Keeping secrets challenged most people.

Not Kim Phillips.

Even as a girl, Kim – who everyone knew then as Kate, Kate Leary – never gossiped, told tales out of school or spread rumors. She was no tattle tale. No snitch. As he father often said, “No rats allowed in this house.”

One morning about 4:00 when she was 10, Kate looked out the window to see the constellations because she couldn’t sleep and saw her father strangle bookie Tony Bilardi with his alligator belt in the front yard. Kate never said a word. When she was 12 Kate watched her mother invite the mailman in for a two-hour drink and kept her little yap shut. At 14 she fed rat poison to the neighbor’s cat and kept the caper to herself when the neighbor came out crying and calling, “Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Each time she maintained her silence Kate heard the voices tell her she was a good girl.

Kate heard the voices talking in her head.

“Be the hush,” her Irish gangster father James Patrick Leary told her from the time she was four as they sat talking at the kitchen table in their South Boston house. Just because she hated her father didn’t mean she didn’t listen to him. Just because he created a hostile childhood environment didn’t mean he didn’t offer sound advice. Just because he shot himself didn’t mean she loved him or ever thought of telling him how she really felt.

Years later living under the radar in Clearwater Beach with a false identity, other than a rapid-fire sales pitch for her real estate sales career, she still kept her mouth shut. But with the two “lasses” that formed her split personality now completely out of control and running amok, Kim Phillips knew she had to heal – permanently – or risk jeopardizing and maybe even outing her brother Kevin and his bogus identity as RayRay.

Truth would ruin everything. Kim loved her brother. Kim would sacrifice anything to protect him.

Agreeing to meet Russian mobster money man Borys Popov when he phoned with a dinner invitation went against her better judgment. She had expected his call. She knew he knew she saw through his thin veneer. She knew he knew she was seriously mentally ill. She knew he knew she meant trouble.

Her worse half, Shannon, or was it Tara, peaked Borys’ interest by flirting with the billionaire and eventually telling him his late brother Ivan’s plot to poison him, throw him out a window or tie cinderblocks to his legs and dump him overboard from his multimillion-dollar yacht he named “Cream of the Kremlin.”

Now, sitting alone on the couch in her waterfront condo, feeling weak, nervous and anxiety-ridden, smoking a joint and meditating on the beautiful expanse of Gulf water that rose to meet a thin line of amber horizon, Kim formulated a plan to do away with Borys Popov.

After all, she had some experience in these matters.

Kate Leary never told anybody what happened to her friend Deirdre when Deirdre disappeared when they were seniors in high school. She just told police she saw a man who looked like the singer Dean Martin driving a red Mustang follow Deirdre after cheerleading practice. Kate said she waved goodbye when the man stopped and Deirdre got in the car and kissed the man. Poor Deirdre, who talked about Kate behind her back calling her dirty names, one day just never came home from school. At the memorial service Kate made everybody cry with the heartfelt words she spoke about her “best friend” Deirdre.

After the service her brother Kevin winked at her. She knew he knew. Kevin knew everything.

If Deirdre could disappear so could Borys. Homicide as common as the thick black hair that covered her and her cousins’ heads seemed to run in the Leary family.

Kim Phillips knew Borys had figured out her psychosis and sensed the “Irish” woman he dated was a figment of Kim’s imagination. With years of high-level KGB psychological warfare training behind him he knew Kim’s fragile mind had careened off the charts. Unstable meant dangerous. It was only a matter of time before Borys put the pieces together and realized she was not who she said she was. Kim knew her instability also meant weakness. And weakness could get people killed, maybe even Kevin. Kim had served her purpose. She knew she had to go – one way or the other. That’s why Borys called and asked her to dinner – and a goodbye kiss.

Maybe Kim could get the jump on him. End it all for them both. Life might be easier dead.

RayRay could go on with his full good life minus her demons.

Pondering the future back at the Elbow Room, RayRay knew he needed to act before the mounting disorder in his family grew worse. Until now he gave Kim unlimited freedom, allowing her to live life as she pleased with no interference. Until now RayRay could live and let live because nobody created problems for her or for him. But the Russian botched everything, ruining RayRay’s personal paradise with plans for a beach real estate takeover and now a romantic relationship with RayRay’s secret sister. Forget about it if word ever got out that Kim Phillips was RayRay’s sister and RayRay wasn’t really RayRay but an Irish hit man who hit hit men.

Maybe he should just whack that whack job Russian. Justifying the hit would be easy. Borys Popov ruled as a Russian Mafia boss, a corrupt land developer who was helping kill the planet, a KGB asset and even a government hit man. Maybe the CIA would give RayRay a medal.

One last hit wouldn’t hurt for old time’s sake, would it?

Deep in thought, RayRay didn’t hear Sam Bennett stroll into the bar wearing his gull beak-shaped N95 respirator mask and slowly flapping his arms.

Dillon did, though.

 “Buy that man a drink,” the parrot squawked.

“Don’t mind if you do,” Sam Bennett said.

Spotting the grim look on his friend’s face, Sam Bennett said, “You look like somebody just died.”

RayRay met Sam Bennett’s gaze.

“Or is about to,” RayRay said.

Killing isn’t supposed to be easy.

Neither is justifying the grisly act.

But ask anybody who commits such a ghastly deed and he or she will likely explain away the dire circumstances that led to that dark finality, explaining exactly why death happened as it did.

Randall Lark killed on behalf of his government. He also killed as an act of revenge. Grieving all the bodies he left on the Afghanistan battlefield, he believed the deaths were his fault. At least that’s how he saw his role in yet another lousy American war that chewed up young men and women that most Americans never think about. Worst of all, a little boy named Boss who Randall loved might still be alive if American profiteers hadn’t put them both in such a bloody no-win situation.

Marty Durkin killed by accident. Or did he? Deep down inside he wondered if he knew the small figure sitting alone on the sand was indeed an unarmed child as he pulled the trigger on Tyrone Lark in an impulsive repulsive act of fear, jumping the gun, so to speak, in a fatal panic. Could he ever admit to knowing a child sat alone in the sand clutching a band instrument but pulling the trigger anyway in a fit of sheer confusion because his paranoia as a white male cop finally got the best of him?

Ruby Arenas killed while in a tumultuous trance, casting a black magic spell against a macho college classmate who laughed when he killed a dolphin and deserved to pay the price for his brutality. Overkill, she later decided, yet writing off her own lethal cruelty as the mistake of a novice sorcerer. Next time she’d take her time to triage those who qualified to disappear on behalf of Santa Muerte, the Mexican death saint who needs fresh sacrifice to fertilize the earth for eventual goodness and peace. Ruby yearned to be more like that lovable old bird Sam Bennett who had the right idea not wanting to hurt anybody but still wanting to fight back against the unchecked predatory capitalism that would continue to kill species after species until one day we killed ourselves.

Kevin Leary aka RayRay Gigliardi killed because his scum Mafia hit men targets deserved to die. Feeling no contrition on these hits, he only quit whacking the whackers because he simply tired of erasing deserving mob targets and chose to retire – which he did with better federal benefits than most lifetime civil servants paid for by good old Uncle Sam.

Sam Bennett’s live gull allies killed for him and for their own survival, pecking out Ivan Popov’s eyes as an act of pure comeuppance as the gulls swooped and swarmed like avenging angels, bereft of pardon as they chased this human beast up a tree where he lost all sight of mercy and the benefit of reprieve.

Borys Popov killed for fun and profit, a deadly agent of totalitarian bliss sponsored and encouraged by the Russian government as part of a plot to take over the world and stamp out individual freedom.

Killers all, this gang that drank at RayRay’s Elbow Room fit perfectly into the frayed puzzle of fractured American society.

Poor Kim Philips didn’t kill anybody and didn’t want to kill anybody – at least not yet. Truth be told, she wouldn’t miss terrible twins Shannon and Tara if somebody else snuffed them from her mind. Lately, though, Kim sensed they’d been hiding out in her inner nature, biding time in her id preparing an ambush.

Just a few days before Christmas, Florida First Lady Jenna DeShifty and Mrs. X returned home to their husbands.

“I expect you to sign a Christmas Eve pardon for Sam Bennett,” Jenna DeShifty told her he-man governor hubby she still considered a “warrior sent from God.”

“Yes, dear,” Ronnie DeShifty said.

Mrs. X wanted something less philanthropic.

“Buy me desert island in Pacific,” she said.

“Yes, dear,” Mr. Big said.

What she didn’t tell him was her plan to pay rogue spy secret agent ex-boyfriends she knew from the old country in Slovenia to drop Mr. Big alone and marooned on that uninhabited tropical island before the indictment she heard about through the grapevine came their way. If the feds locked him up, locked him up, locked him up she’d lose money. If he disappeared, she could pay crooked Cuban-American judges to declare him dead and keep whatever cash the old man stockpiled under his retro water bed at Shangri-Lago.

Talk about making America great again!

Mrs. X even planned to donate money to Sam Bennett’s “Come Fly with Me Foundation” to save the gulls. Her whole life had been for the birds so she might as well sit back and enjoy the flight. Still, she had enemies. Sleazy Russian gangster Borys Popov had shown up at Shangri-Lago for lunch the other day and had blown her a kiss on his way out.

When the billionaire mobster left he carried an atomic suitcase bomb – or what he thought was an atomic suitcase bomb big enough to destroy everything within a half-mile radius of the center of Clearwater Beach. Mr. Big said mad scientists told him that within hours of detonation even a slight breeze would carry the nuclear fallout throughout the Clearwater area. Bomb makers set the nuclear explosive charge at one kiloton, the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT, Mr. Big said.

But Little Rocket Man in North Korea had actually given Mr. Big a nuclear device loaded with itching powder and Chinese fireworks the tiny dictator used to prank foreign dignitaries.

Either way, Mr. Big finally had his paws on the Pee Pee Tape.

Or so he thought.

Excited about the prospect of the new year, Sam Bennett found himself looking at a full gubernatorial pardon, money in the bank to help save the gulls and a chance to refocus on his main goal in life: flying. In training as the sun rose each morning, you could see Sam Bennett running up and down the beach flapping his arms. No longer worried about another early riser beachgoer identifying him from a wanted poster, his picture in the paper or on TV, he flapped and flapped and flapped until his chest hurt and he dropped to the sand out of breath. Even resting on the sand he slowly flapped like a baby gull trying out the first primal beatings of its little wings, feeling centuries of gull DNA surge through his body like electrical current in a power house, knowing the elemental forces of nature always meant for him to fly.

Sam knew he would fly.

Needed to fly.

Must fly.

Maybe Borys Popov would fly too – right out a 30-story window, perhaps, or maybe like a bird soaring higher and higher into the wild blue yonder. Maybe one day Borys Popov would fly off into the sunset and disappear for good.

Still hearing shrill voices in her head but not telling anyone, relief washed over Kim Phillips that the “girls,” as she now called them, were keeping to themselves. The exorcism must have scared split personalities Shannon and Tara into some kind of weird mental demilitarized zone as Kim tried to keep going about her business trying to sell luxury Clearwater Beach condominiums.

Ruby Arenas dutifully went to class, studied, swam long distances in the Gulf of Mexico in the morning, worked at RayRay’s at night and pondered becoming a full-time witch, casting black and white spells on elected political officials. She also wondered why she didn’t want a boyfriend. Honestly, Randall Lark was nice but came with too much baggage. Nobody else of any gender or no gender at all impressed her at the college, the restaurant or anywhere else. Mexican death saint Santa Muerte served as Ruby’s best friend, partner and role model. Marty Durkin also needed help with his past and not her type – better suited to Kim, who, like her, expressed no interest in relationships with anybody.

RayRay?

Unbeknownst to anyone, RayRay now faced a severe dilemma, continually second-guessing himself about making the wrong choice by accepting the U.S. Justice Department’s offer of plastic surgery, a new name, his own beach bar and a secure spot in the federal witness protection program.

His government handlers in Washington, D.C. loved him. After refusing to rat out Mafia bosses he knew all his life, he accepted a “contract” job that did appeal to him – hitting the hit men.

RayRay, born as Kevin Leary – that’s right, Irish – hated the mob. Growing up in Boston’s North End Italian neighborhood, he knew all the wise guys and the worst of the worst, psychotics who grew up to be hit men, killers, cold-blooded La Cosa Nostra button men.

More Molly Maguire than made man, Kevin Leary loved his Celtic blood lines. Revenge, justice and old-fashioned taking the law into his own hands appealed to him. Watching evil assassins he knew who was who and what was what. When he finally had enough of the wanton violence that intimidated and ruined the lives of good people he decided to do something about it.

A crooked Irish FBI agent who grew up with Kevin loved Kevin’s idea and introduced him to corrupt law enforcement contacts. The next week Kevin Leary hit his first hit man. The FBI agent picked up the tab for expenses – gun, bullets, hotel, car, new suit, dinner.

“May the road rise up to meet you,” Kevin Leary said before pulling the trigger.

Then he hit another hit man.

And another.

Within a year all over America the Mafia ran low on killers because Kevin Leary whacked the whackers. When he sensed he made his point and the mob was on the ropes losing power and influence in America, he decided to quit and call a press conference.

The feds went nuts and cut a deal: Keep killing what they called “bad guys” for one year, they said, and we’ll take care of you for life. The government loved Kevin Leary because he did what they wanted to do but couldn’t do in a nation of law.

OK said Kevin Leary.

“For one year I’ll hit all the hit men I can hit,” he said. “Then I’m out.”

“OK,” said the feds, including CIA bosses who also loved his work.

Twelve men fell dead in 12 months.

More than a decade later, RayRay lost his Boston accent and doubled down on a trace of a Buffalo dialect with the help of an FBI linguist and lived in peace. Masterful at changing the subject about his professional hockey career because it never existed, he loved cooking at the restaurant, wiping down the bar, playing drums in the house band, watching hockey on TV and looking after Dillon.

What RayRay hated was worrying about his sister. Nobody knew he shared blood with Kim Phillips except her and the feds who broke all their own rules by giving her a new identity and backstory because Kevin refused to cooperate and move to Florida without her. With their drunken abusive Irish parents having long ago killed themselves Kevin looked out for Kim better than a pedigree army of guard Dobermans. Kim suffered severe psychological trauma growing up, but Kevin always respected her wish to get better on her own without the doctors who disagreed about her diagnosis and mostly without her powerful medication. Now she had God knows how many voices singing sympathy for the devil in her head and was worse than ever.

Kevin Leary, aka RayRay Gagliardi, had no idea how to help.

RayRay wasn’t the only guy feeling confused by chaotic life events out of his control. With just a week to go before Christmas, Dillon finished his last rum and Coke of the night as he helped RayRay string colored lights around the bar. When RayRay locked up for the night and left, the poor bird couldn’t sleep. Depressed and anxious, the crusty parrot knew he needed to straighten up and fly right.

After all, he had a gull friend.

Partial to gulls over his own kind, for weeks he had his eye on one beach blanket bird he spotted sunbathing near Pier 60 as he cruised sunny skies when he could get out looking for a snack. Watching her daintily eating clam strips, she ignored him when he landed nearby. She ignored him when he strutted and flexed his muscles like a preening parrot Popeye the sailor man. She even ignored him when he sang a snippet from “Free Bird,” the Lynyrd Skynyrd song he learned from the jukebox at RayRay’s. The gull’s name was Margot and she had more important things on her mind than a parrot with a hangover, a dirty bird that reminded her more of a feral chicken than a newfound fine-feathered friend.

One day last week when Dillon spotted an unattended open foam take-out container loaded with a variety of Italian pasta delicacies displayed on an unoccupied beach towel, Dillon swooped. With a half dozen marinara-coated strands of pasta in his beak, he hovered over Margot’s head, dropping first one single tortellini. A cheap date, Margot devoured the morsel as Dillon now dropped a plump lobster ravioli which she swallowed in one gulp. Nervous in the service of love, Dillon girded his loins for a tender finale.

Holding one end of a slimy strand of white clam sauce encrusted linguine in his beak, he hovered, dangling the macaroni strand above Margot’s head as she looked up with warm dark eyes. Taking the other end of the noodle she gobbled until together they reached the middle.

Their beaks touched.

Love at first bite.

Despite inbred differences, him a parrot, she a gull, they shared the same fluttering instincts at a tumultuous time when the world needed all the friendship it could muster – or mustard if you count the potato salad Dillon and Margot found and shared for dessert on their first date.

If only for a moment, all was well in the world. If only for a moment, as a perfect cantaloupe sun sank into the shimmering horizon off a white sandy shore, that’s amore.

Dillon might not stop drinking but he was sick of people picking on poor Sam Bennett who only tried his best to save the world, the environment and the gulls.

Endangered Margot mattered.

The time had come to move to the top of the pecking order.

The time had come for Dillon to start pecking.

Kim Phillips slept soundly with no trace of demons in her head while Marty Durkin and Randall Lark sat staring at each other across her condo kitchen table.

“This might be a good time to talk,” Durkin said.

“Whatever,” Randall said.

“What kind of answer is that? You know that’s your problem,” Durkin said.

“You shoot and kill my baby brother, another white cracker cop executing another unarmed Black child, and I’m the problem?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, officer?”

“You don’t want reconciliation.”

“I want you to pay,” Randall said.

 “I hear you’re a combat veteran,” Durkin said. “You ever kill anybody?”

The question stopped Randall dead.

“Killing in war and killing a little boy holding his precious piccolo is not the same.”

“It is if you think the piccolo was a gun,” Durkin said.

“You know that’s what I called him,” Randall said. “I called him Piccolo.”

Durkin saw a soft opening.

“Why did you call him that?”

“He was small and high-pitched like his piccolo,” Randall said.

Durkin felt tears come to his eyes.

Randall wanted to fly across the table and hit the ex-cop who would always be a cop, a white cop, never an ex-cop, a white cop who opened fire on his own uncertainty and fear and killed Tyrone in the process. Randall wanted to punish him. Randall wanted to kill him.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said.

“Look, it’s hard for me, too,” Durkin said.

Randall went to his feet in a second.

“No, you look. It isn’t as hard for you as it is for me. You won. I lost. Tyrone lost. My parents lost. My city lost. Black people lost. The whole country lost. You won because you always win. Even when you lose you win.”

Now Durkin stood.

“You’re right,” he said.

Randall looked at him real hard.

“This isn’t going to work,” Durkin said.

Randall’s voice dropped to almost a whisper, more like a growl.

“You ever even personally know a Black person?”

“From work,” Durkin said.

“No Black friends?”

“No.”

“I knew your kind in the Army, man,” Randall said. “In Iraq. In Afghanistan.  We looked out for each other, depended on each other, saved each other’s lives. But we weren’t friends.”

Now Durkin glared.

“If I’m a racist what are you?”

“All Black all the time.”

Both men heard Kim’s labored breathing before she walked slowly into the kitchen.

“I’m starving,” she said. “Who wants Chinese?”

Now Randall tried to smile. So did Durkin. Both men tried to help put Kim at ease the way they tried to help people when they carried guns in the line of duty.

“How do you feel?” Durkin asked.

“I feel like shit,” Kim said.

“No way around the shit nowadays,” Randall said.

Nervous laughter at least bent the tension. Both men felt sorry for Kim but she seemed better, back to normal whatever that was. The demons seemed to have departed. Or were they just lying low, hiding out in the deepest reaches of Kim’s mind? Durkin and Randall each put on as much of a happy face as he could muster, controlling potentially explosive behavior that could result in some serious damage if tempers flared and sent them over the edge.

Speaking of explosives, across town the meltdown had begun.

After a lifetime of victory on behalf of the motherland, Borys finally gave up. Now, like the average American, he just wanted to get even, to strike out and hit somebody, call in an air strike and kill something in order to feel good about himself.

That realtor Kim was nuts. The Irish girl she pretended to be was nuts. All her friends were nuts. He might be nuts. Borys had enough of American society and was heading back to Russia where he belonged in a nice totalitarian society that let him buy and build whatever he pleased. Nobody in this land of the free and home of the knave cared about him. Nobody cared about his wealth, his power or his political connections. Nobody cared he had often risked his life to kill for the KGB, terminating enemies of the state across the former USSR. A master assassin, he poisoned them, threw them out windows, off bridges and from speeding bread trucks. He served his cruel nation well.

And where did that get him? Alone and lonely in Clearwater Beach, billionaire oligarch or no billionaire oligarch, nobody loved Borys Popov. Had angry birds not pecked out his brother’s eyes, he would have taken an ice pick to Ivan’s beady little peepers. Master of the secret and dark martial art Sicklejutsu, he could kill just by looking at you crooked, radiating sizzling violence from deep inside his mind worse than any James Bond villain, sending his victims into mouth-foaming frenzy and spasms of Red death.

Borys loved living a life of danger. But now he tired of the game. Now he needed help. Now he needed the ultimate weapon to teach capitalism a lesson the world would never forget. Borys needed a nuclear bomb – just a little one, a baby megaton fusion-laden device that would demolish not only every condo on Clearwater Beach but devastate Clearwater Beach itself.

The good life should not have come to this, but nobody appreciated Borys’ talent, his commitment, his twisted loyalty to the glory of self-interest, not even that rotten egomaniac Gov. Ronnie DeShifty to whom Borys had secretly contributed cash and election advice and illegal interference, going so far as to pledge huge infusions of cash for a 2024 presidential run, secretly working against the impeached former madman president who wanted to again become an even more dangerous madman president.

With DeShifty as leader of the so-called free world Borys could finally retire, buy a dozen mail order brides from the old neighborhood and live his remaining years as comfortable as a Saudi prince with a hair-raising harem loaded with prancing dancing girls.

Woo woo!

With DeShifty as president, Borys could rule from behind the scenes, discover America on his own terms and control the world. Screw Vladimir Putin, too. Borys couldn’t wait to expose Putin’s plan to undergo breast implant surgery to make his sagging aging pectorals look like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pecs in his prime.

Borys would tell the world!

Fake boobs! Fake boobs!

Then he’d release the pee pee tapes of which he made 100 copies in living color. And show the dirty pictures on Hunter Biden’s XXX laptop. And, and, and who knows what other damage he could wreak on America? Always up for a fight, the idea of destroying the world made Borys feel good again. Maybe he’d quit skullduggery altogether. Leave the whole sordid mess of international espionage behind. Maybe he’d just call it a day after leveling Clearwater Beach.

Lights out.

Time for apocalypse now.

Mr. Big answered the resort phone on the first ring.

“Stormy? Is that you?”

“No, you inflatable blimp,” Borys said. “Weather is perfect. But I do have whirlwind blast in mind.”

Mr. Big grew excited and when he got excited he got hungry.

“Want me to order pizza?”

“With extra mushroom,” Borys said. “As in cloud.”

Mr. Big’s business instincts kicked right in.

“You mean like Independence Day fireworks?”

Borys jumped on the opening like red beets on cabbage.

“You don’t have atomic missile rocket torpedo among White House gifts you moved from White House, do you?”

“I just so happen to have a teeny tiny baby nuke the Little Rocket Man in North Korea gave me as a gift,” he said. “I was saving the sparkler for my Fourth of July celebration here at Shangri-Lago. If I shoot it high enough into the sky, it won’t hurt anybody.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch by your swimming pool,” Borys Popov said.

“You get the bomb, I get the pee pee tapes,” Mr. Big said.

As soon as he hung up he got hungry. The gift-wrapped box of extra-large holiday Hershey kisses the size of silver covered apples caught Mr. Big’s eye. A young female assistant with a Ph.D. in fragrance counseling from Trump University, dyed blond hair, a red dress and pomegranate-colored pumps told him that morning that Mrs. Big had sent the candy as a peace offering. Despite his pleasure that Mrs. Big high-tailed it to Clearwater Beach with Jenna DeShifty, he needed Mrs. Big to return for public relations purposes until after the 2024 election. Then he’d trade her in for a couple of Miami Dolphins cheerleaders.

What Mr. Big didn’t know was that one of the out-of-work wrestlers who now guarded Sam Bennett as part of his new crack security detail worked part-time in a gourmet candy factory and had prepared a specialty item Sam Bennett requested to be served at the many white glove society functions catered throughout Florida. The rich remained the enemy of the environment and of the people. And if you thought shit-filled golf balls were something, wait until you bit into a supersized shit-filled Hershey kiss.

Because of the mini confetti popper the professional wrestler inserted into the silver-wrapped kiss with the white paper strip plume as well as the volume of gull shit he jam-packed into the sweet confection, the fattest shittiest candy kiss ruptured as soon as Mr. Big’s thick greasy fingers pulled the parchment pin and the chocolate blew like a grenade in a war movie.

Mr. Big didn’t drink – not even a sip from one of the dusty bottles from one of the thousands of leftover cases he kept in the basement at Shangri-Lago from a failed vineyard investment. But he now gave new meaning to the word shitfaced. Gull guano dripped from his droopy eyelids, his fleshy nose, tiny mouth, thin lips, rippled chin and every strand of his stained hair. Bird feces dangled in coagulated strips from the crystal chandelier. Stunned, he stood by gold drapes covered in fetid waste. Transfixed by the power of the dung discharge he spit out a mouthful of putrid poo.

Still, on instinct, he answered his phone as soon as the slot machine jackpot ringtone went off. At the other end of the line the familiar syrupy voice of his runaway wife cooed bittersweet nothings into his crap-filled ear.

“Is that you, Poopsy?” she said.

Some short, some tall, including a Mexican little people tag team wearing rubber masks that covered their heads and a trans woman who billed herself as the “Amazon Zombie,” a dozen hungover professional wrestlers, some clothed in mismatched torn tights, multicolored capes, scuffed black combat boots, fedoras with feathers and worse, jumped from four Dodge muscle cars that pulled slowly into the Clearwater Beach parking lot beside the rubble of Borys Popov’s imploded beachfront condominium tower.

Mrs. X, Mr. Big’s absconder wife, smiled a mouth full of capped teeth pearly as a white power rally in a Buffalo, New York, snow squall as she perched in a silk semi-see-through muumuu on the back seat of a jet black custom built Charger convertible. Slinky Florida First Lady Jenna DeShifty modeled herself in a leopard print thong bikini perched in a blood red Challenger ragtop, her Medusa-like locks blowing above two inflated body parts she advertised on full display. The well-known duo posed like pretty poisonous vipers about to sink sharpened fangs into soft human flesh.

“I’m so happy Hulk Hogan wasn’t home,” Mrs. X said.

“Even happier we found his hangout bar downtown to flirt and hook up with these hunky chunky rasslers,” Jenna DeShifty said.

“Our new security team,” said Mrs. X. “I buy them with fat checks. Mr. Big won’t get us back without a riot bigger than January 6. I called loser president on phone last night to tell him I buy new house here and high-powered divorce lawyer, too.”

Jenna’s squealy high-pitched laugh sounded like a chipmunk mating ritual.

“I called the governor, too,” Jenna said, “and ordered him to keep his goon cops away from Sam Bennett until he pardons him of all crimes. If it weren’t for our husbands we wouldn’t be getting shit on all the time.”

“Especially you,” Mrs. X said. “With real shit.”

“It took three days to get the gull poop out of my hair,” Jenna said. “Exploding golf ball shit was the worst.”

“Newspapers say Florida country clubs are taking big hit,” Mrs. X said. “White male executives and rich retirees afraid of getting shit on. Stock market says terrorist shit-storm bad for corporate business brand.”

A customized muscle van equipped with hellfire flames painted on the sides and chrome pipes belching red and purple smoke loaded with more wrestlers screamed into the lot, dislodging enough muscle heads to body slam the entire governor’s staff as well as any overweight State Police security detail.

When the van doors opened Sam Bennett appeared raising his hands over his head like the Hulkster after winning another championship bout. When the eccentric nature lover stepped onto the macadam scores of gulls flying around his head went crazy when he flapped his arms in his trademark takeoff imitation.

“Free Sam Bennett!” Mrs. X yelled in the throaty Slovenian accent that swam in her mouth thick as veal and buckwheat gravy at a dirty dictator’s formal dinner party.

“Free Sam Bennett!” Jenna DeShifty yelled in tones tempting as key lime pie.

Neanderthal has-been, would-be and wannabe pro wrestlers, some still on parole for a variety of violent felonies, picked up on the cheer while Borys Popov stood in the shade of a palm tree looking at the autopsy report on his late brother Ivan. Cause of death? Blood loss. Manner of death? Birds pecked out his eyes – likely frenzied seagulls judging from feather fragments impacted deep in the eye sockets of the deceased.

Birds?

Birds.

Just like the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock thriller that struck more fear into the hearts of bird watchers than the day Borys walked into the KGB locker room showers and saw Soviet Union Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s shriveled private part dangling like a dead goose neck at a Red Square market.

Ivan Popov was for the birds all right.

As ominous gulls now swarmed above Borys’ head, Mrs. X got snide. Looking Jenna DeShifty in the eye she asked, “I watched your husband’s campaign ad on TV. Do you really believe God sent dorky governor to save world?”

Jenna got teary-eyed.

“I am so embarrassed,” she said of the political re-election ad that ran throughout Florida.

The ad said, “God looked down on His planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter.”

Jenna wept.

“My husband believes he’s Jesus’ brother,” she said.

“Not fighter, though,” Mrs. X said. “Despite super riches, both husbands lack a pair of family jewels.”

Pointing to Sam Bennett, she said, “That guy is fighter.”

Jenna nodded.

”Sam Bennett will save us and Florida’s environment before Mr. Big and governor put together,” she said.

“Are we crazy?” Mrs. X asked.

“Crazy as loons,” Jenna said. “Look who we married.”

Both women began chanting.

“Free Sam Bennett,” they bawled. “Free Sam Bennett.”

Two wrestlers with biceps as big as their heads hoisted Sam Bennett onto their shoulders. Wearing his gull mask, he raised a bony clenched fist like he had just won a WrestleMania match or the karaoke contest at Hulk Hogan’s beach bar. Adoring gulls circled his head like a halo. Sunshine beamed down on his bald pate. Two beautiful VIPs egged him on. Life was looking up for Clearwater Beach’s unlikeliest hero.

If only the optimistic crowd gathered on the pristine sand knew what Borys Popov planned for the future.

Nuke kooks make the world go boom.

“I saw your wife dancing Watusi on a table at RayRay’s Elbow Room in Clearwater Beach,” billionaire Russian oligarch gangster Borys Popov said.

The booming voice on the other end of the telephone call gasped.

“Why should I believe you? Russians are pathological liars,” said the man Borys Popov called “Meester Beeg.”

“I was peeping through bar window and shot steamy video,” said the Russian Mafia boss.

“Everybody says they have video,” said Mr. Big.

“I have other smoking video, too,” said Borys Popov.

Mr. Big sounded like he was choking on what Borys would call a “Beeg Mac.”

“What other video?”

“Remember when we party hearty with fake Moscow beauty contestants who were real Moscow prostitutes? Remember hot tub full of bubbling champagne? Remember nude caviar wrestling?”

“That was Hunter Biden, not me.”

“Hookers took DNA sample when you snore in sleep. Body fluid now deposited with heavy interest in vault at secret Karl Marx Sperm Bank I own.”

“You have video of me singing in the rain?”

“In living color with big yellow raindrops falling on your head.”

Mr. Big’s voice dropped to a gravelly whisper.

“Not the pee pee tape.”

Borys’ voice overflowed with glee.

“Yes, I have pee pee tape!”

 “Fake news, fake news,” Mr. Big said.

“Tinkle time to rain on your parade,” Borys said.

“Where is my traitor wife now?”

“She and slinky governor’s wife went looking for Hulk Hogan’s house. Hulkster lives here, too, you know.”

“Is that why those two bimbos went to Clearwater Beach?”

“Governor’s wife just tired of getting shit on. Like your wife. Now they defect to other side like Patty Hearst. Now they help terrorist bird man Sam Bennett shit on you and Gov. DeShifty.”

“I hate Gov. DeShifty,” said Mr. Big. “I call him Gov. DeShafty.”

 Borys Popov threw his best psychological sucker punch.

“Big protest rally to support bird man scheduled tomorrow on beach,” Borys said. “All bird man’s friends nuts like him. They all were at condo party last night where weirdo hippie chick drugged me. Woke up this morning in parking lot Dumpster.”

“You need better security,” Mr. Big said. “I’ll send over a couple of Secret Service agents you can pay in cocaine.”

Borys Popov tightened the screws.

“I hear Mrs. Beeg and First Lady DeShifty are VIPs at tomorrow’s protest. They promise to help free bird man.”

Now Mr. Big flailed like a hooked swordfish, reverting back to sound bites from a recent speech where he resembled a rusting robot in a red necktie speaking programmed gibberish.

“I didn’t need this,” he said. “I had a nice easy life.”

Borys stifled a laugh.

“I’m a victim, I will tell you, I’m a victim,” Mr. Big said.

“I have idea,” Borys Popov said. “We sell two backstabbing tramps to Sheik of Araby for his harem. If they complain, he sells jezebels to nomad desert bandits.”

“Keep talking, Commie,” said Mr. Big.

“I give you pee pee tape in exchange for plush Palm Beach resort.”

Mr. Big knew Borys just handed him the raw end of the deal, but what choice did he have? Maybe the time had come to leave the sunshine state and go back to New York, start dating Kim Kardashian. Blathering Mr. Big sniveled.

“I go home and she says, ‘You look angry and upset.’ I say, ‘Just leave me alone.’”

Borys snickered.

“We’ll leave her alone,” he said. “Alone with the Shiek of Araby.”

Both men roared with laughter.

“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for President of the United States,” Mr. Big said.

“Give it rest, already,” Borys said. “You sound like an old Wayne Newton record.”

Mr. Big gave the art of the deal one last shot.

“You want to buy some classified documents?” he asked.

White wax candles lit Kim’s bedroom in a soft flickering glow. With her eyes open wide as communion hosts she shivered beneath a soft pink blanket. Ruby stood by Kim’s bed.

“What an excellent day for an exorcism,” said Tara, one half of Kim’s split personality.

“You would like that?” Ruby asked.

“Intensely,” saidShannon, the other half.

“But wouldn’t that drive you out of Kim?” Ruby asked.

“It would bring us together,” Tara said.

“You and Kim?”

“You and us,” said Shannon.

Not showing surprise but stunned by how Kim and the demons knew lines from the The Exorcist movie, Ruby fought a tinge of fear. What if the devils won? Could they win? What if light lost to darkness?  Where was Santa Muerte when she needed her most?

Tara growled in her Dublin gutter brogue.

“You mother’s with us in Hell,” she said.

Ruby stepped back from the bed.

“So is your father and his girlfriends and your mother’s sexy girlfriends, too. You and your girlfriends will one day join us in eternity’s hottest hot tub,” Shannon said. “Welcome to the naked city.”

Bold, loud and seemingly in control, the dark spirits filled the room with tension unlike any Ruby ever felt. Satanic strategy involved sowing seeds of doubt about her parents. Ruby tried to tune out the message of the Beast, to invoke the power of Santa Muerte in her battle to free Kim when an uncommonly forceful gust of wind blew through the open window and lifted the curtain against the table that shook off the lit candle that dropped to the floor.

Ruby knew she was in trouble. Burning wax stuck to the hem of the curtain, quickly catching the fabric on fire. Within seconds flames crawled up the wallpaper. Ruby rushed to grab a blanket and pound out the fire. Sam, Marty Durkin, RayRay and Randall rushed into the room.

Kim lay motionless with her eyes open staring at the ceiling.

Durkin turned and ran from the room, returning 20 seconds later carrying a red kitchen fire extinguisher. Pulling the pin like a battlefield hero wielding a grenade, he released a thick cloud of white foam against the growing wall inferno. Within 30 seconds he had the blaze under control.

Everyone breathed heavily except the devils.

They laughed.

“The power of Christ compels you,” Tara said.

“The power of Christ compels you,” said Shannon.

More lines from the movie.

At least Kim still kept her head screwed on straight.

“I’ll sit with her if you want,” said Randall, taking the lead and offering to walk point through this treacherous mind field.

“He reminds me of Sammy Davis Jr.,” said Tara.

“Soul man,” Shannon said as she began singing the 60s Sam and Dave song.

Randall swallowed a tinge of fear he hadn’t felt since he faced the cold combat of Afghanistan .

RayRay turned and left the room without a word. If this faceoff were a hockey game, the demons would be the enforcers. RayRay felt out of his league. That night after closing the bar RayRay stood alone, feeding Dillon crackers with fish spread doused in the house hot sauce.  

Durkin had volunteered to sit with Randall and watch Kim. RayRay worried the two men might still kill each other like the samurai fights of old Japan, where only three outcomes existed once warriors drew swords from scabbards.

I win and you die.

You win and I die.

We both die.

Two in three chances of dying make for bad odds.

Kim might die, too.

The devils might throw her and Durkin and Randall out the window unless help arrived and cleansed her mind with medicine, therapy, even hospitalization and continuing medical care. RayRay believed in science. Kim’s soul needed saved if you believed the priest in the exorcist movie. RayRay didn’t believe in souls and did not suffer religion kindly. The cosmos mattered most because the spacious sky went on forever and ever, bigger than Bible stories or other manmade fantasies designed to simplify the story of existence. That’s why RayRay hated religion. Myth trivialized the sweet mysteries of life, offering explanation where none existed. Even now with the benefit of the best science ever we don’t even know how the brain really works. Nor do we know why everything equals nothing and nothing equals everything. Yes, the cosmos is real. Science proves it every day with new telescopes that show us what the mind cannot grasp. Where did life originate? Why here? We came from nothing and returned to nothing.

Now Dillon screeched as loud as his favorite Doobie Brothers song played full blast on the jukebox.

“Jesus Christ. Polly want a cracker!”

The parrot only shut up when somebody started pounding so loud on the door the glass rattled.

“Open Up! Girls just want to have fun! Let us in!”

At first RayRay thought Kim had escaped and the twisted twins from Hell were again on the loose. When he opened the door, though, two women stood reeling drunk in six-inch electric red, white and blue stiletto heels and calf leather hot pants with matching stars and striped halter tops looking like ripped Republican refugees fresh from a right-wing political rally. Wearing a red wig with dreadlocks, Jenna DeShifty, the Governor’s wife, pointed to her loaded friend and winked a drunken wink so slowly her eyelid almost didn’t reopen.

“I’d like you to meet Mrs. X,” she said. “We have to protect her identity.”

Dollar bill green mascara smeared the woman’s cheeks as she leaned on Jenna DeShifty for support. She had fallen out of one high heel and stood swaying as the bangs of her long green wig slipped forward into her eyes so far she looked like an unshorn sheep dog. The woman wore pointed silver tassels on the two most strategic points of her halter top. She started to weep.

“I can’t take living with that tyrant anymore,” Mrs. X said. “I want a divorce.”

“Tell me about it,” said Jenna DeShifty.

Mrs. X blubbered.

“My swine husband says Gov. DeShifty is worse than sand in the crotch of your bikini,” she said.

“Who knows better than me?” Jenna DeShifty said. “My little madman says God told him he’s the chosen one.”

“My dictator talks to Satan,” Mrs. X said. “Dough boy made a deal with the devil.”

Perking up, RayRay put his arm around Jenna DeShifty.

“I know two fallen angels named Tara and Shannon I’d like to introduce him to,” he said.

Mrs. X rallied.

She shook her booty.

“Girls’ night out!” she said.

“Girls’ night out!” said Jenna DeShifty.

Immediately recognizing these two famous political wives RayRay offered his best smile and stood aside with a bow.

“Please, ladies, come in,” RayRay said. “We’re open all night. Let us watch the tequila sunrise together. The booze is on the house.”

So in they came, swinging their hips and licking glossed loose lips like a couple of raunchy can-can dancers trolling the French Riviera. Blaring his best wolf whistle, Dillon topped off the fevered pitch with an imitation he learned from watching vaudeville legend Jimmy Durante on Retro TV.

“Ha-Cha-Cha-Cha-Chaaaaa!” Dillon said.

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.