Chapter fourteen
Although Sarah was very happy In Tallahassee, Rick was increasingly restless. The city and its closeness wore on him. He had spent his life in wide-open spaces where you couldn’t see the road let alone your neighbor. The main thing however, that bothered him about Tallahassee was the traffic. He was not used to driving constantly surrounded by traffic and it irritated him. He didn’t have the patience for sitting idle in a line of cars, and was finding it increasingly difficult to tolerate the rudeness of many drivers. It was getting to where, if possible, he timed his travels to coincide with times when traffic was lighter.
Another thing was the air. Although the air quality in Tallahassee was good compared with many cities, it certainly didn’t compare with the air quality experienced when you lived fifteen miles from your nearest neighbor, and a hundred miles or better from industry of any size. He was young again and the air didn’t exactly bother him so much as it annoyed him. He was used to the fact that in the desert if you detected an odor, you usually could identify it. Here his nostrils were constantly assailed by odors that he could no more identify that he could have read the Koran in its original inscription.
Rick had become aware that Florida was a major grower of livestock, both cattle and horses. He had spent time on the internet and found that a great deal of cattle ranching took place just to the south of Tallahassee and that Marian county was renowned for its horse ranches. To satisfy his desire for open spaces and ranching genre Rick had taken to going for long rides that invariably wound up in that area. He soon found though, that Florida horse ranches had about as much resemblance to a New Mexico ranch as a zoo did to the African savanna.
They had made a few friends in the neighborhood and Rick had gone golfing a few times with Bob from across the street. Golfing was something he had never done in his life, but he seemed to have knack. He enjoyed the sport somewhat, but would have rather been horseback riding.
One day in May when they had been in their neighborhood for almost a year, Sarah was giving a cookout on a Saturday afternoon. Rick had gone to the bathroom and Sarah was in the kitchen getting another round of drinks. She was standing near the open window between the kitchen and the lanai when she heard her neighbor Sandra, from across the street say, “Something needs to be done about that wetback parking that piece of crap he calls a pickup in front of our houses.”
Emily, Sarah’s friend from next door said, “Shh, Sarah will hear you. Besides I don’t see what’s to be done, she thinks the world of that Mexican.”
“I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to call immigration. I’m sure he doesn’t have a green card. Christ he doesn’t even speak English.”
Rick was on his way back from the bathroom and just stepping into the lanai when Etty said to Sandra, “Get out of my house and don’t come back.”
Emily said, “Sarah you can’t mean that, Sandra’s one of your best friends.”
“I’m not friends with bigots especially mean bigots. If you agree with her you can leave too.”
“Bob said, “For God’s sake Rick do something. Talk to your wife.”
“Well Bob I’m not sure what you expect me to say to her, I wasn’t here when this fracas started and I have no idea what’s going on. However, I can assure you of one thing, if there are sides to be taken I’m on her side. This is her house if she wants your wife to leave I would suggest she go.”
“Well! If you two think more of that ratty little spic than you do us then I guess we better leave.”
“Careful Bob, up to now you were being asked to leave, one more remark like that and I will drag you’re unconscious fanny out of here and dump you on the curb.”
Bob’s face reddened and he opened his mouth to speak, but after a look into Rick’s eyes, he changed his mind. He instead turned to Sandra and said, “Let’s go.” As they walked out the muscles in Rick’s arms and shoulders relaxed and his adrenaline level began to drop.
After everyone had gone, Rick opened a cold beer and said, “What was that all about?”
After Sarah filled him in, he said, “I was pretty sure Bob was a bigot. He never said anything blatant but every now and then one of his remarks struck me as a bit wrong. I just put it off as his trying to be macho. Well I guess we’re better off knowing.”
Sarah said, “We’ve got to find out if José has a green card. That bigoted little bleached-blond snob will call immigration now for sure.”
Rick went in and called José’s number. He talked in broken Spanish for quite awhile. When he hung up Sarah said, “What?”
“He doesn’t have a green card.”
“What are we going to do?”
“In the morning we are going to pick him up and go to the immigration office. He said he would need someone to sign papers guaranteeing responsibility for him in order to get a green card. He didn’t want us to do that but I convinced him it would be all right.”
After that incident, Rick and Sarah started spending time driving through Florida getting a feel for the state. Rick felt that much of Florida was like Roswell, only with water but he was taken with the Crystal River area, its beautiful bay and its relatively vacant surrounding countryside. Etty fell in love with the old downtown area that partly reminded her of a small southwestern town while other parts seemed almost Cajon with their clapboard fronts and second story porches.
She also loved King’s Bay with its surrounding eclectic mix of mansions, quaint little shops and rustic boat piers. They were out on the deck of one of the bayside restaurants, having lunch when a salty looking crabbing boat with rust running down its sides docked, and unload its catch. Sarah watched fascinated as the crew sorted the crabs and stacked the pots. This was hard and dirty work, but it, like everything about the sea, struck her as romantic and exciting. As they were finishing lunch, she looked at Rick and asked, “Would you like to live here?”
“It sure beats Tallahassee.”
“I’m kind of getting down on Tallahassee myself these days.”
John was in college in Ann Arbor Michigan studying structural engineering. He had gotten a full Football scholarship to the University of Michigan. Rick had rented a U-Haul to take him and his belongings to Ann Arbor. He was living on campus for now, but was hoping to pledge a fraternity. He called home as often as could be expected and seemed to be happy.
Rick and Sarah decided that they would put their house for sale and start looking for a house on King’s Bay.
Rick thought that once they were moved he would open a real estate office and start looking for some land near by. Rick had gone to school in Tallahassee. He was now licensed by the state of Florida as a realtor and as a financial advisor. He figured what with the real estate market in Florida, having a real estate office would give them some income or in the vernacular of his current profession, “cash flow” and also give him something to do.
Although he had no intention of living on a ranch, since Etty loved having neighbors, he thought it would be nice to own some land again. He really missed riding and having acreage would give him a way to get off by himself occasionally and do something on land that he owned. He also liked the idea of living on the water and owning a boat. He had never been on a boat let alone owned one.
“Have you ever been on a boat Sarah?”
“I worked as a maid on a river boat, a paddle wheeler, on the Mississippi river one summer.
“That sounds like fun.”
“It wasn’t really. A lot of the rich people treated me like dirt and some of the men thought maid meant slut.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago and doesn’t much matter anymore…. Rick, are we rich?”
“I guess by most folks’ standards we are.”
“If I ever start acting like I think I’m better than someone just because I’m better off than them will you smack me?”
“Well Sarah, I’m not exactly sure I could smack you. Would it be okay if I just scolded you a little?”
“Rick I love you so much.”
“Me you too Sarah, me you too.”
“Rick, do you mind my asking what your ranch was worth?”
“No, I don’t mind, it was your ranch anyway. I would guess more-or-less five million.”
“Wow. You have got to be kidding and you were just going to give it to me.?”
“It wasn’t going to be any use to me dead.”
“And we just walked away from five million dollars?”
“I didn’t see any choice at the time, besides, I never thought of the ranch in terms of money. It was just the land, and I never even thought of it as my land, it was our land. Mine, my fathers and all the Macklin’s before him. It was a part of us, how we thought and who we were, however, you can bet I racked my brain for a long time trying to figure out how to get the money out of it.
“I guess this is the first that I have realized the extent of what you gave up. It was so easy for me. I didn’t have anything to give up; I’ve never had anything to give up.”
“Everyone has something to give up and I’m sure you gave up quite a bit.”
“I’m so sorry Rick.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for Sarah…Sarah, I am happier than I have ever been in my life. If this hadn’t happened, I could very well be dead by now so I didn’t really lose anything. I gained a life with the most beautiful, kindest, gentlest, most giving, smartest. sexiest…..
“Keep going, don’t quit now. It was just getting interesting.”
That night, lying in bed Sarah said, “I know how you can make money with the ball.”
“Oh yeah, how’s that?”
“Sex therapy. You could advertise to help people whose libido has gone south, or for those that never had much of a sex drive to start with, but want one. That thing has got to be the best aphrodisiac ever known to man.”
“Won’t they wonder why their all of a sudden young again?”
“You could take only patients between eighteen and twenty-five.”
“That might kind of upset some of the old folks that want to be horny again and won’t the young ones be a tad suspicious when their teeth come back and they get a build like a model. They might even grow missing digits or get their eyesight back.”
“Rick, you’re impossible. I’m beginning to think you don’t want to get rich from this thing.”
“I think I’ve already gotten rich from it. In fact I think I may be the richest man alive.“
“I hope you understand that I was just kidding. I feel the same way as you. I don’t see how I could possibly be any better off than I am right now.”
“I’m glad that you feel that way. As far as the sex therapy goes, I’m not sure the world is ready for a whole population that is as preoccupied as we are with sex.”
“I guess yo might be right, besides there could be a baby boom the like of which has never been seen.”
Rick and Etty had into the habit of having long talks before they went to sleep at night. For one thing they very much enjoyed talking to each other and secondly they did not seem to require nearly as much sleep as they had before the ball.
They stayed at a small motel in the old section of Crystal River while they looked for a house. They would get up early and walk down to the docks with their coffee, and watch the sea birds. Occasionally they would be rewarded with the sighting of a manatee or dolphin. They spent some time driving around the countryside looking at vacant land. Before they bought a house, they found an eight hundred plus acre tract of land just north of Crystal River for sale. About one hundred acres was what they would consider jungle. The rest was pastureland and up to the time the owner died, that’s how it had been used.
The son, and only heir, lived in New York City, worked for an ad agency making a six-figure salary and had no desire to return to cracker Florida. He came back and buried his father next to his mother. Immediately following the funeral, he sold off the stock to a cattle company and went back to New York. He let his broker sell the house along with ten acres to a couple from Connecticut for a winter home. The realtor told Rick that he had been trying to move the acreage for over a year and was ready to deal. They made an offer and although the realtor said, it was ridiculously low, it was accepted without even a counter offer. Rick paid cash and took possession in thirty-six days. They knew that a portion of the land fronted The Gulf of Mexico but they had not seen all of the property since a portion of it was so thickly overgrown that it was difficult to penetrate.