discount is it?” She said.
         Nasty bitch! I thought. 
         “It’s actually a very good deal ma’am.”
         “Well, I’ll think about it. How late will you be here?” She asked.
         “The tour starts at nine, so you have until then to get a ticket.”  She grabbed a flier off of the table and wobbled off. I rolled my eyes, knowing that I’d never see her again.           Just then, Stuart, my boss, turned the corner and headed toward the benches across the street from my booth.  I groaned inwardly.  He always made me uncomfortable. He’d sit on that bench for an hour, just watching me try to sell tickets.  He’d do anything short of standing on the bench and  begging the tourists to buy a ticket from me, and it made me nervous.  He always had his two Siamese cats with him, Sammie and Janie, both on leashes. He was the only person I’d ever seen walk a cat.  But the cats didn’t seem to mind, and the people passing by loved it.  Granted, it helped sell tickets, but I still wished he’d go away.
         “Sell anything today Miss Meredith?”
         “Four for the carriage and ten for the walking tour, so far,” I said. Not good numbers. I knew he’d be upset.
         “You gotta get out there and get more Miss Thing. Talk to every person that walks  by dear.  That’s the only way you’ll get ‘em!”
         I wanted to stick my tongue out at him. 
         “I know, Stuart. I’m trying.” 
         “Well, try harder.  You’re working on commission you know,” he added.
         “Yeah I know.”  He wasn’t listening anymore. He was talking to a couple who’d stopped to admire the cats.  I turned my attention to my potential customers.
         “Would you like to join us on a ghost tour this evening?”  I called out to anyone who’d listen.  No thanks, not today, maybe tomorrow, and blank stares were the only response I received.
         An hour and a half later, I was still in the same spot, calling out the same old tired lines. I hadn’t sold any tickets, but at least Stuart was gone.  Suddenly, the sun disappeared behind a dark foreboding cloud, and there was monstrous rumble in the distance. Great. It’s gonna rain. I’m going to get drenched, the car will get flooded, and there’ll be no one walking the street to buy tickets. Sure enough, big fat rain plopped slowly on my head, the coquina walls, and the shell encrusted street. There was a loud crack of lightning somewhere near the fort that made me jump, and another loud rumble, closer this time.  By the time that I’d shut down the ticket booth and gathered my things, it was pouring.  Yanking my skirt up around my knees, preparing for the mad dash to my car, I wondered what the hell I was doing here.  With a resolute breath, I ran out into the rain toward the Buick.
         “Shit!” I yelled as I splashed through a puddle up to my ankle and water poured into my shoe. I rounded the corner, Buick in sight as I fumbled for the keys, running as fast as I could.  I unlocked the car door, shoved my purse in and clamored inside. As I leaned out to yank the heavy door shut, I cracked my shin on the side of the door. Damn it! 
         Sitting in the car, puddle forming under my butt from my dripping clothes, I asked myself again why I was here. Sure, it was gorgeous (when it wasn’t raining), but in the four weeks we’d been here, other than sleeping, Joey and I’d spent about two hours a day together.  Rent was high and cash was tight.  Joe was working doubles on the Bayfront six days a week, and I was busy selling tickets during the day and leading the tours at night.  Even though we worked for the same company and were only about a hundred yards apart, we hardly ever saw each other.
         The only time we really got to spend anytime together was on the carriage.  When my 9:00 ghost tour was over, I’d walk the two blocks up to the Bayfront, and hop on the carriage with Joey for his last tour.  I’d sit up front, both of us in our costumes, and we’d take turns telling ghost stories and historical facts to the fascinated tourists. 
         It was my favorite time in St. Augustine, on that carriage. Joey would stop in front of the old captain’s house and tell our passengers about the night that  he heard a harpsichord playing from the attic, and the dead woman who starved to death when her jealous husband, lost at sea, locked her up there with only a harpsichord to keep her occupied.  I would stared up at the house, willing the harpsichord to play it’s melancholy, otherworldly tune for us.  When we first got our jobs as tour guides, I was giddy with excitement.  I wanted a “ghost experience” so badly I could hardly stand it.  When I discovered that Joey’d heard the ghostly harpsichord, I was not only jealous, but determined to hear it as well. For all the nights that I rode on the carriage with him, I spent just as many driving up and down the street in the Buick, stopping in front of the captain’s house as long as my nerves and traffic would allow, straining against the rumbling of the engine and my pounding heart to hear.  I never experienced it, and I was mad as hell about it.
         Around 8:30 the rain had stopped and twilight had set in upon St. Augustine.  I had changed my clothes and returned to the booth on St George Street for the 9:00 walking tour.  After I finished up, I walked the two blocks up to the Bayfront, the stones and shells on the street digging into my tired feet through my thin ballet flats, hoping to catch Joey’s last carriage ride.  When I arrived, he was loading a motley crew into the white rickety carriage. I waved at him, and immediately went over to Pedro for a hug.
         “Wanna ride?” He called as he hoisted himself onto the carriage seat.
         “Sure.”  I pulled my skirt up, took Joey’s offered hand and climbed onto the seat. I closed my eyes for a moment, just listening to Pedro’s big hooves clippety clonk on the street and Joey’s booming voice introduce himself to his passengers, happy to be beside the man I loved, on a romantic tour of the city that held fast to my heart.
                                       
                                       *        *        *

         When we passed the Tolomoto Cemetery, with its creepy shadows and dank, dead smell, I could feel Meredith shiver slightly, and move a little closer to me, away from the open side of the carriage and away from the most haunted, and according to Meredith, the scariest cemetery in the United States.  We continued the tour down Hypolita Street, stopping from time to time at points of interest, to tell a story or give our passengers a better view, before we came up to my favorite spot on the tour.  I stopped Pedro underneath the “Lover’s Tree,” an ancient oak intertwined with a palm tree growing right out of the middle of it, and told everyone the local legend that whoever kisses under that tree would be in love forever.  Occasionally, the tourists on the carriage would include newlyweds or engaged couples, and more often than not, they would redden and steal quick kisses as I urged Pedro on to our next destination.  Mere and I would glance at each other, smiling, recalling a time in the not so distant past, when we too shared a furtive kiss under that tree. She would grab my hand and give it a quick squeeze, and I’d wink back at her.  God, I loved those moments.  Life was good under the Lover’s Tree.  I could forget about all the tension that had been brewing between us lately, the lonely days and nights when we never saw each other, how we’d count out change for milk and Easy Mac. 
         When we got back to the bay front, we were the last carriage out.  With the tourists returning to their hotel rooms, the streets were all but deserted.  There would be no more fares tonight, so the bay front manager gave me signal to head back to the barn.  “Let’s go home Pedro.”  That’s all it took to get the trip back to the barn underway.  I’d always heard that a horse knows his way back to the barn, but I never believed it until I saw it.  “Just like turning on the auto-pilot,” I said to Meredith, as I dropped the reigns in my lap and let Pedro do the driving.
         Auto-Pilot.  There was a word I didn’t use much anymore.  One year prior I was living a mere hour south of St. Augustine in Daytona Beach, training to be an airline pilot.  My father had encouraged my love of flying, and in fact, financed my college career.  That is, until I fell into the trap that was partying in Daytona.  Whoever decided to put a college in the spring break capital of the world should be shot.  As my grades dropped off, the well that was my father dried out.  I moved back home to face the music, and after just less than a year, I couldn’t take it anymore.  “Sixty-thousand dollars!  Do you know how long I’ll be paying for your fucking failure?”  My father was not at all pleased with my performance.  Frankly, neither was I.  The move to St. Augustine with Meredith was a half-assed effort on my part to get back to school.  The plan was to commute to the University in Daytona from St. Augustine.  I was close enough to Daytona to drive everyday, but not close enough to find myself crawling home every night.  Just a few more months of work and with my financial aid I would be able to afford to go to school part-time. 
         “It’s amazing how he knows his way home.  How do you think they do it?”  Meredith was fascinated by Pedro’s flawless navigation through the old city streets with no direction from me. 
         “Habit, intuition, I don’t know.  The same way that the seagulls know to head south when the weather gets too cold, I guess.  I’d say we all have a GPS inside that points home no matter where we are.”  Pedro turned onto an old cobblestone side street with no street lights.  For a moment, with the clip-clop of his massive hooves on the brick and the light cast off of the lanterns on either side of the carriage, you could almost imagine yourself back in nineteenth century Florida.  Meredith must have recognized the feeling as I did, because she turned at me and smiled half-heartedly in the lamp light. 
         “I always thought my GPS was pointing me right here.”  We crossed an intersecting street and a caught a breeze from the bay as it whipped through the narrow alley.  Mere shivered as she spoke.  “You know, now that I’m here, I wonder if maybe…”
         “Maybe what?”  I asked, although I already knew her answer.
         “Maybe we made a mistake. No, not a mistake. Just that we didn’t think things through.  We should have waited a little longer, saved up more money.  And honestly, I never thought that I would be so damn lonely! I couldn’t wait to get away from my parents and now, well I guess you could say that I didn’t realize that I’d miss them so much.”
         “I need your support here, Mere.  This is the only way I’ll be able to fly again.  Besides, we can make a new home for ourselves here.  How can you not love this?”  I gestured towards Pedro and the Road in front of us. 
         “I do love it, but I guess what I’m trying to say is,  it’s not home.”  Meredith turned her back to me, mumbling “and it never will be,”  as Pedro made the final turn towards the barn. 
         “Home is where your heart is, and mine is here with you.”  It was cliché, but it was the best I could come up with.  I took the reigns.
         “Swing it wide Pedro,”  I said, guiding the rig into the barn.  Rosie waited at the end with my lead rope for Pedro.  “Can we talk about this later?”
         “Whatever.”  She wouldn’t look at me, so I dropped it and made quick work removing Pedro’s harness.  Meredith hopped down off the carriage, and Rosie hooked up the lead and watched my horse as I pushed my carriage into it’s parking spot in the barn.  When I was done, I looked up and Meredith was on her way out to the car. 
         “Dis hause work all day in da sun ‘cause dat be his job, but all day he be wanting to go home.”  Rosie handed me Pedro’s lead rope as he spoke.  “You know why he want to go home?  Ain’t got nuttin’ to do with where his heart be.  He want to go home ‘cause he feel safe here.  He know when he get home, he gots a comfy bed an a apple waitin’ fo him.  Home’s what make a man, or a hause, feel right inside.” 
         I didn’t say a word to Rosie as I walked Pedro to his stall, and Mere and I didn’t speak again that night.  We rode home and went to bed in silence.
         St. Augustine is barely a spec on the map, and we lived on the edge of that spec.  Getting to work proved difficult some days since we only had one car, and not much of one at that.  The old Buick was shit brown, though Meredith tries to tell me to this day that it was dark blue, and the doors didn’t close all the way.  God forbid we had to drive through one of the city’s slightly flooded streets. We’d have to pick up our feet to keep them out of the puddles that would form in the floorboard.  The car smelled of mildew and exhaust, always had trouble starting, and the rusty muffler announced our approach from a mile away.  But it ran.  Working the odd hours that we both did, it was inevitable that one of us would usually get dropped off at work long before our scheduled shift so the other could be at work right on time.  Typically that was me arriving two hours early, and I spent my time at the barn with Dave, Rosie, and the crew.  Dave’s father also worked for the Transfer, but he was getting old and wasn’t capable of doing much.  Pops still drove, but only two days a week, and someone else had to groom and hitch his horse.  He was a fascinating old man, a grizzled old sea captain straight out of a Jimmy Buffett song.  Pops smoked unfiltered Pal Mal’s, drank like a fish, and worked just enough to pay the weekly rent at a sleazebag motel over on Anastasia Island.  When he wasn’t drunk or driving a carriage, he worked at a small woodshop Dave had set up for him with some hand-me-down tools at the barn.  Pops’ eyesight was failing, and many mornings, while awaiting my shift on the street, I would be his eyes while he carved elementary designs from scrap wood found around the barn.  He wasn’t very good at it, but it kept him sober and occupied.  Besides, Dave liked to keep an eye on his dad, and it was easier to do with him just next door.  Pops mostly carved little signs with a jigsaw, mostly people’s names, and he would proudly present them to the lucky recipient with a great deal of fanfare, always beaming over his handiwork.  My job was to trace the person’s name on the poor, unsuspecting piece of wood.  When Pops was satisfied with my penmanship, he would have me help him guide the jigsaw across the thick black Sharpie lines. 
         One morning I walked into the woodshop to find Pops hard at work.  On the workbench in front of him was a 1970’s rust green bicycle.  Pops had it turned on it’s back, working the pedals as he tightened screws.  He smiled as I walked in. 
         “You know how to ride one?”  Pops asked as though I had never been a ten year old boy. 
         “Oh yeah!  I grew up on one.  My dad taught me how to ride when I was a kid.  I spent more time on that bike than I did at home,” I said.
         “Found this one on my walk in this morning.  Somebody just left it for the trash man!  Left it sitting there, like it was nothing.  I didn’t think they’d mind if I beat the trash truck to it, so I rolled it across the bridge this morning.  Got her fixed up.  Reckon she’ll do?”
         “I don’t know if you should be riding a rickety old bike like that.  Christ, old man, you’ll fall and break your hip.”
         “Well, hell Joe, I ain’t planning on ridin’ the damn thing.  I’m planning on you riding it.”
         “Me?  I’ve got a car, what the hell do I need that for?” 
         “Son, looks to me that if you had a car, you wouldn’t be in here drawing names on two by fours with an old asshole like me.  If I were your age again, I’d be home right now, stickin’ it to the missus.  Besides, that piece of shit Buick of yours scares the horses every time you turn onto King Street!”
         “I can’t take that thing from you.  You put a lot of work into it.  Why don’t you sell it?  Hell, I bet you’d get twenty bucks for it,” I said.
         “Tell you what.  Let me work on it for another week, with your help as usual, and it’s yours.  You wanna sell it, go ahead.  I gotta tell you though kid, getting dropped of at a barn by your woman in that old beater just ain’t something I’d be going for.  Besides, maybe now you can spend some time with your girl ’stead of a drunk old man like me.”  He pulled a cigarette from the pack with his teeth, lit a match on the workbench, put the two together and breathed in the heavy tobacco smoke.  He exhaled deeply and smiled through the smoke.
         Maybe Pops felt bad for my situation, perhaps he was simply offering payment, but I’ve always believed he knew something I was just too naïve to see.  My relationship was falling apart.  Maybe time was what I needed, maybe the extra mode of transportation would offer some relief.  We worked on that ugly green bike for the next week, and when it was ready, I asked Dave for the day off and rode my new bike home to surprise Mere. 
         “Hello!  Guess who’s home?”  I walked through the house and found her in the kitchen, doing dishes. 
         “I thought you were working today,” she said.  “How did you get here? Did you walk? All that way?”
         “Pops gave me a bike, and Dave gave me the day off.  I thought maybe we’d go get a picnic lunch at Winn Dixie and head to the beach.  We haven’t done that in a while.”  Mere just looked at me.  I was suddenly feeling like I should have stayed at work.
         “A bike,” was all that she said.  She turned around to face the sink and stuck her hands back into the soapy water, noisily pulling out a plate.
         “Mere?  Meredith? Hello!  Aren’t you excited? I got the whole day off! Where’s my hug? I’ve missed my baby.”  This wasn’t going how I’d pictured it at all.  Something was wrong, Meredith wasn’t at all happy, and as usual, she was shutting down, not saying what she really felt, either to protect me or herself or the both of us, from yet another fight.  I could feel the fight coming, hovering above our heads. 
         “What’s going on?” I asked.  “Don’t ignore me.  Aren’t you excited?” I repeated, but only sounded frustrated and irritable.
         “Yeah. Sounds great.  I already ate lunch, and I really need to do some laundry, and vacuum, but I can do that later.”
         Wow, I thought. Meredith rarely did the laundry.  The washing machine and dryer were located outside, around the back of the house, about twenty feet away from overgrown, marshy swamp.  The threat of snakes (I’d seen at least six in the past three months) and the numerous mosquito bites on Meredith’s legs were enough to keep her away from that part of the house.  I knew that if she was planning to do laundry, it was because she was really pissed at me, trying to make a point, and by now, too stubborn to reason with.  My sweet Meredith was gone, and in her place, irrational, fed-up Meredith had arrived.
         “I should have stayed at work,” I mumbled, apparently a little too loud, for Meredith whirled around, slinging suds all over the counter and through squinted, glaring eyes said, “What the hell!  Yes, you should have.  Do you pay any attention at all?  Look at this place.  It’s a dump!  We can barely pay the bills as it is, and now you’re taking time off work and wanting to go spend money that we don’t have?  Don’t you ever stop to think?”
         “But, we never spend any time together.  I thought it would be nice to have an afternoon…” she stopped me before I could finish. 
         “I’m done trying to spend time with you!” She was yelling now.  “I’ve been trying to get you to take time off of work for months now, and you’ve refused to do it.  Suddenly now, when we’re fucking broke, you decide it’s a good idea to go on a God damn picnic.  You need to get your priorities straight!”  Meredith yanked the wet dishcloth off the counter and flung it across the room, then turned back to the sink, scrubbing the dishes furiously. 
         “Whoa! I’ve been busting my ass everyday to pay the bills around here.  I’ve been working 60 hours a week so we can stay here.  Here, in this gorgeous place that you wanted just as badly as I did.  Now, you want to bitch at me for working too much?  And now that I found time to spend with you, you want to bitch at me for not working?  Fuck this.  You’ve lost your shit,” I said.  She spun around to face me, and as she did, the soapy glass she was cleaning slipped from her hands, hitting the linoleum floor and shattering into jagged pieces.  She looked at me in horror and backed away from the glass. 
         “I just want to go home.”  She was crying now.  “We’ve been together nine months.  You took me away from my home, my family, my friends.  You dragged me here to what you promised would be paradise and you left me.  You left me sitting here in this empty house alone.  I have no one to talk to, no friends, no family, nobody.  My job sucks, I almost died in the heat the other day, and now, after having done all of that to me, you want to come home and try to make nice?  Fuck that, and fuck you for thinking it was the smart thing to do.”  She pushed by me into the living room and stood with her arms crossed, back to me.
         “Fuck that?  Fuck me?  Look, I’ve busted my ass to give you everything you ever wanted.  Don’t forget, you’re the one who wanted to move here so you could paint.  How much painting have you done since we got here?  How much have you worked to pay the bills?  What have you done to make this what we both hoped it would be?  I can’t take this shit anymore!”  I slammed the door behind me.  I got on my rusty green bicycle and I rode to the only place that brought me solace…the barn.
         It was barely mid-afternoon when I got there.  Dave seemed surprised to see me back so soon, and we sat on the grass outside the barn, smoking cigarettes as I filled him in on the events of the day.  Dave took in a deep breath, exhaled deeply, flicked his cigarette at the street, stood, and nodded for me to follow him.  Dave was not only manager of the barn, he was also the local furrier.  He was a practicing blacksmith, working everyday, turning steel into shoes, nails, and tack.  Dave led me to his anvil, fired up the furnace and started stoking the fire.  Over the roar of the propane fired oven, he shouted orders, and I followed.  Working quickly with the hot steel, I helped him bend and shape horse shoes.  It was my horse’s day to get new shoes, and I was going to help make them.  Pounding that steel was more of a relief than I ever could have imagined. 
         After thirty minutes of hard labor, we had the shoes roughed out. 
         “Rosie!  Get your crazy ass out here and I might go get you some good stuff later on!”  It was a standing joke at the barn that Dave supplied Rosie with a crack rock on occasion to keep him just crazy enough to keep doing what he did for a living.  Hardly any of us believed it to be much of a joke.
         “What da hell you want big man?”  Rosie had obviously just woken up.  When he came out of his room, his hair and beard were crazy and he was barefoot.
         “Go help Joey bring Pedro around.”
         “Goddamn newbie can’t get his own goddamn hause?”  Rosie refused to call anyone by their name unless he’d known them for years.
         “Come on now, you know you want the good stuff.  And you know how rough Pedro is with new shoes.”  Pedro was massive.  At sixteen hands, he was a fifteen hundred pound Arabian who was terrified of getting new shoes.  All the horses were shawed every month, whether they needed it or not.  Asphalt was hard on the horses hooves, so we had to take extra steps to prevent injury.           
         “Dat ain’t funny boss, an you know it ain’t.  Newbie, go get yo lead and come on.”
         I followed Rosie to Pedro’s stall.  Pedro heard me coming and stuck his head out to see me.  Our greeting was always the same.  He’d rest his giant head on my shoulder and I’d rub him behind the ears.  He knew what came next, as I wouldn’t dare enter that barn without an apple.  It was strange, but that ‘hug’ from Pedro was incredibly relieving.  We understood each other, and he knew it had been a rough day.  Pedro was unusually calm as Rosie and I led him to the main barn.  Dave, Rosie, and I spent the next two hours caring for my horse.  When we had him shawed, I took him to the grooming stall and gave him a good wash.  Pedro loved to be groomed.  He was a proud horse, and I think he enjoyed the company.  I know I certainly did.  By the time I finished, it was almost dark.  I led Pedro back to his stall, gave him the last piece of the apple, and headed outside.  It was shaping up to be a beautiful evening.  I got on my new bicycle and headed for the bay front. 
         The view was nothing short of incredible.  To the left, the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest surviving fort in the country.  At night, its coquina walls were illuminated by flood lights from the ground below.  It was an eerie sight, one that conjured up images of Spanish soldiers, Seminole chiefs, and the ghosts of slaughtered French soldiers who dared cross into the bay.  Directly to the front of the Castillo was the mouth of the Matanzas Bay.  Just inside the inlet rested a multitude of sailboats, lit up with strings of white lights, all rolling slowly with the rhythm of the tide.  To the right was the Bridge of Lions.  One of the most photographed bridges in the US, it was certainly a sight to see on a clear night like this.  I sat there on the stone benches, soaking it all in, trying to decide what to do.  My cell phone ringing broke the silence, and I reached into my pocket and silenced the call.  I wasn’t ready for another argument.  When the phone beeped, letting me know that I had a message, I reluctantly pulled the phone out and dialed my voice mail, fully expecting the message to be from  Meredith.  It wasn’t.
         “Hey sweetie, it’s your Aunt Melita.  I need you to call me back as soon as you get this message, ok?  It’s very important.  I love you.”  I could hardly understand her.  Her voice was wavy, like she was speaking under water.  She was obviously crying.  I wiped my suddenly clammy hands on my jeans and with shaking fingers, dialed her number.  When I hung up the phone, I sat there a moment, staring at the calm waters of the Matanzas Bay. Matanzas.  It was Spanish for “slaughter” honoring the day when 400 Frenchman lost their heads when they unsuccessfully tried to capture St. Augustine from the Spanish.          
         I don’t remember the bike ride home, save one instant when I barely missed being sideswiped by a horn blaring Land Rover with glaring headlights.  At the house, I hopped off the bike, ignoring the searing pain in my lungs and legs and stumbled through the door.  Meredith was sitting on the couch, staring at the darkened TV screen.  She was still furious with me, her eyes narrowed and the sides of her mouth were pinched, but she refused to look at me.  I simply stood in front of her, waiting, numb.  Rolling her eyes, she finally relented and said,
         “What?  What do you want?  You left me here.  You fucking left me.  Where the hell have you been?  Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been about you?” She was trembling.
         “Daddy had a stroke,” I said.
         “What?”
         “Daddy had a stroke.  It happened about seven.  My aunt just called.  He’s in the hospital in Greenville.  He hasn’t woken up yet,” I said.  She covered her mouth with her hands.
         “Oh my God, Joey, I’m so sorry.”
         “I have to go.  I’d like for you to go with me.”
         “Ok,”  Meredith paused for a long time, not looking at me.  “Look, I’m…”
         “I know. Me too.”
         Mere walked to me.  She stood in front of me, looking up for a moment, then dropped her head and hugged me for what seemed like forever, the top of her head braced against my sternum, holding me up, keeping me from crumbling. 
         “You ready?”  I asked.
         “Yeah, let’s go.”  We took a half hour to pack the Buick, shut off the lights, locked the door, and hit the road.  It would be eight hours before we made it to the hospital in Greenville.  As we pulled onto the interstate, Meredith turned to look back.  Her fingers met her lips and then reached ever so slightly toward our empty, darkened house.  She shifted back in her seat and sighed.  The sound pulled my heart down into my stomach. 
         She knew it as well as I.  I shifted my eyes toward the rearview mirror, took a long look, and then abruptly returned to the road.  Meredith squeezed my hand and I leaned over to kiss her.  Then we both faced north and took a deep breath together