American Tropic - By Thomas Sanchez Page 0,67
loud sucking sound. The Chief and the riflemen stare in disbelief at unmasked Bizango, stunned at the exposed face of Luz.
Noah bends close to Luz, trying to hear the words she struggles to get out. Her dim eyes stare up at the beam at the top of the lighthouse; her lips barely move. “Look … Cuban doves … returned … not … extinct … hope.”
Noah looks up to the solitary beacon of light high above. “I can see them, Luz. The Cuban doves are flying. Your doves have returned.”
The rising sun illuminates Noah’s boat, with its radio antenna bolted to the deck, adrift on the ocean. Inside the pilothouse, Noah sits at his console. He swivels in his chair and leans close to the microphone, his words stripped to raw emotion.
“I’ve had calls all morning about Luz Zamora. Many of you are convinced Luz was a senseless cold-blooded murderer, a coward hiding behind a mask. Others believe she was a brave avenger, proving that it takes a woman to do a man’s job. Some think that as Bizango she only murdered corrupt souls, making her a heroic eco-vigilante defending those in nature who cannot defend themselves. We cannot accept what Luz did, killing those who kill the environment, but we can try to understand. The world our children are now born into has thousands of toxic chemicals that did not exist until recently. Unknown poisons invade our air, our water, our homes, our food, our blood. Luz believed that this environment caused her daughter Nina’s childhood leukemia, that it caused her father’s lung cancer, that it caused her own cancer. Who’s to say Luz wasn’t right? There are over two hundred different types of cancer. Who’s to say that all of us are not dying a slow death from rancid rivers, poisoned oceans, defiled land, polluted air, and perverted food?
“Luz thought of herself as the ultimate judge, Bizango the great corrector. Her Bizango believed that man cannot destroy his environment without consequence, that a price must be paid, that accountability must come home to roost. The philosophers say that no man is an island; well, Key West is a real island in the current of the Gulf Stream, it is affected by the totality of the biodiversity swirling around it in air and water. Each and every one of us is no different; no matter where we are on this earth, we are all islands affected by civilization’s implacable currents of consequence bearing down on us.”
Noah stops. He picks up a can of Red Bull from the console and takes a long swig. He leans forward toward the microphone, his voice thickening with conviction.
“Loyal pilgrims, the feds are about to shut down my radio broadcasts, but they aren’t shutting me up. Don’t despair, I remain your Truth Dog, an old dog with new tricks. I’ve been reinstated as an attorney; my battles now will be in the halls of justice. I intend to fight on as another kind of corrector—a small one, not a great one. I believe that it will take millions of small correctors to defeat the great injustices surrounding us. I leave you today with words of wisdom from a poet back in the 1960s, when something new and radical swept the land called the Environmental Movement. The Movement’s true believers carried the torch forward as today’s Green Movement, the New Ecology, or whatever the hell name is slapped on it. The 1960s poet sang his words as if each one was a razor blade cutting his throat with its truth. His was a final cri de coeur, a fierce lament of human frailty. He knew in the end we must lay down the sword after the war is over. I’ll play the poet’s song. I bid you all farewell until my next and very last broadcast.”
Noah pushes a disc into the CD player on the console. From the big battered wood speakers, the song of the poet plays in an undulating rhythm, its words smoldering on the surface.
“This old world
may never change
The way it’s been
And all the ways of war
Can’t change it
back again
I’m not the one
to tell
this world
How to get along
I only know the peace
will come
When
all hate is gone
I been searchin’
for the dolphins
in the sea.
And sometimes I wonder
Do you ever
think of me”
The words fade away, and Noah switches off the speakers. He pushes his chair back, closes his eyes tight, and sits in silence. The trawler sways gently. He opens his eyes and looks down at Chicken, resting at his feet.
“Come on, lover boy, let’s take a breather.”
The dog trots after Noah out onto the deck of the boat, into the fresh salty air. Noah blinks in the bright sunlight. There are no white cumulus clouds as big as Spanish galleons sailing through the sky. There are no spread-wing seabirds skimming across the vast ocean’s blue surface. All is empty, except for a black dot on the far horizon. The dot grows larger as it gets closer, then comes into focus, revealing itself as a speeding Sea Ray boat.
The boat’s twenty-four-foot hull skips over the water. It comes alongside Noah’s trawler and pulls up. Zoe stands at the stainless-steel wheel of the helm. She turns off the engine and calls to Noah on his deck:
“There’s something stuck in a bottle that belongs to me. Will you help get it out?”
She tosses up an empty corked rum bottle and he catches it. She pulls off her sunglasses; her blue eyes are gazing. “So, pirate, what do you think?”
Noah tips the bottle up to the globe of sun. Inside the glass shines Zoe’s gold wedding ring. He uncorks the bottle and taps the ring out into his open palm. He closes the ring in a tight fist and stares at her. “What do I think?”
“Yeah, you’re supposed to be a lawyer, a smart guy.”
Noah reaches down and pulls Zoe up onto his boat. He holds her tight, his words close.
“I don’t think. I know: the pirate has his treasure back.”
Is anyone awake? This is Truth Dog speaking to you for the last time from pirate-radio boat Noah’s Lark. Do you hear me? I’m on the line for you. I’m on the hook. I don’t want it to end this way. We can do better. Call me before it is too late. The whole democracy idea in the beginning was to reinvent, to shed the skin of xenophobia, to climb that noble mountain and plant a flag of infinite possibilities for a new tribe. High hopes are these, my pilgrims, the dreams and schemes of those mad merrymakers, our Founding Fathers. Call Truth Dog. Tell him how lightning strikes you between the eyes and you see the flash of revelation across the ocean. This is your last chance. Rise and shine.
Are
you
out
there?
A Note About the Author
Thomas Sanchez is a descendant of cattlemen dating back four generations in California to the nineteenth-century Gold Rush. He was born days after his father was killed at the age of twenty-one in the Battle of Tarawa during World War II. Sanchez’s novels have received numerous honors, and he has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and is a Chevalier of France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Sanchez is also the director of a forthcoming film documentary, Into the Light, chronicling the life of Jack Garfein, survivor of eleven concentration camps, Actors Studio icon, and legendary film director. Sanchez divides his time between San Francisco, Key West, and Paris.
Other titles available in eBook format by Thomas Sanchez
Day of the Bees • 978-0-307-76609-0
King Bongo • 978-0-307-76610-6
Mile Zero • 978-0-307-76608-3
Rabbit Boss • 978-0-307-49748-2
Zoot-Suit Murders • 978-0-307-49895-3
For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com
ALSO BY THOMAS SANCHEZ
Rabbit Boss
Mile Zero
King Bongo
Day of the Bees
Zoot-Suit Murders
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
First Page
About the Author
Other Books by This Author