Tropical Depression by Jeff Lindsay Page B

time. Maybe if I could find Roscoe, talk to him, I could get rid of this feeling of dread that was rising up in my throat.
    Just to be sure, I worked my way back through the crowd one last time. I saw a busload of fat Germans taking pictures of a guy balancing a loaded shopping cart on his nose. I saw another busload of Japanese tourists taking pictures of each other. I saw the leathery old woman I’d seen getting off the head boat this afternoon. She was eating a cookie the size of her head and watching the slack wire act with a grim expression.
    I didn’t see Roscoe. I ended up back at the dark end of the dock, beside the bagpiper again. Suddenly, just as inexplicably as it took me over, the sense of urgency drained out of me. I sat on the seawall and looked out to Tank Island, hanging my feet over and just listening to the piper’s psychotic squeal. I felt so bad he started to sound good to me. I sat there and listened to him shriek through his four standard tunes a dozen times.
    There were not a lot of donations dropped into his hat, but maybe money wasn’t the main reason he did this every night. Maybe he felt some kind of deep pride in his heritage or his music and felt that it had to be heard. Maybe just standing there night after night and watching the sunset while he made his blood-curdling din was enough reward and he didn’t even think about money.
    And maybe if I clapped my hands three times Tinkerbell would be okay and the national budget would balance.
    I sat there for a long time. The sun went down, just like it always does. The people cheered, flung their money at the entertainment, and everybody went away happy. It got dark.
    Most of the tourists would take their bulging billfolds up Duval Street, stopping at random intervals to spend money. Judging from the stores along Duval, everybody who came here went home with at least two hundred new T-shirts and one king-sized hangover.
    A lot of the hangovers would get started in Sloppy Joe’s. Nobody cared that the drinks cost too much, the floor was sticky, it was so crowded you couldn’t squeeze in without exhaling and there was no air-conditioning. It was loud, it was centrally located, it was famous. So the Germans and Japanese and Scandinavians, the schoolteachers from Jersey and the seed dealers from Iowa, all stopped for a drink, bought a T-shirt, and moved on.
    I sometimes thought it would be neater all around if there were just some big machine that grabbed the tourists at the outskirts of our little island, held them up by an ankle, shook out their money, and then sent them home. The money would be evenly divided, without all the fuss and bother of pretending to sell them something they wanted, and the streets would be clean and quiet again, the way it had been when I was a kid here.
    I sat on the concrete lip of the Mallory dock. The nervous energy that had driven me down here in the first place was long gone. I couldn’t think of anyplace to go. I couldn’t think of any reason to do anything. Even if I thought of something, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get up to do it. A tarpon rolled a few feet out. Mallory Square was quiet now. It was strange after the frantic screaming glitz that had been flopping and bellowing on the concrete only a few minutes ago. The party had moved on without me. In my fragile state, that seemed profound. It seemed like a perfect metaphor for my whole life. And I wasn’t even drunk.
    Self-pity is like masturbation. It’s fun for a while, but sooner or later you realize how silly you look. I finally managed to stand up. I had no real thoughts about where to go or what to do, but if I stayed here any longer I might want to buy a bottle of Mad Dog and sing “You Are My Sunshine.”
    I rode my bicycle slowly up Whitehead Street to avoid the throng a block away on Duval. The street was quiet at this hour. The crowds had moved on from around Hemingway House. A cluster of black men sat on a porch and looked at me without