A big double nothing burger with extra nothing on it – that’s how Kim Phillips saw herself.

A lonely loser nobody, just another skinny real estate agent walking around Clearwater Beach in a yellow sundress studded with black polka dots and wearing silver bangles that jangled and gold Roman sandals like she was clinging to Emperor Nero’s arm for cocktails at the Colosseum instead of getting stood up by condo clients she despised for their wealth and power.

Kim didn’t need a man or woman or non-gender person with whom to share her life. She just wanted to feel loved.

The top-of-the-line Jeep lease would soon expire unless the repo man came for the car earlier. Upkeep costs and maintenance fees increased on her own two-bedroom condominium overlooking the Gulf. Her favorite stone crab claws at RayRay’s got too expensive for her to eat more than once a month. Even with a better income, loneliness ate away at her the way acidic saltwater eats away at wooden pier pilings.

RayRay slid into her line of sight holding a fresh Mai Tai he expertly placed on her wet cardboard coaster.

“Bad day, Kim?”

Bar mascot pain-in-the-ass parrot Dillon picked right up on RayRay’s language if not his concern.

“Bad day, Kim? Bad day, Kim? BRAWWKBRAWWK!”

Kim waved a hand in front of Dillon’s beak as if she were swatting a fly off a picnic potato salad, trying to ignore the squawking bobbing bird. If the beast were a husband she’d ask for a divorce.

“Drunk overboard,” Dillon said. “BRAAAK! Drunk overboard.”

“We ought to feature a special tonight on deep fried parrot wings,” RayRay said.

Dillon began to disco dance the way he did when the jukebox played 70s Bee Gees hits.

“I’m OK, RayRay, really,” Kim said.

RayRay patted her hand before slowly walking away to tend to Sam who stood at the end of the bar flapping his arms like a gull and signaling for his first martini of the day. Dillon rolled down on his little homemade skates to see Sam who always had a cracker or two tucked into his pocket for his plumed pal.

Kim wasn’t OK.

Not even close.

Compared to the turmoil she now faced Kim would have welcomed a year’s worth of bad days at the office. Cold words in her head benumbed her brain like a forgotten bag of peas stuck in the ice at the back of the freezer.  

“Buy Becky a drink,” said the voice inside her skull. “Let it all hang out, Kim.”

One night last week a familiar voice appeared in Kim’s head for the first time in more than a decade. Without warning the guttural sound reacquainted Kim with her long gone auditory hallucination, a woman named Becky, who showed up as swiftly as a great white shark attack. That very night, even though Kim was reading a novel in bed and already drowsy, Becky ordered Kim to get up and ready to go to a flashy beach bar that recently opened.

Kim hadn’t heard Becky’s voice in almost 11 years.

Eleven long years ago.

Nobody at the bar knew Kim, and even if somebody had recognized her, she now wore a long red wig with bangs, a rainbow glitter halter top, purple bell bottoms and red high-heeled sandals, all items that clashed with her normally modest fashion taste. Kim also behaved differently with Becky taking over the minute they walked in the door. Becky danced on the table. Becky took off her top. Becky cursed the bouncers who carried her bodily to the curb.

Kim now lived in Becky’s head, a prisoner watching from inside her own dark mental attic, observing from inside her own blown mind. She heard Becky. She saw Becky. She even smelled Becky’s perfume that reminded her of canned peaches in thick sugary syrup.

Drained and exhausted, Kim missed work the next day.

Weeks later when Kim could no longer stand the psychic raid on her sanity, convinced she was having a full scale emotional breakdown, she saw a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist reassured her she was sane. Becky agreed. Even a neurologist said the voice was real to Kim. Both doctors posed the same question.

“Who told you her name is Becky?”

“Becky did,” Kim said.

“I can prescribe something to make her go away,” the psychiatrist said.

Wanting desperately to win the fight against herself by herself, Kim declined.

Scientists agree some people hear a voice or voices without being mentally ill. Voices seem to come out of nowhere, but what causes them? Whose voices are they? What could Kim do to silence this eerie vocalization she carried around each day like the fake alligator skin briefcase she depended on for her job selling visons of paradise?

Working real estate sales at 52 hurt Kim’s feet. Constant smiles hurt her face. Living alone hurt her heart. She should own a dog but dreaded the thought of picking up and putting foul crap in little bags.

“So quit,” Becky said.

“Are you going to support me?”

“I can work as a pole dancer,” Becky said.

 “Like I don’t have enough problems,” Kim said.

She didn’t know the half of it.

Voices sometimes hear voices.

Tara and Shannon, two drunken twin sisters, had moved into Becky’s head even though she lacked a head. Becky kept Tara and Shannon secret as long as she could while these fiends plagued her with daily taunts and eruptions of psychological disorder.

The Irish psycho combo sometimes stayed awake all night arguing in their thick brogues and wailing like banshees whenever their problems got the best of them. Becky tried to referee but always failed. All she could hope for was a level of intoxication so severe the colleens, as they called themselves, eventually blacked out. Despite Becky trying to shield Kim from the continuous bedlam, Kim heard the incessant bickering in three separate voices that made her lose hope and fear the day she herself would meet the phantom sisters.

The she-devils grew more powerful, calling more and more shots in more ways than one (Jameson, Bushmills, Paddy), making Becky pressure Kim to join them more and more often for drinks and pot parties. Kim rode the berserk brainwaves like a stoned surfer on a tsunami to the Apocalypse. Normally a social drinker partial to Chablis or chilled prosecco, Kim lived on the edge, a battered multiple personality too often drunk, depressed and hung over when pointing out the beauty of a gray granite countertop in a waterfront condominium to customers who could smell alcohol fumes wafting from her pores.

Yet, competent doctors maintained that Kim had not lost her mind and was not suffering a breakdown.

Tara and Shannon stayed quiet as a Galway peat bog during the check-ups.

One Sunday morning so very long ago, while Kim made scrambled eggs and vegan sausage, getting ready to settle in for the day with the newspaper, Tara boldly interrupted, confronting Kim directly for the first time, slurring her words in a thick voice as curdled as spoiled dairy cream.

“What, no liver with those yolks?”

Kim jumped like somebody snuck up behind her and fired a gun beside her ear.

“Where’s Becky?”

“Becky’s fookin’ sleeping,” Tara said.

“Wake her, please” Kim said.

Tara shrieked.

“I always ate me liver.”

Now Shannon howled.

“We always ate our fookin’ liver.”

Kim trembled while vegan sausage links sizzled and burned in the pan.

Becky quickly showed up and tried to help.

“Ignore them,” she said.

Kim burned breakfast and went back to bed to try to forget, crying into her pillow like she did when she was just a girl.

 “They’re only figments of your imagination,” Becky said.

“So are you,” Kim said.

“But I’m your friend,” Becky said.

“Those two remind me of my father,” Kim said.

“Took you long enough to figure that out,” Becky said. “Your Irish father spun your head around everyday of your life. Tara and Shannon are just two more traumatized kids, abused spiritual sisters fathered by that old alkie who helped create you.”

Kim felt cold, sick to her stomach, lightheaded. Becky’s voice dropped to a gentle tone sweet as raisin pudding when she asked her most probing question.

“Do you remember when your mother locked you in the closet for not eating your liver?”

“Liver made me sick,” Kim said.

“Your mother got so mad at you she wanted to kill you.”

“I begged her to understand.”

“Your father screamed you should never talk back to your mother, Remember he knocked over his Guinness.”

Kim unblocked the memory. Every Thursday night for years her mother made rare liver and fried onions for the dinner Kim refused to eat. Once Kim got so upset she wet herself. Instead of ordering Kim to her room her mother locked the child for hours in the unlit closet off the small downstairs bathroom.

One night during her frequent imprisonment Daddy died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound her mother said was a cherry bomb when Kim screamed. Kim moved out when she turned 18. Her mother overdosed on Valium pills, and the day she was scheduled to be released from the hospital hung herself in her room with a soiled sheet from the bed.

“I was so scared all the time,” Kim said. “I still am.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Becky said.

“Will you be my friend?”

“You need to befriend yourself,” Becky said.

“Isn’t it too late for that?”

Becky spoke with confidence.

“Talk back to Tara and Shannon. Don’t listen to them. Put those voices in their places. You be the liver on their dinner plates.”

“What about you, Becky? Tara and Shannon control you, too.”

“I can take care of myself,” Becky said.

The next time Tara showed up to mock Kim, the frazzled Florida realtor garnered all the courage she possessed and spoke in a firm, steady tone.

“Leave me alone,” she said.

Tense seconds passed.

Shannon jumped in like a tattooed tag team wrestler.

“Shut your gob, Kim, you slut!”

“No, thank you, I won’t. I’ll do as I please. You know there’s something seriously wrong with you two, right? You might want to see a doctor.”

The twin demons roared in diabolical disharmony.

“Eat your liver! Don’t talk back to your mother!”

For the next month the two Gaelic kelpies tried their best and failed to commandeer Kim’s brain. They took Becky hostage, but Kim stood her ground. In the end these terrible Celtic shadows just disappeared, leaving Kim and Becky alone.

Becky moved out the next day.

Whoever put the whammy on Kim no longer wielded power.

The hex disappeared.

Kim got her head together and healed, taking a few weeks off before going back to work with a new real estate company. Potential buyers put faith in her renewed ability to show and sell one and two-bedroom luxury homes by the Gulf of Mexico.

That was 11 years ago.

In 2020, because of COVID, of course, business plummeted.

Kim’s mood swings swung.

Becky moved home.

Tara and Shannon showed up, too, worse than ever and anxious to party.

They hoped Becky wouldn’t tell Kim.

The colleens wanted to surprise their favorite sister.

New black silk pajamas felt cool on Randall Lark’s ebony skin.

Sitting cross-legged on the double bed at Frenchy’s Oasis Motel he watched “Honkies Hit Harlem” on TV, one of the least well-known low-budget 70s blaxploitation films that pitted the brothers against each other and the cruel, cruel world. In this one even badass dudes who cut each other’s throats and battled in blood over territory to sell cocaine and women came together to fight white invaders and win.

But that was Hollywood where Super Fly and Shaft and the Hammer ruled rather than fell in a barrage of bullets fired from a white cop’s gun. Randall lived a lawful life in the ghetto not nearly as slick as the movie players, homies in green Cuban heeled platform shoes, cranberry-colored leisure suits and matching wide-brimmed skimmers that impressed the ladies in their red stiletto heels, short tight leopard skin skirts and Afro hairdos big as basketballs.

After enlisting at 18, if his time with the U.S. Army taught Randall anything in Afghanistan, the military industrial complex prepared him to expect anything at any time, even from his own side which was sometimes hard to identify. By the time Randall separated from service and landed back in the world he wasn’t sure who to call the enemy. Taliban commanders and Pentagon generals all looked alike to him.

The same went for most college professors. Even Black scholars lived in comfortable ivory towers where ivory was just another shade of white. You’d think Black faculty at a historically Black college would know the streets and the culture from which they came. But these experts weren’t so expert after all. Except for unique teachers like militant Cornel West, give a Black Afro-American Studies professor from Princeton or Columbia a couple of appearances on MSNBC, a few New Yorker articles and a book deal about James Baldwin, and they forget where they came from as easily as any self-absorbed cracker. Professional brothers and sisters are too quick to forget, assuming they knew what was going down in the first place.

At least Randall came home alive and aware with sergeant’s stripes, combat medic experience and eventually a bachelor’s degree in Black Comparative Literature from an HBC, understanding fear, death and survival more than most PhDs. Even now Randall carried paperbacks by Black Detroit writer Donald Goines and Black Chicago writer Iceberg Slim, wise men who dug deep into urban jungles pregnant with violence, prisons packed with desperation and original gangsters packing handguns, recognizing systemic racism, injustice and the battle for survival many Black people lost long before they started.

Sweet baby Tyrone lost.

So did little Boss who wasn’t even Black even although he swore to Randall he was.

Randall couldn’t save either one.

Marty Durkin stepped to Randall at the hospital the night Durkin shot Randall’s young brother Tyrone. Randall stood there looking through the cop’s eyes, listening, breathing calmly until the cop’s buddies walked him away crying, blubbering apologies and talking all this accident shit that didn’t matter.

Randall wanted to kill him then.

Now, after stalking Durkin to his new tropical life on the beach, the other night at RayRays’ Elbow Room bar Durkin didn’t even notice Randall sitting in the back of the dining room, the only Black patron in the place. Sooner or later Durkin would spot him though.

Mama wouldn’t sue the Stone Harbor Republicans for Tyrone’s death.

Mama just prayed.

Then she died fast from the same Kool menthol cigarette-induced lung cancer that six weeks later killed her husband Julius, Randall’s father. Gone just like that. The insurance money would help him get settled somewhere else, even if that somewhere else turned into a crime scene. Randall didn’t want a chaplain standing next to him at the electric chair or the gurney onto which white men would strap him for a lethal injection. He’d take death the same way he took life – uncertainly.

Jesus wasn’t listening. Ignoring Mama’s plight and the troubled world of color, allowing horror as bad as anything Hell had to offer to envelop humanity and torture all species, Jesus just rolled as another pimp on the block. Dude wasn’t even Black no matter what the jitterbugs said. Randall knew if Jesus were Black the man wouldn’t stand for half the shit he let happen. A real Black Jesus would save the world.

Attempted prayer got Randall nowhere, making him edgy and angry. The only time he truly tried to believe was when he watched a gunfight break out in the neighborhood that left three teenagers who lived on his block dead in the gutter on the corner. Randall squeezed his eyes closed and begged Jesus to help. Bowing his head made him dizzy. Randall knew Jesus didn’t care.

Ask countless dead Afghan kids American taxpayers killed if Jesus loves the little children, all the children in the world?

While you’re at it, ask Muhammad.

The child in Sayed Abad district in Afghanistan’s Wardak province introduced himself with a raised fist and a chipped clay plate full of fresh figs he handed Randall in the middle of a patrol designed to capture a brazen killer warlord and opium poppy farmer who worked for ISIS as well as the Taliban and stole whatever he could from the United States government in between.

“Soul food,” the boy said.

Randall tried not to laugh but fell out despite the overall oppression of war. Although he knew better, he took two figs and tossed them into his mouth. Sweet, chewy, moist, the figs tasted wonderful.

“Thank you, little brother,” Randall said, his mind flashing back to little brother Tyrone at home.

Taller than 6-year-old Tyrone, this 8-year-old boy stood erect, his weathered face gaunt yet smooth as a hand-carved walking stick compared to Tyrone’s chubby cheeks, jelly belly and high waist.  Pulling up the sleeve of the brown long top that covered him to his knees above loose pants and calloused bare feet, the boy held out his arm and rubbed his tanned and weathered caramel-colored skin.

“Look, I’m Black like you,” he said.

“You are one solid little soul man, all right,” Randall said.

“Soul men,” the boy said. “Battle buddies. You and me. What’s your name, bro?”

“Randall.”

“Boss,” the boy said. “I’m Boss.”

Grinning wide grins they laughed easy as old friends.

Whoever taught the child to speak English shared a good attitude with him as well – the kind of trait that usually comes from love, the kind of affection Randall’s mother provided him when he was young. The child’s personality came from that magic place that anoints those who spread light in the lives of others, people who want to share benevolence, kindness and friendship.

Boss.

Randall always called him Boss, even at the end.

Moving off the bed as fast as one of the many Palestine yellow scorpions he killed on the Afghan battlefields, Randall clicked off the TV. Walking to the balcony he watched the slow lights of a grouper fishing boat moving in from the Gulf, past shadowy condominiums on the other side of the bay that winked as black water rippled softly in the nighttime breeze. Stillness reined until small muffled sounds drifted up from a friendly party downstairs, three or four white Baby Boomer tourists vacationing, believing they called the shots in their lives – retired, drinking, smoking and joking without a care.

Fate owned them and fate wasn’t always nice about making new acquaintances. Nobody’s in charge of anything. Destiny is a lie. Some white cop acting on a disturbing the peace complaint could kick in the door at any moment. Oops. Sorry. Shit happens. Shit happened to Tyrone. Shit happened to Boss. Shit happens most to those who deserve it least.

Randall needed to stop shit from continuing to happen. At least get even. Yeah. Randall would get even. That’s right. Malcolm X, Bobby Seale, Huey, Ali, even Martin would fathom revenge under these unfair circumstances.

Randall almost couldn’t wait.

Gazing into the newly carved gulls’ glass eyes with all the affection a loving father bestows on a newborn babe, Sam Bennet spoke reassuringly to his wonderful secret weapons.

“Today is your maiden flight,” he said. “Please don’t be nervous.”

One dozen perfectly sculptured gull drones stared back, red eyes blazing in the morning light.

Carefully positioning a mechanically-inclined bird on its back and adjusting the clamping vice on his workbench, Sam gently used a pocket knife blade to pry open the two hinged bomb bay doors on the drone decoy’s white painted stomach, making sure the thin red, green and blue wires connected properly before snapping the pieces firmly back into place.

Sam methodically checked each bird for flaws.

As expected, all was well.

After wrapping up his Navy career as a crack electronics technician, Sam knew everything he needed to know about maintaining, repairing and calibrating electronic equipment used to detect, track and identify the enemy. Radar, sonar, communications and navigation equipment came easy. Compared to his ET duties in high seas, tight quarters and inclement weather, creating drone gulls was as simple as peeling potatoes.

Next Sam checked the handheld drone controller box to make sure he could send the radio signal from the remote control to the drone gulls so he could tell the birds what to do. Pricking his thumb and drawing a drop of blood as he poked into the mechanism, Sam couldn’t keep from cursing.

“Shit,” he said.

His ironic expletive made him laugh, a snorting guffaw that sent spit from both sides of his mouth. A sense of humor dry as a martini without vermouth helped Sam entertain himself, finding hilarity in somber moments during which most people wouldn’t even think to laugh. Snickering Sam thought he was a riot, funny as a Tootsie Roll floating in a public swimming pool.

The gulls were ready to dump.

Sam had packed with poop one dozen gull-shaped drones that looked just like the real deal, enough poop to land like a pie-in-the-face clown gag at the circus. Sam knew he and like-minded anti-real-estate-development community anarchists would cherish this feculent shenanigan.

Gull poop is normally icky enough when a glop drops from the sky onto your head or shoulder, but Sam needed industrial-strength stools to accomplish this manure mission, poo with heft and substance to its excremental load. Great Dane waste more so fit the bill, scooped from feces mountains Sam’s bongo-playing neighbor’s dog deposited daily in the backyard and the hipster cleaned up once a week with a wheelbarrow and shovel.

For the first airborne bombing run, spring-loaded to fire poop projectiles speeding with a velocity that would unleash doo-doo destruction on its marks, Sam cut the crap with eco-friendly, water-based liquid glue so the fecal matter stuck to your body when it landed. When these great gull drones locked on their targets, Sam would flip the switch.

Bombs away?

How about bowels away?

Russian oligarch billionaire Boris Popov had scheduled the press conference and ribbon cutting celebrating the new super condo tower for Saturday morning at noon. Billed as “The Biggest Beach Party Ever,” the VIP guest list included well connected invitees ranging from the dull golf-playing mayor to shit-for-brains Chamber of Commerce executives to the loony governor himself who would showcase the future of Clearwater Beach in all its storied glory. The event would make all the Florida papers, television news shows and even numbskull talk radio programs – maybe national news coverage, too.

What better place for the bananas Republican governor to announce his bid for the presidency? The site of the 100-story condo tower, an even more pointed erectile symbol of power than the Washington Monument, would show the governor’s willingness to stand up to swarms of woke liberals trying to run him out of office and ruin the nation. With Boris Popov’s backing even a dipshit despot politician like the governor had nowhere to go but up.

Despite their riches, these pompous tanned beach patron country clubbers in their white linen suits, pink pastel shirts and seersucker shorts had no idea they’d wind up shit out of luck when the shit finally hit the fan. Always taking what they wanted whenever they wanted, these bloated plutocrats never thought about humble peasants whose lives they adversely impacted.

But the gulls – the gulls mattered most.

Although Florida gulls are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes it “unlawful at any time, by any means or in any manner, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill … any migratory bird,” humans shoot them with BB guns and government snipers sometimes even execute them for predatory behavior against vulnerable birds more threatened than gulls. But even killing a gull by accident can bring down the heavy arm of the law. Violating the Act constitutes a federal misdemeanor that can result in fines up to $15,000 and imprisonment up to six months.

As far as Sam was concerned, gulls’ lives mattered. Are gulls predators? Of course. Gulls eat endangered least tern eggs and sometimes even turn on each other. But humans comprise far worse danger to themselves and other beasts. And what about the gullible birds of a feather that congregate in poisoned landfills and filthy dumpsters to get sick with disease and infect humans?

Real estate developers don’t want to consider looking out for gulls.  Developers don’t think about caring for the planet. Developers do not care a lick about this good earth. Sam Bennett, a good and decent man, thought relentlessly about morality, evolution and the future, knowing he couldn’t save the world.

But he could do his best to protect his gulls.

Holding the drone controls, Sam said, “Roll.”  

In this mental practice run the bird moved left and right, literally “rolling” in the air.

“Pitch,” Sam said.

The bird tilted forward then backward.

“Yaw,” he said, using his favorite drone term.

The bird drone rotated clockwise then counterclockwise, allowing Sam to make circles and patterns in the air.

Pushing and maneuvering the left stick then the right stick on the control box, Sam finally held in his hands the power to control destiny for the evil in-crowd that chewed up and spit out people like him and his friends.

Sam said, “Throttle.”

In his mind he saw the birds dive at full speed as he commanded the amount of power he sent to the gull drones, making his attack squadron go faster and faster before throwing the switch with the zeal of the electric chair executioner at the Florida State Prison in Starke firing up “Old Sparky.”

Yes, the heavens would soon open.

One real shit-storm was about to begin.

In RayRay’s bugged out brain the Duvall twins’ obituary breathed, pulsed and floundered like a dying carp with a continuing life of its own as if these good old boys might jump right off the page and start threatening people and ordering pitchers of beer followed by triple shots of Rebel Yell bourbon which they called whiskey. Each time RayRay read and reread the yellowed clipping in the weekly Clearwater News he hyperventilated and started to sweat from the head, neck and even around the waist.

“Morton and Clifford Duvall, 45, passed onto their eternal rewards to chill with the Lord Friday when the stolen car in which they were riding careened off the Indian Rocks Causeway Bridge. Neither man was wearing a seat belt. Well known in the Clearwater Beach area for their free (and often unannounced) professional wrestling exhibitions, the Duvall brothers also grappled with alligators one winter season until animal rights activists provided evidence to the county prosecutor to shut them down for cruelty after having discovered they pulled the gators’ teeth and sedated the reptiles with Mexican fentanyl. Per their request no services will be held.”

A silver key lay on the kitchen table beckoning RayRay the way the Siren’s song called sailors to crash against the rocks and die. Morton and Clifford drank at RayRay’s for a few months before their fatal accident. In fact, they sat at the bar until closing time the very night of the accident when they gave RayRay the key.

“You’re one of the only people we trust,” Morton said.

“Yeah,” Clifford said. “One of the only people.”

That’s when they gave RayRay the sealed envelope.

“Don’t open it,” Morton said.

“Yeah, don’t open it,” Clifford said.

“No problem, boys,” RayRay said.

People gave RayRay items to hold all the time – an electric rhythm guitar in exchange for beers until pay day and a Brazilian piranha in a five-gallon goldfish bowl that ate fried calamari and whole jumbo shrimp. The twins were impressed when 86-year-old regular Grandma Roses handed over her false teeth in the depth of her dementia because she worried the bill collector would repossess them. Kindly RayRay sunk her choppers into a pint glass of water and sat them beside the cash register after dropping in an effervescent Alka Seltzer tablet to help keep the upper and lower plates hygienic and shiny as the stars in the old woman’s eyes.

“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz,” he said.

Grandma Roses ordered a martini and gummed the olive with a distant smile.

A week after the twins went off the shallow end RayRay opened the envelope after the bar closed. He sat alone with his thoughts and a pitcher of frozen margaritas. After reading the words “TREASURE MAP” underlined three times in gray No. 2 pencil, he contemplated his future and grabbed a sturdy garden trowel from the restaurant back shed and walked a mile up the street to Mandalay Park. The treasure map directed him to the long white and blue park sign that paralleled the sidewalk that bordered the grass and trees that faced the beach. A black X marked the spot on the treasure map under the bushes directly beneath the letter “C” in Clearwater on the sign.

RayRay burrowed under the bushes, hiding and digging when he felt comfortable with the deserted street at his back. Shining his flashlight like a solitary dog walker or lonely senior citizen grubbing for fishing worms, within minutes he clinked the hinged 8.65 x 6.3 x 3.54 inch tin box the twins bought at Walmart and buried about 10 inches into the dirt. The box wasn’t even locked. Looking around and seeing nobody, he shoved the canister into a medium-sized black garbage bag, slung the plastic sack over his shoulder and headed for home.

After opening a fresh Landshark beer RayRay retrieved the box, set it on the table on two open newspaper pages, raised the lid, dug through three layers of bubble wrap and immediately saw the golden gleam from a 24 karat cross. A one-inch piece of what believers worldwide call the “True Cross” on which Jesus hung shined from its sacred spot encased in glass at the center of the crucifix – an even bigger chunk of wood from the cross on which Roman soldiers crucified Christ than the piece that supposedly went to the bottom of the sea in April when Ukrainian soldiers sunk the Russian warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet,

This icon was different.

Jesus personally autographed this splinter according to a century of Russian legend verified and sworn to by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill himself. Jesus would have no trouble at all scribbling his John Hancock on this piece of the cross without even breaking a sweat. If Jesus couldn’t do it, who could?

You could actually see the letters JC carved into the wood.

Nowadays microscopic calligraphy is relatively common. And that doesn’t even take into account the Gansu Province artist who carved 204 Chinese characters on a single grain of rice.

 Of course RayRay didn’t know any of that. Nor did he know Morton and Clifford had stolen that very cross from Ivan Popov a month earlier when Ivan fell asleep one night with his head soaking up a puddle of warm vodka on a table at RayRay’s after the terrible twins met Ivan and spent the night banging down double shots. Since all three had at one time or another worked as half-assed professional wrestlers, they loudly argued and compared bear hugs until RayRay had to personally intercede when they began demonstrating choke holds on each other’s larynxes.

Morton pointed to the gold cross hanging around Ivan’s neck from a lanyard advertising Coconut Custard Tropic Tan Lotion.

“You afraid of vampires?”

“Cross worth millions of dollars,” Ivan said. “Borrowed from rich brother to wear to bar to boogie. Gold will help me pick up chicks.”

“Better than the Hope Diamond,” Clifford said.

“Yeah,” said Ivan. “Hope hot mamas dig flashy jewelry.”

“Does your gangster brother know you borrowed his blessed pendant?”

“We don’t tell him,” Ivan said with a slow wink.

After four or five more vodkas Ivan told the boys the story his brother Boris told him about how Boris turned down millions in cash from the Pope who sent Boris a personal Facebook message to offer to buy the celebrated religious icon.

Morton snickered.

“Does the Pope want to wear your love beads to pick up hot cardinals at the Vatican?”

When Ivan flattened out facedown on the table like a sunbaked squirrel splooting on a tree branch, the boys just slid the cross over Ivan’s cabbage-sized head, leaving quietly with the holy icon sharing space on top of a soggy pile of onion rings in a white foam takeout container.

A frazzled and severely hungover Ivan showed up at the bar the next morning looking for his jewelry.

“I lose, how you say, medallion,” Ivan said.

RayRay said he’d let Ivan know if somebody found whatever it was the big drunken thug had draped around his throat the night before like a pitbull in heat wearing a new flea collar and anxious to mate. Ivan gave RayRay his cellphone number. Yet Ivan’s missing precious metal ornament never dawned on RayRay when he found the treasure.

Instead RayRay called the cops – actually an ex-cop. In less than an hour Marty Durkin showed up at the bar wearing black high-top Converses and a Philadelphia Eagles-themed sweatsuit.

“Whoa,” Durkin said when RayRay showed him the prize. “What would Jesus do?”

Brushing her teeth before bed, Ruby Arenas stared at the smooth, soft contours of her face in the bathroom mirror. She also reflected on the cool Black man at the bar who looked like a 70s Blaxploitation movie star and called her “sister.”

She never thought of herself as Black because she wasn’t Black, her light skin tone reflecting the revolutionary blend between her caramel-colored Cuban father and her almost white Mexican mother.

“Black is beautiful,” Ruby said out loud as if the words had come to her from another world.

Race is a conundrum.

Identity is mysterious.

Women of color, and she now realized she was one, needed to stick together.

Ruby pondered her body and mind.

“Who am I? What am I?”

The epiphany that she lived as a multiracial woman made her eyes well up as she rubbed mango-based moisturizing cream into her cheeks. When she finally fell asleep her first dream re-enacted her birth. The second dream portrayed her death. A rainbow of visions, images of life and death spun in her unconscious mind.

Bolting upright in bed Ruby struggled to catch her breath. Fear gripped her mind. Uncertainty controlled her decision making. Chest pain terrified her that she might really be dying. Wide awake now she listened to stillness through the open bedroom window. A truck engine hummed past her studio apartment. A ceiling fan whirred above her head. Stepping softly from her bed, she walked carefully through shadows to the tiny living room. Ruby listened to black metal wind chimes vibrate.

She walked four blocks to the beach, kicked off her pink flip flops and stepped out of a long-T-shirt imprinted with patterns of conch shells to reveal a simple black two-piece swim suit. Gulls greeted her with soft cries. She thought of a raw piece of her savage dream that attacked her peace of mind as she moved slowly into deeper colder water, asking herself questions about her spirit.

Ruby dreamed about piranhas, how they attack, kill and eat meat in their hunger for survival. So do humans, of course, so what’s the difference? Why did she see a piranha shoal in her dream? Piranhas don’t even live in Florida. Why do untamed creatures always come to her on land and in the sea? Why her?

Filling her lungs with fresh salt air, she dove, swimming underwater farther and deeper than she remembers ever swimming before. Down and out she went, propelled like a fish by a twisting, gliding natural movement, a force beyond herself, animal energy turbulent and swift. Surfacing, she checked her watch. Twenty minutes have passed since she made her first dive underwater. That time couldn’t be right. Nobody can stay underwater that long.

Gulping air, Ruby wondered how far she swam. The shore seemed so far away. How could she swim so long and so far out without taking a breath? Maybe she was still dreaming. Maybe she drifted into a meditative trance, surfaced without remembering then dove deeper and deeper. Inhaling, she dove again.

When she surfaced four dolphins surfaced beside her.

Riding a slowly cresting wave to the beach, they balanced lightly on the tip of the surge, bobbing like sponges and peaking in a flash of blue-silver momentum. Four surfing female mammals ruling the dawn, queens of the blue brine, playing majestically as they glided to shore before turning abruptly and catching a swift current to swim underwater to make the turn again for another run through the wild surf. Ruby shared the energy of the four dolphins that now swam beside her. They left only when she swam back to shore with her smooth, strong, steady strokes.

Stepping from the comfort of nature’s sacred birthing pool Ruby Arenas put on the T-shirt and cheap rubber flip flops and stepped through the sand in a reawakening that felt like icy pin pricks, a resurrection that led to a quick walk back to her ramshackle cottage where she started a new day.

Class began at 10. Ruby had just enough time to shower, change and jump into the 1954 Plymouth Savoy her father, Carlos, bought her when she graduated high school. Painted mint green and pink, the car barely ran, a wreck he picked up for $1,000 and worked on the way he fixed vintage classic cars in Havana before he left for America. Ruby made the 25-mile drive east to the University of South Florida in Tampa, where she will finish her master’s program and contemplate applying to a Ph.D. program.

Both her father and her mother Verita died in a car crash earlier in the year when a drunken state senator slammed into them as they returned home from getting their favorite rum raisin ice cream at 4 p.m.

Dressed in new pineapple yellow flip flops, a gauzy red and purple Mexican skirt and a blue denim shirt with white fake pearl snap buttons and long sleeves rolled to the elbows, Ruby slid into her seat and threw open her notebook.

That’s when she saw the boy who killed the dolphin last year, chasing down and crashing into the gentle creature as he raced his monster Jet Ski in circles screaming with gleeful macho ignorance at his hunt. When Ruby saw his face she vowed to never forget. On the drive home from school that afternoon Ruby cursed the boy who sat across the room from her in class, the cruel human beast who didn’t recognize her from the day of his callous human victory.

That night she went to work at the Elbow Room bringing her favorite small shells in a worn leather pouch. RayRay allowed Ruby to tell fortunes from 9 to 11 on Friday nights, using her shells like Tarot cards the way her mother taught her to do when she was a girl. The tourists ate it up.  Cockle shells, sand dollars, worm snail shells and spotted slipper shells are her favorites, all collected during early morning walks on the beach. Laying out a red velvet cloth, Ruby threw a handful of shells like dice at a gambling casino, enjoying the look of wonder customers wore after they chose the shells she used to read their personal future.

Ruby half-kiddingly called herself a witch, a good witch born of a fine mixture that blends the outlaw religion of Cuban Santeria and magic Mexican Santa Muerte, occult practices her mother shared with her from the time she was 10-years-old and learned to cast her first spell.

Ruby needed to know more but she already believed and opened herself to guidance from Our Lady of the Holy Death. The ultimate bodyguard, Santa Muerte is the personification of death, living, breathing and alive, a frightening hooded skeletal power of goodness, healing and protection, safeguarding and guaranteeing a path to the stellar afterlife for those she accepts into her embrace. Santeria, in all its mighty power, bows his fiery crown in deference to her glory.

When a seafood truck driver finished eating his honey-glazed salmon, Rudy Arenas beckoned him to her table. Ruby spoke softly to him, gently massaging his mind, hypnotizing him as he relaxed and dropped his head to his chest. Yes, she said, you will stop smoking. When she asked what he wanted for himself, his only request was to find the power to help him kick Kools and fat cigars. Ruby told him he will soon breathe easy, enjoying clean, fresh air with his grandchildren as he ages gracefully and enjoys a healthy life.

She told the trucker something else, too. Tomorrow, Ruby said, when you drive your truck at work you will see fish in the road. Pay them no mind and they will not hurt you. Creatures that swim are our friends, she said.

We all come from the water.

The next day, 20 minutes after happy hour ended at 7 at the Bulls Balls Tavern, the same smart-ass white boy from Ruby’s class was tooling south with a 2.14 blood alcohol content doing 85-miles-per-hour in a candy-apple red Chevrolet Silverado 1500. In front of him a refrigerated transporter truck hauling fresh crabs to seafood wholesalers in Clearwater Beach slammed on the brakes. The driver thought a reflection of the sun made him see a school of fish swimming in the center of the road.

The fish looked like piranhas.

A mirage.

He must have been so tired from driving extra hours he hallucinated.

Jesus Christ, of all things to imagine.

Piranhas.

The drunken student from Ruby’s class who once killed a dolphin for the fun of it wasn’t paying attention when the sober veteran trucker almost stopped. When he did notice he overcompensated too quickly, swerving right, rolling the truck, flipping over the guide rail and plunging down the hill in a half dozen full rolls to the access road below before the pickup exploded in a tomato-shaped cloud of smoky fire.

In the distance where the Gulf of Mexico joins Tampa Bay, four dolphins moved to open water, leaping in unison as if celebrating and headed south toward Mexico. Following good vibrations like finely-tuned sonar, swimming with the thrust of torpedoes unleashed on an enemy craft, they dove and disappeared.

To set the mood for the upcoming protest rally on the beach, RayRay pounded the drum skins and slammed a high-hat cymbal with the primitive power of a caveman banging brontosaurus bones on a boulder, belting out a tribal solo as the leader of the bar’s Saturday night house rock band.

Outside on the cracked cement sidewalk sprouting tufts of grass in front of the Elbow Room, Sam Bennett strolled up and down past overweight patio diners dripping butter from shoveling stone crab claw meat into their mouths, calling attention to the informal organizational meeting with a sandwich board he made from cardboard box panels front and back with packing twine shoulder straps.

Both sides displayed the same message in black marker: PROTEST MEETING TONIGHT!!! SAY NO TO DEVELOPERS!!! SAVE THE GULLS!!!

Durkin arrived at seven looking for a double margarita with extra salt, taking a seat in the middle of the bar, not planning to protest anything. He wore clean black jeans, a short-sleeved shirt decorated with an alligator print and lime after shave to match the tropical moment in his mind. Durkin had never before visited Florida and saw the palm trees as exotic, making him feel like he made the right decision to move to Clearwater Beach. White sand did, however, make him think of his past life in Stone Harbor.

The woman on the stool next to him nodded, offering a weak smile. Once a cop always a cop, Durkin could see business cards spread in front of her imprinted with the name Kim Phillips in raised gold letters, a glitter mermaid corporate logo and the words Paradise Coast Real Estate. Sliding a card his way with the ease of a professional blackjack dealer the woman’s husky voice spoke of menthol cigarettes and clear alcohol, reminding him of his dead mother.

Extending a thin veiny hand she said, “Nice shirt. I’m Kim. In case you’re ever in the market.”

“Marty,” he said.

“Vacation, Marty?”

“I just relocated down here.”

“From where?”

Unlike RayRay playing Rolling Stones songs, Marty Durkin missed a beat. Kim quickly picked up on her bold mistake and blushed through her tan.

“I ask too many questions,” she said.

“No, that’s OK,” Durkin said. “I’m from New Jersey. Maybe you can help. I’m looking to rent an apartment.”

Pointing at Sam Bennett marching outside, Durkin sounded like a cop.

“What’s with him? What are you protesting?”

“What do you got?”

Durkin’s mind shot back to the loud demonstrations against him in New Jersey.

“That’s a famous movie quote, you know,” Kim said.

Durkin had no idea what she was talking about, never having seen the legendary Marlon Brando motorcycle flick from which Kim drew the line. Durkin didn’t watch movies, pursued no hobbies and never went on vacation. Living in Stone Harbor all his life was supposed to be one big vacation.

Then he killed the kid.

Tyrone Lark.

Of course the district attorney called 15-year-old Lark’s death a good shooting, an accident that could have happened to anybody sworn to protect and serve. Black activists from Philadelphia and Camden filled buses to come to the DA’s press conference. The dead boy’s parents gave a tearful statement to the press. Several television stations broadcast live from outside the courthouse.

Durkin’s lawyer told him to keep his mouth shut. But just one day after the DA’s decision he stood in the municipal building parking lot talking to reporters when he got off the night shift, crying, apologizing and offering whatever help he could provide for the family.

The boy’s mother responded by calling him a white devil. The boy’s father called him a honkey-assed fascist pig. By the end of the week dozens of Stone Harbor neighbors posted on Facebook that his presence anywhere in town would reduce their property values. Durkin sold the house that week and moved, choosing Clearwater Beach because he read a story in the travel section of the Atlantic City paper that the town was clean, safe and family-friendly even though he lacked a family.

Kim waved her hand in front of Durkin’s face.

“Kim to Marty, Kim to Marty, come in please.”

Snapping out of it, Durkin said, “Sorry.”

Kim explained how she and about a dozen regulars were protesting Boris Popov, a Russian billionaire developer who planned to build a jumbo hotel/condominium tower on the beach. Popov greased every outstretched palm he could find to get all the necessary permits, variances and easements he needed to proceed. Longtime residents, mostly senior citizens who lived modestly near the property, also wanted to fight him, his money and his power.

“He’s buying up the beach,” Kim said. “He’ll push old people out of their homes. Ruby who works here says he’ll destroy the ecosystem. Sam says he’ll hurt the gulls. But look at us. We’re no match for the Russian mob.”

“You have evidence he’s a real Russkie mobster?”

“No, but we just found out he let his maniac brother Ivan manage the monstrosity they detonated this morning and move into the Spyglass Apartments he owns where Sam lives. The former owners loved Sam and put in writing that he can live on the property and pay the same low rent as long as he lives no matter who builds there. Boris Popov agreed to the deal thinking Sam would pass any minute. That was five years ago. Sam’s still going strong.”

“Gull power,” Durkin said.

“Fight like a gull,” Kim said.

They laughed like old friends.

Outside Sam Bennett was wearing his gull mask and flapping his arms as people laughed. When a kid as round as a $2 plastic beach ball in a snot-green polo shirt threw a french fry at Sam, his mother slapped the boy in the back of the head with an open palm and hissed that he should behave or she’d kill him.

“I met Sam on the beach the other day,” Durkin said. “He’s a real character.”

“A genius, too. RayRay says Sam memorized the whole U.S. Constitution,” Kim said.

“I can’t even remember my cell phone number,” Durkin said.

Raising his finger to get RayRay’s attention to order a drink, Durkin leaned in to Kim with a showstopper of a question. Durkin always had a million questions.

“Sam can live at the Spyglass as long as he lives?”

Kim stopped drinking her Mai Tai in mid-sip, looking up over the little umbrella stuck between the ice cubes, catching the serious tone in Durkin’s voice and the insinuation in his question.

“I didn’t think of it like that,” she said.

“I’m an ex-cop,” Durkin said.

“You think Sam’s in danger?”

“Instinct says I know Sam’s in danger.”

Intuition failed him on the beach that awful night, but this time Durkin’s gut told him he was right.

From a tight corner table for two at the back of the dining room a very Black man sat alone and watched Durkin’s every move. Muscled, lean and handsome as Shaft, the observer wore a full black Afro with wide sideburns cut straight razor even at the bottoms of his ears, a purple and red dashiki, maroon slacks and spotless white leather designer espadrilles.

On his left pinkie finger he wore a thick gold signet ring as big as a sweet Bing cherry imprinted with a black onyx clenched fist. Sipping ice water, he smiled an actor’s smile when a masked Ruby brought his Cajun grouper burger with extra hot sauce.

“Thank you, sister,” he said.

One by one, about a hundred gulls appeared in the sky from the east, circling the paint-chipped dinghy that bobbed like a homemade fishing lure about 100 yards off the Clearwater Beach coast. Making worse noise than an English new wave band, the man duct-taped to the mast couldn’t get away from the mad cacophony of gull calls or the threat of their attack.

The first bird dive bombed like a sushi-fueled Kamikaze pilot. But instead of exploding on impact, the gull hit and ran, snagging awful fish offal stuck to the man’s shoulder with edible glue normally used to decorate cakes. The second bird hit the target in the forehead, leaving a cut where its beak seared skin when the winged raider skimmed a piece of fish gut off the victim’s head. Countless fish entrails stuck to the fat man’s naked body as dozens of gulls struck, starving for the gutsy gull delicacies.

Ivan Popov grunted helplessly as his eyes bugged out like flashing red buoys in the sea. Duct tape across his mouth muffled his pleas. Like a buffet table at a St. Petersburg funeral lunch all he could do was provide sustenance for the hungry crowd.

Coming in at 12 o’clock high the next gull nosedived into Ivan’s chest, right above his Vladimir Putin tattoo, fluttered in a spray of feathers, rolled like a Messerschmitt in a dog fight and banked to the left, screaming high into the glare with the zeal of a Luftwaffe ace. Attacking in a swarm now, more gulls bombarded Ivan from every angle, ripping skin with beaks and claws, slapping him sillier than ever with webbed feet as they tore at hunks of fish organs pasted to their prey’s body and then flew into spacious cerulean sky.

Slipping in and out of consciousness after hours of serving as the main course, Ivan finally heard the whipping blades of a Coast Guard chopper hovering overhead.

Sam Bennett watched from the shore.

“That’ll teach him,” he said. “Mess with my birds and see where it gets you.”

Sam found Ivan drunk and asleep on the beach at 4 a.m. that morning as Sam walked alone trying and failing to coax anger from his mind, clearing his head of mean, vengeful thoughts. The Russian slob stank of vodka and curdled sour cream, snoring through his mouth with exhalations that sounded like the beginning gusts of a Siberian storm.

Hightailing it home, Sam returned 15 minutes later carrying a pillowcase stuffed with fish guts he collected earlier from his buddies cleaning grouper and snapper by the Intracoastal and kept in the alley behind his apartment to feed his gull friends later in the day. He also brought a few jars of the edible sugar paste he bought on sale on a whim at the Albertsons supermarket two years earlier when he thought about baking gull-shaped cakes to give away as gifts on special occasions. And he always carried silver duct tape in his knapsack because you never knew when you might need silver duct tape.

Sam, stronger than he looked, undressed the unconscious intoxicated goof and pulled, pushed and lugged Ivan’s nude body into the abandoned wooden rowboat that sat moored in the same place for the past two years, equipped with a broken teetering mast that nonetheless remained firmly bolted to the floor. A faded and tattered Jolly Roger skull and crossbones flag still hung from the makeshift crow’s nest. Hauling the skiff into the water Sam watched waves gently lift the craft and carry it off into the distance.

Now he watched as two rescue swimmers stuffed Ivan into a wire basket and hoisted him up and into the helicopter.

After a restless night in the hospital, a bandaged and aloe-laden Ivan Popov took a cab home to the grubby penthouse in the otherwise empty, crumbling condominium complex he managed on behalf of his billionaire brother Boris, who sat in a sticky leather Barcalounger recliner in the living room awaiting his numbskull brother’s arrival.

Ivan spit out his words like bad beef stroganoff.

“You couldn’t pick me up at hospital?”

“No,” Boris spit back. “You are embarrassment.”

“Police asked who did this to me.”

“CIA plot like you always claim when you find trouble in America?”

“I told evil government agents I went fishing.”

“With duct tape?”

Ivan Popov hobbled to his brother’s side, trying to ignore the sunburn and bird nips, bites and scratches all over his hairy body. Looking down he sneered like a fat Russian Elvis impersonator at an embassy cocktail party.

“I need raise,” Ivan said. “My international management skills in great demand in free country.”

Boris tightened the Windsor knot on his black silk necktie decorated with red double-headed eagles and straightened the matching silk puff stuffed into the pocket of his $5,000 custom-tailored white linen suit jacket.

“No raise for you,” Boris said. “Raise for me. I raise highest Clearwater Beach hotel tower ever built right here on beach.”

The oligarch’s plan puzzled Ivan.

“How you make new building at place where old building exists?”

“Blow up one. Make room for other,” Boris said.

Ivan fumed.

“What about me?”

“You move to seedy Spyglass Apartments. Only one tenant lives there. We deal with him later to build Russian Mafia mistresses’ fancy bachelorette pads. I implode this property tomorrow.”

Despite months of secret government service in Ukraine torturing civilians and calling in air strikes on dairy cows, Ivan flinched.

“Boom?”

“Boom,” Boris said.

At that very moment Sam Bennett was nosing around outside the condo parking garage, knowing Ivan lived there and already plotting how to get even more even with the Russian goon who dared insult Ruby and his precious avian pets. Building contractors had been on site all week preparing for the blast and left a variety of equipment and supplies in preparation for the implosion.

The boxes they unloaded that morning caught Sam’s eye. That night he made four trips, carrying three loads each time, storing them in the spare apartment where he carved his beloved driftwood gulls. When he opened the first box he felt his heart pick up speed and sensed his blood pressure rise. Tearing at each box he soon discovered they all contained the same item.

Detonators.

Sam now owned hundreds of stolen explosive blasting caps.

This time when Sam Bennett walked away flapping his arms, he felt his muscles gain strength. Goose bumps appeared amid thin hairs of his forearm, making him imagine the beginning of fluffy down taking root inside the genomes of his body to one day cover his wings in luxurious plume, a coat of many feathers that would sparkle in heavenly rays white as soft sand when he finally took flight and ascended, climbing, climbing, climbing into the wild, blue yonder.

No doubt about it.

One day Sam Bennett would fly.

First Sam brushed the driftwood gently to remove sand and dirt. Then he softly blew on the wood from all angles to alert whatever unseen organisms might live on or in the wood, giving the tiniest specks of life a chance to move out or fly away. Then he soaked the driftwood in a pail of diluted bleach for two days and let it dry in blistering sun that burned into the windowsill above the kitchen sink.

Picking up his folding carving knife he started to pare, alternating between the two blades he lubricated after each use with a dab of vegetable oil he used to cook home fries on the greasy stove in his cramped quarters at the Spyglass.

Sam fashioned a gull a week.

At 13 inches tall by 9 inches long by 3 inches wide, the sleek gray, white and yellow gulls he painted with model airplane paint lined shelves he built from driftwood and bricks in the empty apartment next door he sneaked into and used as a workshop.

Sam sometimes sat cross-legged on the floor in the room like a Zen Buddhist monk and talked with the birds.

“You’re my babies,” he said each evening as he bid goodnight to his flock.

About 250 molded gulls with colorful seashell eyes stared back.

Sam Bennett loved his gulls. They represented peace and freedom. The birds symbolized love.

Nobody at RayRay’s knew about Sam’s woodworking talent. Of course the regulars experienced his obsession with gulls every time he performed his famous gull impression, but he never mentioned his art. The essence of the deepest art is private. Motivation often remains hidden. After serving 20 years in the Navy, he only started carving when he turned 65. With his monthly military annuity, meager savings from repair jobs tinkering with clocks and other mechanical gizmos and a monthly Social Security check, all his needs were met.

Sam Bennett survived comfortably.

More than enough pocket money jingled in his shorts to pay rent, buy food and drink daily martinis with a dollar tip. Sometimes he drank too much, sometimes until his face started to bleed. The porous blue broken veins in his nose pulsed while his skin cracked and oozed. RayRay stepped in about a year ago and told him, “Sam, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I won’t serve you when your face bleeds.”

Sam apologized, from then on watching his gin intake. Responsible, kind and loyal, Sam Bennett wanted to be liked, respected. But he only went out of his way to impress people he liked and respected. Sam could count his friends on the fingers of one hand minus his thumb and pinkie.

Shortly after Sam started drinking at RayRay’s a woman at the bar flirted with him, but he ignored her overtures. Pretty, gaudy and recently widowed, her exclamation mark-shaped rhinestone earrings glistened with rainbows in the overhead lights. Sam had seen her type before, Geritol television commercial material, a senior citizen who knew she controlled every eye over 60 in the room.

Not Sam’s, though.

The most beautiful living creature Sam ever saw was a single lone gull that put the woman’s beauty to shame. Perched on the railing behind Frenchy’s fish shop where the workers gutted grouper after the crew delivered their catch, the bird sat feather smooth and dignified, waiting for her dinner to be served with a view.

Sam named her Princess.

You could keep your dogs and cats and slinky widows.

Sam was for the birds.

On Saturday night when Sam took his seat in the middle of the bar at RayRay’s, he quickly heard the Russian accent thick as cabbage borscht with heavy cream.

“What do you mean you have no deep-fried Barbecue Gullps?”

“We have conch fritters,” Ruby said.

“No, Ivan want deep-fried Barbecue Gullps.”

“I’m really sorry,” Ruby said. “I never heard of Barbecue Gullps.”

Lying, of course, Ivan strung Ruby along with his tall tale he made up on the spot.

“These mouthfuls are great snacks in my country,” Ivan Popov said. “Better than boneless wings, tasty birdy bits to get you in mood for more vodka. You like to get in mood, American girly?”

“I am an American woman, mister,” Ruby said. “And you’re gross.”

“Gull meat not taste like wild boar or deer or alligator,” Ivan said. “Gulls are tastier than quail. Dainty meaty morsels like you.”

“You’re a wild bore,” Ruby thought.

Ivan licked and smacked his lips. Looking over her shoulder, Ruby called for RayRay.

Sam clutched the edge of the bar.  

His face started to bleed.

A roadmap of blue veins in his nose started to pulse.

Adjusting the N95 mask with the hand-painted gull beak Ruby made him, Sam Bennett spun off his stool with surprising speed. Stepping toward Ivan Popov, slowly but surely he began flapping his arms, picking up speed as he stared into the dull dead pools of the Russian’s eyes. Leaning forward, head down and heaving upward, Sam made what experts describe as the “choking call” of a gull territorial dispute, repeating the long call yelping “keow keow keow.” The wild squawks resonated above the din of the Allman Brothers’ song playing on the jukebox, actually harmonizing with Duane’s slide guitar and Gregg’s Hammond organ as they howled their soulful southern rock growls.

Ivan Popov recoiled.

“Birdman crazy,” he said.

Growing silent, Sam Bennett turned, walked fast to the door, got on the red bicycle he built from spare parts and pedaled into the night.

Just like that, out of nowhere, Sam Bennett delivered to a stranger on the beach an impromptu ornithology lesson.

“A gull can eat up to 20 percent of its body weight in food each day,” the shriveled sun-cured senior citizen said.

“That’s a lot of french fries,” Marty Durkin said.

“A group of gulls is called a colony,” the 70-year-old said.

“Like founding feathers,” Marty said.

Instead of laughing at Marty’s wit, the old fellow rattled off his odd list of fun gull facts for kids.

“Gulls can fly at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.”

Durkin let him prattle.

“There are around 50 different species of gulls in the world. About seven of those species are regularly seen here on the Gulf Coast,” Sam Bennett said.

Looking for nothing more than a thoughtful walk on the white sandy shore, maybe seeing a dolphin or two surface and dive, Marty still wanted to be polite, especially to a doddering golden ager sporting a gull mask.

“You live around here, buddy?”

Sam Bennett threw a thumb up the beach.

“The Spyglass Apartments,” he said.

Marty, 45, sensed the disheveled beachcomber wanted to talk. Dressed in a faded pink RayRay’s Elbow Room tank top, baggy violet polyester board shorts and scuffed oxblood wingtips with no socks, the grizzled beach bindle seemed lonely and more than a little lost. Jaded but empathetic Marty asked the senile beach townie a sincere question.

“I just moved to town,” Marty said. “You know a good bar around here?”

Sam Bennett pointed to his shirt. Having finished what he wanted to say, he casually strolled away, slowly flapping his arms up and down and picking up speed as he bent his hands at the wrists. For some strange reason Marty wondered how he’d react if the old buzzard really did take off, lifting, flying and cruising high into the sky above the coastline. Nothing would surprise Durkin anymore.

He’d check out RayRay’s later that night.

Walking the beach he saw a group of young men running pass patterns and throwing a football.  Back in the early 80s Marty’s late father, Joe, gave him an official Notre Dame football for his fifth birthday. Until they moved out of West Philadelphia when Marty was 12 he never once played catch with the kid. City police Captain Durkin was too busy stockpiling enough cash to buy the small house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, a one-story cottage built in the 40s that needed paint and repairs to the wooden shutters. Nonetheless, that comfort afforded Marty, his mother, Mary, and Joe a full-time place “down the shore,” as Philly people said, and got them out of an increasingly Black neighborhood.

For years his dad regularly wore a T-shirt with the words “Retired Cop” stamped on the front and one of those vintage yellow straw pork pie hats with empty Budweiser beer cans attached above the brim. Of course the hat made Joe look like a real ass, but he enjoyed the scornful stares he got from wealthy retirees, mostly widows in supermarkets, or from aging patients at his increasing medical appointments. He was convinced that flaunting the absurd attire advertised his defiant independence.

The only freedom Joe Durkin truly possessed sprang from not having the South Philly mob dregs looking over his shoulder, telling him what to do, paying him with fat envelopes but always there as a menacing presence. Joe finally broke free from these young Guidos, usually the sons of men whose names once struck fear in police and public alike, whose bribes and kickbacks financed his leisurely retirement and Stone Harbor home ownership.

Just listening as a teenager to his father and mother argue in the kitchen alerted Marty to the sad truth. His dad never talked to him about rumors in town that he had been a dirty cop. His mom went to Mass as often as she could. Marty blocked shameful thoughts when he heard whispers at school. Irish and Italian cops’ kids in Philadelphia took official police corruption for granted. Bad cops would always rule. At 21 Marty joined the Stone Harbor Police Department and became a good local cop who honestly protected and served.

One day six months ago, way ahead of schedule, Marty quit the police force, selling the cottage and abruptly leaving town. Putting flowers on his parents’ graves never crossed his mind. He had more than enough of his own problems to last a lifetime. With a pension from 20 years with the police department and the proceeds from selling the house, at least he had money in the bank.

Lifting his nose, Marty sniffed the salt air. Spreading out the towel he bought at celebrity former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan’s restaurant the night before, a full-sized orange towel imprinted with a life-sized likeness of Hulk raising his arms above his head in victory, Marty kicked off the brown leather flip flops he bought that morning for $85 at a surf shop. Playing the part of happy retiree would be tough. But the time had come to start a new life. Taking off the baby blue three button polo shirt staff at the Stone Harbor Library gave him last year for reading a book about alligators to first graders, he stretched out in the sand. Five minutes later he slumbered in a deep sleep. One minute after his first snore the nightmare hit.

A tourist had called 911 and reported a Black man on the beach with a gun. The kid’s eyes blazed like raging coals in a furnace. The 14-year-old’s black skin shined with sweat in Marty’s flashlight beam. A dull sheen reflected off the barrel as the kid held out the object. A gunmetal flash of silver tube pierced Marty’s heightened awareness. The blast came fast. One shot.

Marty fired one shot that caught the kid between the eyes, penetrating his skull and lodging in the soft tissue of his brain. Approaching with the vigilance of a jungle lion stalking an antelope calf, sweat dripped from Marty’s brow. Dry mouth made him gag. The trigger finger on his right hand trembled as he struggled to keep the gun pointed at the victim who still held his weapon.

Kicking away the firearm Marty saw the deadly weapon wasn’t a firearm at all. A nickel silver piccolo lay in the sand, a musical instrument the child had come to play alone on the beach so nobody would laugh at him for practicing.

Waking in a nauseous panic, Marty struggled to sit upright.

The boy’s name.

He forgot the boy’s name.

Marty buried his face in his hands.

He cried tears that dripped into the sand.

Marty Durkin knew he’d never escape himself or what’s-his-name.

Every man, woman and child in the civic arena rose to their feet when little Sally Rumple took the podium. Dressed in a camouflage patterned sun dress, the freckled second grader wore blond pigtails and a sunny smile.

“I can shoot the eyes out of a potato,” she said into the microphone in a Minnie Mouse voice.

You could barely see the sleek black leather shoulder holster in which the eight-year-old carried a loaded Glock.

The crowd went wild.

Then Sally Rumple drew her gun with the ease of Annie Oakley, shot the eyes out of a potato – actually six potatoes set up as stationary targets on the stage – and again faced the crowd.

“I won’t die in a school shooting,” she said. “I will defend myself, my classmates and my teacher.”

The crowd screamed.

“YES!”

Turning to the tractor-trailer-sized stars and stripes flag that hung behind her, little Sally Rumple placed her hand over her heart and led the Pledge of Allegiance, reciting some new words that Congress recently added to accommodate a new atmosphere throughout the land.

“One nation,” she said. “Always armed. With liberty and justice for all.”

The crowd waved clenched fists in the air.

“HELL YEAH!”

Sally’s mother and father, a traditional American family, approached their daughter from the right wing of the stage.

“I have a surprise for you, honey,” Mrs. Rumple said.

Little Sally Rumple holstered her gun and beamed. Mr. Rumple handed Sally a letter. Sally looked at the crisp whiter than white paper and squealed.

“It’s from the White House!”

“From the president,” Mrs. Rumple said.

Little Sally Rumple read the letter out loud.

“Dear Sally,” the president wrote. “I am pleased to invite you to the White House to teach me how to shoot as well as you do. I want to shoot bad guys whenever they raise their ugly heads like zombies in a first person video shooter game. Maybe we can play Call of Duty together in the Oval Office. Remember, the only thing that stops a bad president with a gun is a good president with a gun.”

Little Sally Rumple looked up at the audience with tears in her eyes.

“The same goes for the Girl Scouts,” she said.

The crowd went wild.

Little Sally Rumple gazed out over the crowd. Smiling devilishly she reached under the podium and raised a previously hidden AR-15 rifle.

“Locked and loaded, baby,” she said.

The arena erupted in cheers.