Captiva

'Oh man, if you only knew.'

'You're talking about the commercial fishermen.'

'Of course! You got the ol' thinking cap on backward, or what? Yeah, the commercial fishermen. Men, women, their children. The island, man—Sulphur Wells. The whole scene,is like a living laboratory. Can you imagine what that means to an eminent sociologist such as myself? Thing is, it was here staring me right in the face the whole time. The whole time!

I'm skipping off to Appalachia, the Yavapai reservations of Arizona, Brazil—hell, Fumbuck Egypt—to write papers about traditional people, and here I've got them living and working just up the bay, but I don't even realize till now. Go figure!'

I could remember Tomlinson skipping off to Key West quite often. Arizona occasionally. Maybe Appalachia; I wasn't sure. Brazil—that had to have been before I met him. But Fumbuck Egypt? The man lived with a memory fractured by dealing with the real and the imaginary; factors I didn't even care to guess at. I changed the subject. 'Anybody giving you a hard time? I told you about the phone call—'

'No problem, man. People here love me. It's like a gift I've got. People just naturally love me.'

'How could I have forgotten?'

'Search me. But what I'm calling about is my boat.'

When I told him I'd already hauled out his Zodiac, he said, 'No, my sailboat. What you could do is let the engine run for a while, charge up the batteries some. And in the icebox. By the sink? I've got a couple fish fillets. A guy in a little boat came by and gave them to me, and I meant to give them to you for your cat.'

Crunch & Des, the marinas black cat, was lying on the desk beside the phone. I reached out and scratched his ears as Tomlinson said, 'They're probably pretty stinky by now. Who's got time to buy ice? So I'd hate to come back to that. Just one of the many, many reasons I don't eat meat. And hit the bilge switch. I've got it on automatic, but you never know.'

'Bilge switch,' I repeated.

'And my dinghy outboard—'

I told.him I'd already taken care of it. He seemed relieved. 'Thing is, I got so wrapped up in Sulphur Wells, I forgot about everything else, man. See, what I didn't realize was, traditional people don't have to be isolated from the outside world. They can be isolated by the imperatives of their own lifestyle.'

'Fascinating,' I said.

'Fucken-ay! These people, these fishermen, their lives revolve around their work. The migration patterns of fish, season to season. That's the link. Those patterns haven't changed in two hundred years. Hell, forever! It determines how they fish, when they fish, how often they go out. It defines interaction between family members. It solidifies the bonds of families within the fishing community. You see where I'm headed?'

'No, but—'

'I'm saying it's tribal, man. You ever hear a kid from Kansas say, 'When I grow up, I want to be a mullet fisherman'? Of course not. It can't be learned in school, man, and it can't be learned from a book. You've got to be born into it. These traditions, they're handed down, father to son, mother to daughter. You know the way farming families used to stay on the farms, inheriting the fields? It's like that here, man. Only it's water.'

When Tomlinson gets on a roll, all you can do is sit back and listen. I moved away from the desk just enough to see through the window. Janet was still down on the deck, hunched forward in her chair, pencil in hand, clipboard in her lap.

Heard Tomlinson say, 'Are you still there?'

''Yeah, I'm here.' Apparently I had missed something.

He said, 'What I mean is, that's another thing that insulates them. The economics. The best ones make a pretty good living. But no one gets rich. It's strictly lower-middle-class, and that's another thing that binds them but also sets them apart. See? Outsiders have no reason to want to join the tribe. Not enough money in it, understand? It's not like some company that pays hospitalization.'

I said, 'I'm with you so far.'

'So the society is a caste within a caste; sets up a whole hierarchy. They've got their outlaws, they've got their tangent groups. People wrapped a little too tight for the general population. You know? They have all the tools to upset the whole applecart. Which brings up an interesting question: Should the scientific observer ever intercede? Like the Rockefeller expedition into New Guinea. Do you try to help settle obvious conflicts between natives, or do you just sit back and let the natives find their own solutions?'

I didn't like the sound of that. 'Getting caught in the middle,' I said, 'That's what I'm talking about.'

'Hey, man, no one's going to hurt me. I'm strictly the passive resistance type. Even if they did try to hurt me, I wouldn't fight back.'

'That's why you need to watch your step. Already, you're talking about conflicts.'

'In a hypothetical sense. That's what I'm saying. The main problem here is alcohol and drugs, man. Just like my brothers on the reservations— they've taken their toll. But mosdy, it's close-knit. I'm talking about Sulphur Wells now. Sure, there's some infighting. Name a group that doesn't have that. But there's also an infrastructure that sets the boundaries of what's acceptable, what isn't. Remember Arlis Futch? He's like one of the tribal elders. People don't screw with Mr. Futch. And Hannah, man—she is like the young chief. The way the men react to her. Seeking her approval, but not wanting to show how much. 'Cause they're men, right? And she's a woman. But she's stronger than them. She's stronger than them, and they know it.'

Hearing her name for the first time keyed the abdominal twitterings. I wondered if she was there, in the room with Tomlinson. Her bare feet thumping along the wooden floor; reaching out to touch her fingers to him as she passed. Maybe listening in, knowing I was on the other end of the line, but not acknowledging it, not even calling out a greeting.

The sensation of her fingernail tracing the shape of my ear flashed and lingered. I said, 'By the way, if she's around—Hannah—tell her I said hello.'

'I will, man, I will. She's down at the fish house with Mr. Futch now. Those two—that's a whole other intense story. But I will.'

'Things are going okay?'

'With Hannah, you mean?'

'Well . . . sure.'

'I can't even tell you, Doc. Seriously. The whole karma thing is just too heavy. It's like mixing LSD-25 with IBM—the most radical fucking business trip since Rasputin met the czar. I mean, my head is spinning. Mostly, I eat a lot of collard greens, drink a lot of well water, and work on her book. Doesn't even have a typewriter. We had to borrow one.'

As I tried to interpret that, he added, 'She starts out with all this beautiful fishing folklore. Never carry money on a working boat. It's bad luck. Same if someone says the word 'alligator.' The blade end of an oar has to be facing the stern. If a pregnant woman goes into labor after dark, panthers will gather outside the house to watch. Or to stand guard. You get the shits, you make tea from this tree called white stopper. You get snake-bit, you make a poultice from Spanish moss. Very heavy into the medicinal stuff. She knows about herbs I've never even heard of.'

He hadn't answered the question that I could not bring myself to ask outright. 'So you and Hannah are . . . you two are . . .'

'Yeah, we're up to our Haras in work, man. People keep stopping around. What happened to Jimmy, the cops are still interested in that one. Plus, there's a lot of weird jockeying going on here. Because of the net ban? You know: who's going to sell what. There are about three hundred commercial fishermen on this island; most of them own property. So what happens in July if they all try to sell their homes at once? The property values, I'm talking about. Gumbo Limbo is a busy little place these days. People are trying to get themselves into position for when the big ax falls.'

I found that interesting, so pressed Tomlinson to expand on it. 'Arlis Futch,' he said, 'is one of the main players. If he gets some cash from Tallahassee, maybe he can convert his fish house into a little marina. If not, he'll go out of business. Mr. Futch is like: Screw it, pay me, don't pay me. What's he care? He's no kid and he owns it free and clear—that's what Hannah told me. That, plus some acreage across the road where he keeps cattle. Another one's this guy, remember the guy we met? Raymond Tullock? He's part of the picture too, trying to pick his