Fiction

Save every bit of thread.
Have you a little chest to put the Alive in? 
              (Emily Dickinson letter 233 to Thomas Higginson) 
—Anne Carson,Sumptuous Destitution

My grandmother told me not to jump into the bay because it was too shallow. I wouldn’t have gone in anyhow—I’m terrified of the water. Also, I hate the name. Chesapeake. It’s a perpetual grey color, like skin on a rotting body, pallid and ashy. Even on sunny days, the water looks dark and rough. Also, the bay is full of jellyfish. They float by, tangling each other with their tentacles; their bodies pulsing like huge muscles, like a heartbeat. Once, my brother pulled one from the water with a stick. When we brought it to the surface, it was the size of my fist, with tentacles like knotted dreadlocks. Setting it on the wooden deck, we thought it would flop around like a fish. It didn’t. He called it Seviche. We weren’t sure if it was dead and we were both afraid to touch it, afraid of the sting. He dared me to throw it back in. I told him he should, because, Jesus Christ, he was the one who pulled it out, anyhow. He said he was afraid of being stung. I didn’t tell him that I was, too. I suggested he kick it in, gently, so he didn’t step on it. He said he was worried about squashing it, and that I should do it because I have smaller feet. And what if it got wrapped up in its own tentacles and strangled to death? I said that jellyfish can’t breathe, but even as I said it, I wasn’t sure. We decided to leave it there, on the deck. The next morning it was there, shriveled, like an old plum. I picked it up, cupping it in my hands, to throw it back in. I felt a quick, sharp jolt as its tentacles brushed my fingertips. Still, I was happy to be on vacation. The novelty of this place was still pleasant. Chesapeake. Each time I said it, it rolled off my tongue like a curling wave.

In Florida, we live by the Everglades. I used to hate the Everglades, appalled by the lack of romance and glamour. How Sawgrass can grow to be ten feet tall and is razor sharp. You can kill someone with that. Slash right through the nothing flesh of their neck. On weekends my grandfather would take me for kayak excursions or trail hikes. Each time I’d walk along the stony paths with him, I would put my right foot down, slowly, to make sure that I wasn’t stepping into quicksand. Heel, toe. Heel, toe.

Once, I saw a snake eating a frog, the two hind-legs perpendicular, sticking from the snake’s jaw. Then, I read that Indian bones and shipwrecked Spanish treasure were buried in the Everglades. Indians had lived there for thousands of years until the Spanish came and made them move onto reservations. Before the Spanish came, they ate shellfish and turtles, crafted dug-out canoes from giant trees. They used seashells for hammers, and fishhooks, knives, and drinking cups. Then the Spanish came and used the same seashells to build forts along the cost, to protect themselves from the Indians. Ponce de Leon came searching for the fountain of youth in the Everglades. Instead, he found over ten-thousand islands, long-haired natives, and sugarcane. Then, he was killed by a native’s arrow, poisoned with the sap of a Manchineel tree. Even with all of the old bones buried under the weedy paths, the Everglades still smell like dust and eucalyptus.

This one family of Indians started a business on their little plot of land, called Jonnie’s Swamp Safari. You pay thirty-five bucks and they take you out on a rusty air-boat, in circles around their two dinky islands. Then, they take you back to the main island where they have a rotting wood amphitheater with twenty bench seats. Jonnie’s daughter brings out a rabbit and a snake, and she lets you pet them. After the show, you can buy popcorn and alligator shaped lollypops at the gift-shop. A one-legged dog hobbles around the property. When we ate our lunch, packed turkey sandwiches on white bread, I fed the dog my turkey. He nibbled at it, then stumbled away, lethargic.

There are two cages of show-animals, sunk into the mud. In one cage, some dusty birds peck at themselves, picking pebbles and twigs from behind their wings. Their thick black tongues loll against their beaks. In another cage, the alligators lay in the mud. I went to the safari with my seventh grade class. Some of the boys threw their popcorn at the caged alligators, and were disappointed when they did not move. We expected them all to rise up on their clawed feet. We wanted them to try to bite at us through the cage with their jaundiced teeth. If I didn’t see their scaled stomachs inflate, I would have thought that they were dead.