Chapter 30. The Blackwater Bayou

The news was full of a Hurricane tracking towards Pensacola as we drove North. Except for the tiny spit of sand where the tourist end of Fort Walton Beach was planted, Northwest Florida had the feel of the Deep South. Crestview was a bucolic southern town situated beyond the swamp lands of the coast and halfway to the southern edge of Alabama. Miami Beach, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Daytona could have been anywhere along the Atlantic Coast and no more Southern in character than New Jersey. There were no high-rise hotels and condos on the Fort Walton Beach stretch back then. A few motels, nightclubs, bowling alley, bars, and an amusement park on the sand spit end of Fort Walton Beach. It was the best place to sell the rest of our pot and acid.

Ted’s cousin owned a property in the lowlands on the Blackwater River, west of Crestview and Fort Walton Beach. We drove over the river, and below the bridge, it looked like the Amazon rain forest spreading out from both banks. We took a side road down through a field towards a shambled shack of a house with a styreotypical shaky dock of  rotting cypress pilings holding up old planks out over the water.

Ted explained, “This is my uncle’s place. He died a while ago and my cousin moved in. He took his family to higher ground, so I offered to watch the house until the storm passed.”

What was left of The Crew; Kenny, Ted, and I, set up shop there.

My phobias for spiders and snakes kept me awake the first night. Because I didn’t like Ted knowing about it, I asked Kenny, “I heard ‘bout snakes around here. Are there water moccasins?”

Kenny wasn’t all that reassuring, “Rattlers, widders, and moccasins is all we got here in the bayous.”

“Rattlers don't freak me. They make some noise but moccasins and spiders, shit.”

“You kin smell ‘em. Smell like rotten mud. You wanna see ‘em? We got a pirogue we kin use.”

“I don’t want to see them, but I wouldn’t mind cruising through those Cyprus.” 

“Shit, I’m itchin’ ta catch some catfish and crawdads. Ya ever have ‘em?”

Naw, I thought catfish are too gamey.”

“You just ain’t had ‘em cooked right.”

Ted came in the door and overheard us talking about fish. He was enthusiastic, “Yeah, let’s fuckin’ go. Max, you’ll like the river.”

When he said river, swamp didn’t occur to me, “What’s a pirogue?”

Ted said, “A flat bottom kind of skiff. Kinda late now. Darker than a nigger’s ass at night.”

Nigger? I had to get used to it and never heard Ted use the ‘N’ word before. But, the South was still in Dixie, he was home and those were the times. I'm not even sure he was racist. He never brought it up, and Hank was black.

Ted, like Hank, brought home souvenirs from Nam; an AK and M-16. And we took them with us. We had some fun with them in the Bayou.

“You know how to use these?” Ed didn’t want to let an amateur use his babies.

“I’m familiar with guns. Yeah, we didn’t have ‘em where I served, but I did once at a firing range just for the fun of it.

“Well then, you gotta start breakin’ ‘em down. If you’re gonna use mine.”

I always did like taking apart clocks and motors and putting them back together as a kid to see how they worked; so, breaking the rifles down and reassembling them was sport to try to beat my time as Ed drilled me with a stop watch. The M-16 was harder than the AK, but still simple enough. Ted drilled and timed me on it, over and over, until I could do it fast enough to be somewhat proficient. We talked and drilled all that afternoon, smoking pot and drinking beer into the night. It was about two AM when we tried the blindfold. I could do it fumbling around but not nearly fast enough. I wished I could do it half as well as Ted.

I asked, while going through the drill, “You won’t be taking these to the beach, are you? Full-automatics and illegal as all hell.”

“Naw, I ain’t stupid. I keep them locked up from the kids here. I don’t need anything more than my forty-five and it’s easier to ditch.  We’ll bust some caps in the morning. Man, there ain’t nothin’ like it.”

In the morning there were gators on the banks near the dock that skittered like giant scaled roaches and slithered into the water. I didn’t expect tides in the swamp. We went through narrow channels at low tide in and out and between banks lined with Cyprus, and, as the tide rose we ducked under branches in wider lanes. I also didn’t expect the water to be so clear… that the bottom, even in the deepest parts could be seen in sharp detail.

"See there, Kenny said, "a moccasin on that branch. We go under it and it'll drop in our boat"

We didn't see any after that but Kenny assured me they were there.

We came to a place where we tied up to a branch where Kenny put out a line with a bob just like a Huck Finn. Right away, he got a bite. “It ain’t a cat,” he hollered.

He reeled and fought for a good fifteen minutes before he pulled up a beast of a dinosaur to the surface.

“Fuck, what is that!”

They laughed. I didn’t. Their joy resounded through the cypress swamp.

While laughing, Ted yelled, “It’s too small, throw it back. Don’t land that fucker in the boat!”

Kenny was in another world of carefree glee, “We got us some snappin’ turtle soup for tonight.”

The shell had to be over two feet wide. If that was a little one I wouldn’t want to see a big one.

We cranked up the miniature motor and once back at the place, Ted and I emptied several clips into old bottles and beer cans, while Kenny prepared the meal. He said, "Guns like them are fer war and hell, there ain't no way I'm ever goin' t'war."

When we sat for dinner on the porch I saw the brothers for the first time for what they really were. Ted was no longer the bass-ass Marine and Kenny was his charge. I rolled a spliff to show them how it was done in Jamaica and we drank beer, smoked, and talked to the sound of frogs and gators with fireflies twinkling around us.

Kenny went to bed early while Ted and I sat on the porch without talking until after midnight.

Ted got up to go inside. He stopped at the door and asked, “Where you goin’ from here, Max. San Francisco or New Mexico.”

“Had it with cities. It’s good here, but I miss the West.”

“Yeah, you can’t stay here. You gotta keep movin’. I don’t want you bringin’ down heat on Kenny.”

He went inside and I wondered if that was an observation or an order.

 When he said that I also saw a sadness in Ted’s eyes that matched the darkness in my heart. I would be leaving this scene soon. I had to keep moving and no one wanted me to stay. He would be going off to the fields of war in Southeast Asia and Kenny would settle on the Blackwater River Bayou the rest of his life, maybe find a nice Cajun woman, make a few babies, have a home complete with hunting dogs, and a pirogue of his own. All this was his while I had nowhere to be and no one to be with at all.

I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, I was just tired. My hustle was gone, and I saw no future in anything worthwhile. Fuckin' Hoss Bozz.