“Never thought of it that way.” Puff, puff, puff.
Serge nodded hard as he held up pages. “Take a gander. These are from the Key West Cemetery. The first one is obvious, from the verdigris bronze statue of a sailor overlooking twenty-seven graves of those killed in the 1898 explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor . . .” He raised another page. “From there, a severe mood swing to the tombstone of B. P. Robert: ‘I told you I was sick,’ and Alan Dale Willcox: ‘If you’re reading this, you desperately need a hobby.’” Serge turned and chuckled. “I fooled him . . . You getting this?”
Coleman exhaled smoke and nodded. “Ball of Scotch Tape.”
“The Key West Cemetery is my visual favorite, with aboveground crypts like New Orleans, fantastic statues of angels in various moods and severe tropical landscaping.”
“All I know is you woke me up extra early.”
“For my Maximum Key West Cemetery Morning Routine: Arise just before dawn and shuffle over to the tiny Five Brothers Cuban grocery on the corner of Southard Street, order pressed cheese toast and café con leche, stick coins in a metal box for a copy of the Key West Citizen, then stroll into the cemetery and stretch out on a slab with a great sunrise breakfast while reading an article about a homeless man with no pants arrested for knocking tourists off mopeds with coconuts.”
“It doesn’t get any better,” said Coleman.
“But here’s a fun fact to put the perfect coda on that first tour stop. About twenty-five thousand people live in Key West, but there are roughly seventy-five thousand in that cemetery.” Serge raised a knowing eyebrow. “Makes you think.”
Coleman pointed at the rubbings in Serge’s lap. “What’s that one?”
“From a cat grave on the grounds of the Hemingway House.” He held up another. “And this is from where one of Hemingway’s roosters is buried behind Blue Heaven restaurant in the island’s Bahama Village section. And finally Mitzi the Dolphin, bringing us up-to-date.”
“Was I there?”
“Yes, but pot gives you the short-term memory of a fungus.” Serge stowed the file and pulled out fresh pages and wax.
Coleman followed his pal as they left the car behind. “Ever think about what you’d like on your own tombstone?”
Serge tapped his chin. “Maybe something like: ‘This is bullshit.’”
“I can dig it.” Coleman took another hit. “You know what I’d like?”
“You’ve stumped me.”
“‘Dave’s not here.’” Giggles.
Serge slowly began nodding. “I like it. On a couple of levels. First, for its simple philosophical truth. Second, as an Easter egg for Cheech and Chong fans who lose their way going into a cemetery.”
Serge entered a small, open park and snapped a few photos, then approached a monument and went to work with his wax.
“Wow,” said Coleman. “That’s the biggest tombstone I’ve ever seen!”
“Roughly the same shape, but not a tombstone.” Rub, rub, rub. “It’s the monument to those who lost their lives in the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. The cremated remains of nearly two hundred people are interred just under your feet.”
“It looks kind of cool.”
“Because it is.” Rub, rub, rub. “A giant slab of coral with a bas-relief sculpture of blowing palms. Due to the era, the design is art deco. But it’s so subtly placed and presented that most visitors just drive right by without noticing the massive history treasure . . . I don’t think I’m going to have enough paper.”
Coleman stared down and idly scraped the ground with the toe of a sneaker. “Whew, two hundred.”
“Get ready,” said Serge. “I have a feeling our next stop is going to be insane.”
Eight Years Earlier
Boys yelled from all directions.
“I got one!”
“I got one over here, too!”
Chris raced between rows, crashing through cane stalks. She had a bead on another jackrabbit. She began coughing in the thickening smoke, but there was never a thought of giving up. Her technique was to chase rabbits toward the fire and confuse them.
More slamming through the cane, scraping her arms up but good. Then she left her feet and stretched out in the air for her pounce.
“Got you!”
She was happily carrying the rabbit out of the field when something collided with her hard from the side, knocking her to the ground. A boy much older and bigger reached down. “Give me that fucking rabbit.”
Chris was immediately back on her feet. “He’s mine! Give him back!”
But she was just shoved again in the dirt.
This time Chris didn’t get right back up. She felt she was about to cry, and she couldn’t let that happen. She strained for composure, and dug her fists, clawing, into the rich soil. Then:
“What’s this?”
Her left hand felt something strange. She pulled it from the soil and opened her palm. It was a coin. She rubbed the dirt off on her shirt and looked again. A gold coin. She read the date.
1907.
From collecting Lincoln pennies, Chris knew about other coins, too. And she still couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a Saint-Gaudens twenty-dollar piece, one of the crown jewels of the numismatic world. She knew its value from her guidebooks and always figured she could only dream of having one. This was way better than a rabbit. She found a foot-long marking stake with an orange ribbon and drove it into the ground.
Chris was still studying her find as she came out of the stalks, so distracted she bumped into another of the big boys.
“What do you have in your hand?”
She clenched her fist shut and stuck it behind her back. “Nothing.”
“Give it here!”
“No!”
He twisted her arm and pried her fingers open. “Thanks!” Then the final shove to the ground of the day.
Chris went home in a fuming funk and sat outside on a milk crate.
Bells jingled as a door opened in Pahokee.
The pawnshop owner set a jeweler’s glass down and looked up. Pawnshops are universally the eyes of the community, and their eclectic brand of commerce tracks the town’s secrets: who’s gambling, on drugs, getting divorced, quitting the trombone.
Right now, these eyes gazed toward the person entering his shop and told him: This isn’t positive. It was one of the junior high kids, nothing to buy, nothing to sell. But they were damn fast, and forget trying to catch them once they stole something and made it out the door.
“Stop right there, young man.” The owner looked and sounded like James Earl Jones. But his name was Webber. “What’s your business here?”
The boy reached in his pocket and held up a yellow circle between his thumb and index finger. “I found a coin.”
This was different. A thousand-candlepower smile lit up the shop. “Come on over here, son! Let’s see what you’ve got there.”
But the pawnshop owner already knew. Such coins had been dribbling in over the years about one every six months. Always from kids he initially sized up as trouble. They claimed they found them in the cane fields while hunting rabbits, but who knew? Maybe someone’s collection was getting poached. The fewer questions the better.