Thousands of pounds of exercise weights and equipment filled Kim Philips’ living room.

To make room for what looked and smelled like a dingy gymnasium stinking from body odor and sweat, she had piled tables and chairs on top of each other, pushing a cabinet into one corner, a china closet into another and the long dining room table on end against the wall.

All kinds of weights took up space.

Dumbbells, barbells, weight plates, kettlebells littered the room.

Shannon worked her biceps. Tara worked abs. Grunting and cursing, they pumped iron with the freight train chugging drive of steroid-raging Olympic lifters. When the doorbell rang, Shannon spit on the hardwood floor and yelled.

“Answer that, you bitch,” she said.

Tara screeched.

“No, you answer it, you bitch.”

Both women, two women in one, actually three women in one, rushed to answer the bell like Mike Tyson looking for another victim – two psychotic sides to Kim Phillips’ extreme psychosis fighting over tearing the hinges from the door frame. Shannon won the race and threw open the portal to Hell.

Calm as a meditating monk, Ruby Arenas stood with both feet firmly planted on the black rubber welcome mat embossed with neon green palm trees. She addressed the satanic sisters in a deep whisper that oozed a sweet but strong resolution.

“Time to talk, girls,” Ruby said. “The exorcist squad has arrived.”

Who is that?” Tara screeched.

“What is that?” Shannon wailed.

Now Sam Bennett spoke.

“We’ve come to save our friend, Kim,” he said.

The elevator doors parted and Durkin and RayRay rushed from inside.

“Sorry I’m late,” Durkin said.

Ruby brushed by Kim Phillips who stood by in a deep trance, a ghostly shadow of herself. The others followed. The two demons that split Kim’s personality mumbled in raw Irish brogues, seemingly unafraid.

Tara said, “Who does this beach slut think she is?”

Shannon said, “I need a drink before I knock this scrawny sand whore on her little dainty ass.”

Reaching the middle of the living room, Ruby turned. Thinking of the movie she watched the night before, she prepared to play the role of exorcist in an exchange she believed would drive these two Irish devils from Kim’s head and finally give her friend peace of mind. Strange as it sounds, she had never seen the movie before, never even heard of the movie until Santa Muerte guided her to the 1973 film that helped define pop culture and make believe horror.

Black Irish actor Jason Miller played the role of the priest, Father Karras, who sacrificed himself to help save a child. Ruby had no plan to go headfirst out a window to save Kim but expected some blowback from the psycho devils before Kim returned and the rogue mental monsters disappeared.

Only because Ruby and Kim once talked about faith and superstition did Ruby know Kim’s Irish Catholic parents raised her as a Catholic, a little lace lady living in the oppressive shadow of Mary the Mother of God. Only because Kim confessed during that conversation to not believing in God did Ruby realize guilt wracked Kim along with other psychological pressures brought on by deep depression, anxiety and an out-of-body political system that was turning too many Americans into bloodsucking vampires.

When the wicked sisters ran the last time Ruby encountered their mental mania, she knew they’d return. If all went well this time they’d back off for good. That first fight was only round one with the hobgoblins rope-a-doping until they could come back with enough green pea soup thick bile to slay any opponents. Ruby needed a knockout to wrest control from these beastly embodiments of Beelzebub.

Now Ruby called them out.

Like a boxer with a lead weight in her glove, Ruby pulled a St. Brigid’s cross from behind her back, holding the traditional Irish emblem in both hands, extending the religious icon toward the two devil sisters.

“AhhhJayzuzzzz!,” said Tara.

Motherofoooookigchrist,” said Shannon.

“I’m burning,” said Tara.

“I’m drowning,” said Shannon.

“Brigid is Santa Muerte’s middle name,” Ruby said.

Nobody in the room but Ruby knew Mexican Santa Muerte’s mother was Irish. Nobody knew her name was Brigid – a spirit Santa Muerte liked as soon as she heard the Irish saint shares a name with the Celtic pagan Goddess of fire. Nobody knew the death saint’s roots dug deep into the fertile bogs of the County Galway countryside near the Mayo border as well as into the sacred soil of Mexico.

Ruby knew because Santa Muerte told her so.

If Kim once believed in God and no longer bought the fairytale, it made sense she might feel deep-seated guilt sufficient to inflame DNA that grew centuries deep into her family’s Irish roots. Pondering deep ramifications of her own role in matters of life and death, Ruby knew mental illness fits faith and faith fits mental illness.

If you believe the myth the myth is real. Voodoo works the same way. So does Pennsylvania Dutch pow wow. Pagan faith packs as much punch as 100-proof Christianity and other dogmatic mumbo jumbo. You might die if you believe an enemy put a hex on you that could kill you. A fatal spell works because you believe it works. The give and take is potent enough to destroy lives and minds. Whether priest, shaman, witch or sorcerer, no matter who plays the role of enchanter plays the mad margins of the mind.

Ruby’s godmother Santa Muerte reigned among the best – as good as Jesus if not better. Santa Muerte’s reach awakened the most skeptical soul. As real as the mind, the south-of-the-border death saint aroused uncertainty, vulnerability and self-doubt. For that reason, Kim stood out as the perfect victim of her own insecurities. Santa Muerte ruled because she comes for us all.

She took Ruby’s parents. She even took the Son of God. Never forget Santa Muerte came for Jesus – took him out with a few nails and a spear in the side. We’ll never know what the Nazarene Supreme did to incur her wrath, but this long-haired Middle Eastern sinner must have done something wrong because instead of our sins, he died for his own.

Blasphemy, you say? Not if you put faith in Santa Muerte. Believe what you will about the empty tomb and our hero rising from the dead. Believe what you like about loaves and fishes. Same goes for legendary tales about the great Mohammed, Buddha and Confucius. Nobody, not even Jim Morrison, got out alive.

Santa Muerte always wins.

Santa Muerte also knows the holiest among us live life to its fullest, enjoying every sandwich as Warren Zevon said. We achieve enlightenment each time we listen to summer birds sing in the trees, sense bright lemon-lime, cherry red, rusty orange and purple grape colors of autumn’s changing leaves, each time we see a fresh blanket of pure white snow in winter. Each moment is a blessing. Aging is a blessing. Even sickness and infirmity can provide a blessing as a successful hip replacement patient can attest.

But death always awaits.

Santa Muerte will help us along the way as long as we ask. Ruby Arenas asked for guidance only once. In return she promised to do good, to be kind, and to help her benefactor when the time arrived for retribution. Both Ruby and Santa Muerte agreed these Irish warlocks must go.

When the doorbell rang again Tara wailed.

“Who is it this fooking time?”

When she turned the knob and opened the gate to the unknown, Randall Lark stood holding a six pack.

“Uh, hi, is Marty Durkin here?”

Baffled by Randall’s appearance, Durkin spoke up from where he stood beside the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony where he failed to notice 16 gulls sitting side by side minding their own business on the white railing.

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

“I still want to kill you,” Randall said. “But maybe we can work this shit out.”

Ruby thought Randall had overcome his insecurity and penchant for violence.

Maybe not.

Coming up suddenly behind Randall, Borys Popov appeared holding a bottle of champagne in each hand.

“We make it through new hurricane,” he said. “Now we rock on.”

All they needed was the DeShiftys to show up and promise to make Florida great again.

“Excuse me,” Ruby said. “I hate to be a party pooper but we have an exorcism to perform here.”

Borys ignored her.

“Put on Kool and Gang,” he said. “Celebrate good time come on.”

Meeting Borys’ gaze and digging deep into his subconscious with her power, Ruby snared his consciousness.

“You are getting sleepy,” she said. “Very sleepy.”

Borys fell face forward into the red satin couch cushions, releasing the bottles of bubbly that rolled under the sofa. Turning her attention to Kim, Ruby snapped her fingers on both hands. Right when Kim seemed about to speak, Durkin bellowed and pointed to the big screen TV.

“Oh, my god, look,” Durkin said.

On a breaking news local report displayed on the massive television screen that took up one whole side of Kim’s condo wall, Borys Popov’s under-construction-and-still-growing-biggest-condominium-ever-built-on-Clearwater Beach started to crumble like a professionally detonated and very purposeful industrial implosion.

At the sound of Durkin’s whoop, all 16 gulls lifted off from the balcony railing, climbed into the blue gray sky and disappeared deep into the clouds. Appearing again seconds later, they headed to the beach where they landed in front of the rubble, squawking like they knew exactly what had happened.

Who or what could do such a thing?

Sam Bennett jumped on the couch.

He flapped his arms.

He cheered.

“Bombs away,” he said.

Durkin shrieked again. This time the breaking TV news came from across Florida. Twelve exploding shit-filled golf balls had detonated on 12 different country club and municipal golf courses from Miami to Jacksonville. Police reported no injuries, just a few shitfaced millionaire Republican campaign contributors.

Governor DeShifty activated the National Guard and declared what he called a “woke domestic terrorism state of emergency.”

He called a press conference to say, “This is what happens when you send critical race theory into the girls’ bathroom.”

“Yeah,” said his wife, Jenna, turning to hug her therapist who was treating her for an increasing coprophobia.

“The shitheads have come home to roost,” Sam Bennett said.

Gulls don’t think critically.

Witches can’t cast crippling spells.

Oh, yeah?

Wait until a witch turns you into a bird and you’re flying around thinking about how to become human again.

The paranormal world is only a dream away. Are the dead real when they visit us in our sleep? Does the universe inhale and exhale? Does that same energy comprise birth and death? These quirky questions made conversations between Ruby Arenas and Sam Bennett great fun for both dear friends. Sam had opened his mental doors to perception decades ago, volunteering for LSD experiments at the Navy base hospital when he was stationed briefly in San Francisco. Ruby learned the dark arts of life and death from her mother and other ancient cultural traditional Mexican influences.

Sam knew he would fly. Ruby, too, believed Sam would soar. An unlikely team, they conspired with nature – human and otherwise – to save the planet and themselves.

At 5:30 a.m. on this Day of the Dead, Día de Muertos, when mostly Mexican believers and their families welcome the departed back into their lives, Ruby stood alone on the beach. Calling softly to Santa Muerte, the pagan Mexican death saint, she sensed a changing black sky and even the shifting sand grains between her toes. With all her senses alive, Ruby beckoned to all living creatures that carried in their existence the eternal energy of the dead.

How would she cure Kim whose internal demons possessed her every waking moment, hijacking her mind and controlling her increasingly bizarre behavior? How would she help free Sam from being hunted for his defense of nature that put him at risk because the system saw him as a terrorist rather than a freedom fighter? How would she save herself from society that cared little if at all about the simple peasant tradition of kindness?

Holding her arms aloft and closing her eyes, she extended good energy from her fingertips as she summoned her friends the gulls. Answering her call, countless gulls flew toward her like an invading army. Circling quietly above her head they seemed to look to her for instruction.

Not wanting to interrupt or impose on this sacred scene, Sam Bennett watched from his hiding place behind a tan dune. Resisting the urge to flap his arms, Sam settled in to watch Ruby work her magic.

Gliding through thick clouds on a misty morning of fog and occasional rain, one particular gull Sam had named Margot climbed high into the sky, then turned abruptly to dive almost straight down before pulling up from her descent.

Ruby spoke her name.

“You hold nature’s power, Margot,” Ruby whispered. “Teach me.”

As acrobatic as any gull in the air, Margot loved to fly. Ever since her mother first taught her to take off and land, Margot took to the sky throwing tail feathers to the wind as she dipped and rose, flipped and slipped air currents in as composed a picture of aerodynamic beauty above the horizon as possible. Each day after her morning exercise she usually went looking for Sam Bennett who always had some special treat for her breakfast – a few fries with cheese, the remains of a grouper burger or on special occasions half an order of crab claws.

Now as she glided above Clearwater Beach, Margo searched for Sam. Something in his regular routine had misfired. For the past few weeks his absence from his personal patterns unsettled her. Not at his apartment, not on the beach and not at the wharf where the grouper boats docked, Sam’s nonappearance concerned her not just because his was the hand that fed her.

Margot the gull loved Sam Bennett the human.

Hundreds of other gulls felt the same about Sam who reciprocated their love. Just watching the birds when Sam came around convinced even the most scientific skeptic that love was in the air. The gulls preened. They strutted, excited to share his presence and his company, not just because he fed them, but because he respected them. Sam Bennett recognized their power in the natural pecking order of life. Walking taller among his gulls than he did among people, Sam sent the birds into a friendly frenzy whenever he flapped his arms and acted like he was about to fly.

So far, though, Sam had stayed on the ground.

Without that supreme gift of flight Margot never would have escaped the maniac who surprised and attacked her and her mother outside Sam’s door at the Spyglass Apartments a few weeks ago, about the same time Sam disappeared. Margot and her mom were just relaxing, waiting outside for Sam to bring something good to eat when the maniac kicked open his door, burst from his house and tried to kick them.

The next morning he threw a bottle at Margot. The morning after that he chased her screaming curses in a language different from the one Sam Bennett spoke. Then the wild man caught her mother when she got trapped deep inside a garbage can where she rooted through eggshells and coffee grounds looking for some nice coconut shrimp or pineapple that got tossed after a tourist’s beachy feast – something sweet for her and Margot to share. Slamming the lid on the can, the man left her inside to die. Margot refused to fly back to the colony where she and her mother lived. Instead she stayed in visual contact of the rusted metal trash can to see if her mother could break out.

She couldn’t.

She didn’t.

Margot waited and waited, warning the scores of other gulls that showed up looking for them that danger lurked nearby. The other gulls, all friends and relatives who foraged and hunted together, eventually persuaded Margot to come home where she now lived as a rebel gull with a cause. Not only had this terrible human who smelled of rancid vegetables and sour milk killed her mother, he seemed to have something to do with Sam Bennett’s disappearance.

Where was Sam? Margot needed to find him. Sam needed help.  Sam needed Margot to teach him how to fly.

Back on Earth, opening her arms wide like winsome white wings of a guardian angel, Ruby Arenas felt light, as if she were slowly rising on the wind into a fresh morning sky. Feeling weightless she sensed herself ascend higher and higher, above the gulls and the clouds into vast openness and beyond, soaring past the stars and planets of her solar system, beyond the total emptiness of cosmic matter floating higher and higher into a celestial void from which everything came and went with no beginning and no end.

Lofty above the ground she drifted, deeper into space above a pinpoint planet beautiful in its splendor, color and consciousness – a globe of metabolisms and organisms, an existence brilliant in breathing beings and beating hearts that one day would disappear and stay dead forever.

Ruby vowed to do whatever she could to protect our world as long as she could.

Returning to Earth, Ruby heard a small voice behind her.

“You almost did it,” a breathless Sam Bennett said. “You almost took off.”

 As he spoke, Margot swooped.

The young gull sounded like she was laughing.

Resting among thick limbs of a camphor tree and dressed in a tailor-made onyx tuxedo dark as the Black Sea, the man’s corpse looked like he just sat down to dinner at a swanky party. Smelling of Clive Christian Imperial Majesty, the most expensive cologne in the world at $436,000 per 16.9 oz. bottle, rigor mortis had begun to set in. Leaning against the tree with his legs straddling a fat limb, the stiff rested between hefty low hanging branches. A tufted titmouse had already started to build a nest in his hair, using a loose thread from his mulberry silk bow tie to begin a new home.

A newspaper delivery woman working three jobs to feed her three kids found the body when she tripped over a white Persian cat sleeping in a driveway and the animal ran up the tree trunk and jumped into the lap of the departed.

The press swarmed at the news.

“Russian Billionaire’s Brother Murdered!” screamed the headline in the Tampa Tribune.

Wait a minute. Ivan Popov was much too well dressed to be Ivan Popov. His hair was combed and the part was straight. He smelled of apricot parfait rather than a large intestine loaded with cabbage farts. What’s going on here?

The following morning Russian Mafia boss and billionaire oligarch real estate developer Borys Popov held a press conference in front of his under construction beach condo tower to announce he would name the high-rise luxury complex “The Ivan Arms” in memory of his late brother.

“I grieve baby brother,” Borys Popov told the predatory gaggle of local, state and even national press assembled on the white sand. “He never fulfill dream. He never get to visit Disney World Magic Kingdom.”

“Mr. Popov! Mr. Popov!” yelled a local news anchor with hair that glistened like hardened black volcanic lava. “Do you know anyone who would want to kill your brother?”

Borys frowned.

“Everyone want to kill brother,” he said.

Including Borys, who did just that.

“Why are you wearing my tuxedo?” Borys asked Ivan that fateful morning when he surprised his simpleton sibling who stood by the mirror pouring unique costly cologne on his head and rubbing it into his scalp.

“I have date,” Ivan said.

“Who would go out with you?”

“Hot Ruby from bar. I pick her up bodily, if need be, whether she want to go or not. I dress fancy for big night like big shot crime boss brother.”

Borys shook his head.

“You are delusional and disloyal,” he said. “I know about your plot to kill me.”

Panicked and desperate, Ivan ran from his decrepit bachelor pad at the Spyglass Apartments, climbed a tree down the street in a nice neighborhood and hid with his hands covering his eyes like nobody could see him if he couldn’t see them. Nobody would look for him in the boughs of a camphor tree except Borys who had a GPS tracking device sewn into every tailor-made suit he owned in case rival mobsters kidnapped him and his crew needed to know his whereabouts.

Borys was smart.

Ivan was dumb.

Another nervy reporter, a heavily made-up woman with cleavage as fathomless as her IQ, screamed one last question before Borys abruptly ended the press conference.

“Ivan Popov had a bullet in his forehead,” she said. ”And his eyes were pecked out – sockets emptied all the way into his brain. How do you explain that?”

Borys didn’t know about Ivan’s baby blues getting gouged. He just left the body limp in the tree with a silencer-induced shot right between the eyes. What kind of beast could have pecked out Ivan’s eyes? But, really, who cared? For now, all Borys had to do was pay the tipster who called to demand cash in return for letting him know what his sneaky degenerate brother and that real estate saleswoman Kim Phillips were up to.

“Top of the morning, lad,” a woman with a thick Irish brogue had said when Borys answered his phone. “Your dearly departed brother gave me your number. My name is Shannon. You owe me, borscht breath.”

Then she laughed like a leprechaun run amok on a three-day bender.

Kim Phillips called in sick to work that morning and didn’t show up at RayRay’s for happy hour. Reading and re-reading the newspaper article about the murder over and over again she tried to figure out what to do. Ivan told her to sit tight and he would make sure his brother Borys suffered a fatal accident. She’d get her million dollars and he’d get everything else. When Kim’s cellphone rang that afternoon she jumped. No number or name showed up on the glass face of the device. The man’s voice alone petrified her.

“This is Borys Popov,” he said. “You and I need to talk.”

Kim almost passed out.

“You want to buy a house?” she asked.

“I hear I’m in love with you,” he said.

“I’m confused,” she said.

“Had you not called me with that fake Irish accent to tell me about my traitor brother I could be victim in tree with eyes clawed out,” he said. “My men traced your phone number in five minutes.”

Kim struggled without success to remember calling Borys. Maybe she had brain fog from COVID. But she hadn’t caught COVID. Maybe she was finally losing her mind for good.

“I understand I’m leaving you a million dollars in my will when I die,” Borys said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kim said.

Of course she did.

“Irish brogue you used on me is sexy,” Borys said. “Make sure you talk Irish when I take you to dinner tomorrow night.”

The next night at RayRay’s, with a full restaurant of ravenous customers sucking every morsel of greasy buttered meat they could dig out of their stone crab claws and slurping down spicy conch chowder, a packed bar banging down special fruity tropical drinks and every chirpy tourist in the house having a good time, in walked Borys Popov wearing a pure cashmere tracksuit and handmade running shoes in the white, dark blue and red colors of the Russian flag.

“Holy shit,” said Dillon the parrot and pampered bar mascot.

Borys Popov roared his big, rough Cossack laugh.

Kim held onto his arm for dear life.

“Top of the morning,” she said in a slurred brogue that sounded like she just fell out of a dirty Dublin dockside pub at closing time.

Lowering the loaded gun from his temple, Randall Lark removed his finger from the trigger and opened his eyes.

The suicide note said this:

“I will be the last person to die by my hand. I am sorry for everything. You should be, too.”

With trembling hands Randall stuffed the paper and the gun into the deep pocket of his purple board shorts he bought and wore when he taught himself to surf at the north end of the beach at the double-sandbar beach break known as 880. Driving to the beach now he thought about the vacationing brother he met there one morning who laughed and told him Blacks don’t surf.

Blacks don’t what?

This Black man planned to break more than a few unwritten rules in whatever time he had left on this sad, endangered planet.

But he wouldn’t kill Marty Durkin.

People back home on the block in Philly expected him to have already killed the ex-cop and turn the gun on himself. Murder/suicide happens all the time. Anybody who knew Randall Lark knew he’d take a lot of mental pressure before reacting but once he moved on you there was no turning back.

Kill Randall’s baby brother and die. Everybody knew a date with the reaper was set in stone – as in headstone – as soon as that New Jersey cop killed baby Tyrone in what cops called an accident. Yeah, everybody knew a bullet was headed his way. Randall fully expected to ice that honky-assed Jersey cracker. Then he’d ice himself. Put an end to suffering for Durkin and himself.

But the cold metal barrel against his head only made Randall think about life and living as best he could to honor his parents, to honor the memory of Tyrone, to honor the memory of the little boy he couldn’t save from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Instead he’d hunt down and haunt Durkin wherever he went. Shadow him into guilty mental submission. Drown him beneath the weight of a culpable conscience like a walking, talking “psyop,” that stands for psychological operation, the savage American CIA and military tactic that plays with people’s heads and drives them crazy.

He’d love for Durkin to lose his mind and decide to kill himself. That would be just. But Randall’s conscience told him that was wrong. Getting even didn’t make life better. Revenge showed weakness. Vengeance wasn’t his, sayeth the Randall. Thinking such thoughts made him laugh. Randall never saw himself as any prince of peace but peace was the answer. Calm discipline showed strength. Randall needed Black power now more than ever.

Soothing rays of sunshine warmed him as he paddled his surfboard far enough into the Gulf of Mexico to dump the note and the gun into deep water. When he sensed the rise of a two-foot wave, he got unsteadily to his feet and rode the small swell into shallow water before stepping off.

Ruby Arenas had been watching from the shore ever since finishing her morning swim. She, too, liked the isolation of the north beach as long as she got there ahead of the surfers and could enjoy the water that embraced and taught her everything she needed to know about life and death. She had spotted the surfer on her way in and wondered why he had paddled out so far. Then she recognized him.

Randall looked down at the sand when she approached him.

“I was worried about you,” she said. “You were out so far anything can happen.”

“You were out pretty far yourself,” he said. “Then you dove and didn’t surface.”

“I’m a good underwater swimmer,” she said.

Beads of sweat wet their bare shoulders beneath the yawning apricot sun.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Cool,” she said.

“What’s that mean?”

“You, know, getting by.”

“You’re not wearing your COVID mask,” Randall said.

“We’re outside,” Ruby said. “Mother Nature’s looking after me and keeping us at a distance.”

Laughing together they sat on the sand facing a brightening sky, Randall stretching out long legs, Ruby pulling hers to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. A long minute passed in silence.

“Durkin told us about your brother. Were you really going to kill him the other night at RayRay’s?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I hate guns,” she said.

“Me, too,” Randall said. “That’s why I paddled out and threw away my gun.”

“Peace of mind is good,” Ruby said.

“Easier said than done,” Randall said.

Ruby felt embarrassed but said what she’d been thinking ever since she first met Randall.

“You called me sister when I served you,” she said. “I never thought of myself as Black.”

“I think too much about it,” Randall said.

“About me being Black?” she asked.

“No, me,” he said.

Again they laughed, feeling closer in their simple admission that opened each one to the other. Sitting in silence, they watched two dolphins surface and dive about 50 yards from shore, swimming beneath a flock of gulls that flew so close together their wings seemed to touch like angels playing tag in the sky.

“What’s the difference between a person of color and a Black person?” Ruby asked.

“We’re all people of color,” Randall said. “Except white people.”

“We’re both Black?” Ruby asked.

“We’re both Black,” Randall said.

“My Cuban father’s skin looked like a piece of Werther’s Original candy,” Ruby said. “My Mexican mother’s skin was dark as chocolate mole sauce. I look like molasses.”

“Nothing wrong with brown sugar brown, sister,” Randall said.

Randall and Ruby laughed again, louder this time, feeling closer with each small wave that washed gently over the sand.

“They tell me it’s a free country,” Randall said. “Call yourself whatever you like. Just don’t call yourself white.”

Ruby looked deep into Randall’s eyes that shined like vibrant black coral.

“I’m also a witch, you know,” she said.

“Black magic?” Randall asked.

Smelling like a slice of sugar-coated gummy orange candy, citrus scented fumes wafted from Florida First Lady Jenna DeShifty’s deep perfumed cleavage like heat waves snaking off freshly poured Alligator Alley asphalt on a bare stretch of I-75.

Shaking her orange short shorts encased booty while lining up a golf ball for a drive, she wriggled one last time. Using an orange polished pinkie to push back a dangling lock of dyed strawberry blond hair, Jenna jiggled one more time. Then she squirmed again, like a shiver or a conniption fit, just for good measure.

Even in the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Jenna needed to get a golf club in her hands to keep up her image as a doting athletic wife, fundraiser and Christian among the fawning fans of non-thinking women who could not care less about patriarchy, oligarchy and right-wing anarchy. So Jenna hit the links with hubby governor Ronnie for a volunteer recruitment “drive” to call attention to the needs of the poor who lost everything in the historic storm.

One long drive to the fairway should do the trick. All Jenna needed to do was keep her eye on the ball, rear back and swing. Even a bad shot would serve her see-through altruistic purpose and allow the charity ladies, as she called her jewelry jiggling girlfriends, to feel philanthropic, fulfilled and convinced they truly cared about the downtrodden the way their personal savior Jesus wanted them to care.

“Those poor shrimp fishermen,” Jenna said. “I mean, shrimp cocktails are so necessary for on- the-go women like us to, like, I mean, to like, survive.”

Jenna often told female luncheon audiences how much she cared about women’s rights, regularly repeating how she once led a successful protest in high school to establish the first women’s varsity golf team which resulted in slashing the library budget. That victory prompted her in later life to call herself a “femalist” and campaign with her chauvinist pig sexist husband at women’s clubs that drew countless vacuous grand dames just like her, women who grazed across Florida like prime rib steers on farm-fed ranches that supplied America’s best beef.

The governor put up with Jenna even if she was a lousy duffer because she had memorized the first three chapters of Revelations from the Bible and could recite them at will at prayer breakfasts and the many anti-spay and neuter rallies she led because, like her husband, she opposed contraception even for stray cats.

Truth be told, though, Jenna and Ronnie believed only in the higher power of themselves.

“Always keep them guessing,” Ronnie often told his wife. “Life begins at deception.”

Russian thug Ivan Popov stood nearby leering and taking nips from a pint bottle of Smirnoff he pulled from the waistband of his mint green shorts covered by the tail of a periwinkle polo shirt. Billionaire brother Borys stood beside Governor Ronnie DeShifty who smiled and signed autographs for his biggest re-election donors, adding the flourish of a bold lightning bolt beneath his name that rivaled anything German SS officers engraved on their letterhead or rally flags.

The governor never let an opportunity to cash in pass so he had invited his biggest donors to attend Jenna’s volunteer reception drive. He’d make a killing in contributions while she offered condolences to unfortunate taxpayers and uninsured home owners ravaged by the latest Florida natural disaster.

“Charging $10,000 a hole is genius, your honor,” Borys said.

“With an extra hundred thousand contribution at the 19^th hole,” DeShifty said.

“I meet you at 19^th,” Ivan said with a wave before waddling off to the cabana bar where the after party meet-and-greet would commence and shifty campaign contributors would sign their biggest checks to DeShifty.

Sam Bennett and RayRay watched from behind a Golden Dewdrop bush with frilly purple flowers and golden berry clusters that fronted the clubhouse at the Mana Tee Off Golf Club, a private resort that catered to cigar-chomping men of the world whose conservative politics leaned to the right of the late Italian strongman Benito Mussolini.

“This is worse than when all the Mafia bosses met at that Apalachin summit in 1958,” RayRay said. “These are the wealthiest crooked businessmen in Florida with a sprinkling from Nevada and Pennsylvania.”

Sam glared.

“How dare they make fun of manatees by naming their club after my sweet sea cows,” Sam said. “Somebody needs to tee off on them.”

“Gulls, manatees, whatever,” RayRay said. “These boys are rich and comfortable enough to make fun of everything. They say they’re born again and specialize in meanness.”

“Thanks for wearing a mask,” Sam said.

“It makes it harder to put my face on a wanted poster, like yours,” RayRay said.

Sam sounded committed and calm.

“I need to make sure my exploding golf balls work,” Sam said.

As always, Sam had a plan.

A good bottle of extra-strength Dos Locos tequila easily persuaded Pancho, who drank at RayRay’s and worked washing dishes in the country club kitchen, to swipe the event guest list including mailing addresses for all well-heeled donors and do-gooder Republican women. Sam could send a special exploding golf ball to each highfaluting hotshot with the forged governor’s autograph inscribed on the ball. He also planned to surreptitiously scatter plain white exploding golf balls on golf courses throughout the state. He’d borrow RayRay’s car and enjoy a few days driving around scattering his special load.

Sam Bennett hated golfers.

Exploding golf balls would induce panic among upper and middle classes alike. Campaign donors would refuse to meet and play with DeShifty. A whole hierarchy of women’s clubs would steer clear of leisurely mornings, afternoons, tournaments and fundraisers. Those who braved the terror would risk coming face-to-face with balls that might blow up and set their leg hair on fire.

The press would go wild.

DeShifty would lose.

By terrorizing denizens of the green, Sam figured he’d be doing society a favor. Golf grabs duffers by the birdie worse than Catholicism, evangelism and circumcision. The game takes over the mind, offering obsessive appeal, working its way into even limited self-image and controlling spare time better spent on better endeavors.

Golf stole America’s working and middle class compass back in the 90s when blue-collar adults took up the game and taught their sons who quickly turned their backs on jobs as bricklayers, bakers, butchers, postal carriers, carpenters, laborers or even cops and firemen, resulting in this new breed of generation wanting “work” as financial advisors and stock brokers. Without experience these new golfers wanted jobs as insurance and real estate managers. Stock brokers, for Christ’s sake! These egotistical narcissistic and aspiring aristocrats expected to golf during the week with clients at country clubs and remain aloof from the maddening crowd.

Sam offered no mercy.

Some golfing exceptions exist but not many. Sam only knew one or two rare rugged golfers capable of going back to riding a soul-shaking Harley Davidson after putt-putt-putting around an immaculately manicured course like privileged patricians decked out in pastels and plush pomposity.

Crude as it sounds most golfers thought their feces didn’t fume which brings us back to First Lady Jenna DeShifty who was about to become Jenna DeShitty all over again.

Putting a finger to his waxy lips, the governor called for silence as Jenna lined up the drive. Wriggling and giggling, she called as much attention to herself as she could muster. The volunteer ladies beamed, watching with wonder at her self-confidence. Fat cat donors stared in awe of her waggle, a subtle butt shake Jenna practiced after seeing professional golfers shake their booty on TV to relax during a Pro-Am Tour.

Sam held his breath as Jenna prepared to slam the special golf ball he had hand-crafted. Pancho placed the special ball on top of the pile of balls in the bucket no questions asked in exchange for a happy hour’s worth of free tequila.

Sam had spray painted the ball hot pink, Jenna’s favorite color, and hand-inscribed her initials on the ball in gold paint. Even from a distance Sam could almost feel the ball’s pulse like it was alive, which wasn’t that far out scientifically or mechanically. Millions of tiny bacteria including swarming E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium (“Crypto” for short). and other grisly germ parasites crawled, paddled, dove, waded and glided around in the gull poop.

Sam had packed and jammed the ball so tightly with gull guano the round white bitter pill was all but ready to explode all by itself like the Big Bang that created the universe even without the help of a mini explosive detonator about to blast off on impact. Once again Jenna DeShifty was about to get the shitty end of the stick.

Holding with nine degrees of loft a $579.99 Taylor Made Stealth Driver she had received as a gift from the Fetus Power political action committee that worked to empower the unborn with all the rights of a human, including, credit cards, in-the-womb mortgage applications and scratch-off instant winner lottery tickets, Jenna stood with her brown and white saddle shoes one foot apart, lining up the special golf ball with her front heel.

Jenna gripped the club firmly but gently in order to hit the ball at a good, consistent distance. Jenna started her backswing, shifting her weight into what the governor called the honey buns of her tightened bottom.  Jenna kept the start of her downswing calm and unhurried at an easy pace so she could pick up speed before hitting the ball. This enables you to build up speed so that the golf club is still accelerating when it reaches the ball. Jenna swung in one single movement that utilized her entire body at the same time.

Despite all the practice, charm and poise, despite planning and privilege, destiny came her way.

First Lady Jenna DeShifty found herself shit out of luck.

The club hit the ball.

The shit hit the fairway.

The activated mulligan booby trap and subsequent ordure outbreak sent everybody running for cover. A few stalwart global business thieves reached for their handguns concealed in Velcro thigh holsters available in extra hefty sizes that could easily fit under the leg of any size Bermuda shorts. Others ran for their cars screaming for their drivers, worried that the Mexicans they saw in the kitchen might be part of a cartel specializing in kidnapping American business executives. At least one social media CEO hit the ground, expecting machine gun fire.

Otherwise uninjured, First Lady Jenna DeShifty dripped doo doo from head to toe, a victim of a gull lover’s irritable bowel syndrome turned irritable bomb syndrome.

If what’s done is done, so, too, is what’s dung is dung. Florida remains a mushrooming political madhouse fertilized with financial avarice, racial bigotry and flagrant stupidity. Societal Armageddon hangs in the balance.

Between Sam’s drone attacks and the exploding golf balls, he’d wake up the world.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has threatened to go nuclear.

Our hero went one better.

Sam Bennett went pooplear.

Rain felt like hornet stings on Sam Bennett’s face as he stood alone on the beach. The sky looked angry, more ominous than he ever remembered. Clouds climbed horizontally high into the sky clawing their way from the streaked horizon before curling and rolling like great mad tidal waves in the darkening atmosphere. Mother Nature conveyed her message loud and clear.

“Beware.

Get ready.

I’m just getting started.

Ian is my messenger.

Utter retribution is on the way.”

Sam knew disrespect goes only so far. Then you can get smacked. He saw the results in Florida barrooms all his drinking life. Somebody often gets smacked. Usually they deserve the slap.

Not wanting to hurt anybody, Sam plotted his next move in his lonely war against anyone who dared disrespect the earth. Whenever he decided on his next target, his handcarved gulls would do his bidding to save the planet.

Mankind wanted oil, gas, even coal and new styles of Lincoln cars. Mankind wanted bulky modern estates and mansions by the beach. Mankind wanted goods and products and merchandise all at nature’s expense. And mankind would pay, meeting extinction one day at the hands of fate with a little help from her friends. Mankind now punished the poor, the vulnerable and the weak. Sam needed to punish them but didn’t want to physically hurt anyone in the process. He just wanted to hurt their bank accounts. Call him naïve and insane. Call him deluded. Just don’t call him insincere.

Emergency responders had just started hurricane cleanup that morning. Sam weathered the rain and savage surges by constructing a basic shelter with his beloved gull drones in RayRay’s garage, hunkering down, holding out and holding his own, actually savoring the rush of wild wind in his face and the pounding of water all around, enjoying himself at one point so much he sang six words from the title of the 1970 B.J. Thomas song about raindrops falling on his head. Not everybody was so hearty or so lucky. As always in an extreme weather event some people lost everything.

Human attacks on the environment upset nature’s balance, heating the oceans and the Gulf, increasing the intensity of storms, escalating the amount of rainfall and propelling the ticking time bomb the globe had become.

So now what?

Exploding golf balls, that’s what.

With each ball containing an explosive charge sufficient to scare but not scar, Sam made good use of the detonators he impounded for the earthly revolution. Blowing up buildings was too easy. Making an original mark takes authentic creativity. And, if anybody exuded uniqueness, Sam Bennett oozed the stuff.

So Sam paid $199.95 for a bulk box of 300 blank white golf balls bearing no logos or manufacturer’s designs. After a few days experimenting in RayRay’s garage Sam took a bag full of balls to the northernmost remote part of the beach where nobody ventured. Placing a ball on the sand, he spread his legs the way he had seen Tiger Woods do on TV at the bar, addressed the ball with a length of driftwood driver that gave new meaning to the word “wood,” drew back on the club, swiveled his hips and swung with minimal force.

Because he aerodynamically designed the ball’s explosive force, the blast went down rather than up and out, maybe registering on a Richter scale but not causing any damage except to the sand. The same would happen to some of the most emerald velvety greens in the Sunshine State.

Sam would send and find a way to deliver exploding golf balls emblazoned with Gov. Ronnie DeShifty’s RD initials inscribed in gold (airplane model paint) wrapped in gold paper (gold spray paint) to big campaign donors, garnering attention from donors and golfers far and wide as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The press would stampede. America would assume terrorists had taken over Florida’s links. DeShifty campaign contributors would steer clear of country clubs and public courses. Money would dry up. The governor would lose not only the election but maybe even his wife.

Yes, no matter how bad the hurricane damage, the country clubbers and their golf addiction would soon return to Florida even as countless people continue to suffer the consequences of climate change that would only get worse through mass ignorance. Most Florida golfers would dismiss, trivialize or ignore the danger, especially the richest of the breed, a posh ilk of self-absorbed blue bloods preening and posing on the links. Sam had something special for them, a personal coral sunshine surprise he’d been working on for some time.

Wearing a black watch cap, camouflage pants, old fashioned black rubber galoshes with metal clips, a black and green flannel long sleeve shirt buttoned to the neck and wraparound sunglasses like an East Los Angeles gangbanger, Sam headed out to check on his friends. From what he could see, Clearwater Beach survived pretty much intact except for palm fronds and trees on the street. Nobody in Sam’s tight social circle likely got hurt.

Safe and sound in her condo after a rough night of wind and rain, Kim Phillips labored over her newest dilemma. Hurricane or no hurricane, never trust a Russian military veteran or draft dodger or mercenary or whatever Ivan Popov was before he moved to America and messed up life as Kim knew it. She didn’t know Ivan lied when he told her he sold insurance for Prudential. When she let him go home she felt exhausted, afraid of herself when she pulled her pistol and held him at gunpoint – afraid of the feeling she wasn’t alone even when Ivan left in a hurry, just happy to be alive.

In reality all Ivan ever sold amounted to a voluminous pack of goods to any sucker he could find willing to take the bait. Kim let her emotions get the best of her as she battled her hidden internal demons and tried to figure out ways to be a good friend and neighbor. Ivan did come up with an insurance policy on his brother, though, a 100 percent bogus document that listed Borys’ assets to the best of his knowledge with a two million dollar payout to Kim as sole beneficiary.

Ivan forged Borys’ name on the policy that gave consent. And he signed his own name as a witness. And he wrote an addendum to the policy swearing Borys loved Kim as a secret admirer ever since he saw her picture in a real estate brochure, wanting her to be financially sound and set for life in the event of his death because he viewed her as a soulmate.

Kim had read the page-long policy, expressing amazement at this shocking announcement.

“He doesn’t even know me,” she said. “But he’s in love with me?”

Ivan never thought Kim would buy into this fantasy but saw the opening in her insecure innocence and took advantage, trying to milk Kim’s simplicity in any way he could. Killing Borys would finalize this uncivilized ruse and Ivan would steal any of his brother’s possessions he could grab.

“He’s just shy,” Ivan said.

“I’m so confused,” Kim said. “I don’t want to be part of this. I’m out.”

“Once in never out,” Ivan said. “First rule of Russian mob.”

“I’m not in the Russian mob,” Kim said.

“You are now social member of South Florida family,” Ivan said. “Take a few days to think over proposition. Then call me.”

That’s the last she heard of him before the storm. Kim wondered how her personal mental cyclone had happened so quickly. Had she known about Tara and Shannon sowing disorder within her psyche she would have understood this unholy alliance was not her fault. Her personality disorder had already careened out of control and needed severe medical management.

Kim had no memory of driving to Ivan’s place at the Spyglass, didn’t remember going into his studio apartment and half remembered punching him. She had no recollection of stuffing him into the car trunk. Her meeting with Ivan clouded her mind like one of those magic mushroom hallucination flashbacks she read about, a bizarre light show she dreamed after passing out after a bad drunk. As she struggled to put the pieces together, a knock sounded on her door.

“I’ll get it,” said new roommate Marty Durkin, who jumped up from the couch where he had been watching CNN’s Don Lemon get rained on in Orlando.

“Glad to see you made it,” said Ruby when he opened the door. “I’ll take off my gull mask if we can stand at a safe distance on the balcony.”

“Another survivor,” said Durkin, stepping aside to let her in and keeping his distance.

“I just checked on RayRay and he’s fine, practicing his Rolling Stones songs at the bar,” Ruby said.

“I am so happy you’re safe and sound,” said Kim rushing into the room from the kitchen at the sound of her friend’s voice. “I’ll open a bottle of wine.”

“Awesome,” Ruby said.

While Kim chose a bottle of California Central Coast pinot noir, Ruby took a seat across from Durkin.

“We have a problem,” she said.

“Florida is one big problem,” Durkin said.

“I’m not just talking about Governor Ian,” Ruby said.

Before Durkin could process the comment, Kim raced back in the room waving a corkscrew the way a butcher wields a boning knife as Kim’s split personality took over. Wild-eyed and frazzled, she screeched.

“Out of my way!”

Kim’s split personality Tara howled in an accent that reminded Durkin of all the drunken Irishmen and Irishwomen he met at the shore growing up in Stone Harbor.

“No, you get out of my way,” said Shannon, Kim’s second multiple personality.

Durkin stood ready to fight but didn’t know with whom to put up his dukes. Kim’s face contorted as she struggled to emerge from cerebral darkness and regain her composure. Snapping out of grim delusion she did her best to speak.

“Would you both like if I sliced some apples and Swiss cheese with our wine?”

Tara’s voice bulled her way into Kim’s voicebox.

“All hands on deck! All hands on deck! We need whiskey now!”

Shannon took up the call for booze.

“Whiskey! Whiskey!”

Ruby stood her ground facing Kim who seemed ready to collapse. Speaking in a confident tone, the cords stood out in Ruby’s neck. Lines of muscle in her arms tightened. Knuckles whitened as she clenched her fists and extended unseen energy she drew from her spiritual core.

“Out,” she said. “Santa Muerte orders you out. Devil spirits leave. Florida demons depart. Out.”

Kim dropped to the blue shag carpet. Rushing to her side, Durkin looked to Ruby then to Kim and back to Ruby.

“She’s in the strong hands of mother death,” Ruby said.

Durkin looked ready to run when another knock on the door shook him from their turmoil. Moving toward and slowly opening the door, Ruby shook her head as she smiled at a man wanted by every cop in Florida who now stood before her hiding in plain sight.

Sam Bennett gasped, breathing hard through his gull mask.

“I ran out of gin during the super gale,” Sam said. “Who’d like to make me a martini?”

Out of respect for friends and others facing destruction in Florida, I’m putting on hold today’s chapter of Swan Dive!

My serialized novel is set in Clearwater Beach, one of many Gulf Coast communities currently at risk of suffering damage and loss in the mounting fury of Hurricane Ian.

So stay calm, stay smart and stay safe. The best way to look out for yourself and others is to follow rules, expert guidance and scientific history.

We’ll pick up as soon as we can on the story of Sam Bennett and his holy mission to save the gulls, respect the environment and fight the power of political corruption, human greed and meanness.

Flying made perfect sense to young Sammy.

From his first blurred glimpse of the mother gull taking to the sky, flight offered an aerial experience he needed to explore. Speeding aloft afforded the promise of the cosmos, an unending journey to everywhere and nowhere at the same time, a refuge where no beginning or end exists. Taking wing as a human without wings posed a dilemma Sammy resolved to solve.

Neither his manic mother Samantha nor his anxiety-ridden father Ricky ever understood the driving force that shaped their boy’s every instinct. Baby Sammy experienced their ignorance as soon as they returned from a failed mission to Vegas and picked him up from alcoholic foster parents who took custody from police when Sammy’s grandmother died and the two dud parents abandoned him.

“Mommy’s home,” Samantha said.

“Waaaawaaaawaaaa,” Sammy said, flapping his little arms in a vain attempt to take off.

Samantha wrinkled her nose.

“He smells,” she said.

“The kid looks flighty,” Ricky said.

“Waaawaaawaaa,” Sammy said.

Samantha held her nose and wanted out.

Vegas visions of prosperity soured for Samantha and Ricky in less than two weeks. She saved $230 from a stint she worked as an exotic dancer wearing feathers not in her hair but elsewhere. Nobody called to interview her in response to the blackjack dealer applications she filed at two fledgling casinos. In three days Ricky owed money to a wannabe Mafia loan shark who threatened to kill Samantha if Ricky didn’t cough up the dough but was impressed when Ricky said he’d be thrilled if the thug took her off his hands. The loan shark thought about killing Ricky instead. No movie deal unfolded for Samantha either, not even one of the first black and white blue movies the mob was shooting with off-duty cops as leading men in a bare trailer out in the desert.

Both losers figured they better go home to sleepy little Clearwater Beach and claim their abandoned property before the Florida cops charged them with any number of felonious crimes even minimal investigation would uncover.

Oblivious to the traumatic desertion ordeal their infant experienced, again they thought only about their own lives and braced to face reality’s gross uncertainty. Impulse made them light out to seek fame and misfortune in the first place. Rather than common sense, impulse controlled their behavior. They could not care less about a dear dead grandmother who departed with no insurance, estate or will. What they got was a squawking bundle of crap that looked and acted like a baby bird, a yearning bundle of nerves that grew into the last responsibility either malcontent parent ever wanted.

So they put Sammy on the market, deciding to sell him to the lowest bidder if the auction came to that.

This peroxide blond floozy with the eyebrow pencil beauty mark, cat eye rhinestone glasses and leopard print pedal pushers and her skinny as an on-the-floor stick shift Old Spice aftershave reeking lout of a husband figured a thousand dollars would seal the deal. Maybe they could peddle their needy baby mammal to one of the Cuban Santeria witches who showed up occasionally in town to use like a rooster in one of her religious ceremonies. After putting word out on the street as far as Tampa, after a month still nobody wanted him. At that point they’d have taken a rooster in exchange. At least they could eat the bird.

The day Sammy turned 10 he stood at the edge of the garage roof wearing a costume he spent two months making for Halloween – the only way Sammy figured he could fool his parents to allow him to sew and glue and piece together a feathery ensemble the kids got hysterical mocking when he wore the suit to the school parade.

“Hey, bird brain!”

“Look at the bird boy!”

“Birdshit Sammy!”

Undaunted, the child persevered even when the big kids imprisoned him in the boy’s lavatory and made him eat worms. Sammy freaked them all out by asking for more. Nobody invited him to a Halloween party, his mother got drunk and fell asleep without taking him trick or treating and Ricky told Sammy to go out by himself and try to be home by midnight.

Climbing to the garage roof and standing at the brink, Sammy made himself a promise. No bobbing for apples for this kid. Forget dressing as a hobo, Zorro or a beatnik. Sammy Bennett would fly. In his dreams he simply bent his legs, raised thick soft wings in a strong upward lift before lowering them, and flapped them with an up-and-down motion propelling him forward with his wingspan at a right angle, twisting automatically with each downward stroke to keep aligned with the direction of travel in his flight pattern that took him up, up and away.

Gravity took over as soon as stepped off the roof. On the way down a rush of air stole Sammy’s breath with the bold shock of a junkie ripping off an iron lung, leaving the boy broken and crumpled, facedown in the mud and gravel that littered the short driveway like sharp debris on a lava laden beach after a surprise volcanic eruption. Hitting the ground nose first, the nasal bone snapped, crushing both the upper lateral and lower lateral cartilage. All three bones in Sammy’s left arm also broke, snapping the upper arm bone (humerus) and both forearm bones (the ulna and the radius) into a compound fracture that protruded through Sammy’s bronzed butterscotch skin like brittle Thanksgiving turkey bones showing through a picked over carcass.

Fate forever changed Sammy’s flight plan for the future.

Samantha took up diet pills and crocheting little pink pigs in blankets the elderly women in the area nursing homes thought were darling. She charged a dollar for these prized piggies she laid out on a card table under a beach umbrella and sold outside her ramshackle house. Ricky hawked stolen color television sets and discount cigarettes he bought from a Largo gangster who hijacked trucks to Miami. Samantha hated Ricky as much as Ricky hated himself.

Maybe Sammy’s desire to fly helped push Samantha over the edge when she asked Ricky for help one rainy Sunday afternoon and said she couldn’t reach the outside of the window to wash off the gull shit. Ricky really should have known something was up with her washing windows on a rainy day, but he leaned out with a wet rag and didn’t see her coming from behind. One good nudge did the trick. Accidental death caused by a broken neck, the coroner’s autopsy report said.

Maybe Sammy’s aspiration in the air helped Samantha make up her mind about her own bad self-worth when she stood on the holey house roof with her big toes touching and her calloused bare heels together before launching herself into the air with all the aplomb of America’s mermaid Ester Williams going off the high board in the 1940s in a perfect swan dive.

Sam turned 18 and joined the Navy right after his mother’s funeral. Pilot training appealed to him but he worried about birds getting caught in the jet engines – more concerned about the birds than the pilots – and settled on radios, sonar and every Navy class and training opportunity he could take. Sam excelled and eventually signed up for survival training just in case – in case of what he couldn’t say.

For the next several decades, his desire to soar by his own power only evolved, becoming the most powerful obsession of his existence.

Now 71, sitting alone under a pier few people peered beneath, Sam watched the purple morning sky decorated with Venus and the crescent moon, a sight that thrilled him as did all celestial views. Living on the run in the land of the sun felt natural and good. Healthy and alive, Sam knew survival was what you made it. With dozens of his beautifully crafted gull drones safely shelved in RayRay’s garage, Sam felt secure. Police had no reason to suspect RayRay of giving aid and comfort to an enemy of the state and had no reason to ask a judge for a search warrant.

The cops also had no reason to suspect Ruby or Kim. Durkin could turn on him, though. Sam didn’t trust this relative stranger and maybe never would. You never knew how an ex-cop thought, especially one carrying bloody baggage from what Sam had heard at the bar. Besides, with the recent gun incident at RayRay’s, Durkin apparently had his own problems.

Patient and calm, Sam waited to make his next move – retrieving the explosive detonators he stole from the condo construction site and hid under an abandoned catamaran with the name Kon-Tiki painted on one of the hulls. About three years ago somebody left the watercraft to deteriorate in the high beach plants and perennial grasses on an isolated stretch of dune nobody frequented anymore.

Sam sometimes sat beside the raft and meditated, seeing himself as a reincarnated bird Buddha – not looking for trouble and landing wherever he pleased. Maybe one day he’d meet a mate. Love mattered, of course, and Sam epitomized emotion and devotion for all sentient creatures, understanding how primitive impulse and instinct would one day propel him beyond the sun where all past, present and future gull spirits find ultimate freedom to fly free forever. Sam repeated his mantra over and over, words to live by.

Fly.

Free.

Forever.

Sam now planned his next attack. Instead of using poop bombs like he did during the test run on the ribbon cutting, he’d plant one or two detonators in each drone’s belly. Kamikaze gulls loaded with real bombs should get their attention. Hitting the super condo tower at any stage of construction would convey a clear message no development was safe as long as work unbalanced the ecosystem. That meant no development was safe.

Florida’s pampered Ivy League governor and his prissy pink cotton candy wife continued to menace nature as well as authorize the building of countless commercial properties on the backs of the poor, the vulnerable and the powerless. Condos would continue to rise, the rich would profit more than ever and the gulls would suffer.

When Sammy was four a hurricane wind blew a gull through the front window of their rented house. Grabbing his camera, Ricky made Sammy pose in his bare feet, flannel pajama bottoms and a Davey Crockett coonskin cap, holding the poor bird by the legs in his left hand like a duck or pheasant after a successful hunting trip.  In his right hand Sammy held his dad’s deer rifle as big as he was. Struggling to control the weight of the gun, Sammy dropped the weapon and blew a hole in the ceiling. Ricky spanked him so hard he couldn’t sit on the commode without crying for a week.

Gulls and children deserve better.

Freedom fighters normally train to build fires to get warm, ward off predators and provide heat for cooking. They create potable water, tie knots, make weapons, build shelters, learn basic first aid, fish and trap and what have you.

Not Sam.

At this stage in his life, all that and more came to him as second nature. More so than looking after himself, survival to Sam meant improving the lives of others, including other species, making sure nature thrived and his friends not only lived but lived happily ever after.

Only then could Sam fly away.

Forever.

Bleary-eyed as a potato liquor-loaded gulag guard, Russian bruiser Ivan Popov opened his Spyglass Apartment door and stared through red glassy eyes at the woman who had come knocking.

“Nostovia,” the woman said in an Irish accent. “Let’s get drunk!”

One half of Kim Phillips’ breakaway split personality, Tara pushed her way into the room that smelled of hard boiled red beet egg gas and sour fried cabbage. As she passed Ivan she caught a whiff of body odor that smelled like a cross between goat cheese and Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov’s feet after a rough night teaching pirouettes at the Vaganova Ballet Academy.

“Ooh, yum, you smell like homemade turnip cologne,” Tara said.

Sensing passion in the air, Ivan smiled.

Now the other half of Kim’s great big psychic divide kicked in.

“You reek worse than a stuffed up Kremlin commode,” Shannon said.

Poor Kim and her dueling Irish personalities boomed babble like Boss car stereo speakers blaring from the open door of a Dublin docks automotive store as they bantered back and forth.

“Cool man cave, Ivan,” Tara said.

“Stinky Neanderthal pothole,” Shannon said.

Backing up and losing his balance, Ivan tripped over the heavy Cossack hat with earflaps he threw on the floor two weeks ago and never got to wear in Florida. His mother Raisa brought back the ushanka headgear from one of her many successful hunting trips to the Russian Arctic Islands before the KGB terminated her with a tainted toothpick for selling black market lingerie.

Tara clapped her hands when she spotted the soft clump of thick white fur.

“Oh, Ivan, poopskie,” she said. “You have a kitty.”

Even Shannon expressed appreciation for the unexpected softness in Ivan’s cold black heart.

“Awww, look, a fluffy Persian cat,” Shannon said.

“Hairball not cat,” Ivan said. “Ivan hate cat except in pot pie. Thick fluff is authentic Russian polar bear fur.”

Ivan’s hysterical laugh bounced off the walls like a straitjacketed patient in a St. Petersburg hospital for the criminally insane, his maniacal tones resounding as loud as a Politburo commissar’s caviar belch at a Defender of the Motherland holiday lunch.

Kim, Tara and Shannon loved animals – except for Ivan, who defined the word beast in anybody’s book.

Tara screeched.

“You eat cats?”

Shannon roared.

“Polar bear fur!”

Predators can go too far.

Tara’s left hook caught Ivan upside his head so hard he saw hammers and sickles dancing before his lizard-lidded eyes. Shannon’s right cross knocked him out on his feet, staggering him as he fell face forward into a half-eaten pierogi pile stacked in thick dill cream sauce on the small table that held a cheap imitation ivory bust of Joseph Stalin.

Talking the tough talk and walking the tough walk are as different as a team of East German shot putters and a set of Matryoshka stacking dolls. Ivan did not lead the pack in matters of brute strength bravado and injured easily as Kim and company laid waste to his soft bloated body curled into a fetal position on the floor.

Where Kim got the strength to drag Ivan Popov to the parking lot is anybody’s guess, but as soon as she bound and gagged her prisoner with duct tape and slammed the trunk of her car she forgot all about what and who she had just locked inside.

Doing her due diligence as they say in shallow American society, the next morning Kim greeted a couple of recently retired financial advisors from the Gold Coast who wanted to invest in two beachfront condos – one in which to live, the other to sell. Gleeful over the potential sale, Kim raced from one condo to the other and back to her car to grab brochures from the trunk when she got a bigger surprise than the U.S. hockey team did when they performed the miracle on ice and beat the Russians in 1980. She screamed as soon as she flipped up the trunk.

“Ahhhharrggggg!!!”

Ivan screamed, too, reversing his duct tape muffled howls back into his big mouth and down his throat.

“MMMMMMFFFFFF!!!!!”

Kim slammed the lid.

Two hours later she mustered the courage to drive to a $384,999 townhouse with an attached garage built in 2007 she was handling on Colony Reed Lane. Once inside the garage with the door closed behind her, she again opened the trunk. Pulling the Smith &Wesson Bodyguard 380 handgun from her bag and pointing the barrel at Ivan’s bulbous nose, she tore the tape from her prisoner’s mouth. Ivan did his best to remain calm and in control even though he could barely control his urine flow.

“Hello pretty lady,” he said.

Kim hissed with the pent-up mean contempt of a black diamond reticular python, a sound you’d recognize in any snake pit.

“Shut up you slithering slug,” she said. “What are you doing in there?”

Ivan tried to be brave.

“Looking for a date?”

Flustered yet agitated, Kim’s emotions ran amok.

“I’ll give you a date,” she said.

In a flash Kim’s face transformed into the menacing face of evil as her split personalities rushed into the fray like methamphetamine-crazed outlaw motorcycle gang enforcers getting their kicks at a group stomping.

“Shoot him,” Tara said.

“Empty the magazine, reload and shoot him again,” Shannon said.

Freaked out with frenzy, Kim struggled to maintain control as Ivan whimpered like a lost Borzoi (wolfhound) puppy in a cage.

 “No, no, please wait, let me live. I help you put end to bad for environment super condo tower,” Ivan said.

Tara and Shannon stopped issuing threats.

“What’s in it for us?”

Ivan smiled his best imitation Omar Sharif smile he practiced for weeks after seeing Dr. Zhivago on the Turner Classic Movies channel after hacking into the cable when he first got to Florida.

“You get to spend weekend with me in hot tub,” he said.

Kim pounced, punching Ivan and screaming in three distinct accents, lambasting this despicable degenerate gangster who thought he could buy his way out of any uncomfortable situation. Feeling more powerful and bolder than ever, Kim jeered and mocked, taunting her captive as she demanded compliance.

“One last chance, you commie scum,” she said. “What exactly will you do for me?”

“Borys must go,” Ivan said. “No super condo gets built on beach without super real estate mogul around to build tower.”

Flabbergasted with Ivan’s deadly deceit, Kim proceeded with caution.

“Go where?”

“Back to the USSR,” Ivan said, starting to giggle. “Haha. I almost make Beatles joke. Get it?”

“You’ll arrange to get Borys deported?”

“I arrange to get Borys reported – as in documented dead.”

“You’ll kill him?”

“I make Borys disappear,” Ivan said. “Still have poison toothpick KGB used to whack Mother with enough toxin germs left over on tip to kill bad man strongman brother.”

“The KGB gave you the murder weapon?”

“I give it to them first,” Ivan said. “Mother was no good capitalist spy.”

Kim’s thoughts whirled.

When Ivan grinned, sunshine filtering through the dirty window gleamed off his gold teeth.

“I also sweeten pot by making you beneficiary of Borys’ new life insurance policy,” he said. “I sell insurance part time for Prudential.”

Tara and Shannon could no longer contain their zeal for anarchy.

They wanted in.

“But first a full pardon from your little dictator governor for our friend Sam Bennett,” Tara said.

“Yeah,” Shannon said. “I think crazy birdman as you call him is really cute.”

Stopping in mid-slurp, Randall Lark dropped his oyster on the half-shell loaded with horseradish and hot sauce. Wiping his mouth and hands on a white cloth napkin – RayRay insisted on white cloth napkins for the bar no matter how dirty they got or how much it cost to have them cleaned – he prepared for a showdown. Narrowing his eyes like an assassin looking through shutter slits in a dank motel he honed in on his quarry.

There he was.

The killer cop.

Marty Durkin offered a big goofy grin and wave to the Happy Hour regulars who now recognized him as one of their own as he waltzed into the Elbow Room beach bar like king of the sand dunes. For a moment, wearing an orange polo shirt decorated with gulls gliding in midair he bought at Target, Durkin didn’t have a worry in the world.

“Nice shirt,” Kim said.

“I’m feeling tropical,” Durkin said.

Heavy under Randall’s arm the semi-automatic pistol hung grip down and ready for action. Feeling his pulse in his throat, Randall’s thoughts raced through his frazzled mind, confusing and motivating him as he stood at the crossroads of his life with his conscience losing to the voice of vengeance.

Do it now. Just stand, walk slowly to the bar as you draw, tap Durkin on the shoulder, look him in the eye, say “This is for Tyrone,” and pull the trigger. Then split. Buy a plane ticket to Jamaica. Smoke weed and drink rum all day. Enjoy life as a free Black man.

Randall stood. Randall started walking. Randall quickly closed the distance and started to pull the firearm when Durkin turned.

“I spotted you soon as I walked in,” he said.

“I have a gun,” Randall said.

“So do I,” Durkin said.

“Me, too,” said RayRay from behind the bar.

“And me,” said Kim sitting beside Durkin as she slid her hand inside her black leather fringed shoulder bag that lie on the bar.

Nobody moved.

Nobody got hurt.

Dillon squawked from his spot at the end of the bar where he sipped a margarita on the rocks through a straw. Although the bar mascot parrot with a birdy beer belly sometimes came up with original words and phrases he learned from TV comedies he watched, his best responses came in reaction to a trigger word. This customer exchange overloaded him with one super trigger word.

“Gun?” Dillon screeched. “Gun?”

Conversation stopped as fast as an inebriated NASCAR driver at the Daytona Speedway.

“Shootout at RayRay’s,” Dillon said. “Shootout at RayRay’s.”

Nobody who knew what was going on laughed when everybody else at the bar did.

Durkin calmly spoke to Randall.

“Now what?”

Turning, Randall Lark hurried past vacationers gobbling grouper burgers and locals banging down two-for-one tequila sunrises. Picking up speed and stepping fast once he hit the street, he disappeared into the salty night.

“You knew he was coming,” Kim said.

“Only a matter of time,” RayRay said.

“At least I know he’s here,” Durkin said.

Just the week before Durkin told Kim and RayRay the whole story about accidentally shooting Randall’s brother, leaving out nothing and explaining everything. Now he expressed concern that he would put everybody at the bar in danger if he continued to frequent the Elbow Room.

“I value our friendship too much to do that,” Durkin said.

 “I can handle it,” RayRay said, immediately thinking about the Popov brothers showing up unannounced to try to take him by surprise and get the tapes.

“Tell me about it,” Kim said.

With that Tara and Shannon slowly came to in Kim’s mind, cranky and hungover after a long drunken nap, double-trouble split-personality devil twins ready to party at all costs.

Durkin teared up, overcome by truly understanding how much he meant to his new friends.  RayRay made him promise to continue to stop by for Happy Hour. Kim found the courage to invite Durkin to rent the extra bedroom in her condominium at a reasonable monthly rate.

“That sounds great,” Durkin said. “I’ll move my stuff in tomorrow.”

All three had quickly grown close. Fate sometimes brings danger but destiny also can heal. Real friends stick together no matter what happens when the shit storm hits. Ask wanted man Sam Bennett, who brought on a deluge all by himself and seemed no worse for the wear, actually proud of himself for going to the trouble of standing up for his rights and for theirs.

Ruby appeared from the kitchen holding a dinner check.

“I got this,” she said as she paid Randall Lark’s tab – a dozen uneaten raw oysters and a pint of untouched Barracuda Teeth Ale. “He seems like a really nice guy.”

Just then a voice exploded with the surprise intensity of an avalanche at a Siberian ski resort. Russian villain Ivan Popov stood swaying drunk at the doorway slurring a verse from the “Internationale,” the old anthem of the now defunct Soviet Union.

“So comrades, come rally

And the last fight let us face

The Internationale unites the human race.”

Also standing drunk and grinning, Borys Popov swayed like a MIG pilot who just successfully defected to Las Vegas with the dying swan lead dancer in the Bolshoi Ballet. He sang a different verse of the song from the long ago Communist workers’ movement.

“And if those cannibals keep trying

To sacrifice us to their pride

They soon shall hear the bullets flying

We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.”

No one mistook their Marx/Lenin disharmony for a Lennon/McCarthy song.

“I buy vodka for whole bar,” Borys said to RayRay. “Then you give me dirty tapes. We live happily ever after. Now I buy house a drink!”

“Dirty tapes,” Dillon screeched. “Dirty tapes!”

Many of the Elbow Room patrons, some who were so confused by the disruption they stood and placed their hands over their hearts as the men sang, accepted Borys’ offer of a free shot. RayRay lacked a stock of good Russian vodka but had a couple of cases of Grey Goose a shady truck driver who recently stopped for a beer said fell off the back of a truck and sold to RayRay at half price.

Ruby barely heard the throaty whisper emanating from Kim’s mouth in a thick Irish brogue.

“Make mine a double,” Tara said.

Ruby also heard the second different Irish accent join in the ensuing confusion.

“Oh, shit, he’s cute,” said Shannon.

“I want the fat one,” Tara said.

“I’ll fight you for him,” Shannon said.

“I have a gun,” Tara said.

“I have two,” Shannon said.

Dillon heard the Irish accents and immediately launched into his own slurred version of the traditional St. Patrick’s Day jukebox favorite, “The Unicorn.”

Just like nobody ever sees a unicorn, nobody in the bar saw what was coming next,

Just like nobody ever hears the shot that kills them.