Dagger Key and Other Stories

THE LEPIDOPTERIST

I found this in a box of microcassettes recorded almost thirty years ago; on it I had written, “J. A. McCrae—the bar at Sandy Bay, Roatan.” All I recall of the night was the wind off the water tearing the thatch, the generator thudding, people walking the moonless beach, their flashlights sawing the dark, and a wicked-looking barman with stiletto sideburns. McCrae himself was short, in his sixties, as wizened and brown as an apricot seed, and he was very drunk, his voice veering between a feeble whisper and a dramatic growl:

I’m goin to tell you bout a storm, cause it please me to do so. You cotch me in the tellin mood, and when John Anderson McCrae get in the tellin mood, ain’t nobody on this little island better suited for the job. I been foolin with storms one way or the other since time first came to town, and this storm I goin to speak of, it ain’t the biggest, it don’t have the stiffest winds, but it bring a strange cargo to our shores.

Fetch me another Salvavida, Clifton…if the gentleman’s willing. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Now Mitch and Fifi were the worst of the hurricanes round these parts. And the worst of them come after the wind and rain. Ain’t that right, Clifton? Ain’t that always the case? Worst t’ing bout any storm is what come along afterwards. Mitch flattened this poor island. Must have kill four, five hundred people, and the most of them die in the weeks followin. Coxxen Hole come t’rough all right, but there weren’t scarcely a tree standing on this side. And Fifi…after Fifi there’s people livin in nests, a few boards piled around them to keep out the crabs and a scrap of tin over they head. Millions of dollars in relief is just settin over in Teguz. Warehouses full. But don’t none of it get to the island. Word have it this fella work for Walmart bought it off the military for ten cent on the dollar. I don’t know what for sure he do with it, but I spect there be some Yankees payin for the same blankets and T-shirts and bottled water that they government givin away for free. I ain’t blamin nothin on America, now. God Bless America! That’s what I say. God Bless America! They gots the good intention to be sending aid in the first place. But the way t’ings look to some, these storms ain’t nothin but an excuse to slip the generals a nice paycheck.

The mon don’t want to hear bout your business, Clifton! Slide me down that bottle. I needs somet’ing to wash down with this beer. That’s right, he payin! Don’t you t’ink the mon can afford it? Well, then. Slide me that bottle.

Many of these Yankees that go rushing in on the heels of disaster, these so-called do-gooders, they all tryin to find something cheap enough they can steal it. Land, mostly. But rarely do it bode well for them. You take this mon bought up twenty thousand acres of jungle down around Trujillo right after Mitch. He cotching animals on it. Iguana, parrots, jaguar. Snakes. Whatever he cotch, he export to Europe. My nephew Jacob work for him, and he say the mon doing real good business, but he act like he the king of creation. Yellin and cursin everybody. Jacob tell him, you keep cursin these boys, one night they get to drinkin and come see you with they machete. The mon laugh at that. He ain’t worry bout no machetes. He gots a big gun. Huh! We been havin funerals for big Yankee guns in Honduras since fore I were born.

This storm I’m talkin about, it were in the back time. 1925, ’26. Somewhere long in there. Round the time United Fruit and Standard Fruit fight the Banana War over on the mainland. And it weren’t no hurricane, it were a norther. Northers be worse than a hurricane in some ways. They can hang round a week and more, and they always starts with fog. The fog roll in like a ledge of gray smoke and sets til it almost solid. That’s how you know a big norther’s due. My daddy, he were what we call down here a wrecker. He out in the fury of the storm with he friends, and they be swingin they lanterns on the shore, trying to lure a ship onto the reef so they can grab the cargo. You don’t want to be on the water durin a norther ceptin you got somet’ing the size of the Queen Mary under you. Many’s the gun runner or tourist boat, or a turtler headin home from the Chinchorro Bank, gets heself lost in bad weather. And when they see the lantern, they makes for it in a hurry. Cause they desperate, you know. They bout to lose their lives. A light is hope to them, and they bear straight in onto the reef.

That night, the night of the storm, were the first time my daddy took me wreckin. I had no wish to be with him, but the mon fierce. He say, John, I needs you tonight and I hops to it or he lay me out cold. Times he drinkin and he feel a rage comin, he say, John, get under the table. I gets under the table quick, cause I know and he spy me when the rage upon him, nothin good can happen. So I stays low and out of he sight. I too little to stand with him. I born in the summer and never get no bigger than what you seein now.

We took our stand round St. Ant’ony’s Key. There wasn’t no resort back then. No dive shop, no bungalows. Just cashew trees, sea grape, palm. It were a good spot cause the reef close in to shore, and that old motor launch we use for boarding, it ain’t goin to get too far in rough water. My daddy, he keep checkin’ he pistol. That were how he did when t’ings were pressin him. He check he pistol and yell at ever’body to swing they lanterns. We only have the one pistol mongst the five of us. You might t’ink we needs more to take on an entire crew, but no matter how tough that crew be, they been t’rough hell, and if they any left alive, they ain’t got much left in them, they can barely stand. One pistol more than enough to do the job. If it ain’t, we gots our machetes.

The night wild, mon. Lord, that night wild. The bushes lashing and the palms tearin and the waves crashin so loud, you t’ink the world must have gone to spinnin faster. And dark…we can’t see nothin cept what the lantern shine up. A piece of a wave, a frond slashin at your face. Even t’ough I wearin a poncho, I wet to the bone. I hear my daddy cry, Hold your lantern high, Bynum! Over to the left! He hollerin at Bynum Saint John, who were a fisherman fore he take up wreckin. Bynum the tallest of us. Six foot seven if he an inch. So when he hold he lantern high, it seem to me like a star fell low in the heavens. With the wind howlin and blood to come, I were afraid. I fix on that lantern, cause it the only steady t’ing in all that uncertainty, and it give me some comfort. Then my daddy shout again and I look to where the light shinin and that’s when I see there’s a yacht stuck on the reef.

Everybody’s scramblin for the launch. They eager to get out to the reef fore the yacht start breakin up. But I were stricken. I don’t want to see no killin and the yacht have a duppy look, way half its keel is ridin out of the water and its sails furled neat and not a soul on deck. Like it were set down on the rocks and have not come to this fate by ordinary means…

You t’ink you can tell this story better than me, Clifton? Then you can damn well quit interruptin! I don’t care you heared Devlin Walker tell a story sound just like it. If Devlin tellin this story, he heared it from me. Devlin’s daddy never were a wrecker. And even if dat de case, what a boy born with two left feet goin to do in the middle of a norther? He can’t hardly get around and it dry.

Yes, sir! Two left feet. The mon born that way. Now Devlin, I admit, he good with a tale, but that due to the fact that he never done a day’s work in he life. All he gots to do is set around collectin other folks’ stories.

The Santa Caterina, that were the name on the yacht’s bow…it were still sittin pretty by the time we reached it. But big waves is breakin over the stern, and it just a matter of minutes fore they get to chewin it up. I were the first over the rail, t’ough it were not of my doin. I t’ought I would stay with the launch, but my daddy lift me by the waist and I had no choice but to climb aboard. The yacht were tipped to starboard, the deck so wet, I go slidin across and fetch up against the opposite rail. I could feel the keel startin to slip. Then Bynum come over the rail, and Deaver Ebanks follow him. The sight of them steady me and I has a look round…and that’s when I spy this white mon standing in the stern. He not swaying or nothin, and it were all I could do to keep my feet. He wearing a suit and tie and a funny kind of hat with a round top that were jammed down so low, all I seein of he face were he smile. That’s right. The boat on the rocks and wreckers has boarded her, and he smilin. It were like a razor, that smile, all teeth and no good wishes. Cut the heart right out of me. The roar of the storm dwindle and I hear a ringin in my ears and it like I’m lookin at the world t’rough the wrong end of a telescope.

I’m t’inking he no a natural mon, that he have hexed me, but maybe I just scared, for Bynum run at him, waving he machete. The mon whip a pistol from he waist and shoot him dead. And he do the same for Deaver Ebanks. The shots don’t hardly make a sound in all that wind. Now there’s a box resting on deck beside the mon. I were lookin at it end-on, and I judged it to be a coffin. It were made of mahogany and carved up right pretty. It resemble the coffin the McNabbs send that Yankee who try to cut in on they business. What were he name, Clifton? I can’t recollect. It were an Italian name.

Who the McNabbs? Hear that, Clifton? Who the McNabbs? Wellsir, you stay on the island for a time and you goin to know the McNabbs. The worst of them, White Man McNabb, he in jail up in Alabama, but the ones that remain is bad enough. They own that big resort out toward the east end, Pirate Cove. But most of they money derived from smugglin. Ain’t an ounce of heroin or cocaine passes t’rough Roatan don’t bear they mark. They don’t appreciate people messin in their business, and when that Italian Yankee…Antonelli. That’s he name. When this Antonelli move down from New York and gets to messin, they send him that coffin and not long after, he back in New York.

So this box I’m tellin you about, I realize it ain’t no bigger than a hatbox when the man pick it up, and it can’t weigh much—he totin it with the one hand. He step to the port rail and fire two shots toward the launch. I can’t see where they strike. He beckon to me and t’ough I’m still scared I walk to him like he got me on a string. There’s only my daddy in the launch. He gots a hand on the tiller and the other hand in the air, and he gun lyin in the bilge. Ain’t no sign of Jerry Worthing—he the other man in our party. I’m guessin he gone under the water. The mon pass me the box and tell me to hold on tight with both hands. He lift me up and lower me into the launch, then scramble down after me. Then he gesture with he pistol and my daddy unhook us from the Santa Caterina and turn the launch toward shore. It look like he can’t get over bein surprised at what have happened.

My daddy were a talker. Always gots somet’ing to say about nothin. But he don’t say a word til after we home. Even then, he don’t say much. We had us a shotgun shack back from the water, with coco palms and bananas all around, and once de mon have settled us in the front room, he ask me if I good with knots. I say, I’m all right. So he tell me to lash my daddy to the chair. I goes to it, with him checkin the ropes now and again, and when I finish he pat me on the head. My daddy starin hateful at me, and I gots to admit I weren’t all that unhappy with him being tied up. What you goin to do with us? he ask, and the mon tell him he ain’t in no position to be askin nothin, considerin what he done.

The mon proceed to remove he hat and he coat, cause they wet t’rough. Shirt, shoes, and socks, too. He head shaved and he torso white as a fish belly, but he all muscle. Thick arms and chest. He take a chair, restin the pistol on his knee, and ask how old I am. I don’t exactly know, I tell him, and my daddy say, He bout ten. Bout ten? the mon say. This boy’s no more than eight! He actin’ horrified, like he t’ink the worst t’ing a man can not know about heself is how old he is. He tell my daddy to shut up, cause he must not be no kind of father and he don’t want to hear another peep out of him. I goes to fiddlin with the mon’s hat. It hard, you know. Like it made of horn. The mon tell me it’s a pith helmet and he would give it to me, cause I such a brave boy, but he need it to keep he head from burnin.

By the next morning, the storm have passed. Daddy’s asleep in the chair when I wakes and the mon sitting at the table, eating salt pork and bananas. He offer me some and I joins him at the table. When Daddy come round, the mon don’t offer him none, and that wake me to the fact that t’ings might not go good for us. See, I been t’inkin with a child’s mind. The mon peared to have taken a shine to me and that somet’ing my daddy never done. So him takin a shine to me outweigh the killin he done. But the cool style he had of doing it…a mon that good at killin weren’t nobody to trust.

After breakfast, he carry my daddy some water, then he gag him. He pick up that box and tell me to come with him, we goin for a walk. We head off into the hills, with him draggin me along. The box, I’m noticing, ain’t solid. It gots tiny holes drilled into the wood. Pinholes. Must be a thousand of them. I ask what he keepin inside it, but he don’t answer. That were his custom. Times he seem like an ordinary Yankee, but other times it like he in a trance and the most you goin to get out of him is dat dead mon’s smile.

Twenty minutes after we set out, we arrives at this glade. A real pretty place, roofed with banana fronds and wild hibiscus everywhere. The mon cast he eye up and around, and make a satisfied noise. Then he kneel down and open the box. Out come fluttering dozens of moths…least I t’ink they moths. Later, when he in a talking mood, he tells me they’s butterflies. Gray butterflies. And he a butterfly scientist. What you calls a lepidopterist.

The butterflies, now, they flutterin around he head, like they fraid to leave him. He sit crosslegged on the ground and pull out from he trousers a wood flute and start tootlin on it. That were a curious sight, he shirtless and piping away, wearin that pith helmet, and the butterflies fluttering round in the green shade. It were a curious melody he were playin, too. Thin, twistin in and out, never goin nowhere. The kind of t’ing you liable to hear over in Puerto Morales, where all them Hindus livin.

That’s what I sayin. Hindus. The English brung them over last century to work the sugar plantations. They’s settled along the Rio Dulce, most of them. But there some in Puerto Morales, too. That’s how they always do, the English. When they go from a place, they always leavin t’ings behind they got no more use for. Remember after Fifi, Clifton? They left them bulldozers so we can rebuild the airport? And the Sponnish soldiers drive them into the hills and shoot at them for sport, then leave them to rust. Yeah, mon. Them Sponnish have the right idea. Damn airport, when they finally builds it, been the ruin of this island. The money it bring in don’t never sift down to the poor folks, that for sure. We still poor and now we polluted with tourists and gots people like the McNabbs runnin t’ings.

By the time the mon finish playing, the butterflies has vanished into the canopy, and I gots that same feelin I have the night previous on the deck of the Santa Caterina. My ears ringing, everyt’ing have a distant look, and the mon have to steer me some on the walk back. We strop my daddy to the bed in the back room, so he more comfortable, and the mon sit in he chair, and I foolin with a ball I find on the beach. And that’s how the days pass. Mornin, noon, and night we walks out to the glade and the mon play some more on he flute. But mainly we just sittin in the front room and doin nothin. I learn he name is Arthur Jessup and that he have carried the butterflies up from Panama and were on the way to La Ceiba when the storm cotch him. He tell me he have to allow the butterflies to spin their cocoons here on the island, cause he can’t reach the place in Ceiba soon enough.

I t’ought it was caterpillars turned into butterflies, I says. Not the other way round.

These be unusual butterflies, he say. I don’t know what else they be. Whether they the Devil’s work or one of God’s miracles, I cannot tell you. But it for certain they unusual butterflies.

My daddy didn’t have no friends to speak of, now he men been shot dead, but there’s this old woman, Maud Green, that look in on us now and then, cause she t’ink it the Christian t’ing to do. Daddy hate the sight of her, and he always hustle her out quick. But Mister Jessup invite her in and make over her like she a queen. He tell her he a missionary doctor and he after curin Daddy of a contagious disease. Butterfly fever, he call it, and gives me a wink. It a terrible affliction, he say. Your hair fall out, like mine, and don’t never come back. The eye grow dim, and the pain…the pain excrutiatin. Maud Green cock her ear and hear Daddy strainin against the gag in the back room, moanin. He at heaven’s gate, Mister Jessup say, but I believe, with the Lord’s help, we can pull the mon back. He ask Maud to join him in prayin over Daddy and Maud say, I needs to carry this cashew fruit to my daughter, so I be pushing along, and we don’t see no more of her after that. We has a couple of visitors the followin day who heared about the missionary doctor and wants some curin done. Mister Jessup tell them to bide they time. Won’t be long, he say, fore my daddy back on he feet, and then he goin to take care of they ills. It occur to me, when these folks visitin, that I might say somet’ing bout my predicament or steal away, but I remembers Mister Jessup’s skill with the pistol. It take a dead shot to pick a man off a launch when the sea bouncin her round like it were. And I fears for my daddy, too. He may not be no kind of father, but he all the parent I gots, what with my mama dying directly after I were born.

Must be the ninth, tenth day since Mister Jessup come to the island, and on that mornin, after he play he flute in the glade, he cut a long piece of bamboo and go to pokin the banana fronds overhead. He beat the fronds back and I see four cocoons hangin from the limbs of an aguacaste tree. They big, these cocoons. Each one big as a matrimonio (hammocks large enough to hold husband and wife). And they not white, but gray, with gray threads fraying off dem. Mister Jessup act real excited and, after we returned home, he say, Pears I’ll be out of your hair in a day or two, son. I spect you be glad to see my backside goin down the road.

I don’t know what to say, so I keeps quiet.

Yes sir, he say. You not goin to believe your eyes and you see what busts out of them cocoons. That subject been pressin on my mind, so I ask him what were goin to happen.

Just you wait, he say. But I tell you this much. The man ain’t born can stand against what’s in those cocoons. You goin to hear the name Arthur Jessup again, son. Mark my words. A few years from now, you be hearin that name mentioned in the same breath with presidents and kings.

I takes that to mean Mister Jessup believe he goin to have some power in the world. He a smart mon…least he do a fine job pretendin he smart. Still, I ain’t too sure I hold with that. Bout half the time he act like somet’ing have power over him. Grinnin like a skull. Sittin and starin for hours, with a blink every now and then to let you know he alive. Pears to me somebody gots they hand on him. A garifuna witch, maybe. Maybe the butterfly duppy.

You want to hear duppy stories, Clifton be your man. When he a boy, he mama cotch sight of the hummingbird duppy hovering in a cashew tree, and ever after there’s hummingbirds all around he house. Whether that a curse or a blessing, I leave for Clifton to say, but…

Oh, yeah. Everyt’ing gots a duppy. Sun gots a duppy. The moon, the wind, the coconut, the ant. Even Yankees gots they duppy. They gots a fierce duppy, a real big shot, but since they never lay eyes on it, it difficult for them to understand they ain’t always in control.

Where you hail from in America, sir?

Florida? I been to Miami twice, and I here to testify that even Florida gots a duppy.

Evenin of the next day and we proceed to the glade. The cocoons, they busted open. There’s gray strings spillin out of dem…remind me of old dried-up fish guts. But there’s nothin to show what else have come forth. It don’t seem to bother Mister Jessup none. He sit down in the weeds and get to playin he flute. He play for a while with no result, but long about twilight, a mon with long black hair slip from the margins of the glade and stand before us. He the palest mon I ever seen, and the prettiest. Prettier than most girls. Not much bigger than a girl, neither. He staring at us with these big gray eyes, and he make a whispery sound with he mouth and step toward me, but Mister Jessup hold up a hand to stay him. Then he goes to pipin on the flute again. Time he done, there three more of them standin in the glade. Two womens and one mon. All with black hair and pale skin. The mon look kind of sickly, and he skin gray in patches. They all of them has gray silky stuff clinging to their bodies, which they washes off once we back home. But you could see everyt’ing there were to see, and watchin that silky stuff slide about on the women’s skin, it give me a tingle even t’ough I not old enough to be interested. And they faces…you live a thousand years, you never come across no faces like them. Little pointy chins and pouty lips and eyes bout to drink you up. Delicate faces. Wise faces. And yet I has the idea they ain’t faces at all, but patterns like you finds on a butterfly’s wing.

Mister Jessup herds them toward the shack at a rapid pace, cause he don’t want nobody else seein them. They talking that whispery talk to one another, cept for the sickly mon. The others glidin along, they have this supple style of walkin, but it all he can do to stagger and stumble. When we reach the shack, he slump down against a wall, while the rest go to pokin around the front room, touchin and liftin pots and glasses, knifes and forks, the cow skull that prop open the window. I seen Japanese tourists do less pokin. Mister Jessup install heself in a chair and he watchin over them like a mon prideful of he children.

Few months in La Ceiba, little spit and polish, he say, and they be ready. What you t’ink, boy? Well, I don’t know what to t’ink, but I allow they some right pretty girls.

Pretty? he say, and chuckle. Oh, yeah. They pretty and a piece more. They pretty like the Hope Diamond, like the Taj Mahal. They pretty all right.

I ask what he goin to do for the sick one and he say, Nothin I can do cept hope he improve. But I doubt he goin to come t’rough.

He had the right of that. Weren’t a half-hour fore the mon slump over dead and straightaway we buries him out in back. There weren’t hardly nothin to him. Judgin by the way Mister Jessup toss him about, he can’t weigh ten pounds, and when I dig he up a few days later, all I finds is some strands of silk.

We watches the butterfly girls and the mon a bit longer, then Mister Jessup start braggin about what a clever mon he be, but I suspect he anxious about somet’ing. An anxious mon tend to lose control of he mouth, to take comfort from the sound of he voice. He say six months under he lamps, with the nutrients he goin to provide, and won’t nobody be able to tell the difference between the butterflies and real folks. He say the world ain’t ready for these three. They goin to cut a swath, they are. Can you imagine, he ask, these little ladies walkin in the halls of power on the arm of a senator or the president of a company? Or the mon in a queen’s bed-chamber? The secrets they’ll come to know. They hands on the reigns of power. I can imagine it, boy. I know you can’t. You a brave little soldier, but you ain’t got the imagination God give a tick.

He run on in that vein, buildin heself a fancy future, sayin he might just take me along and show me how sweet the world be when you occupies a grand position in it. While he talkin, the women and the man keeps circulatin, movin round the shack, whispering and touchin, like they findin our world all strange and new. When they pass behind Mister Jessup, sometimes they touch the back of he neck and he freeze up for a moment and that peculiar smile flicker on; but then he go right on talking as if he don’t notice. And I’m t’inkin these ain’t no kind of butterflies. Mister Jessup may believe they is, he may think he know all about them. And maybe they like he say, a freak of nature. I ain’t disallowin that be true in part. Yet when I recall he playin that flute, playing like them Hindus in Puerto Morales does when they sits on a satin pillow and summons colors from the air, I know, whether he do or not, that he be summonin somet’ing, too. He callin spirits to be born inside them cocoons. Cause, you see, these butterfly people, they ain’t no babies been alive a few hours. That not how they act. They ware of too much. They hears a dog barkin in the distance, a coconut thumpin on the sand, and they alert to it. When they put they eye on you…I can’t say how I knows this, but there somet’ing old about them, somet’ing older than the years of Mister Jessup and me and my daddy all added up together.

Eventually Mister Jessup reach a point in he fancifyin where he standin atop the world, decidin whether or not to let it spin, and that pear to satisfy him. He lead me back to where my daddy stropped down. Daddy he starin at me like he get loose, the island not goin to be big enough for me to hide in.

Don’t you worry, boy, Mister Jessup say. He ain’t goin to harm you none.

He slip Daddy’s gag and inquire of him if the launch can make it to La Ceiba and the weather calm. Daddy reckon it can. Take most of a day, he figures.

Well, that’s how we’ll go, say Mister Jessup.

He puts a match to the kerosene lamp by the bed and brings the butterfly people in. Daddy gets to strugglin when he spies them. He callin on Jesus to save him from these devils, but Jesus must be havin the night off.

The light lend the butterfly people some color and that make them look more regular. But maybe I just accustomed to seein them, cause Daddy he thrash about harder and goes to yellin fierce. Then the one woman touch a hand gainst he cheek, and that calm him of an instant. Mister Jessup push me away from the bed, so I can’t see much, just the three of them gatherin round my daddy and his legs stiffening and then relaxin as they touch he face.

I goes out in the front room and sits on the stoop, not knowin what else to do. There weren’t no spirit in me to run. Where I goin to run to? Stay or go, it the same story. I either winds up beggin in Coxxen Hole or gettin pounded by my daddy. The lights of Wilton James’ shack shining t’rough the palms, not a hundred feet away, but Wilton a drunk and he can’t cure he own troubles, so what he goin to do for mine? I sits and toes the sand, and the world come to seem an easy place. Waves sloppin on the shingle and the moon, ridin almost full over a palm crown, look like it taken a faceful of buckshot. The wind carry a fresh smell and stir the sea grape growin beside the stoop.

Soon Mister Jessup call me in and direct me to a chair. Flanked by the butterfly people, my daddy leanin by the bedroom door. He keep passin a hand before his eyes, rubbin he brow. He don’t say nothin, and that tell me they done somet’ing to him with they touches, cause a few minutes earlier he been dyin to curse me. Mister Jessup kneel beside the chair and say, We goin off to La Ceiba, boy. I know I say I’m takin you with me, but I can’t be doin that. I gots too much to deal with and I havin to worry bout you on top of it. But you showed me somet’ing, you did. Boy young as you, faced with all this, you never shed a tear. Not one. So I’m goin to give you a present.

A present sound like a fine idea, and I don’t let on that my daddy have beat the weepin out of me, or that I small for my age. I can’t be certain, but I pretty sure I goin on eleven, t’ough I could not have told him the day I were born. But eleven or eight, either way I too young to recognize that any present given with that kind of misunderstandin ain’t likely to please.

You a brave boy, say Mister Jessup. That’s not always a good t’ing, not in these parts. I fraid you gonna wind up a wrecker like your daddy…or worse. You be gettin yourself killed fore you old enough to realize what livin is worth. So I’m goin to take away some of your courage.

He beckon to one of the women and she come forward with that glidin walk. I shrinks from her, but she smile and that smile smooth out my fear. It have an effect similar to Mister Jessup’s pats-on-the-head. She swayin before me. It almost a dance she doin. And she hummin deep in she throat, the sound some of Daddy’s girlfriends make after he climb atop them. Then she bendin close, bringin with her a sweet, dry scent, and she touch a finger to my cheek. The touch leave a little electric trail, like my cheek sparklin and sparkin both. Cept for that, I all over numb. She eye draw me in til that gray crystal all I seein. I so far in, pear the eye enormous and I floatin in front of it, bout the size of a mite. And what lookin back at me ain’t no butterfly. The woman she may have a pleasin shape, but behind she eye there’s another shape pressin forward, peekin into the world and yearnin to bust out the way the butterfly people busted out of they cocoon. I feels a pulse that ain’t the measure of a beatin heart. It registerin an unnatural rhythm. And yet for all that, I drawn in deeper. I wants her to touch me again, I wants to see the true evil shape of her, and I reckon I’m smiling like Mister Jessup, with that same mixture of terror and delight.

When I rouse myself, the shack empty. I runs down to the beach and I spies the launch passin trough a break in the reef. Ain’t no use yellin after them. They too far off, but I yells anyway, t’ough who I yellin to, my daddy or the butterfly girl, be a matter for conjecture. And then they swallowed up in the night. I stand there a time, hopin they turn back. It thirty miles and more to La Ceiba, and crossin that much water at night in a leaky launch, that a fearsome t’ing. I falls asleep on the sand waitin for them and in the mornin Fredo Jolly wake me when he drive his cows long the shore to they pasture.

My daddy return to the island a couple weeks later, but by then I over in Coxxen Hole, doin odd jobs and beggin, and he don’t have the hold on me that once he did. He beat me, but I can tell he heart ain’t in it, and he take up wreckin again, but he heart ain’t in that, neither. He say he can’t find no decent mens to help, but Sandy Bay and Punta Palmetto full of men do that kind of work. Pretty soon, three or four years, it were, I lose track of him, and I never hear of him again, not even on the day he die.

Mister Jessup have predicted I be hearin bout him in a few years, but it weren’t a week after they leave, word come that a Yankee name of Jessup been found dead in La Ceiba, the top half of he head chopped off by a machete. There ain’t no news of the butterfly people, but the feelin I gots, then and now, they still in the world, and maybe that’s one reason the world how it is. Could be they bust out of they shapes and acquire another, one more reflectin of they nature. There no way of knowin. But one t’ing I do know. All my days, I never show a lick of ambition. I never took no risks, always playin it safe. If there a fight in an alley or riot in a bar, I gone, I out the door. The John Anderson McCrae you sees before you is the same I been every day of my life. Doin odd jobs and beggin. And once the years fill me up sufficient, tellin stories for the tourists. So if Mister Jessup make me a present, it were like most Yankee presents and take away more than it give. But that’s a story been told a thousand times and it be told a thousand more. You won’t cotch me blamin he for my troubles. God Bless America is what I say. Yankees gots they own brand of troubles, and who can say which is the worse.

Yes, sir. I believe I will have another.

Naw, that ain’t what makin me sad. God knows, I been livin almost seventy years. That more than a mon can expect. Ain’t no good in regrettin or wishin I had a million dollars or that I been to China and Brazil. One way or another, the world whittle a mon down to he proper size. That’s what it done for Mister Jessup, that’s what it done for me. It just tellin that story set me to rememberin the butterfly girl. How she look in the lantern light, pale and glowin, with hair so black, where it lie across she shoulder, it like an absence in the flesh. How it feel when she touch me and what that say to a mon, even to a boy. It say I knows you, the heart of you, and soon you goin to know bout me. It say I never stray from you, and I going to show you t’ings whose shadows are the glories of this world. Now here it is, all these years later, and I still longin for that touch.