I mentioned this to him on one of the
rare... I mentioned this to him on one of the
rare afternoons when we were together at the end
of El Palacio's boardwalk, drinking green tea
under the striped umbrellaThis was less than a
week before the show
"I'm glad," he said simply
"What about you, Wireman? How are you doing?"
"Not great, but I will survive - Gloria Gaynor,
1978It's sadness, mostly"I'm going
to lose herI kidded myself that maybe she was
coming back, butI'm going to lose herIt's
not like Julia and Esmeralda, thank God, but it
still weighs on me I laid my hand over his"For her and
for you He looked out at the waves"Sometimes I
think she won't die at allI think the Walrus and the Carpenter will
come for her, insteadThat they'll just lead her
away like they did those trusting OystersLead
her away
balenciaga knockoff down the beachDo you remember what the
Walrus says?"
I shook my head
"'It seems a shame to play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far, And made them
trot so quick'" He swiped an arm across his face
"Look at me, muchacho, crying just like the Walrus
"I hate to face the idea that this time she's gone
for good, that the best part of her went off down
the beach with the Walrus and the Carpenter and
there's nothing left but a fat old piece of suet
that hasn't quite forgotten how to breathe yetHe wiped his eyes again with his
forearm and drew in a long, watery breathThen he
said, "I looked into the story of John Eastlake,
and how his daughters were drowned, and what
happened after - do you remember asking me to do
that?"
651
I did, but it seemed long
hermes kelly handbag ago, and unimportant
What I think now is that something wanted it to
seem that way to me
"I went surfing around on the Internet and came up
with a good deal from the local newspapers and a
couple of memoirs that are available for download
One of them - I shit you not, muchacho - is called
Boat Trips and Beeswax, A Girlhood in Nokomis, by
Stephanie Weider Gravel-Miller
"Sounds like quite a trip down memory laneShe talks about 'the happy darkies,
picking oranges and singing simple songs of praise
in their mellifluous voices'"
"I guess that was before Jay-ZEven better, I talked to Chris
Shannington, over on Casey Key - you've almost
certainly seen himColorful old geezer who walks
everyplace with this gnarled briarwood cane,
almost as tall as he is, and a big straw hat
chanel jewelry on
his headHis father, Ellis Shannington, was John
Eastlake's gardenerAccording to Chris, it was
Ellis who took Maria and Hannah, Elizabeth's two
older sisters, back to the Braden School ten days
652
or so after the drowningHe said, 'Those chirrun
were heartbroken for the babby-uns'"
Wireman's imitation of the old man's southern
accent was eerily good, and I found myself for
some reason thinking of the Walrus and the
Carpenter again, walking up the beach with the
little OystersThe only part of the poem I could
remember clearly was the Carpenter telling them
they'd had a pleasant run, but of course the
Oysters couldn't answer, for they'd been eaten -
every one
"Do you want to hear this now?" Wireman asked
"Have you got time to tell me now?"
"SureAnnmarie's
fendi chocolate b mix bag got the duty until seven,
although as a matter of practical fact, we share
it most daysWhy don't we walk up to the house?
I've got a fileThere isn't much in it, but
there's at least one picture that's worth looking
atChris Shannington had it in a box of his
father's thingsI walked up to the Casey Key
Public Library with him and copied it
"It's a picture of Heron's Roost
"As it was back then, you mean?"
653
We had started to stroll back up the boardwalk,
but Wireman stopped"No, amigo, you misunderstand
I'm talking about the original Heron's RoostEl
Palacio is the second Roost, built almost twentyfive
years after the little girls drownedBy then,
John Eastlake's ten or twenty million had grown to
a hundred and fifty million or soWar Is Good
Business, Invest Your
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