Coconut Cowboy (3 page)

 

Chapter
FOUR

BORN ON THE BAYOU

T
he oncoming pickup truck approached the motorcycle on a lonely country road.

A shotgun poked out the window.

Bang
.

The cyclist crashed, and the red-­white-­and-­blue teardrop gas tank exploded in a fireball.

Serge watched the flames rise on his laptop screen. He turned off the device and dabbed misty eyes.

Coleman exhaled smoke from a bong he'd fashioned out of a toy airplane. “Why are you so upset?”

“The last scene in
Easy Rider
always chokes me up.” He aimed a camera out the window. “Two freethinkers exploring the limitless road of our great nation, and they're wasted by a pair of mental dead ends.”

Coleman exhaled again as pot smoke filled a tiny cockpit. “I remember that movie now. It was about those cats doing weed all the time. What a great plot!”

“Coleman, that wasn't the plot—­”

“It most definitely
was
the plot.” Coleman nodded emphatically as he packed another bowl in the luggage compartment. “I mean morning, noon and night, coast to coast, blazing fat ones with everyone they met, listening to righ­teous music, munching out, then torching up again before driving to meet new ­people with their own weed, passing more doobies until they all finally fell asleep. Then they'd wake up and do the same thing again, day after day. Why don't they still make movies with great plots like that?”

“Coleman,
Easy Rider
was about the American Dream.”

“Like I just said.”

“No, not like . . . Never mind.”

Conversation took a break as the powder-­blue 1972 Mercury Comet sat quietly on a deserted shoulder off Highway 105.

Serge and Coleman. An unforeseen permutation of the odd ­couple. Theirs was a long-­standing alliance of mutual tolerance with a perpetual sound track of camera clicks and bong bubbles.

Coleman raised his hand.

Serge pointed at him in recognition. “Yes, the transfer student from Cannabis County.”

“Why are we in Louisiana?”

Serge twisted the camera's telephoto lens. “Because it happened right there . . .”
Click, click, click.
“ . . . the shooting location of the final scene from
Easy Rider,
a few miles north of Krotz Springs.”

“How'd you find it?”

“Exhaustive, frame-­by-­frame analysis of the closing aerial shots fading back from the burning motorcycle.”
Click, click, click.
“That modest bayou out there was the last clue. I studied Internet satellite photos until I located it alongside the Atchafalaya River.” He lowered the camera as a dragonfly flew in the open window. “Except they used a little geographical liberty to choose this filming site because the story line had them heading east out of New Orleans, not northwest.”

Coleman's eyes rolled in their sockets as they followed the insect buzzing along the inside of the windshield looking for an exit. “Dragonfly, dragonfly, dragon . . . fly, dra-­gonnnnn-­fly, dragon-­flyyyyyyy, dragon-­ffffffly, dragon! fly! . . . fly! dragon! . . . dra-­fly-­gon! . . .”

“Coleman, whatever the fuck it is you're doing, can you please stop?”

“Hey, Serge, you know how if you keep repeating the same thing over and over, it just becomes meaningless gibberish?”

“I do now.”

“That's seriously messed up. It's all I'm saying.”

“Keep those bulletins flowing.”

“You got it.” He leaned back over his airplane.

“But here's the part that really hacks me off.”
Click, click, click.
“Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper were heading to Florida. That was their ultimate goal. And after they trip on acid in that cemetery and hit the road, I'm rubbing my palms in anticipation: ‘Okay, here comes the best part of all! My home state!' And then suddenly it's over. I bought the DVD to scour the bonus material for an alternate ending, but no luck there, either.”

Serge started up the car.

“Where now?” asked Coleman.

“The key to my quest for the American Dream. Those two cyclists were always hitting small towns on their quest for the Sunshine State.” Serge pulled back onto the road. “So we're going to pick up the baton that Fonda and Hopper dropped right here and head south to create our own alternate ending.”

A
n hour later, the Comet rolled east out of Slidell on Route 190.

“Man, you must really love that movie,” said Coleman. “I remember you swearing you'd never leave Florida again, after that last time.”

Serge studied the side of the road with intention. “Technically we're still in Florida.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Coleman. “We're not even back to Mississippi.”

“The sign we passed a while ago said we crossed the Saint Tammany Parish line.”

“Parish? You mean like nuns and shit?” Coleman rubbed phantom pain from his knuckles.

“The other forty-­nine states have counties, but because of Napoleonic law and influence, Louisiana has parishes,” said Serge. “The French are a curious tribe.”

“But what's that got to do with Florida?”

“When you say Louisiana, ­people think, sure, Louisiana Purchase, 1803, I was paying attention that day in school.”

“I was home with the mumps.”

“But the purchase was mainly west of the Mississippi River. So where did Louisiana get the rest of the land that makes up the eastern bottom of its L shape?”

“I'd like to buy a vowel.”

“Florida!” said Serge. “Back then our Panhandle stretched all the way to the Mississippi in a region controlled by Spain. But settlers of British descent didn't dig it, and in 1810 they successfully stormed the garrison at Baton Rouge and proclaimed independence. It blows the mind! Few realize it today, but in the early nineteenth century, there was actually a separate country within the United States. They drew up a constitution—­which officially referred to the new nation as the ‘State of Florida'—­established branches of government, elected a legislature and designed a flag of a lone white star on a blue field. The president was named Fulwar Skipwith.”

“You're making that up.”

“History has an imagination greater than any writer,” said Serge. “Sadly, the new nation only lasted ninety days. The U.S. government looked south and said, ‘Nice work with the Spanish, boys. Now we'll take that land, please.' Then they annexed it to what became the state of Louisiana, but to this day the land is still referred to as the Florida Parishes. There are eight of them, including Saint Tammany. Discovering that kind of insane Florida trivia is so intense that I become temporarily incontinent.” Serge glanced around the empty stretch of road and pulled the car over. “This is as good a place as any.”

“For what?”

Serge grabbed a long pole from the backseat. “Just stay alert.”

The pair headed up a grassy embankment. Serge climbed over a barbed-­wire fence, and Coleman crawled under it. “Ow, ooo, ow . . .”

Serge reached the top of a small hill and jammed his pole in the ground, unfurling a blue flag with a white star. Then he scanned the horizon. “I don't see any opposition.”

“What's that noise?” asked Coleman.

“Sounds like a tractor.”

They turned around. A furious farmer dismounted and stomped up the back side of the mound. “Just what in the hell do you think you're doing on my property?”

“We're from Florida.” Serge raised the front of his tropical shirt to reveal a Colt .45 in his waistband. “You're welcome to continue plowing this land if you shift your allegiance to my state.”

The farmer began backing away slowly, then turned and ran.

“Make that ninety-­one days and counting. And without a shot fired. I always wanted to be president.” Serge handed his camera to Coleman. “Take my picture next to the flag.”

He grabbed the pole and stared off proudly.

Click
.

Coleman handed the camera back. “What just happened?”

“We formed our own country.”

Coleman froze. “Wait, what? . . . I can't believe it! This is so incredible! I don't know what to say! It's the best idea you've ever had! I'll never forget this day as long as I live!”

“Uh, thank you Coleman.” Serge rubbed his chin. “I always thought my history stuff kind of bored you.”

“Shit, no! I've never been so excited!”

“This is an astonishing development,” said Serge. “There still may be hope for you—­”

“Hold on! Hold on!” Coleman turned to light a mondo joint against the wind. “Pot's legal here, right? This is going to be so fantastic! I'll be the drug czar, but like in the cool way. I'll, you know, sit on a royal throne and point at ­people: ‘Yes, you may get stoned. Let it be written.' This is so freaking great!”

“Settle down, Beavis.”

“When do we plant the crops? I know these dudes who can help. Man, they'll all flip!”

“Coleman, there are much more serious issues when you become sovereign.” He gestured back at the flapping blue flag. “You think we're just playing fort here?”

“Sorry. What do we need to do?”

“First, get recognition from another power as a bulwark against annexation. Maybe I'll back-­channel to establish diplomatic ties with the Conch Republic.” Serge smiled at the notion. “They'll understand our struggle.”

“Who's the Conch Republic?”

“In 1982, the federal government roadblocked the Florida Keys, searching for drugs and illegal immigrants. This pissed off the chamber of commerce because it choked tourism, so they seceded from the United States, and in short order declared war, surrendered and applied for foreign aid. The publicity stunt worked and the roadblocks were removed.”

“That's pretty weird.”

Serge nodded and headed back to the car. “The second weirdest surrender in Key West history.”

“What's the first?”

“In 2003, four armed Cuban soldiers docked their Coast Guard boat at the Hyatt and marched in uniform past the T-­shirt shops on Duval Street looking for a police officer so they could defect.”

Serge reached the barbed-­wire fence by the road. “What's that racket?”

Coleman pointed toward the Comet. “Banging from inside your trunk.”

Serge slapped himself on the forehead. “Damn, I completely forgot about him.”

TWO HUNDRED MILES SOUTH

An empty chair sat in the noon sun.

It was the standard folding metal variety found in school auditoriums. Everyone's seen them a million times.

This one stood in the middle of the Florida Turnpike.

Cars swerved around it at the last second because paying attention out the windshield was considered madness. But the long-­haul truckers knew better. They sat high up in semi cabs, keeping their eyes on the horizon for swerving cars, which indicated either debris in the road or someone preventing another driver from passing.

Highways in other states were mainly strewn with strips of shredded tires, but Florida had imagination, and the truckers had seen it all. Sofas, washing machines, outboard motors, giant stuffed bears from carnival midways, fondue equipment, and statues of underrated saints. So, next to a holy concrete sculpture of Ulrich of Augsburg, patron saint of fainting conditions and rodent control (true), a simple chair barely drew a second thought, except maybe how it had come to be upright.

The next truck was one of those double-­decker automobile carriers that dealerships use. But the chair was still a ways off. Before the truck got there, a Datsun pulled over and the driver threw the piece of furniture in his trunk, then drove away slightly happier.

The car carrier continued south past the exit for Hobe Sound. Many such trailers are loaded with shiny, virgin vehicles fresh from the factory. Then there are flatbed trucks stacked with wrecked vehicles that have been crushed like beer cans. This particular carrier was somewhere in the middle. The paint on the cars did not sparkle anymore, and all the odometers were into six digits. These were the dubious trade-­in vehicles that dealers immediately wanted off the property before they became eyesores. The somewhat-­running cars were then dumped at bottom-­feeding auctions to bidders who looked exactly like ­people at a dog track.

Each car had a story, some more fascinating than others. But at one time they were all the source of great joy, just driven off the lot with that new smell and a new owner buoyed by the notion that this was a move up.

Take the third car on the bottom deck of the southbound carrier: an '02 Altima put together at the Nissan factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, where a woman named Noreen had spot-­welded the muffler before attending a baby shower that received mixed reviews. From there, the car was shipped to a dealership in Jacksonville and sold to a bilingual call-­center manager named Keagan, who held a correspondence degree and a lifelong fascination with the Gabor sisters. After replacing the manifold, the title was transferred to a lactose-­intolerant data entry clerk, then to her nephew-­in-­law, who street-­raced it in Titusville before entering the vehicle's on-­and-­off period of being towed with a rope by another car before ending up on blocks in the front yard until code enforcement stepped in.

A private buyer who earned a modest income scouring the classified ads had offered to purchase the disabled car for the cost of removal, and with a little work on the piston rings, it was running again and auctioned to A-­OK Auto Brokers, who leased space on the vehicle carrier that was just about to exit the turnpike in Opa-­locka.

A few miles away stood one of those derelict used car lots with chain-­link and a dancing sign spinner that made passing motorists think,
There but for the grace of God.
A man in Bermuda shorts followed the salesman down a row of Camaros and Jettas and Hyundais. “These are all cream puffs despite the high mileage.”