I Miss Maggie
By: Don Winfield
Lying
here in my hammock, I open my eyes and squint out at the blue
Caribbean, and then up at the green parrot squawking in the palm tree
above. I don't think about it as much as I used to, but now and
again my mind takes me back to the tragic events that brought me to
this beach. You ask how it is that I'm retired at forty-one, living
in an island paradise I bought rock cheap from Jimmy Buffett? Jimmy
had never seen it. He claimed he'd picked it up as an investment,
back in the '80s, after he sold the charred land under the remains of
his burned out hotel over on St. Barts. He said he wanted someone to
have it that could make a home there.
As
I swing gently in the shade, I often find myself thinking about
Maggie. She was my wife and best friend for eighteen years, until
the day we drove into St. Pete to do our weekly shopping and banking.
Our
on line sales business was providing us with a comfortable living.
We figured if we kept salting away a little tax free money, in small
amounts each week, we'd beat Uncle Sam and be able to retire while we
could still enjoy it. Of course, American banks have their crazy
rules about disclosure, and lots of unnecessary IRS scrutiny. So,
American banks would not be friendly to our long term plans. That's
how the incident began.
The
Incident:
At
first glance, and even after a long, hard look, it didn’t seem like
a place where such a catastrophe could happen. It was a towering
seventeen story glass and steel building, vaguely shaped like a giant
lizard standing on its hind legs. Its tinted windows were placed so
as to create the illusion of a multicolored scaly reptile. Due to
poor planning, cost overruns, unpaid bribes, and typical bureaucratic
ineptness, the completed building was a clumsy looking affair. I
always laughed and told Maggie it looked like a hung over Komodo
dragon having a rough Sunday morning. As ugly as it was, it was
ironically constructed so solidly no building inspector or civil jury
could find cause to tear it down and replace it with a more
attractive office complex.
It
was Tuesday afternoon. Maggie and I always did our banking after
lunch on Tuesday. Like most people, we'd fallen into a routine that
meshed with our other needs.
The
small, cramped office on the 16th
floor, had “TWBSA, LLC.” (which stood for Third
World Bank of Surreptitious Accounts, Limited Liability Company),
stenciled in gold leaf on the narrow, opaque glass window. This
unassuming office seemed an even less likely place for what happened.
I'd
left Maggie there for about ten minutes, while I went to the rest
room. It wasn't far but I had to follow a few mostly obscured
arrows, and go down to the 15th
floor. When I returned to TWBSA, she was already gone.
Actually,
she was still there. However, a religious person might tell you that
what remained of Maggie was the earthly shell of a soul now departed.
She had completed our off shore wire transfer and was leaving the
bank. From all accounts, a pirate had suddenly appeared.
Brandishing an 18th century cutlass, sporting an eye patch and a
tri-corn hat, he had flung the door open with a violent shove. The
rampaging rogue burst into the tiny office, shouting, “Arrrrr!
Don't nobody go fer yer buzzers! Face down on the floor or ye be
shark bait! I'm here fer yer booty!”
To
the pirate's amazement, nobody moved. The huddled bankers stood like
statues. With wide eyes and gaping mouths, they just stared at the
door behind the pillager. The only sound was that of retching, as
Robert, the bald, bespectacled teller, puked into his open cash
drawer.
Coincidentally,
Monday had been FWBSA senior teller Jolene’s, 37th
birthday. The bank manager had crowned her ‘FWBSA Queen for the
Day’. The traditional “birthday tiara” was too small for her
enormous head and, embarrassed, she'd set it aside. By quitting
time, she'd forgotten about it and left it behind.
The
tiara was left on a shelf beside the coat rack, and was still there
after the bankers went home at the end of the day. That's where
Willy, the office cleaner, found it. Having an eye for Jolene, he
attached a sexually graphic note to the fake crown before fastening
it to the inside of the door. The crown's spikes hung about eye
level to a 5’7” person, and protruded about eight inches from the
door.
Maggie
was reaching for the knob, when the door flew open and the pirate
burst in. One of the tiara’s spikes caught Maggie in the right
eye. When her nose hit the door, the spike had gone completely
through her brain. Maggie was dead. She was still standing, held up
by the tiara. Willy had super glued the fake crown to the wood door,
just above the fogged window. It turns out that though cheap,
Wal*Mart brand “Instaglu” bonds exceptionally well.
I
was shocked, heartbroken, and devastated. My life partner, soul
mate, best friend, and lover, was snatched from me. My happy
marriage had ended unexpectedly, in a high rent, under sized,
commercial space on the 16th
floor of a hideous downtown lizard.
A
Land-Farin' Man:
There
were 16 witnesses on the sidewalk outside the “Gecko Power Tower”
when a cutlass waving, eye patched, buccaneer, ran through the lobby
and into the street. Those present watched as his tri-corn flew off
and landed near a fire hydrant. Most recalled seeing him skid to a
stop, reminiscent of Wiley Coyote. He quickly retrieved the plumed
hat, resumed his stride, and continued southbound on the pedestrian
mall. Most ignored him, thinking he was some kind of one man “flash
mob” who would be expecting a tip. A few who kept watching him
thought he may have gotten into a waiting vehicle and sped away. A
lady pushing all of her belongings in a stolen Wal*Mart shopping
cart, signed an affidavit stating he'd, “flown into the sky like
Peter Pan.”
Of
course, no two witnesses told the same story. Some said he headed
south down Salamander Boulevard. Others swore he disappeared into
the sun, heading west up Island Parkway. The cops put out an APB for
the entire city.
Police
have to use whatever information that's available, to create a
composite of many the things happening in the midst of such calamity. Deputy Dan Frain’s All Points Bulletin stated that a red or
maybe blue, or silver, or orange, two or four door sedan, mini van,
or topless sports car, had whisked the bandit away. He could have
gone either south or west, or some other direction. The police had
nothing to work with. Everybody saw a pirate but nobody came close
to identifying the escape vehicle.
The
car the whacked out pirate wannabe used was a 1979 VW Rabbit
Cabriolet. The owner had begun restoration and had installed junk
yard doors, fenders, hood, and trunk. Each replacement part was a
different color. This eclectic array of hues had confused and
bewildered the eye witnesses into a total lack of observational
accuracy.
Justice:
The
traces of a crime can disappear quickly in South Florida.
Before sunset, the stolen getaway car was abandoned, re-stolen,
disassembled, and the parts delivered to an array of waiting VW
Rabbit convertible aficionados.
The
sword wielding pirate, having learned the hard way that the Third
World Bank of Surreptitious Accounts, LLC,
held no appreciable currency, returned to a tattered tent behind a
Motel 6 in the Florida Keys.
My
sweet Maggie's killer would never be punished. The following
Tuesday, needing to clear his desk clutter, Dave Ortiz, a busy
Pinellas County Coroner's assistant, labeled Maggie's death
accidental. The investigation ended.
The
inept pirate, who’s name was Rutledge, would eventually be
sentenced to 90 days in the county jail. There, he would tell a
fellow inmate about his attempt to rob the TWBSA in St Petersburg,
and how he'd made a clean getaway. It was a jailhouse confession to
a crime that was officially never committed, but his story would
never reach the authorities.
Several
points below a genius IQ, Rutledge had never figured out how to make
it safely from his ragged tent behind the Motel 6, to the 7- Eleven
on the other side of US-1. Speeding vacationers traveling up and
down the Keys at 4:00 PM on a typically busy Friday, kept him
marooned on the yellow line. A passing Monroe County Sheriff's
deputy rescued him. Since it was the eighth time he'd saved Rutledge
from the same spot, the deputy roughed, cuffed, and stuffed him into
his cop issue Crown Victoria. Rutledge was booked into the Monroe
County lock-up, for habitual J-walking.
Sixty-one
days into his 90 day sentence, Rutledge was being released early for good
behavior. He was about to step into the lobby and regain his
freedom, when he noticed that his left Reebok was untied. In front
of the heavy steel exit door, Rutledge bent over to knot the flapping lace. Just at that moment, a
hungry three hundred pound guard, in a hurry to enjoy his
triple-decker ham and cheese sandwich and Diet Coke, barreled through
the metal door. Rutledge's head cracked open like a fresh egg, and his
brains splattered all over the gray tile floor.
After
a brief, neck-rubbing investigation, the floor was cleaned with
Sure Save discount bleach. The previously homeless Rutledge found a home three
days later in the Monroe County paupers cemetery.
Coping:
Maggie's
one million dollar life insurance policy was doubled by the accidental death
determination. A big check comes every month, and I've set up a
diversified investment portfolio to insure my continued solvency. A couple of
months after Maggie's funeral, I sold the small bungalow 10 blocks
from the beach, and burned the furniture in the front yard. I scrapped my 1988 Taurus,
and didn't even make a victory lap through town before I left. It
was straight from bonfire to airport in a taxi, and off into the
friendly sky.
Now,
I'm living in this little piece of paradise. The island is small
enough to afford, but big enough to be safe in a tropical storm. I
spend my days looking out on my private Caribbean beach from my front
porch or hammock.
Am I lonely way off here in the middle of nowhere?
Well, I've got the sun and the palm trees. I've got the pristine
white sand, the warm ocean, and a thirty foot sloop that I can sail
around on all day. Sometimes I just go fishing in a calm inlet,
enjoying the peace and solitude. Then, after a day of sailing or fishing, I come home to a tropical drink and a good meal. My companion, Marita, was a bartender when we met, and is an excellent cook.
Marita
is no Maggie, mind you. Yet, I was pretty lucky to find a beautiful,
always tanned, 22 year old island girl, who was willing to come tidy
up my tiki hut, and clean up the various messes she frequently helps
me make.
I
truly do miss my sweet Maggie. It's not easy, but I feel I owe it to
her to keep working hard to adapt.
