1976

You want what? Told him I wanted snails. He laughed. Asked if I wanted frog legs and shrimps too because I'd eaten mess of both night before. Throw turtle soup in there, he said. Might is Goddamn well. Waiter asked if we wanted juice and coffee and he said no thanks. Double Bloody Mary for grandad and V-8 for me. He looked at me while he ordered. Two escargot, few orders frog legs, two shrimp cocktails, big bowl of turtle soup. Extra horseradish and lemons for the shrimp. No word from the waiter. Just a nod. Grandad fired up a Dutch Masters after he finished the Bloody Mary. He dug his thick fingers into the red stained glass and picked the pepperoncini out and bit into it and it exploded. He puffed on his cigar and exhaled. I ate frogs and shrimp and snails in a cloud of cigar smoke. Eveyone ate quietly and chatted softly and smoked in the dining room.

Midday after nine holes he wheeled the golf cart into the club lot. Uncle Gordon'd thrown his nine iron. Twice. Saw gators sunning on green. Egret in ponds. Lot of commotion at the clubhouse lagoon. Olympic hopeful svelte in black speedo and Mark Spitz mustache diving for balls. He dove soudlessly. No splash. No movement. Surfaced at bank with hands full of Titleists. Kept it up for half hour until ten foot gator got him. Tore his leg off at the knee. In shock he walked right out the pond and added blaze orange balls to the pile blood rushing from the mangled thigh. Club security found his gator later that night. Shined and shot him in the head with a deer rifle. Jacksonville paper ran a page two spread on it. Saw paper laying on the clubhouse table while a black man buffed spikes.

At the pool women read Benchley. Men read Woodward and Berstein. Crosstalk. Someone killed a thresher shark that morning. Caught at dawn on a surfcaster and landed it. Left thrashing on the sand to die. Not going to let a shark scare us out the water, grandad said. We floated in the ocean. Water green translucent. Hills and valleys and mountain range of water. We bobbed in waves. Grandad wore his club polo into the ocean. Opened and closed like a parasol, phospherescent there in the lime green water. He smoked his Dutch Masters. We listened to waves break on the shore. Listened to gulls. Listened to pelicans dive and splash and splash out the water and into the air, silvery fish in the Vs of their beaks. Big supper tonight, Sturt, he said. Big supper. Wave gained and rose and took us under. Didn't see it coming. Felt his hands in the foam. White and green. Felt them coming and he got my ankle and then my arm and I coughed and seawater came out my mouth and nostrils. He still had his cigar in him mouth. Looked like a big dead brown bug.

Bluegrass played. There was a watermelon eating contest. Seed spitting contest. Dad and Lawrence drank High Life out of pony bottles and bitched about Gerald Ford. Dad said Carter was too smart and too idealistic to be president. Said he'd run the country into the goddamn ground. Lawrence was trying to quit smoking. He dipped Copenhagen instead. Dad ribbed him. A rich jew lawyer from Goddamn Baltimore dipping snuff, he said. Lawrence let me have some of his beer. Tastes like apple juice doesn't it kiddo? Shit no it didn't.

There was crab and lobster and oysters and clams. There were great platters of fried and broiled fish and cauldrons of drawn butter and grated horseradish and tartar sauce. We sat at the bar and a black man shucked oysters for us and tossed them on trays loaded with ice and set horseradish and ketchup and lemons and Rooster hot sauce in front of us. Grandad held one to his lips. Same way I drank out your mother's shoe on her wedding night, he said. Drank a glass of Dom out her shoe just like this. He made no sound as he let the oyster slide from the shell over his lips and into his mouth. He looked at me. He chewed. He sighed. Sun set slowly over the ocean. Looked like an expensive cocktail. Waves rolled in. Tide ran out. Bluegrass played. Lawrence's wife Renee said Benchley's The Island wasn't as good as Jaws. No one listened to Renee. She'd had her body weight in Rose.

Grandad went walking the beach by himself after supper. He came up on us hollering. C'mon Sturt. Come with me. He took my hand and picked me up and put me on his shoulders and we went up the beach and the sun had fully set. Could still hear the Bluegrass. See that, he said. Massive seaturtle had dug her nest and was laying her eggs. She was big as a VW Bug. We stood and watched. Fireworks went up over the ocean. Sky bloomed blue and red and white. Fireworks boomed once and twice and three times and white tendrils shook crackling from the sky and vanished as shooting stars.

We watched the seaturtle scuttle slowly back into the ocean and reamained watching her until she was gone. Grandad lit a cigar and we headed back to the rooms. My clothes stuck to me. We heard frogs croaking. Katydids in the palms. Room felt like a meat locker compared to outside. I turned the TV on. Watched Julia Child cook le grand aioli. Grandad told dad and Lawrence about the turtle. Grandad told dad about how many raw oysters I put down at dinner.

Renee explained The Island's plot to mom. I heard her say "pirates." Pirates, I said. I stopped watching Julia Child. Her voice drives me fucking crazy, grandad said. Daddy, mom said. She shook her finger at him. Mom said it wasn't pirates like I liked. She looked at Renee and rolled her eyes. He loves pirates, honey. I want to be one, I said. No you don't, sugar, she said. They are dispicable people. They're killers and theives. They do terrible things. Awful things. I want to be one, I said. Grandad laughed and shook his head and lit a cigar.