3 Chapters!

Just got back but still no new sermon. So here are 3 chapters from the third book I'm writing. 

Special Delivery

The man in the brown shirt and shorts pulled up in a white van with the delivery service logo on the sides. He looked at the area around the door of house in question. He got out, pulled out a pad and looked at it and walked to the porch of the house. He looked left and right, not that you'd notice. He wore wrap-around sunglasses and didn't turn his head. To anyone not paying close attention, he was just doing his job.

He didn't carry a package. He wasn't dropping boxes off; he was picking them up. The one in front of the house's door was large enough to promise a good reward for his efforts. It was heavy too, surprisingly so. Well, then, not just full of those packing pillows to keep the contents from shifting. But when he tried to heft it into his arms, his back started to protest. It was one of the occupational hazards of his profession. He let the box down and thought. Leave it or get the hand truck? This time he swiveled his head from side to side to scan the street to see if anyone was noticing him. Returning to his van and coming back with the dolly might look suspicious. Delivery people were on a tight schedule and therefore efficient and quick.

Seeing no one else on the street, he went to the back of the van, extracted the hand truck, pushed it to the porch and pulled it up the stairs. It would have to be one of the more recent homes in Key West, he sighed to himself. Since the 1980s all houses in the Keys had to be built on stilts to prevent them being flooded during hurricanes, or just heavy rains. And he, like all native Key Westers, or Conchs, still thought of them as new, given that the old town portion of the city was filled with houses that were more than a century old. Of course, the even newer homes were the monstrosities that looked like storage containers on stilts, shoved by the dozen onto to lots that by rights should hold two houses at most. $6000 a month for 900 square feet. All for a piece of paradise. But, as Conchs who had seen their island change over the years would say, Key West is a rich man's paradise and a poor man's hell. It was criminal, he thought.

He got to the top of the stairs, shifted the package onto the hand truck and brought it down the stairs carefully. He still had to lift it into the van when he got it there. Ah, well, he hoped it was worth the trouble.

By the end of the day, the porch pirate pulled his van up to his trailer, and started offloading the fruits of his labors. Once they were inside and the van was parked around the side and the magnetic signs with the faux logo were stowed in the back of the van, he opened a beer and thought about what to open first. The big one was tempting but he thought he might save it for last. So he got out his utility knife and started opening the smaller ones. He netted an array of small electronics, fishing reels, jewelry (cheap stuff; no one orders the good stuff by mail), clothing, some toys (the Spiderman drone would make a good gift for his son), and a large pink, rather frightening sex toy with multiple projections and settings. He stared it at it, trying to imagine how exactly one used it or more realistically, how one would hold it in place if it was in fact doing its job properly. Should he dump it or present it to his girlfriend? Maybe as a joke. He laughed as he imagined her response. She might bludgeon him to death with it. Dump it: no pawn shop would take it.

Now the big box. He slit the packing tape, which he realized was doubled, though the two levels were so perfectly aligned that he hadn't noticed it at first. Why had it been made so secure?

He opened the flaps and saw a reason for the weight of it. Inside was a stryofoam cooler, a large one. Fish? Why would someone ship fish to the Keys? Could he sell them to his buddy Glenn? With his fishing business, he could slip them into his catch when he sells it to the fish market. Better see what kind of fish they are. Non-local fish would be hard to sell.

He lifted the lid and found a layer of packing peanuts and an envelope. Who uses packing peanuts these days? They used to be the bane of his existence. He still found the occasional one in a corner or under his bed.

The envelope on top of the layer of green packing peanuts had “A Gift For You” printed on it. Money? He hoped so. He flipped the envelope over, put his index finger under the flap, and ran it across the back of the envelope to open it.

'Shit!” he yelled. In slitting open the envelope, it had slit open his finger. It bled profusely for a paper cut. He put it in his mouth and then pulled it out and looked at it. It was a clean slice and it immediately oozed more blood that dripped all over everything. He walked to the cabinet over the trailer's kitchen sink and rummaged around for a bandaid. He found the box but it was empty. He grabbed a paper towel and wrapped it around his finger. It soaked through in seconds. “Damn!” He was bleeding all over the floor and his clothes. He went into the tiny bathroom and looked for something to staunch the bloodflow. He found a box with one small bandaid covered with cartoon characters that his girlfriend had picked up for when his son visited. It would have to do.

Now longer shedding blood, he returned to the big package. He gingerly picked up the envelope and then noticed that someone had taped a razor blade to the inside of the envelope. He swore at the joker who did that. But then he noticed the letter inside and the edge of a bill peeking out. Withdrawing the contents with the care of a bomb technician he carefully withdrew the sheet of paper and opened it. There were not one but two $100 bills inside. And a typed message: “Now it's your problem. Here's something for your trouble.”

He felt uneasy. He went to the sink and got a knife from the draining board and used it to flick aside the packing peanuts. When he uncovered the contents he stared in horror. The contents stared back. 

A Dip in the Water

The boat rose and fell with the swells. It was a choppy that night and the porch pirate turned actual seaman for a few hours remembered why, unlike everyone else in the Keys, he never liked going out on the water. He too often got seasick.

He had considered enlisting the help of his friend in the fishing business, Glenn, but he didn't want to involve him. Well, not knowingly. Which is why he “borrowed” his friend's personal boat to take care of the problem that had been dropped on his doorstep. Well, not his doorstep. He considered taping the package back up and returning to the porch where he'd found it it but with people back home from work, it didn't seem to be worth the risk.

He knew where Glenn left his keys and he knew his friend was probably at his favorite bar that night. Or one of the 200 odd bars on the 2 by 4 mile island. He used the key to Glenn's door, grabbed the keys to the boat off the hook next to the door and drove to the place where it was docked. He got the package out of the van, put it in the boat, closed and locked the van. Untying the ropes and getting back in the boat, he shoved off. When he drifted far enough from the shore he turned on the engine and headed out to sea.

He was a competent sailor which made the frequent and sudden seasickness he suffered from the more frustrating. His father had been a fisherman. He was supposed to take over the business. But he couldn't manage the nausea. Dramamine just knocked him out. Gutting the fish made him squeamish too. So he turned to other ways to make a living.

Which made him fume at the sadistic joker who pulled that nasty surprise on him with the package. How could he know he would take it? Porch piracy was not his only gig. Key West was not that big a city and he was known to the cops for other things but not for this. He tended to do this mostly in season, when the population of the Keys swelled with snowbirds. They came down to their second or third homes for the winter months and, given the limited selection of stores here, ordered tons of stuff to be delivered. Especially now with the Sears and the K-Mart, the only “department stores” this far from the mainland, closed. He'd read they were done in by a hedge fund, as had Payless Shoes. Now there was a racket! Anyway, on his days off from his other jobs (you needed at least 2 to afford to live in the Keys) he made the rounds in his van with the fake logos.

Had the maniac behind the package spotted him? But how would he know his schedule? He gave up thinking about it and started on making the problem disappear.

He turned off the engine, figuring he was far enough out that the contents of the package wouldn't be float back to shore. At least not till the fish had feasted on them.

Which brought up a nasty thought. The contents were wrapped in plastic bags. He would have to unwrap each one before throwing it over the side. He should have brought gloves. He searched the boat for some his friend's gloves. He didn't find any but he did find some lead sinkers. Which brought up another nasty thought. Would the contents float? Did he need to weigh them down? Should just dump the whole cooler? But styrofoam floats. Were the contents enough to pull it down to the bottom of the sea?

Shit! He should have thought this out. He was so proud of how he had worked out his porch pirate gig. But this had put him into a panic. And worse. If fish guts make him want to puke, the contents the packages held were much worse. Which is why he kept thinking of them as “contents” rather than getting more specific.

He'd just have to do an experiment. He opened the lid. Trying not to look at the contents that seemed to look back, he fished around for something else, settling on a part of the contents that was long but heavy. Fighting back nausea he withdrew it and trying not to focus on what was inside, tried to tear the bag open. It was thick. He couldn't do it with just his hands. He pulled out his utility knife and cut a slit in the bag and pulled it open with some difficulty. It wasn't open enough for the contents to slide out. He cut the end off the bag and then took it to the side of the boat and upended it. It was tightly wrapped and he had to shake it to make it slide out. Then it stopped. He shook the bag harder. It didn't budge. Taking a deep breath, he looked at what was obstructing it. One of the content's fingers was caught in a fold in the bag. And the minute he recognized it as a finger, he began to puke.

He dropped the bag and its contents in the water and leaned over the side. So it was not surprising that he missed the approach of the other boat.

“This is Florida Fish and Wildlife. Please prepare for an inspection,” the voice from the megaphone announced.

Shit!

Not the Good News

He looked with dismay at the contents of his closet. He was going to jail today and he wanted to look his best. But he couldn't find anything clean.

“Clare,” he called out. “Have I any clean clericals?”

“In the laundry room,” she shouted back.

The old man waddled into the laundry room and there were his clerical shirts, hanging on the back of the door. He selected one and put it on and then waddled back to the bed room to finish getting dressed. He inserted the white plastic tab in the front of the shirt's collar and looked at himself in the mirror. The balding bearded clergyman looking back tried to look sharp but his beard, no matter how much he trimmed it, sprouted hairs in all directions. His sparse white hair refused to lie down, giving his scalp the look of an unweeded vacant lot. He smiled crookedly at himself anyway. He was never a looker. His charms lay elsewhere.

Father Renard came into the kitchen just in time to see his wife picking up her purse and checking for her keys. “You want me to drop you off on my way?” she asked. She worked for 911 and would be passing by where he was headed.

“I really should get some exercise. I think I'll take my bike,” he said.

“And stop for a bagel sandwich on the way?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn't that undo what your exercise is supposed to do?”

“Yes, I know what the doctor said: If it tastes good, spit it out! But as the scripture tells us, God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

“I doubt Paul meant Timothy should have a bagel sandwich with bacon, egg and cheese.”

“But he did recommend he have some wine for his stomach.”

“Medicinally. That's not what your stomach needs.”

“All I need is a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou.”

She came over and hugged him. “You silver-tongued liar.” He bent over and kissed her. “See you tonight,” she said.

“See you, child bride of my misspent youth.”

She snorted and opened the door. “I made your tea.”

“Thank you.” He went to the table and picked up his travel mug. He flipped the flap that kept it from spilling and sniffed. As usual, he smelled almost nothing. He tipped it slowly and gingerly took a sip. All he could tell was that it was hot. Ah well. It would cool on the way to the jail.

He stepped out of the old house and looked at the stone church across the narrow street. St. Wilgefortis, or St. Wigglesfoot as locals called it, looked old, a bit worse for wear but solid, like the faith it represented. He crossed the street to do his morning circuit of the grounds and see that nobody had broken in or made a mess. Then he stopped. Standing at the red door was a lean tan little man of his own age, with a much longer and more impressive beard. He was dressed in the official uniform of the Keys: T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Renard recognized the shirt. It had been one of his. Everything the man wore came from the church thrift shop, next to the rectory where the priest lived.

“Mornin', Rev,” the man said. His voice sounded like an old car trying to start on a cold day, somewhere between a rumble and a rasp.

“Mornin', Humph. Time for your morning ablutions?”

“Just need to pee.”

“Nature's alarm clock,” Renard said. He unclipped his keys from the carabiner on his belt loop and unlocked the church. Humphrey was in the door like a shot and made straight for the bathroom on the right to the side of the Mary chapel. Renard went to the sacristy on the other side of the main church to the left of the pulpit. He grabbed a mug, filled it with water from the piscina, and then crossed the altar to his office. He opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a packet of instant coffee, poured it into the cup and put it in the microwave atop the mini-fridge. He checked his calendar while waiting for the ding. A few seconds later Humphrey appeared at the office door, as if he were trained by Pavlov. The homeless man waited till the priest had pulled out the half-and-half and the sugar container from the fridge, and put them on top of the microwave. Then Humphrey sidled into the small room to fix his coffee as he liked it.

“What news do you bring, O sojourner?”

Stirring into his coffee an inordinate amount of sugar, Humphrey quirked a smile. “Why do you talk like a damned actor doing Shakespeare, Rev?”

“I am besotted by the Queen's English,” the cleric said in stentorian tones.

“You mean, the King's English, don't you?”

“Alas, 'tis true,” Renard said, cocking an eye at the faded color portrait of the Queen as she was nearly 3 quarters of a century ago. It was hung on the wall by a previous rector of the church God knows how long ago. “So what's going on?” he said in a normal voice. He sipped his tea which had gone from scalding to slightly scalding.

“There was a murder last night!” This was news indeed, because they didn't get many murders in the Keys. There were plenty of fights, typically over women or drugs, and usually fueled by alcohol. But murders, not so much. The Miami Herald once did a year- long series on gun deaths in South Florida. They displayed above the fold a daily total of gun deaths in Broward, Miami and Monroe County. But they dropped the last of the 3 before the year was out because it didn't help make their point. Murders in South Florida were numerous but murders in the Florida Keys were rare. Well, before the pandemic, at least.

“Anyone we know?”

“The folks at the Iguana didn't know.” The Green Iguana Bar was to locals what Sloppy Joe's was to tourists. “Just that the Marine Patrol found some guy on a boat last night, trying to drop body parts in the Straits.”

That was out of the ordinary, thought Renard.

“Weird thing was they were in a Fed-Ex box,” said Humphrey. “Individually wrapped.”

“Like cheese slices?” said Renard.

Humphrey gave him a strange look. “Chicken parts would be more like it. But why go to all that trouble if you're going to drop them in the ocean?”

“Good question,” said Renard.

“You're going to the jail today, right? Maybe you can talk to the guy and find out.”

“Humph, you know I can't disclose what people tell me in confidence.”

“You told me that the 'seal of the confessional' didn't apply in jail.”

“Well, there's no expectation of privacy in the dorms. Plus if someone confesses to a crime, as a contractor at the jail, I have to report it to the staff. Which is why I stopped you that time.” Renard knew that if he ever was called to testify for the prosecution in a trial his usefulness as a chaplain would be over. No one would talk to him. So he cut people off if their confessions strayed from sins to crimes or got too specific on details.

“You could report it to me.”

“And have it instantly on the Keys grapevine? No, thanks. Besides you're not staff.”

“Speaking of which, do you have any work I can do around here?”

Homeless people were always asking if they could do work around the church. And those released from jail often needed community service hours. But church members volunteered to keep the place up. And the more serious things, like repairs, required contractors. Still, Renard hated to say no.

“Ask Ms. Denise,” he said. Denise Washington was the Junior Warden, responsible for the physical plant of the church. “Humph, I gotta go.”

Humphrey quickly downed the rest of his drink of mostly milk and sugar, with a hint of coffee. He left the office and headed to the door of the church as Renard took the mug to the piscina to rinse. The Altar Guild would kill him if they knew. That sink, which went directly into the ground, was for cleaning cruets and vessels used in the Eucharist. But while not a sacrament, wasn't his morning coffee with Humphrey following the injunction to show hospitality to strangers and perhaps entertaining angels?

“Oh, Humph: can you check the church grounds for me?” Humphrey nodded. Often homeless people often slept around the back of the church in the narrow space between its back wall and the fence. That's how he and the Rev met. And any who spent last night there may also have left bottles he could redeem or smokes he could finish.

“For your trouble, my good man!” Renard pulled a 5 dollar bill from his wallet.

“You don't need to do that,” Humphrey said. Shrugging, Renard made a show of opening his wallet to receive back the five. “But I don't want you to be offended,” said Humphrey, extending his palm.

“Proprieties must be observed.”

Humphrey pocketed the bill, exited and turned left to check out the grounds. Renard locked the church, walked half-way across the street, stopped and said, “Damn!” He returned to the church to retrieve his mug of tea from his office.