American Tropic

Luz and Joan greet the guests in their garden. They give welcoming hugs to the men dressed in colorful slacks and guayabera shirts and kiss the women wearing flowery tropical dresses. Beneath a banyan tree, a banquet table is set with a Cuban feast, a steaming roast pig at its center. Nearby, guests dance on a wooden platform to a snappy Cuban rhythm played by three musicians. Noah stands off to the side of the crowd, tossing a tennis ball to Chicken in a game of fetch.

Nina, wearing her curly brown wig and white Quince-party dress, is wheeled through the merriment in her chair by Carmen. Carmen pushes Nina between guests and stops in front of Noah. He notices the pearl necklace gleaming around Nina’s neck. “Who gave you those beautiful pearls?”

Nina blushes with pride. “My mom.”

“I’m glad your mom didn’t give you one of these, or I’d be out of luck.” Noah holds up a delicate watch with a pink patent-leather band. He straps the shiny watchband to Nina’s thin wrist and kisses her forehead.

Nina looks with wonder at the watch. “Oh, Uncle, thank you.”

“Happy fifteen! You’ve arrived!”

Carmen looks across the lawn at Zoe, standing in front of a flowering hibiscus bush near the musicians. Carmen turns back to Noah. “Auntie Zoe is over there. How come you aren’t dancing with her?”

Noah gazes at Zoe; she is wearing a strapless sundress, her tanned shoulders are bare, her blond hair is swept back. Zoe sways her hips gently to the rhythm of the trio. Noah nods wistfully. “I don’t think Auntie Zoe wants to dance with me.”

Carmen rolls her eyes. “Boys can be so clueless.”

Nina summons up her strongest voice. “Did you ask her if she wants to dance?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Nina motions Carmen to lean close to her. She whispers in Carmen’s ear. They both giggle. Carmen grabs the back of Nina’s wheelchair and pushes Nina away from Noah, across the lawn; she stops in front of Zoe.

Nina blurts out in a flush of excitement to Zoe, “Uncle Noah wants to dance with you!”

Zoe looks across the lawn at Noah throwing the tennis ball for Chicken to chase. “Does he really want to dance? How sweet of you to come and tell me.” She reaches into the hibiscus bush behind her and picks two large white flowers. She hands one to Carmen and fixes the other behind Nina’s ear.

Carmen tucks her white hibiscus behind her ear. “Aren’t you going to dance with Uncle Noah?”

“He should ask me himself.”

Nina holds up her thin wrist to Zoe, showing off the pink watch. “Uncle Noah gave this to me.”

Zoe runs her finger over the crystal face of the watch. “Your uncle loves you very much to give you something so beautiful.”

Nina nods. “He’s a great uncle. I’m sure he didn’t ask you to dance himself because he’s too scared. You know how boys are.”

Zoe faces Noah, on the far side of the lawn. “Too scared, huh. Well, then, we girls must have our own strategies, mustn’t we?”

Nina and Carmen giggle their enthusiastic agreement.

Zoe walks across the lawn, her high heels stabbing into the grass. She stops short in front of Noah. “That’s a shameless trick, getting the girls to ask me to dance with you.”

Noah flinches in surprise. “I didn’t ask them to do anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t ask them. I wasn’t even certain you’d come today.”

“Of course I would come.”

Noah’s gaze goes to Zoe’s formfitting strapless dress, outlining the swell of her hips, the thrust of her breasts. “That’s quite a dress. You can still throw a knockout punch when you want to.”

“I didn’t come here to throw punches.”

“So, instead of punches, dance with me.”

“I told you, it’s over.”

“I still say, it’s not over until it’s over. If you won’t give me a last dance, let me make you a last dinner.”

“Dinner! You never cooked one meal for me in our entire marriage. The only thing you did in the kitchen was open liquor bottles.”

“It’s an innocent invitation, a thank-you for bailing me out. If it wasn’t for you and Joan, I’d still be behind bars.”

“You’ll be free enough when our divorce is final.”

“Free, or penalized?”

Zoe studies Noah’s face, looking for sincerity. Her voice softens. “Okay, dinner at your place. But understand, it is over. This will be our last dinner.”

The three musicians on the bandstand stop playing. At the banquet table beneath the banyan tree, Luz clinks her champagne glass for attention. Everyone joins Luz around the table and takes a seat.

Luz’s face brightens with a smile. “I cannot thank all of you enough for surrounding us with your love.” She raises her glass to Nina, seated in her wheelchair between Carmen and Zoe. “Nina, you are my jewel, the bright star of Cuba shining over our family. Your gentleness and courage teach us every day a new lesson in life.” Luz’s throat tightens; she continues with deepening emotion. “Your strength of character nourishes the roots of our family tree for eternity.” Luz raises her champagne glass higher to Nina. “A toast to you, my precious daughter, on your fifteenth birthday!”

Everyone around the table joins Luz in raising their glasses to Nina in her wheelchair. They all take a celebratory drink and cheer. Amid the cheering, Joan appears, carrying on a silver tray a three-tiered white-frosted cake. On the cake’s top tier, sixteen candles, one for each year and one for good luck and growth, burn brightly. She sets the cake in front of Nina.

Nina stares wide-eyed at the cake. She looks across the candles to the other side of the table, at Luz. “Mom, can you help me blow them out?”

“Go on, honey. You can do it. This is your day.”

Nina inhales deeply and concentrates. She leans down and blows. Candles on the cake flicker and go out with little puffs of smoke. One smoking candle flares up again, its wick still burning. Nina’s smiling face turns to disappointment.

Zoe, next to Nina, puts her arms around her in a hug. “Brava, Nina! That last burning candle is for good luck in the future!” Nina beams as everyone applauds.

Luz holds up a gaily wrapped box. “There’s one more thing. Here it is, the most exciting part of the Quince.” She walks around the table and kneels next to Nina in her wheelchair. She unwraps the box. “You are becoming a woman today, so you get your first real high heels. That’s the tradition—we are a very traditional people.” She removes the box lid. Nina gasps at the sight of red high-heel shoes. Luz pulls off the flat white shoes Nina is wearing and slips the high heels onto her feet.

Nina throws her arms around Luz. “Mom! I love you!”

“You always wanted a pair of sparkling magic shoes like the ones Dorothy wore on her journey to see Oz. Now you’ll be able to walk the Yellow Brick Road all the way to the Emerald City. When you get there and you meet Oz, tell him”—Luz bends forward and kisses Nina’s forehead—“tell him how much your family adores you.”



Noah, Rimbaud, and the public defender wait in the courtroom at the defendant’s table. Noah keeps his eyes on the judge’s empty elevated podium at the front of the room. Rimbaud’s face muscles twitch. At the prosecution’s table, across the aisle, three attorneys chat in low voices as they shuffle papers back and forth from their briefcases. In the back of the crowded courtroom, a tall black man wearing a suit and tie sits in the last row. His face is stern, his attention bearing straight ahead at the defendant’s table.

A bailiff enters from a side door and commands loudly: “All rise. Court is in session. The Honorable Judge Helen Reese presiding.” Everyone in the room rises except Rimbaud, who didn’t understand what the bailiff said in English. Noah nudges Rimbaud to his feet.

The cloaked judge enters from her chambers and sits at her elevated podium. She looks down. “Be seated. Our court schedules are backed up, so time, as well as justice, is of the essence. I’ll make this brief. Since the defendant’s last appearance before me, I have reviewed investigative reports and detailed lab results pertinent to the murder of Pat Benson. I also perused briefs and motions from the defense counsel. I see no substantial evidence, not even circumstantial evidence, that Mr. Rimbaud Mesrine perpetuated a crime, let alone the egregious crime of murder.” The judge turns her focus to the attorneys at the prosecution table. “Would the prosecution like to make a statement?”

One of the prosecution attorneys stands and answers the judge. “Your Honor, having reviewed the facts of this case, we concur with the court and see no reason to move ahead with prosecution. If it pleases the court, we accept a motion to dismiss with prejudice.”

“Thank you. You may be seated.” The judge turns her attention to the defendant’s table. “I have consulted with federal immigration authorities regarding Mr. Mesrine’s legal status. The salient fact, as presented in Mr. Mesrine’s statement given voluntarily to the court interpreter, is that both his parents and three siblings were on the raft with him, headed from Haiti to America. Everyone on that raft was declared deceased upon reaching U.S. waters except for Mr. Mesrine. Since Mr. Mesrine entered the United States as an unaccompanied indigent minor, I hereby grant him political asylum and place him in the custody of his adult cousin, François Lefaille, a U.S. citizen with residence in Tampa, Florida.” The judge bangs her gavel. “Case dismissed.”

Rimbaud, confused, looks to Noah. His words blurt out in French: “What did she say? What’s happening?”

Noah answers in French. “Political asylum. She granted you political asylum.” He pulls Rimbaud up from his chair and claps him on the back.

Rimbaud looks around, still confused. He sees the tall black man walking straight down the aisle toward him. Rimbaud steps behind Noah for protection. The man stops before Noah and grabs Noah’s hand in a firm grip, his voice booming in French. “I’m Cousin François Lefaille. Rimbaud’s dear mother, Marie-Pierre, who died on the raft, was my aunt.”

Rimbaud, hearing his mother’s name, pokes his head around from behind Noah’s back and stares at the man. Lefaille looks sympathetically at Rimbaud. “I left Haiti when you were just a baby. I am here for you. My dear, I am your family.” Rimbaud’s eyes well up with tears and he sobs. The tall man puts his arms around Rimbaud. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Safe.”

Noah shakes Lefaille’s hand. “He’ll be okay with you. Thanks.”

“I thank you. The judge told me your interpretation of Rimbaud’s statement helped convince her there was no legal cause to hold him.”

Noah turns and bear-hugs an overwhelmed Rimbaud in an affectionate embrace. “You’re free, my friend. A free man in America.”



Luz stands next to the Police Chief at a lectern onstage, facing anxious reporters and a bank of television cameras. The Chief speaks into a microphone: “We have important information regarding the recent murders. Before we get started, I want to announce that the city of Key West is offering a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the capture of the perpetrator. Detective Luz Zamora, head of the investigation, will fill you in on the latest.”

Luz steps forward and adjusts the lectern microphone. A barrage of camera bulbs flash. “There are two important things we want to share with the public. The first is, we finally have images of the perpetrator. There is video taken by security cameras on the Titan Reef cruise ship. The second thing is, a micro–digital recorder was discovered sewn into the mouth of the Titan Reef’s deceased captain. After intensive lab testing, it is now confirmed that the digital recorder’s brand and make match exactly the other recorders found on the bodies of two previous victims and the audio constructs of all three are executed in precisely the same manner. We will now project for you the ship’s security video. At the same time, we will play the audio of the recorder discovered in the captain’s mouth. We are sharing this so that any member of the public with information can step forward. Remember, there is a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward.” Luz steps away from the lectern. The room plunges into darkness.

A movie screen above the stage fills with flickering light. Images from a cruise ship’s out-of-focus nighttime security camera begin to slowly take shape. The blur of a person, encased in a tight black-and-white rubber skeleton suit, becomes clear. The skeleton rappels down the massive steel hull of the ship in fluid acrobatic muscular motions by a long rope gripped in its rubber hands. A speargun is slung over its shoulder. The skeleton’s grip on the rope slips; it swings erratically alongside the hull, splaying its legs and feet out, trying to get a purchase to keep from falling. The skeleton rights itself from swinging, pulls the rope taut against its chest. It hangs suspended for moments, making no move, then turns its skull face toward the camera. The face fills the entire movie screen, revealing two deep, impenetrable black eye sockets.

The reporters in the dark room gasp. Sound speakers beneath the screen blast a piercing static. From the static emerges the crackling mutant sound of an electronically altered voice.

“Look into my skeletal eyes

you who run over the Key deer

slaughter the sea turtles

erect your condominiums over natural habitats

sail on cruise ships that slash coral reefs

spew waste into pure oceans.

You shout that you are not responsible

for the earth’s ills but my eternal X

cannot be escaped. I am the survivor

refusing to succumb to your polluted oceans,

smogged-up, burnt-out globe.

I am the white heron with radioactive

mud worms eating at my heart.

I rise up from the last mangrove swamp

to avenge your evil.

I am a hex doctor

a magic gangster

king of cemeteries

ultimate judge.

I am your annihilator

the great corrector.

I boogie till you bounce.

I bop till you drop.

I am Bizango.”

The weird sound of Bizango’s voice stops. On the movie screen, the black-and-white skeletal Bizango continues rappelling down the hull of the ship. Bizango lets go of the hanging rope. In a black-and-white blur, Bizango drops. The image of Bizango falling goes out of the movie frame. Suddenly, from another angle, a different security camera picks up Bizango’s steep fall. Bizango’s image becomes smaller and smaller in a seventy-five-foot plunge down the side of the hull toward the water. The white spray of a splash erupts from the water at the bottom of the hull as Bizango disappears beneath the surface. The disturbed water continues to roil, then smooths over and becomes placid.

The video on the screen ends. The bright overhead lights of the room come on. Luz steps to the lectern. She looks out at the stunned reporters. “Again, we share this information with the public so that anyone who knows anything about these heinous crimes will come forward. We are dealing with a self-appointed ecoterrorist, killing those he thinks are responsible for killing the environment. Bizango is a ticking time bomb. He must be stopped before his next murder.”



In the second-story bedroom of his dilapidated mansion, Lareck lies in bed propped up on pillows. A shawl is draped around his shoulders despite the humid night air. His sparse white hair forms a crazy unkempt halo around his head. On the nightstand beside him are scattered bottles of medications.

Noah sits next to the bed, in the old chipped wicker chair. He shakes the ice in his glass of rum and looks up to the ceiling, where a scorpion is scuttling. He watches the scorpion’s hooked stinger-tail arch and twitch as it inches along. He takes a slow drink from his glass, swallows, and clears his throat. “In Key West, you have either scorpions or rats in your house. One or the other. The two will not live side by side.”

Lareck’s weak, watery eyes look up at the scorpion; words wheeze from his lips: “Where’s Hogfish? He’s supposed to be here to give me my medication. I haven’t seen him for days. He couldn’t care less if his old man lives or dies. I’m getting worse by the day.”

Noah takes another drink, then sloshes the ice in his glass. “I wouldn’t worry about Hogfish. He’s probably lying low, spooked by Bizango. We’re all spooked. We each fight fear in our own way. Some light a candle and pray, others have a shot of courage of one sort or another.”

Lareck breaks into raspy laughter. He pushes his bedsheet off, exposing his wrinkled and shriveled body. “Look at me. I’m already a skeleton. Maybe I’m Bizango! I’m not really trapped in this bed. I arise at night and prowl the streets in a skeleton costume. Don’t you know, I’m a spook on the loose!” His raspy laugh continues, turning into a hacking cough. He falls, exhausted, back onto the bed.

Noah sets his glass on the nightstand. “I’ll give you your medication. Let’s not wait for Hogfish.” He pours out a concoction of pills from the bottles on the nightstand and fills a glass with water from a pitcher. He puts his arm around Lareck and helps him sit up.

Lareck’s hacking cough becomes louder. He takes the pills from Noah and struggles to choke them down. He swallows the pills with a groan and sputters. “Why do I keep taking these damn things to stay alive? I’ve already lived eighty-seven years. Doesn’t seem right that I’m still hanging in when your young niece is on her way out. No matter how many pills Nina takes, she’s still being pushed through the exit door. Wish I could take back half my years and give them to her.” Lareck catches his breath and gives Noah a mischievous wink. “Of course, I wouldn’t give Nina my best years. I wouldn’t give the poor unsuspecting girl my shameless p-ssy-hunting years. I’m a generous man, but those years I’m keeping for myself. I’ll take them to Hell with me to keep things hotter.”

“There are some events in a man’s life that he should only share with the devil.”

“The bastard devil hasn’t heard the half of it. Wait till I get there and fill him in. He doesn’t know about the Shanghai French Concession in the 1930s, before Mao finally ruined the party. My God, such antics put Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris whorehouses in the shade. I made my best paintings there. Such colorful goings-on.” Lareck’s wheezing breath breaks into excited hacking coughing.

Noah looks up at the ceiling. The scorpion above stops directly over Lareck. It releases its grip on the ceiling and drops, spiraling down in a fall through the air onto Lareck’s bedsheet. It maneuvers its scaly body into a crawl across the sheet toward Lareck. The hooked stinger-tail vibrates, its forward clawed pincers rapidly snapping.

Noah slugs down all the rum in his glass. He scoops the scorpion up off the sheet into the empty glass. He flips the glass over onto the nightstand, trapping the scorpion inside. He watches the scorpion futilely trying to escape, clawing at the transparent walls of its prison. “Got to protect scorpions. If not, rats will take over the house. They will take over the island.”

Lareck nods in agreement. “Where’s my son? The rat.”

Noah flips the glass right side up with the scorpion inside.

Lareck falls back onto the bed, his pale lips quivering. “Where’s the rat?”

Noah quickly crosses the room with the agitated scorpion in the glass. He shoves open a window and tosses the scorpion out from the glass. The scorpion spins away.



Noah walks in the moonless night through a trash-strewn weedy lot past a battered sign barely discernible in the darkness: TROPIX PARADIZE. He continues along a row of dented and rusting mobile home trailers sitting cockeyed on concrete blocks. He stops, hesitating in front of the most dilapidated trailer. He eyes the rickety steps leading up to a closed aluminum door. Shards of feeble light shine through jagged holes in the door. He walks up the steps, careful not to slip, and bangs on the door. He waits in the silence for a response, then bangs again. From inside the trailer a jittery high-pitched male voice calls out, “No one is here! Go away!”

Noah tries the flimsy handle of the door; it is unlocked. He creaks open the door and cautiously steps inside. He looks around in dim light thrown off by one bare bulb hanging overhead from a frayed cord, its copper wires exposed. His eyes adjust to the shadowy interior. The surrounding windows are boarded over with scraps of plywood. The floor is cluttered with parts of old appliances, bent automobile hubcaps, tangled wire guts of disassembled machines, cracked baseball bats, and broken rat-traps. Seated high up on a dusty stack of yellowed newspapers in the corner is Hogfish.

Hogfish stares from beneath the bill of his fisherman’s cap and shouts in a jittery voice: “I keep moving, so El Finito won’t know where I am when he blows in. Got to keep moving. Got to trick Finito. How’d you find me?”

Noah opens his mouth to speak, but Hogfish jumps down from the newspapers and cuts him off. “Shut up. Don’t talk. El Finito can hear you.”

Noah speaks in a low voice. “I was just going to say—”

“Hey! You want an organ? Works fine!” Hogfish turns to a scratched-up wood organ shoved against the wall. He pounds his fists on the chipped black and white keys.

Noah grimaces at the screeching notes reverberating off the trailer’s tin walls. He covers his ears with his hands and shouts at Hogfish, “Cut the concert!”

Hogfish stops pounding the keys; his head turns around. “You don’t want the organ? You got to take something. When El Finito comes, I can’t be weighed down. I’ve got to run. Run for my life.”

“I’m here to tell you, your father doesn’t have long. He wants to see you.”

Hogfish holds up a dented waffle iron. “How about a waffle iron? You want a waffle iron? Everybody eats waffles.”

“I don’t want anything. Do you understand? Your father might die at any moment. He needs to see you.”

Hogfish throws the waffle iron down with a loud clank. He kicks away boxes overflowing with trinkets and bric-a-brac, exposing on the floor an old 1950s spearfishing gun. The speargun is cocked and loaded with a sharp harpoon spear. Hogfish whips around, pointing the speargun at Noah. “You want a speargun? You can kill a shark with this.”

Noah reels back. “I don’t want a damn thing!”

Hogfish tosses the speargun to the floor and bangs open the top of the organ against the wall. He reaches inside the organ and pulls out a black-handled German Luger. He aims the pistol’s blunt barrel muzzle at Noah. “How about a World War Two German Luger? Shoots nine-millimeter bullets. Nazis killed Yank soldiers and Jews with this!”

“What can I do with that? Shoot your El Finito when he roars ashore? Bullets can’t stop a two-hundred-mile-an-hour category-five hurricane.”

Hogfish moves toward Noah, frantically waving the Luger. “No one can stop El Finito except Bizango! I got a feeling about that! Got a feeling in my bones!” Hogfish stops; the Luger wobbles in his hand. “Take the gun. Shoot yourself in the head with it before Finito catches up to you. You’re better off dead than to see what Finito will do. His thousand-foot tsunami will smash everyone into a million pieces of shattered bones, severed eyeballs, splintered hearts, and hurl them into space.”

Noah lunges forward and grabs the barrel of the Luger, ripping it out of Hogfish’s hand.

Hogfish moans and stares glassy-eyed at the junk-strewn floor. He sees his iPhone and picks it up, shoves its earbuds into his ears. He turns the volume high. His head bobs wildly to music. He lurches at Noah.

Noah whips up the Luger. “No further! Stay where you are!”

Hogfish’s voice ratchets up into hysteria. “Finito’s chasing you! Finito’s going to get you!”

Noah backs away from Hogfish. He kicks open the closed door behind him and jumps out into the night.



The severe slant of late-afternoon sun glares off the brass instruments of a walking band of solemn men dressed in dark suits. The band plays a low-pitched funereal dirge with muted trumpets, melancholic slide trombones, and the repetitious heartrending thump of a bass drum. A long line of mourners follows the band through the open ornate iron gates of the Key West Cemetery. Directly behind the band, Luz and Noah carry a short white casket supported on their shoulders. Following the casket are Joan, Carmen, and Zoe, dressed in black, their faces grief-stricken; they support one another, arm in arm. At the very end of the procession, Hogfish pedals his rusty bicycle.

The mourners weave beneath the gray-shadowed canopy of tall palm trees. They pass between rows of tombstones and granite mausoleums littered with sun-faded plastic flowers. They finally stop before a freshly dug open grave. At the grave’s head is a new white marble statue of a winged angel. The beatific angel extends in its hand above the grave a marble lily.

A somber priest, dressed in purple vestments, steps forward. His voice rises above the sound of sobbing from the mourners gathered around the grave. “Heavenly Father, we do not question Thee in Thy infinite wisdom. You have taken such a young soul to be at Your side in heaven, to seat her with the angels surrounding You. We only ask, dear Lord, that You take pity on those left behind after such an innocent has taken flight from this temporal world. Guide the family and all her loved ones through this storm of anguish. Give us each the faith and courage to survive what seems an unjust and overbearing sorrow.”

Carmen cries out in a wail of pain; her body slumps; she is held up by Joan and Zoe.

Luz and Noah lower the casket on velvet ropes to the grave’s bottom. Only muffled sobbing is heard as the casket descends and settles onto the hard earth.

Carmen, her face wet with tears, her knees shaking, steps next to Luz and hands her a box. Luz opens the box and pulls out a pair of red high-heel shoes. She steps to the edge of the grave and lets the shoes slip from her fingers and drop down. She looks at the shoes glittering next to the white-enameled casket. “Here are your magic shoes, my darling Nina. When you get to the end of the Yellow Brick Road, tell Oz what I told you. Tell him that your family adores you.” From Luz’s eyes, tears spiral downward into the open grave, onto the red shoes.



A line of slump-shouldered mourners, their heads bowed, files out between the iron cemetery gates. In a far, hidden corner of the cemetery, only Hogfish is left. He stands astride his rusty bicycle with its line of barbed J-hooks strung between the handlebars. He watches the entrance gates to make certain no one is coming back. He jams the earbuds of his iPhone into his ears and jumps up onto his bicycle’s cracked leather seat. He pedals furiously, swerving the bike on a snaking path among the gravestones. He hits the brakes and skids to a stop in front of Nina’s grave. The grave is filled in with dirt, its top covered with bouquets of flowers tied by colorful satin ribbons. The fragrance of the flowers is a heady perfume mix in the shifting breeze.

Hogfish gazes across the grave to the winged stone angel extending a marble lily. The angel’s smoothly chiseled face is serene.

Hogfish jabs his finger at the angel. His shouting voice echoes across the cemetery. “Smell the air! When El Finito comes, the air is filled with the stink of dead turtles! Feel his filthy weather creeping up your back. Oppressive weather! Weather that’s hot and calculating! Wants to explode in your face! To annihilate you!”

Hogfish turns away from the angel. He grips the bicycle’s metal handlebars in a white-knuckle hold. He shakes the handlebars, rattling loudly the line of dangling J-hooks. His chest heaves, he struggles for breath, he sucks in air deeply. He looks back in anguish at the angel, tears streaming from his eyes. “Don’t let Finito steal Nina out of her grave! Finito’s almost here!”



The circular steps inside the Key West Lighthouse spiral up in a steep rise of eighty-six feet above Noah. He climbs the steps in the hot, confined air and stops at the uppermost landing to catch his breath. He steps through a narrow passageway leading outside onto an iron catwalk suspended around the top of the lighthouse. He follows the catwalk beneath a massive glass light beacon above. He stops. Before him is Luz.

Luz stands with her hands gripping the top railing of the catwalk. She stares out over the view of the island city’s tightly packed tin-roofed houses melding into the blue of the surrounding ocean. She is startled by Noah’s words coming from behind her.

“Joan told me I might find you here. She said this is where you come when you want to be alone.”

Luz remains silent, not releasing her tight grip on the railing, her breathing labored.

Noah takes a step back. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I understand. I can leave you alone if you want.”

Luz keeps her sight on the sweeping vista. “My father used to bring me up here when I was a little girl. He told me that when this was first lit, in the 1840s, doves flying here over the ocean from Cuba mistook the brilliant light for the sun. The doves flew straight into the beacon.” Luz turns slowly to Noah, her eyes filled with suffering. “That species of dove that crashed to their deaths against this beacon is now extinct. Those doves will never be on this earth again. Gone forever, like my Nina.”

Noah looks at Luz, seeking a way out of the sadness. “You still have two doves to live for. Carmen and Joan are waiting for you. You are needed at home.”

Luz turns away. Her gaze goes back to the vista of the island and the blue horizon beyond.



Lareck lies in bed, listless, near death. His watery eyes stare up at the ceiling. He rasps for breath with an open mouth. A white sheet covers his body up to the neck. A scorpion scuttles along the white sheet, its front pincer claws clicking.

In the wicker chair next to the bed, Hogfish rocks his body back and forth to music blasting through his iPhone’s earbuds.

The scorpion slithers up the bedsheet onto Lareck’s neck. The creature creeps up the side of Lareck’s cheek toward his open mouth. He struggles to speak as he looks pleadingly at Hogfish, his words barely audible. “Scor … pions. Scorpions or … rats. Got to choose. Make your … choice.”

Hogfish bobs his head to the music, watching the scorpion progress up Lareck’s cheek. He reaches out his hand and clamps it tight over Lareck’s mouth. Lareck’s eyes widen in fear, his breath cut.

The scorpion crawls onto the back of Hogfish’s hand covering Lareck’s mouth. Hogfish raises his hand close to his face and stares into the scorpion’s amber eyes. The scorpion stares back; its front scissored pincers widen to attack; its arched stinger-tail vibrates to sting. Hogfish flicks his hand, knocking the scorpion to the floor. He jumps up and stomps the heel of his shoe down, crushing the scorpion’s body and squishing out a snot-colored slime of innards.

Hogfish shouts at the terrified Lareck. “The air will stink of dead scorpions and rats when El Finito turns the world upside down! Fish will be thrown up into the sky! Pelicans will rain down. Iguanas will explode! Finito is coming to end it all!”



Luxury cars are parked in front of a sprawling red-roofed Mediterranean-style villa. Behind the villa, bright overhead lights shine down on a tennis court where two pit bulls ferociously tear into each other’s flesh. Circled around the dogs, betting men shout for blood. Prominent among the men, in his tight Italian silk suit and shiny alligator shoes, is Hard Puppy. At his side are two meth-tweaked party girls, one white and one black, both wearing skintight dresses and stiletto high heels. The party girls shriek as one of the pit bulls rips the throat out of the other in a spray of blood.

Hard pumps his fist triumphantly in the air, then slaps the asses of the party girls. The men around Hard groan with disappointment as he boasts with flashing platinum teeth.

“My bitch won big bucks! She be like a hyena! My bitch can tear the a*shole out of a fleein’ zebra!”



Beneath a full moon, Hard Puppy’s black SUV speeds on the Seven Mile Bridge. The bridge spans sixty-five feet above the ocean in a concrete blade crossing over the deep channel between the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Strait, linking the Upper Keys to the lower islands. Silhouetted in the moon’s glow alongside the bridge is the forlorn remnant of the old Overseas Railroad, blown away to its stubby concrete trestles during the 1935 hurricane that dumped four hundred men to their deaths in the shark-infested waters. Hard glances over at the old bridge and gives an appreciative whistle through his platinum teeth. High on meth and pumped on adrenaline, he steers the SUV ahead with jerky aggressiveness while singing along to the radio’s bass-beat thump of angry rap music booming from surround-sound speakers.

On the front seat, next to Hard, the white party girl sits with her skinny ass rooted into the lap of the black girl. They both lean in next to Hard. Behind them, in the back cargo cab, the winning pit bull paces in an iron-barred cage. The dog’s stout body is ripped and bleeding from its recent fight.

Hard shouts to the party girls above the rap music. “To men I give shit! To ladies I give favors!” He grabs the plump silicone breast of the white girl through her dress. She launches into shrill giggling. The caged pit bull in the back pricks up its ears to the sound and growls with deep-throated menace. Hard punches the SUV’s accelerator pedal to the floor, speeding the SUV to the end of the bridge and onto a narrow road with mangrove swamps pressed up against it on both sides. The rap music blasts, the pit bull growls. Hard turns down the volume on the radio. “This be bad music I be playin’. But I got badder. I can sing Civil War times bad ass.”

The girls shout encouragement. “Sing it, Hard!”

Hard snaps his fingers with loud cracks, giving himself the musical beat. He throws back his head and opens his mouth, his teeth glistening to the words of the song.

“Goin’ to run all de night.

Goin’ to run all de day.

Bet me money on a bobtailed nag.

Somebody be bettin’ de gray.

Oh! De doo-da day!”

Hard bangs his fist on the steering wheel. “Now, that be bad-ass nigga! It be written by a runaway slave.”

The white girl screws her face into a perplexed expression. “That’s not a black song. That was written by some white dude. I learned about it in high school.”

Hard backhands the white girl, one of the flashing gold rings on his fingers cutting a gash into her face.

“Girl! Don’t you be messin’ with nigga music! You know nothin’ ’bout nigga!”

The girl’s hand flies up to the blood gushing from her cheek. She screams in panic. The pit bull in the back sniffs blood and howls. Hard guns the SUV.