by Mary Lynn Reed

Toby Lawton touched his steel-toed boot down on the dormant St. Augustine grass, a crisp crunch followed by the rattled slam of the Chevy door.  He grabbed his dust-covered ball cap through the open window of the truck and pulled it down over his ice blue eyes, sheltering himself from the midday Florida sun.  One last walk around the perimeter would do him good.  Tomorrow, he’d have to fight the bulldozers and dump trucks for right of way.

The land beneath his feet felt tired, as he did.  Tired of cows grazing next to white cranes and blue herons.  Tired of sleepy Spanish moss hanging low on whispy pine trees.  The developers would bring new energy to this place, Toby’s brother George said.  They’d create a beautiful oasis of fountains and playgrounds, nestled cozily between
spacious tile-roofed bungalows where fresh faced couples would come to raise their young growing families.

Toby leaned down and touched a prickly palmetto shrub.  A sleek black racer slithered out and sped away.  Toby  smiled and slipped his hat back on his head, picturing relocated city kids mingling with the reptilian natives.

This was how it had to be.  Toby knew that to be true.  But it didn’t make it any easier.

“Hey.”

The voice was a welcome surprise.  He turned to see his brother George approach.

“What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Toby said.

George was three years younger than Toby, but that didn’t seem to matter much once they both passed forty.

“You’re gonna wreck those shoes,” Toby said, pointing to George’s wingtips.  City boy shoes, their father would have said.  They smiled at each other, each hearing their father’s voice say what Toby was kind enough to leave out.

“Screw it,” George said, digging his manicured hands deep into the pockets of his designer slacks.

They walked together without saying much else.  They stopped under a living oak whose trunk angled and curved like the twist of a winding river valley.  Toby leaned against the old tree, picturing the two of them, ages seven and ten, shooting pop guns at fake Indians and setting off firecrackers on the fourth of July.  Their childhood lived on this
fifty acre plot.  A childhood that ended long ago, yet still choked for air under the shady oak, where brown cows and white cranes once slept away old Florida summer days.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?”  Toby said.

“What’s that?  Wanting to keep it this way?  Or how much they’re gonna pay us to let it go.”

Toby kicked the earth with the toe of his boot.  “Both, I guess.”

“Yep,” George said.  “Crazy indeed.”

Later that night, Toby bought a round of beers for the locals at Moe’s Pub.

“Toby’s gone plum crazy,” the bartender said, as he doled out the freebies to a handful of oblivious patrons.

Toby nodded agreement and took a sip of cold Budweiser out of a cloudy mug.  He looked around the dingy bar and shook his head.  The same five guys, same dirty concrete floor, same center rip on the red leather bar stools.  Maybe a little change wouldn’t be all bad.

He downed his last swig of beer and slid his hand inside his breast pocket, letting his fingers linger over the thin strip of white paper.

“Plum crazy,” Toby echoed, feeling the insanity spin gently around his head, as the six zeros on the deposit slip bore a hole in his chest.