"And about this regrets thing," said Bert the Shirt. Having been dead and then alive, he didn't always see things in the same order as other people, he didn't believe that time and thought and conversation went in one direction only. "What is there really to say about it? This guy, maybe I shouldn'ta clipped 'im? That guy, maybe I shoulda clipped 'im sooner?"
Vincente silenced his colleague with a lifted eyebrow. Certain things you didn't talk about, not even kiddingly, not even among family. Discretion—this was something no one seemed to understand anymore. Keeping secrets—when did this come to be seen as a bad thing? It used to be a sacred obligation to keep secrets; it was like guarding a treasure. It took courage, discipline. There was a soldierly pain that went with holding things inside, and the bearing of that pain became a source of pride, of dignity.
Didn't people realize this? You kept secrets not for pleasure but because it was a duty. Keeping secrets had cost Vincente pain and anguish all his life; it cost him pain and anguish still. He thought about the pain and the hard pride it engendered, and he did a slow burn within himself.
"Nah, Joey," he said at last, "fuhget about it. Writing stuff down." He made that hissing grunt again. "Just fuhget about it."
Joey Goldman pursed his lips, looked down at his fingernails. This, he thought, was the story of his life where family was concerned. You try to do the right thing, you try to help; it ends up being the wrong thing, it ends up in a squabble. He got up just enough to reach across the patio table and pour more wine for everyone. He knew the question that needed to come next: Pop, then what are you gonna do? And he knew he couldn't ask it, it was too raw, too sharp. So he got up and strolled over the damp tiles around the swimming pool to light the propane grill.
After three years in the Keys, Joey was a regular Floridian. He cooked outside, he ate outside, he lived in sunglasses, he'd almost learned to swim. And, unlike when he'd lived up north, he hardly ever got knots in his stomach, except where his family was concerned.
2
"Everyone's got a book in 'im," said Joey Goldman. "I read that somewhere, maybe I heard it on TV, who remembers? But I think it's true. Don't you?"
"A decent book?" said Arty Magnus. "No, it isn't true. It's one of those lame and stupid democratic lies."
It was around five-thirty the next day and they were sitting at the Eclipse Saloon, their elbows deep in the vinyl-covered padding that edged the U-shaped bar. The place was filling up around them, starting to smell of smoke and suntan lotion. Tourists who felt more authentically schnockered if they drank near locals were rubbing shoulders with the stuffed fish hanging on the walls.
"Come on," said Joey. "Wit' the crazy things that happen to people, the wild thoughts they have?"
"Joey," Magnus said, "lemme ask you something. In kindergarten you finger-painted, right?"
Joey nodded.
"You squeezed the paint out on your fingers, you shmeared it around. It felt nice, right? You expressed yourself—"
"I see where you're goin'," Joey cut in. "But it's not the same."
"Joey, was your painting any good? Did anybody but your mother wanna look at it?"
"But a grown person," Joey pressed. "Someone who's seen a lotta life. It's different."
"Is it?" Magnus said. "I'm not so sure. This town, every jerk in every bar thinks he has a great story, a goddam saga. I've never seen a place where there's so many basically dull people who think they must be great eccentrics, real characters, just because they live here."
Joey sipped his rum and orange juice, fiddled with the earpiece of his shades, which dangled from the pocket of his shirt, and considered whether he would push the question or let it drop. He decided the hell with it, he'd let it drop, but his mouth carried on without him. "The person I'm thinking about, he isn't from here, he's from New York."
"Ah," said Magnus, "another place that people think makes them automatically interesting."
"It's my father," Joey said. He said it softly. The words were almost lost in the buzz of the bar.
Arty Magnus frowned, took a hand that was cold from holding his bottle of beer, ran it over his tall forehead and through his frizzy hair. Magnus was city editor of the Key West Sentinel and, like most journalists, he reveled in the confidence that he could really cream someone with a few well-chosen words, but it shamed him, seemed a failure of attention and a sloppy piece of work, to give offense without meaning to. "Shit," he said. "Sorry."
Joey shook it off. "Hey, I'm just thinkin' out loud heah. No big deal. I'm a little worried about the old man, is all."