they shot past anchoring boats with speed blurs. The second time, the speedometer hit eighty miles per hour, and Norman thrust a fist of triumph into the air and shot a quick glance toward Magdalena. Quick, because not even the hypomaniac dared keep his eye off where he was going any longer than that.
When he finally throttled down and put the nose back on the water, Magdalena said to herself, ::::::Please don’t turn toward me and break into your big grin and say, “Guess what speed we hit!” and then make a face that begs for an awed reaction.::::::
He turned toward her with his self-awed grin and said, “I can’t believe it myself!” He motioned toward the gauges in front of him. “Did you see that?! Am I kidding myself?! Eighty miles an hour! I swear, I never even heard of a cigarette boat reaching that speed! I could feel it! I bet you could, too!” He beamed another awed-reaction opportunity her way. ::::::Give him anything but that, or he’ll do it again. He’s feverish with Pride.:::::: So she gave him a compulsory stillborn smile, the kind that would freeze any normal man. To Norman it was nothing more than a cool breeze.
The cigarette boat covered the twenty miles to Elliott Key just like that. They knew they were there, not because they could see the key… but because they couldn’t. The key itself was obscured by a promiscuous congestion of boats, reaching out at least a half mile… appeared to be thousands of them—thousands—some of them anchored, some of them somehow lashed together side by side, as many as ten in a row. Little dinghies motored about amid the bigger boats… What was that? It turned out to be a kayak, with one boy standing at the prow, paddling. A boy and a girl reclined behind him, each holding a plastic cup.
Music from God knows how many amped-up speakers rolled across the water—rap, rock, running rock, disco, metro-billy, reggae, salsa, rumba, mambo, monback—and collided above a loud and ceaseless undertone of two thousand, four thousand, eight thousand, sixteen thousand lungs crying out, shouting, shrieking, caterwauling, laughing, above all laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing the stilted laugh of those proclaiming that this is where things are happening, and we are in the heat of it… There were motorized boats with two and three levels of decks, enormous boats, and you could see, far and near, the forms of people hopping up and down and flailing this way and that—dancing—and—
Norman had now steered the cigarette boat deep into the regatta’s helter-skelter and was trolling slowly, ever so slowly, with the thousand-horsepower engines growling growling growling growling ever so lowly lowly lowly… around this boat… between those two… along the lineups of boats tethered together side by side, closely, ever so closely… looking up at the people… who were dancing and drinking and squealing and laughing laughing laughing laughing—we’re here we’re here where things are happening! happening! happening! happening! to the beat—always the beat—of octophonic speakers electro-thunging out beats, beats, repro-beats, and the singers, always girls, became nothing more than beats themselves… no melody… only repro-beats… stringed bass, drums, beat-girls…
The closer they got to the key—they still hadn’t laid eyes on it—the more boats they found lashed together, side by side, at the widest part of the hulls. It turned the boats into one big deck party, despite the different levels. A girl in a G-string bikini—so much blond hair!—teeters upon the narrow juncture where two boats are joined together and squeals with—she squeals with what? fear? coquetry? flirtation? the sheer exuberance of being where things are happening?—as guys hurry over and reach up to steady her. Another girl in a G-string bikini leaps over the juncture and lands on the other deck. The boys cheer with slightly ironic gusto, and one keeps yelling, “I would! I would!”… and the speakers boom boom boom with a beat a beat a beat a beat.
::::::and what does Norman think he’s doing?:::::: In front of the lashed-together lineups Norman would unleash a sudden burst of fuel, and the thousand-HP engines would ROAR and everybody on the decks would peer down and cheer drunkenly and ironically. There were many small boats also weaving in and out of the boat mob… dinghies, motorboats, and every so often the kayak—that same kayak!—the paddler in the front now drunkenly singing… something… and the guy and the girl in the back drunkenly extending one leg and then the other…