Read Online Coconut Cowboy by Tim Dorsey - Free Book Online Page B

little cars out of the Matchbox briefcase—­‘Now I have luggage’—­and the snow-­cone machine meant I could provide my own sustenance. So I packed the Matchbox container with pajamas and underwear, then went in the kitchen to give Frosty a dry run, and my heart sank. ‘It’s just shaved ice; these little flavor packets won’t carry the day . . . All right, think, think! What’s abundant in Florida that you can always get your hands on to nurture the body? Coconuts!’ I ran outside before it was light, found one under a palm tree and tried bashing it open in the driveway, then grabbed it by the husk, repeatedly slamming it against the side of the house, but nothing worked. I wouldn’t be strong enough for years, so now it’s terror-­time again and I run back inside. Meanwhile, my parents woke up from all the thumping against the wall under their window. ‘What on earth is all that banging?’ And they walked in the living room to find me facedown on the carpet, kicking and crying, next to a cut-­up Matchbox suitcase with my clothes spilling out, and a coconut crammed in the ice hole of a destroyed Frosty machine. That’s how I got into road-­tripping.”
    â€œYeah, but what happened to your survival plan?” asked Coleman. “You could have died.”
    â€œI kind of got distracted when I realized I’d also received some G.I. Joes that Christmas, and my parents came back in the living room later that morning: ‘What the hell is going on with the Nativity scene?’ I said King Herod had gotten wind of the Messiah and was killing all the firstborns, so I deployed my G.I. Joes to the manger and set up a perimeter with a sniper on the roof. Then I rearranged the other Nativity figures so the Three Wise Men were standing in line at a checkpoint. ‘Can I see some ID?’ ”
    â€œYou think of everything.”
    â€œMy folks still made me withdraw the troops.” Serge pointed out the windshield. “There it is.”
    â€œThe Korner Kwik convenience store?”
    â€œNo, the town of Century, located in the most extreme northwest tip of the Florida Panhandle.” Serge clicked pictures out the window. “It’s where Walkin’ Lawton Chiles began his one-­thousand-­and-­three-­mile foot-­trek down the state to Key West in his successful U.S. Senate campaign. And he did it while Easy Rider was still in first run at the theaters.”
    â€œThat’s some heavy shit.”
    â€œIt was a special time. I reached my sixth birthday, and opportunities were wide open, especially since I’d completed my survival plan through a regimen of strenuous exercise until I could breach coconut shells. My mom would come out: ‘Lunch is ready.’ But I’d just stay sitting in the driveway, drinking coconut milk through the hole I’d bashed. ‘Mom, you’ve done more than enough; I’m on my own now. You don’t have to worry about me anymore.’ Except they did just the reverse.”
    Coleman gazed out the window at the rusty tin roof on a hundred-­year-­old cracker house, then a roadside stand with boiled peanuts and a hand-­painted sign for free pet rabbits. “Could this town be any smaller?”
    â€œThat’s the theme of our journey: Shun highways and modernism to discover the real Florida through its back roads, flea markets and finger-­lickin’ county fairs. Small towns are the heartbeat of this country, and if anyone knows what’s happened to the American Dream, it’ll be the genuine folks who still live there. So our route will take us on an odyssey through a bygone time, exactly like Lawton Chiles saw, except with meth labs.”
    â€œI see big buildings up there,” said Coleman.
    â€œThat’s why we’re turning.”
    The Comet swung east above Pensacola, beginning a long run on a low-­slung bridge