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Authors: Blaize Clement
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wouldnât start. She had accidentally left the headlights on the night before and the battery had drained out dead as a doornail.
Levi didnât give up. Instead of calling up his boss at the Herald-Tribune and saying he wouldnât be able to deliver the papers that day, he got on the phone and rounded up a group of his friends from the baseball team. They all got dressed and came over with their wagons in tow, loaded them up with newspapers, and zigzagged all over the island on foot, each with his own portion of Leviâs delivery route. If your address was on Leviâs list, you got your paper.
Well, it was all anybody talked about for days. They might not have gotten their papers as early as usual, but not a single person with a subscription to the Herald-Tribune went without that day, and the following Sunday they published a whole spread of letters to the editor from the community, including one from the mayor of Sarasota, thanking âthe Radcliff boyâ for his can-do spirit, his hard work, and most of all, his dependability.
It was that famous dependability I was thinking about as I turned onto the main drag of Grand Pelican Commons. The Radcliff boy was older now, and yes, heâd been through some hard times if the rumors of drinking and partying were to be believed, but I couldnât think of a single day in the past twenty years that the morning paper hadnât shown up on time.
Of course, as soon as I started checking all the driveways for Leviâs car, I started wondering what I was getting myself into. It wasnât that I didnât think I could figure out which trailer was hisâGrand Pelican Commons isnât exactly a sprawling metropolisâbut once I figured out where he lived, what in the world was I planning on saying if I found him?
Oh, hi. Remember me? Your first sort-of-girlfriend? I just wanted to make sure you were okay because some people didnât get their papers this morning and there was a lunatic attacking people with a she-Buddha ⦠either that or I fainted and had a really weird dream. By the way, were you outside my driveway this morning? Did you happen to notice any burglars or art thieves hanging around?
I hadnât been in this part of the city for years. In high school, Michael had taken trombone lessons from a matronly ex-Navy machinist who lived in an Airstream trailer with about twenty pet canaries. While she and Michael practiced what sounded to me like a whaleâs funeral, I would keep the canaries company and my grandmother would work on her crossword puzzles in the car. Back then, everything was brand-new and meticulously maintained, but now I barely recognized the ramshackle collection of trailer homes and lean-to sheds that dotted the street.
There were a few trailers hanging on to better days, though. One was freshly painted, with rows of begonias on either side of a winding stone path that stretched from the curb to the front steps, and I wondered if maybe that one wasnât Tanishaâs. There was an impressive vegetable garden on the trailer hitch side, with vines of climbing tomatoes scrambling up a trellis and cascading over into the yard, and the front door had an oval sign hanging next to it with bright orange lettering, but from this distance I couldnât quite make out what it said.
Just then the door of the trailer swung open and a little towheaded boy appeared. He hopped up on a pogo stick and maneuvered down the two short steps into the yard with confident ease, even though he couldnât have been much older than seven or eight. I remembered Tanishaâs sister, Diva, had moved in with her recently and was babysitting during the day to make extra money.
When the little boy noticed me, he raised one hand and gave me a quick wave, looking much like a cowboy on a bronco bull. Luckily the yard was carpeted with a thick bed of lush green grass, so I figured if he fell it would be a nice soft
Levi didnât give up. Instead of calling up his boss at the Herald-Tribune and saying he wouldnât be able to deliver the papers that day, he got on the phone and rounded up a group of his friends from the baseball team. They all got dressed and came over with their wagons in tow, loaded them up with newspapers, and zigzagged all over the island on foot, each with his own portion of Leviâs delivery route. If your address was on Leviâs list, you got your paper.
Well, it was all anybody talked about for days. They might not have gotten their papers as early as usual, but not a single person with a subscription to the Herald-Tribune went without that day, and the following Sunday they published a whole spread of letters to the editor from the community, including one from the mayor of Sarasota, thanking âthe Radcliff boyâ for his can-do spirit, his hard work, and most of all, his dependability.
It was that famous dependability I was thinking about as I turned onto the main drag of Grand Pelican Commons. The Radcliff boy was older now, and yes, heâd been through some hard times if the rumors of drinking and partying were to be believed, but I couldnât think of a single day in the past twenty years that the morning paper hadnât shown up on time.
Of course, as soon as I started checking all the driveways for Leviâs car, I started wondering what I was getting myself into. It wasnât that I didnât think I could figure out which trailer was hisâGrand Pelican Commons isnât exactly a sprawling metropolisâbut once I figured out where he lived, what in the world was I planning on saying if I found him?
Oh, hi. Remember me? Your first sort-of-girlfriend? I just wanted to make sure you were okay because some people didnât get their papers this morning and there was a lunatic attacking people with a she-Buddha ⦠either that or I fainted and had a really weird dream. By the way, were you outside my driveway this morning? Did you happen to notice any burglars or art thieves hanging around?
I hadnât been in this part of the city for years. In high school, Michael had taken trombone lessons from a matronly ex-Navy machinist who lived in an Airstream trailer with about twenty pet canaries. While she and Michael practiced what sounded to me like a whaleâs funeral, I would keep the canaries company and my grandmother would work on her crossword puzzles in the car. Back then, everything was brand-new and meticulously maintained, but now I barely recognized the ramshackle collection of trailer homes and lean-to sheds that dotted the street.
There were a few trailers hanging on to better days, though. One was freshly painted, with rows of begonias on either side of a winding stone path that stretched from the curb to the front steps, and I wondered if maybe that one wasnât Tanishaâs. There was an impressive vegetable garden on the trailer hitch side, with vines of climbing tomatoes scrambling up a trellis and cascading over into the yard, and the front door had an oval sign hanging next to it with bright orange lettering, but from this distance I couldnât quite make out what it said.
Just then the door of the trailer swung open and a little towheaded boy appeared. He hopped up on a pogo stick and maneuvered down the two short steps into the yard with confident ease, even though he couldnât have been much older than seven or eight. I remembered Tanishaâs sister, Diva, had moved in with her recently and was babysitting during the day to make extra money.
When the little boy noticed me, he raised one hand and gave me a quick wave, looking much like a cowboy on a bronco bull. Luckily the yard was carpeted with a thick bed of lush green grass, so I figured if he fell it would be a nice soft
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