The Optimist

It was my last night of a three-day business trip to Miami. I was murdering time in the part of town called The Grove. (Let the reader understand.)

A man sat at one of the two outdoor bars at Monty's. His age was hard to guess, but his youth had obviously been spent. He might have emerged directly from Biscayne Bay, so encrusted was his skin with age, like wood steeped in seaweed. Perhaps he had arisen by spontaneous generation from the brine on a night when people would not notice him staggering onshore. There are many men like that in greater Miami. Do they walk on certain nights into the bay like lemmings, giving up their flesh so others can replace them? Do they sit at bars and educate people like you and me with truths that are their purpose to dispense, whether we believe them or not? Monty's always attracts a varied crowd, and this evening was no exception. I sat down next to the man. It had been years since I had been to this place, and the saline air caused me to feel as if I had arisen from the Gulf Stream and been blown ashore by the trade wind. The high-rise dwellings, the palm fronds, the clouds lit from underneath by electric fire, the music -- it all made me wonder what kind of madman I was to have moved back to Minneapolis with its polar fronts. But in those years when I had come to Monty's often, I had always been drunk. I was experiencing the true flavor of this place for the first time.

"What'll it be?" a waitress asked me.

"Soda water with a twist of lime," said I.

She wheeled around and strode away like a robot.

"Not a drinker?" asked the creature from the bay.

"No," said I.

I studied his face. His stubble was green. He had a smile that flashed so fast that it was gone before it began. The waitress returned and I pulled out my wad of bills to pay for my drink.

"For that, I'd have to charge two dollars or nothing, and I'd just as soon charge you nothing," the waitress said.

"Oh," said I. "Thanks."

She turned away.

"Nice girl," said the man.

"You know her?" I asked.

"Nope. I don't know anyone."

"Me neither."

We sat and watched as couples danced. All the women were ugly and were dressed to seduce. All the men were faceless except for the old one sitting next to me.

"You from around here?" asked the man.

"Was once," said I. "Not now."

"Didn't think so."

"How could you tell?"

"Wasn't born last week."

"Can see that."

The man laughed and I saw that he had no teeth. "Not many people here are from around here," he said. "But I am. I'm a native. Oldest one in town."

"How old?" I asked.

"Well, I was born in the twentieth century," he said.

"Wasn't much here in 1900, was there?" I asked.

"Mosquitoes and mangroves."

"And mud."

"And heat."

"And roaches."

"And land crabs. And alligitators."

"Al-lig-i-tators?" I asked.

"Alligitators," he said.

"So you went through the hurricane of twenty-six."

"And lots of others. Know 'em like my own mother. The one in thirty-five, it killed her. She lived down in the Keys."

I'd read about that storm. I'd lived for a few months in Tavernier in 1985, fifty years after the storm leveled the place.

"Nothing was left standing more than a foot high on what is now called Islamorada," said the man. "Looked like the bed of a dried-up river. Could see all the way from one end of the key to the other."

"Guess that storm killed lots of people," said I.

"Enough. Now they're all in the clouds where them 'canes come from, wondering when the next one will hit here."

"Won't be pretty," said I. "This town is not prepared."

"We need one," said the man. "Thin things out. Get rid of the riffraff. Well" -- he laughed again -- "better not talk."

"So all these dead people are in the clouds," said I.

"Waiting, watching," said the man.

"Not lying in the ground, but in the sky," said I, sipping my soda.

"Where all is light and commotion," said the man.

The band had stopped playing, but it started up again, and people began to dance, and I turned to the man next to me and said, "They're all ugly."

He laughed. Then his face turned serious.

"They go to work every morning, and come home every night, and then they eat, and make their bodies fat, and then they come here and blow off their frustration," said I. "And what does it get them?""

"Not a date with you," said the man.

In this setting, with its beauty, I saw only the defects. Perhaps it was a flashback to the days I had drunk here until I was in a stupor. But I had used up all the drunks that God allots for one human life.

"In this town, somewhere, right now, is a woman who proposed to me," said I.

"Yah?"

"Twice."

"And you said no."

"Twice."

The people were dancing and talking. Many of the women were exhibiting their skin in various ways. It made me recall the words of a friend back in Minneapolis: "I've done it so many ways that it's boring. This position, that position."

"Nothing's left for guessing anymore," said I to the man.

"I don't know about that," he said.

"Where's the mystery? You show everything. Someday every woman will walk around naked, carrying little electronic transponders, and every man will have his net worth, down to the penny, encoded in a magnetic strip embedded in his forehead. Every day the men will line up in the heat with their neckties strangling them, and get their strips updated. A woman will walk up to a man at a place like this and hold out the little gadget, and the thing will beep, and then she will either kiss the man or walk away. Women are sex objects. Men are success objects. We are all machines. Even that barmaid. You bite her and you'll get a mouth full of integrated circuits."

"Nah," the man said.

"Life's a beach, and then you drown."

"Well, you drown, that's for sure," said the man; "that much is guaranteed. What you make of it beforehand, that is your thing." He sipped his drink and then, abruptly, swallowed the entire contents of his glass, even the ice cubes.

"Have you ever thought about how a city is like a cell, or an organism, I mean, and the people are all like corpuscles?" I asked.

"Oh, sure," said the man. "Every day."

"Every morning they all go into town. Every evening, back out again. Of course there are a few stray ones that go the opposite way, but it's a cycle, every day. What's the point of it all?"

"Never met a young fella like you, who talked like that," said the man. "That kind of talk is for old folks like me."

"Isn't it true?"

"Could be."

"I'm not like that, though," said I. "I'm different. I do things my way."

"Mmm."

"Am I not right?" I asked.

"Every word," said the man. Then he laughed.

"Why are you so happy?"

"I'm an optimist."

"A Pollyanna?" I asked.

"What's that?" asked the man.

"That," said I, "is someone who thinks that everything is coming up flowers."

"Not me."

"What are you optimistic about?"

"Death," said the man.

"Life's a bitch," said I, "and then you either knock off and lose existence altogether, or else -- more likely -- writhe and gnash teeth," said I.

"If you wish," said the man, grinning to show me his denuded gums. "In death, all is light and commotion."

"I read a story once," said I. "where a guy died, and it said ‘All was darkness and silence.’"

"But we don't know, do we?" asked the man.

"I suppose not," said I.

"We have to make it up, then," said the man.

"Maybe we all go to hell."

"Some people make their own hells."

The waitress came around and the man ordered another drink. I was doing all right with my first one. My ice had melted, but the soda was still cold.

"So all is light and commotion after death," said I.

"Yep," said the man.

"Like this place?"

"Brighter."

"This noisy?"

"Louder."

"Do they supply earplugs?"

"You can switch your hearing on and off at will."

"Interesting. What about love? Sex? Trust?"

"Why don't you call your girlfriend?" asked the man when the music stopped and yielded an interlude of relative quiet.

"Who?" I asked.

"The one who proposed to you."

"Twice."

"Yes. Twice. You said she lives here."

"She works at night," said I.

"Call her at work," said the man.

"Don't know the number."

"You can find out."

"Sure." I swallowed all of my drink then.

"She married yet?" asked the man.

"I don't think so," said I. "I know her brother. Might co-author a book with him."

"There you go. Call him. Get her number at work."

"Has it occurred to you that I do not wish to call this woman?" I asked.

"No," said the man. "You want her."

"Don't know what I'd do without a mind writer."

A gust of wind blew in from the bay. The air smelled of dead fish and seaweed and salt and humidity, the kinds of things that make me want to dive in the water and swim till I either die or reach Atlantis, whichever comes last. When I lived in Cocoa Beach, I'd swim in the breakers at night, drunk. It was fun to swim toward what I imagined would be the surface, and then hit bottom. Or to come up and think I would be facing onshore, but instead find myself looking out to sea towards a full moon.

"She thinks her body is sacred," said I.

"Mmm," said the man.

"Maybe she has values."

"Maybe."

"But I don't know."

"You won't find out unless you call her."

"What's the use? I might as well just grow old alone. I was married once. I think I'd rather live alone."

"You wonder what would have happened if you had said yes to her proposals," said the man.

"Of course I wonder."

"Why don't you call her."

"I have no wish to."

"You are afraid to."

"I took a trip all the way down here a couple of years ago just to find out what this woman was all about," said I, "and she wouldn't give me the time of day."

"You should have called her at night," said the man.

"Right."

The waitress came. "Would you like another drink?" she asked me.

"If it's free, another of the same," said I. She took my glass and spun around.

"Your mystery woman is not like these corpuscles," said the man.

"Maybe you’re right."

"The opposite of that waitress there."

"Probably."

"Light instead of darkness."

"Could be. Commotion instead of silence, without a doubt."

"The only reason you came to this town," said the man.

"Bullshit," said I. "I came here on business."

"Only so you could have a vacation at taxpayer expense. Shame on you. This woman is the reason you are here."

"Don't decide for me what I want."

"Why not?" asked the man. "Someone has to."

"You're right," said I, placing four quarters on the counter. I got up, checked in my pocket and found plenty more change, and started to walk away from the bar.

"Where you going?" said the man.

"Don't know," said I.

"Hope she says yes," said the man.

"Hope she tells me to go to hell," said I.

"No loss," said the man.

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Francisco Carrera.