Key West Connection by Randy Wayne White

sharks. And maybe the earth is spinning off toward the sun. Christ, I’m too tired to even think anymore.”
    â€œProbably a gang war between drug runners. That sort of thing goes on, you know.”
    â€œGang war my ass.” He sighed in surrender. And then: “Hey, get me another beer too, would you? I don’t know why in the hell I didn’t become a priest like my mother wanted me to be. . . . ”
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    Gang warfare between drug runners—that’s what the press called it. Romantic stuff. Terror in the tropics. Headline fare. Senators and Congressmen called for an investigation into drug-related crimes, and governors promised immediate action. After a few weeks, it all died down, and no one really cared anymore. A few drug runners were killed by sharks—so what? Who needs ’em?
    And after a week or so, after the reporters went home, and the politicians started focusing on more important matters—like how to get reelected—the big drug boats started to make their scheduled runs to the Bahamas and Mexico and South America, and people in high places started turning their heads once again, their hands outstretched for bribes, because there is, after all, big money in drugs. And supply the demand is the American way of life.
    Like the drug runners, I too lay low for a while. I worked on the Sniper . I had her hauled, and spent a long dirty afternoon scraping her clean and repainting her with the very, very best antifouling paint. And while I painted her bottom, Hervey Yarbrough, who owns the boat ways up at Cow Key, painted her upper hull and flybridge.
    â€œYou want it what color, Dusky?”
    â€œBlue-black, Hervey. A deep-water shade of blue-black.”
    â€œWell, I’ll do her, dern it—but ain’t nobody gonna be able to spot this vessel o’ yourn after dark. God he’p ya if’n ya break down out in the Stream some afternoon. They won’t fin’ ya till ya drift halfway ta England!”
    Hervey muttered and grumbled and second guessed all afternoon. A good man, Hervey Yarbrough. Born of shipbuilder stock that had come to Key West in the early 1800s, he was an authentic Conch—which is what the old white islanders are called. Hervey’s people lived in Key West during the era in which changing channel markers, so that the incoming ships would go a wreck on a reef, was common practice. They would lure the ships aground, go out and help save the ship and the ship’s manifest, then claim a percentage of the cargo in the infamous Key West salvage courts. In those times, Key West and the Dry Tortugas were not favorite ports of call with the world’s oceangoing captains.
    They called the Conchs who practiced such piracy “wreckers” and “moonrakers,” and they were actually licensed by the courts. Licensed not to change channel markers, but to salvage cargo and go to the aid of reefed vessels. In 1835 there were twenty such licensed wreckers operating out of Key West. Hervey was a descendant of Captain S. Sanderson, master of the schooner Orion .
    â€œBut he weren’t no moonraker, no sirree,” Hervey told me as we painted. “A good honest man, he was. Lotta them pirates in back times—”
    â€œâ€”and a lot now.”
    â€œDern if tha’ ain’t the truth! But our family weren’t no moonrakers. Good honest wreckers, we was. An’ those backtime wreckers worked for their money, by gum. Goin’ out to the reefs to rescue men ’n’ ships with one o’ them blowin’ blue northers. Day or night; didn’t matter. Lost a few, saved a few. But by gum they worked for what th’ courts give ’em. They was good brave seafarin’ men.”
    I needed the day of hard work and hot sun; a day around good people like Hervey and his wife and pretty teenage daughter. I had been a walking corpse for days. I saw, but could not see. I heard, but could not hear.